Our Family History

Readers of this blog may not realize I have a book blog where I discuss all my reading. I am currently reading a book I think would appeal to genealogists, and I want to cross-post a blog entry from that blog here in the hopes that some of you might enjoy it, too.

I am about halfway through The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and what a delightful read it has been so far. Not since I first picked up Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander have I read a book that contains a confluence of so many things that interest me or that I can relate to. First of all, I was taken aback when the protagonist, Connie, referred to her grandmother as “Granna.” That’s what I call my grandmother, and I have always believed I invented it. I had to do a Google search to assure myself that other women have indeed been called Granna. You can learn more about my own Granna here.

Second, Connie studies Colonial American history, a time period I have always found fascinating. She finds a mysterious key with a piece of parchment tucked inside its pipe or barrel or whatever you want to call the hollow part of an old key. The parchment has the name Deliverance Dane written on it. Connie sets out on a quest to find out more about Deliverance, whom she discovers was part of the Salem Witch Trials furor in 1692. I have been fascinated with this aspect of American history since about fourth grade. I just couldn’t believe that people in my own country, which prides itself now on freedom, had acted in such a bizarre fashion. I still don’t understand it.

Finally, in the last chapter I read, Connie is reading the diary of Prudence Lamson Bartlett. I was struck by how similar the diary entries were to my own great-great-grandmother Stella Bowling Cunningham’s own diary—so devoid of comment on emotions (although Stella occasionally discusses being irritated at someone), so repetitive in their description of the seemingly menial tasks of life. But as Connie says, “In some respects, Prudence’s daily work was her inner life” (158). In the last entry that Connie recounts, this is the entire text:

Febr. 24, 1763. Too cauld to write. Mother dies. (163)

I felt tears well into my eyes, despite the seemingly lack of emotion on the part of Prudence. Connie ascribes it to Prudence’s “cold practicality, her obstinate refusal to reveal her feelings, no matter how culturally proscribed” (163). My own Grandma Stella’s diary was so similar in the respects of recounting the weather, the daily work, where she went, what she bought and how much it cost. I could feel her relief when she wrote the following entry for April 4, 1894:

I paid Mrs. Bragg $7.50 for board & am now even. Owe no man anything (i.e. in $ and cts.)

On the day when her own grandmother died, she wrote:

9-3-’94

Homer & I went to town early.
Grandma died at 6 P.M.
Mr. Amos came & we came home.
Bought a buggy from John Houston $20.00.
Papa was at Aunt Panthea’s.

It couldn’t be more like Prudence Bartlett’s diary in the way it recounts so much pain alongside the mundane. It’s so spooky that if I didn’t know better, I’d swear Katherine Howe must have cribbed my genealogy blog! If you like, you can read my Grandma Stella’s journal (PDF). I transcribed it from a photocopy of the original.

Staying up at night reading this book under the low light of a book lamp over the last few nights has been a pleasure indeed, and I can hardly wait to see what happens next in Connie’s research.

Tags: cunningham, katherine howe, stella, the physick book of deliverance dane

I was able to go to a family reunion and meet some distant cousins, including my third cousin once removed, Helen, who has been a wealth of information with regards to the branch of my Cunningham family who stayed behind in Georgia (mine moved to Texas). I really enjoyed talking to my cousin Walter Burkhalter and his son Ed Burkhalter, who are my second cousins twice removed and third cousins once removed respectively. I don’t have a lot of pictures yet. I didn’t bring my camera, but my mother and her father’s cousin did. The three of us—my mother, her father’s cousin, and me—were the only representatives from the Texas Cunninghams.

Helen said the reunion takes place every year, and has for as long as she can recall. Indeed, I have some pictures from a reunion in the early 1950’s (there seems to be some dispute as to whether it’s 1952 or 1953), which might be the last time any of the Texas Cunninghams came to the reunion.

This first photo is my great-great-grandfather and his sister.

Amos Blakey Cunningham and Cadelia Elizabeth Cunningham Burkhalter

In this photo, Amos Cunningham appears to be saying grace. His sister Cadelia Burkhalter is seated.

I like how the food is set on the back of a wagon in this picture; my cousin Helen said she was at this reunion, so she might be in this photo somewhere:

In the following picture, Amos and Cadelia (seated) appear with Johnson Franklin Cunningham, whose mother (possibly both parents) had been slaves in the Cunningham family. My father’s cousin Mary Elder Davis, who came with us to the reunion yesterday, is the girl standing to the right of Cadelia.

Johnson Franklin Cunningham with Dessie Gray, Amos Cunningham, Prentice Elder, Mary Elder, Velma Elder, Clifford Case, Manila Case, and Virgil Case and Amos’s sister Lizzie Burkhalter

Irene Burkhalter Hamilton, Dessie Cunningham Gray, Unknown (Burkhalter daughter), Velma Cunningham Elder, Florence Burkhalter Steele, and Manila Cunningham Case.

Finally, here is a picture my mother took at yesterday’s reunion of Helen and me (I’m in the turquoise shirt) looking at photos on my computer while my grandfather’s cousin Mary Elder Davis examines one of the genealogy books Helen has created. Alas, we weren’t able to identify who the subjects of the photos were, so they will comprise a future post in the hopes someone can identify them.

Left to Right: Me, Helen, and Mary Elder Davis

Tags: family reunion

My grandfather Udell Cunningham is fond of telling the story about how his birth was erroneously recorded, causing a great deal of trouble for him later on.

My grandfather was born 3 May 1925 in Tulia, Swisher County, Texas.  The Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997 (available on Ancestry.com) lists his birthday as 3 March 1925. The way my grandfather tells the story, the clerk in charge of recording births on the ledger was “too lazy” to turn the page to May. His memory is that he was recorded with an April birthdate; however, the record says March.

At some point, it became necessary for him to have the error corrected, but making the change proved to be difficult, as vital records employees refused to make the change without evidence. Ultimately, my grandfather had to bring his parents to the record office to swear as to the date of his birth before he was able to get a corrected birth certificate. The date in the Texas Birth Index is still incorrect.

While vital records are excellent proof, and genealogists should always cite sources, we should always remember that even vital records can be incorrect. It’s better, if you can, to check information against several sources. Worse errors than birthdate mistranscription have occurred, and we can save ourselves a lot of time in correcting erroneous files if we use multiple sources.

This post was written in response to the Geneabloggers Weekly Genealogy Blogging Prompt.

Tags: cunningham, error, vital records

My cousin Dara sent scans of the following letter from my great-grandmother, Gertrude Nettie Perkins Gearhart Lightle.  I have discussed her story previously on this blog.

Kiona, WA

April 6, 1940

Dear Bessie,

I was sure glad to hear from you again. I looked in vain for a letter all winter.

I have been sick so much but did not go to bed as I had too much to do.

Alice and her baby were here after she left the hospital [Gertrude's daughter Alice]. She was too weak to do anything for quite a while, then the baby got sick, too. He just began to get better when Tom came home from PWA camp sick with the “flu.” He took that & was a very sick baby. They went home with him so they took care of him, but I took it too.

I  was in bed off and on for a month, then I began to be bothered with my eyes & they are bad yet. I wear glasses to read or sew, but I couldn’t do either one for several weeks. Now I can only read a few minutes at a time.

I am glad you [sic] Mother Zeiglar is better. I think of her so often.

Now for your questions.

1. You were born in Metaline, Pend O’Reile Co. Washington [Pend Oreille County] March the 26-27 or maybe 28th 1924. I have forgotten the exact day, but you have that already.
2. My maiden name was Gertrude Nettie Perkins.
3. I was born at Hector, Minnesota September 13, 1887.
4. Your fathers [sic] name was Omar Alfred Gearhart born in Iowa (I don’t know what town) February 29, 1884.
5. [Omar Alfred Gearhart] Died in Spokane, Washington December 29, 1930 age 46.

I never had a birth certificate for you.

Your father was Holland Dutch decent [sic] [actually Pennsylvania Dutch, or German] and his ancestors settled in the Ohio Valley. If you will write to Grandma Gearhart she can tell you more than I can. Mrs G.D. Gearhart Box 196- Maxwell, Iowa.

I am English on my fathers [sic] side. His folks settled in Virginia shortly after the Revolutionary War and were English Quakers. My mother’s folks were Scotch & Irish & one Great-great-grandmother on her fathers [sic] side was English, named Smith.

Granny’s father came to this country before the Civil War & settled in Wisconsin. His name was Montgomery & his wife’s name was MacGregor, both scotch [sic]. My uncle Sherm Young at 1320 So. 7th Street in Yakima can tell you about them.

You had mumps and chicken-pox and no real accidents & was never inside of a hospital while I had you.

I had 13 children, one was still-born (dead) and one premature as far as I know [word missing] are 11 living.

The one[s?] born dead were never named. The others are:–

John Douglas Dec 25, 1911
Ruth Isabelle Apr 9 1913
Eva Marie Aug 13 1914
Jessie Nadine, Apr 6, 1916
Alice Gertrude, Nov 23, 1918
Donald Omar, July 11, 1920
Edwin Guy, Dec 29, 1921 [my grandfather]
Frank Manley, July 12, 1923
Bessie Louise, Mar 27, 1924
Margery Feb 2 1927
Alfred Aug 5 1929

Do you know whether Margery is adopted or not? I forgot to ask them when I was up there.

Lots of love & kisses,

Your [missing word]

It’s important to know the family background in order to put this letter in context, and the story I linked at the beginning of this post is the best place to start. Until this week, I had never seen a photo of my great-grandmother. Within the space of two days, I have received two different photos from two cousins and an additional photo of Omar Alfred Gearhart, my great-grandfather.

This first image depicts Omar Gearhart with his brothers John and Earl:

This image is of Omar Gearhart and his wife Gertrude Nettie Perkins with their oldest child John Douglas (circa 1912):

This final picture is of Gertrude Nettie Perkins Gearhart, her mother Isabell Lowe (sometimes listed as Mary Isabell, Mary Isabelle, or Isabell M. on the census; Lowe is the surname of her second husband, Guy Lowe), and Isabell’s mother Ophelia McKilrick (name unverified) with John Douglas Gearhart in 1912:

Tags: gearhart, letter, swier

I downloaded Reunion for Mac, and I have been trying it out this afternoon.  It felt sad to put in the death details for my grandfather’s sister Eva Marie Gearhart Heier:

Eva M. Heier

Eva M. Heier, 93, of Yakima died Sunday.

Mrs. Heier was born in Spokane and lived in Yakima later in life. She had many occupations, including working as a clerk for the post office.

Survivors include a son, David Bunce of Yakima; and a sister, Marjorie Waters of Menan, Idaho.

No services are planned at this time.

Keith and Keith Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

From Yakima Herald-Republic, Aug. 30, 2007

We did not know she had died until about October or November of last year, when my mother asked me if I knew anything.  I looked up her obituary on Ancestry.com.  I sent her a letter, and now that I’m thinking about it, I may even have sent it after she died.  I wanted to find out what she could tell me about her family, which has such a tragic story.  I’m not sure who to ask at this point.  Our family was in touch with Aunt Eva, but I’m not sure whether I can still locate Aunt Marjorie Waters mentioned in the obituary as living in Idaho.

Reunion has an iPhone app, and I decided this application would be a great tool for genealogists who are using Reunion.  I love my iPhone and already use a lot of the other helpful apps available, and I can see that this particular app will be valuable when my computer isn’t handy to look up information or to input information.

I would like to do some family research this summer.  I haven’t had much time to work on the family research in some time, and it’s something I miss, particularly after exchanging some nice e-mails with a newly found cousin today.

Tags: genealogy, iphone, obituary, reunion

Hi folks.  I bought a MacBook for grad school/work/play back in August.  I am thinking I’d like to go ahead and do genealogy on it, and I’m looking for a good software program.  I have been checking out Reunion, but I don’t know if I am missing something better.  Do any of you know anything about genealogy software for the Mac?

Tags: genealogy, mac, software

I don’t know who still keeps up with this blog after the dearth of updates, but I felt I should explain myself.

First of all, I have been tired of the blog’s look for some time, and I finally found a theme I liked to replace the old one with.  Second, I have returned to graduate school (Master’s in Instructional Technology) and become English Department Chair, both of which have left me with very little time to keep up with geneaology.  It tends to be a summer pursuit.  No wonder so many folks wait until they’re retired to take it up — the amount of time and research involved could occupy anyone full time, and I just can’t do that right now.  However, I am still interested in it as a hobby and will continue to sporadically update this blog as I am able.

Tags: genealogy

I have no idea why, but the person stealing content written by me and other genealogy bloggers has mysteriously stopped.  The most recent post, in fact, is the one they stole from me in which I wrote about how they were stealing my content.  I love irony.  I think that means I can safely post here again, so please occasionally stop by and check it out.  Sorry for the quiet, but I’m sure you can understand why posting here bothered me so much.

Technorati Tags: content, theft, rss, genealogy

Before I discuss the topic referenced in my title, I want to explain that the biggest reason for my absence is that another blog has been stealing my content (as well as that of other genealogy bloggers).  I didn’t want to post something here that this other blogger would just steal and claim as their own.  Taking an entire post and then linking back to me without making it clear that I wrote that entire post is not proper attribution, and I believe it is a violation of copyright; however, Google, who owns Blogger, the service hosting that blog, will not take the blog down unless repeated copyright violations are reported, which of course puts all of the responsibility on my shoulders.  I found it depressing to post here knowing my content would just be taken, especially when it is such personal content.  For instance, my grandfather, whom I have written about so much on this blog, has recently suffered a stroke, and even though he is on the mend, he is not well, and it impressed upon me yet again the importance of talking to your grandparents and other family and learning their stories before it is too late and you wish you had.  It makes me feel sick inside to know these thoughts will be stolen, but I am not going to let that person steal my blog.  In taking my content, that blogger has prevented me from posting at all, and it makes me angry.

On to my topic.

Most genealogists work alone and focus on their own families, but one thing I have learned since I began blogging about genealogy is that all family stories are interesting.  I have learned so much from my fellow bloggers about the practice of genealogy, and I have also learned that we are the preservers of the history that didn’t make it into the textbooks.  I have enjoyed learning about your families.  I don’t think I am alone in enjoying fiction that touches on subject matter of interest to genealogists.

Louise Erdrich’s recently published novel The Plague of Doves begins with the horrible murder of a white family in Pluto, North Dakota, a town on an Ojibwe reservation.  Four Ojibwe — one of them a boy — are lynched for the crime.  As time passes, the descendants of the victims and lynch mob intermarry creating a complex web of family history.  Pluto is indeed one of those towns where everyone knows everyone else, and almost everyone is related to everyone else somehow.  I think genealogists would find this study of generational baggage really interesting.  I am about 2/3 of the way through the book, and I am really enjoying it.

Years ago, I read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, the first in a time-travel series that I hesitate to label romance, though others might.  The book begins with a husband interested in genealogy who takes his wife on a second honeymoon trip to Scotland with the side benefit of being able to research his family history.  As his wife learns when she accidentally is transported 200 years into the past, sometimes relatives that look like interesting characters on paper are not folks we’d really want to meet.  I do think genealogists would find the book interesting because almost all of us have wanted at some point to do as the protagonist Claire does and go back in time to learn more about an ancestor and perhaps even get to know them (I should make it clear that she doesn’t meet up with any of her own ancestors, but she does meet her husband’s).

I tried to read Lalita Tademy’s Cane River, but was distracted and set it aside.  I haven’t picked it up again, but I do plan to eventually.  Cane River came out of Tademy’s genealogical research and is a novelization of her own family’s story.  Who among us hasn’t thought about doing something like that sometime?

Alex Haley’s Roots is, of course, the perennial family saga, that sweeping testament to the power of learning about your family’s history and chronicling it.  I know that the novel has been criticized.  Haley claims he unknowingly plagiarized Harold Courlander’s The African, and Margaret Walker charged that he also plagiarized her novel Jubilee in a case that was dismissed.  In addition, some of the information in the novel that Haley claims to be true was proven false by genealogists.  But I think Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a friend of Haley’s, has a good perspective: “Most of us feel it’s highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village whence his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone’s imagination.”

While Anne Rice is not to everyone’s taste, I admit I found her novel The Witching Hour interesting from a genealogical perspective.  The Witching Hour is a multi-generational saga about a family of witches, the Mayfairs.  The saga begins with Suzanne Mayfair, who accidentally awakens a spirit we later learn is called Lasher.  Lasher binds himself to the family and attaches himself in particular to one witch in each generation.  The family is haunted by Lasher for 300 years as he embarks on his quest to become flesh and blood.  The family is plagued by incest.  I didn’t so much enjoy the parts that Rice set in the present, but she has a true eye for detailing the past, and I really liked meeting all the colorful characters in this family.  I should also mention that one of her vampire characters in The Queen of the Damned has kept a family tree of all of her descendants through female lines (as the male lines might not truly be her descendants!), and the funny thing to me when I read it is that one young woman doesn’t, somehow, think it’s odd or unusual that her family would have records of themselves going back about two millennia.  The genealogist in me wanted to shake her a little bit for that.

What’s your favorite “genealogy” novel?

Technorati Tags: fiction, genealogy, generational saga, louise erdrich, a plague of doves, alex haley, roots, cane river, lalita tademy, anne rice, the witching hour, the queen of the damned, diana gabaldon, outlander

Is “Cricket” stealing your genealogy blog content?  I would recommend that you find out.  I filed a DMCA complaint against this blogger today through Google/Blogger.  This person has been taking entire posts wholesale and representing them as his/her own work.  While there is a link to the “source” for the material, it is not considered acceptable practice in blogging to post an entire blog post written by someone else.  Quotations and even block quotations are considered appropriate, but what this person is doing is wrong, and he/she could be doing it to you.  Go see at http://familyhistoryideas.blogspot.com/.  Don’t support this person’s efforts by clicking on ad content or by linking to him/her unless you use the rel=”nofollow” tag.  If your content is being stolen, I urge you to protect your work by filing a complaint.  Here’s how: Digital Millennium Copyright Act on Blogger.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this post is stolen, too?

Technorati Tags: dmca, copyright, genealogy, blogging, theft, blogger, google