brick wall

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    Another lead discovered

    Researching my Great -Great Grandfather Andrew E. Tryon has been a mystery for our family for a long time. He died leaving behind 3 motherless children in 1902. We kept hitting brick walls, between the Orphanage, and county records. Either the records were destroyed in fires or no direct family link to apply for the records.  Today a relative of mine caught me while I was on Facebook, she had found his name listed in a Mississippi Supreme Court Case in a Google Book. As I read through all the legal information I came to page 46 paragraph 3, that described the situation he was in. Him being very ill and having to place the children, in two Orphanages, despite his desire to keep them together. He truly had hoped to recover and keep his children together. Only two years prior on an US Census his family included him, his wife, an older son, two daughters and two young son. And now in 1902 it was only him, two daughters, and my Great Grandfather. One of the daughters was listed as ill in the court documents. The reason the case had gone to court is because two individuals were disputing who was entitled to the guardianship of the children and the insurance settlement of $2,000 from Woodmen of the World. Only for the children to later end up back into the Orphanage.

    When I read Woodmen of the World, an idea came to me. I had read in my favorite cemetery research guide: Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography about how Woodmen of the World was one of the most important insurance group of the time. I figured that there might be some information on the wife and family through Woodmen of the World. Maybe even a burial area of my ancestors, since they usually paid for the burials of their members.

    This was a great discovery for us and hopefully soon we can find out what had happened to the family. There were a lot of Yellow Fever and other illnesses in that region during that time, it will be nice to finally get a little further in our research.

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    FREE Webinar Family Tree University

    Researching your family history can be a great adventure. In this free Expert Webinars, Desmond Walls Allen, author of Family History Detective: A Step-by-Step Guide to Investigating Your Family Tree, will discuss research principles guaranteed to give you success.



    Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2011
    Starting Time: 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific
    Presenter: Desmond Walls Allen, author of Family History Detective: A Step-by-Step Guide to Investigating Your Family Tree


    Duration: 60 minutes
    Price: FREE!

    REGISTRATION FOR THE LIVE SESSION INCLUDES:
    Participation in the Live presentation and Q&A session
    Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
    A PDF of the presentation slides for future reference

    WHO SHOULD ATTEND
    Anyone who has an interest in family history
    Genealogists looking for general guidance on conducting family history research


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  • brick wall, family historian, family reunions, family tree, Genealogy, preserving photos, research

    101 Brick Wall Busters

    A few months back I took a wonderful course through Family Tree University, called 101 Brick Wall Busters. It is something that happens when researching our family. Records are lost, destroyed in fires, or never even existed. Record keeping wasn’t as wide spread in the early days of our Nation, many areas never kept records until the past century, less in some areas.

    In the age of Technology and instant information, it is shocking to many that there isn’t a data base somewhere with every article of information on our ancestors. The LDS Church has done a wonderful job of gathering many records, but there are still gaps in the research.

    In the course 101 Brick Wall Busters it discusses several ways to find this information or at least find information that can lead you in the right direction.
    I will be touching on a few points each post.

    1. You have to access the problem, what records do you have, what is it that you are trying to find out. Birthplace? Maybe the Date of Birth was left off or the common brick wall of a mothers lineage. For some reason the woman’s line is always incomplete.

    Ask family first, see if a relative ended up with a box of photographs, documents, letters between family, or land deeds. Recently while researching the death of my Grandma’s little brother, I couldn’t find any state records for 1929 of his death. My Great Grandma had given a trunk of paperwork, birth records, love letters between her and Great Grandpa to my Grandma’s sister and now her Daughter has all the information. It was a real break through on proving his death and burial area. The photograph we believed was Grandma with her father and brother standing by a grave was not the grave of her brother, but her Grandfather who passed away in 1926.

    2. Don’t skip any steps, check all records here in the US before venturing overseas. If there are not State or County records, see if the papers of the time have any articles on your ancestors. I recently found a wonderful article written by the Senior Center that my Grandma was active in, honoring her crafts and involvement at the Center. County Fairs, Senior Centers, newspapers are a few places you can look for more information.

    3. Create a time line of their life. Do you know when they lived, who else in your family was around during that time. My Aunt Lovella was my Grandma’s Mother’s youngest sister of seven children. I always referred to her as Aunt, when really she was my Great Great Aunt. Knowing the time line of the family helped when filling out the lineage chart. Other things to know is what sort of things were going on in the world during the time of their life. Was it during War time, there are a lot of War records that can help bridge the gaps.

     Gip and Nancy Akin, with their children.