Searching
for Ancestors
During his spring break, grandson Luke and I spent St.
Patrick’s Day delivering a “Family
Genealogy Book” to a friend in Mars Hill, NC. Luke and I had “built” the book with web
software, then had it printed and bound as a gift for our good family friend. Luke and I spent hundreds of hours on-line
and a few more hours on road trips “chasing the ghost” of our friend’s
ancestors. All our efforts culminated
in an 90+ page book detailing her mother’s and father’s families for five generations. We had actually traced some others back to
the 1600’s, so we included them as well.
The book contains old photos of some family members, copies of census
pages, marriage bonds, death certificates and personal stories of many
ancestors. For a preview go to http://ancestry.mycanvas.com/Flash/Viewer.aspx?fp=15638795&partnerId=1&preview=1 This was rambling at its
best.
The fun of genealogy is in the adventure of the hunt for
information, the folklore and actual stories of individuals from the past; how
folks persevered in the face of hardship or how they triumphed and some few
even prospered. What’s more amazing is that
we are actually connected to them through a blood-genetic link, “flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone” as
Adam said in Genesis 2:23.
The day after the Mars Hill trip, Luke and I made our second
trip back west to Roane County, TN to try and find my Grandfather and Grandmother
Kindred’s grave markers. We’d looked for
them before and came up empty. But this
time, through the help of a 2nd cousin we were able to locate and
photograph the grave markers, thus filling in the gaps of family history that
had been missing my entire lifetime.
Strange as it sounds, the only link I had with the Kindred’s
was through one uncle who was living when I was born. My dad and all the other Kindred ancestors were
deceased before I was born. That didn’t
leave me much to “hang my cap on” from a genealogy perspective. This past year, “chasing ghosts” has helped
me begin to see many of those missing elements from my past.
We also visited an old cemetery and church in the Wheat Community. Wheat was one of several small communities
that were literally “wiped from the face of the earth” with the government’s
acquisition of some 60,000 acres near the Clinch River for the development of the “Atomic
City,” Oak Ridge, TN. The old George
Jones Baptist Church, circa 1901, is one of the few remaining buildings from
the Wheat Community. As a child and teen
I remember attending many “Wheat Reunions” at this site. Each fall we passed through the security
gates of the Oak Ridge Reservation and reentered the Wheat Community to enjoy “Dinner on the Grounds.” It was a family
tradition the first Sunday of October.
The reunion is still held, but most residents have passed and the
gathering is small.
 |
Phil @ George Jones Memorial Baptist Church
Wheat Community in Oak Ridge |
My family’s connection to Wheat is through aunts and uncles
who lived there and had to move out with the advent of Oak Ridge. In addition, my grandmother, Zena Johnson,
served for a number of years as the “dorm mother” for the dormitory that the
Roane County Board of Education provided for Wheat High School. Back in that day of poor roads and limited
public transportation, kids from many areas simply “lived at the school” and
only went home on holidays. An
interesting side note is that my grandmother had only completed 8th
grade, but had already taught school in Tennessee and Georgia on an 8th
grade teaching certificate. My
grandmother not only performed her dorm mother duties, but she also attended
classes and completed her high school diploma with the Wheat Class of 1929 seen
below. She then attended Hiwassee
College to complete her college work and get her “Permanent Tennessee Teaching
Certificate.”
Wheat Graduation Class of 1929
My grandmother, Zena Johnson, is on far
left. at age 35, other
graduates were ages 18 & 19.
To round out our day, we rambled
off paved roads to find the old McKinney Cemetery. It is on a peninsula surrounded by the Clinch
River and was the homestead of the McKinney family for several
generations. This farm was also acquired
by the government when Oak Ridge was build, but in recent years has been sold
off to private interest since the demise of K-25. There is a dirt road to the grave site, but it
is overgrown and rough. As we walked back
into the property we saw clumps of yellow daffodils scattered here and there in
the woods and Spanish Bayonet, both are sure signs that some one once lived in
the area. The grave yard is still fenced
and bears the small numerical designation of 13a that was assigned by the DOE
many years ago. The cemetery contains some
25 burial sites, but most stones were not legible. However, Luke's 5th great
grandparent’s stones were still legible and thus helped fill another gap in our
family history.
 |
Luke's 5th Great Grandfather
Ananias McKinney
1805 - 1882 |
 |
Luke & Phil in old McKinney Cemetery
|
I don’t know if any of you
readers have “chased ancestor ghost” or not, but for me it has been an
interesting way of rambling this past year.
Some of the rambling has been literal as we’ve walked through graveyards
and county archives, some of it virtual via on-line access, and some purely intuitive
speculation. But all of it has given me
a deeper sense of who I am, where I came from, and the debt I owe to those who
preceded me on this good earth.
As I’ve rambled through my
genealogical web these past months, I’ve glean insights from documents, wills,
death certificates, personal letters and personal logs of the lifestyle our
ancestors and I must admit; today I’ve
got it so easy! Even those ancestors who
were financially “well off” had a lifestyle that most of us would find hard to
abide with today. Most of our ancestors
truly lived by the Apostle Paul’s philosophy found in Philippians 4:11 “…….for
I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content...”
While
doing my friend’s family genealogy I ran across a poem by an unknown author
that summarizes what I’m learning about ancestry.
Ancestry
When speaking of our ancestry, my mother's eyes would shine
And proudly she would tell us all, "You're of the Tudor line."
But father with a smile would say, "while bearing that in mind
You keep your eyes on goals ahead, not those that lie behind."
You have a noble ancestry, but all are dead and gone.
Tis you who have to prove your worth, not those who've journeyed on.
And back along that Tudor line, 'tis sorry truth I state
There may be some you can't approve, and even some you'd hate.
The way to prove your ancestry is what you are yourself
Not by the charted family tree in a book upon the shelf.
So try to be an ancestor within the time allowed,
Of whom your children's children in the future can be proud.
Thank
you Lord for the time in which I live!
Now,
let’s ramble!
