Posted: January 20th, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Miscellaneous | Tags: ellen, school | No Comments »
This image was found among our family photographs, boxes and albums of photos that go back nearly one hundred years. It was shown to several relatives, but none were able to identify the woman. Having resigned myself to the idea that it would remain a mystery, I posted it on this website in the “Unidentified Photos” gallery, just in case it might be seen by someone who can identify it. While I didn’t hear from anyone regarding the image, I’m happy to say that the mystery has been solved nonetheless. It turns out that this young woman, who my sister and I joked was too attractive to be a relative, was my mother’s college roommate.
The identification came unexpectedly as I was looking, for the first time, at mom’s freshman yearbook, the 1939 Battlefield. No sooner than I found my mother’s photograph than the one immediately above it caught my eye, the same photograph that had been in the possession of our family for so many years. It was Marjorie Burgess. Marjorie and my mother, Ellen Virginia Caldwell, attended Mary Washington College and were the best of friends. In mom’s album, alongside her picture, Marjorie wrote, “Here’s to 221 Willard - Marjorie”. I soon learned that “Willard” referred to the freshman dormitory, Frances Willard Hall. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 13th, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: civil war | No Comments »
A rather humorous anecdote regarding my great grandfather’s participation in the civil war has circulated for years, and I decided to see if any evidence existed that might validate the story. The “family legend” holds that Henry Graham Parker (the father in the Ouija Board story) was discharged after being wounded, only to sign up again. That alone isn’t extraordinary, as many soldiers returned once they recuperated from an injury, but it’s Henry’s motivation that makes this story so much fun. Supposedly his stepmother put the recovering Henry on a therapeutic regimen of wood chopping, and he soon decided that dodging bullets held more appeal! I set out to add credence to this tale by finding records that corroborate his “dual service” to the Union. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 8th, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: robinson | 2 Comments »
OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: I was researching family history one day, with little to show for it, when suddenly I discovered that I may be related to a family of circus “giants”. Really, I’m not making this up. I’m just starting to piece this together, but thought that if I “threw it out there” that maybe I’ll hear from someone who might know more.
This revelation came, as do most revelations pertaining to the Stevens side of the family, from my aunt D.J., who I’ll quote:
“Mother [Goldie Stevens] mentioned James Robinson as her great grandpa. In a very large old, old Bible the name John Robinson was written in a large flowing script with a date that looks like 1899. Lower on the page the name written was Goldie Irene Parker. She would have been 11 years old.”
“We had three old friends that I believe were, in some way, also tied to Robinson. Their name was Kirkwood - John, Mary and Margaret. They had a big farm. John and Mary worked the farm and Margaret was the Court Stenographer in Cambridge, Ohio. Doug and I loved to go to their farm. They subscribed to, I think, every magazine there was. They kept the old ones in their barn loft for us, and we could take home whatever we wanted. Margaret is the one who gave us the snapshot of the Robinson Giants.” [italics are mine] Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 4th, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Fort Worth, Genealogy | No Comments »
My father wasn’t the type that spent a lot of time with friends, preferring to focus his attentions on family. A genuinely kind and generous person, dad had a small number of friends by choice, and at the top of that select list was L.S. “Stan” Orrick. It was Stan who had first come to Fort Worth to work at General Dynamics, calling dad (Doug Stevens) to tell him that the giant defense contractor was hiring. This lead prompted dad leave the family behind while he drove to Texas to look things over. This resulted in the family moving to Fort Worth in 1949.
Our family lived in two or three different homes during the first eleven years in Fort Worth, but in 1960 built a new home. This one was right down the street from Stan and his wife Marie, and where my mother and father would live the rest of their lives. I remember Stan walking down the street to visit Dad, and I recall them sometimes going to the library or a book store together. They didn’t socialize often, but always maintained contact. When my mother passed away on September 12, 2004 dad was devastated by the loss, and he was ill prepared for the death of his friend Stan little over a month later, on October 21st. Two years later Marie passed, on November 28, 2006. I knew that dad was beginning to feel as though he were the last of his group, the lone survivor from the old days.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 2nd, 2009 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: goldie, parker | No Comments »
Fragments of family history can be gathered from a number of sources, but one can’t underestimate the value of word-of-mouth. Anecdotes handed down through the generations can be informative, inspiring, even humorous, and contain data that would otherwise be forgotten.
My aunt Dorothy Jean Murray is the “go-to person” when researching the Stevens’ family in Ohio, and she mentioned something recently that I thought was rather amazing. Almost as an afterthought, D.J. mentioned that a bit of confusion accompanied my grandmother’s birth. It seems that my grandmother, born Goldie Irene Parker (shown here with my father, Doug Stevens), had the wrong name put on her birth certificate. That’s right, the story goes that her birth certificate read Madge Parker. I don’t have to tell anyone with genealogical experience that records are often peppered with errors, but this is major. What prompted the mistake, and how was it resolved? It’s thought to have been some sort of clerical error, but that is, I believe, supposition. Over one-hundred years has passed, and the details of these events were not preserved with any clarity. I would think that the name would have been promptly corrected, but that didn’t stop me from searching for public records pertaining to Madge Parker. While I was unable to turn up anything, I can’t help but to wonder if a copy of that birth certificate exists somewhere. Who knows, Dorothy Jean might come through again.
Posted: December 22nd, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Miscellaneous | No Comments »
For those who haven’t already found them, I wanted to point out the biography and photo album pages. Accessible from the menu at the far right, each of these pages consists of a brief biographical sketch of a family member as well as photographs, most being clickable for viewing larger versions.
For obvious reasons, the depth of the biographical data, and the number of photos, varies greatly from one individual to another. The creation of new pages and inclusion of additional photographs will be ongoing, and represent a large percentage of the work put into this site. In other words, please be patient, as this is a big project.
I’ve added a couple of new albums in the past few days, my grandfather Fred Caldwell being one and my great-grandmother Mary Belle Tipton (shown at right) the other. Over the next few weeks I’ll be adding more family member pages as well as adding photos to the pages already online, so stay tuned!
Posted: December 12th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: goldie, mcmurray, parker | No Comments »
I can’t believe it. I didn’t think that any photographs of my great-grandparents (Goldie’s parents) existed, but then these two, over 140 years old, turn up courtesy of my aunt Dorothy Jean. The photos, studio portraits of Henry Graham Parker and Emily Robinson McMurray, are said to have been taken around the time of their wedding. Having decided to wed prior to Henry leaving to serve in the civil war, they were married immediately upon his return, on August 25, 1865.
These photos add nothing to the nuts-and-bolts of the family tree, but there’s an undeniable significance to connecting a face with a name. It makes the people come alive. Remember my earlier post about the father learning of his daughter’s death from a Ouija board? This is that man, Henry Graham Parker.
One bothersome aspect of the photos are the dates notated on the back, indicating their date of marriage as August 25, 1865. This contrasts to the data contained in the family outline, which gave the date as October 25 of the same year. That’s something I’ll need to quiz Dorothy Jean about. For now I’m still having trouble getting very far beyond Henry Parker on the family tree, and the marriage date doesn’t provide any clues regardless the date used. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 26th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio, Tiptonville, Tennessee | Tags: caldwell, hopson, parker, stevens | No Comments »
It dawned on me recently that many people find this site while looking for relatives, and I haven’t made things easy for them. If someone arrives here after having Googled “stevens genealogy”, or “caldwell family”, they’ll find a frustrating lack of organization. But I must say that I prefer a more casual, “organic” layout, and find that excessive structure only serves to infuse the subject with banality, and genealogy needn’t be boring.
In order to clarify my family tree a little, here’s a quick-and-dirty outline of the family: I’m Mark Stevens, born in 1957. My father was Homer Douglas Stevens (”Doug” 1915-2007), and his father was Homer Stevens (1888-1961). Homer’s father was Albert Stevens (1852- ?). Albert’s father isn’t known, although there was a John J. Stevens that’s a possibility. All the Stevens mentioned here lived in Ohio, primarily in Guernsey County. My grandmother was born Goldie Irene Parker (1888-1979), and her father was Henry G. Parker (1840-1914). Her mother was Emily R. McMurray (1846-1930). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 4th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Ohio | Tags: albert, byesville, Homer, stevens | No Comments »
I’m new at this genealogy stuff, and must admit that it’s proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. How is it that generation after generation of Caldwells, Hopsons, Tunes and Tiptons (Mom’s family) can be found with relative ease, while the Stevens, Parker, Hockenberry and McMurray clans reveal nothing? It’s as though Dad’s family tiptoed through the nineteenth century undetected.
What little information I have on the Stevens Family is thanks to what I will hereafter refer to as “the family outline”, a compilation of data that my sister Carol gathered many (many) years ago for a school assignment. Our Mother and Father each completed a page outlining their place and date of birth, marriage date, occupation, major place of residence, and religion, with similar pages being completed by, or on the behalf of, the other family members. Access to this type of first-hand information should have put us on the fast-track to a genealogical epiphany, but that has not been the case.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 26th, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy, Tiptonville, Tennessee | Tags: caldwell, parker | No Comments »
Boy, I didn’t see this coming: I’ve learned that my great, great grandfather, William P. Caldwell, was a member of the United States House of Representatives. My knowledge of mom’s family, limited as it was, had told me only of their farming background, so this came as quite a surprise. And when I learned that my great grandfather Fred J. Caldwell (William P.’s son) was also an attorney, it’s become clear that agriculture hadn’t always been the predominant family business. So who exactly was my great, great grandfather?
William Parker Caldwell was born on November 8, 1832 in Christmasville, Tennessee. After having practiced law in Dresden and Union City, he represented the state’s 9th congressional district from March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1879. He later practiced law in Gardner, Tennessee and served in the Tennessee Senate from 1891 to 1893. He died in Gardner on June 7, 1903.
I’ve been unable to find any details concerning his career, but did learn that two of his sons, Fred J. (my great grandfather) and John A. Caldwell, followed in his footsteps by also practicing law. Another son, Luther W. Caldwell, became a physician practicing in Tennessee. While I can’t confirm it, at least one document could indicate that Luther relocated his practice to Hunt, Texas after the year 1900.
Once the exhilaration of these discoveries began to wane, a question came to mind. What prompted my grandfather, Fred J. Caldwell Jr., to forsake such gentlemanly occupations as the study of law or medicine for the respectable, but certainly more physical, life of a farmer? Genealogical research can uncover a wealth of information, things such as names, dates, events and places. But that sort of data doesn’t convey the thoughts and motivations of an individual. It’s too bad, as that’s certainly where the real story resides.
Posted: October 23rd, 2008 | Author: Mark | Filed under: Genealogy | No Comments »
My initial foray into genealogical research has proven to be both productive and frustrating, just as I suspected it might be. So where does one begin? A bewildering array of tools are available to the family historian, the website ancestry.com
being the most popular and the most useful. As is the case with other mega-websites (Google and eBay come to mind), ancestry.com has grown to a level of undisputed dominance in their field, and is universally considered to be the genealogy resource. A subscription is required for its use, so my natural instinct (cheapness) kicked in, prompting me to investigate other options. But after surfing the free sites for a couple of days my decision was easy. I signed up, made a pot of coffee and got to it.
Once I signed up with ancestry.com, I started by creating a family tree from the information I already had. Building a family tree on ancestry.com is easy and rewarding, with “hints” popping up next to family members as you enter them. Following those hints, and doing your own searches through the extensive database of records, is the fun part. But this isn’t shooting fish in a barrel, as you have to view whatever you find with a skeptical eye. How many Homer Stevens’ do you suppose resided in the state of Ohio in the late 1800s? Lots, and figuring out which one you’re related is often far from obvious. It’s easy to latch onto a snippet of data, thinking that you’ve found that next generation into your past, only to discover down the road that something just doesn’t mesh. Genealogy is a learning experience, every step of the way. Read the rest of this entry »
This image was found among our family photographs, boxes and albums of photos that go back nearly one hundred years. It was shown to several relatives, but none were able to identify the woman. Having resigned myself to the idea that it would remain a mystery, I posted it on this website in the “Unidentified Photos” gallery, just in case it might be seen by someone who can identify it. While I didn’t hear from anyone regarding the image, I’m happy to say that the mystery has been solved nonetheless. It turns out that this young woman, who my sister and I joked was too attractive to be a relative, was my mother’s college roommate.
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