Abbott - The Great Mystery

My great-grandmother was married before she met my great-grandfather. Cora Hines was married to an Abbott. No one remembered his first name and I have not been able to find it. They could have married in Illinois, Ohio or possibly Switzerland, Jackson or Washington Counties in Indiana at an unknown date.

She was born March 8, 1870 in Cumberland County, Illinois. She married George Thomas "Old Tom" Jaynes September 11, 1896, at age 26. So sometime before that she married Mr. Abbott.
She had 2 children with Mr. Abbott. A daughter, Edna Catharine "Katy" Abbott was born May 9, 1892. She lived to be the ripe old age of 42, when she died of TB. I don't know whether their other child was born first or last. His name was Percy Abbott. He was said to be a sickly child, always weak and tired. The story was that he simply lay down on the floor one day and died. I have not found any evidence of the actual existance of this child. But he did exist.

A great-aunt said that both children were buried in Washington County, IN but Katy is buried beside her husband in Seymour, Jackson County, IN. So I have no idea where Percy was born, lived, died or buried. Very frustrating.

Cora and her parents lived for some time in Switzerland County, Indiana. They were George Washington and Agnes Joyce/Joice Hines. They both died in Neoga, Cumberland County, Illinois.

The only clue I have is a note I made many years ago. All it says is:

Seymour Weekly Democrat
Nov. 20, 1897
Percy Abbott

The library did not have that issue on microfilm. Is this about my Percy? I truly wish I had done a better job of sourcing my notes in those days. Let it be a lesson to all! You will not remember what it means and where you got it after 20 years has passed!!

At any rate the date would be about right. She was married to "Old Tom" when the child died.

Any Abbotts out there from the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio area?

• TwigTalk: My Janes/Jaynes Line
  


• TwigTalk: Meet Cora Hines Jaynes
  


• TwigTalk: Meet Agnes Joyce/Joice Hines
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

July is Going to Be Remembered...

The first of this month my 14 year old niece ended up in the ER with a pain, which disappeared before they could do more than look at her. But on the safe side they did an x-ray. Something was watching over her. It was just an accidental finding. It didn't cause the pain. But it was cancer. Now, going into the last week of July with great relief, she is minus one kidney but recovering. Sounds like a simple thing, take it out and be done. But, of course, it isn't so simple. Nothing ever is. She is very brave. Very concerned about not upsetting her Mom and Dad. She is home now and on the mend.

Her life is forever changed. Probably the way she will look at life is changed. Her parents will never look at things the same either. I think such a crisis puts every thing into perspective for all that it touches. Suddenly the things you thought so important seem silly. The things you have put off seem so important. You look around you with refreshed vision, ready to see the small joys that come your way.

All in all it has been quite a month in just about every way. Not one I want to repeat, but that applies to all of my family. I will be glad to see it pass into history.

Direction?

I haven't had much time to blog lately. There are important things that require me to be completely present in the real world now and then. This has been a summer filled with such things, both good and bad. Life changing things.

But to get to a genealogical point, a crisis in research. Well, sort of. I had someone tell me that they had increased my file over 3000 people just by going to ancestry and collecting leaves. This was only a 2-line file. I worked for years to verify and find my people. My complete file is just over 3000. I was sitting and contemplating the damage done by such an act and thought, "I used to really do research". What a surprising thought out of nowhere. Being online has made me lazy about research. It's easy to become a 'name collector' in the online tree environment. The newbies coming up know only that environment. They are encouraged to just click here and the work is done for you. No matter that the data is wrong. Thomas MacEntee at his blog just recently posted "How Big Is It? Quality Over Quantity" hitting a nerve for me. The thought about my research and my goals for my work has been in the back of my mind now for a while. Every day it pops up to be ruminated over some more. I am not sure where it is leading me.

Also there is the mess with GenealogyWise, the Ning driven network site belonging to WorldVitalRecords (a $$ site). Not a wise start at all, it seems. I have gotten many invites, including one surprisingly from the site itself. But I am exhausted by keeping sites going and spending so much time trying to keep up. We all need community and I certainly enjoy it but how much is too much? I really like Facebook and a few others and would like to keep them. So perhaps a small, manageable network will fill the need. At any rate, I was trampled in the (what I believe was an engineered) early stampede to the site as it was not even open at the time. No one waited to see what it was before the great mass joining. So I decided to watch. Now there is a rather useless mess of groups of every imaginable kind that I, as yet, cannot see being helpful. Perhaps I am blind to the direction this is going. At any rate I am rather happy I sat it out. I am referring to Terry Thornton and the problems with posts being taken down when they don't go the way of the GW owner. On top of that I was unable to get Terrys blog to load today. It has been removed too. I hope Mr. Thornton shut it down himself, and not GW with Blogger. Though it is beyond my understanding why he would remove so much data. If he didn't, perhaps after this post my time is limited here as well. Whatever the answer to the disappearance of the blogs, there is a distinct odor in the air.

The whole mess just emphasizes to me the need for me to decide and weed out the things I do not find useful in my quest to find my family. A plan and focus on one line might be in order. All those old goals need to be brought out and dusted off.

Twitter isn't as helpful as I had hoped. And I am interested in more than just genealogy. I don't see how I can 'talk' to one interest without it going out to all. That is not good. Perhaps the AdobeAir programs such as TweetDeck and TWhirl do that, and I have them on my computer, but I don't want to expend the huge resources that I found they need to run. So I haven't learned to use them. Slows down the whole process. Firefox is such a memory hog it is hard to run anything as hungry as it (Firefox is an addiction). In Twitterfox you have no options. So I need to figure out how to work with it or settle on just reading them. Very interesting tweets though. I do enjoy reading.

I'm Late Again - Puckerbrush Award

I am late, as always. I was given this award some time ago. I won't say how long. But, I am only now finding enough time at one sitting to get it taken care of. Thank you Cheryl at HeritageHappens and Geni at Ginisology for giving me the award!

Now, I might not have been able to find the time to blog, but I was certainly thinking about what blogs have influenced over the years. I was reading blogs long before I gave it a try. Usually I try to find the newer blogs to give awards to in hopes of bringing them into the circle, but this time I will truly give this one to the blogs I go to most often. Some I consider learning experiences that everyone should have on the 'must visit often' list!

Randy Seaver of "Genea-Musings" was one of the first blogs I read. I have learned much from Mr. Seaver. He has an easy to follow writing style and a way of going step by step that is made for easy following. He is a must on any list. I only wish he lived near and I could attend his talks.

Next is Denise of "FamilyMatters". I have learned much about the nuts and bolts of the tools I use online today. I really miss that she hasn't blogged in a while, but her archives are there and searchable. I would recommend that everyone go and read through them. Very informative.

Of course there is "Dear Myrtle". She is an absolute must read. I have been using her Get Organized lists this year. I appreciate her blog and it's information very much. She keeps me up to date about everything!

Renee of "Renee's Genealogy Blog" is the first genealogy blog I think I ran across. She was at another place back then. Her blog was informative and still is. I keep up with the FamilySearch changes at Renee's.

"Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog" is a very long name for a blog. It is deserved. Harold keeps me up on genealogy in my area of the country. Anyone in the midwest should follow his blog!

Jasia over at "Creative Gene" is another that I go to regularly. She often posts her scrapbook pages, though I believe she is all digital. I am still old-fashioned. I am still hard-copy scrapbooking. One day I will switch to the 21st century!

FootnoteMaven and Shades of the Departed are must reads too! fM and I share a deep love of old photos. She is always a good read. I consider her a friend as well. Shades is what I consider a 'learning' blog. I've come to enjoy the columnists and even have favorites I hate to miss!

Becky over at Kinexxions is a fellow Hoosier and very informative as well. She has given me many good ideas. One that comes to mind immediately is using aluminium foil to 'read' an old and faded tombstone! Comes in handy to have someone sharing these wonderful and helpful ideas!

And then there's Jessica and her "Jessica's Genejournal". I enjoy reading this young woman's blog. She always has something interesting and informative to say. She should be very proud of herself. She is a good writer and a good researcher!

I know the list looks like only 9, but fM gets it twice! She's just double the fun!! I do, of course, read many more as time permits. But it would be a very long list and you would give up reading long before you got to the end of the list.

Since I am so late I will not inform each one of the award as one normally would. I will simply put this up and tweet. Probably all have already gotten this award at least once. I know I have seen it already on some of them. I don't want to make them do it all over again. But if you show up, and you are on my list, all I can say is thank you. You have become a part of my life, and I think of all of you often in my research.

Dad's Calling - The Good Earth

I could start out on this topic going a back a century or more and talking about ancestors that came to this country and farmed. I have a family history of farmers on both sides. But, I don't have to talk about family stories or ancestors I never met. I'll start with a very contemporary memory.

My Dad, Rufus Brock, died in June of 2006. So I will dedicate this post to him.

He was born in Alabama, but moved to Indiana with his family when he was a teen. His father didn't care for the family business, farming. He worked in a factory that was building a plant in Indiana. He agreed to go north. Dad lied about his age and went to work in the new Indiana plant. There he worked until he took early retirement when the plant was being closed in the 70's. He was a line foreman and die setter at Arvin Industries when he retired.

He then embarked upon his second career. He became a general contractor. He enjoyed building things. I have many pieces of furniture he built for me and often pass houses he built around town. He was good at it. But there was only one thing he did all his life. One thing he loved the most. He always had a garden. It was in his blood.


So he retired late from contracting, and began his final career and journey. Dad loved to learn and try new things.


He began his gardening in earnest. He took his vegetables to the farmers markets in the tri-county area. He was always growing unusual vegetables and the flower salads he made were quite popular! He offered fresh cut flowers when he had them.

Somehow he made the newspaper almost every year. He had become a well-known and well-liked regular at the local farmer's market. He went home with an empty truck most of the time. I think he enjoyed meeting the people at the markets most.

He spent his last morning in his beloved garden. That is how he would have wanted it to be.

Written for Carnival of Genealogy: The Good Earth
Due: June 1, 2009

One Lovely Blog Award

Diana R. over at Random Relatives gave me an award! She said, "The instructions are quite simple - just to nominate 7 other blogs." Thank you so much, Diana, for the recognition of TwigTalk. I appreciate it.








Finding Grandpa

A Couple of Bubbles off Center

Gena's Genealogy

Tangled Trees

Two Sides of The Ocean

Kinfold News

Searching For Family Branches

Busy and More Busy!

Seems like I never have time to post anymore. Right now so many things are calling out for my attention. I'm still working with RM4. I like it very much. I can cut down on the mess on WorldConnect, thanks to Mr. RM [Bruce B.], but not make it all look nice. Some still present different and not very neatly. But that is WC's fault. It needs to be upgraded I think. I like RM and will stay with it.
I have gotten 2 cemeteries [photos; one complete and one partial] onto the county site and I'm working on the third. Then I have 4th and 5th. . . . and a huge folder full of snippets, an entire family, and a lot of little things, photos both person and place type yet to go online. I have enough to keep me busy until next year. I will be going to cemeteries again myself to photograph stones. Nice to have a lot to do. For a long time the site was so quiet, no subs coming in at all. Nice pick up!
I've been looking at the FamilySearch Wiki. I wonder if anyone knows about uploading your file onto the new FamilySearch. I had read some time ago that it would be different. That you would be able to work on your tree online at the new FamilySearch and you could fix mistakes as well. I have been waiting for that and have heard nothing. I have been interested in putting mine online there when that is available. Right now I am just trying to find my way around and see everything. Though I did try working with the Wiki. I was putting one of my courthouse photos onto the Jackson County, Indiana page in the United States Wiki. I failed. I uploaded the photo and got a confirmation that it had gotten there but when I tried to put it in the Courthouse part of the page it kept saying there was no such image. I will try again later.
In the middle of all that I just need to make time for blogging! I'll make it somehow. I got an award and have only just remembered. I will get it up later as well....