Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge - Three Degrees of Separation - Part II

I decided I wanted to do a Part II of last night's post.  Yesterday I did my main paternal line.  Today I would like to share my main maternal line.

To refresh everyone's memory the challenge was:

Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with three degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that third ancestor born?

And the link to find the original challenge post and the links to the other entries can be found HERE.  



My mother's maiden name was Rairigh.  Her father I knew well but his father died before I was born. My grandfather's name was Loyd Hazen Rairigh (1911-1984)

This is a photo of my grandfather Loyd Rairigh with his first three children.  My mother is in the middle.  

Loyd Rairigh was the son of William Harve Rairigh and Georgia Shepler Rairigh.  Harve was born in 1884 and died in 1956.  A year before I was born.  I remember Grandma Georgie.  

This is a photo of Georgie and Harve Rairigh.

William Harve was the son of James Quinter Rairigh (1850-1911) and Louisa Dickey Rairigh.  

I don't have a picture of James Q Rairigh or his wife but here is their gravestone.   They are buried in the Metzger Cemetery in Miami County Indiana. 

James Quinter Rairigh was the son of Reverend Samuel Rairigh (1816-1899) and Barbara Berkey.   But since Samuel's father George Rairigh (1793-1856) didn't die till 1856 James Q  might have met him since he was born in 1850.  But I am not sure because I think James Q Rairigh was likely born in Darke County Ohio because that is where he married Lydia,  and Samuel died in Pennsylvania.  

Rev. Samuel Rairigh went to Kansas in 1880 and died there.  This is his gravestone.

Rev. George Rairigh's gravestone.  He died in Pennsylvania.

The images that follow are a biography of Rev. George Rairigh. 

The Gate To Women's Country by Sheri S Tepper

The Gate To Women's Country

by

Sheri S Tepper

Wow.  That was my reaction as I read and as I finished reading Sheri S. Tepper's novel, The Gate To Women's Country.  The story setting is 300 years past a nuclear disaster and is about a society that has developed where women have taken control of the decision making,  relegating men to positions where they will not have at their disposal the knowledge to once again develop advanced weaponry.  The women also are controlling conception in order to try and eradicate violence and aggression by selective breeding.   Besides being a enjoyable futuristic, science fiction book to read,  the novel is a great choice for reading with a discussion group because of all the underlying questions and issues it raises.  For the sake of brevity, in this blog I will touch on only three of the many topics that could be expostulated or applauded, or at any rate explored,  in response to this book. 

One area that could be discussed is the question of whether or not we need opposing factors in life.  Do we need aggression to have passivity?  Do we need hate to have love?  Do we need war to have peace?  Do we need passion to desire?  Is evil needed in order to have good?  Of course this would require defining all those qualifiers before proceeding.  

Another direction that one could go with discussing this book is nature verses nurture.  I tend to be one who has come to the conclusion that we are more nurture than nature.  Certainly our potential is determined by nature.  But I believe what we do with that potential is determined by nurture.  Our value system and our belief system if a product of our environment.  So is aggression a genetic trait or a trait that is a product of our environment?  

The last area of discussion that could spring from this book that I will touch on is that of eugenics.  Before WWII eugenics was on the table as a discussion of a viable way to proceed to solve some of our social problems.  But because Hitler took this idea of selective breeding to the extreme and the horror that resulted with the gas chambers,  as a society we have recoiled at the word eugenics ever since.  But don't we make choices that could be considered eugenics in our every day lives?  What about the couple that chooses to remain childless or chooses to adopt due to a genetic disease in their family?   What about the parents that encourage their children to marry someone who shares their religion or culture?   With the major advances that are being made in genetics in this century it is imperative that we re-open the eugenics discussion and decide as a society what we are okay with and what we deem as not okay.  We have seen the slippery slope that eugenics can lead to and we are wise to want to avoid that.  We do not have the right to eradicate a race or a culture.  But do we want to prevent the eradication of genetic diseases?  And what about positive traits and negative traits?  Which are genetic and which are nurtured and do we want to guide our society  away from certain innate behaviors?  If so who decides which traits are to be eliminated?  Determining  where the limits should be is a good topic to form an educated and well thought out opinion about.  

I highly recommend this book.  Not only as an enjoyable read but as a spring board for discussion.  Please click on the authors name and book title above to learn more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge - Three Degrees Of Separation

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge:

1)  Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with three degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that third ancestor born?

To see the original challenge post and the links to the various blogs that took up the challenge click HERE.  

My maiden name is Rohrer.  I knew my grandfather Fred Edwin Rohrer.  He was the son of Oscar Rohrer and Mahala Stair.  He was born in 1903 and died in 1985.  

This is a picture of my grandfather Fred Rohrer with his step mother Alice Wilson Rohrer and his father Oscar Rohrer.   It is one of my favorite family photos.  

Five of Frederick and Mahala Rohrer's children

Clarence, Ed, Elmer, Oscar, Ada

(not sure who is who except Ada is obviously in the center and Oscar is on the right end)

I have them as having ten children but several died when young.  

Fred Rohrer's grandfather was Frederick Rohrer.  Frederick didn't die till 1931 and since Fred was born in 1903 and they lived nearby Fred would have known his grandfather Frederick.  

This is a picture of Frederick Rohrer and his second wife Pauline Stair who was his first wife's Mahala Stair's sister.  Mae Rohrer died and Frederick married her sister Pauline. 

Frederick Rohrer was born in 1843 and died in 1931.   He was the son of David Rohrer and Sarah Wible.   Since David's father didn't die until 1850 and Frederick was born in the area that David's father lived it is likely that Frederick knew David's father - Jacob Isaac Rohrer.  David Rohrer did not move his father from Ohio to Indiana till after his father died.   

I don't have a picture of David but here is his wife Sarah and six of ten his children.   Some of his children died young also.  

Jacob Isaac Rohrer was born in 1780 and died in 1850.  I do not have a picture of him.  He was buried in Holmes County Ohio.  Here is a picture of his gravestone.  

Jacob Isaac Rohrer is as far back as we have confirmed this line.  

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

The Life We Bury

by

Allen Eskens

Last summer TIME Magazine did a review of The Life We Bury and I placed the title on my Wish List at Amazon.  So when it turned up on my library reading group's list for February I was excited to finally take time to read it.  I decided to listen to it on audio and it was a real treat.  The story line is a college student gets a writing assignment to interview a person and write a biography on them.  The student ends up interviewing a Viet Nam veteran who is dying of cancer.  This man was incarcerated thirty years ago for raping and murdering a high school cheer leader.  The college student,  along with his apartment house neighbor,  decides to re-investigate the case to find out if he thinks the dying man is guilty or not.  The book gets very exciting as the students zero in on re-creating the truth.   There is also a lot of depth to the book as far as the experiences of both the student and the dying man and how they come to know one another through the interviews.  It is a sit on the edge of your chair type book and I highly recommend it.  

Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge - Best Find - New Challenge

This weeks Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge involved sharing our best find of 2016 and what we hope to find in 2017.  The original challenge post with the people who participated in the comment section can be found HERE.  We are to share our best find of 2016 and the research problem we want to work on in 2017.  I found a lot of neat stuff in 2016 because I broke my leg.  Three months in a recliner with my lap top lent itself to research.  One ancestor I found out some cool information about was my great, great, great, great grandfather's brother, Samuel Southard Patton, who is not to be confused with my great, great, great grandfather of the same name.   Uncle Sam's photo and obituary are pictured above and I believe if you click on them they should enlarge enough to be readable.   The reason I chose this bit of information to share is that it is connected with one of the research goals I have for the year.  In the obituary it mentions that during the Civil War Samuel served in the Kansas Home Guards and that his principles were what brought him to Anderson County Kansas as a Free Soiler.  I know that abolitionists moved to Kansas during the pre-civil war days of Bloody Kansas in order to make sure there was enough votes to determine Kansas to be a free state and not a slave state when it was voted into statehood because of the passing of the Kansas Nebraska Act.   I would like to not only find a military record for Samuel but I would like to find out more about his role as an abolitionist.  His father in law was a man named Samuel Tipton and he also was involved in the fight to prevent Kansas from becoming  a slave state.  I would like to find more out about both these men and the roles they played prior to and during the Civil War.  I have checked NARA and not found military files for these two men.  I am hoping since they were in the militia that the state of Kansas has information on their service.  I would like to take a trip to Anderson County Kansas and see the area where they lived and visit The Patton Cemetery.  Samuel Tipton's homes are still standing and are in the National Register of Historic Homes and can be seen HERE.  I would like to visit those two homes.  It is my understanding from talking to people who live in that area of Kansas that Samuel Patton and his wife's home was on the land of Samuel Tipton's Mineral Point property.  I am very interested in this part of the family history and would like to learn more.  

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The Lost Symbol

by

Dan Brown

One of my go to author's is Dan Brown.  I have read and watched the movies of both The DeVinci Code and Angels and Demons.  And Friday night I finished reading The Lost Symbol.  I enjoy the symbols and puzzles in his books and I enjoy the pace of his stories.  I also enjoy the questions his novels raise about the mores and belief systems that are commonly held by people.  The Lost Symbol takes place in Washington DC and explains how the symbolism in the architechure and art of our capital contain Masonic icons that were designed to keep our nation headed in the direction our forefathers intended.  The book raises the question as to whether or not the founding fathers as Masons built into the actual physical structure of our capital a protective aura.   And the book seems to say that the Masons may have a lot of influence in our governmental decisions  because of men in high levels of office that are Masons.   I have a photograph that was taken after the civil war of my great great grandfather wearing what I believe to be a Masonic uniform and I know of several members of my family through out the last 150 years that were Masons.  My great grandmother was in Eastern Star and there is at least one person in my generation related to me that is a member.  When I was in high school I was invited to attend the Rainbow Girls which is the first level for the female arm of the organization.   My great grandmother was very disappointed in me when I chose not to be involved.  But my decision was due to the practice of black balling.  A closed organization votes on who can be a part of it.  I had a problem with this practice because in the area I went to high school in the time period that I went to high school that meant the group was white only.  I can remember arguing with my great grandmother that was not okay to exclude certain groups and her explaining that there were separate groups for different races and that the organization at large did not exclude any one race or group.  But I was not a proponent of "separate but equal" so I did not chose to attend the group meetings.  As a result, in spite of the number of family members involved,  I did not know much about the Masons before reading The Lost Symbol.  It was very informative.   I intend to watch the movie soon.  Click on the the author's name and book title at the beginning of this post to follow links to more information.  And enjoy the videos that follow of an interview of the author.  I highly recommend this book.  It is a very enjoyable book and left me with a  badly needed sense of hope in this very turbulent time  for our nation polictically.  

Euphoria by Lily King

Euphoria

by

Lily King

     This month's selection for my local library reading group is Euphoria by Lily King.   It is a fictional novel that grew out of the love story of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.   The ending of the fictional novel is much different than the real life story but it was this romance that inspired Lily King as she wrote this book.  I listened to the book on audio and it held my interest.  I did not find myself sympathetic to any of the three main characters in the book but I did admire the descriptions the author used in her writing.  I especially liked how she frequently brought the sense of smell to life in the story.  I don't think this book will make my top ten list for 2017 but I did enjoy it and would like to read more about Margaret Mead as a result of this novel.  Please follow the links above and enjoy the video that follows.  

My Top Ten Reads For 2016

My Top Ten Reads For 2016

I read some excellent books this year.  I was very difficult to pick my ten favorites.  I combined series and it was still hard.  And once I had settled on ten,  leaving out more than a couple that should have been included,  I almost changed the title of this post to my top twelve.  In the end I stayed with ten.  But then the task of ordering those ten titles to any kind of order was indeed a challenge.  So any of these ten might switch places on a different day for me.  I enjoyed them all very much.   If you click on each title you will follow a link to my blog on that book.  

10.  Life From Scratch by Sasha Martin

9.  The Kindness Of Strangers by Katrina Kittle

8.  The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Poetzsch

7.  Mud Bound by Hillary Jordan

6.  River Of Doubt by Candice Millard

5.  The Wicked Years Series by Gregory Maguire

         Wicked (read a previous year)

          Son Of  Witch

           A Lion Among Men

             Out Of Oz

4.  The Last Hundred Years Trilogy:  A Family Saga by Jane Smiley

           Some Luck

             Early Warning

               The Golden Age

3.  The Wild Girl by Jim Fergus

2.  The Mists Of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

1. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah