Heartland Genealogy

Here's a smoother version that keeps your conversational style while improving the flow and readability. Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again— time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the  Mission Impossible  music, please!): 1)  Did your family go on vacation? Describe one or more vacations you took with your birth family or later with your spouse and children. While my husband and I haven't taken an  annual  vacation every year, we've been fortunate to travel to many parts of the United States. Some trips were purely for sightseeing, while others combined family history research with travel. Our travels have taken us to: Rocky Mountain National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hoover Dam, Zion National Park, and Colorado Springs Following the Oregon Trail to Portland...

Telling a Railroad Story Through Song One of the most rewarding parts of genealogy is finding new ways to share our ancestors' stories. Census records, city directories, and newspaper articles tell us the facts of their lives, but music has a unique ability to capture the emotions behind those facts. Recently, I wrote a biography and a "Day in the Life" narrative about my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford , who spent decades working for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in Dodge City, Kansas. As I researched his career, I found myself imagining the dedication, hard work, and perseverance required of a railroad switchman during the early twentieth century. That inspired me to try something different. Using ChatGPT, I created original lyrics celebrating Judson's life and long railroad career. I then used Suno to transform those lyrics into a folk-inspired song titled "The Strength of Judson Crawford." To accompany the mus...

Anyone who has been doing genealogical research will eventually run into 'same name' issues, where two people of the same name are found in the same vicinity or same records. With my Crawford research, my same name struggle has been with my ancestor, James Crawford (1772-1854). James is a common given name in Crawford research and my James seems to be surrounded by other James Crawfords during his adult life. Even though most of the time, I've been able to separate out the various families, I haven't been able to find siblings or parents for my James Crawford. However, I have encountered a lot of what I'm going to call 'latchkey' trees. With pre-1800 Crawford research in Virginia and surrounding areas, it is fairly easy to find published family histories for various Crawford lines. This would include David Crawford, Col. William Crawford and brothers, Alexander and Patrick Crawford. Since given names like James, John and Mary are found in many Crawford f...

Garrard County, Kentucky Deeds 1787-1902; indexes, 1899-1960 Vol. C 1793-1796 Family Search DGS 183284 Film 008141322 Book C page 554 - image 291 This Indenture made this 6th day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety five Between Charles Bland of the County of Madison and State of Kentucky of the one part and Fethergill Adams of the state and County aforesaid of the other part witnesseth that for an inconsideration of the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds current money of the aforesaid state to him in hand paid by the said Fethergill Adams, the receipt whereof the said Charles Bland do hereby acknowledges and himself therewith fully satisfied and contented hath granted bargained sold aliened and confirmed and by these presents doth grant bargain sell alien and confirm unto the said Feathergill Adams one certain tract or parcell of land containing one hundreds and twenty six acres situate lying and being in the County of Madison and on th...

Do you ever attempt to connect a genealogy line to a major historical event? I'm sure most genealogists with families in the United States have tried to connect ancestors to military records related to any of our major wars.  With my early Kentucky research, one of my goals is to figure out when they arrived in Kentucky. Thus, I checked the list of " Early Settlers of Boonesborough " for my Crawford families and did not find them listed.  As I've dug into these Crawford families, I've started looking at other family ties. One of those ties is to the John Anderson family. John's daughter, Rebecca, was married to James Crawford. Since I couldn't find documentation of James' arrival, I started looking for information for the arrival of Rebecca's siblings.  Thanks to a 1798 Madison County Kentucky deed , Rebecca's father was identified as John Anderson and her siblings as the following: Samuel Campbell and Mary his wife Bez'l...

One of the challenges with my CRAWFORD research is separating my CRAWFORD family from the family of James and Martha Crawford. My ancestor, Nelson G. Crawford is the son of James and Sally (Smith Duggins) Crawford. Both James Crawford families lived in Preble County, Ohio before James and Martha and their children along with my ancestor, Nelson G. Crawford, moved to Warren County, Indiana. So, when I saw that Nelson Crawford was a first land owner in section 8 with James Crawford listed as a first landowner in both section 5 and section 8, I had to wonder if this could be MY James Crawford.

Today, I learned of the passing of Cletus Suther. For those in the Seneca area, the Suther name is associated with lumber and building. However, in the Nemaha County genealogy world, Cletus' name is associated with cemeteries. Before Find a Grave and before the Internet, there was Cletus' cemetery work. Living in Ohio, Cletus wanted to give back to his Nemaha County roots. Thus, he researched not just one but EVERY cemetery in Nemaha County. Cletus doggedly located the original record holder and transcribed those records into his cemetery notebooks. He then added obituary references for any and all that he could find. Those cemetery notebooks were then FREELY given to the Nemaha County Historical Society and the public libraries in the county. This body of work was and still is an ENOURMOUS contribution to Nemaha County Genealogy. By using the original records, Cletus' notebooks contain information for burials with no tombstone. Thank you Cletus for your d...