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| Paint Bank Community Cemetery |
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| Taken about 1961 |
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| July 2, 2012 |
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.
Same people, Thanksgiving 2006Originally posted HERE on Sunday, August 21, 2005
I promised to post those pictures if I found them. Well, I did, and I just finished scanning them.
These were all taken on the afternoon of July 25, 1998.
Hope they meet your expectations :)
Originally posted HERE on Wednesday June 1, 2005
My husband, John, teaches IT classes at a community college here in Durham, NC. During the summer break, he contracts to teach the same classes at businesses all over. Last week he went to Gaithersburg, MD, so I went along because it’s very close to Washington DC. I spent three days there looking at Civil War pension files at the National Archives. Besides being the place where everyone can view originals of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, our government also stores other important original documents in this building! If you have an ancestor who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, those pension files can be a goldmine! There is a lot of great "how-to" information at the NARA website. I would recommend going thru them thoroughly before you visit, although there are lots of friendly employees and volunteers at the Archives to help newcomers!
I have visited the Archives a few times in the past. The first time, I was able to look at the files for my g-g-g-grandfather, Michael McDaid, and three of his sons, George, Samuel, and William McDaid. I was overjoyed to find a letter in Michael McDaid’s file, apparently written in his own handwriting! Something like that can really make a person come to life. Michael was an "interesting" person. I’ll surely write more about him in the future. His son, my g-g-grandfather, Samuel McDaid, didn’t serve long enough to collect a pension, but just the fact that his wife applied after his death provided information that I may not have found anywhere else.
On this trip, I looked at the files for ten other relatives who served in the Civil War. It’s a pretty simple process to find a Civil War ancestor with the resources they provide there. The pension index is on microfilm, arranged in alphabetical order. Also on microfilm are lists of members of specific regiments who applied for pensions. I have lots of relatives who served together, so I browsed thru a couple of those, too. You can view the info I have collected about these relatives:
If you happen to be related to any of these people, or anyone else whose pension files I mention within my genealogy files, feel free to drop me a line. While I don’t usually make copies of every page in a file, I would be happy to copy and send you what I have. Or if you know the info for your ancestors Civil War service, you can order copies online directly from NARA. The index which the Archives keeps on microfilm is also available from Ancestry, although I do not subscribe to that database. Many public libraries and Family History Centers have access, so you should check to see what is available locally to you.
Originally posted HERE on Tuesday, May 17, 2005
I haven’t been doing a good job at keeping up this journal, have I?
One of the things I love about having a subscription to Ancestry.com is that I can work on census research any time of the day or night. I only subscribe to the census option, to me it seems like the best value.
Every little piece of new info is a small victory for me. In August 1999, I visited West Finley Cemetery in Washington County, PA, where many family members related to my great-grandmother May (McDaid) Atkinson were buried. The gravestone shown in this entry was taken then. Mrs. Fields was May Atkinson’s first cousin. And ever since then, I have tried to find the first name of the man who married Nina Fields Grim.
Just a few days ago, I finally had some luck. In the 1930 census for Cameron, Marshall County, WV, I found Nina Grim, living alone, her marital status marked "D" which would mean divorced. That’s the first time I had been able to track her down with her married name. But it still didn’t tell me who her husband had been.
So I looked at the 1920 Census for Marshall County, and found Nina Grim living with her husband, daughter, and her husband’s brother. Unfortunately, the census taker had horrible handwriting, and I couldn’t make out the husband’s name. The Ancestry index called him "Steve", but it looked more like the name started out "stu" to me, maybe Stuart? I then looked in the 1910. The Grim family was listed that year by their initials, S. G. and N. L. Grim. So frustrating! My last plan was to go back to the 1930 census to see if Nina Grim’s husband might have still been living nearby after they separated. Finally, I was able to find a man named Sturgis Grim, living alone with a marital status "D." At last, I had his name!
Sturgis Grim seemed like a unique name to me, so I then used Google to search for "Sturgis G. Grim" and found a link to a relative of his who had posted his obituary online, here. I also found an outline of his military service during the Spanish American War, here.
Will Sturgis Grim end up being important to my research? It’s too early to tell. I know that he and Nina had a daughter named Adaline, so there’s always the possibility that there are living descendants out the somewhere. And one of them might have some missing piece of info that will take my own line back another generation, or they might know the maiden name of one of my female ancestors, and they just might find me now that I have more information! You never know.
Take a look at what I’ve put together about Sturgis Grim!
Almost every year, John and I visit Salt Lake City. He goes to a computer convention there every March, and I go along so I can go to the Library. This year, for the first time, I took some pictures inside and outside of the library. Hope you enjoy them!
