Another Christmas Past?

Another Christmas Past?

Happy New Year, 2013.  I have now "celebrated" 50 New Year's celebrations and 50 days of Christmas. During the last couple of months, I have spent much time reminiscing with the ghosts of my Christmases past. Last year in my Advent Calendar of Christmas memories I shared many of my favorite stories and thanks to this blog, I am able to go back and read them again. While doing so, I couldn't help but remember some of the joy and anticipation I was feeling during those early Christmas times. The scent of the Christmas tree, the colored lights shining behind the white curtains in our living room, watching the snow softly falling in the glow of the streetlights, thinking I heard Santa walking softly around my house while I pretended to be asleep, believing the red lights on the radio towers were Rudolph's nose.... 

Ah, the magic that is childhood.  How quickly it flew by.

Even at 50 years of age, I still find myself at times seeing those towers and remembering how I stood outside my house on Christmas Eve, believing that red light just might be leading Santa's sleigh through the night sky and sometimes I feel the goosebumps at the thought of what might be waiting underneath the tree.

Many of the people I spent those wonderful holidays with are no longer with me, but the memory of my loved ones is so clear in my mind that they are always here in spirit. This year I seemed to be missing those people even more than usual, so I created an Ancestor Christmas Tree and on it I placed photos of many of my ancestors and those of my husband as well.  It is a reminder of those wonderful past Christmas and New Year's Days.  I labeled the reverse of each photo so that my children and grandchildren will know their names and I plan to have the tree up again next year when my new granddaughter will be able to appreciate a Christmas tree for the first time.  It helped me hold onto a little bit of "Christmas Past".

Photograph of my great grandmother, Margaret McBride Marling, on my Ancestor Christmas Tree.

 

50 Christmases?  No. That can't possibly be true! I know it was only yesterday I was wishing for that talking doll.......

 

Happy New Year, 2013.  May it be a blessed year for us all.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Grandma and Grandpa's Wedding Announcement

 I could hardly wait for Treasure Chest Thursday this week to share the newest addition to my collection of treasured family heirlooms.  The difference between this and other items I have shared in the past is that this one is brand new; at least it is to me!

Today, I have posted the wedding announcement of my maternal grandparents, Leland and Gladys Marling Norris. Up until this week, I never knew this article existed. Not only that, until my mother read this newspaper clipping, she wasn't aware that her parents had had a church wedding.  She had always just assumed they had recited their vows in front of a justice of the peace. So, it was quite a surprise to read that they were married at the Presbyterian church in Elkhart, Indiana and then had a wedding supper at the home of my great grandparents. 

I have to thank Genealogy Bank for giving me the chance to own this treasured bit of my family history.  I hadn't looked at their website for a couple of years and this week when I discovered they now had the Elkhart, Indiana newspapers available, I knew I had to get a membership.  Within the first 10 minutes of researching, I found this wedding announcement. I also found an article pertaining to their marriage license and my grandmother's bridal shower.

I discovered another fact while searching within the pages of the Ekhart newspapers.   My great grandfather, Ralph  Marling, who was a moulder by profession, also happened to be the financial officer of the moulder's union.  Pretty exciting news for someone who makes her living at being a bookkeeper!  His name is mentioned numerous times during the newspaper's coverage of the union's strike in Elkhart.  My great uncle, Chet, is not left out.  His marriage announcement and several articles detailing his World War I army service are included.

This is just further proof that family history research cannot be done with just one website, at one time, and even when you think you are "finished" with a branch of your family tree, you can always discover something new, wonderful, totally unexpected! You never know when you might find a new "treasure"!

Wordless Wednesday - James Nash Marling

My great great uncle, James Nash Marling

Columbus, Franklin, Ohio

circa 1900

Surname Saturday - The Marling and Oldham Families

John Austin and Margaret Susan Armstrong Marling

Pictured above are my maternal great great grandparents, John Austin and Margaret Susan Armstrong Marling.  On this Surname Saturday, I am deeply in the midst of compiling documents for my application for The Daughters of the American Revolution based upon the Revolutionary War status of the grandfather of John Austin Marling. 

His name is Isaac Oldham and he is, of course, my 5th great grandfather.

Uncovering information about the role that Isaac played in our fight for independence was not difficult.  Heritagequest.com contains the scanned copies of the actual pension request that spells out his service record completely.   He stated that he served with Capt. John Van Meter and with the Westmoreland Battery and he was a Private.  A visit to the DAR Genealogical Resource Database  provides me with proof that he did indeed serve his country and also gives a list of those who have proven their family link to him in the past. So, that step has been simple.

 Through various other sources, I had already found the branches of my tree that led back from myself to Isaac, but finding the source documents that are acceptable proof to the DAR has not been quite as easy. As a matter of fact, this post could well belong in the Madness Monday category.

Up until now, all the genealogical honor societies I have joined have not required me to compile my Marling and Oldham family information, so this has been a "start from scratch" endeavor.  I was actually working on The First Families of Ohio application first, but I received a little "kick start" in the form of an email from a representative from the DAR this week. She told me that since others had already proven a family link between my 4th great grandmother, Esther Oldham Marling, and her father, Isaac, I would be able to just link to their applications and not worry about proving the line myself.   Given that boost, I started pulling out the forms, certificates, census records, etc. that I thought I would need to document all the pertinent facts.

I (somewhat) easily managed to put together all the proof evidence I would need for generations 1-4; myself and my husband, my parents, my maternal grandparents, my maternal great grandparents, and my maternal great great grandparents.  However, when I got to my 3rd great grandparents, I could find no source document that stated absolutely that Samuel Marling was the son of John and Esther Oldham Marling.

Everything in previous generations that might be considered a little "weak" can be completely explained and shown to be true, but any proof I have of Samuel's parentage is simply not good enough for the DAR.

The problem is that Samuel was born in 1811 (to early for official birth records) and he died in 1851 (too early for official death records).  Others have listed that he is buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio and I know that his wife, Amelia, is buried there as well.  Howver, numerous people have searched the cemetery for their headstones, to no avail.  According to One World Tree on Ancestry.com, Samuel is John and Esther's son, but I can find no actual source documents to prove it.  In the 1850 United States Census for Guernsey County, John and Esther Marling are living on a property between the properties of their two sons, Isaac and Samuel.  Also helping to point out a link between Samuel and John and Esther is the fact that Samuel and Amelia named one of their daughters, Esther.  This certainly is not enough evidence to prove that they are his parents, so, I am now feverishly searching and researching every available Guernsey County/Marling family resource to discover just one proof document that I can use to cite the parentage of Samuel Marling.

I won't stop looking.

I know it's out there.....somewhere.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Interview with Grandma

In 1984, my mother bought a very small audio cassette recorder and began to hide it during our various holiday family gatherings. At the time, we all teased her about recording us as much as she was, but now, I am so thankful for those recordings. We eventually purchased a video recorder, but those audio cassettes contain many wonderful times and voices that were no longer with us by the time the video technology arrived. One of those voices belongs to my grandmother, Gladys Marling Norris. Grandma spent quite a lot of time in our home during those years and one day my brilliant mother decided to sit down with her and ask her questions about her life. It was and remains one of my greatest treasures. I have converted many of those old cassette tapes to CD's and MP3 files. In honor of Mother's Day, I would like to share a portion of one of those interviews here. So, here's to my mom and both of my grandmothers. I am who I am because of you!

Please be patient. The video takes a few minutes to load.

Wordless Wednesday - Marling Men

Marling 4 Generation photo

Chester (My great uncle),

 Ralph (my great grandfather), Richard, (Chester's son), John Austin (My great great grandfather)

Elkhart, Indiana

Wordless Wednesday - Chester Wilson Marling

Photograph of my maternal great uncle, Chester Wilson Marling (1896-1972).

Uncle Chet was born in Columbus, Ohio, but spent most of his life in Mishawaka and Elkhart, Indiana.

Wordless Wednesday - Gladys, Jeanne, and Don

I am a litle late on my Wordless Wednesday post, and it's not going to be completely wordless, but here goes!  This is a photograph of my maternal grandmother, Gladys Marling Norris, and two of her children, Beatrice Jean and Donald Leroy.  As far as I know, my aunt never went by the name Beatrice and was always called Jean.  For most of her life, she spelled it Jeanne.  My grandmother doesn't look very happy with whomever is taking this picture. 

Treasure Chest Thursday - Gladys Marling Norris and the Genealogy Community

This is my favorite photograph of my maternal grandmother, Gladys Margaret Marling Norris. I chose this as my "Treasure Chest Thursday" item for several reasons. First of all, it is a beautiful portrait of a very special person in my life. Secondly, it stands out in my mind because it was not originally "colorized". At the beginning of my internet research, I uploaded several family photos, including this one in black and white, to the Ancient Faces website. Not long after I had done that, I received an email from a gentleman, including this colorized photograph of my grandmother. He went on to tell me how nice he thought it was that I had remembered my family members by adding them to the website. Because of that, he had added color to the portrait for me. What an incredible gift from a stranger. During the time I have been researching my family history, I have come into contact with many people who have volunteered to photograph burial sites, copy records, and various other kind gestures with no expectation of monetary reward. They, like I, get joy out of sharing the experience of learning more about our family history experience.
That is why I love the genealogy community so much. So, my grandmother is my treasure today; along with the community of family history researchers!

Madness Monday - McBride Mystery

Margaret E. McBride was born on 4 April, 1871 in Pennsylvania to William M. McBride and Martha A. (maiden name unknown). She married Ralph Elliott Marling on 4 July, 1895 in Columbus, Ohio. She was beautiful. She had two children, Chester Wilson, born on 17 December, 1896 and Gladys Margaret (my maternal grandmother), born 2 December, 1900.

According to the 1880 US Census she was living with her parents and her brother, William, in Steubenville, Ohio. In 1900, she was living in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, son, and her parents.

She died on her birthday, 4 April, 1908. The death record states that the cause of death was heart failure. My grandmother told me that she died in childbirth. She is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. She has no gravestone. It breaks my heart and someday, I hope to remedy that situation.

That is all I know of my great grandmother and her parents.
After her death, her parents do not appear on any Ohio census records. Her brother married and according to the 1910 US Census records, he was living in Braddock Borough, Allegheny County, PA with his wife, Frances, and their daughter, Edrice. He was an accounting clerk with the railroad. By 1920, his wife and two daughters were living in Columbus and Frances was a widow. Luckily, the name Edrice McBride was not a common one, and I have been able to discover information about the life of my first cousin twice removed. She married a gentleman by the name of Theodore Byrle Taylor and they had two children, both now deceased. I have been unable to contact any of her grandchildren, although I do know their names. I have photographs (thanks to findagrave.com) of her gravesite and that of her mother, Frances.

I do not know the exact date of William McBride's death, nor do I know where he is buried.

The real frustration comes in finding my great great grandparents, William and Martha McBride. A Martha McBride does appear in the Ohio census after 1900, but it is not "my" Martha. I believe they may have gone back to Pennsylvania with their son, but they did not appear to be living with him. They also may have died before the 1910 census, but I have been unable to discover them in any Ohio death records.

My grandmother knew little about them. She did know she had an "Uncle Bill" who "died young". I don't believe she knew either of her cousins, Edrice or Martha Madeline. Her father, Ralph, having two young children to raise, remarried twice. Neither woman treated my grandmother kindly, but she was quite close to her father. Her father left Columbus to work as a moulder making train wheels in Elkhart, Indiana, so she had little, if any, contact with her mother's family after her death.

Of all the "brick walls" I have run into in the past 6 years, this is the most painful. I haven't given up. I continue to try to contact my distant cousins and hopefully, someday, I will at least know where William and Martha took their final rest.