Week #5 Theme is "Oooops!"

We all make mistakes, follow rabbit trails down the wrong path, fail to record our sources of information, etc. So every family researcher has probably said "Ooops." I had to choose just one. Early in our research, we used Gerry's Grandpa Grimes' family history booklet to begin following the Grimes family. He had recorded direct family lines back to John Power Grimes, born in Georgia 1814, and challenged Gerry to go further. When you first begin to do searches, you grasp and collect the new "facts" wherever you can find them. So we found the father of John Power Grimes, Thomas Miner Grimes. And on to William Grimes, father of Thomas. He claimed a land grant in Georgia, 1784, for his father's Revolutionary service. Not realizing that William Grimes was a common name, I latched onto a little news item of the era which said "William Grimes, nephew of Mr. Mebane, was scalped and killed by Indians on the Harpeth River in Tennessee." Our family ran with it even though that river is nowhere near Elbert County, GA. Every time we traveled from Georgia back to see family in Oklahoma, we had to cross the Harpeth River. I think we held up traffic on the bridge near Nashville, taking pictures of that river, stopping short of tossing flowers, (a la Billy Joe McAlister). Our kids probably told about it in Show and Tell. I wrote up a history as far as we had researched, including poor, scalped William, and passed copies out to cousins. After a couple of years of searching, I came across a will of OUR William Grimes. He died at age 49, and the will was submitted in Elbert County, GA. I'm pretty sure that William didn't write a detailed will before traipsing off to Tennessee, about 430 miles into Indian lands. About the same time, I discovered a William “Graham”, who was related to a Mebane and was killed by Indians in Tennessee. I have since apologized to all the close family, but distant relatives may be still spreading that news item. Now I guess I should make my apologies to the Grahams and Mebanes for glomming onto their family history. Oooops!

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. 2023 Week 4, Theme is "Education".

My cousins and I have contributed for years to the history of the family, especially my Griffin family. Our Gt grandmother Lizzie Terry Griffin has been our inspiration. A widow bringing young children from Kansas to Edmond OK soon after the Land Run, and homesteading on land near Portland and Waterloo Rd. Central State College, later University of Central Oklahoma, in Edmond was just getting started and she sent many children and grandchildren to the school. And now many descendants and their spouses have attended, since those early days to the present. There is a bench on campus to memorialize her. In 2015, she was honored post-humously to The Luminary Society at UCO. The Luminary Society was developed as part of the 125th celebration year. She was one of only 125 outstanding members of the UCO community to be chosen since the establishment of the Territorial Normal School of Oklahoma, from 1890 to the present. I believe this honor was well deserved and partly happened because of our family research together. Our matriarch has influenced so many, and the numbers have grown to include Lizzie's Great Great Grandchildren just at Central State/ University of Central Oklahoma... not to mention those who have gone on to other institutes of education.

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #3 theme "Out of Place"

When attempting to complete the time lines of each of my direct ancestors, I try to find them in census or other records and add those to my Ancestry "Facts". But I could not find our Grandpa Charley Griffin in the 1900 census. His mother lived in Oklahoma, as did many other cousins, uncles, etc. on land that was claimed in the Land Run of 1889. I knew that Charley Griffin and Hattie McGill were married in Oklahoma in 1906, and my father, Dan Griffin, was born in 1907. I found a plat map where Charley owned property in Oklahoma in 1906. But where was Charley when the 1900 census was taken? My father had said that at one time Charley worked at a livery stable in Colorado. Could that be a clue?

I let it ride for a while and followed some other family members. Colorado? Hmmm. Now I've found that Edgar Griffin, a 1st cousin of Charley went from Kansas to Colorado and married in 1899. In 1900, his family is located in Central City, Colorado, where Andrew is working as a "Hackman" and neighbors work in the gold mines. I believe a hackman drove a wagon. Could that be similar to one who works at a livery stable? I can picture that Charley and his cousin took off for the Colorado gold fields, but ended up with a job at the livery stable. Charley made some money and came back to marry his sweetheart, Hattie, in Oklahoma where he purchased some land, and became a farmer. Somehow the census takers missed my grandpa. I believe he might have been out on his horse or looking for gold that day, not "Out of Place"...HE knew where he was.