Mystery Sunday: Who was that Burris?

Sun, 06 May 2012 14:18:39 GMT

(Yes, I know the prompt is Mystery Monday, but I have time to write about it today. Go with it, please.)

Dad called me the other night. One of his local genealogy buddies had called him and read him a newspaper article from August 1882, where a couple of guys had busted out of the Dover jail in Pope County. The posse was hot on their trail.

One of them was a Burris. The other was a guy named Goodner. When the law caught up to them, Goodner was shot, and Burris gave it up.

No first names in the entire article.

So Dad went the next day to the Pope County Library and looked through microfilm for a couple of hours.

Found another article. It talked about Goodner and Burris. No first names.

I found a snippet of an article from the Arkansas Gazette dated 1 Aug 1882, where it gave Goodner's first name as John. It said he was wanted for shooting a sheriff.

And that's all we know.

But the Burris had to be one of ours, and from one of the articles, we know the manhunt centered around land very close to our homeplace.

My Burrises sure had a lot of secrets...

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It was a good week...

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:36:59 GMT

Well, except for that 10+ hour long power outage on Wednesday afternoon until 2:09 a.m. on Thursday.

The hottest day and night since they have been recording such for Arkansas.

But the Entergy heroes came through, so we won't dwell on that...

Started looking into my brother-in-law's family genealogy for him this week, and today, I hit the mother lode.

Got my monthly update email from Genealogy Bank.

Looked to see what was new.

And swooned. (Okay, not really, but you know what I mean.)

They added the Dover Sun, published in the little New Hampshire town all his Rollinses are from.

About 40 years worth from the late 1700s through the beginning of the 1800s...

And so I have been, as we say here in the South, in high cotton all day long.

And then, what to my wondering eyes should appear...

No, not the sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, although I could stand some of *those* temperatures...

An email from a guy who found my online tree while trying to clear up a mystery in his own.

Turns out the wife of my paternal grand uncle, who married him at age 17, was married before that to this guy's great grandfather...at 15.

Mama signed a note.

But my grand-aunt still called herself "Miss" two years later when she married Uncle Homer...

So now Dad and I are wondering...did Uncle Homer know?

Surely...

But maybe not. If I've learned anything in the last few years of shakin' the family tree, it's that these Burrises could damn sure keep a secret...

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Shakin' the Family Tree

Mystery Sunday: Who was that Burris?

It was a good week...