We are still scanning...

My husband asked me last night to share some of my favorite genealogy sites so that he could send the links to a friend. I felt at a loss because I do not know all of the computer commands for making a quick list of my Favorites folder. Also, what would be awesome sites for me might not be for the average beginning genealogist. For instance, would his friend have any interest in North Eastern Arkansas? It is a rare breed indeed! ;-)

I am still scanning photos. I have a great tool for my scanner which allows me to scan negatives five strips at a time. Even now it is doing it's "thing", separating the negatives into individual frames. Technology is awesome!

I am grateful for my ancestors and their stories. I hope to preserve them for my children and their children. Having lost both of my parents in the past year and a half, I am even more aware of how quickly time goes by and how soon we forget those things we never thought would fade from our memories.

So, back to scanning I go...
Dece

Moving on Over...

I just quickly wanted to post that my geocities genealogy website will be closing at the end of this month (October 26, I believe) and that I will update my genealogy information as well as add links to this blog with research materials that I have gathered, as time permits.

Currently I am in the middle of a big project: Scanning Photos, Slides, and Negatives

My goal is to get all of these photos digitized in order to share them with my family here as well as my family across the country and the world. I am so grateful for the ability we have to share information, stories, photos and of course, genealogy.

This past weekend I went to a birthday celebration for my Grandpa Allen. He will be 93 in just a couple of days. It was so wonderful to see my aunts and uncles and cousins... so many cousins! :) My Grandma and Grandpa had 5 children who lived to adulthood. They had/have 30 (or is it 31?) grandchildren. They have added to their posterity the husbands and wives of the married grandchildren, and about 50 (or more) great-grandchildren. Mind you, I have first cousins who are younger than my own children. As of today there are not any great-great-grandchildren, but 1 great-grandchild is married and another is getting married soon. It is only a matter of time before my Grandpa becomes a great-great-Grandpa! :) It is amazing to me how 2 people became this BIG family. After my Grandma passed away, my Grandpa married another wonderful lady who brings in even more grandchildren to this great family. What a miracle and blessing it is to be part of such a family.

Because both of my parents have passed away, I take family history, photos, and all things "family" very seriously and personally. My son may not have the physical experience of having known my parents, but through recording my memories and preserving the history of our family, he will know my parents -- his Grandma and Grandpa Starks. My admonition to all who read this genealogy blog is to keep those memories alive and don't forget to include your parents and yourself in the preservation. Your children will be glad you did!

Love, Dece

a great find!

I was looking for Oklahoma records today and came across a post leading me to this website:
http://www.odcr.com

It has access to an index, basically, of court records in Oklahoma. It's a variety of courts, but I was able to find marriage records of ancestors and able to get an idea of who my Grandpa's aunts married. :)
Myrtle Lavarnway married Oscar Martin on 12/07/1924 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma
Ruby Lavarnway married Willie Chapman on 10/01/1928 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma
Ruth Lavarnway married James Brady on 05/06/1929 in Okfuskee, Oklahoma, then married Clyde McCoin on 12/23/1939 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma
Virgie Lavarnway married Roy McConnell on 11/18/1931 in Bristow, Creek, Oklahoma

I also discovered a marriage listed for Levi Turnbow that I was not aware of. Because I just see an index, I do not know for certain this is my great-great Grandfather or not.
Levi Turnbow married Roxie Staton on 06/01/1913 in Salpulpa, Creek, Oklahoma

I also looked up Hardt in the index and Turnbow and Sullivan, finding my Grandma's aunts and who they married (though I did already have this info, it's nice to see it again).

I have so much work to do. I found a listing in the SSDI for Virgie L. McConnell who I believe is correct. Now to find these aunts in the census records with their husbands and children, so I can get names straight. :)

Wish me luck!
Dece

Organizing

I spent some time today organizing a notebook of my genealogy research into file folders, separated by surname. Guess which folders are bursting at the seams? Kerley, Sullivan, and Hardt. Not a big surprise, right? ;-)

This organization effort will be ongoing, as I have so many boxes and notebooks and binders full of research notes and information gathered in the Family History Library and from my distant cousins via the internet and email. Oh how I love email! I have come so far in the past 10 years working on genealogy!!

This morning I picked up death certificates and funeral recordings for my dad's funeral. I cannot believe he is gone. I thought there would be more time to write and record his memories and now I am left with relying on my faulty memory and prying at my family to "remember that story Dad told about his first car" or whatever. Why didn't I have a micro-recorder in my purse and just place it on the table when I'd visit Dad? Grr...

I started keeping a personal journal last week. I need an outline of every day life for when the time comes that I begin writing my own autobiography. Will it be interesting? Probably just to my family. ;-) But wouldn't you love to have a journal or book that your great-grandmother wrote about their day to day life? What a treasure it would be!!

I wish you all a happy 4th of July!

Dece

Aunt Ruth

I've been hunting down Aunt Ruth. It seems so odd to me to have photos of a woman who I've never met and try to figure out how she fits in to my family tree. She is in nearly all of the photos that I had dubbed "Turnbow" and yet I could not figure out who she was!

I had asked Grandpa Starks who the people in the photos were and he called her "Aunt Ruth". I knew she was a sister of his mother, Wilmer Turnbow Starks, but I could not find her in my PAF file or on Family Search. What a quandry I was in... Everyone who would know her is gone. I can only pray to be led to the right place. Grandpa and Grandma and now my dad have passed away.
So, I did what I love to do when I have a genealogy question. I go back to the source material. In this case, I went to the census. I knew that my Great-Great-Grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth Munholland had married Levi Turnbow, divorced him, then married George Lavarnway. In 1910 census I saw that Nancy and her children from Levi Turnbow lived with her new husband, as well as had two child of their own, Myrtle and Ruby. I was sure that Nancy must have had more children with George Lavarnway, so I went to the 1920 census. Sure enough, there is Myrtle, Ruby, RUTH, and Virgie. Oh how wonderful the census is! I am so grateful to be able to go to Heritage Quest (through the online library access) and see every census for myself.
I will have to go to the physical library to access Ancestry and get the 1930 census.
Once I get enough information, I will update my own PAF as well as add the sisters to Family Search. I do not want Aunt Ruth or Aunt Ruby or Aunt Virgie (I'm pretty sure this is Virginia) to be forgotten.

The caption on the back of this photo says: Aunt Myrtle & Aunt Ruth & Grandma in pen,

and in pencil: Eti a Marry Xmas an a Happy New Years to Mr. and Mrs. Harmon an son from aunts & Grandmaw & cousin & sister & mother & nefue

So, this photo has: Myrtle Mae Lavarnway (Martin), Nancy Elizabeth Munholland (Turnbow, Lavarnway), Ruth Lavarnway -- and probably one of the boys in the photo is Nath Martin, Myrtle's son.

Photos

Oh how I love photos!


I love the old sepia pictures of people in their element: on the farm, on a horse, in the school yard. There are just not enough photos of the people who "belong" to me. I started working on a few digital scrapbook layouts of photos from my Grandma Starks's house, as I want to know who these people are and why my Grandma would keep their photos.





It has been a rough year for me -- losing my mom May 2008, now losing my dad this month. The urge to do genealogy and work on my family history is even more imporant than it was before. 10 years after my Grandma died, I'm still working on this pile of names... trying to piece them together.





Photos I would love to find...


Kerley relations... Does a photo exist of Henry L. Kerley? Solen E. Kerley? William Albert Kerley? Mont or Ray Kerley?


Mock relations


Hardt relations... A photo of David Charles Hardt? Nancy Diana Hardt?


Sullivan relations...


Starks relations


Turnbow relations





I feel a need to get things written down and shared... Here is a layout I created with some of the few photos I have of my Turnbow relatives...

If you have photos to share, please feel free to email me. I am eager to put faces to the branches of my family tree.

Love, Dece