Roberts Roots & Branches

Happy Birthday to Selina Parker(162) born 29 May 1862 in Burslem, England. Wife of John Richard Roberts(8) and daughter-in-law of Hugh(1) & Margaret Roberts(2). I admire Selina from her experience of moving to Frontier, Wyoming in 1897; About two months after Roberts built the small log cabin; he purchased a tent from the W.S. Post store in Hams Fork and set it up in the small coal mining community. Selina and the children made the trip to Hams Fork on the train and John met them at the station with a team and buggy. The Roberts family lived in the tent until the town began work on a new school house, which was the site of where John had erected the tent. (source: taken from a story I am currently working on)

Happy birthday to Jane Roberts Hamilton(15), daughter of Hugh(1) and Margaret(2) Roberts born 28 May 1874 in Staffordshire County, England. Interesting note about Jane. When her husband passed away and was buried in Rock Springs, Wyoming she had her name engraved on a double headstone. However, 16 years later she passed away in Arizona and was buried in Phoenix. The headstone in Rock Springs has her death date added, but she is not buried there.

Memorial Day Program, Rock Springs Rocket, 27 May 1921.

Happy Birthday to Henry Walters(21) born 19 March 1878 in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Husband of Mary Elizabeth Roberts(14) and son-in-law of Hugh(1) and Margaret(2) Roberts.

I am currently working on three projects:   Roberts Family Stories, a cemetery book and an address book.   Each project is different and is in various stages of completion. I have been writing Roberts Family Stories for about a year and a half now.   I knew I needed to write and preserve my research, but it took me several months to figure out a process.   I figured I would write a biography or life sketch for each person, but there are several issues with this approach.   Research results are not finite and change, as records and documents become available so a printed story’s details may change.   Gathering and combining various facts, histories, and events of an ancestor’s life is daunting and may be repetitive.   Rather, I decided to write short stories about certain situations from our ancestor’s lives.   For example, if I write about each family member individually, several family members would have a section about immigration where ...

Honoring John Buxton,  the first game warden in Wyoming killed in the line of duty. John Buxton(31) son of John James Buxton & Jennie Watson born 23 September 1888, Appanoose County, Iowa married Jennie Roberts(10) on 19 March 1918 in Salt Lake City, Utah died 14 September 1919 Rock Springs, Wyoming

“How blessed to be able to turn homeward when we are tired or ill or discouraged,  or just plain weary of the ways of the world—weary of small talk,   impersonal people,  and the endless round of routine.    How blessed to belong, and how much we owe those who are there,   just for the blessing of belonging, just for a place in the family circle.” ---Evans, Richard L. “Music and the Spoken Word,” 21 November 1965, page 158. Have you ever wondered about the homes where our ancestors lived?  Have you ever wondered how close family members lived to each other?  Have you ever wondered what smells filled their homes, or the everyday sounds within their homes? I have begun a new project:  the address book.  In this book, I hope to find the addresses of our ancestors homes from the census records, directories, and other documents.  Wouldn't it be fun to see a picture of the house, and read the census record which rep...

Happy anniversary Mary Elizabeth Roberts(14) and Henry Walters(21) they were married 2 May 1914. Daughter of Hugh(1) and Margaret(2). This was the second marriage for Mary Elizabeth. (newspaper source: Rock Springs Miner, 9 May 1914, page 1, online Wyoming Newspaper Project)

I picked up some discarded books at the Rock Springs Library on C Street, Rock Springs, Wyoming last fall, included with the books I purchased was John M. Barry's book "The Great Influenza."  I had wanted to research the pandemic because I knew that Jennie Roberts Buxton(30) and  Joseph Jones(19) had died from the flu.  (there may be others, I need to do more research).  On 22 February 2020 I researched the Rock Springs newspapers looking for flu stories.  I searched the newspapers beginning 1 March 1918.  I finished reading through the microfilms on 25 February 2020.  I only searched the front pages of each edition. It was educational and informative to read about the pandemic as I researched the newspapers because I was able to collaborate the research from the book to the local news where our ancestors lived.  (I still need to do further research  of the affects in Lincoln County, Wyoming and Des Moines, Iowa).  I had read in the...