Response to GeniAus: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2014

The purpose is to get geneabloggers to remember to accentuate the positive.  I think most genealogy researchers are perfectionists.  They rarely step back to take stock of the positive that has happened in their year of research.  There, of course, is more to do, however, little pieces of the puzzle begin to bring the picture into focus. 
These are questions Jill gave us to ponder and answer with positive thoughts.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was... David F Burleson.  He was not my direct line, however, David Franklin was listed in many different trees as two men with different wives.  The War of 1812 Pension Files on Fold3 were the source of the break through.  The files showed David Franklin Burleson, who was the son of David and Ursula Burleson, had two wives and it gave the death, that everyone had estimated, of his first wife and the place.  It was a great finding.  One that will change many trees.

2.  A precious family photo I found was... a photo of some type of mill with my gr great grandfather and his son in Oklahoma about 1915...

3.  An ancestor's grave I found was... because of a wonderful person who was just collecting pictures and tombstone of anyone with the same surname, "just in case"... Proved date,and place of death of a civil war ancestor as his Civil War file was not complete.

4.  An important vital record I found was... was the death certificate for the above ancestor.

5.  A newly found family member shared... a picture and caused a second look at a different picture. Controversy still not resolved.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was... DNA matches that points to a confirmation to prior preponderance of evidence without paper trail. 

7.   My 2014 blog post that I was particularly proud of was one of the few 52 Ancestors weeks challenge posts... It was about my grandfather's sister Bessie Langley Bowen. I am so glad I started this and even happier that Amy Crow's 52 Ancestor's meme is continuing it this year. 

8.   My 2014 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was Totally Floored and Appreciative   Not so much because of content, but because of  fellow blogger interaction.  Do you seek comments? 

9.  A new piece of software I mastered was Android apps for my tablet and phone for Ancestry.com

10. A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was Facebook.  I have a couple of family groups on FB and they have been active in sharing family information as well as pictures and stories.  Love the stories.

11. A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was FGS 2014 in San Antonio.  My heart is saddened that I will not be able to make it to FGS 2015 in Salt Lake City... Would have been too cool to have done FGS and Rootstech right together.

12. I am proud of the presentation I gave to The Sons of the Texas Republic in the Woodlands, Texas.  

13. A journal/magazine article I had published... this was not my privilege.  

14. I taught several friends how to use FamilySearch's Family Tree and use the Search side of the website.

15. A genealogy book that taught me something new was Guide to DNA Testing by Richard Hill.  

16. A great repository/archive/library I visited was Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research

17. A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was "Grey Skies: A Civil War Legend of Family Courage" by David Self.  This historical fiction book was based on the family history of one of my collateral family members.

18. It was exciting to finally meet many of my genealogy heroes at FGS 2014.  I had been blogging and tweeting with them as well as being Facebook "friends" for several years with so many.  Then to meet them and exchange hugs and chat was just great.

19. A geneadventure I enjoyed was going to an old hidden cemetery with a distant cousin to see the grave sites of  my 4th great grand parents in Ray County, Missouri.  Totally off the grid.  We were taken in an old pickup, which we were holding our breath that it would keep running and crossed three fields to a spot that we needed a machete to clear our way... Outstanding adventure!  

Amy Phillips

20. Another positive I would like to share is that this year, so many have donated time and money to different genealogy projects. It has been awesome to see how the community rallies around each other to help in as many ways as possible for them. 

All in all, looking at it, it has been a very good year.  Thanks Jill for the prompt... it helped.

Oklahoma 1940 Federal Census Finds!

I had started out flipping through the Oklahoma 1940 Federal Census and found my Aunt Della Whitaker and their two sons.  I soon tired of flipping through because the size of the image took so long to download.  Thus, I waited. The Oklahoma 1940 Census Index is now online. Click on the link above.
I love FamilySearch Indexers! I help index Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri, but I am only one person and with my schedule it would be the year 3000 before they were finished.  The power of numbers is awesome!
I started looking for my dad.  I thought he would be in Pawnee, Oklahoma, but was surprised to find him in Saline, Alfalfa County, Oklahoma.  He was with his first wife and he was a section foreman with the Rail Road.  I expected to find this.  He didn't meet my mom until after the war and his divorce.
My grandfather was fun to find, because it proved he was a blacksmith with the WPA project.  As I understood from my grandmother he was working with the builders of highway 64 going through Pawnee.  They were living in Perry, Noble County, Oklahoma.  My dad owned property there.  Next to them was his youngest sister.  Wondering where my Aunt Lynn was.  It was too early for her second marriage and I don't know who her first husband was.  Not a lot of talk about that.
I hope I have peaked your interest in helping with indexing or going and searching for your ancestors.  There is so much to learn on this census.  Click on this #1940Census to see many articles on this census.
Happy Hunting!

If We Were a Tree In The Forest...

created by Footnote Maven

This is my entry for the 110th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. "What tree best represents your family’s history?"
The Quercus alba L or White Oak is a great match for my Langley Tree. The White oak grows throughout most of the Eastern United States. It is found from southwestern Maine and extreme southern Quebec, west to southern Ontario, central Michigan, to southeastern Minnesota; south to western Iowa, eastern Kansas,  Oklahoma, and Texas; east to northern Florida and Georgia. The tree is generally absent in the high Appalachians, in the Delta region of the lower Mississippi, and in the coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana.
The west slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio and central Mississippi River Valleys have optimum conditions for white oak, but the largest trees have been found in Delaware and Maryland on the Eastern Shore.
My wonderful family is 100% US grown.  I know that once I get back to the early 1600's it will be different, but for now they go back to the late 1600's in the US. They are as the Oak tree.  Deep roots that thrive anywhere but in shallow soil.  The family profession was farmers and planters, not city folk at all.
The Oak is long lived. Many of our family members lived to be 90 to 100.  
The tree is characterized by a short trunk with a wide crown. It is the tree on our farm that has beautiful character developed from resilience from storms, adverse growing conditions, and time weathering.  Just as our family has developed as it moved from the east to the central area of the US.  
The Langleys came from North Carolina, to Kentucky, to Missouri and ended up in Oklahoma where I was born. This family is still growing on my genealogy tree making tangled and interesting branches.
The Carriers, Kemps, and Hankins came from Virginia to Tennessee, to Missouri and then to Oklahoma. They had loss of family members from wars, illness, and anger, but survived and thrived.
Just as the oak has a large crop of acorns in adverse times to continue, so did this family have a fine bumper crop of children. 
The Gildons and Sellicks came from Connecticut to Georgia, to Texas, and then to Oklahoma where I was born (oh I said that already).This family is an object of my second submission for DAR.  
The resemblance of this tree and my family is so close, that I think it is the perfect match.

Some Left Some Didn't

The 1930's was the time of the Dust Bowl for some of my folks in Oklahoma. (If you click on Dust Bowl it will take you to Wikipedia for the subject.)  They were marginal farmers.  Thus when the drought hit, followed by the dust storms, they left for California.  I have been through a dust storm in the panhandle of Texas in recent years.  It lasted just an hour, but it was enough for me to understand the panic and suffocating feeling of the heat, dirt in the air you breathe and no visibility. It makes me thankful that after the disastrous events of the 1930's better conservation farming and irrigation techniques were developed to reduce the possibility of a recurrence of that time..

Clinton Oklahoma 1930's

Charles Langley was a gas station owner in Clinton, Oklahoma.  An area that was overcome by the dust storms.  His brother-in-law Lowery Bowen and sister Bessie moved with their 6 children to California for work.  Charles is said to have gone to California with them.  I tend to believe that he stayed and operated his gas station as it was on the legendary Route 66.  There are lots of interactive sites about that.  If he did go, he came back because he died in the Clinton, Oklahoma area.


 Lowery and Bessie stayed in California, as well as their children.  Their granddaughter was the person who contacted me and and let me know where they and gone.
Charles's nephew John moved to Missouri and stayed there.  The rest of the family stayed in the Pawnee County area.    
My mom's mother, Matilda Roberts Whitson, was a widow of 8 years at that time. She had 6 of 13 children still at home and 2 grandchildren. Their home was in Fay, Oklahoma.  If you have been to Custer County or Dewey County, Oklahoma then you know how sandy it is and dry and hot in the summer time. My grandmother owned a creamery and ironed and washed clothes during that time to make ends meet. Leaving was not an option.  They did not have transportation. Things of necessity were bought at a local grocery or a cousin or uncle would pick things up for them in the "big cities".  She would look at the Sears catalog and make dresses for the girls out of flour cloth.  I was told by her, she even cooked the squeal of the pig.  Thrifty and amazing person, I am glad to have her genes.

Mattie Whitson  Fay, Oklahoma 1930