The latest edition of Hollingsworth Heritage (Volume 22, Number 3) arrived in my mailbox last week. It is the official publication of The Descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, Sr. Society (DVHSS) of which I am now a member. Thirty-six pages of Hollingsworth happenings at my fingertips. Bazinga! And to think that a year ago I knew not and naught of my Hollingsworth heritage,… More →
Month: February 2016
Debbie Does Holladays, Too
Deborah Murray died between 1840 and 1845 in Henry County, Tennessee. I know this because John R. Deason, my 4th great grandfather, appeared in court in 1845 and testified that his signature on Deborah’s last will and testament was, in fact, his. He and his co-witness and co-signator, Joel Rushing, also testified that Deborah was of “sound and disposing mind and… More →
Know-cahontas
Here’s an update on a previous post. Scouring approximately 600 pages of single-spaced typed names in the most recent edition of Pocahontas’ Descendants by Stuart E. Brown et al yielded nothing but a few paper cuts. Sadly, I did not find my name listed. Drats. I did, however, learn quite a bit about Pocahontas and her immediate brood so all was not lost.… More →
Cousins marrying cousins… Good Heavens, Eleven
Number 11 on my list of my mother’s cousins who’ve married my father’s cousins is unique in that my mother made this connection long before I became interested in genealogy. I am currently working my way through the Clark side of the family and realized I had not yet put this pair on the list. If memory serves, mom had phoned Carol Jane Barnard,… More →
No Gray Mare to Spare
Two hundred years from now genealogists will be scouring Ancestry.com’s fully indexed Facebook archive to figure out what their 4th great grandmothers “liked”. Or what they ate for breakfast on a particular day. I envy them a little I think. Maybe they’ll uncover more than they wanted to know. But, they’ll also have unlimited access to “selfies” as well as historic Candy Crush… More →
Cousins and Classmates
Jim Du(e)senberg was my father’s 1st cousin. He and my father and my father’s sisters attended the same high school in North Kansas City, Missouri. The picture below is from their 1959 yearbook. Jim, pictured in the lower right-hand corner, was a junior. I’m sure to get emails about this (as I most assuredly will screw this up) but I believe my father… More →
He Brought a Gun to a Lawyer Fight
The second entry in my Worst Cousins, Funtimes Removed category comes from the Trantham branch of the tree. In October of 1940, O. A. Kirby, my 3rd cousin, 3x removed, lost a legal battle and then his mind. That’s the defense his lawyers argued during his murder trial. Angered over the outcome of a lawsuit involving land, the defeated Kirby confronted the lawyer for the opposing… More →
It’s fun to stay at the MRCA
Sometimes my genealogy adventures intersect with someone else’s and it thrills me to no end! About three weeks ago I received an email from a distant cousin who identified people who share DNA with her mother and grandmother on either the 1st or the 2nd chromosome. I am one of the latter. About 30 people received her “plea for help” email. She found us using the… More →
He Bee Back
Alva Nola Turner, the subject of my previous post, deserves another look. While researching his siblings I stumbled upon new information about Alva that might just explain his penchant for writing dark and somber poetry: he enjoyed pain. In May of 1924, Alva appeared in local newspapers across Illinois because of an unusual remedy he employed to calm his nerves: self-inflicted… More →