Sunday Drive: Spearfish, South Dakota - 1953

The caption on this slide in Dad's handwriting reads "at Florence's Spearfish S.Dak. 53" so have all the information we need.

[From my personal collection]

Florence Christine Weisman (1900-1985) married Mother's older brother Gilbert Grenfell (1901-1928) in 1924 and the couple had a son Milton (1925-2003) and a daughter Joyce who died as an infant in 1926.

[From my personal collection]

Gilbert was killed in 1928 when the tractor he was driving overturned.

Florence became the wife of Ralph B. Courtney (1903-1956) in 1932 becoming the stepmother to his two children by his first wife.

She's buried in Little Dane Cemetery, Saint Onge, Lawrence County, South Dakota along with both of her husbands, her son and his wife, and her stepson.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Saturday Night Entertainment: Big Noses in Encanto

Dad Currey and his nephew and niece* were having some fun in our backyard in Encanto, probably in 1950. The tree in the background is a huge avocado.

[From my personal collection]

These images make me smile so I'm posting them even though the color is terrible.



*Nancy Lee Peterson (1937-1974) and Charles Frederick Peterson (1940-2008) were the children of Dad's youngest sister Marguerite and her first husband.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Christopher Colbert "Col" Chappell & Wife Cornelia Josephine "Puss" Stanley Chappell

This double portrait of Col Chappell and his wife was posted to her tree by a distant Freeman cousin who's an Ancestry DNA match.* Since my family tree has quite a few Chappells in it, including my 3X great grandmother Sarah Heath Chappell, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Col is also related to me through his father's line.**

Col was born in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, in 1849 and that's where he and Puss were married. They remained in Alabama (where five of their eventual twelve children were born) until about 1882 when they removed to Texas where they lived out their days.

Puss died on 1934 and Col survived her by three and a half years. They are both buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Hall County.

[Posted by their descendant KathyWhitaker51 to her Ancestry family tree]

Here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

*As a 5th - 8th cousin
**I'll have to research his lineage to find out.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Repost: Tip: Use HistoryGeo To Track Changing U. S. County Boundaries

Christine first posted this on September 23, 2017.

Brighton, Colorado (now in Adams County). Note:  I clicked on a random spot near the center of Brighton.

Mary L. (Burnight) Lytle (1853-1883), my 1st cousin 5x removed, died in Brighton, Arapahoe, Colorado.  By 1910 her daughter Isabel was living in Brighton, Adams, Colorado, same area. 

There are different ways to determine what county a particular place was in, and one that I've found to be very helpful is HistoryGeo, a subscription based website that takes Bureau of Land Management land records and maps them, called the First Landowner's Project:

Here, you will find our ongoing effort to accurately map the original landowners of the 29 U.S. public land states and Texas.

This limits the time period between about 1810 to 1940, and doesn't include the land in the eastern part of the U.S. that was measured by metes and bounds, but if you are trying to determine a place in that time period and in the more western areas you might find this helpful. 

U. S. County Boundary History, from 1810 through 1940.  Note that the info is from IPUMS, which is a sophisticated data tool that I have yet to really figure out lol.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Weddings in my Ancestral Line: December 8th through 14th

Two of my known direct ancestral couples were married during the second week of December:
maternal 6X great grandparents Moses Cooper and Mary Mathewson were wed in Glocester, Rhode Island, on December 10, 1732; and maternal great grandparents Lewis Logan Slater and Rufina Tomlinson in Severy, Kansas, on December 13, 1885.

[Lewis Logan Slater & Rufina Tomlinson Slater-undated double portrait

courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The following two couples also married during the second week of December but I'm less certain of my relationship to them: paternal 10X great grandparents Thomas Ford and his first wife Joan Way wed in England on December 13, 1610*; and maternal 5X great grandparents William White and Jemima Wright were married on December 13, 1781 in Adams, Massachusetts, by my 6X great grandfather Elder Peter Worden.**

*This is a line that I haven't looked at in years and so I'm not certain of my connection. In any case, I would be descended from his second wife Elizabeth Charde.
**This couple's relationship to me is entirely speculative and not to be relied on. If it's true they are the grandparents of Hannah Leonard, the wife of Porter Worden (my 3X great grandparents)



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Celebrations: Christmas, Agua Caliente - 1953

That was the year Mother made matching pajamas for me and my doll.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Celebrations: Apollo 8's Christmas Eve 1968 Message

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.