Happy Mother's Day!  

While searching for a favorite photo of my mom, I got caught up in a time-waster of making a family tree of photo's of the mothers in my lineage.  Of course, I don't have photo's of many of them, but I do have quite a few.

Amazing and miraculous to me is the thought that if ANY of these pregnancies, births, childhoods etc. had gone wrong, many of us would not be here. One cell dividing incorrectly. One genetic birth defect and this tree would fall apart. It is kind of mind boggling.

The root person on this tree is Amy Spaulding Barker who was the daughter of one of our Revolutionary Patriots! We are looking at the FACE of the American Revolution! Actually she was born after the war, and was the daughter of his 2nd wife, but he was only 33 when she was born, but hey, it's kind of cool.




Also of note is that Mike, Patrick and Kasper are not pictured here. It's a Mother's Thing. And we do know what they look like.  I'd like to add that some of the mothers depicted here really have to work on getting photos taken of themselves and their kiddos. Just sayin'. I might have worked harder at finder better pictures, but this had already sucked up more time than I wanted it to. The by-product is that it helps me organize my genealogy photos.

If anyone wants me to replace their photo with one that they prefer, you can send me the photo and I will do so.

Here are the alternate photos of Mom and Grandma that I considered. They're all good ones!

Ten on Tuesday Challenge!

The Ten On Tuesday prompt for Tuesday, May 3, 2016 is 10 Favorite Foods Your Mom Used To Make:

My first understanding of this challenge was that we were to choose 10 foods that we LIKED that our mom made. Sorry Mom, but that was really a challenge. Now just 10 items is easier!

1. Tuna Casserole  
2. Halibut steaks with a corn flake crust
3. Navy bean soup
4. Hamburger Soup
5. Banana Nut Bread
6. Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
7. BBQ Chicken
8. Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding! 
9. Chocolate Fudge
10. Christmas Fruit Cake 

What did I miss siblings?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

    Catherine Lydia Phillips Johnson - 1826 – 1916    90 years old

Mary Jane Crance Todd      1841 – 1946    105 years old

2012 was the last time I posted! I am such a serious blogger, eh?

For some odd reason, this genealogy challenge caught my eye.  
The challenge came from GeneaMusings, where you can see the analyses of other professional and amateur genealogists! 

Here is the challenge: 

1)  We each have 16 great-great grandparents.  How did their birth and death years vary?  How long were their lifespans?  
2)  For this week, please list your 16 great-great grandparents, their birth year, their death year, and their lifespan in years.  

And here we go: 

On my side, Sara Byron's Great-great grandparents:

Francois Joachim Biron                     1821 - 1903     82

Harriett Thibault                                1824 – 1907    83

Edward C Johnson                             1823 – 1900    77

Catherine Lydia Phillips                     1826 – 1916    90

Charles Barker Todd                          1838 – 1900    61        lead poisoning from CW minie ball

Mary Jane Crance                              1841 – 1946    105

Wheelock Parmly Thayer                  1836 – 1884    48         accidental GSW

Elizabeth Sands                                  1840 – 1874    34       Typhoid

Johann Daniel Christ                          1793 – 1842    48

Anna Katharina Bakker                      1799 – 1844    44

I added the reason for death of the three GGG's that died earlier than the norm.  Charles Barker Todd had surgery on a minie ball that was lodged in his hip three times. My assessment is that the ball slowly poisoned him, based on diary entries by his wife and daughter and their lists of his decline and symptoms. 

Wheelock Parmly Thayer accidentally shot himself while chasing a rabbit out of his garden. Other diary entries and notes lead me to believe that he also suffered from PTSD from his experiences in the Civil War. Perhaps that's why a rabbit pissed him off so much. 

Wheelock's wife and 2 year old daughter both died of Typhoid. 

67	average age
63	avg age men
71	avg age women
1824	avg year of birth
1892	avg year of death

On my husband's side,  Robert Jeffers Great-great grandparents:

Michael Jeffers           1800 – 1855                55       

Elinore Mullen           1825 – 1897                72

John F. Brown             1817 – 1888                71

Margaret Johnson       1832 – 1868                36

Peter Gebhard              1829 – after 1920       91

Maria Ziegernweidt     1839 – after 1900       61

Caspar C. Pip               1828 – 1897                73

Agnes Spitzley             1831 – 1903                71

John Mahan               

Mary Jane McCarty     1820 -

Daniel Leary                1818 -

Mary Sullivan              1818 – 1882                64

Florent LeGere            1827 – 1904                77

Anne Cormier             1828 – 1908                80

Olivier Robichaud       1835 – 1914                78

Rosalie LeBlanc             1829 – 1930                101

72	average age
74	avg age men
69	avg age women
1825	avg year of birth
1897	avg year of death

It is notable that each of us had GGG's that lived to be over 100! I didn't see that in many other family trees.  
My other conclusion is that those French breed like rabbits and live forever.

Sara Byron
Ancestry Family Tree: Byron-Crist09

I never blog ...

But Bronwen inspired me with her One Month photo of her beautiful son.  I have a son who is very beautiful to me!  I thought he was a gorgeous baby, and his smushed nose, bent foot and birthmark made no difference to me.  May I present to you, Patrick Byron Jeffers!

Birth through 6-months:

One Year through 8th grade: 

High School & Now: 

The Civil War Genealogy Blog Challenge

I have just, just started thinking about writing and blogging about my ancestors and memories. I thought that maybe writing of my intentions, would be an impetus to actually write about my Civil War ancestor.

Therefore, I plan on writing about my G-G-Grandfather Charles Barker Todd. He was an interesting guy. He was wounded at Spotsylvania, and eventually died of lead poisoning from the minie ball that could never be successfully extracted. Meanwhile he served as a juror on the Haymarket Riot trial in Chicago. This is the famous anarchist trial that is studied by many around the Chicago area.

My challenge is to stick-to-it, and actually write this stuff down. Not much research needed. I just need to get.it.written.

One of the fun parts of searching for ancestors, is finding relatives as well. While posting my writing intentions, I found that Bill West the originator of this challenge is a distant cousin through common progenitor Richard Barker, from England who dies in Massachusetts. Small World! Bill's blog

52 Weeks of Sharing Memories

I recently started reading a bunch of genealogy blogs. Some of the bloggers are participating in a project called "52 Weeks of Sharing Memories". The idea is to write your memories for your children and their children so that the details of your life are not lost to them. They've heard your stories, but probably won't remember them.

I know that I'd love to hear all of my Mom and Dad's stories again. How many times have I said, that I wished that I had recorded dad's war stories, and mom's stories of all her cousins and aunts and uncles. Hopefully, I'll catch some of those things here, and hopefully my children will appreciate them!

TO keep me honest and to generate stories of their own, I will publish my memories to my seldom used or read blog, with the holes that my siblings, cousins, etc will comment too.

52 Weeks of Sharing Memories: Favorite Toy or Game (Week 12)

I am starting off where I am, on this project. And that means, that since I am 64 weeks behind, I will just jump in right here. If I get ambitious, I might try to do two memories a week in order to catch up.

I am not sure that I had one special toy. There are toys that I remember. Some because they are still around (very few) and some just because they got caught in the detritus of Mom’s home and they stuck around.

Those that are still around:

· A china statue of Yogi Bear! I think that Huckleberry Hound Dog was my favorite, but I’ve always liked Yogi and Boo-boo too.

· I have a Lucky Locket Kiddle that Peggy Koretke gave to me for my 10^th birthday. I distinctly remember because it was my only birthday party.

· My old Kissy Doll (by Ideal) lives in Northern Wisconsin at the lake house. She doesn’t kiss anymore, but kind of makes a pop noise. Now that I think about it, I think we threw her out when we tore down the old house.

· I still have my Pooh Bear and Lamby stuffed animals. They are threadbare but loved, like the Velveteen Rabbit. I also still have my dad’s Teddy Bear. It’s very cool and jointed and stuffed with sawdust.

Those that I recall fondly:

· I had a very cool metal dollhouse, with plastic furniture. But no dolls that fit in it!

· I loved my dolls that were similar, but different, to Barbie’s. (Jeanne had a Barbie, but I NEVER got one.) I had Tammy’s Family (by Ideal) Tammy, her mom, her dad, Brother Ted, and sister Pepper. I played with them ALL of the time.

· My sisters would remind me that I also had a beloved card board box that mom’s new vacuum cleaner came in. It was shaped like a kayak, with a hole in the center. I’d put beloved treasures in the box and then pout my foot in the center hole and walk around with it like a ski. Made lots of noise and annoyed the hell out of my sisters! All worthwhile! I think that I also had a metal tissue box holder that I rattled around with. I think it was green.

· I had a doll called Charmin’ Cathy. It had a pull string and a player in her side that played little white 3 inch records.

· Also a Beautiful Chrissie Doll with hair that grew! She had a knob on her back that you turned to get her hair to roll up inside her, and then you pushed a button on her stomach to release the hair and make it “grow”! She was also around for quite awhile.

· I had another pull string doll that talked. She was Shrinking Violet from the cartoon show” The Funny Company”. “My name is shrinking Violet.” And her eyes blinked and her mouth moved when she talked. “I’m afraid of noisy boys.” “I’m just afraid of everything.”

Of course, I didn’t have near the volume of toys that kids now days have, but I was quite the privileged little suburban Chicago child.