Thursday, June 19, 2008

This 'n That

Been trying to clear up loose ends the last few days. Received a package of Magee data on Monday from a fellow I promised (2 months ago?) to copy an affadavit for and hadn't yet done. As my guilt meter was way up I got out James King Monroe's Civil War file and copied the affadavit of Benjamin F. Magee which states he is married to a sister of James K's wife. The sisters are Sarah E. and Josephine Conyers. I have never been able to link all the Conyers that interact with the Monroes with total confidence. I still am not sure how Sarah and Josephine relate to John Wesley Conyers who is the second husband of Mary Ann (Thomas) Monroe. So... I gather what data I can in drabs and dribbles and maybe someday I will be able to put it all together. But I wouldn't bet on it!

I've also been trying to identify the Monroe ancestry of all the people on the Kentucky Monroe Reunion mailing list. I'm to the point I have one more set of "unknown to me" people to post to the Johnson_Monroe Yahoo group in hopes someone there can help with the identification and then I'll be through with this project. I thought I would use this list as a start for building a data base for our Yahoo group to be able to refer to for cousin contacts in the area they live or are planning to visit.

I'm in the process of changing computers - the CD drive and screen both went out on the laptop I was mainly using. Fortunately it still runs fine and I have to have it hooked up to the monitor that belongs to my older desktop computer. I have a new laptop but lots not yet implemented on it so sometimes I can't find whatever I am looking for. Frustrating. I hate all the time it takes to do the transition.

Some of you may know I manage a Yahoo group for my high school class. I've been trying to help a few classmates with some family history hunting so that's been taking time too.

So... I've been busy but haven't made much progress of interest to you.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Susan Eva Collins

Started census hunting for Francis & Polly's daughter Susan Eva Collins m. 1) John Foster Baker and 2) J. Lee Johnson. Have had a heck of a time as Ancestry's indexing is not very good. Was about to give up on 1900 when I finally found Beker, Jeff and that's the right family. Found the family in 1910 but have struck out so far in 1920 census. However in 1920 I found evidence these folks are really ours (besides family stories and documentation) as Susan Eva Collins oldest daughter Lossie Baker marries her first cousin Marion Boles Butler (s/o Elmore C Collins & Edward Johnson Butler). Guess it's the old "gotta keep the genes in the family" thing. We have cousin marriages in other branches of the family too. I have more census work to do and haven't even started on the data entry. Hopefully I can finish Susan's family branch in a week or two.