Progress on the Genealogy Database

The Heyward genealogy database has been significantly expanded in the last six months. The database now contains 6,300 individuals, including Heyward descendants and their spouses.

The expansion, which is still underway, has been enabled by acquisition of records of family research done by Tom Furman (1915 – 2008), genealogist for the Association for many years. Tom Furman collected vital data from HFA members and recorded it on his 1990’s PC in formats that are now obsolete. Software has been acquired which translates the obsolete formats, known as PAF 2.3.1. and PAF 5 (PAF = Persaonal Ancestry File), into an understandable form, such that names, vital dates and family relationships can be stored in the HFA’s online database of descendants of Daniel Heyward. The files are believed to contain Tom Furman’s data as of 2006.

The newly acquired data has been used to extend Branches A, B and C down to Generations 11, 12, 13 and, in a few cases, 14. Branch A consists of the descendants to Thomas Heyward, the signer; Branch B consists of descendants of William Heyward; and Branch C consists of descendants of Nathaniel Heyward. A typical Generation 11 person is now aged about 70, a Generation 12 person is aged about 40 and a Generation 13 person is aged about 10. Considerable work remains to update the remaining six Branches. It’s hoped that this work can be completed by the end of this year.

Most of the newly-added individuals in the database are considered “living” and are therefore visible only to logged-on visitors to the database website. As it now stands, there are 3,229 individuals flagged as “living”. A person is considered “living” if he or she is (a) in generation 10 or higher, and (b) not known to be dead.

One advantage of having log-in ability is that you can see yourself in the database. Not only this, you can compute your relationship with anyone else in the database. That relationship can be computed as degrees of cousinhood and number of generations removed. It’s fun to find your relationship to several notable Heywards, to three South Carolina Governors and to a famous movie star.

Go here to learn about the Heyward Family Genealogy Database and how to get a login-id/password for accessing the Database. If you’re not in the Database, but think you should be, then contact the HFA Genealogist.

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