The How Long Do The Women In My Ancestry Live Challenge

Death record of Elizabeth Ellen Garber Jacobs 

1848 - 1914

I am a day late with this challenge because we were out of town all day yesterday and did not get home till almost three am.   But the Saturday Night Challenge can be found HERE and involves listing the women in your tree back five generations and determining how old they were when they passed away.

My mother:
Charlotte Ann Rairigh  - 14 January 1930 - 9 November 1990 - 60 years

My grandmothers:
Thelma Funk - 27 December 1911 - 12 November 1993 - 81 years
Doris Ellen Shively - 6 December 1908 - 16 December 1994 - 86 years

My great grandmothers:
Mary Etta Hildebrand - 11 December 1875 - 8 August 1959 - 83 years
Georgia Ethel Shepler - 14 November 1886 - 17 September 1967 - 80 years
Carrie Bell Jacobs - 31 May 1872 - 12 April 1922 - 49 years
Leona Elberta Sullivan - 6 March 1881 - 13 September 1903 - 22 years

My 2nd great grandmothers:
Louisa Raymer - 10 May 1848 - 28 March 1906 - 57 years
Sara Amanda Zellner - about 1852 - 8 July 1879 - 27 years
Louisa Dickey - 8 June 1854 - 2 January 1887 - 32 years
Clara Barton Patton - 7 June 1866 - 29 March 1945 - 79 years
Elizabeth Ellen Garber - 5 October 1848 - 4 October 1914 - 65 years
Harriet Little - 14 May 1847 - 10 January 1923 - 75 years
Aimee Francis Sullivan - 20 September 1856 - 30 January 1935 - 78 years
Mahala Stair - 9 April 1845 - 26 February 1907 - 62 years

Third great grandmothers:
Anna Schwalm - 7 March 1810 - 1863 - 52 years
Anna maiden name unknown  married name Hildebrand - 28 December 1816 - 18 March 1886 - 69 years
Amelia Moyer - 1830 - 22 October 1908 - 78 years
Mary Martin - 23 January 1827 - 10 May 1876 - 49 years
Barbara Berkey - 9 February 1820 - 12 April 1901 - 81 years
Amelia Jane Sullivan - 1 June 1845 - 7 May 1900 - 54 years
Sarah Wissenger - 10 June 1823 - 10 June 1870 - 47 years
Susanna Beeghley - 28 July 1825 - 8 September 1880 - 55 years
Jane Rebecca McKinstry - 26 September 1817 - 2 March 1900 - 82 years
Emeline Reed  - 8 April 1822 - 22 May 1895 - 73 years
Catherine Bowman - 1 January 1801 - 16 October 1885 - 84 years
Martha Jane Morris - 19 March 1830 - 22 July 1895 - 65 years
Sara Beck - 30 April 1825 - between 1845 and 1850 - about 19 years
Sarah Jane Wibel - 16 September 1816 - 17 April 1913 - 96 years

What amazes me most about these challenges is how much I learn doing them.  For example,  I was half way through this when I realized my Reunion software has a field where the age was already figured out for me so I could put down my calculator and the listing got easier.   And as I calculated the averages, since I am bad with numbers,  I totally struggled with the math.  So I hope I keyed in things to the calculator correctly.  My figures now follow:

The woman that lived the longest was Sarah Jane Wibel ,wife of David Rohrer, as she  lived to be 96.   The woman that died the youngest was probably Sara Beck, wife of William Stair,  as she lived to be about 19 but a close second would be Leona Alberta Sullivan, wife of Oscar Rohrer, who I have a definite death date on.  She lived to be 22 at which point she died following the birth of my grandfather.  The average age of death for the 29 women is 63.

When divided into generations the average age at death and the  age ranges are:

Generation one - (mother) - 60 years
Generation two -(grandmothers) - 83 years - range 81 and 86
Generation three - (great grandmothers) - 58  years - range 22 - 83
Generation four - (great great grandmothers) - 59  years - range 27 - 79
Generation five - (great great great grandmothers) - 64 years - range 19 - 96

Out Of Oz by Gregory Maguire

Out Of Oz

by

Gregory Maguire

The final volume of Gregory Maguire's Wicked series is entitled Out Of Oz and I finished reading it on my kindle last night.  It is the longest of the four novels and spends most of the book following the grand daughter of who is popularly known to people as the wicked witch of the west.  In the Wicked books she is called Elphaba and in Out Of Oz her grand daughter's name  is  Rain.  In this fourth and final book,  Dorothy makes a re-appearance and the subject of home is re-addressed.  As we all remember in the original Wizard Of Oz that we all watched on television as children the story ends with Dorothy clicking her heels together in her red slippers and saying "there is no place like home".   In contrast to the simple moral of that childhood tale,  Gregory Maguire has taken these four books and addressed many of life's great questions.  He deals with good and evil,  race,  animal cruelty, war and peace, and many other issues that I am sure went over my head.  One really needs to take a college course for each of the four novels to completely get all there is to get out of them.  Never the less,  one of the topics he tackles is the popular literary theme of home.   On page 502 Dorothy says:

"Maybe that's what growing up means, in the end - you go out far enough in the direction of - somewhere - and you realize that you've neutered the capacity of the term home to mean anything. . . We don't get an endless number of orbits away from the place where meaning first arises,  that treasure-house of first experiences.  What we learn, instead, is that our adventures secure us in our isolation.  Experience revokes our license to return to simpler times.  Sooner or later, there

no place remotely like home."

So Maguire takes Dorothy's historical "there's no place like home" which meant she need not leave  home to find what she needs and transforms it to "there is no place remotely like home" which means we reach a point where we can't return to what no longer exists for us.   Certainly,  is a hard thing to accept when we crest the horizon where  homesickness can not be resolved and it is clearly a step in maturing to wrestle with this concept.   More over it is always a little sad when it is once again pointed out to us in a novel.  

The series Wicked has many levels of meaning and is a very deep work.  It is not an easy read.  Gregory Maguire uses a large and varied vocabulary and I would not have been able to get through it if I didn't read it on my kindle.  Many times I touched the word so the dictionary meaning would pop up.  This series is adult in many ways.  It is a fantasy book and I am not a big science fiction and fantasy genre fan.   Never the less,  I got a lot out of the experience of reading this series and seeing the live production of the musical.  In my opinion,  those that have not read the series are missing out on a meaningful experience.   To review my posts on the other novels in this series click on the following links:   Wicked,  the play,  Son Of A Witch,   and A Lion Among Men. 

Please click on the author's name and book title at the beginning of this post to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  It was made in 2011 shortly after the release of this final volume in the series.  

Place Names In My Family Tree Challenge

This week's challenge involves how many locations are in our tree.   To read the assignment go HERE and read the directions and find links to others that accepted the challenge. 

The family tree software that I use is called "Reunion".  I changed from FTM to Reunion last fall and I like it very much.  Using the side bar I selected "place"  and found I had in excess of 2600 places in the place fields of my data base.  But in scrolling down the list I found what I really have is a mess.  For example,  I may have Peru, IN listed.  Then I may have Peru, Miami, IN listed.  And then Peru, Miami county, Indiana, USA.  The possibilities are multiple for each location.  Therefore I do not have over 2600 places.  Instead I have a lot of work to do to go through and combine within the list of 2600+ locations.  Luckily I only have to drag one location to overlay another and then agree to combine the two to by changing the one dragged to the one it was dragged to.  It will still take  a long time and will be one of those things to do on a cold winter day when I snowed in.  

I was not able to sort locations by events.  Nor was I able to list the top five or top ten locations.  But I was able to go into the help area of my software and learn to do something kind of cool.  First I combined all my Miami County Indiana entries that did not have a specific township or city.  Then I clicked on the geo coordinates and "get".  

After that I copied the coordinates and pasted them into my browser search area and clicked "maps".  I looked at it in regular maps and in google earth.  I also clicked "explore" in google earth.  

So,  while I feel like I did not pass the assignment (or challenge) this week. I feel like it was a worth while exercise.  I  not only identified a problem and identified a stratigy to improve my data base, but I learned a way to utilize google maps to learn more about the areas my family lines lived in.  

The Ancestors I Have Met Challenge

Here is a photo of my maternal great grandmother Mary Etta Hildebrand Funk with my older siblings.  My sister was three when I was born and my brother two so I am assuming I met this great grandmother also.  

You can participate in the challenge HERE.  The ancestors I have met are:


Charlotte Ann Rairigh Rohrer - (1930 - 1990) My mother.  She was born in Miami County Indiana.  She lived in several towns and cities in the midwest United States.  She died in Whitley County Indiana.

Thelma Funk - (1911-1993) My maternal grandmother.  She lived in Cass and Miami County Indiana.

Loyd Rairigh - (1911 - 1984) My maternal grandfather.  He lived in Miami County Indiana.

Georgia Ethel Shepler Rairigh  - (1886 - 1967) My maternal great grandmother and my mother's paternal grandmother. She lived in Miami County Indiana.

Fred Edwin Rohrer - (1903 -1985) My paternal grandfather. He was born in Miami County Indiana.  Lived in Downers Grove Indiana.  Died in Starke County Indiana.

Doris Ellen Shively - (1908 -1994) My paternal grandmother. She was born in Miami County Indiana and died in Allen County Indiana.  I was named my middle given name after her middle given name.

Alice Wilson - (1886 - 1978) My paternal step great grandmother.  She lived in Miami County Indiana.

There are two more that I have no recollection of but I would have been born while they were still alive so I may have met them.

Harry Albert Funk - (1875 -1957) My maternal great grandfather and my mother's maternal grandfather. He lived in Cass County Indiana.

Mary Etta Hildebrand - (1875 - 1959) My maternal great grandmother and my mother's maternal grandfather. She lived in Cass County Indiana.  I was named after her for my first given name.

So I claim to have met nine ancestors.

The Clasp by Sloane Crosley

The Clasp

by

Sloane Crosley

It took me a long time to listen to this book on audio and it is not that long of a book.  I had a little trouble getting into it.  In fact for the first half of the book I was thinking I did not like it.  The author spent a long time developing the characters which were not likable people at first.  Everyone in the novel seemed to be failing and unhappy.  But I had chosen the book because of it's unique concept of a book that revolved around a short story and I am so glad that I stuck with it.  The second half of the book made wading through the first half completely worth it.   And by the end I appreciated and liked all the characters.   The book is about a group of friends who went to college together and kept in touch and are now thirty years old.  They each are floundering in their specific situations.   While attending a wedding of one of the old college friends,  one of the guests,  who is very depressed, is given the gift of a story by the mother of the groom who then dies shortly after the wedding.  What follows is a trip to Normandy by the three main characters to find the truth of the story the women told  along with the blending in of a famous short story called "The Necklace".  Not only does literature play a part in the plot of the book but so does jewelry.   The entire point of the book is summed up in a quote that is used toward the end of the novel:  

"One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death." 

~ Guy De Maupassant

The book is very much about coming to grips with the dissolving of one's illusions and expectations of life and embracing the reality of how life really is.   It is a story about finally growing up.   While it is not a novel that I would suggest to every one I know to read,  it is a novel that I would recommend to reading groups due to the discussion that would springboard from the book.   I would also recommend it to the more serious readers in my circle of friends.  I would not recommend it to my friends who prefer fluff books.  

Please click on the title and author's name above to follow the links to more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

A Visit To President Garfield's Home 7/3/16

Me outside the visitor's center at President Garfield's Home in Mentor Ohio yesterday.

A few years ago as a selection for my reading group when I lived in Indiana,  I read a book called Destiny Of The Republic by Candace Miller.   The book made enough of an impression on me that not only did I blog about it twice, once HERE and once HERE,  but I have had aspirations ever since to visit Garfield's home in Ohio.  Yesterday I realized that goal when my husband Bruce and I visited the National Historic Site in Mentor Ohio that was President Garfield's home.  We spent about an hour and a half there and took the tour of the inside of the home.  If one visits on the first Saturday of the month there is a much longer tour that can be taken, but it is best taken after one goes on the shorter tour that we did yesterday because the same areas are not repeated in the longer tour.   There is also a museum display at the visitor's center along with a nice gift shop.  The grounds are beautiful and we took a nice walk around the house.  Learn more about visiting there HERE and enjoy the video that follows. 

A Visit To The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame 7/2/16

Pete Seeger's Banjo 

On Saturday late afternoon and evening we spent 4.5 hours at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland.  We could have easily spent at least another hour and only left fifteen minutes prior to them closing the doors because our parking garage was closing at the same time and was a bit of a walk.   Bruce had been there twice before but not for about 16 years so there were changes since he was there.  The building has seven levels and it is suggested you begin with the exhibits on the lower level.  The exhibits down there are more permanent.   It took a long time to see all there was to see.  Bruce was mesmerized and I enjoyed strolling through the exhibits.  I was especially impressed with one that was all about the various Beatle Albums and the stories behind the scenes on them.   Level One is where you pay to get in and where the gift shop it.  The gift shop is large and has a lot of neat stuff in it.  Level Two has a lot of history about things like radio and batteries and the evolution of the various devices we listen to music on.  Level Three has the cafe and also the beginnings of the hall of fame inductee exhibit.  It includes a very loud and very long video and as you walk through that exhibit you end up coming out on Level Four.   There is a 13 minute video on Level Four that can be  watched which was excellent.  It was called Artists Unite and is about the various rock concerts for charity  that have taken place since the 1970s.   Levels five and lix are the temporary exhibit area and the exhibit there now is called "Louder Than Words".  It is about the power that music has to influence current events.  This display was the best part of the exhibits to me.  The exhibits were divided by presidents beginning with Eisenhower and depicted the events going on in the country during each president's time in office paired with the music of that same time frame that addressed the issues of that era.   Read more about the exhibit HERE.   I would highly recommend to anyone that is visiting the Cleveland Ohio area to include the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in their agenda.  There was a lot of walking and the escalators are out in the open so I had to always find an elevator and occasionally find a place to sit and rest my ankle.  The visual and auditory stimulation was over powering at times.  It was something that my husband wanted to share with me and I am glad I went to see it.  It was very much worth the admission cost and when visiting allow most of a day for this one site.  

Visit To Kent State Memorial July 2, 2016

May 4, 1970

 As our lives unfold there are current events that imprint  in our memory.  For example,  I clearly remember the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  I can remember when we landed on the moon and when Patty Hurst was on trial.  I also remember being horrified after the students were shot at Kent State University and for several years now I have had aspirations to visit the memorial site for that tragedy.   This weekend I was able to achieve that goal.   Saturday July 2 was a beautiful day weather wise as my husband and I walked the May 4 walking tour at Kent State.   Although the Visitors Center was closed for the holiday weekend,  we were able to call our on our cell phones and listen to the audio tour as we walked.  That number is available for anyone to call at 330-672-6294.  To see the location where this historical event took place was very moving.  Looking at the pictures of the young people involved and realizing that they were the age of my oldest step grand daughter and my youngest step son made me catch my breath.   To know that in the United States we have the right to peaceful assembly and to realize how very senseless was the loss of life and the injuries of these young people brought a lump to my throat.  The Kent State University Library has digital archives that are online and contain both written and audio footage donated by people who were in some way close to the event and can be found online HERE.  I would encourage everyone to visit this memorial and to bring their children and other family members when they do so in order to open dialog about issues related to teaching peace and the subject of peaceful protests. 

Observing July 4, 2016

The celebration of July 4th in the United States is the celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  This was the announcement of our breaking away from England and resulted in our Revolutionary War.  This year I decided I would observe my nation's birthday by reviewing three of my ancestors that fought in our revolution. 

Cornelius Sullivan 

1749 -1816

My ancestor,  Major Cornelius Sullivan,  lived in Maryland.   I have not been able to locate his parents although there are arguments that his family is connected to Sir Phillip O'Sullivan of  County Cork Ireland.  I can find no evidence yet of his being any type of direct descendant or any connection at all yet to the people who lived at Ardea Castle in Ireland.  But often these family history stories have some basis.  Perhaps there is an illegitimate or distant connection.  Sullivan is a very common name though so there may be no basis for such stories.  I do know that he is connected to my nuclear family in several different directions.  The two most direct are through his son Jacob whose son Francis H Sullivan descends to my father's family and Jacob's son Cornelius descends to my mother's family.   Francis H Sullivan was the father of Aimee Francis Sullivan who was the mother of Leona Sullivan who was the mother of Fred Rohrer who was the father of my father.   Jacob's son Cornelius Sullivan was the father of Amelia Jane Sullivan who was the mother of Clara Barton Patton who was the mother of Georgia Ethel Shepler who was the mother of Loyd Rairigh who was my mother's father.  Amelia Jane's sister Hannah had a daughter named Alice Keller who married a man named Bert Shepler.  Bert's father was not only a Shepler which is my mother's grandmother Georgia Ethel's maiden name but Bert's mother was a Shively which was my father's mother's maiden name. So there is some type of double cousin relationship there.  Jacob Sullivan's son Samuel had a daughter named Martha Alice who married a Lewis Little.  Lewis's sister Harriet married Daniel P Shively and was my father's mother's grandmother.  These types of close family intertwining is typical of those that have my type of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. 

1st Sergeant David Hamilton Morris Sr

1769 - 1843

David Hamilton Morris served in the Indian Wars and the War of 1812 besides serving in the Revolution.  He started serving in the revolution young in the capacity of a drummer boy and was wounded.  He went back to serve more after recovering and was then old enough to be a private.  David Hamilton Morris's father was also a soldier in the revolution and as a result died on a British Prison Ship.  David Hamilton Morris's daughter Martha Jane married Francis H Sullivan who I explained above how that line goes into my father's family and his niece Maria Morris married Cornelius Sullivan who was pointed out above as the grandson of Major Cornelius Sullivan and whose line descends into my mother's family.  Maria's father was David Hamilton Morris's brother Charles.  

Peter Sheafor 

1754 - 1826

Peter Sheafor served in the New Jersey Militia during our Revolution.   He returned home after he served and married his wife Catherine.  They moved to Mercer County Kentucky for five years and then on to Butler County Ohio where he died in 1826.  I have not been able to determine who his parents were or who his wife's parents were although it is believed that Catherine's maiden name was Coolbaugh.   Peter and Catherine had a daughter Elizabeth who married Isaac Southard Patton.  They had a son Vincent who had a son that Vincent and his wife named after their brother Samuel Southard Patton.  The younger Samuel married Amelia Jane Sullivan and it is explained in a prior paragraph of this post how this couple's family is connected to mine.  

I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July!