Oh Where Oh Where Can They Be???

This morning I was racking my brains and using all the sleuthing skills I had to try and find descendants of a great uncle.  I sent a couple of emails to longshots and then thought WHOA!! Wait a second!!  Let's go back to my blog (that I know) I don't write on enough and put out the plea!!!

So here it goes, I am looking for descendants of Arthur Lee Moore who was married to Florence Marrington.  He had two children Rachel and Arthur Lee Jr.  Rachel married Grant Truax.  Arthur JR married Edna Dorothy Berg.  I have them with one child (I am sure there was more) but he was also Arthur Lee Moore III.  Arthur III married Sharon Lee Mosher/Moshler and they had a daughter Shannon Morie/Marie Moore.  And I am dead end.

Uncle Lee (that his how the family referred to him as) was the oldest of my great grandfather's children who survived.  My great grandfather was married twice, Lee's mother was Rebecca Burleson.

I understand Uncle Lee had alot of the family history and I am hoping it was passed down from generation to generation for starters.  Also, we are writing a family history and want to be able to include HIS story and not the one we are perceiving it to be.  So if you tie into this family please, please, please email me!!!

We have come quite far on this family.  We have pictures of all the surviving siblings (six) and contact with several of the descendants.  We are missing Lee, Jack and Bell's lines.

Also I finally caved in and took a DNA test.  We have broken through another brick wall....kind of!!  We know who Nathaniel's brothers are!!  Okay some of them....but still more than we had a month ago.  So there are lots of exciting things happening in this branch of the Moore's.  And by finding Nathaniel's brothers, we can most likely put together all these stray Moore's like Nathaniel and Uceba Moore and find their place in the family tree.

So please come help us expand!!!  If you tie in to the Thomas A Moore and Mary D Williams line, or Nathaniel J Moore and Rebecca lines, save this blog and EMAIL ME!!!  I know the descendants are out there....we just have to find them!!  C'mon let's have an exciting update soon!!!  Happy Hunting everyone!!

Why Having a Family History Blog is SOOO Important!

In 2009 I heard genealogist Crista Cowan speak on the importance of people being able to find YOU.  We always think that we are looking for someone else, why would anyone want to find us?  But in the genealogy world it is VERY IMPORTANT. Her lecture that day was "Hit a Brickwall searching backwards -- Search Forward."  She talked about the importance of a Family History Blog.

I began this blog shortly after moving to Texas; walking, seeing and living as my ancestors had over 100 years before.  Okay maybe not so much the living....but I needed them. I needed their presence in my life. I was at a standstill and didn't feel as though I could go forward.  Moving to Texas was one of the best decisions I ever made!!  It did help me to get to know more about my ancestors and where they lived, what they did, saw etc. 

In the process I have tried to journal my findings and happenings along the way. Today I went back and read my first entry.  Oh how I forgot about that day!  But after reading the entry the flood of memories came flying back.  It also makes me sad, as Ralph Love has passed on.  But what a great source of information he was to me.  It is a similar reason that brings me back to my blog today.

Sometimes when you write you wonder if anyone ever really reads it.  Maybe that is where I got with this blog.  I felt no one ever read it.  Oh how silly I am!!  I have had several contact me because of this blog.  I have written about my Moore Family mostly, but I have also written about my Schoenbohm family which is my grandmother's family.  I had one cousin email me and tell me, "I think we are related but I never knew this about my Great Grandfather!  I am going to ask my Mother!"  She was referring to the story about the "Dueling on the Stairs". Click the link for the story.

One of the posts I added two years ago was that I was looking for descendants of "Woodfren Grady Moore."  I had little hope of ever finding anyone.  Uncle Grady died very young and it seems very suddenly.  I was told he was beaten to death for not joining a union in Minnesota.  But what is on his death certificate and that does not jive.  I knew he had married an Anna Cummings and they had two children.  After Grady's death, Anna remarried, change their names to Thoele and that is where the trail went cold.

A Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I returned home and found an email with the subject "Are you still looking for descendants of Grady
Moore?"  I sat in shock for a few moments and replied as quickly as I could YES!!!  Re reading the email Paula said she had married into the Moore Family.  I instantly threw up a red flag and tried to make the connection of how she was related to Grady. In going back to re-read the email again I had another message from a Sharon Moore.  In opening it up I gasped!  I had found Grady's Granddaughter, well she found me.

It was so interesting in talking to Sherry because we had similar information and she had documents I didn't have and I have documents she didn't have.  Together I believe we can tell Grady's story.  She even has a picture!!  She said not a good one, but a picture.  I tagged in her a few photos in my Family History Album on Facebook and I knew she had not seen most of them.  She saw photos her great grandparents for the first time.  I love when I can do that for my cousins!  I have been able to do it a few times!!

I will be updating this blog more regularly because there has been much progress and much I need to tell for those who may be searching this line as well.  We have cousins gathering in Taylor, Texas next month that will all be meeting for the very first time. How wonderful is that?  I unfortunately cannot attend due to my health.  But I will be there in spirit.

So please if you are even thinking about doing a blog, DO IT!!  I have people all the time tell me I wish I could find the information you do, or find cousins like you do. You need to put your info out there and when the time is right they will find you.

Stay Calm and Keep Blogging!! 

Breaking through Brick Walls Part 2: Descendancy Research

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Yesterday I spoke of how beginning to search my grandfather’s siblings I came across a few surprises.

Surprise #1: Ellen Erving was living with her brother A L Moore in 1920 in Minnesota. My first reaction was that I had the wrong Ellen Erving but in checking the data it all matched what I had already gathered for Ellen; her birth year, place of birth and parents birthplace. What didn’t match up was her brother. Her brother A L Moore was also born in Texas, his father’s birthplace was correct but not his mother’s. Then it dawned on me. Was there another marriage?

Now to make everything a bit more confusing, I will speak of two Jack Moore's. One is my great grandfather (Sr.) and the other is Jack Sr's son and my great uncle (Jr.)I went back to the 1880 Williamson County census and sure enough, I found a Jack (Sr.) and Rebecca who had two children, Arthur and John. The birth dates matched up and I was 99.9% sure this was my great grandfather and his first wife Rebecca. In finding the first marriage, I needed to know who Rebecca was. It took some looking but I finally found their marriage record in Travis County, Texas not Williamson County where they resided. I have actually found several marriage records in Travis County rather than Williamson County. With finding the marriage record, I learned that Rebecca’s last name was Burleson and was a niece to Texas hero General Edward Burleson. All this from finding Ellen living with a brother I didn’t know existed.

Surprise #2: Jack Moore (Jr.) (Ellen’s brother) in the 1930 census stated that he had a “sister” named Georgia Martin. A sister? Had I overlooked another sibling? I felt I had found all the census records I could find on my great grandfather Jack (Sr.) and the two families. The 1880 census Jack (Sr.) was married to Rebecca, and there was not 1890 census. So my next choice was to go through court records in Williamson County, TX and see if I could find Georgia listed as a sibling. Luckily, the Williamson County land records are online Williamson County Texas land records online, so I started there.

There are hundred’s of land records for Moore’s in Williamson County because they were some of the early settlers and had around 3600 acres of land in the Taylor area. I started with Jack (Sr. and Jr.) and searched the records again but found no inkling of a Georgia Martin as a sister. I then began to search each of the children starting with Arthur Lee Moore as the oldest and figured if Georgia was a sister he would be from my great grandfather's first marriage to Rebecca Burleson. Imagine my surprise to find a record for A L Moore that stated, “Here comes Arthur Lee Moore and his wife Lizzie”. I thought Lizzie? Who is Lizze? Arthur’s wife’s name is Florence. Could it be another marriage? So you see how this kept leading to more mysteries. Now I am searching for a Georgia Martin and a Lizzie Moore.

I have contact with someone who connects into Arthur’s line and I asked her if she knew about another marriage for Arthur, she did not. At the Georgetown Public Library is an index to Marriage Records for Williamson County. I picked up the book, laid it on the table, the book plopped open to the page where I saw A. L Moore and Lizzie Westbrook. “I’ll be danged!” I murmured out loud. Another patron in the Genealogy room asked, “Find something good?” “Oh yeah”, I said. “I just found a marriage record I did not know existed.” Then I told her about the book just plopping open to the right page. She said, “Okay that just gave me goosebumps!” All I could think of was I had searched this family for over 30 years, and all of a sudden I felt Lizzie was saying, “Wait don’t forget about me!!” Okay Lizzie, I found you, now what do I do with you!!!

Interesting enough I asked my Uncle Claude if he knew about the marriage. He just grinned and said, “Yes I did, but I want to know how you know about it?” I chuckled and said, “I am a pretty good little detective aren’t I?” Uncle Claude said he had overheard his mother and Uncle Lee (Arthur went by his middle name Lee) talking one day, but when his mother realized he was listening, the conversation ended.

So in looking for Georgia Martin, I came across a marriage I did not expect, but what about Georgia? Who was she? I had traced Jack (Jr.) through the Great Falls directories listed on Ancestry.com. I had a general idea of when Georgia died as she was no longer listed in the directory after 1944 and before 1947. But in my searches I could not find a marriage record. I asked a friend if I was missing something and she found Georgia had been married to a Joe Martin but we could find no record of Georgia and Jack being married, and in the 1930 census it stated they were brother and sister. I presumed from the beginning they were not brother and sister and had never married. However when I spoke with Uncle Claude he told me they had married. So I went back to the drawing board and finally found they were married on 06 Nov 1937 Townsend, Broadwater, Montana. Notice the date of 1937, seven years after the 1930 Census where someone claimed they were brother and sister and also out of the county where they resided.

So by simply finding Ellen living with her brother, A L Moore (Lee) I found another marriage for my great grandfather. By looking at the second child Jack, I found yet a second marriage for Lee, and eventually a first marriage for Jack. This was all becoming quite confusing to me as a very mixed up family!! Also notice how two of these marriage records were found outside the counties in which the families resided. Tomorrow I will tell you how I found Uncle Claude and how he helped fill in more pieces of the puzzle as well as bring more mystery!!