Welcome to The Sanford Family Misfit – A blog dedicated to spreading the culture, heritage, and history of my continuously growing family!

My name is Cassie Sanford Clark and I’m a family historian.  You can read more about me on the About the Misfit page – but I wanted to take a moment to explain what The Sanford Family Misfit is all about and how it came to be.

Claude Sanford – WWII

In 2004 the biggest change of my adult life occurred when I lost my papaw, my lifetime hero, to cancer.  Losing Papaw left a huge void in my life and suddenly I felt completely disconnected.  In an effort to deal with his death and make myself feel connected to him once more I started looking for things of his that I could physically hold on to.  My passion for collecting physical memorabilia of my papaw’s led me to census records, his birth certificate, his CCC records, and compelled me to compile family stories about his life.  Once I had located everything of his that I could – I moved on to the rest of his family and then the rest of my family.

Some of the lines that I have researched have been relatively easy to track down.  Others before me had taken an interest in those lines and were more than willing to share the information that they had.  My other lines were not as easy.  Those lines have no books written about them, websites dedicated to them, and only a hand full of forums that have knowledgeable researchers who are willing to share their data.  My frustration mounted as I stumbled through tracking my ancestors down.  It was this frustration that fueled my stubborn desire to find every thing I could about my ancestors in spite of the lack of information floating around out there.

Mills House – Delco, NC

During my journey of tracking down records, hunting down photos, locating living relatives, stomping through over grown cemeteries, and getting lost on back roads while trying to find falling down houses – there were numerous times I wished that someone was out there who could help me.  I found myself wishing that there was a place I could go that held all of this information for me or at least a place I could go that would tell me where to look.  After I spent years tracking down all of my treasures…  I decided that it was time to create a place that made it a little easier for those who would walk down the road behind me.  I wanted this place to be full of personality, full of stories, research notes, pictures, history, and highlight the unique heritage that my family shares.  It was this decision that led me to create The Sanford Family Misfit.  [smiley::)]

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