Monday mystery: Are the Wickliffe & Carbon/Carbin families related?

I see the last name Carbon all over the place as I'm researching my family tree.

I first noticed it on a death record of one of my ancestors.  I thought it was strange that the name Ed Carbon was the informant, eventhough this individual had living children.


I then noticed the name Edward Carbon again on the 1880 census.
He lived right next door to my 2 & 3 times great grandmothers, Nancy & Emma Gatton.  
This same record also has a Joseph & Emily Bodine.  

This got me to thinking.......

Are these families related?

I've only been able to find one set of Wickliffe-Carbon marriages.  Blanche Carbon married Charles Wickliffe in 1911.  However, this is the only connection that I've been able to make.  

Does anyone know what other connections our families may have?

Out with 2014....In with 2015

Looking back at this blogging year has been so amazing.  I'm so excited at the things that I've accomplished this year, but I know I still have so far to go.

When I first started this blog, I had a totally different idea of what this blog would be.  
I cared more about who read it & how to  increase the traffic to my blog, than about sharing my research with my family.  In the end, it turned out to be the last thing I worry about.  Don't get me wrong, I care if my mom reads my post, or if my husband was interested enough to want to read it, but in the end, I care if I want to read it more than them.

Even if my mother hasn't seen it lately, I know that she had in the past.  Not only her, but several others too. Over 2,400 views to date.  250 just this month!  THAT'S AMAZING!

I've had some great post this year, but these were obviously the "fan favorites".

10. Connecting with family:  In September, I posted about my ability to connect with my extended family through this blog.  
(That is a gift that I get every time I connect with a new member of my family.  Which is happening more often recently)
9. Alfred & Bessie's boys: This is definitely one of my favorites & I can't believe that it's this low on my list. My uncles were so handsome & the pic over "old" Indianapolis is something any original Hoosier needs to see.
8.  Harrison & Probie:  This post was a cool collage I made of my great grandparents.  This post was special to me for many reasons, but the main reason was that it touched my heart to see these pics come alive in a collage.
7. My grandpa as a child: I wasn't super excited about this post because all I did was ask questions.  I know very little about my grandpa as a child & I was hoping that someone would comment & enlighten me, but unfortunately........
6. Wednesday's child: My uncle Charles: I hope my uncle had a chance to see the Thinklink I created with his childhood pics.  This post got a lot of my immediate family talking.  Everyone thought the pics looked like my son or my brother.  (Which is ironic because my son & both of my brothers look just like him.)
5. Monday mystery: Wickliffe family reunion: This post was important to me because I really want this reunion to happen.  We all know so very little about each other & we are related.  THAT HAS TO CHANGE.  I didn't get a chance to know my grandparents before they passed away.  I don't want to not know their families too.
4. Aunt Pal: My aunt Pal was such a beautiful person.  I'm glad so many people saw this pic of her.  She was an angel & one of the few Wickliffe family members I've ever met.
3. Blogging our history:  Ironically, this post was just like the one I'm doing right now, but it was done way back when the only thing I cared about was "increasing my blog traffic".  I decided to highlight my favorite blogs & for the first time in Wickliffe family blog history, someone actually commented on one of my post.  (Thanks again Jana Last.  She runs one of the blogs that inspire me every time I visit.)
2. It's my mom!:  I LOVE THIS POST.  It's my favorite post of all time.  Seeing my mom smile like my baby girl, is better than one thousand views.  (THANKS AGAIN cousin Wanda for all of the awesome pics.
Drum roll please.........
And the # 1 post of 2014 was...........
Blogs that help me: THANK YOU to all of the blogs that I read daily that inspire me to continue to blog, even if it is just for ME.  

What was your favorite post? 

The big white binder: how to organize your genealogy research

How do you organize your family tree research?

Organizing the information you find out about your family tree, is a long & exhausting project.  I've taken time over the last couple of months, to try to do just that.  

I have a huge white binder filled with my notes & print outs & pedigree charts.  I've tried to organize according to family, but needless to say, my notes are all over the place.  I have the information according to family surnames, but a few of the documents have been duplicated because the family member is in multiple places in my binder.

It wasn't long before I realized this system was NOT working.  So I started to do what I always do when I can't figure out something with my tree....I researched.

I've found a couple of Youtube videos, but this one is one of my favorites.

Hanging file folders & a file cabinet is a great idea, but before I can get here, I have to find a digital way to carry all of my notes with me.  That's where Google is helpful for me.  I'm a Google addict.  I use Google for everything, including organizing my numerous notes.  Typing these notes out, made me think of them again & see if I have "exhausted my search".

How do you organize your research?

Last name: Wickliffe

Google the name Wickliffe & a thousand different things will pop up.

http://www.familycrestdb.com/irish/wickliffe-surname.html

I found everything from cities & counties named Wickliffe to car rental places & pharmaceutical companies.

The surname has no formal meaning, but it is used as both a first & last name.

I'd always believed that it had some German origin, but the surname actually originated in Northern England.  

https://www.historicalnames.com/wickliffe-coat-of-arms.aspx

According to the surname database, the name may have come from the term "white cliff".

The spelling varies, but I've seen it spelled several ways: Wycliffe, Wickliff, Wycliff or Wicliffe.   

So how did we end up with the last name Wickliffe?

This is a mystery I'm still trying to solve.

I've blogged about it a few times in the past:

• Who was Joe/Joseph Bodine?
• Pond Creek
• Robert Wickliffe's Will

Whether my ancestors were given as wedding gifts or in a will, I'm still unsure, but regardless, we were eventually given the surname from our original slave owners.

 Will the family name continue?

With only a few Wickliffe males left, is our family name being preserved?  

I've never been to a family reunion.  My mother is the only person besides a distant cousin who has ever told me about my family.  

What will happen when they are unable tell their stories?

Wednesday's child: Florine (Flarine) Deloris Wickliffe

I'm still searching for our connection, but today's Wednesday's child is Florine Wickliffe.

The spelling of her first name was the first question I had about Florine.  I can't tell from the record if it's Florine or Flarine.  (Can anyone else tell the difference?)

I know that she was the last daughter born to Henry & Fannie Wickliffe.  They would have one son after her, but she was the last girl.  

She died just 6 months after her birth due to nephritis (inflammation of the kidney) due to gastroenteritis (inflammation of the stomach & intestines).

According to this record, she was only diagnosed a month before her death.

I had no idea how common kidney failure was & still is today, it is the 8th leading cause of death.

Can anyone help me figure out how Florine & I  are related?

My brickwalls: breaking down the mysteries

Why do people call it brick walls when it really feels more like a mountain?

Recently, I re-watched a Youtube video with one of my favorite people, Crista Cowan of Ancestry.com   

In this video, she discussed the famous brickwall.  Before I started searching my tree, I had never heard the term used the way she does, but the further along I got in the video, the more I asked myself "What do I know versus what do I think?"  She made me question most of my tree or at least question whether I'm on the right road.  

How do you know if you're right?

My Wickliffe family brickwalls are something that I've blogged about before.

1. Yost's mother:  I don't know if I'll ever begin to break this wall down until I figure out if he even knew who his mother was.  I want to look for any record filled out or had filled out for him that stated his mother's name.  I also thought of looking for info on his brother Joseph Wickliffe to see if his mother was on any of his records.  
2. Emmas' father: I have yet to find out who her father was or who Nancy Gatton (her mother) married after Emma married Yost.  (I'm pretty sure that she marries (again possibly) or dies.)
3. Lou Wickliffe's birth parents:  This was the wall I feel that I have knocked down since I started blogging, but I don't think my journey is complete yet.  I know who adopted my two times great grandmother, but I don't know who her real parents were or if she even knew.

I could have gone on for days about the stuff I don't know, but these three are at the top of my list.  

Going back generations in my family has been a ton of work.  A daily process when I can, but I think that I am slowly creeping up on the info I'm looking for.  

I think that its time that I made my first road trip to find out what info is available in Kentucky.  I may not be lucky enough to find a birth/death certificate, but maybe I might find some other record that I didn't have before.

Am I on the right track?

Ancestry vs Family search: Do you get what you pay for?

I can't imagine how far I would be in my tree if it weren't for Ancestry.com

I started working on my family tree through Ancestry.com in March of 2006.  I couldn't wait to find a new record with my grandparents name on it or a new person my mother had never heard of that was our ancestor.  It was fun!  I went from record to record, discovering new secrets about my family & had no idea how big of a "project" it would turn into.

One day, a person I'd never met before answered a query I'd posted on Ancestry.  The email helped me find the maiden name of one of my ancestors & introduced me to Familysearch.org.

I couldn't believe I'd never heard of this site.  I was amazed to find that finding records on Familysearch was easier than Ancestry.  I started using Familysearch to locate certain records & then I would go back to Ancestry to save the record to my tree.  It was a long & exhausting process, but eventually, I developed a tree on Familysearch.  That was not as easy as the tree I created on Ancestry.  

Familysearch has a tough time recognizing step-parents in your tree.  Needless to say that's a problem for me, since a large majority of my family has married multiple times.  

So which one is better?

To me, Ancestry is worth it.  I love the new information they provide, almost daily. 

I've learned so much through the YouTube video they produces monthly.  Crista Cowan, the barefoot genealogist is a genius to me.  She definitely has the coolest job on the face of this earth.   I don't feel like a beginner, but if I were, she would be the perfect person to walk me through how to create the most accurate tree.  Had I watched some of her videos in '06, I wouldn't have the genealogical mess that I have now.  

There are certain areas of Ancestry that are free to view, but for $20 a month, I get more than just access to my tree & family I've connected with.  I also get access to help.  Which is what I need.  I can't tell you the number of times I've found help in their learning center or answered a question on their help page.  

However, Familysearch has a better look.  I love how my tree looks in their fan view.  It's so colorful & spread out.  It would make a great picture to put on the wall, but that's about it.  Adding new information to your tree is a chore sometimes.  I've given up more than once.  I'm trying to learn more about how to use the site, but it's not a priority.  I would rather use a site that is easy to navigate through, than a site that I have to learn to use.  It's just that simple.

Which site do you use to do your research?