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Hello again everyone! I know I said I was going to take a week off and it ended up being two weeks. I’m sorry for my lack of postings but I have had a lot going on here. That’s what I want to talk about today.

For all of you who write a genealogy blog, how often have you had to question what your goals were? When I first started this blog I had a clear course in mind – write about how my research is going and try to highlight some of the better finds. Somewhere along the way I think my focus changed. I started trying to add this and add that. I wanted to take part in the Carnivals and in Memes and other various challenges. I think I lost my focus a while back. It really hit the fan when I lost focus so much that I let my website and blog fall by the wayside because I had forgotten to pay my hosting bill!

It happens! That’s life! I just have to pick up and move on, right?

However, I have started my blog out pretty much the same way I left it! I do my memes and an occasional post about this or that but I really don’t focus on what this blog is supposed to be about. It’s supposed to be about my research! In the last two weeks I have given it a lot of thought. I even thought about just giving it all up! I mean, why pay to run a website and blog that I don’t really have the time to do right now? I have to renew my hosting again on September 5. Should I or shouldn’t I?

Along the way, in the last 2 weeks, I have read a few blogs about what folks would do if they could start all over again. Well, I’ve got that chance. I don’t want to quit doing this! It’s what I really enjoy doing, even if it does really get to you sometimes. I mean, it’s not like I am trying to ruin people’s lives here. I am just trying to chronicle my family history and leave something, not just for my children but for my nieces, nephews, cousins and all their children also! I know plenty of dirt about a lot of things but I will never publish that! Why should I? I try my best to really watch what I write, even if it is about something that happened 200 years ago! It can still impact the lives of those who are still alive.

So, rest easy if you enjoy reading my blog. I’m not going anywhere. I will try to refocus my attention in the near future. I enjoy the memes, blogging prompts, and carnivals but I want to try to focus on my research more. I want to be thorough about everything I have and share my knowledge (or lack of knowledge) about my ancestors. I will continue to post the Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday and Tell Me Thursday posts along with Monday Musings as often as I can. I will also revisit my previous posts on my Stevenson ancestors, adding more info to them to let everyone see what I have to support what I believe. Who knows what will happen if I share more info?

Once again, I apologize for my lack of posting  the last two weeks. I still have a lot going on in my life but I will try to make time to do more on my site and blog. I just realized the other day that I have had a pretty unsettling life the last year and a half. We are planning another move, just to the next town so we can be closer to our jobs. That move will put us at 6 moves in the last 15 months! Can you see why I am having problems getting settled in? :-)

Life continues to improve for me and my family. I want to share it all with my friends, relatives and faithful readers!

Have a wonderful week!

Ken

Taking a week off!

Hey everyone. I am sorry but I need to take a week away from my blog. There’s a lot going on in my life and I need to just step back from this for a moment. I don’t like writing when I’m depressed or things are going bad. It’s hard to do.

I’ll try to be back next Monday with some “Monday Musings”!

Thanks and have a great week,

Ken

Hey everyone! Just thought I would pop in and let you all know that I will be attending one of the local celebrations today. It’s the Beaufort Pirate Invasion!

Here are a couple of pictures from last year’s invasion:

Last year we stumbled upon the Pirate Invasion by accident. We were going to the beach and decided to check out the waterfront at Beaufort first. We had no idea what was going on when we started seeing all the folks who were dressed as pirates! We didn’t come prepared to stay for as long as we would have needed to so we took a few snapshots and left before the actual invasion took place.

The Pirate Invasion is a reenactment of the invasion that took place in 1747. The Spanish pirates captured the city temporarily until some of the locals gathered together and fought back and chased them away!

For more information about the Beaufort Pirate Invasion, click here.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ken

This is a picture that was given to me (to scan) by Lois Galloway, I believe. It’s hard to remember these things as I didn’t document them! :-(

The young girl on the left is my maternal grandmother, Winnie Ida Stevenson and the girl on the right is her older sister, Mollie. Isn’t this a nice picture, considering it was taken somewhere around 1910 or so? My grandmother was born in 1903 that would make her about 7 or 8 in this picture. I guess I am calculating her age right. She could be older than that but either way it was almost 100 years ago! Wow!

Sorry I was late with this post. Things have been real hectic at work and I’ve had lots of overtime. Fortunately I am off work this weekend and will be able to enjoy the pirate invasion! (I’ll post about that next!)

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ken

My Maternal Great-Grandparents – Emmit Johnson and Nettie Eudora (Freeman) Stevenson

Emmitt Johnson Stevenson

Born – February 4, 1863 in Anderson Co., South Carolina

Died – February 11, 1928 in Bartow, Polk Co., Florida

Buried in Prospect Cemetery, Jefferson, Marion Co., Texas

Nettie Eudora (Freeman) Stevenson

Born – March 4, 1866 in Anderson Co., South Carolina

Died – July 14, 1946 in Douglasville, Cass Co., Texas

Buried in Prospect Cemetery, Jefferson, Marion Co., Texas

Today, I continue my posts featuring my Stevenson ancestors by sharing with you my knowledge of my maternal great-grandfather, Emmit Johnson Stevenson.

As usual, I have based the birth date upon the records I have been able to find, namely the death certificate and such. Sometimes you have to go with what you have! :-)

BIRTH

I am not totally share about the middle name. I know this is what is in my old database but I have no source for it. I know, I should have been sourcing as I go and that is what I am doing now!

Emmit was born on February 4, 1863 in Anderson Co., South Carolina. This is according to the dates on his tombstone and according to the death record I found while searching the Family Search Labs site. Looking at the Census records I have this would match up pretty good. According to the death record I found, Emmit’s parents were Elbert Johnson Stevenson and Elmira Brown. According to my research, his mother’s name was actually Elmina Catherine Brown.

MARRIAGE

According to a letter that my Aunt Juanita shared with me, Emmit Stevenson and Nettie Freeman were married on July 20, 1881. This letter was written by Gladys, the wife of Ben Stevenson, one of Emmit and Nettie’s children. I’ve not found the actual marriage license for this but I hope to make a trip to South Carolina and look for this soon!

CHILDREN

  • Elbert Jackson Stevenson
  • Foster Lee Stevenson
  • Charles Stevenson
  • Raymond Stevenson
  • Mollie Louise Stevenson
  • Jeff Oliver Stevenson
  • Hubbard Barnes Stevenson
  • Winnie Ida Stevenson
  • Willard Leslie Stevenson
  • Ben Tillman Stevenson

DEATH

Emmit Stevenson died on February 11, 1928 in Bartow, Polk Co., Florida. This is according to the death record I found while searching the Family Search Labs site. I still have to try to find a copy of the death certificate, if possible, so that I can verify everything. I did do a search through the census and found that two of his children were living in Bartow in 1930 so it is very possible he was just visiting family when he died in 1928. Of course, he could have also been scouting out a place to move his family there also.

SUMMARY

As you can tell, I don’t have a ton of information on Emmit Stevenson. I do have the letter my Aunt Juanita shared with me and I will try to post that later. It will give you a lot of information about Emmit and Nettie Stevenson. It seems he was a very decent man and was very involved in his community. He was also a hard worker and, according to the letter I read, was one who ruled his household. When he set rules, they were followed!

I hope you have enjoyed this little post. If you have anything you would like to add, please feel free to contact me or just leave it in a reply!

Thanks,

Ken

Hello again everyone! It’s time for “Monday Musings”!

First off, I don’t think I really explained what my “Monday Musings” posts are all about. Well, quite simply, they are about just about everything. Whatever is on my mind will be what I talk about. I’ll try to keep it related to genealogy but sometimes I will just have to wander off topic!

Today, I’d like to talk to you about what is happening in my life that will have a great impact upon my posts in the near future. I think it would be good to let you all know that there are some things that actually take a precedent over my genealogy research! That’s not always a good thing.

In the last 10 months or so, I have been burdened by a strange little game on Facebook called FarmVille! Yep, that’s right. I’m not quite ready to call myself an addict but I did let it get the best of me for a good while. Heck, at one point I had almost 22 accounts just so I could be sure to get the gifts I wanted and such! However, I had scaled it back to two accounts in the last few months and in the last week I have finally made the move to get rid of that last account! It’s not completely over yet though. That account has over 200 really good friends I made and I am in the process of moving a lot of those friends to my permanent account on Facebook.

What does this mean for my genealogy research and why am I sharing this with you all? Simple, I feel that by doing the things I have done in the last week, I will be able to save myself a ton of time. That will give me time to do my genealogy research again and in turn will allow me time to post more on my blog and on my web site.

Will this mean that you will be bombarded with Farmville posts on my Facebook feed? No, this will actually make it easier for me to manage my feeds. I had come to a point where I didn’t know which account I was on and just got in the habit of posting everything I came across on FarmVille. Now, I have a setup on my Facebook profile that allows me to filter out those requests as I post them. I’m sure I will occasionally post something I shouldn’t but I believe that the number of FarmVille posts you will see on my account will go down dramatically. Now, if you are a FarmVille friend you will see just as much as always, if not more.

How will I accomplish this? I’ve set up a number of “Friends Lists” on my account. I’ve added all those who play FarmVille on one list, all my genealogy contacts on another, and even divided my family into surname lists. This will allow me to target messages at specific groups of friends. Of course, there are certain messages that will be sent to “Everyone” just by clicking on who I want to send it to before sending it!

So, I’m back to having just one Facebook account and I have just about got that account under control once again! I ask for your patience while I do what I have to do to bring it ALL under control.

On another front, I have started to write some posts concerning my Stevenson relatives. If you’ve kept up with my posts in the last week then you will know that I made several discoveries on my Stevenson line and that helped to guide me to start with my Stevensons when it came to entering information into my new genealogy database. The first post was to feature my maternal grandmother, Winnie Ida Stevenson, and I have another post ready that will feature my maternal great-grandfather, Emmit Johnson Stevenson. I will try to stay focused on the Stevenson aspect so the spouses will be addressed later. For now, I will just mention the marriage details and will list children but the main focus will be on the one in the Stevenson bloodline!

So, things are starting to look up! I should be having more time in the near future and I plan on using that time to do a little more research and writing!

Stay tuned for more!

Ken

Today I’m happy to start what I hope will be a long string of messages to showcase my research on my Stevenson side. In the process of sharing it here I will also be able to enter everything into my database and source it. It’s something I’ve been needing to do for a long time and now I have no excuse not to as I have to re-enter everything into my database anyway!

So, I will naturally start with my maternal grandmother, Winnie Ida Stevenson. I featured a picture of her on my Wordless Wednesday and Tell Me Thursday posts this week. Unfortunately, I really don’t have a lot of information on Grandma Winnie. I will try to give you what I do know.

BIRTH

I don’t have a birth certificate for Winnie so I have to take the information found in her death certificate to give her birth date. According to the death certificate I was able to obtain from the Harrison County Courthouse in Texas, her birth date is April 15, 1903 and she was born in Marion Co., Texas. This is the same date given on her tombstone. Her parents were Emmit Johnson Stevenson and Nettie (may be Gennet) Eudora Freeman.

MARRIAGE

For many years I had no idea of when my grandmother and grandfather were married. No one knew! None of my aunts and uncles, my mother, no one! I searched the courthouses around where they lived at the time they were probably married, including Harrison, Marion, Cass, and Gregg County in Texas. I could not find anything. I finally took a leap of faith one day and posted a request on RAOGK to see if someone would look for the record in Shreveport, Louisiana. Voila! I was rewarded with a scan of the marriage license. According to that license, George Charles Forbes and Winnie Ida Stevenson were united in marriage on January 31, 1922! Isn’t it wonderful when you are able to find something that you thought you would never find and all it took was to ASK? :-)

CHILDREN

  • Juanita Eudora Delcinia Forbes
  • Adelaide Raymond Forbes
  • Van Ellen Wayne Forbes
  • George Charles Forbes, Jr.
  • Calvin James Forbes
  • Patricia Ann Forbes
  • Jerry Don Forbes
  • Winnie Ruth Forbes

DEATH

Winnie Ida (Stevenson) Forbes died on February 2, 1940. According to the death certificate the cause of death was Labor Pneumonia and Asthenia. She was laid to rest at Pope City Cemetery on February 3, 1940. At the time of her death, my mother had just turned 6 years old!

SUMMARY

I’m not really sure what happened after my grandmother’s death. All I know for sure is that my grandfather was left with 8 children ranging in age from 17 years to 4 months! My Aunt Juanita took on most of the responsibilities for raising the younger children. At the same time, most of the Stevenson family relocated to several different places. A few stuck around Northeast Texas but most of them moved to Florida and one moved to Idaho. With all the relocations, most of the family lost touch with the Stevenson relatives.

Fortunately, my Aunt Juanita was able to stay in touch with quite a few of them. She introduced me to a couple of them and I was able to gather some information from them. Unfortunately, my Aunt Juanita passed away on July 1, 2008. I really miss her and all the knowledge she was able to share with me!

It’s no surprise that I don’t have a lot of information on my grandmother. She died at a young age, a lot of her children, including my mother, don’t even remember her and she left little behind to reveal anything about her! I look forward to learning more about her as time goes on.

Thanks for stopping by to read my post.

Ken

Wow! It seems like I chose the right path to take when I chose to go with my Stevenson side first. I was playing around again last night and came upon a great discovery!

I was on the Family Search Labs site and was just typing names in again. I do that sometimes when I am bored! I typed in my great-grandmother’s name, Eudora Stevenson, and was going through the results when I came upon a death record for my great-grandfather, Emmit Stevenson. I knew his death date and I have a picture of his tombstone but I have never found his death record.

Surprisingly, his death record is not in Texas!

I figured that is where it would be as he had been living in Texas for at least 20 years or more before he died. I went to all the surrounding counties by where he lived and searched through the court houses looking for his death certificate and never found it! So, I gave up hope on finding it!

So, where did the record I found last night say he died? In Florida! That’s right, in Florida! I knew he had died on February 11, 1928 because that is what was on his tombstone. The record I found last night has that same date and has his birth date, which is right also! It also lists his parents names and they are correct. It’s just a transcript of the death certificate so I will have to see about how I can go about getting a copy of it.

Isn’t it interesting how we are able to find things sometimes. I had no idea what I was looking for. I was just bored and was typing in stuff and made a great discovery!

Now to try to figure out what he was doing in Florida! :-)

Until next time,

Ken

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