Spears Side Update 2

Bio-Dad got more info from his cousins. Apparently my Great Grandfather John Walter was full blooded Cherokee and my Great Grandmother Lula Goines was full blooded Chickasaw. BOTH of them lived on reservations (or whatever they were called at the time) and were moved from North Tennessee sometime in the late 1800's. I can't wait until the photographs they are sending him finally get there, I so want to see what they look like. Do any of us resemble them? I can't wait!

Update 03/09/2012
Bio Dad gave me bad info. Spoke with his cousin who has the family history and it is Iriquois and Chickasaw Indian. Either way, it is going to be a long road in trying to find any records of my Great Great Grandparents on my paternal Grandfathers side.

Spears Side Update

Woke up to an email from my bio-dad that he contacted some cousins (I didn't know he kept in touch with ANYONE aside from his brothers) who were going to be sending him photographs of his Father, Aunts and Uncles. I am completely blown away, I can't believe I am going to see a picture of my Grandfather for the first time. I am excited and a tad bit trepedatious, yet hopefully, these images will help unlock the secrets I have been trying to find out.

I'm So Frustrated

That's it! It's time to call in a professional. I am at a loss, I can't find ANYONE on my Grandfather's side or my biological father's side or my Grandmother's side.. I keep hitting that damned wall again and I am at the point where I cry when I think about genealogy. Now if I can only find someone down for the challenge and who is affordable. I live in Utah, the mecca for genealogy, you'd think folks would be affordable, um, nope. :/

McVey, McFarland and Goins (Update)

Well I am back to square one :(. Thanks to the help of a very nice man on Ancestry.com, he helped point out that the information my Mother-in-law had dug up was WRONG. Everything she had found was not related my direct family line. So I am back to the beginning with no new information on the horizon. I think it is time to hire a professional :/.

McVey, McFarland, Goins and more

I finally got a break in tracing my Spears line, thanks to my mother-in-law. I still haven't broken the Spears line itself but I was able to get the names I needed for my Great-Grandmother Lula Belle Goins. Through her line I was able to discover that we are German (a lot of it), English (royal as in Sirs and Ladies) and Scottish (Och, to the Moors Lads and Lassies). At least one branch has been broken, now to just try and figure out the rest of the branches.

Cheers!
Sammee

Family Pictures

Now that I have tracked down ancestors, I have also tracked down photographs and stories. I am going to relay one such story now, this is about my son's Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparent's William Prince and Louisa Evaline Lee Prince (she was the daughter of John Doyle Lee and his first wife Agatha Ann Woolsey Lee).

Story written by another descendant of Louisa and William

When Louisa was six years old, she moved with her parents from Big Cottonwood to Cedar City, Utah where they lived for only a few months before moving south. They eventually settled at Old Fort Harmony. Thick walls enclosed the fort which were made of adobes molded without straw and dried in the sun. The fort was destroyed a few years later by an unceasing storm which continued for many days. The adobes disintegrated and fell apart.

Several miles away a new townsite was chosen. While it was being erected, Louisa, her mother and brothers lived in a dugout for two years without even the simplest of comforts and only the barest of necessities. Her mother became ill due to the hardships and meager rations. Louisa then assumed the care of the family and herself for seven years before her mother's death. 

Of necessity, Louisa learned to do all kinds of work very early in life. She carted wool for yarn which she also dyed. She learned to spin while yet so young that her father had to make a ramp in order for her to reach the spinning wheel. This was fashioned from a plank with two holes bored in one end near the edges into which wooden legs were inserted of the required height, while the other end of the plank lay on the floor. Forward and back she went, up and down the ramp, turning the wheel with a swift motion of her right hand and as she stepped backward drew out the wool thin and even, then forward again to wind the twisted thread onto the spindle.

After the death of her mother, she came to realize that her health was impaired and her father sent her to Fillmore, Utah for a rest and to recuperate. She lived with an older sister, Sarah Jane Dalton, who gave her every care and comfort possible. When she returned to Harmony after a year's absence, she met William Prince whom she later married. Her father was very much opposed to her marrying "that young, unsettled boy", whose prospects in life seemed not too bright at that particular time. Her father had chosen an older and well stablished man for her. She had no desire to be a polygamous wife and refused to accept the arrangement and for the first and only time in her life, she defied her father's wishes. He said to her, :Do you not think you owe me something? I have planned this marriage for you for years." To this she replied, "I owe you everything, Father, but the right to choose my husband and I am going to marry William Prince."

The only wedding gift she received was a pet lamb and a sack of wool from George Dodds, an old friend of the family. From this wool she wove cloth for a dress for herself and a pair of pants for William. The dress was not difficult to make but the pants were a different problem. When they did not fit, they resorted to Aunt Polly's grab bag where they found a piece of red flannel, the only thing big enough. She inserted a three-inch red stripe down each pant leg. William wore those pants until they were completely worn out, declaring he had started the fashion of striped pants. :)

Their first home was a dugout in Middleton. They later moved on to Kanarraville and then settled in Panguitch. They lived in the fort until spring then moved out with a few of the more hardy and venturesome families onto government land entries. The Princes built the first brick home in Panguitch, they also homesteaded at Panguitch Lake, about twenty miles west of Panguitch. During the summers while the homestead was being developed, their brick home in town was also in progress. With the supervision of both homes, William and Louisa were a very busy pair.

Little by little they had acquired some stock. With stock raising, dairying, cooking for the ranch hands, making hundreds of pounds of butter and cheese, harvesting hay, etc;, they had all they could possibly care for. Though their family was steadily increasing, Louisa found the time to nurse the sick, help officiate at births, wash and lay out the dead, assist in the making of the burial clothes, suits for men, dresses for women and children and many articles of temple clothing. Never was there a more industrious woman that Louisa, nor one who had a greater love for beauty, especially growing things.

She married William Prince on January 23rd, 1868 in New Harmony, Washington, Utah. He was born October 23, 1848 in Elephant Hooks, Cape Colony, Africa. He was the son of George Prince and Sarah Bowman Prince. William died on January 11, 1937 in Panguitch and was buried on January 13, 1937 in Panguitch. They left behind 13 children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Mountain Meadows Massacre and More!

Pictured is my husband's Great-Great-Great Grandparent's Phelix and Sarah Byrum......I now know what my husband will look like at that age, LOL. They are my husband's Grandfather's Great Grandparents....I have found (so far) hat two of the Grandfather's from the maternal and paternal lines fought for the Confederacy (boo) I found that Felix's Grandmother died in Afghanistan (I can't wait to track down that story), I learned that my son is related directly to John Doyle Lee (through my mother-in-laws line), the man who was tried and executed for the Mountain Meadows Massacre (google it), he had 17 wives and his daughter (my son's direct decendent) refused the polygamous match he had made for her, followed her heart and married the love of her life (to which she was completely turned out). They in turn founded Panguitch, Utah and were much beloved by everyone that new them and apparently that my husband and son are related to Robert E. Lee (through this line) via a cousin.......I am now going to take a step away before my poor brain implodes again.

One of the funniest things I have come across is that my Mother-in-law's line and my daughter's Dad's Maternal line were both living in the same village in Scotland within 100 years of each other...I have a gnawing in my gut that somewhere I am going to come across one of my daughter's ancestors marrying one of my son's ancestors, LOL.

Tonight I am emailing my own family information to my mother-in-law. Her Aunt in St. George does family research for the ancestry library and she is going to send it too her and see what she can find out. Fingers crossed she can break down the wall surrounding my family before they came to the United States.

Cheers!

Sammee

Husband's Family Line

I opened an email this morning with a chest full of excitement and anticipation as to what the email held. I have been waiting for this GED file from my husband's cousin for a few days. I took that precious file and uploaded it to my ancestry.com account and voila!

My cousin and her husband had gone back to the late 1400's and since I uploaded I am not in the mid 1200's, and this is just Grandma's line. I haven't had the courage to look at my husband's grandfather's line yet, LOL. The only thing that saddens me is that I still can't find any information on my own blood line, aside from finding my two cousins who are missing the same information I am.

I keep hoping that one morning I will wake up and there will be a breakthrough waiting for me online. Oh well, the excitement of tracing my children's families on their fathers' sides fills the void quite nicely right now.

Cheers!
Sammee

Seventeen hundred and sixty, what the heck?!

My daughter had to do a family tree for a school assignment and it got me to thinking that I didn't have her dad's family information on the family tree. I called her Grandma this evening and got all the pertanent information pertaining to her Grandma's parents and their parents. If  I knew Ancestry.com was going to start spitting out family trees and censuses and birth records and baptism records like there was no tomorrow...I would have waited. Just by adding her Great-Grandfather's name onto my family tree I am ending my evening in 1760 with her GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDPARENTS in Froyle, England! I am totally blown away, I am also blown away by the fact that two sets of her grandparents had OVER 13 childen....which is why so many family trees popped up, LOL.

I am proud, I am proud that I am able to give my children what I didn't have. I am able to give them the names and stories of the people they come from. I didn't have that growing up, my childhood was surrounded by secrets and I won't do that too my kids. So now we know that she is Scottish and Irish on her Dad's Dad's side and English (through and through) on her Grandma's Dad's side...this is pretty damn exciting!

Cheers!
Sammee

Where is it????

I spent the night trying to find the box of photographs that my bio dad sent me so I could get them in photo albums......I can't find the box! I am FAREAKING out because there is a notepad in there with family names on them...I suck:(.

On to the Goldman Side

I took a slight break from researching the family so that I could get to know my newly found, flesh and blood, directly related to me cousins. Can I just tell you how frigging awesome they are? I really wish that my Grandfather could have known Warren as he grew up. He is a really cool guy and his daughter is absolutely AWESOMESAUCE!

Last night I jumped back into the ancestral pool but started researching the Goldman side of the family. Now somewhere amongst my 3rd cousins is the "Goldman Family Saga". I had heard of this as I grew up but I have never laid eyes on it. Apparently it is the family history, the last person I know of that had it was my cousin Vic Teich....he passed away at the end of last year and now no one knows who has the family history. So I sent out requests among the relatives who I have emails for, BEGGING them to find out where it went. That is the easy part, the hard part is once I find it, convincing the person to hand it over to me so that I can catalog it and upload it to flash drives so that EVERYONE has the family history.

Never the less, onward I pressed and found out why I had not been able to find any census records with my Great-Grandparents on them, I was looking for the wrong names. My Great Grandfather was named Simcha (but he went by Samuel), my Great Grandmother was Pauline Nussbaum (maiden name) (but she went by Peppie). I had been randomly searching for my Aunt Lulu (Lillian) and low and behold up pops the New York State census for 1905 with......my Grandmother's whole family on it:). She was only 10 months old and my Uncle Seymour was still 4 years away from being born. Once I found that everything started falling into place, I found the 1910 US Census with Peppie as head of household (Simcha had passed on already). After that I found my Great Uncle Sam's marriage record (to a Julia and my aunt has no idea who that is...maybe she died and he remarried, maybe they divorced, who knows). I also found my Great Aunt Ida's marriage record and the death record for my Great Uncle Arnold, who it turns out was named Emanuel Arnold, we never knew that:). Thanks to the 1905 New York State census I was finally able to get a peek into my Grandmother's family's life. My Great Grandfather sold Pocket Books and one of his sons Sandor (Samuel) also sold pocket books. My Great Aunt Ida was a dressmaker (at 16 years old) and my Great Uncle Samuel (yes, there were three Samuel's in the family) was a painter. Now I am not sure if that means house painter or actual "art" painter. I don't know if I will ever find out the answer to that little question.

So tonight, instead of researching more I am going to turn my attention back to the Hess side and get all of the paperwork that I now have filed away by family group. There are A LOT of copies of the same information, but you have to make sure your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed right?

Cheers!

So much Information!

What can I say, when one wall comes crumbling down, the others that have been blocking your way do also. I can't believe the amount of information I have found since finding my cousins. It's like someone up there did not want me finding this stuff until I found them....which too me makes perfect sense:). In a period of 24 hours I finally found my Great-Uncle Sidney's obituary, my Great-Aunt Madeline's obituary and my Great-Grandmother's obituary! The last three pieces of the original puzzle are in place and I can't believe how great it feels.

Now onto the new family mystery....finding my Great-Grandmother's sister Fanny and my Great-Grandfather's sister Sarah. It dawned on me that my Great-Grandmother came to the United States before my Great-Grandfather and that Mathilda may have traveled here with her whole family, not just her sister. If that is the case then I am praying I can find the ship manifest that shows her arrival.

I also had to deliver the bad news to the family that lives an hour from me that my Madeline and their Madeline were not the same person. I felt awful because I was so sure that we were related:(, that being said, I offered my services to them to help them unravel their own family history mystery. We were brought together for a reason and I refuse to believe it was supposed to be just long enough to tell them we weren't related. I am excited to help Bridgette, her dad and her uncles because there is nothing like finally finding the information you have been searching for:).

Cheers!

She married a Vanderbilt!

So much information is being thrust upon me about my Grandfather's family that I feel my head and my heart are going to burst! I am extremely saddened at the discovery that my Grandfather's sisters lived so very close and yet the rift in the family was so big that they did not associate with each other. Yet at the same time, that was between them and because of that it has made the discovery of Warren and Heather that much more special. We are already forming more then a familial bond, it is a spiritual bond, a bond of love and bond that I dare say, will never be broken.

This little piece is about what I have learned about Harriett so far. Harriett it turns out was quite the looker and hot to trot. She had a brief marriage....wait for it....to a VANDERBILT! You may recognize that name as the nemesis of the Astor's and the fabulous designer Gloria Vanderbilt! Well that marriage ended in divorce and good ol' Aunt Hattie took off to gay Paris to live it up. To have been a fly on the wall in her life huh? She came back to the U.S. in 1920 I believe and shacked up with a man who unfortunately my cousin Warren has no name for. What he does know is that this man went wacko and went on a shooting spree killing several people!  A New York police officer named Fred Stout shot and killed him and was wounded in the process. Somehow, divine intervention or just dumb luck, Aunt Hattie fell in love with good ol' Fred and married him. What a pistol! I can't wait to hear more family stories and finally start working on the family tree BEFORE they immigrated:).

I have a birth date!

Wooty Woot Woot! I found my Great-Aunt Florence's death record and I now have her ACTUAL birth date! This is HUGE since I only had a month and year before. This is definitely going to help with tracking down other records now, SO EXCITED!

Ancestry Explosion Part Deux!

Where did I leave off...oh right, sister no one knew about, blah blah blah. After my post earlier I logged into my email and discovered that a family tree on Ancestry that I had contacted, emailed me back. Their family tree mentioned one of my father's sisters, her husband and her daughter. So I asked them how they were related and such and I got my answer.

The person putting the family tree together is the current husband of my Grand-father's Great-Nephew's Ex-Wife.....did you get all that? LOL His Great-Nephew is now remarried and living in North Carolina, this is a direct bloodline people, my Mother's second cousin and my third. I am just tripping the heck out on all of this. After so many years of searching and looking and being disappointed and becoming convinced that my Grandfather's family just vanished....here they are.

So I emailed back thanking him for responding and being willing to get my contact information to my cousins. Through him I found my Great-Uncle's WWII draft card, which was pretty darn cool. Plus I learned that they were living in Passaic, New Jersey at the time, I had been searching in New York!

So now I sit and wait, wait for more responses from this contact and the Masonic Columbian Lodge #484 in New York. Turns out the lodge is still around so I emailed the current secretary to find out if they have any records of my Great-Grandfather that might possibly fill in some of the gaps that we have. Which is why I am back to hurry up and wait.

Cricket is sick and Bean isn't feeling much better which means I will have time to research more when I get home. Onward and Upward!

Ancestry Explosion!

What a whirlwind weekend it has been, after taking over 6 months off and not doing any research, I dove back into it full force on Friday. All I can say, is it paid off big! All of a sudden I had hits on my Grandfather's family, the branch of my family tree that for years had sat there mocking me and yielding little or no information. Another family tree had tagged my Grandfather's entire family and all of sudden the whole world opened up. I discovered that one of my Grandfather's sister's Madeline (whom my mom and aunt had said died of cancer when they were kids) might have actually been alive and well. I found her daughter and grandchildren (although we still have to confirm this) and the kicker is I am in contact with them and they live an hour from me!

After finding the information on Madeline I turned my attention to finding the cousin (Arlene) that my Mom and Aunt swore exsisted, I finally found confirmation of her when I came across my Great-Grandfather's obituary. Reading this tiny little paragraph I gained new information that I never in my wildest dreams knew. First I found out that my Great-Grandfather did not have a Jewish burial, he was a life long Mason and had a Masonic burial presided over by the Master of his Masonic lodge. I confirmed Arlene's existance because she was mentioned in the obituary (although my Grandmother wasn't even though my Grandfather was already married to her) and then the kicker. The shock heard round the world that no one saw coming......"brother of Sarah Tiederman" there it was, in black and white! My Great-Grandfather had a sister that not even my Mom and Aunt knew about. My Grandfather never mentioned her and if my Aunt or Mom ever met her they don't remember.

There is so much more that I found but I don't have the time to post it. Where does this leave me in my search though, well here is where I am at. I am searching for my Great-Grandparent's sisters Fanny Strauss (Great-Grandma's Sister) and Sarah Tiederman (Great-Grandpa's Sister). This one isn't going to be easy but I am going to take my time and not try and force it, who knows, by tomorrow morning I could have another hint on Ancestry.com and it might be the right one:).

Cheers!

Sick

It's been awhile since I have blogged, I have been battling whatever the heck this thing is and I just can't shake it. First it was fevers, then chills, then vertigo, now it's sore throat, sore nose, stuffy, not stuffy, headache, no headache...I just can't win! A lot of my friends have also come down with the beginning of the year bug, how about you?

ACOCAACN

R.I.P. John Dye

INVERSION

In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion, i.e., an increase in temperature with height, or to the layer (inversion layer) within which such an increase occurs.^[1]

An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, with possible adverse effects on health. An inversion can also suppress convection by acting as a "cap". If this cap is broken for any of several reasons, convection of any moisture present can then erupt into violent thunderstorms. Temperature inversion can notoriously result in freezing rain in cold climates.

I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT! In my life Inversion = Migraine, which in turn equals a very sad and unhappy me:(

ACOCAACN

Slap a Bitch

Yes, the image above is funny but there is a reason I posted it and it is not for comedic purposes. I found out yesterday, that on New Years Eve, a member of my family was violently beaten by her boyfriend. He beat her in front of their kids as her 3 year old daughter yelled at him to "Quit hitting my Mommy!". I don't care if you are in a bad mood, I don't care if your dog got hit by a car or someone pissed in your Cherrios and I sure as hell don't care that you were drunk and got pissed off that she woke you up!

She tried to call the police, he took away the phone. She tried to get out the front door, he pulled her back inside the apartment and locked her in. Oh, did I mention the neighbors were at home and heard what was happening and DID NOT call the police. Yeah, mighty Christian of them, huh? So he beat her and beat her and beat her and then stopped. He picked up the phone and called the police because he thought he had just killed her. 

Thankfully he was arrested and is sitting in jail with no bail. He faces 1 to 5 for domestic violence and commiting an act of domestic violence in front of a child. The protective orders and no trespassing orders are in place and the justice system seems to be working on the side of good for once. But it scares me, what happens if somehow he gets out. How do we really prevent him from getting ahold of her again. What's going to stop him?

We treat domestic violence like it's nothing. We see it on television, in the movies, even in the books and articles we read. We have become desensitized as a society to where major violence doesn't even phase us anymore unless it happens to a child. Murder, rape, sodemy, molestatiton, beatings....it doesn't matter if happens to a woman who is an upstanding citizen or a drug addict or a hooker. They were all somebody's child, they were somebody's wife, mother, sister, aunt, cousin. It saddens me to think that we no longer cherish the women in our society that are the bearers of our furture generations. The souls that bring forth new life to love, care and nurture. We can no longer turn a blind eye and say, "It didn't happen to me so why should I get involved". I will tell you why, because you have  no idea the pain of looking down at a steel table where the body of your daughter lies.....and you never want to.

ACOCAACN

Coffee Wars!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I apologize that I have been a bit M.I.A. lately, but of course with the holidays and all:). To ring in the New Year I had to share the most awesome of awesome fireworks display. I swear London outdoes itself every year and of course, this year was no exception. So sit back and enjoy!