Porch Swings, Fireflies, and Jelly Jars: Welcome, 2023!

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Welcome, 2023!

I don't know where the time goes! It's time to greet yet another new year and pause for a moment to take stock of the old year.

This has been one of my least productive years in terms of blogging about my research even though a lot of research happened. Only fifteen new posts made it to the blog. That was partly because I researched and blogged on my hobby blog. Wait! What? There are other hobbies besides genealogy?! Apparently. I spent a large block of time researching antique dolls. I find that researching people or subjects not found in my personal genealogy expands and strengthens my research muscles. Most importantly, because I am not emotionally attached to those things, I can be much more ruthlessly objective in my research. That objectivity is something that I always need to bring back with me to my own genealogy research.

Okay, time for the stats. 2022 ended with 151,868 page views, an increase of 15,171 page views.

The most popular of the 2022 posts was Opal Miller and Henry Mayhew Elope, 1907. Who does not love a romance story?

The second most popular post was Old House Location, Fred and Myrtle (Dendy) Duncan. This surprised me. This was the location of a farmhouse that my grandparents rented when they first married in the early 1930s. The house no longer stands and has not during my lifetime. Since my father was an only child, there are not many of us who would care about it.

The third most popular post was Opal (Miller) Mayhew's Illegal Operation. The post about her elopement was a follow-up to this post about her death following an abortion that her husband and a doctor "friend" performed on her. This particular post was a follow-up to John Deloss Brown's Letter, 1913 that was written in 2021.

As usual, my favorite posts are not the most popular posts. My favorites always involve some sort of breakthrough. This year's breakthrough posts involved uncovering the identity of women, and those are always at the top of my list of favorite breakthroughs.

This year I finally found out what became of John D. Lewis's youngest daughter Emily. I am hoping that the post, Emily (Lewis) Hanks, Daughter of John Lewis, will eventually find its way to her descendants who are interested in sharing information. After researching Emily Lewis, I returned to the problem of identifying her mother, which has been an issue since I discovered her existence several years ago. This time, however, she also fell into place. I was able to post her identity in Jane Dameron, Wife of John D. Lewis.

Currently, I have several posts about John D. Lewis and his family in the works. Maybe this will be the year that documentation about his wife or parents is found. Well, one can dream.

I see that last year, I wanted to make progress on my Cawthon line. I did spend time working on it, but nothing new was found, so I still need to push on that. And I absolutely need to dig back into the Dabb/Harding Collection.

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About Me:

My favorite memories from childhood include visits to my grandparents in East Texas. At dusk we'd run around my grandparent's yard, catching fireflies and putting them in jelly jars. When darkness descended, we'd return to the porch. It was a special treat to sit in the porch swing. Inevitably, the adults would launch into family stories of Pink Kelley's brush with Sherman's troops, of Great Uncle Hood Brown's tragic death, and of the Kelley family's wagon trip to Texas, among many others. The stars on those nights were magical.

I began my genealogy research in the summer of 1975, less than a month after my high school graduation. When I married in 1983, I started researching my husband's family as well. I was fortunate to start this hobby as a youngster because it gave me an opportunity to correspond with researchers who are long gone; to ask questions of family members -although not enough, never enough; and travel a bit. The result is a lot of information. I've come to the realization that I will probably never be able to afford to publish, so this is my publication.

This blog contains a mixture of information on my husband's family and mine. I've expanded into a second blog called Flimsies and Frippery with the intention of focusing on quilts and dolls, but I have several historical research entries there with more planned, which is why I don't get more quilting done.

Ultimately, genealogy is my passion. This is where I plan to record family stories, research adventures and misadventures, and those serendipitous moments that happen out of the blue. You should be warned that I have a bad habit of going back and adding information and links to individual entries, so it is beneficial to check back often if there is a family of particular interest to you. If you wander in and discover that you are a cousin, please contact me.

Since many younger family members who are new to genealogy are starting to contact me about their ancestors, I've started adding family trees to help them see how everyone is connected. The trees are divided between my family and my husband's. You will find them below under the label's Family Trees - My Husband's Side and Family Trees - My Family's Side.

For better or worse, this blog reflects the research, thinking, and writing of a human.