Moore-Mays Genealogy – Page 9 – Connecting the past, sharing the journey

Tombstone Tuesday: William and Llewellyn

Posted on 21-Feb-2017 by Kathleen

Prospect Hill Cemetery, Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey

My great-grandparents, William and Llewellyn Moore, are the topic of this Tombstone Tuesday. Their tombstone looked like the top picture when it was placed there in 1980. When Grandpa Moore passed away in 2012, we buried him in the family plot and added Llewellyn’s death date to her stone.

On their stones are symbols for the Freemasons and the Order of the Eastern Star, both of which were a big part of their lives.

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers.com. For a full list of topics, visit the website for details.

Going on a Trip

Posted on 31-Jan-2017 by Kathleen

Great News!

It’s a mess around my house these days! That’s not the great news though. We’re preparing for a trip to Florida! We aren’t going to enjoy the warm sun. We aren’t going to kick back on the beach. We’re going to welcome the newest generation into the family!

That’s right my brother and his beautiful wife are expecting twins! This isn’t the first set of twins my family has welcomed over the generations but they are my parent’s first grandchildren. That makes them extra special. My sister in law has asked me to help her out by staying a little longer than everyone else. I’m the only one in my family with a flexible enough schedule, so I think I’m going to take her up on that! This means I will be away from my natural habitat until early April.

What about your Do-Over? What about your blog?

I’m still going to be working on it! That’s what I’m loving about my Do-Over. The great thing about it is that I’m still only entering in the information I already have. I’m still not entering in any new information. Before we leave next week, I’ll be scanning like crazy to make sure all the documents I might need are on my laptop. I’m going to hope with a little preparation I can transfer my family file from my desktop to my laptop and back again. We’ll see how that goes! I might even make a blog entry about it. I’m going to utilize my 1TB of space in OneDrive to keep a cloud backup going of my files but to also help the transition from Maryland to Florida and back to Maryland.

I can’t make any promises about my blog, only that I will post interesting documents and pictures as I sort through them. There probably won’t be any rambling posts from me, like this one. I’m sure you’re all going to miss that a lot, HA! Who knows though, I might just be too busy cuddling and taking pictures of those babies!

Working Hard Behind the Scenes!

I have been working behind the scenes on my category problem. The only reason I’m not going very fast on that one, is I don’t want to have any broken links. I think I’m doing okay there, but if you find any, please let me know and I will try to fix them.

This graphic shows what my category goals are for the blog. I’m hopefully going down from 81 categories to 5! That’s a big leap. Any posts you want to find dealing with a specific family should be able to be found using the tags in the sidebar of the page. Eventually, I’m going to have a wonderful sitemap to point everyone where they need to go. I have to get organized first though! 🙂

If you have any advice for a genealogist on travel, be sure to let me know some tips and tricks!

Wedding Wednesday: Llewellyn and William

Posted on 25-Jan-2017 by Kathleen

Welcome to another Wedding Wednesday! When I started posting this GeneaBloggers Daily Blogging Prompt, I never imagined I’d have more than that first entry. Until I run out of weddings to post about, I will keep posting. I’ve done my Grandma and Grandpa Moore’s 1951 Wedding in 3 posts (one, two, three) and my Grandma and Grandpa Mays’ 1947 Wedding. I also threw in a post for my Grandma Mays and her 2nd husband Wayne.

I’m moving up a generation in my Genealogy Do-Over, so it’s time for my Great-Grandparents to get their turn! We’re starting with William Lawrence Moore and Llewellyn Josephine Thorward. For an extra treat, you can always go back and read the Diary of Llewellyn.

June 12, 1926

1926 Wedding Invitation, William Lawrence Moore, Llewellyn Josephine Thorward, Llewellyn’s Boxes, 1986; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2005. This collection was taken from Llewellyn Thorward-Moore’s house after her death. They resided with her son until 2005, when they passed to Kathleen Moore.

One of my favorite finds from Llewellyn’s boxes is this wedding invitation from 1926. It’s almost 100 years old now, but in great condition. I have a few more items that pertain to their wedding day. A cool thing with this record is that to date, this is one of two mentions of Lewis’ middle name. There is clearly a G. after his name and I’ll have an eagle eye on all the other records I go through to see if I’ll finally learn what his middle name is. Probably George after his father, but you never know!

written on the back: “Llewellyn on her wedding day”

I love this picture, it’s definitely on the list of favorites. It’s even on my wall as I type this entry. I don’t know when I made the decision to re-scan most of my older documents and pictures but I sure did. Unfortunately, this one isn’t coming off the wall right now. I used those picture hanger strips from a well known name brand and I don’t have anymore to put it back up when I’m done. That means Llewellyn stays on the wall for now!

The Wedding Article

The wedding article is a favorite of mine because it helps to verify a lot of my other “evidence.” For example, it describes Llewellyn’s wedding dress, that helps me to confirm that the writing on the back of the above photo is correct. It also helps me to verify the wedding invitation is for the same couple as the newspaper article. It also parallels what I learned from Llewellyn’s diary by bringing in all the cast of characters I read about for the 3 year period before her wedding.

There is one thing that the article got wrong. The couple didn’t move into their home at 42 Park Avenue, it was 84 Park Avenue. I know that because I have all the mortgage and legal documents to prove it! Some time between when they moved into the house in 1926 and when Llewellyn died in 1986, the house address changed to 86 Park Avenue.

The last picture on the top right is a current view of the home from Google Street View. The rest are from a collection of photos found in Llewellyn’s house.

Just Call Me Confused

Posted on 20-Jan-2017 by Kathleen

My Mystery Monday to do list just keeps getting longer and longer. I’m currently scanning documents that pertain to my Great-Grandfather, William Lawrence Moore. Some I’d scanned before but could use a fresh scan. Others, I never scanned before so I’m getting my first look at them.

Perpetual Care

I know you guys must be getting sick of me saying what good record keepers my Great-Grandparents were. It bears repeating though since I just spent 20 minutes scanning correspondence between multiple family members about the family lot at Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. The above diagram was sent to William when he inquired in 1970 about keeping up the graves. From what I can tell Robert J. Moore Jr and his wife Gertrude were taking care of the graves until Gertrude’s death in 1970. Then Gertrude’s family and the Moores split the costs of perpetual care for the lot.

I had known the names of the people in the grave, but not in this detail. We called the cemetery back when we originally got the deed from my Grandfather. We just had the names, not the dates or anything like the detailed diagram above.

Figuring It Out

Once again, I’m blessed that William wanted to make a list of the family members buried in the plot. He left it in the paperwork and correspondence for the perpetual care. The only one not on William’s list is “Baby Moore.”

Based on the burial date of 1909 and that the baby is in the same plot as Robert J. Moore Sr. and his wife, I would say the child would have been my Great-Grandfather’s sibling. I’ll have to look at birth and death records for Brooklyn to make sure.

The other interesting thing is that M. Moore or William’s mother, wasn’t buried until 1945. She last showed on census records with the family in 1910. In the 1915 State Census she is missing and in the 1920 United States Census, her husband is still listed as married. So where was Mary Johnson-Moore from 1910 to 1945?

Oops Moment

Looking at the paperwork from the cemetery, I know why New Jersey didn’t find a death record for my William H. Moore even after numerous attempts. He died in 1923, not 1928! Well that makes a big difference!

My Genealogy Do-Over is working already!!

I have a Category Problem

Posted on 10-Jan-2017 by Kathleen

When I sat down to write a blog post for today, I was completely un-inspired. I couldn’t think of anything to write about. The great thing is I have an Excel spreadsheet for that problem. I opened my spreadsheet and was looking around, then I came to my website and decided to look through old posts to find one to update. That’s where I found true inspiration for today’s blog post.

Misadventures of a Genealogist has 81 categories on the blog

I never think about my categories except when I’m scrolling through them. I tell myself that it’s a lot of stuff to scroll through and that I need to remedy that. Then I go about my business and ignore it. The only problem I find myself in now is that 2017 seems to be the year I can no longer just walk away from things.

I want to fix it, and this is the week it’s happening. What I thought was funny when I started blogging in March of 2010 is no longer funny. I want to make things user friendly here on the website.

My inspiration comes from a genea-friend from when I started blogging.

Tonia Kendrick runs her blog Solopreneur Diaries and I’ve been following it since it’s launch. She has some great posts that have made me rethink my blog management. Two posts are of particular interest to me today. Using a Spreadsheet for your Content Ideas and When You Feel That Nagging Feeling. What I got from that page is that she has main categories and sub-categories for each one. It keeps the blog focused and on topic.

One issue can be solved right away. I don’t need “All Posts” or “Misadventures of a Genealogist” categories. This blog is Misadventures of a Genealogist, I don’t need a category to state that. With just a quick thought process, this is what I came up with.

Not every subcategory is shown

With 81 categories, I wasn’t going to add everything to a graphic. I really just wanted to have some basic categories to start with. Between my Index pages and these categories, I think it will really cover things I’ve posted on the blog. Anything that doesn’t fit into the four categories can fall into uncategorized.

Actually now that I’m studying it, I don’t even think Genealogy Do-Over needs its own category since I have an Index page for that. This will allow me to categorize those posts into Research, Identification, and Organization when it applies to those posts.

Do you have any ideas about categories that I am missing? Be sure to let me know!

Does this mean all your links are going to break?

They shouldn’t! My blog structure is set up to use the date in the URL. It’s not great for my SEO score for sure, but it also means changing categories isn’t going to effect my URL links.

I might change that setup one day but thankfully Tonia also has a post showing how to deal with that! You might be worried that this will distract me from my Do-Over. It won’t! I’m going to be doing this on the days that I’m not working on my Do-Over.

Disclaimer: I made no profit for mentioning Tonia’s post. There are no affiliate links on the post. Once you click over to her website, her disclosures about links and profit apply to her website.