Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Create an Ancestor's Timeline

 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:

(1)  Do you use Timelines to help you in your research? Create a Timeline (a chronological list with dates and events) for one of your ancestors that includes their parents, siblings, spouse(s) and children.  Tell us how you did it, and show us your work.

(2)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a post on Facebook.  

Here's mine:

I used Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2019.  First I chose my great-grandmother, Bessie Alice Carter Ranney (1883-1960).  Then I went to Publish → Person Reports → Timeline Report.  As I have said many, many times, FTM leaves much to be desired in their reports, in my opinion. I could not designate who to include in her report, so her parents are not included.  She didn't have any siblings.  

This is what I chose of the options presented:

✓ Include family events

     ✓ Include spouses' birth

     ✓ Include sibling facts

✓ Include historical events

✓ Use custom fact sentences

✓ Include only facts with dates

✓ Include only preferred facts

Here is what I ended up with for my timeline:

There are two pages of events.  I'm not sure why they included historical events from BEFORE she was born or why some of her children's marriages are missing.  I tried another version, unchecking the "Include only preferred facts" box, but still the marriages were not included on the report.  I'll have to do some research into that.  

One good thing is my report does list the relationship of the person to Bessie.  Perhaps I should have chosen someone who had siblings.  Then I would have gotten more relationships and events.  

I have actually been doing some timeline posts here on my blog recently, but I've been using information from Family Search.  I did not realize I had this report available to me!

Workday Wednesday: Alice Ranney Thornburg

My grand aunt, Alice Ranney Thornburg, worked at Patton State Hospital in San Bernandino, California for many years.  According to this certificate found among her belongings, she was a Psychiatric Technician:

We know that Alice worked there until the early-mid 1960's.  According to my mother, she worked in the TB (tuberculosis) ward, and she worked with male patients. 

I searched online for the history of this hospital and only found the same information over and over.

"Patton State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital located in San Bernardino, California, United States.

Opened in 1893 as the Southern California State Asylum for the Insane and Inebriates, it was renamed Patton State Hospital after Harry Patton, a member of the first Board of Managers, in 1927.

Patton is a state run, public sector forensic hospital. It is licensed by the Department of Health Services and accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Individuals are judicially committed adults to Patton State Hospital to recover from mental illness."
  - Source:   www.mashpedia.com/patton_state_hospital

Based on other information I found online, Patton did not become a forensic hospital until sometime after Alice left.

I was unable to locate any photos of the hospital, dated later than 1920. 

As a matter of fact, it was very surprising how little information and photos I could find.  Is that by design?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- A Veteran's Service and Gravesite

 From Randy over at Genea-Musings:


Dear genealogists everywhere, it's Saturday Night!  Time for some Genealogy FUN.

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

1)  To celebrate Veterans Day, pick one of your ancestors or relatives with a military record and a gravestone.

2)  Tell us about your ancestor's military service.

3)  Tell us about your ancestor's gravestone - where is it, what is the inscription, when were you last there?  Show us a picture of it if you have one available. 

4)  Write your own blog post about this ancestor and his gravestone, or share it in a Comment to this blog post, in a status line on Facebook, or in a Google Plus Stream post. 

Here's mine:

(1)   I chose my maternal grandfather, Charles Morgan Tapley (1907-1973), who served in the United States Navy twice.

He first served in the Navy from December 3, 1923 to November 3, 1925.  If you do the math, he was only 16 years old when he joined.  The family lore is that he ran away from his home in Georgia, went to California, and lied about his age to join the Navy.  (Obviously, it was much easier to lie about your age back then.)  The story continues that eventually, he wrote his father and begged him to get him (Charles) out of the military.  I theorize that the the way his father did that was to let the U.S. Navy know that Charles was underage.

According to his military records, some of this story is true.  However, he actually joined in Raleigh, North Carolina and trained at Hampton Roads, Virginia.   From March 10, 1924 until his discharge in November 1925, he served upon the USS Arizona, which is probably how he ended up in California.  His record clearly states next to his discharge date:  "Underage - Honorable Discharge."  His rating was S2c at time of discharge.

The second time my grandfather served in the U.S. Navy was during World War II.  By 1944, he was divorced with a 12 year old daughter and re-married with a 7 year old step-son, an 18 month old daughter, and a wife that was starting to exhibit health problems.  He was trying to support a family by working any job he could find (including as an insurance salesman at this time).  Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1943 and three months later, he got a government "greetings letter" (draft notice).  He had to report somewhere in Los Angeles for induction.  When he arrived, he knew he would rather go back into the Navy, with which he was familiar, rather than join the Army.  So he got into the Navy line, and when the recruiter found out he had served before, they signed him right up.  He spent the first several months of his service at training school in Toledo, Ohio.  At the end of that training, his rating was changed to S1c.  In September 1944, he was transferred to the S.S. Bataan and worked on the ship as a storekeeper.  The only thing he really said about his service is that the planes taking off overhead on the deck were terribly loud.  He was discharged in April 1945 because his wife's health had deteriorated to the point that he was needed at home.

Pop Pop is buried at Gumlog Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery outside Kite in Johnson County, Georgia.  Here are photographs of his grave.

Charles M Tapley

Georgia

S1 US Navy

World War II

June 27 1907       Nov 12 1973

He is buried next to Grandma, Ethel Irene Ranney Tapley.  Nearby are his mother, Mattie Schwalls Tapley, two of his brothers, James and Gilbert Tapley, and sisters-in-law Reida Mae Poole Tapley and Alice Ranney Thornburg. 

The last time I visited Pop Pop's grave was this past March.  When I still lived in Georgia, I would meet my mother in the area to assist her in placing flowers on the family graves.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Vacations

Week 27:  Vacations. Where did your family go on vacation? Did you have a favorite place? Is it still there? If not, how has the area changed?

Even though I do not have any children of my own, since I was a child at one time myself, I have a few definite ideas of things I believe are good for them:  sitting down to dinner as a family every night, being read to every night before bed, having the responsibility of caring for a pet, and taking a VACATION every year.  I have to give my parents their due:  We did go on vacation when I was a child.  It was almost always to the same place, but we went.

Our vacation spot was in Lake Lure, North Carolina every June (see map).  Its claim to fame now is that it is where "Dirty Dancing" was filmed.  We were going there before that.  We were usually there over my birthday, and my mom would make sure I had a birthday cake and gifts in our motel room to celebrate.

Image courtesy of The Town of Lake Lure official website

Lake Lure is in the mountains, and it was and probably still is a beautiful place.  I haven't been there in years and years and years, so I do not even know what it looks like today.  I am sure there are more motels now than there were back in the late 1970's.  The town's official website gives the history of the area and describes what it is like today.

I found some postcards and pictures I have from those trips:

Lake Lure

Bottomless Pools, Lake Lure

Where we stayed

See the specs in the bottom, left-hand corner of the pictures?  That would be me and a friend at Lake Lure. I'm the taller one.

Just down the road from Lake Lure was Chimney Rock.  You didn't visit one without visiting the other.  Here are a postcard I collected and a few pictures from there:

That would be me.

(Even as a child, I loved and collected postcards everywhere I went!)

I will post just one more picture... this is one of the beautiful mountain streams in the area:

My father, Gilbert Tapley, along with my grand-aunt, Alice Thornburg (with her back turned), me, and a family friend.