My Serendipity Moment

My friend Susan LeBlanc frequently writes about serendipity moments for her blog, Gopher Genealogy. I experienced a serendipity moment myself recently. In a previous post “Just One Thing” I wrote about how learning one last name led to an abundance of information about the family of Sally Maud Minton Beaman, a family I have been researching for years. I thought Maud’s mother, Susan Alice Farrington, must have died some time after the 1910 Rockingham County, North Carolina, census as I was unable to find any more references to her.

To Mingo We Come Creeping

To Mingo We Come Creeping

The Redneck War on Blair Mountain

On a hot summer day in 1921 Clyde Herbert Eastham kissed his young wife and children goodbye and marched out the door of his cramped coal camp cabin to join thousands of other West Virginia miners in a strike that had the attention of the entire country. All day the men walked, bound together by a common cause. “Every drop of blood and every dollar of the union will be spent in the attempt to lift martial law in Mingo County”, swore Frank Keeney, district president of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).1 The rag-tag miners’ army swelled to as many as 15,000 men as they marched on, spread eight miles along Lens Creek, ready to march through Logan to Mingo County and avenge the death of Sid Hatfield.2

Southern Appalachian Speech

Originally published April 2012
This past Saturday, my local genealogy society, the Genealogical Forum of Oregon, was fortunate to have J. Mark Lowe as the speaker for our spring seminar. He is a talented and engaging speaker and we all enjoyed his presentations. It makes for a great day when you can laugh as you learn.

After the seminar several of our group had dinner with Mark, and we shared a delightful evening. We talked shop, of course, and he entertained us with many of his family stories. I come from a family of southern storytellers so I especially enjoyed his.

At one point during the evening, the conversation turned to the speech of the Southern Appalachian region. I said something like “they were just piddlin’ around” which Mark caught right away. We talked about other terms we used or were familiar with like you all, y’all and you-uns. Mark explained you-uns was used in a section of Eastern Tennessee and was of Scots-Irish origin. We discussed the fact that the local dialects are being lost, especially with the advent of television and the internet, and unfortunately, because people poke fun at us hill folk.

Coming Soon: 1940 U.S. census

On April 2, 2012, digital images of the 1940 U.S. census will be available, for free, at http://1940census.archives.gov. There are no indexes as yet; that will come later. But there are ways to access the pages for the people you want to find and you can prepare now.

The NARA website has lots of good census information and suggestions to prepare for the arrival of the census. Without an index you need to know the address and enumeration district (ED) of the families you want to find. If you don’t know the address you might look in city directories, the 1930 census, or other records available to you that would have an address. You can find enumeration maps at http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/finding-aids.html#mapsor.

Writing for a Genealogical Periodical

Genealogists often hesitate to submit articles to genealogy publications. Yes, some like the National Genealogical Society Quarterly might be intimidating, but there are many other possibilities. Smaller and less well known genealogical organizations sometimes struggle to fill the pages of their periodicals and appreciate new contributors and a variety of topics.
 

What publications should you consider? Start with local groups, especially the ones you belong to; some accept submissions from members only. Look to organizations and societies in areas where you research too. If you write about Kentucky ancestors, for example, consider Kentucky publications. Many accept submissions if they reflect the history or families of the region. 

My favorite “Idol” moment.

Did you see the Genealogy Idol Competition at Roots Tech last week?  If not, you can watch courtesy of Legacy Family Tree at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp#archives.

Elizabeth Clark, Elyse Doerflinger, Michael Hait and Marian Pierre-Louis had three minutes to present their favorites in each of three categories: technology tip, serendipity moment and website.They all did a great job; the results were close, but Marian Pierre-Louis was the winner chosen by the audience.

However, my favorite was Michael Hait’s use of Microsoft Word auto-text for CITATIONS!  How did I not know this? Better than copy and paste; type it once, save in auto-text and it’s yours forever.  Before the broadcast I had typed about 30 citations for a ProGen assignment. Yes, they should have already been done, but that’s another story. Never again. I saved them all to auto-text for the next assignment.

Just One Thing

Just one thing. Sometimes that all it takes to rocket you into the past. One little detail can make all the difference. In this case it was a name. Ellington.

The Minton family of Rockingham County, North Carolina, was a frustration to me. I knew that Sally Maud Minton Beaman (1890-1972) was from North Carolina. She met and married Oscar Wakefield Beaman (1888-1975) there, then moved to West Virginia. I had lots of Beaman data, but the Minton family eluded me.

Years ago, before the proliferation of online information, I located the family in North Carolina, in both the 1900 and 1910 U.S. census. I was sure it was Maud’s family; the little information I had fit the census listing. I knew that Sally Maud had two brothers, Giles and Plummer. What puzzled me- there was no Mame in the census. Maud had a sister named Mame, or Mamie, as she was fondly called. I know for certain she lived in Huntington, West Virginia, during the 1950s and 1960s; I know the house she lived in. The females of the family in the 1900 Rockingham County, North Carolina, census are Susan A., the wife, and daughters Lessie, Mary E. and Sallie M. Where was Mame? 

You don't know what you don't know, until you know it.

I’m currently researching and writing a Civil War story involving the Beaman, Cranford, Hulin, Hurley, and Moore families of Montgomery County, North Carolina. At the onset of the war many of them were members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church They were hard working farmers who owned no slaves; their loyalties and beliefs were strongly tested by the war. In the Piedmont area of North Carolina violence became commonplace as a result of these beliefs, and led to persecution and murder. The story of outliers and Home Guard, conscription and desertion, culminating in the murder of three Hulin brothers is the story I am researching.