My Limited Travels

     There's a meme going around Facebook right now featuring this map.  You can customize it to reflect your travels.  Many of the maps I've seen shared amongst fellow genealogists are much more colorful than my own!  Hopefully one day my map will be more colorful.

Color Key:

• Red means I've just passed through, maybe seen a thing or two.
• Amber means I've at least slept there and seen a few things. I have a first-hand idea of what the state is like.
• Blue means I've spent a good amount of time in that state.
• Green means I've spent a lot of time in that state, weeks at at time on multiple visits – or lived there.

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!

Great Time at the Atlanta Family History Expo [Guest Blogger]

     I had a lot of fun at the Family History Expo over the weekend. Although I am not a genealogist I still found out a lot of interesting things, many of which will help me understand exactly what Valerie is talking about regarding her research.

Classes

The most informative lecture I went to was Traditional DNA Testing and Beyond – The Next Revolution in Genetic Genealogy by Elise Friedman. I went to this one alone, as Valerie has done DNA testing and explained it to me however, I can't say I really understood her. This was an info packed lecture that was a good overview of the information. I couldn't explain DNA testing to others but, I "get it" better now. Especially the differences between the different types of testing.

My favorite class was Family Roots Travel: How to Connect With Your Heritage Through Travel by Adam Glenn. Valerie, my mom, and I have done a little genealogy traveling, so this wasn't all brand new information. The presentation was really well put together and even when I already knew something this lecture put a new spin on it or emphasized a new aspect. I got some great tips that I will definitely be able to use! This class was straight to the point and easy to understand and also went at a good pace. Unlike some of the other classes, I did not feel that this one was trying to fit too much information into the time allotted.

Another class that I really enjoyed was An Introduction to AncestralHunt.com by Bernie Gracy. This one is about a new site/product called AncestralHunt.com. It's not a database platform, data source, or ancestral mapping service. It seems like it is more of a community where people can place their family trees and compare them geographically to help break down their brick walls. It is a community based collaborative place for people to share and help each other. Sounds really neat, and they are looking for beta testers. I signed Valerie up :)

Me. Valerie, our Mom.

Overall Thoughts

One thing I would suggest for future expos is to have more info/products geared towards Georgia research. I attended one class on the South which did not mention Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi or other obvious "southern states" but did talk about Delaware. It was a little frustrating. The Expo may want to focus more on Georgia or other local states more in the future.

Overall I was impressed by the Expo. Everything was very well organized and there were plenty of offerings. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I had lots of fun.

Driving Through the Family Tree

     Last weekend, my mom and I went on vacation to Charleston, SC. We drove north up I-85 from Atlanta to South Carolina and it was like driving through my family tree.

     We passed into SC through Hart County, home of my Craft, Evans, Powell and Taylor ancestors.
     We drove just outside of Greenville where my maternal grandfather's family moved to when he was a teen.  He met and married my grandmother there before moving the family to Atlanta.
     We took I-26 east and past the highways that would have taken us to Greenwood and Ninety Six where my Witt, Dorn and Quattlebaum ancestors lived.
     A little further down the road, we passed connectors to Saluda, where the older generations of Witt and Dorn ancestors came from, as well as newly connected Britt and Parrish ancestors.
     Soon, we were approaching through Columbia, where my Great-Granddaddy Albea died.
     We took a highway shortcut past the city and entered Lexington County, where generations of Hyler ancestors lived, as well as my Meetze, Ouzts and Leaphart ancestors.

     Unfortunately, we didn't have time on this vacation to stop anywhere for genealogy side-trips. It was a very inspiring drive though, prompting me to discover that the Richland County Library has an obit index and does lookups for free!  I've already received new obituaries for my Hyler ancestors. Hopefully I'll be able to go back again sometime on a research trip.

     And I didn't even have my camera ready when we discovered Leaphart Road.... I did find it on Google maps however:

View Larger Map

We're Almost There (Advent Calendar - Day 13)

"Weeee're almost there, we're almost there...

We're almost there, we're almost there..."

"Stop - be quite! Mom! make them stop"

"Weeee're almost there, we're almost there...

We're almost there, we're almost there..."

This was the wonderful music that our parents got to listen to as we traveled on Christmas. Each year on Christmas day we drove to my maternal grandparents house, 30 minutes away from home. We spent the mid-day and early evening there, having dinner around 2 or 3pm (or whenever most everyone had arrived).

When we turned onto the the street that led to our grandparent's house, my sister and I would begin to sing, "We're almost there." Those were the only lyrics. They drove my brother nuts! Thus the song had to be sung louder and with more giggling.

Traveling (SftC)

My ancestors don't seem to have been very interested in travel. None of my direct ancestors lived outside of the south. Thus, they weren't much for extravagant modes of transportation. For the most part, travel was done by car. And my ancestors seemed quite proud of their cars.

Like many families, my ancestors posed with their cars, showing them off. One of the oldest photos I have is of my Great-Uncle Milton Waters, standing by the family car in Cabbagetown, Atlanta, Georgia. The photo was probably taken in the late 1920s.

Throughout the family photo albums are other pictures of family members with their cars. I really like the photos. They can help to date the photo and show the economic status of the family at the time.

Another neat example of the way my ancestors traveled is a registration card for my Great-Grandfather Wm David Witt's 1920 Model T. This card was found in my Grandaddy's papers and it's one of my favorite documents. It's just so unique!