Happy St. Patrick's Day - Social/ Family

My paternal grandmother, Lucy, was 100% Irish. The first of our family came from the County Tyrone in Ireland. James Benson was 18 years old when he left Ireland on a ship for $30. He worked 6 years for a Philadelphia weaver. Before the Revolutionary War, he bought 400 acres in South Carolina and lived there until he died in 1790. His son moved to Indiana, my great grandfather moved to Kansas due to securing land from the railroad company (he taught in a college for 25 yrs before moving to Kansas) in 1877 which was a part of his retirement plan, my grandmother moved to California in the 1920s and I moved to Washington. The Benson family has moved everywhere. My cousin moved back to Indiana. I have this information from my great grandfather's obituary that was a full page in their newspaper when he passed away in 1904. He was a prominent man in his county. I guess it might have been common then to know one's family tree. Somehow keeping family information etc became less important after his death. But some of us in the family is trying to put the family tree together for future generations. It is very interesting to learn about those before you and their lifes.