Happy birthday Great Grandmother Probie

My mother reminded me today that it's Great Grandmother's birthday. Happy 121! I thought this would be a perfect excuse to blog again!

Since starting our family blog almost 3 years ago, I've posted about Great Grandmother numerous times.  Here's a few of my favorites:

1. How is the father?

Still unsure.  I guess you could call it my biggest brick wall.

2. Harrison & Probie

I love the pic collage I created for this post.  Check it out!

3.I found a relative who lived until she was 104! Lily B Collins

I was so excited to keep finding ancestors who live well after there 90's.

Happy New Year's Wickliffe family!

Happy New Year's Wickliffe family!

Our family blog is growing each year & this year, my resolution is to get more of our family involved in telling our history.  I will try to reach out more to you & hopefully you will as well.

Last year was full of first!

I love doing this post every year.  Looking back on my post from the previous year makes me creative & I'm always amazed by how many people have seen our family's blog.

So drum roll please........Here are last year's greatest hits:

1. Solving my biggest problem with genealogy research: I'm not sure if it was the hilarious photo or the info in this post, but I was so excited to get over 200 views on a post, I didn't care.  The post views were one thing, but I actually got a comment.  I'm so proud of this post!

2. The murder of Evan S. Warner....by a Wickliffe: Blogging about a murder in the family must have been what made this post so popular (found this out in 2014).  I'm still trying to find the connection between the 2 Harrison Wickliffes.

3. Obsessed with finding the oldest Wickliffe: Charlotte Wickliffe is still on my to-do-list.  Among other distant Wickliffe relatives.

4. I found a relative who lived until she was 104!  Lily B. Collins: This post started me on the road that lead me to the previous post.  I can't stop.  Finding out how long some of my ancestors lived amazes me.  Especially when I consider the conditions they lived under.

5. The second time is the charm: Aunt Pal & Uncle Eddie's wedding anniversary article: I still feel like a kid on Christmas when I find an article in the Indianapolis Recorder Archives, but this article really touched my heart.  Finding this article about their 40th wedding anniversary was truly the highlight of my year.

6. What's the relationship: I'm sure that there is a connection between the Wickliffe-Carbon-Bodine families, but all I keep coming up with are dead ends.  This is one of my biggest brickwalls at the moment.

7. Were my grandparents cousins: This is the story I'd heard pretty much all my life, but have yet to be able to prove. (I hope this brickwall comes down this year.)

8.  Wickliffe descendants, I NEED YOUR HELP:  So far, my call for help has gone unnoticed, but I'm not giving up.   What I've noticed is that even though a post maybe old to me, someone out there is seeing this post for the first time & will click on that link & may be able to help me.

9. I found Robert Wickliffe's first wife:  This is one of my most recent finds & the first wall I've broken down in a long time (it seems like).  This side of the Wickliffe family has been where I have gotten the farthest.  So I'm glad to have found a missing link in his line.

10. Familysearch vs. Ancestry.com....Do you get what you pay for: This comparison of my favorite genealogy sites, may not have gotten that many views, but it definitely sparked a lot of conversation.  Do you get what you pay for with sites like ancestry?  My answer was yes, but I still used familysearch just as much as I do Ancestry.

Please keep following our family blog & let me know what you think.

Wickliffe descedants I NEED YOUR HELP

The other day, I noticed that my blog had 177 views in one day!  

I was stunned. (Thanks geneamusings for the mention.)    
I never thought that anyone would ever look at this little blog that I created to tell my family's story & in one day over a 150 people did.  

I just wanted my mom to read it.

That got me to thinking, I wonder if I'm hitting my target audience. 

 The Wickliffe family.

I continue to write this blog for one main reason...these 2.  I saw this picture years ago & I wondered what they were like or what they lived through.  I thought that one day, my 3 children may ask the same question.

It's not just my great grand parents story that I want to tell, but I also wanted to tell the story of their families and the families that married into ours.  In the end, I am not just part Wickliffe, but many other parts as well.

I guess that's where I need help.  I've tried to get organized and research our tree the right way, but I need to know if I'm on track or way off.

My current tree has 3240 people, 870 photos, 69 stories and 7424 historical records.

I know what I have, now let's talk about what I need.

I've recently started a to-do list.  I'm a techy so I started it on this cool site called Trello.com
Here's a link to what I've created so far.


It's not much, but it's a start.


What I need to find now is more pictures.  
I don't want our family photos to end up in someones garbage can because another family member didn't know that they existed.  I also don't want the stories that my mother, aunts, uncles and cousins were told as children to not be told to my children.

SO I'M ASKING FOR YOUR HELP.

Help me to write the story of our family.  I want our children's children to be able to Google the name of one of their ancestors and maybe get a glimpse of what they may have been.
Contact me.  Let me be the first of our family to share what has been shared with me.

Let's keep telling our story.

Solving my biggest problems with genealogy research

I've tried the shaky leaf, and the exhaustive searching......so now what?

This is the question I am asking myself in my research today.  Do I continue to visit the same sites and research the same names & keep running into the same information or do I try something different?

Even if I think I'm right about some of my information, I can't help thinking I'm completely wrong about others.

So I'm turning over a new leaf.

 (Ancestry members will find that funny.)

Here are my new rules of research:

1. Use my "know how".  I've tried to take a different look at my research.  Talk it out even.  Sometimes the records don't add up to what I already know or what I should know.  I have to go back to the beginning of my tree & review what I have versus what I need.  (Maybe it's time for a to-do list.)
2. Watch out for those shaky leaves.  I've screwed up so much of my tree saving info from someone elses tree.  I've spent months trying to decipher between what I've been able to prove and what someone else has guessed and saved to their tree.  
3. Get off my computer and go to the library.  I'm a teacher, so I know how much more I can get done with real books and library resources.  I can't let my Ancestry membership keep me from really researching my family tree.
4. Put away the old and look at the new.  Maybe the reason I can't find what I'm looking for is that I'm trying to hard.  I need to start looking for something new and maybe I'll find something I've been looking for.  (It works when I'm looking for my car keys.)
5. Treat my genealogy research like my second job.  I spend so much time trying to remember what I was working on last, that I don't get much done when I do have time.  I need to have a "research day" each week.

Any suggestions to add to my list?
Leave a comment below.

I found Robert Wickliffe's first wife

Robert Wickliffe was my grandfather's first cousin, possibly one of his favorite cousins' since he was a witness at my grandparents wedding. 

Robert was Andy Wickliffe's son & up until recently, I'd only found 2 wives for him.

I'd found 2 marriage index for him from Kentucky.

 The first index, the marriage he had with Lillian McGee, stated that his previous marriage ended in divorce & this marriage was in March 16, 1977.

On the second index, the marriage he had with Trudie Mae Sanders in November 24, 1987, it states that it was the second marriage for them both & that both previous marriages had ended in death.  

Now, I know that before Trudie & Lillian, he married Frances Browder in 1946.  

On the one of my favorite genealogy websites for Muhlenberg County Kentucky

 I found this :

 Black Marriages Index, 1866-1960

Grooms: W

 

Year	Groom	Bride	Book/Page

1946

Wickliffe, Robert

Browder, Frances Louise

93/20

What's the relationship?

I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out the relationship the Wickliffe/Bodine family has to the Carbon(Carbin) family & I've yet to come up with anything.  So I thought that the best thing for me to do is to blog about it.

 Earlier this year, I posted a Monday mystery about the Wickliffe-Carbon/Carbin family connection, 

Since then, I haven't made much progress.  

So what is the connection?

No, I haven't been searching for the Carbon-Wickliffe connection for 6 straight months, actually, it's much longer.  However, I have found a few clues that tell me that there must be some relation.
Here is a few examples:

This is a cropped download of the 1880 United States Federal Census for

South Carrollton, Muhlenberg, Kentucky

Charles Bodine is a name I've seen a few times, but this record states that his father was Joseph Bodine.

Is this the same Joseph Bodine-my 3 times great grandfather?

This record is also from 1880 & the reason I can't shake the feeling that there must be some relation.






Just being neighbors, doesn't make them family, but the fact that Carbons live so close to my 3 times great grandmother is not just by chance.  

 This is the only record I can find that gives me hope I will one day find the answer.

Blanche, the 9 year old in this record, married a Wickliffe.  Charles Wickliffe-son of my 3 times great grandfather, Alney Wickliffe.
I have no other records that connect our families.

Help me out Wickliffe family.

How are we related to the Carbons/Carbins?

120 years of the Indianapolis Recorder-Thank you for all of your help

If you follow my blog, you know how many key family history moments I've located in the Indianapolis Recorder.

When this paper started 120 years ago, it was a local newspaper that manifested itself into a key piece of African American history.
 
I've been lucky enough to find some of my family and so many other distant relatives I didn't know about until reading the Recorder.

The stories captured in this paper are phenomenal.  It's like stepping into a time machine and the coolest thing about it is now, IUPUI has begun to digitize as many issues as they have been able to come across. 

100 years ago, a copy of the Recorder was delivered to your home for a nickel.

An inspiration for many of my blog post, the Indianapolis Recorder is full of stories, not just about local Hoosiers, but I've found some of my Kentucky relatives in this paper as well. 

This clip is from August 7, 1915.

Two stories jumped out at me immediately:

1. A story about a black mayor who was arrested for shooting another man. 

2. A story about a park I grew up playing in-now know as Watkins Park.  An annual picnic was been held there for older black women to honor and raise money for them. 

From obituaries to stories about recognition, this paper will continue to be my first stop in searching for stories about my Hoosier relatives.