Mam-ma's Southern Family

Our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is: 1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 19 July 1914 - 100 years ago. 2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist? 3)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post. I’ll start with my maternal line: My great grandparents, Thomas Newton Johnston (1885-1951) and Nell L. Hutson (1888-1919) were living in Gustine, Comanche County, Texas. Their eldest son, my grandfather, Tom J. Johnston Jr, (1912-1973) was living with them. Thomas Newton Johnston’s parents, Reuben Mack Johnston (1841-1924) and Olivia Jane Jones (1859-1914) were also living in Gustine, Comanche County, Texas. Olivia died later that year on 11 Dec. Nell L. Hutson’s p...

Here’s another great challenge from Randy Seaver of Genea-musing.  You can see his blog post here . 1) We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight... 2) Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the very first person on your list of C surnames is. Or the first person on your list of J surnames. Or P surnames. Or any other name you need to research. Your choice! 3) What do you know (or not know) about this person based on your research? It's OK to do more research if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged! 4) How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree? 5) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post. This seemed like fun. I tried picking some letters in my RootsMagic program but kept coming up with people who were still alive, which I don’t want to wri...

This is week 18 of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge” by Amy Crow from  No Story Too Small .  I am a bit behind but intend to catch up. This week I’m writing about Ellis W. Lancaster, who was my maternal fourth great-grandfather. In his lifetime, he lived in four states: Virginia , where he was born on 7 Jul 1808; Shelby Co, Kentucky where he was married on 10 Jun 1831 to Elizabeth S. Neel; Missouri, where his eight children were all born; and Kaufman Co, Texas , where he died shortly before 13 Sep 1866. [1] Ellis was most likely named after the maiden name of his mother, Sarah Ellis. Ellis’ father was Robert Lancaster. As stated above, Ellis married Elizabeth S. Neel in Shelby Co, Kentucky and they moved to Missouri shortly after that, as evidence by their first born child, Sarah A. Lancaster, was born 11 April 1832 in Missouri. [2]   The following children were: James R. Lancaster, born Sep 1835, death unknown William T Lancaster, born...