Honoring a Legend

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 dedicated work to compile cemetery information for Nemaha County and for your generosity in freely sharing your work.

Cletus Suther with NCHS President Anita Heiman

Cynthia Crawford Crafton

Cynthia Crawford was the child of  James Crawford and Rebecca Anderson Maxwell Crawford.

She was born about 1802.

Cynthia lived as a 50 year old female born in Kentucky who was listed as Cynthia Crafton in Clay Township, Decatur, Indiana, United States on 11 Sep 1850.³

Cynthia Crawford and John Crafton⁴ were married on 1 Apr 1823 in Jefferson, Indiana, United States.^2,5–11

John Crafton² was buried in 1836 at Nauvoo Cemetery in Milford, Decatur, Indiana, United States.¹²

He died on 12 Dec 1836.¹²

Random Newspaper Find

Do you ever go off on tangents with your genealogy research? If so, welcome to the club!

I often go off on tangents with my FAN club. For the past several months, I've been on one of those tangents -- researching the descendants of James Crawford and Rebecca Anderson Maxwell Crawford.

My most recent quest involves the descendants of Cynthia Crawford and John Crafton. This family is elusive! Born between 1824 and 1832, their children include John S., Barzilla, Patrick H, Rachel and Mary I. Even though I have approximate birth dates for all of the children, I only have a death date for John S. Crafton.

This past week, I've been investigating the family of Mary I Crafton who married Jacob Cole in Indiana in 1865. According to Find a Grave, Jacob Cole died in 1893 in Ouachita County Arkansas. In an attempt to learn more about Mary Crafton Cole, I started investigating the Arkansas branch of the family thru their son James Franklin Cole.

Since I didn't know a lot about this family, I used connections on Find a Grave to identify the family. From the Find a Grave memorial for James Franklin Cole, I learned his wife was Elizabeth Francis Holt. I also was able to identify 3 of the children: Harvey E Cole, James Dewitt Cole and Ora Mae Cole.

When working with a 'new' family, I also use the FamilySearch tree to see what other researchers have concluded. Based on the location of his birth and death and his wife's name, I matched James Franklin Cole in my RootsMagic database to James Franklin Cole (1866-1952) [L164-8WB]. Since FamilySearch had two additional children, Herbert Lee Cole and Roy J Cole, I added them to the family.

My next step was to locate information to support the family configuration obtained via Find a Grave and FamilySearch. Ancestry hints to census records provided support for the family configuration.

However, none of this provided a tie between James Franklin Cole of Arkansas and the Cole family in Clay County, Indiana. That's when I turned to newspapers to try and locate obituaries for the Cole family in Ouachita County, Arkansas.

So far, I haven't found any obituaries. However, I did find one of those 'gossipy' tidbits that provides a major clue. According to the gossip,

Mr. and Mrs. Roy Cole of Conroe, Texas visited Mr. and Ms. J. D. Cole and Mrs. J. F. Cole Friday.

Local News, The Camden News (Camden, Arkansas), 13 December 1956, page 12; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : viewed online November 2019).

That little tidbit not only provides a location for the family of Roy Cole in 1956 but also indicates that his mother, Mrs. J. F. Cole, is still living.

Crawford to Oklahoma

My recent 'adventure' in Dodge City newspapers on Newspapers.com allowed me to discover information about another Crawford family.

There are two distinct Crawford lines in Dodge City prior to 1890. My line descends from Washington Marion Crawford who followed his brother, James H. Crawford to Dodge City from Indiana around 1884. The other line, Harvey H. Crawford, descends from James Crawford (1770-1836) of Warren County, Indiana thru his son, William Alan Crawford.

Harvey H. Crawford settled in Wheatland Township northeast of Dodge City about the same time that James H. Crawford settled just south of Dodge City. According to newspaper articles, Harvey H. Crawford moved to Oklahoma for a time before settling in Dodge City before 1900.

In May 1889, H. H. Crawford journeyed to Oklahoma pursuing work as a carpenter.

Steve Leavergood and H. H. Crawford started for Oklahoma on last Sunday morning. Mr. Crawford expects to get some work at his trade, carpentering. Mr. Leavergood has taken a claim, but will follow butchering.

Western Kansas Ensign (Dodge City, Kansas), 10 May 1889, page 3; digital image, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : viewed online November 2019).

Boarding House

I recently have been spending a lot of time with Ancestry's newly released database: Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s - present. In the process, I discovered that a lot of the early newspapers from Dodge City, Kansas are now on Newspapers.com. Thus, I did a search for CRAWFORD between 1885 and 1890. Many of the results allowed me to get a digital copy of articles I had seen when I read the microfilm.

One of those articles described the building of a boarding house by my 2nd great grandfather, Washington Marion Crawford.

Marion Crawford has commenced the foundation for a boarding house, north of his present location, on 2d Avenue. The main building will be 16 x 26 feet, 18 feet high, with a wing 16 x 18 feet. The dining room and kitchen will be in the basement. A. O. Sherman hs the contract to do the work.

Dodge City Times (Dodge City, Kansas), 30 July 1885, page 4; Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : viewed online November 2019).

Member Search

Have you seen it? Ancestry recently released an improvement to their 'Member Search'.

I played around with it a little yesterday, and this feature has a lot of potential. However, I think a better understanding of how the search works is needed before I can use it effectively.

To access the 'Member Search' feature, pull down the SEARCH menu on Ancestry's screen.

Click on MEMBER SEARCH at the bottom of that menu. The Member Search screen will open with the default search for a member by their name or user ID.

In the past, one had to pretty much know the exact name or user id in order to locate that user. This is one of the areas that has been improved. Instead of needed to know the exact name, one can search for part of their name.