One tangled web . . .

I took this picture of a huge spider web in a crabapple tree outside the bedroom window several years ago. I liked the way it looked and thought it looked cool. This is about the size of the tangled mess the Adkins family tree is, and just as intricately woven.

About four years ago, I took a DNA test using Family Tree DNA, and more recently using MyHeritage. I uploaded the Family Tree DNA results to MyHeritage, as well as it being on the FT website, to see if I could get more hits and find more family members, which I did. Of course, MyHertiage DNA kit automatically uploaded to their website, but I guess none of this makes a difference, just giving a little background, but I digress, so now I'll move on.

A couple years ago, MyHeritage started doing what they call "theory of relativity" in which they take your DNA matches and show you how you are or possibly related to your matches. I now use these solely, as I feel I am likely to get more accurate information and I can quickly see if there is a true family match or not.

So yesterday, I was going through my theory matches and was able to quickly ascertain the first couple I looked at were not matches. The third match held out much hope. The match was to a Mark Baldwin. He matches through Daddy's side, going from Bennett to Adkins. There is where the tangled web started.

There were five paths, which means different trees compared to mine and connecting at different people. I was a 100% match on the first tree compared to mine up to my Great-grandfather William Bennett. Well, actually it would have been up to my Great-great-grandmother Nancy if I had her on my tree in MyHeritage. I don't have a paid subscription anymore, so am limited as to how many members can be on my tree. Again, I digress. After my great-great-grandmother, things go a little sideways.

Since I started researching my family tree, I was always told, and have found information stating that my Great-great-grandmother Nancy was the daughter of Parker and Mary "Jane" LaFon Adkins.  Not so on these family trees I looked at. According to some of  the family trees, Nancy is the daughter of Hezekiah and Mary Levon, as her surname appeared in some trees, or LaFon, as it appeared in one.

It gets worse. I found some of the trees, have Nancy the daughter of Hezekiah and Mary Blue Sky Cornstalk Adkins. In my past research, I have found Parker V. Adkins married a Shawnee named Mary Blue sky (or Bluesky) Cornstalk, but he is not Nancy's father, or at least she was not among the children listed as his issue.

I don't know how well these tree owners vet their information. There was a lot of duplicates, inconsistencies and overall mass confusion on some of these trees.

Of course this is where being anal and wanting control kicks in. I created a separate tree with all the information from these seven trees, including all the conflicting information, inconsistencies, etc. I am now tasked with pulling the right thread to untangle this massive web.

I find the Adkins branch of the family very confusing. There are like a gazillion Parker, Jacob, Larkin Adkins, just to name a few. I know FamilySearch has dozen of corrections probably made daily on the Parker Vincent Adkins. I get weekly updates of changes made to records of people I am watching, and he is ALWAYS on there. I am to the point where I don't even look at his record anymore. I have no way of knowing if the correct information is being assigned to the correct Parker. But I guess this is the chance you take when dealing with community trees.

The death of Robert Jefferson Bennett

Since I started genealogy, I have heard of the murder of my great-great-grandfather, Robert Jefferson "Jeff" Bennett. The story goes Jeff was killed shortly after the Civil War by Henry Alexander "Tuck" Richmond.

From what I've read, it boils down to a difference of opinion as to whether or not West Virginia secede from the union with other southern states or to separate from Virginia and become a state of its own.

One such person who argued for statehood was Samuel Richmond.  He was very verbal about his loyalty to the Union, proclaiming his beliefs far and wide. Jeff, however, was at the other end of the spectrum, wanting secession. In fact, he and John "Sprightly John" Richmond were the only two who voted for secession during a vote in what is now Green Sulphur Spring District in Summers County. I don't know if Samuel and John were related or not. I never saw anything indicating they (John and Sam) were related, not that it really makes a difference or changes the outcome of what happened.

I digress. Anyway, per Judge James H. Miller in his account of the incident in History of Summers County, 1908, page 411---"The feeling was intense, and a great deal of bitterness had been engendered between the partisans of the Southern and Northern cause preceding and during the four years of the Civil War."

I can only image it was these feeling which precipitated the following events.

Richmond owned a grist-mill and operated a ferry service at the lower side of the falls on what I assume is the New River. On September 11, 1863, just months after West Virginia statehood, Richmond ferried Allen Vincent across the New River from the Raleigh County side to the Summers County side. He was ambushed on his way back across the river after dropping Vincent off. It was reported he was ambushed by two unidentified men. The ball went through Richmond's lungs. However, he was a very determined man and of powerful physique, he rowed himself back to the Raleigh side of the river, where he was carried home and died sometime in the early morning hours of September 12, 1863.

A man named Henderson Garten and Jeff, as he was a secession advocate, were the ones who supposedly committed the murder.

From page 414 of the History of Summers County---"The date of the shooting of Samuel Richmond, the senior, was September 11, 1863. This has always been understood as a cold-blooded and unprovoked murder, done in the heat of partisan passion, when the woods were full of bushwhackers on both sides ready at any moment, when they believed the interests of their partisan sides demanded, to commit cruel, unnecessary and unprovoked destruction of human life and of private citizen's property. Many depredations of that character were done during the strife of the Civil War, which went unpunished, and which would not be tolerated in times of peaces."

I suppose this explains why no charges were brought against Jeff. That, and they didn't have proof of his participation of the attack.

Flash forward two years.  It is the end of the Civil War and there were festive events scheduled to celebrate the war's end being held on the New River. Jeff had gotten up early to get ready for the day. While Nancy was fixing breakfast and preparing a picnic lunch, Jeff was sitting under an apple tree with the children playing in the yard. Raiders on horseback came riding through the farm. A shot rang out, killing Jeff instantly. Nancy came running out, trying to gather the children to remove them from harms way. One daughter went running toward her father but was told by one of the raiders to get back or he'd kill her, too, slapping her across the face with the butt of his gun. Jeff's dog began ferociously barking at the raiders. They turned the gun on the dog, killing him, as well. Nancy took the children into the woods as the raiders set flame to Nancy and Jeff's house, stealing as much meat from the meat house they could before riding off. No one was ever charged with this heinous crime. Robert Bennett, one of Jeff's sons, claimed Richmond's son "Tuck" was the person responsible for Jeff's death. It was said several years later, Lewis Marshall (another son of Jeff's, who was six at the time of the incident), came across "Tuck" when he was fishing in the river (either New or Greenbrier) and nearly beat him to death.

There is another account in which it said Jeff was inside when the raiders came riding onto his farm. They called him out onto the porch, killing him and his dog, too.

In yet another account, Arthur Dodd of Alderson said when he was a child, his mother (daughter of Robert Bennett, eldest son or Jeff) pointed out "Tuck" as the man who killed "Jeff" Bennett, his great-grandfather.

I have read more accounts stating he was sitting under a tree at the time of his death and that my great-great-grandmother, with her children in tow, ran into the woods in fear of being killed, too. No matter which account is correct, the fact remains murders were committed basically over statehood.

Citing your work

I will be honest, when I first started doing genealogy, I did not cite any of my sources. Of course, I didn't know how or even to do so. Even if I would have known how to write a source citation, I don't know if I would have because I never thought about the importance of citing my work. I thought my knowledge was good enough.

death certificate of my uncle, Carl Bennett

Over the years of watching webinars, reading genealogy articles and such, I have learned the importance of citing your sources. There is a saying in the genealogy community, if it isn't sourced and cited, it is fiction. Now, I don't necessarily agree with my family history being fiction, but I do see the importance of having sources and citing where they were obtained. I have research from years ago in which I have no idea where I got the information because I didn't make a note of where I found it. I've even run across notes I've dashed off on other research, and, again, I don't know where I got the additional information. My frustration from not knowing where I got any of the information, and sometimes it was partial information, gave me my "aha" moment---I needed to write down my sources. Had I written down where or who I got it from would have made my life much easier.

After realizing the need for citations, I would gather my sources and put it aside to go back and cite it later. I still have records without citations awaiting my return. In fact, I have it on my "to do list" to search for records without source citations.

I have come to realize, of late, how much easier it is to search for the source and cite it while still in the record. It only takes a minute or so to cite a source. I have gotten pretty fast with citing my records. If I am using the same source for multiple entries (e.g., birth certificate for name verification, birth date and place, etc.), I copy the citation to Legacy clipboard, then paste it as many times as needed. This makes fast and easy work of it and I'm not constantly chasing my own tail trying to have a factual family tree.

Citations do not need to be long, drawn out or involved. A simple citation needs to show who created the document (government entity, etc.); name of the doc; date of document (if there is one) and date when accessed; how accessed---i.e., in person (Do you possess the copy or original?); online and if online, where you accessed it from (the URL); and locator information (page number, film number, frame number, etc.). That little bit of information provides a lot of invaluable help to all who you share your family tree with and yourself when the information is cold.

Until next time, keep digging in the past. 

Organizational hurdles and other stuff

Hello everyone!! It has been quite awhile since I last made a blog post. Speaking of which, I made a resolution at the beginning of the year to keep up my genealogy blog. Boy did I botch that one. I have failed miserably at blogging daily, weekly or even monthly.

Not only did I resolve to keep my genealogy blog up (see above paragraph for outcome...LOL), but I also resolved this was the year I was going to get my genealogy files, research, etc., organized. I keep my files on and off the computer pretty much organized as it is, but I want to reconfigure my paper files.

Originally, I had all my research in folders according to the last name. This was okay when I first started doing genealogy because I didn't have a lot of different families for one surname. However, over the years, that quickly changed.

Another problem with the aforementioned system is both my paternal great-grandparents have the same surname. To further confuse the issue, there are several individuals on both sides of the family with the same given names. (William is a very popular name in my family, as is William Robert.  FYI...John is very popular on my maternal side.  LOL) When it came time to enter the research, I was sometimes hard-pressed knowing which side of the family the person belonged on.

I have to admit, I have done a little better with this resolution. I did start putting some of my records in individual folders. However, I come from generations of large families (I only had three siblings--my father had 14!!), so I run into the problem of space for every family having their own individual folder. I decided I would only create folders for my closest family members and then my direct-line ancestors. I think this should workout for me. I guess time will tell.

No on to the other stuff mentioned in my title. As previously stated in one of my earlier blogs, I use Legacy Family Tree software for tracking my family history. It had a neat feature of mapping the locations in my master location list, as well as mapping a persons life, so to speak. I noticed awhile back the mapping feature was no longer available in the master location. I wasn't sure when it stopped working just knew it didn't work. I kept thinking with each new update the issue would be fixed, but it hadn't happened as of the latest update. So, I decided to uninstall the program and reinstall it, thinking I might have done something inadvertently to the program to cause the feature to stop working.

I downloaded the latest version of the program, uninstalled the program from my computer and reinstalled it only to find it still didn't work. I sent a trouble ticket to Legacy to find it is a problem with Bing and they are working on a fix for the issue. So, basically, I did this for nothing. I thought no big deal because I didn't have to start from scratch creating my family tree.

Today, I found out it was a big deal after all. In uninstalling Legacy, it also uninstalled a folder I use all the time that housed all my documents. I never thought about it removing this folder with its uninstall.  Had I known at the time it would remove the folder from my directory, I would have moved the sub-folders to another location. Or, better still, submitted the trouble ticket and waited for the outcome. (See, this is what impatience gets you.  LOL)

All is not lost, I am proud to say. I had forethought enough a couple of weeks ago to make a backup copy of my genealogy files on my Google drive. Unfortunately, I have downloaded several documents since I did this. Although, finding a dozen or so documents is better than trying to find hundreds.

So, learn from my mistake. If you ever have to uninstall your genealogy software for any reason, first make a restore point before you uninstall.  Had I thought to do so, I wouldn't be downloading my files from my Google drive while I blog. I could have just restored my computer to before I uninstalled the software. And always make sure your backup copy is up-to-date. Oh well, we live and we learn.

Until next time...good luck digging in the past!

West Virginia? Virginia?...which one

As I have stated previously, I use Legacy Family Tree software for my family tree. I really like the program. It has some nice features. One of those features is a county verifier. It verifies that a county was in existence at the time of an event.

That being said, most of my family comes from West Virginia which, as you know, was part of Virginia until 1863 when it became an entity of its own. It is hard trying to keep up with which county existed pre-statehood, which county came into existence post-statehood, what year it became a county, etc.

I was getting tired of either Googling this information or looking it up on Wikipedia. So, I found a list of the West Virginia counties, the year they were established and the origin of the county (i.e., what county it was a part of before becoming its own county). I copied it from Wikipedia, cleaned it up and extracted only the pertinent information. This list comes in pretty handy and I refer to it frequently.

I found I was having the same issue with other states, as well. I did the same thing for Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, Missouri and Illinois. Those are the states most of my family lived in, was born in or died in, at least thus far in my research. I also created a list of the independent cities in Virginia, which includes the year they became independent. I am sure I will eventually have a list for all 50 states, but for now, these will do. I have made the lists available to you. Click on a state for its county list. Note: The Virginia file has two lists, one for counties and the other for independent cities.

I can now make more accurate notes on events when a county is in question. I write in my notes research indicated the event happened in such-and-such a county but it was not in existence at the time of the event. I feel this will help others who look at my genealogical information to get a better picture of what they are looking at.

I Love a Mystery

I love mysteries! I love reading them, pitting myself against the detective trying to figure out whodunit. Mysteries make me use my brain and all my powers of logic. They keep me engaged.

Genealogy can sometimes be like solving a mystery. I have found several mysteries in my family and proudly solved them. When I am able to figure out something that isn't quite right, it makes me feel a sense of accomplishment.

Here is the latest mystery I solved. I call it the case of the 1910 census Bennett children conundrum.

Recently, I was working on a 1910 census. I found one of those mysteries on my paternal grandparents census. The census sheet had my grandfather, grandmother and three uncles, Willie, Harry and Charley. It indicated my grandfather was married twice, which was true. It indicated my grandmother was married once, again true. It showed she was the mother of seven with three living at home. This is where the mystery came in. At that point, my grandmother had only had four children, two sons and two daughters. My grandfather had two children with his first wife and then four with my grandmother, making a total of six children not seven. I realized after looking closely at the birth years of my aunts and uncles, the census taker had incorrectly listed my aunt as a four year old male named Harry, when in reality it should have been a four year old female named Carrie. I did have an Uncle Harry, but he was born seven years later. That cleared up that mystery. The other six children mystery remained.

I remembered I had two aunts who died in the early 1900s, that explained away those two, leaving four children. Then I realized my grandmother was pregnant at the time of the census with my Uncle Wallace, who was born in August of 1910. That explained away why there wasn't at least four living at home. They must have listed my unborn uncle as the seventh child. That left my Uncle Forrest, who was my grandfather's son from his first wife. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't living in their house because he was 15 years old at the time of the census. I had no idea why he wasn't on the census sheet and no one to ask.

I put that to the back of my mind and continued working on the 1910 census. I ran across a census sheet from the same year but different county, and there, on that census sheet, was my Uncle Forrest. He was living with my great-grandmother. She had lost my great-grandfather the previous year. I can only assume my Uncle Forrest was living with her because she was what would have been considered elderly at that time, and was living alone.

I had solved the mystery of the 1910 census Bennett children conundrum!! Case closed.

And speaking of censuses, I found a website that has some blank census sheets in PDF form from 1790 through 2010. The website is the United States Census Bureau. While Legacy software offers blank census sheets, their sheets are somewhat abbreviated and the columns don't quite match the columns on the official sheets. The census sheets on this website seem to be replicates of the original census sheets, making it easier to match up what is on the images.

Well, that is it for this blog. Hope you find the census sheet website as useful as I did.  Peace, love and happines. . .Namaste!

You never know how you look. . .

We had a saying in my family...you never know how you look 'til you get your picture took. That saying brings me to today's topic for my blog.

I like including photographs in my family tree, as I am sure you do, too. I like putting a face to a name. It brings that person to life to me, making them more real and their relationship to me more personal. Also, I want my daughter and grandchildren to be able to look at the tree and see their ancestors.

When I look at old photographs of my ancestors, I like to look at them to see if I, in anyway, resemble anyone of them. Since I don't feel I definitively look like one side of my family more than the other, I don't think I will find a photo of an ancestor I will look exactly like or closely resemble. But still the same, I look. Although, I guess I do resemble more of my father's side than my mother's.

I don't know about you, but I have a ton of old photographs of family members I have no earthly idea who they are. Since the only people who might have known these people have passed, I can't imagine how I will ever find out their identity.  Nevertheless, I keep the photos in hopes of one day finding out who they are. They were developed in a variety of ways. Some are the old tin-types photos.  Others are on heavy cardboard with a matte surrounding the photo.  And still others were made up as postcards. I must say, the photos have help up well, not aging like photos taken in this day and age. I will have to do some minor clean up on them, but not a whole lot.

Let me retract my previous statement, while it is true I have no idea who some of the people are, some of the photos do have names written on the back. However, right now, it doesn't help much because I don't know how they fit into my family tree.

My task now, if I choose to accept it, which I do (ala Mission Impossible), is to figure out which side of the family they belong and how they fit into the family puzzle.  This will be a monumental task because, as previously stated, the family members who could tell me who they were and where they belong have long since passed. I guess that is the life of a genealogist...solving family mysteries and fitting the puzzle pieces together.