Bettie Bass Rogers wedding day

A woman who ended up a widow very young, and disappeared from my family before I was born, though she lived a lot longer than I originally was told.

My grandfather's mother was Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass Rogers.  She was born in Old Waverly, San Jacinto County, Texas around Feb or March 1860.  Her parents listed her as 5 months old on the 1860 census in Walker County, Texas.  The original document shows her father Richard Bass as 40, and his wife 35, but the transcriptionist mis-read his age as 20.  It does have a correction through it by pen on the original, so that's understandable.  The date of that census was July 31, 1860, so this youngest member of the family was probably born around Feb 28 in order to be 5 months old.  She was to have 10 siblings both older and younger.

Her father Col. Richard Bass fought in the Civil War, as a confederate soldier.


Her early years in Walker County Texas on a farm (according to the 1860 census her father was a farmer) also had cousins as well as older siblings nearby.  Her household also had a teenage cousin living with them, Emily W. Traylor, 16. Sister Julia A. was 18, brother James M. was 16, and sister Nancy C. was 7.  All her older siblings were born in Louisanna, but Bettie was born in Texas.  Her mother, Mary A. Powell Bass, also had family nearby; the next family listed on the census are the Powells, with 69 year old James M as head of the family. Nancy J. Powell was 36, John T. Powell was 27, and James E. Powell was 4 months old, and there was also cousin Nancy E. Traylor, age 11 living with them.

I spent hours one night looking at the Traylor, Powell, Bass connection.  How did it happen that the Traylor girls were living with a Bass family and a Powell family?  Well, as most of you probably have already figured out, their mother had died, and they were raised by her cousins...one was Mary Powell Bass, and one was Nancy J. Powell.  Mary Powell Bass's mother was Nancy Jones Traylor Powell, so having a grandmother in common meant they were second cousins, I believe.

Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell Bass headstone

But back to Bettie Bass.  In the 1870 census for Walker County, Texas, the county had grown from early settlement and the Civil War was over.  Much probably looked very different from the time of 1860, but all we have in a Census record are names and ages, and where people were born, and sometimes where their parents were born.  Thus the migrations of families can be traced.

Downtown Huntsville 1870s

By 1870 Richard Bass was a merchant rather than a farmer, now in the town of Huntsville, Texas.  Bettie now had 3 younger sisters, Ella, (9) Minnie (7) and Mary (5).   Her sister Sarah is 16.  Wait a minute, she had an older sister named Nancy C. who had been 7 in the previous census.  How could her name have changed that much?  There's no answer offered.  The oldest siblings are no longer at home, Julia A. and brother James M. Bass. Emily Traylor is now 26 and still living with them. I wonder if she had some kind of disability...a thought which just struck me, but since she hasn't married by then, maybe.

Downtown Huntsville in the 1870s

Bettie's marriage was quite an event, in Willis, Montgomery County, Texas, on Dec. 14, 1876, when she was 16, a Thursday evening with the marriage performed by Rev. D. S. Snodgrass, according to Ancestry.com.  She married William Sanford Rogers, age 26, but he only lived another 3 years after their marriage.  William Sanford was known as W. Sam, according to his son, my grandfather. W. Sam Rogers had been born in Walker County, Texas, but in 1870 was living with his sister-in-law Lucy Gibbs Rogers, in Louisiana.

Women's Clothing 1870s, not Bettie Bass Rogers

And then he married Bettie in Willis Texas. Perhaps the railroad coming into Willis gave some incentive for the family to move to Willis, and their 2 children were born there.  My grandfather George Rogers was born Aug 28, 1877, and his sister Annie Lou Gibbs Rogers was born March 10, 1879.  Their father died May 29, 1879 and is buried in Huntsville, Texas.

Willis became a community when the Great Northern Railroad decided to run a track from Houston to Chicago, and the Willis brothers donated their land in 1870 to the railroad. Willis grew in population after the trains began to travel through the town. There were hotels, dry good stores, and many other successful businesses in the 1870s and 1880s. The tobacco industry played a vital role in Willis' growth and development during that time. Other cash crops of cotton, watermelons, and tomatoes were an important part of the economy through the years. The timber industry, which still plays a role in Willis' economic growth, has been its most stable economic engine for over one hundred years.  (Wikipedia)

The next census record of 1880 included the 19 year old widow, Bettie Rogers and her two children, living still in Willis, Texas, without any reported means of support.  She is listed as head of the household.

By 1900 Census the small family is living in Galveston, Texas, with Bettie now age: 46; a widowed head of household, address 1828 Church St, June 6, 1900 living with son, George Elmore Rogers and Annie Lou Gibbs Rogers.  (George would become my grandfather.)

A short aside to refer back to the huge hurricane of 1900, as described a bit in my blog here.  The family survived it, and I don't know any details about their lives during and after it.  Then in 1905 my grandfather got married.  His sister Annie Lou married in 1906.

So the next report about Bettie Rogers is a reference on my grandfather's WW I draft card in 1918, where he gives her as his nearest relative, (and not his wife of 12 years.)  Bettie is living at 22nd and L in Galveston, Texas.

Then the census of 1920 lists Bettie Rogers "Age: 58; Marital Status: Widowed;  Relation to Head of House: Mother-in-law," living with Annie Lou Wilson and her husband Patrick and Bettie's three grandchildren, still in Galveston.

On July 17, 1924, at age 64, Bettie Bass Rogers died, as was printed in the Galveston city directory of that year.  I don't know where her grave is.

My grandfather (born 1877) wrote in 1954, of having a guardian (a cousin) that had charge of himself and his sister.  I always assumed Bettie died close to the same time as her husband, after her daughter was born in 1879. Or perhaps the cousin, working in real estate, helped with some land disputes and decided this was the best way to settle the old Tennessee land inheritances.  My grandfather notes something to do with how his guardian had helped with something along those lines.  And I also think the cousin/guardian had the 2 Rogers children in their household in one census (I'll have to check on that).

Bettie Bass' date of marriage was Dec. 14, 1876  to William Sanford Rogers in Willis, TX.  So I will celebrate her life on this one certain date of joy that she experienced.  Her birthdate is garbled through various years on census reports, which might have been her own doing.  She could have been a bit bohemian, or had some kind of confusion about her own age, and I am sure it was difficult to raise 2 children on her own.  She didn't follow the tradition of going to live with relations, rather she moved with her young family to a new city, Galveston.

Twas the night before...

OK, you've been here before.

About to start wrapping and then packing into those great packing boxes, and you don't have enough light to see, pull the cord, and blink, the light burns out.

Go find the step stool, figure out how to open this fixture under the fan which hasn't had any changes since being installed when the last fan died and was replaced 2 years ago, and it's not a regular light bulb socket.

SO, get into coat, hat and gloves, notice the hardware store a half mile away is open 15 more minutes...and drive into a pretty deserted dark center of my little town.

Look at a display of mainly bathroom fixture lights, or some for chandeliers, and get the biggest one that you can, which will shine from the center of the room.  Even pay for the name brand.

Ask about some stocking stuffer items, cause you've got 7 minutes to spare, and then can't find one of them, so go back and wait till the clerk is free, and she goes and shows you the 2 remaining ones, which are half price, and then check out well before the last customer.

After jay walking because there really is no traffic, go home, climb back on that little step stool, and put in the new bulb.  Voila!

Then wrap a few presents, which of course won't fit in just one of those nice boxes.  Do I want to send 2, or go find a bigger one for all?  Decisions, decisions.  I rescue a knit piece that the cat has found comfortable, including pulling some stitches which were obviously in the wrong place, spend a while finishing it and trying to get stitches right again...listening to a TED talk on Radio, and it's so good, I chase down the actual TED talk on line.

It is about helping everyone do better, feel more confident, and know they can be themselves better.  Can't lose.  Strike a power pose, like Wonder Woman.  I'll let you listen/watch it on the link which follows, Amy Cuddy is a professor at Harvard Business School.  Here's the link.
your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are

What you can do in private in your own home and then accomplish your goals...maybe?  Fake it till you...are who you really are.

Why am I not an elephant yet?

All innocence, though awaiting trouble on the bathroom counter...

Yep, Mom left me some water to drink...she thought it was for herself, but I've got news for her...

Everyone knows water out of mom's glass is better than on the floor out of a bowl!

Don't bother me, I'm busy here...

Oh my goddess of all things cat, there's more!

Well, after all that water that was Mom's, I need some real cat food now.

No, I'm not the size of an elephant at all.  But why does mom cover her water glass by her bedside now?  Just can't figure out how to get a sip in the middle of the night any more!

More roots across the seas

We've touched into my Irish roots...and there are many more than last post talked about I'm sure.

How about another area from which ancestors came?  Germany is easy.  My very great-grandfather (who I never knew) came from Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany, which is a large area much like a state in the US.  Unfortunately I don't know much beyond his census records.

He had a sister who was mentioned in his obituary in San Antonio, TX, but I have been unable to find any records of her life...Mrs Dora Lawnon.

I know he changed his name from Mueller to Miller, the anglicized version of the same name.  And there were a lot of Germans coming to central Texas both before and after the Civil War.

As always, early dates seem pretty confusing, and are mainly from census records.  He may have been born July 1868, and immigrated in 1871 at age 3.  But there is also a record stating he immigrated in 1865, before he was even born according to the other record.  Unfortunately Charles Herman Miller was not a very unique name, especially if the middle name wasn't included in a record. I did honor his birthday back in July HERE (which has other areas of interest about him)

I even found there was a man of the same name who was living in the same city (San Antonio, TX) who was about 10 years his junior, in a US Census.

I do believe he was a Mason.  And I was told he was a conductor for the railroad all his life...which is substantiated on various census records.

But let me learn a bit about German roots now.

There was a census taken "... of citizens of Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin as of 2/3 December 1867. Authorized enumerators, went from house to house in their appointed areas, recording in a “household list” of each person who was present at the time in the apartment or house."  If my grandfather had left in 1865, his household would no longer have been there.  (The link is here, giving another link to a German language list by area.  Since I have no idea of the area within Mecklenuerg-Schwerin that the Muellers came from, I'm up the proverbial creek without a paddle.  There are several hundred lists to chose from.)

Wikipedia speaks of Mecklenburg-Schwerin thus:

History, 1621–1933

"Like many German territories, Mecklenburg was sometimes partitioned and re-partitioned among different members of the ruling dynasty. In 1621 it was divided into the two duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Güstrow. With the extinction of the Güstrow line in 1701, the Güstrow lands were redivided, part going to the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and part going to the new line of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
In 1815, the two Mecklenburgian duchies were raised to Grand Duchies, and subsequently existed separately as such in Germany under enlightened but absolute rule (constitutions being granted on the eve of World War I) until the revolution of 1918. Life in Mecklenburg could be quite harsh. Practices such as having to ask for permission from the Grand Duke to get married, or having to apply for permission to emigrate, would linger late into the history of Mecklenburg (i.e. 1918), long after such practices had been abandoned in other German areas. Even as late as the later half of the 19th century the Grand Duke personally owned half of the countryside. The last Duke abdicated in 1918, as monarchies fell throughout Europe. The Duke's ruling house reigned in Mecklenburg uninterrupted (except for two years) from its incorporation into the Holy Roman Empire until 1918. From 1918 to 1933, the duchies were free states in the Weimar Republic.
Traditionally Mecklenburg has always been one of the poorer German areas, and later the poorer of the provinces, or Länder, within a unified Germany. The reasons for this may be varied, but one factor stands out: agriculturally the land is poor and can not produce at the same level as other parts of Germany. The two Mecklenburgs made attempts at being independent states after 1918, but eventually this failed as their dependence on the rest of the German lands became apparent."

I won't assume that my grandfather had any relations who were royal, so we can skip all the hooplah about family crests.  The family name speaks of being Millers, at some point in his ancestry.  So my conjecture is that someone he was descended from had milled either grains or lumber.

Here's some great information about immigration...

The (Texas) German Belt is the product of concepts and processes well known to students of migration, particularly the concept of "dominant personality," the process called "chain migration," and the device of "America letters." Voluntary migrations generally were begun by a dominant personality, or "true pioneer." This individual was forceful and ambitious, a natural leader, who perceived emigration as a solution to economic, social, political, or religious problems in his homeland. He used his personality to convince others to follow him in migration. In the case of the Texas Germans, Friedrich Diercks, known in Texas under his alias, Johann Friedrich Ernst, was the dominant personality. Ernst had been a professional gardener in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg in northwestern Germany. He immigrated to America intending to settle in Missouri, but in New Orleans he learned that large land grants were available to Europeans in Stephen F. Austin's colony in Texas. Ernst applied for and in 1831 received a grant of more than 4,000 acres that lay in the northwest corner of what is now Austin County. It formed the nucleus of the German Belt.

In the late 1830s German immigration to Texas was widely publicized in the Fatherland. The publicity attracted a group of petty noblemen who envisioned a project to colonize German peasants in Texas. The nobles hoped the project would bring them wealth, power, and prestige. It could also, they thought, alleviate overpopulation in rural Germany. Their organization, variously called the Adelsverein, the Verein zum Schutze Deutscher Einwanderer in Texas, or the German Emigration Company, began work in the early 1840s. They chose Texas as the site for their colony, in part because of the favorable publicity surrounding the Ernst-inspired migration and perhaps because Texas was an independent republic where the princes might exercise some political control. Though the Mainzer Adelsverein was a financial disaster, it transported thousands of Germans, mostly peasants, to Texas. Between 1844 and 1847 more than 7,000 Germans reached the new land. Some of the immigrants perished in epidemics, many stayed in cities such as Galveston, Houston, and San Antonio, and others settled in the rugged Texas Hill Country to form the western end of the German Belt. The Adelsverein founded the towns of New Braunfels and Fredericksburg.

"By 1850, when the organized projects ended, the German Belt in Texas was well established. America letters and chain migration continued through the 1850s but stopped with the Union blockade of Confederate ports. During the 1850s the number of German-born persons in Texas more than doubled, surpassing 20,000.

"From 1865 to the early 1890s, more Germans arrived in Texas than during the thirty years before the war. The number probably reached 40,000. Many of them settled in the rural areas and towns of the German Belt. Interestingly, the postbellum immigrants generally avoided the Hill Country.

SOURCE: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/png02

The original German settlers in Texas weren't from Mecklenberg-Schwerin however, so it stands to reason that the Miller family came after hearing about the success stories of other Germans in central Texas. 

Since he married a woman (non-German descent) in Hillsboro, Texas when he was 28, I was looking into the families from Germany which settled there.  But my source (above) says there wasn't much influx of German immigrants into Hill County Texas after the Civil War.  

It goes on to say...

By the 1880s German ethnic-islands dotted north central, northern, and western Texas. Ethnic islands failed to develop in East Texas, the Trans-Pecos, and the Rio Grande valley, however.

 By the 1890s sizable German elements had appeared in Texas cities, particularly in San Antonio, Galveston, and Houston. As late as 1880 the population of San Antonio was one-third German. By then a greater percentage of Germans lived in towns and cities than was true of the Texas population at large. German immigration to Texas tapered off during the 1890s.

But being a railroad conductor was already his occupation when Charley H. Miller (as his census name is listed) had been married just 3 years, as listed in the 1900 Census of Hill County, TX which includes his oldest daughter at 2, who would become my grandmother.  That census also states that he'd been born in Texas, though his parents had been born in Germany.  Their neighbors tended to be tradesmen and laborers.  A nearby baker with 7 children came from Bohemia, which I think of as Czech, but everyone else was from a southern state.

Later Census reports show his family in Smithfield and then San Antonio, Texas.



How about the Texas railroad history?
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company was known as M-K-T or Katy.  I saw and heard of Katy, but never remembered it was the name of the railroad.  It was the first railroad to enter Texas from the north, replacing the cattle trails that had historically brought beef to the northern packing houses. It took many years, many political and corporate squabbles to work out ownership, taxation, leases and all kinds of typical Texas power struggles over who owned what.  It was part of the struggles of a new empire in Texas.  Passenger trains were where my great grandfather worked, however, as a conductor.  All Aboard!

When I don't know a birthday

Many of my ancestors have just a birth year in their records, so I don't know their actual birthdays in order to post an acknowledgement of their lives.  And even some of them have an "ABT 1755" or something along those lines.

So I'll post tributes to those ancestors when I have the time.  I do acknowledge their lives contribute greatly to my lineage, no less than the people who ended up having something written down about them, even if only their birth and death dates.  Their children remembered them, and so shall I.

 How about going to Ireland then?

Melifont Abby, County Louth, Cistercian monks 1142-1743

Malcolm McNeal was born ABT 1720 in Ballymascanlon, County Louth, Ireland, and his death is recorded in Dublin in 1783.   We can find a little bit of history of Ballymascanlon in Wikipedia:

In 1185, during the Norman-English period, the district of Ballymascanlan as far north as Carrickarnon was donated by Hugh de Lacy to the Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII the lordship of Ballymascanlan was granted to Sir Edward Moore, ancestor of the Marquis of Drogheda. Sir Garrett Moore inherited the title and estates in 1600 and was a friend of Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, who was a frequent visitor to Mellifont and Ballymascanlon. It remained in the hands of the Moore family until the middle of the 18th century.

We know Malcolm McNeal's wife by the lovely name, Christian Kennan, (born around 1721 in Dublin.)  They married when she was 18, on 12 January, in 1739 (at Ballonascanlan Castle Knock, Ireland.) This name place doesn't seem to exist.  If it did, Wikipedia thinks it's just a mispelling of Ballymascanlan Castle.

Their son Robert McNeal was born in Dublin (or his birth was recorded there) on 12 Feb, 1741, and he took off to America after marrying Jane around 1765.

They had perhaps 8 children.  Again Ancestry is giving two people's birth dates in the same year.  And some of the children were born in New York state, and some in Pennsylvania...with the earlier births in PA, and the later ones in NY.  Since Robert and his wife, Jane died (yes, in the same year) and there are markers on their grave sites in 1818 in Livingston County, NY,  I can assume they had children or grandchildren living nearby.  

Mt. pleasant Cemetery, Livingston, NY

Robert was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Their daughter Elizabeth "Betsy" McNeal married William McElhany, as I spoke of their marriage  in a prior blog posting.HERE 

Betsy and William McElhaney's daughter, Jane McElhaney (see HERE for her post)  married Isaac Booth, who had his blog post HERE.  And their son William Lewis Booth, was my grandmother's great grandfather, and he is honored in his son's posting, Richard R. Booth, (richard-r-booth-my-murdered-great-grand)

So I'm gradually catching up with everyone, and eventually will have given you a glimpse for all these ancestors.  And I left out my posts about my grandmother and her mother in this list.  A sigh of relief is felt through the universe here!

Joseph Granger 1765-1847

Happy birthday to my 2nd great grandfather born in 1765, Dec. 7, in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts.

I still have trouble figuring out what a 2nd great grandfather might be.  It's not a great great grandfather.  Because Joseph Granger is actually my grandmother's grandmother's father.  I have 5 "greats" in front of his name.  So those Ancestry people figure things out in squares rather than linear time, I guess.  My great, great, great, great, great grandfather was born on this day in MA.

There, now I feel connected through the centuries.
He was a little boy during the American Revolution.  He had 6 siblings (or maybe more because new ones seem to get added as more research is done into ancestors.)

His parents were Jacob (1735-1795) and Sarah Farnam Granger (1730-1806) whose grave markers still may be found in Old North Parish Burying Ground, North Andover, MA.  A brief post was on my blog Here for Jacob's birthday in August.




Back to Joseph.  He married at age 28 in 1794, in Newburyport, Essex, MA.  The writing of the record is almost illegible, so it's either Jan 20, or 29, or June 20.  His wife was Sarah Tyler (1768 – 1831).

They had seven children, and George Tyler Granger (1806-?) was to be my 'great times 4' grandfather, (see post here.)

Upper left notation is "Children of Joseph and Sarah Grainger" which shows his son and my ancestor, George Tyler, born in 1806 rather than the 1804 date which all the other records on Ancestry show.  Oh my.  This is how records are messed up.

Jacob lived to be 81, which is outstanding in and of itself.  He died Mar 21, 1847.  He had outlived his wife, and at least 2 of his children.  

The 1840 Newburyport, MA census has him in a household (age 75) with one female age 30-40.  None of his own daughters would have been that young still, so someone else was caring for him in his last years, perhaps a relative or not.  It doesn't really matter.  Someone made sure his family continued, and I am glad of that.

Cinnamon Kathleen Happy Birthday

Most of these photos were shared on FaceBook.  I'm so glad to see Cinnamon's life with her friends and family there!  Glad you're my friend, Cinn!  And you're a wonderful mother for my grandchildren too!

What's next?

A discussion group will be meeting in a couple of hours over at the UUCSV church in Black Mountain.
The topic will center on this article:
-the-future-must-be-green-red-black-and-female

It is a highly controversial article, and should lead to some heated discussion.  We only meet for an hour, and I dare say that won't be enough for some (most?) of us.

Robert Jensen may be a familiar name to some of you.  If not, I wonder who reads this.  I sure have run into him before.

So let's look seriously at the life we have, and what legacy we are leaving for the next generations.

promises to myself

Froth of red stitches
a huge pile of knitting
which I've changed from a string
into a presence
which will be a present
for Christmas for someone special

Right now I have to keep it away from
clawing cats who love the scarf
in the way of a mouse
that they believe to be hiding
within its strands.

One will pounce for the pull
of the thread as I weave it
into the fabric I'm creating
but I quickly hide it so she
can't eat at it.  I love forming
something from the simplicity
of a beautiful skein.

Mohair, a goat wool, which
is blended with nylon and
wool and then dyed a deep
glorious pinkish red.
I'm pretty sure it's a red on the pink side
rather than orange or blue. 
But I don't trust my eyes any more
there may be cataracts that switch
red away from its true hues.
Cabmium, or Alizeran Crimson,
colors spell-check has never learned. 
The tubes of water colors are boxed up
and waiting until I again feel that
creative urge to swish a brush around on
gorgeous paper with texture in itself.

Reading Sena Jeter Naslund's
"The Fountain of St. James' Square or
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman"...
I've become focused upon wordsmithing
and exploration of visual experiencing.
She does this to me each time I read her books.
Her brother used to sit behind me in
Choir in Tampa before he moved
back to Birmingham, and he wrote a book also.
But she is the artist. When I discoverd her novel, "Ahab's Wife,"
a window opened in my life house.

Another author who did that for me was Joe Coomer.
... a quick search of my
favorite books can't locate the one I know I own.
That's the second book I'm sure I own that is not available
upon first search.  Mmm, the many tubs of stuff that stack
along the walls and closet floor are inviting me to
look within their bellies full of treasures.

But then I will be stuck with knowing all the things
I have but don't chose to play with.  To just close the
lids again and maybe remember for a while where the
glue or the pastels are, but soon to be consumed by
a daily practice of looking at the events on this screen.

Yes the computer, the internet, all the dramas that have been
written and acted and recorded and made available for me.
Stories of fictional people, or documentaries of real ones.  History
through films, or through the myriad details of ancestry DOT com.

And taking photos of my life, or the one I might be having if I
weren't busy writing about it here on blogs...and going to the studio
because they are people, and there is clay, and there is a
relationship I have with them both.

So this little soliloquy is now over.

Nancy Ann Whitlow Cannon

Nancy Ann Whitlow...ancestress born on
18 Nov 1747 in Caswell, North Carolina, and she died on 01 Jul 1830 in Knox County, TN.

She was the mother of William Henry Cannon. She was married to John Cannon, in 1776 in North Carolina.

Her granddaughter Cyntha Cannon married Micajah Clack Rogers in Sevierville, TN, and they moved eventually to TEXAS, where 4 or 5 generations later I was born.

Last night I spent 3 hours that I didn't really want to spend straightening out what had been screwed up somehow on Ancestry, making Cyntha Cannon the sister of her father.  ARGH!  She was only listed once, and was on my tree in the right place, but kept coming up with the wrong family...where she actually had been entered twice.  It took forever, because frankly, I don't want to spend all my life correcting Ancestry mistakes.

Anyway, here's what I know about Nancy Ann Whitlow.  

One family tree lists her name as Nancy Wilton, who married John Cannon on Jan 29, 1800 in TN.  I'm going to discount that entire entry, as being another Nancy who married another John Cannon, maybe their son or nephew.  It's way too late in her life for a marriage.

 Due to being born in Nov, she was actually 82 years old at her death.

She is burried in Steekee Cemetery Loudon, Loudon County, Tennessee

I saw 10 other family trees with the Cannons, and each has her granddaughter as her daughter.  So maybe someday someone else will straighten them all out.  What a mess.

Anyway, she probably had these children: Charles, Elizabeth, Jane (1770-1860), William Henry (1771-1868), John (1779-1864), Henry (1781-1850), Robert (1781-1854) and Martha Patsy (1784-1862).  I say probably for a reason.  You may notice Henry and Robert both listed as birth year 1781.  Robert was born Sept. 30, and Henry was born July 29.  Not possible folks!

So the mess continues.  Of course a slip of the finger typing can give the year of one of these gentlemen's birth wrong.  And I sure make my share of typos.  But to have so many folks keep on passing on false information about real people seems so disrespectful.

Why do I keep working with this system?  Well because today I found one of those other 10 trees had some parents listed for Nancy Whitlow.  They were Henry Othello Whitlow (1724-1788) and Elizabeth Perkins (1724-1798).  To have connected with two more ancestors makes all the headaches worth while.

I'll add this to the meme of Sepia Saturday for this week (HERE).  There are always some interesting reads over there, and some (as well as this one) not on topic for the week.

Staying out of bed

Dear Diary:
There have been times in my life that my goal for the day is to stay in bed as much as possible.
When I was so worn out from work that my body ached, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep, perhaps to read a good book, even to watch TV in bed, weekend days were so precious for that.

Then there were days on end when I was depressed and wanted to avoid the life I was leading, or not leading but somehow surviving.

I won't even mention the times of my life where bed meant honeymoon.  Smiling memories of those times.

Today I'm setting a different intention.  To stay out of bed more than I'm in it.  For the past couple of weeks I've not exactly been physically active.  You might say my biggest activity was punching keys on the computer.  I could sit here for about 6-8 hours, with breaks but no coughing, and then try to lie down.  That would bring about awful coughing.  So I would sometimes go back to the computer and breathe and work on something for another hour, till I thought I was tired enough to prop myself up and try sleep again.

Today I woke up feeling rested.  I don't know what I did differently last night, but I didn't toss and turn with coughs, and today the sun is shining and I went for a walk around the lake.  I haven't been in months.  My physical activities have been severly limited and this was the first day I thought I might make it around.  About a week ago I got as far as a third of the way around and came right back, hacking away.

Today I stopped a few times to take pictures of ducks and people, but kept on trucking.  The gravel walkway was somewhat muddy from rain and then snow...but I slogged through.

I had a loss this week, of a visit with my Florida family...and my investment in airfare.  I was to fly out on Tues night with stormy weather, and the flight was delayed.  I was too sick to wait through the various delays, and asked a friend to bring me home.  I was actually in bed again when the flight that had been scheduled for 8:25 pm took off at 1:30 am.  I had already paid for the tickets in August, and was looking forward to being with my eldest son and his family for a few days...but it was not to happen.   I asked him to call me and tell me about his feast for Thanksgiving.

The medications to stop coughing felt like they befuddled my mind.  And I may not have had a fever, but I've been on antibiotics to keep from getting an infection, supposedly.  I still am taking them, but so far today haven't taken any Musinex or Tussin or narcotic laced cough syrup.  I have coughed a few times, and haven't experienced the suffocating feeling when coughing just doesn't let me get air.  What a relief.

It's amazing how many things I might do today, while being out and about in my home.  There are lots of ideas floating around in my head.  Activities!

Oh Susanna!

Susanna Claiborne, what a melodic name.  I just discovered an alternate spelling Clairborne, had kept me from finding her parents on Ancestry.  Ha.
She was a grandmother of mine, a few generations removed.

I invite you to walk into her life.  None of the "intellectual way" of looking at her dates and places.
Let's just imagine when she lived, raised her family, and made her mark on lives to come (including mine).

She lived in the18th Century in rural Virginia.  She was probably a farmer's wife, since Surry and Sussex County, VA have historically been farm country.  She was born Nov. 29, 1751.  She married in Sussex County, but I don't think she had to move far.  The new county was just created out of Surry County about the time Susanna was 3 years old. 

Interesting reading HERE about Sussex history.  I'll let you go see it if you're interested. 

(1) Susanna Claiborne married  Frederick Jones (1756-1791) when she was 22 years old.

Since she died in 1810 in Dinwiddie County, (the county to the west of Sussex), I have that link HERE.

She had 8 children, and the one that became my ancestor was...(generation #2) Sarah Jones, born also in Sussex County, VA on 2 Feb 1780, who died 4 Aprl 1847 in Union Parish, Louisiana.  That's not only a long way from Virginia, there were Alabama connections as well...and Georgia, then finally Texas!

Sarah Jones (2) married Champion Travis Traylor, Sr. (2) who had been born in Dinwiddie County, VA.  They married in Alabama, and he died 4 Apr 1832 in Perry Alabama.

 Their daughter, (3) Nancy Jones Traylor Powell was born 16 May 1804 in Oglethorpe County, GA.  She died 27 June, 1881 in Old Waverly, Walker County, Texas.

So when following my maternal genealogy, it's really interesting to see how these women traveled all across the south.  In the latter 18th Century and then into the 19th Century, you can imagine what life must have been like.  I always like to do that...think of a household full of children, servants perhaps, slaves if there was farming in the south, and husbands, brothers, uncles and sons working to keep everything running smoothly.  Of course the household was run by the oldest wife...which changed as households aged.  By the time each of these women had stopped bearing children, they were often in their 40's.  Only a few of them lived to go through menopause...it was a hard life not only with frequent childbirth, but the rigors of moving from one frontier to another.  These were true pioneers.

Nancy Jones Traylor Powell (3) married James Moore Powell,(3) and his dates are interesting because apparently he died on his birthday, 27 Feb. born in 1791, in Bertie County, NC, died same date in 1886 in Waverly, Walker County, TX.

Still a long way from my roots, which on this tree are Rogers.  My father's father is where we're going.  George Elmore Rogers, Sr. born in Texas in 1877 in Willis, TX.

Where oh where is the connection  though?
 Their daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell (5) married none other than Col. Richard Bass (5).  OK, where and when were her dates?  (I've struggled, and we're still following the data rather than the actual lives, aren't we?)  Born 21 Feb, 1825 in Perry AL, and died 12 Oct 1871 in Old Waverly, TX.

And finally, their daughter, Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass, (6) was born either in Feb or March 1860 in Old Waverly, San Jacinto County, TX, and died 17 July 1924 in Galveston, TX.

She was married to...
William Sandford Rogers, (6) born 9 Feb 1850 in Huntsville, Walker County, TX, who died in the same town 29 May 1879.

And they were my grandfather's parents. George Rogers Sr. would be generation (7), my father would be (8) and I'm (9) generations removed from Oh Susanna!

And a post script is in order here.  The Claibornes had an old name from Europe, and the name referred to living near clay deposits on a stream.  As you may already know, I am a potter.  So clay is important to me in both ways, my ancestors and my avocation.

Thomas Conn, ancestor

Thomas Conn has a family crest attached to his ancestry record.

There's likelihood that the Conn family originated in Scotland, and perhaps immigrated to Ireland.  There may be hounds associated on the crest, but I tend to see rabbits.  I'm not much of a "symbols on family crest" fan.  If you know all about them, you're way ahead of me.
He was born Nov 15, 1765, in Loudon County, Virginia.
He died Jan, 1834, in Rawls, Missouri.  (Though the marker looks as if it says he died M... 15, 1833)

Salem Cemetery, Center, Rawls, MO

How was he my ancestor?  I checked.

Eugenia Booth was my great-grandmother (generation 4 with me as generation 1)
Her father was Richard Booth. (5)
His father was William Lewis Booth (6) and his mother was Hannah Leak Conn Booth (6) They married in Indiana in 1843, he having been born in NY and Hannah was born in KY.

Hannah's father, (7) John Thomas Conn (1765 – 1835) had also been born in KY.
And his father (8) was Thomas Conn from Virginia.

There are a zillion cousins from this tree, inevitably.  John Thomas Conn (7 Hannah's father) had at least 9 siblings on Ancestry.  Then he and his wife, (7) Mary Margaret (Polly) Norman Conn (1792-1833) had 8 children (including Hannah), and his second wife gave birth to another 4.

Thomas Conn (8, of the family crest) and his wife, (8) Mildred Ann Conley (1770-1845) had 11 children (2 of whom had the same name but different birth and death dates, according to Ancestry.com).