Wisteria

I was doing some time traveling last night. I recently ordered a book written by Faye Royster Tuck with a collection of articles on Halifax County, Virginia. Most of the information was taken from “the Chancery Court cases (loose papers) which are mixed in with the Halifax County Judgments.” Imagine my delight to learn that one of my ancestors, Sarah Everett Dodson, was reported to be the prettiest woman in the land. She was the mother of my third great-grandfather, Bird Hardy, born in 1793. This was not gleaned from official court records, but a family manuscript written in 1859 that I was previously unaware of. After 20+ years of researching, I seldom find whole previous unknown lines. Instead, little tidbits like this are a joy for me to uncover. A good deal of my family lines trace back to Halifax County, Virginia and roots have a way of becoming entangled with other families after a while. Members of the Watts family, for example, were in the county from the beginning of its form

I love how geneabloggers share the same passion for family history. Here are some gems of wisdom about the craft I've run across in my reading: “We may think writing about ourselves is boring or egotistical but stop and think how excited your descendants would be to find a journal or dairy that their great great grandmother (you) wrote.” Lorine McGinnis Schulze at http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/p/sharing-memories.html “There are so many things to love about genealogy: the thrill of research, the fabulous social aspects and cousin connections, the OCD satisfaction to be found by filling in all the little boxes, the feeling of power and competence in mastering the neat genea-gadgets and genea-apps (OK, this one doesn’t apply to me), the educational and scholarly aspects, and the opportunity to indulge our artistic side in writing and scrapbooking.” Greta Koehl at http://gretabog.blogspot.com/2011/08/things-i-dont-care-about-in-genealogy.html “As genealogists we are passio

The beginnings of my other post Once I Had A Dream was written in the early 90s. I guess I was destined to write a blog before they even became popular.   Just before I started Wisteria , I was going through my desk drawers and found some boxes of old diskettes of mine which included some old genealogy writing I had done. I had completely forgotten about them. Or maybe somewhere in my mind I remembered without realizing it consciously since it’s somewhat serendipitous that I ran across these old writings at around the same time I launched this blog. I mentioned that in my dream I had a book that held the answers to my genealogy problems. You know what the name of that book was? Wisteria . Because I’m not one to jump on the new technology bandwagon as quickly as others, it so happens that the computer I have now still has the capability of reading those old diskettes. So I took the time to transfer the data from those old diskettes to a jump drive. Jump drives are probably not quite th

William Hardy and Sarah Ann Fulcher (the daughter of Phillip Fulcher) were married in Calloway County, Kentucky on 14 May 1835. [1] Both William and Sarah were named as trustees in the will of Briant Downing.   Briant wrote his will on 15 November 1862 and it was recorded in court on 25 February 1863.   Besides a bequest of his buggy to Phebe Lewis, the rest of the will entailed his desire that all his slaves be set free.   His slaves were:   Polipus and Ann his wife and Ellen, Winnie, Pad, Brooks and Caph their children.   They were to remain on Briant's farm until arrangements could be made to move then to a "good and healthy" place in some free state unless an act of Legislature let them remain there free.   Briant left quite a bit of property for their benefit, including household furniture and a crop of tobacco.   He desired that the remainder of his perishable property be sold and be equally divided among his heirs in law.   He appointed William and Sarah A. Hardy t

Once I had a dream that I was working on my genealogy and I was so frustrated because I couldn't find an ancestor.   I decided to check in the back of the book I was reading for the answers.   In my dream, genealogy was like a textbook problem, with the answers in the back.   Oh, how I sometimes wish that were true! Take the case of my Goode ancestors.   My second great grandmother, Martha Susan Hardy died in Christian Co, KY in 1915.   Her death certificate listed her parents as Anderson Sizemore and Sarah Goode, both born in Halifax Co, VA.   From the Genealogies of Kentucky Families [1], I found mention of Anderson Sizemore and his wife Sarah Goode on page 350. This article related that Sarah's father was John Goode, with the following additional facts in a footnote: -John Goode married (secondly) Elizabeth Cole in 1809 and died in 1814.   -Daniel C. Goode was guardian of John's children William H., John, Mary, Nancy, Susannah and Jemima. -Richard Tuck was guardian of J

My new blogger friend, Lisa Swanson Ellam, had this genealogy meme posted on her blog, The Faces of My Family . It is originally from Becky Wiseman of Kinexxions . I thought it would be fun to participate. The list should be annotated in the following manner: Things you have already done or found: bold face type Things you would like to do or find: italicize (color optional) Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type 1.         Belong to a genealogical society. 2.         Researched records onsite at a court house. 3.         Transcribed records. 4.         Uploaded tombstone pictures to Find-A-Grave. 5.         Documented ancestors for four generations (self, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents). 6.         Joined Facebook. 7.         Helped to clean up a run-down cemetery. 8.         Joined the Genea-Bloggers Group on Facebook. 9.         Attended a genealogy conference. 10.      Lectured at a genealogy conference. 11.      Spoke on a genealogy to