Mam-ma's Southern Family

I have been scanning like crazy this past week and found the photograph I took of my maternal grandfather's grave marker.  Since it is flat I find it hard to call it a "tombstone" but it still works for this blogging meme. Oakmont Memorial Park, Lafayette, California After finding the photo, I created a memorial at Find-a-Grave which you can see here .  Seeing the marker back when I took the photo gave me information that I did not know.  Tom-Tom (what us grandkids called him) was in the Navy during World War II.  I have since sent for his Naval Service Record. I also took a photo of my daughters next to the marker.  When I added that photo to their scrapbooks, I would draw a little tree showing the relationship from them to the ancestor. Tom J Johnston's great-granddaughters Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family

   One hundred and thirty-nine years ago, William Carl Lancaster was born on July 21, 1873 to parents George Wilson Lancaster and Martha Jane Polly.  He was the oldest child of six and was born in Rockwall, Rockwall county, Texas.  The first census he appears in is the 1880 Rockwall county, Texas. Texas, Rockwall, 1880 U.S. census, Ancestry.com , Digital images (http://www.ancestry.com: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), T9, Rockwall Village, enumeration district (ED) 30, George W. Lancaster, accessed 13 Jul 1995.    He was just seven years old.  He is living also with two of his siblings, Lonnie and Maggie, and his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth S. Lancaster.  His father is a farmer.  His mother is listed as housekeeper, but this is the term used back then for the census to denote that she took care of their home.  The census also listed that William Carl could not read or write, so it is likely he had not yet attended school.   He married Martha Jane Coo

Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family