Tag: Mays

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: In the Census (Week 05)

Posted on by Kathleen

In the Census

Oh boy, sometimes those census records can really throw you for a loop. Sometimes they might even change the entire way you think about a family you are researching. There is never a family that confused me more than the Mays family. Any Mays researcher out there will agree with me. They are hard to pin down! This week I’m going to spotlight Rebecca Mays, for sheer stubbornness!

1850 United States Census
1850 U.S. census, Morgan County, Kentucky, population schedule, Township not stated, p. 133-B, dwelling 634, family 634, William Mays Jr household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 Jan 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 214.

In the 1850 Census, everything seems fine. Nothing out of the ordinary here. We won’t even go into the fact that I don’t believe I have ever found a document that states William Mays Jr was the son of William Mays Sr. Especially since I know from watching many webinars that sometimes the Sr and Jr were added by enumerators if there was an older and younger man of the same name living near each other. I’ll get to that in my Do-Over when it’s time to stress over that! This census is important because it’s the earliest one that is going to give me ages of the children closest to the birth. This is especially important for Rebecca, who is aged 9 in this census.

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Longevity (Week 03)

Posted on by Kathleen
Janie Jegley (1906-2000)

Longevity

I thought long and hard about how I would interpret the prompt this week. I was going to do the longest living male and female. Then I was going to do the longest married couple. Thinking about all those tempted me to look in my old file, so I decided right then and there I was going to poke around my current Do-Over file and see what jumped out at me.

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My DNA Database Status

Posted on by Kathleen

It’s time to talk about my DNA matches again. I’ve been immersing myself in my matches. One of the Facebook groups I am a member of told me that the best way to learn about your DNA is to get familiar with your results. That’s what I’ve been focusing on since it’s way too cold to be outside…

Okay, I probably wouldn’t have been outside anyway. It’s never been my thing.

Where were we?

My Final List of 2nd and 3rd cousins

The last time I posted about my DNA, this chart was where I left things. I was going through trying to identify my public tree matches to see what I could tell about them. Everything is listed in my Excel spreadsheet. While I was going through, I also made a point of adding a star and note to each match that I identified. Boy am I glad I did that now. Wait until I show you this!

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Genealogy Do-Over: Plateau

Posted on by Kathleen

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

If you haven’t been able to tell by my lack of posts, I’ve hit a plateau in my Do-Over. It doesn’t have to do with a brain block, a brick wall, or lack of information. I have plenty to do, and I know exactly what I’m supposed to do next. I’ve even ordered some new records. For some reason, I’m just struggling to get moving on any of it. I’m unsure if it’s just a little bit of burnout, the holidays, or just an overall tiredness.

Current Status

Current Status

The screenshot above shows my public DNA tree at Ancestry.com. It’s the easiest way to show the progress I’ve made in my Genealogy Do-Over. As I move through my list, I delete or update people in the public tree. It’s quite obvious that I’m on the John Mays/Celia Slusher section of the tree. I have been uploading documents and pictures to all the trees that are public on any of the DNA websites.

This takes quite a bit of time. There are days that I only work with one record.

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Wedding Wednesday: William Harmon Mays and Sarah E. McDaniel

Posted on by Kathleen

This is my only official document from Sarah E. McDaniel’s lifetime. Numerous other researchers from the  area have said they’ve tried looking for a record of Sarah’s death and haven’t seen it. I haven’t actively searched for the record yet which makes me uncomfortable saying it isn’t there. Even if it isn’t an actual death record, there might be something else that leads to that.

Rowan County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds, 1800-1913, 5: 327, Mays-McDaniels, 19 Oct 1905; digital images, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 13 May 2017).

Sarah is mentioned again on her only child’s marriage record. It seems that she probably went by her middle name of Elizabeth in her adult life. That is the name that was crossed out in the census and that is what she is listed as on her daughter’s marriage record. All we really know about Sarah is that she married at 17, had her child at 18, appeared in the 1910 census but was crossed out, and her husband was remarried and living in Ohio by 1918. The years in between 1910 and 1918 are a mystery. To find out more, it looks like I’ll have to expand my search to her F(amily) A(ssociates) N(eighbors) network. This could be a great Mystery Monday topic!

Wedding Wednesday: William Harmon Mays and Iva Belle Moyer

Posted on by Kathleen

Today’s Wedding Wednesday is for my great grandparents William Harmon Mays and his second wife, Iva Belle Moyer. Next week I will post the record for his marriage with his first wife.

1918 marriage of William Harmon Mays and Iva Belle Moyer

As far as I’m aware, there are no known photographs of William or Iva. There are a few family members who remember them at the end of their lives but I haven’t been able to find any pictures of them.

There is a lot of jumping around going on with my posts since I’m working on my Do-Over. To help orientate anyone who is confused on where people belong on the tree and just how far back I’ve gotten into my Do-Over, just scroll a little further for an updated pedigree screenshot.

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Wedding Wednesday: Stanley and Emogene

Posted on by Kathleen

Let me give you a small bit of background

There is a bit of a story behind this marriage record. This record has always been a bit of a dirty secret to me. Not because of the contents, or the events surrounding it. It was because it was a record so close to the current generations and I didn’t have it! It was this big blank spot in my documentation. I’ve always known the marriage date of my maternal grandparents. Not only do I have Grandma’s copy of the family tree from the 1980s, but it’s always been a known day since Grandma’s birthday was May 6th and her first wedding anniversary was May 3rd. We’d call up Grandma and say, “Happy Birthday and Anniversary!” Mostly because my Mom said she could never remember which was the day for either event! Oops! haha.

Taylor-Webb Family Tree
p. 7-B, Taylor-Webb Family Tree, Nov 1980; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2001. This tree passed to me from Grandma Emogene Taylor.
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William Mays and Fanny Atkins

Posted on by Kathleen

I had some amazing progress yesterday on my Mays ancestors. It all started on Tuesday, when I shared a bunch of old photos on my Facebook. I like to do that for my Aunts, Uncle, and other relations because it helps jog their memories of things. It was a wonderful day full of pictures and stories, and none of us were in the same place. Gotta love technology when you are far apart!

When I woke up on Wednesday morning I was refreshed and excited. After running the morning errands, cleaning, relaxing for a bit, and then cooking dinner, I really should have just watched a movie and went to bed. It must have been that boost from the day before though, because I just had to get onto FamilySearch and research more.

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My Orange Highlighter Went Crazy

Posted on by Kathleen

It would be a gross understatement that I’ve recently become re-obsessed with office supplies. After making a Genealogy Binder, it was all downhill from there. Unfortunately, I was very sick all week and I’m just now coming back around. Funny how that happened. You get sick on Saturday and then by time Saturday rolls around again, you’re finally feeling human again. I hate being sick, I’m so glad it doesn’t happen often. I’m not one to sit still for long!

Before the “Great Illness of 2012”, I had started to decide what my next project was going to be, since I’m going to finish my new file soon. Okay in a couple of months is still soon, it’s been two years! There’s one thing that’s been bugging me and I figure it’s going to have to be that… I have to go back to the Mays and finish them off.

You may be a little surprised to hear me say that. However, when I got lost in the Mays’ the first time around, I was sinking fast. They’re hard to comprehend on the best of days. This project had seemed to be going on forever and most of that time was on the Mays’. So I made a decision to not go insane researching all of the Mays’ children who descended from William Mays and Frances Adkins unless I could find solid links to them. So there are four Mays children who I skipped the first go round because there was no clear (i.e. easy) connection between them and their parents. Mostly because they were not living with or next to their parents in the 1850 US Census.

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