Curtis Rarick family

Curtis Rarick is a first cousin, once removed.  He is the son of Levi Rarick and Amanda Varner.  I have just finished working all of the tree hints on my Ancestry member tree for Curtis's branch in my family tree.

Curtis was born in 1878 in the Miami Country, Ohio area.  In 1901 in Newton County, Indiana he married Vannice Pearl Rench.  They had three sons.  Waymond, Herrald and Dane.  Waymond and Dane survived and each of them had sons.  Herrald only lived eight days.

I have decided to leave the Rarick branch of the family for awhile and work some more on the direct Varner line.

This weeks spot light is on the Amanda Varner Rarick & Levi Rarick family

This past week I have begun working on Daniel Grant Varner's (Sr) children.  I'm currently working on the the family of Amanda Varner Rarick & Levi Rarick.  Their children were Curtis, Pearl, Raymond, Ralph and Mina.

I have found some first cousins 1x removed, second and third cousins.  Added seventeen new people to the family tree so far.

The Ancestry web hints are proving invaluable and the Rootsmagic "Tree Share" is working great.  As I'm going through them I am also adding to or updating the Family Search people and matching them to Rootsmagic.  I will turn on the Familysearch and My Heritage web hints after I've made it through all the Ancestry hints.

I hope to make it through the rest of this branch this week.

Restarting direct line descendant research and Rootsmagic TreeShare

I have finished my work on the John Washington Varner line for now.  It is not nearly complete but I will turn it over to cousin Kim for further documentation.

I am ready to spend a little time on a mini genealogy redo project.  Working my Varner line I will start at the end of the line and begin cleaning up my source documentation on direct line descendants.  At the same time I will work through all of the webhints I have in RootsMagic.  These will be from Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage.  At this time I have turned off the webhints for FindMyPast.  In addition to webhints I also plan to check on Fold3 for any military records.  I have found that the webhints fairly well cover, census records, SSDI, social security applications, most vital records and Find A Grave.

Now that RootsMagic has the new Treeshare option for Ancestry it is fairly easy to keep my Ancestry tree up to date and make better use of their shaky leaves.  That along with the integration with FamilySearch makes catching the low hanging fruit so much easier.

John Washington Varner - new branch added to family tree

I've finally completed adding another branch to the tree.  It was for John Washington Varner.  He is my 2nd cousin once removed.

I've updated my RootsMagic database and worked on a few people in FamilySearch.  Have not yet shared the family to my Ancestry tree.  Ran into a real mess with the FamilySearch Family Tree.  There were several duplicates for each person.  It took many hours of merging and relinking to clean everything up.

I haven't yet decided what to do with Ancestry.  I can use the treeshare feature or I can continue to build and source my tree only on RootsMagic and then eventually load a new tree to Ancestry.  The intent of the tree on Ancestry is to make use of their web hint feature but I am finding them a little overwhelming.  Since I loaded a new RootsMagic tree to Ancestry, I'm receiving hints for everything, even though I have the record attached to the tree.  I have turned off the hints for other member trees but I still have over 3100 hints.

I'm thinking of taking one family unit at a time and working through the various hints for each member of the family.  This will mean possibly visiting the same source documents multiple times but I think it will prove to be a more efficient process.  This should keep me from chasing down the rabbit holes and losing focus.

Peter L Varner on FamilySearch Family Tree

I have spent the last few days trying to fix the Peter L Varner family on the FamilySearch Family Tree.  Peter was married three times. Peter and his first wife Rebecca Righter had seven children.  Peter and his second wife Hannah Razer had two children.  Peter and his third wife Louise Lair had two children.

There were three records to be merged for Peter, two for Rebecca and two for Louise.  Some of the children had duplicates as well.  Many were assigned to the wrong parents.  Overall it was a complete disaster.

I spent an entire afternoon just trying to put together everything that was already in FamilySearch. The next day after reviewing everything again and determining what was there I then set about trying  to merge all of the children's records first.  Then I merged the duplicate parents.  Once I was down to a single record for each person I could then change the parental linkages to match the children to the correct set of parents.

Because of the complexity of the cleanup process I worked only in FamilySearch, it was simply too confusing to try to work it through RootsMagic.  I still have to go back and rematch my RootsMagic person to the merged FamilySearch person.  Once that is done I can begin sharing the data and sources between the two.

This was an interesting project but I don't think I want to tackle another family for awhile.  I need to get back to working on the source documentation.

A genealogy mystery - Louisa A Bell Kreider (1856-1911)

I have spent several days trying to work out the mystery of Louisa Bell Kreider.  Louisa A Bell Kreider (1856-1911), according to her death certificate her parents were James Bell and Sarah Ann Varner.  I'm not able to verify this biological relationship with any other source documents.  The issues are:

•  Louisa is 14 years older than her nearest age sibling.  
• Her mother (Sarah Ann Varner) was shown in the 1860 census in her parents home living under her maiden name.  Her age was 20, she would have been 16 at Louisa's birth.  
• Her father (James D Bell) was shown in the 1860 census in his parents home.  His age was 22, he would have been 18 at Lousia's birth.
• James D Bell was a Union soldier in 1862.

In summary there is not enough evidence to support that Louisa is the biological daughter of James and Sarah Ann Bell.  Obviously much more investigation is needed here.

New branch added to family tree - Joseph Varner Bell & Ellen Meloy Bell

For the last few days I have been working on adding the Joseph Varner Bell family to my tree.  Joseph is the son of James Bell and Sarah Ann Varner.  He is my second cousin once removed.  Sarah is the daughter of my great granduncle John Peter Varner, the brother of my great grandfather Daniel Grant Varner.

I am still working on finding original documentation on the family.  I have much work left to do and many other people to add to the tree.  So far I have been able to find census records and find a grave records for most.  I have spent several days trying to work out the mystery of Louisa Bell Kreider, which is the subject of another post.

Work on this line was prompted by an email I received from a reader of this blog.  Thanks, Kim.  I have much work left to do and many other people still to add to the tree.

New cousin contact from Stuffel Werner of Pennsylvania line

I received an email a couple of days ago from a cousin that found me because of this blog.  This was my first contact because of the blog.  It has renewed my interest in writing here.

Kim has provided some needed insight and most of all the desire to resume my research efforts on the Pennsylvania Varner lines.  I have not documented or researched the majority of my Varner line except for my direct ancestors,  I believe it is now time to go back and fill in all the branches of the tree.

New first cousins (once removed) contacted

I have to give kudos to Facebook.  Thanks to social networking I have recently "met" and been in communication with two first cousins from the Varner side of the family.  These are daughters of two of my deceased first cousins from California.  These cousins lived in the Los Angeles area most of their lives so we were not close having only met a very few times on those extremely rare times our families got together.

Both of these ladies now live in the pacific northwest.  One I just had a very pleasant phone call with a few days ago.  Neither are very interested in family history but they were able to provide me with some valuable recent family information.

It is my hope to continue the contact and hopefully learn some more from them.

Still looking for birth parents for WILLIAM CARROLL GREEN BRESHEARS - DNA tests taken

We have taken DNA tests in hopes of finding additional cousins that may help us unravel the mystery  of our GGGranfathers birth parents.  My sister, Janet and I have both tested with AncestryDNA.  We have numerous cousin matches.  I have been in contact with some of the second - third cousins and we are trying to find our common ancestors now.  So far no luck in breaking through our William Carroll Green brick wall.

 Don's AncestryDNA ethnicity results
Janet's AncestryDNA ethnicity results

In addition to Ancestry, I have loaded mine to FTDNA and gedmatch.  I also took a Y-DNA37 test at FTDNA for the Varner surname project.  My dna matches closely to some of those on the Varner surname project so that part of the family tree I'm fairly confident on.  Also lot's of Breshears matches on Ancestry.

I really need to do a lot of studying on this dna matching process.  Fairly complicated and very involved.  I'm sure I am missing lot's of things that are staring me in the face simply because I don't know how to compare my results with others.  Matching distant ancestors on our trees is extremely difficult.

More Find A Grave research for the Varner line in Pennsylvania

Another hectic week has passed.  Now that I'm caught up with the Vansant Road Cemetery records I have been able to spend some time in other areas.  We did have a cemetery board of directors meeting this week and that went very well.  Things are starting to turn around at the cemetery.

I did some indexing on Family Search.  I was actually arbitrating the indexed Obituary's.  Didn't do a lot just enough to keep fresh.

It has not been a real productive week for research.  However, I was able to work some time in.  I was working primarily in Find A Grave,  I found memorial pages for nineteen family members.  Four of which were new people that had to be added to the file. Within the memorials six of them had tombstone photos and four of them had enough information to lead me to the death certificates.  I added two new surnames to the file (Bacon and Bell).  The Bells are Sarah Varners family.  They were mostly in the Juniata County, PA.  The Bacons are through the Anna Varner Dunkel line.  This family had skipped all over the country (mostly in Colorado, Montana and Missouri).

I have determined that Find A Grave is an extremely valuable resource for genealogical research.  Even though it cannot be considered primary source material the information is there to lead you to primary documentation.

Working in Find A Grave

This past week I have spent my family history research time in Find A Grave.  

I ran a report out of my Roots Magic system that showed all those with a death fact and no burial fact.  Then I ran a report for all those with a burial fact which I exported to Excel where I then ran a comparison against a  list of people with a Find A Grave source.  After removing those that had a Find A Grave source I then combined the two lists.  That gave me my work list for Find A Grave.

This weeks research time was spent searching Find A Grave for people on that list.  I found memorial pages for 18 people and only 4 people searched with no pages found.  Also most of the memorial pages had tombstone photos added.  So far so good.  

This next week I hope to spend more time on research and less on indexing.  I really only spent one afternoon this past week on research.  I did more indexing this week than I originally planned to do.  Got caught up in the flow.  Also, I now have my work process flow established and a good Evernote template as well as a source template setup in Roots Magic so that should speed up the process.

Completed BONEY / BOONIE family of Pennsylvania Ancestry hints and Family Search Indexing

The last few weeks I have not spent much time working on the family history.  I have become very interested in Family Searches new indexing project of US Obituaries, spending two or three hours each day on it. These are very confusing records.  Not an easy indexing project but I am really enjoying it.

I was able to finish all of Ancestry's shaky leaves hints for the Boney / Boonie family.  This family alone expanded my family tree by over 90 people.  For the most part the family was exceptionally well documented.

The Boney/Boonie family is connected to the Varner family by Mary B Varner (1830 - 1911).  Mary married Israel Boney (1820 - 1893) somewhere around 1847.  I have not been able to find any sort of marriage document so this hypotheses is based on census, birth and burial records.  Mary B Varner was the daughter of my Great granduncle John Peter Varner and Barbara Leckenton.

The Boney/Boonie family that I have studied have, for the most part, appeared to have stayed in the Juniata / Snyder County, Pennsylvania area.  The only thing that I have done for this family is taken the shaky green leaf hints from my Ancestry Member Tree, verified them and updated my family tree.  I have done no further research, so this represents only the low hanging fruit.  I am sure there is much more to be learned for the family and I hope to one day be able to return to them and further document the family.

As always if I can help someone who needs more detail on the information shown below either leave a comment on this post or visit my Ancestry tree  Don Varner's family tree.

Here is my Roots Magic descendant report (modified the names for the living) for Israel Boney.:
Descendant List of Israel Boney 20 February 2014
1-Israel BONEY (LD29-4NT) (23 Nov 1820-1893)
+Mary B. VARNER (LD29-H4P) (1 Dec 1830-5 Sep 1911)
. . . . 2-Isaac BONEY (LDZ1-Y78) (abt 1848-bef 1948)
. . . . +Mary LNU BONEY (L68J-5Z4) (abt 1850-bef 1950)
. . . . . . . . 3-Margaret "Anna" BONEY (L68J-GCX) (Jan 1870-bef 1970)
. . . . . . . . 3-John A. A. BONEY (L68J-PPZ) (abt 1879-bef 1979)
. . . . 2-Eliza BONEY (LDZ1-YKK) (abt 1848-bef 1948)
. . . . 2-Christian BONEY (LHPM-R7Z) (22 Aug 1850-2 Feb 1948)
. . . . +Louisa LNU BONEY (abt 1860-bef 1960)
. . . . . . . . 3-William Steward BONEY (20 Jul 1878-21 Jun 1963)
. . . . . . . . +Mary Matilda "Mollie" KLINE (27 Aug 1879-18 Jan 1958)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Earle E BOONIE (abt 1896-bef 1996)
. . . . . . . . . . . . +Minnie V LNU BOONIE (abt 1893-bef 1993)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (abt 1922-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (abt 1923-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE Jr (abt 1931-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Charles Elmer BOONIE (abt 1899-bef 1999)
. . . . . . . . . . . . +Irene Wilson WAREFIELD (abt 1902-bef 2002)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (abt 1922-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Carmon Frederick BOONIE (9 Sep 1923-14 Jan 1984)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Sarah BANKS (27 May 1924-12 Jul 1969)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Wayne E BOONIE (7 Jan 1925-4 Jan 2005)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Glenn Elder BOONIE (31 Jan 1926-25 Dec 1997)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (abt 1928-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Charles E BOONIE Jr. (abt 1929-bef Jan 2010)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Wesley A. "Bo" BOONIE (30 May 1932-3 Jan 2010)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living female KOCH (abt 1930-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-Living male BOONIE (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-Living female BOONIE (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male STIEHLER (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-Living female BOONIE (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male GUYER (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Mary E BOONIE (abt 1934-bef Jan 2010)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (abt 1936-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (abt 1938-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Paul BOONIE (-bef Jan 2010)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-David C BOONIE (abt 1908-bef 2008)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Stella D BOONIE (abt 1910-bef 2010)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Dorthy E BOONIE (abt 1912-bef 2012)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-William Steward "Steward" BOONIE Jr. (22 Sep 1913-29 Nov 1982)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Carl W BOONIE (19 Jul 1915-15 Aug 2007)
. . . . . . . . . . . . +Rosaline "Rosey" BAKER (14 Sep 1917-17 Sep 2003)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (abt 1936-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (abt 1937-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (1 Jan 1937-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male BOONIE (Mar 1939-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (aft 1940-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male GOSS (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (aft 1940-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male ZIEBER (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living female BOONIE (aft 1940-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male FINIZIO (-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Living female BOONIE (abt 1918-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . +Living male TROXEL (abt 1918-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-Living male TROXEL (abt 1938-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . 4-Wayman F BOONIE (7 Jun 1921-22 Jan 2000)
. . . . . . . . 3-Betsy BONEY (abt 1879-bef 1979)
. . . . . . . . 3-Ammon J. BOONIE (abt 1898-bef 1998)
. . . . . . . . 3-Rachel J. BOONIE (abt 1900-bef 2000)
. . . . 2-William BONEY (L6C4-DSL) (abt 1852-bef 1952)
. . . . 2-Barbara BONEY (L6C4-D79) (abt 1854-bef 1954)
. . . . 2-John Aaron "Aaron" BONEY (LD29-CH5) (8 Jan 1856-12 Aug 1943)
. . . . 2-Lydia BONEY (L6C4-DD5) (abt 1858-bef 1958)
. . . . +Henry Howard SHAWVER (1855-1930)
. . . . . . . . 3-Jane H. M. SHAWVER (abt 1878-bef 1978)
. . . . . . . . 3-Daniel J SHAWVER (Sep 1879-bef 1979)
. . . . 2-Uriah BONEY (LD29-CSG) (1863-1934)
. . . . 2-Caroline Emeline BONEY (LD29-4KH) (1866-20 Nov 1877)
. . . . 2-Susanna Matilda "Matilda" BONEY (LD29-HQM) (18 Dec 1867-19 Dec 1877)
. . . . 2-Leah BONEY (MTTF-VLW) (27 Nov 1869-12 Mar 1939)
. . . . 2-Joseph Jerome BONEY (LD29-4GS) (13 Mar 1874-10 Nov 1877)
. . . . 2-Mary Maggie Savilla BONEY (LD29-HSC) (1876-20 Nov 1877)

Boney / Boonie families of Snyder County, Pennsylvania

I have spent the last several weeks working on the Boney / Boonie families of Snyder County, Pennsylvania.
My first cousin (once removed) Mary B Varner married Israel Boney and they had thirteen children.

My Ancestry Member Tree hints jumped from around 390 to 570+ after adding this family.  I have spent over three weeks trying to clear the hints on this family alone.  I have added 52 people (Boney / Boonie) to my tree.  After I clear the hints on immediate family I end up adding more people which in turn generates more new hints.  I now have over 580+ hints to work through.  At the rate I'm going this will take another month if not two.  The Boney's have proven to be a very prolific family.  Thankfully they have all (so far) pretty much stayed in the Snyder County, PA area.

Here is the family narrative report so far.  Keep in mind this is a work in progress.  Any change suggestions are most welcome.  If the death date says BEFORE and just a year that indicates that I have not yet found the actual death information.

1.  Israel BONEY^1–2 was born on 23 Nov 1820.³ He appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1850 at Beaver Township in Union, Pennsylvania, United States.⁴ He appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ : , Jun 1863, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁶ Israel appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ He appeared in the census on 22 Jun 1880 at Adams Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁸ He died in 1893 at the age of 73.³ Israel was buried in 1893 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.³

Mary B. VARNER¹, daughter of John Peter VARNER and Barbara LECKENTON, was born on 1 Dec 1830 at Fayette Township in Juniata, Pennsylvania, United States.^9–10 She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1850 at Beaver Township in Union, Pennsylvania, United States.⁴ She appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ Mary appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ She appeared in the census on 22 Jun 1880 at Adams Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁸ She appeared in the census on 26 Apr 1910 at Lewis Township in Union, Pennsylvania, United States.¹¹ Mary died on 5 Sep 1911 at the age of 80 in Pennsylvania, United States.^9–10,12 She was buried on 8 Sep 1911 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.^10,12 She was also known as Mary B. Boney.

Israel BONEY and Mary B. VARNER had the following children:

            +2              i.   Isaac BONEY, born abt 1848; married Mary LNU BONEY, bef 1870; died bef 1948.

              3             ii.   Eliza BONEY was born about 1848.^4–5 She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1850 at Beaver Township in Union, Pennsylvania, United States.⁴ She appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ Eliza died before 1948 at the age of 100.

            +4            iii.   Christian BONEY, born 22 Aug 1850, Juniata, Pennsylvania, United States; married Louisa LNU BONEY, bef 1880; died 2 Feb 1948.

              5            iv.   William BONEY was born about 1852.⁵ He appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ He appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ William died before 1952 at the age of 100.

              6             v.   Barbara BONEY was born about 1854.^5,7 She appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ Barbara died before 1954 at the age of 100.

              7            vi.   John Aaron "Aaron" BONEY^1,7 was born on 8 Jan 1856.¹³ He appeared in the census on 13 Jun 1860 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁵ He appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ Aaron died on 12 Aug 1943 at the age of 87.¹³ He was buried after 12 Aug 1943 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹³ He was also known as John Aaron "Aaron" Boonie.¹³

            +8           vii.   Lydia BONEY, born abt 1858; married Henry Howard SHAWVER, bef 1878; died bef 1958.

              9          viii.   Uriah BONEY¹ was born in 1863.¹⁴ He appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ He appeared in the census on 22 Jun 1888 at Adams Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁵ Uriah died in 1934 at the age of 71.¹⁴ He was buried in 1934 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁴

            10            ix.   Caroline Emeline BONEY¹ was born in 1866.¹⁶ She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ She died on 20 Nov 1877 at the age of 11.¹⁶ Caroline was buried after 20 Nov 1877 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁶

            11             x.   Susanna Matilda "Matilda" BONEY^1,7 was born on 18 Dec 1867.¹⁷ She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ She died on 19 Dec 1877 at the age of 10.¹⁷ Matilda was buried after 19 Dec 1877 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁷

            12            xi.   Leah BONEY¹ was born on 27 Nov 1869 in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁸ She appeared in the census on 1 Jun 1870 at Beaver Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁷ She appeared in the census on 22 Jun 1880 at Adams Township in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.⁸ Leah died on 12 Mar 1939 at the age of 69 in Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁸ She was buried after 12 Mar 1939 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁸ She was also known as Mary Boney.⁷ 

            13           xii.   Joseph Jerome BONEY¹ was born on 13 Mar 1874.¹⁹ He died on 10 Nov 1877 at the age of 3.¹⁹ He was buried after 10 Nov 1877 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.¹⁹

            14          xiii.   Mary Maggie Savilla BONEY¹ was born in 1876.²⁰ She died on 20 Nov 1877 at the age of 1.²⁰ She was buried after 20 Nov 1877 at Union Cemetery in Troxelville, Snyder, Pennsylvania, United States.²⁰

Memorial Day 2013 - remembering James Varner

This memorial day weekend  my sisters, my wife and myself made the round to all of the local cemeteries where our relatives are buried.  Since my retirement and relocation back "home" we are now able to do this each year.  We do this to put flowers on the graves of our deceased family members.  We also do this because that is what our parents taught us to do.

Memorial Day holds many fond memories for me.  Around the age of 10 or 11 my father, James Varner, began taking me along each year to put the small flags on the graves of the military veterans.  We did between six and eight small cemeteries.  Usually our group included my father and uncle, James and Elvie Varner, and a good friend Reuben Bryant.

Thursday or Friday before memorial weekend we would go to each cemetery meeting two or three others there that helped us place the flags.  The flags would be placed in small round aluminum tubes (usually broken TV antenna's) that had been painted with red, white and blue stripes.  One person "ran the book" checking off the names as we went to make sure that no veteran was missed.  This was generally a fairly long day and my memory is that most of these days were rainy and chilly.

After Memorial Day we would go back to each cemetery to pickup the holders and flags.  These had to be saved to use again the next year.  Over the fall or winter the holders would be repainted as needed and the old faded or torn flags disposed of and new replacements obtained.

As I got older we had to manage around my work schedule if I was able to be there to help.  I missed the four years I was in the Air Force. After many years we turned over all of the cemeteries to other volunteer's.  My father, uncle and Reuben were no longer able and due to my employment I had to relocate to a distant state.

To me Memorial Day is much more than remembering our veterans.  It is also about remembering and recognizing our family members that have gone before us.  After all, if not for them there would have been no me.

WWI draft records and Ernest VARNER marriages

It's been two months since I've posted on this blog.  I have taken a little time off, but I hope to be back in the groove now.

With the coming of warmer weather the last few days I have been unable to make it to Englewood Cemetery and take care of the photo requests on Find A Grave.  I was able to clear up a three month back log.  I've also been able to key in several hundred more names in the Marine project for Ancestry.com's World Archives Project.

I took a slightly different tact on the family history the last two weeks.  Instead of working on a single individual or family I ran a list of people in my family tree maker database that should have been registered in the WWI draft.  I was able to find the draft registration for almost all of them on Ancestry.com.  I still have the WWII draft left to do.

I also spent some time working on my 1st cousin (1x removed) Ernest Varner.  Ernest (Ernie) Varner was married three times (Pansy Briggs, Fern Simms Horn, and Helen Harness).  I've been searching for marriage and divorce records with partial success.  I've been able to document all three marriages but I'm still searching for a divorce record for Pansy.  I also have not been able to document a divorce or death (not sure which) for Fern.  Still have more work to do here.

Documenting the HOLLY / HOLLOPETER / MARTIN family connection

It's been a very busy last three weeks.  Thanksgiving was great with all of the family here at the new house.  I've also re-started my Family Search Indexing efforts again.  I've just past the 5,000 records indexed mark. I've also been volunteering at the Henry County Museum and Genealogy Library a couple of days a week.  That has left little time to spend on my family history.

No new relations uncovered but I've been concentrating on more complete documentation of those I already  have in the family tree.  My concentration areas of the last few weeks have been the MARTIN / HOLLY / HOLLOPETER connections.  These connections are related to the VARNER side of the family.  Primarily I've found census records, marriage records and a few obituaries.  The HOLLY name came from Ray V HOLLY who choose to shorten his surname of  HOLLOPETER  to HOLLY.  At this point I'm not sure how many of his siblings's choose to do that as well.  I have a research "TO DO" to look into this a little more at a later date.

I received some invaluable assistance from Bill Martin to set me on the correct path for his mother's (HUEY) side of the family.

I've now decided to rework my research strategy with the focus being on more complete documentation of the family file I have.  My intent is to focus more on family history and less on genealogy.  Now to put together a game plan.  Also for the new year I plan on rethinking my genealogy "Tool Kit".  That may be a future blog subject.

Census finds for John F SMITH & Daniel VARNER

Last week and so far this week has been very busy.  My wife and I just returned from a trip to the southern tip of Missouri to pick up my grandson for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Down and back in one day (13 1/2 hours).  It's so good that he will be able to spend it with the rest of the family.  All of the kids/grand kids will be home for Thanksgiving.

Last week I resumed my Family Search Indexing,  I've indexed a few more records for the first time since the 1940 census was finished.  I also spent quite a bit of time doing photo requests for Find A Grave.  The weather has been very cooperative so far this month.  It's really been a very mild November so far.

I've not progressed much on the family tree in the last week or two.  Spent a couple of days on Ancestry and I was able to finally find my maternal great grand father (John Franklin Smith) in the 1880 census.  This has eluded me for quite some time.  He was enumerated as John SMITT.  I also found my paternal grandfather in the 1900 census.  He was enumerated as Daniel VERNER.  Also found marriage licenses for a couple of cousins.  I hope to be able to spend Friday on research.

New VARNERS added to the tree and new sources for VARNER/SMITH/LEONARDS/SMETHERS

This has been a very productive week from a genealogical research stand point.  I've been able to spend a couple of days concentrating on my paternal grandfathers line.  I found several new source documents and was able to add an entire family (2nd cousin 3X removed) John Peter VARNER of Fayette Township, Juniata County, PA.

Researching John Varner and Stuffel (Varner) Werner of Juanita / Schuylkill Counties in PA

I have spent the last week splitting my time between cleaning up my FTM file and trying to find more information on my 2nd and 3rd great grandfathers.

First I uploaded my family tree to Ancestry and synced it with my FTM database.  Then I began updating the tree on Ancestry.  The synchronization worked great for about two days.  Something happened and the trees would no longer sync, so I disconnected the tree on Ancestry and I'm updating only my Family Tree Maker file for now.  Once I get it finished I will delete my tree on Ancestry and upload a new one.  I'm now working on cleaning up my source citations.  I did not get a clean transfer of sources via gedcom from a Legacy 7 file to an FTM 2012 file.  This is slow going.  Not only do I need to retype most of the sources but all of the media needs to be reattached as well.

On the research front I decided to concentrate on my 2nd great grandfather John Varner (1787 - 1852) in Schuylkill and Juanita County PA and on my 3rd great grandfather Stuffel Christophel (Varner) Werner (1750 - 1853) in Juanita County PA.  I've checked Ancestry and Family Search and found no census or vital records.  The only thing I've been able to come up with is an oft quoted story found in the book "Biographical Encyclopedia of Juniata Valley PA, 1897".  I would really like to prove and build on the information shown in this book.  I'll spend a little more time on these two before I move on