Not one of my children has any viable memory of my grandparents. If I want my children and grandchildren to know those who still live in my memory, then I must build the bridge between them. I alone am the link to the generations that stand on either side of me. My grandchildren will have no knowledge of their family’s history if I do nothing to preserve it for them. This is a record of my journey to research and preserve our family history so that I may bring it alive for the generations that follow.
Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights and our comfort when we occasionally falter. . . Brad Henry

Genealogy

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Genealogy Tree

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Genealogy Pictures
Genealogy Tree in Pictures

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Are we there yet?

Preparing for a family vacation, Kathy and Matt explained to their young children that they would be sitting in the car for a very long time. The kids were told they would not be arriving at their destination until after dark, and were warned not to keep saying, "Are we there yet?"

After a few minutes of peaceful driving, four year old Rachel perked up, "Is it dark yet?"

When my kids were young, we used to make trips back to California from Houston, which was a 24 hour trip.  Sometimes we would drive straight through, but usually we stopped in Las Cruces, New Mexico to visit friends.  And of course we usually got the proverbial question, “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?”

But think about the trips our ancestors made.  Days, weeks, months – the thought is staggering.  Not only was the actual trip daunting, but the whole idea of leaving family and friends behind, quite possibly never to see them again, had to be a very difficult thing to do.

I want to talk about my great-great grandfather, John Murrish.  John was born in Cornwall, England on Feb 4, 1847.  In April of 1848, his family left England to come to America.  Now at the age of one year, he wasn’t aware of all he left behind.  His sister Elizabeth was 2-1/2 years old and might have noticed that Grandma wasn’t around anymore.  They traveled with their parents and three aunts to America and settled in Wisconsin.  Their trip took two months on a sailing vessel and they never saw their grandmother again.  The heartbreak that Jennie Murrish must have endured as she watched her son and grandchildren sail away to a new life must have been unimaginable.

In this day and age, when we move away, as lots of us are prone to do, it is not a forever thing.  Traveling by car or train is not hard to do nowadays.  But not in those days.

John Murrish grew up in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.  He married Nora Marzolf, had children and lived among his parents and seven siblings.  But in 1876, he made the decision to venture forth again.  This time he traveled by covered wagon to Nebraska.

He left Mineral Point in September of 1876 and traveled 480 miles to Kearney, Nebraska.  Now in those days a wagon train could travel between 10 and 20 miles a day, depending on the terrain and weather.  So it probably took them a little over a month for the trip. 

Traveling by wagon would have been a much harder trip than by sailing vessel.  On the ship they would have been passengers with nothing much to do but be uncomfortable.  But traveling by wagon would entail a lot more work.  The horses had to be cared for each night and the wagon itself had to be kept in top condition.

According to a biography written by John’s niece, Laura Fitzsimmons Mitchell (John’s sister Elizabeth’s daughter), John traveled with the Ashwood family to Nebraska.  This was probably William Ashwood, who was to marry (or had already married) Nora’s sister Keturah Eliza Jane Marzolf.

So of course I had to scrap a page about transportation in the old west.  Here is my page about covered wagons.

Wagon Train West

All kits used are by Jean Daugherty. The frames and journal scroll are from Heritage Chest Vol. 9 Vintage Word Papers.  Both background papers are from Fireside Comforts and the elements are from Past Remembered.

For more information on John Murrish, go here.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Veterans Day

A Veteran – whether active duty, retired, National Guard or Reserve, is someone who, at one point, in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of “up to and including my life.”  That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.   -  Author Unknown.

My father was a veteran of three wars.  He was proud of being a Marine and serving his country.  And this day, Veteran’s Day, was also his birthday.  He would have been 85 years old today.

He was born in New Hampshire in 1924 and joined the U.S. Marine Corp when he was 17, just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  He spent four years fighting in the Pacific, island to island.  After the war, he got out of the military for two years, but decided to rejoin.  He served in the Marine Corps for 30 years, seeing action in Korea and Vietnam.  He died April 10, 1976.

The following are pages that I have scrapped for my Dad. 

Bud's Birth - My Parents Life Book

World War II - My Father

My Father, Always A Marine

Memorial Day Challenge

My father was not the only one in the family to be a Veteran.  I met my future husband right after he came back from Vietnam.  He was also a Marine.  He was one of three brothers who also served in the military during the Vietnam era.  And yes, I did a page on each of them too.  This is Bob’s page.

24 Bob - Marines

This page is Bob’s older brother Jack.  Jack died on Sep 1, 2002, from a neurological disease that quite possibly was a result from his tour of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war.

Jack Jr. Military - Ella's Life Book

Bob’s younger brother Bill served in the Navy.  He was fortunate enough not to have served in Vietnam, but he was in the Navy at that time.

Bill in the Military - Ella's Life Book

And of course, there are my children.  My son Travis joined the Army in 1996 and was part of the 82nd Airborne.  (He just loved jumping out of planes).  Later, after he had been out of the Army for a little while, he joined the Texas National Guard.  He has already served one tour in Iraq and is getting ready to deploy to Iraq again.  Here is the page I did for Travis.

Travis - Army

My older daughter Dana also joined the Army about the same time as her brother.  She went to the Language Institute in Monterrey and then served as an analyst at Ft. Meade.  Here is her page.

Dana - Army

Veteran’s Day takes on a special meaning to our family.  We have had members of our family serve in every war that America has participated in since the Revolutionary War.  Here is a page I scrapped that depicts that lineage, starting with my son.

Military Ancestors

A lot of genealogy research has gone into the preparation of this particular page.  I have copies of military papers, pension papers, land bounty records, etc. that authenticate this information.  As I get to each of the various ancestors, I will be sharing them on this blog.  Thanks for looking and come back soon.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Genealogy Breakthroughs

Genealogy has been a hobby of mine for about 35 years. It has given me the opportunity to incorporate a love of history with a love of family. My favorite movies and TV series were always westerns and I felt like I should have been born during that time. But of course, it was a good thing I wasn't because I like my creature comforts and technology way too much. (See, God was definitely looking out for me).
Anyway, as I was saying, genealogy gave me the ability to see my ancestors during a period of time that I would have at least wanted to visit. Over the years I have researched both my family and my husband's. His was actually easier to do as most of his family had resided here in Texas for many, many years. Texas is a big state but we could still make short trips to the various different counties a whole lot easier than to Nebraska or New York or England.
The internet has really opened up the research avenues for me. Family Search has uploaded images of the Texas Death Certificates for 1900-1976 and I decided to take advantage of that. I ran a report from my genealogy program to show everyone who died in Texas during that time period and I have been locating the death certificates and copying them to my hard drive. Death certificates can give you so much information, particularly names of parents. Which brings me to my breakthrough.
Dr. Charles Edward Hall and his wife Mabel Ora Stuart, my husband's great-grandparents, are buried in Lindale, Texas. Her parents, William Stuart and Laura Hill (Fatherree) Stuart are buried next to them. The headstones show birth and death dates for both William and Laura and the family Bible showed William as being born in Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee. That had been the extent of the knowledge I have been able to gather on William Stuart.
While tracing down death certificates for a son of a son of a collateral line, I was taken to Rains County in Texas, where the death occurred. As I have found the death certificates, I have also checked each county to see if the cemeteries have been transcribed online (some have, some haven't yet). So while looking through one of the Rains County Genealogy web pages, I came across a 1913 transcribed newspaper article that said "Herbert Stuart from Lindale was here visiting his uncle S.J. Stuart earlier this week."
That stopped me in my tracks. Herbert Stuart was Mable Ora's brother, a son of William Stuart, and living in Lindale. This uncle S.J. Stuart was obviously a brother to William. A little more research in Rains County disclosed this to be Stephen James Stuart, a prominent settler to Rains County from Tennessee. Now with two children's names as a point of reference, I was able to find the right Stuart household in the 1850 census of Sumner County, Tennesse, which showed their mother Clarissa as a widow. Checking the online marriage transcriptions for Sumner County, I found a Clarissa Mitchenor married to a James Stuart. I also found the Texas death certificate for Stephen James Stuart that listed his parents as James and Clarissa. A death certificate for William (who died in 1902) has never been found.
So by following the death certificates on more current family way down through a collateral line, it took my direct line another generation back. That's what I love about genealogy. You never know when or where you will find that piece of elusive information that fits your puzzle.

Here is the page I did for William Stuart.  I do not have any pictures of William except for the funeral picture.  I used the kit Vintage Chique Collection by Lynn Griffin.

William-Marcus-Stuart-web

In 1909, Laura Stuart filed for a pension based on her husband’s William’s service in the Civil War.  She lived in Lindale, Texas, at the time and Texas granted her a pension until her death in 1925.

William Stuart Pension File 01

This is the statement that William’s brother Stephen wrote for Laura’s application for a pension.

William Stuart Pension File 02

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Name by any other name

Welcome to my new blog for researching my family genealogy.  I have been a family genealogist for over 35 years, a hobby that I have found to be enjoyable, exciting and also frustrating at times.  I have been contemplating on how to publish my research and decided that a blog might work best for now.  I also do digital scrapbooking and have started to combine the two.

So I started this blog by first deciding on a name.  Unfortunately, the name I settled on was already taken by someone who started a blog eight months ago and never posted a single post.  Ditto my second and third choices of names. Do people just set up blogs with all the cool names just in case they want it at some time?  Blogger should have a rule: if you don’t post your first post within a specified amount of time after creating your blog, it is automatically deleted.

So let’s talk about names.  Names are very important.  Whether you want that perfect name for your family history blog or naming your first born child, it can be a wonderful choice or a dismal failure.  Names can range from creative and imaginative to “You named your kid what?”

The right name can define the very essence of a living being.  Does anybody remember Johnny Cash’s song “A Boy Named Sue”?  Imagine giving your son a name he has to fight his entire life to defend.  I went to school with a girl with the unlikely name of Gregory (she was named after a nun).  I thought it was a very cool and unusual name, but the school was always trying to put her into the boy’s PE class.  Not so cool.

Over the years, names have come and gone.  Most names have a certain period of history you can point to.  How many Prudence, Matilda or Millicents are there around now?  The hippie 60’s we had Moon Zappa, Free Carradine, and Kiefer Sutherland. 

But the hardest part in genealogy is differentiating between all the sons who have the same names as their fathers, grandfathers and uncles.  I have one line, the Applegates, who have a ton of George’s.  And keeping them all straight can be very confusing.

This is a journey of my family roots.  Pull up a chair and sit a spell.