Mam-ma's Southern Family

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Famil y or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster, had three younger brothers: Rayburn Dinion (R.D.), Carl Jr., and Elda Wayne (Teensy) Lancaster. [1] Carl lived only six days after his pre-mature birth, and is buried in Upper Greens Creek Cemetery in Erath County, Texas. [2] Her brother, R.D. was seven years younger and Teensy was another seven years younger. In fact, my mother was born another seven years after Teensy. My grandmother finished high school and then married in 1933. Both brothers attended college after high school. Perhaps because they were both boys, they each got the opportunity to attend college, or perhaps finances were better later in the 1930s and 40s. R.D. played basketball and footb...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. I have already written about my current challenge of trying to solve the origins and parents of Samuel Johnston (1816-1869) here and here . I just returned from attending the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh , abbreviated GRIP, where I attended the week-long class, “Tools and Strategies for Tackling Tough Research Problems,” coordinated by Kimberly Powell and included instructors, Angela Packer McGhie, Karen Stanbary, and Karen Mauer Jones. You can read about the course on the above link. I brought this problem to the course. Our pre-class instructions were to pick a tough problem and write it up to share with other classmates. I had attempted to do that—many times even—because I hav...