Tag: genealogy

Am I Ready for My Research Trip?

On By genealogyhappyhourIn Uncategorized2 Comments

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That is my question for the month. Yes, I know it has been a while since I asked a question but truly I have been doing some research. As our most recent podcast is about getting ready for a research trip and since Amy and I have planned one, I thought I better do a recheck to see if I am actually ready for this trip.

Ticket? check! car rental? check! Hotel? check! preliminary research? meh…working on it. One thing I wanted to do was to have all my information on what I have already researched at my fingertips. Since I am a note taker (in the form of lots of little Post-it notes and scraps of paper all over) I wanted something I could take with me and have all in one place. I needed a journal of some sort. Something with organizational potential. Hello Google, whatcha got? Google hands me a bullet journal. I did a lot of research on the bullet journal and watched a ton of videos. Most people use it for daily journaling. They include monthly, weekly calendars and daily note pages which would be great as well but not my purpose here. However, I thought I could adapt it for what I need.

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There are so many options out there but I ended up purchasing a Moleskin. I have to watch what pen I use as the pages are a bit thin and some ink ghosts through. Some other brands have thicker pages but I am not doodling or using color markers in this journal (at least not anymore) so I just wanted to be cost-effective and find something lightweight to carry with me.

At the beginning of a bullet journal, you want to create an index and you will want to number your pages so you can find your notes quickly. Mine is fairly simple, my index is the first four pages and then I am right into my notes.

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My first note has the name of my ancestor at the top and what exactly I am trying to find out. What is my question? In this example, I am asking about John Burk(e), who is his father? The rest of the page or pages is devoted to what I find or don’t find. My first section is checking on a marriage record. I of course first checked Ancestry and Family Search, I even spent time in the browse images in the county marriage records to no avail. Then I hit the phone trail and called the county clerks of 6 counties (I have more to go yet). They were all helpful and did some checking but nothing turned up. Beginning to wonder how far they ran off to get married. In the bullet journal I noted everyplace I called and what the result was. In the index, I wrote “Burk, John search for father”. This way later in the year when I want to take up this search again, I can find it quickly in the index and see what has already been done without digging through a ton of Post-It notes. I can also make a copy of that page and add it to a research log.

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I did not link any videos or websites with bullet journal possibilities as there are too many out there and you can easily find them on Google. There is even one Youtube video called Bullet Journaling for Genealogy (ok, that one I linked). A big difference between what I do and the others do is the calendar. I am not using a calendar in this journal. I will make note of the dates I did the research but no calendar. I just want the pages with the research and the index to find it quickly.

At this point, I think I am a more ready than I was before for this research trip.

A Hunting We Will Go, Cemetery Hunting that is

On By genealogyhappyhourIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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(the above photo is not the cemetery in my story but how I imagine it too look if it had headstones)

Looking for the cemetery in Forks of Coal, WV where my great grandfather Millard Stephens is buried has been a fascinating journey. It started when I asked the question about his death certificate. While doing that research, I became interested in all the places he had lived and then died. My mother often spoke about making the trip up to her grandmother’s house and visiting the cemetery, so I knew the general area and by general, I mean the Alum Creek and Forks of Coal, Kanawha Co. area.

The first thing I did was pull out some old emails from back in 2001 from my aunt and a gentleman that grew up in that area. She had sent me these correspondences long ago and I had them in a Stephens file. In the emails, it mentioned some directions that probably could be followed if you lived there and a story about a man, Jack Workman, living on the property. Well, now I had two clues.

The directions mention a four-lane highway built in the 1980’s crossing the Big Coal River between the Girl Scout Camp and the Cemetery. It also mentions some Hill’s being buried in that cemetery. Then there are the directions of turning off onto Rocky Point Road (not on the map) parking your car and walking down the old dirt road, around a hill, through a creek and back up the other side and on and on. This must have been where one lived when walking to school uphill both ways in the snow.

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I pulled up mapquest and zoomed into the Alum Creek area and found the Coal River. Following it down it forked into the Big Coal and Little Coal Rivers. According to the directions and my mom, the property I was looking for was near the Big Coal River where 119 (the four-lane highway) crosses. A quick search of the girl scout camp did not turn anything up but a few blurbs in the paper. Nothing to help. So, the mapping just narrowed the location.

Next, it was plugging in Jack Workman’s name into google. A fabulous article popped up which detailed how he donated this property to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. The article gave a good description of the property and I could easily find it on the map. The actual area is run by the Forks of Coal Foundation and on their site, I found a trail map. According to the trail map, only the area to the north of 119 is open to the public and the cemetery would be south of 119 according to the directions in the emails.

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The girl scout camp was not noted on the trail map but on the Facebook Page for the park, a wonderful hiker posted a photo of a plaque indicating the camp (and kindly give permission to use the photo). I contacted the contributor and he said if you follow the trail to the far right of the parking lot the camp was about 50m. Remembering the notes from the email the cemetery should be on the other side of 119 from the camp. I now had a much more approximate location. I would still like to find someone who knows exactly where it is though so I kept searching.

I put a call into the Forks of Coal Foundation and they put me in touch with a gentleman working with the donation of land. He was able to give me the coordinates to the cemetery and old home as he had been to the property. He also had copies of a few old deeds to the land which helped define the borders. We also discussed other names such as Hill and Chandler that might be in that same cemetery but that is a question for another week.

Millard Stephens Grave

What a wild ride. It just takes asking some questions and it can lead you to the answer. Many thanks to all the individuals who answered my emails and phone calls and shared their knowledge.

Where did Millard Stephens live?

On By genealogyhappyhourIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A simple enough question and yet because I wanted to not only answer it but put it all on Google Earth Pro and make a quick movie out of it, it took waaaaayyyyy longer.

This is actually a fun project to do and you can do it for one person or for a family. It is fascinating to see where they lived and how they moved about. This movie is pretty basic but you can add photos of the homes you find and overlay old maps. You can really be creative. I do have one in the works with actual photos but that is not the question I am answering this week. Stay focused and on task!

In the case of my great-grandfather Millard, who lived his entire life in the Wayne, Boone and Kanawha Counties of West Virginia, I took all the census I could find and wrote down where he lived during those years. Nothing was very clear as either his father was a farmer or he was and there was no street location so I just picked an area close to the town noted or general area of the enumeration district. Next, I looked at the birth certificates or records of all his children, or those that had one online, so five out of eleven. I noted the locations and years and fit them between the census. I also looked at the marriage record which only stated Boone Co., not very helpful so when it came time to mark the map I put it somewhere near the birth of the children at that time.

Since I still do not have a death record I had to go by the obituary that said Millard died at home and after lots of digging I found where that home was located. I will detail that in my next post. After gathering all the dates I opened Google Earth Pro and in the My Places panel, I created a folder for Millard Stephens. I located the first place on my list and added a pin and made some notes (which do not show up in the movie). I added all the pins and created a tour. Next, I watched several Youtube videos to see how it was done and tried it out several times. I had to adjust a few places and move place markers etc till I got it where I wanted it. There is still one location that appears off to the left and I cannot figure that one out, not important though, you can still see it.

Here it is, my first ever Google Earth movie