debra lynn giles - harriman, tn - obituary

Debra Lynn "Debbie" Giles
Obituary, Tuesday 7 Dec 2004

Harriman, Tennessee's Debra Lynn GILES, 46, died Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 in the University of Tennessee Medical Center, Knoxville, Tennessee. She lost her long battle with kidney failure and diabetes.

She was preceded in death by her father, William Edwin "Bill Ed" Giles of Harriman; step-father, Freddie Gunter; and brother, Mark Giles.

Survivors include her mother, Peggy Gunter of Harriman; brother, Terry Murphy of Knoxville; sister and brother-in-law Tina and Lane Walls of Kingston; niece and nephew Amanda Collins and Justin Walls; uncle Kenneth Moore; and many friends and loved ones.

Debbie's funeral service was held 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, in the Davis Funeral Home, Harriman, with Rev. Greg Kelley, Rev. Mike Beech and Rev. Bill Nolan officiating. Graveside services were conducted 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, in Roane Memorial Gardens, Harriman, Tennessee.

Debra Lynn GILES was a great-granddaughter of William Jacob Morgan "W.M." GILES and Cora Pickens ELLIS of Roane County, Tennessee:

* William Jacob Morgan "W.M." GILES
(1870-1953)
* Cora Pickens ELLIS
(1881-1961)
Married 22 May 1898
| |
* Henry GILES
(1909-1964)
Vesta Idella PASS
(1902-1945)
Married 7 Dec 1924 |
|
* William Edwin "Bill Ed" GILES
(1927-1995)
Margaret "Peggy" GUNTER
Married { |
|
* Debra Lynn GILES
(Abt 1958-2004)

[source: roane county news, online edition, 7 dec 2004, accessed 7 dec 2004 ]

william giles, prisoner at andersonville - more

more on the william giles who was a prisoner at andersonville:

Roster of Co. A, 4th (East) Tennessee Cavalry (USA): GILES, William

* Pvt
* Age: 19
* Born: Cocke Co., TN
* POW - captured South of Atlanta July 31, 1864, confined at Andersonville Prison

the giles family's recorded historical presence in Roane County, Tennessee

i have just uploaded my genealogy notes (with some source information) toward sorting out the giles family's recorded historical presence in roane county, tennessee. (this link will open the page at rootsweb.)

roane county, tennessee genealogy links you'll really use

the title says it all: roane county, tennessee genealogy links you'll really use!

you'll find them here.

possible family lead for mary brandon of rhea county, tennessee

one of my genealogical brick walls is the ancestry of mary "polly" graves brandon, born 2 aug 1837 in ga or nc, died 23 oct 1916 in harriman, roane co, tn.

mary is buried in an unmarked grave in soldier's circle at the harriman cemetery. her husband david and daughter lizzie montgomery are buried in bean cemetery near white's creek in rhea county. it's a very old community cemetery in really tough shape. one of the leads i keep meaning to follow up are the names of two brandons found on the wpa cemetery listing for the cemetery:

Rachel E Brandon Mar 13, 1844 Mar 30, 1875 31 yrs
Judith Ann Brandon Sept 18, 1824 Mar 30, 1870
Lizzie Montgomery June 28, 1867 Jan 5, 1900 33 yrs. Daughter of D & M Montgomery
David Montgomery Aug 16, 1842 June 19, 1879 37 yrs
[online source for bean cemetery here]

tennessee newspaper links that might have roane co news

all of the online newspapers that follow are currently free to access. if a site registration is necessary, i've noted that. the listing is alphabetized (by town or county):

daily post athenian, athens, mcminn co, tn - meigs and mcminn counties, tn: local and regional news; the obituaries are located in the "mcminn online" division's "lifestyle" section - as are birth and birthday listings. NOTE: link updated 5 Apr 2006.

the chattanoogan.com, chattanooga, hamilton co, tn: a full-service web only newpaper - news and obituaries; frequently local area history articles in a "memories" section.


cleveland daily banner, cleveland, bradley co, tn: free access; obits pages

crossville banner, crossville, cumberland co, tn: local news, obituaries, searchable - many roane county items.

herald citizen, cookeville, tn: free access; obituaries; marriage licenses; searchable archives.


knoxnews.com (from the knoxville news sentinel), knoxville, knox co, tn: registration required (free); plenty of roane county area news; obituaries.

loudon county online - a service of the news-herald, loudon co, tn: local news; searchable; can purchase full obituaries after viewing abstracts.

the daily times, maryville, blount co, tn: some local area news roundup; court records (blount), and obits

monroe county online - a service of monroe county advocate & democrat, monroe county, tn: local news, police reports, obituaries.

roane county news, kingston, roane co, tn: online news and wonderfully searchable archives.

grave of robert samuel brashears, the rolling stone, edwards farm, sugar grove valley, roane county, tennessee (photo date 7 aug 2004)

parker cemetery in lookout valley (tennessee) bulldozed

sadly, i'm not too surprised that it's in east tennessee where someone's been caught bulldozing a cemetery. an article in the chattanoogan on 15 november about what is the chattanooga area's parker cemetery being bulldozed has sadly reminded me of the sorry state of nelson cemetery in hamilton county where we had to hack through poison oak and five-foot briars to see the burial site of george washington phillips and his wife lizzie. i'm reminded of bean cemetery in rhea county where pine beetle damage has felled dozens of trees and may be responsible for the destruction to david montgomery's stone. i'm reminded of the now total inaccessibility of william monroe and lucy (bowling) ellis's graves in the ellis family burial ground in what's now meigs county from the double whammy of 2003 tornadic winds and east tennessee's recent ubiquitous pine beetle infestion. and I'm reminded of the tragic chemically-burnt-ground look (not as visible in the photos we took as it was onsite) and apparently concurrent escalation of grave marker deterioration between our september 2003 and august 2004 visits to the brashear family cemetery in sugar grove valley in roane county.

in the chattanoogan article about the bulldozing, the judge is reported to have said that it was "not some cowboy going out and wrecking a cemetery." and that's not what's happening to the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried, either.

hey, i'm not looking to pin blame here. if i were, i'd have to accept a big share of it myself for not using hunks of my research trips home to organinze and clean up the family plots, for my lack of overall due diligence. keeping any cemetery intact is a formidable job requiring energy, access, and funding, and i don't have a lot of any of those on any given day.

still, i can't help but be sad when i consider the precarious state of so many of our historical records and artifacts. the reason that the national archives has had to post a special header notice in its online military records section deflecting the rumor that it will be destroying original miltary records at the national military personnel center once they are digitized is that many of us know how many records have been tragically, if sometimes inadvertently or accidentally, destroyed in just the past few decades. we've learned that we might ignore such rumors at our peril.

nationally, just since the 1960s, we've experience an almost wholesale destruction of the "hard copies" of our newspapers and census records. a fire at the military personnel center has destroyed years and years of military and service dependents' records - including my own transcript from a military high school, for instance. our preferred storage media haven't always lived up to their initial promises and recorded tapes have molded, early cd data fragmented.... the list is endless.

none of this is new, of course, and we're certainly not the first nation to lose much of its recorded history [e.g. an article about bosnia's archives, 1992]. that doesn't make it less sad to me. especially since we're so young a nation, still so idealistic in many ways....

well, i jsut hope we all try to do better. and that's really what genealogy is, anyway, isn't it - the trying?

-----------------------

related items:

• want to shudder? the article on the bulldozed cemetery can be accessed here: 11.15.2004 - judge does not find malice in damage at parker cemetery - breaking news - chattanoogan.com

• an article that pretty much sums up what has happened (and continues to happen) to our newspapers can be accessed here: 11.02.2000 - battling to preserve remnants of history -newspaper archives expensive and complex
• and, as i wrote about in this blog, a wate tv (knoxville) item recently detailed the difficulty in maintaining our own roane county, tennessee archives : roane county courthouse records may be in jeopardy

audio blog - me and my name

 

tn type at two - photo by bill giles



okay, i was champing at the bit to try the audioblogging feature of blogger.com, and what better time i wondered than my birthday. the post is a bit gooey and the charm in my voice a little affected, but what's here is the first thing out of my mouth and not edited, so i guess i'm in it somewhere. you can click it to listen; it won't bite or contaminate your computer:

harriman, tn 1892 - panoramic map

harriman, tennessee 1892
(panoramic map at the library of congress - courtesy of the geographic & map division)

this wonderful map drawn and published by the george e. norris burleigh lithographic company can be viewed and downloaded via the mr. sid plugin at the library of congress. the image is copyright free and reproductions in various sizes can be ordered from the library. the library's pricing can be researched online.

a poster-sized copy of the map hangs directly above my computer monitor where it transports me to my hometown every day. the copy is dark and murky, but i have an excellent quality one that i have squirreled away. both were made by a friend who worked for a mapping service a few years back, and the dark one was the first one she printed. because light pours in from a window behind me, i can view the murky print murky well as i write, have it where i want it, and not have to worry about its fading.

on the map, the willam morgan and cora pickens (ellis) giles home at 418 clifty street would have been just off the "y" directly above the river and a little off-center near the bottomo the town. they didn't live there at the time the map was made. they moved there sometime between the 1910 and 1920 censuses. their youngest children, charles calvin and margaret abbey giles were born in the small two-story house at 418. their oldest son, william houston "bill" giles and his wife grace (gambill) giles owned the house at 420 clifty, just to the left of bill's parents as you face the front doors from the street. a low hedge separated the two.

rachel (montgomery) majors kurtz and her second husband edwin h. kurtz also lived on clifty street but about four blocks up. in the 1900 census, the address appears to be 529 Clifty and perhaps is an apartment bldg with five or six families there, but on the microfilm i viewed, the numbers are missing or have been lined through and are mostly illegible.

identity theft, 9/11, and genealogists' call for action

the u.s. house of representatives is wanting a version of its H.R. 10, 9/11 recommendations implementation act folded into the senate's version of similarly proposed legislation.

some background about what the act is and what it has to do with genealogy: it is a restructuring of the us intelligence system, and sections of it specifically designed to thwart identity theft should continue to be of immediate concern to genealogists. that is the also the stated position of the federation of genealogical societies and the national genealogical society who together, in october, issued a formal call for action and published a sample letter for genealogists to send to their congressional representatives. the letter suggested a need for an amendment to some of the wording of the H.R. 10, 9/11 recommendations act. the pertinent section of that sample letter asked to have the following added to an existent paragraph in Section 3063(d)(2) [H.R. 10] :

“However, nothing in this Chapter 2 shall be construed to require a State to change its law with respect to public access to (A) non-certified copies of birth certificates, or to (B) birth certificates or birth records once a period of 100 years has elapsed from the date of creation of the certificate or record.”

(here's a link to thomas [legislative information on the internet at the library of congress - named for thomas jefferson] so you can search for h.r. 10 and then the pertinent section [3063] which concerns vital records access.

on 28 oct, walter pincus of the washington post ran an article here (free access after free registration) the gist of which is summed up in its title and tag lines, "hope fades for intelligence bill compromise soon"...sense of urgency disappears as budget powers of new director continue to be sticking point.

that a similar act is likely to pass the senate is almost a given. as pincus says, "Commission leaders and victims' families favor the Senate bill over the House version, which contains a number of controversial intelligence issues as well as changes to immigration laws."

however the restructuring of the intelligence system shakes down, genealogists need to be vigilant and to follow all versions of the legislation carefully, looking to see that public access to historical records not be curtailed. it seems pretty self-evident that if that happens, we might as well all hang up our keyboards.


there are two versions of bill number h.r.10 for the 108th Congress searchable and readable via the library of congress (thomas) [search links on the thomas site expire and must be searched on an individual basis]:
1 . 9/11 recommendations implementation act (introduced in House) - H.R.10.IH
2 . 9/11 recommendations implementation act (reported in House) - H.R.10.RH


current status in the house of representatives (from thomas, library of congress):

H.R.10 : To provide for reform of the intelligence community, terrorism prevention and prosecution, border security, and international cooperation and coordination, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Hastert, J. Dennis [IL-14] (introduced 9/24/2004) Cosponsors (26)
Committees: House Intelligence (Permanent Select); House Armed Services; House Education and the Workforce; House Energy and Commerce; House Financial Services; House Government Reform; House International Relations; House Judiciary; House Rules; House Science; House Transportation and Infrastructure; House Ways and Means; House Homeland Security (Select)
House Reports: 108-724 Part 1, 108-724 Part 2, 108-724 Part 3, 108-724 Part 4, 108-724 Part 5
Latest Major Action: 10/8/2004 Passed/agreed to in House. Status: On passage Passed by recorded vote: 282 - 134 (Roll no. 523).
Note: Per H.Res. 827, the House shall be considered to have inserted H.R. 10 - as passed House - in S. 2845, insisted on its amendment to S. 2845, and requested a conference with the Senate. For further action, see S. 2845. The texts of H.R. 10 / S. 2845 as passed House and as passed Senate are not yet available from the Government Printing Office.

current status of the u.s. senate version (also from thomas, library of congress):

S.2845
Title: A bill to reform the intelligence community and the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Collins, Susan M. [ME] (introduced 9/23/2004) Cosponsors (10)
Related Bills: H.RES.827, H.R.10, H.R.5150, S.2840
Latest Major Action: 10/16/2004 Resolving differences / Conference -- Senate actions. Status: Senate disagreed to House amendment, agreed to request for conference, and appointed conferees. Collins; Lott; DeWine; Roberts; Voinovich; Sununu; Coleman; Lieberman; Levin; Durbin; Rockefeller; Graham FL; Lautenberg. pursuant to the orders of October 10 and 11, 2004.
Note: House conferees appointed: Hoekstra, Dreier, Hyde, Hunter, Sensenbrenner, Harman, Menendez, Skelton. The Government Printing Office has published the text of S. 2845 as passed Senate (the PP - "Public Print" version) and as passed House (the EAH - "Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by House" version). See "Text of Legislation" below.

i'll be watching any and all legislation of a similar nature closely and drafting letters to my senators and house representative stating my concerns in a tone similar to that of the sample letter in the call to action. i know from experience that hand-written letters by postal mail are more likely to get real attention, but i know, too, that email or web form mail doesn't hurt either.

the u.s. house of representatives has a write to your representative form here which also includes links to easily determine exactly your representative is. the clerk of the house keeps addresses and phone numbers of all the house members and committees. individuals may call may also call the u.s. house switchboard at (202)225-312. house member websites can be visited directly for further information.

a handful of senators still accept e-mail but others use a web form. contact information, phone numbers, and links to senators' websites are on a page located here. the most recent phone number listing for senators is a pdf document located here.

asa newport, 7 oct 1902 - 15 dec 1876, newport cemetery, rhea co, tn (also found in records as the garrison cemetery)

a genealogist worried about google desktop search and security? then don't use it - but miss a wonderful tool

internetnews.com has a new article about the google desktop search application and security, (Google Desktop Security Warning Issued: "UPDATED: Two analysts issued independent warnings today suggesting Google's Desktop Search tool -- released in October -- poses security risks for the enterprise.")

google is said to be investigating the issues the article raises. i want to know why google is bothering. it's not them...

google has given us another of their terrific tools - one that sure makes personal productivity much easier for me and my genealogy research. with it, i just located on my own current hard drive, for instance, 10 emails and 180 other mentions of asa, the first name of one of my 3d great-grandfathers, asa newport of rhea county, tn. it took me about two seconds flat to get the results via google. my windows xp search engine grinds away and yet doesn't easily locate the same findings without me filtering and/or using advanced searching - and then it's minutes, not seconds, before i can see the results.

with my google desktop search (gds in techno slang), i can type in asa and presto chango, view hundreds of results as quickly as if i'd used google for a whole "regular" web search. my results show up in a familiar google format list and, when clicked, show the content of the whole cached version of my hard drive files (which doesn't include files, folders, etc that i have excluded via my filtered preferences). for the asa search, for instance, i even get results for photos of his grave marker and can open it in an irfan-view window by clicking on the google listing.

if do a regular google search like asa newport jpg, i get the web search results, yes, but at the top of the page on my home computer, i also see this:

5 results stored on your computer - Hide - About
asa&eliz_newport_marr_poo.. - - Nov 9
newport_asa_b1802_w_roger.. - - Apr 17

and no, these local file results are not going out over the internet for others to see. the same on-the-fly technology that drives google's ad sense may show ads related to local searches in the right-hand column format, but it's not collecting personally identifiable data. and since it's in beta and i want good service, i have, at least temporarily, allowed google to collect information about how i use desktop search and to collect an error report if necessary (which it hasn't had to do yet).

okay, so i'm a private user and am basically the only one to use my computer. granted, i'm not on a virtual private network, the target audience for today's internetnews article warnings. but internetnews isn't the only show in town which seems to be scaring away everyone from this exciting tool. this is evidenced from the continued interest in and commenting on an earlier, misinformed article published in october by pc world.

today's internetnews article revolves around a caveat from whale enterprises for customers of its secure vpn product. the company's warning says basically the same thing google cautions in its user and privacy statements: that if you don't set up your filters on install, the search engine may cache files you don't want cached. here's the spiel quoted by internetnews:

Google Desktop Search asks users at installation what kinds of files should be indexed. They can omit their Web histories and also secure HTTPS pages. They also can change the options at any time after the install.

But Joseph Sternberg, director of technical services for Whale Communications, said that administrators can't rely on their users to do the right thing.

"Security needs to be implemented at the enterprise. IT administrators need to ensure the system is secure."

source: Google Desktop Security Warning Issued: "UPDATED: Two analysts issued independent warnings today suggesting Google's
Desktop Search tool -- released in October -- poses security risks for the enterprise."

i basically come down on the side of pc world comments like marli's:

There is no security issue with GDS here. There is, however, a security issue with computer configurations and people's use habits. Which brings us back to the point, if you don't know what your doing with a computer you either shouldn't be using it for sensitive purposes, get someone who knows something to set it up properly or don't complain about things like this. It is YOUR fault.

source: http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000264.html

look, here's how i see it: anything i download from the internet could put me at risk for a virus, trojan horse, or privacy problems. i'm pretty paranoid, actually, but here's what i try to do:

i use a firewall that monitors outgoing transmissions; keep it and my virus protection religiously updated; use email filters and don't open email from folks i don't know or messages not properly addressed to me that may have slipped through. before i download a program or sign up for a service, i read all the warnings, options, caveats, bug reports, etc. i try to pick providers whose integrity i have learned to trust or one recommended by someone whose integrity i trust. i use the amazing firefox as my default browser and just about any mail program besides microsoft outlook express. i don't save my browsing history or cache between browser loadings.

after all those precautions, i feel a little a better prepared to take my knocks, and so, when i fire up my browser, i think of its immense potential. i throw my shoulders back, keep my eyes wide open, tap a few quick keystrokes, and stride into the virtual world to download away.

and this monitoring stuff? i live in area where red light cameras click away at every major intersection. radio shack throws a conniption fit if i say i don't want to give them my phone number even though i pay them in cash. phone plans have neighborhoods and chips that'll tell you if you're physically near someone on your list.

any genealogist who uses ancestry.com knows that they are monitored on that company's sites. otherwise, how could they send us emails saying they've discovered a new file with our ancestor's name in it? (well, assuming you've allowed ancestry.com to send you e-mail.) family tree legend's smart matching counts on its ability to monitor your data entry in its program. as does gen smarts. you're just not getting your money's worth out of them if you're not using their monitoring and live-updating features.

amazon.com and the alexa toolbar follow you all around the web if you let them, evincing a whole lot more privacy concerns than google ever has with its more anonymous collecting approach. and besides, if google's desktop search really is a game of who do you trust, think about this (also from today's internetnews article): microsoft, ask jeeves, and likely even yahoo are all developing their own desktop search tools and hope to have them out by the end of this year. we all should be over cookie and web beacon shock by now.

a lot of this new technology comes with a steep learning curve. but so much of it is worth it. what i love and cherish about the internet is that is dynamic and ever-changing. so the nay sayers have it right, alas, that the virtual world, like our real one, isn't totally benign. let's face it: if you use a computer and haven't already lost your information age innocence, then you're in big time denial, and i'm not talking about the river in egypt.

william giles, tn - andersonville survivor

i'd sure like more information about the william giles who survived andersonville prison during the civil war.

william is one of two giles prisoners listed from tennessee. the other is m.c. giles

here are the details on each posted by the macon county, georgia chamber of commerce:


william giles
private
co a, 4th tn cavalry
ca[tired 31 jul 1864 at newnan, ga
survived andersonville


further remarks about william giles from the website:
Reference*: 4TH TENN CAV ADG RPT: 391, HISTORY OF 4TH

m.c. giles
corporal
co i, 7th tn cavalry
grave no. 11926
died 8 nov 1864
cause of death listed as "scorbutus"

further remarks on m.c. giles from the website:
Remarks: PRIVATE [1]; RANK NOT LISTED, ARM NOT LISTED, [3]; RANK [13]
Reference*: P 62 [3]; P 512 [13]

note: i have no evidence that i am related to either of these men. it also needs to be noted that for both there is a comment that the chamber of commerce record comes from the national park service and that they have printed all the information they have on each man. search for these giles men and other andersonville prisoners of war from this page on andersonville maintained by the montezuma, georgia chamber of commerce | here |

i wouldn't like to find my relatives here: roane county sheriff's dept. - roane co, tn's most wanted list

sometimes i'm amazed at what following a thread in conjunction with a location will turn up. this morning i somehow wound up at roane county's online most wanted list. there i found myself not only getttin a good look at county sheriff david haggard - with whom i still haven't made a firm family connection though one is likely - but i also got gander of a roane countian with the phillips surname. adam d phillips is on the page with the kind of photos that'd sure spark a little interest in anybody's heritage album.

in case you're wondering, i haven't linked adam phillips directly to our family yet either. maybe if you know where he is, you could drop me a line so i could ask him. well, maybe write sheriff haggard first....


david b haggard for sheriff, 2004

genealogy and harriman, tennessee's carnegie library building

the main reading room of harriman, tennessee's public library

harriman's public library was established with the support of the carnegie library building program and gets a brief mention in the online tennessee encyclopedia.

i can't say enough nice things about the harriman library and its friendly, helpful staff. though its genealogy "room" is more of a nook off to the right of the main hall, the library is certainly worth setting aside time to visit. not only did we get a great taste of local history by poking around the building itself, we found a couple of items we haven't located elsewhere. we were easily able to set up our laptop on a table in the main reading room and hunker in for several productive hours. the staff does all the photocopying - quickly and at reasonable rates.

harriman, tennessee knitting mill - historic photograph

glen alice, 1881

Glen Alice Community

Glen Alice is 65 miles from Chattanooga, on the Cincinnati Southern Railway. We have a station, a depot agent, but no depot, a postoffice by name Robbsville, a store successfully run by Mrs. Thompson, wife of A.P. Thompson, a commissary, and some goods sold on the sly. We have ore mines and ship four cars of iron per day. The mines are operated by the Robbs Bros. We ship tanbark and walnut logs; in fact we are a growing little place. In addition to the above named enterprises we have a blacksmith shop on Water street.


source: news item from the chattanooga times, saturday, 5 nov 1881. the photo is not historical. it's one from nara that i altered to read glen alice; the original, i believe but am not certain anymore read glen allen.

genevieve (majors) giles & rachel (montgomery) majors kurtz, 1949

on a clear day...

bible record in virgina archives includes roane county, tennessee surnames, including haggard

a search in the national union catalog of manuscript collections uncovered the following bible that might be of interest to roane co, tn haggard family descendants:

Kendrick family Bible record, 1810-1893. 4 leaves. Notes: Photocopies. Area covered is Roane County, Tennessee. Bible published in 1851. Other surnames mentioned: Acuff, Dugger, Ervin, Haggard, Hill, Owens, Tarwater, and Wester. Location: Virginia State Library and Archives, Archives Branch, 11th St. at Capitol Sq., Richmond, Va. 23219. Control No.: VASV90-A2143" Other titles: Bible records collection; 29178.

roane county name by name roll call

i've been spending a lot of time updating the new companion blog today. i posted a roane county individuals-by-name roll call.

six degrees of separation - rosie the riveter from rockwood, roane co, tn

 


 
library of congress, us war office photograph by andreas feininger: a rosie at work.


fred brown wrote a delightful short article about a local rosie the riveter that appeared in the knox news online this past august. since rosie has long been a favorite icon of women's strength and flexibility for me, i was really thrilled to discover a rosie not only with roane county roots but with a work history at the harriman hosiery mill where women in my own family worked, too.

lucille litton, now 82, was a graduate of rockwood high school where she played basketball for four years. during high school she began darning socks for 36 cents an hour at the harriman hosiery mill to help out her mother. litton's father had died when she was twelve, and supporting eight children was a constant struggle for her mother.

when litton was recruited by the anderson aircraft school in nashville, she left the mill for greener pastures. during her training at the school litton earned a whopping $90 a month. after graduating from their program in december 1943, she headed out to san bernadino, california and a job as a sheet metal mechanic earning up to $12 an hour, both building and maintaining c-47 transport planes.

when brown interviewed her, he did a good job of getting her to reminisce about the lifestyle of the rosies, as they were called, at air service command's "victory village." in brown's article, she briefly but succinctly touches on the the physicality of her job, of her idealism, of her ideas of fun, and more.

in 1946, litton returned to roane county and the hosiery mill where she worked for seventeen years and where my grandmother, a griege goods sizer, was also working, and where my own mother had worked, i only recently learned, for a short time in the middle of the depression.

eventually litton moved on, becoming nursing assistant.

but her association with my family - even if it's a little nebulous - doesn't end there. when i saw that she began working in rockwood at chamberlain memorial hospital and was there until her retirement in 1983, i was again tramping around in my own women's history.

that hospital took up the block where rathburn and chamberlain streets meet. it - and preumably lucille litton - were smack dab across the street from where my grandmother and grandfather purchased and retired to their tiny two bedroom frame house after they moved from south harriman.

that little house at 314 w rathburn was torn down a few years ago. it was so small that its vacant lot is easily overlooked. these days it looks more like a side yard to the house next door than any city lot a house ever stood on. and these days, too, chamberlain memorial has become its own memorial of sorts. it closed in 1996. it has been converted to a retirement/nursing home.

though my grandmother, who died in 1977, was about twenty-two years older than lucille litton, it's entirely possible that she knew her. if she didn't, i don't think i want to know.

the harriman hosiery mill closed down in july of last year. in september 2003, darleen trent at the roane county heritage commission gave me a few strands from one of the mill's last spools along with a certificate of authenticity all typed up on commission letterhead paper. then in august of this year, on another visit to tennessee, i was lucky enough to find some of the mill's spools for sale at rocky top general store in harriman. i snatched them up from david webb, the store's proprietor and chairman of the hooray for harriman committee. they're in a wooden bowl on my living room coffee table. and now, in october, i have the story of lucille litton - her story and its proof that my own grandmother really is fewer than six degrees of separation from rosie the riveter.

1935 harriman, tn city directory ~ selected listings

 




national recovery act cartoon, w.h. "bill" giles, harriman record, 1933

1935 City Directory of Harriman, Tennessee, Vol 2
Harriman, TN: Rev. HC Coleman Publ. (Introduction/Letter dated 10 Mar 1936. Printed by Holston Printing Co, Knoxville TN. )

Selected extracts/listings:

City Judge W.M. GILES, "City Officials" page

BENNECKER, Mrs. Lumi, Lab, Barton, So Harr, RFD 1

Maxwell Funeral Home, Queen and Trenton Streets (advertisement)

ELLIS, Lucille, 728 Clifty St.

ELLIS, Monroe, Lab, Mrs. Monroe, Hwf, 51 Front St.

FORRESTER, J.E., Lab Paper Mill, Mrs. J.E., Hwf, Edward, Harlan, James, June, Lawrence, Marjorie Sue, Mildred, Pauline, 15 Tennessee St.

GILES, Charles, Lab, Mrs. Charles, Lab Hos. Mill, So Harr, RFD 3

GILES, Henry, Lab, Mrs. Henry, Hwf, Bill Edd, H.M., Henrietta, 507 Morgan St.

GILES, Ray, Lab Paper Mill, Mrs. Ray, Hwf, Cor Devonia and Morgan St.

GILES, W.H., Printer Harr Record, Mrs. W.H. , Lab Woolen Mill, Jimmy, Lina Jean, 420 Clifty St.

GILES, W.M. City Judge, Mrs. W.M., Hwf, Bill Edd, Henrietta, Hobbs, Margaret, 418 Clifty St.

GRAVES, Alta, Lab Hos Mill, Geraldine, Bds 413 Clifty St

MAJORS, Mack, Lab, Mrs. Mack, Lab Hos Mill, Evelyn, Geraldine, Stanley, So Harr, RFD 3

PHILLIPS, W.A., RR Car Inspector, Mrs. W.A., Hwf, So Harr RFD 1

PATTERSON, Newton, TERA, Mrs. Newton, Hwf, JoAnn, 507 Morgan St.

SHANNON, Houk, Lab Hos Mill, Mrs. Houk, Hwf, Jimmie Lon [sic], Joyce, So Harr, RFD 1

WRIGHT, Mrs. Kenneth 420 Clifty St.

WYRICK, J.C., For Woolen Mill, Mrs. J.C., Hwf, Claude, Edna, 425 Clifty St.

*NOTES*
1. Mrs. Lumi BENNECKER is Mary Ann Columbia (JONES) BENNECKER, widow of Edward Lustus BENNECKER, murdered in Rockwood in 1921. "Lumi" was her nickname. Her son Barton will marry Margaret Abbey GILES, youngest daughter of William Morgan and Cora Pickens (ELLIS) GILES in 1939. Claude and Edna WYRICK (above) will be witnesses to the eloping couple's marriage.

2. Compare the household of W.M. (William Morgan) GILES with that of Henry GILES. Two of Henry and Vesta (PASS) GILES' children, Bill Edd and Henrietta, are listed in both households.

3. The woolen mill in which Grace (GAMBILL) GILES works may be the Cumberland Woolen Mill, advertised in the directory. This is likely the same mill in which J.C. WYRICK, a Clifty Street neighbor of the GILES', is a foreman (see WYRICK above).

4. Genevieve (MAJORS) and Charles GILES were newlyweds - married 11 May 1935. They may have been living with Genevieve's parents (Mack and Clara (PHILLIPS) MAJORS, who are also listed as living on RFD 3 in South Harriman (see above). Genevieve's mother is listed as working at the hosiery mill, her place of employment for most of her adult life. This may have been the only time in Genevieve's life, however, that she worked outside the home. Her oldest daughter was born the following year. Genevieve, whose full name was Lula Emma Genevieve (MAJORS) GILES delivered five babies. Until this directory listing was uncovered, her surviving daughters and her son had no idea that she had ever held a paying job.

5. Mrs. Houk SHANNON is Beatrice "Bea" (MAJORS) SHANNON, daughter of W.A. (William Abraham "Bud") and Lula (Mrs. W.A. - Jimmie L. SARRATT) PHILLIPS (see listing above) . Clara MAJORS (above) is Bea's sister and also a daughter of Bud and Lula PHILLIPS. There are four SHANNON families listed in the directory, some of which may be relatives of Bea's husband Houk (Roy Houck SHANNON).

6. Louise (GILES) WRIGHT - Mrs. Kenneth WRIGHT, though listed separately, can be seen to be living with her parents, Bill and Grace (GAMBILL) GILES, when the listing was compiled.

(This lsiting/entry was expanded and amended on Thursday, 14 Oct 2004, at 8:43 a.m.)

death, dying, and genealogy

 





1930s tva grave relocation
roane co, tn
-NARA photo

a sentimentalizing of mortality ... the dead body is fetishized as a catalyst for truth telling - ron rosenbaum

ron rosebaum's september article in slate - "dead like her - how elisabeth kubler-ross went around the bend" - has set me thinking today about those of us - and here i imperiously decide that i am not alone - who originally took up genealogy as tool to cope with the death of a loved one (or two).

rosenbaum would likely suggest that genealogy is one form of fetishizing death. msnbc's online series of articles "genetic genealogy" under its science and technology flag may have him gleefully rubbing his hands together as evidence of yet one more "treacly simalacrum of psuedo-science" perpetrated on a sentimentalizing public.

remember this, though: rosenbaum's critique of kubler-ross's methodology and his inquiry into commodification and quantification of death and dying ought not to be dismissed out of hand. it wouldn't hurt any of us to examine the commodification of even our own family's vital records these days. you pays your bucks and you gets your death certificate here with just a modest markup.

can you say af·fil·i·ate, boys and girls?

musing about copyright - me, you, ancestry dot com, the church of lds, and more

 


In “Family Tree Building and copyright protection” (4 Jul 2003), Carson E. White asks, "How do the genealogy gurus on the Internet steal a copyright from your family tree document?" He answers this way:

When you build your family tree online, you are affixing your compilation onto a computer disk owned by the Internet Company that offers this service usually for free. The return for this great favor is that you place your compilation into the public domain where your family names become the Internet Companies compilation, which they in turn sell for profit, “Buy my software and get 239 million names,” to search.

(Author White says that he is a non-practicing lawyer from Michigan.)

Pop Quiz!

Question:
I post family data and transcriptions of family documents on Rootsweb, billed as the nonprofit arm of the MyFamily.com, Inc. network of genealogy websites - Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, Genealogy.com, Ancestry.co.uk, FamilyHistory.com, and RootsWeb.com. (They also own and publish Ancestry Magazine, Genealogical Computing Magazine, Ancestry Family Tree software, 50+ books, the 1-2-3 Family Tree package, and innumerable databases on CD-ROM.) Do I hold copyright to my research?

Answer:
Yes, of course, but...

See the copyright page for MyFamily.com, Inc., and closely examine the language in the section in which they discuss their company's role as licensed distributor of user-supplied content, which they define as materials contributed to the public areas of their websites. A fairly exhaustive search of both Ancestry.com and Rootsweb.com never did tell me whether or not MyFamily.com, Inc. is ever going to publish information I submit to my own Rootsweb (free) webspace.

Learning more about this stuff:

Who Can Claim Copyright at the US Government's online copyright pages, an excerpt from which follows:

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author. Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as:

(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as:

• a contribution to a collective work
• a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
• a translation
• a supplementary work
• a compilation
• an instructional text
• a test
• answer material for a test
• an atlas

if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire....

The authors of a joint work are co-owners of the copyright in the work, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Copyright in each separate contribution to a periodical or other collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole and vests initially with the author of the contribution.

Definitions from the Copyright Office:

A “collective work” is a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole.

A “compilation” is a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. The term “compilation” includes collective works.

It's pretty clear that under US copyright law, neither I nor MyFamily.com, Inc. owns facts. Each can claim copyright protection for an original arrangement of the facts but not to the facts themselves - even those elusive or juicy biographical facts we may have "discovered" or "unearthed." From the start, I have pretty much proceeded on the assumption that any facts I submit to the web are up for grabs to everyone.

How I present them is not.

One Supreme Court decision - Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc. March 27, 1991 - effectively lays out the distinctions between facts and factual compilations and goes on to discuss an important check on copyright protection for compiler-authors. This descision makes a good read for genealogists investigating the limits of their copyright protection where companies like MyFamily.com, Inc. and others are concerned.

Just a sidenote: The other day, I noticed that FamilySearch.org tells you more directly and explicitly than the MyFamily.com, Inc. sites do about how the Church of LDS is going to gather up the information you submit and sell it to the public. The slight catch to reading this bit of information is that you do have to register and log in to access the information which is found in the Share My Genealogysection of the website. While on the one hand, it could be argued that familysearch.org is obfuscating just as much as MyFamily.com, Inc. by stowing the information under so many user layers, the details of their appropriation of contributor material is, on the other hand, readily accessible as a sidebar menu item once a registered user starts to investigate whether or not they want to share their information with the Church. After clicking on the sidebar item, , users see that their records are going to be buried under Granite Mountain for posterity and that it will likely be published - both for fee-based and/or free services - perhaps on CD-ROMS, microfilms, and on an internet locale of the Church's choice. (Read here: "Am I the only one who is a little wary of the Church of LDS' affiliation via their 1880 census index with Ancestry.com?")

Conclusion, or, so, here's where I think I am:

My claim to copyright in my own genealogical writings and databases (exclusive of "fair use" provisions) includes my selection and coordination of facts, including their layout or arrangement; all subjective expressions or description of the facts, including my original research notes and notations; and all photographs or graphics that originated with me.

so, now, do you know where you are in all this?

harriman, tn - some historic photos

historic harriman, tennessee ~ photos and postcards

roane county courthouse attic - seen any good archival imperatives lately?

here's a recent broadcast item from wate tv, knoxville's channel 6. seems that roane may be destined to lose more of its records because of storage woes:


Reporter Tearsa Smith walks down one of the many aisles of Roane County records
[courtesy of wate, tv channel 6, knoxville, tn]

Roane County Courthouse records may be in jeopardy

June 1, 2004

By Tearsa Smith
6 News Reporter

ROANE COUNTY (WATE) -- The top floor of the Roane County Courthouse is weighed down with public records dating back to the 1800's. But the load may be too much for the storage rooms to bear.

If you want to find out who didn't pay their Roane County property taxes in 1876, the records are still in the courthouse, along with hundreds of thousands more.

Roane County archivist Robert Bailey said the warm, dusty attic contains countless information on old murder cases, arrest reports and even school vendor files. The boxes span more than 200 years.

"Our records are actually in great shape," Bailey said.

A records management assessor warned the county that the load could be too much for the 30-year-old attic to bear. "It's not an immediate concern," Bailey said. "It's just something that we've got to look at long term. We've got to see how it's best to manage the attic and the area."

It would seem logical to just put everything on computers. But Bailey explained why that's not a good option at this point. "It only takes one problem to loose [sic] what could be months of work. The other problem is, it takes a lot of man power to scan records. It also takes a lot of time, which we don't have."

The huge job is being handled by the two-person Preservation of Records Department. "The records that we're destroying are temporary value records," Bailey said. "They no longer have any historical or genealogical value. They also no longer have any legal value."

The county is working to bring an engineer in to help determine the exact weight limit of the attic. Until then, they'll continue assessing what stays and what can be discarded.

The Preservation of Records Department hopes to hire several workers from the Tennessee Career Center to help go through the records.

A large portion of records have been taken to the old courthouse for storage. © Copyright 2000 - 2004 WorldNow and WATE All Rights Reserved
Original article and context at http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=1909654

in september 2003, robert bailey, the archivist mentioned in the article, and darleen trent, records preservationist and curator of the old courthouse museum , told me a horror story about a previous cleaning out of county records. i'm unsure of current numbers, but in 1999, the roane county archives, owned and administered by the roane county heritage commission, held about 750,000 individual documents [source: darleen trent message at rootsweb]. many, many of these documents had been rescued by commission staff and volunteers after a frantic phone call from someone who'd seen county records being heaped in piles at the city dump. it seems that at least one county administrator thought the space they were taking up in the present county courthouse - the "new" one - could be put to better use. without warning, then, thousands of records had been unceremoniously hauled off by the truckload as garbage. we can't know how many documents were lost forever in this shortsighted cleanup operation, but we do know that the castoffs form a solid backbone for the current county archives.

archival storage is a growing problem in more ways than one. as a nation of consumers who live in a time when even the methods of documentation and information exchange are rapidly evolving, we concomitantly generate a massive amount of "documents" and waste that might nevertheless interest some future family historian. how do we preserve it all? or do we? and the ironic larger question is, of course, where can we keep it once it's preserved?

our informational bits and bytes need appraising. but exactly how does the worth or value get assessed? on what is it based? who gets to do the assessing?

well, obviously robert and the other person in the two-person "records preservation department" of roane county, tennessee, get to do some assessing. and despite robert's assurance that any documents to be disappeared have lost any and all value - the kind of assurance that makes fire bells go off in my chest - i trust them. well, him. i trust him. right now, i don't know who the other person is. maybe i'd trust him or her, too. i don't know. i'm real shaky about those people they're wanting to bring in from the tennessee career center, too.

okay. so here's what i'm really wanting to know: does there exist some overarching vision or mission we can guide ourselves by - some archival imperative?

are we really destined, do you think, to rely only on fee-based archives like ancestry.com or similar corporations who early on recognized how much money could be made by bulking up on the flotsam and jetsam of ordinary life? or, even more frightening, on the recent trend toward indexing the records of the past with apparently little or no thought about where the originals have gotten themselves to? so exactly what is the value of keeping old store ledgers or shipping lists? and what kind of value are we talking about? intrinsic value? exchange value? what is the real question these days? would we, could we, as we'd all like to think, certainly have enough sense to recognize and hang on to the really important things even though any function they might have beyond the casually informational is no longer readily apparent?

as a descendant of many unlettered working class people, these questions sometimes loom large in my own genealogical meanderings. i'm one of those people whose database is littered with "mentions." you may recognize what i mean - all those notes that don't have a category in your software's "life events" fields. those about spotting an ancestor's name in a store ledger or among the attendees at an estate auction, their appearance in a church minutes report or having been named as a character witness in a neighbor's bastardy suit. like that. there are entire lines i know i'm just wasting my time on if i'm going through land records. many of my ancestors were too poor to ever own homes much less the land you'd put them on. and they couldn't read or write and so there's no civil war missive from vicksburg tucked away as a family heirloom i can pore over. even when they were formally documented, because they couldn't correct misspellings of their names on census or tax records, they still have to be puzzled out and hopefully established to be who they are. so, hey, i'm willing to do my share. if you've got something with a name that might belong to someone in my ancestral past, send it along. i'll be happy to do the inventorying, the appraising, and the storage.

flotsam

wreckage or discarded material e.g. garbage, found floating on the surface of the sea or washed up on the beach.
from http://www.unesco.org/csi/pub/papers/glimpse11.htm

jetsam

the part of a ship's equipment or cargo that is thrown overboard to lighten the load in a storm
from http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

[ back to text ]

smart match

how smart is this? b 1866 d 2002. sure.

one of the genealogy programs i use to supplement my main database, stored in legacy deluxe 5, is family tree legends.

i prefer using legacy deluxe as my main program for a number of reasons. i'll tell you why sometime. and no, i'm not an affiliate. i don't get one lick of reveue from them. maybe someday. it's easy to tout something you use and adore. while i'm not an affiliate, though, you might want to go download yourself a totally free, absolutely free, hotdang free copy of the standard version of their software. from me it's high praise when i tell you i have never had a problem with the legacy product or with the people who run their show.

but i like family tree legends, too. a lot.

having said that...

for some reason, when i'm using it, i seldom feel as if i'm doing real research. one reason is the icons. have you seen them? they remind me soooo much of fisher price little people.

grow your own map

i just propagated my own roane co area coal field map.

you can see that i'm not ready to let go of the map theme yet....

a person needs to find her own way in this world.

here's a link to tn river charts available via the nashville district corps of engineers (where i found the terrific map used in the last posting):
 

tennessee river navigation charts
 

& be sure to look at the us government's national atlas site.

there you can map an area for yourself and download the results. that's were i grew the map in this posting. you can sow a wide variety of features or demographical data, and they will sprout right before your eyes. i stuck in counties w/ labels and coal fields. now, who says government isn't fun?

mapping home

the tennessee river at the convergence of roane and several surrounding counties

chart courtesy of the us army corps of engineers

i'm addicted to maps. i don't know if my early interest developed out of a need to know exactly where i stand at any given time or out of an early sense of dislocation and a deep-seated feeling of homelessness arising from being an army brat. maybe i simply liked the bright colors and graphics. or the sense of having a bird's eye view. maybe it's all or none of these that sparked and continue to spark my interest.

i can engross myself in a map about in the same way i do a good story. when i look at a map, i feel just like that freckle-faced kid first discovering picture books, and before i know it, i'm alice down the rabbit hole. it's always a sunny day inside a map as i pass over the roads, tracking effortlessly from town to town. if i've been lucky enough to bring along a few facts to fuel my imagination, i people the villages and the areas around them. if i've had little to bring with me, i turn into old-time explorer, thrilling at my discovery of this mountain range, that huge inland lake. i love clambering over the mountains and following railroad tracks that appear out of nowhere. i'm on rivers and streams, rafting happily from one whitewater to another.

one of the two greatest gifts genealogy has given me is a sense of home, of belonging to a place. i belong to east tennessee in a way i never did as i was growing up. in the process of tracing my family lines back generations and discovering that they were among roane county's earliest settlers, i have come home.

after i discover a new east tennessee family member via the internet or in some faded note from a crumbly piece of paper i looked at in the old kingston courthouse, i'm more anxious to plot them on a map than i am to type them into my database. i can't wait to run into the kitchen and poke my finger on the map and trace where they might have been at one time or another. and i'm just learning that's because it's somewhere in the physical and tactile process of connecting the dots that the piece of land in that chart above moves way beyond history and geography. it breathes. it has spirit.

there. but, oh, i've explained it poorly. i make it sound a little woo-woo when what i'm really wanting to convey is how genealogy more and more maps me to my homeland. in ways past my ability to explain them, the land itself appears to be taking on a depth and dimension that lead it directly home to me.

found found found

david washington montgomery still lies here

bean cemetery near white's creek, rhea co, tn

in september 2003, we were unsucessful in locating david's grave. the cemetery was impenatrable - kudzu and other undergrowth made it impossible to even locate the cemetery. at the time, i photographed the area where the cemetery was said to have once been located.

in march 2004, we searched again. this time we succeeded. the woods still hadn't grown back after the winter, and they were more passable. once up the hill and through the barbed wire, we could see into them, as well, and that's how we located the gravesites.

david's marble stone has been removed from its base. it was far too heavy for two of us to lift to put back into place. the top of the stone is gone. the grave's footstone is still intact and in place. that we'd actually located our david's stone became a certainty when we discovered his daughter lizzie's very nearby.

what remains of my great-great-grandfather's head stone reads,

Da...
Bo...
Aug. 16, 1842.
DIED
June 19, 1879-------

A loving friend, a husband dear
A tender parent lieth here;
Great is the loss we here sustain
But hope in heaven to meet again.

His footstone reads simply, D.M

oh, yeah, exactly enough left for me to know for sure....

oh, yeah, a blog is useful for taking notes at the public library (civil war pensions)

okay, yes, i do live in one of the areas where the local public library computers may have been used by some of the people plotting 9-1-1, so i do understand some - maybe even all - of the constraints put on the library terminals. really.

however

it's a pain. a real pain.

i have to go the library to access ancestry dot com, and i hadn't minded until recently. i'd just pack up some some notes and floppies and make a regular afternoon of it.

that was then.

i found several work-arounds when they first took away our right click abilities. floppies are de rigeur at our library. thumb drives are banned. so i'd save a bit of text to one of the floppy disks i'd re-formatted, erasing those files i'd diligently backed up in 1997 and now can't remember why. after saving my new line or two as a text file, i'd open the file, delete the text and use the open empty page to take notes i really needed to have these days.

no more. this is now.

nowdays, you can't even see a file listing for your floppy. you may or may not have something on it, but you won't know until you get home. and no more image downloading. period. even if there's a handy little box right there on the page, built into the site's interface, saying "download image." nope. and you won't know until you get that little floppy home and discover that there are no images on it at all. i have noticed that if you pay close attention, you'll see that the drive light blinks to access the floppy as if it were letting you save the graphic - just as it does when it's actually letting you save a text file. but there is no blinking when it's purportedly downloading that dandy little census image it took you hours to find.

so, the big deal? can't you just print the census image? well, yeah. duh. but there's a rub there, too. for some reason - likely in the pursuit of saving ink - our library only permits printing in econo mode and in portrait orientation. i am serious. you can guess: what you wind up with is a miniaturized, illegible version of a page that was originally ledger-sized. totally impractical. even with a magnifying glass in the comfort of your home office.

on the visit during which i took the notes at the bottom of this entry, i think i really offended our librarian. fed up, i couldn't help but stop her sojourn across the room to ask her why, pray tell, do they even bother to give us access to databases we have no way to use effectively anymore. how, i asked, were we even to take notes from them? when she gave me that use-your-common-sense look and said we could still use pencil and paper to do it the old-fashioned way, and i responded by gesturing, wrist-flipped and palm-up toward the only available space at the computer workstation - about a four by six inch area of desktop - she quickly averted her eyes and mumbled something to the effect that she guessed it was a bit inconvenient. ahem.

to complicate matters further, we can't resize windows or minimize browser windows, either. i have taken to clicking on the "restore down" boxes in the right hand corner of the browser and then sliding my main screen off the edge of the display until i can just find the desktop and its button to begin browsing the internet. and that's when technically, i guess, i become a criminal. at the very least, i become a liar.

here it is: i click right on that button and deliberately open myself a second window. i type in my blog address, create a draft post in this blog, and into that, i stick my research notes.

i have one alternative strategy. that is to go not to my blog but to french teacher pierre renault's online web-based text editors and use them because they'll let me save the notes straight to floppy.

but here's the thing:

no matter which method i use, i have to remember to save my work frequently because sometimes the computer will reset itself for no apparent reason, and i'm back at the library agreement page, and that second window has closed up.

and here's the real thing:

no matter which method i use, i'm very aware that i've agreed to the library terms and am knowingly and deliberately breaking a bond. and you know, although the library computer window police may not believe me, i really just hate when that happens....

notes written at the public library on one of their computer terminals follow. avert your eyes if you don't want to see me break the library law:

civil war pension file index
giles surname in tennessee


Absalom Giles Sarah Giles Alabama and Tennessee
Charles C. Giles Tennessee
Charles Wise; Dock Giles Fanny Giles Tennessee
Charles Wise; Dock Giles Fanny Giles Tennessee
Cyrus G. Giles Tennessee
Damuel H. Laughter Mary Laughter Tennessee Ida E. Giles, et al
Dennie A. Giles Bertha Giles Tennessee and Kentucky
Issac Lockmiller Nannie M. Lockmiller Missouri and Tennessee J. C. Giles, Gdn.
James M. Giles Tennessee
Jefferson T. Giles Tennessee
Jesse A. Giles Tennessee
John B. Allen Tennessee and C. G. Giles, Gdn.
John M. Giles Nancy Giles Tennessee
Richard Giles Emily Giles Tennessee
Samuel R. Giles Tennessee
Sidney C. Giles Charlotte L. Giles Tennessee and Florida
Stephen O. Miller Nebraska and Tennessee Cyrus G. Giles, (Gdn.)
Thomas B. Giles Tennessee
Thomas J. R. Giles Tennessee
Thomas T. Giles Tennessee
Tilman Giles; Robert Powell Tennessee
Tim Giles Tennessee
William Giles Tennessee Nancy Giles By Gdn. H. A. Siles
William H. Giles Tennessee

now they say i can send photos too

 

Hello, Hello! Do you understand what you've done by offering me photo space? Whose faces I might decide to upload here? Who or what might be peering out at you from this screen any day now? Space? You're giving me space to store the photos for this blog, you say? Well, guess we'll see just how long your freebies are gonna last once I start uploading these folks, missy.

Until you yank the plug, get ready. I'm just real likely to parade some of the very people who were the stuff of night terrors when I was a kid - some of the ones who'd stare out at me through the pitch dark from behind that curved glass in those heavy wall frames up in that tiny bedroom of my grandmother's South Harriman house. And the yellakin stretchers'll get you, ef you don't watch out!

Shh... G'night. I'm turning out the lights now. Don't be scared. They're not really here. Yet.

wonder if they'd put that armory in roane county

...Walter T. Pulliam's book, Harriman, The Town That Temperance Built, was the first place I had ever read that the national government had once considered building a national armory in Roane County. When I was re-reading the section in Pulliam's book the other day, I decided to do a little of my own research about the course of events.

Sure enough, the proposed armory for Roane County is right there in the Senate Journal as Pulliam said. The government was looking at sites to build other armories similar to the one already existing at Harper's Ferry. As I read, I thought about the impact Oak Ridge's construction had on the region in the 1940s. I couldn't help but speculate about the way Roane County's character and history might have been substantially altered had a federal military presence — stronger and longer-lived than that of the early Fort Southwest Point been established. And if the economic boost Harper's Ferry got from its armory and arsenal are any indication of what might have been, Roane County might have shifted rapidly from rural hamlet to industrial manufacturing center before the charter members of the East Tennessee Land Company were out of knickers. Clinton B. Fisk, first president of the company, wasn't even born until 1828.

---

Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873 TUESDAY, December 19, 1826.


The following motion, submitted by Mr. Johnson, of Kentucky, was considered.

Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing the Secretary of War to appoint one or more Engineers, to examine the Horse Shoe Bend, on Licking River, in the State of Kentucky, and the lands adjacent to the canal which the Louisville and Portland Canal Company are now cutting, around the Falls of the Ohio River, in that State, and report the practicability of establishing an Armory of the United States, similar to the one at Harper's Ferry, at each of those places, and report the fitness of those places, respectively, and their respective advantages and facilities for such establishment.

On motion, by Mr. Hendricks, to amend the said motion, by adding thereto the following:

And, also, that the Board, aforesaid, be instructed to examine, in reference to the same object, a site on Blue River, and a site at or near Lawrenceburgh, in the State of Indiana:

A motion was made by Mr. White, to amend the said proposed amendment, by adding thereto the following:

Also, the site at Gordon's Iron Works, on White's Creek, in the counties of Roane and Rhea, and District of East Tennessee, as well us the site at the Falls, on Emmery's River, in the county of Roane, and District aforesaid.

And, on motion, by Mr. Ruggles,

Ordered, That the original motion, and the proposed amendments, lie on the table.

---

Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873 WEDNESDAY, January 3, 1827.

Page 74

Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing the Secretary of War, to appoint one or more Engineers, to examine the Horse Shoe Bend, on Licking river, in the State of Kentucky, and the lands adjacent to the canal, which the Louisville and Portland Canal Company are now cutting around the Falls of the Ohio river, in that State; and, also, the site at Zanesville, in Ohio, on the Muskingum river; and report the

Page 75

practicability of establishing an armory of the United States, similar to the one at Harper's Ferry, at each of those places, and report the fitness of those places, respectively, and their respective advantages and facilities for such establishment. And, also, that the Board aforesaid, be instructed to examine, in reference to the same object, a site on Blue river, and a site at or near Lawrenceburgh, in the State of Indiana. Also, the site at Gordon's iron works, on White's creek, in the counties of Roane and Rhea, and District of East Tennessee, as well as the site at the Falls on Emmery's river, in the county of Roane, and district aforesaid. Also, Shoal creek, in the county of Lauderdale, State of Alabama. Also, the site on Harpeth river, in Davidson county, Tennessee, commonly called the Narrows of Harpeth. Also, the Falls of the Chatachouchie, in the State of Georgia.

---

Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873 TUESDAY, December 18, 1827.

Page 48

The following motion, Submitted by Mr. Johnson, of Kentucky, was considered and agreed to:

Resolved, That the Secretary of War, under the control of the President of the United States, be authorized and requested to appoint

Page 49

one or more officers of the Corps of Engineers to examine the following places, viz. The Horse Shoe Bend, on Licking river, in the State of Kentucky; the lands adjacent to the canal which the Louisville and Portland Canal Company are now cutting around the falls of the Ohio river, in said State; the site at Zanesville, in Ohio, on the Muskingum river; a site on Blue river; a site on the Wabash, at, or near the mouth of Eel river; and a site at, or near Lawrenceburg, in the State of Indiana; a site at Gordon's iron works, on White's creek, in the counties of Roane and Rhea, district of East Tennessee; a site at the falls on Emory's river, in the county of Roane, and district aforesaid; a site on Cypress and Shoal Creeks, in the county of Lauderdale, State of Alabama; a site on Harpeth river, in Davidson county, Tennessee, commonly called the Narrows of Harpeth, at Emery's iron works in the county of Sullivan, and at Alfred Carter's works, in the county of Carter, and district of East Tennessee, and the falls of the Chatahouchie, in the State of Georgia; at the falls of Big Beaver river, and at Pittsburgh, in the State of Pennsylvania; and report the practicability of establishing an Armory of the United States at each place, similar to the one at Harper's Ferry and Springfield; and report the fitness of those places respectively, and their respective and peculiar advantages and disadvantages for such establishment; and that the said report be communicated to Congress at as early a period as practicable.

The bill explanatory of an act entitled "An act to reduce and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States," passed March 2d, 1821, having been reported by the committee correctly engrossed, was read the third time; and

Resolved, That it pass, and that the title thereof be as aforesaid.

Ordered, That the Secretary request the concurrence of the House of Representatives in said bill.

---

Maybe more on this later...

cemetery worksheet

Cemetery marker report for

___________________________
Name

Cemetery Name:

Location: (town or area, county, state)

Other Location Notes:

Grave Section, Row, Number, if known:

Other grave location note:

Marker: present or missing:

Direction marker faces: N__ S__ E__ W__ NE__ NW__ SE__ SW__
Other (describe):

Marker type: Head__ Foot__ Table__ Tomb__ Mausoleum__
Combined__ Family__Other (describe):

Marker Material: Wood__ Stone__ Bronze___ Other (describe):

Marker Condition: Intact__ Chipped__ Cracked__ Crumbled__ Eroded__
Broken__ Tilted__ Sunken__
Insert, decorative element, panel fallen/broken/missing___
Discolored/stained moss/lichen/other:______

Marker Condition notes:

Marker Design: flat-rectangle__ flat-curved__ top-flat__carved sides or top__
other carving or decoration__

Marker Design notes:

Condition of inscription: Mint__ Clear but worn__ Mostly decipherable__
Traces decipherable__ Illegible or destroyed__ Underground__

Inscription (use one line per line on the marker):

Additional notes:


.......................

obessed with the dead

My family thinks I'm not only obsessed but more than a little morbid because I've dragged shortcuts to Tennessee obituary pages from my Internet Explorer address bar to my desktop so I can remember to check them every so often. I like to read even those that don't seem to pertain to me whenever I can - especially if the person who died is anybody 80 years old or so. I'm always hopeful of finding family connections I didn't know I had. Of course, it would have been nice to have known them sooner.

---

Finding Roane Co, TN obituaries:

Kyker's home page at http://www.kykerfuneralhome.com links to current "in-house" obituaries [free access].

Current Roane Co obits can also be followed online, at Knox News. They print obituaries from many of Knox County's surrounding communites - Roane, yes, but others as well. The direct link to the no-cost access obituaries section is

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/obituaries/

Their news archives (likely includes obits) goes back to 1990. Reasonable retrieval costs.

The Roane County News also has free current, though brief, obituaries and a decent search engine (especially if you use the "Advanced Search" option to search for documents older than two weeks). Their obits page is

http://www.roanecounty.com/obituaries/

Articles found at Roane County News via the search engine apparently can presently all be accessed for no fee.

Contact information [free access] for Tennessee funerals homes can be found at

http://www.us-funerals.com/funeral-homes-by-state/tennessee-funeral-directors.html

Roane County people are frequently mentioned online in obituaries of the following papers, too:

(1) The Oak Ridger, Oak Ridge, Anderson Co, TN [free access] at

http://www.oakridger.com/obituaries/index.shtml

Its search engine is great, too. I just accessed a birth announcement - free - from 1999.

(2) Cleveland Daily Banner (Cleveland, TN)

http://www.clevelandbanner.com/NF/omf/daily_banner/obit_beta.html

(if the above page link doesn't work, access the obituaries from the Banner's home page)

(3)The Daily Post Athenian in neighboring McMinn County sponsors free access obituary postings at

http://www.dpa.xtn.net/index.php?template=obits

It has an archives as well.

(4) Neigboring Cumberland Co's Crossivlle Chronicle's obits are at

http://www.crossville-chronicle.com/Chronicle/Obituary/obituary.html

The paper's obituary archives (from 1996 on) are easily accessed at

http://www.crossville-chronicle.com/Chronicle/Archives/obitarchives.html

If you don't want to do a year by year search, you can use Google's site search by entering into any Google search box the following:

site:www.crossville-chronicle.com roane

NOTE: Above, "roane" is for a county-wide search and can be replaced, of course, with any surname or term. Google's site search is a great timesavers for genealogists.

(5) Monroe Co's Democrat has obits online at

http://www.monroe.xtn.net/index.php?template=obits

Its obits archive search gave me results back to 1999. What shows up for free is a good chunk of the obit but may not be the whole thing - which you could, of course, purchase.

(6) The Daily Times in Maryville, Blount Co, has funeral notices and obits online at

http://www.thedailytimes.com/roundup.html

You can search the archives (up to 100 returns possible) from 1999 on.

[All free access]

(7) News Herald, Loudon Co - [free access] obits online at

http://www.loudon.xtn.net/index.php?template=obits

Archives search available, too. (Works pretty much the same as #5 above; they are on the same net.)

---

Go now. Raise the dead.

opening day

What am I thinking?

1. I need a place to take notes that I can download when I go to the library , so why not?

2. I might actually have an idea of how best to use this format someday. . . .

3. I have missed having my very own little word space on the web.

---

Roane County [TN] Heritage Commission
World Connect at Rootsweb
Tennessee State Library
Library of Congress Online Catalogs
Roane County News - article search

---

Transcriptions from Rockwood Public Library files [notes are transcribed from digital photos - instead of photocopies - taken 22 Mar 2004]:

BROYLES COMPENDIUM RHEA MEIGS 1808-50:

"GRAVES"--
1840 Meigs census
"Union Graves 0101-0001 p229

..............

(p45) BRANDON:

1830 Rhea census
Adam Brandon 0010001-10001 p 357
Lewis Brandon 1010001-010201 p 368
Philip Brandon 00001-10101 p 358

1850 census Meigs
...Hiram Brandon 38 Farmer; Louisa 38, Va; William D, 22, VA, farmer; Granville H., 18, farmer; Silas W., 16, farmer; Looney (f), 12; James P., 10; Martha Ann, 3; Sarah Jane, 2 p 779-522 HB Brandon married Louisa Waide on 1 Sep 1845, McMinn Co

...Thomas Brandon, 58 , NC, brickmason; Elinder, 54, NC; Nancy M., 22; Mary, 20, James 18; Emily 14; Eliza, 11; Columbus, 9; Hudson 7 p 715-21

Marriages: Rhea Co:
...James Brandon to Patience Lawson, 4 Jan 1819; James Blakely Bm (A)

...Malinda Brandon to Hiram Newkirk qv
...Phillip Brandon to Elizabeth Childress, 15 Nov 1828 (Nov 16), Stephen Winton, JP (AR)

Misc, Rhea Co:
Hugh H. Brandon: Bondsman for Hiram Newkirk, 1831
.....................

MONTGOMERY:

Taxes--Rhea (p295 Broyles)
1819? Capt WS Bradley's Dist:
James Montgomery, 1 WP, 87a

(p 296 Broyles:)
1823 Capt Brown's Co: James Montgomery 1 WP, 1 BP, 87a Ross &Hopkins

1830 census: Rhea

JT Montgomery 10001-00101, p 384
James Montgomery 21120001-00103001, p 382
Samuel Montgomery 00001-02001, p 382

1840 Rhea
Harvey Montgomery 10001-10001
James Montgomery, Sr 002120001-00011[can't read]
James Montgomery, Jr. 121001-21001
Samuel Montgomery 120001-12201

1850 Rhea Census

...James Montgomery, 42, VA, shoe maker; Christinah, 40; Pleasant, 22, farmer; Howard 16; George 14; Martha 13; Mary 11; James 9; Margaret 7; Malinda 5 p 629-610

...Mary C. Montgomery 11 is living with Nichardemus Marlow qv

...Robert C. Montgomery 34, farmer; Sarah 51; Mary 43 p 603-423

1850 Meigs Census:

...William Montgomery, 47, farmer; Susanna, 40; Mary Jane 12; Rebecca, 90, PA p. 803-695


Marriages--Rhea

Dorcus Montgomery to William Murphy qv
Elizabeth Montgomery to James Woodward qv
Elizabeth J. Montgomery to N. Marler qv
HM Montgomery to EM Russell, 12 Oct 1849 (14 Oct), JO Collins, JP (R)

Jane Montgomery to Henry Henry qv
Peggy Montgomery to Wm Barnett qv
Samuel Montgomery to Jemima Little, 30 Mar 1826 (same), John Robinson [?], JP, Ralph B Locke, BM
Harvey Montgomery to Nancy Ann Smith, 22 Oct 1834 (24 Oct), John Conley, JP, Harrison Barnet, BM (AR)

Miscellaneous--Rhea

James Montgomery; JP 1837-39
" Bondsman for Robert Moore, 1812
Robert C. Montgomery: Bondsman for William L. Murphy, 1845

............................
--MEIGS CENSUS AND MARR, 1850-1900 BROYLES:

GILES/JILES (p 131)

1900 census:
...Chris D Giles, 36, fisherman; Nancy 26, etc

...James C Giles, 55 w/ Nannie, 27 -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this is James Calvin Giles and his daughter Nannie Mae who married Isaac L. "Ike" Miller/Lockmiller

...Sarah Giles, 55, Geid M, 22, Celoie Ann,15 -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this is Sarah Elizabeth RENFRO Giles/Jiles who married Samuel M. Giles/Jiles, brother of James Calvin "Calvin" Giles above. Geid is Gideon Giles/Jiles and Celoie Ann is Calva Ann Giles/Jiles. Samuel is often found listed as Samuel L. Giles/Jiles. The marriage of Sarah and Samuel Giles/Jiles appears in the marriage notes below as "Samuel M. to Sara Rentrfro [sic] 9-19-1867 9-22-1867 -ro"

...William Giles, 31, Cora 19 --update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this is William Morgan Giles, son of James Calvin "Calvin" Giles above, and his wife Cora Pickens ELLIS Giles

Marriages:
Laura Jiles to George Nelson qv
MJ Giles to James Balis qv
Susie Giles to JA Nelson qv
Laura J Giles to JC Burgess qv

Lydia Jiles to Welk Waller qv -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Lydia is the daughter of Samuel L. Giles/Jiles (above - brother of James Calvin GILES) and his wife Sarah Elizabeth Renfro/Rentfro/Rentfroe (above). Welk Waller is Welcome Beard Waller.

William R Giles to Georgia Ann Thomas, 14 Dec 1886 (16 Dec), Robt Spradling, JP 5-34(337) -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this is William Robert GILES, son of Samuel M. Giles/Jiles and Sarah Elizabeth Renfro (both above). William Robert Giles also married Sarah J. Enochs/Enichs/Enix/etc

(p 104)
ELLIS

Marriages:

Laura L Ellis to SL Trew qv -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Laura's parents were Mary Haggard and Charles David Ellis

Malissa J Ellis to Cornelius Hafley qv
Frank Ellis to Josie Cook, 27 Sep 1879 (28 Sep), Wm Bowlin S, M R M Buch MG 3-265
Jefferson Ellis to Mahal Clementson, 17 Jun 1877 (18 Jul), John Wasson S, S Rowden, JP 4-26
John L. Ellis to Sarah F Benson, 11 Jul 1850, Abner Chamber S

McPHERSON p 224:

1870 Census:

Barton McPherson 24; Mary J, 21; Lou E, 1 7-2-12 (son of Hezekiah & Malinda Rector McPherson -- see 1850 Rhea Co census [note is Broyles]

...................

-- BOYER--MEIGS CO RECORDS 1831-1881:

p18 Giles, Elizabeth and Francis mentioned in Chattin will. Also Clacks and Montgomery. Will dated 1865

printed out but not transcribed: hard copy in files

...............


EARLY EAST TN MARRIAGES -- SISTLER
VOL 1 GROOMS:

GILES:

Charles to Sarah Rodgers 8 -31 -1866 9- 30 -1866 -ge
Crispin D. to Mary Hayes 4 -14- 1838 4-15-1838 -ct
Guilferd to Mary Jane Presley 2-4-1865 -mo

Houston to Susan A. Carter 11-18-1848 11-19-1848 -mc -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this couple migrated to Gentry County, MO and is found there with a William Giles (age 76, b VA ) in their household for the 1870 census. Houston's relationship, if any, to "my" Giles line is unknown. He is found on the 1850 Roane Co, TN census with Susan. Since Houston Giles married Susan Carter in McMinn County in 1848, TN, and a Calvin Giles married an Elender Carter in the same county in 1845, I am inclined to think that perhaps not only that Calvin and Houston GILES might be related but that their wives Susan and Elender CARTER may be as well.

JM to Hetty A Davis 2-9-1847 -mo
JR to Miss Annie Marr 11-11-1881 (no return) -a
Jesse to Lydia Perkins 1-8-1857 -mo
Jessee to Susaner Lankford 9-19-1867 -mo
John to Jane Mills 12-2--1870 -mo
John to Mary J. McNabb 3-24-1847 -mo
Peter to Nancy J. Vann 7-24-1869 [or 1860?] -a
Reubin to Dolley Donahoo 7-16-1864 -mo
Robert to Christiana Shaw 5-29-1841 -mo
SL to Rebecca Hall 7-18-1867 7-18-1867 -a

Samuel M. to Sara Rentrfro [sic] 9-19-1867 9-22-1867 -ro -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): see census information about Sarah above

TJR to Martha (Miss) Sloan 12-11-1870 -mo
Thomas to Lella E. Vinyard 2-15-1868 -mo
Thomas to Sarah Kirkland 12-14-1870 -mo
Tilman to Martha Tate 2-4-1857 -mo
Vaden H. to Sarah Prillamon 9-30-1834 10-9-1834 -r

William to Margaret Hensley 9-14-1835 -ro -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): William Giles and Margaret "Peggy" Hensley are the parents of James Calvin Giles and Samuel L. Giles/Jiles listed in the census information above in these notes.

William to Nancy J. Minton 9-3-1860 9-4-1860 -ro
William to Sarah Duggan 12-20-1843 -mo
Wm. to Elizabeth Gunn 10-27-1848 -mo

GILLES, John to Ann Ginken 9-13-1794 -wa
GILLES, William to Carson 1-__-179__ -wa

GILEZ, Calvin to Elender Carter 6-19-1845 -mc update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): for a possible brother to Calvin and possible sister to Elender, see the marriage of Houston Giles to Susan Carter (above)


GILLILAND:

James to Elizabeth Rane 10-15-1801 -k
James to Rebecca W. Ward 6-1-1854 -jo

Robert S. Gilliland to Caroline M. Center 7-31-1827 -ro
to Elizabeth Absten [sic] 6-13-1840 6-13-1840 -ro
to Peggy McCabe 4-13-1816 4-13-1816 -ro

William T. To Elizabeth Can 10-19-1844


HAGGARD p 148

Alfred to Lettice Mason 2-10-1813 -ro
Carroll to Lucinda Embree 12-13-1838 -ro
HC to Callina Pottier 5-14-1864
Henry to Rachel Potter 11-25-1869 11-23-1869? [in Sistler] -ro
James to Isaphena M. McCrosky 10-6-1850 -mc
James to Sara Cate 8-22-1843 -je
James R. to Jane Lloyd 6-15-1825 -gr
John to Lucinda Lethgo 11-10-1842 -k
John N. to Sarah J. Peters 2-2-1865 2-9-1865 -ro
John S. to Sarah Smith 4-7-1810 -ro
Nathaniel to Jane Leonard 11-17-1824 (11-18-1824) [RO]

Robert G. to Mary McPherson 9-13-1838 (9-13-1838) [RO}-- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): their daughter Mary Haggard's family can be seen | here |

Samuel to Elizabeth Montgomery 12-24-1812 [RO]
William to Jane Oglesby 3-16-1830 [K]

William H.C. to Nancy Deatherage 1-22-1843 (1-22-1843) [RO] -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Willam Henry C. Haggard was the son of Jane Gilliland and Rev. Gray Haggard who were the grandparent of Mary Haggard (wife of Charles David Ellis - see notes above)

Wm. to Parthena Slait 12-5-1851 (no return) [K]
Jr., James to Jinney Drinkard 2-16-1810 [RO]



ELLIS p 110

not yet transcribed - [photo in my files]

PHILLIPS p 289

3 pages - not yet transcribed - [photo in my files]

GRAVES p 141

not yet transcribed - [photo in my files]

.................

ROANE COUNTY, TENNESSEE VITAL STATISTICS 1914 THROUGH 1925- WIEFERING

p2

Joseph K. Miller, b TN , age 69 d 1914, fa Robert Miller b TN, mo Nancy Jiles b TN #95

p 9
Miller, Thomas J. age 75). Roane Co fa Robert Miller mo Nancy Giles d. 1916 #248.

p 12

Montgomery, Mary age 79 b. Murray Co GA fa Samuel Brandon (Scotland) mo Mary Grans (Scotland) d. 1916 #458 -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): all indications are the birthplaces listed for the parents of Mary Brandon Montgomery's parents are wrong. Census data consistently indicates that both Samuel Brandon and Mary Graves (not Grans) were born in America. Mack Majors was the informant for his grandmother Mary Brandon Montgomery's death certificate and not her daughter Rachel Montgomery Majors Kurtz, who was still living. My best guess is that Mack simply guessed about the birth information, not knowing that one day that it would have so many of us Brandon, Graves, Montgomery, and Majors descendants really stumped!

p 39

Keylon, Claude age 24 b. TN fa S.B. Keylon (TN) mo not given d. 1923 #257 [accidental gun shot] [preceding parenthetical information from the original]
NOTE to myself: this is not our Claude Keylon who died in 1927. -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Claude Allen Keylon was the daughter of Mary Haggard and Mary's second husband James Harvey Keylon. Claude is buried next to her mother in Winton Chapel Cemetery, Roane Co, TN.

p 42

Montgomery, J.C. age 78 b NC fa Isaiah Montgomery (NC) mo Ellen Pate (NC) d. 1924 #144 -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): this is another mixed up death certificate. Jehu Chastain Montgomery's father was Allen Montgomery and his mother Susannah LARGENT Montgomery. Ellen Pate was Rose Ellen Pate, Jehu's second wife. (Jehu married three times.)


p 48

Patterson, Dicy C. age 57 b. TN fa J.C. Giles (TN) mo Dicy Smith (TN) d. 1925 #391-- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Dicy was Dicy Giles who married Elbert C. Patterson. She was the daughter of James Calvin "Calvin" Giles and Dica Ann "Dicy" Smith.


..................


LOOSE PAPERS: PARTIAL CENSUS OF TN, 1787-1791 FROM NC LAND GRANTS. NO AUTHOR. NO DATE.

Hinds
not transcribed - see photo

...............

WHITE, VIRGIL D., TRANSCRIBER. INDEX TO WAR OF 1812 PENSION FILES, VOL 1: A-I. WAYNESBORO TN: THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1992.

p 973

HENSLEY, Benjamin, Sarah (1st h Montgomery) 2nd wife, WC-14949, SC-8360, m 15 Mar 1860 in Roane Cty TN, sd 29 Jul 1876 Loudon Cty TN, wd about 1894, srv Capt George Argenbright's Co TN Mil as a Pvt, lived Roane & McMinn Ctys TN, wid lived Loudon Cty TN 1878 1st wife Polly (Galyon) -- update - annotated note (17 Jun 2005): Benjamin's second wife Sarah may have been Sarah Cooley who had first married J.M. Montgomery. You can view Revolutionary War service records for Benjamin's father Robert Hensley | here |. Benjamin Hensley and his first wife Mary Galyon were the parents of Margaret "Peggy" Hensley, wife of William Giles; mother of James Calvin Giles (above); and grandmother of William Morgan Giles.

...Benjamin, Sr., SC-19449, srv Capt Adam Hanesberger's Co VA Mil
...Robert, Alliticia, WO-39378, srv Capt Williams' Co TN Mil (Seminole War)

Also listings for
James, James C, Jermeiah, Jesse, John, John, Thomas, William or William M.C., Zachariah -- for these see photo -- not transcribed.


WHITE, VIRGIL D., TRANSCRIBER. INDEX TO WAR OF 1812 PENSION FILES, VOL 2: J-Z. WAYNESBORO TN: THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1992.

p 1420

PHILLIPS, Abraham, Lavicy, WO-27647, srv Capt John Houk's Co TN Mil
...Abraham H., SO-11248, srv Capt Greenleaf Street's Co NY Mil as a Pvt
[note to myself: likely not related -- 2d Abraham (H.)]

p 1244

McPHERSON, Elijah, Sarah, WC-22860, SC-5895, srv Capt William White's Co TN Mil as a Pvt

...George, Nancy, WC-5133, srv Capt White's & Capt Henderson's Co's TN Mil as a Pvt, & as a Capt in Col Bunch's Regt TN Mil

...Isaac, Rosania L., WC 33455, SC-18236, srv Capt McKanny's Co TN Mil as a Pvt

.........

THORNTON, MABLE HARVEY. PIONEERS OF ROANE COUNTY, TENNESSEE 1801-1830 (TAX LISTS, MUSTER ROLLS, ELECTION LISTS, PETITIONS, ETC.)
NO PUBLISHER. NO DATE.


Petition for a Road at Hickory Creek and Clinch River
circa 1807

"To the worshipful Court of Roane County We your Partioners do exhibite a Partition to your Worships Praying a Road to be viewed and laid off fromt he mouth of Hickry Creek on Clinch River the nearest and best way to where It will fall in with Poiles Turn pike Roade on the direction towards Overton County & Kentuckey as It Will be of great use to the Publick & private Individuals We your Partitioners will ever pray &c

Frank Erwin
Daniel Weldin
James Smith
James McClintock
Daniel Durasit
Benjamin Draper
Briant Breadin
John Love
David Dalton
John Gordon
Acquila Nail
Bery Briant
John Yates
Joseph Bird
Landis Sisco
........
William Daper
John Young
John Morgan
James Sisco
Even Evans
Edward Morrisson
Moses Looney
Gray Haggard
John Kelley
John Brown
Wm. White
James Hope
Sterling Camp
Isham Cox
William Horn (?)
..........
Murray (?) Lents
Joseph Bird
John McCain
Daniel Lents
David Richardson
Isaac Robertson
John Derosette
John Courtney
Will Waller
Abraham W. Hagler
Absalom West
Richard Sweazea
James Goodin
William Campbell
Robert Duncan
................

For viewers:

Capt. Wm. White
Evan Evins
Francis Erwin
Moses Luny
John Gardner
Briant Breadin
James Hope
Starlin Camp"

Petition undated. Mable Harvey Thornton estimates it was written prior to 1807: "Not dated, this petition probably was written prior to 1807 when David Richardson made a 'death bed' _deed_." [p28]


p 57

Summons to jury duty July 1816, Roane Co:

Henry McPherson, Daniel Mason

Summoned to jury duty Sep 1816:

Daniel McPherson, Gray Haggard

Summoned to jury duty Oct 1816:

Edmond Ellis, Isaac McPherson, Jr.



p 56

Petition for a Road
circa 1815

"To the Worshipfull Cort of Roane County

This petition Respectfully Sheweth where as travelers from Different parts Are under Difficultys for want of A Roade to Cross Clinch River At the ford below the mouth of Emryes River We you humble petitioners think that a good Roade May be had to begin at or Near JOHN STONES to Cross at sd ford and Intersect with the Road from Kingston to the turnpike at or Near Caney Creek Wee therefore beg your Worships to take the [illegible] under consideration and Grant us a Revue of Said Roade If you in your wisdom think proper

Nathaniel Bigham
Josiah Gent
John Horn
Asa Cobb
Adam Carson
James Nelson
Wm. White
L.P. Sims
Thos. Gallahar
T. Deakins
James McElwee
Samuel Mahan
Thos. Coulter
........
Wm. Campbell
Frances Miller
Jacob S. McComb
William Long
Isaac Brasher
Benjamin Lively
Francis Lee
Jonathan Harvey
Joseph Hankens
Joseph McPherson
Wright Robarts
Jacob Cleamons
Jared Hotchkiss
....
[verso:]
Isaac Brasshear
Robert S. Brasshear
James Glasgow
Adam Carson
Francis Lee
Jacob McComb
John Stone Sen.
.....
Ordered
Recorded


[Mable Harvey Thornton estimates this petition to have been written prior to the 1816 date of Robert S. Brashear's will being proven in court.]


..................
"TO HOLD THE COUNTY HARMLESS" ROANE COUNTY, TENNESSEE BASTARDY CASES 1806-1900

Compiled and Indexed by Robert L. Bailey. 1995.


24 Oct 1811, "Charles WHITE who stands charged by Matilda HEMBREE single woman of this county with being the father of her bastard child came into cout and with Daniel McPHERSON & John WHITE his securities. .on condition the said Charles WHITE save harmless the inhabitants of this county from all costs charges & trouble by Reason of the Birth maintainance & bring up of said bastard child." SOURCE: County Court Minute Book (1808-1812), p 331

....
Archived Queries
Pushmataha Co., Oklahoma
2001 Queries

"Brown, Hill, Winters

sherry bolin [e-mail link] Sat, 21 Apr 2001

I am looking for information on BROWN siblings who moved from East Tennessee to Pushmataha Co, OK. They are Laura Brown b 6-4-1877 who married Bud HILL, Arwin Brown b 7-16-1891 who married a WINTERS, and Jerry Brown b 8-27-1898. On the social security death index their last residence was in Antlers, Pushmataha Co, OK. They were the children of Calvin A. Brown b Dec 1850 and Tennessee Knox. Other siblings were: James b May 1882, Hettie b 3-27-1884 who married Giden JILES (stayed in Meigs Co, TN), Elbert b Jun 1886, Frank b June 1893, and Mettie b Sept 1895. I would greatly appreciate your help!
Sherry "


sbolin54@aol.com
http://www.rootsweb.com/~okpushma/2001queries.html

..............

http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnhamilt/octdec99.htm
Oct - Dec 1999 Queries
Hamilton County Tennessee
"BROWN

MichelleSparks [mailto:mrbotto@ipa.net] Sun Oct 10 19:13:53 1999
Tennessee Elizabeth Knox Brown mother.of:Laura Hill, Hettie Jiles"

.............




p13
Cemeteries of Meigs County, TN

Robert Haggard GILES
4 Oct 1904-26 Jun 1905

Son of W.M. & C.P. Giles

buried in Concord Cemetery, Meigs Co, TN:

"Located approx. 6 miles from Decatur off Hwy. 30 W. turn right opposite Barbara Goodner Tallent's house and go approx. 3 mi."

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note to myself about the ranscriptions: stopped at my Img0105.jpg file [poss srcs/gen pix]