Lula Margaret Applegate-Taylor
Wordless Wednesday is a Daily Blogging Topic that 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.
I was watching the latest episode of Ghost Hunters this morning. They investigated the Stephen Crane House in Asbury Park, New Jersey. It really got me thinking about those extra branches of the family tree. For the record, this isn’t a random subject. There is thought and a little documentation that Stephen Crane was related to the Thorwards through the Plume family. I even think the Cranes married into the Plumes. So it’s never going to be a blood relation for me. Does that really matter though? How interesting is it to see how we all connect together in these ways. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’d be cool to be related to someone who has their own Wikipedia page. Wikipedia pages are the scale in which I judge things if you didn’t notice. (^.^) I refuse to be caught into the trap of searching only for those things though. All of my ancestors are special and memorable in their own rights, I don’t value any over the others. Does that mean I should just stick to my main line and forget about all those beautiful branches?
Who do you leave out? Where do you draw your line? How can you make that decision and not regret it when the tree winds back around? How sad does a tree look when it’s not full and brimming with many leaves and branches? I just can’t imagine it. I’ve always been torn on this issue and I’ve even had to clean out my family file a few times because I did get a bit carried away. One day I got real ornery and told myself no one gets excluded! Everyone plays on this team! Since that day, I’ve made a point to note the families of people who marry into my related families. To compromise with the saner part of myself, I don’t go in depth on these families. I find the parents of the person who married in. Most times, I try to find their birth or death records and any census information I can find. I make sure to note all the siblings of the person who married in. That’s a practical thing though. If you’d ever seen my family file, you’d know how many brothers and sisters married the brothers and sisters of their in-law. (Mays, Slusher, Click, Whitt families; I’m looking at you).
I just don’t know if I’ll ever resolve myself to excluding people. Whether it be a first cousin, fifth cousin two times removed or someone who is the brother of the spouse of my 8th cousin; everyone is welcome in my tree. Someday I may even learn your story. Everyone deserves their story told, and I’m determined to find them. I’m realistic though, I know I can’t do this for everyone. That’s why many people stick to just their main line. I understand their thought process completely, I just don’t know if I could limit myself in that way. I’ve always been a collector. It just seems now I’m collecting people instead of toys and books! My only question is, How on earth will I manage when I get married? Even more people, I’ll need to have an office just for my genealogy for sure!
I’m sure you’re all familiar with what we genealogists go through to find our family history. I was putting together a blog about a Duggar-sized family in my family tree, then I realized that it was going to take me longer than this afternoon to finish. So maybe by Monday, I’ll have my facts and funny repertoire together enough to actually finish that post. Now I’m going to talk to you about another favorite thing of mine. It just happens to be books.
When I say books, I of course mean all books. I read just about anything you put in front of me and I’ll devour it in one sitting if my family would let me. It’s just one of those things I can’t live without. I happen to have a small collection of genealogy books that I’ve been meaning to sit down and go through one by one. Some I’ve looked at and read, but didn’t really utilize what I’d learned. That’s a crying shame too, because these books are pretty awesome.
This is one I’ve really got to finish reading. It was actually this book that inspired me to make the blog! The book tells you to sit down and decide what type of family history you are trying to write. Do you want a collection of pure facts? Were you suckered in by the fascinating, but not so well documented Roots? In the book there are 7 different types of family history genres they tell you to think about. When I thought about what type I would be interested in writing, I decided on number 5. It’s basically a Family History Memoir. Just the word memoir made me think how conceded I’d gotten, just by deciding to write a book! Who am I to have a memoir? Well, why shouldn’t I have a memoir! Thinking back to all the conversations I’ve ever had with relatives or even acquaintances I realized something big. More than the actual stories I was telling, I mostly enjoyed just sharing the experience. I also find that when I discuss the fun hi-jinks my research pushes me into, the people I am telling enjoy the story that much more. So that’s my goal for life. To write my Family History Memoir. I don’t know anything else about it, except I want to call it something that is a play on my last name. How can you have a last name like Moore and not use it for fun?
Oh how I wish I had the gusto and unlimited time to actually become an Accredited Genealogist. Someday I might even see about going back to school for History or even Family History. BYU offers that. I know because I looked. It’s just a thought. This book really outlines the process you should take if you are even thinking about becoming a professional genealogist. I know nothing about the professional side of things but I’m sure reading and following the advice in this book can’t hurt.
This book I have spent many an hour reading and pouring over the pages of pictures. If you know me, you know I have an unhealthy obsession with Ireland. If only my dream Irishman would come and sweep me off my feet already! In a close second to my Irish obsession is a love of all things Scottish. This is actually another one of the ‘coincidences’ that I don’t believe in. All my life I’ve been obsessed with Ireland, Scotland, and Brooklyn. Even before I knew where any of them (yes even Brooklyn) were on a map. When I started researching my Dad’s family, I found many ties to all the things I’d always loved and obsessed over. It’s scary sometimes with those ‘coincidences’!
This book feeds that love I have for all things Scotland. What I love about this book is it gives information about the clans in relation to Scottish historical events. I don’t know about you, but I certainly want to know when my ancestor’s clans were involved in history.
I won’t deny I got all kinds of excited to see Menzies in the book. Of course they were in the book as they are a clan, but for some reason I was worried I’d open it and they wouldn’t be there. I didn’t get a good picture of it, but it shows you all the different tartans of a lot of the clans. I was aware that there were different kinds of tartans for different reasons (Dress, War, Regular). What I wasn’t aware of was how different these tartans could look! It’s quite an experience to really delve deep into something you thought you understood.
Ahh, here are the MacKinnons! The Love family were a sept (basically another branch of the family) of the Clan MacKinnon. If you think I found that out, you’d be wrong. I did verify it later, but I actually learned that little nugget of information from my Aunt Lori. She was sitting on a bench in her hometown and a random stranger came up and gave her a family history lesson! That’s how we roll guys. Love it or hate it, we randomly collect relatives.
Yes please? I’d really love to break down my brick wall. William H. Moore left Ireland for America in the late 1850’s. He was a young man at the time, only a teenager if I have his age right. One day I will bridge that gap to Ireland, and then I will find an Irishman to sweep me off my feet. Sorry, it’s a sickness. It really is.
All joking aside, this book is going to be very helpful. This chart is great to show you how your Irish ancestors can be identified from Census information. Gosh do I love the Census. Thanks to the 1900 census I was able to find out William H Moore immigrated in 1857. Then in the 1910 census I discovered he was Naturalized in 1859. I really should start looking for that Naturalization record somewhere. I’ve been hoping to find his death record for a birth date though. It’s just the thought of finding William Moore, from Ireland, in Brooklyn… It doesn’t even need to be said, in fact I can’t even think about it right now. I was lucky to find him in all those census records so far!
This book is going to be so much fun to explore. In fact, if you don’t see me for 5 months it’s because I’ve devoured the book and my Irishman finally swept me off my feet.
Believe it or not this book was a gift. From my sister no less. I’m really proud that she would know that brick walls, burned courthouses, and those blasted same names (William Moore, William Mays, I’m looking at you), was something I would be in desperate need of. Maybe I’d actually have solved all those problems if I’d open this book! Why do I do that to my books?
Now this is just mean. All this time, I could have had organized research! The truth is, I read this book immediately and thoroughly. However when I thought about applying some of these methods, well it wasn’t pretty. They are quite helpful and I’m sure they’d work… If I had a complete office setup and a million dollars to devote to nothing but file cabinets and printer ink. The thought of printing out all the records I have saved on my computer makes me break out in hives. Eventually I’ll do it though. It’s going to be wonderful.
Steven Allen Moore (1959-1965)The next time, maybe I won’t speak, but this is my father’s little brother who was killed in an accident at the tender age of 6. We don’t talk much about Stevie when the family gets together. It’s still hard. He is dearly missed and loved no matter the day or the year.
Wordless Wednesday is a Daily Blogging Topic that 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.
I was a little sentimental this weekend. I’ve been cleaning out my external hard drive and I’ve found files I haven’t looked at in years. Not to mention 2 weeks ago we cleaned out a shed we haven’t been in for 3 years at least! So I’m just a big ball of sentimentality here.
One of my treasures is the photocopies I made of my Grandmother’s family tree. She kept the original but we went to the drug store and we made photocopies of the whole shebang. I have such a vivid memory of the original binder. It’s probably sitting at my Aunt’s house right now. She’s got a whole box of stuff she says she’s keeping for me, I’m sure that’s in there.
This is what the first page of the tree looks like. It started with the little blurb at the top.
James F., Vincent, and George Washington Webb were three of five known children who were orphaned at an early age by the death of both parents. There may have been other children. Upon the death of their parents, they were taken in by various families and were reared to adulthood on that basis. There is no information the other two children. James lived in Brown County, Ohio and died at an early age from Civil War wounds. Vincent moved to Romney, Tippecanoe County, Indiana. George lived generally in Brown and Clermont Counties of Ohio. And Pendleton County, Kentucky court records reveal that he owned land in that county. By some Accounts and by an entry in the Congressional Record, George Washington Webb is credited with discovering white burley tobacco. The family legend of their having one fourth American Indian blood has not been confirmed.
Since I’ve been researching I’ve found out many things about this blurb alone.
White burley, in 1865, George Webb of Brown County, Ohio planted red burley seeds he had purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. The air-cured leaf was found to be more mild than other types of tobacco.[1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_tobacco#White_Burley]
What a wonderful little starting point for starting to research though! It gives you just enough information to be curious but nothing that has actually been proven.
As you can see this tree was put together in 1980. Obviously there have been changes between then and when I got the tree. It’s nice to see this was done before computers though. So obviously a lot of the research must have been done by word of mouth and on site research. I’m such a computer nut I can’t even imagine!
Back to the tree though. For every page of names, there is a ‘B’ page that lists the spouse of each person. In some cases it gives the spouse’s parents.
I can’t tell you how many memories I have researching these names. I feel like I know these people even though I don’t. I’ve tried to show people how this system of the tree worked, but people just got confused. So I guess it’s not so great for a long term solution. How on earth do you even go about having a hard copy of your family tree? I mean just the thought of trying to figure it out makes me break out in hives.
There I am! Good ol’ number 6-54. This is how I know there have changes since 1980. 🙂 I was born in 1983 and there I am. Not to mention that my generation wasn’t listed in birth order. So I imagine it was updated in bulk in the early 90’s. There’s a rumor that the tree I got was done by a distant cousin for a high school project. I don’t know if that refers to the original by WEDavis or if it refers to the updated version. It doesn’t matter, because I’ve been trying to verify it myself anyway. There are a great deal of errors.
I eventually made a new copy in Excel. I tried to update it and fix what I could. I printed it, put it in a new pretty folder. Then I realized my family tree is forever changing and it’s a never-ending battle.
Still there’s nothing like having an old fashioned hard copy right?
Thank you WEDavis for all the years of joy I’ve found in researching and learning about my family.
