My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Sometimes an ancestor or relative has no name at all - not even a given name (for males, we usually can surmise a surname, but ...) -- we all have millions of them.   2)  Tell us about one (or more) of your ancestors that have no given name and no birth surname, who has perhaps married an ancestor with a given name and surname from whom you are descended.  (Don't worry, we'll do unknown parents sometime soon). 3)  When was the last time you looked for this no-name ancestor? Here's mine: When I look at a list of the people in my RootsMagic database, I have many people, mostly women, who have no surname. It’s something like a half a dozen Elizabeths, Anns, and Marys each. If I work from the number one person and only focus on ancestors, then I came up with Eliz...

My fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Haley, died 26 January 1851 in Rankin County, Mississippi. At the time of his death, his son Thomas J. Haley stated his father died without a will, and that he had over two thousand acres of land and twelve slaves. [1] This post will discuss the distribution of the slaves, especially to Benjamin W. Jones and his wife, Amanda (Haley) Jones, my third great-grandfather. By publishing this information, descendants of these enslaved people might be able to make a connection and further their own research. These enslaved people were part of the Haley and Jones family and community, too. Distribution Those twelve slaves who were part of the estate were “a negro man Sam [,] a negro girl Sarah [,] a negro girl Charlotte [,] a negro boy Josephus [,] a negro girl Ally [,] a boy Sam [,] a boy Isaac [,] a boy Jordan [,] and one boy Moses and a girl Phillis and her child and a girl Celia .” [2] In the December term 1851, Thomas J. Haley report...

I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (April 2016), where we write 26 blog posts featuring each letter of the alphabet. O is for Olivia Jones Johnston When I discovered that my second great grandfather, Reuben Mack Johnston had married Olivia Jane Jones, I had about cried.  Johnston was hard enough to research but now I had a Jones. Would I ever find her parents? Question: Who were the parents of Olivia Jones Johnston? R.M. Johnston married Miss Olivia Jones on 23 Dec 1879 in Erath County, Texas. [1] 1879 Marriage R.M. Johnston to Olivia J. Jones What I learned about Olivia and her family came from an article in the Comanche Chief about her son, O.D. Johnston, nicknamed “Pig.” [2] He was interviewed by the newspaper when he was 81 years old and the paper printed photographs of the family. Reuben & Olivia Olivia Jane Jones was Reuben’s second wife, his first wife dying between 1877 and 1879.  She helped raise the three da...

Another great activity created by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings to help us share something about our families in our blog. 1) What year was one of your great-grandfathers born? Divide this number by 75 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number." 2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel" - your software will create this - use the "Ahnentafel List" option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital information? 3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number." 4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post. 1.  Johann Anton Hork was my oldest grandfather on my paternal side. He was born 9 Nov 1843 in Oberhundem, Westfalia (Ge...

Yesterday I was searching through the probate records on FamilySearch.org . I knew that Thomas Haley probably died between 1850 and 1860. He was last seen in Rankin Co, Mississippi in the 1850 US Federal census. [1] There he was enumerated as a 61 year-old farmer with his wife, Elizabeth who was 58 years old and two sons, Thomas, 27 and John, 17. Being 61 would make his birth year somewhere around 1789. The census showed he was born in North Carolina and Elizabeth, his wife was born in South Carolina, while the two sons were born in Mississippi. Why am I interested in this couple? They are my 4th great grandparents on my maternal grandfather’s side. Thomas Haley’s daughter, Amanda married Benjamin W Jones. Their daughter, Olivia Jane married Rubin M. Johnston. Their son, Thomas N. Johnston married Nell L. Hutson. These were my grandfather’s parents. The first probate file I found on Thomas Haley was the petition for administration, filed by son, Thomas J. Haley. [2] Thomas gave...