Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Write a Poem on "Where I'm From"

From Randy Seaver's blog, this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is this assignment:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:


1) Write a poem about "Where I'm From" using the template found at the website http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm


2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Google Plus or Facebook note.

I haven't done one of these for over a year, but I liked the challenge and decided to try. I'm pretty happy with the result. Here's what I came up with:

Where I'm From

I am from old cars, from Skippy peanut butter and hand-me-downs from cousins whose pretty dresses I loved to wear.

I am from the house on a dead-end near the dog pound, a tiny rental, the only one on the street with pine trees instead of sycamores and flower gardens planted by my mom.

I am from the pricker bushes that scratched my legs, from poison ivy rashes every summer, and from seeds sprouting through the coffee grounds next to the back stoop where we spit them because we were too messy to eat watermelon in the house.

I am from vacations spent at Grandma’s every year and cheapskates, from Atkinson and Tolbert and Fife.

I am from secret keepers and avoiders of doctors, from stories about relatives who weren’t, and true stories that I should have listened to more closely.

I am from Presbyterians who became Methodists, and from Baptists, who took me to a liberal pacifist church. I'm agnostic, yet I see evidence that my Sunday school lessons still influence me daily.

I'm from Scots and Germans from Pennsylvania and hillbillies of unknown origin, brought up on meat and potatoes and canned green beans.

I'm from my mom’s invented ancestry uncovered when I grew up, from a kiln operator whose work I’m reminded of every time I turn over a plate to read the pottery mark, from many housewives, some rumored to have earned a little extra income in ways that were whispered about, and maybe from a moonshiner.

I am from lost and re-found connections on my mother’s side and deep-rooted family trees collected by others who came before me on my dad’s. When I search for my ancestry, I learn about myself and feel closer to the people I love.

Evidence indicates...

I was saddened to read that Elizabeth Edwards had died this week. Since I now live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, area, it was local news for me, as well as a story of National importance. I admired her.

While reading stories about her, I discovered that her mother's maiden name was "Thweatt". (See Elizabeth Edwards Dies of Cancer at 61, page 2). This piqued my interest because my husband, John's g-g-grandmother's name was Mary Eliza (Thweatt) Clark. I wondered if there might be a family connection between John's family and that of Mrs. Edwards. Below I'll list the steps I took to search for information that indicates that Elizabeth Edwards and my husband share a common ancestor!

I tried using Google to see if I could find any of her family info posted on the internet, but I didn't see anything beyond the name of her mother. Most people don't publish much information about living people in their online genealogies. However, a very few helpful people had already updated their databases at Rootsweb with Mrs Edwards' date of death, so that a search for "Elizabeth Anania" led me to this information: Mary Elizabeth Anania. Her pedigree from that database shows her g-g-grandfather was named Nicholas Booker Thweatt, whose parents were named Howard and Elizabeth (Echols) Thweatt, but there the database stopped. Thankfully, Rootsweb makes it easy to search for an individual in other people's databases. I clicked on the name "Nicholas Booker Thweatt" and near the bottom of his page I clicked on the link that reads "Search WorldConnect". I was shown three databases containing a man with that name. By random, I chose the second one in the list and was able to follow his ancestors back to a man named Henry Thweatt whose wife's name was Hannah Stanley. Bingo! This couple is in my database for John's family. Henry Thweatt was the brother of John's 6th g-grandfather, John Thweatt, and this indicates that John and Mrs Edwards' common ancestors were the parents of John and Henry Thweatt: James Thweatt and his wife whose name is unknown to me. (I see that other people believe she may have been Mary Lee.)

If the information posted on Rootsweb is correct, then John A. Clark and Elizabeth (Anania) Edwards shared a common 7th great-grandfather, which according to the chart HERE, makes them 8th cousins!

Rest well, cousin Elizabeth! If you would like to see more info, visit her virtual grave at Find a Grave.

53 years ago today...

If you had been at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Ruff Creek PA on this day in 1957, you might have seen this happy couple, my parents, Jim and Ann (Tolbert) Atkinson. And while the marriage didn't last, I feel fortunate to have a good relationship with both of them, and even better, they have maintained a friendship of their own. In fact, they both visited me at the same time for several days in the early '00s. When people ask them how it went, they both say that it was fine and that their divorce took away their "license to fight". There is one thing my mom wishes she could have changed about that day. She says that if she had realized at the time that April 20 was Hitler's birthday, she probably would have picked a different day. That year, April 20 was the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter, which is her favorite holiday!



And here, you see my most recent photos of me with each of them, with Mom last November, and with Dad last May.

Tombstone Tuesday: Susannah (Faris) Atkinson

Yes, it's been a very long time since I've touched this blog, and I can think of no way to ease back into it than by creating a Tombstone Tuesday entry!
You are looking at photos of the gravestone of my 3rd great grandmother, Susannah (Faris) Atkinson, daughter of William and Susannah (Curtis) Faris and wife of George Atkinson. They were taken in 1999 with a film camera.My husband and I were able to visit the cemetery because he was doing some work in Columbus, OH at the time. When we got there, we couldn't find the grave right away, but I did find some of Susannah's relatives near a fallen gravestone. I became convinced that the fallen stone was the one we wanted, so John and I propped it up with pieces of the base and found that I was right! This was one of my earliest graving expeditions, so I was very excited! Poor John, though, was not so much. There was poison ivy under the marker and it was soon obvious that John should have been wearing gloves. I'll always be grateful for his help and I hope he felt like it was worth it!













You can visit Susannah's memorial on Find a Grave.

My Genealogical Threes

I haven't been keeping up, have I? But I try to check out Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" each week to see if he comes up with something that inspires me. This week he's asking us to:

1) Tell us your three responses to the questions:

* Three genealogical libraries I frequent
* Three places I've visited on genealogy trips
* Three genealogy societies I belong to (or want to)
* Three websites that help my research
* Three ancestral graves that I've visited
* Three ancestral places I want to visit
* Three brickwall ancestors I want to research more

2) Post your responses as comments to this blog post, in your own blog, or in a Facebook comment.

Check him out at: Genea-Musings: Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- My Genealogical Threes

Here are my answers:

* Three genealogical libraries I frequent:

I haven't been out much lately, but my favorites are

1. Family History Library, Salt Lake City (where I used to be able to visit for a week every year until this one when they canceled the computer conference that my husband would attend at the same time)
2. Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne IN (which I used to live close enough to visit when I first got started in genealogy back in 1997. I'd love to get a chance to visit again!)
3. North Carolina State Archives (where I need to go sometime soon to work on some genealogy I promised my sister!)

* Three places I've visited on genealogy trips

1. Pax & Scarbro, WV
2. Carroll County, VA
3. Washington, Greene & Allegheny Counties, PA

* Three genealogy societies I belong to (or want to)

I'm really bad about this, I've never actually joined any. These are some I SHOULD join:

1. Genealogical Society of Southwestern Pennsylvania
2. Carroll County Genealogy Club
3. Durham-Orange Genealogical Society of North Carolina

* Three websites that help my research

1. WAGS & Ohio County WV Genweb
2. Washington Co., Pennsylvania Genealogy & History
3. Historic Pittsburgh

* Three ancestral graves that I've visited

This one is hard to limit to 3. Here is a list of my ancestors on Find a Grave & I've visited all but a couple myself: Cherie's Ancestors. And here are three specific ones that were particularly difficult to find:

1. William S. Tolbert
2. Nancy J. (Chase) Wolfe
3. Michael S. McDaid

* Three ancestral places I want to visit

1. Founders Brook Park, Portsmouth, RI
2. Glen Cemetery, Paxton, IL (where my 3rd g-grandfather is buried)
3. Summers County, WV (but first I have to track down a location for the "Talbert Cemetery" where my g-grandmother, Rhoda (Webb) Tolbert Wilson is buried according to her death certificate.)

* Three brickwall ancestors I want to research more

Sometimes I think the only way I'm going to find out more about any of these people is if someone has an old Bible or other records hidden away in an attic or basement somewhere.

1. James P. Skiles
2. Allen Tolbert
3. George Shrewsbury

71st Carnival of Genealogy: Local History

I've certainly been neglecting this blog and I hope to do better in the future!

Now for my entry for the 71st edition of the Carnival of Genealogy:

The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: Local History! As genealogists, we are used to tracing our ancestors and the history of the places they lived. But not all of us live where our ancestors did - do we take the time to see the history all around us? Use some of your investigative skills to research the house, street, or town/city where YOU live. Write about an interesting person, place, or event of local history. The deadline for submissions is May 1st. This edition of the COG will be hosted by Donna at What's Past is Prologue.

Back in March, I was out at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh to fulfill three Find a Grave photo requests. The family name was Bagley, and when I found the graves, I realized that this family was important to the history of this state. In the family plot was the grave of Jonathan Worth, a governor of North Carolina during Reconstruction, and the Bagleys were the family of his daughter, Adelaide Worth Bagley. You can see the grouping to the right showing Gov. Worth's grave behind those of his grandson on the left and his daughter and son-in-law's on the right. This piece of obscure local history concerns the grandson whose name was Worth Bagley.



This photo shows the back of Worth Bagley's gravestone which tells of his service in the Spanish-American War. He was the first officer killed, and the only line officer of the Navy to die in that war. He was 24 years old. I snapped some photos and didn't think much about the family for a while.

However, fate seemed to want me to know more about Worth Bagley. During the first week of April, my husband and I were walking on the grounds of the NC State Capitol looking at the memorials and other historical markers there when I came across the statue in the photograph to the right. You guessed it, that's Worth Bagley, probably as he looked when his family last saw him. The inscription on the base reads:

Worth Bagley
ENSIGN USN
FIRST FALLEN
1898

I imagine that the heartbreak they must have felt in losing such a promising young man and their pride that he gave his life for his country led them to do whatever it took to make sure that he would always be remembered!

Click on their names to see the memorials for Ensign Bagley and Governor Worth on Find a Grave.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

This is my husband John with his mother, photographed in Iola Kansas in June of 1976 wen John became an Eagle Scout! John was 15 years old!

Tombstone Tuesday: Frederick Wachter

I haven't been keeping up with Tombstone Tuesday or Wordless Wednesday very well. Between dealing with a new job and with John doing upgrades to his server (where I store many of my pictures) I ended up taking a week off.

What you're seeing here are a couple shots of the grave marker for John's 2nd great-grandfather, Frederick Wachter. You may be able to tell because of the rust that this is made from iron that was painted white. It's in bad shape here, badly corroded and the cross lying on the ground used to be a part of the marker.

The inscription reads:

Frederick Wachter
Born Aug 4, 1828
Died May 13, 1917
Age 89 years, 10 months

(The age is wrong, obviously someone calculated it wrong)

He and his wife, Mary Ellen Trentmann (also known as Angelina) were both born in Germany. They lived for several years in Delphos, Ohio, where their three children were born, and later moved to Nodaway County, Missouri. Angelina died there in 1891, and Frederick spent the last years of his life living with his daughter, Margaret and her family in Woodson County, Kansas. He is buried outside Piqua, KS, at the Old Catholic Cemetery there.

You can see more info about him HERE or visit his Find a Grave memorial.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Randy has been coming up with Saturday Night Genealogy Fun projects, and THIS is his latest:

Provide a list of your paternal grandmother's patrilineal line. Answer these questions:

• What was your father's mother's maiden name?
• What was your father's mother's father's name?
• What is your father's mother's father's patrilineal line? That is, his father's father's father's ... back to the most distant male ancestor in that line?
• Can you identify male sibling(s) of your father's mother, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.
  
  

1. Grandma's maiden name was Rowene Mae Fife, born in Canonsburg, Washington Co. PA
   
   
2. Her father was Charles Edgar Fife who was born in Upper St. Clair Twp, Allegheny County, PA
   
   
3. These are his patrilineal ancestors (from earliest known to Charles E. Fife):
   William Fife 1720 - 1799 (born in Scotland, died in Pennsylvania)
   William Fife 1757 - 1838
   William Fife 1789 - 1868
   John Fife 1816 - 1892
   John Calvin Fife 1846 - 1879
   Charles Edgar Fife 1874 - 1941
   
   
4. My grandma had two bothers. Selwyn Fife who had no children, and Raymond Fife whose male descendants are my dad's first cousin Chuck and Chuck's son Paul who are both living in or around Canonsburg, PA.

That was fun! I'll have to participate again next week and maybe I'll even remember to do it on Saturday night!

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

A picture of my dad, sometime during his grade-school years!.Wasn't he a cutie? He just celebrated his 75th birthday last Sunday!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!