Rough December

My wife and I were both out of action all of December and some of January with colds.  I also discovered that I have gout in my right foot.  The snow is almost gone but it's not over yet. We'll get more, I'm sure.  The warm weather has ended and we expect it to go  below 0 at night for a while.

Returned to research on Rhode/ Rohde/Rohda/Roady , Farhman and Friberg in Carbon county, PA.  I discovered the PA Death Index and was able to pin down a lot of dates of death.  It's well worth your time to download the explanation of the Soundex system before you start searching.  It turns out that instead of searching for Rhode, I should have searched for R 300.

Armed with seven death dates I hired a researcher at the Dimmick Library in Jim Thorpe, PA but she has only been able to locate one obit.  Oh, well.  Genealogy is full of ups and downs.

Had a lot of success with the federal census on ancestry.  I added Olson, Gibson, Fabian, Jenkins (new branch), Balthaser, Freyman, Tippett and Keefer to the family tree.  Up to 3919 people in the tree.

The Wrong Fred

An update to the Mursch Family Events page.  Some new obits and wedding announcements also some material on another Mursch family, also in Utica, that I followed by mistake.  There were two Fred Murschs, both born in Germany only a few years apart, and I followed the wrong one.  Added quite a bit to my tree but it all had to be pruned when I realized my mistake and found the correct Frederick Mursch.   There were several entries that seemed contradictory but I forged ahead thing they would be resolved  with a little more information.

The extra research wasn't wasted as I've posted it in the Mursch Family Events page under "The Wrong Fred".  He will be the Right Fred for someone and I hope they find him.

Very cold from Thanksgiving Day, with a dusting of snow today.  Winter is upon us.

Updated my home page with additions to Jefferson County Vets B in the family events section, mostly new obits and news items.

Changed the link to Findagrave to my member page.

Sandy took a few boards off the garage and loosened the roof on the barn but no other damage.  We were lucky.  Most of the bad weather seems to slide south of Clayton and Cape Vincent.  Must be the effect of Lake Ontario.

Cold and rainy so I'm way behind on winter preperation.

2012 Clayton, NY Punkin' Chunk

Yesterday we went to Clayton, NY for the first annual Punkin' Chunk on the site of the old Frink snowplow factory.  Besides the chunk there were many events, horse drawn wagon rides, punkin carving contest, scare crow contest and a BBQ cook off.  The crowd was huge and over whelmed the organizers.  When we left we discovered that the crowd had been blocking the entrance to parking and the streets were backed up.  I'm sure they will be better prepared next year, after all this was the first. 

There were 8 contestants. Please see the slide show below.  Only Team Mangonel suffered a breakdown, with the arm breaking and the winch catching fire.

We chipped some small limbs when we got home and ran of of gas just in time to avoid the rain.  It produced a beautiful double bow.  The violet was really clear.

Oakwood Cemetery, Theresa

I was there Thursday and Friday looking for 1812 and requested stones.  This is a long thin cemetery and I seem to have a hard time finding stones in it.  Most of the time the stones are grouped by age but they seem unusually mixed here.  Fortunately I was able to find some of what I was looking for.

The first thing seen on entering is the War memorial erected in 1910, featuring the name of the veterans buried in Theresa.  It appears to include both Oakwood and Old Theresa cemeteries.  In case anyone is researching these people or working on veteran graves. I include the list below.

War Memorial, Oakwood Cemetery, Theresa, Jefferson, NY Created 1910

The list seems to cover Oakwood and Old Theresa cemeteries.

List of Deceased Soldiers Buried in Theresa

Who Served in War of 1776

Amasa Allen

John Strong

John G. Hellmer

Martin Sheale

Soldiers Who Served in the War of 1812  

Abram Morrow

Levi Stearns

Rodney Simmons

Cyrus Parker

John Edens

Isaac Green

Hosea Hough

Aaron Dresser

John Rappole

James Pierce

Jacob Buell

George Snell

Alanson West

Sincea Ball

Isaac Cornwell

Zalmon Pool

Loren L. Soper

Nathaniel Parker

Amos Wheeler

William Crandall

John Rivers

Alonson Doolittle

Jonathan Thompson

U.S. Navy

George Kelsey

Patrick Farrell

Isaac Cornwell

Nathan Huntington

Civil War

10^th N.Y. Heavy Artillery

John Seymour

George Putman

Frank Duffany

George Baker

Charles Turner

John Church

Frank Bowen

Don Watson

John Simonds

Webster Hewitt

Charles Ripley

Eurastus Green

Nelson Sheley

Thomas Houghtle

Lewis Duffany

Dilbert Spalsbury

Joseph Garso

Isaac Huntington

Joseph Pierce

E. Wilson

Hiram Townsend

L.R. Russel

Adam Fikes

William S. Curtis

Hiram Tyler

George H. Cosgrove

13^th N.Y. Heavy Artillery

William P. Nichols

Francis M. Nichols

1^st N.Y. Light Artillery

G. D. Hoover

Frank Robinson

5^th N.Y. Heavy Artillery

John Goodenough

35^th New York Infantry

Reuben Herrick

Fred

slicker

John Jolly

Fred Allinger

Holland Parker

Walter Thayer

Lewis Finney

George Putman

Holland Britten

Joseph Pierce

August Myers

Julius Butterfield

Alexander Salisbury

94^th New York Infantry

Nathan Hildreth

Orren Evans

Nelson Canfield

John Hoover

Charles Pierce

Freeman Phillips

James Pierce

Jacob Barner

Frank Pierce

Riley Witt

Frank Jury

Daniel Ladd

George Babcock

Albert Dickson

George Myers

92^nd N.Y. Inf.

Stephen S Nichols

20^th NY Calvary

George Chaumont Sargent

Duane Simons

William Tibbles

Lewis Seymour Chrysler Ahles

Charles Merrill

George Baker

Irvin Tibbles

Calvin Ripley

George Parkhurst

John G Cudworth, Maj

Christopher McIntyre

91^st NY

D. D. Augsbury

Isaac R Swartwout

James Cornwell

George B. Cornwell

Agar Jarvis 18^th N.Y. Cavalry

Adam Kissel 186^th N.Y.

John Zeller 186^th N.Y.

Munson Pool 186^th N.Y.

Eugene Wilson

Spanish American War

Clark Salisbury

Floyd H. Bretch

Family Events Update

A few obits added to Calkins and Mogren in the Family events section. 

Someone has volunteered a update to the Mogren family tree.  These have been added to the rootsweb tree, linked from my homepage, and to the Oneida 2010 tree on ancestry.

Finally done with 1812 in Jefferson county.  I've gone down the muster and pay rolls found on the Jefferson genweb site and linked them to possible burials in Jefferson.  About 29% of the names had possible burials.   Check my findagrave virtual cemetery for the complete list.

Rained most of last night and today.  We needed it.  Don't remember it being this hot and dry.

War of 1812

I was in Brookside cemetery, Watertown when I noticed a stone for Major General TR Pratt.  He had no memorial so I created one.  His obituary was rather hard to read but I was able to get most of it.  He was in the NY National Guard and served for Jefferson county sheriff for part of a term.

Northern New York Genealogy post a 1000 strong list of 1812 vets buried in Jefferson county.  Inspired by that, I've going over some muster rolls and payrolls for 1812 that can be found on the Jeff genweb site.  It gives me some dates of service and units for some of the vets.  I've been posting this information on memorials I've created.  There are nearly 1000 in my 1812 virtual cemetery on findagrave.com.