SNGF: Updated Ancestor Score

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is (essentially) to update our Ancestor Score from last year. You can see the details of his challenge here.
Last year's post on this same topic can be found here.

So, here is my updated table:

	Relationship	Possible People	People in MY Tree	Percent Identified
1	Me	1	1	100%
2	Parents	2	2	100%
3	Grandparents	4	4	100%
4	Great-grandparents	8	8	100%
5	2x Great-grandparents	16	16	100%
6	3x Great-grandparents	32	30	94%
7	4x Great-grandparents	64	33	52%
8	5x Great-grandparents	128	35	27%
9	6x Great-grandparents	256	24	9%
10	7x Great-grandparents	512	21	4%

This year I created Outline Ancestor Reports in my two (paternal and maternal) Family TreeMaker databases, with me as the starting person. These reports number each generation, so it was easy to just count how many of each generation number were in each report. Much easier than what I did last year!

My overall score this year is 17%, a whopping 1% increase over last year. The research I did on my father's SONNEN and MOHR lines in September at the Family History Library added 7 names to my direct line, 2 in the 6th generation and 5 in the 7th generation.

Unfortunately, I don't have any New England ancestry and by the 10th generation almost all of my lines are back in the "old country." I have a smattering of 11th and 12th generation ancestor names in my database, but none beyond that. Even my "Swedes on the Delaware" line (STILLE/STILLEY) ancestors were born in Sweden by the 11th generation (b. 1640).

SNGF: Best Find of 2014, Research Challenge for 2015

I'm surprised to see that I haven't done one of Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges in over 3 months. Shame on me!

This week's SNGF is to:
1. Tell us about your best research achievement of 2014; and
2. What research problem do you want to work on in 2015?

2014 Research Achievement
During my 6-day trip to the Family History Library in September I focused on my father's maternal lines. They are the shortest by far of any of my ancestral lines. His mother, Virginia Corine MELDRUM (1896-1980), was the daughter of David James MELDRUM Jr. (1867 to 1908) and Matilda Elizabeth "Tillie" SONNEN (1871-1921). Tillie's father, Herman SONNEN (1833-1919) has been the end of that line in my family tree for over 20 years. With the help of several people at the FHL who could read German, I was able to document Herman SONNEN's birth and parentage. Here is a copy of his birth certificate from FHL microfilm 938382, Benrath, Rheinland, Prussia.

I also gathered records documenting two more generations of the SONNEN family.

2015 Research Goal
Staying with my father's lines, I am hoping to sneak away from a planned birding trip to southwest Texas next month and track down what happened to his mother's father and grandfather. I know her grandparents, James Braithwaite MELDRUM (1840-1876) and Nancy Maria STARK (1845-abt. 1913) were living in Taylor, Williamson County, Texas at the time James died. I have not been able to find any direct record of his death. The only account I have is in a letter written by his mother to one of his sisters. However, in September I found deed records as late as 1878 purportedly involving both James and Nancy. I did not find any record of Nancy selling the properties and am wondering if the children inherited it at some point.

I would love to get to Houston to research my Dad's lines, but that's just too far from where my husband will be birding with a friend. At best, I'm hoping to get to Austin (and the University of Texas newspaper collection) and Taylor, along with Georgetown, the county seat of Williamson County.

SNGF: Photographs Through The Generations

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge posted by Randy Seaver on his Genea-Musings blog asks us to document and picture one of our ancestral lines.
 
Unfortunately, my family photos are not very well organized.
I think the longest line I can document photographically is my mother's Swicegood/Coffey line.
 
1. My great-great-grandparents were Squire COFFEY (1828-1912) and Drusilla PARKER (1833-1901), pictured here:

 

 

2-3. Their daughter, Martha Elizabeth COFFEY (1867-1947) married John Hiram Richmon Sharp SWICEGOOD (1858-1936), and had 4 children, one dying in infancy. The photo at right shows John and Mattie with their three surviving children circa late 1897. From left to right are Bonnie Pearl (aka "Pearl"), Beulah Bliss (baby on lap), John Hiram, Martha Elizabeth (aka "Mattie"), and my grandfather, William Earl (aka "Earl").

4. William Earl SWICEGOOD (1893-1979) married Mollie Fay BROOKSHIRE (1894-1966) and they had six children. My mother, Nancy Leah SWICEGOOD (1917-1996) (aka "Leah" to her family) was their second child. At left is a photo of my mother on leave from the Army ca. 1943. She was the first of her siblings to serve in World War II.

5-6. Me--Virginia Leah SHARP (1948-?)..... in 1951 and 2013 (with son and husband).

 

 

So, just 6 generations. Though now that I've done this, I realize that I have photos of my third great grandmother, Susannah BARTSHE COLLINS FREEMAN CARTER (1829-1912), so I really could go 7 generations.

 

Either way, it's embarrassing how few family photos I have on my computer from the last two generations.





SNGF: Exploring Your Grandfather's Birthdate

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge posted by Randy Seaver at the GeneaMusings blog is to:
1. Find the Day of the Week one of your Grandfathers was born;
2. List five events that occurred on the day and month of your Grandfather's birth;
3. List five famous people who were born on the same day as your Grandfather;
4. Give your answers in a blog post.

My paternal grandfather, Harold Herbert SHARP, was born in Oquawka, Henderson County, Illinois on 21 May 1893. I never met the man and didn't even know his name until a number of years after my father, his second son, had died.

21 May 1893 was a Sunday (according to http://www.infoplease.com/calendar ). I guess that means that Harold should have been "full of grace," but he died from alcoholism, so either the date or poem is wrong.

According to http://historyorb.com, the following events occurred on May 21st:

• 1602    Martha's Vineyard was first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold
• 1804    Lewis and Clark expedition began
• 1832    first Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore
• 1846    first steamship arrived in Hawaii
• 1881    American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton

Famous people who were born on 21 May include (according to historyorb.com):

• 1527    Phillip II, King of Spain (1556-98) & Portugal (1580-98)
• 1780    Elizabeth Fry, Quaker minister/prison reformer/nurse
• 1843    Charles-Albert Gobat, Tramelan, Switzerland, Swiss politician, recipient of the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize
• 1843    Louis Renault, French lawyer  [namesake of my first car???]
• 1917    Dennis Day, Irish tenor/comedian/Jack Benny Show guest

I have to admit that I recognized very few of the names of people born on May 21st. There were also several Civil War generals on both sides and many inventors and artists that I've never heard of.

Family History Library, Here I Come!

Actually, the title should probably be "Ready or not, here I come." 

I am heading to Salt Lake City early in the morning for 5 days of unencumbered research at the Family History Library.

I've been there many times before.
But this is the first time I've gone without a clear research plan and extensive preparation.
I just haven't had the time and don't have access to my file cabinet and boxes of materials on my primary families.
But since I desperately need a break from this summer's never-ending medical maladies, I'm going to SLC anyway.

In the early days--1980s and early 1990s--I would do flight "stopovers" in SLC on my way home from business trips. I'd use the nights of those business trips to prep for my 24 hours (or less) in SLC and be at the Family History Library every nanosecond they were open during my stay. In the olden days, that was 7:00 AM until 10:00 PM, I believe. I would not leave the building for anything, grabbing snacks from the vending machines and maybe two potty breaks in 15 hours. Ah, the good old days.

Lately I've been managing to get to SLC about once a year, though usually not for a full week. Often I have my husband in tow, which is not conducive to doing serious research. But I'm certainly not as obsessive-compulsive about spending every available waking moment in the library. I actually go out for lunch and dinner. Once I even went to a concert after dinner instead of returning to the library. What a shocking experience!

I'm hoping that the family histories are back on the shelves by now. They weren't there the last three times I checked. Very frustrating. Most aren't available on microfilm or in any other form. Why the "powers that be" felt they needed to sweep the shelves of half of the family histories and spirit them off to unknown locations for multiple years is beyond me. I was told they were being prepared for digitization, but they hadn't gotten permission to digitize them yet. So why remove them from the shelves? Very strange for a library that is usually very customer friendly.

Anyway, wish me luck with whichever family I end up researching. I'll let you know of any genealogical breakthroughs in a week or so.

SNGF: ImageChef Creations

Randy Seaver has come up with yet another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge on his Genea-Musings blog tonight. We are to explore the ImageChef website and create a few images.

I'm not feeling very creative tonight, but managed to come with three images to share:

I can see how playing with images on this site might get addictive!

Thanks for the challenge, Randy.

Thoughts on Grandparents' Day

Today is apparently Grandparents' Day.
It's not a day I've every celebrated.
I'm not a grandparent and never lived near my or my children's grandparents.
But as I read other people's accounts of their grandparent memories, I feel a huge hole in my heart.

I never met either of my paternal grandparents.
Never heard their names spoken.
Never knew anything about them.
My father left home to join the Army while still in his teens and never looked back. Apparently he never even wrote to his parents or siblings.

When I was in high school I had an assignment to create a family tree. I started asking my Dad questions about his family and carefully recorded his answers. Amazingly, my Mother saved that project and I found it after she died. The information my father had provided was incredibly inaccurate. Whether he really didn't know his mother's maiden name, where his parents were born, any of his grandparents' names I have no way of knowing. But he sure didn't share the correct information with me back in 1965!

My Dad died at age 60 in 1978, just two months after the birth of his first grandchild, my daughter, who he never met. Ironically, his mother died two years later. Since his mother died without a will, his siblings had an attorney track down my father. They found my mother and she signed away any interest in my grandmother's estate. One of my father's brothers made a trip from Texas to Florida to meet my mother and tell her about the family she never knew. She never told me about this visit or the scribbled family tree he left with her. I found it after she died in 1996. By that time three of my father's six siblings had died. I did manage to speak to my father's only sister, my aunt (after whom I might have been named), one time, but haven't been able to track her down since. I suspect she's in a nursing home somewhere in the Houston area. One brother is apparently also still alive (the one who visited my mother) in the greater Houston area, but he's no longer listed in any telephone directories I can find.

Will I ever meet any of my SHARP relatives? I have no idea. Someone in the family has posted a tree on Ancestry, but won't respond to my messages. Maybe someday I'll get to Houston and look up some of my cousins....if I can find them. But there's absolutely no chance I'll ever meet either of my Sharp grandparents, Harold Herbert SHARP and Virginia Corinne MELDRUM.