Merry Christmas!

As I enjoy my 'just a little skift' of a 'White Christmas' I think back on the Christmases past and those who are not here with us this year, as a genealogist/hstorian I also think of the advantages I have compared to those who came before me in this family.  I am thankful for the blessings I have.  I am thankful for the gift He gave at this time of year!
                                                 Merry Christmas and A Blessed New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we will visit with friends and eat good food and remember to be thankful for all of our many blessings.  I am thankful for those of you who come here and share my ramblings and for those who have become 'friends'.  Thanksgiving comes in different times and manners in different places but this year especially with the world in such a turmoil I will stop and give thanks for my blessings and pray for the same for all of you!      Happy Thanksgiving!!

I am so thankful that I got to see and spend time with my grandmother this year.  Knowing that she would never get to hold Miss Lily in person we took a picture of her holding a picture on the laptop of Matthew, Amber and Lily, this photo then shows the 5 generations of the family alive at one time!

Tribute!

I was so lucky to know my recent ancestors personally.  My kids had 3 great grandmas and 1 great grandfather.  This was the last of them.  At the age of 58 I now have no grandparents left alive.  How lucky I have been!!!

Grandma went home to be with the Lord 11/8/2014 at the age of 102! She was an amazing woman and an inspiring one as well. She said she never didn't eat what she wanted and she was well known for never uttering a word of gossip. She painted and quilted, cooked and farmed, if the tin on the barn roof was blown off she got up there and repaired it-she was amazing. She loved all of us, her family, unconditionally and never saw our faults. We will miss her but I am so glad she is finally home and finally reunited with grandad. Thank you grandma - for all of it - walks and talks and spray painted macaroni covered cigar boxes!  So happy that she was able to be home til the end and that I got to see her recently and spend some more time with her.  It is never enough is it?

This was her official Obituary.  She was Awesome!!

Nellie Corine Medlin
(September 20, 1912 - November 8, 2014)

Nellie Medlin

Nellie Corine (Quint) Medlin left this world behind and went to her heavenly home on November 8, 2014. She was 102 years old and was able to live at her home under the loving care of her daughters until her passing.

Nellie was born September 20, 1912 in Sullivan County, MO to Walter and Charlotte (Hamilton) Quint, the seventh of nine children. On April 8, 1931 she married George William Medlin. To this union three daughters were born: Irma, Evelyn, and Ramah. They lived on a farm southeast of Unionville before moving in 1943 to their farm north of Omaha. They enjoyed 53 years together before George’s passing. Nellie then moved to Unionville, MO.

Nellie spent her life serving others. She worked side by side on the farm with George, raised very large gardens, sewed clothes for her family, played music with her family at local churches, taught Sunday School and VBS at the Mount Hermon Church and Omaha Baptist Church, played the accordion at church and at nursing homes, made quilts and paintings for family members, and shared her many talents with others. Nellie was a self-taught natural musician and could play the accordion, piano, guitar, banjo, and mandolin. She was always willing to try new things and proved that age was not going to hold her back. She started oil painting at the age of 69, went white water rafting at 80, traveled to Alaska at 85, rode an ultra-light glider at 90, shot a crossbow at 95, and learned to Skype at 100.

Nellie was a Christian example to everyone she met, being kind and compassionate, forgiving, slow to anger, joyful always, and giving thanks in all circumstances. The lessons she taught her family and the memories she created will be greatly cherished.

Nellie was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, two son-in-laws, Niel Kiehn and Richard Morgan, one grandson, Courtney Dean Morgan, six brothers (Carl, Ross, Victor, Alva, Harry, and Glen Quint) and two sisters, Carmoleta Minear and Pauline Lewis.

Nellie is survived by her daughters Irma Kiehn of Exeter, CA; Evelyn Morgan of Pollock, MO; and Ramah (Richard) Dias of Hollister, CA. She is also survived by nine grandchildren: Kathy (Dave) Gates, Shawn (Edna) Kiehn, Rhonda (Steve) Rios, Nancy (R.G.) Lowry, Tonja (Ronnie) Wessel, Kym Jones, Chris Dias, Terry Jackson, and Shelly (Gary) Mort, 20 great-grandchildren, and 14 great-great-grandchildren. She is also survived by two sister-in-laws, Uarda Quint and Mary Pickett. 

 

She doesn't look 100!

Catching Up On The Paperwork!

I am not doing any fun genealogy in September!  Well not much anyway, see my favorite thing is the gathering of information.  I also like to put the information into a manageable format, like family tree sheets.  What I don't like to do is data entry!  I do realize that if I collect the info and then never put it out there it does no good.   I just don't like it, it may be the typing thing, it is more likely the repetitive nature of it.  So I am going to work on getting all the stuff I collated for the sharing with family onto my web site and then go through all of my find a grave memorials and make the connections that I know of.  I have been very lax about the adding of connections and need to improve.

Having now confessed my shortcomings I am going to share just a couple more pictures from my time in Missouri.  I joined the Putnam County Genealogical Society and the meetings are held in the museum, which is very full of all kinds of things.  (including family histories) This is the old Comstock funeral home horse drawn hearse, several of my relatives were carried in this.  That's Aunt Evelyn in the photo.

One afternoon we went for a drive with my cousin and myself, grandma, my mom and my aunt.  Those 3 women had lived in Putnam County for most of their lives (except for my mom the gypsy).  What a good time we had driving around the old roads just going where their memories would lead us and every corner we went around had a story of a family or friends that had lived there years ago.  One of the places we drove past was the Mt Herman Church north of Omaha Missouri (current pop. 2) where my mom and dad got married on the hottest July 30th anyone could remember!

It did not hinder the relationship at all, they were married 54 years and were together till death parted them, 6 years ago.  The man who married them was a seminary student and my dad's best friend from his hometown who had convinced him to go to school at the Evangelical United Brethren college in Lemars Iowa where he met my mom.  He had not graduated yet and so got a special license from the state of MO to do the ceremony - it was his first.  54 years later he did the funeral for my dad and it was his last official function, he came out of retirement to perform it, not long before he passed away himself.  Westmar college no longer exists but it is now the home of Blue Bunny Ice Cream!

Putnam County is full of memories and the history of my family, I'm sure I will visit it again!

The Best Kind of Genealogy Research

Since August 6th I have been in Missouri with my mother - helping her with my grandmother.  Grandma is nearly 102 (Sept 20th if she makes it) and she is failing.  She has had several strokes and a heart attack, but like the energizer bunny she somehow keeps on going.  She needs help to move around but on her good days her mind is fairly reliable.  She retains her sense of humor - when I asked her how she felt she replied "with my fingers"!  We are trying to make her comfortable and help her to have a little variety in her days.   The goal is to keep her at home until the end.

She has always loved to take drives so we have devised a way to get her out of her 'home with many steps' and into the car and driven to some of 'her places'.  We have gone to the place where she was born, and even though the house is no longer there (it was 102 years after all) it is fun to see the area and I have the memory of the house which was still there when I was a kid.  When she was a kid it looked like this-

Her father (Walter) helped to make all the bricks that were used to build the house.  The man who built the house was  William Quint son of Frederich and husband of Amanda Jane Meals.  His son (Grandmas Father) was Walter Hymes Quint married to Charlotte Hamilton.

William built the big house where they all lived, he sold the house and later Walter bought the house back.   He raised registered Hereford cattle and farmed. Walter needed help to keep going in the early 20's and the bank refused to loan the money and he lost the house and the 2000 acres he owned, the family has often wondered, since the 20's were easy money for banks, who ended up with the property and if there were some hanky panky with the deed after the foreclosure.

Whatever happened then, the family had to move.  On our drive Grandma told the story of how she at the age of 12 had to drive one of the wagons all the way from Greencastle, MO to Elko, MO (about 20 miles on today's roads, they would have cut across some places) She said it took all day and the boy cousins that were driving the other 2 wagons would get down and go to the bathroom in the timber and maybe walk around.  She had such a big responsibility and she didn't really know what to do so she stayed on the wagon the whole time and didn't get to go potty until she got to the new house!  She said it was getting dark when they got there so she had been on the road all day.  She was almost sick with having to go.  I told her I felt bad for the little girl she was!

I will be going home in September so this month will be my genealogy in Missouri.  I have already trimmed the 'Find a Grave' photo requests in the Unionville Cemetery (a block from her house) from 101 to 40!  Hope to do a couple more of the local cemeteries while I'm here.  Hopefully I will have a few posts about the things I find here in the old family stomping grounds!

Of course then we took her to another favorite place KFC!  She and 2 of her 3 girls.

More Idaho "Guffeys"

Well after some more research I discovered that I had some more Guffeys in the local area cemeteries so I called my trusty (up for anything, when are we leaving) traveling companion Anita and we headed out to find the elusive pioneer era cemetery and we did find it, the cemetery and the area had interesting history and we were able to enjoy quite a bit of both!

Thomas Henry Guffey (son of Richard Guffey and Phoebe Adams) married Serena Emeline Roberts 1/16/1868 in Unionville MO.  Thomas was born in Clinton county KY on 1/7/1838 and was part of the huge migration from Kentucky to Northern Missouri in the 1840's and 1850's.  It seems that even the wild frontier that was Missouri at the time was too tame and Thomas moved to Idaho in 1891, the year after statehood.  In his local obituary he was hailed as one of the pioneers of the area and farmed in the Payette River valley the rest of his life.  He and his wife came west with the Callie Burt family from Exline Iowa and one of his daughters married a 'Burt'.  They came in a covered wagon and would have followed the Oregon trail to Boise and then swung a little north to get to this valley.  His obituary also describes him as over 6 feet tall and broad shouldered.  He passed away at the age of 90.

I knew that Thomas and Serena were at this cemetery but was surprised to find as well a daughter Anna Guffey Duggan.  Anna is their daughter, Anna Adelle, and Duggan is a 2nd (at least) husbands name, her first husband was I believe David Nickles and he is buried in eastern Idaho.  She is listed in the census records in 1930 as

'married' living in Boise as a lodger.  What fun for me, a bonus grave (is that too awful to say?). 

This is a real pioneer type cemetery western style as there is no grass and all the graves were covered with rocks, bricks or cement.  (to keep the varmints from digging them up - no really!)

There are Stuarts here and the name is actually listed on the sign as the Stuart-Falk Cemetery.  The town of Falk no longer exists but it was on the corner of SR 52 and SR 72 now known as Hamilton Corners.  If you put Falk cemetery, Idaho into google maps it does take you to the correct location. 

This area is what is known as 'high desert'  Elevation about 2500 ft and semi arid, average less than 10 inches of rain or moisture in a year.  All of the farming is and was dependent on irrigation.  In this area they dug a canal, it took from about 1896 to 1905 to make a go of the canal and 2 different companies went bankrupt trying to get it done, but finally the Noble Ditch Company got it done including being lined with canvas as the soil was so sandy!  To get the water out of the ditch and into the fields they used water wheels, some of which are still in use today in the nearby New Plymouth area.  This seemed like a natural progression on our trip and off we went. 

These things are awesome!

We found 3 of the remaining water wheels turning away, easily accessible, one is on a private road and another appears to have been pulled out of the canal and is laying on the side of the banks.  What an interesting thing to see, this is not what I would have considered "water wheel " country, I would think Mississippi river for that!

Leaving the area and stopping for a bathroom/drink break at Fruitland, we decided to take the side roads home and not the freeway, so we meandered through Parma and Notus.  In Notus we stopped to take a picture of the historic marker which gave us information we had never known.  Hard to believe this "reddest state in the country" was once a Southern Democrat stronghold!  What a fun day of history and genealogy we had!

Click on the photo to get a larger view!

Happy 4th of July!

I think that the 4th is more meaningful to me these days since I really got back to the immigrants on most of the branches of the family tree.  I was thinking of this last night and realized that knowing my relatives were there, knowing who they were, made a huge difference in my viewpoint, my feelings about the date!  This is true of all of the history of this great country for me these days but most of all for the 4th. 

I have a list of the Medlins who had land granted to them in Kentucky for their Revolutionary War service, the Hamiltons who were in the Pennsylvania Line and probably met George Washington.  The Guffeys and the Woodsons, the Carders and the Days, the Adams and the Harrisons.  I have yet to find a relative who wished to  go back to England or who fought for the English side, and within 30 years of the Revolutionary War all of my ancestors were part of the great westward migration. 

It is the story of America written in my own DNA!  My ancestors pushed west and settled in the vast open spaces, some made it as far as California, some went to Alaska and Hawaii.  They lived and died in the Gold rushes, they built in areas they had to fight for, they served their country in every branch of the military, the blood that runs through my veins is the same blood that stained the prairies and the mountains of America.  One hundred and thirty years later the other side of my family would come to this country fleeing tyranny and finding freedom.  The newcomers also fought, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East. 

Yes I definitely think that knowing who your family were at certain periods of time makes history come alive, I am not sure whether my love of history made me more interested in genealogy, or if the genealogy made me love history more but on a day like today when we remember the beginnings of our great nation, it just makes me proud!!

Research....Ok it was fun!

So my friend and I were going to take some photos in outlying cemeteries, you know pioneer type cemeteries, boot hill sorts of cemeteries - fun cemeteries!  If that sounds creepy you may have found this blog by accident!  :)  We were going to fulfill some photo requests from find-a-grave.com and have a fun day in the process.  We went to look up the requests and FAG was not responding, we checked to make sure it wasn't just us and the site is down for some reason.  So this meant we needed a fall back plan, a Plan B, so to speak!  We had to go somewhere, we had a cooler full of food and snacks!

The new plan then was chosen, we would go to Marsing to the new quilt shop "Sleepy Hollow", (had awesome fun looking at all the cool stuff and the quilts hanging on the walls), spent a little money since I found a fabric that is perfect for something for my oldest son.  (Don't know for sure what but it is perfect) Then we went south to Murphy to go through the museum they have there and on the way we went past a sign that said Guffey Ln.  We went to the museum, ate our picnic lunch (feast since Anita packed it!).  Enjoyed the glorious Idaho sky, and stopped on our way back and took pictures of the lane and the beautiful sky, and the snake river.

Guffey Lane looking toward the Snake River

Guffey Bridge taken on our visit to Celebration park over a year ago.

I had forgotten that there was a bridge over the Snake River called the Guffey Bridge, how you ask did I forget this, oh it was a couple of years ago, I wasn't researching Guffeys then and I am aging and could forget most anything at the drop of a hat (that last one is really unnerving I must say).  Our visit to the museum in Murphy reminded me and I had to come home and find out if this was one of my Guffeys that came to Idaho.  The answer is no....thought maybe we had found the rich uncle but no such luck.  Colonel James McClurg Guffey was the owner of Guffey Oil Co. and at one time the largest private oil, gas and coal producer in the country.  He was an investor in the Boise, Nampa, Owyhee rail line and president of the Trade Dollar Consolidated Mining Company in Silver City Idaho.  J.M. Guffey is in the line that I labeled as Line 4 in my May 15 post on the lines of Guffeys in the US.  According to the biography of him written when he was still alive, he was the son of Alexander and the descendant of William who came to this country in 1738 and fought against the French at Fort Duquesne, and settled on  Loyalhanna Creek and helped to start the first English settlement in Westmoreland county PA.  But alas not one of my relatives unless I find the connection in Scotland somewhere that will bring all of these lines together!  (hope springs eternal)

Looking south - awesome skies

Any day that includes this kind of beauty is a success in my book!

If I read the map right this is Guffey Butte

You never know - maybe I will find a connection to this famous Guffey, but until then the search continues for my Idaho Guffeys.  Next stop is Melba Idaho cemetery, I think some of them are there. 








So I will continue on in my search for the elusive...what?...too dramatic?...sigh..onward and upward!

Grandma Jo

I first met Grandma Jo Gates when my husband and I were dating.  She was an interesting person, I was this 'hick' from Wyoming who had just moved to California and was going through a sort of culture shock, she shared with me that she had moved to California with Grandpa Mel from Nebraska and that she had been born in Iowa.  I was born in Iowa and this made us instant 'kin'!  :)

I think she was already working on the genealogy back then in 1980, but I didn't talk to her about it until she started sending out questionnaires and then browbeating each of us till we turned them back in!  Maybe the appearance of great grandchildren spurred her on, whatever it was she was focused on getting as much as possible done before she died.  Born 6/26/1907 she was already pushing 80 when I met her and by the time she had great grands she was talking about getting things done before she died.  She ended up living to be 100 years old and in the last 20 years of her life she learned to use the computer, published a monthly family newsletter, compiled and edited her brothers diary, and researched the family tree back quite a few generations, went to Europe (amongst other trips) and served on the complaint board at the assisted living facility! 

Knowing her - none of the above listed accomplishments are really a surprise.  I will never forget the first time I saw her dance!  We had taken a houseboat trip, David and I, his parents and Grandma Jo, on the river delta near Stockton.  We had a wonderful trip and one night we stopped at a restaurant on the river that had a band that played big band era music and she and her son, my father in law (whom I knew as the very staid Rockwell engineer) 'cut a rug'!  They looked like 'Fred and Ginger', and I heard the story about how she had taught dance lessons to help earn money for her young family, and how her boys learned to dance from her. 

She worked as a telephone operator in North Platte Nebraska when she married Grandpa Mel.  When they moved to California he worked in markets and eventually had his own market.  She gave birth to 3 boys, was widowed at age 62 and left a lasting legacy. 

I wanted to introduce Grandma Jo because so much of the Gates side of the genealogy has been begun or worked on by her and she got most of the DAR paperwork ready for those who follow along behind her.  She and I had many discussions about family histories and I got to hear the stories from her directly.  What a gift!  In the next few weeks I will introduce some of the members of each of these 4 main families who told the family stories that got me interested in the history of these relatives as well as the names and birth dates of the ancestors!

Francis Josephine Kline Gates
1/26/1907 Malvern, Mills IA - 2/5/2008 Scottsdale, Maricopa, AZ

Grandma Jo 1987 with Wm Niel

Full Circle!

Grandma is 101 years old, her next birthday is in September and she may make it that long.  She is however, losing track of things and has become very frail.  I am so lucky to have had a grandma this long.  Every once in awhile she pops out with a memory and I am trying to keep track of them.  There is no telling how long I will have this opportunity. 
This story starts with the old farmhouse which had just gotten more and more dilapidated since Grandma moved to town in 1984.  She had a hard time thinking about tearing it down and in that area with the heat and humidity and the growth that goes with them, the house became scary to even walk through - the floor boards would sag and bounce. (yikes!)  We have so many memories of the farm and the house and all the
reunions and fun and work.  This photo is taken from the hump in the farm lot next to the gate, it was a good sized hump and my mom and her sisters played on it as did my cousins and my brother and I. I don't remember anyone ever even talking about the hump or why it was there.






About 6 years ago during a storm the house was apparently struck by lightning and the fire burned most of what was still standing.  The neighbor that leases the farm said he would fill in the hole. 

This is what it looked like when he was done!  Not a very good job to my way of thinking.  This has bothered me for years (it's the insurance agent thing that makes me think of liability issues all the time!)  Since Mom is out there taking care of Grandma she decided to have this taken care of, and done right.

(This photo is the view to the north from the top of the hump.)  

When mom met the guy who was going to do the bulldozing at the farm, he asked her where she wanted the dirt to come from that he would use to fill in the hole.  She said he could use the dirt on the hump and when she leaned in the car to ask Grandma if that was OK Grandma told her that the house had been built without a basement and the people who had owned it before her and Grandad, had dug out the basement when the house was already there.  The 'hump' was all the dirt that came out of the nearly full basement they dug under the house.  Mom and Grandma went out to look at the job after it was done and said it is really nice.  The 'hump' is back where it started!

Ready to start adding some info

And so it begins....this is the result of my research on the Guffey connection in my family tree. I may not get it all on here in one session but this will begin the history portion of the research. The tree will probably be posted on the website as it is large and static.

There are several lines of Guffey's traceable in the USA

The first is of course our line of the Guffey Surname

We will refer to them as -

Line 1)- Descended from John MaGUFFIE/Maguffee of 1640 who settled in old Rappahannock Co. (now Essex Co.), VA. Many of his descendants moved into Pittsylvania Co., VA. where the name was spelled "McGUFFEY" until the late 1790s when they relocated to KY. then to TN. and later on to MO. When they left VA., the patrynomic designator, "Mc", was dropped and became known as "GUFFEY". One grandson of John Maguffee moved into N.C., and their name was then spelled McGUFFEY and continues to be spelled that way today.

Lines 2 & 3) Descended from John and Henry GUFFEY who settled in Rutherford and Rowan Cos., N.C. The many GUFFEYs who settle in that region descended from these two men. Two of this John's grandsons moved to McMinn Co., TN. and a large number of GUFFEYs live in that area and descended from this line also.

Line 4 & 5) Descended from William GUFFEY b. 1698 in Scotland or Alexander GUFFY b. 1750 in Scotland. They settled in Pennsylvania: Westmoreland and Northumberland Cos. respectively.

Line 6) Descended from James GUFFIE and his wife, Margaret KEARN GUFFEY. This family is well documented because two of the children fought in the Revolutionary War and filed for pensions based upon that service. Those descendants settled in Indiana, Ohio and central KY (Butler & Logan Cos.)

It has been estimated that probably as many as 90% of the people with the last name Guffey in the US come from one of these lines.

And again I give a huge thank you to Mr A Joseph Guffey who did so much research on the Guffey family before he passed away. He left an incredible legacy!

I have tried during this process to not use any information that I could not verify through some kind of official record, such as a census report, will, land grant etc. I believe the information is accurate but if you see an error please let me know, typing is not a true 'talent' it is merely a 'skill' for me and typos abound in my work, if you believe I have someone in the wrong place please let me know and we will discuss it. I have the records in my files on Ancestry and Family Tree Maker on my computer and we can review, I make no claims to perfection.

I will only be posting from now on on "Line 1" as that is the only line I researched. Someone may connect them all at some point and then I will put them all in my records but until then it's just too overwhelming!

Where does the time go?.....

So in the days following Miss Lilly's birth (Miss Lily just has a ring to it!!) I have been so busy, yes, yes, I have had so much to do I just don't know how I fit it all in!

2nd day the swelling and redness goes away

Of course I had to spend Friday recovering from the actual birth and being up late the night before, yet tired as I was I was able to make several phone calls and talk about the baby and post several photos on Facebook, do up the agenda for the quilt club meeting, and send and receive several text messages with photos to download onto the computer and put into the file on my desktop labeled simply 'Miss Lily'.  Just exhausting!

Saturday was our quilt club meeting and I did find time to put together a little photo collage of Miss Lily on my phone in case someone at the meeting would ask to see her.  Of course being my friends they were all kind enough to ask to see the photos and were very interested in every detail I had.  Anita and Teresa and I had carpooled to the meeting and we decided to stop at every garage sale we found on the way home and we just had a great time finding a couple of new (old) teapots and looking at baby clothes and strollers and all sorts of things the kids may need for Miss Lily.  Saturday evening I fried 30 pieces of chicken for our Mothers day picnic at our friends (everyone was bringing picnic food even though we knew the weather was not going to cooperate and we were going to eat inside) and while the chicken was cooking I was able to take a break and send a few photos to my mom who is away from her computer and unable to see Miss Lily, I had to send the photos to my aunt who lives nearby and she copied them for the new great grandma to see.  I managed to get the chicken in the fridge and was off to bed after I made sure I copied all the new photos of Miss Lily off of everyone's Facebook pages and downloaded them onto my computer and tagged any friends or family who may not  have had a chance to see our Miss Lily.

With Auntie Lala

Today we attended church as is our habit and they had a children's choir and  baby dedication for Mothers Day, both of which brought a tear to my eye as I was thinking of how our Miss Lily would probably participate in this sort of thing in a few years wearing those velvet dresses and anklets with lace that I had always longed to buy, but that would have been inappropriate for the boys to wear.  (none of them would have agreed to do it anyway) 

We had a lovely picnic with our friends, much good food and good conversation.  I was pleased that I had emailed pictures of Miss Lily already so we could share with our friends who had not seen her some of our pictures.  We came home this evening and retired to our computers and I have been catching up on my email and Facebook posts, I can't believe there were people who had yet to see our Miss Lily!  So as soon as I finish this blog post I will make a last perusal of email, texts and Facebook to collect every last photo that shows up of Miss Lily and head off to bed. 

The new family Matt, Amber and Miss Lily!

It is a good thing, I believe that Hubby and I are not the type to monopolize a conversation or pull out a photo album of pictures.  We are not obsessive people and we will take this grandparent thing in stride and with aplomb.  Far be it from us to bore our friends with stories of our grandchild.  Her arrival has hardly impacted our lives at all!   ;)

A new generation!

Yesterday we added another level to our family tree - Liliana Nellottie Gates - She came into the world at 3:13 on May 8, 2014. She weighed in at 8lbs and is 18 1/2 inches long.  She is our first grandchild!

She put her mom through 16 or 17 hours of labor and nearly an emergency C-section but her mom looks like she's forgiven her already doesn't she? 

Her middle name is a combo of Nellie and Lottie, her great, great grandmothers names put together, (Nellie Quint Medlin and Charlotte "Lottie" Kiehn) it is a little big for such a small girl but how fun for a genealogist to have family names!  I don't know if she will ever get to meet her but she comes into the world having parents, grandparents, a great grandmother and a 2x great grandmother still living!  Our current age group is from one day to 101 years.  Kind of cool I think!

So for today my research is going to consist of getting as many pictures of this new 'leaf' on our tree as I can get her parents to send me, and planning the trip to see her and get to know her.  I'll let the cemeteries slide for a few hours and look at the baby department in the store for now.   And then, someday soon she will come and visit grandma and we will talk about the old people and the stories of our family, and we will talk about the history of our country and how our families were a part of it, and she may even like cemeteries and museums like grandma does and we will make great grandma's cookies, and the other great grandma's cheesecake, and we will visit as we pick things in the garden and find bugs and butterflies.......but for now she will just sleep and grow and I will finish that baby blanket so I can deliver it to her in person!  Welcome to the family Lily!

Rabbit Trails...

I do this every once in awhile, I find a thread that is interesting and have to follow it to the end and further if it stays interesting.  My most recent trip down a rabbit trail though has been quite some time in the making.  I'm not sure I can even explain the whole thing, but I am going to try!

My maternal grandfather's sister Nina married Ross Guffey.  They married later than most and the kids were younger than my mom and her generation (the one they belonged to), in fact Nina's youngest daughter was my age and we were fast friends, just like we were first cousins really, we had the same name (Kathy) and spent much time giggling together!  So I knew that I had cousins named Guffey and Uncle Ross was not my relative, but he married into the family.  Several years ago, when I first started seriously looking for relatives, I found a Rebecca Guffey in the family tree of my maternal grandfather, his ggggrandmother was a Guffey, and I wondered if they could be related.  I was very busy trying to trace the main branches and the kids were still at home and you know how it goes!  Every now and then I would be walking in one of the cemeteries in Putnam County MO and wonder if this or that Guffey was a relative.  Recently I finally got around to asking one of the cousins for the information they had on their branch and decided to take the trail and see where it led me.  I just was convinced that all these Guffeys had to be related - and I was right!  Woohoo!  I found the common ancestor for the two families and it really is an inter-tangled mess!

Much of the research was made easier by Mr. A Joseph Guffey who was a prolific writer on all things Guffey and answered a lot of questions on genealogy forums like Genealogy.com.  Mr. Guffey passed away a few years ago, but his body of work lives on on the message boards and he gave enough information to do a lot of narrowing of searches.  As soon as I get this information collated and in a readable form (not just notes on lined paper!) I will post the whole tree - probably on the website with a link to here.

Sigh....I am a happy camper!

Some Surnames

I am just going to post this paragraph of names that I compiled for another project.  These are the names on the Pleve chart for the Kiehn side of the family.  Doctor Igor Pleve, his wife and daughter do the research on the records that are to be found in Russia.  Dr. Pleve is a historian and Director of Education in Saratov Russia (University of Saraov).  These archives from the villages along the Volga River are now kept in the kind of condition that museums in America would use, at least it sounds like that to me from my reading.  If any of these are yours and you would like for me to see if I can find them in our family and tell you who they married etc. I would be more than happy to do so, leave a message in the comments .

Amend, Bastron, Bauer, Baum, Behr, Bischoff, Borgens, Burkhardt, Eckhardt, Eisenach, Finder, Frank, Freitag, Frickle, Frick, Fox, Fuchs, Gettmann, Guenther, Goetz, Grosskopf, Guggenheim, Harding, Hartung, Hein, Herbst, Hirsch, Hofferber, Hoff, Hoffman, Hock, Hope, Hundzinger, Jordan, Kammerzell, Kasiska, Kaufmann, Kindsvater, Kissler, Kister, Klein, Klippert, Kroening, Lebsack, Lesser, Lichtenwold, Lobe, Loebsack, Meier, Manwellwe, Meininger, Mueller, Nordloh, Pemuiprjevauck, Rothe, Ruppel, Schaefer, Schaug, Schlager, Schmidt, Schneider, Schneidermiller, Schoessler, Schumacher, Sell, Slagle, Sloner, Soder, Stoerckel, Strassheim, Stroh, Thiel, Trupp, Thue, Uhrich, Vollweiler, Vorhees, Wacker, Wagner, Walter, Weber, Weidmann, Weiss, Winter, Wolfe, Wolsborn, Zeiler, Zitzmann, 

Of course these are the families that the Kiehns married into or they married into the Kiehns.  The list may not be complete but it is close!  

My immediate Kiehns came into the country in 1906 and moved to Ritzville, WA.  This is a picture of Ritzville from that time.

 

 Look closely at all those bags.  Ritzville was the largest wheat producer in the nation, still is up there in the top places.  When I went there to see the place my grandfather was born I was just blown away by the miles and miles of wheat fields.  It was almost eerie, we stopped the car and in all 4 directions you could see nothing but wheat fields!  Ritzville is home to a lot of Volga Germans and nearby Odessa is the same way.  We drove to Odessa and they have signs welcoming you in German.  That paragraph of names could have been pulled off the gravestones in the Ritzville Cemetery.  Someday maybe I'll find out why my grandfathers family moved to Colorado, when the rest of the Kiehns stayed in WA for awhile, and we never went to visit them or talked about them.  Not particularly strange - these Volga Germans didn't talk much about anything like that.  I may never know but it is fun to speculate!

Second Information Dump

(January 16, 2014 original date posted to website)

Today I am adding something for the Kiehn side.  It is not very often I find a paper trail on this side of the family and I get real excited when it happens!  This is a Naturalization declaration of intent to become a citizen for George F Kiehn.  This is from the state of Washington and he was living in Ritzville where his son Fred Kiehn (who will become Grandad Kiehn to me) is born. 

Some interesting things about this document - it lists the ship he says he came to this country on and where he came in at and the date he got here.  I have looked and not been able to find this ship but - hope springs eternal!  Another interesting thing to me is that he 'made his mark' which tends to indicate an inability to write ones own name due to either Illiteracy or physical infirmity.  He is also required to describe himself - he is 5'6" tall, weighs 140 pounds and has light hair and gray eyes.  This document was signed in 1909.  These documents are step one in becoming a naturalized citizen.








This is the last transfer of information I think - like I mentioned it became obvious fairly soon that the web page wasn't going to satisfy my need to add stuff and 'talk' - no surprise there!  :) The other thing I realized that I would be missing is the chance to have a real conversation with anyone who came along as a relative 'as yet unmet', which is of course a real hope.  So if you stumble across or are a relative that I have known all my life let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions or requests. 

Lets See How This Works

This is going to be my attempt to share online the information, pictures and documents that I and others in the family have put together.  The website Kiehn Edges, Rusty Gates is working out well for the storage and listing of the forms and data in my collection but after just a few additions of stories and photos and notes I realized that the home page of the website needs to stay simple and a little more static to keep it fast and that a blog format is probably better for what I have in mind as far as adding the interesting history type stuff.

The first few posts will be transferring info from the web page and then I will get back to the work of adding the stuff to both sites. 

(January 11, 2014 date posted to website)

This headstone belongs to Samuel Meals Sr and Margaret Catherine Reichersin in the North Washington Cemetery in Butler County PA
 

These two Bios were from the book "A History of Butler County"  from  Butler County PA 
The drawing was done by Samuel (the Father)
SAMUEL MEALS was a native of York county, Pennsylvania, whither his parents immigrated from Germany prior to the Revolution. He grew to manhood in his native county, whence he removed to Adams county, there married and reared the following children: George, who married Elizabeth STUDEBAKER; Peggy, who married George DAUBENSPECK; William, who finally settled in Clarion county; Samuel, who married Miss HOOVER; Jacob, who married a Miss VARNUM, and Daniel, who married Catherine STUDEBAKER. In the spring of 1796 the eldest son, George, came to what is now Butler county, took up several hundred acres of land on the line of Washington and Concord townships, and made some improvements. The following year the father and balance of the family came and settled on this land. Mr. MEALS was a blacksmith, as were also his sons George and Samuel, and built the first shop in the township, which he carried on in connection with farming. He was quite a prominent man in his neighborhood and filled many of the township offices at different periods. He and all his children attained a ripe old age, and their descendants are numerous in Butler County.

GEORGE MEALS, eldest son of Samuel MEALS, Sr., was born in Adams county, Pennsylvania, and there grew to maturity. In 1796 he came to this part of the State and took up the large tract of land referred to in his father's sketch, upon which the family settled the following year. George afterwards went to Westmoreland county and there married Elizabeth STUDEBAKER. About 1811 he returned to Butler county and settled at Mechanicsburg, in Worth township, where he carried on a blacksmith shop. In 1817 he removed to Concord township, and later to Washington township, where he continued to follow his trade in connection with agriculture. To George and Elizabeth MEALS were born seven children, as follows: Samuel G., who was born in Westmoreland county, July 4, 1809 and died on his farm in Washington township, September 21, 1877; Lydia, who married John MAHOOD; Mollie; Joseph G.; Peggy, who mar- [p.1293] ried Joseph PISOR; Elizabeth, who married Jacob PISOR, and Susanna, who married Daniel PISOR. The parents and all of the children are deceased.

This George is the brother of our Samuel Jr who married Elizabeth Hoover.