RootsTech Eve

I've been waiting for RootsTech 2019 since RootsTech 2018 ended.

No joke, y'all! It was awesome!

So, the day before RootsTech 2019 - RootsTech Eve - was much to be excited about. Last year, somehow I didn't make it to explore the Family History Library. I know, I know...the shame! BUT I have vindicated myself.

This is just one part of *one* aisle at the amazing second floor of the Family History Library. It's organized in the millions. For real, y'all!

My first thoughts were, "we're not in Virginia anymore, Toto!" And then I realized, "I HAVE ARRIVED!" This place is full full full of records. I was grateful to find out that the library uses PowerScan3000. This is a great program used to view microfilm on a computer; you can then save PDF files of the records of your choice to your flash drive. I was already used to using this program at the Library of Virginia, so I was able to get straight to work without needing any assistance.

That reminds me; the Family History Library is FULL - chock-full - of helpers to aide in whatever you might need while on site. Thanks y'all!

Also, you can use one of these fancy - and large - lockers free of charge while at the Library. #winning

After the shock of enjoying the library had just begun to sink in, I realized it was time for lunch. I was able to meet up with professional genealogists for a fun lunch near the temple area and then I headed straight back to the library. On site, I was able to view a lot of digitized records that are only available to view while at a family history center. Super convenient!

As an Ambassador for RootsTech, I was able to meet with other Ambassadors, members of the media, and conference speakers at the Media Dinner. It was great just to chat with others who have been involved in the behind the scenes of the conference, enjoy some fellowship and fun, and a delicious meal to top it off!

I mean look at that! We eat first with our eyes, so RootsTech certainly helped with that. 

We also got to explore some of the different new components to the RootsTech app for this year. The coolest part is the Family History Activities page that you can also reach from your computer browser. 

After dinner, I headed straight back to the Library! I had some help connecting my family tree from my Ancestry account to the FamilySearch Family Tree. FINALLY I got it sorted all out. Now, I can use Find Relatives Near Me! And, you can too!

The beauty of using the "find relatives near me" component of the Family Tree app is that we can connect with cousins in real time where we are now. This can lead to more collaboration and better research! Plus, who doesn't like meeting cousins? I've even found out that I'm cousins with some speakers and Ambassadors I already know!

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That's all I have for y'all about RootsTech Eve! I can't wait to tell you about DAY ONE!

Let's keep encountering our ancestors through family history and remembering the past made present today!

RootsTech is coming! RootsTech is coming!

I started my trek to Salt Lake City, Utah yesterday at 11:15am. After getting coffee, I headed first to JFK from Norfolk, Virginia and then I was off on my second leg of the journey. So from door to door, the whole trip was about 10 hours. 

I travel light! Well, I would have brought more with me...but I'm too scared of things getting lost! I think I did pretty well though. I fit a whole week's worth of clothes in one carry on! But...when I woke up this morning, I realized I had forgotten something. Something a tad important. Undershirts. UGH! Thankfully, the Salt Palace is next door to a mall! Crisis averted.

The flight from JFK to SLC wasn't too bad. Delta proved a good host and I got a lot of reading done. I was even able to text family and friends in flight with free WiFi! I had never done that before, so it felt a bit surreal to all involved for me to text "I'm flying over Nebraska right now!"

After a long flight...with only plane snacks and a few sodas, I was famished! I found a Mexican restaurant a short 20 minute walk away from my Airbnb so I headed straight there. It was delicious! Tamales, rice and beans. Nom nom!

Well, tonight is the Media Dinner and tomorrow RootsTech begins! I'm excited to be able to explore the Family History Library and to see what mysteries might be answered there. 

Are you prepared for RootsTech? If you're not able to make it, you can live stream some of the conference right from the comfort of your home! If you are making the trip out, here are a few things you can do to make sure you're ready.

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Stay tuned for news from RootsTech 2019! I'll be updating everyone with how the conference is going, and the new and exciting discoveries I make while I'm here.

Join me then as I encounter my ancestors through family history and remember the past made present.

Edmonia Harriet Stratton

Some of our ancestors just seem to insist on hiding from us. They show up in records and then disappear. Others leave a nice trail behind them like bread crumbs for us to follow after. Still others beckon for us to dig deeper.

My 2x great grandmother practically demands my attention. Her name jumps out on the page as if to say, "Here I am! Come on now, I have something to share with you!"

Edmonia Harriet Stratton.

So let's not leave her waiting, y'all! She's got something to say!

Edmonia's early years

Edmonia Stratton first makes her appearance in the records in the 1850 U.S. Census for Powhatan County, Virginia. At a year old, she's the youngest - at the time - of her many siblings. She's the youngest girl of her parents David Stratton and Jordenia E Hopkins. Her father was a native of Powhatan, her mother of neighboring Chesterfield County.

Edmonia had twelve older siblings! Her mother was the second wife of David Stratton - the son of a Revolutionary War patriot from the same county. Edmonia's early years were also marked by the paradox of the institution of American slavery - that even family could own family. Her father had inherited an enslaved woman named Sally from his first wife's father. The memory of "Aunt Sally" remains in the family to this day. She bore David a daughter named Kate Stratton, an enslaved woman - and Edmonia's older sister - who remained with Edmonia's family until the day of her emancipation. Whether Edmonia knew that Kate and her children were her sister and nieces and nephews we can only speculate. We do know that the families remained neighbors and were buried in the same family cemetery.

The Stratton family attended Peterville Baptist Church, a local church community with an established Sunday School. David Stratton owned for a time a tavern in the town of Macon in Powhatan County but after the Civil War, he lost the tavern and filed for bankruptcy. Edmonia's sisters married into the Hague family, and one was even a local post mistress!

Marriage and family

When Edmonia was 18 years old, she married Leroy Samuel Wooldridge - a veteran of the Confederate army. Leroy's family descended from an important mining family from Chesterfield County that founded the town of Midlothian. Even after marriage, Edmonia remained a member of her family's church - Peterville - though in time her family became affiliated with Powhatan Baptist Church further east.

From 1869 until 1888, Edmonia bore her husband Leroy eight children. Most of the Wooldridge children remained close to Powhatan - all but two married - and many are buried at Old Powhatan Baptist. But by 1910, her husband is listed as a widower.

Unfortunately, neither Virginia nor Powhatan County kept records of deaths between 1900 and 1910, so there is no vital record of her death. Thankfully, her daughter Mary Susan Wooldridge - my great grandmother - recorded the date of her death in her family Bible.

"Grandma) Harriet Edmonia Stratton - died Sept. 28, 1905."

From Unusual Name to discovery

The more I saw records of my "Grandma Edmonia", the more I wanted to discover more. She passed away at the young age of 57, but her daughter - my "Granny Williams" - lived to be nearly 100. How did she pass away? What happened? Not only was her first name "Edmonia" intriguing, so too was her surname "Stratton." It has always fascinated me and called for me to discover more.

My curiosity to discover more about Edmonia has led me to make the Stratton family one of the most thoroughly researched parts of my family history. I have connected with more Wooldridge-Stratton descendants than probably any of my other family lines. I have been part of the puzzle in helping adoptees discover their roots and I have met long-lost cousins over barbecue and old photographs. These connections have given me priceless gifts like the exact dates of birth of Edmonia and her siblings from their Family Bible. These cousins have shared letters written by Edmonia's brother about the Civil War's affect on his life and his fears for their brother's safety while fighting in the war. What price could you ever place on such goldmines of family history? What gifts!

Births of the Stratton children as recorded in the Bible of Louisa Stratton Hague.

Because of Edmonia, I have newfound family members, ever reminding me that genealogy is always about family: that research without connection, documents without stories, and DNA evidence without relationship is just...data. Edmonia may have passed from this life in 1905, but she keeps inspiring her descendants to stay connected and to actively remain family.

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Before I began to research my family history, I had never heard of Edmonia Harriet Stratton. But after I had been introduced to her through the records, she has guided me ever since. I may not know many of the details surrounding her daily life or the cause of her death, but she has been the catalyst for so much of my research.

Though I may not know why the Stratton family chose to name her Edmonia - I am grateful that this unusual (though beautiful) name stands so prominently within my family tree. 

Which of your ancestors' names stands out to you the most? How has an "unusual" name inspired your research?

This post was inspired by the week 3 prompt "Unusual Name" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Join me next time as I encounter my ancestors through family history and remember the past made present.

The Challenge of Endogamy

My Grandma Nora's father was named Grover Steven Hite. He was born between 1890 and 1893 (the verdict is still out as to when he was actually born) in Halifax County, Virginia.

Grover had deep roots in Halifax County, Virginia. In fact, all of his great-grandparents lived in Halifax.

With such a strong connection to one specific place for at least a century, my great grandfather's family is seemingly connected to everyone in Halifax! This connection that he shares with so many people is due to a custom called endogamy. So this post will discuss some of the dynamics I've discovered in my great-grandfather Grover's family and the challenge that endogamy poses to my genealogical research.

1. What's endogamy?

Endogamy is a practice in which communities marry within their own social group, repeatedly over time. This is a custom particularly prevalent within communities such as Ashkenazi Jews, Amish, Mennonites, Native Americans, and Acadians.

Since endogamy affects specific communities more than others, there aren't a ton of writers and speakers on the topic. Thankfully, I was able to go to a great talk by Lara Diamond at RootsTech 2018. So make sure to check out her blog as well as this post which specifically deals with how endogamy affects her genetic genealogical research.

I'd also really recommend you read Endogamy and DNA, a guest blog post by Paul Woodbury over at Kitty Cooper's blog, as well as this post which will further help you to understand the complexity that endogamy adds to researching one's ancestors.

2. Was Grover's family endogamous?

Halifax County can be seen here on the border with North Carolina.

Grover was born to George Berryman Hite and Cordelia Frances Tuck, a pair of first cousins who both grew up in Halifax County. The two shared Reuben Wilkins and Edna Elliott as maternal grandparents. As far as I can tell, this is the only episode of cousin-marrying within his genetic line. But as I research Grover's various cousins within Halifax County, I find repeated examples of them marrying close and distant cousins.

One example was Grover's first cousin, Charlie Edward Hite and his wife Mary Otelia Wilkins. Of this pair's eight grandparents, four of them have the surname Hite. On further investigation, you'd find that these four Hites were all siblings, the children of Spencer Perry Hite and Martha Jane Wilkins of Halifax County, Virginia. Put another way, Charlie Hite's parents were first cousins and Mary Wilkin's parents were first cousins.

The more I research Grover's ancestors, I find that many of their children married cousins. Over and over again, I see four common surnames in Halifax County, Virginia records: Hite, Tuck, Wilkins, Elliott.

3. Endogamy's affect on DNA

As the bloggers have mentioned in the posts I linked to above, endogamy has a clear affect on our use of DNA in our genealogical research. Two individuals from the same endogamous community will undoubtedly share more DNA with each other than your average couple with the same known genealogical relationship.

When we look at shared DNA charts like this one produced by Blaine T. Bettinger, we see that two individuals who share a set of great-grandparents (in other words second cousins) share on average 233 cM of DNA (with a range of 46-515 cM). Depending on how many of one's ancestors are from the same endogamous community, this number will be inflated and exaggerated.

In researching the DNA matches of my father and aunt (both the grandchildren of Grover), I see an inflated predicted relationship for most of their second and third cousin matches. Usually, if they are within the predicted range, they are at the upper end of that range. In the fourth cousin list, most of these matches are related to our family several times over but at a much further place in our tree.

4. The challenge

The biggest challenge that I have found relating to endogamy is that it induces a level of despair - or at the very least apathy - in researching my family from Halifax County, Virginia.

With many of my ancestral lines, I am able to identify specific DNA cousins who connect to my family through specific ancestors. But with my DNA matches that come from Grover's family, I can't tell if they are Hites, Tucks, Wilkins, or Elliotts - or some repeated mix of all of them! And more often than not, they have all of these surnames in their family history. So unlike my other family lines, my Halifax County relatives have remained more of a mystery.

When I see a DNA match, I can quickly say - without a shadow of a doubt (and even if they have no tree) - if they have Halifax County ancestry. But, that's usually all I can tell. This is because the Hite, Tuck, Wilkins, and Elliott families have so intermingled within Halifax County with each other as well as with other families that they've produced something of a new amalgam of simply "Halifax."

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The challenge of endogamy need not be the despair-inducing, apathy-inspiring thing that I so often allow it to be. DNA tools such as DNA Painter are making it easier than ever to identify which segments of DNA come from which ancestor. If you have encountered endogamous ancestry in your family history, don't give up! Learn from others who have researched their own endogamous communities. 

Genealogy is full of challenges, and endogamy is only one of them. Most of us who are so enraptured by genealogy and family history find solving the puzzle the most satisfying aspect of our research. And what puzzle is more satisfying than a challenging one? 

This post was inspired by the week 2 prompt "challenge" of the year-long series that I'm participating in with Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

I hope you'll join me soon as I strive to encounter my ancestors through family history and remember the past made present today.