Rebekah's Land

In 1786, Rebekah Crawford purchased 100 acres on the headwaters of Sugar and Boons Mill Creek in Lincoln County, Kentucky.

Buddy File

Do you ever find yourself looking for a picture of an individual in a group and not finding it? Or, do you struggle to find a digital image of a document that someone witnessed?

I know I struggle with this issue. That's why Tony Proctor's presentation regarding indexing off file names during last Monday's session of Monday's with Myrt proved intriguing. (Organizing More Resources)

Tony developed a simple program to attach a 'buddy file' to the image. As he was presenting, I kept thinking, about the time involved to add this information to each and every photograph.

Then, Hilary commented that she has been using Tony's program to attach transcriptions to a digital image. With the transcription attached to the image, I would be able to search my files for a member of an ancestor's FAN club and find records they were mentioned in. That makes it worth the time to learn how to do this.

#NotatRootsTech

Mark your calendar for February 27th thru March 2nd and join me #NotAtRootsTech!

This will be my third year of #NotAtRootsTech and I can't wait. Having been away from genealogy for several years, I was unaware of RootsTech when I returned to my genealogy. During my first year of retirement, I somehow learned about the RootsTech conference and its Live Stream schedule.

My Library Adventure

Do you include libraries and archives in your genealogy toolbox?

For me, the use of a library or archive has always been part of my genealogy journey. Perhaps that is because I earned my Masters' in Library Science about the same time I started my genealogical journey.

Even though my emphasis was in school librarianship, my graduate classes exposed me to some of the very same tools like NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections) that I would use for genealogical research.

Revelation

Have you ever tripped over a county line? I mean, have you ever not considered a family in the neighboring county just because they are in the neighboring county?

Well, I have -- for over thirty years.

As I've written about before, I have two James Crawford families living in Preble County, Ohio. One is my ancestor and one is his neighbor.

• James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio

My ancestor was married in Garrard County, Kentucky in 1799, while the other James was married in Lincoln County, Kentucky in 1793. For all these years, I've thought that the records for Lincoln County, Kentucky were in relation to the 'other' James while the records in Garrard and Madison counties were for my James.

Moving Day

When working on your genealogy, have you ever used a piece of software or web site that didn't quite do what you expected. Then, when you go searching for an alternative find that the alternative is relatively expensive and you want to preserve your precious genealogy funds for something else.

Well, that's the position I was in a couple of weeks ago with my WordPress blog. The one thing I wanted to include in a blog post either required HTML coding or a plug-in. The plug-in was easy to find - but, my WordPress blog doesn't allow plug-ins. In order for me to utilize plug-ins, I would have to upgrade my PERSONAL WordPress plan to a BUSINESS plan -- at a significant increase in cost.

Marriage Bond Mystery

Do you have documents in your genealogy files with incomplete citations. Congratulations if your answer was no!

Unfortunately, I have documents with partial citations. One set of those documents is four marriage bonds involving Crawford family members from Kentucky in the 1790s.

• Mary Crawford consent to marry James Sellers given by Rebekah Crawford on 19 Dec 1791 in Lincoln County, Kentucky witnessed by James Crawford and Wm Sellers
• Bond of James Crawford and Nathan Douglas for the marriage of James Crawford to Martha Night on 12 Mar 1793 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Consent for the marriage was given by John Goodpastor and witnessed by James Sellers and Samuel Sellers
• Consent of Rebekah Crawford for Sarah Crawford to marry William Sellers on 2 Feb 1796 in Lincoln County, KY witnessed by James Crawford and James Sellers
• Bond by James Crawford and James Sellers for the marriage of James Crawford and Sally Duggins on 12 Sept 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky

Perspective

Does your genealogy have a brick wall FAN club that involves several branches of the surname along with lots of same name issues? Well, the parents of my ancestor, James Crawford (1772-1854) has such a FAN club.

While working with some other researchers from the FAN club, but unfortunately not my line, I created a 'traditional' time line outlining the information I had on the individuals in the FAN club.

Tenants in Common

I'm trying to use deeds to help separate information for two James Crawfords who resided in Preble County Ohio at the same time. They both owned parts of section 14, Township 7 North, Range 2 East.

As discussed in my post, James Crawford of Preble County, I use the selling of the land to figure out which James Crawford owned the land. I also use their wife's name to help me keep them straight. James and Sally are my ancestors while James and Martha may or may not be related.

Little Clues

Do you ever go back to a source you've likely used before and discover a very tiny tidbit of information that changes one of your assumptions about an ancestor. Well, I did last night. I was browsing the Internet for Madison County, Kentucky resources while watching the webinar, Trails of Daniel Boone and Other Western Travelers by J. Mark Lowe.

I came across the book, Glimpses of Historic Madison County, Kentucky on Internet Archive. When I searched the contents of the book for Crawford, I found a paragraph about Rev. James Crawford.

Photo Lineage

This week's #SaturdayNightGenealogyFun Challenge involves family photos.

How many generations do you have photographs or portraits of your ancestors and descendants? It can be any line...it just can't be broken!

When thinking about this, I realized that I have several generations of photos on my Crawford line.

Nelson G. Crawford (1808-1864)

Facebook Group Changes

Do you belong to a Facebook group? Perhaps you’ve seen a post (or two or more) about getting ‘removed’ from the group if you don’t participate? I started seeing these posts yesterday and was concerned, not only about all the genealogy groups I belong to, but also about the family groups I administer.

Since I was unsure what this meant as a group administrator, I did some research. The following articles helped me understand what is happening.

• Is Facebook Removing Inactive Members from Groups
• Facebook Updates Group Invites, Removing Ability to Automatically Add Members

 I then turned to Facebook to see if I could figure out how this is affecting the family groups I administer. The first thing I saw when I went to one of those groups was an announcement from Facebook, “Changes to Your Members List.”

Pauline E. Briles

Emporia Gazette
Wednesday, July 18, 1984
page 2 column 4-5

Film E1506

KS State Historical Society

150 Years Ago

This weeks 'Saturday Night Genealogy Fun' challenge is to determine which ancestors were living 150 years ago (Jan 1869).

In order to figure this out, I had to look at the data I had for each likely ancestor. Working from the pedigree view in Roots Magic, I clicked on each potential ancestor to open their data.

Family Photographer

Do you have a family member who seems to be the one person who is always behind the camera?

Growing up, that person was my grandmother. She had an 8mm camera and filmed almost every family event. Later, we would have a family ‘movie’ night to watch the new movies and re-watch the older ones.

Well, my grandmother died over twenty years ago and the 8mm camera is ‘ancient’ technology. However, my brother has taken over the position as ‘family photographer’.

Not only does he set up the camera to capture our family group pictures but he captures ordinary moments.  One of my favorite pictures is one he took during our family weekend at the lake of his wife and their grandchildren.

What’s It Worth

Have you ever watched a video of your local meteorologist giving a weather update? Or, have you watched a video of a news clip? What about a comedy monologue - have you ever watched any of those on YouTube? Or maybe, you’ve read a news article in your Facebook or Twitter feed? I know I have and I appreciate that I can.

Unfortunately, we have become accustomed to viewing and reading content for free when none of it is free to produce.

The same is true with local history and genealogy. We love locating free resources. But these free resources also have ‘production’ costs.  My local historical society recently discussed whether to continue paying to have images and other information from their collection hosted online by Past Perfect.

Ultimate Challenge

Have you ever found two men of the same name in the county records and tried to figure out which record is for which man. Most genealogists encounter this difficulty sometime in their research. I have several of those conflicts in my tree. However, my Hiram Currey same name challenge is an 'ultimate challenge'.

My great-grandfather, Hiram M. Currey (of Dodge City, Kansas) was the son of Hiram M Currey and Angelina Jane Burke of Leavenworth, Kansas. I believe this Hiram M. Currey was the son of Hiram M. Currey of Peoria, Illinois and the grandson of Hiram M. Currey of Champaign County, Ohio. Thus, I have a potential of four generations of Hiram M Currey's with very little direct evidence tying them together.

My research on this line began with Hiram M. Currey of Leavenworth. Hiram M. Currey married Angelina Burke in 1856 in Weston, Missouri. By 1860, they were living on the Kansas side of the border. Unfortunately, I haven't found any records in Platte County, Missouri or Leavenworth County, Kansas to directly tie Hiram Currey to his parents or siblings. The only information I have that might tie Hiram M. Currey of Leavenworth to parents is from the family Bible. According to the Bible, Hiram Currey was born in 1835 in Peoria, Illinois.

Thomas Curry Estate

Source of Image: Ancestry.com. Indiana, Wills and Probate Records, 1798-1999 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.[Image 528 of 819]
Original data: Indiana County, District and Probate Courts.

Probate Order Book
Carroll County, Indiana
Book 2 page 520

May Term 1848 — 3rd Day May 10

Austin C Sheets Administrator
of the estate of Thomas M. Curry deceased
vs
Sarah C Sheets
James B Curry
Mary I Curry
Elizabeth J Curry
Easter A Curry
Helen M Curry
Caroline T Curry

Application to sell land

Artie Ricketts

     Frances Artlissa 'Artie' Ricketts was born on 7 Apr 1868 in Clinton, Indiana, United States.^1–13

She lived in Sugar Creek Township, Clinton, Indiana, United States on 1 Jul 1870.¹⁴ Artlissa Rickets was listed on the 1870 census in the household of James Rickets. According to the census, she was two years old. She lived in Everett Township, Woodson, Kansas, United States on 1 Jul 1880.¹⁵ Frances A Ricketts was listed on the 1880 census as the daughter of James M Ricketts. According to the census, she was twelve years old. Frances lived in Everett Township, Woodson, Kansas, United States on 1 Mar 1885.¹⁶ Artlissa Ricketts was listed in the household of James M Ricketts on the 1885 Kansas census. According to the census, Artlissa was 16 years old.

    Edward Grant Briles and Frances Artlissa 'Artie' Ricketts were married on 19 Feb 1890 in Woodson, Kansas, United States.^2,17–23 She was also known as Frances Artlissa 'Artie' Briles.

Identifying Parents

Have you had a set of parents for an ancestor in your tree for years when you discover another researcher has a different set of parents? I recently made that discovery for my ancestor Sarah Rush Briles (KP93-T9C) on Family Search.

Seeing this other set of parents made me question whether I had made a mistake. I knew that my old research included a transcription  of a petition for dower that was printed in The Genealogical Journal of Randolph County, NC (Vol 3, #4, pages 5-6)

This transcript shows Sallie Rush as the plaintiff. Listed among the defendants is Alexander Briles and wife Sallie. The body of the petition identifies Sally Rush as the widow of Noah Rush deceased.