About Me
Founder of The Full Potential
The Full Potential is where the tapestry of your past whispers to the present through the legacies left behind by those who came before us.
I’m Pam Russell, your dedicated Family History Detective and Genealogist, committed to unraveling the mysteries of your ancestry and weaving together the threads of your unique heritage.
My journey into the realms of genealogy began not with a shovel or a brush, but with a profound curiosity about the stories etched into my own family tree. Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, I was transformed by the discovery of each ancestor, each relationship that added color and depth to my understanding of who I am.
About Me
My Mission is to Empower Your Life
My Mission is to Empower Your Life
Transform your life and achieve your goals with professional and personalized support.
More than just the facts. It’s All About the Relationships
My work is more than just a pursuit of facts. Like the butterfly, symbol of transformation and beauty, I seek to reveal the vibrancy and resilience of your ancestors’ lives, showing how their journeys have shaped your own. The butterfly’s journey is one of change, and so is the exploration of your family history—a transformative process that can offer insights, healing, and a deeper connection to your roots.
At The Full Potential, we understand that it’s all about the relationships—the invisible threads that connect generation to generation. Our mission is to help you discover those connections, to uncover the stories of love, struggle, triumph, and everyday life that are woven into your DNA.
Through my work as your Family History Detective, I invite you on a journey of discovery. Together, we will chase the echoes of the past, unearthing the tales that have been silently shaping your family for generations. It’s a journey that promises not only to illuminate your heritage but to offer a deeper understanding of yourself and your place in the continuum of history.
Join me at The Full Potential, and let’s embark on this journey together. With each discovery, we will unfold the wings of your family’s story, allowing it to soar into the future with grace, strength, and beauty, much like the transformative journey of the butterfly.
Iola & Her Story. It’s the beginning of my story.
I first became enamored of genealogy and tracing family history when I was in high school. My Mom took me to a couple of “family reunions” for her Dad’s side of the family, and I remember wondering WHO all these people were and, more importantly, HOW was I related to each of them! I was about 14 years old and became obsessed with figuring it out!
My Mom was the first source of information for me: she shared with me old pictures of her parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. She also gave me a copy of an ink-drawn family tree, that outlined many of the branches of her family, back to the earliest settlers, who moved to the shores of Maryland in the early 1600’s.
My maternal grandmother, Iola Owings, was one of the first ancestors whose history I traced. She was amazing! A beautiful young lady, she held off her many suitors until the ripe old age of 33! She was one of the early Suffragettes and was apparently way ahead of the time in which she lived! She ended up marrying a railroad man, who was a bit of a roue, with a different girl at almost every station! Then he passed away when their two girls were 10 and 11. She raised those girls on her own and helped each of them to get their college degrees from the University of Maryland! She became the Postmistress of her town and took in boarders from the local State Teacher’s College.
Tracing her family history also gave me the opportunity to learn more about the history of the state of Maryland, as her entire family settled in that state and became some of the most influential families in Maryland!
Looking to my Dad’s history next, I found a completely different and much more challenging issue. My Dad was adopted, and when I started that search, all I had was a copy of his original adoption papers and nothing else. My first major break-through was when I wrote to the City of Cleveland, Ohio, and requested a copy of my father’s original birth certificate. Because I had a copy of his adoption papers, I knew his birth name and that gave me a “leg up” with the City of Cleveland. To my complete shock, they DID send me his original birth certificate, which included the name of his birth mother and a name of his alleged birth father!
Once DNA testing became available, I was able to obtain my Dad’s DNA and that was the key that helped me discover who his birth father’s family was! Every step of the way, I found myself learning new tricks and gaining new tips to assist me in my search.
As I told my friends about my successes with my family history search, I had a few of them request my assistance with THEIR searches. This became my life’s passion—as I had always grown up with the knowledge that family is the most important relationship you will ever have. These requests lead to MORE requests, and with each request, I found my passion for finding the truth and the details about the lives of each of the people I researched to encourage me to do more and more research!
