Third Wave of Family Stories, and finishing up the Shanklin Side

NaBloPoMo is complete, and I've finished the collecting/studying/searching for each of these 32 individuals and their families.   I think the information here has made alot of headway at getting organized, though there is undoubtedly still alot of work that could be done to organize and archive the information in a useful way.   Some things I'd like to do further to improve this project:

1. I need to go through and check the family trees described here against the genealogies that mom had previously built-- to make sure that  we encompassed all of the children at least for that cross-section in history.
2. To continue from (1), it would be useful to do the full descendancy research for these 16 couples... which would be a significant undertaking.  Due to the Mormon genealogists in the family, I have reason to expect that [1-8] are fairly well up-to-date.  I have talked to Frank Shanklin who did the descendancy research for [9], which I mostly tied together in FamilySearch.org.  That leaves [10-16] as kind of a half-hearted attempt at this point to get everything lined up properly in the family tree.
3. I'd like to go through the family pictures and make sure they are appropriately linked to the family tree, as well.
4. Each of the descriptions written this month need to be error-checked by another set of eyes to see if I made any glaring errors, or left out any of the pertinent facts.
5. Once couples [1-16] are nice and tidy, the families that connect me to them (mostly entered as Bonus entries need to be more fully documented.
6. With all of the [1-16] families stories and histories polished up, and with the families that link us to them drafted and checked, it would be useful (I think), to compile this into a booklet form or something that could be printed and serve as a quick reference.
7. An extension to this would be to go back and repeat this exercise for the 8 from my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and Jen's birth-father.  That would give us (32+32+16)=80 people, and on down to their 40 direct-line kids, 20 direct-line grandkids, 10 direct-line ggrandkids, and 5 gggrands (which constitute our parents!), for a total of 155 people that most directly have influence who we are.  Big Project!!!

We left off on Nov 23 with the last of the with the Breedens and the Reeds (couple 12), so we're ready to move on to couple 13.  With 8 days and only 4 couples left, you'd think I'd be hurting for stories but Mom provided some great writeups from the Jennings-Phillips Collection of Early Bedford County, which are great reads.  In fact, we ought to write up a brief overview (with pictures!) of this story, just so it is fully represented for its value to our family history project as well.

Nov 23: A Bedford County Primer
Nov 24: Thomas Christopher Thompson and Nancy Achsah King (couple 13)
Nov 25: Elijah Roberts and Maggie Ella Ray (couple 14)
Nov 25: Bonus: General Marion Ray (father of couple 14)
Nov 26: Bonus: Thomas Lacy Roberts (father of couple 14)
Nov 26: An LDS faith-promoting genealogy story
Nov 27: Bonus: Estill Ernest Thompson and Lounettie Jennings (grandchildren of 13,14,15,16)
Nov 28: Samuel Thomas Jennings and Lou Vicie Phillips (couple 15)
Nov 28: Bonus: Robert Cross Jennings (father of couple 15)
Nov 28: Bonus: Garrett Phillips (father of couple 15)
Nov 28: Bonus: Matthew Phillips (grandfather of couple 15)
Nov 29: Lucius Junius Osborn and Martha Elmore (couple 16)
Nov 29: Shanklin GGGGrandparents review
Nov 30: Tennessee Land Grants

Possibly Thomas Lacy Roberts (1807-1884) Tintype.  (The oldest family photo I've come across so far.)

Second Wave of Family Stories

Now that we're three quarters through the month and I'm three quarters through with outlining the family stories of my family from 5 generations back, I thought I'd send the links to the compilations.

In summary, I finished up my dad's side of the family (the first three posts.  Jacksons take note!), then paused for a bit to summarize and chart out the tools of the trade and the what I'm trying to accomplish from a process standpoint.

After those, I charted through my mom's dad's family in a series of 9 posts (Shanklins take note!).  In the next few days, I'll be working on mom's mom's family (Thompsons, Jennings, et al.).  Hope you are enjoying this!  It's handy to have the "family directory" of stories put together in one place.  In the end, I'll port the pertinent portion of these into FamilySearch.org Memories section, to make them even more permanent.

Nov 11: Albert Smith (son of couple 7 & 8)
Nov 12: Storton/Jeffrey (couple 8)
Nov 13: Jackson Side GGG Grandparent Summary
Nov 14: Survey of a few Genealogy Tools
Nov 15: My "genealogy process"
Nov 16: Shanklin/Young (couple 9)
Nov 16: Harvesting Wheat by Hand
Nov 17: Maxey/Byars (couple 10)
Nov 18: George Harrison Shanklin (son of couple 9)
Nov 19: Everett Shanklin and Obeira Breeden (grandchildren of couples 9, 10, 11, and 12)
Nov 20: Breeden/Anderson (couple 11)
Nov 21: Weakley County, Tennessee: A Resource
Nov 22: Reed/Chambers (couple 12)
Nov 23: James Priestley Breeden and Ida Eugenia Reed (children of couples 11 and 12)

The children and grandchildren of Jim Maxey and Mary Byars, sometime around 1898, perhaps.

November is Genealogy Month for my NaBloPoMo

This month I'm participating in NaBloPoMo in a sort of non-traditional way.  In July I got hooked on genealogy on using FamilySearch.org and other related sites, and I can't put it down.  Therefore, this month, I'm scavenging family stories from various sources and recording some insights into the life and times of my 32 great-great-great grandparents.  I'm going to try to span both my dad's side of the family (very well documented at that generation) and my mom's side of the family (I'll be digging during the second half of this month!)

This whole thing really started because during the course of our interesting lunch conversations at work, I brought up that I was involved in family history and online research, and someone said, "It'd be really interesting to see pins on a map to show what kind of cross-section of the world you represent.  So I picked this generation, because the records are fairly accessible (early to mid 1800s).

Here's the resulting map (dad's side was coming from England/Wales, mom's side was firmly planted in the South!)



 
For my cousins, this will be interesting and pertinent.  For others, some posts will be only interesting, and some will be quite pertinent.  So be it!

Sorry I didn't warn you earlier.  Here's where I am so far, working my way through the 16 couples and their stories:

Nov 1: Starting Point
Nov 2: Jackson/Wooley (couple 1)
Nov 3: Jackson/Wooley part 2 (couple 1)
Nov 4: Hatch/Perry (couple 2)
Nov 5: Perry/Hatch (couple 2)
Nov 5: Bonus!  Ira Stearns Hatch (father of couple 2 husband)
Nov 6: Rex/Mead (couple 3)
Nov 6: Mead, part 2 (couple 3)
Nov 7: Brough/Bott (couple 4)
Nov 8: Wagstaff/Humberstone (couple 5)
Nov 9: Gibby/Stevenson (couple 6)
Nov 10: Smith/Wadsworth (couple 7)

A few more posts.

We're doing National Blog Posting Month with a post per day... so here's what's I've put up in the last week:

11/1 New House Choice Analysis
11/2 Family Demographics
11/3 First Savings Account
11/4 Bad Flour
11/5 Details on the New House
11/6 What to say?

I don't pretend to be as funny as Jen, but hopefully the content brings a smile or provokes a thought in your mind.  :)  Enjoy!

Joe.

Exciting news and nerdy analysis... See here.

Summer Catch-up

I sat down and compiled some pictures/review of the last 5 months.

March
April
May
June
July (first half)

Enjoy!  Turns out when you have a young family, 5 months means LOTS of pictures and many activities.  Sorry for the long wait--- I know you've been wondering. :)

Graham, month one roundup.