My maternal grandmother, Dorothy Jean Hendry Smith, passed away this morning at her home on Smith Hill in Liddieville, Louisiana. Her obituary follows:
Dorothy J. Smith 1935 – 2019
Funeral services for Dorothy J. Smith, 84, of Liddieville, will be held 2 pm Thursday, May 23, 2019, in Boeuf River Baptist Church, with Rev. Bruce Cardin and Rev. Kevin Goodman officiating. Interment will follow in Ogden Cemetery under the direction of Gill First National Funeral Home. Visitation will be 1pm until time of service at the church.
I love maps. On a genealogy Facebook group I follow, a researcher shared a map of his ancestors’ counties of residence by U.S. census year — and I immediately knew I wanted to make a map of my own.
Check mine out — I definitely have deep Southern roots with a few “strays” in the northeast:
County boundaries change over time, so using this modern map to chart historical counties is not completely accurate. But it’s a cool picture of the mostly westward migration of my family.
It also closely aligns with my AncestryDNA ethnicity estimates and migration communities:
Have you considered eBay as a genealogical resource? Even though I’d read articles and listened to podcast episodes about others’ successes, I never imagined I’d find anything about my tiny hometown, much less my own family, on eBay.
I attended my first Texas State Genealogical Society conference this past weekend in San Antonio. Going to conferences was on my “to-do list” for honing skills and connecting with others on this professional journey. I’m so glad I did! For too many years, I thought joining Texas and Houston-area societies would offer little value for my research in other states. However, these organizations focus on methodology and standards — and that’s exactly the information I need as I turn toward professional genealogy.
If asked which sessions were my favorite, I wouldn’t be able to single out just a few — the presentations were that high-quality! I went to 17 lectures on a variety of topics, including DNA, methodology, and specific record sets. Most sessions included interesting, and often complex, case studies that applied the topic to real-world research. Genealogy is about problem solving, and seeing how others bust their brick walls is leading me to find new approaches to mine.
Another benefit of attending TxSGS was meeting others who are serious about genealogy. I met many interesting people and had great conversations between sessions, in the vendor hall, and over meals. I went alone, knowing no one, but felt right at home around others passionate about family history.
If you’re on the fence about getting involved in the larger genealogy community, I urge you to jump. I made a leap in August and have already had rewarding, enriching experiences that have improved my research skills and knowledge. And now I can’t wait until the next conference!
I recently completed a free trial of Newspapers.com. I wasn’t sure what I’d find, if anything, because the limitations of optical character recognition (OCR) technology make searching for my Horn/Horne family challenging. So often OCR sees “Horne” as “Home.” And searching for “Horn” brings up thousands of mentions of brass instruments.
I saw the best results when forming very specific queries. Their collection included The News-Star (Monroe, Louisiana) for the range in which my own engagement and marriage announcements were published. Searching for “Jessica Horne” in the correct date range did not locate the articles — but as soon as I included “Collins” I was staring at my bridal portrait from 2006!
To be fair to Newspapers.com, this OCR frustration isn’t unique to their service. I have the same problem with NewspaperArchive, Adobe PDF Reader, and Google books. If OCR technology improved — or the printed source materials had just a tad more space between the R and N — how many more articles would I find for my Horn/Horne family?
I was excited to find a mention of my elusive great-grandfather John Thomas Horne in the November 12, 1898, edition of The Weekly Democrat-Times (Greenville, Mississippi). It’s a printed petition for a liquor license. (Because it appeared in a long, skinny column, I’ve only clipped to the portion where John Thomas’s name appears. Send me a message if you’d like the whole piece.) I’ve transcribed the upper portion below:
Petition for Liquor License – signed by John Thomas Horn (The Weekly Democrat-Times, Greenville, Mississippi – 12 Nov 1898
Petition for Liquor License.
To the Honorable Board of Supervisors of Washington county:
We, the undersigned, qualified electors of District No. 5 in said county and State, hereby petition your honorable body to grant unt
WILLIAM RICHARD EVERETT
a resident of said district, a license to sell vinous, spiritous, alcoholic, malt and intoxicating liquors in less quantities than one gallon, in a house to be erected on J. B. Sparks’ place on Jackson’s Bayou, in said District, County, and State, and we hereby recommend William Richard Everett to be of good reputation and sober and suitable person to receive such license and hereby certify him to be a resident of said District No. 5, and of good reputation; and your petitioners will ever pray.¹
I attended my first Texas State Genealogical Society conference this past weekend in San Antonio. Going to conferences was on my “to-do list” for honing skills and connecting with others on this professional journey. I’m so glad I did! For too many years, I thought joining Texas and Houston-area societies would offer little value for my research in other states. However, these organizations focus on methodology and standards — and that’s exactly the information I need as I turn toward professional genealogy.