Roberts Roots & Branches

    The Same Thing That Drives Us!!!   Love and money are the great motivators and directors of our lives.  Finding love and romance drives us to search for our lifelong companions.  Dating, courting and courtship are the driving forces of young adults.    After the first search is completed, our second search begins; money--to support that love and the offspring that come from that love!  We need money to feed, clothe and house our families.  Money comes from work; occupations that will give our family the sustaining substance that is required to survive.    Love of our family unit is not limited to our own family but also our parents and siblings.  Where they live influences our decisions on where to locate; we want to be close to those we love.  Love of God and our belief and faith also drive us.   We usually worship as we were taught as children, and as our families worshiped.    Catastrophic life events generally lead people back to their roots and beliefs.   What drives

  A Light in the Darkness: The Miner’s Lamp The thick and dense darkness of a coalmine requires a miner to use a source that illuminates his work place deep within the earth.  Light within a mine is not a luxury or a comfort, but rather a necessity.  Miners need to see both the roof and the ground where they are working, to protect themselves from dangerous cave-ins.  In addition to safety, the better the illumination, the more productive the miner.  The coroner’s inquest found that the cause of the Frontier Mine Number One disaster that occurred 14 August 1923 was the fire boss relighting his lamp (Corner’s Inquest).   Early in the mining industry, the necessity for light within the mine was neither safe nor easy.   Originally, coal miners used a candle with an exposed flame.   However, an open flame and methane gas, or firedamp as it is called, was the cause of many catastrophic explosions leading to the first safety lamps.   According to the Internet site of Mining Artifacts:

16 August 1886 marriage anniversary of Sarah Ann(11) Roberts & Joseph(19) Jones. Sarah Ann is the daughter of Hugh(1) & Margaret(2) Roberts Joseph(19) is the widowed husband of Letita(9) Roberts (daughter of Hugh & Margaret and sister of Sarah Ann)

Ninety-seven years ago, the Frontier Mine No. 1 disaster killed 99 men including Isaac Roberts(165), son of John Richard Roberts(8) and Selina Parker(162).  Selina had died the previous week and was buried just days 5 days before that fateful day.   John Richard and his son Isaac went to work that day.  Isaac went into the mine while John Richard worked outside the mine as a coal mine dock boss.  One hundred thirty seven men went into the mine that morning and 99 men had to be carried out and buried. You can read more here at my project for these miners:   https://fronterminedisaster.blogspot.com/

Knowing what someone did can be important when fleshing out our family histories, but understanding how that occupation impacted their  community could be more important in explaining how they were and why they did what they did. If we truly wish to understand what makes us who we are today we need to study the history of the village, town and even the county or country.  Here are some resources for our ancestors occupations. Hilary Gadsby, Sunday, Feb 16, 2014, Occupations of our Ancestors, Blog:   The Edge of Snowdonia, online at   http://genemeet.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-occupations-of-our-ancestors.html   Baer, Drake, “9 Bizarre Jobs of our Ancestors that no longer exist.” Business Insider, March 17, 2014  https://www.businessinsider.com/bizarre-jobs-that-no-longer-exist-2014-3   Geni.com   https://www.geni.com/blog/5-jobs-our-ancestors-had-that-are-no-longer-around-383731.html   Cyndi's List all inclusive links for our ancestors occupations   https://www.cyndislist.c

Janet Howie(10) born 11 August 1871 in Durham County, England wife of Isaac Roberts(10) and daughter-in-law of Hugh(1) & Margaret(2) Roberts

5 August 1882 Staffordshire, England marriage of Letitia(9) Roberts & Joseph(19) Jones 5 August 1899 Pittston, Pennsylvania marriage of Hugh Thomas(12) & Esther(203) Clough Letitia and Hugh are the children of Hugh(1) & Margaret(2) Roberts

I printed out a sloppy copy of my two cemetery books, "Where Our Roots Rest Vol. I & II" and I am working on editing, correcting and formatting.   What a project!   It is a more work than I imagined, but I am learning so much.  It will make future books easier to print and publish. More than anything from this project I have learned so much; about our ancestors, about their final resting places, about writing and about publishing. I am blessed and grateful for this project. Look here on this blog for updates on this project, future projects and current research.

Happy birthday William D. Jones(20) born August 1862 1st husband of Mary Elizabeth Roberts(14) and father of  Thomas Griffin Jones(23) son-in-law of Hugh(1) & Margaret(2) Roberts