Google Earth Adventure: Dillsboro

It is a snowy Saturday here in Southern Maryland. What better way to spend it then going on a Google Earth Adventure! Since I’ve been in a nostalgic mood, I thought I would take a trip to my Grandma’s house. I haven’t made the full journey there since September 2005. I’ve made the partial journey to different destinations, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her house.

Let’s see our route!

The Map

Wow, I didn’t realize that we spent 11 hours, probably longer, going to Grandma’s house. I don’t remember it, but my parents tell me that before it took longer because the Interstate didn’t go through where it does now. They had to go into Pennsylvania and come back down from Columbus.

We also split our trip into two days. My Aunt Melinda lives in Southern Ohio and it takes about 8 hours to get to her house. We would usually stop and spend the night with her and then head out in the morning. Of course a trip to Ohio isn’t a trip to Ohio without visiting two more Aunts in New Richmond, Ohio. After that, it is a short trip to Indiana.

I’m cheating and starting in Indiana!

The Lawrenceburg Exit
The Lawrenceburg Exit

There is something about that first exit off the Interstate. To get to Grandma’s we’d have to exit I-275. We are heading toward Lawrenceburg and Aurora, then onto Dillsboro. Even though it’s been over 10 years since I’ve taken it, this exit is as familiar as the trip I take to go grocery shopping today. There’s the relief of almost being to Grandma’s, and then the exhaustion when you realize you still have a half hour to go!

The Parking Lot
The Parking Lot

Is it cliche to say that this parking lot used to look so much bigger when I was younger! From the overhead view, there is a lot less visible from the street then there used to be. The parking lot was used for the customers on the Riverboat Casinos. From the looks of the street view, this parking lot is no longer in use.

Walmart – Oh the times I had in Walmart

Walmart

You can’t tell from the street, but up that hill and around those trees is a Walmart. It’s a pretty big one. It’s also full of so many funny memories for our family. There were times we had to stop and stretch, so we walked around Walmart. There were times that as a cranky, teenage girl I couldn’t take those jeans one more second. That meant a stop at Walmart for some sweatpants.

Most times this Walmart was our last stop to pick up things to take to Grandma’s house. It could be soda/pop, food, or books. Whatever you think you might have needed in the days before the internet and smartphones. Grandma lived pretty far out in the woods, and even the small town of Dillsboro was a bit of a hike to get things. The fun part about Walmart was it was Grandma’s favorite place. More than once when we were stopping to pick things up, we’d run right in to her and Wayne! 🙂

The last familiar sight before our turn!

Walmart

Nine miles from Walmart, you come across this! It’s that last familiar sight before you know you are almost there. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but we have a tradition in our family. On road trips, we designate landmarks to break up the trip. It’s not fun saying you will get there in 638 miles. Instead we’d say, oh Walmart is coming right up. Another favorite is, I know you’re tired but we’re almost to the silos! The silos meant we were about to make our turn into Dillsboro, Indiana!

Dillsboro!

Dillsboro

Oh boy, we finally made it to the Dillsboro turn! Just don’t blink because you will miss the turn. That happened to us more than once after a long trip. Actually, that’s not the turn we take. This is the one that SAYS Dillsboro, but this isn’t the one we take. We take the next, super secret unmarked turn!

The Secret Entrance

This is the entrance we always took into Dillsboro. This way we didn’t have to drive the whole length of the town. It’s a more straight forward route to Grandma’s house.

Genealogy Break: Since I’m a genealogist, I have to point out a few things before we turn into Dillsboro. You might be wondering how Grandma and Grandpa Wayne ended up all the way in Dillsboro (and you haven’t seen the trek to the house yet). Well, Wayne actually grew up in Dillsboro. It’s where his children grew up and live and probably where his parents grew up also. When he retired, he bought a house in his hometown. Dillsboro is also where Wayne is buried with his first wife. If you take a right turn instead of the left into Dillsboro, you’ll head straight into Oakdale Cemetery where Wayne is buried.

Town Square

Technically this isn’t a town square. It’s more of the intersection at the heart of Dillsboro. It’s important to know the other ways into to Dillsboro because when they have their carnival, this intersection is closed off and you can’t drive through at all! Now you know why I mentioned the other entrance. You always have to know these kinds of things, because this was before GPS and Google Maps!

Through the intersection, to the intersection? Huh?

Another Intersection
Another Intersection

When we come to this intersection, we have another choice to make. We can go right, or we can go left. If we go right, we can go to the IGA which is your closest source of groceries once you get to Grandma’s house. If you go left, we’re heading to Grandma’s but we still have a bit of a journey to go. Since this is my Google Earth Adventure and since there are no gas tanks to fill, I’m going to take a peak at the IGA!

The IGA
The IGA

Oh man, that used to feel a lot bigger to me! That seems to be a running theme as I get older. Everything used to be so much bigger. I didn’t think it was possible to miss a grocery store, but I sure do miss that IGA. There are so many memories of it. Probably not as many as Walmart, but plenty of them all the same.

Over the river and through the Woods, To Grandmother’s House we Go!

It was always a running joke in our family that we literally had to go over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house. Once you finally got to Dillsboro, you thought your journey was over. It wasn’t though, it was just getting started! You still had 5 miles of twisting, turning road to go! This is because technically, Grandma and Wayne lived in a little borough called Farmer’s Retreat. It doesn’t have a post office that I’m aware of, just a Lutheran church and a small park that was our last “landmark” on the trip to Grandma’s house.

I finally made it to Grandma’s house! There it is! Except the trees are blocking the front of the house. Lucky for me, Street View has some older photos of the house.

Here’s the little house I remember from my childhood. It didn’t have internet, cable TV or video games. Grandpa Wayne would wake up with the sun, and then wake you up right along with it. There would be blackberry picking if you were there at the right time of year. There was a back porch that everyone loved and remembers. I don’t just remember my Grandma and Grandpa Wayne here, I remember our whole family here. Cousins, Uncles, Aunts, and Great Aunts. To this day I can remember the exact layout of the house. I can remember the furniture. I also remember the Grandfather Clock that Wayne made for my Mom that sat in the family room. Well, it did until Wayne told Mom she was to take it or he was selling it!

It sure has been bittersweet visiting Grandma and Grandpa Wayne’s house after all these years. I wonder if a house will ever make me feel the same way again. Or will this house always be that house from my childhood, the one I remember with nostalgic fondness.

Wedding Wednesday: Wayne and Emogene

Today’s Wedding Wednesday comes with a reminder for myself! It is ALWAYS better to search out the original document that an index is referencing. Today’s wedding is my Grandma and Grandpa Wayne. My mother’s father died when she was just 17 years old, so I never got to meet him. From the time I was born to 2005, I had my Grandpa Wayne though. He was my Grandma’s second husband. They were married in 1982.

Grandma and Grandpa Wayne
Grandma and Grandpa Wayne in New Richmond, Ohio.

The Index

I’ve been working on my Genealogy Do-Over a lot this week. I was adding in the Ohio Marriage Index entry for Grandma and Grandpa Wayne when I had a thought. The Clermont County, Ohio marriage records are browse-able on FamilySearch.org! I could get an image copy of their marriage certificate. I went about adding the marriage index because I’m a better researcher now and that BSO couldn’t distract me from finishing my current task! I’m so proud of myself. 🙂

Ohio Marriage Index
Ohio Department of Health, “Ohio Marriage Index, 1970 and 1972-2007,” database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Jan 2017), entry for Emogene Mays and Harley W. Utter marriage (1982); citing Clermont County, vol. 11158, 24244.

Everything, looks great there! Now that I’d finished adding in the index, let me track down that marriage certificate on the other website.

The Marriage Certificate

Clermont County Certificate
Clermont County, Ohio, Marriage Records, 1910-2013, 81: 355, Utter-Mays, 11 May 1982; digital images, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 1 Jan 2017).

For the sake of full disclosure, the above record is cropped to just show the Marriage Certificate. The application and license are all shown on the same page. Though that probably comes into play in a minute, just bare with me! If you look at the Index, it states they were married on May 13th. The certificate says that they were married on May 11th and the record was filed and recorded on May 13th. I’m looking at a certificate, so to me, that holds more weight than an index that I can’t see where the information was even generated from.

I’m not one to just let it stand there though, so I brought up some marriage index entries and certificates for a few cousins and Aunts. They all show the same date on the index and certificate. That leads me to the conclusion that this was a typing/transcription error on the index.

One last observation

As I was entering the Marriage Certificate into Evidentia and my Genealogy program, I noticed that I have a page number, but no certificate number. That’s not some crazy thing though because these Clermont County certificates were bound from loose papers. I can tell from the full digital image.

Clermont County Marriage Book, v. 81
Clermont County Marriage Book, v. 81

The index however cites a volume number and certificate number. None of those numbers are visible in this digital collection. In fact the volume on the index is 11158 and the Clermont County book is volume 81. This shows me that the index was most likely created by a derivative copy sent to the state from the county. When you think about the further removed from an event a record gets, it really makes you think of all the ways it can go wrong!

From my thrown together graphic, I can see that I would be better getting the word of the officiant or someone at the wedding to know what date is right. (Yes, I’m still thinking it over even though I know they were married on May 11th. I like to think something over enough to get sick of it! 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.
Going back to the family tree Grandma carried around for over 30 years, and we have May 11, 1982! Man, this Genealogy Do-Over, Genealogy Proof Standards, and Evidentia are sure making me scrape together every bit of information!

Happy New Year!

I’m wishing all of you out there in blog land a very Happy New Year! I’ve never been one to make resolutions, but I’m going to make some right now.

Blogging Resolution

I want to make at least one blog entry a month! That doesn’t seem like a lot until I realized how spacey my blogging has been over the last few years. Once a week seemed a little too much to promise, so we’ll go with one a month. 🙂

Genealogy Resolution

Purchase one document a month. My success in genealogy started picking up speed when I put down the indexes. I bit the bullet and just started ordering records instead of saying I’d go on site some day. The reality is that it may be a long time before I’m able to make a genealogy trip and that’s okay. With my Genealogy Do-Over, I’m making a detailed list of records I need, how much they cost, and where they are in my priority list.

Personal Resolution

To finally conquer the corner where my desk sits. The top of my desk isn’t too bad on the clutter scale but underneath is another story! Those piles need to find homes and this is the year it’s going to happen.

Those are my resolutions for the year! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how I do. 🙂

Treasure Chest Thursday: The Bibles Part 3

Happy Thursday everyone! I’ve made some time to make sure we get another bible put up on the blog today! It’s been a few months, but I haven’t forgotten about these bibles sitting on my dresser! For those who want to catch up: Bibles Part 1 and Bibles Part 2!

The Bible for Today

This is a New Testament Bible, and it is in fairly good condition. The copyright page shows that it was published in 1946. There are only two loose pages in it. The rest are unblemished and secure. The two loose pages happen to be the only ones with writing in them, so I am left wondering if they were pressed in from another book at some point. One page is decidedly smaller than the book, and the other looks like it might be the protective page at the beginning of the Bible. The “protective page” is black on one side and tan on the other. The only thing I can’t tell is if the size is right to fit with this Bible.

The Protective Page (Less Mysterious)

This image shows that written on the tan side of the page are death dates for “Mother” and “Father.” I am very familiar with Great-Grandma Llewellyn’s handwriting after transcribing her diary. I’m assuming this is her but a quick check of her parents headstones confirms that it is them. I find it particularly emotional that she noted down the time of death as well. I have to say, I never thought I would ever know the time of death for my great-great Grandparents. That just shows you never know what you will find in Genealogy.

The smaller (Mysterious) page

Let’s just all admit what we’re asking ourselves after reading that page. Who the heck are Charlotte and Augustus Fowler? Not that I can justify research time for this in the middle of a Genealogy Do-Over. A little harmless search won’t hurt, right?

An Ancestry.com 1860 US Census search for Charlotte Fowler, living in New York City brings up ONE New York City result. The icing on my New Years cake is that she is living with what looks like a family of Doremus’. That happens to be the maiden name of Llewellyn’s Grandmother, Josephine Doremus! Oh Charlotte, I don’t know who you are, but you are going on the list for a Mystery Monday search once my Do-Over is more stable!

Format Changes

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season! Time seems to be moving so quickly, I’m sure that in no time it will be New Year’s Eve.

You are probably wondering what I mean by format changes. Though my blogging has been sporadic over the last couple of years, you might have noticed recently I started to make a small change to my posts.

Oh, just say what you mean Kathleen!

There! Did you see it? My bolded funny phrase above this sentence. Okay, so sometimes I think I’m funny when no one else does. That little phrase did something behind the scenes that really helps me to keep on track with my posts.

That’s right, I’m trying to improve my readability after all these years! Breaking my paragraphs up with headings turns that red “Needs Improvement” to a very pretty shade of green!

You know that I don’t show up without picture evidence!

I’ve tried to get the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to also go green, but I found myself getting really frustrated with it. Deciding not to be discouraged, I put it down for awhile. I promised myself that I would come back to it once I’d gotten back into the groove of my blogging life. Don’t worry, I will tell you how it goes.

How do you know what turns it green?

I’m so glad you asked because I have a picture for that!

This box is right below the one I write my entries in. I also like to call this box the “Yells at me for Passive Voice Box.” That’s right, I am in constant battle with a plugin/app about passive voice. The battle even sent me to YouTube to try and improve my writing style. That didn’t go as well as I’d like, but I think we’re still doing okay over here!

Now you know why those funny(?) subheadings started showing up in my posts! If you’d like to try out the Yoast plugin on a WordPress installation, you can find it in the directory: Yoast SEO.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Yoast or WordPress except that I use their free products. No one has asked me to write this post. I certainly didn’t ask to be yelled at for passive voice in my blog entries. That’s just where we all ended up, at the same place, at the same time, wondering if I’ll every understand the laws of literature.