Category Archives: Family history
Wouldn’t it be cool to find your g-g-grandfather was a musician in a GAR post?
In case you haven’t caught my blog posts these past couple days I’m transcribing a local GAR Roster from 1908. Today’s page is a list of Standing Committees. Let’s see what kind of committees there are in this organization in 1908.
Standing Committees 1908 GAR Roster Mart Armstrong Post No. 202
Transportation
Baxter Trevor John W. Crum
Frank Light
Uniform
Reuben White W. H. Marshall
John Klatte
Pensions
R. White Fred Louthan
Finance
James Sullivan J. S. Sparling
Joseph Marshall
Join me in the Honor Roll Project!
1908 GAR Roster Mart Armstrong Post No. 202
“Please join me in the Honor Roll Project. Volunteers are taking photos of war memorials and honor rolls, posting them on their blogs and websites, and transcribing the names of all the people listed. These transcriptions make the names available for search engines, and the names will be available for people searching for family, ancestors and friends.“
That is so neat on so many levels! Remembering veterans, preserving genealogical info so it’s not lost forever, adding it to the web so that it might help another researcher. Cool!
Unfortunately I can’t think of one monument in my area that fits Heather’s description but don’t count me out just yet!
It Was Right Under My Nose!!
Gladys Marshall Lowery’s Autograph Book
Recently I’ve seen a couple posts about autograph books. Very cool books indeed and I remembered have my maternal grandmother’s autograph book. My mom gave it to me years and years ago. It’s been safely put away for sometime now. My recent blog readings made me hunt it up.
It took only a few moments to pull out my grandmother’s autograph book. I knew exactly where it was. The cover and pages are in really nice shape, it’s just that the binding is broken. So gently and ever so carefully I turn every page.
My grandmother, Gladys B. Marshall Lowery was born in 1892 in Allen County, Ohio. The earliest message in her book is January 5, 1903. Maybe this album was a Christmas gift. She’d have been 10 years old then and I imagine this was a prized possession.
As I look through the pages some notes are signed “your cousin” with vaguely familiar names.
Nov 29. 1909.
Cousin Gladys,
Love your playmates
Love your toys;
But never never love
the boys.
Your cousin,
Ida Kidd
Later my grandmother wrote Battles after Ida’s last name. Thanks grandma for her married name!!
So I need to check these collateral family members out.
Have you seen my Great Grandfather’s cane?
George S Marshall
George was born in 1868 in Allen County, Ohio. He married my great-grandmother Mary Ellen Williams in 1891. They had three children, my grandmother Gladys was the oldest and they lived on a farm that’s only about 20 minutes from me today.
By all accounts life seemed good for the family. They had three children, were farmers and prospered. I have a couple of pictures of George and Mary Ellen in front of their house and on the farm. It was a happy life until 1908 when my great-grandmother died. Consumption was the cause listed on Mary Ellen’s death certificate. It may as well read “Tragic Ending” because George suddenly became a single father of two teenage girls and a small son.
We’re going to use some of our previous Civil War research and do something different. We’re going on a road trip!
Photo Credit: Cindy Freed
Let’s take for example the 81st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Which also happens to be the regiment my ancestor fought with. Now I know my ancestor joined 19 July 1864 and joined the 81st in November of 1864 after two months training. He mustered out of the infantry on 25 June 1865. So let’s take a look at movements of the 81st Pennsylvania during those eleven months.
My ancestor, George W. Lowery would have joined up with his regiment, the 81st at Petersburg, VA. In November 1864 Petersburg was under siege. The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were entrenched around the city. Months of fighting had resulted in a multitude of deaths and eventually Grant’s army successfully cut off the Confederate’s supply lines resulting in the fall of Richmond. Without the very basics like food, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia moved west across the state in early April 1865, pursued by Grant and Union forces, which included my g-g-grandfather.
Following this trail, outlined in the regimental history, I can now “march” along with my Civil War ancestor. I’ve made this trek twice. Once with my husband and another time with my genealogy-minded sister.
Photo Credit: Cindy Freed
I picked up the trail traveling west out of Petersburg to the little known Battle of White Oak Road. I’ve walked the paths there through trees and underbrush imagining troops bursting through the foliage. Making my way back to the small graveled parking lot I slipped a pine cone in my pocket. It was a physical connection for me. I was standing where my Civil War ancestor had been.
