Treasure Chest Thursday

When I started my family history research, libraries were my treasure chest.  They still are to a certain extent.  I love packing up my notebooks, and driving into the Genealogy library of Montgomery or Clayton Library of Houston.  I know that there are so many pages of books that I haven't even scraped the edges of.  My favorite thing to do is to walk down the aisle of the State I am interested in and let a book reach out an grab my attention.  So many times, in an obscure place of the book, will be a clue or even an answer about my ancestor.

Today, I have a new treasure chest that I love and have to watch out that it doesn't become instead a Pandora's box and overcome my senses and time.  It is the internet, twitter, Google search, Ancestry,
and Family Search to name a few.   Tonight, I received a treasure from The Olive Tree Genealogy .  Well technically it was Twitter, Lorine had twittered a piece about finding ships lists.  When I went to look, I was brought to remeberance of Stephen P Morse's One-Step-Webpages for searching the ship arrivals and lists.  I love that site! It had been bookmarked on my computer that crashed (a good reason for back up [Wiggling of eyebrows and a big smile]) and I had forgotten it because my focus has not been on immigration.  I have been caught up in the Mexican War.  Thanks Lorine! And a great big thanks to those that have developed such a wealth on information links for genealogy.

Tombstone Tuesday Family Group Sheet

How would you like to run across the Family Group Sheet of your family when searching a cemetery?

I was out helping with Find a Grave picture taking when I came across a tombstone that had a name of Gunter, a presumed ancestor of mine.  I went to look at it closer and what a find this would have been had it been my line.  Look at how this family did their tombstone! Most children are buried close by. A blooming family group sheet on the front and back.  I just had to take the pictures to show you all.  I love it!




 

Vance Family Research Online

I spent years writing back and forth to a wonderful lady named Kathleen Corley Mason who finally stopped writing because she lost her sight.  She authored a book on Vance Family History, 'The Vance and Taylor Families'.  She and a few others authored a news letter and held regular meetings and trips through the Vance Family Association.  You can order films of archived news letters which are informative through Family Search.org 

I was privileged to work with a few of them in determining the McAnulty line that married into the Vance Family in South Carolina.   I loved pouring through books, censuses, and periodicals to find the information.  It is amazing how much research has grown in the last 5 years. 
The Vance line has an archive now on Rootsweb.com   This is a link to one of them. 
There is also the beginning of a new Vance Association Online.
This is not the same people that I wrote back and forth with.  I imagine some of the older researchers are still working diligently, but many had not made the transition to computers, they still wrote letters.  I still write, if the need is there.
Ruth, I hope this helps some on the Vance lines you are working on. If you would like give me some dates, I will look in my book for you.

Trying My Hand at Backing Up My Blog

I first went to Resources for backing up your blog and looked for what appeared to be the easiest method for a technical illiterate such as I used tips from:  Little Bytes of Life.  I have added feedburn and now have it coming to my igoogle page and I guess I can print it from there.  It is a new experience and one that I hope is going to work for me until I can buy one of those 1T hard drive back ups.
Thanks Geneabloggers for caring about your community.

Memorable Halloween Stories

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun suggested posting our most memorable Halloween.  That took me off into another area of memory that my dad told me of his teenage Halloween antics.  They were not quite what we think of in our day and age. 

Looking at this innocent face you just would not think that in 6 years from this time he would be a naughty mischevious teenager.  

His most memorable Halloween was when he and about 6 other teenage boys got together and decided to trick on of their "grumpy" neighbors.  Now neighbors were not next door like what you think of today.  More like miles apart.  Back to the story.  

These boys began by thinking up mischevious things to do weeks ahead of Halloween. 

They waited until dark, and how they did these things I don't know, but the first farmer was awakened then next morning to his mules on top of his shed.  (They were really naughty, they didn't tell they did it or go by and offer to get the mules down).  Shame.  

The second farmer didn't have to wait for morning because his son went out in the night and fell in the hole where the outhouse had been.  They had moved the outhouse just behind the hole. Yuck!

Apparently, these farmers had not developed a good relationship with these teenagers.  My dad said no one ever owned up to the deeds and he was telling me when he was 60 years old and explaining the difference between Halloween then and now.  He still thought that the face of the farmer would have been funny to see when he saw his mules on top of the barn.

Wordless Wednesday Elizabeth Porter Vance

 

A picture of Mildred with a picture of her Great Grandmother Elizabeth Porter Vance and some great grandchildren in front

Tombstone Tuesday My quest

Elizabeth's father's line is my quest.  Her father was John G Porter.  He used G all the time in his documents.  He died in the 1840's and his mother married 3 times.  I am trying to retrace his steps to prove his father.  None of the unsourced information I have so far fits what I see in the censuses I have found.

This is the family I wrote about that the saving grace information of John's mother was at the Alamo.  More as I find it.