Accenting the Positive

In an old song, we're urged to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, and don't mess with Mr. In-Between."

 As we approach the year-end period when we traditionally take stock, Jill Ball, blogging as GENIAUS, has posted an annual meme urging us to review the past twelve months of genealogy and "Accent the Positive".  Tip o' the hat to Jennifer Jones, who responded to Jill's challenge in her blog "Tracking Down the Family".  It was through Jennifer's post that I became aware of Jill's meme.

So here are my positives for the year.  One note: I've been experiencing increasing levels of stress over the past several years, from events outside and inside the family.  I'm in therapy.  One part of my therapy I have come up with and applied, as a means of inserting more positive perspectives, is to finally get back to investigating the family histories of myself and my husband, and to revive this poor neglected blog.  In this entry, I have left out many of the items Jill suggests we answer because they don't apply to me.  I've renumbered the remaining ones.

1. On revisiting some old research I found some wonderful information about my grandmother's third husband, and I finally identified her second husband.  Her first husband was my grandfather.

2. I was the recipient of genearosity from my cousin John, who lives near our ancestral stomping ground in Indiana, and who has offered to do research lookups for me.  I plan to take him up on that offer.

3.  I am pleased that I am a member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, in which I was voted membership last year, along with our older daughter.

4. I made a new DNA discovery, that my aunt (my mother's biological sister) had not been accurate when she maintained that their mother was adopted.  DNA shows that my connection to grandmother's family is intact, and that she was not adopted at all.  

 

5.  AI was a mystery to me but I learnt that I can do just about anything better than AI can at this stage of its development.  I am a thoroughgoing skeptic when it comes to AI;  I've read Karel Capek's R.U.R.  With two books under my belt, with glowing reviews for each, I know I am a better writer than any AI or computer genealogy program.  Believe it or not, you are, too.  We humans write our family histories from the heart.  AI has no heart.     

6. The best value I got for my genealogy dollars was the recent sale by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.  They gave good discounts on books about New England genealogy, where my paternal roots lie. 

7. I wouldn't be without this technology: The computer, what else?  And the internet.  I have done genealogy the old-fashioned way, and still do from time to time.  But as I have gotten older, and my options for travel and just getting out and about have become limited, I do appreciate having so much wonderful information available from reliable websites and databases. 

 
9.  Another positive I would like to share is that genealogy is good therapy!  It makes you aware that you are not the only one who has suffered tragedies and hard times.  It assures us that we, too, can survive these times.  Seeing the thread of life down through the decades, and for some of us, the centuries, puts it all in perspective.

 

Throwback Thursday: Small Town Indiana, 1890s

My grandma Mary LeSourd Reed grew up in a small town called Sleeth, Indiana.  It had been named for the family of her mother, Rachel Anna Sleeth, who married Levi Curtis LeSourd in 1868.  Sleeth is not much more than a ghost town today, so I'm told.  It is in Carroll County, northwest of Delphi.  My grandma told me some tales about the area, including her mother's thrift one Sunday ride.  Rachel Anna Sleeth would go on buggy rides with her husband Levi.  They stopped one day at a roadside stand where the farmer was selling corn for 2 cents an ear.  These days, that would be an unheard-of opportunity.  But the ears of corn were snug in their shucks, so Rachel turned up her nose, saying, "Corns not shucked.  Drive on."  In my grandma's family down to my own life, that became a way of saying that something had not met your standards and you were going to keep searching until you found an example that did measure up. 

One feature of small-town life in the late 19th century, all the way up until the mid 20th century was the general store, whether it was located in an Indiana town or one in Georgia, like the general store in Darien, Georgia that my husband's step-grandfather owned.  The photo below is of the I. G. Wilson General Store, which may have been in Sleeth, but I don't remember what grandma told me about it.  I also don't know the meaning of "Lest We Forget" written in pen at the bottom of the photo.  Grandma told me that, among the children, I. G. was not well-liked, and the children would taunt him with, "I. G. Wilson.  Nut! Nut! Nut! Nut! Nut!" 

     

 A Tale of Three Siblings

My mother, Martha Reed, was, like me, the youngest of three.  She was born in 1916, her sister Margaret in 1914, and her brother Donald in 1913.  Their father, Benjamin Franklin Reed, died in a railroad accident in 1917, just two months before my mother's first birthday.  Mom and Aunt Margaret were taken away from their mother, Ruth Ella Nave, by the Reed family and adopted within the family.  Aunt Margaret described it to me as the Reeds having "ganged up on" Ruth Nave and taken the two girls away.  Mom was adopted by the oldest brother, Perry Wilmer Reed, and his wife Mary LeSourd.  Aunt Margaret was adopted by Don Francis Reed and his wife, Grace McElroy.  Mom's brother Donald remained with his mother.

 

Somehow, probably through family connections, the three siblings stayed in touch, and in their middle years, all ended up in Florida.  Uncle Donald was in the Tampa Bay area.  Aunt Margaret was in Orlando.  Mom was in Jacksonville.

 

The photo on top, below, shows my grandmother Ruth Nave with Donald and Margaret, about 1920.  Mom had already been picked up by Perry and Mary Reed, who lived in Pensacola, Florida.  The photo on the bottom is the siblings reunited in the 1950s, in Florida.

 

Ruth Nave with Donald and Margaret, abt. 1920

Martha Reed, Donald Reed, Margaret Reed abt. 1955

     

Close as Family

One topic in genealogy today is the FAN network.  For those who haven't run into this, FAN stands for Friends, Associates, and Neighbors.  It is a way to use the investigation of close friends, co-workers and other associates, and neighbors to possibly find clues to one's own ancestors' activities.  Sometimes it is worth the time, and sometimes it's not.

I have not done a great deal of this sort of research myself, but I have ideas as to who might bear looking at.  One of my father's Naval Academy classmates is one possibility.  Though he and his wife have since passed on, I remember my mother talking about this fellow and his wife as having been very close friends with her and my father.  I think it was the summer after my freshman year in college that my mom and I drove up to Norfolk, Virginia, to visit them.  I'm not sure what looking into this man would possibly reveal about my father, but there could be a clue there somewhere.

When we moved from California to Florida after my father died, my mother developed a close friendship with a couple who lived nearby.  Later, they moved out to the northern end of another county.  It was a drive, but we went out there often.  Again, I'm not sure what research into this couple might reveal about my mother, but there may be clues there, too.  

This couple who were such good friends with my mother served as adjunct aunt and uncle to me.  They joked with me.  They called me "Monster," which led me to call them "Mr. Monster" and "Mrs. Monster."  Their daughters, several years older than I was, served as additional big sisters.  

A group of women with whom I attended Florida State University has been held together by a semi-annual newsletter.  One of our number has, for more than fifty years, gathered news from us and published this newsletter.  In it, we have recounted our joys and sorrows, told tales of our families, mention the books we've read, and kept up with each other.  That newsletter has a good deal of information about me in it, that my daughters and grandson might possibly find interesting.

A FAN network may bridge generations.  Some of our daughters' friends have become close as family not only to them, but to me and my husband, as well.  And the parents of these friends of our daughters have also entered our FAN network.  The four of us have also latched onto two sisters who live locally, with none of their family anywhere near them.  Their parents have passed on, and their sister lives in Massachusetts.  These sisters spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with us, as well as always being invited to share in other family celebrations.

If nothing else, ferreting out your parents' or grandparents' FAN networks may provide a good look at the social world in which your ancestors lived.  Understanding background is a big help to understanding your ancestors.