Sunday, September 25, 2011

Once again - where has Lyn been?

I hoped my medical soap opera was over when I posted over a year ago but no such luck.  Since then rather than blogging I spent my time on Johnson & Amelia descendent research between this 'n that medical operatic act.  My documented descendants of Johnaon and Amelia now number 3777 (10 generations - I'm in generation 5 - some of my cousin's within 5 years of my age are in generation 7!).   Most of the documented descendents are born prior to the 1930 census.   I find it curious as I read others blogs that folks older than me are talking about being generation 12 & 13 and their research goes back as far as mine (1680s) and I'm just just a generation 5 or 6! 

Another thing I did during the past 18 months is link many of the descendants of Mathew Hooper Monroe and Eunice Hinman Englis on Find-A-Grave.  My inspiration to do this came from my cousin Leslie Saint who started a  project linking descendants of my great-grandfather M. Hooper Monroe's parents Mathew Hooper Monroe and Rebecca Allen - emphasizing his line of Simon Peter Monroe and Elizabeth Wright (both Johnson and Amelia descendants).  I owe huge thanks to Leslie not only for his work but also for his inspiration to me and other cousins to share our knowledge and link our family branches on Find-A-Grave.  Leslie located many obituaries for our ancestors and cousins in old newspapers and added them to the memorials on Find-A-Grave. 

I didn't break down any brick walls this past year in my direct line but I did crush one a bit for my my cousins by documenting the father of Alethia Hatcher (m. 1848 Nathaniel Perry Monroe). A couple of cousins were very excited about the news but most who asked me eagerly years back if I knew Alethia's parents didn't express much enthusiasm.  This was a huge disappointment to me.  Alethia has many descendants and very few responded to the news when I told them.  It was sort of like they either expected me to find the answer or it didn't matter.  Either way I was disappointed.  I didn't want praise I just wanted her descendents to say "I'm glad to know".

Thanks to all the new records added in the past year by our friends at familysearch.org I have discovered lots of "goodies".  Most are confirming information but some times there is something that really makes me smile.  The will of Benjamin Polk Johnson is one of those.  I'll let you know about it in my next post.


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