Here are this week's questions:
1) What was your best research achievement in 2016? Tell us - show us a document, or tell us a story, or display a photograph. Brag a bit! You've earned it!
2) We all have elusive ancestors. What research problem do you want to work on in 2017? Tell us where you want to research and what you hope to find.
Here are my responses:
One of the best things that happened to me in regards to research in 2016 was discovering Newspapers.com! That site is great! I have found all sorts of bits and pieces of my family's story through those old newspapers.
I found the announcement of my mother's birth. I originally posted it here: Wednesday Hodgepodge.
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| Click image to see it bigger at Newspapers.com |
I learned details about a duel in David's family history. Click here to read the original post and see one of the family's plantation houses: Paydirt!
Here is the article about the duel:
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| Click image to see it bigger at Newspapers.com |
I also found out that my 3rd great-grandfather Berry Madison Pressley received a Cross of Honor for his service to the Confederate States of America in the War Between the States. You can see the original post here: Happy Dance!
There are several research problems that I want to work on in 2017. There are 6 people who I wish to learn more about and finding information about them has been a test of my endurance for years now. Those people are:
Johnnie Cooper Roberts, one of David's great-grandmothers. She died due to complications of childbirth approximately 8 months after the birth of her son, David's maternal grandpa. Though I have a copy of her wedding picture and a picture of her tombstone, I can't find diddly about her otherwise. It is like she died and everything done during her "dash" was erased from the planet! No wedding announcement, no obituary, nothing.
Oliphant A. Williams, my 2nd great-grandfather, and his daughter Emma Williams, who was the twin sister of my great-grandmother Carrie Williams Pressley, and two other Williams children. Grandpa Williams died supposedly in 1900 and does not appear in the census of that year. I want to know what killed him. He was only in his 30s. Grandma Carrie and Emma and their sisters Sallie and Mattie are listed in the 1900 census with their widowed mother. The census says Granny Maggie Williams was the mother of 6 children, with 4 living. I only ever heard of Emma in passing as a child, hearing that my great-grandma Carrie had a twin. That is all that I ever heard about Emma. I didn't even know her name back then. I knew of Aunt Sallie and Aunt Mattie. I have nothing to go on at all for these other two unknown children, no names, no genders, no birth/death dates, absolutely nothing. The 1890 census was destroyed and it would answer several questions for me. Were these two children on that census? I don't know. Was Grandma Carried born in 1889 or 1891? I don't know. Aunt Emma doesn't show up with the family in the 1910 census, but she would have been old enough to be married at that point because Grandma Carrie was already married and a mother by the 1910 census. I do not know if Aunt Emma died or if she got married, so would have a different surname than Williams.
Unknown Child: This one has had me puzzled since about 1992. I was given this picture the day that my paternal grandpa, William Howard Taft Spence, died. This little girl was in my Grandma Spence's photo album along with some other pictures on cards kind of like postcards, but not exactly. The other photos had dates in the 1930s. Grandma couldn't tell me who the little girl was due to her battle with Alzheimer's. Grandpa couldn't tell me for obvious reasons. So, my next step was to my Aunt Mary's house. She was my grandpa's baby sister. She said that the little girl looked like a Pressley child to her. My Grandma Spence was a Pressley before she married my grandpa and she couldn't answer the question. So, I'm left with a picture of a beautiful little girl that I may never know the identity of. If this photo was taken in the 1930s like the others like it were marked, then she is too young to have been my grandma or her sisters and too old to have been my mama or her sisters.
Isn't she adorable? I don't want her to be an unknown forever and forgotten. I want folks to know who she is!
There are many more happy and elusive moments in my genealogy adventure, but that is all that comes to mind at the moment.
Have a blessed week, y'all!
Notice: None of these links are affiliate links. I promote Newspapers.com because I absolutely love their service. However, they will not allow me to be an affiliate for them because I use Blogger and WordPress.com to host my blogs.
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Posts
One of these days SHE will find YOU.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope so, but something about the way you said that sent chills across my neck. haha
DeleteNewspapers.com is incredible!!! I have clipped more than 700 articles relating to my family over the past few years. It's probably my favorite resource. Great finds! Hope you uncover solve some of your problems in 2017!
ReplyDeleteYes, it is incredible! AND we can save these clippings in our computers rather than chasing paper all over the house, which I think it great, too. I have over 700 clippings, too. I imagine that we'll both have way more than that before all is said and done. :)
DeleteThank you for stopping by and commenting. Have a blessed week!
You are so lucky to have newspapers available in which to search. My family was in Maine and New Jersey and neither of those states offer much in the way of digitized newspapers, although I've read that each are finally getting with the program and starting. :)Best of luck in solving your 2017 mysteries.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda. I would love to try to help you. If you have anything that you'd like for me to look for in the old newspapers for Maine and New Jersey, please let me know. I had good luck finding some information for another lady in the New Jersey newspapers. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and find exactly what you're looking for. Feel free to email me.
DeleteThank you for stopping by and commenting. Have a blessed week!
Very cute photo, I hope you can figure out who she is someday.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ellen. I think she is adorable and would love to know who she is and how she fits into the family. :)
DeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting. Have a blessed week!
You had some pretty good finds yourself, Suzanne. I love newspapers, too, and might be my 2nd favorite after city directories. Two newspapers are being digitized and put up at the Texas History site from Erath County and I am so excited to find tidbits about my mother's families.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Which Texas History site? Please share the link with me. I'd love to check out that source, too. David's mother's family is from here in various parts of Texas. How cool that you're able to find stories about your mama's families!
DeleteCity directories are great, too. I also love looking at the census reports, but I wish all of the enumerators had legible handwriting. :)
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Have a blessed week!
The Portal to Texas has lots of wonderful stuff. https://texashistory.unt.edu/
DeleteThank you for sharing this link. I will definitely check it out.:)
DeleteYou found some very cool things in 2016! Best of luck in finding more information in 2017.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mary! It was very exciting to me to find all of these things. I think finding my mama's birth announcement and the information on the duel with the most exciting for me. I had read something on a site about one of David's way back great-grandfathers and it mentioned his son dying young. Well, I had to find out what happened to someone. People don't usually die that young without something causing it like an accident or foul play. It took me forever to locate information about it, several weeks of searching, as I recall, and then there it was. I was so happy!
DeleteThank you for stopping by and commenting. Have a blessed week!