Family History and Genealogy
Visitors the last couple of days will have noticed that Tonia’s Roots has a new look! Making this change has been in the back of my mind for about a year, and the time finally came a few weeks ago to move forward. The reasons for the update were mostly performance-based, but the site has […]
Francis Marion Kendrick, my 2nd great-grandfather, died 6 November 1932 in Militia District 1011, Murray County, Ga., according to his death certificate. Transcript In the transcription below, boldface indicates the words penned into the pre-printed form: “Certificate of Death, Georgia State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.” PLACE OF DEATH County Murray Militia District […]
I had a business trip to Columbus, Georgia last week and Columbus has a great genealogy section in their library, so I decided to do a little after-work research. I knew that I would only have a couple of hours at the library, which made it essential that I go in with a plan. I […]
James B. Butler, my great-grandfather, enlisted in the United States Army on 10 November 1901 in Ellijay, Georgia for a period of three years. At the time of his enlistment, he was a 21-year-old farmer, described as being 6 feet tall, with blue eyes, light brown hair, and a ruddy complexion. 1 Two months […]
I spent the last week learning all about Murray County history. “Murray on My Mind,” offered by the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society, is a class taught by recently-retired history teacher and local historian, Tim Howard. If you want to know about Murray County history, Tim is your first call. He has taught this week-long course for many, many […]
Those of us who have done DNA testing know that two of the biggest challenges are keeping track of all the information and narrowing down that information into smaller buckets that can be analyzed to determine common ancestors. The analysis tools have gotten a lot better in the last year, but there really hasn’t been […]
I spent all day Monday at the Library of Virginia. This is a brief summary of what I found. Monday was all about County Books from Albemarle, Fairfax, and Bedford counties, which contained either abstracts or indexes. I was able to get copies of the original images of some of these items (more on that […]
I went to the Georgia Archives for the first time yesterday, and while I found lots of good information, one item stands out above the rest, and made the whole trip worthwhile. Here’s the backstory. Harvey D. Ward, my 3rd great-grandfather, fell off the face of the earth after 1870. He was a young man, […]
I‘ve been working through a book I found at the Family History Library called Marriage and Death Notices from Extant Asheville, N. C. Newspapers 1840-1870 An Index, going through page by page and analyzing the information found. Today, I reviewed several pages, which included Alexander, Brooksher, Burgin, Cunningham, Davidson, Deboard, Hemphill, and Lytle (there were more names, but these […]
My DNA connections have really been clicking recently and I’ve been wanting to pull all the information together into a chromosome map, like the ones CeCe Moore creates. I had been tracking everything in a spreadsheet, but that didn’t give me the at-a-glance visual that I wanted. But now, Kitty Cooper has created a tool […]
Now we are well into the 21st-century and every day brings a new genealogy adventure, whether it is a new record group to explore online or a visit to a cemetery, courthouse, or other repository. It all comes together here. Read more about Tonia's Roots or contact Tonia. Read More…
