Category: Genealogy How-To

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Tombstone Tuesday: Edson Benjamin and Martha Jennie Slade

1901_BENJAMIN_Edson_Martha Jennie Slade-headstone_odd Fellows cem_The Dalles_OR_FAG_permission
Headstone of Martha “Jennie” Slade (1865-1927) and Edson Benjamin (1863-1901). Click to enlarge.

Edson Benjamin was the son of Jonathan Felix Benjamin(1838-1913) and Hannah E. Marple (1842-1900). He was a first cousin to our Hannah Melissa Benjamin (1854-1932), who married Frederick Asbury “F. A.” McMurray.

If you are a Malissa Benjamin-F. A. McMurray descendant, Edson is a distant cousin. How distant? Edson’s father, Jonathan Felix, was the brother of Hannah’s father, Sylvanus Rufus Benjamin (1821-1892). He was Dr. E. A. McMurray’s First Cousin Twice Removed, because E. A. was the direct descendant of a first cousin, but two generations distant.

To calculate your own relationship to Edson, count the number of generations you are from Dr. McMurray, add that to 2, and that will show how many times removed you are from a first cousin to Edson. For example, if you are a grandchild of Dr. McMurray, you are 2 generations from The Doctor, thus a first cousin 2+2= 4 times removed.

Why research distant relatives?  The ‘FAN Club’, or “Friends, Associates, Neighbors” can help us find information about our own relatives when they are mentioned in other obituaries, biographies, newspaper articles, etc. We all share some of the same DNA too, so learning more about distant rellies can tell us a bit more about ourselves, in addition to more about the family members who came before.

Edson and Jennie’s tombstone is in the Odd Fellow’s Cemetery in The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon, USA.

More of Edson’s sad story in another post.

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Using a chart is an easy way to determine relationships. You will need to know your common ancestor, which in this case is Jonathan N. Benjamin (1799-1876), the father of Jonathan Felix and Sylvanus Rufus Benjamin. Just Google “Genealogy Relationship Charts” for dozens of examples, or use the About.com Genealogy Relationship Chart. If you have an Ancestry.com membership, under the person’s name will be “View relationship to me.” If you are the home person in the tree, clicking here will give you the relationship without having to use a chart.

2) “Rellies” is an affectionate term used by family historians to describe their relatives.

 

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
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Sunday’s Obituary: This Blog’s Editor

William Morris Quote

Just kidding, thankfully, but it had crossed my mind that I might die of a broken heart because there is just not enough time to research, write, and post about ancestors. Genealogy is so all-consuming for me. My mind is about to explode with all there is to get out to the world from my research, but other things unfortunately must take a higher priority. Life is particularly busy right now, but I have to remember the above quote by my favorite artist, scholar, author, craftsman, anarchist, renaissance man, and … (William Morris was really incredible). I have to remind myself that I am living the future we are making, so it is all part of the journey, and will maybe be a part of the stories that are told about me in the future.

I hope to be back posting some short pieces this week, then on to bigger posts. A family history blog is tough though, because every time I post, I check references to see if I may know more that might prove the previous information false, or there may be another nagging question I need to answer and research to make the post more understandable or complete. Genealogical research is like potato chips- one bit leads to another tidbit, and another and another. And since there are 2 parents for each generation, the possibilities double with each new find! I do have a lot of drafts but they all need some work before publishing. So please bear with me- there will be more blog posts because I so want to share more family history!

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge

 

Yggdrasil, the World Ash in Norse mythology. From Northern Antiquities, an English translation of the Prose Edda from 1847. Painted by Oluf Olufsen Bagge
Yggdrasil, the World Ash in Norse mythology. From Northern Antiquities, an English translation of the Prose Edda from 1847. Painted by Oluf Olufsen Bagge.

I first read about this challenge in a new blog that I found through GeneaBloggers, called GenealogyRules. I had not heard about this challenge, so of course Googled it, like any addicted genealogist would do. Turns out it was a challenge from Ancestry.com’s Amy Johnson Crow on one of her Ancestry.com blog posts. Of course, I am late to the party, since it is March, not Jan. 1- always seem to be running late to everything- but liked the idea. I think I have posted every week since I got the technical part of the blog going, but often multiple posts about the same ancestor; this will up my game to introduce at least one new ancestor per week.

Of course, I had to follow the link in Amy’s post to No Story Too Small, where her Mar 29 2014 post ends with, “Any story you capture — however you capture it — is more than what you had before.” Oh my, how profound! That really fits well with our short-attention-span-theater younger folks, plus us busy older folks who just have so much going on in life. Telling a person’s life story in only a paragraph or two is painful to me, as it seems they should have so much more. Sometimes, though, all you may know about the person fits into a paragraph or two and that is it. So I will try to write more often about those folks. I like how some bloggers also include what they plan to research next- I do have to remind myself that I will NEVER know it all about a person who is long gone, but I should get that information down somewhere for others to see.

 

Check back tomorrow for who we are going to introduce you to this week- he has been an obsession of mine to research for many, many years!

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Yggdrasil, the World Ash, from old Norse mythology, is “a central cosmic tree whose roots and branches extend to various worlds. Various creatures live on it.” per Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree. Image public domain. Thank you, dear son, for being interested as a young teen in the Vikings and their mythology- it is something I may not have read about otherwise.

2) Click above links to access the blogs discussed.

 

Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
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Thankful Thursday- Thankful for Geeks!

George A. Roberts, about 1900.
George A. Roberts, about 1900.

I am very thankful for my geek family, who have helped me make this blog a bit prettier and more functional than I could have done on my own. My dear husband and son are wonderfully computer literate, and especially talented when it comes to CSS and HTML. (I’m trying to learn it, but would just rather research and write.) Last night we got the pull-down menu mostly fixed under “Family Trees,”which used to be “Pedigrees.” (Sounds sort of stuffy British peerage so we changed the title.) It still doesn’t list the Lee-Alexander-Aiken family on the pull down, but you can access that branch if you just click on “Family Trees.” Clicking on a family from this page will take you to all the posts associated with that family. This is probably the best way to find pertinent-to-you posts, since there are so very many families discussed on this blog.

[Disclaimer: My dear husband and son would have made a much nicer blog if I had not been insistent on doing most of it with WordPress myself. I have tried not to bother them too much with blog fixing, so all poor qualities are due to my strong-willed German heritage, I suppose.]

 

George A. Roberts (1861-1939), above, was a bit of a geek in his day. As a farmer he had to be a tinkerer. He embraced new-fangled gadgets as well, and was one of the first in the area to have indoor plumbing and an automobile. His wife, Ella V. Daniel, was thrilled to finally have running water in the kitchen where she cooked for dozens of men at harvest season! I am sure our son is so handy partly because of George, plus from his father/my husband, who is descended from people who worked with their hands, like farmers and shoe-makers, and has a bit of German engineering genetics thrown in from somewhere, I am sure. Many trips in the stroller to Home Depot as a baby to get out of the house on a rainy day were probably helpful too- our son first counted to 100 sitting on the floor with big landscape spikes. (We did buy them and then he got to help use a sledgehammer…great fun.)

I am also thankful for Thomas MacEntee and his wonderful blogs, Hack Genealogy and GeneaBloggers. His webinars and shared information has done much to advance genealogical research, and get many of us to write blogs to share what we have learned.

One of those who shares her genealogy and writes it beautifully is Cynthia Mulcahy/Mulberrygrrl of We’re All Relative. I am not related but her amazing prose is inspiring to writers and does relate to many of the lines I am researching. I particularly enjoyed her recent post, “I’m Finally Embracing My Scots-Irish Ancestry.” She uses great images to illustrate her points, and she discusses many facts I had not known. This post mentions that the ‘Fighting Scots-Irish’ were enticed to America to be a ‘buffer’ between civilized cities and the wild frontier- so many of my ancestors were just those folks.

I cannot end this “Thankful Thursday” post without mentioning Jim Whitener, who pushed me into starting this blog after hearing yet another Legacy Family Tree Webinar on blogging how-to. I am looking forward to more posts on his family, when he has some time to write about his ancestors, i.e., when he is not enjoying his rich legacy of children and grandchildren. 😉

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) From our family photo treasure chest. This is one-thrid of a portrait of the three Roberts brothers, taken about 1900 in Newton, Jasper, Iowa.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Tuesday’s Tip- Organizing computer files

05 June 1948- Wedding picture of Edward A. McMurray and Mary T. Helbling
05 June 1948- Wedding picture of Edward A. McMurray and Mary T. Helbling

Last week I wrote about creating file names so that your computer will automagically create a sort of timeline in your file folders- see Tuesday’s Tip- Let your computer create a timeline!

Images and documents with multiple persons can be challenging to file- which name should be used as the file name? I tend to use the oldest or most prominent or most important-to-me persons in the photo or document, and one can then create a note to go into other folders referencing where the document or image has been placed. I am hoping to convert to using Lightroom (LR) soon- just wish it could use .pdfs. With LR, you can leave your images in the file hierarchy you like and have the program just point to its location. It also allows you to tag multiple people, so it will help with this dilemma.

 

My file folders are arranged differently than those of many genealogists. My family moved around a lot, so  listing files by place just doesn’t work for me- I prefer to have everything about one person pretty much together. This is a problem though, with things like censuses, since you will find a census entry for a person as a child in their family, and then with a family of their own. I have decided to deal with this by keeping a person in their birth family until they were off on their own as an adult, which usually coincides with marriage and a family of their own. My folders thus have a name like McMURRAY_W-PAYNE_L, for Will McMurray and Lynette Payne, who were the parents of Dr. E. A. McMurray, and his documents and images would appear in their folder until he married. The next folder he would appear in chronologically would be the McMURRAY-ROBERTS folder, where documents about his life with his first wife and son would reside. McMURRAY-KENNER would be the last folder I would put his documents in, for his life with his wife of 61 years and their beautiful family. If you use this method, choose which name to put first and be consistent- either husband or wife first.

Since I am one of those uppity women and a feminist, and it is still Women’s History Month (ahhh, the irony of a Women’s “HIStory” Month…), I use the maiden names of women throughout their lives. That helps me tell “HERstory.” Plus, it helps to separate out Hannah Ford from Hanna Marple who married father and son so both became Hannah Benjamin. (And the confusion continues, since father and son are both Jonathans.)

 

If you decide to try any new system, start small, maybe with just one family, to see if the system works well for you. There will always be items that could be filed in various ways- just try to find what you can be consistent with and use it. Change it to how it will best work for your mind to work with it easily- after all, the idea is for your brain to be analyzing, not filing. Remember, too, that you don’t have to change everything at once- that would be a daunting task, and quite a problem if you decide you don’t like the system or it doesn’t work for you. So that it’s not overwhelming,  start with your new files as you create them, and change older ones out when you have a few minutes here or there, such as while waiting on hold for 30 minutes with the cable company. I still have a lot of cleanup to do on my files since I started on this system even though it has been many years that I have used it. Changing to another computer has also thrown my system off, but further work on this system will be an enjoyable project filled with rediscovered gems as I get my filing system well organized.

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Family photo archives.

Please contact us if you would like a higher resolution image.

Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.