My brother recently uncovered the will for my ancestor, William Calvin Ray in Murray County, Georgia. In it he mentions “my yellow boy slave Allen.” this is my first encounter with a slave owner ancestor. I have a lot of ancestors in the South, so I figured a slave owner would turn up, but thisContinue reading “Discovering Allen and my Slave Owner Ancestor”
Category Archives: Stories
Finding Families in Testate and Intestate Probate Records
It can be easy to find ancestors in the United States from 1850 on because of the availability of Census Records on the internet. However, before 1850, only the heads of households were listed on the census. This makes it difficult to find all the members of a family and trace your family back for multipleContinue reading “Finding Families in Testate and Intestate Probate Records”
Little Jonnie Lathrop, or, Child Deaths in Great Plains Genealogy
This is my great-great-grandmother, Caroline Jane (Webber) Gile. I love this picture. Usually in pictures this old the people don’t really smile. Old photos of babies usually have them by themselves or in mother’s lap. Half the time baby is blurred out because she is moving too much for the camera to focus. But inContinue reading “Little Jonnie Lathrop, or, Child Deaths in Great Plains Genealogy”
The Handwritten Past
My Grandpa lives in a little brick house in a small town in Kansas. Just outside of town is the land where his grandfather first built a Kansas homestead. Grandpa has driven us grandkids around on those dirt roads in Kansas and showed us that old homestead. On that homestead lay the ruins of theContinue reading “The Handwritten Past”