Lost Bible of Charles M. McCurley

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 42  (Oct 18-24)
Prompt: Lost
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 The time to do genealogy is now. As time goes by clues, stories, and even artifacts are lost.  Thirty some odd years ago, I was researching Charles M McCurley trying to find definitive proof that he was the son of Ezekiel McCarley. I still haven’t found that definitive proof although I have enough circumstantial evidence to feel comfortable in declaring Ezekiel his father.

 However, those thirty years ago, I was trying to track down a family Bible that showed that direct link.  I researched each of Charles M’s twelve children trying to find a descendent who might have a family Bible with the information I needed. Instead I found a family story of loss.

 Sometime after Charles M. and his wife Ann Matilda Hines McCurley died, the children living near them in Smith County, Texas decided to bulldoze their house. It was not in very good shape and not worth saving at that point in time.  According to the story, everything that no one wanted was left in the house to be destroyed with the house including pictures on the walls.  Supposedly there was one of the old antique dome type pictures of family members and possibly the family Bible.

 I don’t know if the story is true or if the Bible that I would have treasured was in the house or even who were in the picture.  I do know that it still makes me sad to think a Bible with the definitive proof I needed was destroyed.

If anyone has any additional information about this, please let me know. 

Belonging to Sarah Violet

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 41  (Oct 11-17)

Prompt: Passed Down

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 I’ve written about Sarah Violet Herndon before because she was difficult to find. She died young at age 34 and my Grandmother loved and missed her mother, Sarah Violet, even after my grandmother became a great-grandmother. It was through her treasures and researching her life that I came to love her. 

 Sarah died when my Grandmother was only 15 years old, but she still left an imprint on the family. She also left several items that my Grandmother passed down. I don’t know what else other members of the family have but I have a quilt and a bowl.

 Grandmother, Gladys, passed the bowl down to my mother, Gwonda, because she looked like her Grandmother, Sarah Violet.  It eventually came to live with me.  Gladys handwrote a note when she passed down the bowl. It states, "Gwonda, This bowl was my Mother's - your Grandmother whom you look a lot like.  Mother"

It is uranium glass and glows under a black light.  Uranium glass can have up to 25% uranium, although most were much less than that. According to Wikipedia uranium glass “fell out of widespread use when the availability of uranium … was sharply curtailed during the Cold War in the 1940s to 1990s. Most are now considered antiques or retro-era collectibles”.

 In doing research on it, several websites indicated that most uranium glass only has trace amounts of uranium and are not more hazardous to use than lead glass. Of course, one website states that leaded glass is not dangerous unless you eat or drink from it.  Others indicated that cutting the glass and sending fine particles in the air would be a very bad idea for both uranium glass and leaded glass. 

 I plan on keeping this beautiful passed down bowl as a display piece and not eat or drink anything from it.

Flower Girl

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 40 (Oct 4-10)

Prompt: Preservation

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 In 1959, I was 5 years old and a flower girl.  My Dad’s brother, Earl, married my wonderful aunt, Elaine, on December 27^th, 1959. I don’t remember a lot about it other than the dress was kind of itchy and I was not comfortable walking down the aisle by myself. Although I did like throwing out the flower pedals.

 About 3 weeks after their wedding, I was a flower girl for my Aunt Vadie on my Mom’s side of the family.  It was much easier walking down the aisle in that wedding because my cousin, DeWayne, held my hand and walked with me. DeWayne was only 6 years old, but he seemed to know what to do.

 Aunt Elaine’s Mother made her wedding dress, and she made me a dress that matched the bride’s dress.  It was white with lots of lace. About 15 years ago, my mother gave me the dress. She had taken care of it all those years and for several years it hung in my closet. 

 In 2013, I earned a graduate certificate in Archival Administration at the University of Texas. I put what I learned to use by “archiving” several family heirlooms as well as using it at my job. The dress is now protected with archival tissue in an archival box. The box that I bought was really bigger than it needed to be, but it worked out okay. I added the Kimono that my father-in-law brought back from Japan for one of his little sisters later.

 My next preservation project is to make archival boxes or envelopes to preserve the handkerchiefs that belonged to both my Grandmothers and my Mother.

Courthouse Road Trip

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 39  (Sept 27-Oct 3)
Prompt: Road Trip
#52ancestors

Road trips are the best. I love doing genealogy in place and finding those obscure records that are still not online.  I started road trips before any records were online. Sometimes to a local library, archive, or cemetery.  The most interesting to me is going to courthouses because you never know what you are going to find.

 Before I tell you about one of my courthouse trips, I must tell you about my husband’s Aunts trip.  They were visiting in a small town named for their grandfather and decided to do a little casual research in the courthouse. When they told the courthouse ladies about their connection to the town and some of their related surnames, one of the ladies told them of an elderly lady in town with the same surname and where she lived. (It was a small town and my husband’s 4 aunts are very personable.) They decided to drop by the lady’s home to meet her. She invited them in. After establishing their direct connections and finding common relatives they all knew, she pulled out albums of pictures which they studied for hours.  Before the visit was over, she had invited them to spend the night which they did. The next morning the aunts fixed breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, and headed out for their next adventure leaving behind a newfound relative.

While my courthouse adventures have never turned into a place to stay for the night, I have had some wonderful adventures.  I won’t mention the name, but I drove 3 hours to a courthouse in Texas to find any mention of a gun battle involving some of my great grandfather’s brothers.

It turned into a dark and stormy day by the time I reached the courthouse. The records that I wanted to search were so far into the past that they had been “archived” in the courthouse attic.  There were no stairs to the attic but there was an elevator. The elevator only ran with the key that a staff member used to escort me to the attic. As we traveled upward, she told me since storms were moving in that if the storm reached us, I should call them to come get me before the electricity went out. She left me in the attic with the phone number in my hand. 

The staff had no idea where a “warrant” might be located, but they did tell me where the land records and court records were located in filing cabinets.  The attic was kind of a maze of filing cabinets.  I found the court records first and the time period which I had determined the gun battle had most likely happened. I found nothing. Then I searched the land records just to see if I could pinpoint the land where this battle over a fence happened. I didn’t find the record of land being bought or sold even though it was listed in the index. I was later told that  it had probably been stolen. 

As the afternoon advanced, I could hear the thunder getting louder. There were no windows, so it was hard to judge just how close the storm was coming.  The louder the thunder got, the louder the birds, until I felt compelled to investigate. I went around several stacks of filing cabinets to see a brick wall about thigh high. I could see over the wall to bare rafters and no flooring. As I started to step over the wall, I spotted the sky in the distance. The entire end of the attic was open to the dark and angry looking sky. The birds were roosting in the attic space near the opening, hiding from the coming storm.

After contemplating for a few minutes, I decided that it was time for me to get out of the attic before I was stranded.  I quickly moved back into the attic archives area and called the staff to come and get me.

I didn’t find what I wanted, and I should probably go back again.  Next time, it will be a bright and sunny day.

Timeline for Edith Ethelda Neese (Sample, Wort, Kerns)

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 34  (Aug 23-29)
Prompt: Timeline
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Concept maps can be a visual representation of your goals or research. Years ago I was introduced to mind mapping in a history class.  Now it is often called concept mapping.  A few years ago, I started doing a workshop for college students showing them how to do research planning with concept maps. Then it morphed into genealogy research planning. 

 Concept maps have several benefits. Mostly I use them for planning my research and analyzing data, but when I started doing genealogy presentations on concept maps, timelines seemed to work well.   

 I  prefer creating them with paper and map pencils or markers. Somehow the act of using pencils or markers helps me escape from the box and frees my creativity. I often think of new ways to solve genealogy brick walls when I create research plans with concept maps. I have a spiral sketch pad where I draw my concept maps.  You don't have to be a good artist as some of my drawings are very crude.  Doing it on the computer makes it neater, but doesn't have the same freeing affect for me.

 Below is a timeline concept map created in PowerPoint about my 2nd Great Grandmother, Edith Ethelda Neese. She outlived three husbands and had eight children, all with her first husband, William Britton Sample.

Finding the Evans Brothers

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 32  (Aug 9 - 15 )
Prompt: At the Library
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Librarians and in particular, genealogy librarians and staff can be your most valuable resource.  I'm a librarian and I still rely on librarians and reference staff to get me over brick walls. I have a brick wall that I have worked on for over 40 years.  In 2011, I found a clue that may someday help me break that wall down.                                                                                                                                       

I was hanging around the reference desk at the Dallas library, explaining my brick wall to  Sammie Lee. She asked me several questions about what resources that I had used up to that point. Then she casually said, you know you can search the census on Ancestry.com by first names only. That idea had not occurred to me before. I spent hours searching by using first names, birthdates, and birth location. 

This brick wall concerns 3 brothers, John William Evans, James Thomas Evans, and J.M. Evans.  Searching for the first name John or James would give me too many results to be useful.  J.M. Evans would have to be the one to search.  All of the records that can be connected to John or James only used the initials for J.M., however there are some records for a Jeptha Evans in the same area.  A search for Jeptha produced no likely candidates in the 1870 or 1860 census in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi or in the state of Mississippi.  The 1860 Monroe County, MS census has an Evans family with initials that many of the Evans researchers believe is this family. I have always been uncomfortable with accepting it because the boy's ages seem too different than what is known from other records. Also, the later verified records all indicate they were born in Mississippi. There is some DNA connections to this family but the connection is still unclear to me. This J. L. Evans  may be James Larkin Evans who died in the civil war which would fit the family story of the 3 boys being  orphaned as teenagers.  For many years, I recorded it and continued to search for verification.

 

1860 Monroe County, MS

 

It has generally been accepted that J. M. was Jeptha, however my research indicates that the J.M Evans connected to the other 2 brothers may not be named Jeptha.  His name could be Jeremiah, often listed as Jerry. Tracking J.M. through his marriages and census records, below are names in the census records.

        1880 JereMia (indexed as Jerekia) Tallahatchie Co, MS where 2 brothers are living. age                 28 with wife and children

1900 Jerry M. Evans, Brazoria, TX with 2nd wife and children

 1910 Jess M. or Jep M. Evans;  Calhoun Co., MS with 2nd wife and granddaughter, age 58

Died 1914-1915 buried in Tallahatchie Co., MS

Searching the 1870 census gave no conclusive results, but one possibility. The1860 census was a different story.  Adams County, MS produced a record with 3 boys with the right ages but the wrong last name.   They were living with Eliza Flynn and listed with the Flynn last name.

It is obviously a blended family. There is a John, age 12 and John, age 4.  There is a Mary, age 6 and Mary, age 2.  If this is the correct boys, then they were orphaned prior to their teenage years. Eliza Flynn may be their Father's sister with her married name or their Mother's sister.

 

1860 Adams County, MS 

There are other connections to the Flynn family although none of the names match these names.  For more information about the Flynn connections, check my blog post at: https://lelasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/12/3-evans-brothers.html

I spent a week in Adams County researching in the courthouse, the Episcopal and Catholic Churches. Unfortunately, I didn't find land records or probate records that would collaborate my hypothesis that the Flynn boys are actually the Evans boys. In early 2012, my blog details research into an Evans family in Adams County, but I found no links from them to these 3 brothers.  There is more research to do in Adams County.

What do you think?  Am I on the right track?

 

 

 

Finding Bobby Glenn McCarley

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 31  (Aug 2 - 8)
Prompt: Help
#52ancestors

I can't tell you how many times that I've yelled "help" when doing research. When I do, someone almost always steps up and gives me ideas of what to do next or gives me a clue pertaining to a mystery. Sometimes, they just encourage me to keep going.  Liking and commenting on my genealogy posts gives me encouragement to continue writing and researching.

My post on September 16, 2020 was about a "road trip" when my Uncles helped me find the cemetery where an infant was buried in 1938. Before my Grandmother passed, she expressed her regrets in not knowing where her son was buried in Denton Cemetery.  That has caused me over the years to keep a watch out for more information about Bobby Glenn. 

This week, newspapers.com helped me find an obituary for Bobby Glenn in the Marlow Review.  I had not actively searched for one because according to what I was told, he was born at home and his Dad and Grandmother took him to the cemetery to be buried.  I was shocked to discover an obituary and a funeral service while searching for mentions of my family in social clubs in the area.

The newspaper article differs greatly from the account I heard from my mother, who was 8 years old at the time. To my great surprise, it listed a funeral home and a pastor who conducted the service.  Doing a DuckDuckGo search (Google wasn't helpful), I found that Steele Funeral Home filed as a Domestic For Profit Business Corporation  on November 28, 1936. It expired on November 28, 1956.  There was no current online information about the Steele Funeral Home.

There was a funeral home listed in the local town so I sent them an email knowing that if I was very lucky that Steele Funeral home might have given their records to another local funeral home when they went out of business or they might know where the records were located. Sometimes a descendent of the original owner still has the records in their attic, basement, or barn.

I received an email the very next day telling me that they did have a file on Bobby Glen and they included a contact phone number for the person who had the records for Denton Cemetery.  Today, I received a copy of the funeral record for Bobby Glenn. It didn't have much information that I didn't already have, but did confirm the details in the obituary and included the cost of the funeral.  Their record stated that he was buried in Denton Cemetery but not which plot. 

I was disappointed to learn from the keeper of the Denton Cemetery records that Bobby Glenn is not listed on the plot map of the cemetery.  However, he was very helpful in looking for him.

Some of the information conflicts with what I was told by my Mother and Grandmother (Gladys McCarley), but it is possible that Bobby Glen was born at home and when he passed, he and his mother were taken to the hospital in Marlow, where he was declared dead. I still have hopes of someday knowing  Bobby Glenn's exact resting place.

With the help of my Mother, Grandmother, Uncles, Tara at Callaway Smith Cobb Funeral Home, and Charles, keeper of the Denton Cemetery plot map, I have been able to learn about an infant born too early.  

Bobby Glenn McCarley

Born: May 21, 1938 probably at home, near Central High, Stephens County, Oklahoma

Died: May 21, 1938 at hospital in Marlow, Oklahoma

Buried: May 21st 1938 at Denton Cemetery, Stephens County, Oklahoma

  FindaGrave