Getting Ready for Trip to Myakka River State Park

We leave tomorrow to go to Myakka River State Park, so we've been busy since the first of this month getting ready for the trip. Last week Mike ordered some oil from Amsoil for the Honda Pilot and we drove over to their distribution center in Orlando to pick up last Tuesday. Afterwards, we stopped at Burger Fi in Kissimmee for lunch. This was our second time eating at a Burger Fi (Fletcher took us to one in January) and it was just as good as the first time.

We ate breakfast with our friends at IHOP in Vero the last 2 Mondays. I took Tinker to the groomer last Saturday for the "works" - bath and haircut in preparation for our trip. 

Yesterday I went to the IRGS General Meeting. Our speaker was Sandra McKenny and she spoke on "Transcriptions, Abstracts and Extracts". She talked about how important it was to transcribe handwritten documents and how to do it correctly - misspellings and all. She explained the differences between abstracts and extracts of documents for genealogy.

I also stopped our newspaper delivery and had our mail held while we are on our trip. It's really handy that that can be done online, so I don't have to remember to call during office hours or fill out a form.

The IRGS in conjunction with the Family History Center in Vero is sponsoring a free genealogy conference

Dining Out and Meetings in March

Mike had bought Gutter Guards to install on our rain gutters a while back from Lowe's. Earlier this month Mike put them on the gutters around our garage - which fills up with oak leaves from tree by the garage.

Every Monday of this month Mike and I went down to IHOP in Vero and joined our friends Chris & Matt, Nancy & Bill, and Steven for breakfast. 

Our guest speaker for the March IRGS's monthly meeting was Diahan Southard and she spoke on "Five Tips to Make Sense of Your DNA Testing." We had a huge attendance that day and we always do when Diahan speaks. Even if you've heard her speak on DNA, you always pick up on something you missed before - at least I do, and several of my friends say the same thing. Since I am now Treasure for the society, I attend the monthly Board meetings which are usually the following week of our General Meetings. Besides keeping the financial records for the society, I prepare a monthly financial report which I give at the General Member Meeting and I email a copy to each of the Board Members.

We also went to the MOAA (Military Officers of America Assn.) luncheon at the Vero Beach Yacht Club on

Valentine Seminar and Visit with Cousins

Mike and I went to the Gardenfest at Riverside Park in Vero Beach. It's an annual event hosted by the Garden Club of Indian River County and there are vendors there from plant nurseries from all over Florida. This year we bought a beautiful red Hibiscus plant for $20. Then we went to Mulligan's Beach House on the ocean for lunch.

The Indian River Genealogical Society in association with 3 other societies had their annual Valentine Seminar on Saturday the 17th at the First Presbyterian Church in Vero. This was their 35th Valentine Seminar. The guest speakers were Pam & Richard Sayre, both well-know National speakers. We had a 2-hour presentation on Google Earth for Genealogists by Rick and Pam, Rick spoke on Land Office Records and Pam finished out the day with a fun presentation on Rogues & Rascals. Our lunch was catered by Toojay's and I had ordered the Turkey Wrap. The seminar started at 9:00 and we finished about 3:45.

Then I rushed home from the Seminar because my cousin Frances and her husband Jack were driving in to spend the night with us before they went on down to their timeshare. I had bought a London Broil and Mike put it in the Crockpot with the Knorr Sauerbraten mix and then added carrots and potatoes later for our dinner that night. So when I got home, I just had to fix a salad and heat the Hawaiian Rolls.

Then Sunday we took Frances and Jack down to Mulligan's Beach House in Vero for a late breakfast. We all ordered the Country Connection - scrambled eggs, biscuit & gravy, sausage and homefries - not very original on anyone's part, but we agreed that we all made a good choice.

We went down to visit with Frances and Jack at their timeshare in Pompano on the 25th. Since pets aren't

Mother's Day at Fletcher's

It felt so good to sleep in this morning!  If you can call getting up at 7:00 this morning sleeping in! As much as I enjoyed attending the National Genealogical Society Conference that last 4 days, I'm not sure I could have done a 5th full day of seminars. In those 4 days I attended 19 one hour seminars and 3 thirty minute seminars. 

Tinker has really "mellowed out" around cats now. I got a picture of Tinker and Josie taking their after breakfast naps on the sofa this morning.

Josie is 14 years old (as best we can figure) and used to be our cat until we sold our home and moved into the motorhome. Then she went to live with Fletcher along with our other two cats Bailey and Joey (who are now deceased).

Mike and I just spent today relaxing and watching movies with Fletcher. Then Fletcher took us out for dinner to Miller's Ale House in Ft. Lauderdale. We each ordered steaks and salads and Mike and I had the Apple Crisp for dessert.

A final note on the genealogy conference, I didn't get to attend some seminars that I would

Last Day of 2016 NGS Conference

My first seminar this morning was "Identifying Women: The Ultimate Brick Wall" by Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FVGS. She talked about the early laws governing women and what their legal rights were or weren't and how that affected the types of records they would leave behind and how to find those records.

My 9:30 seminar was "West Florida Pre-1830: the History, the People, and the Records" by Sharon D. Monson. This was a class on the early history of West Florida under different countries and how that affected the types of records that were created. She provided a list of websites that had some of the early West Florida records. I'm especially interested in this because Mike's Fletcher and Manning ancestors lived in West Florida before 1845.

The 11:00 seminar was "The Hidden Gender - Finding Women in Courthouse Records" by Janice Lovelace, Ph.D. As in my seminar at 8:00 this morning, Janice covered the types of legal documents and records that women could be found in. She spoke about what legal rights women had and didn't have. I know it sounds like I basically repeated my first seminar, but each speaker sometimes will cover one type of record in more detail than another speaker will or will have a different way of researching to find records.

I took a break from attending any of the lunch break seminars today. I decided to get some Chicken Fingers with coleslaw and a soda for lunch ($14). After eating I stopped by some of the vendors' booths in the Exhibit Hall to see if I found anything interesting that I might have missed before. Then I realized that I REALLY missed

Third day of the 2016 NGS Conference

Mike and I stopped at a Burger King for breakfast this morning before taking me to the conference center for today's seminars.

My 8:00 seminar was "Reasonably Exhaustive Research, The First Criteria for Genealogical Proof" given my Elizabeth Shown Mills, CGL, FASG, FNGS, FUGA. She explained the difference between "search" and "research" and that the Genealogical Proof Standard had been changed in 2014 to "reasonably exhaustive research" instead of search. She covered the processes that we need to go through in our research. The second part of the seminar was a research project and the steps taken to prove and disprove some of the information from past researchers.

The next seminar was "Focus on Place: Building Locality Profiles for Your Research" by Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS. I have heard Josh talk on this subject before at one of our Valentine Seminars for the Indian River Genealogical Society. He is a lively and entertaining speaker and none of the other seminars in the 9:30 time slot really struck an interest in me. After my last seminar which was really an in depth and complicated subject, this one was a welcome change. I still learned some new pointers from Josh today. Basically his concept of a locality profile is the same as creating a timeline for location - county, state, country. We learned how and where to search and locate information on the locales that we were searching in.

The 11:00 seminar was given by Richard Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA "Territorial Papers of the Southeast". This was really informative and Rick gave us some terrific printed sources for locating territorial papers and told us which ones were online and where to find them. This was really helpful since a lot of our ancestors' lived in areas that were still territories before they became states.

I've eaten a turkey wrap and a hamburger for lunch this week and really wanted something

My second day at the 2016 NGS Conference

We're up again early this morning and left Fletcher's house about 7:15 to go to the conference center. Mike dropped me off at the front entrance and I had plenty of time to locate the room for my first seminar this morning at 8:00.

The seminar is "Mapping Apps for Genealogists" given by Richard Sayer, CG, CGL, FUGA. He discussed standalone apps for smartphones and web-based apps for computers. A lot of the mapping apps or websites he discussed, I was familiar with but he did have some that I didn't know about and want to explore. He covered platting programs (which I really need to take a look at) and cemetery apps (which I knew about) and some genealogy related mapping websites that look interesting.

My 9:30 seminar was on "Private Land Claims" by Pamela Boyer Sayer, CG, CGL, FUGA. This covered land claims in the public domain which were in the early territories before they were states. She discussed researching in the Bureau of Land Management's website, the National Archives and where to find local records. I've researched the BLM GLO site and have found ancestors' records there and this was a good refresher course for me.

My next seminar was at 11:00 "Justices of the Peace: Miscellany, Mischief, Marriages, and More!" by Diane Florence Gravel, CG. I took this course because a few of our ancestors were Justices of the Peace and I wanted to learn more about their function. Diane covered their responsibilities and the types of records the justices would have produced and where to find those records - I got a LOT of information in this class.

During the lunch break (12:00 to 2:30), I walked around the Exhibit Hall and decided to attend Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems 30 minute seminar "3 Cool Tools for Newspapers" from 12:45 to 1:15. The first "Tool" is

My first day at NGS 2016 Conference

I got up at 6:00 this morning to shower and get ready to attend the National Genealogical Society's conference here in Ft. Lauderdale. Mike and I left Fletcher's house about 7:00 and drove down to the Conference Center. Mike dropped me off at the front entrance and he will pick me up there this afternoon.

Our morning started off at 8:00 with everyone attending the opening session titled "Ordinary" People, Extraordinary Lives given by Connie Lester, Ph.D. She talked about the men and women who first settled in Florida and what hardships they endured as pioneers. This ended at 10:30 and then we were all off to locate the room where our next seminar was to be held.

I picked "Bounty Land: State and Federal" as my 11:00 seminar. Debra Mieszala, CG was the speaker and she talked about how to find Federal and state bounty land records. She explained why and when the bounty lands were awarded and which states had state bounty land records. I have done some research on bounty land records and have found some

Landscaping & Sue called for jury duty

May has continued to be a busy month for us.

I've made quite a bit of progress in putting together my documents for the Florida State Pioneer Descendants Certificate for Mike, Fletcher and Chris. I'm submitting documents to prove that Mike's 3rd great-grandparents Silas and Avis Franklin Phelps Fletcher and 2nd great-grandfather William Howe Fletcher, Sr. were Florida Pioneers before it became a state in 1845. I've already put in a lot of hours and still have more to go. I've been researching our families for over 30 years and I find that working on this project has helped to

We bought 2 dozen red Penta plants when Home Depot had them on sale this month and we planted them along the back wall of the Florida room. When Fletcher was here for Mother's Day, he suggested Pentas because they do well in sun and that area gets a LOT of sun since it faces west. We put down landscape edging and mulch where we planted the
Pentas. Hopefully the sun won't be too much for them.

Mike got a call from the VA to go to Orlando to have a hearing test done for hearing aids at Hearing Associates. So we drove over there on May 20 for his appointment. Of course, we don't yet know what they recommended. On our way home we stopped at the Olive Garden in West Melbourne to have dinner. Mike and I both had the endless Soup and Salad.

On May 26 I drove down to the Indian River County courthouse in Vero Beach to report for

Mother's Day & Sue's 51st High School Reunion

We've been busier the first half of this month than we have in the last couple of months.

On the 8th I took Tinker in to the vet for his annual checkup and shots. He weighed 22 lbs., so the weight management dog food he's eating is helping him hold his weight.

Fletcher drove up for a visit for Mother's Day and he took us out for dinner. We went to Woody's Bar-B-Q and Fletcher had their Bacon Cheddar Burger and Fried Okra and Mike and I ordered the smoked turkey bar-b-q sandwich. Fletcher really likes their fried okra which he has learned to eat since he's been on his own.

I attended the May IRGS (genealogical society) meeting on the 12th where two of the members presented talks - one on Discoveries in the Cemetery and one on using Evernote - both very interesting and informative. That was our last meeting until this September.

I'm still working on putting together my packet of documents for Mike, Fletcher and Chris to receive their Florida State Pioneer Descendants Certificate from the Florida State Genealogical Society. I'm spending every free moment working on this.

My high school class reunion was held on the 15th & 16th in Lake Worth. It was our 51st reunion since no reunion was planned for last year which would have been our 50th year.
We had asked our next door neighbors who they had for a dog sitter and Lilly said instead of

April 2015 Update

Since I haven't posted anything since last month, I guess this month wasn't too news worthy!

On Apr. 14 I attended the monthly genealogical society meeting in Vero. Our speaker was Debra Fleming (The Ancestry Detective, genealogical research firm) and she spoke on the role of religion in genealogy. She discussed the different religions and how their beliefs could affect genealogical research in respect to the kinds of records about life events that might be or not be recorded.

I've started gathering my documentation to submit an application for Mike to the Florida State Pioneer Certificate program. I'm also going to submit Fletcher and Mike's brother Chris for certificates. I have a lot of the required documents already, but everything has to

March Genealogy Meeting & FL Pioneeer Descendants Program

I attended the March meeting of the IRGS (Indian River Genealogical Society) in Vero Beach today. Part of our meeting is called "Member Share" and I spoke about how I found on the internet 3 college papers that contained information on Mike's 3rd great-grandfather Silas Fletcher. I had learned how to specify what I wanted to find on Google search at our Valentine Seminar last month when our speaker was Lisa Louise Cooke. Several years ago Mike, Fletcher & I had visited Indian Key where Silas and his family had lived and the young lady who took us by boat to Indian Key had written a college paper on Silas! But I didn't think to get her name or any info about her paper. So what I learned at the Seminar not only helped me locate her college paper but 2 others that written about Indian Key and Silas and his family!

Our speaker at the meeting was Clyde Stickney and he gave a talk on researching at the county courthouse. Clyde spoke with me after our meeting and wanted to know if I had

Visit to the Wilson County Archives in Lebanon

Thursday morning I gathered up our laundry and drove 8 miles south to the laundromat in Hermitage. It's a large laundromat and there were only a few people there when I got there.
The regular washers cost $2.25 a load and the dryers cost 50¢ for 8 minutes. It cost $16 to wash and dry the 4 loads of laundry I had.

There was a Kroger grocery store in the same shopping plaza as the laundromat and I stopped in there to get a few groceries before driving back to the campground.

I spent the rest of Thursday going through the genealogical notes I made Wednesday at the library and I made a list of documents and records I needed to search for today when I went to Lebanon.

We had a good hard rain last night and it woke both of us up a couple of times last night. I set the alarm for 7:00 last night because I wanted to get an early start this morning. It was 57° and just lightly raining when I got up this morning.

I left the campground this morning at 8:15 and drove 18 miles to visit the Wilson County Archives in Lebanon and arrived there a little after 9:00.

From Lebanon, TN

I met Thomas E. Partlow when I entered the Archives and told him the families and the time frame I was researching. Thomas is a co-director

Lunch & Genealogy Research in Mt Juliet

It was 57° this morning when we got up. We took Tinker for a walk around the campground this morning

From Cedar Creek Campground

and saw this Great Blue Heron standing on the lake shore.

From Cedar Creek Campground

There is a young family in the campsite across from us and we stopped to ask them about their travel trailer - a 1963 Shasta - really neat looking.

From Cedar Creek Campground

We left the campground at 11:30 and drove 9 miles south to Mount Juliet

Genealogy Research & More Campground Photos

I drove to the library in North Wilkesboro this morning to do some research on Mike's Phillips and Woodruff ancestors. I found some more information on them and even found out that Mike's 3rd great-grandfather Gideon Woodruff is buried in Yadkin County and found a photo of Gideon's gravestone in book on the Woodruff family

I spent about 3 hours at the library doing research and left about 12:30. I could have spent the rest of the day at the library doing research, but I needed to catch up on some things at the RV.

We had a motor home come in to the site next to us and they drove forward into the site so they would have a view of the lake through their windshield.

Mike wanted to take photos of the pull-through sites here in section A, so we started out for a walk before dinner. We met the couple who had just pulled in next to us, John and Mary, from Mount Airy. Mount Airy is about 50 miles from here and they are meeting some friends here.

After talking with John and Mary for a while, we walked over to the pull-through sites that are on a small peninsula.

From Bandit's Roost Campground

We've decided that site A28 which is on the end of the pull-throughs is the best site and if we come back here again, we'll try to reserve it.

From Bandit's Roost Campground

There is an unobstructed

Visiting Mike's ancestors' gravesites

This morning before lunch the family that had been tent camping across from us came over to see us before they left for home in Hickory. They had come in to the campground Friday night about 9:00 and started setting up their tent. Mike noticed that they only had 1 flashlight with them, so he took one of our bucket lights and an extension cord over to them so they would have some light. He also loaned them another flashlight and 2 of our folding chairs since they hadn't brought any chairs with them.

Heather, Jason and their children, Joel and Rose, brought our bucket light and extension cord and flashlight over to us (they had brought the chairs back yesterday). They also brought a thank you card and a potted Mum to thank us for loaning them the items they had forgotten to bring.

After lunch Mike and I took Tinker and drove east to Elkin

From Visiting Gravesites of Mike's Ancestors

and then out to the Greenwood Cemetery

From Visiting Gravesites of Mike's Ancestors

to look for Abner Phillips' grave who was Mike's 4th great-grandfather and who was 76 years old when he died in 1813.

We found the gravestone in the back of the small cemetery and took some photos. Whoever engraved the stone made the letters so large that he had

Genealogy Research at the Wilkes County Library

Friday morning I gathered up our laundry and drove 7 miles into Wilkesboro to go to the Wilkes Laundromat. There were only a few people there when I arrived and lots of laundry machines, so I didn't have to wait for a machine. I took a book with me to read while I waited for the laundry to finish. I was back at the motor home by 11:30 in time to fix lunch.

Mike stayed at the RV while I was doing laundry and he made an online reservation for Fishing Creek Campground for later this month. Fishing Creek is a Corps of Engineers campground just west of Somerset, KY on Lake Cumberland and we stayed there 6 years ago.

Mike spent Friday afternoon planning our route over to Illinois and I worked on genealogy in preparation for my trip to the Wilkes County Library today.

This morning I loaded up my laptop and research notes and drove the 7 miles to the Wilkes County Public Library in North Wilkesboro. I dropped some mail off at the Post Office in North Wilkesboro and stopped to take a photo of this house before driving over to the Library.

From Bandit's Roost Campground

I arrived at the Library at 10:45 and stopped to take a photo of the front of

Skyline Caverns & Genealogy Research in Winchester

We left the campground this morning about 10:15 and drove the 7 miles south to visit the Skyline Caverns.

From Skyline Caverns

From Skyline Caverns

I had picked up a brochure on the Caverns that gave us $2 off the admission tickets, so we paid $16 for each ticket. We only had to wait a few minutes before the next tour of the caverns started.

From Skyline Caverns

Brent was our tour guide and he explained how Walter S. Amos, a retired geologist and mineralogist, discovered the caverns in 1937. The caverns were opened to the public in 1939. While the Luray Caverns are illuminated with regular lights, the Skyline Caverns have colored lights for illumination.

The temperature in both the Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns is 54°. It didn't feel that cool yesterday when we were in the Luray Caverns, but it did feel like 54° in the Skyline Caverns. We didn't bring any jackets, but the cool temperature felt great after the summer heat.

One of our first views in the caverns was the Capital Dome

From Skyline Caverns

 

Genealogy Research in Northumberland County

We left the campground this morning around 10:00 and drove 43 miles to Heathsville in Northumberland County to go to the Northumberland County Historical Society.

We passed by signs for George Washington’s Birthplace National Monument and Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee – two places we plan to visit.

From Heathsville, VA

We arrived in Heathsville about 11:15 and located the Northumberland Historical Society. Since it was nearly lunchtime, we decided to have lunch first and we chose The County Seat restaurant that is behind the Northumberland County Courthouse. This courthouse was built in 1851 and is the third one in this location.

We stopped to take photos of the courthouse and the Confederate Monument.

From Heathsville, VA

We found a shady place to park the car and we walked over to

Virginia Historical Society and Library of Virginia

We spent Wednesday and Thursday here at the campground. We had taken so many photos Tuesday at the Virginia Aviation Museum and sightseeing around Richmond, that it took me until Wednesday morning to get the photos labeled and uploaded to our Picasa Web Albums. Then I was able to finish our blog post for Tuesday and publish it. I spent the rest of the time working on our Neale genealogy in preparation for our visit today to the Library of Virginia.

We left the campground this morning at 10:30 and drove up to the Virginia Historical Society's Museum. We found a parking place in back of the Historical Society and walked around to the front entrance.

From VA Historical Soc Museum & Richmond

We stopped to look at The War Horse sculpture that is a memorial to the 1½ million Confederate and Union Army horses and mules who died or were wounded in the Civil War.

From VA Historical Soc Museum & Richmond

We were greeted by one of the volunteers and she directed us to the room where the 100 year old Military Memorial Murals are being restored. Most of the room was roped off and there were 3 people up on scaffolds cleaning the murals and they were using Q-Tips to