A Genealogy Blog by Dana Huff
Posted in Family Biographies/Histories
Dandelife might be an interesting tool for genealogy bloggers looking to create online biographies. It looks as if it is geared toward users who want to post their own stories, but I don’t see why it can’t be adapted to ancestors. In fact, it might be an interesting way for multiple family members to get involved with crafting a biography of a mutual family member.
Hat tip to Ed Tech in the Classroom.
Technorati Tags: Dandelife, genealogy, family history
Posted in Family Biographies/Histories
Jasia has challenged genealogy bloggers to share the family stories that make us laugh, the ones about the jokers. Any family members of mine who happen by here might wonder where on earth Dana should begin, given the large number of cards in my family. I decided that in keeping with the nature of this blog, I should tell the one about my great-great-grandfather Amos Blakey Cunningham and the horse.
Grandpa Amos grew up in Georgia, and my grandfather (his grandson) tells me that Amos’s father was a preacher. Amos’s father (Johnson Franklin Cunningham) was staying behind after services to shake hands, and Amos ran on home. Amos used to brag that his horse would follow him anywhere or do anything he told it to. On this particular day, a friend bet Amos that his horse wouldn’t go up the stairs in his house. Well, Amos couldn’t pass that one up, so he led the horse inside and up the stairs in his house. The only trouble is he couldn’t get the horse to come back down the stairs. Amos decided that if he covered the horse’s eyes, the horse might be less afraid. I am not sure if he used actual horse blinders or something else, but once the horse’s eyes were covered, it was fine. The only trouble was that it make a god-awful racket coming down the stairs, and Amos’s parents had come home! Finally, he decided he had better figure out a way make those hooves quiet, so he tied pillows to the poor beast’s feet. I’m not sure how he got the horse down the stairs without breaking its legs.
Another time Amos went to church with his mother, Mary Anne Penelope Anthony Cunningham. He didn’t take his hat off when he entered the church, so his mother told him to take off his hat. He refused. Apparently, she jerked it off his head, only to discover he had hidden a bunch of marbles inside. They scattered and rolled quite loudly all over the wooden floorboards in the church.
My mother remembers Grandpa Amos sticking his cane out to trip her when she ran by his chair. My grandmother tells me he used to put his medication in the toilet. You can learn a little bit more about Grandpa Amos through my great-great grandmother Stella Ophelia Bowling Cunningham’s diary (pdf).
Amos is pictured below in the back row, far right.
Technorati Tags: family stories, horses, genealogy, carnival
Posted in Uncategorized
The Footnote Maven has created a really cool genealogy bloggers quilt. My square is second row, second from left, and it features the photo of my great-grandparents, Herman Cunningham and Annie Lola Jennings Cunningham that appears in my masthead.
Go check it out!
Posted in Research Questions
Two of my students posed a question to me because they know I’m a genealogist. They wanted to figure out how they are related. To retain their privacy, I am changing their names and identifying names of some of their relatives. Here is what I know:
As far as I can figure, that means that Bill and Sally share cousins, but are only related by marriage. Bill’s second cousins, the children of Jon and Lisa, are Sally’s first cousins, as they are the children of her aunt.
Is there are way to express the relationship between Bill and Sally? I don’t have big prize money to offer, but if you like a challenge and feel like tackling this one, have at it. I can use your help in figuring this one out.
Technorati Tags: research questions, kinship, genealogy
Jasia reminded me today that the upcoming Carnival of Genealogy is devoted to the topic of “A Tribute to Women”: “Is there a woman in your family that deserves mention? Do you have a favorite aunt, cousin, or 5th great grandmother that you’d like pay tribute to? Let’s us hear about her!”
My family is graced with a great number of amazing women, but one of the most influential in my life is my maternal grandmother, Doris Thurman Cunningham. When I was very small and learning to talk, she tried to get me to called her Gram or Grams. I couldn’t say it (or perhaps I didn’t want to), and I called her Granna instead. As far as I know, I invented that word. My sister and cousins and all of our children all call my grandmother Granna as well.
I could say a lot about Granna, but I decided that instead of giving her life history, I would write about what she means to me.
Granna and I developed a closeness from the very start. My dad was in Vietnam when I was born, so my mother was staying with her family. Dad came home when I was six months old. I developed gastroenteritis, and it nearly killed me. My mother took me to the emergency room, but she didn’t realize, I don’t think, that she could question the ER personnel when she was told to take me home. My grandmother, wielding her experience with sick children, insisted that I see a doctor. My complexion was gray. The way I hear it told, Granna was memorable. She was so adamant that I see a doctor that years later when she ran into someone in that ER — it may even have been the doctor — he remembered her: “Oh, you’re the grandmother!” At any rate, my life was saved by my grandmother, and not for the last time.
Granna and I became especially close after my family moved to Colorado when my dad left the Air Force. I used to spend the weekend with her as often as I could. Weekends at Granna’s meant staying up late to watch Johnny Carson and The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. She made real air-popped, hot buttered popcorn in a huge bowl and let me use a dish towel to wipe my hands on. It’s funny the little things we think are so special when we were children. To my way of thinking, that dish towel was like a starched linen napkin! She bought a little foam mattress and used to make a pallet for me by her bed, but she didn’t mind if I wanted to climb up next to her and cuddle.
I have a lot of fond holiday memories of times spent at Granna’s house. In 1982, Denver was hit by a Christmas Eve blizzard. We walked to my grandparents’ house in the snow because my sister and I insisted we had to spend Christmas at Granna and Papa’s. We were snowed in for several days, and I just remembered being happy to be with my family.
Granna used to let us create Barbie doll hotels in her dining room. She had these little pieces of carpet, which we lined up so each hotel room had a different carpet. Her folded towels became luxury beds.
When I was eleven, Granna saved my life again by administering the Heimlich maneuver when I was choking. I must have been fairly close to passing out; people talk about how when your life is threatened, you see your life “flash before your eyes.” I did. It was like snapshots filing through my mind really fast.
Granna also took me with her to Germany when I was eleven. She was visiting my uncle, who was stationed in Germany in the Air Force. She had thought he would be coming back to the states, so when I made her promise to take me with her the next time she went, she winked and agreed, thinking she would never have to do any such thing. My uncle’s tour of duty in Germany was extended, however, and Granna found herself packing her bags to visit him again. I reminded her of her promise, and to her credit, she kept it. It would have been very easy to say she didn’t have enough money to buy me a ticket (now that I’m an adult, I know all about such things). But she didn’t do that. She said I could go, so she kept her word.
When I was selected for the National Junior Honor Society in middle school, Granna hung my certificate in her dining room. It’s still there more than thirty years later. When I made her a shelf out of mismatched and badly cut pieces of wood I found in Dad’s garage, finally gluing the sorry lot together with wood glue because I couldn’t get the nails in the wood — let me tell you, that shelf was a sight to behold — Granna proudly displayed the shelf right out where everyone could see it and even put some of her precious figurines on it.
Granna used to pay me a little bit of pocket money if I dusted the shelves in her bathrooms or wiped down her baseboards. She taught me to sew and let me me use her sewing machines (she had a career as a seamstress). She took me out to breakfast and let me drink Cokes — for breakfast! Can you imagine?
When Granna was sewing, she used to hum tunes. I always asked her what she was singing, and she said nothing really. I always wondered where she got all those tunes. I had never heard them before, and they sounded like the prettiest hymns.
in 1992, Granna was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we were all scared. She had a mastectomy and has been cancer free ever since. Later, she lost her sister to breast cancer. She was determined to get well, my mother told me, so that she could come to my wedding.
I have always been able to count on Granna. Her love has been unconditional. I can’t imagine my life without her; without her, I wouldn’t be here at all. She’s a very special person, and I don’t think we tell her that enough.
I love you, Granna.
Technorati Tags: family history, genealogy, tribute
Posted in Uncategorized
After over six years of sitting on a finished book without time to shop it to agents and publishers (aside from the odd submission here and there), I finally decided to publish my book with Lulu.com.
A Question of Honor is a young adult novel set in medieval Wales and Scotland. Gwenllian has been accused of a horrible crime; she’s not even sure she is innocent herself. How can she resolve this question of honor?
Rod Stewart said, “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” Furthermore, the cliché goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, the axioms must be true. This picture was taken at a Cunningham Family Reunion in Oglethorpe County, Georgia in 1951. The man on the right is my great-great-grandfather Amos Blakey Cunningham. He was born in Oglethorpe County, Georgia in 1871, but his family moved to Texas in about 1880. He went back to Georgia for the first time on the occasion of this reunion. It was the first time he’d seen his sister Lizzie Burkhalter since the family left for Texas.
The man on the left is Johnson Franklin Cunningham. He was named for Amos’s father, Johnson Franklin Cunningham. He was born in about 1868, also in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, to former slaves named James and Charlotte Cunningham. I believe that James Cunningham had been owned by Amos’s father, and I feel quite certain that Charlotte was. I posted about some of my findings previously, so I won’t duplicate the entire post here. I have always been told by Amos’s grandchildren, including my grandfather and his cousin Mary Elder, that when they were little, the two men in the picture were playmates.
News broke recently that due to research efforts by Megan Smolenyak, Reverend Al Sharpton’s roots may be traced to a slave owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond. I found the story very interesting. I would like to find out what happened to the descendents of slaves owned by my own family, but I’m not sure how to go about it. First of all, the issue is sensitive, and rightly so, and I don’t want to offend anyone. Secondly, records are so sketchy, even after the Civil War.
My husband recently had to go to school to deal with a discipline issue regarding our kindergartner, Maggie. Her principal’s name is Mr. Huff, but he is a tall, distinguished African American. Apparently at one point, Steve and Mr. Huff broached the awkwardnes of the situation, and my husband asked Mr. Huff where his family was from. Mr. Huff told Steve, “Actually, my great-great-grandfather was white.” Steve replied, “Well, knowing my family, who knows?”
I would like to invite anyone who believes they have traced a connection to any of the lines I’m researching to contact me.
Technorati Tags: Al Sharpton, Strom Thurmond, genealogy, slavery
My friend Kevin Murphy, who teaches 8th grade language arts at West Middle School in Nampa, Idaho, and I are working on a joint family-research project. He mentioned that he was teaching the Holocaust. His students would study a play based upon The Diary of Anne Frank and other works of literature, then do a research paper. I reminded him that I teach at a Jewish high school and had access to books and people who might be good resources for him. He had a better idea — what if our students collaborated so that mine could help his learn about history through my students’ family stories?
My students are currently in the process of answering interview questions posed by Kevin’s students via a wiki he set up for this purpose. His students are interviewing their own families about their own histories. My students are excited about sharing. Some of my students are desendants of Holocaust survivors. Kevin’s students felt that learning about my students’ families would enable them to hear “the stories and not just the history.”
If you get a chance, check out our work in progress.
Technorati Tags: Holocaust, family history
Posted in Genealogy and History
I have found myself wondering lately what kind of music my ancestors liked. There are clues to be found here and there. For instance, my ancestor David Kennedy was renowned for his skillful fiddling. David Kennedy was a gunsmith and owned a gun factory in Mechanics Hill, Moore County, North Carolina. One of my favorite stories (probably apocryphal) is that Kennedy was tired of paying what he considered to be high prices for the gun locks he imported from New York. The problem was, he didn’t know how to make them himself. Supposedly he rode all the way to New York from his North Carolina home on a horse to discover how the locks were made. He charmed the gun lock factory workers with his fiddle playing, and they allowed him to observe the process of making the locks. Of course, after this, he made his own locks (source: My Southern Family by Hiram Kennedy Douglas).
David Kennedy’s own Bible records his family’s country of origin as Scotland. I would like to think he played those famous fiddle tunes brought over from Scotland and Ireland and helped frame what would become bluegrass, but the fact is, I’m not sure. According to a wise man who knows, the difference between a violin and fiddle is that a violin is carried in a case and a fiddle is carried in a flour sack.
I learned from relatives that my great-great grandfather Amos Cunningham, who married David Kennedy’s great-great granddaughter Stella Ophelia Bowling, was also a fiddle player. Stella mentions it in her journal (after her wedding!):
Thursday May 31st 1894
It was muddy but we came any way.
I left my father’s home to go to a new home.
“I part from love that hath still been true,
“I to into love yet untried and new.†– A new trial I never had before.
We had a very pleasant trip if it was muddy.
Reached Aunt Panthea’s after four some.
I fixed up a little & we came on.
The guests were here when we came and I was so embarrassed — more so than when we married.
They had a real good supper and all went off nice.
Had music on violin, banjo, & organ.
The married ones & all staid all night – only 27 and 30 for breakfast.
All seemed to enjoy it.
Of course, they teased Mr. Amos & I some.
Stella played the organ, and she mentions this fact several times in her journal. She also mentions that her mother (Mary Elizabeth Kennedy Bowling) played the organ as well. On a couple of occasions, Stella complained about others playing music as it interfered with her concentration. Amos and Stella’s daughter Lillie Manila Cunningham also played the fiddle and was given Amos’s fiddle upon his death. I’m not sure who has it now, but I assume it would be someone among the descendants of her children Luther Clifford Case or Virgil Amos Case.
My grandfather played trombone back in school, and he still listens to big band swing, which was pop music when he was a teenager. My grandmother loves country music and Elvis. I remember hearing her hum as she sewed. I often asked her what she was singing, but she always said she didn’t know. I’m not sure if she heard them somewhere or made them up, but they sounded like hymns.
I love music, and I have been a musician myself. Is such an appreciation genetic? Is there a reason why the music I have the most visceral appreciation for is blues, Celtic, and bluegrass? It’s something I have long wondered about. My mother has often expressed her own appreciation for the sound of bagpipes, which is something I enjoy as well. My daughter, unlike any other teenager I have ever known, prefers Celtic music to popular music.
Time passes, but folk music can perfectly capture a time and place. Sometimes listening to it makes me feel as if I am connecting in some small way with ancestors I never met. We can still play or dance to the same music.
Technorati Tags: folk music, fiddle, genealogy
I have been tagged by two people to participate in this meme, but I have struggled with what I should say, and furthermore, who else I should tag. I decided the best thing would be to participate, but not to tag anyone else, mainly because everyone I could think of has already done it and the thought of searching for genealogy bloggers who hadn’t was causing me to procrastinate something terrible. So I offer five things you might not know about me (at least not if this is the only one of my blogs you read):
That’s it!
