Happy Birthday Grandma

Today is the birthday of my paternal grandmother, Minnie Frances Shofner. She would have been 95 years old today.

Minnie Frances Shofner was born 5 Dec 1915 to Robert William Shofner and Annie Elizabeth Liles. She married Hurley T Tharp on 5 Jan 1935 in Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky. She died in 1989 after being sick and unable to come and visit us in Louisville for several years before her death, less than a month before I graduated high school. When it happened I found comfort in the thought that this was the only way she would have been able to make it to my graduation. The earliest picture I have of her is this one:

According to the back of this picture this was taken in May 1933. Unfortunately, it doesn't say why she was so dressed up or where the picture was taken.

I actually had a dream that had her in it last night. When I woke up I didn't think too much about it except I knew that I couldn't remember the last time that I had a dream that had her in it. Then when I was doing some work in my genealogy file, I noticed the day.

So Happy Birthday Grandma, I still miss you after all these years.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

New Holiday Background

Howdy followers,

I've let the time get away from me between postings. I have been doing a whole lot of nothing lately and am trying to get out of that practice.


While catching up on my reading of the blogs that I follow, I ran across the Resources for Holiday Blog Decorating posting from Geneabloggers. In this posting Tom lists several resources for Holiday Backgrounds, Icons, Banners and Templates for our blogs. After looking at several, I found something that I like for the holidays. So I thought I would make a change in the appearance of the blog for a little while. This new look will only be until the holidays/winter is over.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Off day doodlings

As many people I am off from work today and rather than getting anything constructive done with my time, I've been doodlin'. Not like we used to when we were kids (or come to think of it I have done this while in boring meetings that I really don't want to be in) with paper and pen. I have been doodling the new way....with a computer, picture programs and the mouse.

Here's what I came up with:

I originally started it thinking I would make it the background of this here blog. But once it was finished and I was testing it out, I noticed that it would be too busy with the header that I have on here. So I've decided rather than having to redesign the header, which will probably lead to other redesigns, I will just hold on to it for a while and enjoy it for what it is.....a collage of family pictures.
 
Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Wedding Wednesday - Simon and Wag

This is a picture of my great-grandparents, Simon Peter Tharp and Rhoda Wagner "Wag" Self. I have been told that this is their wedding picture. There is two things that I have always noticed while looking at this picture.

Election Day 2010 - Do you know how your ancestors voted? I do!

My local library has a subscription to HeritageQuestOnline that is accessible from my home computer using my library card. Over the years I have searched for just about every one of my surnames in its search engines. It was only recently though that I tried searching the U. S. Serial Set. Heritage Quest describes this group of records as "Search for information about people and places in the Memorials, Petitions and Private Relief Actions of the U.S. Congress." What I found when I searched my surnames in this series was some really cool results.

Another conversation with an elderly cousin

Some of you may remember a posting I did back on the 1st of May about my recent phone conversation with Junior Hutcherson, an elderly cousin of mine, and our catching up of family news. That posting is located here for your reading pleasure.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because Jr called me the other day just to check in again. Well, as always we had a really enjoyable conversation. But again I am amazed at what a wealth of knowledge he is. I casually mentioned something that I noticed on the 1930 census. Well, that led to him telling me how my paternal grandparents meet.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 24 & 25

Well here we are at the last two pages of the album.

Here are pages 24 & 25:

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 23

Well here we are drawing toward the close of this album. It’s sort of bitter sweet, but have no fear! I have plenty more pictures that I can post. :)

This is page 23

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Photo Album page 22

Here are the next to the last two pages. I am pretty excited about finishing the album so that I start sharing more of the interesting things that I have for this family. So with that said I'll get on with the show.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 21

Here we are again with more pictures from this cotton-pickin’ album. :) I mean I really like posting these pictures that way other people can see them and they can be "saved" for posterity.  But come on how long is this album? Well I looked at it and there are four more pages before the album is done. So that is four more weeks before it is over. I think I can do that....no I know I will do that. Ok, enough of my non-private pep-talk to myself on with this week's edition.

Epiphany while entering family data!

Ok, so I’m entering my family research into a new program, again. Some day I’ll have to tell the twists and turns my databases have taken over the years. But I don’t look at this as a bad thing, after all it gives me an opportunity to finally source some of my earliest research that I did. You know the stuff that I just added to my files without stating from where it had come….”Oh I’ll remember where this death date came from!”

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 20

I’m back. Sorry for missing last week. I was in the middle of trying to setup my new laptop. Anyway, up until now I have been posting the Slemmons album pages in pairs. Of course all of the pages until now were only one picture per page. Well now we come to the part of the album where there will be multiple pictures per page. So rather than making the postings too large, I will start posting one page per week.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 18-19

So here I am another week with the Slemmons’ Family photo album. I’m getting near the end of it. You know as a genealogist w/ADD it has been extremely difficult for me to stay focused on getting all of these pages posted every week. But I also know that if I don’t keep at it I will not get it done. Sadly, the outcome of many, many of my projects.

Amanuensis Monday - William Wayt's Will

Over at Transylvanian Dutch John Newmark has a weekly blogging theme of Amanuensis Monday. I thought that this posting today would fall into that category. What is an Amanuensis you ask?  

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

The following is the will of my 4 great-grandfather, William Wayt. I transcribed this will years ago when I had a Geocities website (who remembers geocities? Yeah I know about reocities and will blog about that later). But NOW that I have a handy-dandy digital camera, I can take a picture of the will in addition to just transcribing it!

How do you all do it?

I am constantly amazed at the caliber of the writing skills of the people that are blogging about genealogy.  I truly blame all of you for me not posting more. You see I am constantly reading all of these wonderful blog postings that you all are creating and by the time I get done reading them my computer time is over. :(

I haven't mentioned it before but I have ADD and as most people that have it, I've had it my entire life. Of course given my age they didn't call it that when I was growing up. It was usually labeled, "Deborah isn't applying herself in school" or "she's extremely bright but she tends to zone out during class." Of course as I look back on my life, I realize that if I had known all of the tricks that I use for remembering then that I know now no telling what kind of higher education I could have gotten.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Make your own Headstone

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings blog has a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun every Saturday Night and tonight's mission is as follows:

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, and I hope that you do, is to:

1) Think about how you want your gravestone to look. What do you want on it as a genealogist? As a child, sibling, parent, spouse, friend? Maybe some sort of witty saying?

2) Tell us about it in text, or create your own gravestone using the online services of companies like Headstones and Memorials. Remember that you have only a limited space to work with and that the bigger they are, the more costly they are.

3) Show us your stone, or what you would put on the stone, in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook status or comment."

Tonight I decided to take part. I thought I would have a little fun with mine! I don't plan on being buried. Jim and I are going to be cremated, but if I was going to have a tombstone, I think I would like it to look something like this. So here is my tombstone that I recreated on the website Headstones and Memorials.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

National Twins Days!!!!

Thanks to the August 1st posting of Miriam at Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors, I found out about Twins Day. Well to be honest, I had heard of it before but didn't know the exact date until her posting.

So I thought I would post a picture of my great-grandfather, Benjamin Lewis DeSpain and his twin sister Ida Leann DeSpain Marcum. B L, as he was called, and Ida were born on 1 Sept 1872 in Green County, Kentucky. I don't remember hearing when this picture was taken and it isn't written on the back of the copy that I have. But Benjamin didn't die until 1958 so they are at least in their seventies when this picture was taken.

Left to right: Charlie H Marcum (husband of Ida); Ida DeSpain Marcum; Benjamin Lewis DeSpain; and unknown man.

If you are interested in seeing B L when he was younger, check out my posting of an earlier picture of him in my Traveling Stove Agents posting on 3 August 2010 found here.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 16-17

Here we go again. MORE pictures from the Slemmons photo album. We are now up to pages 16 & 17. Here they are:

Traveling Stove Agents

I ran across this in my maternal great-grandparent's pictures.

This is from the time that traveling salesmen would travel the countryside to show their products to people so that they may order them from a company.

The man and woman that are on the right are my great-grandparents, Benjamin Lewis DeSpain and his wife, Alice Josephene Foster. 

I can hear the conversation:
B.L. - "Sir, I can't afford such an expensive thang, why the one that I have is working jus fine!"
Alice - "Oh honey, this one would heat the food so much faster and wouldn't make as big of a mess when we go to clean it."
Stove Agent - "Now, sir if the price is an issue my company will set you up on a payment plan of just 3 dollars a month."
B.L. - "Just 3 dollars ya say! Well, I don't know, let me think on it a bit."

This is the back of the picture.

Someone wrote information on the back that states:
August 21, 1906
Stove Agent                                                  Raymond was baby
Papa 34                                                            6 mo 3 wks old
Mama 29
Ivo 2 yrs 9 mo.

Ivo and Raymond are the children of Benjamin Lewis Despain and Alice Josephene Foster (or as called on the back Papa and Mama).

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Asher Slemmons & Martha Franklin

Extra! Extra! See your extra bonus!

Today you get an extra bonus. Again my aunt has sooooo many pictures that I thought I would double up on the postings.

Here is a picture that is GREAT! From the definition found on the Daguerrotype FAQ page of the Dagurreian Society website I believe it to be an ambrotype photograph. The pictures are of Asher Slemmons and Martha Susan Franklin.

Here is the outside of the case:

And what it looks like opened up:

Here is a close-up of the left side:

This is Asher Slemmons, my great-great grandfather and he looks pretty young here. He was born 22 Mar 1821 in Barren County, Kentucky.

A close-up of the right side:

This is Martha Susan Franklin, my great-great grandmother, and like Asher she looks very young here. Martha was born 26 Aug 1824 in Sumner County, Tennessee, the daughter of Richard T Franklin and Mary Thompson.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 14 - 15

Please, please, please everyone calm down. Here is the next edition of the Slemmons Photo Album! I know everyone is just chomping at the bit to see what is coming up next....Hee!Hee! Sorry folks again I just couldn't resist.

Anyway, here are the next pages to the Slemmons Album that I have been posting. This week you get an extra bonus, because there was a post card placed in between two pages. I am calling the post card page 14 a.

Here are pages 14, 14 a & 15:

Page 14:

The paper label has "Zella Williams, sister of Zora Williams" Zora and Zella are daughters of Dudley Williams and Mary Susan Slemmons. As you may remember last week's posting had Zella's sister, Zora Williams, as a baby and as a teenager. That posting is found here. Zella Williams was born 3 Mar 1884 and the daughter of Mary Elizabeth Slemmons, daughter of Asher and Martha, and her husband Dudley W. Williams. Zella never married and died in 1960.

And of course here is a closer look at Zella:

Here is page 15 and I won't have a close-up of it as it is already pretty close:

This is a picture that I call the "two Fannie's". As you can read, it has Fannie Slemmons, who later married John William Barton, and Fannie Munday, who later married William Yates. The two Fannie's are sitting on either side of Martha Susan Franklin Slemmons, who is my great-great grandmother.

Here is 14a:

As the card reads this is a family picture of Dudley Williams, his wife Mary Susan Slemmons and their daughters, Zella Susan Williams and Zora Slemmons Williams. The photographers studio is Buell & Wife Marrowbone, Kentucky. As in previous postings, Marrowbone is in Cumberland County, Kentucky where they lived.

And lastly here is a close-up of 14a:

See ya next week!

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 12 - 13

This week continues the postings from the Slemmons album that my aunt owns. 

Today's offering is from pages 12 & 13:

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons album pages 10 - 11

I'mmmm back with more pages of the Slemmons photo album. As I have said in past postings, these are digital pictures that I have taken of a photo album my aunt owns.

Today's pages are 10 & 11:

Proud to be a DAR member

It's times like now that I am so proud to be a member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution!

I'm sitting at home in Louisville and watching the goings on at the National Congress in Washington DC.....on my computer! They are streaming it live on their website....AWESOME!

This is in addition to the announcement they made this morning. What was the announcement, you ask? Well, this morning they (DAR) announced that starting today a record copy of Nationally approved applications can be paid for (with a credit card of course) and downloaded immediately from their website. WOW! No waiting, no mailings, no waiting, no paying postage, no waiting, no having to write a check (mom what are those?)...did I mention no waiting?

AWESOME!
Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons album pages 8 - 9

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the pictures of the Slemmons Photo Album...guess which daytime drama I grew up watchin'! Sorry but I get bored with the same thing over and over. Anyway, as I posted in previous weeks, I have taken digital pictures of a photo album that my aunt owns.

So here are pages 8 - 9:

The close up of page 8, the page on the left, is here:

The paper label at the bottom states: "Mrs J. W. Munday and 3 youngest sons Carl Twyman Munday, Earl Franklin and Hermon Owen. Mother and brothers of Richard S Munday." I know my aunt has told me that his mother made a photo album for everyone of her boys to have when they got married. From the wording at the bottom of this page and through out the album, it appears she made the wording personal to the son that was receiving the album in which she was writing.

Here is an even closer look at this picture:

Carl Twyman Munday was born 16 Jun 1895, Earl Franklin Munday was born 17 Oct 1898 and Hermon Oren Munday was born 24 February 1903, all in Metcalfe County, Kentucky. In this picture Hermon looks to be from 1 year to 18 months old. (Totally guessing) So I think a good date to put on this picture would be around 1905.

The right hand side page or page 9:

The information written at the bottom states: "Mr & Mrs Williams, Summer Shade, Kentucky[.] Susan (Slemmons) Williams, a cousin of Mrs. Emily Munday" Susan Eavens Slemmons was born 7 April 1864. She was the daughter of Washington Slemmons and Elizabeth F. Brown. Washington was the brother to Asher Slemmons. According to the 1900 Metcalfe County, Kentucky Census Susan E Williams, age 36 was the wife of L. Williams, age 62. They have been married 6 years and have 2 children: Nelie B. age 2 and O. F. age 5.

And lastly here is a closer look at Mr & Mrs Williams:

The photographers information states: "A. Rapp Extra Finish Glasgow, KY"

I didn't realize how little information I had on Susan until I started writing this posting. But thanks to it I was able to get a little more information on her.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Wonderful Wednesday - Cousins, Cousins everywhere

I just had to drop a note to let it be known that in the past two days I have found 4 new cousins on the Slemmons family! WooHoo!

The new cousins are from sea to shining sea! hee!hee! One in California and the other three in Texas, I think. The contacts are still so new that I don't have all of the locations down yet. ;)

I am always excited to find new cousins. If there are any others out there please send me an email.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Madness Monday - which is more frustrating?

OK I have a question that I would like to ask and I think it ties into the Madness Monday theme.

In your opinion, which is more frustrating?

1) Not having a picture of an ancestor that lived into the years that pictures were being taken?

Or

2) Having a copy of a 1930's letter stating that the writer will be sending a copy of a picture of her great-grandmother (my 3rd great grandmother) to the recipient of the letter, however, now no one in the family has the picture, knew it existed or can imagine what happened to it?

I sometimes wonder if it's better to know that it never existed than to know that it had lasted from before 1878 (that's when the 3rd great-grandmother died) all the way until the 1930's and now can't be found. Houdini would be proud!  Poof, what picture?

Any thoughts?


Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Fantastic Friday – William Bailey Tharp, Sr

I totally made up the category for today, but I figured might as well everyone else does. ;)

Anyway, I  thought I would post a picture from my father's side of the family. You know give them their time "in the spotlight."

In a previous posting called Earlier Researchers, I stated that if it weren’t for previous researchers I wouldn't have nearly as much information on my families as I do now.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons album pages 6-7

Here is another installment of my Slemmons Photo Album. As I posted last week I have taken digital pictures of a photo album that my aunt owns. These are pages 6 & 7 of the album.

I am not my ancestors and they are not me!

{stepping up onto my soap box.}

We've all heard it before, "Oh, I wouldn't want to find out about my ancestors, there might be one that was a horse thief or something worse!" or "I'm afraid of what I might find out about them." BAH!

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons album pages 4-5

Here is another installment of my Slemmons Photo Album. As I posted last week I have taken digital pictures of a photo album that my aunt owns. These are pages 4 & 5 of the album.

Wordless Wednesday - Sallie B. (Hutcherson) Shofner's obit

I had stopped posting the obituaries that I had found of my grandmother's. So I will resume posting them today, I only have a couple more to go. This is my grandmother's sister-in-law, Sallie B Shofner. Sallie was a Hutcherson by birth and married Washie Shofner. Sallie's brother, Sidney Hutcherson, married Washie's sister, Annie. So brother and sister married brother and sister...fun, fun, fun!

 Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons album pages 2-3

As I posted last week I have taken digital pictures of a photo album that my aunt owns. This is pages 2 & 3 of the album.

52 Weeks To Better Genealogy – Challenge 23 - Create your own Challenge

"They" say timing is everything.(whoever "they" are!) Anyway, here is another case of that.

When I saw the posting from Geneabloggers telling me that the latest challenge in Amy Coffin’s 52 week series was titled, "Create your own Challenge" I thought, "wow, I'm already doing that!"

The official wording to the challenge is:

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album part 1

As I have said in past postings my maternal aunt is the keeper of the family material on my mother's side of the family. It could be family pictures, bibles, drinking gourds or a chocolate pot, you name it and she probably has one that belonged to someone in our family. Over the years she has been immensely helpful in getting me started with my research. In the past we have talked about me taking digital pictures of all the "stuff" she has so that a record can be created for future generations, especially since she knows so much about and has so many stories about the family.

So it was no surprise when she called me this past Sunday morning asking me to come over to her house because she had found some family pictures that she wanted to look over with me. So off I go with my kids, my digital camera and a full battery.

Wordless Wednesday – J. H. (Mike) Shofner obit & funeral card

This week is another one of my grandmother’s brother, J. H. Shofner’s obit. I also have the funeral card. The whole family called him Mike.

"J.H. (Mike) Shofner dies in hospitalJ.H. (Mike) Shofner, resident
of Railroad Avenue here, died at
10:30 p.m. Wednesday in the St.
Anthony Hospital in Terre Haute
where he had been a patient for
only one day.
The deceased was born in
Campbellsville, Kentucky on
April 17, 1910, the son of Robert
W. and Annie Elizabeth Lyle
Shofner.
Mr. Shofner was a carpenter
and was employed at Crane
NAD. He was a veteran of World
War II and a member of the local
American Legion Post.
Survivors include the widow,
Alta L. Shofner, and three sons,
James Michael,  Dick Joe and
John William, all at home. Also
surviving are three brothers, H.
W. Shofner, of Buffalo, Ky., Rob-
ert E. Shofner, Louisville, and C.
J. Shofner, Amarillo, Texas, and
five sisters, Mrs. Hurley Tharp,
Buffalo, Mrs. Sid Hutcherson,
Mrs. Lloyd Sadler and Mrs. Ru-
dolph Harden, all of Louisville,
and Mrs. Ed Keller, of Oblong,
Illinois.
Funeral services will be con-
ducted at 11:00 a.m. Saturday in
Walnut Grove Church of God
with Rev. Jack Gray officiating.
Burial will be in the church cem-
etery.
Friends may call at Jenkins &
Sons Funeral Home after 7:00
p.m. today."    

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Sentimental Sunday - People watchin' like my dad

As I posted earlier my husband, step-daughter and I made a day of  being down by the river and listening to great Beatles' music. Also as I posted earlier it was going to be a day without genealogy or so I thought. As we sat there listening to the music I started doing something that I believe has ran in my family for generations....people watchin’ !

No Genealogy Sunday!

Today will be a day with NO GENEALOGY! How ever will I be able to stand it!!! My husband and I and his youngest daughter will be spending the day listing to some great music at "Abby Road on the River - The World's Largest Beatles Festival" This is the same festival where my profile picture was taken last year. The photographer was covering the festival for the local newspaper no less! Probably one of the best pictures that I have ever had taken! Anyway, hopefully, I won't get sunburned as I have in years past.

Hope you all have a great day!
Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)