Mam-ma's Southern Family

I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers. I I am very thankful for my family, our health, and the wonderful ancestors I get to research daily.  The card below was purchased from one of the wonderful postcard collectors. I wish I had cards sent to my ancestors and am envious of those who do have them. What wonderful treasures. Copyright © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

Calling All Genea-Musings Fans It's Saturday Night Again -  Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings tonight is to: 1)   Today's challenge is to "Share something you learned from a probate file or will that you wouldn't have otherwise known about." [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]  Here’s mine: I have a will written by Bryan Kethley of Copiah County, Mississippi on 5 June 1890. Bryan Kethley is the son of John Kethley and Elizabeth Whitfield, and the husband of Sarah Jane Butler, the daughter of Luke Butler and Patience Coor. He is my 4x-great-granduncle, the brother of my 4x-great-grandmother, Ann Kethley, who married John Coor. John and Patience were siblings. I think I need to draw a diagram of that! Synopsis of Will Bryan’s will stated he wanted his estate after all debts and funeral expenses paid, divided in six equal parts. He wanted his three living sons and their heirs to each get a s...

Calling All Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Nigh t Again -  Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)   "Write a 100-word life sketch of one of your 2x-great-grandparents."  [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]  Here's mine: A one-hundred-word story is not very long, but here goes. I did not use AI. Reuben Mack Johnston, born 18 April 1841 in Alabama,  son of Samuel and Elizabeth Johnston, lived in Mississippi as a boy and moved to Titus County, Texas when twenty.  He married twice, first to Catharine Skull and they had four known children. He married second to Olivia Jane Jones on 23 Dec 1879 in Comanche County. They had 13 children. Rueben worked as a farmer, growing Indian corn, cotton, flax, and potatoes, and raising swine, poultry, and cattle.  He died on 4 May 1924 at 83 years. The paper said “Uncle Mack” had been of feeble health and he was “not a me...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)   Share something unexpected that you have found while researching an ancestor.   [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!] Here's mine: I knew my grandfather, Tom J. Johnston, served in the United States Navy during World War II because I have a photo of him in his uniform. He is shown here with my mother. My grandmother saved his wallet after he died in 1971 and gave it to me sometime in the 2000s. One of the cards in the wallet was a Certificate of Discharge. I was excited because I needed his service number to order his military service record. The Navy records did not burn in the 1973 fire at the Personnel Records Office. He was discharged on 17 July 1944 at Farragut, Idaho. It didn’t occur to me then that he was discharged before the end of the war. I placed the order for his recor...

In May of this year, a friend and I took a trip to Dallas, Texas, to spend ten days doing family research. Besides governmental offices, historical societies, and libraries, our trip included trips to cemeteries. We visited six cemeteries in Comanche County, two in Jack County, one in Fannin County, one in Rockwall County, and two in Pontotoc County in Oklahoma. Some of these were for my friend and I don’t have family in Oklahoma or Jack and Fannin County. Even though the markers have images on  Find a Grave , I want my own photos so I can freely use them and not have to take the time to ask permission from the photographer of the image on  Find a Grave . Be sure to take a photo of the entrance with the name of the cemetery before you take photos within the cemetery. Visiting more than one cemetery on a trip will keep the photos separated between cemeteries. Here is a shot of my friend, Jacqueline, taking a photo of a stone of her family. The cemeteries I visited and took phot...

Lela Ann Lancaster, my maternal great-grandmother, died on 17 May 1951. [1] She had died in Wichita Falls, Texas, at the state hospital. The doctor’s handwriting is nearly illegible so the cause of death is difficult to determine. She was conflicted with Parkinson’s Disease which probably contributed to her death. Her funeral was three days later. [2] Lela Ann (left) with Warren, daughter Pansy, granddaughter Lela Nell, and son Wayne, c. 1935 Obituary Tells Story of Life Two obituaries were published on the same day in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune on two different pages. One gave information about her life and the funeral, and the other was about who attended her funeral. The transcription of the first is here: "Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster"    Funeral services for Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster, 55, who died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at a Wichita Falls Hospital, were at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Baptist Church with the Rev. Felix Gresham and the Rev. Ernest Rippetoe officiating...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  When was the last time you visited the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, or visited a local FamilySearch Center? 2)  What record collections are on your To-Do List, whether at the FamilySearch Library, a FamilySearch Center, the Full-Text Search feature online, or Digital Microfilm on the Images, or Catalog Link on the FamilySearch.org website? Here’s mine: This is simple. On the first and third Wednesdays of the month, I volunteer at the Oakland FamilySearch Center from 4-8 pm. If there is no patron to help, then I work on something of my own, either checking locked films or looking at subscription databases on the FamilySearch computers that I do not subscribe to. However, the last time I was on the FamilySearch website was Thursday. I began looking at deed indexes for land records in Lewis County, Ken...

Three deeds in a row, almost all identical, tell the story of farmers in Erath County, Texas, who leased a portion of their land for oil and gas exploration in 1915. Oil Well Drill, Texas Patent 732,925 Portal to Texas History Ebenezer Loveless, George W. Lancaster, and William Carlton Lancaster leased land to the Healdton Oil & Gas Development Company. [1] They received a dollar for the “sole purpose of exploring, mining and operating for oil and gas, and of laying pipelines and of building tanks, powers, stations and structures thereon to produce, save and take care of said products, with right of ingress and egress and all conveniences necessary to said operations.” The company had within a year to demonstrate whether there existed gas or oil in paying quantities in or under the lands, they were to put in a test well and the lease would be valid for five years. If oil or gas was found within that first year, then the lease would remain in effect until the oil or gas was exh...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!!   Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  Have you created a Kinship List for any of your ancestors or relatives in your genealogy software program?  If so, select an Ancestor - say, one of your great-grandparents, and create a Kinship List of all of their descendants.  Or another ancestor further back in time. 2)  Show us your work - how you did it, and the Kinship List generated (at least one page of it). Here’s mine: I followed Randy’s instructions as I have RootsMagic and have never used this report. This is what I did: 1)  On my "People" action page on the left-hand menu, I highlighted Nathan H.O. Polly (1820-1902). He is my maternal 4 th great-grandfather and the 2x-great-grandfather of my Mam-ma. 2)  I clicked on the "Publish" action on the left-hand menu, and then opened "All Re...

It all began with a newspaper article in the Galveston Daily News on 21 February 1893. This article mentioned my ancestor, N.H.O. Polly, a person I have been researching lately and one of whom I tried to locate more information during my recent trip to Texas. Low Hanging Fruit Senator Goss introduced a bill “For the relief of N. H. O. Polly by reimbursing him for losses sustained by reason of Indian depredations in the years 1858, 1859, and 1860.” [1] This one sentence out of a much larger article gave me several pieces of information. I have the dates that Polly lived in Montague County. It is a burned county and any early records of him buying and selling land are gone. I learned that there were Indian problems in those years. Many of the history books talk about the Indian raids and deaths from these. I also learned that the senator who introduced the bill was Goss. Checking the Legislative Reference Library of Texas, I learned Goss’ full name: Demosthenes Franklin Goss (1855-1...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  Again -  Time For Some More  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy of Genea-Musings tonight is to:   1)  Use the FREE FamilySearch Full-Text Search ( https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text ) to find a record for one of your ancestors that is new to you. 2)  Share your results on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post. Here's mine: This tool was announced during RootsTech this winter and I have used it often. Most of the hits I have received have been in deeds. If at home, only hits will return in records that are freely open at home. If the film is restricted to a FamilySearch Center or an affiliate library, then you will not receive a hit. However, you will get a hit at the FSC or library. For today’s exercise, I decided to search in Texas for N.H.O. Polly, a circuit minister who li...

This blog is about my maternal grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster's line. Below are her maternal line that I know of. Me. Lela Nell Johnston (1934 Erath Co, Texas -1992 Contra Costa Co, Calif.) Pansy Louise Lancaster (1913 Erath Co, Texas - 2013 Contra Costa Co, Calif.) Lela Ann Loveless (1896 Faulkner Co, Ark. - 1951 Erath Co, Texas) Eliza A. Rodgers (1854 South Carolina - 1907 Faulkner Co, Ark) Rebecca Waddell (1820s South Carolina - ?? probably in Faulkner Co, Ark) That's it. I get lost in South Carolina, where records are scarce. I'm not even sure of Rebecca's surname. Some hint given to me years ago that I don't have the source of. Here is the line up to Eliza. The only photos I have. Copyright © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

This past week, I have been on a research trip in north Texas researching my Coor, Lancaster, Loveless, Johnston, and Polly families in Comanche, Dallas, Erath, Montague, and Rockwall Counties. I have been successful in locating hints, background information on the periods in which they lived, and actual records of deeds and tax lists. I have also visited cemeteries and photographed my family’s tombstones. For the theme this week, I did an every-word search in my genealogy program and came up with a hint that I had forgotten about. In the Dublin Progress on 20 April 1889 was a “Resolution of Respect” printed about the passing of James Madison Coor. This resolution was given by the Dublin Lodge 504 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (A.F. & A.M.). [1] James Madison “Matt” Coor is my maternal 3x-great-grandfather. He was born on 13 October 1833 in Copiah County, Mississippi. [2] He married Melissa Ann Welch on 9 October 1856 and they had ten children. [3] Ann died in 1876...