History
A Bit About the Bayou City: Houston, Texas
This isn’t a full-blown essay about Houston . . .but the city has come to mind several times over the past few weeks. And that gave me an insight into genealogical research. Houston is home to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (“Mission Control”) and the renowned M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and The University of Texas Health Science Center At …
April 19, 2013 Friday at 12:34 pm
Women’s History Month: Oveta Culp Hobby
“Journalist, Business Leader, Public Servant” Oveta Culp Hobby (1905-1995) was one of most recognized women of the 1940s through the 1980s. Born in 1905 in Killeen, Bell County, Texas, by the age of 25 she had earned a law degree and was both the Assistant City Attorney in Houston and the parliamentarian of the Texas House of Representatives. But …
March 15, 2013 Friday at 6:13 pm
Women’s History Month: The “Six-Triple-Eight” WWII Battalion
One thing a deployed soldier, sailor, marine, or airman looks forward to is “mail call.” Receiving letters from home is the biggest morale booster known to military men and women. Before World War II, mail was mostly handled on an individual basis. But the two-theater Second Great War brought mobilization on a scale never before seen. And “mail call” became …
March 12, 2013 Tuesday at 3:59 pm
Genealogical Reconnaisance in Central Texas
Last month, being Family History Month, seemed like a good time to head for the ancestral homelands in central Texas. The fact that I was speaking at an American Bar Association thingie in Austin was completely coincidental. Longtime readers of this journal (if there are any out there!) will recall that in 1884, my great-great-grandmother and her son Otis went …
November 16, 2012 Friday at 2:16 pm
William Edward Gines II (1953-2012)
My cousin, William Edward Gines II, passed away on October 12, 2012. He had heart disease. Generally known as “Eddie” or “William Edward,” he was named after our grandfather, William Edward Gines (1898-1955), who was also called “Eddie.” His father was Alfred Eugene Gines (1930-2011) and his mother was Ida Mae Johnson, who survives him. Among his survivors are his …
October 15, 2012 Monday at 8:54 pm
Doors of Faith
[NOTE: 10/12/2012: This post has suffered a serious editing malfunction and will be reposted shortly]. Over at The Catholic Gene, where I’ve been known to hang out, Lisa/Smallest Leaf had a great idea: we should recnogize the Year of Faith declared by Pope Benedict XVI by sharing stories and photos of Catholic churches of our families or ancestors that played …
October 7, 2012 Sunday at 1:23 pm
Supreme Court to Determine Public Records Threat
The first Monday in October is traditionally the start of the U.S. Supreme Court’s annual term. During the first week, the Court typically hears a few cases, and announces some of the other cases they have chosen for review during the Term. This amounts to something less than 200 cases out of thousands of petitions addressed to the Court. So, …
October 6, 2012 Saturday at 9:17 pm
Rockdale, Texas
If it seems like years pass between my journeys into the ancestral homelands, well, that’s because it’s true. My first trip “back home” was in 2005 when I went to Upson County, Georgia. My second trip was in 2007 to Kansas City. Now, I’m headed for Rockdale, Texas! I leave tomorrow at noon. Rockdale is a town in Milam …
October 6, 2012 Saturday at 7:31 pm
Georgia to Restrict Access to State Archives
Less than a week ago, I was advising someone that her next research activity should be to visit the Georgia State Archives. Well, now, she’d better get there in a hurry since the state has announced the closure of the Archives to most public visitors effective 1 November 2012. In a statement on Tuesday, 11 September 2012, Georgia’s Secretary of …
September 14, 2012 Friday at 12:54 pm
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
I had constructed a scenario in my head whereby Monroe Bryant of Rockport, Texas, petty criminal and draft delinquent, had gone to Louisiana and acquired another man’s draft registration card. I based this scenario on the fact that in the same batch of FBI reports that I had received concerning my great uncle Monroe Bryant of Rockport, there was another …
August 8, 2012 Wednesday at 7:59 pm
