Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Be a Time-Traveler

In this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver wants us to be a time-traveler.  

1)  We all wish that we knew more about our most elusive ancestors - the ones we might not know the surname for, or the one who was probably adopted, changed his name for some reason, or lived through war or a natural disaster.

2)  Be a time traveler - where would you go, who would you speak with, what would you ask them?  

2)  Share your time traveler adventure on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a Comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

 

I would go back to Beloit, Wisconsin, about 1880, to talk to my great-great-grandfather Nelson Reed McKee.  He disappeared from his home in Monticello, White County, Indiana, the night of 4 June 1879, and turned up in Wisconsin.  I would ask him about the details revealed in the Monticello Herald of 5 June 1879, these questions:

1.  Why did you leave great-great grandma Sarah, and your children, in Monticello and end up in Beloit?

2.  There was mention in the Monticello Herald of a forged deed and mortgage in your name, with an endorsement supposedly by a justice of the peace who swore he never set eyes on the document.  It was dated the day before it was supposedly executed.  Do you have any information on that? 

3.  Did your brother, who was married to great-great grandma Sarah's sister, know where you had gone?

4.  Did he tell his wife, who then told her sister?

5.  Did he tell you about Sarah eventually suing for divorce?  Did you know that after the divorce was final, she married Luke Rogers?  Had Sarah's sister maybe told her that you married Ida Josephine Colby while still married to Sarah?  Did Sarah get the divorce at least in part to save you from a charge of bigamy?

6.   Did you ever know that your daughter, my great-grandma Florence Elizabeth McKee, had to go to work just before her 17th birthday as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse to help support her mother and brothers?

7.  Did you ever know that she married Francis Harvey "Frank" Reed and had a passel of children?

 

 Sure, I have other ancestors of whom I'd like to ask questions, dozens of 'em.  But this mystery has intrigued me for years, now.  These are some questions I'd like answered.

 

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025 - Whatever! H is for HELP!!

 Still catching up with the A to Z blogging challenge.  

HELP!

How many times have you hesitated to use that word?  I don't want to be a bother . . .   I don't want to seem dumb . . .   I know y'all will think this is silly . . .

Sometimes we just can't bring ourselves to holler for help.  Our "rugged individualism" gets insulted. 

Well, boo-hoo for our "rugged individualism."  Sometimes ya just gotta bite that old bullet and yell, "HELP!"  

Here is an example.

I am in that situation of needing help on WikiTree.  WikiTree is terrific in its insistence, and I mean insistence, on providing sources for every statement we present as fact.  They insist that you sign their "Honor Code," in which you swear on your mama's grave to provide sources.  That makes this a reliable collaborative tree, and one in which we aren't having to go back constantly correcting errors, usually with no sources, put in by someone else.

But WikiTree is complex.  Hoo-hah, is it complex.  It has its own markup language for entering your sources in an ancestor's biography, for instance.  And there is this neat little way of creating a table of census data.  I want to learn how to do that, but that desire has to get in line behind several others regarding entering information on the tree.

Fortunately, help is at hand.  They have a project in which I have enrolled, called the Profile Improvement Project.  Each ancestor we work with has a Profile.  That is where all the facts are entered, where photos are mounted, where we write the biographies of our ancestors.  Collaboration in family trees can take some getting used to.  We can feel proprietary about our family.  WikiTree recognizes that in its insistence on sources, and in providing a feature called Trusted Lists, where a profile manager can vet others who wish to contribute to profiles we manage.  So there are safeguards against Joe or Jane Blow hopping in and putting up erroneous, unsourced "facts" about our ancestors.

In the Profile Improvement Project, we learn the markup language and the way to create those cunning little census tables, write interesting biographies, and more.  I have some advantage in the biography-writing department, as I am a very good writer, with two published books to my credit.  So I concentrate more on learning the technical aspects of WikiTree.

In the Profile Improvement Project, referred to as a Voyage (and as a former Coast Guard member, I like the nautical theme), each of us has a Guide, a WikiTree volunteer who knows the technology of WikiTree and helps us improve how we maintain the profiles we manage.  We learn, with the Guide's help, how to present a most attractive ancestral profile that will be good "cousin bait."

In this case, I'm glad I hollered for help. 

So, next time you're stuck, forget "dignity."  Ask for help.  Getting help, and doing a better job at something because you asked for help, will restore your dignity.  And, when someone else hollers for help, if you have the knowledge to help them, please do so.

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15 -- Big Mistake

This week in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Amy Johnson Crow wants us to 'fess up.  

My Big Mistake wasn't specifically made with genealogy in mind, but turned out to be related to genealogy long before I got bit by the genea-bug.

My grandma, Mary (LeSourd) Reed, was really my grand-aunt.  My mother was an intra-family adoption.  I never knew any of my actual grandparents, maternal or paternal.  

But "Chollie," as we all knew her, was as much my grandmother as anyone who bears that genealogical label for reals.  And she had a bunch of stories about her life in Indiana, where she was born and raised, and where she was married to Perry Reed.   There were also stories about the time she and her husband and family lived in Pensacola, Florida, later on.  Many stories involved my maternal great-grandparents, too, and some of my grand-uncle Perry Reed's siblings.

I was a teenager; it was the early to mid 1960s.  My mom had given me a little inexpensive tape recorder.  The sound quality wasn't the best, but it was adequate.  The mistake?

I didn't record my grandma's stories when I had the chance.

So many times in the intervening years since she died in 1978, I have wished I had recorded those stories.  Several of them would have helped me sort out the various members of the extended Reed clan, and would have provided information to liven up their entries on the family tree.

I do remember one story, however, and will share it here, now.

My great-grandmother Florence Elizabeth (McKee) Reed was a formidable woman who ruled the large Reed clan with an iron hand.  One day, sometime in the 1890s, she made a large pot of oyster stew.  She ladled a portion into a tureen and corralled two or three of her sons to take it around to an old lady who lived in the neighborhood.  All the children were convinced the old lady was a witch.  When I was a child in the 1950s, we had such an elderly woman in our neighborhood, subject of the wild imaginations of children and nothing else. 

The Reed boys approached the old woman's home with trepidation.  Steeling themselves to the task, and more fearful of reporting failure back to their mother than of any possibility of supernatural power on the part of the home's lone resident, they knocked on the door.  When the woman answered their knock, one of the boys said something like, "Please, ma'am, our mother made this oyster stew, and thought you might like some."  They handed over the tureen.

The old lady said in return, "Well, you tell your mother thank you, and that I'm not particularly fond of oyster stew, but seeing as how she was so kind to have made it for me, I'll eat it if it pukes me!"

The boys dashed off the porch and ran home, and we aren't sure if they were screaming in fear or in laughter all the way.

"Seeing as how you've been so kind as to make it for me, I'll eat it if it pukes me" became a family saying, meaning thanks for the meal, and it was grandly delicious.  

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025 -- Whatever! G is for Good Grief!

I'm trying to catch up with the A to Z blogging challenge.  Events the last several days have derailed my blogging.  Today:  antics some of my ancestors and relatives got up to have me saying:  Good grief!

A collateral ancestor of mine, Colonel Josiah Edson, born 24 January 1709, was well-respected in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  He held several positions of trust in the town.  But for some reason, just before the Battle of Bunker Hill, he went over to the British, being characterized in town records as "a rascally Tory."  He died in a British encampment in Long Island, New York in 1776.  Two years later, his lands were confiscated, giving him the dubious distinction of being the only person in Bridgewater to have lost his lands for having turned his coat.(1)  Good grief!

My great-great grandfather, Nelson Reed McKee, left his home in Monticello, White County, Indiana, the evening of 4 June 1879, and was never seen there again.  His jewelry store was intact; none of his customers' goods were missing.  He had taken only the day's profits to which he was entitled.  He gave some of it to his wife, Sarah Ann (Sunderland) McKee, walked out the door, and was gone.  He showed up in Clinton, Wisconsin, in the same profession he had practiced in Indiana, a jeweler and watchmaker.  1 August 1880 he married Ida Josephine Colby in Beloit, Wisconsin.  Trouble was, he was still married to Sarah Ann Sunderland.(2)  Good grief!

My brother Ned, when he was a junior or senior in high school (about 1960), would tell our mother he was going over to Toby's (not the real name; I don't remember it).  Mom, of course, thought that Toby was one of Ned's friends.  This went on for several weeks until Mom found out that Toby's was a pool hall down on Bay Street -- not a nice part of the city of Jacksonville.  He was grounded.  Good grief! (3)

My sister Betty wanted to go to the beach with her best friend Mary Ann.  She asked Mom if she could borrow the car, a 1951 Packard convertible.  Mom gave permission with one strict condition:  Betty was not to take the car onto the beach sand, because the salt in the sand would corrode the body and undercarriage of the car.  So Betty and Mary Ann went to the beach and had a good time, taking lots of pictures.  When Betty got the pictures developed, and brought them home from the drug store, she showed them to Mom.  There was the car sitting on the salty beach sand.  Betty was grounded.  Good grief! (3)

 (1) Recopied Bridgewater town record, Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryuicontent/view/ 10890485:2495?ssrc=pt&tid=12481845&pid=132366600143 (accessed 16 March 2022). 

 (2) Recounted in my blog entry Black Sheep Sunday -- The Mystery of Nelson Reed McKee 

(3) Both from personal recollection.

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Two Truths and a Lie

Time once again for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  This time, I'm gonna tell a baldfaced lie . . . 

1)  Let's play the game "Two Truths - One Lie."  Tell three family stories - two must be true, and one must be a lie - an untruth.

2)  Have your readers guess which story was the lie, and their reasons for picking that story.

3)  Share your three stories on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a Comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

4)  After all Comments are in, share the Lie in a Comment on your post.

 Let me say right off the bat that I'm a bit leery of publishing a falsehood on my blog, so let's be very clear:  This is a game, and one of the statements below is false only because I'm playing this game.  I'll reveal later which is the falsehood.

 1.  Mary LeSourd Reed, the woman I called "grandmother" in my childhood, youth, and early adulthood was actually my grand-aunt.

2.  My maternal grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Reed, died as a result of the "Spanish Flu" epidemic in 1918.

3.  My father, Arden Packard, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1934.

Okay.  Please comment and state which of these you think is the falsehood, and why.  After comments are received, I'll tell which statement is not true.

UPDATE!!!

I only got two comments, and am grateful to Randy Seaver and Janice M. Sellers for taking the time to guess.

Randy  -- Sorry, but wrong answer.  Mary LeSourd Reed was not my grandmother except by adoption.  My mother was an intra-family adoption, adopted by her uncle Perry W. Reed and his wife, Mary.  In our family, spouses of uncles were considered aunts, and spouses of aunts were considered uncles.  Maybe not genealogically pure, but familialy (is that a word?) fitting.

Janice was right -- Benjamin Franklin Reed did not die in 1918.  He did not die of the "Spanish flu," either.  He was killed in the Wabash railyard in Detroit by a yard engine 20 October 1917.

 

A to Z Challenge -- Whatever!: F is for Folderol

 Folderol is an old word which means "baloney," "malarkey," or in other phrasing, nonsense.  

Today in this A to Z Challenge post, I'll be talking about the old-fashioned words I used to hear from my grandma, Mary LeSourd Reed (1889-1978).  And I promise, no folderol. 

Counterpane -- Fancy word for a bedspread, which is another word for coverlet, which is another word for a thin fabric of particular dimensions, either single-bed size or double-bed size, used to cover your bed, over your top sheet. 

Davenport -- Yeah, it's a town in Iowa, but it's also an old word for a large, upholstered sofa which can convert into a bed.  Generally, the way my grandma used the word, it was any sofa.  Grandma had one, in her living room, that was upholstered, with removable cushions, that pulled out to a bed.  When my mother brought me and my brother and sister back to Florida from California after my father died in 1954, we stayed with my grandma and aunt, and the three of us kids slept on that davenport.  It lasted many years, passing through my mother's house and then ours, until it finally gave out in the 1990s.  That couch was nearly seventy years old when it finally gave up the ghost.

Highboy -- No, not a male teenager using marijuana.  What we might call today a dresser or a chest of drawers, it was a bit more specific than that in its archaic usage.  (And we who do genealogy are fortunate in that we can have archaic and eat it, too.)  It was a very tall -- sometimes over 7 feet tall -- chest usually consisting of two parts.  So it was basically two chests, and quite possibly designed for a usage similar to old Spanish chests that came in two parts.  The top part had handles, so that it could be quickly removed and carted off in an emergency such as fire or enemy attack, a feature quite popular in Spain's New World colonies.

 Consumption -- Not what consumers do, often conspicuously.  In olden days, it was a medical term referring to the disease now properly known as tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease of the lungs.  Before a skin test to detect its presence in the human body became available, tuberculosis, or TB, was responsible for a lot of suffering and death, killing 1 out of 7 people in the U.S. in the last quarter of the 19th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  In my generation (born after World War II and before 1970), we all had to have the skin test before we could start school.  Into the 1960s, patients might be separated from their families and sent to TB sanitoriums, large hospitals for the treatment of the disease with fresh air, healthy food, and at times, lung surgery.

 Salt Cellar -- Not a basement full of sodium chloride.  A salt cellar was a small container, often with a lid and a tiny spoon, for dispensing salt at the dinner table.  My grandma had one that was milk glass, in the form of a chicken.  It did have the little spoon.

Milk Glass -- Milk glass was a white glass formed into shapes,usually for dinner accessories like the salt cellar my grandma had, in the entry above this one.  It could be other colors, but usually was white.

Coin silver -- an alloy of silver (90%) and copper (10%).  It was frequently used in earlier centuries to make flatware (knives, forks, and spoons).  I have a few surviving pieces of coin silver that had belonged to my great-great grandmother Emily (Hoyt) Packard (1823-1904).

Those are just a few of the old words I heard in my childhood and youth from older relatives, mostly my grandma. 

 

A to Z blogging challenge.

 

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Wild-Goose Chase

 It's time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun , and this week's challenge is to post about our biggest wild-ancestor (goose) chase.  Here are the instructions:

1)  All genealogists are human, and most of us have gone on wild ancestor (goose) chases in our genealogy research career.  What was one of the wild ancestor chases in your research?  Explain the situation and how you (hopefully!) solved the puzzle.

2) Tell us about your biggest genealogy wild ancestor (goose) chase in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

 

One of my dearest friends is from east Tennessee, and is a member of the First Families of Franklin (FFF) lineage society.  My mother's people are also from east Tennessee, in the same area as those of my friend, and I think it would be wonderful if I, too, can prove my lineage and join the FFF.  The society recognizes descendants of residents of the proposed State of Franklin, which did not reach Congressional approval and died on the vine.

 

So my biggest "wild-ancestor" chase right now is trying to find evidence of my ancestor Teter Nave's family presence in east Tennessee in the requisite time period.  I have been gathering land records for the area in east Tennessee's Carter County.  There are several more records I need to obtain, then I need to transcribe and study all of them to see if the information I'm looking for actually exists.

 

I've been told that DeedMapper is good software for plotting land, especially using the metes and bounds method of land survey.  That's the method that states land boundaries in terms of this rock or that post or yonder tree, none of which may have survived the three hundred years since the original survey that appears in these records.  

 

The next step, of course, would be to use this information to apply for membership in the FFF.

 

If not the grandest "wild-ancestor" chase in my family history research, this one surely is the biggest in scope.  I'm nowhere near solving this particular problem.  I'll be working on it this year, in the middle of several other projects, most of them genealogical in one way or another.

   

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge -- Whatever! E is for Embrace

 We embrace a lot in our family; we're very huggy.

However, I'm thinking today of a different usage of the word, as in:  How much of the wide circle of people related, however tangentially, to me am I going to embrace, that is, include in my family history researches?

I could stick only to my direct line, but that could be boring.

I could cast a very wide net and go running after people with the most minute relationship.

I could try to figure out some middle-ground rubric to observe in my investigations.

Or I could do what I do: come across an interesting-sounding relation and pursue it to as many documents as I can find, and celebrate the findings.  Like finding out that my husband is distantly related to one of Florida's best and most-loved governors, Lawton Chiles.  Or like finding out that there's a family that is related to both my mother's line and my father's.  Or like finding out that my maternal grandmother's third husband was a ne'er-do-well who ended up in a mental-health facility.  Good stories, interesting people, and not always with happy endings.

 I know I'll never find everybody, and won't find everything about everybody.  I don't have that much time left.  Besides, genealogy is a journey, not a destination.  So I'll be happy with what I find, and hope that someday, someone will carry this family history a bit farther along, and will find more interesting people about whom to discover good stories.

A to Z blogging challenge.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 14: Language

 This week, on 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, the blogging prompt is Language.

Puns!

Alfred Hitchcock, of all people, is credited with having observed that "Puns are the highest form of literature."  Mary Livingstone, wife of 20th century comedian Jack Benny, wrote an article in "Liberty" magazine in 1942 giving humorous instruction on how to live with a comedian.  Every family has one, at least, she observed.  She remarked that there is also always at least one in a family who thinks puns are the lowest form of humor because he (or she) didn't think of them first.

Puns have a history in my family.  My grand-uncle, Perry Wilmer Reed, came from a literate and intelligent family.  He was apparently fond of puns, because in the midst of writing a number of hymns and popular songs as a side-hustle, he penned this humorous ditty to the tune of "Silver Threads Among the Gold:"

I learned of puns from my mother, who grew up in Perry Reed's household as his adopted daughter.  In the early days of the internet, as a member of a Bulletin Board System (BBS) group called The Bardroom, I developed an international reputation as a punster.  I passed this on to our daughters.  One day, after my daughters and I had exchanged a mass of puns derived from movie titles or dialogue and song lyrics, my son-in-law Karl sighed, "In this family, everything is either a movie quote or a song cue."

"You're welcome," I answered.

Karl grimaced.  "Or a pun."  Like he should talk; he's no slouch in the pun department.  And, with both parents being able punsters, our grandson has the gene.  He made his first pun at the age of 5.

Alas, grandma was too busy laughing to think of writing it down.

 Puns are language, too.  People either relish them or abhor them, it seems.  Puns are a complex form of humor that requires the involvement of both hemispheres of the brain, according to "Your Pun-divided Attention," a short article in Scientific American magazine (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-pun-divided-attention-how-the-brain-processes-wordplay/).  This leads some to conclude that puns require higher intelligence, a conclusion disputed by others.  

What puns require, according to the Scientific American article, is a functioning, unimpaired right hemisphere, which is the area that processes the meanings of the word being used in the pun.  

Which only goes to show that in order to be a successful punster, you have to be in your right mind.