Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Wedding Photos, still to come
The photos of the Blair-Tyler Wedding were taken by me on June 5, 2010, but I am having trouble posting them on this Blog, so the rest will come later on, stay tuned. I am having a hard time figuring out the dialong between Picasa and the Blog.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sir James Wright, last Colonial Governor of GA
One of the research projects that I have resumed this year, has been my work with several other genealogists and historians on the ancestry, marriage, and children of Georgia's last Royal Governor, Sir James Wright (1716-1785).
Although I had researched the genealogy of most of Georgia's governors, I had not gotten into the colonial ones. I first got into the Wright story in 2003 and again in 2005 with my friend and fraternity brother, James F. Cook, Ph.D., who wrote the book The Governors of Georgia. The question was, how many children did Gov. Wright have.
In 2007 this came up again, this time with Mary Bondurant Warren of Athens asking the questions due to her series of books on the Governor and Council Journals of Colonial Georgia that she is now about to finish up the volume for 1781. We added Pat Kruger of Charleston SC into the mix for her help on the SC records, where Wright spent his "formative years," as his father was Chief Justice there and Wright married there in 1742. Most recently we have added Greg Brooking, an historian who is working on his Ph.D and plans to write his dissertation on Gov. Wright, which we hope will eventually become a book, long overdue.
One of the issues is Gov. Wright's burial spot in Westminster Abbey in London. It is apparently now (2010) covered up by a temporary snack area or so we have been told.
We have explored the connections of Wright's wife, Sarah Maidman, and her death in 1764 when the ship she was on from Savannah to England sank, with all lost. We have continued to explore the issue of the number, names and history of their children.
With the Internet we have been able to research and prove a lot about them without ever leaving home, at least I have. It is quite amazing what is out there to be found online. You can even purchase and have it downloaded online actual documents from the British National Archives at Kew (formerly called the PRO). We have even been able to get Gov. Wright's will via that process.
So if anyone out there has any real information on Wright's family, or is related--we know there are descendants in South Carolina of Gov. Wright's---get in touch, preferably directly by e-mail above, as I don't often check things on this blog, see previous post.
Although I had researched the genealogy of most of Georgia's governors, I had not gotten into the colonial ones. I first got into the Wright story in 2003 and again in 2005 with my friend and fraternity brother, James F. Cook, Ph.D., who wrote the book The Governors of Georgia. The question was, how many children did Gov. Wright have.
In 2007 this came up again, this time with Mary Bondurant Warren of Athens asking the questions due to her series of books on the Governor and Council Journals of Colonial Georgia that she is now about to finish up the volume for 1781. We added Pat Kruger of Charleston SC into the mix for her help on the SC records, where Wright spent his "formative years," as his father was Chief Justice there and Wright married there in 1742. Most recently we have added Greg Brooking, an historian who is working on his Ph.D and plans to write his dissertation on Gov. Wright, which we hope will eventually become a book, long overdue.
One of the issues is Gov. Wright's burial spot in Westminster Abbey in London. It is apparently now (2010) covered up by a temporary snack area or so we have been told.
We have explored the connections of Wright's wife, Sarah Maidman, and her death in 1764 when the ship she was on from Savannah to England sank, with all lost. We have continued to explore the issue of the number, names and history of their children.
With the Internet we have been able to research and prove a lot about them without ever leaving home, at least I have. It is quite amazing what is out there to be found online. You can even purchase and have it downloaded online actual documents from the British National Archives at Kew (formerly called the PRO). We have even been able to get Gov. Wright's will via that process.
So if anyone out there has any real information on Wright's family, or is related--we know there are descendants in South Carolina of Gov. Wright's---get in touch, preferably directly by e-mail above, as I don't often check things on this blog, see previous post.
Blog Revival 2010
Friends of my poor neglected blog. I know they say there are many blogs out there that have just gone dry and mine is one of them. As the New Year is in full swing now, and I have gotten through the end of 2009- my birthday, the holidays on either side of it, and New Year's, surely I can do better this year, and also probably actually put some genealogy tips on this blog, hence it's name.
I began the year with my annual trip to Sapelo Island in January with the Coastal Study Group, our 22nd visit I think it was this year. I am now having repairs done to my garage due to the Sept 2009 rains in Atlanta area, flood damage when I don't live near water- figure that one out.
There were several things from 2009 that I intended to comment on, and one was the anniversary in August of Hurricane Camille on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in which I participated as a member of the U. S. Air Force stationed there. But alas, I just never got around to my comments.
Hope to better in this new year. My Facebook page is equally neglected. KEN
I began the year with my annual trip to Sapelo Island in January with the Coastal Study Group, our 22nd visit I think it was this year. I am now having repairs done to my garage due to the Sept 2009 rains in Atlanta area, flood damage when I don't live near water- figure that one out.
There were several things from 2009 that I intended to comment on, and one was the anniversary in August of Hurricane Camille on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in which I participated as a member of the U. S. Air Force stationed there. But alas, I just never got around to my comments.
Hope to better in this new year. My Facebook page is equally neglected. KEN
Monday, July 20, 2009
MOON LANDING MEMORIES-40 YEARS LATER
July 20, 2009
Today was a day of memories, with all the talk of the 40th anniversary of the landing of the first men on the moon. Tonight I was able to watch a special on the History Channel, as well as something earlier on CNN with an interview with Buzz Aldrin as he looked at the Google Moon site (who knew there was such? ).
I don't recall my exact feelings, but I was always amazed at our space program and tonight in watching actual footage of the space craft, its amazing they could do that back then and wonder why we can't do so much more now, given all we know how to do. So its even more amazing what was accomplished in 1969.
On July 20, 1969 I was stationed in the U. S. Air Force in Biloxi, Mississippi and had been there since late May I think, and stayed til October, later than planned.
Several friends I had known prior to going in the Air Force were also at Biloxi- Keesler Air Force Base was the name of the base, that summer, besides the guys I met that summer. One of those pre-Air Force friends was Ed King, a PIKA fraternity brother of mine from our four years at Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Ed was in medical school and later became a Medical Doctor and was there for training. He had taken ROTC at Emory and was thus an officer and I enlisted, and because of that we weren't supposed to hang out together, but one of the memorable things we did was go to the enlisted barracks (not sure where) and watch the moon landing together.
Today in watching the retrospectives, it seems they landed on the moon around 3:17 Central Daylight Time- think it was on a Sunday? but they took their time getting off the ship and so the actual moon walking wasn't til around 10 p. m. CDT, since we were in Mississippi. Guess my letters home (which I have) might be a better way to recall my exact feelings that day.
But sadly, Ed King, MD, is not with us today to recall that summer. He died in Israel a few years ago while visiting there with his wife, Barbara, on a church sponsored trip. He had been a doctor in the Federal Prison system I think it was. But had graduated from Emory's Medical School.
The other big event of the summer of 1969 at Biloxi was Hurricane Camille which hit only a few weeks later, causing much damage on the Mississippi coast, and delaying our training for weeks, as I took my first computer course that summer. After all the excitement of a summer in Mississippi, what exciting place did the Air Force send me to? Montgomery, Alabama. More on that in another blog.
My Next Air Force assignment, after Montgomery, was a good one- ENGLAND.
Today was a day of memories, with all the talk of the 40th anniversary of the landing of the first men on the moon. Tonight I was able to watch a special on the History Channel, as well as something earlier on CNN with an interview with Buzz Aldrin as he looked at the Google Moon site (who knew there was such? ).
I don't recall my exact feelings, but I was always amazed at our space program and tonight in watching actual footage of the space craft, its amazing they could do that back then and wonder why we can't do so much more now, given all we know how to do. So its even more amazing what was accomplished in 1969.
On July 20, 1969 I was stationed in the U. S. Air Force in Biloxi, Mississippi and had been there since late May I think, and stayed til October, later than planned.
Several friends I had known prior to going in the Air Force were also at Biloxi- Keesler Air Force Base was the name of the base, that summer, besides the guys I met that summer. One of those pre-Air Force friends was Ed King, a PIKA fraternity brother of mine from our four years at Emory University, Atlanta, GA. Ed was in medical school and later became a Medical Doctor and was there for training. He had taken ROTC at Emory and was thus an officer and I enlisted, and because of that we weren't supposed to hang out together, but one of the memorable things we did was go to the enlisted barracks (not sure where) and watch the moon landing together.
Today in watching the retrospectives, it seems they landed on the moon around 3:17 Central Daylight Time- think it was on a Sunday? but they took their time getting off the ship and so the actual moon walking wasn't til around 10 p. m. CDT, since we were in Mississippi. Guess my letters home (which I have) might be a better way to recall my exact feelings that day.
But sadly, Ed King, MD, is not with us today to recall that summer. He died in Israel a few years ago while visiting there with his wife, Barbara, on a church sponsored trip. He had been a doctor in the Federal Prison system I think it was. But had graduated from Emory's Medical School.
The other big event of the summer of 1969 at Biloxi was Hurricane Camille which hit only a few weeks later, causing much damage on the Mississippi coast, and delaying our training for weeks, as I took my first computer course that summer. After all the excitement of a summer in Mississippi, what exciting place did the Air Force send me to? Montgomery, Alabama. More on that in another blog.
My Next Air Force assignment, after Montgomery, was a good one- ENGLAND.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
NAMES-WHO WERE THEY NAMED FOR?
Recently I have been working on my Hudson line, my oldest Georgia line. I have no doubt I descend from Hall Hudson, Sr., who came to Georgia in 1766 and applied for land in 1767 and lived in what became Burke and Jefferson Counties until at least 1825 when he registered for the future Land Lottery (not held til 1827) as an indigent Revolutionary War veteran. He was at least 80 then and died before the 1830 Census was taken, by which time his wife had moved with a younger son, Andrew Hudson, to Laurens Co., Georgia, where she died in 1836.
But the bigger question is Hall Hudson's son, Richard Hudson, Sr., (c. 1775-1837) who died in Jefferson Co., Georgia, leaving a will. He named 16 children in his will, and one more was born after his death, making a total of 17 with at least two wives. Not a single child that survived--and its hard to imagine with 17 that you could have had too many others--not a single child was named for his supposed father, Hall. But then Richard's brothers Hampton, Isaac, and James also had no surviving sons named for Hall.
Why was this? Did they not like their father? Or perhaps did not want to name a son Hall, because of their other brother, Hall, Jr., who may or may not have been a bad egg, but he was murdered in 1834 in Laurens Co., GA, and the man who was tried for the murder was acquitted, telling us something, not sure what.
So maybe our ancestors did not pass on family names because they just didn't like the ancestor or didn't like others with that name that might have felt they were being honored with a namesake. My ancestor Richard did name his two older sons, Hampton and Isaac, for his two brothers, so he must have liked them.
Richard named his youngest son by his first wife, the son that is my ancestor, Alford/Alfred Lawson Hudson- he moved to Houston CO., GA c. 1837 and married there Mary Jane Parker, and died there c. 1857. She and their children moved on to Columbus, Georgia, shortly thereafter. But we do not know for whom Alford Lawson Hudson was named-he was the first one to have a middle name- and Lawson was a well-known family in Jefferson County, legislator/congressman or whatever. Richard also named one of his nine children by his second wife Roger Lawson Gamble Hudson after another member of the Lawson family. But were they related?
Another naming of a child that has come up in this research is that of the Parsons family who lived next door to the Hudsons for decades. Thomas Parsons died leaving a will in 1820s in Jefferson Co., GA. His son Thomas Alexander Parsons (1814-1872) died in Johnson CO., GA. But he had married Malvina Jones, daughter of Henry Philip Jones, the owner of Birdsville Plantation,now in Jenkins County. They named a son after her father but did not give him the surname as a middle name, calling him simply Henry Philip Parsons- so if you were a descendant trying to find the namesake, that guy got shortchanged.
In my Willis family in Georgia, Robert L. Willis (he lived in Jasper and Putnam Counties) and Isabel Frazer had six children, but the one named for the wife's father, Arthur Frazer of Lincoln CO., GA, died young, and thus that name was not found in later public records, had it been, the jump back to his line would have been easy. The son who was my ancestor, Littleberry Kinnebrew Willis (1812-1880) married Nancy Motley and had 15 children and not a one had the Frazer name of his mother, the closest they came was a son named Zebulon Arthur Willis, carrying on the Arthur name, but not Frazer. So you never know how your ancestors chose the names for their children, so beware when you jump to conclusions as to what might be a family surname clue. (The Willises with the 15 children didn't repeat her Mother's family surname of BARBEE either.)
On a similar matter- do you know for whom you were named? How have you picked the names for your own children? Have you recorded the choices for futured generations?
But the bigger question is Hall Hudson's son, Richard Hudson, Sr., (c. 1775-1837) who died in Jefferson Co., Georgia, leaving a will. He named 16 children in his will, and one more was born after his death, making a total of 17 with at least two wives. Not a single child that survived--and its hard to imagine with 17 that you could have had too many others--not a single child was named for his supposed father, Hall. But then Richard's brothers Hampton, Isaac, and James also had no surviving sons named for Hall.
Why was this? Did they not like their father? Or perhaps did not want to name a son Hall, because of their other brother, Hall, Jr., who may or may not have been a bad egg, but he was murdered in 1834 in Laurens Co., GA, and the man who was tried for the murder was acquitted, telling us something, not sure what.
So maybe our ancestors did not pass on family names because they just didn't like the ancestor or didn't like others with that name that might have felt they were being honored with a namesake. My ancestor Richard did name his two older sons, Hampton and Isaac, for his two brothers, so he must have liked them.
Richard named his youngest son by his first wife, the son that is my ancestor, Alford/Alfred Lawson Hudson- he moved to Houston CO., GA c. 1837 and married there Mary Jane Parker, and died there c. 1857. She and their children moved on to Columbus, Georgia, shortly thereafter. But we do not know for whom Alford Lawson Hudson was named-he was the first one to have a middle name- and Lawson was a well-known family in Jefferson County, legislator/congressman or whatever. Richard also named one of his nine children by his second wife Roger Lawson Gamble Hudson after another member of the Lawson family. But were they related?
Another naming of a child that has come up in this research is that of the Parsons family who lived next door to the Hudsons for decades. Thomas Parsons died leaving a will in 1820s in Jefferson Co., GA. His son Thomas Alexander Parsons (1814-1872) died in Johnson CO., GA. But he had married Malvina Jones, daughter of Henry Philip Jones, the owner of Birdsville Plantation,now in Jenkins County. They named a son after her father but did not give him the surname as a middle name, calling him simply Henry Philip Parsons- so if you were a descendant trying to find the namesake, that guy got shortchanged.
In my Willis family in Georgia, Robert L. Willis (he lived in Jasper and Putnam Counties) and Isabel Frazer had six children, but the one named for the wife's father, Arthur Frazer of Lincoln CO., GA, died young, and thus that name was not found in later public records, had it been, the jump back to his line would have been easy. The son who was my ancestor, Littleberry Kinnebrew Willis (1812-1880) married Nancy Motley and had 15 children and not a one had the Frazer name of his mother, the closest they came was a son named Zebulon Arthur Willis, carrying on the Arthur name, but not Frazer. So you never know how your ancestors chose the names for their children, so beware when you jump to conclusions as to what might be a family surname clue. (The Willises with the 15 children didn't repeat her Mother's family surname of BARBEE either.)
On a similar matter- do you know for whom you were named? How have you picked the names for your own children? Have you recorded the choices for futured generations?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
YOUR WILL/ YOUR ANCESTORS's WILLS
February 12, 2009- Georgia Day
Have you written a will? Recently a fraternity brother died, age 63, and no will has yet been found. No one can verify that they ever saw a will, although one man thought he had been designated executor, but he has no legal role unless a will is found.
Have you ever wondered about your ancestors and why you can't find a will for them? Maybe they never got around to it either. Some wills burned up in courthouse fires, so we don't know what our ancestors might have said.
Some wills are quite convoluted, like the one written by my ancestor George Brewer in Putnam Co., Ga, in 1810, in which he names various children that he "assigns" to his several daughters. Were they the daughters' children? or the children of a deceased daughter? It pays to always make a full copy of a will to read and put in your files, DON'T RELY on the ABSTRACT. We found a will in Augusta where the abstracted copy left out an entire child.
One friend who died in the 1990s left each of his friends--many of whom were his frequent dinner companions-- a percentage of his estate, making it a very unusual probate.
Everyone today needs to write a will and let someone know where it is. You can always update it later. If you have family items, make a list of who should get them. If you have genealogy or other research papers, or any collectibles, make sure you designate someone who cares about your stuff to be in charge. Don't rely on your next of kin to necessarily know what to do- if you think they will, go to the nearest flea market and see the stuff on sale there, stuff that a family member decided to trash.
Don't delay, as your ancestors probably did in their day, or just never got around to it, much to our dismay as genealogists.
REFERENCES: An upcoming article in the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly will cover Georgia's Probate laws from the old Court of Ordinary, now the Probate Court. An early Probate/Ordinary Court's Clerk's Guide from 1829 is posted on the society's website in the Members' Section. See www.gagensociety.org for info on the society and the members' area.
KHTjr
Have you written a will? Recently a fraternity brother died, age 63, and no will has yet been found. No one can verify that they ever saw a will, although one man thought he had been designated executor, but he has no legal role unless a will is found.
Have you ever wondered about your ancestors and why you can't find a will for them? Maybe they never got around to it either. Some wills burned up in courthouse fires, so we don't know what our ancestors might have said.
Some wills are quite convoluted, like the one written by my ancestor George Brewer in Putnam Co., Ga, in 1810, in which he names various children that he "assigns" to his several daughters. Were they the daughters' children? or the children of a deceased daughter? It pays to always make a full copy of a will to read and put in your files, DON'T RELY on the ABSTRACT. We found a will in Augusta where the abstracted copy left out an entire child.
One friend who died in the 1990s left each of his friends--many of whom were his frequent dinner companions-- a percentage of his estate, making it a very unusual probate.
Everyone today needs to write a will and let someone know where it is. You can always update it later. If you have family items, make a list of who should get them. If you have genealogy or other research papers, or any collectibles, make sure you designate someone who cares about your stuff to be in charge. Don't rely on your next of kin to necessarily know what to do- if you think they will, go to the nearest flea market and see the stuff on sale there, stuff that a family member decided to trash.
Don't delay, as your ancestors probably did in their day, or just never got around to it, much to our dismay as genealogists.
REFERENCES: An upcoming article in the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly will cover Georgia's Probate laws from the old Court of Ordinary, now the Probate Court. An early Probate/Ordinary Court's Clerk's Guide from 1829 is posted on the society's website in the Members' Section. See www.gagensociety.org for info on the society and the members' area.
KHTjr
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