A Civil War page

I had a number of ancestors in the Civil War (I think I've talked about this before?), Confederates, and found a wonderful kit especially for scrapping Civil War stuff at Heritage Scrap. So this is my first page devoted to one of them. And in reality, this page isn't really all there is to tell about J. B., so I'll be doing another page with more info about him.



Again, for credits and ingredient details, go to my craft blog, Stacy's Stamp-n-Scrap Loft.

Branching out

Okay, that was a lame title! lol -- but I have begun to make my "branch" pages for my family heritage album. This one stars my maternal great-grandparents Arthur Lee and Maggie Ophelia (Westbrook) Campbell. The larger photo at the bottom is of my grandfather, as he is my direct ancestor. I didn't have a photo of his sister who died while still an infant, so I used a silhouette, but now my mother tells me she has a photo of baby Maggie Idora -- she just doesn't know where. As she put it, "Maggie Idora is buried twice; once in Deport and also in my house!"

If you'd like details on the designers/kits I used, you can hop over to my craft blog page here. There's also a bit in that post about my plans for the branch pages. In addition to those "strictly facts" pages, I want to make separate pages for special pictures, or particular people, or whatever reason pops into my head!

You can click on the image if you'd like to see it larger.

Oh, yes -- my page about my grandmother was featured on Faith Sisters' "Made Ya Look Monday" page this week! Woooot!

More heritage scrapbooking

I've done another layout that will eventually go in my Family Heritage album. Again, this one is digital instead of paper. (For more info about the scrapping part, you can go to my "Stacy's Stamp and Scrap Loft" blog where I've also posted this layout.)


The girls are my dad's mother Susie Richardson Smith (in the middle) and two of her sisters (Kate, on the left, and Ida to the right). I love how they had these photos taken in the same positions five years apart! The Richardsons were a very close family, and from the tales I've been told, they had a lot of fun together! "Ma" Richardson (Una Dorn Richardson) kept a journal at the family home, and whenever any of the kids were home visiting they would write in it. Often it was just facts like "Susie and Mike were here, with kids," and the date, but it was in that person's handwriting. Sometimes they commented about how stuffed they were from Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. The last entry is quite sad and poignant, as it was written by Ida after Ma was moved to a nursing home. It talks about the great memories that home holds, also, so it's bittersweet.

I'll be back later with more heritage scrapping. I've got plans for the Family Heritage scrapbook ...

Heritage Scrapbooking

This is something I've been really wanting to do, especially since I've been collecting heritage photos of my family. So this weekend, since I needed an excuse to use some of the digital scrapbooking stuff I'd been collecting, I thought I'd make a layout using my favorite photo of my maternal grandmother and referring to the Bible passage that describes how she was so well (Proverbs 31:10-31) Now, normally I'm a "traditional" (paper) scrapper. I love to feel of the paper and embellishments in my hands as I manipulate them around to make the layout I want. Digi-scrapping layouts, when you get them printed, are, of course, completely 2-D, no matter how 3-D they may look. That bugs me. But I like a lot of things about digital scrapping (like the way you can reuse "papers" and elements over and over, and change their size or color to fit what you're doing), so I'm not averse to doing the occasional digital layout.

Here's the one I made of Granny (you can click on the image to see it larger):



I think she would have liked this page, although she would have disagreed with my assessment of her as being so wonderful (she really was!).

So this is something I really want to do more of -- scrap my family tree and also make layouts of individual people, to honor them as I think they should be honored!

Spiritual Heritage

I finally got around to finishing a digital scrapbook layout I did a few months ago when I was still a member of PaperCraft Planet social networking site and moderating a group focused on Christian crafting. I had a faithbooking project going there, and this is the last page I made for it. I didn't have as many family heritage photos scanned in then, and really didn't like the one I had to use for my dad's dad, so last night I decided to go in and change the photo. It took me 1-1/2 hours to do that simple little thing (I had altered the original color of the oval frame that I used on all the pictures, and hadn't saved it, so I had to try to match the color, then scale it, then figure out how to cut the right size oval out of the photo and get it behind the frame -- it all sounds so simple, but clearly, it wasn't!). I posted it on GenealogyWise, which is a new social network for family historians and genealogists, in the Scrapping Your Family History (or whatever it's called) group. So here it is:


If you'd like to see it larger, just click on it.

I have no recollection of the designers or whatever of any of the elements. (I always like to post the brands, etc. of the things I use in scrapping and card making, because I figure they made the stuff, they deserve the credit.)

ANYway.

I joined Footnote.com the other day. It's a website with tons of digitized original documents (like Civil War Service Records, census images from 1880 and 1930, etc.). It was $60 for a year (they had a special). I don't know yet if it will be worth the money. For some reason my ancestors are always undocumented or it's hard to find their info. Census images aren't a problem, but I already have most of those off Ancestry. I did find the actual images of one of my ancestors' Civil War records. Before joining Footnote I only had the index information on that. So that was cool. But the Civil War era is so frustrating because they often just put the soldier's first and middle initials with their last name. So instead of finding Elijah William Smith, I have to look through all the other E. W. Smiths in Mississippi (and they are legion, or so it seems) and try to decide if the info is for MY E. W. Smith. Fortunately, for most of my Civil War soldier ancestors I know the regiments they were in. This helps tremendously.

Oddly, I'm having trouble finding military documentation for my 5-greats-grandfather who served in the Revolutionary War and then was one of the original Old Three Hundred colonists who came to Texas. He's been celebrated by the DAR, has DAR medallions on his headstone, etc. But I can't find the documentation on his service with the South Carolina militia that was under Gen'l Francis Marion. I found several Alexander Hodge papers for North Carolina ... wondering if there was a mistake or if he served somehow for NC. Or if that's a different Alexander Hodge entirely. I wouldn't think that was an incredibly common name, but what do I know about common names back then?

Well, the morning is almost over, I need to go take a shower and get dressed, and then take the kid to the orthodontist. So, until next time ...

Cemetery desecration

I've been reading in the news of the outrageous crime that took place recently in a Chicago-area black cemetery. Three workers (maybe more, I can't remember at the moment) hatched a scheme to make money out of nothing by digging up graves, tossing the remains, and reselling the plots to unsuspecting buyers! This shocks and angers me more than you can imagine. Being a family historian, and respecting highly the memory of my ancestors (heck, I love these people, and I didn't even know most of them!), I have come to view cemeteries not so much as places of death and sadness, but of connection to those who have gone before us. Now, being a Christian I know full well those people's souls, the very essence of who they are, aren't out there at the cemetery. They're either enjoying Heaven with Jesus or they're awaiting judgment for not having accepted Him as Savior. But the bodily remains are still there, and that makes for a connecting point between the living and their deceased loved ones. A very important connecting point.

So now there are 2,000 families looking for their dead, and many are finding that their graves have been dug up, the bones nowhere to be found, and there are also headstones missing or damaged. I just find this horrific. The accused even dug up plots in "Babyland" where most of the children are buried. I can't even imagine the pain of losing a child and then having some calloused, evil person come along and dig up their remains and just tossing them somewhere!

So -- on the subject of cemeteries: When I was younger, I really hated cemeteries. To me they just seemed places of sorrow and death, and I have never wanted to dwell on those kinds of things. A number of years ago we went to Ireland, and I honestly adored their cemeteries -- of course, if I had a loved one who was recently buried there, I probably wouldn't feel the same. But they were such peaceful places, places full of gorgeous Celtic crosses, with vegetation growing wild everywhere and just this sense of holiness about them. I enjoyed wandering around among the crosses and headstones and just enjoying the peace. I didn't think I would ever "like" American cemeteries, though. They seemed too well-manicured and sterile by comparison.

But now that I've gotten serious about my roots (that reminds me -- I need to color my hair again ...), I've discovered that I don't mind the American ones so much. Granted, I can't say that I "adore" them -- there is still a touch of sadness in them. But it's comforting, somehow, to walk around a cemetery and find the names of my ancestors, to see the different headstones that were chosen to stand as testimony of their lives. The older headstones are so fascinating, but the newer ones are also beautiful. For example, on my paternal grandparents' headstone, there's a heart in between the names that gives the date on which they were married. To me that is so sweet!

And the inscriptions (what we commonly call epitaphs) ... some are just straight to the point: "Resting in Jesus." And there are some that are more lengthy, such as this one on John Ross and Clarinda (Pevehouse) Kegans' headstone: "Our Father and Mother are gone, they lie beneath the sod; Dear parents, though we miss you much, We know you rest with God."

Let me tell you, the Kegans' children forked out for their headstone! It's no mere headstone, but an entire monument. Check this out:


Honestly, John Ross and Clarinda deserve this. They were both there at the birth of the Republic of Texas, John was imprisoned at the notorious Perote prison in Mexico for his role in the Mier Expedition and suffered horrible things he wouldn't even talk about when he returned home. In their photos, they both look so old and tired. But Clarinda wrote her memoirs, and described John as being very funny, very cheerful, etc. He just refused to talk about his experiences at Perote. (Many other men described the horrors they went through, so we know it was no holiday in Cancun.) And Clarinda, by a granddaughter's account, was a more quiet person, but always ready to laugh, and a very loving, devout Christian woman.

Whoops -- I went off down a rabbit trail! I'll tell you more about John Ross and Clarinda some other time. I will just let you know that Clarinda was part of the Runaway Scrape, and she and her family actually watched the Battle of San Jacinto from a thicket of trees!

Anyway -- for a long time I thought I would want to be cremated, but my mother (who is against cremation) made me think the other day when she said, "Isn't it nice to have those graves to go visit? I wonder what people do whose loved ones have been cremated and had their ashes scattered to the four winds?" WOW! Now, having ashes stored in a mausoleum or something might be passable, but just think how these people are robbing their descendants of having a specific spot to visit to make that sort-of connection with their family history!

I've written a novella again. I could really write a lot about many of my ancestors, and hope to do so in future posts. But for now, I'll let this do, and close with:

My heart goes out to those people whose loved ones' gravesites have been desecrated. I pray that they can find peace in knowing that, no matter what may happen to the bodies of the dead, their souls go on, and for those who are Christians, they'll see more than just a body again one day, but the perfected PEOPLE who have gone on!

Texas General Land Office awesomeness

I drove the million miles into downtown Austin today and went to the Texas General Land Office's Archives and Records department. I wanted to see what they had on my ancestors Alexander Hodge and James Kegans. Both of these men were settlers in Austin's first colony (which makes them part of the Old Three Hundred), and I had already seen a digitized copy of Hodge's original land grant petition online, so I knew I would find some good stuff there.

I had no idea what to expect when I went down there. For starters, when you enter the General Land Office building, you have to sign in and get a visitor's badge. That makes sense, it being a government building. Then you enter the Archives and Records department (hee, I first typed "Archivers" -- you can tell I'm an avid scrapper/stamper person!). They have their own security methods in there -- you have to put all purses, backpacks, etc. and cell phones in a locker before you can begin to look at anything. Computers are okay. You may only use a pencil to take notes, and you have to take notes on the yellow paper they provide (unless you've brought your own note paper). When you're ready to leave, they'll inspect your notes (I'm assuming this is to make sure you aren't trying to sneak anything out).

I asked for help finding any documents pertaining to Hodge and Kegans, as original settlers, and they directed me to one of their "librarians" (for lack of a better word) who specialized in the Spanish section of the records. (For those of you who may not know Texas history, Austin's colony was officially in the State of Coahuila y Texas, Mexico, so all documents from that period were written in Spanish.) He brought out an index book, we found some things and then he set off into the back to pull them for me. When he brought them out, he went through and explained each document to me before leaving me to my research.

I have to tell you, it was so amazing to see these original documents! The land grant petitions are in individual folders, and are protected by a kind of sleeve that looks like see-through parchment (probably some form of archival paper). So you can see the documents, but not touch them. Again, this makes perfect sense. I was impressed with the good condition these documents were in! Although the edges were worn, they weren't ragged, and there were only a couple of stains from where someone awhile back had stamped a number on one of them in ink that bled. Originally, these had been pages in a book, but now they're individual documents.

They provided translations for me of the land grant petition documents. I ordered a copy of Hodge's, but hand-wrote bits of the other two I was interested in.

There were also smaller documents placed in a book with protective "parchment" over each of them. In these we found hand-drawn maps showing the land Hodge was given before it was parceled out (it had originally belonged to Stephen F. Austin himself), then a map showing the five leagues he gave (or sold) to Hodge and four others, with the designations as to whose land was whose, and including little notes like "Peaches" or "Cane" to show where this kind of vegetation was located. There were also "field notes" -- notes taken by the original surveyors on pocket-sized paper (originally small notebooks).

I ordered copies of all these documents. I ended up spending about $41, but it will be SO worth it to have true first-generation copies of them. (I think the pricing was $2 per page if you want color, and $1 per page for black and white -- that was for the documents. Not sure how much the pages of the translation cost. They were just typed out on regular paper.) It's going to be so amazing to have these copies in my possession!

The documents themselves are interesting. Here's what the digitized version of Hodge's original petition looks like:



So at the top you have the seals and fee rate (it cost 2 reales to have these drawn up). Underneath that you have the name of the commissioner to which they petitioned. The man at the Land Office told me that they couldn't apply for land grants unless there was a commissioner in office. Austin was the Empresario of the colony, but he didn't have the right to actually grant land. So that's why, even though they came to Texas in the early 1820s, they weren't able to apply for their allotted league until later because there was no commissioner. In fact, I believe Hodge's petition for land for his orphaned grandchildren (not my directs) was begun in one year, but had to be re-done in 1831 because the commissioner had been accused of murdering his mistress' husband, so he was in jail!

Anyway, they put in their petition, then someone had to vouch for their right to have the land. Once that was okayed, they had the land surveyed, and eventually, if all was in order, they were granted the land ("tax, title and license not included," lol -- they had to pay fees, etc., so the land wasn't technically "free"). All of this is included in the land grant petition.

What's really cool are the signatures -- right there, in their own handwriting, are the siggies of my actual ancestors! And, of course, all the other people involved. One of the commissioners (you can see his siggy on the left-hand side of this document) had a very fancy rubric he included with his signature -- it must've taken a few minutes to draw it, with all those squiggly lines!

So I'm going back on Friday to pick them up (I have to be in town, anyway). Hopefully the copies are excellent quality. I thought it would even be cool to frame some of them if the copies were good enough.

That's what I've been up to lately, in addition to just doing a lot of data entry and transferring into the Family Tree Maker program. I need to get back to scanning photos and posting them into the program. *SIGH* So much to do! But it's all worth it, even if nobody else but me appreciates it all. (Fortunately, several in my family are appreciating it!)