A Family Legacy

In northern McDuffie County, family histories run deep.  Many folks in this rural area have stories of grandparents, and even great-grandparents who owned, worked, and lived on the same land that they now call their own.  The legacies left by these ancestors has helped build a culture of respect and a love for the land that is hard to come by in these modern times of disposable everything.

For one such family, though, great-grandparents are just the beginning.  They have lived and worked on their land north of Thomson, GA for twelve generations.  Their love and passion for the place they call home runs as deep as we have ever seen, and it speaks to a strong legacy left by those who came before.

To them, it was a natural extension of this legacy to partner with the Land Trust; to preserve that which their ancestors had worked so diligently to nurture for so long.  So far, the family has permanently preserved nearly a square mile of northern McDuffie’s healthy forests, verdant fields, and babbling streams, and they plan to keep adding more as the years go by.  As a bonus, much of these acres connect to Wildlife Management Areas, which are protected from development by the Army Corps of Engineers.

By preserving their private land, the Wansleys have essentially expanded the range of habitat available for local wildlife, and have amplified the benefits of the Corps’ existing conservation efforts.  They have also added a new chapter to their own family legacy – one that is sure to inspire their descendants for many generations yet to come.