Saturday Night Genealogy Fun or Who Do I Blame for My Fascination with Family History

by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 19, 2009

Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings issued this challenge on Saturday night!  I’m a bit late, but I don’t want to miss out on all the fun, so here goes!

Hey geneaphiles – it’s Saturday Night, time for more Genealogy Fun for all Genea-Musing readers.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and we need more of you to do this, otherwise it may end…), is to:

1)  Read Brenda Joyce Jerome’s post Who or What Do You Blame? on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog.  She asks these questions:

*  Can you identify person or event that started you on this search for family information?

*  Did you pick up researching where a relative had left off?

*  Did your interest stem from your child’s school project on genealogy?

*  If you have been researching many years, it may be hard to pinpoint one reason for this journey.

2)  Write your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a note or comment on Facebook.

Maybe I was always a little interested in family history, but after Hobart Stocking, a professor from Oklahoma researched, wrote, and published the Stocking Ancestry, I became more interested, and shared the information with my husband’s family.  And that’s when my father-in-law, Melvin Kline, stated that he wished someone would research their family tree.

And He Kind of Hoped They Wouldn’t, Too…

And, he said, he kind of hoped maybe they wouldn’t, too.  He said that he was afraid of “what we might find.”

The story that he had always heard went like this, “three brothers came west, fought along the way, and never corresponded again.”

And because there wasn’t any correspondence between Pop’s family, and his grandfather’s family, at least that he knew of, he believed the story to be true, and he was afraid that we’d find out that his grandfather might have been the the person who caused the problem.

But still, he really wanted to know.

Who could possibly resist a puzzle or a challenge like this?

Not me, for sure, so I took up the quest and along the way became  ‘hooked’ on genealogy and preserving family history.

I was woefully ignorant of how to get started, so it was quite a long time before I learned about at least one ‘family feud’, learned where the family had migrated to Kansas from, and ‘met up’ with some distant cousins.

Unfortunately, by that time, my father-in-law had passed on, and I really wish he were here so that I could say “Thank you” to him for starting me on such a fun and addictive hobby/pastime/obsession.

But I’d like to think that somehow, he knows.

Sentimental Sunday – There is No Joy in Joyland Today…

by Sherry Stocking Kline
Sunday, September 5, 2010

There is no Joy in Joyland.

On Sunday, July 18th, I received an e-mail forward from a cousin that said “Stan Nelson, owner of Joyland died today.”

Darn.

So I checked Wichita Eagle’s website at Kansas.com and found this article by Beccy Tanner “Joyland a theme in Nelson’s life”.

My cousin’s email also included the link to a  photo slide show by Mike Hutmacher, Wichita Eagle, with photographs of the long-closed and now sadly in disrepair Joyland.  ( Click Here to view the slide show, complete with calliope music.)

It was the sideshow that prompted this post…

The slideshow begins, and there it is, Joyland.  Larger than life when we were children; the stuff of dreams. There’s the bridge we used to run over to get to the magic inside. Now it’s covered with wind-blown leaves.    Deserted.

And there are the rides. What’s left of them.  Where is the Merry-go-Round with its fiery steeds? And where are the bump-em cars that we drove fiendishly into all our friends with all the the precision of drunken sailors?   Both gone.

The Tilt-A-Whirl, part of it, remains, looking like deserted teacups from a giant’s forgotten  tea party.

Can’t someone please rescue the train…

And the  little steam engine train that could (and did) take you around the park, in and out among the trees, over a little bridge, and by your family picnicking in the pavilian, while all the while going rackety-clackety-clack, and Whoooo-uh-ooooooo when it came to a crossing .  The train, a favorite ride, sits waiting for passengers to go again. (Oh, please, can’t someone rescue the train?)

And the roller coaster.  Falling, faded white boards.  Surely this can’t  be the terrifying ride that traumatized me so when our eighth grade class went there on a field trip that after one ride up, down, and around on the rattly track I wouldn’t  climb back on it , not for all the tea in China and not even for the chance to sit with the cute little green-eyed, blond-haired boy that asked me to go again?  Surely this short, faded pile of wood isn’t the same one.

And there’s the ferris wheel, minus the little ‘people buckets’ that swayed and swung as you went up, over, and around and around, terrifying twenty-something young-mom-me, holding onto my tiny daughter for dear life, afraid to look down.

Joyland.  Even the name brings back a kaleidoscope of memories: the night my nephew, Daryl, just barely younger than I pitched a fit so instead of staying home with a sitter, we all got to ‘help’ his folks chaperone the youth group, falling asleep in the back window of a car on the way home letting the stars lull me to sleep.   (No seatbelt laws then and no seat belts, either.)

Church picnics, family picnics, and ride-all-night-nights…

There were church picnics and family picnics and ride-all-night-nights-for-$5.00 church nights. And my goodness, look at the sign, a ticket for a nickel.  The rides are gone along with the prices.

And while the rides may be gone, and the grounds may be deserted, we still have the memories.

Thank you, Mr. Nelson….

Tombstone Tuesday – Myrtle O. Lamb

Sherry Stocking Kline
31 August 2010

Myrtle Lamb - Osborne Cemetery, Sumner County, Kansas

055 - Myrtle Lamb Tombstone

Tombstone Reads:

Myrtle O. Lamb
Mar 13, 1881
May 27, 1939

I don’t know Myrtle O. Lamb, but she is buried near several of my family members, and a quick search on Ancestry tells me that on the 1925 Census, she and her husband, L. H. Lamb, lived at home with their children, Henry, Wilford, Earl, Clarence, Arthur, Eva, Nina, Bulah, Margret, and Mary.

Nina was my sister-in-law Nancy’s mother, and so Myrtle is the great-grandmother of my nieces and nephews.  So, she is almost ‘kin’ after all.

Amanuensis Monday – the John Lindsay/Lindsey Family

Sherry Stocking Kline
August 30, 2010

Lindsay, (Lindsey) John

Born – June 11, 1800 in Enniskillan, Ireland.
Died – October 14, 1885 in Sumner County, Kansas, buried Anson Cemetery (Tombstone Record and his direct communication to George Clarence Lindsay).  See 1880 Census Record.

Marriages

John Lindsay Married – 1st – Mary Rutledge – July 9, 1833 in Carroll County, Ohio. She was a daughter of Jane Crozier and William Rutledge and was born in Fermanaugh, Ireland about 1813.  Came to America with mother and siblings 1827. Died March 1856, six weeks after the birth of her last child. (Marriage Records Bk 1, p. 1, Carroll County, Ohio)

John Lindsay Married – 2nd – Harriet Barnes – about 1867 in Iowa.  She was born in New York in 1826. (Census Record 1870 Iowa Monroe County, Wautua Twnshp)

How the Lindsay Family came to Live in America…

John Lindsay quarreled with his father about religion and came to Canada in 1818, then to Carroll County, Ohio where he owned 76 acres of land more or less.  This was conveyed by patent deed bearing date at Washington City, D. C., November 18, 1833.

John and Mary sold 6 acres in 1837.  March 15, 1856 he sold the remaining land for $800. (Carroll County, Ohio Deed Bk Volume 15, p. 299)

Moved to Iowa where he is listed in the 1860 Monroe County, Union Township p. 342 with 3 sons and daughter Mary.

The other children remained in Ohio. Listed again in Mantua Township, Monroe County, Iowa, p. 367, year 1870, with wife and children and son Edward 24 by first marriage. Real estate $2800.

Came to Sumner County, Kansas in 70’s (as handwritten on the paper) 80’s and died there. He was a farmer, a reader, interested in books.  6 ft tall, light, looked like Thoreau. Read the Saturday Evening Post to his children by the light of pine knots.  Took great pains and trouble with teaching of youngest daughter, Callie.

A sister, perhaps named Margaret, came later to America, went south to nurse in a yellow fever epidemic and was never heard of again.

Naturalized in Ohio – spelling changed to Lindsey (with an e) by mistake at that time.

Children of John Lindsay

1.    James – b. 1834. Killed at Vicksburg

2.    Ann – b. 1835 or 36 married Ferdinand Wood (born July 11, 1841 d. January 20, 192? (the photocopy cut off last digit))

3.    William Rutledge b. December 28, 1837, married Julia Ann Miller, daughter of Henry Miller and Isabelle Warner, died May 27, 1907, daughter of (?) Ebenezer and Mary Smith. (some of the dates, and people in this part of the account it was difficult to decipher which belonged to who. Please see original on Pioneer Settler File Page 5.)

4.    Sarah – born 1839, married Henry Bracken (left-handed) October 18, 1860

5.    George – born 1842 – Company A 36 Regiment, Iowa Infantry, born Carroll County, Ohio. Enlisted February 1, 1863 at Ottumwa, Iowa. Taken prisoner at Marks Mill, Arkansas, died August 20, 1864 of disease at Camp Ford, TE (again, last letters cut off on photocopy.)

6.    Edward – born 1845 – married in Iowa, went to Woodford County, Illinois, Spring Bay Post Office after 1870.

7.    Mary Elizabeth – born May 7, 1846, Died: July 22, 1929. Married William H. Meuser, Born December 13, 1841, died November 17, 1911, son of George and Katherine Meuser.

8.    John – died in infancy.

9.    Margaret – died in infancy

10.    Eliza A. – born October 19th (or 17th, difficult to decipher), 1853, died May 1929. Married September 3, 1873, John Henry Brooks, born January 12, 1854, died November 4, 1913, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Crozier Brooks.

11.    Martha Malissa, born February 8, 1856, Married 1879, Robert McCort (1850 – 1909) Died September 21, 1909.  He was son of Henry and Margarite Johnson McCort.

12.    Calista – born 1868, married Don Camp. Died February 7, 1943, Long Lane, Wisconsin.

13.    James – died infancy. Born May 1870.

Transcriber’s Notes: The John Lindsay Family Information was transcribed on August 30, 2010 (by Sherry Kline)  from a hand written paper found in the Pioneer Settler/Family Files (originals numbered 4 and 5) at the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Center in Wellington, Kansas.

I have transcribed this paper as best as possible, though in a couple of  places it is a little unclear which death dates belong to whom, and in a couple of places the photocopy cuts off the edge of the words.

According to notes in this file, Mary Rutledge Lindsay died in 1856, six weeks after birth of last child, which would be Martha Malissa. So, Calista and James would (most likely) be John and Harriet’s children.

This file is part of the Pioneer Settler files that I have been working on transcribing. But John Lindsay’s daughter is also part of  my husband’s cousin’s family.  So, they are almost related!  There is quite a lot of family information and several family group sheets in this family file folder, and I will add more info here,  or create a new post with a little more info about the extended family as time permits.

When I am done transcribing and indexing this large file, it will go back ‘home’ to the Sumner County History and Genealogy Center in Wellington, Box 402, Wellington, KS 67152 for researchers to use.

For those I index and transcribe who are not family (or as in this case, almost family) you can read the transcriptions at the SCHGS blog at http://www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com.

Just a quick Scrapbooking Note

by Sherry Stocking Kline
30 August 2010

I thought I would add this note quickly. I just got a notice from Heritage Makers that for the next couple of days, you can save on their beautiful brand-new post-bound scrapbook albums and the deep wrapped canvas prints!

Awesome!

If you’ve ever wished you could customize your post-bound scrapbooks with your own photographs and designs on the front and back (exactly what I have been wanting to do) now you can!

From now till the end of August, you can pre-purchase and save on the post-bound scrapbooks from Heritage Makers, and also the wrapped canvases.

If you have questions, contact me for details at memories2books@gmail.com, or go to my website at TurnMemoriesIntoBooks.com.

Music Monday – Salsa Dog Video

Sherry Stocking Kline
30 August 2010

O.K., so this isn’t genealogy related.

And if the dog didn’t look like he/she was having fun, I wouldn’t have posted it.  But this dog’s ability is amazing…

I hope you enjoy it! Mondays just need something ‘extra’ sometimes.

Sherry…

Making Some Cool Wanted Posters for my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun –

Sherry Stocking Kline
28 Aug 2010

It’s Saturday night, and due to sniffly little girl noses, our family plans to get together fell through.  With a couple of hours free, I decided to check on Randy Seaver’s Geneamusing’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge! It was fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and I hope that you do… this one is really cool!) is to cue up the mission impossible music now, and go have some fun!

1) Go to the www.ImageChef.com website and explore their FREE offerings. Click on the “Create” button, or choose to make a slideshow or posters from their main page (there are more than one screen of poster backgrounds).

2) Make one or more posters or other creation – perhaps they relate to genealogy or your own family history. Save them to your computer (right click, Save as Picture for Windows users).

3) Show your creations to us… in your own blog post, on a Facebook post, etc. If you make a really neat one and want to show it to the world but don’t have a way to do it, send it to me (rjseaver@cox.net) and I’ll show it off for you in a blog post.

I’ve always wondered what my face would look like on a Wanted poster, so here goes!

Wanted" poster for Shery Stocking Kline

I guess I put too much text on it, ‘cuz you can hardly read that it says:

“Caught red-handed in libraries, haunting cemeteries, and guilty of pestering family for info.”

Next,  I did this one of my two youngsters, when they were just about two and a half, and 3 months:

Awe, it makes me wish I did have a big locket just like that with their photograph in it/on it.  I’m going to be keeping an eye out for something like that.

So then I used the sidewalk chalk template with a photograph of my oldest granddaughter kissing a baby lamb when she was just a wee little thing herself:

And my brother’s flight in a vintage airplane lent itself well to the “Breaking News” template:

But I’m kind of partial to that Wanted Poster Image, so I did another Wanted poster that I think will look really cool on next year’s Family Reunion invitations that I’m getting ready to send out!

I’m still trying to decide whether to use this family photograph of them all, or just use one that has just Roderick and Fanny in it, but I’m beginning to lean towards using this one. (Wouldn’t it just look cool on a t-shirt, too?)

I spent a little more time doing some fun and funny stuff with the granddaughter’s photographs, and will probably pay the $10 to be able to size and re-size, and get rid of the watermark and use them in some fun scrapbook collages down the road!

Thanks, Randy!

Now, go have some fun and make your own wanted poster at http://www.imagechef.com!

Carnival Of Genealogy – Scrapbooking my Family History One Page at a Time

by Sherry Stocking Kline
01 August 2010

Off and on for several years, I’ve tried to get started scrapbooking and journaling my photographs.  But it takes a lot of room to gather it all up, and spread it all out.

And I seem to be one of those people who have to change background papers and photographs over and over (and over) till I finally find the combination that I like.  Takes hours. (And usually two more trips to the scrapbook store!)

Then I found digital scrapbooking with a Twitter friend on-line.

So, instead of cutting up my photographs, and then wishing they were a different shape and size, or worse yet, wishing I had never cut them up at all,  now I can digitize photos, crop, re-size, and re-shape to my heart’s content, leaving the originals alone.

I love it!

Below are some of the 12 x 12 scrapbook pages for my family history book that I’ve created.  First, is the page for my great-grandparents, Roderick Remine and Frances “Fanny” (Hitchcock) Stocking and their four sons.

My grandfather is standing on the far right, Elmer Leverett. He passed away before I was born, and I never got to meet him.  (I sooo wish that I had been able to get to know him.)

Roderick Remine and Frances (Hitchcock) Stocking with their children, left to right: Ralph Hurlburt, Roderick Porter, Elmer Leverett and their youngest between them, John.

The Roderick Remine and Frances (Hitchcock) Stocking Family

The photo below here is my great-grandmother, Maggie (Corson) McGinnis and her daughter and son-in-law, Maud and Elmer Stocking.

It looks to me like they are sitting on the east side of  Maud and Elmer’s home near Mayfield, Kansas.  Maud and Elmer’s home was on their farm on the NW 1/4 of 18-32-2W, where they had a quarter section of land. (160 acres).  Later, my parents bought this farm from Maud and Elmer and I grew up here as well.  The house burned down several years ago.

Maggie McGinnis and Maud (McGinnis) & Elmer Stocking

Maggie McGinnis with daughter Maud Stocking & husband Elmer Stocking

The photograph below is of my dad’s parents and his siblings.  What a great photograph! (I wish I knew when it was taken!!)  I really like the burnt sienna colored paper below with it’s hints of other shades, and I added just a few “starbursts” to it to ‘gussy’ it up a little.

My grandfather is seated on the left and my grandmother is seated on the right. My father, Harold Stocking, Sr., is standing on the back row, third from the left.

The Elmer Leverett and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking Family

The Elmer Leverett and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking Family. Standing: Frank, Carl, Harold, Sr., and Alma; Seated, Father Elmer Leverett, Herbert, Frances, Peggy, Mary, and Mother Maud.

While researching and preserving history is very important to me, my scrapbooking is not all about preserving the past, it’s also about preserving and enjoying the present, too, and being able to enjoy it again and again for the future.

Below is the cover from “Giggles”, an 8 x 8 scrapbook that I created this summer for my two darling little granddaughters.  There are several of my favorite photos and fun times that we’ve had in the past few years, and the book is a favorite with the girls as well.  I also think it will help them remember all the fun times that we’ve had!

Savvy and Chloy star in their own "Giggles" book

Jordyn Savannah "Savvy" & Chloy Celyse star in their own Book created especially for them.

Below is a photo of the girls reading their very own Storybook Scrapbook!

Jordyn reads their storybook to her younger sister, Chloy.

Jordyn reads their Storybook to her younger sister, Chloy.

Currently I am using a Family Photo Tree template at www.TurnMemoriesIntoBooks.com to create a 12 x 12 scrapbook page of our family tree. I am  also working on a Storybook for my mother, who is nearly 99 years old, so I’m working with some really neat old photographs, and preserving some fun stories!

Amanuensis Monday – Maggie McGinnis Dies at Age 101

by Sherry Stocking Kline
19 July 2010

Many thanks to my cousin Lynne Bajuk, California, for our great-grandmother Maggie McGinnis’ obituary!

This past week, Lynne sent me a wonderful ‘genealogy care package’ with photographs and this obituary.  Happy Dance!

Fortunately, I was able to find Maggie’s husband, Thomas Jefferson McGinnis’ obituary and send it to her recently.  It has been sooo wonderful to ‘meet’ and visit with Lynne and to be able to share information and work together.  Lynne has many wonderful stories that her mother told her that I’d not heard.  Marvelous!

Maggie McGinnis, 101, Succumbed Sunday

Funeral services for Mrs. Margaret (Maggie) McGinnis, 101, were conducted at the Cedar Vale Methodist church Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 o’clock with Rev. W. E. Burdette officiating.

Mrs. McGinnis passed away at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Maud Stocking, Sunday morning at 6:15 o’clock from arterial thrombosis. Although bedfast since the first of February, Mrs. McGinnis had only been seriously ill since 11 o’clock Saturday morning.

Mrs. McGinnis had made her home in Cedar Vale with her daughter for the past nine and one-half years. She was loved and admired by all who knew her. Despite her age, Mrs. McGinnis possessed a keen and alert mind and enjoyed conversing on current topics. She frequently spoke of her childhood and enjoyed telling of her experiences when she with other girls of her community sang for Abraham Lincoln.

A trio composed of Bill House, James E. Humble and Maurice Smith sang “Abide With Me” and “City Four Square.” As a solo, Maurice Smith sang “Crossing the Bar.”  Mrs. R. D. Oltjen was pianist.

Pallbearers were Marshall Hill of Arkansas City, Herbert Stocking of Elk City, Harold and Fred Stocking of Mayfield, Bob and Jack Yearout of Wellington.

Burial was made in the cemetery at Mayfield, Kansas.

Obituary

Margaret (Maggie) E. Corson McGinnis was born January 19, 1849, in Saugamon County, Illinois (Sangamon?) and died March 26, 1950-, in Cedar Vale, Kansas at the age of 101 years, two months, and seven days.

Maggie Corson was educated in a rural school near her home and in Springfield, Illinois. In 1860 she was one of a group of children trained to sing campaign songs in support of Abraham Lincoln’s candidacy for president. The group on one occasion sang for Lincoln and received his thanks.

At the age of fifteen she united with the Methodist church of which she remained a loyal member throughout her life.

After teaching for three years in Illinois rural and village schools, she was married in 1872 to Thomas J. McGinnis, who was teaching and farming in eastern Illinois.

In 1886 they moved to Kansas, eventually living in several communities in this state.

After the death of her husband at Emporia in 1911, Mrs. McGinnis lived in Missouri, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maryland, and California, eventually returning to Kansas, where the has been residing with her daughter, Mrs. Maud Stocking, in Cedar Vale.

Mrs. McGinnis is survived by three sons – Charles E. of Los Angeles; Eugene E. of Wichita; and Virgil H. of Denver; two daughters – Mrs. Maud Stocking of Cedar Vale and Myrta E. (Ethel) McGinnis of New Wilmington, Pennsylvania; twelve grandchildren and twenty-one great-grandchildren.

More info:

Margaret “Maggie” Corson McGinnis, daughter of Richard S. and Mary (Corson) Corson, is buried in the Osborne Cemetery, Sumner County, Kansas, near the small town of Mayfield, Kansas, with four generations of descendants.

Maggie McGinnis Sang For Abraham Lincoln

A Photo of Maggie Corson McGinnis (and me) on her 100th Birthday

Thomas J. McGinnis Obituary

Three Hundred Years With the Corson Family in America

‘52 Weeks to Better Genealogy’ series, challenge #25: Blog Comments

by Sherry Stocking Kline
July 4th, 2010

I”m probably a week (or more) behind on this, but this particular blog challenge is something I sure do want to weigh in on.  And while this first post isn’t going to mention any blogs but Amy’s “52 Week Challenge” blog, (see the challenge below) it’s something I really want to say.

First, here’s this week’s challenge, authored by Amy Coffin:

Write one good, solid comment on at least one genealogy blog every day for a week. Sometimes we get busy and the genealogy reading we should be doing just piles up. The same thing happens with blogs. This week, take some time to read genealogy blogs. Select at least one post a day and establish communication with the author. Offer a compliment, a question or genealogy information you may have. This challenge provides a little love to bloggers and some new perspectives for researchers. Authors of genealogy blogs can use this opportunity to comment on comments, so to speak.

So, while checking out this blog challenge, I visited a lot of great blogs and left several comments, but this week, I’ll try to do it “right” and visit a blog, comment, and come back here and blog about the same.

But first, I’m getting up on my soapbox about comments!  Before I get into the ranting and raving part here I want to say “THANK YOU” big time to each of you who have stopped by and encouraged me with your words.  Each comment you leave means a great deal to me and I thank you for it!  Especially those of other bloggers, and there are so many great ones out there that any of you who take the time to comment on my blog, well, it’s an honor and I thank you.

Now for the ranting part, and I’m thinking that most of you family tree bloggers have experienced the same frustrations.

Hardly a week goes by, sometimes hardly a day, when someone doesn’t Google one of my ancestor’s names and land on my blog.  If they are “Googling” my great-grandfather’s name, then they’re most likely my relatives.  You would think relatives would stop for a second, leave a quick comment, say “thanks” for posting the tombstone photo and the picture of the gentleman, AND leave a note so we can share other information from time to time.

Doesn’t happen.  For the most part, no comments are left by these searchers.

First of all, just in case one of you reads this blog post, I have a LOT of info I’ve not blogged about yet, and photographs that aren’t scanned and on-line yet.  It would be easy to share more info with you, IF I knew who you were.

Second, I can only assume that the info you have, you don’t plan to share with other family members.


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