Happy New Year

 
"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."
~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Those Places Thursday: 20 West Home Place, Redlands, California

The address is for my mother's (maternal) grandmother's house.  (Bessie Carter Ranney)  Mom spent a lot of time there as a child.  She had a wonderful relationship with her grandmother... something I missed out on since both of mine died when I was so young.  I grew up hearing about "Home Place."  I finally got to go there and see it in person this year.  (Yes, it is STILL there!)  Mom got to see it again for the first time in 48 years.

This is how the place looks in my mother's memory.  According to the California Voter Registration lists on Ancestry, Bessie moved here between 1944-1946.  (She had been widowed in 1943.) This picture was probably taken in the late 1940's or early 1950's.  We believe the woman on the steps is my mom's aunt, Alice Ranney Thornburg.

This is how the house looks today (October 2010).  Very similar, right?  I tried to get my mother to knock on the door and ask the current residents if we could look inside, but since it was 8am, she didn't think that was a good idea.  :)

I could tell how happy it made my mother to see this house again... a place that means so much to her and holds a special place in her memories.

My Genealogy "Life" List

I am a very organized person.  I have my family history documents filed in notebooks with the spine clearly marked as to what family or family members the information in that notebook pertains to.  I have my household inventory in notebooks with photos, warranty information, user manuals, etc.  The scrapbook cabinets in my scrapbook room are clearly labeled.  I have a spreedsheet of the books I own and need to read.  Like I said, I'm organized... bordering on OCD.  Part of being organized is the use of lists.  I do like lists... and I do use them - somewhat.  I make them often, but rarely check anything off until days and days later.  So they don't keep me on track like I wish they would, but they are useful for jump-starting this feeble memory of mine.

I got the idea tonight from Jennifer at Sergeant Major Mom and Climbing my Family Tree of making a life list.  Some people might call it a bucket list.  A list of items you would like to do during your lifetime.

I decided to do a genealogy life list - things that I wish to do that are linked to my family and genealogy.  Some items are mundane; others are possibly pipe dreams.  But this is also a "wish" list, in addition to a being a to do list, right?   (Oh, and these are in no particular order.) 

1. Go back to Dublin, Georgia to do more research in their library's genealogy area... especially looking up obituaries and newspaper articles from Johnson County that pertain to my families.
2. Go to Poplar Springs Methodist Church cemetery outside of Adrian, Georgia to visit my Drake family graves.  
3. Visit Nail's Creek Cemetery in Jefferson County (near Bartow), Georgia.  I have a grand uncle and his immediate family buried there.
4. Visit Middletown, Connecticut to see where my Ranney family originated, and do research in the library there.
5. Visit Ohio, where my Ranney family migrated to the Western Reserve.  My Hesser ancestors are also from Ohio.
6. Go to the Rowland Family Cemetery in Chester, Georgia (south of Macon) to find my Aunt Irene's grave.  Done January 29, 2011
7. Learn how to do family history research in German records so that I could find the place where my Schwalls family originated and any information on them that is there.
8. Go to Oakwood Cemetery in Hilliard, Florida to photograph the graves of other Drake ancestors.
9. Go to Pickens County, South Carolina, and locate the Latham family cemetery there, where some of my husband's ancestors are buried.
10. Go to Alpharetta, Georgia to visit the graves of various ancestors of my husband's.
11. Sit down with my mother-in-law and see exactly what she has hidden away in her house as far as photographs and documents relating to my husband's family.
12. Research (for days!) at the genealogical library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
13. Label the family jewelry I have so that others will know what belonged to whom, and the significance of each piece.
14. Put together a package of pictures and a family tree for my cousin and mail it to him.
15. Attend a genealogical conference in Salt Lake City.
16. Return to school and get my second degree... in history.
17. Visit Michigan where my Ranney family migrated from Ohio.
18. Visit Iowa where my great grandparents Ranney lived when they were first married.
19. Find out the names of George W. Schwalls' parents, whether he had siblings and their names.
20. Scan every family photo and historical document in my house.
21. Scan my negatives and turn them into digital photos.
22. Get a VuPoint Magic Wand Portable Scanner (see here) to take with me to courthouses or relative's homes.
23. Interview my cousins and get current information (names, dates, places etc.) on their immediate families.
24. See Camp Blanding, Florida, where my uncles reported for duty during World War II.
25. Find out what I can about my Uncle Russ's service during WWII - the name of his unit, ANYTHING.
26. Call my grand uncle Kenneth Ranney's step-daughter.  Done January 2011
27. Interview my husband's aunts to get up-to-date information about their immediate families.
28. Try to order my grand aunt Alice Ranney Thornburg's birth certificate from Michigan.
29. Attend the NGS conference in Charleston, South Carolina in May 2011.
30. Order Otho Hesser's obituary from the Lima Public Library in Lima, Ohio.
31. Scrapbook all my family pictures, along with the stories behind them.
32. Get DNA testing done for my mother and me.
33. Transcribe the Schwalls land records I copied from the deed books in Johnson County, Georgia.
34. Visit Appomattox, Virginia where my great grandfather was when the Civil War ended.
35. Visit all the civil war battlefields where my great grandfather's unit fought.
36. Go to the public library in Marietta, Georgia and try to find an obituary for my uncle, Bob Plumlee.
37. Upon finding out where Uncle Bob is buried from that obituary, visit his grave.
38. Try to make contact once again with Uncle Bob's son in Arizona.
39. Go to the library in Swainsboro, Georgia to look for obituaries and newspaper articles related to my families.
40. Get a copy of Sidney and Mamie Lampp's marriage license and/or certificate at the Johnson County courthouse in Wrightsville, Georgia.

That is all I can think of at the moment, but I am sure I will be adding to this list often!

Please join me in making a genealogy life list... or just a general life list.  It's always good to have things written down.  :)

Tombstone Tuesday: Elizabeth Rebecca Page Tapley

Elizabeth Rebecca (Becky) Page Tapley

Date of birth September 8, 1844

Date of death May 18, 1924

buried at Oaky Grove Church Cemetery,

Johnson County, Georgia

near her husband, James Madison Tapley

my paternal great grandmother

Becky was married once before my great grandfather, to 

Harrell Solomon Horton

who was killed or died during his service in the Civil War.

I do not know why the last name Tapley was not put

on her headstone.

Motivation Monday: My Genealogy Goals for this Week

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday.  I ate too much really good food at my Mom's!

I've had a busy week, genealogy wise.  Lots of research and scanning.  These were my goals for last week... let's see how I did: 

• Call my grand uncle's step-daughter.  We had lost touch with him, and my mom and I would love to hear about the last years of his life.  (If I keep moving this to every week, eventually I'll do it!)  Still did not do this. 
• Unpack the pictures and other memorabilia I brought back from my mom's on Saturday.  Turns out she had been holding out on me with some stuff... the rest are framed pictures that I need to take out and scan.  Good thing Scanfest is this Sunday!  Done!  The frames are ready to go to the Goodwill and the pictures are in a stack on my desk, waiting to be scanned.  I got a few items scanned yesterday during ScanFest.
• Photograph a couple of items Mom gave me that belonged to my paternal grandmother, Nealie Drake Tapley.  I had no idea they had belonged to her, and I'm very excited to have them.  Done!  And they are now lovingly displayed in my china cabinet.
• Continue the Ranney transcribing. Done!  I finished transcribing generation 8 and sent that in.  I have started transcribing the 9th (and final) generation at the rate of 3 pages per day. 

I did better than I thought! I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions, but maybe I need to think about making one about procrastinating...

Here are the goals I wish to pursue this week:

• Continue the Ranney transcribing (I am on a roll!).
• Call my grand uncle's step-daughter.
• Continue researching the census records on my Schwalls family.
• Scan some of the pictures my mom loaned me.
• Do some genealogy filing.

That will do!  Happy New Year!

ScanFest Sunday

Today was the monthly ScanFest over at AnceStories.  This is my second time participating, and I love it.  It gives me a set time, once a month for three hours, to scan my family history documents.  Otherwise, without the "appointment," I would just keep putting it on the back burner.  

Today I did 90+ scans:

• A couple of pictures and memorabilia I got from my mom recently; 
• My aunt's baby book that my mom found at her house (and which, of course, I will be mailing to my aunt this week); 
• My mom's birth certificates (one official, one decorative with her footprints); 
• My mom's baby book; 
• Several "new baby" greeting cards my grandmother had saved from my mother's birth, along with a couple of her birthday cards from her first year; 
• My mom's 1st grade report card; 
• My mom's high school graduation announcement; and 
• My brother's birth and death certificates.    

That completes the documents I had on file for my mom!  I'm very excited about that!  

One of the "Welcome
New Baby" cards -
this one from her aunt.

Of course, I still have a stack of pictures (more my mom passed along recently) to scan.  I'll do a few a week, probably, to get them done.  I don't want to wait until next month's ScanFest (January 30th, from 11am-2pm PST).  I have already planned what I'm going to do then:  any documents I have for my paternal grandparents.  I'm moving right along.  And it feels GOOD to get this done.  

Now I just need to back these files up somewhere...

A Genealogist's Christmas Wish

Dear Santa:

  Don't bring me new dishes,
  I don't need a new kind of game.
  Genealogists have peculiar wishes
  For Christmas I just want a surname.

  A new washing machine would be great,
  But it's not the desire of my life.
  I've just found an ancestor's birth date;
  What I need now is the name of his wife.

  My heart doesn't yearn for a ring
  That would put a real diamond to shame.
  What I want is a much cheaper thing;
  Please give me Elizabeth's last name.

  To see my heart singing with joy,
  Don't bring me a real leather suitcase,
  Bring me a genealogist's toy;
  a surname with dates and a place.
      -- Unknown (borrowed from a post on the YAHOO! group DEADFRED.com)

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!