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MADISON — As a teenager, Rockingham County native Debbie Cummings began developing an interest in her family history.

She talked to her mother and grandmother, who told wonderful stories about when they were young, but it never occurred to Cummings to write them down.

She was a supervisor at American Express in Greensboro when she really began “putting pen to paper,” she said.

Several years before, her mother, Louise Mabe Dunlap, had received a Mabe Family Tree book. This whetted Cummings’ appetite.

Her sister, Jill Joyner, had done some work with the family history but lost interest. Cummings picked up where Jill left off, and “I was hooked,” she said.

Initially, she began looking for information on her father’s family. Over the past 20 years, Cummings has researched the families of her mother and her father, Hillery Dunlap, who are both deceased.

Several times Cummings stopped her research because of her job. She would go for weeks without going to the library or to the archives in Raleigh.

“Then I would get back into it,” she said, adding she always got excited when she found information about an ancestor. She would sit down and study and try to put the pieces together.

Today, Cummings has traced her family back to Virginia in the early- to mid-1700s. She stops at saying her family came from Ireland because, so far, she really hasn’t come across any proof of it.

Cummings did research for several people she worked with and assisted other friends and families in finding their “roots.” One person needed information to settle an estate, which Cummings helped her find.

“People ask me all the time to find something for them,” she said. “It may be a will or who their cousin was or where their grandparents came from.”

A 1973 graduate of Madison-Mayodan High School, Cummings now is working on her associate’s degree after losing her job at American Express in July when the office closed. Over the years, she took computer classes. She also received training at work that helped her develop writing and leadership skills.

Cummings has a certificate of genealogy from Boston University, which she attained online last year. There is no degree for genealogy.

Cummings says she loves being a full-time student at Rockingham Community College and “may just become a lifelong student. I am so fortunate in my life to be able to go back to school and to have acquired the knowledge I have.”

She is president of the Davis Chapel Historic Association, treasurer of the Stokes County Historical Society and a member of the Genealogy Society of Rockingham and Stokes County, the Genealogical Association and several other groups. She also is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Cummings volunteers from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesdays at the Family History Center at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4751 N.C. 14, just south of Eden. The center, open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, charges no fees for its services.

“I am very excited. I hope I can be a part of the teaching of beginning genealogy and advance genealogy, helping people to better understand their family and how to cite their sources correctly,” she said.

“I love nothing better than helping somebody break through a wall or just start getting interested in genealogy,” Cummings said. “I could spend every minute of every day doing research or talking to somebody about their family history.”

Cummings has a son, Zack Griffin of Madison, and three grandchildren, Jeremy, 9, Chloe, 8, and Jackson, 9 months.

Reidsville native Ann Fish has lived in Eden since 1979. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com.