During our holiday break I spent a whole day locked in my father’s study using his scanner. My mother and my mother-in-law were there handing me pictures and documents to scan. We were very productive, and I am still cataloguing all we did. I decided that this was the perfect time to tell my mother about my discoveries.

“Mom, I found a Revolutionary War soldier in your mother’s line.”

“Oh, really?.”

“Yes, and it is a fascinating story,” at which time I proceeded to tell her about my discoveries, even showing her the online pension record. She was impressed. Then I dropped “the bomb” on her.

“His grand-daughter, Berthena, is buried at Truelove, Mom.”

“Well, a lot of the family is.”

“No Mom, it is that really big…”

“Cast iron, hollow tomb?”

“YES!”

“The one they used to lock the cats in?”

“Ya…huh…WHAT?!”

“Yeah, the one that the boys would lock cats in at Halloween. It isn’t solid, so boys would go out there in the middle of the night, unscrew a plaque on it, throw the cat in, and seal it back up. Then they would spread the word that Truelove was haunted to scare everyone, and when a cat is yowling in a hollow cast iron structure it is a very frightening sound. The poor care taker would have to go out there in the middle of the night and let it out.”

I sat there in a stunned sort of silence… then laughed my head off. Really, I didn’t know what else to do. Once again I looked back at the computer screen of the Find A Grave site and realized that on the bottom of her name plaque there is a screw missing, which made me giggle more. I sat there wondering for the rest of the visit if there are still yowling cats on Halloween.

There you have it, my adventure as it played out. No answer yet on Edward Darnell Arvin, but many answers on the Cannons. Lesson learned: ask Mom and Dad more questions, no matter how small. I promise, the first clue I get I will make sure to share with all of you.

Photo from the Library of Congress

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va.

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The most enlightening part of this adventure was when I found Berthena Cannon Morris’s grave, and realized I knew it. Not just that it looked familiar, but that it was extremely familiar, like an old friend you hadn’t seen in forever but you always wondered where they were. I realized that I had played on her monument as a kid at the family cemetery. Yes, the FAMILY cemetery. This is when I wanted to shoot myself and decided that my mom and I were going to have a talk when I was home at Christmas.

Berthena (Cannon) Morris was buried in Truelove Cemetery, Rutherford Township, Martin County, Indiana. Her tombstone is a large cast iron monument with plaques on it that tell who is buried in the family plot. Berthena’s plaque reads “Berthena, Daughter of WM and Mary Cannon, wife of Robert Morris, Born June 4 1824, Died Mar 22 1909.” I just looked, and kicked myself, again, because there was all the information. Talk about feeling a bit dumb for not looking in an obvious place!

During my visits back home as a child, my grandma Arvin took “flags”, or irises to the rest of the world, fresh cut from her garden every week to lay on grandpa’s grave at Truelove. I don’t know if she did this year round, but according to her these were his favorite flowers and as long as they bloomed she took them to the cemetery. When we were there I would wander the cemetery and look at the older headstones, fascinated by what I saw. My grandma told me we were related to over half of the residents there: soldiers, farmers, wives and children of the people who settled the area. Reading and re-reading the fading crumbling markers that dotted the landscape I would try to see these people in my mind’s eye. One of my favorites was a cast iron marker that stood taller than me. It was cool to the touch on the shady side, even in the middle of summer. There were ornate curly-cues, and decorations. I loved running around it, trailing my fingers over the marker: hot to cold to hot to cold again. Eventually I sat the shade of the monument and I read the words wondering who this woman was and how much she was loved to have such a wonderful monument to her.

I couldn’t wait to get to my parents’ house after all I found. Doing it over the phone wasn’t an option; I wanted to see my mom’s face and I wanted to show her the images I found. I just knew she would be surprised! Little did I know what mom would tell me next.

To be continued…

Photo by Koshyk

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va.

Registration is now open for our They’re Alive! Finding Living Relatives webinar with Thomas MacEntee on Feb. 9, and our Tennessee Genealogy Crash Course with J. Mark Lowe on Feb. 23. Hurry to take advantage of Early Bird prices!

The census records were very enlightening. I knew from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) database that Julia Ann Cannon Arvin was James’s granddaughter through his son Joseph Cannon. Check them off the census lists. Then I began looking for the other Cannon families in Daviess and Martin Counties (Martin was formed from Davies County in 1820, and many of the Cannons were there). Like a grocery list, I began checking off the possible children of James Cannon. Then, in the 1850 and 1860 censuses I found her. Berthena Cannon, not Bethena, daughter of William and Mary Cannon. That one “r” had caused me to not be able to find my third-great-grandmother! Plus, William was one of the suspected children of James and his wife Jemima Nichols.

Okay, so now where else to look? Google to the rescue, of course! I searched for “James Cannon Revolutionary War Daviess County Indiana” and wow, look at the results… kick me for not Googling first. There were pages from the DAR, theSons of the American Revolution (SAR), county historical sites, images of his headstone, transcripts of his pension records… and the list goes on. First off I found his probate records, and those of his son Joseph who was the father of Julia Ann. The site also contained a really nicely done family tree. To top it off, William Cannon was on the will on behalf of his step mother Sarah. Stand up and do the happy dance! Now I just needed to link this William to my William with concrete proof and I was all set.

A database at Ancestry.com (A roster of Revolutionary ancestors of the Indiana Daughters of the American Revolution: commemoration of the United States of America) proved to hold what I was looking for. There was a listing of all James Cannon’s children in black and white. Double squee! So, was that William my William? Back to digging I went, the intrepid explorer bound and determined to solve the mystery! A few more Google searches and I came up with a website called “Indiana Patriot Graves” maintained by the SAR. James Cannon’s memorial page was WONDERFUL! It listed William and his wife Mary Smith. I also found out where James’s grave is located, which meant or course I had to go out to Find A Grave.

Find A Grave was very enlightening, and led me down another research afternoon. First off, William Cannon is buried in the same cemetery as his father. These discoveries led me off on a tangent to see who else from my mother’s line I could find. It took half a day, but I catalogued nearly 100 relatives (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) in 30 Cemeteries all within Martin County, Indiana. I have not brought myself to do Daviess County… yet.

To be continued…

Photo by Chris Deavers

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va.

Registration is now open for our They’re Alive! Finding Living Relatives webinar with Thomas MacEntee on Feb. 9, and our Tennessee Genealogy Crash Course with J. Mark Lowe on Feb. 23. Hurry to take advantage of Early Bird prices!

Last summer I found a write up online about a likely ancestor named Edward Darnell Arvin, and I have been desperately trying to find the proof that links my line to this person. I have traced my mom’s line back, with some clues given to me by her family, to Henry Arvin, who was born Port Tobacco, Maryland on 7 November 1787, and died in Daviess County, Indiana on 18 June 1860. I would love to prove that this man, who according to the text was at Valley Forge, was indeed my ancestor. My oldest son, the military history nut, would go crazy. Unfortunately, the first place I looked, the Daughters of the American Revolution, does not have him listed as a patriot. I did, however, get pages of results showing the last name of Arvin that were listed as descendants on other patriots. I put the project on the backburner.

In December, I decided to try again. What were the chances that if I spent a few minutes (okay, possibly a few hours) going through the lists on that database I might find a name that jumped off the page at me? It only took 30 minutes. I found a listing for a John Leonard Arvin who was married to Julia Ann Cannon from Daviess County Indiana. She was listed as a descendent of a James Cannon who fought in the Revolution while living in South Carolina. Frantically pulling out my records, I found the name Bethena Cannon on my maternal grandmother’s line. I have no parents listed for her and have done nothing more than a cursory look for her up until then. I began to wonder if there were a link.

First, I went out to Fold3 to look for James Cannon’s pension record, and crossed my fingers that there would be one. I got lucky. If you want to go and read his pension record, with the sworn testimony of what he did during the Revolution, you can find it there under James Cannon, 96^th District, South Carolina, record S32166. It did not list his children or wife, unfortunately. Thinking I could get some leads from Ancestry.com, I searched for Julia Ann Cannon Arvin. Several online family trees I found with her listed went back to James Cannon, but I wasn’t able to find sources listed that I could go and look at. I added the names to my research notebook and began to scour the Census records.

To be continued…

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va.

Registration is now open for our They’re Alive! Finding Living Relatives webinar with Thomas MacEntee on Feb. 9, and our Tennessee Genealogy Crash Course with J. Mark Lowe on Feb. 23. Hurry to take advantage of Early Bird prices!

• Date: Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012
• Starting Time: 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific
• Presenter: Thomas MacEntee, owner of Geneabloggers and High-Definition Genealogy
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Price: $49.99 ($39.99 Early Bird Special)

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Why finding living relatives is important to your research success
• How to use the internet to find long-lost relatives
• What records you can expect to find for free (and which you’ll have to pay for)
• Unlikely sources for finding lost cousins
• How to make sure you’ve found the right person

REGISTRATION FOR THE LIVE SESSION INCLUDES:

• Participation in the live presentation and Q&A session
• Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
• A PDF of the presentation slides for future reference

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Anyone with long-lost friends or relatives
• Anyone who’s hit a brick wall in researching a family line
• Librarians or volunteers who want to help patrons find living descendants

After college, and a little over a year working in the “real world”, I became a stay-at-home mom. Even though I was staying at home I did my best to keep reading up on all those things that fascinated me. Never once did genealogy come up, by the way; I obviously wasn’t looking hard enough, or I just haven’t had enough sleep in 11 years. You wouldn’t believe how fascinated I was as I learned all the developments and breakthroughs that were happening. Things like this get me re-energized in the field.

This past summer I convinced my father to participate in a DNA testing project for his family surname, Combs. Finally, genetics and genealogy were merged in my life! My dad is participating in a Y-chromosome test. For those who don’t know what this means, this type of testing is done on men that have the same last name, as the Y chromosome is passed down father to son. For example, my dad’s father and brother could participate, but not his sister’s son as he has a different Y chromosome. Since I am an only child, and as of right now my father is the only living male in his line that we know of willing to participate in this study, I am a bit on edge to see what the results say.

After all that, however, we are back to square one. I found out that the company lost the sample, and since they are no longer in business we are investigating other companies to use. Eventually, when dad has this done, it is my hope that it will be able to tell me which of the Combs men from Virginia, born in the middle 1700’s we are related to. Over the past 6 months, I have traced the line back to Charles Combs, who was born in Virginia in 1793 and died in Indiana in 1866. All I know of Charles’s parents is his name may have been William, and that he was from Virginia. My question is: Is this where the Jamestown story my grandmother told me comes from?

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va. Read all her posts at Family Tree University.

Registration is now open for our Kentucky Genealogy Crash Course on Jan. 24, and our Tennessee Genealogy Crash Course on Feb. 23. Hurry to take advantage of Early Bird prices!

When I started doing my and my husband’s family research, I really wanted everyone in my life to be excited about it. Unfortunately, not everyone shared this enthusiasm. While I felt disappointed, I still wanted to spread the excitement I felt with anyone who would let me. I really wanted to make something to give as a gift that was inspired by our family history. The question was what? Together, my husband and I came up with the idea of personalized family trees. Simple, wasn’t it? I made a joint tree for my parents and single trees for his father and mother, all going back 3-4 generations. The image here shows the finished products. I have to say, they went over very well.

While at home I also did some closet ransacking: it seems that I have not outgrown old habits. I emptied the closet in the guest bedroom we stay in (my old bedroom has long since become my mother’s study) and found a load of goodies! There were old pictures, documents, and letters among the contents. It was the only closet I was allowed to search, even though I did try to poke around the storage room.

Mom and I also went through one of three plastic tubs she has from her mom’s house. In it was an unbelievable treasure trove, and I am sad we did not have the time to go through the other two. In the tub we found hundreds of pictures; unfortunately most were unlabeled. There were also a lot of items from when my grandfather was in the military; including a caricature of him as a farewell gift signed by the men he was stationed with. There was even a WWII ration book that still had stamps in it. At the bottom I found a subscription card for a company or union with my grandmother’s name on it. Mom told me that Grandma worked for Bendix making airplanes during the war in Michigan. I never knew that, and it simply amazed me that after all the talks we had this piece of information never came out.

My mother-in-law contributed to the genealogical discoveries by bringing a bag of pictures and documents over too. This led me to a marathon scanning session of about 200 items. Pictures, records, letters… needless to say I have a lot of stuff to go through. I was also able to do a brief interview with my father-in-law. It helped confirm information I had found in online records and gave me a few more leads in the search for his family.

Overall I feel that it was a very productive trip on the genealogy side of things. There is quite a bit of work in front of me, and I can’t wait to share what I have found!

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va. Read all her posts at Family Tree University.

Thinking of starting your own family history blog? Learn how earn money from your genealogy blog in our upcoming webinar!

• Date: Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012
• Starting Time: 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific
• Presenter: J. Mark Lowe
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Price: $49.99 ($39.99 Early Bird Special)

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Essential Tennessee history
• Details on vital records and immigration in the state
• What ethnicity-based records your ancestor may have left
• The best websites for Tennessee research
• How to download the presentation and slides for future reference

REGISTRATION FOR THE LIVE SESSION INCLUDES:

• Participation in the live presentation and Q&A session
• Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
• A PDF of the presentation slides for future reference
• A PDF copy of our Tennessee Research Guide

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Anyone with Tennessee roots
• Genealogists researching Tennessee ancestors
• Librarians or volunteers who want to help patrons with research about Tennessee

• Date: Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012
• Starting Time: 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific
• Presenter: J. Mark Lowe
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Price: $49.99 ($39.99 Early Bird Special)

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Essential Kentucky history
• Details on vital records and immigration in the state
• What ethnicity-based records your ancestor may have left
• The best websites for Kentucky research
• How to download the presentation and slides for future reference

REGISTRATION FOR THE LIVE SESSION INCLUDES:

• Participation in the live presentation and Q&A session
• Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
• A PDF of the presentation slides for future reference
• A PDF copy of our Kentucky Research Guide

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Anyone with Kentucky roots
• Genealogists researching Kentucky ancestors
• Librarians or volunteers who want to help patrons with research about Kentucky

While I was at the dealership, I took a class through Family Tree University. This week I signed up to take the new Power Course, “Tear Down That Wall!” I knew I could find a couple hours during the week to listen to the two videos and read the handouts that came with it. Thankfully, it turned out I had an afternoon away from home that I could do it all at one time. I did learn a lot. Plus I picked up a few great tips to get me started on some of those people I thought were brick-walls.

As an example: I was stuck on several maternal lines of the family. I started to think outside-of-the-box on where I could look for information. Recently I had been out to the Daughters of the American Revolution website to use their database. In their descendants search I started to put in the last names of my ancestors. Then I would scroll through the results, looking for anything that popped out at me. After 30 minutes I had the moment I was waiting for. A name jumped off the screen at me that could be a member of my family. That one name has led me on a two day journey, through 150+ years, over four states, and into my family tree. When I have the results all typed up I will share my findings with you, as well as how I got there!

I have lists of things to do and places to look this next week before the family holiday visits start. I really can’t wait to take the next power class on immigration called “Coming to America.” I have some relatively recent immigrants on my and my husband’s side I would love to figure out. That, and it drives me batty that I can only get to his second great-grandparents in one line; they were, of course, the children of immigrants.

In addition to that I just want to tell everyone that I have come to love the early Christmas present my husband gave me: an iPad2. Yes, he got me one of these to help me with my research. Isn’t he wonderful?! I have to say that I am loving the fact that I no longer have to print out the PDF’s I want to read away from home, or lug my laptop to the library as I search the stacks. Of course, I am having tons of fun loading genealogically useful apps onto it. I even got rid of my paper calendar book, which came as a huge shock to my darling, as he has been trying to get me to do that for YEARS. Within the first week I mapped out all the local free Wi-Fi spots as well. Of course, the fact that the library is one of those places is plain dangerous. I will really be putting this new tool to good use!

Photo by Andrew Kelsall

Family Tree Firsts is an ongoing blog series featuring newbie genealogist Shannon Bennett of Locust Grove, Va. Read all her posts at Family Tree University.

Want to learn more about the same Power Courses Shannon took? Click here.