Tag: Moore

Just Call Me Confused

Posted on 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

Cemetery Diagram

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

The List

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!!

Treasure Chest Thursday: The Bibles Part 2

Posted on by Kathleen

thebibles

Here we are again with a new week and a new “bible”. Okay, so technically this week isn’t a bible. It is very connected to it though, so it fits with my theme from last week. This book is called Four Thousand Questions & Answers.

sundayschool-03

The copyright is from 1898, so for a book over a hundred years old, it’s in great condition. As you can tell from the title page, this book was for Students and Sunday-School Teachers. This wasn’t a surprise to me, because Llewellyn and her family were very involved with the church. I believe Llewellyn even taught Sunday School herself if her Diary is any indication. Before taking the pictures for this blog post, I just assumed this book was my Grandfathers since I have so much documentation from his early years.

sundayschool-02

I thought that until I actually read through the whole inscription.

Presented to William Moore by his S.S. teacher for his punctual attendance 51 Sundays. Xmas 1913

Well, that is definitely not Grandpa’s book because he was born in 1930. This must be his father’s book! To have such an old memento from the Moore family is very rare. In the first place, there aren’t a lot of people around that can identify any Moores in pictures. Secondly, for a few generations the mothers died early on and the children were working from a young age, leaving little time for many mementos. That’s what makes this one so special.

Great-Grandpa would have just turned 12 when he got this book from his teacher. In just a few years he will have started working for numerous companies as a bookkeeper. His mother could already have passed away. I haven’t found her death certificate yet, but it happened between 1910 and 1915. Within 10 years the whole family dynamic will change. They’ll move from their decades long residence in Brooklyn and move to Caldwell, New Jersey to live with his grandfather and aunt. There he meets his future wife, probably at church. His father and grandfather will pass away in 1925 and 1928. In 1925 he’ll go to work for AT&T as a bookkeeper and he’ll stay there until he retires over 35 years later. In 1926 he’ll marry Llewellyn and they’ll have one son and 5 grandchildren.

I never met William L. Moore, my great-grandfather, but from the records and memories he’s left behind I can tell you a lot about his personality. He came from a family who experienced a lot of hardships and instability. Even though the family was struggling, he still made it to Sunday School for 51 Sundays. He still graduated from night school. He got the education to work as a bookkeeper. From Llewellyn’s diary when they were dating, he worked a lot of overtime but still made sure to meet her at the train everyday. Amidst all that chaos and change, he became one of the most dependable men I think I’ll ever know about. Even through all the hardships they went through the decades they were married, to this day everyone remembers William and Llewellyn as being rocks of the community. They were there when people needed them and everyone speaks so kindly of them. It’s enough to make me sad I was born too late to know them.

Man, who knew I’d get so emotional about a little book, right?

Genealogy Do-Over: BSO ALERT!

Posted on by Kathleen

genealogydoover

This series of posts is 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.

Hello everyone, I have had my first big temptation in the Bright Shiny Object category.

slides

The above picture is a small portion of the slides I inherited from Great-Grandma Llewellyn’s collection. I spent a long afternoon sorting them by batches and date. Now I am going through and scanning them to my computer. The reason I let myself get distracted by this, is I want to preserve these slides the best I can. To do that I’ve created a little wishlist for myself to slowly start buying the supplies I’m going to use to try and preserve these slides for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, the scanner I was using for this is pretty outdated. I was scanning along the other day and I’m pretty sure the light dimmed on me and stopped scanning as well. This scanner is probably almost 10 years old, so it’s not like it wasn’t on a replacement list anyway.

The slides are important to get scanned. They are a mixture of 35mm slides and 127 Superslides. The dates range from 1963 to 1971 from what I can tell so far. These slides represent my father’s childhood. The pictures vanished after his parents divorced. They all remember the pictures being taken, but had no idea where they ended up. I can’t say the exact percentage, but I can definitely tell these slides represent both my Great Grandma’s life and my Grandfather’s life. I would have to look deeper but it might even be as simple as the 35mm ones are Grandpas and the 127 Superslides are my Great-Grandparents.

greatgrandpa2

I was going through the slides using a slide viewer and my cell phone. Snapping pictures and posting them to Facebook for my family to see. I was even joking around that I was going to publish a book and it would just be Great-Grandpa standing and sitting next to things. I would title it, “Grandpa Standing and Sitting Next to Things.”

greatgrandpa

Then just when my family thought I was done spamming their day, I announced the follow up to my bestseller. This one would be titled, “Things Sitting on Grandpa.” Ha! It was all in good fun, but I think I might actually order a photo book of these photos when I’m done. I think it would be cool to take to the annual family reunion.

Previous Posts in this Series:

Wedding Wednesday: Miss Redford is a Bride

Posted on by Kathleen

Newspaper, Marriage Announcement; Moore-Redford, 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.
Newspaper, Marriage Announcement; Moore-Redford, 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.
Here is a wedding announcement from an unknown newspaper. The newspaper is most likely the Caldwell Progress (theprogressnj.com). Most of the newspaper clippings that Llewellyn saved were from The Progress. This is the last bit of wedding memorabilia that I have for my grandparents wedding.