The Manis Clan

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As far as I have been able to find out the Manis family did start out as a clan.  They were Scottish and they started with the name Manus.  They were a part of the Clan Gun Manus.

In studying the Manis family, I have found more news stories than I expected.  

My 3 great grandfather was abused by his third wife and youngest daughter.  The abuse brought on his death.   It was written about in the Anderson paper.

I have also found articles on Perry Manis,   He was my 1 cousin 4X removed.  He committed a murder.  He abducted a woman and killed her.  They didn't find her body for a while.  After he was in jail, he attempted jail break, but was caught.  The murder happened in Terre Haute, Indiana, but was even published about in the New York Times.

Recently, I have found 2 more accounts of Manis's committing murder or at least killing someone.  In one account two young men get in an argument and one shoots the other.  Apparently in self-defense.  The main witness was the brother of the man doing the shooting.

The second murder was a man, Lester Manis, who threw his wife out of the car and killed her.  He left her laying on the road.  He told his son that his mother fell out of the car.  

With these two Manis's I am still working on them and their family connection.  I know they are connected.  They came from the same area as my 3 great grandfather's brother, Carter Manis.  The town was very small, it still isn't large.  I am sure they are related.

There is more work to do one these last two stories, but I am amazed at what all I have found on the Manis family.  Thank goodness some of these are distantly related.  It does add color to the family tree and the information if easily found.   I'm just happy that it didn't occur in my direct line.

Family Research in Anderson, Indiana

I went to Anderson, Indiana to do some research the other day.  I found it to be different than the other places I have gone.  

At the Department of Health in Anderson, they will not let you look at the books.  They make you fill out a request form with the information and they will look it up for you.  I was a little disappointed.  The other places I have been have allowed me access to the books.  

They allow 5 requests per visit.  They will only do look-ups from 9-11 in the mornings and from 2:30-3 in the afternoons.  They charge $5 for the 5 look-ups.  If you want certificates they are $10.00 each.

I was able to get some information.

I found a death record for my 2nd Great Grand Aunt Orlena Manis Crickmore.  It had her father, my 3rd Great Grandfather listed, and his place of birth as Tennessee, which corroborated other information that I had for him.  It also listed her husband, Wash F. Crickmore.  I had found a marriage record for the two of them, I had heard that they had split up, but he was still listed on her death record.  She died from Tuberculosis of the Lungs.

I also found a death record from my 3rd Great Grandfather, Joseph Manis's 3rd wife.  The book that would have had the death record for Joseph was missing.  

I also found records for the youngest children of Joseph Manis.  He was 55 and 58 when they were born.

Herman Haskins Manis and Ada Alice Manis Scott both lived into the 1960's.  So my 2nd great grand aunt and uncle were still alive when I was a young teenager.  I wish I had been able to track them before they died.  That would have been interesting.  

I went to the Anderson Public Library and found some obituaries on microfilm.  

I was able to find a story about the death of Joseph Manis.  I had seen the story in the past, but this was the first time I had actually seen it in the original newspaper.  I found obituaries on Herman Manis, Ada Manis, and Elmer Crickmore.  Elmer was the son of Orlena Crickmore, Joseph's daughter from his first marriage.

Here is the Joseph Manis story.

Who Do You Think You Are?? - Anderson, Indiana

Who Do You Think You Are?

The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Indiana has just started a new series that will trace the genealogy of some of Madison County, Indiana's better known citizens.  

Beth Oljace, a librarian and genealogist, who works at the Indiana Room at the Anderson Public Library is the writer of the series and I believe the main researcher.

I have spent time at the library and Beth is always a major help with any research.

The series researches the family history of the Mayor of Anderson, Kevin Smith.

She has broken down the research to show his father's Smith line, and his mother's Althouse line.

On his father's family line they were traced back to Elijah Conn, a Civil War veteran, who served for seven months with the Ohio 194th Infantry.

On his mother's family line they were traced to several people with connections to the Revolutionary War.  There is a possibility that they were related to Ethan Allen.

If you need information in the Madison County/Anderson area, Beth is a great person to contact to help you with your research.

I think it is really exciting that shows like Who Do You Think Your Are have been generating more interest in searching for family history.  

I would love to have added the article from the newspaper, but I do not want to violate copyright laws.  Here is the link to the online version.

A Family History Research Trip!!

My son and I went to Richmond, Indiana, yesterday to search for information on my family history.  My mother's family spent a few generations in the Richmond area.  My mother moved away from the area with my father.  We visited the Morrison Reaves Public Library there.

The Morrison Reaves Library has a nice section on research materials for family history.  We spent time going through Newspaper Index books for the years 1872-1888.  

In going through the books I found some information.  My great grandmother, Lulu Pickett Hoover,  filed a lawsuit against a man for breach of contract.  Apparently he was promised to marry her and he went off and married another woman.  By the time the case went to court he also had a child with the woman.  My great grandmother, Lulu Pickett, had sued for $3,000.00.  When it came to trial she chose to take $150.00.

Lulu's brother, William H. Pickett, also sued a trespasser for $15.00 and he was granted the money;.

I didn't have time to go to the courthouse to check out these records and she if there was more information on the two cases.  

Is is normal to be able to find information on cases like this? 

I found where my great, great grandfather, Henderson Gibson, was informed that he had a letter waiting for him in General Delivery.  There was no other information.

My great grandfather, Frank Hoover, was married three times.  His first wife died from Typhoid shortly after they were married.  His second wife died within a couple of years of marriage, but not before giving birth to a child, Emma Hoover.  Emma died at 3 months of age.  I was able to find out about Emma for the first time yesterday, by going through the death indexes at the library.  I have been told that Frank had a son named, John.  I have not been able to find any information on John.  My older cousin remembers writing letters to him in California when she was younger.  She lost contact with him at one point and was never able to find him again.

Frank next married Lulu, who apparently had gotten over being jilted by then.  They had three children then Frank died when the children were very young. 

We left the library after a few hours and decided to make a stop at Earlham Cemetery.  My brother had taken pictures there in the past, but my son and I had never been there to find graves.  I did stop one day when I was going through Richmond and was able to go through the files of burial records and photographed all that I found.  Some of those had causes of death and other information.

This time we decided we didn't have time to look for all the graves so we chose to search for my great, great grandfather Lester (Pop) Mannis.  The directions the caretakers office gave were not the easiest to follow.  We went different directions and searched through the stones to find the graves we were looking for.  My son called me when he found the makers and told me where to find him.

We found Lester buried next to his second wife, Augusta, and on the other side of her is her son from a previous marriage.  

In previous photos that we had received we were not able to read the stone very well.  This time, we cleaned the grave off a little and we were able to read the entire stone.  It photographed pretty well, too.  We were able to find the squadron information that he had served in during World War 1.  This is new information and will give us something new to search for.  He was private in the S72 Aero Squadron.  If anyone has any information on how to get any records from the military service, I would love to know how to do more research.

We had spent the better part of a day driving to the area, visiting the library, and then stopping by the cemetery.  It was time to head home, and see what information we could dig up with what we found.  

I hope to make future trips to Richmond and have time to go through more records.

Could My Blog Be Bringing Family Members Around?

I haven't had much time to do family history research or blogging lately.  I have been away for a while.  I have been very busy with life.  My son just graduated a couple of weeks ago.  I have been busy with baseball season, prom and graduation.  We have lots to do to get him off to college.

They great thing is I have still been having people reading my blog every day even though I haven't been posting for a while.  

I started my blog about 6 months ago. I haven't posted consistently for about 3 months.  I have lots of family information posted.  Over the first 3 months I had posted about 130 times.

As of today, I reached 10,000 page views.  I have been averaging around 800 page views a month even though I haven't posted anything new.  That means that every time someone views my blog I have the potential to meet someone with some family information that I haven't yet found.  

It is amazing to me that I have still been having a consistent viewing by so many people.  

If you are considering starting a blog to record your family stories, I would say it is well worth it.

I have my stories recorded, and I certainly intend to record more of them.  I have to do more research and I am hoping to have time to work on it his summer.  My stories will be recorded for my grandchildren and future descendants.  The potential for someone to discover a connection and me being able to work with them also keeps me excited about blogging.

Wordless Wednesday - The Aunts

Aunt Ruth with Barbara, Aunt Dorothy with Bobby, 

Aunt Pauline, and Aunt Betty.

Taken around 1936 or 1937

Wordless Wednesday - Family Together

Grandpa, Four of his daughters, and some Grandchildren.

Wordless Wednesday - What year is this?

BETTY HOOVER RAMEY

Wordless Wednesday - The Little Girls With Their Big Sister

THREE SISTERS

The Picketts or Piggotts migrated from England to Indiana, via Maryland and North Carolina.

I am back from vacation!  We spent a week being lazy and hanging out at the beach.  I didn't get time to do any genealogy.  I will be back to work on it this week.

Today, I am writing about the Piggotts.  I have traced my line of Piggotts to the Sussex area of England in the early 1600's.  My 6th great grandfather, John Piggott,  moved his family to America and my 5th great grandfather was born in Cecil, Maryland.  This Piggott line were Quakers.  

My 5th great grandfather, Benjamin Piggott, moved to Orange, North Carolina where my 4th great grandfather was born.  

My 4th great grandfather, Joshua Piggott, raised his family in Orange, North Carolina, where his son Joshua, my 3rd great grandfather, was born.

My 3rd great grandfather, Joshua Piggott,  moved to Randolph County, in Indiana, where his son Benjamin N. Pickett was born in 1827. 

My 2nd great grandfather, Benjamin N. Pickett, from a long line of Quakers, married my 2nd great grandmother, Martha Jane Eccles, who also had descended from her own line of Quakers.  I believe this is where the Piggotts started using the Pickett name.  

It has been difficult to trace the correct line of Pickett/Piggott's because it seems that most lines named one of their son's Benjamin.  So there are several cousins with the name Benjamin.  My 2nd great grandfather used Benjamin N. to identify himself, but sometimes the person writing the name down did not use the N.  One the Piggotts came to Indiana there is a large group that stayed in the Randolph/Wayne county area of Indiana.  My Pickett line stayed in Wayne County up until my mother left Wayne County to marry my father.

If you have Piggott/Picketts in that area we are probably related.

Wordless Wednesday - Home on Leave During World War II

Betty Hoover Ramey and her husband and child.

Family History - Collecting Stories

This holiday weekend is a good chance for people to get together with family members.  When the family is together as a group it is an excellent time to collect family history.  It's a great time to get people talking about their memories.  I know historians are concerned about the history of long dead ancestors, but there a family stories that aren't so old.  The stories of family members that are still living needs to be written down now while they can tell their own stories.  We all wish those that have died would have written down more for us, so we need to be getting things that have happened to the people that are living now for their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and beyond.

A great way to do that is to record their stories on video or audio and they can later be written up too.
My older siblings are getting up in age and I had a scare with my older sister a few months back and I realized there is still so much that I need to learn from her.  She is 15 years older than me and she remembers so many stories with my parents that I have never heard.  I have been trying to get my older siblings to start talking and telling me there memories.  When they get together in a group they start talking and one person remembers something and that jogs the memories of the others and before long they just start telling all kinds of stories.  If I don't record these stories while they are still here all those stories will be lost.

I have several older cousins and I really need to spend time recording their memories.  It is great how each family has different stories from their parents about special memories of our grandparents.

Holidays are a special family time so it makes for a great time to talk to people about their own special piece of your family history.  Someday you children and grandchildren will be saying Thank You.

Easter is Family Time

Happy Easter to all of you. I hope you are enjoying the holiday with you family. If you don't celebrate Easter than I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

When I grew up with my parents we started Easter Sunday with a sunrise service. They wanted everyone to have time during the day with their families. Holidays were a fun time in a large family.
There was lots of food and many family members around. The Holidays bring back many thoughts of my parents.

Fearless Females - Hoover Family History Trading Card

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 29.

March 29 — Create a free Fold3 Memorial Page or a Genealogy Trading Card at Big Huge Labs for a female ancestor. Some of you may have created your own card back in September 2009 following Sheri Fenley’s post over at The Educated Genealogist. This time, the card is for your female ancestor. Tell us about who you've selected and why and then post a link to what you've created.

I decided to make a trading card of my Great Grandmother.  She was my grandfather's mother.  My mom grew up next door to her, so they were very clost.

Fearless Females - The Quaker Life

Lydia Melinda Eccles, my 2nd great grand aunt was born in North Carolina on November 9, 1818.  Her mother, Rachel Huddleston Eccles and her father, John P. Eccles were married in North Carolina.  When her mother married her father, her mother was dismissed from the Quaker church because she married out of union.  

That meant that she married someone who was not a member or the Quaker religion or that she had not received permission from the church to marry or some other unacceptable reason for the church to decline permission.  

When a Quaker man and woman wanted to marry, the parents were first consulted and, if they approved, the couples intentions were announced at the women's meeting and note regarding their proposal was sent to the men's meeting.  A committee was appointed to ascertain the couples "clearness" for marriage.  

I don't know what year Lydia's mother brought the children to Ohio.  Lydia's grandmother and aunts and uncles had already moved to Ohio, when Lydia's father left home.  Lydia's uncle Jonathan walked back to North Carolina to bring the family to Ohio.

Lydia was probably a teenager when she left North Carolina and went to Ohio with her family.  In, Ohio, she married John Hobson Stubbs in Preble County, Ohio.  Later, they moved to nearby Butler County, Ohio.

The Stubbs family were very strong Quakers.  Lydia's sister Mary Louisa also married a member of the Stubbs family. There was a large contingent of Quakers in the Preble and Butler Counties area.  Another large group were in the Richmond, Indiana area.  The two areas were not that far apart.  

John Stubbs had 10 children with his first wife before she died.  After he and Lydia married they had 12 children.  They lived in the West Elkton area and attended the West Elkton monthly meeting.  Their home in Ohio was the Friends parsonage.  The home was on the "Historical Walking Tour of West Elkton, Ohio."   The home harbored slaves moving north.

In 1876, Lydia and John married to Boone County, Indiana.  Lydia's mother moved with them.   In Boone County they attended the Sugar Creek monthly meeting.  

Lydia was a good Quaker during her entire adult life.  She died December 15, 1889.  She is buried beside her husband in the Sugar Creek Friends Cemetery.  Her mother is also buried there.

This is the 1850 Census from Preble County, Ohio.  My 2 Great Grandparents are listed, as well as, 2 of my 2nd Great Grandaunts, and my 3rd Great Grandmother.  

Wordless Wednesday - The Postcard

Postcard from Anna J Stubbs to her Aunt Jennie Eccles Irwin.

Fearless Females - A Family Resemblance!

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 24.  

March 24 — Do you share any physical resemblance or personality trait with one of your female ancestors? Who? What is it?

For a long time people told me I looked like my Mom.  I think I look more like my Dad.  I don't know if I have a mixture of the two.  

I am going to post some pictures of the females from my mom's family so you can see what you think.

Me

My Great Grandmother, My Grandfather's Mom

My Grandmother, My Mom's Mom                My Mom

My Sister, Who I believe looks like my Grandmother.

Do you think there is any family resemblance in there anywhere?

Fearless Females - A Supportive Mother

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 25.  

March 25 — Tell how a female ancestor interacted with her children. Was she loving or supportive? A disciplinarian? A bit of both?


My mother, Shirley Hoover Plummer, was not really the disciplinarian, she counted on dad for that.  There were times though when you crossed the line that she could really be tough on you.  

Normally, my mother was very supportive and understanding.  She was the mother that you could go to and talk about things.  

Mom was the one that everyone counted on when anything went wrong.  She made each of her children feel like they were the favorite.  It's funny now when we get together and talk about her everyone loved her very much, but they all have different memories that are important to them.  

I hope that I have been able to carry on the things I was taught about parenting with my children.  Most important is to love them and make them feel special.   It didn't matter what you did, she still loved you.  She would sometimes be disappointed, but that didn't affect how much she loved you.

My mother felt that raising her children in church was very important.  

Fearless Females - Create a Timeline

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 23.  I have gotten a little behind in the last week so I am trying to go back and catch up.


March 23 — Create a timeline for a female ancestor using your favorite software program or an online timeline generator such as OurTimelines.Post an image of it or link.

I created a Timeline Report for my 3rd Great Grandmother, Rachel Huddleston using Family Treemaker 2012.  It is the software that I use to keep my family tree.

Fearless Females - My Brick Wall -Will It Ever Come Down

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 20.  I have gotten a little behind in the last week so I am trying to go back and catch up.

March 20 — Is there a female ancestor who is your brick wall? Why? List possible sources for finding more information.

I have several brick walls, but since I have been researching for just about a year, that is to be expected.  I know there are people who have been researching most of their lives and still have brick walls.

My great-great grandmother was Milly Mathews Gibson.  Her mother is my brick wall.  I know she married Samuel Mathews.  On her daughter's marriage certificate she is listed as Polly.  On the censuses she is listed as Mary.  I don't know for sure if she is the same person.  I have seen that Polly was a nickname for Mary in those days.  I believe she is the same, but I not been able to find her maiden name on anything.

I really don't know where to go from here.  I am not sure if there are any records for her other daughter's marriages that might have a maiden name listed for her.  

If anyone has any suggestions on how to find a women born in Virginia in about 1815, I would love to hear them.  I haven't been able to go any further back on her husband either, even though I have his last name.

Fearless Females - Learning A Surprising Fact

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 19.  I have gotten a little behind in the last week so I am trying to go back and catch up.


March 19 — Have you discovered a surprising fact about one of your female ancestors? What was it and how did you learn it? How did you feel when you found out?

When I began my research I didn't know much at all about my family.  All but one of my grandparents died before I was born.  Only one grandfather was alive and I didn't get to know him.  He died when I was 12.  I had never really sat down and talked to him. I only remember seeing him one time.  My mother had told me about her parents and a little about her grandparents.  The great thing was she sat down with me and helped me fill out the family trees of both her family and my dad's with all the information she remembered.  And she actually remembered many things.  I wouldn't have gotten very far at all without her.  She did that over 20 years ago and last year I finally started using it.  I have always had the interest, just not the time.

One of the things she told me was that her great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee Indian.  

When I started researching I was looking for Indian heritage.  I knew on my mom's dad side that they really knew nothing about his father.  He died when my grandfather was a toddler.  Since he was a Hoover in Richmond, Indiana, it is highly likely that he was a Quaker.  My grandfather's mother was a Quaker and her whole family line descended from Quakers.

On her mother's side mom knew both her grandparents but not her great-grandparents, so I assumed  the Indian must have come from this side.

In searching I found that the Manis's came from Scottish descent.  It was the Gibson side that surprised me.

As I researched my great grandmother Cora Gibson, I found some real surprises.

When Cora was one year old, she was listed as a Mulatto.  As I went back through the previous generations on both sides they were all listed as Mulatto as far back as I could track.  I started researching the term Mulatto.  My first thought was that there was an African America parent and a black parent.  I just couldn't figure out how it continued from one generation to another.

Doing this research I came across some interesting facts.  I guess anyone who was non-white could be listed as Mulatto.  If they had Indian blood they could be listed as Mulatto.  I also found a term for a group of people that I had never heard before, Melungeon.

Melungeons were a group of people who lived as a tribal type of people.  They were considered a tri-racial isolate group of people.  Supposedly, they were a mix of white, Indian, and African American.  There seems to be no real knowledge to the origins of these people.  

I previously wrote about this here.  There is a book that has my great-great grandfather's family listed in it.  It is about the Carmel Indians of Highland County, Ohio.  The were considered a Melungeon tribe.  They had started out in the Tennessee Virginia mountain area.  They were in Kentucky for a while and then moved to Highland County, Ohio.  My great-great grandfather then moved to Indiana with his family.   Once they moved to Indiana they were only listed as white.  I have talked to a distant cousin in West Virginia who has been researching these people for years.  She believes the family left the Tennessee Virginia area when they were rounded up to be herded west with the "Trail of Tears".  She has information that leads to the fact that they escaped and went to Kentucky to hide for a time.  Then they began splitting up and moving to different area.  A large contingent went to Highland County, Ohio.

As I found out these things I was at first a little shocked.  As I thought about it, I realized, I am the same person I have always been.  It doesn't matter what blood is mixed in my body, I am the person I have been because of that, or in spite of that, I don't know which.  I am proud of my heritage, whether is by a mixture of blood, or if it is truly descended from full-blooded Indian.

My daughter did a DNA test and she didn't find any African American or Indian.  Everything was pretty much European, but I know my family came from that group of mountain people on both sides of my great grandmother's family.

Creating Family History - How do you do record your family history?

I just thought about this today.  You know how excited we all get when we find a journal or a written piece of our ancestors history.  It is especially awe-inspiring when it is something that is written in their own words.

I wonder if a few years from now our family members will read our blogs with the same fascination.  Our blogs are talking about people from our past, but we are writing about all of these with our own words and thoughts.  I have put many stories of my younger days here and hope to write more.

Will our blogs become treasures to the future generations? Most people do not write letters or journals like they did in the past.  Life moves so quickly now.  You know, I believe that is probably what people were thinking a hundred years ago too.  Do our lives move more quickly.  We have lots of things to do, but our conveniences have made those much less time consuming, so really we are just doing different things.  Our writings consist of e-mails, texts, tweets, and other social media communications.

Of course, there are many more things about history amassed on the Internet and digital media, but where is the personal aspect of history going to come from.  It is always great to find records, but it is amazing to find actual day to day personal histories written by that individual.  We are all creating those on a regular basis with our blogs.  It isn't written in our own hand-writing, but it is written from our own experiences.  They may think we were a little obsessed with searching our family history, and in most cases they would be correct.

When my son was born we actually hand wrote journals about his day to day life and got comments from him to add to the pages.  When he was old enough we asked him to tell us the best and worst things that happened to him that day.  We wrote in journals off and on until early elementary.  I  wrote his journal entries for him when he wanted to put down his thoughts.  Life got busy along somewhere in early elementary and the journals fell to the wayside.  We already enjoy going back through those and reading them together and laughing about those days. I hope someday he can read them to his children and grandchildren and they will know what our lives were like.

I have always scrapbooked, too.  Many moms who scrapbook journal on their pages, which is also a great form of creating family history.  They create beautiful scrapbooks of their families and we have seen a few of those from our ancestors now being posted on blogs.  It is so important to record your family history for future generations.

My blog posts are an extension of this type of creating a history for future generations.

Wordless Wednesday - Connersville Kiwanis

Group at the Connersville Kiwanis Club

Circa 1950's 

Tombstone Tuesday - The Brockmans

My Uncle

Floyd Brockman

Oct  22, 1914 - Apr 1986

My Aunt

Pauline Hoover Brockman

Mar 19, 1917 - Jan 9, 2012

My Cousin

F. Richard Brockman

Oct 22, 1946 - Jun 1972

Billion Graves - Get a Team Together and Photograph a Cemetery!!

Have you ever considered getting a team of people together and taking your smart phones out and photographing an entire cemetery in one day.  With the BillionGraves app it is very easy to do.

• Get a group together, maybe a historical society, a church group, or just a group of friends.
• Download the app to your smartphones, the smartphone GPS's all the graves. 
• Check BillionGraves.com and make sure your cemetery is not already photographed.
• Go to the cemetery and decide who is taking which section.
• Start photographing the stones, make sure you photograph the front and back and link them together.
• When you have finished just upload the photos.

It's this easy to photograph a graveyard and get it recorded for people who live far away and recorded for history.  The photographs need to be taken with a smart phone, it is the only format they use,  It allows them to GPS each grave so others can easily find them.  After they are downloaded you can chose to go to the BillionGraves.com dashboard and transcribe them.  If you don't want to transcribe, there are many other people who just do transcribing.

If you form a team and work together, it's quick and easy to completely document an entire graveyard in a small amount of time.  If you each download your photos when you are leaving the graveyard, the photos could all be online by the time you get home.  How's that for fast and easy?  

My son and I took photographs in eleven graveyards last summer and uploaded them.  Some of them were small older graveyards, but we did a one larger one.

Please think about this!  You can help out other people and maybe someone will be putting in the graves you need.  I have had people from all over the country thank me for taking pictures of their family members stones.

BillionGraves.com also has a contest going where you can get a team together and gain points.  If you interested in this check out this page.

Fearless Females - Sunday Dinner with Mom

In honor of National Women's History Month, I will be following the blogging prompts from The Accidental Genealogist blog. The prompts are interesting and I am truly enjoying this.  Here is day 16.

March 16 — If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

I don't even have to give this any thought.  If I could have lunch with any female family member it would be my mother.  I miss her terribly.  She meant so much to me.  She died when I was 43 years old.  I would also have to invite my brothers and sisters.  My mother loved us all and I would have to share her with them.

Here is a picture with Mom and six of her children.  

My oldest brother was already dead. 

 My second oldest brother was living out of state at the time.

We would have our family Sunday dinner.   We had Sunday's dinner at Mom's all the time during my growing up years.  Most of the grown up kids came home every Sunday.  I came home on Sunday's for many years after I got married and had children.  When Mom went to the nursing home we didn't get to have the usual Sunday dinners anymore, but my sister would pick Mom up and take her to her house.    Wherever Mom was, the family seemed to gather.

Since we are having Sunday dinner at Mom's, we are going to be having Fried Chicken with all the fixings.  And for dessert, it will be Blackberry Cobbler.  Some of us would have gone out and picked fresh blackberries somewhere so she could make the cobbler.  

When we sat down for dinner, Mom would say grace, and ask Jesus to watch over all over her children, and thank him for all her blessings and the food which we were eating.

This dinner conversation is different than our usual Sunday dinners.  This time we are going to ask Mom to tell us about herself.  We want to know all about how she and Dad met.   We will ask her to talk about her mother, and tell us everything she can remember.  We would ask her to tell us all the family stories that she remembers.  

Do you think it is possible to find out everything you want to know over one meal?Oh, I certainly hope so.  We have such a short time to spend with our mother.

I know I would have to tell Mom how special she is and how much I love her.  

I believe Mom is around me all the time, she has never really left me.  Whether it be just my memories, or if her spirit surrounds me, I feel her with me every day.