Author: Kathleen

Tombstone Tuesday: Kindess

Posted on by Kathleen

This Tombstone Tuesday I’m going to share a tombstone picture and a story of kindness.

As I often complain about, I live in Maryland while many of my roots are in other states. Due to limited means, I can’t really travel. So getting to cemeteries where my relatives actually are is very difficult. That’s why I love the Find a Grave website so much. They have Photo Volunteers on there. I am now one of them, but I haven’t been fast enough to fulfill a request yet! Anyway, I sent out a photo request for some tombstones that I had been to before in my Dad’s hometown, but didn’t have a camera at the time. What I got in return for one photo request was an amazing experience.

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Oops!

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I had every intention of doing a Surname Saturday post on the Whitts of Kentucky. I’m still working on it, so maybe next Saturday. ^.^ It’s completely my own fault I didn’t finish it. I got distracted as I often do. The hard part of having so many people I can search on Ancestry, is that there is always something new to find. I just couldn’t wait until Monday to post about this one.

James Ellis Crabb, from U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938

Sorry for the scrunched image. If you click on it, you should be able to see it bigger. How many great facts can you get from this one record? I got a TON. 🙂

Good Ol’ Days

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Since we’re all friends here, we won’t discuss what I did last night. Just know that I deeply am sorry for the constant changing of my mind. The Random Relative Project™ is still happening, but in a different way. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind last night. Here I was doing all this work on sourcing these random people in my tree and adding them to my website. Then the thought showed up, the one that clung on for dear life and wouldn’t go away. In fact, it won’t go away now, when I’m desperately hungry for a sandwich. So I need to get this out quick so I can make a date with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

So the thought was, “What if these people turn out to be the wrong people?” “What if I spend all this time adding them and sourcing them, and they don’t even belong in my tree?” Yikes. That’s a scary one. One I’m sure I thought of before, but said I’d come to that when I got there. Then more thoughts came, “You assigned them numbers. If you assign them numbers and they aren’t part of the family what will happen to that number?” “Will you keep a list of numbers to recycle?” Oy oy oy with the poodles!

So yes, I will keep on with my Random Relative Project™ in a very unofficial just looking through the census manner. I’d like to at least verify where these folks are in case they are family, and then in case they aren’t maybe they live nearby the real family. The official numbers will have to come from my “Official Family File” though. The one where nothing enters it without a source attached. Of course,  there isn’t much movement on that one except adding in my cousin’s information right now.

I came across this gem today. Poor Nathan Ellis is only 60 years old (Well he was in 1850), and he’s already being considered put out to pasture.  I am positive that sooner, rather than later I am pushing myself to this end. Of course it’ll be another 10 years before anyone can embarrass me on a census. So there’s still hope. Don’t ask me who belongs where in that household. I couldn’t tell ya. I only had Jeremiah, a wife Anna (not Nancy) and a son Washington (he’s next door). So everyone else is up in the air.  Who said genealogy was relaxing anyway? Oh that was me. ^.^

Wordless Wednesday: George Thorward

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The transcription on this photo is George Thorward – 1st car -1905

Wordless Wednesday is a daily blogging theme I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Wordless Wednesday simply create a post with the main focus being a photograph or image. Some people also include attribute information as to the source of the image (date, location, owner, etc.). Some have begun doing a “Not So Wordless Wednesday” with the main focus still being an image but there is a backstory to the image.

Memorial Day

Posted on by Kathleen

I have indeed made it home from the quickest trip to Ohio in the world. I even managed to get some mountain driving practice in. I just wanted to take the time out to acknowledge our troops and all they’ve done for us. I was going to find a little flag graphic to post but then I remembered the plaque we got from Grandpa Moore when we took ownership of the van. So I figured why not. It’s a phone camera picture, so it isn’t great but it’s the subject that matters, not the quality. Also, feel free to ignore the mess of my desk. I am in coming home from a trip chaos.

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Hijinks Indeed

Posted on by Kathleen

This is the 1880 census image I’ve been working on for quite a bit. Not that I don’t know who everyone is or where they go. I do indeed know all of them. It’s just that because I am re-verifying information, I sometimes come back to this page.

As many times as I’ve looked at this image, and seen all the Mays families next to each other, there is something I’ve always missed. Family number 115 there. Morgan Carter. He’s right there smack dab in the middle of a Mays family sandwich. That sandwich includes the Gillam family at the top by the way. It just so happens that family contains Random Relative #1189, Dorothy/Dorthula? Gillium. So that’s why I’m once again back to this image. However, now I’m distracted by Mr. Carter there.

What are the odds that he’s just a random neighbor sandwiched between all those Mays folks. Sure since Anna is the patriarch of the family and the others are offshoots of her family, it’s possible that when they moved off Anna’s farm, they bought land nearby or from her even. (Kentucky, I need a genealogy trip to you like a need an Eggo Blueberry Waffle).  I checked the 1870 and 1860 censuses. He’s not next door to Anna in 1870 but he is in 1860. Weird that it would work out that way but I guess it just depends on which direction the enumerator was going.

I watched a free webinar on Ancestry that I’ll talk about in an upcoming entry. It was talking about cluster genealogy. It wasn’t until I watched that video that I realized I practice it all the time. I didn’t put it into practice because of a brick wall or unending mystery. I put it into practice because of families like this. In my Kentucky and Ohio families, it’s more often then not that I find whole pages of ancestors in the census instead of just one family in a town. It’s such a contrast to my Dad’s family where I look for one family in Brooklyn and I’m lucky if I find them.

So I imagine I’ll end up back here at Morgan Carter eventually. Carter is a surname in my tree in relation to this area. I just haven’t traced it this far back yet, or in some cases this far forward. It’s a surprise to me that I ever get anywhere in my research with how often I change directions!

I’m headed to Ohio for the weekend, a wedding, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to update Monday. I have tons to update though. Once I get on a roll I can’t seem to stop. ^.^

 

Bartholomew Taylor: Record Transcription

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State of Kentucky Bracken County St?

On the 19th day of May in the year 1834 personally appeared in open court before the Justices of the County Court in and for the County of Bracken in the State of Kentucky.

Bartholomew Taylor resident of the county and the state aforesaid aged seventy nine years on the 17th day of February last past who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7th 1832.

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Bartholomew Taylor: The Big One

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One week ago, I teased about what I found on Bartholomew Taylor when I was using Heritage Quest. I didn’t forget about it!

To tell you the significance of this find, I have to tell you a little bit about my history with Bartholomew. The picture above is of the Taylor side of the family tree I was given. The pretty excel version was for the Webb family. The Taylor family was just a big descendant report. It was actually two reports. One for John Taylor the first Taylor we know of (though not documented yet), and then branching off on Bartholomew’s line, which is where I’m descended from.

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