Mid-week Mayhem

This whole week feels like mayhem to me so I'm going to forgo the tale of one of my misbehaving ancestors and share a little of what is creating my mayhem.
Mainly it's my volunteer work with the local genealogical society (Fairfax Genealogical Society). We have just completed our annual Spring Conference. This was the first year we held it over two days and it went quite well. We're a bit behind on our speaker selections for next year and we need to nail all of the details down so we can advertise. This weekend several members are attending the MAGS Conference and we're hoping they can take some flyers about next year's programs but we have to get them done first!
Next week is the annual Genealogy Fair at the National Archives in D.C. We'll have a table there with assorted information about our programs next year. If you're in the D.C. area, this is a free event. This is the first year they're holding it over two days.
Hopefully everyone already knows about the NGS Conference in the States coming up in May in Raleigh, NC. My husband and I are both really looking forward to this. We always enjoy the national conferences but we lived in Raleigh prior to moving here and are looking forward to the chance to see some friends we haven't seen in four years!
Preparing materials for all these events always keeps me busy this time of year. Unfortunately I'm just a little farther behind than in the past.

D.W. Miller Tombstone

This is the headstone of my 3rd great-grandparents Dennis W. Miller and Mary E. (Brown) Miller. As you can probably guess, Mary outlived D.W. She should have a death certificate but I have been unable to locate it. According to her obituary she died in January 1927.
Last week I blogged about my 5th great-grandfather Miller's tombstone and this week it's my 3rd great-grandfather. I don't know where my 4th great-grandfather Miller is buried (Dennis Miller). Like his grandfather, D.W. is buried in Miller Cemetery. Since David's tombstone is new, it is possible neither he nor Dennis are buried in Miller Cemetery, or both may be buried there in unmarked graves. The cemetery is not very large and it is difficult to tell if there are any locations which could be the graves of David and Dennis Miller.
(by-the-way, it is only my direct line that has so many "D" Millers, the other children don't have "D" names)

Mapping Monday

With last week's window fun I haven't had a chance to map anything new. Sadly this week isn't looking much better. It was free and clear but now I have agreed to four meetings (in addition to the two I attended today!). So, to try and satisfy any mapping desires my readers might have, I'm providing this image of some of my other Gordon Co., GA ancestors.
In this image you can see several places I marked by overlaying an old Civil War map I found online (map overlay is most of what appears 'white'). This map was produced as a negative and rougher than the one I had used for the Calhoun area. The advantage of this map was that it showed a few of my ancestors lands and home. I believe the map only shows Union sympathizers but I'm not positive.
This map was much easier to work with by making the background transparent (in Photoshop). Since the quality of the map was not as exact it took more twisting to accurately place it. Being able to see all the features of the map AND all the satellite image features sped things up. I've found if you can get your map to have white features and a transparent background it is much easier to work with, especially if you're trying to locate small features on the ground (such as the two ferries above or the three homesteads).

Apologies

Well, I had my own bit of Mid-week mayhem yesterday when we suddenly found out they would be installing our new windows today. That leaves my office in even more shambles than usual (because my desk and filing cabinet are in front of the window and have to be moved) and me rather left out in the cold.

This does make me wonder, though. Did my ancestors have windows? I know those I research most (living in the mid-nineteenth century) lived in a single room log cabin for the most part. I can't deal with feeling the wind when I sit at my office desk with the window closed, I bet they felt the wind through the walls! So I won't get much done today but perhaps I'm a little closer to my ancestors, at least for a little while.

David Miller Tombstone

This is the only known headstone for my 5th great-grandfather David Miller. You can see it is a later marker placed since the location of David and his wife is unknown. David was born in South Carolina about 1770. He died in Gordon Co., GA between 29 Sep 1852 and 1 Aug 1854. This tombstone is found in Miller Cemetery (also known as Reeves Cemetery) in Calhoun, GA (Reeves Station area). If you're coming from Hwy 53 on the Reeves Station Rd., you cross the rail road tracks (Reeves Station) and there is a field and then trees. The cemetery is back in the trees on the top of a small hill. I believe this is private property and the "road" to the cemetery is actually a driveway but I'm not sure. You probably want to check before visiting! If anyone knows who placed this newer tombstone, I would like to know. Years ago I was given (electronically) some information about David from another researcher and I have never been able to track the researcher down again and find out where they got their information.

Mapping Mondays

You may not be able to see the details on this image as clearly as you'd like but I just wanted to start with something fairly simple for those not familiar with Google Earth.
This is a snapshot of the Calhoun, GA area. Calhoun is near the upper right corner. The Oostanaula River runs along the left half of the image. The red/fuchsia boxes represent the land lots bought by my Miller ancestors. These are just the early lots. Part of Filing Fridays will be to locate copies of their other deeds and enter those lots into Google Earth.
I was able to place my own three types of places on this map using different methods and I'll talk about these in other posts. The Miller Cemetery was located using the GNIS system and simply entering the coordinates and placing a marker there. Miller's Mill was located using an old Civil War map I found online. I marked a number of other places using that map and others but it gets rather crowded so I only showed the Mill on this image. The land lots were placed using other old maps showing the land lots and then drawing polygons to represent the lots (I already had a spreadsheet listing the lot descriptions so I didn't have to dig through my files to locate copies of the deeds).
You can see that it is quite nice being able to see my historic places on a modern satellite image. I'll feature some other images in future posts as well as some general information about Google Earth.

Genealogical Kindness

I want to take a moment for a "Thank You" and also a little "encouragement."
Last month I randomly received an e-mail asking if I had documentation for a particular fact shown in one of my online trees. After a little back and forth I received another e-mail from this individual with a link to a web page (not one of his own but containing information he gave). On the web page is the image of a family Bible entry for the children of Henry Mitchell. Until I received that first random e-mail I did not even know my Henry Mitchell ("Henry Smith Mitchell") was the son of Henry Mitchell (who owned the Bible) and now I have an image of the Bible showing his siblings and date of birth.
I want to give a very big THANK YOU to R.L. Guffin for locating that family Bible and having the image posted online. Far too often I've been told information came from a family bible but no one seems to have the bible. I'm always apprehensive in such situations. What if names have been added to the list of children that actually were found in the Bible? What if there isn't a Bible? It's like a big game of telephone, the first person says, "I'd love to find this list of siblings in a Bible record," the next says "There might be a Bible record showing these siblings," the next says "this list of siblings came from a Bible record."
Particularly with Bible records, if you can (are allowed to) post hte image online, do. I've heard too many stories about how the family Bible was thrown out when someone died. This seems unlikely to genealogists but it's not always genealogists that are in charge of clearing out a home. A high quality image can sometimes be even better than looking at the original and posting it on the Internet puts the image in the hands of many people. Next time you see an old family Bible with genealogical information in it, try and get photos and post them online. Maybe you have friends that own an old Bible, they may not want to sell it but if they're not genealogists they may not have shared the information in it, either.
I know there is one missing old Bible in my family. I have two Civil War Union Pensions that state the family Bible was destroyed when their sister's house burned down. I'm still hoping another relative copied some of that information into their own Bible, though. Now if it would just miraculously appear on the Internet!

Filing Fridays

I keep tyring to come up with themes that work with my research but it's harder than it sounds. After attending the FxGS Conference last week I was inspired to work on several quasi-research projects. The first was to try out Google Earth which I finally found time to do Wednesday. I've already uncovered a new county to research in and that was just playing around with the program! The other project I wanted to work on is filing, both filing those piles of materials, and cleaning out my paper files, AND digitizing files. I decided Friday should be "Filing Friday" and I'm challenging everyone to post comments with updates on their successful filing efforts.

I'm going to start my first Filing Friday by combining filing with Google Earth and pulling deed records from my files and scanning them. I'll then do my best to locate the land with the help of Google Earth (this will be part of my new "Mapping Mondays" so check out those posts for details on Google Earth). I'm fortunate that the bulk of my research so far has been in parts of Georgia that were distributed by lottery (mainly the Cherokee and Gold Lotteries). In recent years I've finally started to back track to the Eastern Georgia border and slowly out of Georgia which will lead to metes and bounds lands but for all those Georgia lottery lands, I'm fortunate to have plenty of maps and the lots are mainly rectangular (those that aren't usually follow rivers or are on the border of another location, both easy situations to deal with). I mention this because using mapping as an excuse to work on filing is not a tedious process for me. If you have to sit down with your protractor and ruler and assorted other tools this probably isn't a great way to try and work through your files but maybe you have another project to force you to file. If so, share it by posting a comment any Filing Friday.

New Records at Footnote.com

I'm really excited to see these new records at footnote.com...
The Guion Miller Roll Applications (NARA microfilm M1104, footnote.com calls this the "Eastern Cherokee Applications") has just been released and is slowly being added (the index and additional documentation is already complete, footnote.com calls this the "Guion Miller Roll"). Back in October or November I realized these applications were probably the source for much of the Patterson family information I had seen but been unable to verify. After living within a short distance of NARA for over 3 years I went downtown and broke through my biggest brickwall. I had given up finiding direct documentation by that point so I was almost overwhelmed when there it was in black and white in front of me. At the same time I felt very silly for practically sitting on this information for 3 years. These applications have provided documentation for other brickwalls (and built onto at least one) so I'm thrilled at the possibility of being able to search them electronically. Who knows what else I will find in them.

Hicks K. Patterson Mayhem

I'll begin my first official "Mid-week Mayhem" post with the first mayhem I learned about in my family.

My great-aunt (who I've mentioned in several other posts) told me this story shortly after I began resarching my Patterson ancestors. She said her uncle Hicks (not to be confused with our great [great...] grandfather Hicks) killed his brother over a moonshine still. I didn't particularly do anything with this information and never came across any further information. My great-great aunt made some passing comment about it one time when I mentioned it to her but nothing memorable.
At some point I learned my 3rd great-uncle Asa was convicted of murder (more details on that in another post). One document indicated he had killed his brother so it seemed the story I was told by my aunts was a generation off (the uncle Hicks of my aunts' story was the nephew of Asa).
Low and behold, in 2006 I randomly received an e-mail with the image of a newspaper clipping in it. The sender had been told it was probably from the 1880s, about the time of Asa's problems. When I started looking into the Pattersons mentioned it became clear the clipping was much newer. Just to be sure I even verified the years of service of the Pickens Co., GA Sheriff mentioned. Because the clipping is so new I won't post the image here but here's a summary of what happened (according to the newspaper at least)...
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In late February 1948 Hicks Patterson "slashed" the throat of his brother Edward over the price of a fighting cock. Edward was found lying next to the road alive. He refused to name his assailaint saying he knew who did it but wouldn't say. He survived a few more hours after making this statement.
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There are a few points that are definitely incorrect in this articles. The article states Hicks was 70 and Edward 80, these ages are backwards. Hicks was the older, b. 1867, and Edward was ten years younger. My initial response is to believe the newspaper is at least partially hyping the story since a 70 year old man has his throat "slashed," lies next to the road bleeding, is found and makes a statement, and after several hours finally dies.
Since I only learned in 2006 that the players in this drama were actually those mentioned by my great-aunt, and due to the recent date of the events (i.e. the records aren't microfilmed and accessible in many locations), I haven't been able to pursue this story as much as I would like. I don't know what happened to Hicks K. with regards to this crime. He died in 1950. My great-aunt remembers visiting him. She says he was an old man with a long white beard and he was propped up in a big four poster bed. From this description I'm pretty sure he wasn't in prison. I'm not positive but my great-aunt may have said these visits were at Hicks's home.

Sarah Townsend Patterson Tombstone

All I can read of Sarah Townsend Pattersons tombstone is "S.P. Wife." It is possible the top of the tombstone may have broken off but it doesn't appear there is information missing. Sarah was born between 1817 and 1823 and died on 2 September 1896 in Talking Rock, GA. She was hit by a train. Her tombstone is next to her husband's (Hix Patterson) in Philadelphia Baptist Church Cemetery in Jasper, GA.

FxGS Conference

I've spent the last two days at the Fairfax Genealogical Society Conference (www.fxgs.org). I talked to a lot of people and attended some great lectures. I learned some new skills I'm looking forward to trying out, as well.
My husband and I were both volunteering so it's been several early mornings so we're pretty tired and ready for a break. It's been interesting because we've almost exclusively been in the hotel since Friday afternoon (only going out to dinner after dark on Friday). Our room was on the indoor courtyard side so we didn't even have a window outside. While driving home it seems spring has sprung just since we left on Friday! Hopefully some much desired spring weather will finally inspire me to start, finish, and continue various genealogy projects. I'm hoping to feature some of these on this blog and inspire others to get going on their genealogy projects.

Hix Patterson Tombstone

Hix (or Hicks) Patterson was born in Dec 1816 and died in the winter of 1904-5. You can see from the photos that his tombstone is very primitive. It appears to have been hand carved and is quite small. I have not had a chance to visit this cemetery with a full photo kit (grass clippers, mirror, tripod, etc.) so I haven't been able to get a very good picture.

The cemetery is Philadelphia Baptist Cemetery in Jasper, GA. If you are headed north out of Atlanta on I-575 (it becomes Zell Miller Mtn. Pkwy.) you keep going until you come to Jasper (the intersection with Hwy 53). You turn left on Hwy 53 (turning right takes you into downtown Jasper). You drive a short distance and turn right either onto Darnell/Log Cabin Rd. or a little further on onto Philadelphia Rd. (the two roads merge just before the church). Continue driving and you will see the church on your left and the cemetery on your right. Most of my families tombstones (at least those that are marked) are near the front of the cemetery. These are almost directly across from the church when you cross Philadelphia Rd.

Mid-week Mayhem

I've decided to make up my own theme for Wednesdays. I have a lot of criminals and victims of crimes in my family so Wednesday is now "Mid-week Mayhem."

This week I'll just tell you a little about why you want murders, horse thieves, moonshiners, and other miscreants in your family.

For years I just went along doing genealogy like many people do, collecting dates and places. But I was always wondering "why" and "what." Why did my Pattersons (from GA) serve in the Union army? What were my ancestors really like (this usually followed a why I couldn't understand)? As all good genealogists should, I began researching these questions.

Eventually I had to step my genealogy research up a level and break into less used sources. That's when I started to find the "good stuff." Mostly crimes my relatives committed but occasionally crimes committed against them. I got started in genealogy because no one could give me good answers about my family. Not surprisingly, that meant we didn't have many stories. Since I wasn't starting with family stories that means I started with documented information (albeit not always the best documentation). For crimes this usually means there's more documentation out there because they obviously got caught since I knew about it. I soon learned to check very dry court records for my family (in one case this connected three siblings I could not document elsewhere). Online newspaper records are fantastic for locating relatives in trouble with the law as well. When I'm trying to locate my family farther back in a new location, I can usually check court records to see if they appear. Tax records or census records often aren't available when I need them but court records often are.

All those relatives involved in 'mayhem' have provided a great stories but also a great research methodology. Along with using genealogy sources I also try and research the history that goes along with all these stories. From that I've learned that my family isn't that different from their neighbors. If I can't locate a relative it's much more likely they are living in the least developed part of the state (assuming the land's cheap), not in a city. When I'm reading those dry court records it's pretty likely my relatives are involved with other residents whose names keep coming up over and over again for moonshining or hog stealing. Yet more places to look for new information!

I've never been under the delusion that I would find rich and powerful men in my family so finding criminals wasn't a shock. If you are always on the look-out for relatives that rose to the top of society, maybe you should consider looking for common criminals instead. They can leave great records and the stories aren't too bad, either.

Henry Ledford's Tombstone

Henry Ledford is the brother of my 3rd great-grandfather. He was murdered in 1866 (allegedly over his Union sympathies, haven't found documentation for the murder motive but his Union regiment is found right on his tombstone). Henry was the 4th son of John and Sarah Patterson Ledford and served in both the Confederate and Union services with three of his brothers, including my 3rd great-grandfather (their oldest brother may have also served however he had married by the Civil War and did not share the almost exact same service as these four brothers did).

Henry is buried in Jasper City Cemetery in Jasper, GA.

FxGS TechSIG

Tonight we're at the FxGS TechSIG learning about Blogs. This is a sample for the class.

John Ledford-Union Man

I am becoming very attached to my Ledford line. I am related to the same Ledford line twice (or is it the same Patterson line twice?), although it took me years to discover this. My great-great grandparents were Thomas Hill and Alma (Ledford) Patterson. Alma's grandparents were John and Sarah (Patterson) Ledford. Sarah's brother was Thomas Hill Patterson's grandfather. In otherwords, T.H. and Alma had one set of shared great-grandparents.
This double relationship only slightly has to do with why I'm becoming so attached to my Ledford line. Encountering them twice in the main line I research puts them high on my list of top researched families. In the last few years I have begun coming across sources that really flesh out the Ledfords. Originally I had such bare bones on them that they were just names, that's part of the reason it was so long before I discovered there were two Ledford-Patterson marriages in my direct line.
One of my favorite pieces of random Ledford history is courtesy of Alma's father's Civil War Pension application. William Nelson Ledford and his brother James Washington Ledford both applied for Union pensions and received them. Somewhere along the way it appears a law was changed and they lost their Union pensions. This was one of those situations a genealogist loves. Not surprisingly, neither man was too happy to suddenly stop receiving money. They fought the rejection with affidavit after affidavit (*note: both men's service was essentially identical and they claimed the same circumstances affected both of them so only one set of documents were sent for both men, these are filed in W.N.'s file). These were two of the most engrossing Union pensions I have ever read (although not as amusing or long as one of their possible cousins, that's another post).
From all the affidavits I am only sure of one thing. Their father, John Ledford, was a Union man. Most of the affidavits supported the borthers' claim that they were forced into Confederate service against their will or choice (this support isn't surprising, why would you find witnesses that disagree with you? The exact reason they joined the Confederate forces differs, though). Even those affidavits which state the Ledford boys willingly joined the Confederate army agree that their father was a Union man. This is the one point in the pension files that is consistent.
Sadly there is no indication why John Ledford was a Union man. Some affidavit's state he was pro-Union as early as the 1850s. I have been completely unable to determine who John Ledford's parents or family were or even where in NC he came from. In my research, he springs full grown into Northeast GA as the husband of Sarah Patterson (no marriage record has been found so even the exact location in NE GA is tentative, probably Habersham, the Pattersons were in Rabun). Without knowing about his roots, John Ledford's extremely strong (and well known) Union sympathies are unexplained.
I'm not so intrigued by John's pro-Union sentiments so much as how well known they seemed to be. The way this fact was threaded through the pension files made it stand out for me in a certain way. Pro-Union sympathies weren't uncommon in that part of GA and they aren't uncommon in my family. I have read a number of other Union pension files for relatives of this Ledford line (all from the same county) and none of them had any element of strong pro-Unionism. Perhaps it's just a fluke because W.N. and J.W. Ledford lost their pensions. Whatever the reason,...
John Ledford was a Union man.

Sheltons

I've been gone from my blog for awhile with several trips, a nasty cold, and all the catching up that has to be done when recovering from trips and a cold. I now find myself in the busiest part of my professional year -- lecture proposal time. This year it is coupled with NGS Conference time since it is just four short hours to drive to the 2009 Conference in the States in Raleigh.

I am not so fortunate as to be speaking at the Conference however it has several other "advantages" that are causing me to prepare. My husband and I lived in Raleigh prior to moving to Metro DC so we are looking forward to going back and seeing friends (which means seeing who's in town) and eating at some favorite restaurants (which involves checking if they are still open and determing when we can tear ourselves from the Conference long enough). Also, just after leaving Raleigh I really discovered my husbands NC roots (isn't that typical). I am hoping to squeeze in some research while there and that's what this post is about.

Sheltons
That sums up all of my husband's (currently) known NC ancestry. It's not one line, it's his maternal grandmother's entire maternal side. Every Shelton married a Shelton. I have never been cursed with such 'onenameness' in my research before. I know such things happen but why did they have to happen in a line I'm researching!
Since I did not discover the full extent of my husband's Shelton connection until I left NC, I have not had a chance to properly research this line. I've used what books I've had available to me and hunted up information on the Internet but even when I was in SLC I was stumped at where I would go next in my Shelton research. I ended up not attempting any Shelton hunting while there. I have to be honest and say I think I was scared. It feels like a wall of Sheltons that I have to break through and I haven't brought the proper tools.
I know what the solution to this feeling is, a research plan. I'm hoping to get one good day of research done while in Raleigh and that's certainly not enough time to overcome a wall of Sheltons. I just have to bite the bullet and sit down with what I have, what I can find online, and what I want to find and organize both my thoughts and as many Sheltons as I can. I dream of beautifully prepared research plans, and I even enjoy planning, but I still find it difficult to make myself sit down and get started.
Other commitments (mainly professional and volunteer at the moment), sunny days, and impending cherry blossoms only serve to distract me from good intentions. I have been trying very hard to work on my book more often (every day with exceptions for trips to NARA and piled up housework). Much of the writing I've done lately has been related to creating a research plan so I've been looking for examples to inspire me. So far I've only found one weak example. I decided I should create my own examples yet I still haven't sat down and done it. I'm hoping pouring out my soul on my blog might just force me to finally create that research plan. I certainly wouldn't want to be asked "how's that research plan on the Sheltons coming?" and have to admit I still hadn't started it!

Visit to Carrollton, GA

Today I visited the library in Carollton, GA. There is a special collections room in the Neva Lomason Memorial Library. I had visited the library one time before and was able to locate an obituary for my great-grandmother. I chose to visit this library again because of it's newspaper collection. It also has microfilmed court records and a small collection of genealogy books as well as Tax Digests. This library is a short trip from where I was staying. I had another appointment at 3 so my research time was limited.
I always feel rather sad visiting this library and this trip seemed a little worse. I'm not sure if the issue is just lack of staff or if there is another reason but many of the books (particularly for Carroll Co.) are not on the shelves, they are stacked on tables and reshelving carts. I know many special collection rooms want materials left out so they can see how many books or microfilms have been used but this was many more books than I have seen unshelved before. It was to the point that what was on the shelves (particularly for Carroll Co.) was difficult to use because it was falling over and off the shelves. I would hope some volunteers will help this location. This could be a great research location if the special collection room had a little more TLC.
One of the reasons this could be such a great research location is the revitalized square nearby (Adamson Square). On my previous visit my mother was with me and we went to the square for lunch. I was really glad to see that the many little independent restaurants on the square were still there. There are also a number of little shops, I wasn't able to see which of those were still there. Should you be visiting for research there are also a number of diversions. I have not visited the courthouse for research yet but it is just off the square so it is convenient to make a research trip to the area. Depending on your research needs for Carroll Co. you may find it worth while to visit the local library and courthouse for a day or two. The square is about 12 miles off of I-20 so you may find yourself passing that way if you are driving across Georgia.

January 25th

Today is a big day. It's my husband's birthday and Robert Burns's. Now some of you might think of the two events it would be easier to blog about my husband or his family, but no! If you don't know (or don't realise), Robert Burns is the Bard of Scotland. I'm not going to wax poetic about a poet instead I'd like to muse about my Pattersons (a possibly Scottish line).

I began my genealogy quest oh so many years ago because no one could tell me where my family came from, specifically my Patterson line. I still don't know. However, my Pattersons (and the twice related Ledfords) still remain my favorite line to research. They are always in trouble and provide no end of amusement while researching. I love my Patterson ancestors, particularly the ones I've never met. I'm very thankful for my law-breaking, difficult to find, aberrant ancestors. I've learned a lot about history, and of course genealogy, trying to track them down. They never leave me bored although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like to meet them in person, particularly after they've been playing cards for several hours (and downing moonshine to match).
For several years now I've been wondering exactly what kind of people my Patterson ancestors were. I know so much about them and so little. I often wonder how the traits that got them repeatedly locked up have changed to bring me to where I am today. Alternatively, I wonder if those traits were lost and I'm much less Patterson than my mother always accuses me of being. In 2008 I felt I finally began to see a better picture of my ancestors as people and I hope 2009 will continue this.