Tag: family-history

Posted in Sunday Report

Out of the garden and up the Family Tree

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

I harvested the last of this year’s edibles this morning…

Before
After

I need to trim the Peace/Bird Garden, especially after this week’s storms, but we’re still inundated with droves of hummingbirds, so there’s rarely a moment to sneak out and work there. We’ve got another streak of humidity and heat this week, but forecast says we’ll cool off in time for the Equinox, as it should.

With summer chores winding down and Autumn projects still weeks away, I’ve turned back to my genealogy research, compelled by a picture of my maternal great-grandmother and grandfather. While I’ve compiled a tree for Mom’s family, I don’t have access to any records or pictures, only one, taken late in their lives. They were from Crawford County, Indiana, the home of the whitecaps, precursors of the KKK, who were active during the days my greats were younger. I’ve always been afraid that I’d find out one of my ancestors was involved with that kind of hate, and would prefer to not know. Just a perfunctory search of newspapers of the time gave me information that proved that at least one of them was Not…

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-vincennes-commercial-halleck-needs-t/205817518

Turns out there’s this article from 1889, telling the story of how the whitecaps had pulled a young “wayward” woman from her bed, tied her and her lover to a tree and whipped them with 40 lashes. I should explain that this hate group didn’t just lynch black people, they were “moral police” who did these things to anyone who broke the commandments.

After the whippings, the mob gave a warning to four other men and a woman, telling them the same thing would happen to them if they continued to “cut their capers”. Haven’t heard that phrase, but it seems a little light for a threat. The article also goes on to print an “opposing view”…

Anyway, one of those men who was warned was my great-grandpa Halleck Goodson, and another was my great-great-grandpa, North Goodson. !! I confess to a bit of relief – I had already suspected he was a scoundrel.

That incident happened a year or so before he married, so I’m looking at my great-grandmother’s story with new eyes. There’s plenty of research to be done — my favorite part of genealogy! I’ll let you know when I get that published over on Family Stories.

We’re going to take advantage of this last week of summer to float around the pool. Hope you’re staying cool in your neck of the woods.

Peace

Posted in Sunday Report

I started a new blog…

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

Family Stories will be a blog about the lives of my shirt-tail ancestors – aunts, uncles, cousins – and I’ve got some good tales to tell. For the Introductory post, I introduced myself and said a few words about my other ancestry blog. Looking for a photo of some sort, I came across a prose poem that hit me in my heart.

It appears that Della Joann McGinnis Johnson probably wrote the original version of this, but others may have edited/contributed. Whoever it was, I thank them. I’m happy to report that I’m not the only crazy person who feels the presence of their ancestors – even consulting with them – and who views graveyards as living things. This explains it…

THE STORY TELLERS

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors – to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one.

We have been called by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: tell our story. So we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me?

I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can’t let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us.

So, as a scribe is called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.

Because I love writing this Report, because the format of “that was the week that was” is easy, because my loyal readers enjoy even the boring parts, I keep on truckin’. But, honestly, I want more people to read my stuff. I’ve got some stories to tell and they’re good ones. Hang with me while I get them written and published over at Family Stories. Until I get going, there’s a lot of good reads at All My Ancestors.

We’re off to the Races today with the Jrs (minus Nova, who has to work)! It’s perfect weather, and I’m feelin’ lucky…

Hope you’re feeling lucky, too!

Peace

Posted in Sunday Report

genealogy, a cemetery, and a roadtrip…

Posted on by Jo Mayne Casey

I enjoyed the Genealogy Quest at Willard Library this week. The librarians always do such a great job of making us comfortable, and the speakers are inspiring. Thanks to a day of learning about FamilySearch, I’m going to start all over again with my Mom’s family using their website. FamilySearch is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and is closely linked to the church’s Family History Department. Many of their members work at the FamilySearch library and Family History Centers as missionaries when they’re young, or just volunteers later. They have been doing this- and doing it well – for decades, so the whole website is exponentially better than the last time I took a look and I’m excited to re-boot my genealogy experience.

I won’t be starting that this week, although I’m sticking with the Ancestors theme: we are leaving tomorrow to finish up the cemetery at Emery Chapel. My 4x greats and more are buried there and the church had let the gravesites get covered over with brush and dirt. Here’s what we’ve done so far…

Diggin’ up ‘stones…

We camped at a nearby State Park, and the morning we left we cruised by for one last look and some pictures. Casey nearly stumbled on a protruding rock and when he looked closer, he was able to pull out a piece of a stone with a clear A… Eureka! We marked the spot best we could, and now we’ll take a probe and our tools and pull his marker up! This is so exciting for me! I know, crazy, huh?

The picture on the left is my 3x great-grandmother’s grave before. As we dug, we also found the marker of the babies she lost before her death, just one marker, with three precious names on three sides.. On the right you can see after we set them up on level ground and reunited their stones…

Honestly, I feel their spirits when I remember them, and the veil thins when I touch their gravestones…

My 4x great-grandfather, Adam Mayne, founded the church and cemetery where he is buried. He settled in the area in 1820 and established a stagecoach stop, and owned many acres to farm. From the minute I arrived in the area, I felt like I had come home. That’s why I’ve taken it kind of hard this week to see the town of Springfield, Ohio, so maligned. This town of 60,000 is not dangerous (though it does harbor a lot of trumpers) and was peaceful enough until all these terrible lies were spread. These Haitian people are here LEGALLY, just like my Vietnamese nail girls, and my Ukrainian banker, and my my son-in-law’s Filipino parents. They were invited and welcomed by local churches and social organizations. They weren’t tricked into coming there, and they work for a living. And now they’re being threatened with deportation? Remember “Bring me your tired, your poor?” It’s an American Thing to help people who are “yearning to breathe free”, or it used to be. And if you really want to do something about the Southern Borders, pass that bill that’s sitting on the Speaker’s desk, or vote for someone who will…

Goldie is ready for a road trip and so am I. It’s about 4.5 hours, so our plan is to first shop at Heart of Antiques in Springfield, then head down Xenia Road to John Bryan State Park. The campground there is adjacent to Yellow Springs, a village we adore, and about 5 miles from the cemetery.

Hope you’ll be enjoying this last week of summer in your neck of the woods…

Peace