My fourth great grandparents, Jacob Coppenbarger (1769-1841) and Catharine Ann Snavely (1780-1857) had a dozen known children: 7 sons & 5 daughters. Last week, I came across a newspaper article which was published by the Circuit Court and involved the estate of Jacob Coppenbarger. Jacob’s oldest four daughters are listed alongside their husband’s names. His fifth daughter, Emily, was only 15 years old when her father died. Though she wasn’t yet married, she would marry shortly after her 16th birthday. Circuit Court, May Term, Peter Coppenbarger, Illinois Weekly State Journal, Springfield, Illinoisi,11 Mar 1842, page 4, column 2, digital image...
Here, on May 14, 1832, the first engagement of the Black Hawk War took place. When 275 Illinois militiamen under Maj. Isaiah Stillman were put to flight by Black Hawk and his warriers. So thoroughly demoralized were the volunteers that a new army had to be called into the field. – Historical marker at the site of Stillman’s Defeat in Stillman Valley, Illinois List of volunteers including Geo. Copperberger [should be Coppenbarger] as 3rd corporal, Elisha Butler & Obediah Hooper as privatesMy great, great, great grandfather, Peter Coppenbarger, was 14 years old in the spring of 1832. He was too...
My great, great grandparents, Josiah Randolph Coppenbarger & Elizabeth (Bennett) Coppenbarger, lived in the small community of Ashton, Kansas near the Oklahoma border. In 1899, four of their children, including my great grandmother Myrtle Mae, were still living at home. I’m not sure where one son, Alva, was living, but their oldest daughter, Mary Ellen or “Ella,” was married and living nearby with her husband, D. V. Waggoner, and their 10-month-old baby, Floyd. Living in Tornado Alley, the family must have been accustomed to the fear of twisters. But, on the night of May 31st, those fears became reality as...
Randy’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge tonight is to see if you have any ancestors or cousins that share your birth date. You can find the “rules” on his blog, Genea-Musings. 1. What is your birth date? (Not the year… just the month & day) February 22nd Robert F Barnett’s headstone, Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Salt Fork, Grant Co, OK (Image by bobetx1 posted at Find a Grave) 2. Do you have anyone in your tree who shares your birth date? (Randy’s post shows how to find this from your genealogy program) There is one person on my tree with my...
This morning I watched DearMYRTLE’s video, “AncestryDNA Matches with Angie Bush.” Angie is DearMYRTLE’s “DNA expert.” She started by explaining what you can learn from Ancestry DNA matches that have ‘shaky leaf’ hints. I was already comfortable with those. But, next she talked about those matches that DON’T have hints. Up until now, I’ve always ignored those. Many of them have very small trees. The ‘tree’ DearMYRTLE and Angie worked on only had 2 people! But, they were able to figure out the common ancestor! Wow! Angie also pointed out that part of why they were able to make the...
As I prepared for my genealogy road trip to Kansas, I wanted to organize my paperwork so I could share it with my relatives. I have thought a lot about going digital, but I am a very visual person and find that I work better with actual papers. But, how should I organize them? My filing system I decided to use hanging files, rather than notebooks, because it was both faster and cheaper. Also, I liked how tidy it looked. My filing system I created a hanging file for each couple who were my direct ancestors. And, I color coded...
S. P. Coppenbarger death, The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Illinois, 23 Aug 1893, page 4, column 2; digital image newspapers.com, (http://www.newspapers.com: accessed 07 Oct 2014) Of course we expect to find death records of our relatives. But, this is the kind of death you don’t want to find. Sylvester Perry Coppenbarger (1839 in De Witt Co, IL – 1893 in OK) was my 1st cousin four times removed. His grandfather, Jacob Coppenbarger Senior (1769 in Wythe Co, VA – 1841 in De Witt Co, IL), was my fourth great grandfather. Sadly, “S. P.” evidently died at the age of 53 by an...
May 31st, 1899. An electrical storm bursts upon the small town of Ashton, Kansas during the late evening hours. Thunder booms and lightning flashes across the sky. A young family probably tries to sleep but the mother and father are kept awake by the show. Then, they hear what sounds like a train coming towards them. They probably crouch together for safety and hold on tight to their baby boy. And then the tornado hits their house. Image from Wikipedia The house is torn apart by the twister. It is demolished. The husband is blown 450 feet away and is...
Randy posts a weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge over at Genea-Musings. Tonight’s challenge is about your August genealogical “finds.” Here are the rules… Did you do some genealogy research during August 2014? Did you find a great record or story pertaining to an ancestor or family member? Tell us about the BEST genea-prize (“record”) you found during August 2014. What was it, where did you find it, and how does it help advance your research? Share your genea-prize in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. NOTE: If you...
Randy has posted his latest Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge on GeneaMusings. This week’s challenge is titled “Two Degrees of Separation.” Here’s the assignment: Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation? That means “you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor.” When was that second ancestor born? Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a status line on Facebook or a stream post on Google Plus. Randy broke his down by line, so I thought I would, too....
