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!