Wanting again to 2023, ahead to 2024
The easiest a part of falling headlong into household historical past analysis is the tales.
Tales in The Authorized Genealogist’s household take us again a great distance in America on the maternal aspect and in Germany on the paternal aspect.
Tales that start, on this nation, within the late 1600s. Tales in Germany that we will take all the way in which again to the late 1500s.
A few of them, astoundingly, given my household’s tendency by no means to let the reality get in the way in which of an excellent story, which will even probably be true.
And a number of the possibly-true ones — that’s, those that I’ve managed to doc with one thing apart from a marginal notice that one of many household storytellers instructed me so — had very huge milestones in 2023 or could have huge milestones right here in 2024.
These “huge milestones” are occasions that have been precisely 50 or 100 or 150 or 200 or 250 years in the past — or extra! — through the 12 months.
And so they’re the sorts of milestones that we shouldn’t permit to move with out pausing to mirror.
Wanting again
In 2023, for instance, within the 250-year milestone class, we had the start of Jacob Jan Smidt, my fourth nice grandfather, whose age was recorded within the 1812 start report of his son, Carl Smidt. So it’s not a precise date however “close-enough” report. Within the 200-year milestone class, one more start in Germany, this time of second nice grandfather Johann Christoph Gustav Graumüller, born 25 November 1823 in Rüdersdorf, Greiz, Thüringen, Germany, and baptized on the church there on 29 November 2023.
Within the 150-year milestone class, on the maternal aspect of the household, we had the demise on 30 August 1873 of David Davenport Baker, oldest son of my third nice grandparents Martin and Elizabeth (Buchanan) Baker, however a start within the 100-year milestone class, that of my mom’s older brother Monte Boyd Cottrell, born in Midland, Texas, on 19 November 1923, and died in California in 1994; he’s buried within the Fort Rosencrans Nationwide Cemetery in San Diego County. The 50-year milestone class additionally highlighted a start that can all the time and endlessly be celebrated in my household — the start on 5 Could 1973 of my private hero, my nephew, Timothy Evan Geissler (1973-2017).
Wanting ahead
In 2024, we have now some milestones developing as properly.
Within the 250-year milestone class, we have now a start: a fourth nice grandmother, Elizabeth (Jones) Buchanan. The perfect obtainable proof is that Elizabeth was born, almost definitely in Virginia or North Carolina, on 14 November 1774. This date seems in a transcription of a Bible, the whereabouts no-one as we speak appears to know. That transcription was reportedly made by David Stamey of Waynesville, NC, in 1993, and is mostly corroborated by a second transcription, contained in an affidavit by Ben Buchanan and Burns Turner, dated 29 January 1931, executed earlier than the Yancey County NC clerk, and reproduced in a Yancey County genealogical journal. Elizabeth’s start 12 months can be usually corroborated by the 1850 census (age 75) and 1860 census (age 84). She married William Buchanan in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on 16 April 1793, and reportedly died on 28 Could 1861.
Within the 200-year milestone class, there’s one other start: my second nice grandmother Friederike Geissler, born 11 June 1824, in Reussen, now within the German State of Sachsen-Anhalt. This beautiful girl created my most enduring household historical past thriller — one not prone to be solved in my lifetime. She produced my nice grandfather Hermann Eduard Geissler in 1855, father unknown. There are completely no clues to Hermann’s father — my brothers have YDNA examined and match one another, however no-one else. Sigh… Friederike died in 1880, taking the key of her son’s father together with her to her grave.
Within the 150-year milestone class, we’ll go together with a wedding on my maternal aspect. My nice grandparents Martin Gilbert Cottrell and Martha H. “Mattie” Johnson have been married in Parker County, Texas, on 27 August 1874. They produced a minimum of 10 youngsters, all however one born in Texas, the youngest of whom was my grandfather Clay Rex Cottrell. The couple cut up up round 1909, with Mattie taking the youthful youngsters to Oklahoma. She died in Frederick, Oklahoma, in 1912, and M.G. died in Levelland, Texas, in 1946.
Within the 100-year milestone class, there are some choices, however I’m going to go together with the start of a person who wasn’t associated to me by blood in any respect. My Uncle Ray was the husband of my mom’s sister Carol — they married in 1953, and I can’t keep in mind a time in my growing-up years when he wasn’t a part of all of our lives. However he posed a little bit of a analysis trouble for an excellent whereas. Oh, I had issues like his tombstone, displaying him as Ray Childress, born 5 October 1924 and died 30 January 1992. However I used to be having bother discovering anything. Till — sigh — I found that my Uncle Ray wasn’t my Uncle Ray in any respect. Oh, that’s what he was referred to as, all proper. However he’d been born Miller Hamilton Childress, and that’s the title I wanted for all his different data.
And within the 50-year milestone class, it’s the tip of a wedding. That of my very own dad and mom, divorced formally on 12 October 1974. That is a type of mixed-emotions conditions. On one hand, no one rejoices on the finish of a wedding. However, my dad and mom have been completely chalk and cheese. The one factor they actually had in frequent was a complete bunch of youngsters. That they stayed married so long as they did is the shock, not that their marriage ended.
Every of those, a narrative of its personal, to search out and to inform — every, in reality, one of many actual the reason why we do family tree in any respect.
Why I’ve to write down this weblog.
Why I’ve to inform the tales.
To ensure that these I keep in mind aren’t forgotten… that these milestones proceed to be remembered down by way of the generations.
Cite/hyperlink to this put up: Judy G. Russell, “Milestones, 2024,” The Authorized Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/weblog : posted 6 Jan 2024).
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