It Never Hurts to Go Looking : Taking Time to Visit Enon

Enon Cemetery, Woodstock, Georgia, 4 June 2019
personal photograph

It was one of those perfect days for a cemetery visit, not yet Georgia summer hot, cloudy but not rainy, and an uncrowded midweek morning. I had visited several times over the past 20 years to take pictures, but this time I had another purpose. I knew that my relatives were buried in a family plot, but I wanted to record exactly WHO was WHERE and to be certain that I had a picture of each marker in the plot. It was time for me to make a map of the family plot.

Although it had been close to 10 years since my last visit to Enon, it was easy to locate the Perkinson family plot. It is the plot with the tall obelisk near its center.

Perkinson Monument
personal photo

Armed with pen and paper and my cell phone camera, I arrived at Enon Cemetery midmorning and was pleased to see that paved parking places were now available just next to the family plot. I decided to work left to right, front to back, to document all of those buried in the plot. 

Rough sketch of the Perkinson family plot

My quick sketch of the plot included a number and the name of the one buried there. It was not an architectural or even scaled drawing by any means, but it is enough for me to see who is buried where and to consider some relationships. The numbers on the sketch made it easy to locate the corresponding photo in my phone's camera roll for that day. The arrow pointing right at grave 24 refers to three more graves in that row, graves which I documented on another page. Later I plan to upload any new photos to BillionGraves.com so that all of the burials in the plot will be recorded in their database.

As I walked around the plot and made notes, I came across this section which I do not remember ever noticing before. It took looking at all three relatively recent markers to see the family connection among the unfamiliar surnames. And the box of artificial flowers here and on a few other graves was a touch I had not seen often at Enon. It made me wonder if there had recently been a Decoration Day at Enon. Decoration Day, a long standing tradition in the rural south, is a time for families to gather at the burial place of ancestors, clean the cemetery of weeds, leaves, etc., and perhaps leave flowers in memory of loved ones. DigitalHeritage.org has an interesting article about this observance.

Finally, once home, as I was writing the detailed list of the burials, it was interesting to determine who was the first one to be buried in the plot at Enon Cemetery. The first family member buried in the plot was six month old Willie Perkinson, a younger brother of my grandfather, who was buried at Enon in 1883. In 1894, Walter Dean, a grandson of my second great grandparents, was buried there at the age of four months. Then followed the interments of various Perkinson and Dean family members and relatives up to as recently as 2017. Perhaps I need to start referring to this plot as the Perkinson-Dean Family Plot in recognition of the blending of the two families.

Lessons Learned:

• Taking the time to look at all the graves and markers made me want to be certain of the family relationship of each person buried there. Now that I'm home, I am listing each person buried in the family plot, their birth and death dates, relationship to anyone buried in the family plot, and a notation for any direct ancestor. Having this information along with a neater version of the plot map will help me. I plan to add the redrawn plot map, the relationship list, and labeled thumbnail photos to my Perkinson Family file folder. Plus, a copy will go to my brother. As the old saying goes, it's hard to know the players without a program.
• There were a few recent burials in the family plot for whom I need to document their relationships in my genealogy software.
• It was a time to pause and reflect when I saw the graves of six young children buried among the 34 family graves. I wondered if these young deaths corresponded to pandemics sweeping the area or if they were caused by genetic problems or undiagnosed health issues.
• The variety of last names - Barnes, Dean, Drinkard, Felton, McAfee, Perkinson - give this plot the feeling of the small town where most of those buried had lived at some point in their life.
• As I explore some of the relationships, I am reminded once again that there may be something new to learn when we revisit a genealogy resource. Documents, photos, even grave markers can continue to provide additional information when we take another look; they might even lead to new questions to research.
• My decision to include a visit to Enon came as I was planning to visit the Woodstock Public Library, just across the street. My purpose for going to the library related to my quest to find an elusive marriage verification I needed for my DAR membership application. Still no luck finding any marriage information, even in among obituaries on microfilm of old newspapers, but the trip to Enon was a worthwhile endeavor. Combining research missions helped me have success in one area even if the other task was less fruitful.

Genealogy Do-Over, Week 12: Sharing Research on WikiTree

Last week's e-mail had an interesting, make that huge, BSO (bright, shiny object). Someone had written me concerning a blog post I wrote over a year ago about my husband's 2GGrandfather, Elijah Hillhouse. In the post I had written about Elijah's military service in two different conflicts. This e-mail was a BSO as I have been running into dead ends in my Norwegian research and felt I could use a break.

The e-mail asked if I would share some of Elijah's information on WikiTree.  I had registered to participate in WikiTree several years ago, but I had not been involved in posting any information there.  This correspondence gave me the impetus to look more closely at WikiTree and how the site operates.

The primary reason I have been looked at WikiTree at all was its emphasis on citing sources for information and its collaborative nature in developing family trees. Before I started working in an existing WikiTree, I wanted to start building a tree of my one. This would give me a chance to learn more about how the whole system operates.

Because I have been so involved in researching my Norwegian ancestors during the Genealogy Do-Over weeks, I felt this was the time to share my work on WikiTree in addition to updating my tree on Ancestry.  I did a GEDCOM ancestor export from Family Tree Maker of my Grandfather Michael Myren (the son of two Norwegian immigrants) and his ancestors. The next day I received an e-mail from WikiTree accepting my contribution.  My contribution of Michael Myren's tree was accepted in its entirety as there were no apparent duplicate names with those in other WikiTrees. So far I haven't received any contact from others researching my ancestors, but I am hoping that sometime in the future I will.

Before I started to add some information about Elijah Hillhouse to the existing WikiTree, I spent time reading the details the website provides on editing and citing information.  Adding bits of specific information wasn't as simple as uploading my GEDCOM file. After all, the intent of WikiTree is to have only one collaborative tree for a family, not multiple ones. Admittedly, it took me about an hour to add a few facts about Elijah's family and the sources for the facts.  Entering information isn't as effortless as using the templates that I am accustomed to with Family Tree Maker, but it wasn't as difficult as writing a bunch of HTML code. Because the manager for the WikiTree (on which Elijah's family was a branch) had made me a trusted contributor, I was able to add several facts to the tree as well as to add Elijah's parents and grandparents to the tree. It was an interesting experience to share some of my research through contributing to someone else's WikiTree .

Now I'm ready to "head back to Norway".  Following up on that e-mail was like a breath of fresh air.  It provided me with an opportunity to see what WikiTree has become.  It provided me a reason to share research with others.  And, it has provided me with another place to look when I am researching an individual.  If you haven't used WikiTree before, I urge you to take a look and see if its collaborative research can help you.

P.S. If you are one of my former students, as with Wikipedia, the information on WikiTree is only as good was where the information was originally found. The format of WikiTree makes it easy to see the sources each contributor used.

Between Friends and Family

Hedge Maze, St Louis Botanical Gardens
photo source: Wikipedia Commons

It all started when I was trying to find the death date for the first wife of my 4GreatUncle Burrell Marion Camp.  One thing lead to another as I kept coming across more marriages between the same families and friends.  Here's the brief outline of some interesting family connections.

Connection #1  Mary E Stegall was the first wife of Burrell Marion Camp.  Two years after Mary's death, Burrell married the widow Sarah Holland Elsberry in 1871.  Earlier in 1864, Sarah's brother, George Washington Holland, had married Lydia Camp, the daughter of Burrell Camp and Mary Stegall Camp.  This meant that after 1871 Sarah Holland Elsberry Camp was Lydia Camp Holland's sister-in-law as well as being Lydia's stepmother.

Connection #2  Prior to her marriage to Burrell Camp, Sarah Holland had been married to Lindsay Elsberry, Jr, one of the members of the 40th Georgia Infantry, CSA, who died during the Civil War.  It turned out that Lindsay Elsberry had a sister Sarah Sally Elsberry who married Archibald Holland, the widowed father of Sarah Holland.  This meant that Sarah Elsberry Holland was both a sister-in-law and a stepmother to Sarah Holland Elsberry Camp.  I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

Connection #3  Sarah Holland Elsberry Camp's first husband, Lindsay Elsberry, Jr, had a brother Matthew, also a member of the 40th Georgia, who also died during the Civil War.  Matthew left a widow, Mary Jane Henderson Elsberry.  In December, 1883, she then married the now widowed George Washington Holland, brother of her sister-in-law Sarah Holland Elsberry Camp.  No doubt about it, Mary Jane Henderson Elsberry Holland and Sarah Holland Elsberry Camp were definitely sisters-in-law.

Connection #4  According to the findagrave memorial for Mary Jane Henderson Holland "the story was shared among many family members, that when Lydia Camp Holland was near to her passing she told George [Holland] that her wishes were for him to remarry and that if she could choose his next wife for him, it would be Mary Jane Henderson Elsberry".  I continued to find this story posted on several online family trees and family genealogy web sites.  Maybe it is true, maybe not, but it is still a great story.

 As I checked census records, Civil War widow pension data, findagrave.com pages, and Georgia marriage records, I kept bumping into repeated connections between the Camp-Elsberry-Holland families.  It made for an interesting afternoon, all of which started when I found a photo of Mary Stegall Camp's grave marker and took the time to see who else was buried at Old High Shoals Cemetery in Paulding County, Georgia.

Heading in the right direction: People

Cartoon Family Holding Hands
source:  www.clker.com

Whether you plan to write a few family stories or devote years to developing a family tree, it is important early on to have a consistent way to list people's names in the information you gather and store.  Using standard format makes it easier to locate your notes, find those digital photos you've scanned or uploaded, and establish that the new information you've just found is really about your relative.

Tip 1: Label, tag, identify, file your material using a person's entire name, surname first, followed by first name and middle name or initial.  Listing an uncle as Smith, James Edgar keeps his information stored alphabetically near that of other Smith family members.  It also makes it easier when you have information with a variation of his name, i.e., J. E. Smith, Edgar Smith, or even Jim Smith.  Some choose to capitalize the entire surname, others don't; it's your choice.

Tip 2:  Record a female by her maiden name.  Whether a women remains single, uses a variation of her birth name, or marries, information about her will stay in the same place in your research files.  For clarity, you can add a married name in (.....) on a file tab or computer tag, showing Grandma Jones as Smith, Mary Louise (Jones).

As you take personal notes, you can refer to that person as Uncle Jim or Grandma Jones but follow the practice of using these tips to identify the person as you file or store information either electronically or on paper.  Practicing these two tips from the beginning will help you both as your collection of  family information grows and as you share information with others.

July 4 - Let's Celebrate!

Iwo Jima Monument, Washington, DC
personal photo taken 1968

July 4 is a day for parades, family picnics, fireworks, and wearing red, white, and blue.  It is also a day to remember our country's history and the freedoms we enjoy each day.

I feel a sense of gratitude for those ancestors who were willing to fight in the Revolutionary War and subsequent military conflicts, relatives who left another country under political duress and come to America, those who were part of the westward migrations in our country's history, those who chose to immigrate to this country and start a new life,  those who have served as elected officials, and all the teachers, farmers, ministers, and shopkeepers who populate our family trees.  All of you are part of America's history.

We've got a lot to celebrate! 

Life With Louise* - Little Sisters

*Mary Louise Vaughan Dallis kept several photo albums and scrapbooks.  They were filled with family pictures and shots of life in LaGrange, Georgia between 1900 – 1935.

Charlotte, Sue, and Eleanor Vaughan

Being in a family of seven girls, Louise had lots of pictures of her sisters.  This is my favorite from her albums.  Pictured above are the three youngest Vaughan girls L-R, - Charlotte, Sue, and Eleanor.  Based on their apparent ages, the picture was probably taken about 1907-08 in the yard of the family’s home in LaGrange, Georgia.  All three look like they are having a good time!

Little sisters eventually grow up. 

After attending college, Charlotte taught English at the Birch-Wathen School in New York.  I had always heard that she was a writer and worked with a publishing company, but I have not yet been able to verify this family story  Charlotte never married, and died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 37.   

Sue Brown Vaughan, like her sisters, attended Southern Female College in LaGrange, Georgia.  She married a young LaGrange physician, Wallace Henderson Clarke, and they raised a family of four children.  Sue had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh; she looks ready to laugh in this picture, too.

Eleanor Dean Vaughan attended Southern Female College and, like her sisters, taught school for some years.  She married Barron Nichols, a professor at Winthrop College.  Eleanor and Barron had no children except for the hundreds of students with whom they were in contact each year.

I have so many fond memories of Great Aunt Sue and Great Aunt Eleanor.  I was delighted to find this happy picture in one of Louise’s scrapbooks.

Fourth Cousin, Twice Removed on My Mom's Side?

Photo by Damiaan on flickr

From time to time I will receive an e-mail, an Ancestry message, or some other communication from someone to whom I am somehow related.  That has happened four times in the past ten days .  I'm always glad to hear from new people and look forward to sharing information, photos, and stories with them.

One of the first things I want to know is exactly how we are related.  That's where a relationship chart can be helpful.  FamilyTreeMagazine.com has a simple to use Relationship Chart available as a pdf download or to bookmark.  I use it frequently to help determine my relationship with others as well as determining relationships between "cousins" who marry or those who live together, work together, etc. within my family tree.

If you haven't used a relationship chart before, it is pretty simple.  The relationship depends upon identifying the common ancestor I share with a new family contact.  Using FamilyTree's chart, I first identify my relationship with that common ancestor using the labels across the top line of the chart.  If that common ancestor is my Great Great Grandparent, I'll use the fourth column (outlined in red) as I determine this new relationship.

Next I use the label on the left side of the chart that corresponds to the other person's relationship to our common ancestor.  If the common  ancestor is that person's Great Grandparent, I would use the third row (outlined in blue) in determining our relationship.

Family Tree Magazine Relationship Chart

Follow where my column and the other person's row meet, and there is our relationship.  In this case, this new person and I would be second cousins, once removed.  The term once removed indicates that we are separated by one generation.  My father would be this person's second cousin since they are of the same generation.  Twice removed would mean that we were separated by two generations.

One reminder, frequently letters from the past and even census records used the term cousin in a variety of ways.  It could refer to an actual cousin, a relative in general, or someone with whom they shared a close relationship.  This first hit home as I started transcribing some family letters written during the Civil War.  The "Dearest Cousin" was sometimes written to a cousin, other times to a sister- or brother-in-law.  Once I expanded my definition of "cousin", the letters and their family references were much clearer.

Finally, to all my first, second, third, or fourth cousins, once, twice, or three times removed, on either side of my family tree, greetings!

Matrilineal Monday : Getting to Know "Aunt Thank"

Thankful Caroline Hammond Gaston
photo courtesy of Audley D. Gaston

My mother's family always referred to Thankful Caroline Hammond, my second Great Grand Aunt, as "Aunt Thank".  All I remembered hearing about her was that my Grandmother, Gertrude Thankful Andrews, was named after her, that Aunt Thank had no children, and "Aunt Thank" was the Andrews' family nickname for her.

All of this changed recently when I received an e-mail from a fourth cousin whose relative had married Aunt Thank.  This relative had looked at my tree posted on Ancestry.com and contacted me about our mutual relatives.  We exchanged some information and stories, and now, thanks to a new cousin, I know a lot more about an interesting woman.

One story shared by my cousin was that Aunt Thank had an eye infection as a young child that left her very sensitive to light for the rest of her life.  Yet, even with this physical problem, Thankful was able to teach school for some years.  Before her marriage in 1862, Thankful lived with her parents while she was teaching at the local school in Sadsbury, Pennsylvania.(1)  Later, Thankful and her husband, Athelston Gaston, were living in Franklin, Iowa, with one of her sisters, and Thankful was once again teaching school.(2)  Apparently her vision problems did not prohibit her from teaching.

I had always heard that Aunt Thank had no children, but I have since learned through my new cousin that Thankful and Athelston Gaston had a daughter, Alma, who died at the age of two.  The cemetery where Alma is buried has apparently suffered the effects of time, so  I'm grateful to the volunteer who walked the cemetery in 1998 and recorded all the markers visible at that time.  The recorded information about Alma's marker reads "11 3/4" arch-top marble [headstone] : SACRED to THE MEMORY OF ALMA Dearly cherished child of ATHELSTON & THANKFUL GASTON, departed this life Dec 5, 1864, AGED 2 Yrs 7 Ms & 15 Ds" (3)

Apparently Thankful and Athelston opened their doors several times to care for children after Alma's death.  The 1880 census indicated an adopted daughter named Emma living with the family.(4)  Additional information about Emma has been virtually impossible to find; perhaps 8-year old Emma was actually a relative who lived with them for a while.  One more thing now on my to-do list.

In 1900, their 22-year old niece Grace Hamlin [Hammond] lived with them while attending college in their hometown of Meadville, Pennsylvania.(5)  Grace was the youngest child of Thankful's brother Thomas Benton Hammond who had died some years before.

Every so often, you stumble upon something unexpected.  Thankful, her brothers and sisters, had grown up in Rushford, New York.  According to a local history of the area, Thankful and all of her siblings had been involved in the Spiritualist Movement.  Thankful was even considered to be medium!(6)  Stumbling across this tidbit sent me Googling to learn more about this movement from the mid 1800s.

It can be difficult to have an accurate picture of someone from the past, but several things point to Thankful having been a special person in the Hammond family.  My mother never knew Aunt Thank, being born years after Aunt Thank died, but she always knew of Aunt Thank and had mentioned  Aunt Thank to me on a number of occasions.  More importantly, Aunt Thank must have had a number of fine qualities for my Great Grandmother Ruth Edith Hammond Andrews to name my grandmother, her first born, after her aunt, Thankful Caroline Hammond.  

Now that I've learned more about her, Thankful's quaint name is certainly a lot more interesting for me.

(1) Pennsylvania, Crawford, Sadsbury, p.826 [stamped], dwelling 246, family 24-, John Hammond [and family], accessed 1 Mar 2013, citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 1100.
(2) Iowa, Story, Franklin,  p. 60 [stamped] L W Sibley [and family] dwelling 124, family 125; http://ancestry.com : accessed 2 Mar 2013, citing NARA microfilm M593, roll 420.
(3) Yoset, Thomas L. "The Barber Cemetery" in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, (http://crawfordcopa.com/cemeteries/barber.html : accessed 10 Mar 2013).
(4) Pennsylvania, Crawford County, Fallowfield, ED 98, p. 152A [stamped] A Gaston [and family] dwelling 10, family 12; http://ancestry.com : accessed 2 Mar 2013, citing Family History Film #1255119, image 0517.
(5) Pennsylvania, Crawford, Meadville, ED 27, p 17A [written], dwelling 366, family 407, Athelston Gaston [and family], accessed 2 Mar 2013; citing Family History Library microfilm #1241399.
(6) Gilbert, Helen  Josephine White, ed., Rushford and Rushford People. Rushford, New York : Chautauqua Print Shop, 1910, digital images, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 10 Mar 2013).

Matrilineal Monday: What's In A Name?

Kari Belle Myren, ca 1898

Lately, I've been trying to learn more about my Great Grandmother Kari Belle Myren.  Sure I can find her listed in a number of records, but each record seems to have her listed with a different name.  Depending on where I looked, she is listed as Carie, Carrie, Cary, Karen, Kari, or Karie for her first name and Belle, Myren, Pederson, Peterson, Petterson, Siem, Sivertsdatter, or Syversdatter as her last name.  Such are the ways of an Norwegian ancestor!

A self-published family history, Overli-Belle-Siem Family by Marion Myhre Chappelle, lists my Great Grandmother as Kari Belle Siem, the daughter of Syver Hanson (Overli) Belle.  To me, my Great Grandmother will always be Kari since that was the way my mother spelled her Grandmother's name.  Below is a quick look at how Kari is listed in various records.  This variety of names is part of why it sometimes takes a while to locate information about Kari.

• 1853    Norway, Baptism Record, Lesja Parish              Karie Sivertsdatter
• 1865    Norway, Census, Lesja Parish                            Cari Syversdatter
• 1868    Norway, Confirmation Record, Lesja Parish       Kari Belle
• 1885    Dakota Territory Census                                    Cary Petterson (now married)
• 1900    U.S. Federal Census                                          Karie Myren (same husband)
• 1910    U.S. Federal Census                                          Kari Myren
• 1915    Census of North Dakota                                     Carrie Myren

Kari's variety of names reflects her Norwegian birth.  Born in Norway in the mid 1850s, her name reflected the patronymic naming custom used at that time.  Simply put, a child's last name was determined by the father's name and the sex of the child.  Kari's grandfather's first name was Hans and her father was Syver, Han's son, so her father was known as Syver Hanson.  Because her father's first name was Syver, Kari's last name was a form of Syver's daughter, sometimes written as Sivertsdatter or Syversdatter.  All of Kari's sisters had the surname of Sivertsdatter/Syversdatter; all of her brothers were Sivertson/Syverson.  At least this made it easy to know who the father of a child was.

Another part of Kari's name was Belle or Siem, names of two farms that had been owned by Kari's father through the years.  The farm name became attached to Syver Hanson's name and to the names of his children, like Kari.  This helped to distinguish between the Syver Hanson family who lived on the Belle farm and another Syver Hanson family who lived elsewhere.  The Belle as part of Kari's name also suggests that the family might have been living on the Belle farm when her name was recorded as Kari Belle in 1868.

These Norwegian naming conventions took a while to click with me,  but once I grasped the concepts, it has been helpful  in tracing the family back through generations.  A person's name often has clues as to a parent's or grandparent's first name, and the names can also point to where the family lived.  To help us all, FamilySearch.org has a clear explanation of these Norwegian naming customs here.

Final interesting name fact about Kari.  About 1881 in North Dakota, Kari married another Norwegian immigrant, my Great Grandfather Peter Peterson Myren (you got it, Peter, son of Peter, from the Myren farm).   Of their nine children, only one had a name drawn from generations of family back in Norway.  New country, new ways, new names.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Keeping Time With Thomas

Thomas Nelson's clock

One day in 1878, or so the story goes, Thomas Nelson hitched a horse to his wagon and rode the six miles into Waleska, Georgia, a local center of trade.  In Waleska he walked into a store and purchased the clock that today is sitting on our living room mantel.  The story of Thomas' clock is part family lore and part history but worth knowing.

According to the 1870 U.S. Federal Census, Thomas and his wife Hannah were living with his elderly parents, John and Elvira Nelson.  Neither John nor Thomas seemed to own any real estate, and Thomas' personal estate is valued at $400.  By the 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Thomas and Hannah were living in their own household, had three sons, and Thomas was listed as a farmer.  Although their 1880 real and personal estate values are not given, the $4.50 he paid for the clock probably represented a large amount to this Cherokee County farming family.  MeasuringWorth.com calculates that $4.50 price tag to be about $105 in today's currency.

Since Thomas farmed in the days when you got up with the sun and worked until dark, why would he purchase a clock?  Was this a means of adding a touch of class to their home, like putting curtains on the windows or using a lace tablecloth?  Had Thomas had a really good crop that year and decided to purchase something for the family?  Perhaps the clock had actually been purchased in 1880, the year both Thomas and Hannah would each have celebrated their 50th birthdays as well as their 25th anniversary.  Maybe a letter will surface someday, one written by Thomas or Hannah telling us more about the clock's purchase.  Until then, we can only speculate. 

The story my husband had always heard about Thomas' Clock was that it was passed down to the youngest son.  The next recipient of the clock, William Nelson, however, was not the youngest child in Thomas and Hannah's family.  There was a younger son, Samuel, born four years after William.  For reasons we may never know,  the clock was passed on to William who in turned passed it on to his youngest son, Jud, who gave it to my husband, his youngest son.  When we received the clock about five years ago, we once again heard the story of Thomas' Clock.  Later, while traveling around Cherokee County, Jud pointed out to my husband where the clock had been purchased.  Like the clock, the old building was still around.

My husband and I both have memories of Thomas' Clock, even before it came to be in our home.  For my husband, his most vivid memories are of being a young boy, trying to sit still at his grandparents' house on Sunday visits, listening to the ticking of the clock when he would so much rather have been outside playing.  I remember noticing the clock sitting on his parent's kitchen mantel when I was visiting during our courtship days.  Later the clock was moved to a mantel in another room where it continued to sit.  Through the years something had happened to the clock, for I had never heard it ticking back in those days.  Even with some repair attempts by a friend, Thomas' clock sat silently for a number of years at Jud's house.

After we received the clock, my husband and I wanted to learn more about the clock itself.  Thanks to the Internet, especially www.clockhistory.com, and several books from our local library, we determined that the clock was a Seth Thomas 30-hour brass weight driven clock in an Ogee case.  The clock has a Thomaston dial, and the intact label printed by Thomaston Express indicates that the clock was manufactured after 1865.  One curiosity is the word or name "Horn" written in large pencil script on the inside wall of the case.  From our research we also learned that this was a fairly common style of clock, attractive with its simple case design, flat dial, and mirrored door.  We were pleased when our tentative identification of the clock was confirmed by the clock repairman to whom we took it to be repaired.  

Now the clock has been repaired.  It sits on our mantel, periodically dusted, and lovingly wound each night.  The soft ticking is part of our lives, a sound we immediately miss when we return home after being away for a few days.  Through the years it has acquired several chips in its walnut veneer, but these nicks are just another part of the story of Thomas' Clock.  Someday Thomas' Clock will have a new home with our younger son, and its story will continue.

A Good Day to Start Organizing, p. 1

December 10 is Dewey Decimal System Day, a day dear to this retired library media specialist's heart. (The Straight Dope actually has an interesting history of how Dewey came up with his organizational system if you are interested in knowing more.)  So what better day to begin considering ways to organize genealogy, family stories, photos, and mementos you have acquired!

Trust me, there will come a time when you see that you need some way to organize all things related to your genealogy research.  Below is a brief look at how my materials are organized, followed by links to other methods which might speak more to your way of seeing things.

Alphabetical Approach: I like to be able to hold things, comparing, reexamining papers and photos, so I have materials stored and organized alphabetically in file folders.  My first step was to make a family file folder for the surname of each of my four grandparents: Andrews Family, Myren Family, Perkinson Family, and Vaughan Family.  I then made a separate file (surname followed by first and middle name) for both of my parents and each of my four grandparents.  The Andrews Family folder comes first, followed alphabetically by the other files of Andrews surnames.   Because I use the same basic organizational structure with my paper files as well as my scanned documents and photos stored on my laptop, it is relatively easy for me to locate things.

What started as ten paper file folders now numbers many more.  As my research leads me to new surnames, I add a Surname Family File for that branch of my tree.  I continue to use a Surname Family File for information about  several family members found in one source such as a copy of a census page listing three related families as neighbors or a group photo of a family.  I also use the Surname Family File to keep miscellaneous family information that doesn't pertain to just one family member (like directions to a family cemetery) as well as a place to keep single bits of information I find about an ancestor.   As I find more information about an individual, that person ends up with his own file once I have several things related specifically to just him or his immediate family.  

Topical Approach: Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems Podcast has a different organizational structure, one that focuses more on types of documents saved rather than saving by individuals' names.  You can learn more about her approach here including some good tips for organizing family photos on your hard drive.

Chronological Approach: Another blogger, Michelle Goodrum, has a number of posts about organizing an extensive collection of family papers on her blog The Turning of Generations.  Goodrum uses a chronological approach for organizing boxes of documents, photos, etc., belonging to her father.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and you won't have everything perfectly organized in a day either.  As your collection of things grows, you may want to reconsider or tweak how you do things.  I know I have.  Good luck, and Happy Dewey Decimal Day!

Some Genealogy ABCs

A is for ANCESTOR.  Ancestors are those people with whom we have a direct blood relationship.  This includes our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents (GGrandparents), great great grandparents (GGGrandparents) etc.  If you do the math, this means that researching back ten generations (about 250 years) will show you have 1024 ancestors!  Before you panic, temper this fact with the awareness that very few people are ever able to research all their ancestors this far back.  Envision this number and you can see how descriptive the term family tree really is.

D is for DESCENDANT.  Descendants are those individuals who have a direct blood relationship with those born after them: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.  Looking again at ten generations in a family, an individual living back in the late 1700s could have hundreds to thousands of descendants, all depending upon each individual's fertility and longevity.  Like me, you may find one relative in the 1800s who had 24 children and others who died without issue (childless) so descendancy charts won't have a standard shape like an ancestor chart does.

R is for RELATIVE.  Relatives are our "kin", to use a good old Southern term.  Besides our ancestors and descendants, it is also our nieces, great nephews, sisters-in-law, step-brothers, grand uncles, and that fourth cousin twice removed on our father's side.  These people won't all show up on a family tree, but they are still a part of our family and may provide more interesting stories to share.

Check out the extensive Genealogy Glossary on Genealogy.com.  This way when you read of a great grandmother being referred to as a relict, you'll know it wasn't saying she was really old, just that she was a widow. 

Heading in the Right Direction: Dates

Tip 1:  As you come across dates to record in your information, it is good practice to record them in standard format: day of the month, month, and four-digit year, 18 Oct 2012.  This way there isn't confusion as to whether something happened on April 11 or November 4 for a birth date written 4-11-52.  It is also clear that something happened in 1952 rather than 1852.

Tip 2:  Sometimes the date you locate is exact, a marriage license signed by the Justice of the Peace on September 5, 1926.  Record this fact in standard format, 5 Sept 1926.  Other times, however, a date isn't so precise.  Often census records only show a person's age at the time of the census, i.e., your uncle Jimmy Smith was listed as 17 in the 1930 census.  In this case, make use of the term circa and record his birth date as c1913 or ca1913.  Later if you find his exact birth date, you can record that date in standard format.

About.com had additional information on writing dates using standard format.