It’s time to dissect what sends people to my blog! This is always fun to see. Sometimes it’s so completely random what can bring someone to this blog.

newark evening news archives

Believe it or not, my transcriptions of some articles from the Newark Evening News is my most popular search term referrer. If you’re looking for actual Newark Evening News articles, you’ll need to head to the New Jersey Archives or the Newark Public Library.

bartholomew taylor

Bartholomew is one of my most popular searches and the most “famous” relative I have. He was a Revolutionary War veteran and moved from Somerset County, Maryland to Bracken County, Kentucky. You can read some of my entries that mention Bartholomew here on the blog until I get him added back into my website database.

moore family + florence redford

This is one of the new search terms this month. Florence Redford is my Grandmother. To see her ancestry, you can view my database on the website or read blog entries about the Redford Family.

taylor clan map

I haven’t posted anything about a clan map, but that’s because I haven’t looked for one yet either. Since I don’t have a clue where exactly my Taylor family originates from yet (England most likely, but no proof!), I can’t actually pinpoint where to look for a clan map at. There is a little bit of information on some Scottish Taylors, but even those mention that the name is very widespread.

newark evening news, oct 27 1923

Here’s where two worlds collide and send someone to my blog. I have a few transcriptions from the Newark Evening News on the blog but they are from 1890. I also have my “Diary of Llewellyn” series which chronicles my Great-Grandmother’s life in 1923 through to 1926. So I can’t help with whatever might have sent someone looking for that particular paper. I will however suggest you check out fultonhistory.com. Newark is so close to New York City, if you’re looking for a specific mention of something it just might be able to be found in a New York City newspaper!

These are only a few of the search terms that have sent people to my blog. If you’re here for any of these reasons I hope I helped a little bit. If you need to contact me about more information on the families I feature, you can email me at leeny.moore[@]gmail.com <– Just remember to remove the brackets! Sorry for the precaution, but spam drives me bonkers!

Hello everyone! Long time no blog post from me! Sorry about that, summer gets kind of crazy around the Moore household. I’m writing today because my long lost cousin Grace, is making a trip to Scotland this September and she wanted to know some pointers about research across the pond. She’s going with her husband and son, so this isn’t a complete research trip. She was just wondering if there was anything that she could look up while she was there. The only problem is, I’ve never researched in person anywhere but Ohio and Maryland. So I have no idea if there’s anything she can look up.

We know our Loves lived in Paisley, and we know the Menzies were in Morton by Thornhill before going to Liverpool and from there to America. Most of this we know only through FamilySearch databases, Scotland directories, and some family recollections. After the success I had with my last request for tips, I thought it was worth a try again!

If anything, maybe cousin Grace can get me a nice picture of Castle Menzies, I kind of obsess about it. Hopefully someone reading this can be as helpful for her as she’s been for me!

I’m pretty sure my ancestors hate me. This may be going out on a limb, but I really think that the Mays family did everything they could think of to be very deceptive about who they were and what they were doing. I’m not going to feel guilty about all the attention I was giving my Dad’s side of the family now. I’ll probably annoy you with the amount of rants I’ll end up posting here while trying to figure out the Mays line of my family tree. In fact, I’m debating setting up an Elliott/Rowan County genealogy file. I’m tempted to just go through all the available records and map out the major surnames. They’re all in my tree somewhere so it may even help me later down the line. It’s just so confusing trying to find the right people when they were all named the same thing at the same time. Last night, I had a first for me though.

That’s two death certificates for the same person. Here’s where things go squirrelly. The death certificates give different birth dates. I actually had recorded the May 28th date into my database as the preferred date because that’s the date that Walker gave on his WWI Draft Card. I’m confused that there are completely different causes of death on each certificate. If that wasn’t enough, there are even different dates of death. I’m wondering why his hometown would have a death certificate done when he most likely died at the hospital in Boyd County.

So here’s yet another reason why I am beyond frustrated trying to sort out the Mays family.

Today is a glorious day. We’re having a girls day. In our pajamas, watching movies (Avatar right now), and I’m doing genealogy on my laptop. I couldn’t ask for a better day. Except of course if I might have finally found George Thorward in 1870.

George is the first known Thorward I have in America. He lived in Caldwell, New Jersey until he died in 1940. I have him in censuses from 1880 through 1930. One bone of contention I’ve always had is that I can’t find him in 1870, even though in all the censuses he puts his arrival sometime in the 1860s. In his obituary it states that he was born in Obberstetten, Germany. Unfortunately, that is my only hint for where George comes from. Even worse is that there is more than one Oberstetten in Germany. So I’m going to need a better clue.

His obituary is actually a really good source. It gives his age, when he celebrated his wedding anniversary, the church he was a member of, and about when he entered the country. It also verifies the census information of him being a cigar maker/manufacturer his whole career. All good hints.

I always thought I was stalled with George. I didn’t hold out much hope on getting much further until I learned more about the great divide of researching in other countries. That is until I was re-entering his wife’s 1870 census information. She was only 15 but she was living in the household of Samuel Bond as a domestic servant. It makes sense for me, since her father died in 1862 (Civil War maybe?). Today I noticed something on the census page I’d never noticed before.

As you can see, Josephine is there on line 18. What I noticed is actually on line 9. George John/Yohn. He is age 18 (it fits perfectly with my George Thorward). His occupation is listed as a cigar maker’s apprentice. The family George is living with is another Bond family. What really caught my eye is the birth place of Wurtemburg.  I can’t find much, but I do know there is an Oberstetten in Wurtemburg, Germany.

Is this my George?

It can’t be a coincidence that Josephine is living with a cigar manufacturer and George would later become a cigar maker. All these things just keep adding up, but I still can’t find where George entered the country. I do feel as if I’ve found him in 1870 now though.

After I made my Mays Family post yesterday, I went back through the Kentucky Death Records on Ancestry.com. I decided to just put random details in there and see what came up. You may not be able to tell from the size of that death certificate but that is Jurena Mays‘ death certificate. It shows her married name as Adkins. So that was a nice little hint. It also showed her parents as William Mays and Anna Click. That answered the questions about whose family she belonged to, but not my questions about why she showed up out of the blue in 1870.

Having the tip of the married name of Adkins, and the Informant name of Milburn Adkins, I set about finding Census records for Jurena. What happens next is why I took a two day break from the Mays family. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

1900 was the first census I tried to find. I couldn’t find Jurena anywhere. I tried all the combinations I could, but I couldn’t find her. So I jumped to Milburn Adkins. In all the remaining census years Milburn has a wife whose name varies. The birthday never various. The birthday matches up with Ellen Mays, but her name is mostly listed as Eliza, except for one year when she was known as Eliza Ellen. So my immediate next thought was that this must be Ellen’s husband and he acted as informant for his sister-in-law. Only when I started relaying this information to my Mom. She broke out her old notes, she had a complete different husband for Ellen.

It’s about that moment, I threw my hands in the air. Put on my fluffy pajamas, and grabbed myself a cold drink. I was done. So now I’m going to take a break from the Mays family and focus for a bit on the Taylor side. They are so much easier to locate!