More to Louise's Bible than we thought

I've been meaning to purchase some archival safe products for a while now (gloves, boxes, tissue, etc). I have some boxes and envelopes for old photos, but I'd like to also protect my documents as well. One of the documents that's most important is my great-great grandmother (straight maternal line), Louise Smith Waters, family bible. 

     We have the Bible in an archival safe box, but I'd like to protect the pages with genealogy information by placing acid-free tissue or paper between them (that choice is another topic entirely). So, Mom & I got out the Bible to measure it. The Bible is old and delicate. The bindings are all gone, except for a few strings and a memory of more solid bindings. Heck, all of Genesis is missing. Anyway... tangent - back on topic.

     We were turning some pages, trying to remember where the Family pages belonged before they were moved to the front of the Bible, when I found writing on a page that stated,

" Alma Water + Edward T. Underwood were married Dec_15_1948."

     I was very surprised to find this. We had no idea that there were family dates in the Bible except for what had been recorded on the pages included for this purchase. So, we started at the beginning and flipped through the entire book. In the end we found four pages where extra info had been recorded on blank pages. Now, none of this information is going to break down a brick wall, but it was very surprising and exciting.

My favorite page is probably the one that records dates that relate to World War II. Check the pages out:

looking for the death of William L. Barfield

I visited the Hawhammock cemetery down in Swainsboro a few years ago, in search of some Barfield and Boatright ancestors. I found quite a lot of them, including many of the folks in this photo:

William Barfield Susan Frances Boatright Barfield Sallie Ledora Barfield Britt J. B. Barfield

So, I have the birth and death dates for these individuals, as stated on their head stones. I'm particularly interested in William L. Barfield (the father in the photo). I have little information on his parents and would love to be able to extend the line.

• William L. "Bill" Barfield was born on 5 Jun 1872 and died on 22 Jul 1924 according to his headstone.

• The 1880 Census of District 52 (aka District 1208, Emanuel Co., GA lists him as living in the Logue household, (which is his wife's family) before his wife was born. It appears that he and his sister Susen were raised by his to-be grandfather-in-law.

• He is listed as "Bill" on the 1920 Census of Emanuel Co., GA (District 37, page 27A). The entire family is listed.

• In 1930, after his death, his mother, Sarah, was living with his wife, Frances and their children. This is the only information I have on his parents. Sarah Barfield is listed as a widow, although other researchers have suggested that she was never married and that Barfield is her maiden name.

So, in search of more information, I've been looking for his death certificate. I've searched Georgia's Virtual Vault, where death certificates from 1919-1927 are posted, but I can't find William's certificate. He died in 1924 - so it should be there. I've also searched Ancestry.com's Georgia Death Certificates and can't find anything that looks right there either. I don't know if he didn't have a death certificate issued, or if it's filed under a different name... This is the shortest brach on my tree, and I'd love to be able to grow it more.

family tree DNA testing

We received the Family Tree DNA test on Monday. It took exactly seven days to arrive, just as advertised. The test came with three cheek "scrapers" and three vials. The instructions said that the tester should wait three to four hours between taking each test. Because Dad wanted me to help him take the test and because I only see him for a few hours each afternoon, we did one test a day for the past three days. 

Aside from having to wait so long between test, I only had two other gripes about the process. First, the cheek "scrapers" are little pieces of felt(?) on the end of a stick that's inside a tube. Once you're done getting your cell samples, you push the end of the stick through the tube, which releases the felt (or whatever it was). This is actually a tiny bit difficult and I almost thought I'd destroyed one test when I bent the stick while trying to push it through. I got it in the end though.

The second gripe - the return envelope for the test samples is NOT pre-paid. I had to pay $1.13 in postage to send the test back ($1.48 actually because I didn't have the exact amount in stamps). I've already given them $371, the least they could do is pay return postage. The free SMGF test did...!

We'll have the test back in the mail tomorrow and should receive our results in seven weeks.

using footnote.com

After using footnote.com for a few days, I'm considering continuing on after the seven day trial. Although the available documents are somewhat spotty and random, are are quite interesting and valuable. The only hard part is finding the document you're looking for. 

The basic search is a Boolean search. You can type in keywords that you're looking for in a document and use NOT to keep out what you're not looking for. For example, whenever I search for 'Georgia' I always add 'NOT constitution,' otherwise I'd get thousands of results back from newspapers.

The Beta search is pretty good. It's an advanced sort of search, where you can search for keywords inside of an already exhisting search. For example, after searching for 'Georgia NOT constitution,' I can then search for 'Emanuel county.'

What's difficult is that not all documents have good keywords attached. It's nice when users have added annotations to documents, which is like adding searchable keywords. This will be what makes this site great - interactions from users.