Hiatus Continues...

Family research will remain on hiatus until my Ph.D. is complete. I have no set deadline but I wouldn't expect to see another post here for at least another year or two. I look forward to the time when I am finished and can return to my roots.

Research & Writing

Unknown Women supplied by Dr. W

In addition to research, I'm also continually working on my writing of history. I have a different writing professor this year, Dr. W, and I think I'm going to enjoy her. She doesn't want us to come in with pre-written stories, everything has to be new. Additionally, she assigns a variety of writing exercises and assignments.

To get me back into writing on the blog again, I thought it might be interesting to map out how Dr. W promotes historical fiction writing. The first exercise is to list and describe images, people or situations that "haunt me". They make me questions "how, why, when... did something happen?". As you've seen from our archives, I have many question about why people moved, what did they do, etc...

The first assignment is character study of a photograph. I had to chose one from her selections (see left), but its a methodology that I can and will apply to a few of our own Callaway photographs as well.

This is a writing course geared towards fiction writing, not creative non fiction, so it allows me to explore different historical possibilities in the writing. I guess this is my way putting out a disclaimer that everything I write may not be supported by exact evidence.

Update & Anecdote

I'm leaving this weekend to go visit my grandmother and aunt. While I'm with them we're going to go through my Aunt Jewel's files of letters, notes and other papers. I'll be scanning them as well so look for a future post them. Once they're sorted and scanned, they'll be added to the archive for you to look through.

On another note, I've had some success identifying some of the pictures. I made a contact through www.findagrave.com  with Brenda Harris who is a Callaway+Underwood connection. She had posted a picture that I had an original to, so I was able to immediately identify the people. I shared with her the Callaway album which she then shared with her mother. The result was identifying this little girl here as Brenda's grandmother, Willie Lucille Callaway.

Isn't that great! Now Brenda and her mother are able to download the pictures. This is why I do this, for and for me.

Publishing Photographs

Working to make family photographs available to everyone, so I'm putting together a few Picasa Web Albums. Can you identify some of the people in the "Unknown Callaways" Album? Please let me know who they are!

Unknown Callaways Album

1973 Callaway Family Reunion Album

William Richmond, James Pitt & Rhoda Irene

I've been doing some work on the individual ancestors page, specifically the three above. Luckily I was able to find pictures for James "Jim" Pitt and Rhoda Irene... but none for William Richmond. Does anyone have a picture of William Richmond they'd be willing to share?

Jim Pitt - Does anyone know who the boys in the photograph are?

Rhoda Irene - The back says Rhoda Irene Karr and Dan Karr. Originally I thought it was not the right one but additional writing says the little girl is "Bill Bennet and Rhoda Irene's daughter"

If you have other pictures to add, please contact me at jenncrogers@gmail.com

Browsing the Florida & Georgia Archives

Not much archive browsing today. There was only one Florida archive that looked useful and I've earmarked it. It was broken into counties but not alphabetized by surnames so it's going to take time to flip through the pages.

Two Georgia archives looked promising:

1. Georgia Headright & Bounty Land Records, 1783-1909 (Family Search Online)Calhoon, Abraham 
• C. - Canady, William: #213-215, 225-253
2. Georgia Probate Records, 1742-1990 (Family Search Online)
• Not searchable and sorted by County, another one that going to take time

With the Headright and Bounty, I found several names that I think I'll be able to match up pretty quickly. I think I found John D. Calloway in Georgia, but won't know for sure until I do a little more research. 

These have been added to the Library and Archives too.

Browsing Delaware Archives

Today I'm taking some time to browse through the unsearchable images in the Delaware archives. Luckily, the Delaware Orphan Court Records from 1680-1978 were organized in alpha order and I was able to pinpoint a Callaway pretty quickly. The deceased is a Jonathan Callaway, died 1882 and his minors, Dorcus, Geroge, Rachel, William, Mary and Susan (images 144-180).

I've also been browsing through the "Delaware Vital Record Index Cards" which are supposed to reference actual source documents in the Delaware Vital Records... I'm not sure they actually do though!

You can browse through them yourself. Just visit the Library and Archives page and click the links under "D, Primary Sources."