My First Family Reunion

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much in the month of June. This is because the weather here in North Carolina has been absolutely wonderful! Usually we are in the upper 90s by now, however, this year we’ve been straddling the lower 80s with only a few hot days. I’ve been taking advantage of these beautiful days by kayaking, hiking, white water rafting, and camping; anything to do with the outdoors. I even got some more work done on my deck! Almost done, just have to figure the logistics of getting more boards home from the store. Here is a photo of me at Pilot Mountain, North Carolina (June 24, 2012).

Genealogy has kind of gone on the back burner. However I have been responding to emails that my blog readers have been sending me. And there is finally in the works a Fox and Sutton family reunion being planned for the end of September. I have heard rumors of such a reunion being held for the past 10 years or so, but nothing ever came of them that I know of. I’m very excited about this for two reasons: 1) we are using Facebook to promote it. A goal is to get family members together and for them to get to know each other. Our closed group is also a venue by which we can share photos and stories. 2) Because we are including the Sutton line in addition to the Fox line, I will get the opportunity to learn about my 2^nd great-grandmother, Melvina West’s “first” family – the Suttons.

This will be my first ever family reunion! I know this may seem strange to some folks, but it’s the honest truth. I might have attended one when I was really young, but too young to remember. The last one I remember that was planned was in 2000 and I missed it. I’m excited to meet everyone. I visited with my great-grandmother and her 4 sisters often as a child, but I never visited with their individual families, including my grandfather’s own siblings and their children. Although I have “met” quite a few on Facebook, it will be a treat to meet them in person finally.

I will probably be asking around for suggestions on what a genealogist does at a family reunion. Because this will be a time for me to meet and get to know people, I will probably want as little hands on as possible with the genealogy aspect. I can collect information via email and Facebook correspondence after all. But I can only have this kind of face to face experience once.

How do you prepare for your family reunions?

To Cite This Post: 

Ginger R. Smith, "My First Family Reunion," Genealogy By Ginger, 27 June 2012, (http://www.genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [date])

Keeping Track of My 2nd Great-Grandparents

I have 8 sets of 2^nd great-grandparents with a total of 16 individuals.

Paternal Line:

Set # 1: Claude Rual Smith (1896 - 1975) and Willie Harriet Riddle (1899 – 1985)

Set # 2: Fred Fox (1884 – 1974) and Melvina West (1882 – 1978)

Set # 3: John Milton Binns (1868 – 1961) and Perthinia “Pert” Eula Brooks (1873 – 1942)

Set # 4: Nathaniel Gustaves Hill (1873 – 1944) and Jessie Inez Barton (1875 – 1950)

Maternal Line:

Set # 1: Alvin Theodore Godwin (1879 – 1950) and Louella Davis (1882 – 1947)

Set # 2: William Edward Peters (1874 – 1948) and Dora King (1875 – 1912)

Set # 3: James Franklin Lasiter (1876 – 1968) and Rosalie Putman (1875 – 1961)

Set # 4: Barney Sheron Benson (1884 – 1952) and Eva Mae Dennis (1889 – 1983)

I was born in 1976. As you can see, two of my paternal 2^nd great-grandfathers died 1 or 2 years before I was born and 2 of my paternal 2^nd great-grandmothers lived to hold me in their arms (The obituary of one of my 2^nd great-grandmothers, Willie Harriet Riddle Smith, mentioned that she had 18 2^nd great-grandchildren!)

One of my maternal 2^nd great-grandmothers lived to hold me. I wasn’t the only one though. She had several other 2^nd great-grandchildren that she travelled around to visit with. Check out my 5-generation photos:

 Back Row: Sue Lasiter (my grandmother), Marilyn Godwin (my mother), Louise Benson Lasiter (my great-grandmother); Front: Eva Dennis Benson (my 2nd great-grandmother), Ginger R. Smith (me!). Taken March 1976, Fort Smith, Arkansas. From personal collection of Ginger R. Smith, inherited from Louise Lasiter. Copyright 2012. 

Back Row: Claude Rual Smith, Jr (my great-grandfather) and Willie Harriet Riddle Smith (my 2nd great-grandmother); Front: Tim D. Smith (my father), Ginger R. Smith (me), Darrel E. Smith (my grandfather). Taken 1976, Fort Smith, Arkansas. From personal collection of Ginger R. Smith, scanned from photo album of Barbara J. Smith, Copyright 2012. 

L to R: Reba Fox Smith (my great-grandmother), Ginger R. Smith (me),  Melvina West Fox (my 2nd great-grandmother), Tim D. Smith (my father), Darrel E. Smith. Taken March 1976, Fort Smith, Arkansas. From personal collection of Ginger R. Smith, scanned from photo album of Barbara J. Smith, Copyright 2012. 

Most all of my sets of 2^nd great-grandparents lived in Arkansas with the exception of the Bensons. I’m pretty lucky because the Arkansas death certificates started about 1914. I can actually probably take my ancestry back another generation to 3^rd or even 4^th great-grandparents just by using death certificate research!

As I said in my last post about requesting death certificates from the Arkansas Department of Health, it can become quite addicting and difficult to keep up with all of the requests and processing of incoming certificates. I try to space them out. I have employed the following two tables to help me with my research. They track my progress in securing and processing death certificates and obituaries. From looking at these tables I can see from a glance what I am missing.

From the tables I have filled out below, I can see that I have the obituaries and death certificates of 8 of my 16 great-grandparents. I am half way there! The obituaries I obtained either from family members or from various newspapers. My cousin, Doris Hamblin Smith, sent me copies of a bunch of Smith family obituaries in 2010 before she passed away.

In order to understand what the headers Scanned?, Transcribed?, FTF Notes?, and FTF Source? refer to, you must first know my genealogy work flow:

1.       Scan and save obituary and death certificate as a PDF, TIF, and JPG file

2.       Transcribe and save to Word document or Notepad File

3.       Copy the Transcript to the notes file for that person in my genealogy software

4.       Enter the Birth, Death, Burial, Occupation, Marital, etc facts into my genealogy software, including the parents' names

5.       Create a source and attach to the Facts (some call these "Events")

Nos. 3 and 4 are included under the FTF Notes heading in the table. FTF stands for “Family Tree File.”

As I collect more obituaries and death certificates, I can  update this table. I already know which death certificate I plan to order next – that of Rosalie Putman. However, since 6 of the remaining 8 died in Arkansas, I can go ahead and order them all at once.

Dora King died in 1912 in Missouri. I have not found a death record for her yet, probably because she died before deaths were required to be recorded. Family stories say she died of a snake bite. I might be able to find a death notice for her in a local newspaper. But I've found this to be difficult; or at least time consuming when you don't know the month and day. 

Barney Benson died while visiting his son in California. I have not yet ordered a death certificate from California, so this will be my first experience.

Obituary Resources
Name	Scanned?	Transcribed?	FTF Notes?	FTF Source?
Claude Smith Sr	yes	yes	yes	yes
Willie Riddle	yes	yes	yes	yes
Fred Fox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Melvina West	No	No	No	No
John M Binns	No	No	No	No
Eula Brooks	No	No	No	No
Gus Hill	No	No	No	No
Jessie Barton	No	No	No	No
Alvin Godwin	No	No	No	No
Louella Davis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
William E Peters	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dora King	No	No	No	No
James F Lasiter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rosalie Putman	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Barney Benson	No	No	No	No
Eva Dennis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Death Certificates
Name	Scanned?	Transcribed?	FTF Notes?	FTF Source?
Claude Smith Sr	yes	yes	yes	yes
Willie Riddle	No	No	No	No
Fred Fox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Melvina West	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
John M Binns	No	No	No	No
Eula Brooks	No	No	No	No
Gus Hill	No	No	No	No
Jessie Barton	No	No	No	No
Alvin Godwin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Louella Davis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
William E Peters	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dora King	No	No	No	No
James F Lasiter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rosalie Putman	No	No	No	No
Barney Benson	No	No	No	No
Eva Dennis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

How do you stay organized? Does your genealogy work flow look like mine? If not, how does it differ? How is it similar? I’m looking forward to hearing how other people process the obituaries and death certificates they receive. 

Follow-up Friday Post – July 7, 2011

Death Certificates:

                In last week’s Follow-up Friday post, I mentioned that I ordered 5 death certificates from the State of Arkansas Department of Health Vital Records Section in Little Rock.  I received the first 2 of those death certificates in the mail this week. I scanned, transcribed them, and entered them into my notes and as new sources in my RootsMagic database.

                I received the death certificate of my 2^nd great-grandfather, William Edward Peters from Pocahontas, AR. He died in 1948. Unfortunately it did not list his parents’ names, however it did list his date of birth as March 10, 1874 and place of birth has Thomasville, Missouri. This information correlated with his obituary; however, most of his census records said he was born in Illinois. Click here to view his death certificate. 

                Follow up: I feel more comfortable going back and combing the census files again for Peters families in Thomasville (also Moore Township), Oregon County, Missouri now.

                I also received the death certificate of my 2^nd great-grandfather, James Franklin Lasiter from Fort Smith, AR. He died in 1968 at the age of 92. I found a photo in my grandmother’s collection of him and someone called “John Riley Lasiter,” presumably his father. The death certificate stated his father’s name was John R. Lasiter and his mother’s name was Emily Jones. His mother’s name was new information to me.

                Follow up: I can now start looking for records for Emily Jones Lasiter and John Riley Lasiter including census records, death records, and marriage records.

Richard Smith’s Confederate Service Records:

                As I also mentioned in last week’s Follow-up Friday post, I located the Confederate service records of my ancestor, Richard Smith.  I posted the muster roll cards to my Smith and Fox family Blog here. And I set some new goals and things to follow up on for next time, including to continue looking for his original enlistment muster roll and to see if I can find the Confederate records of Richard’s brothers John and Claiborn Smith who supposedly joined at the same time as Richard.

Fox Family:

                One of my Family Finder matches indicated that we might have a connection via the Fox family in Indiana. My Fox family is concentrated in Arkansas and Oklahoma, however, for some reason, my 3^rd Great-Grandfather, John A. Fox, moved to Indianapolis after his wife, Sophronia Maynard died in 1917. I guess his son Dillard Fox lived up there, so he went up there to be with him. Anyways, he was only there for 3 years before he died in Indianapolis. My grandfather had given me a copy of John’s death certificate, which is how we were able to locate him in Indiana.

So I went into my RootsMagic database and “touched” it up a bit by adding my sources and updating my notes in both John and his son Fred Fox’s files. Fred Fox was my 2^nd great-grandfather. I did things a little bit differently this time: I added the notes about each source to the individual notes section for each fact. Normally I just add everything to the main notes section under the name fact. I then added my commentary on the source.

I also updated my sources to Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained standards. Boy was that complicated! I encountered several problems with doing this, one of which was that Rootsmagic has several template options to choose from which may or may not follow EE.

As it turned out, my match mentioned Parke, Vigo, and Putnam counties, Indiana and I immediately knew right off the bat that it was NOT the Fox family that we connected on. This location would be my Godwin family that moved from North Carolina to Putnam County, Indiana in 1828. This is the first connection I’ve made with someone on my Mother’s side of the family!

Follow up: I am still waiting to hear back from him to see if he recognized any of the surname I sent to him.

Update ** October 5th, 2011 ** I have heard back from this Family Finder match and he said that he did not recognize any of the Godwin collateral line surnames that I sent to him from Parke, Vigo, Putnam and Clay Counties, Indiana, so we are back to square one! 

Follow up Friday Post – July 1, 2011

Death Certificates:

This week I sent off for five death certificates – my 2^nd great-grandfathers, James Franklin Lasiter and William Edward Peters, my great-grandparents, Reba Fox Smith and Claude Rual Smith, Jr, and Melvina West Fox, my 2^nd great-grandmother.

I was prompted to order the death certificate of William Peters because he was the connection I had to the first person I matched to and talked to via my ftDNA Family Finder DNA results!! I was somewhat embarrassed that I couldn’t provide more information on my Peters line to my match who believed we were close cousins through our Peters line.  And even more embarrassed when I realized I had never ordered William’s death certificate which can oftentimes provide you with the names of your ancestor’s parents. There has been a lot of discrepancy about William Peter’s place of birth as well, so even if his death certificate does not provide me with his parents’ names, I am hoping to get a place of birth at least.

James Franklin Lasiter is one of those so-called “elusive” ancestors. You know, one of those that you know existed but you just can’t seem to find him on those certain records you expect to find him on. I have a photo of him and someone I believe to be his father, John Riley Lasiter, according to the information written on the photo, and I would like to see if the names of the parents are listed on his death certificate and if so, if they match up with what the photograph says.

Back in 2009 I wrote a post challenging myself to see if had copies of the obituaries and death certificates of all 8 of my great-grandparents. Since Claude and Reba Smith were the last of them to pass away, I just never thought to obtain them. And actually I figured my Grandfather had copies of their death certificates already. Since I’m already sending off requests for these other death certificates, I might as well toss two more into the mix…

I was prompted to order the death certificate of my 2^nd great-grandmother Melvina Fox from my Family Finder test as well. I matched to a close cousin on my West and Criscillus lines. Melvina Fox was the daughter of Calvin West and Elizabeth Jane Roberts. My match is a descendant of Calvin’s sister, Serepta West. We compared family trees and they were identical. We compared brick walls and they were identical. I did learn that our West family descends from one Robert West b. 1612 in England thanks to her cousin who submitted to a Y-DNA test.

Richard Smith’s Confederate Service Records:

                I finally located my ancestor, Richard Smith’s Confederate Service Records on Footnote.com. I have a copy of his pension records and notes from my Grandfather that mentioned Richard’s Confederate service prior to his service in the Union Army. I had trouble locating his records at first because all I knew was that it was Clarkson’s Battalion, Ark and Mo., however when I looked up the records in Footnote, the collection titles went by State first and then by Regiment number. Not having a regiment number threw me off. I finally found one collection title called “Confederate Soldiers – CSA” and that was the correct one. My persistence paid off.

                Of course my grandfather’s notes also said that Richard Smith’s Confederate Enlistment papers listed his parents as David and Sarah Smith. I can’t find a copy of his enlistment papers in any of my files. Does anyone know how to order Civil War enlistment files? And is it common for them to list the soldiers’ parents’ names? 

My Great-Grandparents

I have 4 sets of great-grandparents with 8 total individuals.

Set # 1 were my mom's mom's parents: Thelma Louise Lasiter (1912-1996) and James Putman Lasiter (1908-1974)
Set # 2 were my mom's dad's parents: Nova Lee Peters (1908-2000) and Orville Godwin (1905-1956)
Set # 3 were my dad's mom's parents: Kathryne Blanche Hill (1912-1992) and John Brooks Binns (1910-1989)
Set # 4 were my dad's dad's parents: Reba Fox (1920-2003) and Claude Rual Smith, Jr (1919-1996)

I knew and interacted with 6 of my 8 great-grandparents throughout most of my childhood - Louise "Mamaw" Lasiter, Novi Martin, Blanche Binns, Johnnie Binns, Reba Smith and "Big Daddy" Smith. James Lasiter and Orville Godwin both died before I was born. Orville Godwin and Novi Peters were my only set of divorced great-grandparents. Orville Godwin was murdered in his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the young age of 51.

The 6 great-grandparents I knew all lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, with the exception of the Smiths who lived out in the country in Kibler, Arkansas (near Clear Creek State Park).

Obituaries and Death Certificates
I have the obituaries of 7 of the 8 of my great-grandparents that I obtained either from family members or from the Fort Smith Library's microfilm collection of newspapers, including the Southwest Times Record, and associated online archives. I do not have a copy of the obituary of my Mother's Father's Father, Orville Godwin, who died in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I do, however, have a copy of the news article that was published about his murder.

I have four death certificates - Blanche Hill Binns, for Nova Martin, Louise Lasiter, and James F Lasiter Sr.

I created a checklist to see if I had obtained copies of all of the obituaries of my great-grandparents, and also to see if I had scanned and transcribed them, and saved them to the notes section of my Family Tree Maker software and created source entries for them. Here are my results:

Obituary Resources

Name	FTF Notes?	FTF Source?	Scanned?	Transcribed?
Nova Peters	yes	yes	yes	yes
Orville Godwin	no	no	no	no
James Lasiter	yes	yes	yes	yes
Louise Benson	yes	yes	yes	yes
John Binns	yes	yes	yes	yes
Blanche Hill	yes	yes	yes	yes
Reba Fox	yes	yes	yes	yes
Claude Smith Jr	yes	yes	yes	yes

Death Certificates

Name	FTF Notes?	FTF Source?	Scanned?	Transcribed?
Nova Peters	yes	yes	yes	yes
Orville Godwin	no	no	no	no
James Lasiter	yes	yes	yes	yes
Louise Benson	yes	yes	yes	yes
John Binns	no	no	no	no
Blanche Hill	yes	yes	yes	yes
Reba Fox	yes	yes	yes	yes
Claude Smith Jr	yes	yes	yes	yes

Results:
I have copies of 7 of the 8 great grandparents' obituaries which were scanned and saved to my harddrive. I have transcribed them, pasted them into the notes section of my genealogy software, and entered them as sources in my database and attached them to the basic facts (birth, death, marriage) of my great-grandparents and added them as sources to any relatives' names that are mentioned.

I only have copies of 4 death certificates - one of them is the original copy of my great-grandmother, Nova Martin's death that my grandfather gave to me. I scanned the copy and saved to my hard drive. I then transcribed it and added it to the notes in my genealogy software and added as a source. I obtained a copy of my great grandmother Blanche Binns' death certificate from my grandmother who had a copy of it in her scrapbook. I scanned it right from the scrapbook and saved it to my hard drive. I transcribed it, added it to the notes section of my genealogy software and added it as a new source.

Since I originally published this post, I ordered two additional death certificates - those of my great grandparents on my Mother's side - Louise (Benson) Lasiter and her husband James P Lasiter. I had put them off because I already have all of the vital information that is provided on the death certificate from the obituary and from my grandparents' tales. However, these certificates are available and should be included in my great-grandparents' files. They cost $10.00 each and took 4 weeks to arrive. I ordered them from the Arkansas Department of Health via an online form that I printed and mailed in to them, along with a check for $20. Update 7/27/09 & 2011: Copies of these two death certificates were received and scanned, transcribed, added to the notes section and source section of my family tree file.

Goal: To obtain copies of the rest of my 4 great-grandparents' death certificates!!