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.