Greart, Great Grandparents

At least I think they are . . . maybe one more great goes in there . . . I shall ind out at the end of this post when I list my mini-tree.

I think I have told y'all (a little shout out to my southern followers) that I love the fun of the hunt when I am looking for something online. I would always find the most interesting things online when I was teaching. Things others couldn't find. Now, this had crept over into my "genealogy-ing."

The husband, who is "family tree-ing" too . . . I think he is more addicted than I, decided to do the 1 month free Ancestry.com membership because he couldn't find any of his maternal line in free materials. I am SO LUCKY to come from a county in Indiana that has done a FANTASTIC job on their part of thee GEN WEB project.  Western New York, on the other hand, to put it in my terms, sucks! Thus, 1 month free Ancestry and we are hooked.

Now, back to searching. Here, in the real world, as compared to the online world, I remembered a bible that I found in a box when we unpacked after our move in 2006. It had been in my parents garage. I had never seen it before. There were several places for family information, and nothing had been filled in . . . so, ALL OF YOU WITH EMPTY FAMILY INFO PAGES IN YOUR BIBLES . . . FILL THEM IN ! ! ! ! ! Someday, your descendant, Paula, may find your bible and wonder who you, and yours, were. Also . . . LABEL THOSE PICTURES . . . little Paula will one day grow up and not know who is in them.

I took the bible down from it's place on top of a Mom's china cabinet. It is SO OLD, the front cover and spine have split from the back . .  . and some of the sections ( you know how smaller sections are sewn together) have come loose.  It is also a heave, embossed leather so it is a heavy sucker. I had thought that  it probably belonged to my great grandfather, the Rev. It looks like something a minister would have owned.

I sat down on the sofa with it . .  . placing it tenderly on a sofa pillow, that I had placed on my lap, to make it easier to deal with the size and weight of the it. I started flipping through it, a section at a time, and "things started showing up." Things like obituaries of people I didn't know, small curls of baby hair. (Again, people, label these things so little Paula knows whose hair it is and why the obituary was important enough for you to keep.)

Then, in a section I had passed up before, and how, I don't know, because it was the "biblical mother load." There was a 8 page "booklet" with my maternal family tree info written by a man I had assumed was my maternal great grandfather's brother.

I had found a David Krider listed in Family Search.org (info from Mormons/LDS genealogy research). There were three brothers listed and parents. The pedigree went back several generations. I decided I would keep this info in my tree, just in case. Then, I found one of the "brother" obituary in my hometown newspaper's digital archives online. He was survived by a daughter, Mable. In the deep recesses of my mind I could see an older woman, in a house dress, standing outside a house, in the country. She was someone in Grandma's family. Now, I think it was Mable because her name just kept coming back to me.

Oh, people . . . .PLEASE put the names of any deceased relatives in your obituary, well, have your family members do it, so little Paula will know if you are a relative of hers through a deceased sibling.

Now, after that brief commercial message, let's get back to the program.

One of the surviving brothers was Isaiah and an Isaiah was the man who had written the 8 page family tree "document."

B*I*N*G*O ! ! ! ! ! ! More info. Then, I started putting together a torn document that was in this same "mother load." It was the birth record of my maternal great, great grandfather . . . MOTHER LOAD! The info I had found in the LDS site WAS my family. This made me tear up . . . I still haven't found out what happened to my maternal great grandfather, but I have located his family, so I know where my roots are located.

After three of four trips of "leafing" through the book I found my paternal great grandfather's obituary. AN obituary for a woman with my maternal great grandmother's maiden name. And in a in type picture . . . again, people . . .LABEL THE PICTURES . . . little Paula would love to know who this is. I would like to guess that is is my maternal grandfather, Earl. The man in this picture had "taxi cab doors for ears." Mom had always said the 1st thing she looked at on my brother when he was born was his ears. She was so thankful he didn't have her ears which were her father's ears . . . large.. She knew a daughter could hide her ears if she got them (thank the lord, I didn't get them) with her hair, but a boy was stuck looking like Dumbo for life.

Next, I tried to get the pictures out of their "pockets." I ended up tearing the pockets just enough to remove the pictures. Only two were labeled (need I warn you again to label your pictures . . and date them would be nice too?)
 On one the writing was illegible . . . how about printing those labels? The other, well the other made me cry . . . a baby picture of my maternal great grandmother.

Now, I only have two branches of my ree that are stuck. The mother of my maternal grandfather stops with her, as does he line from paternal grandmother's mother.

So, let's see  . who have I found.
me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . Paula
Mom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Jane
Maternal Grandmother . . . . . . . Pearl
Mat. great-grandmother . . . . . .  Ella
Mat grt-great grandmother . . . . Sarah
Mat.grt-grt-grt grandmother . . . Annie Watkins

Oh, I also found the document that Sara h was married to a Watson Kirkham. When I found him on the census, I believe the 1850, he was  a single butcher who was born in Scotland.  I found hiis passport application listing 1841 as his year of immigration

Other "foundlings:"
So, let's see  . who have I found.
me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    . . . Paula
Mom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Jane
Maternal Grandmother . . . . . . . Pearl
Mat grandfather . . . . . . . . . . . . William H
(an "e" was added to the last name in this generation by the three brothers I have found)
Mat grt-grandfather  . . . . . . . . . David
Mat grt-grt-grandfather . . . . . . Can't remember his 1st name

And, I also found David's wife, Margaret. The "Can't remember his 1st name" grandfather was married to Susannah.

 So I shall sign myself,
Looking for Jennie and Carrie's Families