Roberts Roots & Branches

It’s been way too long since I have posted.  S-o-r-r-y.  Of course I am still researching and doing tons of genealogy and genealogy related projects, I just haven't been posting!  I have been keeping up on Facebook with family members--so find us there:  Roberts Roots & Branches. It has been difficult to publish the newsletter since I have lost two of my valuable and supportive fans--my uncle Jack and my Dad.  Whenever I published a newsletter I got an email from my uncle.  I sincerely miss his supportive comments and encouraging words.  Of course my Dad was a tremendous supporter.   Dad was also a wonderful research assistant.  Around the same time of my father’s passing, I felt that it was time to take the newsletter in a new direction.   I won't bore you with all of the details, but through a long process, I have come up with a plan.  Rather than publishing a newsletter, I am compiling stories to put i...

On 2 March 2019 I was able to attend the Rock Springs Massacre, Mock Trail, Lee v Union Pacific, at Western Wyoming Community College.  It was wonderful, fascinating and informative. The massacre occurred in Rock Springs in September 1885 and our Roberts ancestors immigrated to the United States in April 1886, however they did not come to Rock springs for a couple of years after that. The mock trial was a very insightful opportunity to travel back in time and get a feel for Rock Springs during that era.  The trial was full of historical content and they did a wonderful job re-enacting the time-period. 

This was an especially special evening.  Watching these two little ones, knowing that they were related, and yet only through serendipity events they were able to meet and be friends.  I am sure my Dad-and other ancestors-were smiling in heaven this particular evening.

This past year I have had the blessing to spend alot of time in Rock Springs.  I have been traveling there since 1995, but I have never been there in the winter.  I had some extra time, so I drove to the cemetery and snapped these beautiful photographs.  Yes, it was as cold as it looks!

Rock Springs Miner, 10 September 1903, page 3. Wyoming Newspaper Project Online

            Several years ago while searching the Rock Springs City Cemetery, my husband Joe and I were on a mission to locate a few elusive graves and photograph the headstones.  When we first arrived,  I noticed a couple of men working on a headstone in a section of the cemetery where some of our family members were buried.  As we walked the cemetery, we edged closer to where the men were working.  Curiously, I told Joe I thought they were working on a family headstone, so we walked toward the site.  As we approached I realized it was a Roberts family headstone; it was the marker for Leitita Roberts (35) and Reuben Meacham (36).             As we approached the workers I found it difficult to determine if they were adding a death date to the marker and I was puzzled because I had not heard that Rueben had died.  Upon questioning, the wo...