Happy Blog Anniversary to Me - - Maybe

Leaves & Branches began in 2010 when I talked to my daughter about genealogy & told her I wished I could reach out to people who may be connected to our family in order to learn more about those people. My daughter showed me options; listened to my ideas; got me set up & showed me how to add new posts. A big thanks to her!

Over the years, I wrote about many different branches of our family and met some distant cousins. We have shared photographs, stories and documents. It has been an educational and enjoyable experience. 

I joined GeneaBloggers & made buddies of fellow bloggers. I enjoyed reading & commenting on other blogs. I learned tips and found support from fellow bloggers.

Recently, I have not been able to comment on other blogs. It rarely works. I often cannot comment on my own blog in response to comments left by visitors. It rarely works. I have checked my settings and do not know how to fix the problem. 

The number of visitors to my blog is down. Maybe it is a result of not being able to comment. Maybe my content or my writing needs improvement. Maybe my layout needs to be changed. Maybe the hours I spend writing my books takes away from my blog.

I need to decide if I will continue my blog. I could use the time to work on my website, Our Leaves & Branches, and the book I am writing, ‘Our Brown Roots’. 

As always with any posts, I welcome comments & suggestions. I do all read comments. 

I shared this last year & here it is again...

Suppose You Were the Only One

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your father liked to listen to freight trains passing his house when he was a boy.

At night he’d lie his blonde head down & listen to the trains rattling along the tracks 

and he’d count the long line of cars until he became drowsy and dreamed of trains.

Would you tell your son?

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your mother was a fearless freckled girl who loved to roller skate.

She lived in New York City and raced along the neighborhood sidewalks

with her long red hair flying as she jumped the cracks and laughed.

Would you tell your daughters?

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your tall dark haired grandfather liked to do magic tricks.

He kept shiny coins ready in his vest pocket and a smile on his face,

ready to make those coins appear & disappear and make children laugh.

Would you tell your grandson?

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your grandmother had long strawberry blonde hair.

She washed it with rainwater and brushed it one hundred strokes every night

and when she told you your hair was just like hers it made you feel very special.

Would you tell your granddaughter?

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your Irish great grandfather loved St. Patrick’s Day. 

He’d throw open all the windows of their New York City apartment

and he’d pound out Irish songs on their piano as he sang along & music floated out to the street.

Would you tell your nieces and nephews?

Suppose you were the only one who knew:

Your great grandparents in Ohio wrote love letters to each other.

She wrote about sewing and stringing popcorn for the tree & he wrote of planting and carpentry,

And love spilled out between the words. 

Would you tell your cousins?

Suppose you were the only one who knew the family stories.

Would you pick up a pen?

Colleen

Related Posts:

• One Year Anniversary
• Two Year Anniversary

The INDEX: An Important Tool

How do you judge a genealogical or historical book? The more research I do, the more I evaluate a book on the contents, of course, and the INDEX. When I look at a book I check out the title page, the Table of Contents and then I turn it over and look through the Index.

Definition. 

According to Merriam-Webster an INDEX is:

 a list (as of bibliographical information or citations to a body of literature) arranged usually in alphabetical order of some specified datum (such as author, subject, or keyword): such as a list of items (such as topics or names) treated in a printed work that gives for each item the page number where it may be found.

I love those alphabetical lists of “specified data”! 

Using an INDEX.

First, in an Index I look for NAMES. As genealogists we are primarily interested in people, “our own people”. I look for the surnames I have been researching. Which means I have to know which surnames are most likely to appear in the book I am holding. If it is a book with Virginia information I will look for Alford, Brumfield, Dillon or Lawrence. If it is a book with Connecticut data I look for Brady, Coyle or Kilday. I need to have a mental or physical list of names & the places associated with those names.

Second, in an Index I look for PLACES. I want to learn about the places my families lived. How did the environment and the events that happened there affect my people?  If I am holding a book about South Carolina I look in the Index for Lancaster, Orangeburg and York Counties. The Table of Contents might be helpful with this but an Index usually gives more details, such as the towns with in a county or the names of rivers and creeks that I have discovered in deeds and wills.

If a genealogical or historical reference book has names & places I want to spend time with that book. I’ll most likely find information that will enhance my research.

There are times that I will spend time with a book that has no index but that is rare. For example if the book’s title was “The Brumfield Family in Colonial South Carolina” and it had no index I would still want to sit down and enjoy it.

Include an INDEX. 

In my blog, at the top of the page, I have a Name INDEX. It is written by me & updated with each new post. I want visitors to be able to quickly see if our families are connected. After finding a name visitors can click on the link to the relevant post. Simple & Easy.

In my books I include an INDEX. I include: names, places, cemeteries, churches, ships, soldiers, etc. 

What do you like to see in a research book?

Tranquil Tombstone: Carberry, NJ

CARBERRY

James Joseph Carberry 8 October 1907 NJ - 3 December 1966

Margaret Mary Brady Carberry 14 Feb 1910 NJ - 10 Dec 1961

[Margaret, my 1st cousin 3x removed]

Corn Shucking in 1886 Louisiana

 This is a fun newspaper article about a gathering of people to shuck corn. I am amazed at the 15,000 bushels of corn! I love the description of the food consumed by all those gathered. However, I wish I could pinpoint just which of my Alford family is J. B. Alford. At first, I thought it was Jesse Brumfield Alford but he was born in 1855; old enough to be a farmer in 1886 but not old enough to have eight children. 

Corn-Shucking

A Fun Picture of the Great Rural Plantation

On Wednesday, by invitation, we attended a big corn-shucking at J. B. Alford’s. When we arrived at Mr. Alford’s we found about fifty or sixty of the neighbors and their “hands” surrounding immense piles of corn, and the shucks and ears were flying in every direction. We took a turn at the pile, and our hands and wrists are sore yet from the unusual exercise. 

Gathered around the pile were farmers, negroes, a justice of the peace, a lawyer, a merchant, an editor and a physician. Mr. Alford made about 15,000 bushels of corn, besides a full crop of cotton, etc. Very few farmers are as successful as he. His farm is self-sustaining and he always has corn to sell.

Mrs. Alford [Sarah W. Simmons Alford] and her accomplished daughters had a grand feast provided for the shuckers at noon, and while the tables didn’t groan under the weight of the edibles, as the stereotype writers would say, it was a fact that they were crowded with everything in the way of good victuals to be cooked in the best style, and our generous host and hostess did everything in their power to make everybody eat hearty and enjoy themselves, in which laudable undertaking they succeeded. 

There was old ham, the sort that makes red gravy, and fresh pork and turnips and cabbage and potatoes and chickens and chick peas and oysters and sardines and cheese and pies and pound cake and pickles and preserves, world without end. 

When we left at 3 p.m. constant accessions were being made to the shucking brigade, commanded by Major Shelton, and the work went bravely on. It was thought the corn would all be shucked by 12 at night.

Mr. Alford’s family is remarkable. He has eight children, we believe, and not a single member of the family have ever used tobacco in any form and they are all healthy and fine-looking, from the father and mother down to the youngest child.

Source: Corn-Shucking. (Shreveport, LA: The Times, 11 March 1886) 3; digital image, newspapers.com: accessed July 2019.

Wikipedia Page for my 8th Great Grandfather!

Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg

 c 1640 - c 1712 NJ

Indian Interpreter

My 8th great grandfather

I was recently doing research on my Fortenberry/Faulkenberry family. I was tracking down  sources on Ancestry.com; Newspapers.com & looking at historical books through Genealogy Gophers. Each resource was teaching me more & more.

 I also looked at Our Fortenberry Family, a blog by A. Fortenberry Criminger who has been researching this family for a long time. Her research is precise & dependable. The post about Our Family's Origins lead me to Wikipedia. 

Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg Wikipedia Page

This is a small portion of the page:

Hendrick Jacobs Falkenberg (pronounced "Falkenberry" in Swedish) (c.1640—c.1712), also known as Hendrick Jacobs or Henry Jacobs, was an early American settler along the Delaware River, and was considered to be the foremost language interpreter for the purchase of Indian lands in southern New Jersey. He was a linguist, fluent in the language of the Lenape Native Americans, and in early histories of New Jersey he is noted for his service to both the Indians and the English Quakers, helping them negotiate land transactions. Though he was from Holstein, now a part of Germany, he was closely associated with the Swedes along the Delaware because his wife was a Finn and a member of that community.In 1671 Falkenberg lived on property belonging to his father-in-law, Sennick Broer, on the Christina River, now in Wilmington, Delaware. He later moved to the vicinity of Burlington, New Jersey where he lived for nearly two decades, and where he was visited by two journalists of the Labadist sect who were looking for a place to establish a new community. The journalists provided the only known record of Falkenberg's place of origin, and also described his dwelling place, a Swedish style log cabin. By 1693 he had moved from the Delaware River across the Province of New Jersey to become the first European settler in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, near Tuckerton. Here he dug a cave for a home, but later built a large house made of clapboard where he lived until his death, sometime after 1711. Falkenberg wrote a will in 1710, but for unknown reasons it was not probated until thirty-three years later. While he had only two known children to reach adulthood, each by a different wife, he has a large progeny as the ancestor of the Falkinburg family of New Jersey and the Fortenberry and Faulkenberry families of the southern United States.

Look at all the information!

Now I am busy checking out all the sources.

If you are a Fortenberry/Faulkenberry look at the page & at Our Fortenberry Family!

New Branch on our Family Tree

We have a new branch on our family tree!

This week we welcomed our third grandson to our family!

He & his parents are doing well & happy.

My husband & I are counting the days till we can meet & hold him.

It won't be long till I am sharing family stories with him!

We are very blessed.

Tranquil Tombstone: Ernest S. Creasy, OH

Ernest S. Creasy

October 1893 TX - 2 August 1953 OH

Son of Aaron Creasy & Etta S. Wetzel

&

Ella Arline Rupert

1895 - 1974

South Lawn Cemetery

Beach City, Ohio

Read about the Fatal Shoot Out that killed Ernest here.

Forget Me Not: Hannah Brumfield, 1885 MS

Hannah Ann Youngblood Brumfield

27 September 1808 GA – 25 March 1885 MS

Daughter of Benjamin Youngblood & Susannah Collins 

Wife of Jesse Kelly Brumfield

Died at the residence of her son-in-law, A. J. Andrews, in this town, on Wednesday last, Mrs. Hannah Brumfield, relict of the late Jesse Brumfield, aged 77 years. But a short time since this estimable lady witnessed the departure of her husband, with whom she had lived for more than fifty years. – Her life has been long, and as happy as ordinarily falls to the lot of humanity, having at all periods of life occupied a piece high in the confidence and esteem of her neighbors and acquaintances. For many years Mrs. Brumfield has been a devoted Christian and member of the Baptist church, and, possessing as she did many of the Christian graces, she died in full assurance of that rest reserved for the people of God. 

From:

Newspapers.com

The Southern Herald (Liberty, Mississippi) · 28 Mar 1885, Sat · Page 3 

Downloaded on June 2019 

Photo from Find A Grave Memorial #68044778

1906 Alford Family Reunion, MS

Family Reunion

At Home of Parents of Revs. J. M. and J. A. Alford at Yazoo

The children and grandchildren of Rev. N. E. Alford [Needham Edwin Alford] joined in a family reunion at the old homestead several miles east of Magnolia Monday. The family consists of eight sons, two daughters, three daughters-in-law and five grandchildren. Three of the boys are ministers in active and effective itinerant life as members of the Mississippi Annual Conference. Rev. J. M. Alford [Joseph Martin Alford] is pastor of the Methodist church at Silver City; Rev. L. F. [Louis Flemon Alford] is at Pachuta, and Rev. J. A. [Jason Abraham Alford] is stationed at Eden. One, T. L. [Thomas Lemuel Alford], is one of the police force at Vicksburg and distinguished himself several years ago by capturing Tom Boutwell, famous in the criminal annuals of Pike, Lincoln and Amite counties. H. J. Alford [Harvey Johnson Alford] is in business at Rayne, La. B. P. Alford [Barney Pipkin Alford] has a responsible position with a large mercantile concern at Franklinton and Lucius [Henry Lucius Alford] is with the Fernwood Lumber Co. Collie [Caldwell Wellman Alford] ant the two girls, Annie [Jemima Annie Alford] and Mattie [Martha Elizabeth Alford], are still in the home. It is needless to add that the reunion of these splendid young men and women with their aged and honored father was a delightful occasion.

Source: Family Reunion. (Yazoo City, MS: The Yazoo Herald, 27 July 1906) 8; digital image, Newspapers.com: accessed July 2019.