And it may come with a guarantee...

The person who emailed me answered my reply. She is interested in John Webb (some folks say his middle initial was L). I have a date of birth of 10 Sep 1798 in Tennessee, but no date of death. His wife, Sarah "Sally" Waters, died in 1882 and was buried in Fairplay Cemetery, Benton, Saline Co., AR

And that's all I know.

And that's all I know about what she wants to know.

Webbs are collateral members of my family tree. There have been scattered intermarriages of Webbs with my Stricklands and McCarleys - sisters of John Webb.

So now, I'm taking a look at the Webb family. There appears to be evidence of a large, well established family in Grant County made up of the children and grandchildren of John Webb.

It would be nice to have specifics about what my correspondent wants to know.

But I am intrigued anyway...

I started this blog to share - photos, memories, documents, places and people - with other people.

Freely sharing was important to me because of the sharing of information I experienced in the early years of this journey when I asked for information.

On surname message boards. Hard to believe, but I still find posts of my own from 1999 on some of those boards.

Distant cousins found the blog in Google searches. I correspond with several of them still. All the other bloggers were right.

If you build it, they will come.

---

In the last few months, I've started getting emails that go something like this:
I am making sure that this e-mail doesn't bounce. I am researching a possible family connection in Arkansas. (That's the actual text of a message I found in my inbox this morning.)

I always reply to those, to let them know the email address is still good. Sometimes, there is a distant family connection.

Sometimes, people have seen how Arkansas-intensive my tracks are on the internet, and they just need help with their own trees.

What can I say? I'm a Scorpio, and always intrigued by a mystery.

Even when it doesn't have one of my own surnames on it.

---

You know how people say that they hope they don't find out they unwittingly married their own cousin?

I've always figured that somewhere downline - closer to my generation - I'd find out someone was a cousin of their spouse.

I decided last week to start looking at my nephews' and niece's families on the *other* sides of their families.

I started with my niece. Her father's surname is Rankin.

Started with her dad and went backward.

After about 3 hours, I sat here grinning like a fool.

Her dad is my 4th cousin, twice removed. The connection starts in 1877, when John James Rankin married Margaret Ann Lemley in Pope County.

Margaret Ann was the daughter of Ephraim Lemley, Jr. and Cynthia Elvira Burris.

So my niece is also my 4th cousin, three times removed.

---

Of course, I didn't stop with the pedigree.

I'm looking for bits and pieces of information that give the third dimension to the names, dates and places.

Turns out the Rankins (and their allied families) were quite the movers and shakers in Perry County, AR.

And some of its earliest settlers.

The Rankin family will have blog posts of its own.

A few weeks ago, my dad surprised me with a one year subscription to The Atkins Chronicle. It's a little weekly newspaper published in Atkins (Pope County), AR.

Atkins has been important to my Burrises for over 170 years.

They may have branched out to work in Russellville, but Atkins was the town closest to where they lived.

---

The paper has a hometown feel. When two cars belonging to locals collide, readers not only get the facts about the wreck, but a little comment about whose kids these are.

Even if the "kids" in question have been adults themselves for several decades.

There are columns written by the residents of the local townships, in keeping with newspapers of yore.

Those columns are full of "my momma" and "her daddy" and critiques of the organist's performance in church last Sunday.

But my favorite section of the paper is one called Memories.That section contains reprints of snippets of information published by The Atkins Chronicle 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.

From the files of October 18, 1912:
Born to J D Boen and wife, Oct. 5, a girl.

Born to Wiley Godbey and wife, the 14th, a boy. (My editorial comment...what a trip. "And wife," like she was just incidental to the birth.)

Atkins has thirteen automobiles - someone get another - break the number. (Do we detect some triskaidekaphobia there?)

From the files of October 25, 1912:
Atkins has 17,681 running feet of concrete walk and about 500 feet of walk to house entrances.

---

I wonder how they decide which memories to publish?

I think this is a hoot.

There's also a link to a transcript in the post.

Click here to read it.

It's a beautiful autumn morning here at the cottage. I realized that this past Monday, I have been here 18 years.

I walked around the garden this morning. As I write this to you, I am on the back porch (yes, I know technically it's a deck, but I say it's a porch), looking down the path of the west garden.



The gardens - I think of them as 3 rooms - have matured in these 18 years.

So have I.

So have you.

---

As I write, I hear the shouts and laughter of two young boys, playing in what's left of the woods. They have make-believe swords out there, fallen limbs from trees. They're swiping at each other, lone warriors in make-believe armies.

They are exercising their minds, not sitting in front of mind-numbing electronic entertainment all day.

You were like that. Given a choice, you'd always rather be outside than in. I was glad of that.

At the time, I didn't put it down to your love of nature. The love I see now when you go camping, or spend time down at the river.

We are not so different, you and I. But you are still your own person.

Aha! Another striking similarity.

---

When we first moved here, I spent a lot of time in the spring, summer and autumn in the garden.

Digging in the earth renews my soul. I don't think I consciously realized that with every gravel path I made, or tree I planted...the constant experimentation with water features, rearranging of porch furniture, setting of stepping stones...

I was laying a foundation for watching the cycles of nature, carried out before my very eyes. I am reaping the harvest every time I walk down a garden path and feel the cool breeze and swirling leaves falling.

I am in awe.

---

You know I don't believe in coincidence.

So wasn't it a hoot as you were just here, talking about when you were a kid how I told you over and over to be careful, because something had to last me 20 more years?

You told me when you have to dispose of the stuff in the cottage, you are going to say that everything is antique, because after all, it had to last me 20 more years...

That was a memory I had forgotten.

Your sense of humor has always been a gift - to you, and also to me.

I think it is something you got from your dad. He and I may have been a lousy couple, but I know we - together - were good parents.

Because you have become a very fine man.

---

Don't forget to soak in some nature, son.

It renews your soul.

I love you more.

She's telling stories from her mom and dad's families.

Click here to go take a look.

Sometimes, I am a bit dense.

Last winter, I blogged about this really neat letter from Joe Thomas Meek I'd found in the massive Meek genealogy (authored by Melton P Meek).

In the letter, Joe had described a trip back to Mississippi, home for nearly a century to our direct Meek ancestors.

Joe Thomas Meek was the great grandson of James Alexander Meek, who was my great great grandfather.

Joe's grandfather was William Thaddeus Meek, 10 years older than his baby sister, Maxie Leah, who was my great grandmother.

As I was embedding some html code into the note filed of my GEDCOM on several Meek entries, I re-read that letter, written in 1983.

And two paragraphs really hit me. (Parenthetical names added by me.)

---

None of the family ever saw old JAMES (James Alexander) after 1868, when he
and great grandmother (Mary Emily Conner) parted.

None of the family can ever be named JAMES or ALEXANDER
again, as my grandfather (William Thaddeus Meek) promised. An old lady at Oxford
gave us his picture, a little old man with the other old soldiers
in front of the old CourtHouse at Oxford in 1911.
I had it put in a nice frame to hang in my father's room (Joseph Thaddeus Meek)
besides his favorite picture of his old grandmother, but he
would not have it. The Irish have long, long memories and
never forget any wrong, however remote.

---

None of the family ever saw old JAMES after 1868, when he and great grandmother parted.

What could have incensed William Thaddeus Meek so much about his father? Something so heinous that the rage was passed down to the next two generations?

Could it have been that William's father, after having been gone for three long years during the Civil War, deserted his pregnant wife?

My great grandmother, Maxie Leah Meek, was born on 10 Feb 1869 in Grenada Co., MS. Her mother, Mary Emily Conner, had been supporting her son William during James' Civil War service with her millinery shop, and continued to support both her children in that fashion after James left.

I had always assumed that James was around for the death and burial of his first daughter with Mary Emily Conner - a three year old named Lizzie - short for Hettie Ann Elizabeth (who must have been named for James' own mother).

Lizzie died on 28 Sep 1868, and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Sardis, Panola Co., MS.

But perhaps James wasn't around for that event either.

If that is true, it certainly could account for the bitterness over the "wrong, however remote."

And I have to wonder if James' POW experience had lingering consequences for him.

I was messing around earlier this morning with some of my Baldings. A whole slew of them lived in Morgan Co., OH, and I was making good progress in finding their graves.

And then, I ran across Thurman W Balding, one of the sons of William Balding and Elizabeth Hummel.

Thurman was born on New Year's Day in 1867 in Morgan County. He's my third cousin, three times removed. (Kind of like the familial relationship I have with another family misfit, Charles E Chapin.)

Apparently, Thurman was an honest-to-goodness outlaw.

---

He was a member of the Bill Cook gang, and it seems he spent a lot of time robbing stagecoaches and banks.

Thurman had aliases, including "Skeeter" (because he was tall and lanky) and "Tull." He also went by the surname Baldwin, which may have relieved his family to no end. No telling what his 7 brothers and sisters thought of him...

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his unlawfulness, and had his sentence commuted by President Roosevelt in 1903.

Thurman died on 2 Mar 1936 in Sun City, Barber Co., KS, and was buried in Sunnyside Cemetery in Sun City, where two brothers and a sister were also laid to rest.

Oh, goodie gumdrops...

I think.

I guess.

Ancestry seems to be pretty excited about it.

From Genealogy Insider blog, the news that Ancestry finally found a private buyer.

~snip~
There are no anticipated changes in Ancestry.com’s operating structure. Ancestry.com will remain headquartered in Provo, Utah, with a continued large presence in San Francisco, Dublin, London and other international markets.

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Except maybe a price hike on subscriptions?

Maybe not immediately.

But you hide and watch...