John Vint Bentley & Annie Potter

This is Annie Potter and John Vint Bentley. I never thought to find a picture of them. It was taken on the porch of the home of their son, James Monroe Bentley.

Here is how I came across the picture.

I was in Kentucky a few years ago at Memorial Day. I went to go along with my Wright cousins who have a tradition of meeting on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend to visit the graves of their loved ones to clear them off and 'decorate' them. We used to call Memorial Day Decoration Day. On Monday, Memorial Day, I went to McRoberts to attend the Memorial Day services there. It was held in front of the church of Christ building at the Military Memorial for the soldiers from the are who lost their lives in various wars. The VFW post from Pound was doing the honors.

It was pouring rain that day. There was a room at the senior center next to the church which was being used to meet and sign in. I was with my Uncle D. V. . He was talking to folks he knew and I was standing by the sign in. One of the fellows in the VFW group came up to sign in and noticing his name tag said Bentley, I said, "Hello, Cousin". He grinned and we talked a bit. He said his family was from Virginia and he didn't believe we were related. I said, well, if you want to tell me your parents and grandparents, I sure will try to check it out. He just grinned.

After the service, we went in for cake and more chat. Jack Bentley came up to me and asked if I were serious about looking into his family. I said sure, got his parents and grandparents names and his email. I asked if he had any pictures and he said no.

I went to my files and he his grandfather was a son of James Monroe Bentley. I worked on this line and sent Jack a file giving him all the pictures, stories and info I had starting with him.

About a year later he wrote me and said he had lost the file, could I send him another since he wanted to print one. I said, sure, but give me a day or so to check just in case there is something more I can find. And I found this picture. I couldn't believe it. It was on an ancestry file and said it was used at a family reunion. The picture was so good, I just couldn't imagine it being the parents of James Monroe and John Martin because the picture of John Martin and Malinda Addington is awful quality wise. So I wrote the lady and asked her who identified it and how they had come across it.

In the meantime I took the name off the picture and emailed it to Jack and asked if he knew who it was. He wrote back right away -- it was one of his grandparents and it was on his wall. It seems when I asked if he had any family pictures and he said no, he meant none in an album or box, and hadn't thought about what was on his wall. The lady wrote me back and all matched. She said it was taken when they were in Virginia visiting James Monroe and all the Virginia Bentleys had the photo. I guess none of us still in Kentucky had gotten it.

So that is how I got the picture of John Martin and James Monroe Bentley's parents.

James Monroe Bentley

I originally had this photo with a story about John Martin Bentley. I had been given the picture by an aunt who said it was John Martin. Recently, my cousin, Janice, saw the picture and said she thought she had seen it and something wasn't right. She went through her mother, Edna Bentley's pictures and found it along with other pictures that were taken the same day. This is not John Martin Bentley, but his brother, James Monroe Bentley.

In the picture is Otho Bentley and Elbert Bentley, seated. They are nephews of James Monroe.

Standing is Laura Bell Bentley, a sister to Otho and Elbert and niece of James Monroe, James Monroe himself, Mary Webb Bentley wife of James Monroe, Caldonia Bentley Watkins sister of Otho Elbert & Laura and none of us could quite figure out who the last man was though he is very familiar looking.

What happened was Uncle Willie, Otho's son, and his wife, Edna Bentley took Poppy (Otho), Uncle Elbert, Aunt Laura, and Aunt Caldonia to visit their uncle and his great uncle. Here are the other pictures that were taken that day:

Aunt Laura Belle Bentley who married Sherman Bentley and Aunt Edna Bentley who married Willie Bentley. Laura was the daughter of John Martin Bentley and Malinda Addington. Edna was the daughter of Sherman Bentley and Ada Sergent.

James Monroe Bentley and Laura Belle Bentley.

James Monroe Bentley, son of John Vint Bentley and Annie Potter, and his wife, Mary Webb, daughter of Benjamin Webb and Eleander Pace.

James Monroe Bentley and Willie Bentley, son of Otho Bentley.

James Monroe & Mary Webb Bentley

James Monroe Bentley home with visitors on the porch.

Edna Bentley, wife of Willie Bentley, and Willie's aunt, Laura Bentley.

Mystery Photo Identfied: Sharon Craft

I got an email from Gordon Hart. He identified the Craft Mystery picture 1621 as his niece, Sharon Faye Craft. Sharon was the daughter of Ira Comb Craft and Ruby Helen Hart. Ira was the son of Archelous Columbus “A. C.” Craft and Pricy Adkins. A C is the brother of my great grandmother, Lettie Craft Hall. A. C. and Lettie were the children of Enoch Arden “Chunk” Craft and Mary Ann “Polly Ann” Caudill.
A. C . and Pricy had 17 children:
Polly Ann married Maylon Brown. Polly had eight children. She died young. Maylon married a second time, Susie. All three of them are in the Chunk Craft Cemetery at Millstone.
Lily Mae Craft married Moses Webb.
Rachel Virginia “Virgie” Craft married Arlie Brown. They moved to Owensboro, Kentucky.
Enoch Arden Craft died at age 3. He is in the Chunk Craft Cemetery.
Mattie E. Craft married Johnny Hall. They raised their family in Kite, Knott County, Kentucky.
Ranie May Craft died the day after she was born. She is in the Chunk Craft Cemetery.
Sarah J. Craft married Lee Hall, a brother of Johnny Hall, sons of Thomas Hall and Martha Fouts. They also moved to Kite, Knott County, Kentucky to raise their family.
Benjamin J. “Bennie” Craft married Pebble Taylor.
Druscilla V. Craft married Ace Davidson. She is living in a nursing home in northern Kentucky.
Lewis Frank Craft married Hennie Ritter Hall, daughter of Joe Hall & Dianah Webb. They divorced and he married Myrtle Combs. Lewis and Hennie Ritter were the parents of Bill, Joella and Frankie Craft. Bill wrote the music about the Millstones at Millstone and has several CD’s out of music he has written and performs. Joella Craft Collier just passed away earlier this year. She wrote a history of the Craft family.
Daniel Morgan Craft married Louisa Matilda Baker. They made their home in Millstone.
Archelaus C. Craft, Jr. married Florence Meade.
Oma Sabrina Craft married Warren McClintock.
Ibby Victoria Craft was born in 1920 and only lived seven months.
Ira Comb Craft married Ruby Helen Hart.
John David Craft was born in 1923 and only lived seven months.
Watson Garrett Craft married Minerva Back. He lives in northern Kentucky.

Gordon wrote me the following:
I first met Ira when I was about 4 years old. He then, was a private in the Army, stationed at Fort Benning, near Columbus, Georgia. Ira was dating my sister, Ruby Helen Hart.

At the time, we were living in the small town of Junction City, located about 35 miles east of Columbus. How the two ever met is unknown to me, however, during this same time, Ira's double-first cousin John Wilburn Franklin, son of Ben and Sarah Craft Franklin, also of the Millstone, Kentucky area, was dating another of my sisters, Carolyn Frances Hart. I think that perhaps, they were all drawn together by yet another sister of mine, who was dating, and ultimately married another Ft. Benning soldier. This one was from our area and probably introduced his buddies to the rest of my sibling sisters. This was during the wartime era, most likely around 1941. Just remember that I was only about 4 years old at the time, so a lot of this is early memory, but I do know that they all three married my sisters in this time frame and left them in Junction City, to go to fight in Europe.

I also know that both Ira and John took part in the D-day invasion, John was in the Ranger battalion, and was wounded early in the war and I think, not too long later, Ira, who was an army medic, was also wounded. John was wounded with a bullet through his head, leaving him color blind, Ira had shrapnel wounds and carried a lot of shrapnel in his back and legs for the rest of his life. Both men were highly decorated for their action.

After the war, both men moved their families to Kentucky for a time, trying their hand at cold mining, which proved to be a failing proposition at that time. They finally moved back to Georgia. Ira worked as a machinist in the cotton mill in Manchester, I think John went to work as a fireman at Fort Benning.
Ira and Ruby had three children. Their only son is still living and working in the Talbot County area. They had two daughters, Sharon Faye Craft, who became ill in her late teens, which made her almost an invalid until her death in 1978 at the age of 31. She had just married and was on her honeymoon when the illness occurred, the illness and subsequent invalid status of Sharon, evidently was too much for the young couple to take, so the marriage was annulled. Ruby and Ira's other daughter, Deborah Kaye Craft, married, had two children of her own and passed away in 2009.

Ira was one of my favorite, of my many brothers-in-law. Being much younger than he, and without my father. who had died in my early childhood, Ira seemed to take me under his wing and helped me through some of the bad spots. Of course, one thing that I remember so well was his teaching me how to drive. My family had no cars, so he was always there to lend me one. I remember an old strip-down 36 Ford he had, which had no body attached, and only a seat and hood over the engine. This vehicle, he would let me use to ride the back-county roads around Junction City, I think even before I was old enough to have a license. I do remember that he fibbed to the license issuers about my age so that I was able to obtain my license at 15. Ira and Ruby were always there to help my mother, me and my older siblings whenever we needed. Every Sunday night we would all load up in his big 48 Chrysler and go to the movies in Butler, about 15 miles away, the nearest entertainment around. I will always be grateful to Ira, and also John, two of the finest men I have ever known, for always being there when we were growing up.
Sadly, in their later years, Ira and Ruby seemed to grow apart, which ended in divorce. A few years later, Ruby was killed in a fire which destroyed her home. Ira lived a few years longer and died in 1996 in Taylor County. Georgia.

Ruby and Sharon share a plot in Pine Level Cemetery in Taylor County, GA. Ira is buried a few miles away in Moore's Chapel Cemetery.

John and Carolyn had four children, the first two being twins who were born while John was overseas. Sadly, one of the twins died before his 2nd birthday. His twin sister, and two younger siblings, survive today. Carolyn died of leukemia in 1955 at the young age of 32. She was interred in Pine Level Cemetery.

John subsequently went on to remarry, living a long successful life as a fireman at Fort Benning before retiring. He died in 2008 and is buried with his second wife, Odessa Foster Franklin, in Junction City Cemetery.

I am sorry that I learned little from both men, of their families living in Kentucky. I just remember as a child, John and Carolyn once took me on a vacation trip there to visit with his parents, Ben and Sarah Franklin. This was perhaps one of the first times I had ever been away from home and I treasure the memory of the trip with them. I recall how wonderful the folks were there, how they welcomed me so. And those mountains around Millstone, to a young lad from the flatlands of Georgia, wow!


Here is the picture of Sharon:

Booker Mullins who went to Texas

I was thinking about James Mullins and his first wife, Agnes Little. I always heard that they never had any children, but raised two of the children of Booker Mullins, his brother. The story was always that Booker's wife, Martha Mullins, daughter of Ambrose James Mullins and Nancy Mullins, had died about 1840. Booker left his daughters, Sarah and Nancy, and went to Texas to make a new home.

What I rememered that I had found was Sarah, age 12, living in James and Agnes household in 1850. Old Booker Mullins, father of James and Booker F (who went to Texas) father. I thought I had found a census with Booker F and a daughter Sarah who was too young to have been the daughter of a new wife in a Texas census. So I set out to find those records and see what I could figure out on them. I couldn't find ANYTHING on Booker in Texas with a Sarah. So I started over.

James Mullins is in Perry County, Kentucky in 1850. Listed in his household is

James 64, farmer
Agnes 58
Sarah 12
Booker 88.

This is the start of the family legend I heard.

I found Booker Mullins, age 39, no occupation living in Titus County, Texas by himself.

After much searching around, I found that Booker had married Cynthia Clayton about 1847.

Cynthia was the daughter of Daniel Clayton and Lucy. Daniel was from North Carolina and was in Logan County, Kentucky at the time of his death. At some point this family was in Henry County, Tennessee. Cynthia married Bennett Caudle, son of James Caudle (or Caudill as it came down our side of the family) and Mary Pertis. James was a son of James Caudill and Mary Adams. This James was a brother to Stephen Caudill and Matthew Caudill (both my ggx grandfathers). James, Stephen and Matthew all went from North Carolina to Letcher Count, Kentucky.

The son, James Caudle, who married Mary Pertis, moved first to Henry County, Tennessee in the 1820s.

Bennett Caudle's brother, Marcus, married Cynthia Clayton's sister, Rebecca in Henry county. These two couples -- Bennett & Cynthia Clayton Caudle and Marcus & Rebecca Clayton Caudle -- along with other Caudle family members moved to Texas.

About 1846 Bennett Caudle died. They had seven children: William Hawkins, Mary Ann Elizabeth, Daniel Clayton, Sarah Francis, Mahala Jane, James Hatley and Bennett Harrison.

Cynthia married Booker Mullins. They had a daughter, Rebecca Louisa in 1848.

While Booker is listed alone in the Titus County Census, Cynthia is listed as head of household in a separate listing for Titus County. She uses the Mullins name and even uses it for the children who were fathered by Bennett Caudle. Their enumeration is:

Family 413
Mullens, Cynthia, 39, KY
William 21, laborer, KY
Daniel 15, TN
Sarah 13, TN
James 9, TN
Bennett 7, TX
Louisa 2, TX

I found Cynthia in the 1860 census. She is still living in Titus County, in Sparks township. She has taken back the name of Caudle and is listed as a widow.

Cordle, Cintha, 50, widow, KY
Bennett H. 17 TX
Rebecca L. 12 TX
John W. 6 TX
James H. 18, day laborer TN

So who is John W.? It appears that Cynthia is his mother. Would he also be a son of Booker?

I have Cynthia's date of death as March 29, 1895. I have not found her in the 1870 or 1880 census records. When I started this search I was told that there were no records for this part of the country because of Indian uprisings etc. I will just say I haven't found them yet.

About 1861 Booker married Susan S. Lynn from Kentucky. They have at least six children:

Martha J. born 1863
John Riley born 1865
Annie Agnes born 1866
Mary Etta born 1873
George
Minnie.

My first impression was that Susan had died leaving Booker a widower. And the first census I found sort of made that possible.

I did not find him in 1860 or 1870, but in 1880 Booker Mullins is the head of household in Palo Pinto County, Texas. The census reads:

Mullins, Booker F, head, 70, laborer, KY TN SC
Smith, Martha, daughter, 17, keeping house, TX KY KY
Smith, William A, son-in-law, 27, works on railroad, TX FL FL

So here is Booker, alone, with his daughter and her husband.

Then I started following the other children.

John Riley Mullins, son of Booker and Susan, married Bertha Irene Thompson from Illinois. In the 1900 census for Little River, Cleveland County, Oklahoma it shows:

Mullins, John R. 35, head, Feb 1865, married 11 years, TX WV KY farmer
Bertha I. 28, wife, Oct 1871, had 4 children, 4 living, IL IL KY
Cordelia, 8, daughter, Aug 1891, Indian Territory TX IL
Jessie G. 6, daughter, Oct 1873, TX TX IL
Minnie F. 4, daughter, Dec 1895, Indian Territory TX IL
Lonnie L. 1, son, Oct 1898, Indian Territory TX IL

Bertha Thompson Mullins died on June 30, 1903.

John Riley Mullins married Organ Peary in 1908 in Oklahoma.

In 1910 they are in the Holdenville, Hughes County, Oklahoma census as follows:

Mullins John R, 44, head, marriage 2, 2 years, TX WV KY
Mullins, Organ, wife, marriage 1, AK AK AK
Mullins, Cordelia, 18, daughter, OK TX IL
Robertson, Jessie, 16, daughter, widowed, TX TX IL
Mullins, Minnie, 14, daughter, OK TX IL
Mullins, Royal, 6, son OK TX IL
Mullins, Susan, mother, widowed, had 7 children 6 living, KY KY KY.

Susan was alive in 1880 when Booker was living without a spouse in his household in Titus County Texas. I have not found her in 1880 or 1900, but I am still looking.

So basically, Booker's first wife, Martha died. He left his two daughters (some say there is a third, Rhoda) with his brother, James, and left for Texas. In Texas he married a widow, Cynthia Clayton Caudle, with seven children and had one (Rebecca Louisa) or two (John W. Mullins) children with her. They did not live together in the 1850 census. In the 1860 census Cynthia has taken back her Caudle name. In 1861 Booker married Susan Lynn and had about seven children with her. In the 1880 census he is alone in a household with his oldest daughter and her new husband. I can't find Susan in 1880 or 1900, but in 1910, she is living with her and Booker's son, John Riley Mullins. So many holes to fill in.

I have all the census records which I listed plus others for other members of the family. I have a few pictures of some in this line. If Booker's line and what happened to him is of interest to you, or if you other information to share, please write to me at karenchat@aol.com and I will share what I have with you. I will share with members of the family. I don't want to even talk to you if you have all this information and can't or won't tell who you are and how you are connected to the family. I have had a few of those on other articles and they were nothing but a pain and totally useless.

I will still keep looking for that census that I thought I found listing the other Sarah, and will update if I come across more.

Update 1

I was following Booker and Susan's daughter, Annie Agnes Mullins. She was born in 1866 in Texas. She married Berry Crittendon Wilkin. In 1880 they were living in Cooke County, Texas in the Wilhight family home as boarders.

Wilkins, Berry, 21, laborer, TX MS TN
Anna, 13, TX MS TN

They had a child, Berry Crittendon Wilkins in May of 1883. Wilkins Sr. either died or they separated.

In 1894 Annie married Edward Mushany who was born in Missouri. His parents were from Baden, Germany.

In the 1900 census Annie and Edward are:

Mushaney Edward, head, Jan 1840, 60, married 6 years, MO Germany Germany farmer
Mushaney, Anna, wife, May 1866, 34, had 2 children, 2 living, TX IA KY
Mushaney, Walter, son, Mar 1896, 4 TX MO TX
Mushaney, John E. son, Aug 1898 1 TX MO TX
Wilkins, Crittendon, stepson, Mar 1883 17, TX TX TX, farm laborer

I have seen some family trees on ancestry where they have changed the name to McShaney and claim that Edward was Irish, but when I followed the family back to Missouri, his father was listed there as a widower with the Mushaney name and said he was from Germany. The writing looked clear to me on both census records, so I believe the name was Mushaney not McShaney.

Apparently Edward died or they separated (too many times they go separate ways and the woman will tell the census taker she is a widow) because in the 1910 census it shows:

Family 9
Mashiney, Annie, head, 43, widow, had 4 children 4 living, TX KY KY washerwoman, public
Mashiney, Walter, son 14, TX TX KY
Mashiney, John E. son 11, TX TX KY
Mashiney, Robert L. son, 9 TX TX KY
Mashiney, Freddie, son 4, OK TX KY
Mullins, Susan, mother, 73, widowed, had 6 children 5 living KY TX KS

So here on the same page of the census a brother and sister are both claiming that their mother, Susan is living with them. Regardless, it shows Susan Lynn Mullins was still alive in 1910.

Susannah Wright

This story was orginally published on December 30, 2008. It concerns two pictures which have been identified as Sarah Waldrup and Susannah Wright. I got my first copy of the picture most often identifed as Sarah Waldrup from Nadina Osborne. She gave me a xerox copy. I didn't know enough at the time to get who gave it to her and who identified it. Unfortunately, Nadina isn't around for me to ask. I have seen this picture on the internet for decades identifed as Sarah.

When I got copies of the picture again, and a second picture which came from Devil John's home from his grandson, they were identified over and over again as pictures of Susannah Wright. It made me go back and try to see what the sources were first of the picture of Sarah. I couldn't find anything on where the people who had it posted as Sarah had been given their identification. Personally, I would like for it to be Sarah so I would have pictures of two grandmothers rather than one. But my sources -- which I name -- have told me that they are both of Susananah Wright, the wife of Joel Wright and mother of Joel Ellis Wright.

I have been told that the second picture is Susan Wright. Her granddaughter gave me a copy of the ONLY picture ever taken of Big Susan, the daughter of Joel and Susannah. She has original copies of Betsy and Thaney Houston, Annie Houston Mullins and many other old family pictures which are now all over the web. And so far, the identification that I have seen has pretty much stayed with them. I hate to see things mislabeled and misidentified.

Recentley I have seen many of my family on ancestry.com trees who are totally wrong. They are even folks not generations and generations back, but ones I knew myself who are attached to wrong parents, or pictures which have had the names changed on them even though they show that they were taken from family trees where the identification was there and correct.

You can't make people change things that you know are wrong. You can't stop information that is incorrect from being posted. What it proves is that you always have to do your own investigation and make your own decisions about the information that you put in your family tree.

In the case of these pictures, I have lost a relationship with a cousin over their identification. He thinks I am on par with the devil for posting this story and spreading wrong information. I have just posted whatI learned and my sources. He has never been able to give me his sources which would change my mind. He told me one source and then backed off of it. He identified the picure first as Charity Wright, then as Big Susan -- both of which I know are wrong. I even have on tape the woman he says who identified the pictures for him saying he visited her home but she gave him no pictures. She gave them to another cousin who then shared them with him. Later, he said that the picture is Mattie Humphrey Wright, wife of Devil John. He uses another family website as a source -- one in which he told me was incorrect and not to be trused. Now I am in that category for him. And this has made him so mad he asked me to take any pictures I had taken of him off my stories and to not mention or imply that we had ever worked together. The pictures I removed. And it is easy to say we didn't work together because we didn't. We visited some graves together which I enjoyed very much, but they were ones I had general directions to and would have visited eventually. We never wrote anything together. We obvisoulsy couldn't have even a discussion about these two pictures. I am just posting what I found from my research. I am not bothered that he disagrees. I haven't been able to change my mind about who the pictures are because he has changed his identification at least three times and he hasn't been able to say who identified them.

So, look at the pictures. Read why I say they are who they are. Make your own decisions. I haven't had my cousin Almy ever steer me wrong on my identifications. This is my work. If you disagree, more power to you. Here is the original article:

We have always been told that there was Indian in the Wright family. The story that I did on Mary Wright and her Indian doll, plus her looks in some of the pictures her granddaughter, Daisy, had would support that. The story that Mary handed down to Daisy was that Joel went from Virginia to North Carolina for an apprentiship. He met an Indian woman and married her. She was given the English name of Susannah. She had no English name of Bates or Bentley as is sometimes given to her.





In another version of the story she was an Indian who was in or near Letcher county, but basically the same story.





Her daughter, Margaret, only spoke the Indian language. That is why she was termed "idiotic" by the census takers, who could not understand her.





Others say she was Dutch.





Jesse Wright, Bad John and Kinky Haired Sam were brothers. Their paternal grandparents were Joel Martin Wright and this Susannah. Their maternal grandparents were John Wallis Bates and Sarah Waltrip.





This picture has always been identified to me as Sarah Waltrip.











When Bad John died, one of his grandsons moved into his home. There was a bag of pictures left which belonged to John. In it, two were identified as Susannah Wright -- one a little older than the other. One of them is the picture I had previously been told was Sarah Waldrup. The grandson positively identified this picture as Susannah.





Here is the second picture of Susannah.











For myself, I have had the Sarah Waldrup picture ID for 40 years. I can't account for its source except from the internet and those who posted it in books which I had purchased.





Alma Meade Bolling, a great granddaughter of the first Susannah, also identified the two pictures as both being Susannah Wright. She is the daughter of Rhodes Meade and Lavina Houston. Rhodes was the son of James Madison Meade and Letitia Wright. Letitia was the daughter of Susannah "Big Susan" Wright. Her father is unknown. Big Susan was the daugther of Susan and Joel Wright.





Alma said her grandmother, Big Susan, looked just like the first Susannah. She said the pictures were not pictures of Sarah Waldrup and that they were not pictures of Big Susan.





So, from Alma, Mary, the grandsons of Devil John and names on the pictures themselves, these are two pictures of Susannah, the wife of Joel Wright.

Little Baker Cemetery Updated from April 26, 2008

I originally posted this story on April 26, 2008. I got an email the other day from a cousin who found the story and was able to help identify some of the folks in this cemetery. Her name is Kristie Lana Reynolds Davis. She is a youngin' herself having only been born in 1968, but her father, Joseph Coleman Reynolds, was born in 1892. Kristie is a granddaughter of Joseph Coleman Reynolds and Hortense Lee Friley. She is the great granddaughter of Noah Reynolds and Mary Chaney Stone. I have learned many things from Kristie which are stories for anothe day, but I wanted to add the identifications that she came up with after reading the original blog.





I don't know the name of this cemetery, but I call it the Little Baker Cemetery. It is at Millstone, Kentucky up the left hand fork, past Lucky Fulton's home on the left before you reach the Baker Cemetery. As the paved highway stops you can either follow a small graveled road or go into the creek bed, which is also a road. This cemetery is just as you get onto the graveled road. I took this picture looking back where the paved road was.

You can just barely see the cemetery from the road. My uncle, Jerry Bentley, was with me and we were on a quest to find the cemetery where my great grandfather, Joshua Mullins, was buried. Someone told us that there were 11 cemeteries on Millstone, but we found there were a lot more. This little one caught our eye, so we stopped to look and see who was buried here.

It is a little bit of a steep climb up to the graves, but nothing like where my cousin, Alan Bentley is buried on Payne Gap. Every time I go see Alan's grave, I take pictures and say it is the last time. And then I go again.

This is the grave of Mary Baker. Doesn't sound like a connection, does it? She is the great granddaughter of Thomas & Hannah Bentley. Their daughter Margaret Bentley, sister to Daniel Bentley, married William Yonts. Their son Solomon Yonts married Sarah Elliott. Their daughter was Mary S. "Polly" Yonts. She was born in 1835 in Perry County. She married Elijah Willis Baker, thus becoming Mary Baker. Her death certificate says that she died of interstitial nephritis. Nancy June asked me about causes of death that repeated in the family. Nephritis is one that repeats over and over in the family. Her death certificate also says that she was being buried at the "James Baker" cemetery.

Elijah Willis Baker was the husband of Mary Yonts Baker. He was born in 1832 in Viriginia. His parents were Henry W. Baker and Mary Catherine Privett. He was a Methodist preacher. He died of a fever in 1907.

This is standing inside the fence and at the bottom near the road, looking up. You can see there are only a few graves.

This is the grave of Hellen Baker born in 1905 and died in 1906. I can't find who Hellen's parents were.

Update: Hellen is the daughter of Elijah Willis Baker and Nancy Jane Breeding Combs. Elijah is the son of Bud Baker and Hortense Lee.

This is the grave of Clarence D. Baker who was born on August 17, 1910 and died on August 30, 1910. He was the son of Ed and Jane Bentley Baker. Jane was Surilda Jane Baker, the daughter of John Martin Bentley & Malinda Addington. She was a sister to Otho Bentley.

This is another Clarence D. Baker. He was born in 1887 and died in 1902 at age 15. Elijah Willis Baker and Mary Yonts were his grandparents. His father was Solomon Emery "S. E." or "Bud" Baker. His mother was Hortense Lee Friley. Bud was an attorney. In 1882 he was appointed to a clerkship to the Department of the Interior in Washington, D C. He and Hortense divorced. He remarried in 1894. The children were with him in the 1900 census with his new wife, Helen C. Salyers. Hortense married again in 1901 to Joseph Coleman Reynolds. She had five more children.

....

Thelma Baker was born June 12 1904 and died December 12, 1906. I don't know who her parents are at this time.

.Update: Thelma is the daughter of Elijah Willis Baker and Nancy Jane Breeding Combs. Elijah was the son of Bud Baker and Hortense Lee.

.

.

One thing that struck me and makes me want to know who these people are is them not being forgotten. You can see Aunt Jane's little Clarence hardly lived at all. Yet when I was talking to her grandchildren and great grandchildren and they were sharing pictures, there would be a group picture of Jane's grown children and everyone of them would point to a place in the group and say, "this is where Clarence would be". When I first heard this I thought Clarence must have lived and maybe died a few years before the picture was taken. Instead, he was never in any of the pictures, but his place was still being remembered. I think that is what touches me about genealogy -- remembering those who are no longer here and keeping a place for them in your heart, but, that is another story.

Young Family

Once upon a time I sent the Boone family history to my cousin, Kris. I used my research as well as the information collected by the Boone Historical Society of America and the DeBohun Historical Society in England. Now those two societies definitely do not agree.

The thing Kris saw right away and probably what the American Society objects to is the lineage goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Now at the Bates reunion Rhonda brought up the name Clement Bates as the first Bates in America. I had our line back to Joseph, the son of Joseph, the son of Joseph, but short of Clement. So I went looking for the leads that Rhonda had given.

Then I took another look at the Young line. Remember them? John Wallis Bates, the father of Martin Van Buren Bates, was the son of William Bates and Margaret Young. For years I had known that Margaret was the daughter of Robert & Mary Young and the granddaughter of John Young and Elizabeth Lnu. I think Lnu is such an unusual name, but we have it in several lines.

This time I was able to go back on John Young. His parents were Andrew Lamont Young and Mary Adair. The next in line was Sir John Lamont and Mary Young. And guess what? It went all the way back to Adam and Eve.

But...

This time I got a reason for it. Most Irish families come from a small group of Irish who were ruled by Kings, so most families go back to Kings. They did not just become King by birth. It had to be the best person (or the one who survived the battle or bloodbath) to be king. There were different kingdoms around, but some tried to lay claim to being the King of Ireland as a whole territory. Part of their custom was to memorize their lineage. They would not write it down and certain people were set aside to accompany Kings in Battle to be able to report how they performed and who survived. They never wrote the history down. Here is what the article by Kate Montressor said:

Traditionally, most Irish families sprang from a small number of Irish chiefs.
As families multiplied, each person was required to know his relationship to the
ruling family. The oldest Irish names were personal names, later becoming
surnames. The Seannachies (the clan bards or storytellers) were the official
keepers of genealogical data. They didn't write anything down, for fear the
knowledge would get into the wrong hands and be used against them. For hundreds of years, their legacy was oral, committed to memory and passed down through the generations. This was a coveted task and taken very seriously; death was the penalty for mistakes.

I don't know if they let women be Seannachies, but I think that's where I would have fit in the past. Maybe I was in a past life and that's why I have the urgency to know everything that I can about every generation.

Ya think?