Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - My Thanksgiving Day

 From Randy (a cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

       A)  We all need to document some of the special moments in our lives so we can   recall them, or our descendants can learn more about us. Today’s question is   “What was your Thanksgiving Day like this year?”

B)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.

Here's mine:

Thanksgiving 2002 was very quiet and peaceful.  Just the way I like my days.  I had spent the entire week excited that I only had to work three days and would be off four.  There is always something that needs to be done around the house that I never seem to have time for during the week.  I was looking forward to getting a few done over the holiday weekend.  

I didn't make big plans for Thanksgiving Day since it is a holiday.  I spoke with my mom via phone that morning.  We usually Zoom for Thanksgiving and eat together, but she had been invited to a friends' for dinner.  After our conversation, I turned on the CMA awards on Hulu and started organizing my financial records drawer.  I was rewriting all of the labels on the folders, changing out worn folders, pulling out records from 2021, and throwing away paperwork that was no longer needed.  I worked on this until about 12 pm when I decided I was hungry and would go ahead and cook my turkey casserole.  I shared my casserole recipe on my last blog.  You can see it here: Saturday Night Fun "Friendly Fill-ins" for Thanksgiving.  While my lunch was cooking, I worked on my organization project a little longer, but I ran out of file folders.  So I tabled that project for another time.  I heated some blackeye peas and chopped some onion to go with my casserole, and enjoyed my Thanksgiving dinner.  It was yummy.

After lunch, I spoke with my BFF in Georgia.  It's just her and her husband, but she goes all out and cooks a big Thanksgiving meal.  She'll pay for it tomorrow, but I'm sure it was good eatin' today!

I spent quite a bit of time earlier in the day sending texts of Happy Thanksgiving GIFs to friends, co-workers, and cousins.  I wanted to let people know I was thinking of them.

Around 4:30, I decided to tackle a couple a couple of things with my computer and printer that I had been putting off for months.  The first item on the agenda was getting my printer to "work" again.  It had suddenly stopped communicating with my computer a few months ago.  So I decided to get to it and figure out the problem.  First thing I found was that the printer's power cord was unplugged on the back.  OK, easy fix.  Perhaps a cat managed to do that.  I turned it on and printed a few test pages.  Black print is choppy; color print is fine.  So I clean the printheads.  Black ink quits working altogether.  I check the ink level... almost full.  Hmmm...  Then I check the wireless connection so that I can print from the computer, phone, etc.  Evidently, when I had to change out my wireless modem a couple of months ago, I didn't update the printer with the new network name or password.  So I entered the information and guess what!  I can print from the computer again!  I print a test page.  It's in black so it comes out blank.  I change the font color to red, print again, and it comes out perfectly.  Of course, I don't have a spare black ink cartridge.  So I go on Amazon, and order remanufactured ink cartridges for the first time.  They had the same number of good reviews as the name brand cartridges do, and I got two cartridges for way cheaper than I would at Walmart!  

I counted that as project completed, even if I do have to wait for the black ink cartridge to be delivered!

The other project was the one that terrified me a little bit.  In August, a new update for Family Tree Maker 2019 was released.  When I tried to download this update, I got an error message.  I reached out to support and was told that I would need to uninstall my FTM and re-install the software with the new updated included.  That had stopped me in my tracks.  I hate updating software because it never goes smoothly for me.  So for three months, I had been hitting the "Remind Me Later" button every time I opened FTM and it offered to install the update.  But Thanksgiving afternoon, it was time.  So I got the directions support had sent me and got to it.  First, I did a backup of my file in FTM.  (Do you keep multiple backups from different dates?  Whenever I back up, I just keep the latest one.) Then I uninstalled FTM 2019 from my computer.  When that was done, I rebooted.  I had gone to the FTM site and gotten the newest version of the program (with the update included) so when my computer came back up, I was ready to download and install.  I did that and everything went well.  Then I restored my backup.  Family Tree Maker 2019 syncs with my Ancestry.com family tree.  I sync after almost every research session.  I add a lot of Ancestry hints to my tree, so I download them to my FTM and keep both sites up to date.  Or I do a stint of looking up Find a Grave memorial pages and enter information from there into FTM.  Then I sync and the new information uploads to my Ancestry tree.  

My next step, of course, was to try to sync the two trees.  Just to test.  Well, that's when everything went wonky.  It started syncing and told me it had over 18,000 citations to sync.  What?!  I stopped the sync and checked that I had the right number of people in my tree, right date of back up etc.  I did.  So I started the sync process again.  By this time, it is late, so I leave it overnight to do its thing.

And that was my Thanksgiving.  There weren't any earthshattering, exciting moments here either, but I enjoyed it.  I get a feeling of accomplishment from getting projects done.  And I am thankful for the time to do these things.  

As all of you know, I am most thankful for my Mama.  I will see her in January, and we will celebrate being together then.  From our viewpoint, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day are just days on the calendar.  We can celebrate each other any day of the year.

I am also thankful for the cousins I have met along the way.  Each one is special to me, and I look forward to seeing a couple of them in January.  

Last, but not least, I am grateful that during this last trip around the sun from Thanksgiving 2021-2022, my BFF and I found each other again.  Relationships are hard, and I'm not very good at them.  However, sometimes you have a strong enough friendship to just drop back, re-group, and come back stronger than ever.  

P.S.  Oh do you want to know what happened with the software upgrade?  It ended up being a 48 hour nightmare.  First time I contacted support, I was told that it was normal for the first sync to take awhile, because this updated version of FTM is made to make syncing more accurate and thorough.  OK.  Still wouldn't sync.  It would get so far and freeze.  Contact support again and after much run around and repeating myself, it was decided I needed to re-upload my FTM tree to Ancestry.  I started that project this morning (Saturday).  After doing all that, I had to delete my first tree from Ancestry since I didn't need two exact trees there.  Then I needed to change the names of trees back to what they were (Georgia Tapley Tree) so it would make it easier for folks to find it on Ancestry.  Then I did a couple of syncs to make sure that worked.  It was about 5 pm today before I got back to where I was before this upgrade.  Did I mention I hate software upgrades?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - "Friendly Fill-Ins" for Thanksgiving

 From Randy (a cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

A)  This is a fun meme from 2016, thanks to Suzanne McClendon on the P.S. Annie blog for the links.

B)  Fill in the blanks for these four statements:

    (1) One Thanksgiving tradition I have is __________________________.

    (2) Black Friday ___________________________________________.

    (3) The best part about Thanksgiving Day is _______________________.

    (4) One Thanksgiving, _________________________________________.

C)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.

Here's mine:

(1) One Thanksgiving tradition I have is to make my Savory Turkey Casserole out of leftover turkey.  Even if I didn't have turkey for Thanksgiving, I'll get some from a friend and make my casserole.  (Funny, I have never tried to make this casserole with chicken.  Just turkey and just after Thanksgiving.)  Here's the recipe for inquiring minds:

(2) Black Friday:  just NO.  I hate the crowds, the bait and switch the stores use, and even the name.  I usually stay home and do lots of genealogy or scrapbooking.

I do have one fun memory of this day.  My ex-husband and I were in Augusta, spending Thanksgiving with my parents.  He got up really early that Friday after Thanksgiving and went shopping.  And he ended up on TV!  The local news station was filming and even asked him some questions!  Then he swore he would never do that again!

(3)  The best part about Thanksgiving Day is the FOOD and the NAP afterwards!  I also like to be thankful for both.  

(4)  One Thanksgiving, when I was young, my parents and I went to Florida and had Thanksgiving dinner with my Uncle Hugh, his son - my cousin, Ronnie - and Ronnie's wife, Toula.  I remember that Toula's mother was there, and the two of them cooked.  They are Greek, and the food was wonderful.  Mom and I still miss Toula's cooking to this day!  

Toula and Ronnie at our home in Swainsboro
for another Thanksgiving. circa 1981

Seriously, those are always the best Thanksgivings - the ones that you have family and/or friends there to share it with you.  

Another Thanksgiving, my ex-husband and I hosted a "Friends Thanksgiving." We had about 3 or 4 couples over, and it was so enjoyable.  

Thanksgivings are very different now.  The only tradition I miss is my ex-husband's fried turkey.  YUM.  

Before the pandemic, Mom would come to North Carolina for Thanksgiving.  Since the pandemic, we don't spend Thanksgiving together.  It's OK.  We Zoom and eat together.  We save up the fun until our Christmas visit.  Which this year is going to be in January!  

Whatever works, right?

A Time Line for Elizabeth Rebecca "Becky" Page Tapley (1844-1924)

 Our connection:

Liz (that's me!)

↓↓↓

Gilbert Earl Tapley, 1928-2008 (my father)

↓↓↓

Lusion Keman Tapley, 1870-1935 (my grandfather)

↓↓ 

Elizabeth Rebecca "Becky" Page, 1844-1924 (my great-grandmother)

Time Line for the life of Elizabeth Rebecca "Becky" Page:  

1844 Age 0	Birth	September 8 Emanuel County, Georgia, USA
1850 Age 5	Residence	Emanuel County, Georgia, USA
1859 Age 14	Historical Event	Johnson County is formed from parts of Laurens and Emanuel County.
1860 Age 15	Residence	Johnson County, Georgia, USA
1860 Age 15	Death of Parent	Father, Solomon Page, Jr. (1800-1860) passed away in Washington County, Georgia, USA.
1861 Age 16	Historical Event	Civil War
1864 Age 19	Marriage	Married Harrell Samuel Horton (1844-1908) on January 31 in Johnson County.
1866 Age 21	The First Civil Rights Act	The first federal law that defined what was citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. Its main objective was to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent.
1866 Age 21	Marriage	Married James Madison ‘Jim’ Tapley (1847-1912) on February 18 in Johnson County, Georgia, USA.
1867 Age 22	Historical Event	Sorry Mr. President, you can’t do that. This Act was to restrict the power of the President removing certain office holders without approval of the Senate. It denies the President the power to remove any executive officer who had been appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, unless the Senate approved the removal during the next full session of Congress. The Amendment was later repealed.
1867 Age 22	Birth of 1st Child	Franklin Morgan “Frank” Tapley (1867-1938) was born on April 7 in Johnson County.
1868 Age 23	Birth of Child	A second boy, James L “Jim” (1868-1941), was born July 17 in Johnson County.
1870 Age 25	Residence	District 1201, Johnson County, Georgia, USA
1870 Age 25	Birth of Child	A third boy, Lusion Keman (1870-1935), was born on March 31.
1872 Age 27	Historical Event	The Amnesty Act. A Federal law which reversed most of the penalties on former Confederate soldiers by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act affected over 150,000 troops that were a part of the Civil War.
1873 Age 28	Birth of Child	A Girl!  Elizabeth Virginia “Lizzie” (1873-1959) was born on February 12th.
1874 Age 29	Birth of Child	Their second daughter, Magdaline (1874-abt 1886), was born.
1875 Age 30	Historical Event	A Treaty with Hawaii. In the Mid 1870s, the United States sought out the Kingdom of Hawaii to make a free trade agreement. The Treaty gave the Hawaiians access to the U.S. agricultural markets and it gave the U.S. a part of land which later became Pearl Harbor.
1875 Age 30	Birth of Child	A daughter, Tabitha “Bosch” (1875-1956) was born on March 10.
1876 Age 31	Historical Event	The Battle of Little Bighorn. An armed conflict between the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry of the U.S. Army. The battle was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.
1876 Age 31	Birth of Child	George Washington Sentell “Tell” (1876-1944) was born July 5th.
1878 Age 33	Birth of Child	On April 10, Bennett Olin “Ol” (1878-1955) was born.
1880 Age 35	Death of Parent	Her mother, Elizabeth Caroline Scoggins Page (1802-1880) passed away.
1880 Age 35	Birth of Child	A girl, Marry (1880-1885), was born February 10.
1881 Age 36	Birth of Child	Solomon (1881-1971) was born on March 5.
1885 Age 40	Death of Child	Daughter, Marry, died on February 25, at age 5.
1886 Age 42	Birth of Child	Vianna Bell (1886-1965) was born October 4th.
Abt 1886 Age 42	Death of Child	Daughter, Magdaline, passed away when she was about 12 years old.
1889 Age 45	Birth of last child	On August 5, Bascom Bishop Tapley (1889-1967) was born in Johnson County.
1890 Age 46	Birth of 1st Grandchild	Frank Tapley, son of Becky’s oldest son, Franklin Morgan ‘Frank’, was born during this year.
1893 Age 48	Historical Event	The Last Public Hanging in Georgia. The last public hanging in Georgia was on September 28, 1893. The General Assembly prohibited public executions in December 1893. Prior to this law, Georgians commonly traveled to witness scheduled public executions.
1900 Age 55	Residence	District 1203, Johnson County, Georgia, USA
1910 Age 65	Residence	Powell, Johnson County, Georgia, USA
1912 Age 68	Death of Spouse	Jim passed away on November 5 in Johnson County, Georgia, USA.
1918-1919 Age 74-75	Grandson AWOL from Army	Gordon Wesley Tapley (1894-1959), the eldest son of James L ‘Jim’, went AWOL from the Army and hid at and around his Grandmother Becky’s house for just over a year.  When he wasn’t plowing his grandmother’s fields dressed as a woman, he was down in the woods, camping on the Ohoopee.
1923 Age 78	Historical Event	Amendment of Equal Rights. In a proposed amendment to help guarantee equal legal rights for all citizens of the United States. Its main objective is to end legal distinctions between the two genders in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other legal matters. Even thought it isn’t the 28th Amendment yet, it has started conversations about the meaning of legal equality.
1924 Age 79	Death	Becky passed away on May 18 in Johnson County, Georgia, USA.

 Many records contain the information that Becky's first husband, Harrell Solomon Horton, died in 1864, leading to the assumption that he was killed in the Civil War.  However, much to my surprise a few months ago, I found out that Solomon lived, came back home to Georgia, married someone else, and had children.  He lived to the age of 64!  I can find no documentation of a divorce between my great-grandmother and him.  He married Nancy Price the same year that Jim and Becky got married - 1866.  So I have a few possible theories:  (1) There is a divorce record somewhere that I have not located yet; (2) He was missing during the war and presumed dead. So Becky though she was widowed and married someone else about the same time her husband reappeared.  Still does not explain the lack of a divorce record; or (3) They just bypassed the divorce process and moved on with their separate lives for whatever reason.  I would imagine that in war-torn Georgia in 1866, verifying a couple was divorced was not so important.  So I will continue to research.