Connecting Our Kin

Old Fashioned Baptism at Tydol Lake

2011-07-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

Back in the spring of 1950 a good number of people (for a small church) became new believers sparked by a preaching revival at the Assembly of God church in Drumright, Oklahoma. These folks "followed the Lord in baptism" in May, being immersed in the chilly waters (most likely) of the Tydol Lake on the outskirts of the city.

Among this number were some close family members: my grandfather, mother and father, brother, an aunt, and uncle. Here's a glimpse into that occasion:

Catulpa Tree in Drumright, Oklahoma

2011-07-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

On July 1, 2011 I was in Drumright, Oklahoma, my hometown, a day early for the family reunion that was to take place on the following day at the community center. These trips are always pretty sentimental. I usually visit the cemeteries where relatives are buried. This day I visited the lot on South Duke in Drumright where my Grandma Carroll's home stood. She moved into this home in the summer of 1952 and remained there until her death in 1966. In 1952 I was just starting elementary school; in 1966 I was a sophomore in college. MANY memories are associated with times spent with my grandmother here.

The house was long ago removed from the property. The only reminder I had was to stand and gaze at the remaining catalpa tree that was in 1966 about half its current size (45 years ago!). I stood in the shade of trees that had grown up out of the "foundation" of Grandma's old house and remembered. The tree is not special (except that it has lasted all these years). It's not even a pretty tree. But for me, it helped me connect with very special emotions in a quiet time remembering my dear grandmother. To me it was a better monument than her tombstone out in Lawson/Quay cemetery near Yale, Oklahoma. It was HERE that we laughed and worked together (yes, you always worked when around my grandmother). After our work was done, we sat on the porch swing in the afternoon shade of the catulpa tree and were contented.

Embedded PowerPoint - Family Photo Album

2011-02-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

This is another embedded Powerpoint presentation that I actually have stored on my WindowsLive Public drive. Wanting to see how it works here.

Family Tree Maker 2011 Software

2011-02-25T18:58:00.000-08:00

This is definitely not a paid advertisement... not even sure if this will work, but I'm attempting to link an embeded PowerPoint presentation here.

One needs to review this in full-page mode because I have so much in each slide, but I get an error when I try to do that. I have my settings for this file in WindowsLive set to Public. Not sure why I'm getting the error. I thought I followed directions.... oh, well.

Relatives Found in Goodspeed Biographies

2011-01-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

I heard of the Goodspeed Biographies when I first moved to Tennessee, about 19 years ago. However, this week was the first time that I actually found some of my relatives among them. This paragraph was published on the MOGenWeb site for Fulton County, Arkansas.

From Wikipedia:
"Goodspeed Publishing was a publishing company that wrote and published many works on local history and biography in the 1880s. The works were primarily divided into sections for each county they studied and provide an important snapshot of the lives and the economic situation that existed at that time. The works are viewed as a significant resource for American genealogists because they contain economic data and personal biographies of many prominent citizens."

The main character of the paragraph below is John L. Golden, my great-granduncle, the husband of my great grandmother's sister, Rachel. The article mentions the parents and sisters of Mrs. Golden, thus refering to my great-great grandparents, the Andersons, and my great-grandparents, the Lingles (highlighted with bolding). This is a good find, especially in that I learned the maiden name of my great-great grandmother.

"John L. Golden. Among the prominent farmers of Washington Township appears the name of the above mentioned gentleman, whose success as a tiller of the soil is second to none in the township. He was born in Weakley County, Tenn., on the 27th day of July, 1849, and since early youth has applied himself steadfastly to agricultural pursuits, and with what success may be inferred when the fact is mentioned that he is the owner of one of the finest tracts of land in this section of the county. He is the son of J. C. and Mary (Winn) Golden, both natives of Mississippi, and of English parentage. The father was born in 1824, was a tiller of the soil, and moved to Tennessee at a very early day. They were the parents of ten children, seven living to be grown: S. D. (deceased), W. W., lives in Lawrence County, Ark.; James H. (deceased), J. L., Martha, wife of Alexander Cannon; Jesse F., Lydia J., wife of George Dunivan. Mr. Golden was a Democrat during his life, and had accumulated considerable property which he lost during the war. John L. Golden commenced work for himself at the age of twenty-one, and has tilled the soil assiduously ever since. When first starting out for himself he was possessor of $85, one horse, a few hogs, and a little corn. He is now the owner of 249 acres of land, with about 140 acres under cultivation, besides having his farm well stocked with horses, cattle, hogs, and all else to be seen on a well conducted farm. He left Tennessee in 1872, settling in Independence County, Ark., and there remained for three years. In 1875 he came to Fulton County and followed farming on rented land. He then bought a farm of eighty acres, improved the same, and in 1884 sold out and bought his present property. He was married on the 6th [p.282] of January, 1879, to Miss Rachel M. Anderson, and two children have been born to this marriage: Lula A., born August 2, 1883, and Luther F., born May 20, 1889. Mrs. Golden is the daughter of J. M. and Martha J. (Kelton) Anderson, natives of Tennessee, and the parents of five children, four now living: J. C. (deceased), Rachel M., Lucy A. M., wife of Jasper Rives, of Fulton County; Martha C., wife of Alexander Sanders, and Harriet L., wife of James Lingle, of Fulton County. Mr. Anderson came to this State in 1874, settling first in Stone County, and in 1875 moved to this county, where he has since resided. He has been postmaster at Ten Mile postoffice for thirteen years, and is a much esteemed citizen. John L. Golden votes with the Democratic party, and Mrs. Golden is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South."

"New" Cousin Found!

2010-12-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

It's always so exciting for me to hear from a "new" family member that happened across my website and consequently contacts me. There's always a hope that this new person will not only be willing to share information about their research, but will also be interested in staying in touch and willing to collaborate on genealogy.

What often happens, though, is that you hear from them once or twice, then time goes by and you think, "Oh, what happened to so and so?" You send an e-mail and it comes back undeliverable.

Of course, it's not that way with a few of those I've corresponded with over the years. Guess I shouldn't complain. One researcher and I have been in contact for about 30 years, though I've never met him. I wonder if other genealogists have this same hankering to build a community of related family researchers and keep the dialogue going on and on. Maybe we're just a little bit lonely in our search for ancestors and we just want someone to share the excitement when lost or hidden information is unearthed.

Anyone else out there ever feel this way? Any ideas on how to "keep them coming back"?

2010-11-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

My grandmother's twin sister, "Elgi", died in 1923. Grandma (Eva Ballew Lingle) wasn't able to attend the funeral and for years wondered about her nieces, Elgi's two girls. Sometime many years later, probably in the 1960's, one of the nieces, Bernice Alexander, was looking for her Aunt Eva who she thought lived near Watts, Oklahoma and happened to stop at Chester Erickson's service station on the highway coming into the small town. She sought help and directions from the service attendant, Richard Quick, who happened to be Eva's son-in-law. He figured out who Bernice was looking for and was able to quickly help unite the women, since Grandma's home was only a couple of blocks distance from the service station. As emotional as Grandma was, I can bet this was quite a reunion.

I had looked several times for Elgi's grave, and finally came across it this year on Find A Grave. I wasn't looking in Creek County. I thought that they had lived in a different area of Oklahoma. Here's a link. Thanks to Find A Grave volunteers.

2010-11-22T19:00:00.000-08:00

Ellett Rhea Thompson, aka "Ray Thompson" was from Kentucky and came to Oklahoma in the 1920's along with friends of the family, the Grady's. In fact, he and Luther Creel Grady were best friends. Both met and married daughters of Henry Hamilton Carroll and lived in Tiger Township, Creek County, Oklahoma. Rhea married Alta Susan Carroll and Luther Grady married Vinnie Violet Carroll.

Very little is known about these men, but it is known that Luther and Violet were married less than a year. Rhea got into some kind of trouble with the law (these were prohibition days), and spent possibly as many as 13 years in the McAlester, Oklahoma federal prison. His wife, my aunt Alta, died in 1933 from a ruptured appendix.

Here, Rhea looks like a very mild mannered individual, who obviously had an affinity for dogs. He and his wife, Alta, are enumerated in the 1930 Federal Census, (E. Ray, head of household, age 27, married at 25, born in Kentucky (as well as both parents), Engineer, Oilfield. Alta S., wife, 21, married at 17, born in Oklahoma, father in IN, mother in OH (actually IA), Proprieter of photo shop.) Also listed in the census at the residence was Rhea's mother, (Emma K, mother, 61 years, married at 21, born in Kentucky, with Kentucky born parents.)

Much of the information (and the picture) came from a relative of Luther Grady, i.e. John Paul Grady of Spring, Texas who contacted me this year after finding my contact information on my website. Together we pieced together some bits of information, and John found this picture of Rhea Thompson among his mother's photo album. (The house where his mother lived in Drumright, Oklahoma was destroyed in a tornado in 1954; but the photo album was spared.)

Rhea Thompson's death is recorded as 31 May 1968 in Tulare, California, USA.

It's really great to be able to add these pieces of information and pictures to my family history and Ancestry.com database.

Horatio Lovejoy's New Year's Eve

2010-11-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

"Horatio Lovejoy's New Year's Eve" is a tiny pamphlet touching on a lot of topics. It's a story of survival, with three young people lost in a prairie snowstorm. It's a description of the intense winter weather midwestern Americans endured from December 1863 into the first week of 1864. It's a glimpse of surgical practices in 1864 and of how a disabled man functioned in the late nineteenth century. It's an example of work sold for charity in the early 1880's. [Pat Pflieger]

I was doing a fairly random search of the Internet when I came upon this pamplet, published in its entirety at the link found at the bottom of this page. It is significant to me because Horatio Lovejoy became the husband to my grandmother's oldest sister in September 1883, three years before my grandmother was born.

I was familiar with the name, Horatio Lovejoy, because he and his wife, Martha, were included in the 1900 Federal Census of Noble County, Oklahoma along with others of my great-grandmother 's family. Horatio's oldest daughter, Amelia, was named after the Amelia of this story, and I have been in contact with a descendant of hers previously through Ancestry.com.

This is an intriguing story that I'll hope you'll take time to read. It is told in the style of other literature of that time period, in fact it was posted as an example of that literature...not for genealogical purposes. It was a great find for me, however, because it was so nice to be able to pass this information on to the descendent that I mentioned previously who had never heard this story, but who, from the story, can glean some key information regarding her family history.

Finding something so personal is a great find as well. It makes the relative come to life, not just a name on a census or in a genealogy database. Find the entire story at this link:

http://www.merrycoz.org/lovejoy/NY1863.HTM

iPhone App - Ancestry.com

2010-10-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

It's a pretty cool thing when you can take your genealogy with you to the library within a phone! This week I downloaded this application to my iPhone 4 (for FREE). I am able to look up any individual that I have added to my family tree and be able to view their data within seconds.

I can't tell you how many times that I've been at a research library in the past and wished I could remember, for example, when or where a relative was born or died. This helps me to know where to look for records. It's a really great application that I'm very excited about. I'm awed!

Family TreeMaker 2010

2010-05-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

I don't spend a lot of money on my genealogy hobby, but I do like to have software that is top of the line. Family Tree Maker 2010 seems to be just that.

The feature I like best is how it interacts with the Web to make my experience much easier. I have two screens at my computer. One to search the Web, the other to type information into my database; however, with Family Tree Maker, I can work back and forth between the two even on one session. It's pretty cool.

Also, I met another cousin on Ancestry.com this week; this is a descendent of my grandfather's brother, John Wiley Carroll.

Obit from a Stranger

2010-02-02T20:12:00.000-08:00

How surprised and amazed was I when I opened my e-mail this evening and saw a new post: "Rorabaugh/Fairview Cemetery". The writer was not a familiar name, but here's what was written:

"Hello. I came across an obituary for Mrs. Rorabaugh who is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Perry, Oklahoma and thought I would pass it along to you. I have been transcribing the old obituaries in Perry from 1900-1922 and this one was in it.

was published November 9, 1916
Paper: Perry Republican.

Best Regards, ....."

Attached, as shown above, was the scanned obit of my great grandmother. Such a gift indicates that there are some very kind people still in this world and the Internet has linked us in ways that we never would have imagined. I'm really amazed!

Aunt Sylvia

2010-01-31T15:28:00.001-08:00

Aunt Sylvia, my Dad's sister, lived to be 90 years old. She was seven years older than my Dad. She married quite young and had her first of 4 children when she was 19. A couple of years before I was born, she had her last daughter. Her husband, Henry Tippit, died in 1961.

When I knew her best was after Henry died. She lived only a few blocks from her mother, my grandmother, who had been a widow since 1954. She was often in and out at Grandma's house when I would be visiting and little by little I got to know her better.

I was a high school student by this time. I was in the band and other curricular activities that required sometimes "odd hours" so that I wasn't able to ride the bus home. My own family, that is, my mom and Dad, and five siblings lived not that far out in the country by today's standards, but sometimes it was just more convenient for me to spend the night at my grandmother's. Sometimes I would stay for several nights in a row. ANY way, back to Sylvia, because they were together so much, I got to know Aunt Sylvia better than most of my other aunts.

After I graduated from high school I moved away from our hometown, Drumright, Oklahoma. First going to college for a couple of years in Texas, then to Arizona, and back to Oklahoma.... but never back to Drumright to live. Nevertheless, I always would stop by to chat with Aunt Sylvia, whenever I was visiting my parents or other family members. Grandma Carroll had passed away in 1966, so Aunt Sylvia was my closest link to memories of Grandma.

Aunt Sylvia was really a lot of fun to be around and we had many, many good times together. One of the last visits I had with Aunt Sylvia was after I had married and moved to Ohio. I was in Oklahoma on business so I drove to Drumright and picked up Aunt Sylvia and drove down to visit another one of her brother's, Uncle Lee. We stopped somewhere and I bought our lunch. Probably that was the only time I was able to do something like that for her. She had always been the one to feed me; fixing us an impromptu meal when I'd drop by.

I never had a good photo of Aunt Sylvia until this week when her son's widow, June Christian Tippit, sent me one through e-mail. I'm very happy to have it. Just thought I'd write a note about this dear aunt who was very, very shy, but who was a very good friend to me. I sure hope she knew how much I loved her and appreciated her fellowship and care.

Great Uncle? - no, Grand Uncle

2010-01-23T20:59:00.001-08:00

When my sister died last year, my other sister's granddaughter wrote a wonderful eulogy to her great aunt, who made the point that she was a GREAT aunt. It was very touching. We had always used this terminology in our family, but I had never really thought too much about it, but I noticed that Family TreeMaker, my genealogy software, spoke of this relationship as a grand aunt (or uncle).

Later, I found this article on Wikipedia (I believe), and have decided that I'm going to start using grand rather than great, even though I certainly appreciated my grand niece's eulogy.

Here's the article:

"From a genealogist's point of view, an uncle is the brother of your mother or father. The (non-blood relative) spouse of your aunt is also called your uncle, though more correctly should be called your uncle-in-law (which is also what you would call the uncle of your spouse). If you have an uncle, then you are their nephew (male) or niece (female). While it is most common for your uncle to be older than you, it is well within the realm of possibility for you to be older than your uncle if your grandparents were still having children after you were born. Like cousins, uncles are neither ancestors nor descendants of you, but are simply related to you through other branches of your family tree.
If the brother of your parent is your uncle, what is the brother of your grandmother or grandfather? This relative is called a grand uncle or great uncle. Genealogy purists like the term grand uncle best because it fits well with the nomenclature for your direct ancestors - grand uncle goes with your grandparent. Similarly, your great-grand uncle is the brother of your great-grand parent. Each generation you go back adds another "great" at the beginning of the name of the relation. In contrast, if you go down the family tree instead of up it, you become the uncle, grand uncle, and great-grand uncle and your relative becomes your nephew/niece, grand nephew/niece, and great-grand nephew/niece.
Note to reader: All information can be applied to the aunt relationship simply by replacing all masculine references with feminine references."

Find A Grave

2010-01-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

Find A Grave is absolutely one of my favorite sites. I have learned more about my ancestors from this Internet site than from any other one source. I have been a member of Find A Grave for over seven years, adding my first memorial after the death of my father. If there's a genealogist out there that doesn't know about this wonderful source of information, I hope you'll visit. It's 100% free.

Here's a link to my Find A Grave profile.

Family Tree Maker allows me to attach web media to individuals in my database. I have 139 individuals that are linked to their Find A Grave memorial.

My Carroll Ancestry

2010-01-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've been doing family research for 35+ years but have learned nothing on my Carroll lineage beyond my gg-grandfather. I have logged 194 related Carrolls in my entire database of 1,119 surnames, 4,009 indivuals, 1,356 marriages, and 18 generations.

With a fair degree of certainty, however, my gg-grandfather was:

Nathan Carrol(Sr.), b. 17 Sep 1777 in Greenbrier County, WV, d. 4 Jun 1870, m. Mary A. Bonny, b. abt. 1795 in Greenbrier County,, WV, d: 13 Jul 1874. He received a land grant by President James Buchanan, July 1857 for land near Henryville, Indiana.

Their son: Nathan Carroll, (Jr.), b. about 1835 in Indiana, (probably Henryville, Clark Co., IN), d. unknown, buried in Carrollton, Carroll Co., MO, Mt. Carmel Cemetery; m. Susan C. Sullivan, b. about 1837 in Indiana, d. unknown.

Their son: Henry Hamilton Carroll, b. 30 Nov 1868 near Henryville, Clark County, IN, d. 7 Mar 1953 in Cushing, Payne Co., OK, buried Lawson Cemetery, near Yale, OK; m1. 13 Sep 1888, Nancy Josephine Rorabaugh, b. 17 Dec 1863 in Scotland Co., MO; d. 13 Feb 1903 in Yale, Payne County, OK; buried Lawson Cemetery; m2. Jul 1904 in Stillwater, OK, Eliza Jane Rorabaugh, b. 9 Jan 1886 in Appanoose County, IA, d. 3 May 1966 in Drumright, Creek Co., OK, b. Lawson Cemetery.

Their son: Woodrow Wilson Carroll, b. 30 Nov 1912, Perry, Noble County, OK; d. 15 Jan 1997, Ft. Smith, AR, buried Lawson Cemetery, Yale, Payne Co., OK; m.2 6 Jun 1938 Ella Iola Lingle, b. 15 Jan 1915 in Koshkonong, MO, d. 25 Oct 2007, buried Bell Cemetery, Watts, Adair County, OK.

Their son: James Hamilton Carroll, b. 29 Sep 1946 in Drumright, Creek Co., OK.; currently residing in Goodlettsville, TN.

Connecting Our Kin

2010-01-21T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hello! My name is James (Jim) Hamilton Carroll. I live in Goodlettsville, Tennessee (near Nashville), but I'm originally from Drumright, Oklahoma. My purpose for this blog is to accompany my site Connecting Our Kin with an ability to break down the site into smaller pieces and provide my readers with the ability to add notes and comments associated with each subject.

The surnames Carroll, Lingle, Rorabaugh, and Ballew are those of my parents and grandparents, and these form the basic index of the site. However, I have just recently been able to extend the Felkins line (follow Lingle) and the Tippy line (follow Ballew) back a number of generations.

I welcome your comments and feedback and am always hopeful to hear from cousins.