by Sherry Stocking Kline
January 9th, 2010

It’s Saturday Night Live at the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Playhouse, and Randy Seaver wants to know what our Genealogy Super Powers are.

Check out Randy’s Challenge below or at Geneamusings.

It’s Saturday Night – time for more Genealogy Fun!

Dean Richardson posted What’s Your Genealogical Superpower? on his Genlighten Blog – Genealogy Documented blog last week, along with a nifty picture of a young lady with a big S on her shirt flying (is that Dean’s wife?). I thought Dean’s question was a great one for SNGF – so your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to…

1) Answer the question: Do you have a genealogical “superpower”? (i.e., a unique research ability or technique that helps you track down records or assemble conclusions that others can’t?) If so, what is it?

2) Tell us about it in a blog post, a comment to this post, a comment to Dean’s post, or a comment to this post on Facebook or Twitter.

3) If you have a picture of yourself in superpower mode, please show it to us!

What are my super powers?  What is it they say in the movies?  I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you?  Seriously, I’m just not sure that I have any “super” powers.

I do seem to have some good networking and investigative skills, and I’ve managed to run people (dead and live ones) down by making phone call after phone call to one entity or another.

I found a distant elderly living cousin in Barren County, Kentucky by doing the following:

1. We were at the Glasgow City cemetery and there were flowers on the grave of my great-great aunt.  That told me that someone living, and probably someone from that the area, put them there. She was of an age to still have living children, and definitely could have living grandchildren.

2. So, my next step could have been to find her obituary and that would have been a good next step, but I was hoping for a little quicker solution, so I called the local funeral home(s) with her name and date of death.

3.  I hit gold on my second funeral home. They had handled her funeral arrangements.  Because I had visited with this director on several occasions and he knew the cousins I’d already connected with in his town, he gave me the woman’s name and I was able to call her.

My new-found (and very elderly) cousin was very kind, but she knew very little about her ancestry and was very apologetic about “having had to throw away all the old photos due to moving into a smaller apartment.”

My first thought was “You Did WHAT?!”

But I didn’t say that and while I was broken hearted knowing that photos of my ancestors may have gone into the dumpster, at least I was able to learn that that particular avenue was closed to me for more information, and I connected with a nice sounding distant relative.

I guess what I’ve learned is that you can pick up the phone and make a few phone calls that can help you connect with distant family members and further your research, though you may not always get positive results.

Cora Pauline’s Tombstone is the first non-family member’s tombstone that I’ve posted here.

She is buried at the Osborne Township Cemetery, Sumner County, Mayfield, Kansas, and she is buried very near some of my family members.

Cora Pauline Walters
Born: May 5th, 1915
Died: June 6th, 2000

I’ve found her tombstone unique, heartwarming, and fascinating, but have yet to look up her obituary, or try to learn who she was.

I hope to do more research on her this winter in local newspapers.

Sherry Stocking Kline
January 4, 2010

I had so much fun doing Christmas music video’s that when I found this duet Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Dean Martin with Martina McBride)on former Kansas girl, Martina McBride’s “White Christmas” album I just couldn’t resist posting it here.

Besides, here in Kansas, with barely double digit temps, and single digit wind chills, it’s pretty appropriate today, ‘cuz Baby it’s sure cold outside here!

When we were having cold weather (like this week) my dad, Harold ‘Jiggs’ Stocking, Sr., would always come in from feeding the cattle or working outside (we had a wheat and dairy farm then) and laughingly tell my mom”Baby it’s Cold Outside!” After listening to the song a few times, I know why he was laughing when he said it!

The song also reminds me to share a saying that my Mom’s mom, Carrie Breneman Jones always told her:

“When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen”.

I’ve been paying attention ever since she shared that with me, and it’s often very true!  We were working outside in medium weight jackets here right before Christmas.

In just a couple of days, we’re going into minus wind chill temps here.  Brrrrr!

With a couple of inches of snow and minus wind chills, I won’t be doing any ‘cemetery stomping’ this week, for sure!

Fifty-four days till the first of March!  (but who’s counting!) Can’t wait!

Sherry Stocking Kline
January 2, 2010

Holy Cow!  I just realized that this is the first time I’ve written the date 2010!  I’ve stayed home, stayed in, and haven’t even written a check since Thursday.

The following challenge comes from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings!

Thank you, Randy!

Hey, it’s Saturday Night – time for some Genealogy Fun!! I know – you had a great time on New Year’s Eve, and are just recovering from the holidays, so we’ll keep this one pretty easy.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to accept it (frankly, I’ve noticed that SNGF participation has dropped off in the last month – why? Too much eggnog? Too much work? What?):

1) “What was your best Genealogy Moment during 2009?” This could be a research find, a fabulous trip, a found family treasure, etc. Your choice!

2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, a comment to this blog post, or a comment to the Twitter or Facebook status line for this post.

I wish I could say that I had one glorious genealogy discovery, one brick wall that I could gloat on breaking down, one great connection with a new branch that I was elated to locate.  But I’ve been spending what little research time I have helping a couple of other folks and butting my head against a Smith and Jones brick wall in Kentucky.

Maybe it’s time to branch out, and spend a little more time on a little less common surnames??

If I have to choose my favorite genealogy moment, can I do it?

Would I choose the moment that I found a clue I’d missed in my Smith and Jones’ previous research?  One that adds a new county in Kentucky to my research possibilities and who knows, may be just the clue that I need to find the information I want. (What I wonder is how I looked at that and MISSED it the first time!)

Or would it be on August 8th, 2009 when I wrote my first blog post, and found out how little I knew about getting a blog up and going.

Would my favorite genealogy moment(s) be when the genealogy blogging community begin sending blogging tips by twitter, leaving me comments, and sending e-mails to help get me up and running and learn each new thing I needed to know.

And oh, my goodness, the kindness you all extended to me each time you did that!  I’d love to thank each one of you here again, but I don’t want to miss even one of you!  (I should have kept a list.)

The Kreativ Blogging Award – One of my favorite moments…

One of my very favorite moments was being chosen by three different genealogy blogging buddies for the Kreativ Blogging Award!

hank you!  That was an exciting moment for this newbie genealogy blogger!

Surviving Wichita Eagle’s Budget Cuts – again…

Another  moment was to continue to ‘make the cut’ with the Wichita Eagle as they downsized the magazine that I wrote for, then did away with the magazine I wrote for, then included my column along with some of my free-lance writing friends in their “Healthy Living” magazine. Whew!  I sure miss my former editor and mentor and the other  neat people I used to work with, though.

And would it be when I learned that my cousin’s husband was as addicted to genealogy as me?  We’re going to get out laptops together and share family info!

Advent Calendar Challenge brought back so many memories…

And I think the most recent genealogy favorite moments have to be the Geneablogger’s Christmas Advent Calendar Challenge!

Thanks to Thomas at GeneaBloggers, so many old memories came flooding back, making my Christmas season a very special one.  Now many of them are written down to be thumbed back through and added to when I have time.  Thank you, Thomas!

And now, I think I will take time to back up my data, (thanks again for the reminder, Thomas,) then set my New Year’s Research Goals (I don’t make resolutions, I usually break those) and pick a day to re-organize the info that I have (again) so that I know which direction to ride off in!

Happy New Year to you all, and Thank you to so Many!

While wandering around the Internet, looking for more fun and enjoyable Christmas music, I found this post at the “I Speak of Dreams” blog, link here: http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2003/12/merry_christmas.html.

The following is the excerpt from the blog, where another Internet ‘wanderer’  had found “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” sung in the Cherokee language!  Pretty neat!

Follow the link below (or above)  to the blog and to the Cherokee version of this wonderful Christmas song.

Merry Christmas from the Cherokee Nation

I was wandering around and found a blog with a link to The Cherokee Nation’s online Christmas card, with “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” sung in Cherokee.

I couldn’t resist posting it here.  I promise to stop posting Christmas music soon.  Honest…

It’s never too late to celebrate a little more Christmas, so here’s Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas!”

This one is especially cool as it shows Bing himself in an old home movie taken on a movie set! Enjoy!

I had such fun learning how to embed video’s and hunting up pretty Christmas ones, so I don’t know how I missed posting this one after beginning it, but on the off-chance everyone isn’t completely sick of Christmas music, I’m going to go ahead and post it!

We went looking at Christmas lights several times over the holidays and the last time we went this song came on the car stereo, and my oldest granddaughter began to do the sign language to go along with the music that she learned in first grade last year! I didn’t know she knew how, and it was So pretty!

Have a Great New Year!

Nathaniel and Mary McMulin Wood are buried in the Milan Cemetery, Ryan Township, Sumner County, Kansas.  This cemetery is located one mile west of Milan, Kansas (and about 15 miles west of Wellington) on Highway 160.

Nathaniel and his wife Mary were homesteaders in Sumner County, owning a quarter section of ground just about two miles west of Milan on what is now known to locals as “old 160 highway”.   My apologies to anyone who is researching, I don’t know the new 9-1-1 name for this country road without driving out to look.

Nathaniel and Mary were my husband’s great grandparents on his father’s side, and though I do have a little more information on them, I don’t have much and I don’t have it with me right now.

My mother-in-law, C. Maxine Deffenbaugh Kline, always told me that Nathaniel’s nickname was “Than” and I thought that was interesting, as most would be nicknamed Nat or Nate.

Someday soon I need to do more research on that line!

P.S. If Nathaniel and Mary are in your family tree, please leave a note so we can ‘connect the dots.’  Thanks and ‘happy hunting!’

Sherry Stocking Kline
December 28th, 2009

This morning the phone rang twice…

This morning the phone rang twice.  Because I write press releases for and am vice-president of our county historical and genealogical society, the Sumner County (Kansas) Historical and Genealogical Society, my name is in the paper quite a bit. So I get a lot of phone calls asking for historical and genealogical help.

It’s fun, actually, because I get to hear such interesting stories, and today was no exception.

I love it when someone  preserves a piece of history…

The first was Nate, reporter for the local newspaper, asking for information about the Belleview School, a  historic country school near Caldwell, Kansas that has been purchased by a couple who plan to move it near to a (busier) highway (Highway 160 going west of Wellington) and restore it to its 1870’s look inside so that individuals and groups of schoolchildren can take tours. According to the reporter, they’ve already added a tin roof to protect it from the elements!

Awesome! I love it when someone takes the time and the money to preserve a piece of history so that others can enjoy it!

Though I’ve done research on a few of the country schools, this wasn’t one of them, so when Nate and I hung up, I quickly got back on the phone, called several other researchers, and found some folks who could help Nate after he finished his research at the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Center.

My second phone call, coming on the heels of the first one was Chris Fimple, California, who is trying to find the descendants of a box of photographs and memorabilia that his dad took home to California many years ago after visiting in Kansas.

So far,  my research, and I confess to not being as internet savvy as would be good (census, tombstone, obituary, google searches, local sources and word of mouth, ) has located obituaries and no living descendants.  (Which doesn’t mean there aren’t any.)  I apologized to Chris for not working right before and during the Christmas holidays, and told him I’d try to get back to it after the holidays.

If anyone knows of any living descendants of Joseph T. Raley…

So, if anyone knows of any living descendants of Joseph T. Raley, formerly of Enid, Ok and Sumner County, Kansas, leave me a message,  Chris is looking for you…

P.S. When I get more info, website addresses, photographs, I’ll add another post!

Merry Christmas to All!

Stille Nacht (The original Silent Night – in German)

Click here to see both English and German lyrics side by side. German was the language of most of my husband’s ancestor’s.  Unfortunately,  the language and perhaps many of the food and customs have been lost.

Oiche Chiuin (Silent Night) by Enya

This was cool.  I know, if I go back far enough, my ancestors spoke Gaelic.  I just hope that soon I can find their exact origins.  Must get back to working on this branch!

Silent Night in English sung by Bing Crosby

It doesn’t get much better than listening to Bing Crosby sing “Silent Night”, unless you’re singing “Silent Night” while doing the annual Christmas Light car tour and you find out that your seven-year-old granddaughter learned the sign language for the song in school.  Now, that’s really cool.

Have a Very Merry Christmas! Blessings, Sherry

Sherry Stocking Kline
December 21, 2009

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers for today’s Advent Calendar Challenge:

Christmas Music

What songs did your family listen to during Christmas? Did you ever go caroling? Did you have a favorite song?

My family always loved music and I grew up listening to carols on the radio first, then 45 rpm records, then a stereo, then a tiny (by then standards) battery operated transistor radio.

Today, there’s music on the stereo, computer, smart phone, and  iPod!   It’s so easy to listen wherever you are.

Growing up near the tiny town of Mayfield, Kansas, our church youth group at the Mayfield Federated Church (a Methodist and Presbyterian combined church) always went caroling.

Our group would set out on foot (remember, it’s a tiny town) in the cool, crisp air, and it was always a fun and joyous evening of laughter, singing, and wishing the townspeople, mostly seniors, but often others who had been ill and shut-in, a very Merry Christmas.

Our pastor and his wife usually led the singing and ‘herded’ us from house to house.  There were many of ‘Grandma age’ in our town, and  many of them had grandchildren in the group, so they knew each and every one of us,  were often called Grandma by many who were not their grandchildren, and they were always delighted to see us!

A side benefit we often enjoyed was that several of them were extremely good cookie bakers, and we might be given cookies to enjoy while walking around the town.

After the caroling was done for the evening we’d gather back at the church for cookies and cocoa, and then sometime walk down to the school’s gymnasium for indoor games.

I know the seniors enjoyed the carols, but the fun and fellowship for all of us was priceless.