Honoring the Veterans in My Family

Anyone who has lived in Emporia, Kansas realizes that Veteran's Day is a MAJOR holiday. Today, we take time to honor those who have served and who are serving. Thus, I would like to take a walk thru my family tree to honor my veteran ancestors.

World War II

Eugene Crawford

Between 15 Feb 1945 and 1 Aug 1946, Eugene served at the Naval Training Center in Gulfport, Mississippi and at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois. He shipped out on the USS Oneida (APA-221) towards the end of the War in the Pacific as seaman 1st class in the U.S. Naval Reserves. He received the Victory Medal and the American Campaign Medal.

100 Years Ago

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 18 May 1919 - 100 years ago.

2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?

My Grandparents

• Leon Crawford was living with his parents at 504 Ave G in Dodge City
• Winnie Letha Currey was likely living with her sister, Myrtle. Winnie traveled from Kansas City to Dodge City in 1918 to help Myrtle with the birth of her first child, Dorothy. Winnie and Leon were married on Christmas Eve in 1919 at Myrtle's house.
• Edward O. Briles and his wife Pauline (Mentzer) Briles were likely living in Woodson County in 1919. Edward's World War I draft card indicated they were living in Everett Township, Woodson County in June of 1917. By 1920, they had moved to Allen County.

Two Degrees

 

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music):

1)  Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that second ancestor born?

My first thought was that I knew my great-grandmother, Josie Crawford.

Christmas 1953: Marcia, Winnie, Josie

Pauline E. Briles

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

Film E1506

KS State Historical Society

Charles Oliver Mentzer

     Charles Oliver Mentzer was born on 1 Jul 1869 in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States.^{1–12 1,10,13–14} He lived in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States on 23 Aug 1870.¹⁵ Chas O Mentzer was listed in the household of Geo Mentzer on the 1870 census. According to the census, Chas was 1 year old and born in Illinois. He lived in Woodson, Kansas, United States in 1871.²

Range 14 East 6th PM Index

Have you ever had trouble documenting a father/son relationship? Or, have you had trouble separating records for men of the same name? My go to source in these situations has been the land records.

In Kansas, we are lucky in that most counties maintain what is called the Range Index. Basically, this is an index of the land transactions for the range. What is nice about this index is that each quarter section has its own page. Thus, it is easy to see how land was transferred over time.

Last August, I was able to travel to Woodson County, Kansas to track down a court case and to obtain copies of the land records for my Mentzer, Wells, and Ricketts families. Below is a transcription of the information found in the index for Range 14.

Woodson County, Kansas
Range 14 Index

PFC Lovell Mentzer

While searching the Yates Center News for an article stating that Cleo B. Peake was awarded the purple heart, I discovered another cousin killed during World War II: PFC Lovell Mentzer.

Notice of the death of Private First Class Lovell J. Mentzer first appeared in the May 3, 1945 issue of the Yates Center News on Page 1.

PFC Lovell Mentzer

Killed in Germany
Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Mentzer received the information Tuesday from the War Department that their son, Private First Class Lovell J. Mentzer had died in Germany.
Nineteen-year-old Lovell had seen ten and one-half months service in the European theatre. Graduating from Yates Center high school with the class of '44 he was inducted in the army and trained for an infantryman. In the latter part of last November he was sent over seas and was with the Seventh Army
Private Mentzer has five brothers in the service, Technician Fourth Grade Keith in south Pacific, Corporal Talmadge (Tye) in England, T/5 Burdette with the AAF at Coffeyville, T/5 Edward at the home on furlough, Lt. Austin (j.G.), Corpus Christi, Tex

On June 14, 1945, the Yates Center News had a notice of the memorial service on page 1.

More Circles, Please

For some, DNA is all about their ethnicity. For me, it is all about finding actual cousins. I'm not just looking for that 7 cM of common DNA but for much longer pieces -- my cousins.

Recently, I discovered that a little work on my part could improve my results on AncestryDNA. I found if I quit ignoring those green leaves (called 'shaky leaves' by some) and actually worked to confirm the hints, the number of 'shared matches' [shared ancestor hints] would increase.

When I posted about this on the 11th, my DNA circles hadn't really changed. However, I now have 16 circles when I had only been seeing about six.