Friday, March 21, 2014

Searching for Ancestors


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!
 

No comments:

Post a Comment