They're In the Army Now

Week 11 of the Book of Me, Written by You blog prompt series.

     This article, and others like it, appeared in The Hartwell Sun newspaper, of Hart County, Georgia.  Published on 3 Aug 1945, this article lists 57 men, "the largest group of men to leave Hart County in months," who had just been drafted into the army.  Included in this list is my Grandfather, Thomas Craft.  He served in Germany as a truck driver and, thankfully, return home a year later.

The largest group of men to leave Hart County in months went to Ft. McPherson, Atlanta, Monday, where they are being inducted into the armed services.      Names of the 57 white men are reported by the Local Draft Board as follows: William C. Stowe, Cleo Harris Sanders, Dorsey Partain, Pelzer H. Herring, George Harper, Charlie H. Sanders, Inman E. Reed, Lucius B. Alewine, Thomas S. Craft, James H. Estes, Bernice T. McCurley, Fay H. Cleveland, Charles S. White, George E. Hilley, Charlie T. Pilgrim, Joe G. Hailey, Fred Y. Norton, D. C. Phillips, Jr., Artis D. Ertzberger, Frank H. Thrasher, James M. Wicker, Jack Cordell, James V. Cantrell, Thomas J. Bailey, Jr., Charles M. Cobb, Robert A. Floyd, Billy J. Floyd, Howard W. Earwood, Fletcher Dove, Billy E. Clark, Clifton Floyd, Jr., Herbert W. Maret, Luther Thompson, Jr., J. B. Weaver, Jr., Beverly J. Bailey, Charles L. Whitaker, Jr., Frank D. Pulliam, Asa L. Childs, Dwain E. Gurley, Owen M. Teasley, Dewey H. Beggs, Kyle J. Crook, James M. Brown, Jr., Early B. Sanders, Edward D. Kesler, Edgar W. Kay, C. B. Alewine, C. L. Brown, Jr., Hansel D. Cole, Prue M. Banister, Jr., T. J. Carnes, Leonard M. Seymour, John E. Kelly, Larry E. Senkbeil, Herschel B. Sayer, Harold R. Bailey, Thomas H. Bowers.

Will of Lewis McCurley

     This is the will of my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Lewis McCurley of Hart County, Georgia. He was kind enough to list of all of his children, even the deceased ones.

State of Georgia, Hart County.                      Last Will and Testament of L.W. McCurley. I L. W. McCurley being of sound and disposing memory, do make this my last Will and Testament. Item 1st       I wish my wife Nancy McCurley immediately or as soon as possible after my death to pay all of my debts out of my personal property, the remainder of my property after my debts are paid I give and bequeath to my wife Nancy McCurley and my entire estate consisting of perishable property and two hundred and thirteen acres of land for her own use and benefit during her natural life. Item 2.      After the death of my wife I will that my property all be sold, equally divided between all my children namely: W.S. McCurley, Nancy Brown, Susie Craft, J.S. McCurley, Lucy Rand, G.W. McCurley (now dead) R. E. McCurley, Sallie Jordan, Ada Evans, Ona Charping and Vannie Shiflet. Any that are now dead or should die between now and the death of my wife I wish the children of deceased to receive the part of the part legally divided between them.      I do will that my daughter Nellie Slaters (now dead) children receive the part of their mother legally divided between them. Item 3.      I do hereby appoint my son J.S. McCurley as executor of this my last well.      In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand that 22n day of July 1908.                                                                        L. W. McCurley Signed and published by L.W. McCurley as his last will and testament in the presence of the undersigned who subscribed our names hereto as witnesses at the instance and request of said testator in his presance and in the presence of each other. This 22nd day of July 1908.                           R.L. Shiflet                                                                        Geo. S. Shiflet                                                                         L.M. Cunningham                   Recorded this August 9th 1910                                                                W.B. McMullan, Ordinary

microfilm copy

The Partain Connection

     A few years back I discovered that my Great-Great-Great Grandmother was Harriett Partain of Hart County, Georgia. This struck me, as my paternal Aunt had married a Partain, also from Hart County. I always assumed that there was a connection, but had never gotten around to finding it. Recently, I asked my Aunt what she knew about her husband's family. It only took me about half an hour to uncover the connection. My Uncle is also my third cousin twice removed! Here's the relationship:

(the dates are birth years and I only included surnames when they changed)

Tombstone Tuesday - Craft

     My Great-Great Grandparents, George and Effie (Powell) Craft are buried at the Cokesbury Methodist Church. It's located just inside Hart County, walking distance from the Elbert County line.

     A few other Craft family relatives a buried here as well, including George and Effie's infant grandson, Bennie England Craft Jr.  I walked the entire cemetery, however I could not find the boy's grave. I suspect that he might be buried in the lefthand side of his grandparent's plot. Bennie was a casualty of the 1928 flu epidemic that ravaged the country and sickened his entire immediate family.  

In Which I Am Chased By Dogs

     Yesterday I went on a road trip to Elbert County, Georgia, which is about 80 miles from where I live. My Craft family ancestors lived here from at least 1800 until my Grandfather moved away in the early 1950s.  I hoped to find two new graves, visit some previously known ones, see my Great-Grandparent's house, and go to the local library.  I won't go into too many details but will hit the highlights... and this'll still be long!

     First: Gas is way too expensive but I tracked it and I got 29.7 miles per gallon. I'll consider that a win.

     Second: It's not an adventure until you get lost at least once. Though with my sister's GPS were never actually got lost - we just ended up doing some things out of order.

     Third: My Great-Grandparent's former house. I don't know who lives there now, but they have a little Chihuahua type dog that likes to chase cars down the road. It's a small house, but when I showed the photo to my dad he confirmed it was the correct one.

     Fourth: Rock Branch Baptist Church. Apparently my Craft ancestors were considered part of the "Rock Branch Community" of Elbert County though they were a five minute walk from Hart County. I'd been to this cemetery years ago, before I realized just how many of my ancestors were buried here. This time I got all the headstone photos (I hope). Here, I'm posing with William Anderson Craft's grave.

     Fifth: The Elbert County Public Library. They have a pretty darn good genealogy section (and a bathroom!). They had a book about the Craft family, but it seemed to be some random OK/AR branch that had nothing to do with me. I did find a few books on the Powell and Taylor families. One of these is a book available on Google in "snippet" view, so it was nice to be able to see the whole book. I was also hoping to use the library records to find the grave of Willis Craft (1809-1874). I think he's buried on his old land. The library did have a cemetery book with a map showing his grave, but there weren't any roads in the area on the map. Given my time constraints, I figured I'd try to find the grave another day.

     Sixth: Montevideo is pronounced Mount Video.

     Seventh: Craft Road. We headed back to my Great-Grandparent's house which sits on a road named after them. I got out to pose with the street sign. Apparently I took too long and the dogs across the street took offense. I had eight (8!!!) dogs heading toward me so I ran back to the car (where everyone else already was). Apparently the look on my face was priceless.

 

     Eighth: We went to Cokesbury UMC where my Great-Great Craft Grandparents are buried. I was also hoping to find the grave of an infant G-Uncle, but no luck

     Ninth: The Georgia Guidestones. This was the touristy part of our trip. These are some random stones put up by an anonymous person with some strange message about population and nature. I think they just found the price of granite in "the granite capital of the world" too hard to resist and decided to have some fun (joking). They're pretty neat.

     Tenth: The email waiting for me at home. But that's another post because this one is too long already!

Surname Saturday - Craft

My Craft family line spends most of its time in Elbert and Hart Counties of Georgia and makes an occasional appearance in Anderson County, South Carolina. I've traced this line back to Willis Craft, born 1809 in Elbert County. Other researcher's information suggest that his parents may have been John Craft and Mary Moss. I have not seen the documentation that suggests this.

Willis Craft married Martha T. Franklin on 26 Nov 1832 in Morgan County, Georgia. They had a number of children, including Mary, John Franklin, William Anderson, Willis Moss, Martha A, James D, Terrah A, and Richard P.

Willis was a merchant and a farmer and represented Elbert County in the Georgia State House from 1857 - 1858. He died on 21 March 1874 in Elbert County.

My line follows his son William, who married Rossie Alexander. Their son, George Robert "Bob" Craft, was my Great-Great Grandfather. He married Effie Verona Powell and moved to Birmingham, Alabama in their later years. Their son, Bennie Craft, married Sally Ruth Evans and they were the parent's of my Grandfather, Thomas S. Craft.

SNGF - Wish List

For tonight's SNGF, we've been asked to give a genealogy database that we'd like to see made available online.

For myself, I'd love to see the Elberton Star and Hartwell Sun newspapers go online. These newspapers cover neighboring Elbert and Hart Counties, GA from the late 1800s on. These newspapers have been microfilmed and can be accessed (that I know of) in their native counties. I do not see them available through family history libraries (but I could be searching wrong?). I've had helpful volunteers look up obituaries from these newspapers for me, but I don't want to burden volunteers with hundreds of look-up requests. If these two newspapers went online, it would be a goldmine for me.

Visiting Libraries, Pt. 2

Today my mom and I visited the Decatur Library, located in Decatur, DeKalb, Georgia. The Library is a five story building, with the reference section located on the second floor. There is a two level parking deck located behind the library that provides parking for the library and the recreation center next door. The deck does not provide adequate parking and it was pure luck that we found a spot after circling the deck twice - along with about 20 other cars. When going back I might consider taking MARTA or finding a meter spot down the street.

The second floor is the research floor, filled with non-circulating materials. There is a good amount of seating, with electrical plugs for computer chargers. There are two copy machines (15¢ a copy). There are two microfilm machines, though I did not try them today. There are about five rows of books that would be of interest to genealogy researchers. The collection includes a few Atlanta & Atlanta Suburb City Directories for the 1960s, GA County Histories, books of Vital Records for some counties, Census Indices, DAR books and more.

Some records that I found useful were "The Hart of Georgia: A History of Hart County" and the Atlanta Suburban Directories. I was really hoping to find Cobb County, Georgia marriage records, but the ones I found were from too early of a time period. I'm hoping to go back soon to look at the Hart County book again - it was thick and I hardly got started looking at it.

I went to the local library today and used their Genealogy section. I took my computer with me and browsed the books while going through the index file of my gedcom.

I found two useful books. The first was Georgia Interstate Records. I found record of two children of Daniel & Maragret Boatright's children after their father's death.

“Boatright, Charles, orph of Daniel, decd, Margaret Boatright, gdn, Sion Kirkham, Edward Surrency, srus, 9/3/1821, Emanuel, GB”
“Boatright, Nancy, orph of Daniel, decd, Margaret Boatright, Sion Kirkham and Edward Surrency, gdns, 9/3/1821; Benjamin Sherrod, gdn, George Dekle, sec, 9/4/1826, Emanuel, GB”

The other book was Hart County, Georgia Marriages - 1854-1898. I found multiple marriage records in this book that fit my tree. Some of them were: James D. Craft & Emma Richardson, Martha Alice Powell & James S. Craft, and Thomas Craft & Roxie Fisher.