A Belk Goldmine

I've had a lot of luck researching my half-brother's Belk family line today. I'd say it's more than enough to warrant a Happy Dance.

I found the family of John H Gurley & Evie (Williams) Belk in the 1920 census. The family had been miss-indexed as "Reek." I can see why, too. So, that was a good find.

Also, I found some photos of the same family line:

These photos were uploaded to the ancestry.com family tree of 'sharonporter1963'. Yay! I always love to find new photos of the folks in my family tree.

Cue the music

Cue the music - 'cause I'm dancing. A genealogy Happy Dance, that is.

I've never fully understood why many researchers write off online family trees. Sure, take everything with a grain of salt.... or a whole can of salt. But, I've had a lot of success over the years with online trees - at ancestry.com, rootsweb, myheritage, etc. I've found quite a number of well researched trees that match my research and help to further it. Today, I once again found success with online trees.

I was searching for my earliest proven Craft ancestor, Willis Craft (1809-1874, Elbert Co., GA) on Ancestry.com. Under the "Photos" tab I saw a photo of his grave posted. I already had a photo of Willis' grave, but decided to explore the family tree that the photo was attached to. And I'm glad I did! Attached to the tree were quite a good amount of photos for my ancestors. For the first time, I saw pictures of my Great-Great-Great Grandmother, my Great-Great Grandparents and my Great Grandfather's siblings.

I've sent off an email to the owner of the tree and hope that they reply. Here are some of the photos they have posted. They are linked back to where I found them.

(1) Rossie E. Craft, (2) George & Effie Craft

(3) Lamar, Bennie, Claud, Denver, Paul, George Robert, Jr.

One error = Great Find

As Footnote.com has been working toward completion of their 1930 census, I've been working on finding the families that I've already identified on Ancestry.com's 1930 census. I was having trouble locating the family of Leverett & Louise Waters using the search function. I ended up using the browse function to go straight to their page (Sheet No. 15A, Ward 3, Block 25, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia).

That's where I found why I couldn't search them out: they were transcribed as "Walter." Thanks to twitter, I found that I could click on "Flag for Review" under the "About This Document" sidebar to report the error, and the name has now been fixed.

But, this error gave me the idea to search for Walter(s) when looking for the Waters family. I've tried many different variations of Waters, but never this one. And really, you forget to cross a 'T' and it turns into and 'L,' which is an easy mistake. I don't know why it didn't occur to me....

Anyway, I've never been able to find this family in the 1910 census, so I headed by to Ancestry.com. I searched for: Lou* Walters (soundex), born 1881 +/- 5 years, all of USA. And bingo! The first result returned was Louise Walters, born 1882 in Georgia, living with Levert E Walters in Astor, Lake, Florida.

Happy Dance ensues!

So, thanks to an error on one census, I found a missing family in another. And there are quite a few clues in this listing that will help me in the future. For one, I had no idea they ever lived in Florida! Woot! Off to search for more.

Squee! (aka Happy Dance)

I've been emailing with my 1st Cousin, twice removed (thank you cousin chart), Sandra.  She's been very helpful in providing me stories about our ancestors, Leveret and Louise Waters.  I don't have a lot of family stories, as my Grandmama's didn't talk about her childhood and family much.  Sandra was my Grandmama's younger cousin and has a lot of information about the family (but we'll save that for Monday Memories).

One really squee worthy thing that she has shared with me: She has Leveret's and his son LC's musical instruments!  The entire family was very musical and was related through marriage to Fiddlin' John Carson and Chris Bouchillon - both well known in their time in the country music industry.  It's great to know that their instruments survived and are being well cared for.  I must admit to being jealous. Sandra was kind enough to send me photos.

Leveret's Fiddle

Leveret's Banjo

LC's harmonica

LC's guitar 

The First Happy Dance

 I got started in genealogy during a college geography project.  We had multiple options for the project and my mom encouraged me to pick the genealogy project. We set down at the computer and started trying to find information on her paternal grandparetns, Charles Vernon Albea & Auline (Witt) Albea Wilson.  

We didn't know much about the family and knew even less about genealogy!  We found our way to rootsweb.com and from there to ancestry.com.  We searched for CV & Auline, but came up empty.  They should have appeared on the 1930 census, but we couldn't find them.  We searched for their oldest child, Frances "Tootsie" Albea.  No go.  Finally, we searched for my grandfather, Roy.  Jackpot!

We were so excited!  There was my grandfather, as a four year old boy, listed on the 1930 census.  We didn't jump, but there was hugging involved.  I think I bugged all of my friends about the find for days!

And we also saw why we couldn't search out the other family members.  Charles Vernon was Verna, Auline was Aulin and Frances was Ninola.  We had just gotten started and didn't know how to use wildcards or search for middle names.  Needless to say, this find taught us a lot and started an obsession.