Catharine Womble's Petition for Dower, Nov. Court 1835

Almost a year ago, I finally got Catharine Womble’s dower petition from my local Family History Center.  It’s a pretty long file and I copied everything to my flash drive.  At the time, I contemplated transcribing it, but settled for copying the images to my computer and printing them out and putting them in my Womble Genealogy book, which is really just a huge binder filled with Family Group Sheets, copies of documents (some of which have been cited), and profiles on some of my ancestors.  I’ve spent a part of the weekend updating and uploading copies of documents onto ‘the cloud’ on WeRelate where I’ve started to put my genealogical research and transcription of Catharine Greene Womble’s dower petition. 

My goal is to put all of my research on WeRelate while still keeping a duplicate copy of everything in PAF5.  Some of the longer documents such as Catharine’s petition, court records, and land records I plan to transcribe and upload the document to the site.  Hopefully, that way anyone looking at my research will be able to easily read the document.

I’ve transcribed about 1 1/4 pages of Catharine Greene Womble's dower petition.  I can't figure out why Catharine waited so long to file this petition and essentially to settle her husband's estate 14 years after his death.  On the surface it looks as though Catharine is trying to protect her financial interests by taking her children to court over her dead husband's 75 acres of land that he owned at the time of his death.  I'm sure she isn't really angry with her children and that it's just the legalese of the court documents that makes it seem this way.  However, perhaps this reflects the modern day scenario of adult children influencing their elderly parents into selling the family home and either moving in with them or putting their parents in a retirement facility?

My theory about this family was always that there had to be some impetus for all of them to relocate to southwestern Tennessee around 1836.   At first I couldn’t figure it out, but believed that the answer had something to do with the eldest son, Doctor Warren Womble.  I may have written a post about this earlier, so forgive me if you’ve read about my theories in an earlier post. 

Last February, I received from Drew University’s library Warren’s obit from the Nov. 1842 edition of the Southwestern Christian Advocate.  The obit stated that he had become a minister and moved to Shelby County, Tennessee in 1836.  This information tallied with the 1840 US Census from Fayette County, Tennessee that showed him and a few of his family members living in the area and further suggested that his mother, Catharine was living in his household as a 70-80 year old female.  There’s also a letter in John Womble’s Rev. War pension file from Warren’s brother, Benjamin F. Womble to the US government requesting a survivor’s pension.  In the letter Benjamin states that his mother died 2 February 1843 in Fayette County, Tennessee.

Land records that I obtained from my local FHC that date from the mid-1830’s suggest that once Catharine received her dower that she may have been unable to pay the taxes on the property.  This seems to have led to a sheriff’s sale of the property she received in her dower petition.  I feel strongly that Catharine losing her land and her son, Warren’s minister job in Shelby County, Tennessee would have been enough motivation for her and some of the other family members to clear out of Edgecombe County to make a new life for themselves out west.  Of course, I need to read each of these records and should transcribe them as I go in order to fully grasp the entire situation.

Review of Lisa Louise Cooke's session: Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101

Just got done watching Lisa Louise Cooke’s session, entitled: Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 that was broadcast free from RootsTech 2012.  Yesterday, I had watched Josh Coates’ Keynote Address and was quite impressed with the whole RootsTech conference.  In case you're not familiar with RootsTech, it's basically a conference where technology and genealogy people converge and share what's new in their prospective industries. This conference occurs annually in Salt Lake City, Utah typically in February or March.

Last year, at a staff meeting of the society that I work for our president talked to us in depth about the sessions she had attended, ideas, and genealogy and/or tech projects that were going on out in the world.  I was truly blown away after hearing what people were doing on the planet.

This year, I learned that RootsTech was going to be broadcasting select sessions live and these would be free.  I was very excited that even though I wasn’t able to attend this conference in person that these Keynote Addresses and sessions would be available to others and me.  Also, I wouldn’t have to wait around to hear about the cool techie things from someone else.

I had read previously about podcasts, blogs, and webinars in Drew Smith’s book about social networking in genealogy.  His book was the impetus for me in starting this blog in the first place.  After reading his book and talking with others at work, I looked into genealogy webinars and honestly I wasn’t that impressed with what I found. 

Now after watching Ms. Cooke’s session, who is the person behind Genealogy Gems, I will definitely look into genealogy podcasts and maybe even try to seek out some genealogy related videos as well. 

On a side note, one of the members of my knitting group recently introduced me to knitting how-to videos.  So I really see that the information in whatever subject you’re interested in is out there online—it’s just up to you to find it!

Back to Ms. Cooke’s session, I hadn’t anticipated that I would be that interested in her section about podcasts and the real draw for me was to see what she had to say about blogs, since I obviously have one.  I was quite surprised by what I learned about podcasts.  She did give me some good tips about my own blog and I’ll have to test those out.  One of the suggestions she made was that if you have a genealogy blog, to only post genealogy related items on your blog.  This got me to thinking that perhaps I should break up my own blog into several other blogs where the focus is on one hobby only.  I’m not really thrilled with that idea, but perhaps those of you who read my posts on a regular basis have your own thoughts on the subject.  My thought was to somehow categorize my posts and archived posts into sections so that someone who was only interested in one of my hobbies could just click to read posts about that subject.

I only have one criticism about Ms. Cooke’s session and that was when she started talking about Google blog searching and mentioned that this was a new feature.  My experience with searching blogs on Google has been that they’ve had the blog searching function for a long time now and this wasn’t something new as she mentioned this morning.  Nonetheless, the content of her sessions was very good and well presented. 

The thought of course crossed my mind listening to Ms. Cooke talk about podcasts that I should make my Womble and other genealogy related blog posts into podcasts.  However, I’m not quite sure how great my recorded voice would sound to the rest of the world?  One of my hopes with creating this blog was that I would meet people who were researching the Womble family or the same line I am and contact me.  Another was that interested family members would stay up-to-date with my family history research and give me feedback on my findings.

I will definitely do some more research into podcasts and perhaps become a podcaster due to Ms. Cooke’s session.  If this happens, and you’re interested please keep looking for news about this on this blog.  This will be where I will let you all know of any future podcasting or any great podcasts that I find out there in the online universe.

More on Womble Marriage Bonds

After researching more closely what North Carolina marriage bonds are available via the FHL, I knew that these records were next on my Womble research list.  While I was at FGS in Springfield, IL, I was talking with the president of the non-profit that I work for about my research.  I told her how I much I wanted to find a marriage record for John Womble and Catharine Greene in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.  We discussed marriage bonds that are at the state archives in Raleigh and I mentioned that these are available on at the FHL. 

When I returned home from Illinois, I decided to make a trip out to my local Family History Center in Annandale to order the microfiche of these records.  It was a Thursday morning and the place was dead.  I sat at a table filling out the order forms for the records I wanted.  I chatted a bit with the volunteer who was working there about what I wanted.  I had been to this facility many times and they never seemed to have any Edgecombe County, North Carolina records on site.  The gentleman looked up the records; even though, I told him that he probably wouldn't find them.

Surprisingly, he found that they had them there-pretty much the whole slew of North Carolina marriage bonds on microfiche!  I was so bowled over by surprise that I could barely tell him or think which records it was that I needed to look at.  I looked through the records for both brides and grooms, but didn't find one for John Womble marrying Catharine Greene.  I did find bonds for most of their children, which was nice.  I already had gotten those marriage records on a previous trip, but it was good to see these listed.  The records covered the whole state of North Carolina, so it wasn't as though I could just not be looking in the right county or something.  I'm still not sure if this is a record area where I should do further research to see if there's something else available.  Obviously, I should still make a trip to the North Carolina State Library and Archives in the future.

The main lesson to take away from my experience is that just because you always seem to have bad luck at a repository not having what you're looking for doesn't mean that this is necessarily a hard and fast rule.  The funny thing is that I typically never visit that FHC on Thursdays and if I had gone there on another day, I most likely would've paid money to order records that the place had already.  As it was, I was not only there at some time that was abnormal for me and the volunteer actually took the time to ask me about my research.  Sometimes when I've ordered records there the volunteer manning the desk will inquire if I know whether or not they don't have the records onsite.  At times, when I've said yes, they've gone further and looked it up in their system, but there have been those days when they don't.

Don't be discouraged if your research hits a slump and, even though I wasn't really successful in my research that day.  I still feel that I learned from the experience because I learned not only that most likely John Womble's marriage record to Catharine Greene just doesn't exist, but also that just because you believe that a repository doesn't have the records you're looking for doesn't mean they don't have any of the records you need.

Review of Lisa Louise Cooke's session: Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101

Just got done watching Lisa Louise Cooke’s session, entitled: Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 that was broadcast free from RootsTech 2012.  Yesterday, I had watched Josh Coates’ Keynote Address and was quite impressed with the whole RootsTech conference.  In case you're not familiar with RootsTech, it's basically a conference where technology and genealogy people converge and share what's new in their prospective industries. This conference occurs annually in Salt Lake City, Utah typically in February or March.

Last year, at a staff meeting of the society that I work for our president talked to us in depth about the sessions she had attended, ideas, and genealogy and/or tech projects that were going on out in the world.  I was truly blown away after hearing what people were doing on the planet.

This year, I learned that RootsTech was going to be broadcasting select sessions live and these would be free.  I was very excited that even though I wasn’t able to attend this conference in person that these Keynote Addresses and sessions would be available to others and me.  Also, I wouldn’t have to wait around to hear about the cool techie things from someone else.

I had read previously about podcasts, blogs, and webinars in Drew Smith’s book about social networking in genealogy.  His book was the impetus for me in starting this blog in the first place.  After reading his book and talking with others at work, I looked into genealogy webinars and honestly I wasn’t that impressed with what I found. 

Now after watching Ms. Cooke’s session, who is the person behind Genealogy Gems, I will definitely look into genealogy podcasts and maybe even try to seek out some genealogy related videos as well. 

On a side note, one of the members of my knitting group recently introduced me to knitting how-to videos.  So I really see that the information in whatever subject you’re interested in is out there online—it’s just up to you to find it!

Back to Ms. Cooke’s session, I hadn’t anticipated that I would be that interested in her section about podcasts and the real draw for me was to see what she had to say about blogs, since I obviously have one.  I was quite surprised by what I learned about podcasts.  She did give me some good tips about my own blog and I’ll have to test those out.  One of the suggestions she made was that if you have a genealogy blog, to only post genealogy related items on your blog.  This got me to thinking that perhaps I should break up my own blog into several other blogs where the focus is on one hobby only.  I’m not really thrilled with that idea, but perhaps those of you who read my posts on a regular basis have your own thoughts on the subject.  My thought was to somehow categorize my posts and archived posts into sections so that someone who was only interested in one of my hobbies could just click to read posts about that subject.

I only have one criticism about Ms. Cooke’s session and that was when she started talking about Google blog searching and mentioned that this was a new feature.  My experience with searching blogs on Google has been that they’ve had the blog searching function for a long time now and this wasn’t something new as she mentioned this morning.  Nonetheless, the content of her sessions was very good and well presented. 

The thought of course crossed my mind listening to Ms. Cooke talk about podcasts that I should make my Womble and other genealogy related blog posts into podcasts.  However, I’m not quite sure how great my recorded voice would sound to the rest of the world?  One of my hopes with creating this blog was that I would meet people who were researching the Womble family or the same line I am and contact me.  Another was that interested family members would stay up-to-date with my family history research and give me feedback on my findings. 

I will definitely do some more research into podcasts and perhaps become a podcaster due to Ms. Cooke’s session.  If this happens, and you’re interested please keep looking for news about this on this blog.  This will be where I will let you all know of any future podcasting or any great podcasts that I find out there in the online universe.