A Bit of Blog
25-Apr-2008 ~ I just wish I had the time to do it!<
Tonight I accomplished something I didn't want to do which was remove the links to the J.O.D. clipart site. I kept hoping against hope that the site would come back. Or I would find it someplace else but under a different name. Sadly it has not. So the links at the bottom of the pages have been removed.
I also updated the Coffman & Livingston Cemeteries page. So many of the links pointed to the old RootsWeb.com site. I would not be surprised to find other links on my site that still need to be updated. Fortunately I had read about this on Everton's blog. If you need to do the same, just insert ancestry. after the www.rootsweb in your link - so www.rootsweb.com becomes www.rootsweb.ancestry.com
You know, it is PAIN when you realize that a book can pretty much do an I told you so!
A few years into my genealogy research I realized I was gathering a lot of material and it was getting out of hand. I knew I should stop and find how real genealogist stored materials, recorded who they had contacted and when. ALL that stuff! But I was having too much fun doing the research. Eventually I did find out what I should do and I sorta, kinda, in-a-way started doing it. Unfortunately, too much like some one starts a diet, sorta-kinda. Now I have to do it because I have no choice. The book(s) told me this would happen. And yes, I'm hearing clearly I told you so!
12-Sep-2007
The great thing about having your own web site is you can post what you want when you want to. The bad thing is you HAVE to do your own cleanup work too. Argh!
So tonight I figured out the pesky reason why the right nav displayed a big white space. The CSS file has a set height which had become too short over time as I had added links to the right side. Fixed. And with regret, I removed the J.O.D. Old-Fashioned Clipart image link from the footer area. The site I'm afraid will never return. If I had known there was a problem, I would have hosted her images. Anyway for me this is more fun than clean house but not as much as doing research.
August 29, 2007
Sometimes life is embarrassing. I got a message a few months ago from a gentleman who politely suggested that my site had far too many typos and spelling mistakes which "detracts from [its] presentation".
I really thought he was misreading some of the wording, especially in the old wills, as errors. And there are words like brickwalls that the dictionary wants to call brick walls but in genealogy, I see it written as one word. But tonight I came across this email again and thought I would prove him wrong.
And that's where life becomes embarrassing because he was NOT wrong. I was. I do genealogy in my spare time. Like right now -- the clock has struck 9 which means I need to head for bed but I wanted to get this on-line. So I type it. Store it. Upload it. And log off. I use Dreamweaver which has a built-in spell-checker. Press SHIFT-F7 and the software will run a spell-check. But I just haven't been doing it.
Well, I ran spell-check on every page tonight and found corrections to make here and there. And before I log off tonight -- this will get a spell-check too. I sent the gentleman who sent me the email a reply apologizing but hopefully he will read and see a more public thank you.
May 28, 2007
Posted a new page, List of all Coffmans, any spelling, married in the State of Virginia through 1810. If I have access to the record, it is listed. I'm still searching for the elusive Abraham Coffman, my ancestor. I do know that he married in the state of Virginia.
By listing all the Coffmans perhaps I can find a sibling who DOES have parental information. Abraham married about 1790 or early 1791. The oldest child known birth date is 06-Nov-1791, his daughter Axsa who married John MILLER.
April 9, 2007
Go check out http://www.werelate.org/. This looks like a great collaboration site. I've registered and will try to post some content. I see my pedigree pages going away and perhaps this site taking its place.
April 7, 2007
Sometimes you research and just hit an ancestor that makes you know that everything is worth it. In the last few months I've proved that some of maternal ancestors, Jeremiah G Smith and Mary Ann Sevier, were among the very first to be in Sullivan County, Missouri. They were either the first or second couple to be married in that county. Mary Ann is part of the great Sevier family out of North Carolina and Tennessee. Her grandfather was the brother of Brig.Gen. John Sevier, the first and third governor of Tennessee.
And another was from Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. That's downtown folks -- Boston Commons, etc. I happened to be in Boston a couple of weeks ago at the An Event Apart conference. I like Boston -- have been there many time but rarely got the time to walk around the downtown area. Unfortunately in all the prior visits, I had no idea that my great-great-great grandfather was born there.
May 17, 2006
Amazingly updates have gotten done. Am I done? Are you kidding? But I've had any kind of update to this site on hold for so long than making the simplest change feels good. I updated the pedigree charts and removed John Nicholas Coffman and Mary Wisecarver as parents of Abraham. I feel certain they are not. The family went west but not into Kentucky.
If you have ancestors in Missouri, you must visit the Missouri Death Certificates 1910-1955 site. Don't let the dates throw you. People born in the 1800s and died in Missouri 1910 or later will be listed. The person's name, date of recorded death, and county is shown. While there are more people listed that require you to order the record, there are several with the PDF (image) available. And boy, if you get one of those you find out a LOT. My advice is if you THINK the person may be in your ancestry and there's a PDF record save it. You never know ... I was amazed at how many of those I found.
May 5, 2006
On the flight returning from Salt Lake City. While I wasn't there to do genealogy, but to attend a conference, I did squeeze in a good chunk of research time. The convention center is just down the block from the Family Research Center so attending a conference there is great for also grabbing some research time.
I would encourage anyone who is serious into genealogy to make their way to the Center. The personnel there are so helpful and the facilities are great. But it's WHAT they have that is, well, just exciting for research.
There are the family books, county information of all kinds, and microfilm. I never made it out of the county book area. But uncovered new names, dates, spouses, etc. I did not have before. My illusive brickwalls are still there. If there was a disappointment, it was that -- I'd hoped to uncover something that would open the brickwalls, specifically Abraham Coffman, his wife Margaret Triplett, and Hugh Livingston.
My idea of a great 'vacation' would be a week out there doing research -- I guess that really does label how 'hooked on genealogy' I am.
October 6, 2005
I'm in flight on the way home. Home. That word can mean the house you live in with your family and that's the way we think of it most days. But when you are headed back to the place you grew up, it becomes Home with a capital letter. I'm hoping that fall has hit the farming country of north Missouri (pronounced Missour"a"). Parts of my town hasn't changed since I grew up. I saw a picture of the court house for sale on eBay the other day -- listed as an antique because of the age of the post card. Court house hasn't changed in years. I find comfort in that. Of course my old high school is still standing but no longer the high school. Last time I was there I ate lunch in what had been the Glee Club/Mixed Chorus room. Funny the things that come to mine when you are going home.
Genealogy tends to pop up in conversations. Today on the plane a lady next to me mentioned that her great grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee and that opened a discussion on how much she knew about that part of her lineage.
April 15, 2005
To many people, this is TAX due day; to me it was a chance to update my pedigree charts. I'm about to take a break from research, but if you have questions or information, please continue to contact me. I was recently contacted by a Pearman. While I couldn't link his ancestry directly to mine, I was able to give him some information. In the genealogy research world, who goes around, comes around. He was appreciative and I just got a good feeling from giving him some information he didn't know.
March 6, 2005
Where does time go? Lots of progress in the last few months. I finally bit the $$$ bullet and purchased a full subscription on Ancestry.Com for census records. Wish I had done it two years ago -- that's how much it has helped. A basic subscription does provide you quite a bit of information but there is nothing like looking at the real record. It's made some brick walls start to have holes and, of course, created some new brick walls that I didn't even know were there.
I added another new page, the List of known Kauffmans to America up to 1764. If the name is one of the 'Coffman' spellings, I included it on the page. If you know of others, please contact me.
December 6, 2004
Well, I've gotten no hits on the offer below even after posting it on the RootsWeb COFFMAN-L surname list. I'm not pulling the plug on it yet, but with the Christmas & holiday season fast upon us, I don't expect sudden action. If I get no further interest by the first of January, I'll pull the offer. It won't work unless people get on board with the concept.
[Note: I didn't get any hits and the offer is 'pulled'.]
To one and all -- 
I wish you the Merriest of Christmas and a wonderful New Year. May we all have major findings in 2005.
October 15, 2004
At first I put a little 'bit of blog' on my index page with the idea I would take the words off and replace them with others. But I realized that I wish I had my first bit of blog back and I didn't want to lose the section on why I started the Country School House section.
Now I'm trying something else -- when you work just YOUR brick walls, it's just one slogging foot step at a time. On the RootsWeb COFFMAN-L surname list, a recent discussion started on trying to help each other surmount brick walls. And to share those brick walls with each other. Within 15 or 20 messages, it seemed like we needed a place where we could compile the information we were seeing. Thus my NEXT project on this site. In helping others, I'm hoping to break through my own brick walls.
Stayed tuned to this site and look for COFFMAN brick walls. And then participate. I'd prefer to have the info posted to the COFFMAN-L surname list or via the Ancestry COFFMAN Message Board. The two are gatewayed so posting to one will post to the other. Only if you are unable to post there, then please email me. See this site's disclaimer page for what will and will not be posted here.
August 1, 2004
After my trip 'home' in June, I started a new page on this site about one-room country schools. During that trip, I went by my old Edinburg School only to find that the school has been torn down and a house is there now. This school had been the old Grandriver College (read about that in the history of Edinburg Baptist Church). My first school has been gone for many years but it was somehow disappointing to see another chunk of your childhood gone. Also drove by my childhood home on the farm which had been torn down and another house put up. It was, I don't know, boxy and ugly. I thought of my dad hand-planing the wood floors in the living room that he added on. He said "They threw everything over the fence." One part of that house had been built about 1870 or 1880. My bet is they threw out everything and preserved nothing.
I've rec'd one entry to the country-school memories and will be adding it during the August time frame. So there's a memory from Missouri and one from Iowa. I hope to get enough contributions so that states could have their own separate portion of the site. If you are interested, please email me.
Late 2003, approximately November
Site goes live and slowly, at least to me it was slow, takes shape.
Last update: May 04, 2008
