Butler Ancestors in 1808

27 January 2008 Bios & Timelines

Following up on the challenge from Lisa of 100 Years in America, Donna of What’s Past is Prologue has issued a challenge to describe where our ancestors were 200 years ago. In searching through my database, I’ve discovered so many people who were alive in 1808 that this post will focus on the Butler ancestors, [...]

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Moses Qualls (Quarles) Biographical Sketch

13 January 2008 Bios & Timelines

I found an interesting biographical sketch of Moses Qualls in the Rootsweb Qualls-Quarles mailing list archives: Before the Revolution, Moses moved to the West side of the Broad River near the present Lockhart, SC in Union County. He was a Loyalist during the Revolution, convicted of sedition by the American authorities and exiled to the [...]

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What’s New

9 January 2008 Research

It was a busy week in research, sourcing, and design. I added a photo of my great-grandparents, Newt Ward and Rachel Johnson Ward and I obtained a copy of Rosa Ellis Roberts’ death certificate. Probably the biggest change is the mapping feature added to the website. I discovered that my web software, TNG, offers the [...]

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The Kindness of Strangers

6 January 2008 Research

A few weeks ago, I posted about Find a Grave. One of the features they offers is a “Request a Photo” program. Users of the website can volunteer to take headstone photographs and Find a Grave keeps track of their locations. When another user requests a photo from a particular cemetery, the website sends out [...]

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Thomas Young Hemphill McEntire

1 January 2008 Bios & Timelines

I found an interesting biographical sketch on my 4x great-grandfather. (Google search is truly an amazing thing). I knew that he had immigrated from Ireland, but the additional information is where the gold lies. He was the second sheriff in Burke County, North Carolina and was a member of the North Carolina legislature in 1802. [...]

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Kendrick Census Record Break-Through

31 December 2007 Research

I finally found some Kendrick census records. The lack of documentation has been really frustrating, because I knew these people had lived in Murray County, but I simply couldn’t find them. Bad spelling and fancy handwriting were the sources of my problems. 1860 – the secret is to search on Kindrick. I found Thomas, Mahala [...]

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Interview with a Grandmother

30 December 2007 Research

The Oral History Project is now underway. I bought the toys yesterday, namely a digital voice recorder and speech recognition software. Today I visited my grandmother and, with a little prompting, got her started down the reminiscence road. She talked for about an hour and a half and I got some great stories. For example, [...]

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The Oral History Project

28 December 2007 And More

I’ve decided to start an oral history project and I would encourage you to do the same.  Our older relatives have priceless memories and it is not too soon to start collecting them. My maternal grandfather was a gifted, natural storyteller.  He could spin a tale with such vivid details that his listeners were riveted.  [...]

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Spring Place Cemetery

27 December 2007 Research

It was a nice day today, so I made a visit to Spring Place Cemetery. It had been many, many years since I had been to this cemetery. I was searching for four headstones, in particular, but had hopes of finding a few more that might belong to my ancestors. I spent about an hour [...]

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Kendrick Research in Murray County Heritage

26 December 2007 Research

I reviewed all the indexed items for “Kendrick” in Murray County Heritage today. It was at times frustrating and at other times exhilarating. Many of the Kendrick references had only initials instead of first names. That’s great if you already know who the people are, but if you don’t, it’s not helpful at all. Many [...]

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