These past few days a really nice award has been circling among the Genealogy Bloggers! I don’t know who started the “tag you’re it” award that allows each of us to pick our seven favorite  blogs to receive it, but I’m certainly grateful to be nominated three times!  Thank you!

Kreativ Blogger Award

I received this Kreativ Blogger award from  three of my favorite  bloggers  to read:

Thomas McAtee from Geneabloggers,

Louise Bernero of Our Twigs Blog,

and Jenna from Desperately Seeking Surnames

I just want to say Thank You all very much!

I appreciate your recognition and encouragement, and this means a lot to me!

Here are the rules for this award:

1. List seven things about yourself that others do not know
2. Copy the award to your site
3. Link to the person from whom you received the award
4. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
5. Link to those sites on your blog.
6. Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

There’s only one thing I can think of that most people don’t know about me. It’s silly ( it really is, but it’s the truth).

For the other six things, well, I’m pretty sure those aren’t a secret to those who know me best….

1.   The one thing I think no one knows, not even my family, so you’re the first to hear this… I’m honestly still scared of the dark…  Maybe it’s the murder mysteries I read, but I’m just pretty sure the boogeyman is out there somewhere, and who knows, maybe Big Foot really does exist, and maybe the government really was hiding Space Aliens in Area 51.    So, ask me to run outside after dark, haul out the trash, or go out to feed the dog, well, I can and I will, but it’s really outside my comfort zone. And I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood.

2.   I’d rather read than clean house or wash dishes. (this would come as no surprise to anyone in my family!) I love murder mysteries, historical fiction, some romantic historical fiction, all the “Mitford Series” books by Jan Karon, and anything by Max Lucado.

3.   O.K., so this is no secret to anyone, either. I love the puzzle-solving, gotta-find-the-next-family-fact, break-down-that-brick-wall, collect ‘dead relatives,’  build the family tree, and record our family history stories that makes up my family history fun.

4.  I love garage sales! (Going to them, not having them) Which means I bring home more stuff than I get rid of. Which means I’m a pack rat.  (it’s genetic, my mom is a pack rat, too, but a much more organized one than I am…)

5.  I love to take photos. And I’d love to learn how to Photoshop them.

6.   I’m a sucker for a cat with a sweet face and a hungry sounding meow.  That’s probably why we’ve had two extra cats on our porch for the last year. Sinbad, the black and white ‘tuxedo’ cat that has everyone from the mail lady to the UPS guy stopping to pet him, and Boo, a beautiful long-haired Siamese type that has a ‘rusty’ meow.

7.    I cry E-v-e-r-y time I watch “A League of Their Own”, even if we just watched it. It gets down to the last scene,  the reunion scene, and I’m grabbing for the Kleenex box…

There are so many great Blogs, and so many new ones! Thanks to all who inspire me, and here are my Seven Blog Awards!

1.    Greta’s Genealogy Blog

2.    George Geder’s African American Genealogy Blog

3.   Michael Hait –  Hait Family Research

4.    Mavis Jones – Georgia Black Crackers

5.    Amore E Sapore de Famiglia – Valentino’s Wife

6.    Footnote Maven

7.    We Tree Blogspot – Amy Coffin

It was such fun to be awarded, and to be given the opportunity to leave an award for others!  But it was difficult to just pick seven, there are so many wonderful blogs to choose from!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November 17, 2009

My great-uncle, Albert Miner Breneman, died long before I was born, when his niece, my mother, was about three years old. Albert died as the result of a motorcycle accident at the age of twenty-seven.

Looking at the picture following I’d say he was a fine-looking young man.

Albert Miner Breneman - Ryan Township Cemetery, Sumner County, Milan, Kansas

Albert, the son of Salinda (Rose) Breneman and Constantine “Tom” Breneman, is buried in the Ryan Township Cemetery, a small well-kept cemetery in Sumner County, Kansas, just one mile west of Milan, and about 16 miles west of Wellington on Highway 160.

Albert Miner Breneman

born – March 26, 1888
died – January 10, 1915

Albert, second from the left on the back in the picture below,  had five brother’s and sisters, and one of his sisters, Carrie Esther Breneman, front left below, married Warner LaRue Jones.    

Carrie and Warner were my grandparents.

Children of Constantine "Tom" & Salinda Breneman - Back: Ira, Albert, Harvey, Otto Front: Carrie & May

Albert is shown above with his siblings:

Back: Ira, Albert, Harvey, and Otto
Front: Carrie and May

Whenever I visit the cemetery to leave flowers or take photographs I think how sad it was that he died so young.

Sherry Stocking Kline
November 16, 2009

Just a few quick notes to help my Twitter Friend, @Bonnie67, have some Genealogy Fun!

Everyone told me three things when I started to do genealogy research.

A.   Start with me and work backwards.

B.   Document and log my searches through census and books, even when I didn’t find anything (so I wouldn’t search the same place two or three times) and document my sources, and

C.   Get an organization system, a filing system, a notebook, etc.

I didn’t follow advice B and C as well as I should have, but I’m working to turn over a new leaf!

Ten Tips to Begin Your Family History Research

1.  The first thing you need to do is start filling out Family Sheets/Family Group Sheets. You can find a blank group sheet here.

If you have a family that has more than six children, click here to download an add-on sheet for the children.

2.  Fill out the first group sheet for your own family. Your spouse, yourself and your children.

3.  Multiple marriages?   Begin with the first spouse, and ‘tie’ children to their biological father.

4.  Fill in with everything you know. The reference(s) line refers to where the information comes from, whether it is your personal knowledge, a relatives, a death certificate, census, etc.

5.  If you have more children than blanks, add on an extra sheet.

6.  Written everything you can?   Then next fill out a family group sheet for your parents and their children (you and your siblings). Continue with your grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., as far back as you can go.

7.  When you have gone as far as you can with what you know, you need to turn to other sources. Family members, such as parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even your older siblings may remember something that you don’t.

8.  After family, you will need to turn to paper records: wills, death certificates, obituaries, census records, newspapers, and much, much more.

9.   Want a basic free genealogy program to help you save, sort and file your info? You can find a link to download one here: Free Legacy Family Tree Software, http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Index.asp. And another one from Roots Magic here: http://www.rootsmagic.com/Essentials/.

Randy Seaver  has written a Roots Magic Essentials review on his Genea-Musings here.

This will give you a place to begin to store your records. You do NOT  have to have a program to do  genealogy, but it does make it easier to file and manage all the information you may accumulate.

10.  Review your Group Sheets.  Someone told me once that doing genealogy was like working the world’s biggest puzzle.  And that’s what genealogists do as they research, they add one puzzle piece at a time, checking to see where it fits.  So now, you go over your Group sheets, and see what blanks you need to fill in, set your goals for future research, and start filling in the blanks!

Happy Hunting!

Downloads:

1. Family Sheets/Family Group Sheets. You can find a blank group sheet here.

2. More children than blanks in your primary group sheet? Add on an extra sheet: Extra Children Sheet.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
Nov 15, 2009

In 1959 The Clutter Murders Shattered Our Peaceful Life

There are times in your life when some event occurs and it changes your life in profound ways.

Fifty years ago, on November 15, 1959, when four members of the Clutter family were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas, it sent shock waves through our small community and especially in our farm home. And it changed the way our family lived and viewed the world.

We didn’t know them. In fact, we lived hours away from Holcomb. But that murder changed the way our family lived.

The Family Was Murdered for About $40.00…

What we heard on television and read in the newspaper, was that the farm family of four had been murdered for about $40.00.

I remember my parents, my dad and mom sitting at the kitchen table, faces somber, frightened looking even, and my father, saying “If people will murder a family for so little, they will do anything.”

(Later, we read that the murderers had heard in jail that the family kept a large amount of money at their home; but all we knew then was that an entire family had been brutally murdered for such a small sum.)

Murder was something that happened in far-away cities…

Murders like that were something you rarely heard of, they were something that happened in far-away large cities, not something that happened to Kansas farm families.

Up until then, our doors were never, and I mean NEVER locked, not in the daytime when we were gone, not at night when we were asleep.

Up until then, there was no need.

They were always locked at night after the Clutter murders.

Up until then, because the air conditioning we had wasn’t really that great, my folks would put beds and old Army cots out into the back yard on the hottest summer nights, and we slept under the stars.

And before the Clutter murder the only thing we worried about while sleeping outside was getting bitten by mosquitoes, and the only thing I worried about was whether the coyotes we could hear yodeling at each other in the distance would come closer.

We never felt completely safe again…

After the Clutter murders, a new fear, a new possibility had entered our lives and our minds, and that changed our lives.

The peace and safety that had been ours was gone. We never felt completely safe on the farm and we never slept in the yard under the stars again.

You can read more about the Clutter Family at the Wichita Eagle website here.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November 14, 2009

Here, thanks to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, is your Saturday Night Genealogy Fun writing mission, if you decide to accept it (cue the Mission: Impossible music…):

1. What is the Nicest Thing another genealogist did for you, or to you, in the last week or so? (If you have no examples for this past week, go back in time – surely someone has done a nice thing for you in recent years!).

2. Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a comment on Facebook, or in a tweet on Twitter.

In the past few weeks, two Twitter friends helped me navigate the rocky-for-me road of how to ‘do stuff’ on my WordPress blog!

I tweeted for help…

In late September, I tweeted for help in finding a Blog Roll so I could add other folks blog addresses to my blog!

And GeneaBloggers (@geneabloggers on Twitter) tweeted me the instructions for how to do it, then tweeted me a “why don’t you blog about it message later.” (I still plan to!)

It took @geneabloggers about six tweets at 140 characters to send me the info, but the instructions were perfect.

I found the Blog Roll I wanted, and next thing you know, I had a blog roll on my blog! Woo Hoo!  Thanks, GeneaBloggers!  Now, I just need to find the time to add everyone’s blog on there.

Yesterday, I followed a link…

Just yesterday, I followed a link on Twitter from @Bonnie67 that led me to her  post at Bonnie67′s. (Bonnie isn’t a genealogist, yet, but I’m ‘recruiting’ her.)

Bonnie had a link to a music video, the very same song by Sam the Sham and the Pharoah’s that I wished I could have added to my first Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.

When I mentioned that I wished I knew how to post music video’s on my site, Bonnie got busy and wrote a blog post to show me how!

Awesome!     Thanks, Bonnie!

And though this was a long time ago and I’d have to dig through a lot of old genealogy to find her name, there was a wonderfully kind woman who was the first woman I wrote to to try to find information about my husband’s Kline family.

This wonderful woman looked up some information in the newspaper, located a description about the farm animals owned, crops grown, and the orchard on the farm, and found information about the two children of James and Elizabeth Kline that had passed away while they lived there.

I was able to locate some information at the library in Wichita that helped her out some, too, information that told her that some of her family had been founding members in the small cattle town that was Wichita in its early days.

It was the help from this woman, and others like her that helped me have those early successes in piecing together the family histories that weave together and make up the fabric of who our family is, and fueled my desire to learn more, and more.

Thank you!

by Sherry Stocking Kline

November 14, 2009

One of Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges for September was to blog about our favorite songs. See that SNGF post here.

That was a tough assignment!

I love music, and so many of my favorite songs are tied with memories, some good, some bad, some inspirational, and some sad.

There’s too many favorites to count, but Randy’s challenge brought to mind one song that we had such fun with while we were in high school because it brings back so many fun memories.  And of the time  right before high school graduation, before we went off to college, or to war, or for some to get married. It was a time when we had few responsibilities.

Sam the Sam and the Pharoah’s “Lil Red Riding Hood” was ‘the’ song to sing with a carload of teens dragging Main Street in the ’60’s.

You Could Howl Out the Window…

You could sing at the top of your lungs, howl out the window at passing cars and pedestrians, and in general, just act silly.

It was right before most cars had seat belts and there were no seat belt laws, so even my mom’s little white Ford Fairlane 500 might have six passengers.  (No alcohol was involved in our little group, it was just a bunch of silly teens having fun.)

Anyway, thanks to Twitter buddy @bonnie67, who read my “I don’t know how to embed a video” Tweet, and offered these instructions at Bonnie67’s Blog!

Thank you, Bonnie!

So here, thanks to Bonnie, are Sam the Sham and The Pharoah’s.

(And please – Feel free to sing along, and howl at the appropriate times….)

P.S. I had to go into my WordPress HTML tab to add in the coding for embedding the code.  I apologize, but I don’t know how any other blog hosts require it done!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November, 10, 2009

This stone belongs to my husband’s grandparents, John Conver and Jessie (Wood) Kline.

John & Jessie (Wood) Kline, Ryan Township Cemetery, Sumner County, Kansas

The Ryan Township Cemetery is located in Sumner County, one mile west of Milan, Kansas on Highway 160, or about 16 miles west of Wellington, Kansas.

John is the fourth son of James and Elizabeth (Conver) Kline.  John had three older brothers who passed away before the family moved to Kansas.  You can read more about James and Elizabeth Kline’s family here.

Jessie is the daughter of Nathaniel and Mary (McMulin) Wood. Nathaniel and Mary homesteaded a quarter section of land in Sumner County, Kansas, near Milan, and are also buried in the Ryan Township Cemetery, Milan, Kansas.

John and Jessie had three children:

Lawrence Conver Kline b. May 15, 1911 – d. Feb 16, 1989
Dorothy L. Born & Died in 1915 at 4 mos of age
Melvin Ray Kline b. Mar 20, 1918 – d. Aug 18, 1988

Lawrence, Dorothy, and Melvin are all buried in the Ryan Township Cemetery, Milan, Sumner County, Kansas.

If you are researching the Kline family, I hope you will leave a comment with your contact information so we can share and compare research!

Thank you & Happy Researching!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November 7th, 2009

It’s Saturday Night and time for the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge!  The following comes from Randy Seaver, http://www.geneamusings.com/.  Once again, Thanks, Randy!

Hey, genealogy fans – it’s Saturday Night, and time for some Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music…), is:

1) Find out the geographical distribution of your surname – in the world, in your state or province, in your county or parish. I suggest that you use the Public Profiler site at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/, which seems to work quickly and easily. However, you cannot capture the image as a photo file – you have to capture the screen shot, save it and edit it.

2) Tell us about your surname distribution in a blog post of your own (with a screen shot if possible), in comments to this post, or in comments on a social networking site like Facebook and Twitter.

It was interesting to see where the Stocking surname was scattered, and also where it is predominant.  It still appears to be more dominant in the United Kingdom, where it originated.

My Stocking immigrant ancestor, George Stocking, came to America in the 1630’s on the ship Griffith from Suffolk, England. It appears there are still many family members in England today.

It was interesting to see the break down for the FPM or Frequency of Family Members Per Million by Countries of the Stocking Name:

Country

United Kingdom   9.72
United States         8.53
Canada                      5.73
New Zealand           1.41
France                       0.05

The following is what the map looks like by Regions:

Idaho, United States  76.85
Utah, United States 62.83
West Midlans, United Kingdom  30.65
East Anglia, United Kingdome   24.78
Wyoming, United States  24.36

And then the Stocking surname in my State!  And if you look to the county just south of Wichita, which is Sumner County, you will see there are several of the Stocking family represented in this area!

The Stocking Surname in Kansas!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November 6th, 2009

James & Elizabeth (Conver) Kline buried in Ryan Township Cemetery, Milan, Sumner County, Kansas

On the Stone:

James Kline

Jan. 25, 1945  –  June 21, 1908

Elizabeth His Wife

May 4, 1846  –  Dec 8, 1918

James and Elizabeth (Conver) Kline are buried in Ryan Township Cemetery, near Milan, Sumner County, Kansas. The cemetery is located one mile west of Milan, Kansas on Highway 160.

James and Elizabeth (Conver) Kline came to Caldwell, Kansas shortly before the 1893 Cherokee Strip Run, where as family story has it, James ran in the Cherokee Strip Run, and when he was not fortunate enough to win free land, he later came to the Milan, Kansas area, where he purchased land along the Chickaskia River south of Milan.

James was born in Clarion County, PA.

Some of the following information includes information that I personally have found, but also includes information that I received from cousin Liz Williams:

Elizabeth Conver was born  4 May 1846 in Richland, Lebanon Co., PA, and was the daughter of  of John A. Conver & Marry Huff.

James and Elizabeth were married in Knox, County, Illinois on 31 Oct 1867.  They had three sons that died before they came to Kansas, Charles William Kline, born in 1868 but died before 1870, and two more sons, Levi born in 1870 in Illinois and Samuel born in 1872 in Iowa also died young.

After coming to Kansas, they had seven more children. The oldest surviving son, John Conver Kline, was my husband’s grandfather.

James and Elizabeth’s other children were: Newton Oliver Kline, Susan Alica Adilia Kline, James Monroe Kline, Walter Cleveland Kline, Orie Ray Kline, Mae Violet Kline

I would love to connect with other members of my husband’s Kline, Conver, and Huff family to share information, so please leave a comment with  your contact info and I will respond asap.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 31, 2009

The following is the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge by Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings!  Thanks, Randy!

Hey boys and girls, it’s Hallowe’en, and time for some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun! Play either before or after your trick or treating experiences, or even on Sunday morning after your extra hour of sleep (you did remember to set your clocks back, didn’t you?).

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along – cue the Mission Impossible music!):

1) Think about your most memorable Hallowe’en – was it when you were a child (candy, games, carnivals), a teenager (tricks and treats), or an adult (perhaps a party)?

2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post of mine, or in a comment on Twitter or Facebook in response to this post.

3) Have fun!

Looking back at my own memories I realize how lucky we were. We lived in, or in my case near, a wonderful small town where the residents were patient and the bank roof was sturdy.

What was so important about the bank roof being sturdy?

The goal each Halloween, for at least two generations, was to block off the three-block Main Street so no traffic could get through, (at all) soap car and business’ windows, (there were five in my time prior to that six or seven) and to …

Pile as Much Stuff on the Bank Roof as Possible!

In our defense, it didn’t start with my generation.

In my father’s time, horse drawn buggies were pushed, pulled, and hauled up on the bank’s roof.

In my time, for whatever reason, it became the preacher’s kid’s swing sets that made their way onto the bank roof each Halloween.

Just in case one of the p.k.’s (preacher’s kids) read this someday it didn’t mean we didn’t like you or your folks, i.e. it was not a negative reflection on the preacher’s popularity, it was probably because the family was well liked.

And, it was also because the swing sets were handy to the bank and very easily moved.

In Mayfield, in the 1950’s, it was safe…

In Mayfield, in the 1950’s, it was safe for children to go around by themselves. Maybe it wouldn’t be now, maybe not even in Mayfield which is still has about 100 residents, and isn’t that a sad commentary on our times.

My very first Halloween memory is when I was about three or four years old and not much taller than the paper grocery sack my mom sent me off to trick or treat with.

One of the ‘big girls’, Anita Biles or Ginny Barry, took me by the hand, and walked me around the town along with a crowd made up of all ages and sizes.  I felt very short, very small, and kind of scared.

My next memory is being big enough not to hold anyone’s hand and going around with friends in home-made costumes. I remember being a hobo often, because the bandannas and ratty clothes were easy to come by.

By the Time We Were Old Enough, the Privy’s were gone…

By the time my generation was big enough to join in with creating havoc, some of the buggies and horse drawn wagons still sat in yards and town fields, but the outhouses (privy’s) were gone. My dad’s generation was known to push over outhouses.(Occasionally some resourceful person moved the outhouse, and the prankster’s fell IN the outhouse hole) and one Hallowwen someone was actually IN an outhouse when it was pushed over.

Looking back, I marvel at the patience of the men who got up the next day, and took everything back to its proper home, because if it was movable, if it could be drug, rolled, pushed or pulled, it made its way to Main Street on Halloween night amidst joyous laughter and much camaraderie. (And for those who cleaned up the next day, please know that I’m grateful.)

We Were ‘Too Old’ to Go Trick or Treating…

As teen-agers, though we considered ourselves too old to go trick-or-treating, we were still expected to make an appearance in each of our town “Grandma’s” homes to receive our treats.

We started out at Grandma Mabel Stayton’s, where my mom, Dorothy Stocking, and my best friend’s mom, Wanda Stayton, both farm wives, sat with Mabel to hand out candy along with Mabel. From there, we traveled to visit at Grandma Eva Downing’s, Grandma Jenny McCreary’s, Valley Heasty’s, Mrs. Washburn’s, Dode and Bonnie Anderson, and Nancy and Rosa Weber’s home.

At each home, we were welcomed with candy and choruses of “My how you’ve grown!”, “What grade are you in now?” and “Be sure and come back next year!”

We had no idea then, how lucky we were to grow up in a small town with such a family friendly atmosphere.

But Traditions Change…

It wasn’t too many years after we Tricked and Treated that the traditions were changed to ones that were safer and were less work for all involved, but looking back, well, memories just don’t get any better than the ones we were lucky enough to create.