Thursday, April 28, 2011

Genealogy roadtrip #1

I took my first genealogical road trip over the weekend to the bustling metropolis of Waco Texas.  My main goal was to visit the Oakwood Cemetery where my great great grandmother Dianacy (Dicy) Autrey is buried.  She is next to her daughter Mary Francis Tubbs.  The headstone for the husband of Mary is missing, but according to the cemetery records he is buried next to her.



Dicy A. Autrey
Born
Feb. 24, 1830
Died
Sept. 17, 1925

Mary F. Tubbs
Born
Sept. 21, 1852
Died
July 25, 1925


Francis Marion Tubbs (he would be on the left)
Born
Jan. 20, 1852
Died
June 15, 1940

The cemetery was much larger than I expected and it took a little time to find the headstones in Section A.  Unfortunately, I was there on a Sunday and the office was closed so I couldn't get a more precise location.  However, I'm not one who minds walking through a quiet cemetery on  a breezy morning. 

The second part of my trip was to visit the national archives southwest, http://www.archives.gov/southwest/, in Fort Worth.  It wasn't as productive since I didn't have anything specific that I was looking for when I stopped by.  It was mainly just to see what they had and familiarize myself with it.  While I was able to access the Footnote database, I wasn't able to find anything new. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my next genealogical road trip.  Most likely it will be to hit some more cemeteries in Arkansas, specifically, Pope County.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

SAR

For work last week, I visited the local Sons of the American Revolution (http://www.sar.org/) to give a brief talk on the library, highlight our services and to get word out that we are here.  It was an enjoyable meeting and there were a lot of very knowledgeable people there.

I mentioned that I had some cousins that were in DAR (http://www.dar.org/) on my fathers side but if I joined I'd like to do it with a possible soldier on my mothers side since as far as I know, no one has done it with that line.  They encouraged me to go ahead and join with what I had and then I could work on any others later.  They also said they were trying to increase their membership and wanted to attract more young members.  It is increasingly rare that I can go to such an event and still be included under the label young.

So even though I'm not much of a 'joiner' I went ahead and submitted the information that I have.  I do think it would be good to join this and other such groups in order to network, especially since I am currently taking the NGS-HSC and hoping to get certified in the not too distant future.