Archive for the ‘Carnival of Genealogy’ Category

Sherry Stocking Kline
February 15, 2010

Best Picture – Deciding which photograph I liked best in 2009 was extremely difficult!

Was it the  photograph of new-found cousin Nancy and my husband looking over the Glasgow, KY cemetery?  Or was it the  photo of my brother Gary with his street rod?   In the end, I chose the photograph of my Great-grandma Margaret “Maggie” Corson McGinnis holding little baby me on her 100th birthday.

Not everyone has a great-grandmother who lives to be 100, so this is a special photograph, and I’m glad my parents captured the moment on film.

Best Screen Play – I’m not sure that any of my stories would make a great screen play -  unless it would be the part of the Christmas Gifts story that involves myself and my two oldest nephews playing Cowboys and Indians in the pasture on our stick horses!   Even my patient collie dog Lassie wasn’t safe if we had a lasso!

I’d have to cast John Wayne as my dad.   First, I always thought there was a resemblance, and second, my dad had that same kind of confidence that the Duke projected on film.

My mom, well, she might be a cross of Maureen O’Hara and the Beav’s mom, June Cleaver, though she never wore dresses, pearls, and heels everyday,  those were church clothes.

Because she worked in the field she was more likely to be in jeans, flannel shirts, and maybe even overalls.

And the casting for  my nephews and I, well, lets just say “The Little Rascals” would be the best cast for us…

Best Documentary – My blog post about the Burchfiel Cemetery, the church and the church history connected with it holds a special place in my heart.

Best Biography – This post about my brother, Gary “Sox” Stocking is probably my favorite biography.  It doesn’t tell when he was born, nor whom he was born to, but it does capture just a bit of the essence of who he was, what kind of man he was, and you get an idea of why other street rodder friends came from three states in their street rods to honor him one last time.

Best Comedy – The funniest thing that I blogged about in 2009 was when we crazy high school kids used to drag main singing the top hit at the time “Hey There Little Red Riding Hood” at the top of our lungs!

It was fun then, and it gives me a chuckle now to remember it…

By Sherry Stocking Kline
February 1, 2010

Smith, Hawley, Laird, Breneman, Stocking & Jones, too
Also McGinnis, Ames, Crabb, Corson, and other names it’s true.
What inspired these ancestors and led them to leave home
To go far from their homeland and bravely roam?

Who are these brave people who came before?
Oh, How I love it whenever I learn a bit more.
I’m curious about what they sold or they bought,
About their lives and beliefs, even what they thought.

What brought them to America?  Why and when did they come?
What ship did they sail on, where exactly are they from?
All these questions I have, about each and every one,
I love finding clues, solving puzzles is such fun!

Was my Laird ancestor a highland Scots’ ‘prince’ or a pauper’s son?
It’s the hunt and the challenge that makes genealogy such fun!
Each answer brings new questions, then those answers I seek
To answer just one question, solve one clue sometimes takes weeks.

Who was this man, my Jones grandfather so elusive?
Must I dig deeper into the life of his mother and yes -  get intrusive?
Was she un-married/ widowed/ divorced when she married a ‘Crabb’
What was she like, how did she dress? Fashion plate? Or drab?

For religious freedom, in the 1630’s my Stockings sailed
To America on the Griffith, ‘twas from England they hailed.
Part of the history books they became, & helped found a new town
It was Hartford, Connecticut, with Thomas Hooker’s party they founded.

An Anabaptist, our Breneman ancestor left a dungeon deep,
Walked across castle floors and out of the castle keep,
His life spared, he came to America where freedom to worship would be
And down through the centuries, many have fought to keep America free.

In the Revolutionary War, 1812, and World Wars One and Two
Korea, Vietnam, and the Civil War, too.
My ancestors were there, along with many others who served
For keeping our land free, it’s our thanks they deserve.

Great-Grandma (Corson) McGinnis lived to be a whole century old,
My brother still remembers the story she told
About singing for then campaigning Abe Lincoln as a wee child,
When he promised her statehood for Kansas, a territory wild.

My ancestors were farmers, blacksmiths, merchants and more,
Teachers who taught, and those who owned stores
As we build for the future, on their shoulders’ we stand
And our family still has teachers, and farmers who farm the land.

There are plane builders, engineers, and more than one preacher,
There are programmers, a writer, and an NASA astronaut once a teacher
So many different folks now make up our family tree,
As we live here in America, land of the brave and the free…

I tried to intersperse some of the stories and legends that come along with my family.  I can’t prove that my Great-grandmother McGinnis (she would have been a Corson then) did sing for Abraham Lincoln as a child when Lincoln was campaigning, but she did live in the Springfield, Illinois area, did have a famous photograph that became part of the family story, and that is the story that she told her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, so I believe it to be true.

My Stocking ancestor, George Stocking’s name is on the founding father’s stone in Hartford, CT, and there are many documents on-line (and off) about George and the Thomas Hooker party that founded Hartford.  It’s a small world when I found out years later that my Junior High Latin teacher was a descendant of the Hart family that Hartford was named for.

My cousin has been to the castle in Switzerland and even down in the dungeon where my Breneman ancestor was kept a prisoner.  She said that it gave her goosebumps…

by Sherry Stocking Kline
January 14th, 2009

Yes, I’d be glad to…?

When someone asks for my help I tend to say “yes, I’d be glad to…” though frankly in the last couple of years I’ve had to learn how to say “I’d love to, but I just can’t.”  With only 24 hours in a day, no matter how I try to stretch it there needs to be time to sleep in there somewhere.

Possibly the most important ‘job’ I volunteer to do as Vice President of the Sumner County (Kansas) Historical and Genealogical Society is to find speakers that are interesting, informative, and that reflect county, state, national, and sometimes international history. And an important part of that is to try to find speakers that will attract new people into our group so that it will grow.

The Lord provides…

Finding fascinating people who will ‘speak for their dinner,’ even at a steak house, isn’t always easy but when our members ask me how I do it I usually answer “The Lord provides…”  Once, during a casual conversation standing in line at Wal-mart I met a talented woman who just happened to be a Native American speaker. Several months later she brought us a very interesting informative program.

In November 2009, Tuskegee Airman Major George Boyd shared his fascinating story with us, and this week I will connect with our speaker, Jim Baumgardner, author of the historical children’s fiction “Sarah” books, interview him, write a press release, and send it out to eight newspapers, two cable television stations, one radio station, and so many people by e-mail that my internet provider threatens to shut me down for spamming.

This summer, on June 19^th in Wellington, Kansas, our county will host the Kansas Council of Genealogical Society meeting, (you’re invited!) and we’re working to prepare and promote that already.

Video-Tape the Gen Society meetings….

About a year ago, I started video-taping the SCHGS programs with my camcorder and our city’s cable station re-plays most of our programs on the local channel in the months following.  My goal is to have a library of DVD’s that members can check out and re-watch, and that we can share with elderly members who can no longer attend meetings.  (this is something that I think other societies might be interested in trying to do!)

Transcribed Cemetery Information…

In 2003, my husband and I walked a (small?) cemetery of several hundred people, transcribed the stone information, entered it into a database, and shared the information locally with the SCHGS Center as well as published it in “Mayfield: Then & Now” a small-town history book that I co-authored with Elaine Clark. I plan to re-walk the cemetery this year to make new additions, and take photographs of some or all of the stones while there. And I try (but fail miserably) to share all the tombstone photographs that I take with www.deadFred.com.

Because my name is in the paper often, and because I like to help others research and preserve their family history I get phone calls out of the blue asking for help.

I get to meet fascinating people…

How many hours do I volunteer each month?  It varies, but more than I have time for and less than I’d like to. But when we get photographs and memorabilia back where it belongs, locate tombstone(s), farmsteads, historic bridges, or the reporter finds info about the old one-room schoolhouse that he needs to polish up an article, it’s all worthwhile.

The most rewarding part for me is that I get to meet, interview, and get acquainted with some very interesting people and hear some fascinating and little-known family and historical stories. I get a sense of satisfaction knowing that I’ve helped preserve (and possibly share) another small piece of history.

As someone I interviewed a few years back about photograph preservation told me:

“The best you can do is to preserve it so the next generation can preserve it again…”