Roberts Roots & Branches

  It has been too long since my last update! I have been very, very busy with life and genealogy! I have put together my next book “Dorcas Dunn Roberts Crowley,” which is about my grandmother, Dorcas Dunn.   I have had a box of her genealogy and a box of photographs and documents.   This is my way to share my grandmother’s documents and other miscellaneous items, and an opportunity to share her genealogy work.   I have compiled documents, certificates, newspaper clippings, awards, photographs, and all of her genealogy including family group sheets, research journal, and histories.   My favorite part is the copies of her calendars for the years 1978-1981, 1986-1987.     Next, I will need to edit, proofread, and create an index for this book before it is ready for print.   I am thrilled with how this tribute has turned out.   More importantly, I have learned so many things about my grandmother I did not know and I have a newfound love and respect for her life and accomplishments.   A

  As I continue my Documents Project, I am surprised at how often I reached out to others through phone calls, letters, emails, and visits.   It was so uncomfortable every single time!   Yet, I look at the valuable information I have learned and the friendships and relationships I have been able to foster through my reaching out.   Everyone I have ever contacted has been wonderful and my life has been blessed to make acquaintances with distant relatives. I look back at the letters, phone calls, interviews and I wonder how I was so brave? Well, I was able to have the support of my father.   He helped my bravery by willingly accompanying me for visits and helped with interviews of relatives.   It is always easier to enter the unknown with your father by your side. In May of 2012, Dad and I drove to Iowa to research and meet the descendants of Sarah Ann Roberts(11) and Joseph Jones(19).   We researched at the Iowa GenealogicalSociety and the State Historical Society of Iowa.   We a

 

  This past week while working on my Documents Project, I transcribed three letters I received in March 2003 from three different branches of the Hugh and Margaret Roberts family.   One letter was from a descendent from the Isaac(10) Roberts family, one descendent was from the John Richard(8) Roberts family, and one letter was from the Sarah Ann(11) Roberts family.   The information varied on the family details imparted; including tidbits, stories, and facts. Eighteen years later, the past was literally speaking to me!   None of these family members is living today, so these letters are conversations speaking to the future.   I originally decided to transcribe the letters for two reasons; I comprehend and remember better, when I write/type something out and secondly transcription enables me to enter the transcription into my genealogy software program and then I am able to attach the information to each family member mentioned in the letter. I had the privilege of meeting each lett

One of my favorite things to read in old newspapers is the “Local Items”.   Over the years, the feature name changes from “Local Mentions” to other various titles.   There is everything listed in this section of the newspaper.   Who is sick, visits, vacations, fishing trips, new houses, who passed away, who got married, what various clubs in town were doing, and even when the Barracks were being painted in 1906. The information in this section is not only fascinating, but it is valuable historic information of contagious diseases to community and social customs. I have learned so much from the “Local Items” including Hugh “Chappie” Roberts(26)   had   the first “War Baby” (Gilbert Roberts-54) in Rock Springs and his wife, Susan Fay”Lempi” Jacobson(27)   traveled with the new baby to meet Hugh while he was stationed in Washington at Camp Lewis before Hugh went overseas to France.   Rock Springs Rocket, 1 March 1918 Rock Springs Rocket, 10 April 1918. The following are some other f

  If you say the word “research log” around genealogists, you will hear moans and groans.   The moans and groans are from guilt and from feelings of overwhelming incidental work.   We all know we should keep a research log, we all want to keep a research log, and we all have the goal to keep a research log.   Sometimes we will begin, but as I have found out, keeping up research logs ends up taking as much time as research.   Plus, there is the filing. . . the writing. . . recording results.   I have attended many classes about research logs and the benefits of regularly documenting my research goals.   I have kept the basic research log.   I have made my own research log.   I have used fancy research logs.   I have even tried the research log on my software program. For a while, printing out a family group sheet and making notations as I researched each family worked exceptionally.  I found the problem after the research session, what to do with the research log?  I tried to keep the “

The above copies are from the Isaac Roberts(10) and Janet Howie(16) family bible.  I received the family bible from William Henry "Billy" Meacham(51) who received  it from his mother, Letitia "Lettie" Roberts Meacham(35) who is the daughter of Isaac and Janet.  On 5 July 2001, my father and his wife, myself and Joe, my husband all traveled down to meet with William Henry Meacham, or Billy as he wanted us to call him.  Billy and  his  second wife, Ella Mae Eaton(407),   lived in Henderson, Nevada which is just outside of Las Vegas.    They were the friendliest and kindest people and Billy was full of information about the Roberts family.   It was July and very, very, very hot and Billy and Ella Mae had  no air conditioning and although my family and I  thought we were going to melt, Billy kept us entertained with stories and exaggerations about the Roberts family and life in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Quite frankly, Billy was happy to have an audience and my father was h

  Well, it’s June already, and the month of May scuttled by too fast!   May was a month full of personal satisfaction for my work and my specific projects.   Books continue to sell steadily and feedback has been very positive.     I have met with more relatives and done many little things for some of my larger projects. My document-auditing project is so overwhelming!   I am only on my second binder of documents.   Although this project is extremely important, it moves very slowly!   Through looking at each of my documents, I have found some great “re-finds” and made some interesting connections, while most of the work is tedious and time-consuming.   Because of my boredom, I decided to do the Memorial Day 2021 project and I was able to get out about and gather more information from the cemeteries.   I was able to add two more cemeteries and three more graves to my “Where Our Roots Rest, Volume III”.   (Of course, there will be a volume III.)   There are still Roberts family graves

  Rock  Springs Rocket, May 1960 "Remembrance is a golden chain To have, to love and then to part Is the greatest sorrow of one's heart, The years may wipe out many things But this they wipe out never--- The memory of those happy days When we were all together."

  This weekend I was near the Salt Lake City Cemetery and I have still been thinking about all of the overturned and toppled headstones.      I stopped by on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.   This time the front gates were open!   And,   I photographed more of the damage. A severe and historic windstorm ripped up at least 200 trees from the cemetery grounds last September 2020 and postponed at least two funerals.   Winds reached 112 miles per hour.   According to the Salt Lake Tribune, for the public’s safety, officials closed the cemetery for eight months following the historic windstorm last September, 2020.   The wind uprooted trees, and caused significant damage to the cemetery.   According to the newspaper article, no vaults or caskets were damaged however; 100-year-old trees tore up large pieces of ground as they toppled over pulling up headstones, asphalt, curbs, and gutters. Salt Lake City hired an archaeologist to help document the storm’s impact on damaged historical

  Memorial Day 2020, I was recovering from pneumonia, surgery, a broken wrist, and the pandemic was locking down the country so I was unable to visit any graves or leave any flowers.   This year, I decided for Memorial Day, I would like to remember and honor as many ancestors and relatives as possible.   In addition, I wanted to remember the Frontier Mine No. 1 coalminers killed in 1923.    My preplanning included making tags for our Roberts Roots & Branches family and for the Frontier Mine No. 1 coalminers, and attaching the tags to a single silk flower.  For Roberts ancestors I used various colors of silk flowers, but for the Frontier Mine No. 1 miners I wanted a single color and I selected yellow, which ended up working perfectly.  I attached tags to the Roberts family member’s flowers and my grandchildren helped me attach tags to the coalminer’s flowers.  As we worked on attaching the tags, it sparked conversations about the coalminers, our ancestors, and the meaning of Memoria