Christmas Eve

What a great Christmas Eve gift! I had sent off about a week ago for copies of obituaries for some ancestors. They came today. Now I'm trying to see who all I have, my great great grandparents on the Long side, my great great grandmother Newby. My husband's great great grandmother Green. Some that I'm not sure how they will or if they fit into the family tree. Got to get busy with Christmas cooking.

Graves relocated by TVA

We have for some time thought that some of my husband's family that lived near the Tennessee River in Marion Co. Tn may have been buried in cemeteries near the River. We know that some of the graves were relocated when the dams were built along the Tennessee River by TVA. We found a link to TVA's listing of the graves relocated by them. http://www.tva.gov/river/landandshore/culturalresources/cemeteries.htm From this you can view in pdf or excel. You may get lucky and find some of your ancestors. The list has the name of the orginal cemetery and the new cemetery where the grave was moved to. There were some that were not moved because the family did not wish to have their ancestor 's grave moved, those are now under the Tennessee River.
We were not lucky in our search there were no Brumley graves moved.
Unless they were moved when the Hale's Bar Dam was built which was before TVA.
These were not included in the TVA list.

My Three Wishes

On several genealogy blogs I have seen My Three Wishes, which is pretty cute.
Three things I wish my ancestors had passed down to me.

Dear Genea-Santa,
l. One picture of each of my ancestors. Would this count as more than one?? I'm going to count as one.
2. Just one of the letters that Jacob Ziegler wrote to his wife Annabelle during the Civil War.
3. A chance to go through the house that my Great grandparents lived in, in North Chattanooga
one more time before it was sold. I got a wooden basket that my great grandfather used in his store but I saw an old wooden box that said Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It was just out of my reach. We went back the next day, I thought my husband could reach it. It was gone!
It is hard to pick only three. There are so many other things I have thought of while typing this.

Girton / Brumley Union

While doing genealogy research sometimes I wonder how a couple found each other. One such couple is Mary Elizabeth Girton and George Paul Brumley.
Mary Elizabeth Girton is the daughter of John Girton and Mabel Cooke. John was born in Wisconsin and moved to Franklin County, Tn with his family. At some point he moved to Chattanooga, maybe to work, he married Mabel Cooke. They had four daughters Mary Elizabeth, Louise, Helen, and Hazel.
The Brumley's lived in Marion County, Tn around the Aetna Mountain area.
Then one day while looking at the 1920 Census for the Girton family I noticed there was a John Brumley family listed not far from the Girton's. George Paul had a brother named John but based on the age of the John on the Census this would have to be a brother to Seaborn Brumley ( George Paul Brumley's father). So a possible way they found each other was through a relative that lived near the Girton's.

Christmas memories

As I said in my Thanksgiving Day post, we always had Christmas with my dad's family. That was one thing we could always count on. When we were little we had our Kelley family Christmas at my grandmother (Fay Kelley we grand kids called her Mama Kelley) house. There was so much food. Mama Kelley, my dad, his three sisters and a brother and their families were there. Most years there were between 15 and 20 people.
As the kids got bigger they started having the dinner at my Aunt Bonnie's house. It was there for several years. I remember one of those years very well. My mom had been in the hospital, she was having problems with her heart. My dad didn't want to leave her at home by herself and she didn't feel up to going. My Aunt Lydia and Uncle James came out and got my bother and I and took us to the Christmas dinner. It was nice to get to go and Aunt Lydia was so sweet to come get us but somehow it just didn't seem the same without my mom and dad. There were always plenty of gifts and when we got older they gave us money which was really nice to a teen.
The Kelley family Christmas dinner again moved to my Aunt Betty's house, she had more room. Same great get together! Oh, I didn't say these were always on Christmas Eve. The first one not on Christmas Eve was 1976 when my aunts decided it would be too sad to have the Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. My Uncle David died in November and everyone was still feeling sad over his sudden death (work accident). We started having the Kelley family Christmas the Saturday before Christmas. It remained that way for many years.
There were years when I didn't get to go, living out of state and other family get togethers. I guess one of the last and the saddest was 2001, my dad died in Aug. 2001 and Aunt Lydia died in Oct. 2001. They are all gone now. It is just sad to think there will never be that Kelley family Christmas dinner.

Wilson Family

The picture is part of the Wilson family, Samuel and Lettie Wilson had 8 children. This is a picture of 5 of the children Kimble, Ella, King in back seated Hattie ( my grandmother) and Anna Lee.
I remember my grandmother saying she thought Ella was the prettiest and she was jealous.
She said that she felt so bad when Ella got really sick (Rheumatic Fever) and died. She was afraid it was her fault. I remember telling her that Ella was pretty but I thought she was the prettiest.
Sometime in the 70's we went to an Edgemon family reunion (Lettie Edgemon Wilson ). My grandmother and her sister Agnes (not pictured) tried to find their sister Ella's grave. I don't know what cemetery we were at when they were searching. I can remember my grandmother saying Ella was buried at Blue Springs. Don't know if that was the cemetery name or the name of the place where the cemetery was. They walked all around and couldn't find it. They thought it was next to a tree and marked with a large rock. It was really sad for them, they really wanted to find their sister's grave.
I always tell my children that it is best to bury family in a large well taken care of cemetery.
My husband and I have tried to set an example by taking our kids to the cemetery where their ancestors are buried.

Genealogy Blogs

I feel like I hit the genealogy blog jackpot this weekend. I'm not sure where I found the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog at http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com but it is a great blog . The posting for Dec. 6,2008 was for WWII records that are available at this link http://go.footnote.com/wwii/?xid=287&u1=otg. I checked it out and found my dad, my mom's two brothers, and my dad's brother who was killed in March 1945.
There were so many followers and I checked out a lot of them. Then I checked out Facebook Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers at http://fbbootcamp.blogspot.com/ there were even more followers to check out, more genealogy blogs. This blog has so much helpful information I'm sure I'll use it lots.
Some of the blogs are people who are genealogists or writers. I'll never be either one. It would be easy to stop my blog now. But I'll keep working at it and hopefully improve. What I have wanted from this blog is to record some of the information I have found or others have shared with me and some of the stories about our family.
There were some who were like me just starting out Like Sand Through an Hour Glass at http://gcchat.blogspot.com/ who started about the same time as I did. Someone who is a wife and mother just wanting to record family genealogy.
I haven't even had my family read this blog yet. Guess I better before I get too many postings and they won't be interested in reading them all.

Ziegler Family

Will and Sallie Ziegler with sons John and Hobart and Will's sister (Maggie) moved to Oregon to live.
Will's brother John lived in Oregon. I'm not sure how long they lived there but Harry was born in Oregon in 1900. Will and Sallie were my great grandparents, their son John was my grandfather. I can remember my great grandmother talking about going to Oregon. I asked her how they got there, she said by train. It was so cold on the trip that Will and Johnny (as she always called him) were sick when they got to Oregon. Will's brother was a doctor and he took care of them. I've never found anything that said he was a doctor. On the 1920 census he was listed as a farmer.
Will, Sallie, John, Hobart and sister Maggie lived in Polk County, Oregon at the time of the 1900 Census. Will worked on a farm.

Green/ Howard

A short conversation my husband had with his Aunt Flora led to another discovery. She mailed us the information that her mother had recorded about her family. Bessie Mae Green Kibble's parents were William Lindsey Greene and Mary E. Everett. Grandparents were Levi Greene and Eliza Jane Howard. I searched on the internet for more information in McMinn Co. but couldn't find any then I remembered reading an obituary for one of the Green's that said from Hamilton Co. so I checked out the Hamilton County website http://www.hctgs.org/default.htm
I found Levi Green buried on Big Ridge and Eliza Jane Howard Green buried at Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery which is about 1 mile from our house. How strange that we would end up living in the same area as my husband's great great grandparent without even knowing. There is a sign which says this is the old town of Green's Mill, didn't know that it was family.
Then at Roots Web http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:736640&id=I69334316 I found the Green family tree.

Fay Newby Kelley

I have always admired my grandmother, Fay Newby Kelley. She never complained about her life being hard and she did have a hard life. She was born August 10, 1892, the daughter of David Henry Newby and Olivia Jane (Jennie) Long Newby. Fay married Edgar Elijah Kelley on April 27, 1913. She and Edgar had six children.

Bonnie Lee, Lydia Louise, Eugene Douglas, Tom Franklin, Betty Jewell, and David Henry

The youngest David was born December 7, 1928 and Edgar died on February 22, 1929. Fay was left with six children age 13 to 2 1/2 months. One of her brothers offered to take one or two of the children to raise but she told him, " No, they are my children. They need to stay together."

Fay was 36 years old when Edgar died but she never remarried.

She again faced a sad and difficult time during World War II. Tom was wounded in October 1944 and nearly killed. Then in March 1945 Eugene was killed.

Her youngest child David died in November 1976 when he was injured in an accident on the job.

I remember my grandmother crying at the funeral home and saying it should not be like this, a mother is not suppose to out live her children.

Fay was almost 92 when she died July 4, 1984. My cousin Sandy and I were with her in the hospital room when she died.

Walker County Georgia Heritage 1833-1983

I discovered a book which I knew my Dad had but didn't think about it having information I could use. The Walker County Georgia Heritage 1833-1983 is a great book there are Long's, Kelley's Burke's but only one Newby listed. It did not help with the Newby research but it did with the Burke.
My great great grandmother Nancy Burke Long is in the book she was married to Moses Long. I didn't know anything about the Burke family. In the book I found William Preston Bruke who had a daughter Nancy married to Moses Long. Wow! My great great great grandparents William Preston Burke and Adeline Carter Burke.
William was born April 13, 1817 in Tennessee. William married Adeline Carter February 14, 1838 in McMinn Co. Tennessee. Adeline was born in Virginia. They moved to Hamilton Co. Tenn before settling in Walker Co. Ga about 1847.
William was Baptist minister and belonged to the Lookout Baptist Church.
During the Civil War William began hiding horses for the local families on nearby Lookout Mountain to keep them from being taken by the soldiers. He was captured and taken prisoner.
The family was later told that he died on the way to prison. It is also believed that the oldest son, John f. Burke died during the Civil War.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends and to any who find this blog.
I am thankful for my family, my wonderful husband and great kids daughter 17 and son 15.
I am also thankful for my sweet mother, she is 84 this year. We cook dinner and take it to her house, she can't get into my house because of the steps. We don't have a big crowd just my family, my mom and my brother his wife and son.
I wish I knew more about what our ancestors might have done for Thanksgiving dinner. Growing up we spent Thanksgiving with my mom's mother and father, they lived next door.
My grandfather's mother (Sallie Ziegler) lived to be 98 years old and she and my great aunt (Christan Ziegler) always came over and ate with us. Sometimes my uncle, his wife and daughter came, most of the time they spent Thanksgiving with my aunt's family. We spent Thanksgiving with my mom's family and Christmas with my Dad's family.
My husband said they always had a crowd 5 kids and their mom and dad, sometimes they brought over their grandmother Brumley.
I am also thankful for meeting wonderful people on the Internet who have been so kind to share the information they have.
Happy Thanksgiving 2008!!

Brumley's Then and Now

When I did yesterday's post I remembered these
two pictures and how much fun it was to discover
the family resemblance.

A couple of years ago we had the chance to get a copy of a picture of my husband's father when he was a small boy. We never knew that our son looked like his grandfather Brumley until we got this picture.

My son has blue eyes and his grandfather had brown eyes.

Grandfather taken about 1928
My son taken about 1995

It is always fun to look at old family pictures and

see who looks like their ancestors.

Brumley Pictures

The lady who e-mailed me the Brumley pictures also sent a picture of a baby who she didn't know. She asked if we knew this baby, she wasn't even sure if it was a Brumley or not. I guess a part of me would like to think it was a picture of George Paul Brumley's brother Hill Brumley who died as a small child. Maybe someone will know who this baby is or something about the small pictures beside the baby.

Disappointments

I don't want to give the impression that every thing you check out will lead to wonderful information on your family. There are disappointments, you write or e-mail someone and never hear back from them. Sometimes the e-mail is no longer being used. The information you found is no longer there or now you must be a member to see the information. Always try to save and print your finds.
Once a lady had asked about a house that her uncle Woodrow Benton lived in. I knew from the things she said that this was the same Woodrow Benton that was married to Martha. She was related to my mother. My mother has a picture of this house. I tried to e-mail the picture to the lady but it came back. I was so sorry that I didn't get to share this with the lady.
Another disappointment can be when you think you have found an ancestor. Then you check with the person that posted the information and find that this is not your ancestor.
Keep working, don't let the disappointments get you down. The good information that you find more than makes up for the disappointments.

The Thurber, Texas Story

I remember hearing my grandmother (Mama Kelley) talking about living in Texas when she was a young girl. Oh how I wish I could remember the stories. I asked Donna (the Newby cousin I found) if she knew where they lived in Texas. She send me some information and a link on Thurber, Texas. www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/print/TT/hnt21.html

Thurber, Texas is a ghost town now but at one time was a thriving town. A company town, a coal mining town with a fascinating story. I found they had a cemetery and looked it up on findagrave.com. There is a memorial for the unmarked graves there. I e-mailed a man from the Thurber, Texas site and asked if there was a list on line of the names on the memorial. I gave him last names from the family that might have been in Thurber, Newby and Woodley or Woodlee ( Lydia Newby's maiden name was Woodley or Woodlee) she had a brother in Texas. The man e-mail me back with some Woodley's that were buried there. I don't really know much about the Woodley's but will file this information away.

To me this is interesting. What was Thurber like during the late 1800's when my grandmother lived there as a young girl. Her father David Henry Newby was a coal miner and that is probably what took them to Thurber. Why did they move back to north Georgia? David H. Newby's father was also a coal miner. Who knows maybe K. H. Newby died in a coal mining accident.
Coal mining was a very important part of our country's history as well as our family history.

I was so interested I asked for a book about Thurber, Tx. for Christmas. Ok I ordered it for my husband to give me. I promise I haven't read it yet.

Christmas background

Well I thought I would try adding a new background. I know I jumped ahead to Christmas. I liked this background, kinda old fashioned and the Families are forever fits with a genealogy blog.

Findagrave.com

A wonderful site I recently found is findagrave.com You can search by name or by cemetery. You may be surprised as I was that some of your family is already on the site. You can add your family members information, photo of their grave or their photo. I have added pictures for some that were already on the site and added memorials for others.The only bad thing is that I usually end up resizing the pictures before I can add them.
I found my uncle Eugene D. Kelly already on the site. He was killed during WWII and is buried in Luxembourg American Cemetery. I added a picture of the family the last time they were all together. An interesting thing about Eugene is that his name on many records is Kelly. The rest of the family spelled it Kelley, in fact got upset when it was not spelled right. Maybe Eugene just gave up getting people to spell it correctly.
I e-mailed a lady who had added a memorial for one of my ancestors. She was a distant cousin in the Long family (which I knew almost nothing about). She shared pictures and information on the Long family. It is always great to find new information on your ancestors.
My hope in adding information on this site is that someone in the future will be searching for information on these people and find this site. I know that my great aunt's grandchildren live in Arizonia they or their children my not know where their grandparents -great grandparents are buried. Maybe some day they will find this and be glad to find a picture of their grave.

Newby Family

At this point I guess I should say a little about the Newby family. My grandmother (Mama Kelley) was a Newby, Fay I. Newby. Her mother and father Olivia Jane (Jennie ) and David H. Newby are buried at the Chattanooga Valley Cemetery. Also buried there is Lydia Newby mother of David H. Newby.

My Aunt Betty told me a very interesting story about Lydia Newby's gravestone. It has her name and two other names Martha Burdick and Tom Newby. Aunt Betty said they were Lydia's daughter and son. They lived out west. Martha in Denver and Tom in Montana. When they died they were cremated. They died in the the 30's and their mother died in 1924. I'm not sure who had the ashes but Aunt Betty said she and Lydia (not sure if she meant her sister Lydia or her Aunt Lydia) had the ashes buried there and had a marker put down with all three names.

New people

It is always great to find new people to share your genealogy with. I found a cousin, we are both searching for our Great Great grandfather Newby. Donna's father and my father were first cousins. We have shared the information we have on King H. Newby, but feel we have hit a brick wall. King H. Newby just doesn't want to be found. Someday, maybe we will find his parents, when he died and where he is buried.

Brumley pictures

Another favorite genealogy story was finding pictures of my husband's family. One day I was searching around for more information on the Brumley family. To my surprise I found a lady who said she had pictures that had belonged to Geraldine Brumley (my husband's grandfather Brumley had a half sister named Geraldine. I couldn't believe my eyes. I sent an e-mail to her and waited for a reply, her posting had been from a couple of years before. She e-mailed me and sent pictures of the family which we didn't have. One was of Rebecca Brumley another half sister to George Paul Brumley.The group of people in front of the house is only labeled Brumley home Marion Co. Tennessee. The large group of people says front row Geraldine, Harry, Mabel and Allen, don't know the back row.

The other group is Harry, Dew, Paul, John and Becky. We were sure this was the right family because we had seen pictures of George Paul Brumley. Even if the posting you find is an old one always try to contact the person, you may be VERY HAPPY you did.

Girton Family

I'm not sure if the first posting is clear J. L. Girton born in England is Joseph L. Girton who was the father of John Lee Girton. Joseph Girton moved to Winchester, Tn at some point. Married again and had more children.
Mary Powell Girton died in Wisconsin she is buried in the Sandusky Village Cemetery (United Brethren Cemetery) Washington Township, Sauk Co. Wisconsin. She is buried next to her father and mother Joseph and Esther Powell.
http://www.interment.net/data/us/wi/sauk/sandusky/village.htm
I also found pictures of their markers. http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/cemetery/sauk-washingtontwp-sanduskyunitedbrotherhood.htm
The death of John L Girton was an interesting find. The obituary says John L. Girton Dies Suddenly on Train
John L. Girton, 55, 1801 Ringgold Road, baggage master on the Southern railroad, died suddenly yesterday moning near Tuscaloosa, Ala., while enroute to Chattanooga.
Mr. Girton was on the baggage car when he was stricken. The cause of his death was said to be acute indigestion.
Mr. Girton had been an employee of the Southern railway for twenty-seven years.
His body was brought to Chattanooga last night and was taken to Wann's .
He attended the Ridgedale M.E. church, south, and was a member of the Ridgedale Masonic lodge and the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. Surviving are his widow and four daughters, Mrs. Paul Brumley, Mrs. W. J. Gill and Misses Hazel and Helen Girton. Other survivors include a sister Mrs. Laura Lavan; four brothers, Fred, Charles, and Roscoe, all of Winchester, Tn. and Joe Girton this city and two grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Brumley.
I know some would say so what you found this. It doesn't make a difference in your life, but it is pretty neat that you know who your (or in this case my husband's) ancestors were, where they were from and something about them.

Girton Family

All we knew about my husband's great grandfather Girton was his last name. The main reason we knew this was that it was his father's middle name. We knew that great grandmother Girton was a Cooke or Cook before she married.
On the Chattanooga Hamilton County Bicentennial Library website I checked the Obituary database. I found a Mabel Cooke Girton. Then I found a Mabel Girton on the 1910 Census with husband J.L. Girton, children Elizabeth, Helen, Hazel, and Louise. I found them again in the 1920 Census with his name listed as John L. Girton same wife and children. This had to be them since all the children's names matched. He was born in Wisconsin.
I then went to the 1880 Census in Wisconsin and found John Girton living with grandmother (Mary Lee). He was the right age 5 but I also found Joseph and Mary Girton in Wisconsin with children Jane, William, John. It looks like John lived with his grandmother part time and was counted twice.
At http://www.rootsweb.com/~wisauk/Reedsburg82.htm I found the following information.
J. L. GIRTON, for many years an implement dealer of North Freedom was born in Lincolnshire, England and came with his parents to America in 1850, locating in New York. From there the family went to Michigan, thence to Walworth County, Wisconsin, and in 1856 came to Sauk County. L. G. GIRTON married Miss Mary E. POWELL, a native of Lockport, New York.

I also found the following.http://www.rootsweb.com/~wisauk/qrybio003.htm#1135
J. L. Girton, dealer in agricultural implements, organs and sewing machines, North Freedom; he was born in Lincolnshire, England, July 13, 1848; came to America with his parents in 1850, and located in New York, then moved to Michigan, where his father died; then the mother and family moved to Walworth Co., Wis., in 1852 and September, 1856, moved to Sauk Co.; in the spring of 1877, Mr. Girton was elected Justice of the Peace; re-elected to a second term 1879. He was married Oct. 11, 1869, to Miss Mary E. Powell; she was born in Lockport, N. Y., Sept. 29, 1848; they have four children-Mary J., William R., John L. and an infant not named. Mrs. Girton is a member of the Latter Day Saints; in politics, Mr. Girton is a Republican.Contributed by Linda Wright
I found another lady on the internet who was researching the Girton family who shared lots of information on the family. Mary married a man named John Lee in Wisconsin. She also said that Joseph and Mary Powell divorced. Mary Powell Girton died in 1886 in Wisconsin.
I have more to share later.

Cemetery Album

Sound crazy? I found myself many times searching through albums looking for a cemetery photo. A cemetery album is a great way to keep up with your tombstone pictures. Take a picture of the cemetery sign, write out directions to the cemetery, pictures of markers and you have it all together.


The album I use is not expensive, it was $5.99 and hold 200 4x6 photos. It also has a space to write comments beside each photo. The space for comments is wonderful because the information on the marker is not always correct.



When saving digital photos make a folder for each cemetery.

Pictures

Who are these people?

Pictures are very important to a complete family history. I've tried to get pictures of people, houses they lived in and even their graves. A tip a great aunt gave me when I was a teenager is still very true "Always record the names of the people in the pictures." Many of my grandmothers pictures had no names. Even she didn't remember who some were after she got older. I have tried to record the names of the ones my mother knows but she doesn't know many of them.

Don''t forget to record the names of people when you put pictures on the computer.

Genealogy

Genealogy has always been of interest to me. It takes many years of hard work to become an experienced researcher, which I will never be. Don't be discouraged if you are interested in genealogy work on it when you can. It is a great hobby. Don't feel that you can't get into genealogy because you don't have the money to become a member somewhere. I 'm sure it is great if you are but not required to do genealogy research. There are lots of sites where you can get information for free. You don't even have to leave your home.

My First Try!!

I'm not sure what I'm doing. My husband's niece has a blog and I have enjoyed keeping up with her family through the blog. Then my husband said I needed a blog for my genealogy. I'm not a good writer and not an expert on Genealogy. I decided if I could come up with some things to write about I would set up a blog. I came up with about 20 things to write about. So here I am.

Before I could finish with the set up I had computer problems. I signed in and now I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing. So much for the easy 5 minute set up! Maybe I should delete and start over.

There are some very interesting stories in our families. Here is my attempt to record some of them.