Family Tree Firsts is a genealogy blog following the adventures of Brian Parotto of Hampshire, Ill., a budding genealogist, as he works his way through the Family Tree University curriculum and reports on his family history research.
We returned to the Minnis House from our visit to Lost Creek to find that our intrepid innkeepers, the Stapletons, had invited a friend over to talk to us. Jimmy Taylor is a retired rural postal carrier and knows the area inside and out. We told him about the Haworths and he knew immediately which cemetery we were looking for. Since it was still daylight, Cheryl and I talked him into driving out with us to find it. (Dad declined to go and stayed behind …
I knew from my pre-trip research that many of the graves in the Lost Creek Friends Church graveyard had been destroyed. What I didn’t realize was the extent of the destruction.
With just a day to do my research in New Market, Tenn., I was going to have to work fast, but I felt as prepared as could be. What I wasn’t prepared for was the kindness of strangers.
We had less than 24 hours to spend researching in New Market, Tenn., but the proprietors of our bed & breakfast marshaled every local expert they could think of to help us out.
This week I am your roving reporter from beautiful South Carolina, where I’m attending a family reunion of my new Blosser family. This is my first real research trip, and I’m pretty excited about it.
Martha, my great-great-grandmother, married Alva Blosser, gave birth to my great-grandfather Moses Eugene Blosser and apparently died shortly thereafter. I haven’t been able to find any birth or death records or even a burial place for her.
Surrounded by the Confederacy on three sides, the only way for East Tennessee Union sympathizers to escape conscription was to head over the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky. Thus began a remarkable exodus of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 men, including some of my ancestors.
I am dying to go the FGS conference in Springfield, Ill., this September. Sadly, like much of the USA these days, I’m on a budget. But I’ve figured out a way to save on the gas, hotel and exhibit hall temptations…
We all look forward to finding an ancestor who’s famous. But am I just as willing to find the ancestors that were bad or bigoted or broken? Am I researching my family for just the nice stories or for the truth?
With thousands of people in my family tree, it’d be unusual if I didn’t have a black sheep or two in there. I recently received some information on court records (as of yet unverified) for a Thomas Allen in our ancestral home of Lawrence County, Mo. It’s quite a rap sheet…