Missing Civil War Letters

Due to the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, anything and everything pertaining to this historical period will be more active on everyone's radar. Hopefully, this collective genealogical/historical radar can help find a lost family artifact. Let me preface by saying that the chances of finding copies of these letters are extremely low, as I will explain below. However, hopefully this post will be tagged and hover out there in the interwebs to be discovered someday by someone who can help.....even if it is years later, just finding copies of them would be an amazing thing for our family.

The letters were apparently from my 3rd Great Grandfather, Madison Daniels, to his wife Mary Ann (Hill) Daniels back in Porter Ohio (Gallia County). However, there were several Daniels brothers who were also possibly writing back and forth at the time and perhaps their response letters exist somewhere out there as well (among their descendants?). The four brothers that fought during the war were:

John Quincy Adams Daniels - 56th Ohio Infantry - taken prisoner at Vicksburg and remained there until the end of the War.

Madison Daniels - 173rd Ohio Infantry (1864-1865)

Abraham/Abram Daniels - 173rd Ohio Infantry (1864-1865)

Silas Daniels - 179th Ohio Infantry (1864-1865)

Madison supposedly wrote about the upcoming election and favoring Lincoln, among other details of his unit's being stationed in Nashville. I would also imagine that their brother's prisoner status in Vicksburg could have been a subject included.....but unfortunately, I have never read them.

The reason these letters are in the category of 'needle in a haystack' is because they were reportedly lost in a fire somewhere around the mid-1980s. I was still a kid at the time, and so I don't remember a lot about the loss. They were in the possession of my Grandfather Charles Daniels of Cincinnati Ohio. I'm not sure how long he had these letters (possibly since the 1960s), but at some point he loaned

Daniels Brothers
L-R Charles & Horace

 them to his brother Horace Daniels....of undetermined locale. I can remember that Horace travelled A LOT. When the family talked about him, they mentioned Hawaii, Texas, his children in California, etc. and that was all in relation to recent places of residence. Apparently it was while living in Hawaii that these letters were lost in an apartment fire.

So....do I think the fire report was inaccurate? Not really - although word of mouth reports can be wrong. My hope is that somewhere out there they were photocopied and passed out to other family members, perhaps in the California area. If they were misplaced after a fire, and ended up in a museum somewhere, stranger things have happened. I have not lost hope that somewhere in all of my Grandfather's things, he may have taken photocopies of them to file away - even though he said he did not have a chance to copy them. My inkling of doubt for his memory in this area exists due to his obsession with photocopying. Even back when photocopying was not an easy task, he was copying everything! Later, after the loss of these letters, he even bought his own desktop copier machine. Grandfather's files are another matter entirely, and hopefully someday, we will be able to sift through everything for that happy surprise - copies of these letters! But in the meantime, we're hoping these soldier names might stick with folks as they conduct research this year, and for the next 5 years to come. Particularly in the western part of the country where the letters were last seen and where Horace's descendants may still reside. We would love to connect with them anyway as that branch of the family tree has always been a bit hazy for us.

BTW, on a side note, I ran across a couple of cool Civil War sites for Ohio:

Fight for the Colors: The Ohio Battle Flag Collection (Ohio Historical Society

http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/exhibits/fftc/index.aspx

Ohio in the Civiil War

http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/

So How Did You Two Love Birds Meet?

I love stumbling upon those little unexpected clues that get our speculation wheels a turning! I was going over some census records of family that lived in a certain area. Not direct ancestors, but peripheral siblings. Unfortunately, I oftentimes skip looking up the siblings when I research because it seems they had so many of them! But this is another reminder of why complete family group research is the best method - you never know what you will learn!

This particular 1900 census was for that of my great great grandfather's sister and her husband:

In 1900, the family of George and Cora (Cox) Quinlan consisted of the two of them, plus one small child (Frank), Cora's widowed father, Barton Cox, and a servant, Lizzie Mickabe (Mockabee/Mockbee). The reason I know how to spell Lizzie's surname correctly is because I recognized the servant immediately. She was the sister of my great great grandmother. My great great grandparents were Lavega Cox and Oleva Mockbee/Mockabee. I also know that Oleva's sister Lizzie, from above, went on to later marry Lavega's brother Jerry Cox. As a result, two sisters married two brothers from the same family.

This was not an uncommon alliance in small rural communities, but it made me think back and wonder, how did these couples meet? Did Lizzie begin working there in George and Cora's household before my great great grandparents met? Or did she start working there because her sister married Cora's brother? Since family/social gatherings were so very important for these small communities, I enjoyed thinking about how the attractions began. After a little digging, it turns out that the age difference suggested that it might have been Oleva and Cora (along with the other many siblings?) that did a little matchmaking over the years.....perhaps over a cup of tea? Here is a visual representation of the couples as they got together:

Oleva Mockbee and Lavega Cox were the oldest of
the couples and married first in 1880.

Cora, Lavega's sister and George Quinlan married next and
were about 10 years younger than couple number one.

Lizze Mockbee, Oleva's sister was quite the baby
(yet spinster material) at 25 when
she was working in the Quinlan household
during the 1900 census. But then, she was only 2 years
younger than Cora's husband (Cora was 4 years
older than her husband). So, was this a friendly
matchmaking set-up since Jerry and Lizzie
married the next year in 1901? Or was Cora jealous
of the age similarity between Lizzie and George?

I love speculating a little when it comes to family dynamics. I think we have a tendency to give our ancestors the benefit of the doubt and always think the best of their choices and outcomes. But lately, I've discovered some really questionable things about another family group - which has me turning a more suspicious eye on the activities of our ancestors. A recent conversation with another researcher had us laughing about this very thing: it turns out our ancestors were not the spotless, honorable people we automatically consider them to be - sometimes, they were a bit scandalous and reckless, just like today's generation - people really haven't changed. Each generation is fundamentally alike, it is only our perceptions that change over time.

P.S. Lizzie and Jerry's life together was very short lived. Lizzie died in 1903. She had one child, a boy, named Frank - which is the same name as the son had by Cora and George.....hmmmmmm :-)

Blogger's New Views - Pay Attention

Earlier today I was sent a link about Blogger's new "Dynamic Views" capability which has been rolled out on a trial or "optional" basis. Mashable has reported on this and interviewed the Blogger Project Manager to get some more information. The comments from the Project Manager are why I thought it necessary to warn my Blogger friends out there to pay attention to this new development.

The main reason I feel it necessary for us to monitor this one closely is due to the language used in the interview. Apparently, Google is trying to "revolutionize" and "modernize" the "blog consumption experience". I actually love new ways to present information, and find some of the new views quite fun, but with this new change comes some sacrifices. Each new "view" actually removes any of the standard info we are used to seeing along the peripheral sections of our blogs. In other words, these views take the raw RSS feed version of the posts and comments and allow this to be the only content seen in the new "views". This of course removes any of the peripheral information we have painstakingly added to our blogs, such as personal profiles, Twitter feeds, Surname links, theme icons, links, label list, and even ads. If this is meant to just be another way to view them in an RSS feed reader, fine, but that is not the language being used.

The second reason that I feel this might be one to keep a close eye on is the wording about "optional". For now, these "views" can only be accessed if you type in the word "/view" after your standard blog address, or bloggers can disable this function from their site altogether. However, "for now" is a scary thought. Apparently, the Project Manager has hinted that the optional views may be mandatory at some point.

After viewing my blog in some of these new "views", I can see how this change will happen someday. The entire internet as we know it is changing: becoming more fluid and visually dynamic. Google specifically noted HTML5 among other advancing technologies as a reason for this switch. But let's just slow the train down here. First of all, these new views are only supported by the very latest in browsers. My first attempt gave me a screen that listed the browsers these views supported, and apparently, my IE version was not one of them. This sent me scurrying for Firefox. Once I did get to play around with them, I liked some, but a couple were just plane silly. As a hobbyist photographer, I was instantly drawn in when I could see all of my blog photos displayed in the mosaic form - what a pretty representation of family history! But after the flash and ooohs and ahhhs.....I suddenly remembered....uh wait, isn't a blog a web log? We WRITE here. In fact, writing is the main element of a blog. Yes, photos are important, but NOT the main focus of most of the blogs out there. So in my "VIEW", these new Blogger "views" better not be the final versions.

As of right now, I'm against any FORCED Blogger change. We all put a lot of time and (sometimes painful) effort into getting our blogs to look as they do. Besides, many of the little elements on the side are not there just for visual stimulation. They provide helpful links, information, labels, affiliations and ads - which helps with revenue for bloggers who usually don't make squat writing about what we love in the first place. Besides, as a Blogger user, I think they should fix some of the other HIGHLY aggravating bugs of the current Blogger user interface (UI) before changing the entire view system! Cough, cough, photo editing, cough cough - just sayin. And then there is the track record with Google. Anyone remember Google Wave? Flash in the pan. Buzz? Fading faster than your ancestor's ink on non-archival paper! Google LOVES to make waves and shake things up.....and I LOVE many of their things (Blogger, Gmail, Docs, not to mention the staple search engine)......but wake up Google! Please don't reinvent the wheel with Blogger. Sure, it's time for a revamp, but make it better by fixing bugs first, give us new features, make editing easier (take a look at WordPress/Tumblr), but for heaven's sake, don't break what has been a stable, popular product! I think some of the changes are awesome.....but in proportion......please don't forget that blogging is about writing, otherwise, it would be a Flickr account.

So in short, I think as Bloggers, we should keep an eye out and voice our opinions on this one heavily (each view has a feedback portion as explained on the official Google site here)......before they turn "optional" into "permanent". To play with your own Blogger blog in the new "views" just add /view to the end of your blog address: http://www.journeyspast.blogspot.com/view  Below are some screen captures  of the different "views" and perhaps a note or two about layout. At the end is a new video Google has put out there to give you a better idea of what to expect.
Happy Blogging!
C

Sidebar View - Nice text to photo ratio, more like standard blogs -
like the comments number posted by title - comments can be
seen or hidden based on user's preference.

Mosaic view - all intro photos - hovering mouse over a certain pic
gives you the title of the post.



Snapshot view - EVERY photo from each blog post.
Hovering with mouse displays a piece of the opening paragraph.
Blog post titles are always present.



Timeslide view - feature posts on the side jump quite a bit chronologically.

Actual post view if anything is clicked from the new "views" navigation pages.

Flipcard view - each opening photo from your posts.
Hovering over them with a mouse flips the photo to
reveal the title and link to the post.

Flipcard also - the only view with multiple ways to
organize your list of posts -
in this case, according to date.



Also Flipcard - organized by label - poor use of screen space.
BTW, the label count is very wrong - cut my Daniels listing in half at least. 
The last option is a grouping by author (not shown),
but ends up being a clump since I'm the only author.



Landscape Across Time

The one thing that brought me to genealogy as a passionate pursuit was the thought of restoring identities and communities back to our consciousness. Facts will only get us so far. A record or tombstone can give us a name, a place and a date. A photograph can give us a face or a space. Pieced together, all of these things form a skeleton without flesh. But what gives us the flesh for those bones? The things that form flesh are the serendipitous pieces of information that give us the living details. These living details can come from so many places. A memory, a story, a beloved object or heirloom. All of these non-facts, the ethereal parts of a person's life are what provides color, warm tones that bring that person's life back from obscurity.

The same can be said for communities. My mother grew up in the Pendleton County area of Kentucky. My grandparents moved away from that area when I was about a year old, so I have no memory of my life being fully connected as a livable space. But the roots attached there are still so complex and deep that it became an important part of my existence. My mother and grandparents raised me to appreciate and remember that my roots are from this place.

Ironically, because our roots in this one county span so many generations (late 18th century), my visualization and understanding of this community is unique. Above the town of Falmouth, literally, the steep rolling hills of the northern part of this county form a chain of farming families. Perhaps not all of the residents farm now, but the original farms are still pretty well spaced as they have been for many generations. When we drove the back country roads, my mother, and before her, my grandparents, and before them, my great grandmother, all made a point to demonstrate our deep roots here by pointing out places that used to be connected to our family - thus painting a picture of a farming community that does not respect the limits of time.

When they proceeded to point out a beloved neighbor's house, or the former farm of a ggg grandparent, or the church that they belonged to for years, they always told a small story to go with it. Each story connected a person or many people to this place, and added some flesh to the bones of the community skeleton. My mother is still here to tell the stories and each visit to that area, each drive down those roads is a pop quiz. Am I ready to pass on the information? Have I learned it well enough to recite some of the stories and point out the special family places? 

One thing I discovered is that after all of those years of sharing stories and places while we drive, I now have this marvelous image of the timeline of this community. My visualization of each place along the road shifts across generations and decades like shimmering colors of a waterfall. Around one corner I can see my ggg grandfather building a stone fence around his property. Around another, I can see my mother as a child, sitting on the steps of her school house, and still another, I can see my grandmother hanging clothes out on the line to dry. Even when houses or landmarks are no longer there, I can see them - and they are not black and white, they are full of marvelous color! Which means, for this one small community, the people who worked and worshiped and played and loved are not gone, I can see them every time I travel down those winding roads that overlook the hills. To be able to see time unfold in that manner is the wonderful gift given to the genealogist - because deep down, we never stop at facts - they are not what drives our research. We do not seek the dead - we seek the lives of the people who have simply moved on, yet whose lives gave us ours, and forever changed the future course of the next generations.



My apologies on the sappy level - but sometimes don't you just feel like waxing sappy about what we do?

We wouldn't do this if we didn't love it!

52 Weeks - Sweets!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History:
Week 13: Sweets. What was your favorite childhood candy or dessert? Have your tastes changed since then? What satisfies your sweet tooth today?

I was a die hard SweeTarts fan. Unfortunately, "was" is how I remember that wonderful romance. The love was complete. I could eat roll after roll, or a whole bag of the egg ones at Easter. Sadly, I encountered a slight upper hernia several years back that meant no spicy foods, etc. This of course included SweeTarts. So after everything healed nicely, I tried to eat them again. Bought a couple of movie sized boxes, poured them into a jar to munch on at will - only, "at will" consisted of about a week. I totally stripped the lining of my stomach. Heartburn from hell!! For a few weeks, the heartburn was horrible.....kinda like one huge ulcer.....food felt ok, but once the stomach acids hit that wounded lining.....ouch!! I have decided that they are too big a weakness for me. If I see a little packet like we used to get in our trick-or-treat bags, I can have one, but keep the box or big sizes away - they are still my destructive weakness! So, as an adult, what have I moved on to console my hunger for that lost love? Dark chocolate baby.....not quite the same, but in a way, MUCH more satisfying!

For more info about this weekly genealogy challenge, click on the icon below to visit the Geneabloggers page:

RootsTech Rebuttal

Sorry folks, I really need to address a recent post I read out there in the blogosphere - I will try to make this a SHORT treatise. On Monday, the Wandering Genealogist wrote a great post about his lack of interest in RootsTech and wondered if he was alone in his apathy for this seemingly popular new conference. He raised some very practical questions - and answered them with the same well argued practicality. In a nutshell: He tried to get excited about this new conference, read some blog posts about it, watched some videos, etc. - but still wondered what all the hype was about, and how this really affected his research as a genealogist.

My answer to all of this - he's right - in a way.

1. He is soooo correct about the lack of interest most genealogists would have about this one little conference. It was after all extremely tech-centric, which does not apply to everyone. In fact, it only applies to a small proportion of worldwide genealogists - 3000 attendees at one new conference is hardly a pebble in the pond when the total population of genealogists is concerned. Plus, when I think of genealogy as a pursuit or profession, technology is only one very small part of how genealogy is conducted. Online resources and social media are great, but MOST genealogy is conducted via tried and true methods of good old fashioned research - which is not always glamorous - mostly dusty, heavy, eye straining and oftn-times head scratching. Overall, when someone mentions genealogy, I think of photos, records, court clerk offices, libraries, citation format, etc.....which is only assisted by technology.

2. The hype was a little over the top for me too. Yes, I am perpetuating it by even writing about it when I really want to focus on Charleston in May (woo-hoo!), but we have to put the hype into perspective - as a technology conference, it was going to be touted within those technological tools - and it was. The folks at RootsTech wanted the word to get out - encouraging tweeting, etc - in the hopes things would become viral - and they did to a degree. Probably enough to make those who did not attend or who didn't care want to tweet scream in protest. Those who did tweet and write about it were not paid advertisers, just regular genealogists (albeit heavy tech users), and still usually glowing about it - which says something pretty cool was going on.

3. The cool factor of RootsTech was in its uniqueness to our industry. As a librarian, I see the same restrictions that hamper genealogy: funding. The library budget is never huge, and neither are most of our genealogy budgets. Just because Ancestry proved money can be made off of us, does not mean that we are a very lucrative bunch. Therefore, just like library land, genealogy is not an area that is privy to the latest in technological advances. We might eventually get there, but the latest and greatest doesn't visit genealogy land until after several years of conditioning in the mainstream. Which is why RootsTech WAS pretty important. We need opportunities like RootsTech to pool our resources and confer with the programmers that create the tools to make our research lives easier.....which leads into number 4.

4. Collaboration acknowledged - not exactly obtained. Ok, this is where John and I both get stones thrown at us over our naysaying. From my vantage point (mine, not anyone elses), I was still seeing too much flocking together of the same bird species. For the advanced programmer sessions, programmers attended, for the beginning user sessions, beginners attended. RootsTech advertised that its purpose was to bring both programmer and genealogist (neither terms automatically exclusive) together in order to collaborate and develop user friendly programs. Wonderful purpose, but with the exception of the un-scheduled break-out sessions that anyone could utilize and the exhibit hall/social conversations, I didn't see much collaboration going on - at least not in the regular sessions. I think this should still be the goal - but we need more sessions that are joint panel sessions between users and programmers. I know it is extremely tough to get get users and programmers to talk since they generally don't speak the same language - but the programmers need to hear what works best for our research needs BEFORE they build it! Just my two cents in that regard.

5. With the above taken in mind - RootsTech still filled a need in the genealogy industry: tech-centric sessions. We cannot deny that technology has forever changed the landscape of genealogy - even John used a blog to express his apathy towards this tech conference. As technology continues to permeate this industry, there is a shocking lack of tech-centric sessions at the major genealogy conferences (the big ones). Even when perusing the upcoming NGS conference sessions, technology is a very small percentage of the offerings. This is the biggest reason why some people were questioning whether RootsTech would replace one of the big conferences. My opinion on that is: NO WAY. The big conferences are here to stay - but they do need to include bigger percentages of technology based sessions to make the conferences more well rounded and representative of the industry as a whole.

6. Which brings me to the final point: Can RootsTech survive longterm? Maybe. Since it had never been done before, the ideas and enthusiasm were flowing like green ale at a St. Pattty's Day Pub Crawl! And while the need for collaboration will never wane, I suspect that its numbers will dwindle a bit after a few years because adding another major conference to our list of must attends will stretch all of our budgets - and we can only collaborate so much before the results of that collaboration have us busy all over again learning and mastering the newest developments. My suggestion for survival.....either don't have it every year or periodically become a tag along to another conference. Within the next couple of years, I suggest RootsTech be held in conjunction with another of the major conferences (FGS or NGS). We do that quite often in library land, and it draws bigger crowds, and ultimately, more participants in collaboration equals better ideas in the long run.

Sorry, I tried to make it short - but, John started it! :-)

One Lovely Blog Award!

I am always humbled at the very thought of readers actually enjoying my blog, but here is another little proof of blog life: The One Lovely Blog Award! This time the award was given to me by three kind and generous readers:

Joy Neighbors @ A Grave Interest: http://agraveinterest.blogspot.com/

&

Kim Hites @ Heritage Heart: http://www.heritageheart.blogspot.com/
&
Mary Hellman @ Mary Jane's Genes: http://www.mjhellman.blogspot.com/

Accepting such awards comes with a certain responsibility, and in this case, it is a responsibility that helps all of us by sharing with our readers some of the other wonderful blogs we have newly discovered. Honestly, I have learned more from fellow genealogy bloggers than from any other online source out there. They are true precious gems that should be read and shared with others.

The official rules are as follows:
1. Acknowledge receipt by posting on your blog.

2. Nominate 15 other blogs that you think are lovely.

3. Email each person that they have been nominated.

With much thanks and without further ado, here are my 15 One Lovely Blog Award winners (In no particular order):

QuiltsandStoriesbySherryAnn: http://quiltstoriesbysherryann.blogspot.com/
Ancestral Discoveries: http://ancestraldiscoveries.blogspot.com/
Letters from WWII: http://lettersww2.com/
Kentucky in My Heart: http://kentuckyinmyheart.blogspot.com/
Kentucky Kinfolk: http://kykinfolk.blogspot.com/
EasternKentuckyGenealogy: http://easternkentuckygenealogy.blogspot.com/
TheArrowoodTrailThrutheMountains: http://arrowoodpigeonroostnc.blogspot.com/
AppalachiaPonderings: http://appalachiaponderings.blogspot.com/
TheYouGoGenealogyGirls: http://yougogenealogygirls.blogspot.com/
Ancestors Gotta Eat!: http://ancestorsgottaeat.blogspot.com/
Food.Family.Ephemera: http://foodfamilyephemera.blogspot.com/
Ancestors Within: http://bisnonni.blogspot.com/
For All My Relations: http://forallmyrelations.blogspot.com/
My Tangled Vine: http://mytangledvine.blogspot.com/
Our Family Quilt: http://ourfamilyquilt.blogspot.com/

I think I counted right, but kinda got lost in the task as I got stuck reading the wonderful blogs!
Again, many thanks to my award givers and ALL my wonderful readers....you guys rock!!
Hugs,
CD