Matrilineal Line

From Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - List Your Matrilineal Line(s)

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Hey genealogy buffs - it's Saturday Night again -- time for more Genealogy Fun!!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:
 List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!

Maternal grandmother, Mary Ada WOODS (1904 Paducah, KY- 2002, Piggott, AR) Married Jessie JAMES.

Great-grandmother, Alberta Virginia Neff (1872 Kingsport, TN- 1963 West Memphis, AR), married James William WOODS.

Great-great grandmother, Sarah Catharine WILL (1842 Shenandoah County, VA- 1936 Jackson, Madison County, TN) Married Samuel Henry Neff.

3rd great-grandmother, Sarah RUDDLE (c1798 VA- after 1860 Shenandoah County, VA) married 2nd to George WILL.

4th great-grandmother, Elizabeth BOWMAN (1780 VA- 1806 Shenandoah County, VA) married Isaac RUDDLE (1759-1833) (AKA Riddle, Ruddel, Riddel).

5th great-grandmother, Barbara Unknown, died after 1825 Shenandoah County, Virginia, wife of John Bowman (son of Christian Bowman).

I have not had my mitochondrial DNA tested, but am curious as to what it would reveal about my female ancestors. I need to find out who Barbara is and where she was born. I haven't located her maiden name or a marriage record yet. I know her first name from chancery court papers in Shenandoah County, Virginia. She could be my immigrant ancestress or not....This definitely helps me to know I need to research  Barbara and see exactly what is known about her and her life as well as her extended family records, females living in Shenandoah County, Virginia during this time period as well as other events going on during her life. She is living in America in time for the Revolutionary War, birth of USA, and George Washington becoming first President as well as the first six presidents of the USA. Living in Virginia, she was probably very aware of the political climate of her day.

Wordless Wednesday

Fairview Cemetery, Dyersburg, Dyer County, Tennessee

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings provided a fun

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your "Heritage Pie" Chart

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Ah, Genea-folks, it's Saturday Night again - are you ready for more Genealogy Fun?

Your mission tonight, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  List your 16 great-great-grandparents with their birth, death and marriage data (dates and places).  [Hint - you might use an Ancestral Name List from your software for this.]

2)  Determine the countries (or states) that these ancestors lived in at their birth and at their death.

3)  For extra credit, go make a "Heritage Pie" chart for the country of origin (birth place) for these 16 ancestors. [Hint: you could use the  chart generator from Kid Zone for this.] [Note: Thank you to Sheri Fenley for the"Heritage Pie" chart idea.]

I've decided to participate in this fun challenge.

I've listed my sixteen great-great-grandparents in an earlier post here.

I'm a true southern girl with lots of orange blood running through my veins.

This is the Face of Genealogy

One Spring day in 1983 I desperately wanted to know more about my dad's family, like who was his grandfather?  I mean, I knew my grandfather Tull's name and I remembered my paternal grandmother and several great aunts and uncles, but aside from that I really knew absolutely nothing about my dad's family. I didn't even know my great grandpa Tull's name although I had heard stories about him.

My dad was lying in an intensive care unit bed, connected to a ventilator and other life support and  I was almost in a panic not knowing the names of my family and if something happened to my dad, how would I ever learn this information. Well, thankfully, he recovered and as soon as he was extubated and moved out of ICU, I started asking questions and taking notes. I've been searching for family ever since!

Above is James Dennis Tull and his wife, Hester (Hettie) Ann Johnson Tull and their family. In addition to my great-grandparents, James Dennis and Hettie, my 2nd great-grandmother, Rebecca Jane Cox Johnson (1841-1941) is in the photo. Carson Matthew Tull, the oldest and tallest fellow is my grandfather, who died long before I was born. I remember Carson's brothers,  Jasper Newton (Uncle Jack) and Henry Bruce (Uncle Bruce). I definitely remember my Aunt Frankie, standing left of picture, (Frankie Dorthy Tull Isom). She was one of my favorite great aunts. The lady sitting front left is Hettie's first cousin, Hannah Ferguson. Hannah was daughter of Carroll Ferguson and Rhoda Adaline Cox Ferguson. She came to live with the Tull family after the death of her parents. The sweet baby  is Aunt Nellie Jane Tull Riley. She died during the birth of her fourth child in 1938, so I obviously never got to meet her either. 

These are precious faces to my family and they are definitely the first faces to come to mind when I hear the term "Face of Genealogy" or in this case, "Faces of Genealogy"

Profile Pages on WikiTree

I've recently joined a genealogy site called WikiTree and as I've played around with it I've discovered I can create Profile Pages of places, things, events, etc. I decided to create a profile page for my father's WWII military unit, the 146th Combat Engineer Battalion. I've had fun working on this project and Chris Whitten of WikiTree has actually helped me embed a couple links. He has explained exactly how to do this, but for whatever reason I haven't been able to recreate on my computer. I'll keep working on it.

The really exciting thing about this profile page is # 1 it is public (my choice of privacy) and # 2 anyone on the www can add additional information, people, pictures, memories, etc to this page. I haven't found a lot written about the 146th and have hopes others will find this page and add to the history of the unit, therefore preserving the unit history of this important outfit during WWII. My dad earned seven battle stars while serving with this group. Some of their campaigns were: Invasion of Normandy, 6th June 1944, Omaha Beach; Liberation of Paris, Battle of the Bulge, Rhineland + others. I was fortunate to locate one of my dad's army buddies and he graciously sent me a timeline of his (and my dad's) travels, battles, etc. He also sent me pictures and I am blessed to have my dad's WWII  scrapbook.

Stay tuned as I add a few pictures and a timeline to this profile.

Additionally, I have created several other Profile pages related to my family history. The public profile pages are:
1. Buena Vista United Methodist Church, Bethel Springs, McNairy County, Tennessee
2. Rose Creek United Methodist Church, formerly of Rose Creek, McNairy County, Tennessee
3. Rose Creek School, formerly of Rose Creek, McNairy County, Tennessee
4. Weona Methodist Church, formerly of Weona, Poinsett County, Arkansas
5. Baptist Memorial College of Health Sciences, Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee
6. McNairy County, Tennessee

These are my public profile pages and anyone is welcome to contribute or link their family to these pages. I'm looking forward to adding to these pages as well as creating additional profile pages.

 

McNairy County Cemeteries

Today I added 82 pictures of headstones from Bethel Springs Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

Additionally, I added another 49 pictures of headstones at Buena Vista Cemetery. Some of these are repeats of earlier pictures, but there are some new ones too.


I have photographs from twenty one McNairy County Cemeteries posted on my Flickr account. I posted an earlier blog with links to various cemeteries here.


I hope someone finds a photograph they need or want for their research.


Enjoy!!

Reunions

How many Reunions or similar type gatherings do you attend in the course of a year? 

I was working on my WikiTree, which started me thinking about this as WikiTree provides a venue to create a profile for an event, place, building, unrelated people, reunions, and family mysteries. This seems pretty cool to me and I've added one to my tree which is still a work in progress as I have fun just seeing how useful this will be to me and maybe invited guests.


In 2010 I attended the following reunions or annual events:


1. New Years Party at my sister's home. This has been an annual tradition for at least five years. We meet at her house to bring in the New Year. Generally we have all sorts of snacks and a pot of chili or other crock pot meal. The highlight of this night (at least for me) is the home made ice cream and the fireworks. We have enjoyed the Wii and other games and the youngest crowd enjoys watching the count down from New York. We rarely have the same group of people at this party. It is generally friends, friends of friends, kiddos and their friends. A good time is had by all.


2. The annual New Years Day gathering at my Mom's. We have to eat our hog jowl, black-eyed-peas and greens. It just wouldn't be New Years without it. As our family is growing by leaps and bounds we decided to combine this with our Christmas gathering. It worked out great and we plan to continue this as an annual Christmas and New Years party.


3. Easter is a big event at church. After some good preaching we meet in the fellowship hall for a delicious pot luck meal and the younger set hunts Easter eggs. I list this as a special event as our entire family strives to make it to church on this day and Mother enjoys having us all there on the same day. A fun afternoon with family and church family is always special. 


4. First Sunday in May is another annual event in the life of my family. We have Decoration Day at Moore School House in McNairy County, Tennessee. We visit the cemetery after church and then we motor to a cousins home and have a delicious spread of all the southern goodness one can dream. We have great visits with extended family and friends; swap yarns, stories and other tales. Then we go back to the cemetery for more visiting. The really interesting thing about this reunion is this family starts with my great-grandmother and her sister and their descendants. Two little girls born right before the Civil War and 150 years later their families still meet twice a year for good fellowship. This has been an annual event as long as I can remember. 2010 was a rare exception, however. We had major floods and tornadoes preventing travel to the cemetery or anywhere else for that matter. Mother and I went to the cemetery a week later and left our floral memorials, but it just wasn't the same without seeing so many friends and family. This is one of my favorite traditions.


5. June brings my college reunion. Mother and I graduated from the same college and for the last few years we have attended this event together. I generally have only attended the major milestone years and mother has been more faithful to attend on a regular basis. Since mother can't drive in Memphis, I've started going every year just to be with her. She enjoys catching up with old classmates and I also see a few people I know even if no one else from my class attends. My daughter went with us in 2010 and we had a little adventure in Memphis after the reunion. We have already received our invitation for 2011.


6. Summer brings at least one and sometimes two reunions for my children on their dad's side of the family. We do our best to attend at least one of the reunions. I was really disappointed we didn't get to attend their extended family reunion as it was held near the cemetery where their great-great grandparents are buried and this is a cemetery we haven't been able to visit yet. We did attend their dad's immediate family reunion and had an enjoyable day visiting with their family.


7.  Labor Day Weekend brings two reunions I wanted to attend. Our grade school reunion at the local Park or Firehouse is a tradition of several years for me. It is generally hot, but the food is plentiful and good as is the company. I attended a rural grade school, which closed several years after I left. The building burned and later was demolished to make room for road construction- progress! It is good to reminiscent with many people from all age groups. My dad attended this same school as a boy growing up, so occasionally see one of his childhood friends too.  It is always good to see old friends.


8. Our family started a new reunion last year for our McIntyre cousins. This is for descendants of my great grandparents, John and Jennie Cooksey McIntyre. A small group of us met and had a very good time sharing  food, pictures, Bible records and stories. This reunion conflicted with my School reunion, so I'm going to see if we can change it to later in the day for 2011. I can't wait until our next reunion and hope more family will attend. 


9. Thanksgiving brings our annual Saturday after Thanksgiving Reunion with our Cooksey cousins and kin. We meet at a local firehouse and my children call it the Firehouse Thanksgiving. We've met for as long as I can remember. Folks come from several states to partake of some good southern hospitality and food. This is a day we look forward to all year long. Although this is extended family, these are the cousins and family we grew up seeing on a regular basis. We played together on most Sunday afternoon when I was a youngster. Our families go back one hundred fifty years and I hope the next generation will continue to honor our traditions and carry on for their children and grandchildren. 


I'm sure I must have missed an event, but I was impressed with nine reunion type events in a single year. I know 2011 brings a major milestone for my high school graduation, but haven't heard anything about a class reunion. Twenty Twelve  will be the Centennial anniversary at my college; already making plans to attend this momentous occasion. 


What about you? What reunions or other annual events are you planning to attend in 2011?