Sympathy Saturday

     Sympathy Saturday will be where I share the obituaries and my condolences for members of my family tree who passed recently.  When you get to be a certain age, you begin to read the obituaries every day.  As the days go by, you read about more and more of your friends and family members who have died.  You compare their age to your own and get a jolt. "That could have been me." 

    For genealogists, checking obituaries and visiting cemeteries is as normal as breathing. I learn so much from an obituary, i.e., maiden names, parents' names; children's' and grandchildren's' names, funeral and burial locations, sometimes even a cause of death.  I want to learn these things not for any purpose but to put it on the family tree for future generations to see and learn about the family that went before them. I admit, most of these relatives I have never met, but I think it is important to share that they were here on this Earth, and they were important.

    So I am signed up with at least three funerals homes from Swainsboro, Vidalia, and Wrightsville to get daily notices of obituaries sent to my email.  Every day, I peruse them and with the help of the family tree, figure out who is related to me and add any new information to the tree.    Some weeks there are several, and some weeks there are none. This week there was one who actually passed away months ago.

"Official Obituary of

Sherry Jean Edenfield

September 3, 1963 ~ January 1, 2025 (age 61)

Ms. Sherry Jean Purvis Edenfield, 61, of Kite passed on the wings of an angel into the loving arms of our Lord, Wednesday, January 1, 2025, at Piedmont Hospital in Augusta due to liver failure. She was born on September 3, 1963, in Swainsboro, to the late Bennie S and Margie Williams. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, Thomas Ray Purvis; brother, Billy Ray Williams.  Sherry loved her children and grandchildren very much.  She enjoyed fishing, gardening, going to the beach at St. Simons Island, and collecting Indian artifacts and amethyst stones.  Sherry was a good cook and very strong-willed.

Sherry is survived by her sons, Phil Riner of Kemp, Dustin Edenfield, Kyle M. Edenfield, both of Kite, J.L. Purvis of Colorado; daughters, Nicole Osika of Clearwater, FL, LeAnn Weber of Wisconsin; brother, Cliff Willams of Kite; sisters, Judy Riner of Swainsboro, Brenda Creech of Kite, Trish Wheeler of Harlem; 14 grandchildren; 4 Great Grandchildren; several nieces, nephews and many friends.

Memorial service will be held Sunday, April 20, 2025, at 2:00 P.M. at Gumlog Primitive Baptist Church in Kite.

Condolences may be expressed at www.chapmanfhofswainsboro.com.

Chapman Funeral Home of Swainsboro is in charge of the arrangements for Ms. Sherry Jean Edenfield, 61, of Kite." - Obituary courtesy of Chapman Funeral Home, Swainsboro, Georgia

Sherry was married to my 2nd cousin, 1x removed, Thomas Franklin Purvis, Jr.  Our common ancestors are James Madison "Jim" Tapley and Elizabeth Rebecca "Becky" Page Tapley.

Please join me in offering condolences to Sherry's family and holding them in the light.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - How Many Surnames in Your Family Tree Database?

 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)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer or an online family tree), and figure out how to count how many surnames you have in your family tree or database.

(2)  Tell us which GMP you are using and how you did this task.

(3)  Tell us how many surnames are in your database and, if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5! or 10!! Or 20!!!

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

Here's mine:

I use Family Tree Maker 19 (FTM19) as my GMP.  In FTM19, go to "Publish,", then "Person Reports," and then choose "Surname Report."  I then tweaked the Settings to "All Individuals," "Sort by Surname Count," and "Show Divider Between Surnames."

I have 75 pages of surnames, listed from the most number of instances down to the least number of instances (1).  I did a count of how many surnames on a page (44), multiplied that by 74 pages, and then added the 20 entries on the last page (page 75) and got a total of 3,276 surnames in my family tree.

This is the first page of my report:

Surname Report 05-14-2022

The top 20 are, with birth date ranges:

TAPLEY - 927 from 1691-2010

MNU (Maiden Name Unknown) - 672 from 1531-1984

OZMUN - 300 from 1764-1973

CLAXTON - 299 from 1764-1997

DRAKE - 291 from 1647-2001

PRICE - 272 from 1680-1967

BUSH - 264 from 1589-1971

POWELL - 257 from 1750-1980

SMITH - 249 from 1648-1984

RANNEY - 232 from 1661-1973

HUBBARD - 212 from 1601-1925

WILLIAMS - 145 from 1777-1992

DAVIS - 126 from 1760-1965

GOODWIN - 125 from 1776-1961

DURDEN - 123 from 1775-1960

JOHNSON - 123 from 1681-1974

WILSON - 116 from 1847-1981

BARWICK - 113 from 1731-1957

WHEELER - 108 from 1807-2017

BEASLEY - 97 from 1788-1983

I found surprises in my list.  First of all I would have thought that my number of Tapleys would have been higher.  I also did not realize how high the numbers are for Smith, Johnson, Davis, and Williams.  I had to laugh that Powell was in the top 10 - all of the them married into my family.  I have none in my direct line.  However, my family intertwines with the Powells over and over again to the  point that a fellow Powell researcher I know and I call each other cousins anyway.  I was surprised (and disappointed) that the number of Odoms, Goths, or Schwalls were not higher.  But then I have had a harder time researching those surnames, so it shouldn't be a surprise.  

I am looking forward to see how this changes over the next few years since I am about to dive into the Ranney family records again.

Family Surname: Schwall or Schwalls

The surname Schwall is German in origin.  Germans began to use surnames in the 1400s.  Occupational names were the most common, but nicknames and location names were also used.

Every village had similar trades (or occupations) from which people took their surnames, so people from different German villages who had the same trade and therefore the same surname are not necessarily related.

Today, German surnames have undergone many spelling changes, especially as Germans have immigrated to the United States.  In my own family's instance, my ancestor added an "S" to Schwall in order to differentiate himself from his cousin living in the next county over. 

The word "schwall" means "flood" in German.  Does this give me a hint as to where the name came from?  Maybe.  In the course of my research, I came across the origin of the name.  It was based on location, perhaps a swamp or swamp-like land.  Unfortunately, I did not copy the information I found, nor did I record the source, and now have no way of knowing exactly what it said.  A lesson learned. 

In my online research, I find this origin and meaning multiple times:

"South German:  habitational name from places so named in Nassau and the Rhineland."

So what the heck does THAT mean?  Well, it does provide clues...

Habitation is a place of residence or a colony or settlement.  So the adjective habitational would describe the surname as a name from a place of residence or colony or settlement.  

Nassau is a town located in the German State of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz in German). It is about 60 miles southwest of Bonn.

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

The Rhineland lies in West Germany along both banks of the middle Rhine River.  It borders on the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. 

So this gives me a possible area that my Schwalls ancestor was from.  However, that is a lot of ground to cover which would be oh so much easier if I had any idea what village or town or city where George Schwalls was born.  I do believe it might be in the correct vicinity considering this:  The state of Rhineland-Palantinate was established in 1946.  It was formed from the northern part of the French Occupation Zone, which included parts of Bavaria... (italics added).  This is significant because on one single document I have managed to locate during my research, George indicated he was from Bavaria.  So even though this German state was formed almost 100 years after he left the country, it still gives me a clue as to the general location he may hail from.  

Another clue is that Rhineland-Palantinate has supplied immigrants to many parts of the world.  The Pennsylvania Dutch spoken by the Amish in the United States is derived from the German dialect spoken in the Rhineland-Palatinate, which many Palatine refugees brought to the colony in the early decades of the 18th century.  Family lore insists that our Schwalls were "Dutch." 

I have information about only 4 generations of my maternal Schwalls line:

- George W. Schwalls Sr.

My 2nd great-grandfather.  He was born 01 Jan 1837 somewhere in Germany and died 21 Jan 1908 in Johnson County, Georgia.  He married (1) in 1866 in Edgefield County, South Carolina, Lincelia E. Claxton, born 10 Apr 1839 in Edgefield County.  She died 18 Jan 1882.  They had seven children: 

 Susan M. Schwalls
Linnie Schwalls
Charlie Milton Schwalls
William Louis Schwalls
Mattie Schwalls
M. M. Schwalls
George W. Schwalls Jr

George married (2) 16 Jul 1883 in Johnson County, Georgia, Mary J. Williams, born 15 Mar 1851 Georgia.  She died 14 Mar 1922.  They had six children:

Hattie Barbara Schwalls
Dillie Schwalls
Samuel Thomas Schwalls
Rosa Schwalls
Rufus E. Lester Schwalls 
Lizzie Lee Schwalls  

- Mattie Schwalls

 
My great-grandmother.  She was born 25 May 1877, presumably in Johnson County, Georgia.  She married 18 Nov 1903 in Johnson County, Lusion Keman Tapley, born 31 Mar 1870 in Johnson County and died 3 Jul 1935 in Wadley, Jefferson County, Georgia.  They had the following children: 

James Tillman Tapley  
Charles Morgan Tapley
Champ Lusion Tapley
Woodrow Tapley (died shortly after birth)

Mattie passed away 26 Apr 1912 after giving birth to Woodrow.

- Charles Morgan Tapley

 

 My grandfather was born 27 Jun 1907 in Johnson County, Georgia and died 12 Nov 1973 in Swainsboro, Emanuel County, Georgia.  He married (1) 27 Jun 1928 in California, Gladys Ruth Van Cleave, born 31 Jul 1909 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and died 01 Dec 1987 in Glendale, Los Angeles County, California.  They had two children.  Charles married (2) 03 Dec 1939 in Redlands, San Bernardino County, California, Ethel Irene Ranney, born 06 Jul 1913 in Elsie, Clinton County, Michigan and died 12 Nov 1973 in Dublin, Laurens County, Georgia.  They had the following child:

- Linda Irene Tapley

My mother was born in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California.  She and my father had the following children:

  Michael Edward Tapley
 
- And ME. 

Sources:

Ancestor Search, Free Dictionary of Surname Origins & Last Name Meanings, German Surname Origins & Genealogy Resources, http://www.searchforancestors.com/surnames/origin/germansurnames.html

British Surnames and Surname Profiles, Schwall, Classification and Origin of Schwall,  http://www.britishsurnames.co.uk/surnames/SCHWALL/origin

Family Education, NameLab, Schwall, http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/schwall

Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/habitational

Rhineland-Palatinate. (2013, May 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 9, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhineland-Palatinate&oldid=554882307

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhineland.jpg

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Top 20 Surnames in Your Family Tree

From Randy over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

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

(1)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (either software such as Family Tree Maker (in my case!) on your computer or an online family tree) and figure out how to count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

(2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

(3)  Tell us what the top 200 surnames are in your database, and, if possible, how many entries for each.  How many different surnames are in your family tree?

(4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on a Facebook post.

NOTE:  If you can't figure how to do this in your GMP (Genealogy Management Program), use the Help button in your program and search for "count surnames" or "surname report" then follow the directions.

Here's mine:

I used Family Tree Maker 2019 because that the software I use for my GMP.  In FTM 2019, go to Publish, then Person Reports, then Surname Report.  You can tweak your report and choose to include either Immediate Family, Extended Family, All Individuals, or choose only those individuals you wish.  Of course, for this exercise, I chose All Individuals.

Then you can choose to sort by surname court (I did.), limit counts to included individuals (I'm not sure how this works.), show divider between surnames (makes it easier to read) and include preparer information.

Then click Generate Report.  I got this:

It looks a lot like Randy's report from RootsMagic 7.  It was easy to do and I have 51 pages of surnames.  It doesn't give me a total number of surnames, but if I do the math like Randy did:  24 names per pages 1-50, plus 20 on page 51 = 1,220 surnames in a database of 14,693 people.  

My top 20 surnames, with earliest and most recent dates they occur:

TAPLEY, count 803, from 1691-2010

MNU (Maiden Name Unknown), count 428, from 1592-1970

Drake, count 269, from 1647-1967

Powell, count 268, from 1715-1980

Bush, count 251, from 1655-1966

Ranney, count 214, from 1661-1951

Claxton, count 197, from 1764-1997

Price, count 197, from 1680-1959

Smith, count 197, from 1738-1984

Hubbard, count 181, from 1601-1913

Goodwin, count 125, from 1776-1947

Durden, count 110, from 1775-1960

Flanders, count 109, from 1756-1970

Kight, count 98, from 1775-1983

Wheeler, count 98, from 1807-2017

Russell, count 94, from 1798-1951

Williams, count 91, from 1777-1979

Odom, count 87, from 1798-1966

Davis, count 86 from 1760-1961

Kea, count 86 from 1810-1957

And one bonus one if you don't want to count the MNU:

Beasley, count 85, from 1791-1972

What surprises me is how few of the top surnames (in numbers) are actually direct line ancestors!  

Tombstone Tuesday: Hosea Redman

Photo courtesy of FindaGrave contributor Renae Burgess Lynn

Hosea Redman

b 1775 or 1780

d 1865

laid to rest at

Redman Family Cemetery

(on private property)

Iredell County, North Carolina

husband of

Lucretia "Creasy" Williams Redman

son of

Thomas Erastus Redman

and

Mary Elizabeth Tapley Redman

(Obviously there are errors on the grave markers in this cemetery.)

Hosea Redman was my 2nd cousin, 5x removed.

Sunday's Obituary: Esther Claxton Williams

"Esther C. Williams
 

KITE -- Esther Rea Claxton Williams, 87, died Jan. 7.  The native of Johnson County was the widow of Rufus Williams. She was a homemaker and a member of Kite Church of God.

SURVIVORS: a daughter, Lizzie Mae Hawkins of East Dublin; two sons, Arthur C. Williams and Paul Williams, both of Kite; three grandchildren, two stepgrandchildren, a great-grandchild, six step-great-grandchildren, several nieces and nephews.

VISITATION: 6-9 p.m. today at Hendley, Rountree and Powell Funeral Home,

Swainsboro.

FUNERAL: 11 a.m. Tuesday at Kite Church of God, burial in Kite City Cemetery.

Additional Comments:

Esther was born 29 Jan 1913 to Bennett L. Claxton and Mary Ann Tyson Claxton."

Johnson County GaArchives Obituaries.....Williams, Esther Claxton January 7, 2001

The Savannah Morning News 1-8-2001 Page 2C

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/johnson/obits/w/williams1828nob.txt 

Esther Claxton Williams was the sister-in-law of my 1st cousin, 1x removed.

Mary Elizabeth Tapley	Me
Gilbert Earl Tapley	My father
Lusion Keman Tapley	My grandfather
James “Jim” Madison Tapley	My great-grandfather
Franklin Morgan Tapley	My grandfather’s brother and my grand uncle
Mary Jane Tapley Claxton	Uncle Frank’s Daughter and my 1st cousin, 1x removed
Zachariah J Claxton	Mary Jane’s husband
Esther Rea Claxton Williams	Zachariah’s sister