2016 Genealogy Goals

The end of 2015 ended up being quite a bit crazier than I had anticipated so I haven't done much genealogy for the past couple months.  But, now it's calming down it's time for me to set some goals for myself and for this blog for 2016!

Prune my Tree
First and foremost, my first goal is to clean up my Ancestry.com tree.  I have a lot of stuff in there that I think is incorrect or I don't have any sort of back up documentation on and I really need to go in and delete or unlink some of the people from my tree.

Back when I first got on Ancestry I got the little green leaf and I just went a bit too crazy copying things to my tree.  Can I put that down as being "young and silly"?  But, the result being I have a lot on my tree that just shouldn't be there.  So my first goal of the year is to go through and if I don't really have any sort of backup for someone being in my tree then it's time to prune.  That way I can work on focusing my attention and expanding my actual tree - with documentation!  :)

Fertilize my Tree
I am going to start working and filling in missing documentation for the family I do have and have some back up documents for but am missing some items.  So, it's working from the ground up to fill in some of those missing holes and expanding on some extended family.

Chasing Down a few Fussy Roots
There are a few "problem children" I want to focus some time on to expand on their stories or to see if I can get past a brick wall/stumbling block.

Migration of Henry McDaniel's Family
I actually have a decent amount of info on Henry McDaniel because he was a Revolutionary War veteran so a lot of folks have documented his family, especially post-Rev war.  What I actually want to look more into is his story of where he came from pre-Rev war and maybe more about his migration from Virginia to Ohio.

What I know (briefly):
1763 - Henry McDaniel born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia
1779 - Enlisted during the Revolutionary War in Bedford County, Virginia
1780 - Wounded during the battle of Kings Mountain
1781 - Discharged from service at Camden (I am assuming SC given his Rev war history)
1788 - Married Hannah Bryan in Greenbriar County, VA (now WV)
1810 - Migrated from Lewisburg, VA (WV) to Gallia County, OH
1838 - Died in Gallia County, OH

I'd like to learn more about why families moved from this area of Virginia to Ohio (I can't imagine this was an easy trip) and see if I can trace their footsteps (or theorized footsteps) from fighting to create this country to expanding it's frontiers.

Adoption of Eugene Chambers
This is one of my "brick walls".  Eugene was adopted by the Chambers family in West Jefferson, Ohio but I have never really been able to find out much about his biological family.  We believe his family name was Costella (o).  We have some family stories that have been passed down but not really anything to back that up.  According to one of my cousins who has also been doing genealogy work, the courthouse records in that area burned down.
So, I need to try to find other sources that might give me some clues as to where Eugene came from and more about his family.  I know I want to really hit some newspaper resources to see if I can find some clues that way and try to come up with some other creative ideas to find information.
If anyone has any ideas for me - please let me know!

What I know:
1893 - Eugene Costella born (possibly Ohio but some sources have said Virginia)
1900 - Living with the Chambers family, the census lists Eugene as a "cousin" (I don't know if he is actually a cousin, or if they just told the census taker he was a cousin since he wasn't officially adopted at that point, or if the census taker didn't know how to list the child so just put cousin)
1910 - Living with the Chambers family, this census listed him as an "Adopted Son" (somewhere in that 10 year time period he was officially adopted by the Chambers family)

Samuel Ernest Dishner After His Divorce
Samuel is my great-grandfather and his divorce from my great-grandmother, Phoebe Gillenwater was drama-filled and messy.  My father never knew his grandfather and my grandmother never saw him again after his divorce.  This wasn't just a divorce, it involved Samuel just disappearing (at least for a while). So, I have started finding some information, but I don't really know much about his life after his divorce and he moved away and I would like to see if I can find out more about his life after he left the rest of my family.

What I know:
1899 - Samuel Dishner was born in Scott County, Virginia
1917 - Married Phoebe Ethel Gillenwater in Scott County, Virginia
1931 - Lived in Jenkins, Kentucky (had a chiropractic practice)
1939 - Lived in Kingsport, Tennessee (had a chiropractic practice)
1947 - On Aug 2 Samuel disappeared, his family filed a missing person report
         - On Aug 26 Samuel sent a postcard to one of his family members saying he was in FL
         - On Aug 31 Reported in the newspaper that Samuel had moved to Kentucky
1948 - Lived in Jenkins, Kentucy (had a chiropractic practice)
1956 - Lived in Houston, Texas
1971 - Died in New Braunfels, Texas

Gertrude Morgan After Her Divorce and her Missing Son, Emerson Morgan Hunt
Another divorce case, and I'm really not quite certain what happened to Gertrude afterwards.  I have a few clues but I'm not sure if it's the same Gertrude.  With women it always gets a bit hazy because did she keep her married name?  Did she revert back to using her maiden name?  Did she re-marry?  The only clue I have - and I'm not 100% its the same people but I think it is, is related to a record I have for her son, Emerson Morgan Hunt.  Emerson was a bit of a surprise because we didn't really know about him.  My theory is when his parents divorced, he went with his mother (I believe he was a young adult at the time of the divorce) and most of the information like obituaries for his other siblings and father don't mention him at all.  The record I have is his draft card and enlistment.  But, after that, I can't find any more about him either so I am unsure if he died during the war.

What I know:
1870 - Gertrude Morgan born in New York
1896 - Gertrude married William Hunt in Jamestown, NY
1899 - Emerson Morgan Hunt born in Jamestown, NY
1910 - Living in Conewango, PA
1918 - Draft card for Emerson Morgan Hunt lists him as a student at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and his nearest relative as Gertrude Morgan Hunt residing in Boone, MD.
1920 - Census for William Hunt lists him as married but does not list Gertrude as living with him, their two other children, Paul and Eunice are living with William.
1929 - William Hunt dies in Jamestown, NY, his death certificate lists him as divorced (no mention of Gertrude or Emerson in his obituary).

So, I think all of this will keep me occupied this year and I'm going to try to be good and blog about what I'm finding and sharing and documenting those stories as I find them!

The Headless Chicken

Happy Halloween!

For my first "real" post, I figured I'd share a story from my grandmother (who I call Nana), Mary Ruth Dishner Chambers.  While the title sounds spooky, it's not really a scary story (unless you are scared of headless chickens).

In the early 1950's, Papa, my grandfather Clayton E. Chambers, suggested to Nana that they have a "fresh" chicken dinner.  Nana had spent a lot of time with her grandparents on a farm in southwestern VA growing up - so he must have assumed she knew what to do with a fresh (aka live) chicken.

So, my great-great-grandmother brings over a live chicken from the farm and leaves it with Nana for their dinner.  However, even though she spent large quantities of time on the farm, Nana had never actually dispatched a chicken herself.

So, the dragged the unhappy fowl down to the basement to start the process.  She had seen her grandmother do this many times while on the farm so I think she just just thought, "how hard can this be?"

I remember asking her why Papa didn't cut off the chicken's head for her.  Nana said Papa just couldn't cut the head off a chicken.  He had apparently a incident as a child and accidentally lopped the head off a tragically inquisitive chicken one morning while chopping firewood.  And then had to deal with a crazed, headless chicken running around the yard (chickens don't need their heads to do this, at least for a short while).  He then got in trouble with his mother, who didn't believe he cut the chicken's head off by accident.  But I bet they had a fresh chicken dinner that night.

Anyways, back to my grandmother's story.  Nana had always seen her grandmother grab the chicken by the head and, from her wild gesticulations while telling the story, whip crack the chicken in order to break its neck.  This apparently didn't work for Nana.

I can only picture her, holding a now very irritated chicken by the head, and swinging it around her head like some sort of crazed avian slingshot complete with frantic squawking and feathers flying.

The chicken decided to fight back and managed to get away and started to dash around the basement.  My dad was a young child at the time and was down in the basement to "help".  They then had to chase this harassed chicken around the basement.  The chicken was finally caught and my grandmother placed it under a basket and had my Dad sit on top to keep the chicken from getting away.

She then went to get an ax.  I am going to pause here because if you don't want to read about chickens actually being killed, it's time to move on (here's a link to a cute video of a kitten and a chick for you instead).

Nana pulled the chicken's head out from under the basket (while leaving the rest of the chicken under) and according to Dad, proceeded to saw the chickens head off with the ax.  (FYI - sawing a chickens head off with an ax is not the most efficient or humane way to fix your fresh chicken dinner.)  I'm not quite sure why she didn't lop it off executioners style - knowing my grandmother, she probably didn't want to damage the basement floor.  Eventually, she did manage to separate the chicken from its head.

To draw this story to an end, they did, indeed, have a fresh chicken dinner.  I believe that she said she couldn't eat any of it.

She also made it abundantly clear to Papa that this was going to be the only fresh chicken dinner he was going to have from her.

So, Happy Halloweens and may all your chickens (at least the ones for dinner) be headless ones!

Advertisement from The Kingsport-Times, Feb 28, 1950