Blog

So, why did I decide to write a blog?  I blame my daughter.  I spent several years as primary caregiver for my elderly father-in-law. He passed away this summer, and I asked my children what I should do next. My daughter suggested I write a blog. 

“What about?” I said. 

“Genealogy, of course,” she said.

In order to understand her response, you need to understand a little bit about me. I was that strange little girl who sat and talked to her elderly relatives when the cousins were all playing in the yard. I made my first family tree when I was 12, and was already a pro at rolling microfilm before I was 20.  I was fascinated by the stories my great grandmother told me, and my grandfather’s stories of hopping freight trains to go see his aunts and uncles and to get to work at various jobs.

My children tell their friends that they have visited every cemetery on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. That is not quite true. They have probably visited more than 50 in many parts of the country – and yes many of them on the Eastern Seaboard. They will also tell you that I ruined Halloween for them.  Their friends want to go get scared at a cemetery and my children not only don’t get scared, they read headstones and look for stories in the cemetery. That’s what cemeteries do – they tell stories. But that’s a blog for another day.

So, why Journeys in Kindred? My first choice was taken. Yes, really!  So, I tapped into my training. I am an anthropologist, an archaeologist and a journalist.  Kindred is just a more formal way to refer to family, and in anthropology, it means all people who consider themselves related, whether by blood, marriage or adoption (formally or just by choice). I chose Journey because tracing you family is a journey of a lifetime. You will find surprises, mysteries, brick walls and triumphs as you travel through your kin.

Remember those stories I mentioned above? I chose them for a reason. From those two people, I learned facts that no one else in the family paid attention to, Those facts turned out to be the keys to solving a family history mystery, and led us to the documentation I needed. My great grandmother, Lucy Edna Wilson Smith Burkle, showed me some photos when I was 12.  The first was a photo of her mother Cornelia Alice Driver Wilson. I learned two things from this photo  – my mother’s blue-eyed gene came from her Native American grandmother through Mom Burkle’s lovely blue-eyed mother, “Cornie”; and that Cornie’s last name was Driver. Mom Burkle also showed me a photo of her Uncle Frank White in Colorado.

The importance of this second photo did not become apparent for about 30 years.  I was contacted by a man who turned out to be a Driver cousin. Cornie Driver married John Henry Wilson and had my great grandmother, among other children. Cornie’s brother, William S. Driver, married John Henry Wilson’s step sister, Ella Sterling (who went by Wilson). So, this gentleman and I were sort of double cousins.  The photo was important because my cousin had family Bible evidence that one of Cornie’s sisters had married a man named Frank White. The story I was told with the picture was a clue to where to find the missing sister.  It turned out from my cousin’s family records that Mr. White had married two of Cornie’s sisters. His first wife died very young and then he married her younger sister. It was also important because I assumed (because of the location Mom Burkle had for where the photo was taken) that is was related to one of her Wilson aunts, not a Driver aunt.  We are still piecing this family together, but we have much better clues now.  We also have located documentation and additional cousins with family photos and family Bibles.

My grandfather’s stories led me to his grandparents grave in Cushing, Oklahoma, and then to cousins in Cushing who sent me to meet cousins in Picher, Oklahoma. The Picher cousins mentioned having seen the family’s unusual surname, Umphfres, in the small town of Gravette, Arkansas. It was there that I finally discovered the location of my 3rd great grandfather’s grave. It took 15 years to locate his grave and after 30-plus years, I am still trying to find his parents. Why was this so hard? My great, great Aunt Holly insisted that Gaston Umphfres was buried next to his wife in Coal Hill, Arkansas. He was not!  The cemetery had no record of him there and said his wife, Arminda, was the first member of the family buried there. Gaston was buried in Golden, Missouri at the feet of his son, Nathaniel, who died three weeks before he did. 

I learned this from Gaston’s granddaughters-in-law in Gravette.  I was sitting at Jewell’s kitchen table, when she said something along the lines of you must be related to the “Coal Hill bunch”. I suddenly got nervous wondering what she meant. I discovered that my great, great grandfather, Robert Morgan, had made Gaston’s widow leave her newly widowed daughter-in-law and six grandkids to come live with his family in Coal Hill. She did not want to take the journey because she said Bob Morgan wouldn’t bring her back to be buried with her husband.  And he didn’t.  The Gravette branch of the Umphfres family had removed all references to Bob and Becky Umphfres Morgan from their family Bibles and photo albums. But, they were more than willing to accept the wayward branch of the family back into the fold. Jewell gave me my first photo of Arminda Barton Umphfre, and told me where to find many other Umphfres family members. So, listen to the stories your elders tell you. They are full of clues and answers to questions you didn’t even know you had.

Whether you are just starting your journey into your kindred or you are a seasoned veteran like me, I hope you will find something fresh and informational in this blog.