Genealogical Gems

I found a wife! Not for me (my husband is work enough!) but for my Uncle Jim! Years ago, my great Aunt Helen (Still) Webster told me a story about my Uncle Jim (James Franklin Still) having a son. By the time we all came along, Uncle Jim was back East living with his brother/my grandfather (Lloyd Pierson Still). He spoke of working on ranches but never mentioned a wife or a child.  Searching on Ancestry.com today, I found a marriage record for James Still born 1910 to a Julie Riddle on 14 April 1931 in  Deep Creek, Routt, Colorado The 1930 US Census shows Uncle Jim, obviously single, still living in East Marlboro, Chester County, PA. The 1940 Census shows him living in Clark Township, Routt County, Colorado. The 1940 Census also reveals he lived there in 1935 as well but now his father, Pierson George Still, has moved out with him and Uncle Jim is single. In fact, it shows that the two of them are living by themselves on a farm.  I found land records for U...

I came across the obituary for a Colonel Van Horn last week while researching my uncle Benjamin Van Horn. On 3 January 1916, the Oakland Trubune printed his obituary in form of an article on page nine. I skimmed over it, not really expecting a connection until I read one line. One little line that said, “Colonel Van Horn was the son of a Pennsylvania farmer of Dutch and Scotch-Irish ancestry.” Who was his father? His obituary reads: Kansas City , Mo. , Jan. 3. – Colonel Robert Thompson Van Horn, founder of the Kansas City Journal and pioneer journalist and statesman of the Middle west , died at his home here today. He was ninety-one years old. Death was due to the infirmities of age. Colonel Van Horn founded the Journal and was for forty-one years editor of that paper, becoming a widely known figure in American Journalism. Kansas City was a village whose inhabitants numbered only 478 when the young Van Horn wnt there and bought the Weekly Enterprise for $500, in 1855, a...

It was On This Day in 1811 that an 8.6 earthquake rattled the earth near New Madrid, Missouri. The quake was so strong that the valley rose and fell and the river – the great Mississippi River – actually changed the direction. Imagine being woken up from a sound sleep at 2 a.m. to sounds of your house crackling. Your chimney crashes to the floor and the roof collapses in. You run outside and are literally thrown to the ground as the earth shook violently. The trees in the nearby forest fall to the earth and the Earth opens wide in many places. Gases – horribly smelling sulphurous gases – escape from the depths of the Earth. The River – that is the great Mississippi River – rises and falls repeatedly. Amateur scientist Jared Brooks estimated that between this day in 188 and 15 March 1812, there had been 1874 shocks. Eight of those were considered violent with another ten being considered very severe. The quake, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), was 10...