Adoptions and adoptees pose special problems for genealogists. And of course adoptees themselves have may have a difficult time tracing their genealogy. Last Saturday was National Adoption Day in fact it was the 10th anniversary of national adoption day. Coincidentally that day I was working on a blog entry called the “Black Catholics in My [...]
The number of black Catholics in the United States is small. I know this both anecdotally and empirically. I was probably a teenager before I met another black Catholic family. My parents, each for their own reasons, converted to Catholicism as teenagers. They did not know each other at the times of their conversions. My [...]
Continue reading about Black Catholic History Month: The Catholics in My Families
Several weeks ago, in a post called Happy Dance Days are Here Again, I posted some photographs. The photos were of Frank Gines and his wife Willie V. Cole Gines, and their children. Frank Gines (1883-1946) was a son of Richard William Gines (1860-?) and Sylvia LeJay Gines (1863-1940). One of Frank’s younger brothers was [...]
Continue reading about Why I Blog–Reason No. 1 and Reason No. 776,002
This was supposed to have been a post for the 4th Edition of Smile for the Camera at Shades of the Departed, but I missed the deadline. (Somewhere along the line, about three weeks ago, perhaps, I slid behind schedule and have been running to catch up! We’ll see what that means for the Games!). [...]
With school starting in about a week and a half (what?!), it’s been busy around here. So I’m slow on several things. First thing is the BFF. I was tagged twice–by Elizabeth O’Neal and Janet Iles. I actually met Elizabeth at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in June. She writes the crisp and frequently [...]
One ancestor I’m really trying to learn more about is my great-great-grandfather William (“Billie”) Sanford. He was born in 1809 in Virginia and died in 1916 in Texas at the age of 106! A book I read says that he is the oldest person buried in the “colored” section of the Old City Cemetery in [...]
Continue reading about Carnival of Genealogy: 106 Years in America–And More!
The Kansas City Star reports that the ribbon-cutting and dedication of the new Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, was held today. As regular readers know, that’s right in the heart of my maternal homelands. I’m quite eager to visit on my next trip back! But, until I can see it in person and blog [...]
I have obliquely alluded, in this space, to the fact that I am of the Roman Catholic faith. This may come as a surprise to a lot of folks, some of whom believe a black Catholic is rarer than a campfire at the North Pole. Frequently, when people learn that I’m a Catholic, they say, [...]
Continue reading about Black History Month: Black Catholics in America
I’ve just discovered a Kansas City cousin named Dorothy Long Gunn (1916-1998). She would be my mother’s first cousin, both of them being granddaughters of James William Long (1866-1945).
Lisa, who has the energy to write several interesting blogs, posed the question, “Where was your family in 1908?” on, appropriately enough, her 100 Years in America blog. A century ago, neither of my paternal grandparents had been born yet, although one, my grandmother Jessie Beatrice Bowie, was just a year away. Her parents, my [...]
