Archive for January 26th, 2010

by Sherry Stocking Kline
January 26, 2010

A couple of days ago I was honored to open up my e-mail and read that blogging buddy Joan of Roots N’ Leaves had given me the ‘Bandit’ Blogger’s Best Friend Award!

Blogger's Best Friend Award

Oh, my, thank you, Joan!  You have been such a source of encouragement to me, and a great blogging friend!  Blessings to you!

Joan says that the developer of the  ‘Bandit’ “A Blogger’s Best Friend Award” says it shall be given to your most loyal blog readers.

So, I am to pick out and pass on this award to two fellow bloggers who are fellow bloggers who take the time to comment on my posts, and bloggers who have creative, funny, and entertaining blogs.

So many of you have kindly stopped by with kind words of encouragement and congratulations, so this is not easy, and I will be leaving too many people out, but here goes!

1.  Carol of Reflections From the Fence

2.  Sandra Tjaliaferro of I Never Knew My Father

Thank you Carol for being a great blogging buddy and always so wonderfully encouraging, and Thank you Sandra,  for being both a great and encouraging blogging buddy and a good Twitter Friend! And once again, Thanks to Joan of Roots N’ Leaves.  Blessings to all.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
January 26, 2010

This tombstone is located in a Smith Family Cemetery in or near the Temple Hill area in Barren County, Kentucky.  (there are several Smith Family cemeteries in Barren County.) It is a small family cemetery, but I would guess there might be as many as 20 or 30 burials there.

The cemetery was located behind a farmhouse, and the whole area was overgrown with tall grass.  One clue to note is that someone (probably on Memorial Day given the plastic flowers are only slightly faded) had placed flowers on their grave. So most likely they have living children or grandchildren in the area.

Lute & Sabina Smith - Barren County, KY - Smith Cemetery

Smith
Lute H.
1857 – 1936

Sabina
1860 – 1940

While I suspect Lute and Sabina Smith may be family, I haven’t verified it yet, and I hope that can be part of this year’s adventures.  I think Sabina is a very pretty name, one that I’d never heard before, and if it truly is unusual, that should make sorting her out of the other Smith’s easier. The name Lute doesn’t seem that common, either.

My next steps when I start working on this couple will be to check on the census for them, get a copy of their obituaries, will(s), and perhaps even give the local funeral homes a call as that has worked well in the past.  Those are my first steps.

If it looks like there is a family connection, I will also contact the South Central Kentucky Cultural Center, as they have several family histories there, along with miscellaneous family information, and see if perhaps they have a family history for the family there that I can use as a springboard to use to locate the documents that would verify relationships.

We were at this cemetery  5  July 2005, looking for our own family burials, but we did not find any names in the cemetery that we knew to be our kin.  We had my mother with us and were trying to locate her grandfather’s homestead.

We did not find my mother’s grandfather’s homestead, but were able to locate her great-great grandfather’s homestead about three miles on past this farmstead.  Unfortunately, my ancestor’s Smith cemetery had already been returned to farm ground.

Related Posts:

The tombstone of  J. Thomas and Nancy A. (Smith) Harrison is just down the road a few miles in the Caney Fork Baptist Church cemetery. They may (or may not) be related to each other.

Warner LaRue Jones Tombstone. Warner was born in Kentucky to Willis and Martha Ellen Smith Jones.

George W. Smith & wife Lucy’s Tombstone

The Day the Serendipity Genealogy Angels Smiled