We Were All Beginners Once...And, Will Be Again!

There has been much talk in the past week concerning "Drive By Genealogists" and some of the effects on beginning genealogists.

I have been an educator in the genealogy field for more than thirty years.  Although I teach intermediate and advanced classes, some of my fondest memories have come in the classes I teach for those that are just getting their feet wet.

They are anxious to get started, but a little bit nervous, too.  At this point in their quest, they don't know about all of the "rules and regulations."

And, I'm not going to tell them.

I give them weekly assignments to get them started.  They are given a couple of pedigree charts and six family group sheets with the following challenge for the coming week:

1. Fill out the pedigree chart as completely as you can.
1. Always capitalize the last name!
2. When recording the place of an event, always include the county.  Always.  not everyone was born in a town, but everyone was born in a county.
3. Begin recording the date in a standard genealogy format; 27 Nov 2012.  This can really help to avoid confusion if using just numbers.
4. When recording the grandmothers, use the maiden name.  Always.
2. For the family group records, fill them out as follows:   
1. For #1, your family as it appears now.
2. For #2, your family showing you as a child, with all siblings living or deceased, who they married.
3. For #3, your mother's family, showing her as a child with her siblings and who they married.
4. For #4, your father's family, showing him as a child with his siblings and who they married.

I encourage them to contact every living relative for family stories, obituaries and funeral cards, etc.

And, I also encourage them to write down where the information came from and who possesses the obituary, family bible, birth certificate, discharge paper.  

I do not tell them that those sources must be written in a certain format.  That's for later on.  However, emphasis is given that someday when they're gone, their work will have more credibility if they can show where the information came from.  

As they cross the stepping stones into published family histories and family trees on the internet, don't assume they are either right or wrong without looking first to see if their sources were documented.  If they aren't, that doesn't mean they are to be discarded; just use that information as a springboard to take you to the original sources and find out for yourself.  Then, you document it!

Some people may do nothing more than just the above minimum homework of a pedigree chart and some family group sheets.  And, that's fine.

Some may go forward with gusto and pursue a lifelong love of their family's history.  And, that's fine.

The last thing I want to do it completely overwhelm them at first.  I want them to feel this is something they can do.  And, if all they do is simply write that the information came from an obituary in a shoebox in the top of their aunt's closet, that's fine with me.

We were all beginners once, and we are again; each time we begin a new family line or discover a new maiden name, we are beginning our research again!  Hopefully, those that are seasoned are a bit more thorough than when we first started out.  

I want each student to feel this is something they can do.  The refinement can come along the way.

Tombstone Tuesday - Stones by a cabin

While going for a beautiful autumn drive a few days, I happened upon a cabin I've been meaning to stop by for several years.  It is known as Workman Cabin, and is situated in the southwest corner of central park of Loudonville, Ohio, not far from where I live.

It was built on the original homestead about 1840, which was located about three miles from the town.  People had covered it with a type of siding.  It was removed and restored.   Later, it was moved on the back of a flatbed truck when it was donated to the local historical society.

Leaning up against one side of it were two tombstones, that of Hezekiah Clemens, who died in 1812.  I'm unsure of his relationship to the family.

Beside him is the tombstone of Jerutia Workman, wife of Morgan Workman.

What a beautiful centerpiece for this little town!  I wonder how many drive by and never give it a second thought...

Tombstone Tuesday - Damaged Stones

We've all seen them.

Damaged stones.

And...it breaks my heart, as I'm certain that it breaks yours, too.

I've wandered hundreds of cemeteries in my lifetime.  I've seen stones that are tenderly cared for, those that haven't had a visitor in awhile, stones that are old, and stones that are broken.

Some of these broken stones are simply laid up against a tree, or a fence, waiting for someone to take care of them and place them back where they mark the final resting place for a loved one.

However, there are many times where that just won't happen.  Time, money, and wondering where they should even be placed prevent this from happening.

However, while visiting a pioneer cemetery in Richmond, Missouri a couple of years ago, I saw what is probably one of the best answers to this problem I have ever seen.

This pioneer cemetery was filled with early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Mormons.  Much of the cemetery was extremely well-kept.  

But, there was a section that contained stones where they would never be able to find the original graves and repair the stones to be placed there.

So...this is what they did.  They laid them flat, encased in cement, with walkways between them.  They were preserved, and one could easily do a rubbing on them.

One of the best ideas I have ever seen.

Tombstone Tuesday

My dear Aunt "Burnzie".  Though I didn't know her very well or for very long,  I do remember her well.  I was 13 years old when she died.

I always felt she was beautiful - even exotic!  She just had such a gorgeous look, beautiful long, black hair, and a mysterious coloring to her skin.  Perhaps she may have even had some Native American heritage.  I can see why my father's brother, George  Russel Clemens,  fell in love with her.

Aunt Burnzie had a large family of eleven children, and lost at least five of them as babies.  It was hard to have good care in the coal camps of West Virginia.

Aunt Burnzie is buried in Limestone Cemetery, Carter County, KY.

Set in Stone

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

You raise your oldest child to be your oldest child.  They are the ones you can usually count on to move into adulthood with you before the younger children, to look out for you and your spouse, to help make some decisions, to talk to about plans when you can't care for yourself anymore.

They are not supposed to be buried before you.

Peter William Lauritzen was our oldest child.  He was born when we were still growing up ourselves.  He's the one we made our parenting blunders on.

He was the oldest of our four children.  They were stairsteps, for the fourth one was born when Peter was only five years old.  He didn't like the other kids coming along, for he enjoyed being with just us.  But, they kept on coming.

He grew into a handsome young man, developing his piano talents along the way.  He truly had a musical gift, for when he played, people would stop in their tracks to listen to him play.

After serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he fell into a lifestyle completely foreign to us.  It took him further and further away from family and the values he had been raised with.  He became someone we didn't recognize anymore.

He delved deeper into drugs and alcohol and illicit moral activity.  His body became ravaged and diseased.  It was difficult to recognize him anymore.

One afternoon, after spending time with my son and his family, I came home to hear the phone ringing.  Though there were many things to do after being gone all day, I knew I had to answer it.  After a few questions from those on the other end, I knew what was coming.  Peter had died.

I quickly got in touch with my sons and my husband.  All of them rushed home.  Through the evening, these young men guided their parents into thinking straight.  I was scheduled for surgery the next day.  Peter's body and belongings were in Florida.  While the world was spinning around me, I felt strangely still.

Now, nearly three years later, Peter's stone is in place.  It took me awhile.  There were many times that Kerry and I drove to the monument company to look over stones and make a selection.  But, after driving there, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

But now, it's done.  His final resting place is marked.  There's nothing more I can do for him.

But, parents just are supposed to outlive their kids.  It's not supposed to work that way...but, sometimes it does.

Rest in peace, my beloved son...

Peter William Lauritzen, Washington Village Cemetery, Richland Co., Ohio.

Remembering the Babies

I have not set out on a quest to discover the forgotten babies in my family.  It just happened.

Little Faye Stevens, youngest sibling of my mother, Ida Stevens Clemens, and the only other girl in a family of eight children.  She died at age 3 of acute lymphatic leukemia.

It first began while perusing the West Virginia Death Records that are available online.  http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_select.aspx  My parents, along with a couple of my dad's brothers and their families were living in the West Virginia coal camps in Logan County.  I had heard my mother mentioned that her two sisters-in-law had a number of pregnancies, along with a number of miscarriages and premature births.  Each of these aunt supposedly had 18 pregnancies.

I found a number of these premature babies listed, along with children that lived.  My heart began to break, for I saw many causes of death that could have/would have been easily preventable today.  Such causes included rickets, malnutrition, childbed fever and syphillis.

I found where many of these young ones were buried, for it was included on the death certificates.  Some made the trip back to Olive Hill, Carter, Kentucky and a couple of others were buried in Logan County.  Even though my parents knew the families intimately, not all of the babies were included in our records.

Another big surprise happened while teaching at a genealogy conference.  I decided to go "live" onto FamilySearch.org and demonstrate different ways of researching.  While illustrating how one can do a "Parent Search", I filled in the names of my mother's grandparents, Benjamin Franklin and Celia Moore Gearheart.

My mother knew this family quite well.  They lived nearby.  She played at their house.  They died when she was well into her adult years.  But, while I was waiting for the screen to load, I was taken by surprise.  There appeared an entry for Matt Gearheart.

Matt.  Who in the world was Matt?

I searched over all of the records I had, plus went into the files given to me by my parents, and there wasn't any Matt listed anywhere.

First of all, Matt is not a name common in my family, or even in that part of Kentucky.

Second, he was born and died the same year as my mother.

Third, I have noticed a tendency that when a child died in New England, they often named the next child of that same sex the name of the deceased child.  That's not always the case in the South.  Many times, that child's name was just not spoken again.  It may have been  just too painful.

I have now come across forty babies.  I have not set out to discover them, for I didn't know they needed discovered.  At times, we may see a gap in the usual number of years between the births of children that may elude to a miscarriage or death.  But, in most of these cases I didn't know to look.  Little Matt was the last-born of a large family.  He could have easily been forgotten.

But, he and 39 other babies are not forgotten now...

Large family, small posterity

My mother was the oldest of eight children.

By today's standards, this was a large family.  However, many of those children never made it to adulthood.  Mom made it through the flu epidemic of 1918, but so many of her brothers did not.

Her little brother, Edward, died of infantile paralysis at age 3.

Her little brother, Zearl, died during the flu epidemic.

Another little brother, Delbert, died at age four of unknown causes.

Her only sister, little Faye, died at three years old of acute lymphatic leukemia.  She was the youngest.

Her favorite brother, Thearl, was born when Mom was five.  They were playmates and as close as any brother and sister could be.  He did live to adulthood, served in the Navy, married, had one daughter, and died from complications of diabetes at an early age.

A brother that was absolutely beloved by all was also taken in death at an early age - 34.  He married, but had no children.

That leaves one living brother, who still lives in the family home in Kentucky.  He and his wife had one son, who was killed in an ATV this summer.

This large family had only six grandchildren, of which my sisters and I are four of them.  I'm sure my grandparents had no idea of the tragedies that would beset them, for they had come from large families, too.  Their cousins number into the dozens.

My own parents had nine grandchildren from three of their four children.

And then, there's me.  My husband and I had four children.  One has passed.  Our grandchildren numbered five, but then extended to include ten through adoption.

I look at the situations that my grandparents endured while raising their families.  Many of the causes of death that would be relatively easy to treat today tragically swept through their family and extended loved ones, bring sorrow.