Funny Friday - I am NOT lost, I was merely sightseeing, and a few other thoughts~

I hinted on yesterdays post my, as Ward would say, way of making her go nuts. That is, I had general or no directions to the places I was headed, I just drove. Now, let me explain a bit about Le Flore County, it is not only filled with quaint little small towns, fields of rolling grass and cattle, birds chirping, well you get that picture. It is also filled with dirt roads that go on for 15-20 miles, signs that say and mean, if you enter you will be shot (nothing personal).

It has various types of wildlife, like snakes that bite, mosquitoes that will suck you dry in 5 minutes flat, oh and don't forget those LOVELY black widow spiders that are waiting for you to get nosy and move a broken headstone about so they too, can have you for supper! Yes, that did happen to me, prompting me to buy and wear gloves, even with the heat index at 105F~

Now why with all that Ward would be concerned, I have no idea! I grew up here, I know the boundaries to push, I know when a closed gate means do or do not or enter at own risk. The tell tale sign for the Do Not is either a lock or a skeleton head of some poor critter, definitely not the type of gates you want to enter! HA! I never saw a lock or a skeleton head in the WHOLE time I was out!

So, my trusty side kick had to lead me around, OH, let me mention here that not only is she NOT in Oklahoma, she isn't even in the US. She is actually in the United Kingdom, like a few hours from London, not in Oklahoma! Yeah we totally are a pair and a half, but MAN OH MAN do we laugh! She mostly laughs at me and my ridiculous ways at times, I don't mind at all, at least I am amusing someone!

My journey took me to a cemetery called Greenhill, and low and behold if one of "those" people weren't buried there. You know the type, the guy who always said something was wrong and no one let on to believe him, take him seriously, you know that guy, right? Mr. Anthony must have been that guy!

Have a WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

Happy Hunting,
~Alisha

Sentimental Sunday ~ Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Jerry Pendergraff.




You were taken far too soon!






I have wonderful memories of my dad and I can say that he was my best friend as a child. He was the most amazing, funny, practical joker I have ever known. I got my sense of humor, my sometimes too big heart, my willingness to put others needs before my own, from him.


My dad built homes from the ground up with his own two hands. He used to take me along on the weekends and during the summers to his jobs. When I was little I was a gopher, Cis go fer this wrench, go fer that hammer! As I got older he taught me things like the proper way to paint, to do plumbing, put up sheet rock, change the oil in my car on my own. He wanted me to be an independent soul in my life.

I remember one particular day we went to remove old cabinets from a job that he was doing and I had my own hammer and we were taking the cabinet tops off, the next thing I know my dad is standing over me reminding me that swinging a hammer UP at my forehead really wasn't the best idea. I shook my head and laughed. On another day we were up on a roof putting on shingles, it was a bit windy and I was known for being less than graceful. I slipped a few times and being directed to sit on my backside and scoot around, and me having yet another characteristic of his, stubbornness, I stood and attempted to walk again, resulting in yet another slip. He sternly looked at me, I sat, he walked behind me and I head a THUMP sound. Yes, he had just used his nail gun and nailed me to the roof! I would not be falling off the roof on his watch apparently!

He was taken from me when I was a teenager, it was a very traumatic experience, life changing for me and to this day, I do miss him as much as I did after he was gone. The pain is less, it is loss I feel mostly now. I can say that I was fortunate enough to have him for the 17 years that I did have him in my life.

So A VERY HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO A VERY SPECIAL DAD, I LOVE YOU

Happy Father's Day to you all as well!

Happy Hunting,
~Alisha

Family Spirit, Family Secrets

"There is an unquestionable bond among families, whether near or far. We are bound by not only a single person, or couple, but by a spirit that lives within that family.

We are its highs and lows, its fame, its misfortune, and deepest secrets. We should not hide from those truths but embrace them as we make this journey through our pasts." Alisha Pendergraff-Lopez

This is my own quote from my website, http://www.oklahomasmedleys.com/, it is what I truly believe about family and yes, about secrets. Through my own experience with my Oklahoma Smedleys, there seems to be a 'simple' spirit and by that I mean not ones to put on heirs about things, but also of those who are hard-working and driven. Although I didn't know even my great-grandparents on either side of my family, I do know that spirit that was there, and somehow that lives on in me.

How is that? How is it that I can read about my historical family and see the same types of thoughts, emotions, actions and reactions to situations that I would find myself having or doing? Is it true that a spirit lives within a family? No, I don't mean boogey men or ghosts here, I mean that 'thing' that you see among families where your grandma took in strangers to feed, you find yourself with that same type of helping or lending hand to those in need. Your great-great-great grandpa was a hardworking farmer and although you may or may not be a farmer, you have that same hardworking ethic that he had.

Does this have anything to do with a Genealogy search per se, no, but it does have to do with the human condition, with wondering what it is we really pass on to our family. What it can help you with is that when you are reading about your family of yesterday and at home with the family of today, think of those things, good things, that are in your life to pass on to them. One day when a distant relative is looking into their past, they will see you and the things you past on to your family and see that 'spirit' live on.

Happy Hunting

~Alisha

Headstones

WOW, I didn't realize just HOW important and key at times, finding and photographing headstones is and would be. I have managed to photograph many of my local Smedley's, I am still working on this, but I have also managed to completely photograph 2 local cemeteries and catalogue them, for now at FindaGrave.com. Mainly because it is and has been and they state they will stay, free to users.

When you have an "about birth date or year" it is great, it can give you a jumping off place to start digging for information. But have you come across this scenario, you put in your relatives name, example Joseph Smedley, and a About 1792 birth year and get 2 hints. Then you put the same name, this time you simply change it by two years to 1790 and 15 hints burst open! Then you realize there are 4-6 Joseph Smedley's not only born in the same area but 2 born on the same day, in the same area!! AHHHHHHH~

So, these headstones are KEY to our research, I shall endeavor gathering and posting pictures, one day on my own site, I do put the Smedley's up on our Flickr page, linked here on the Tree & Photos page. Remember to use all your resources!

If you have a Smedley in Le Flore County Oklahoma or Sebastian County Arkansas, I would be happy to locate and photograph the headstone for you, just message, email me and let me know the information you have about that relative(s)!

Happy Hunting

~Alisha

To Pay or Not To Pay? That is Quite the Question!

If you have even done this for a few days, those of you who have done this for years, have seen the changes both for the better and not better on the wallet. Technology has made finding records, from far away, much easier, but now it seems that certain sites 'monopolize' information we have access to. So, where does that leave us?

Well, for me, I get SUPER frustrated every time I type in a search engine, a family name, it shows records are available, then it happens.... For 24.99 a month/9.99 a month/30 days free but you must enter your credit card information and so on and so on....sigh. There are local historical societies one can access microfiche, but for I would say the majority of us, at some point in our histories we have a emigration situation and/or family who moved to and fro across the country. So, what do we do?

If money isn't an problem, I definitely do not fit in this category, then you can find sites that are a wealth of information and maybe a few months of subscriptions to one at a time until you exhaust, collect and move on to the next sites information. That is definitely what I am doing, as for right now, Ancestry.com seems to be still providing information for me. I have run across some other sites that I have on 'the list' as possible later day places to use for information.

Key information, census records, marriage/birth/death certificates, military records, apprenticeship records, ship records, obituaries, family, bibles, headstone/cemetery records, newspaper articles, books, local genealogy societies, church records, magazine publications seem to be a wealth of information and good places to start when looking for information. Tomorrow I will talk about how I got started and how that has evolved over the last few months.

So, what is your past worth? One has to decide what parts of their past they are willing to 'pay' for, and then make ways to see it happen. I do WISH these sites weren't SO expensive, I get the costs of running a business, servers storage, websites, and on and on, but I also understand that they are selling MY, and your, family information, so I have very MIXED feelings about them being able to do that. As with most things in this world, it comes down to the almighty dollar, pound, yen, Euro, and we all are left debating is it really worth it. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, but I think it is a personal journey into our pasts and right now, there are ways, but they are not easy, around the costs.

Happy hunting,

~Alisha

BreakThrough~

Well yesterday it happened, we had a break in someone in our family who some have been seeking for years. It was a simple thing that had been staring me right in the eyes the whole time Andrea and I have been looking. There is a common name that seems to pass down randomly through the family. It is never someones first name, always a middle, so being stuck on parents for Rev. Joseph, I just plugged that name in as his mothers last name and BINGO!!!! The flood gates opened, let me also add that a few texts had mentioned a few birth places, censuses once in the states and also this brief history written by a map maker who was traveling and journaling the changing face of Indian Territory (Arkansas/Oklahoma border). This particular map maker was doing a little history on Benjamin B. Smedley and mentioned his father, Reverend Joseph Smedley (being born in Derbyshire and having 7 brothers). Well, when we plugged in this other name as his, Joseph's, mother's last name, BINGO, PAY DIRT! We have mom, dad, 7 brothers and 2 sisters. Oh, if you hadn't noticed one common thread with Smedley's is they like having kids and a load of them!

I have learned that gathering information sources, multiple ones, tend to lead you to the one conclusion you are looking for. The art is in taking those tid bits, putting them together and getting those pesky relatives who like to hide so readily!


Happy hunting and here is to you finding your Breakthrough!

~Alisha

Information~ Website build day Four

FIRST of all I would like to thank all almost 100 of you wonderful people who have at least gotten to my corner of the Internet world! Andrea and I are working on growing this site everyday, adding, morphing it into a wealth of Smedley information for ALL Smedley's. I just happen to be an Oklahoma Smedley, but when I add information here, it will also be for the Nebraska ones, the Hawaii ones, Alaska, and so on and so on!.

The word for the day is...... DRUM ROLL....  Infooooormation!!! Well, today was like most others on the search for our infamous Joseph Smedley, Reverend. We did find a snippet today that 'may' have an accurate place of birth in England which is HUGE and that it is possible he is one of 7 children as well! WAY to go ANDREA!  While she was going google eyes finding information on Joseph, I was adding two new pages here, they are quick links to known burial sites for Smedley's (ALL of them, not just my relations). It took the better part of the day making links and what not but I am pleased with the outcome. Remember my earlier blog about the heavier on labor than on love days? Yeah this was one of those days!! heehee

I have decided to take and put our actual images and document images on Flickr, they are easily accessible, the storage is unlimited, or it will be soon for me, and I can more easily set links and reference information so those with the original documentations, or sites with the information, get proper credit. I have been in photography for quite some time so I do understand and respect copyright issues!

I am gathering links tonight as well to very informative, FREE, pages for searching for family information. One thing that is a great resource, if you have and use Google Chrome is under the search engine, type your search word (s), then when the link page opens look to the left about half way down and you will see the word  BOOKS. This if a great area for older articles, books that are available in not only PDF or text format but are available to read online! Some you can also choose to download to a tablet if you so choose. These older texts tend not to show up on the regular search engine as the search engines are geared to show up high volume, newer articles, websites, etc,.

~Alisha

Transcription Errors, Accents, Spelling

Well, yesterday and today I worked on typing out, in a hopefully less confusing, Smedley Family Tree. The ones that are apparently the traditional ways of putting them, quite honestly, are VERY confusing to me, hard to follow and don't flow well. So I wracked my brain and to the Excel spreadsheet I went. I don't even know how many hours later, we have a working tree that can EASILY be changed and switched and shared with you all!! YAY. I am uploading it to Google Documents for others to view. I am also in the throws of getting the picture page on here more suited for our needs.

Ok, so yesterday I said I wanted to talk about accents, spelling (sp.?), and transcription errors on pages like Ancestry. First lets talk about accents, since we are the Oklahoma Smedleys, this term was handed to me lovingly from my cousin Arlena, apparently the rest of the family uses this as a term for our group here and I LOVE IT! If you aren't familiar with farm, Southern Farm, Southern Oklahoma Farmers, well you are in for a treat. Let me give you an example, a name like Clarissa (pronounced CLUH-RIS-UH), to the adorable Southern Oklahoma farmer, especially back in the 1800s and early 1900s census taking times, was pronounced (CLUH-REE-SEE). The unsuspecting census taker (either highly educated or not we will discuss this in a bit), now writes down Clerecee. So you go looking for your great-great grandma Clarissa and you can't find her! Another example the name Ada (pronounced A-duh), would lovingly be pronounced Aaaa-der. The lovely census taker now has you with a great-aunt Ader, instead of Ada! Welcome to the world of accents and census takers!

Lets talk census takers, I want to study up on them one day because I do have an opinion, not proven just a notion or two about them. There are ones you can tell were well educated, based on their penmanship and their correct spelling. Then there are the ones like I mentioned above who I do believe that were asked if they could read and write and ride a horse and sent off of the year long task of Census taking. Far be it from me to be judgmental, far from it, I can imagine it was a VERY thankless job, especially in this part of the country back then, when the Indian population was dominant, the lands were uncharted. In the cities it might not have been such a bad gig!

Now, the dreaded transcription errors, I find this EXTREMELY annoying, let me say my background is a Registered Nurse so I read AWFUL handwriting as part of my job. I can clearly see it says Flynt and someone has made the family name Tylnit. UGH, and my Smedley's have been Smeeley's, Smudly's and about 10 other misinterpretations. It is hard enough to find your way around older documents but when they are not transcribed correctly, SUPER FRUSTRATING! Unless you know the siblings, parents and so on, when a incorrect name is present, you are stuck either immediately tossing it and possibly losing valuable family documentation, or scratching your head trying to sort out, Bradicock when it should be Bordicott. If you come across one I have 'corrected' on Ancestry you will see my reply IN ALL CAPS! heeehee

Just so you know, ALL the examples from above I have personally encountered, the moral of the story is don't be quick to discard due to a name or spelling being off, maybe set it to one side until you can make names and places match more readily!

Happy hunting and I will see you again in the morrow!

Alisha~

Oklahoma Smedley's Website Build Day Two

Whew! Ok, well my mind is going ninety miles an hour today, I went this morning to the cemetery in Poteau to grab a few snapshots of family I know to be there. I have completed cataloging Monroe, Vaughn (loads of family here), and I went to Shiloh as well a few days ago. I must say that Shiloh is an interesting place, for every standing headstone there are 5 rocks just stuck up out of the ground marking someone. In Shiloh, as well as at Vaughn, there is a "Smedley" section. Rev. Joseph and Benjamin and several others rest here. I have a call out to the keepers of Shiloh so I can get the plots scheme so I know who is where, there are about 10 Smedleys marked with rocks, no headstone. It is my goal to get them identified!

WELL, I just posted on Ancestry about this site, I know it will be a slow process but it is my hopes that in the coming weeks, months this site is swarming with Smedley's far and wide, gathering bits and bobbles. This site will always remain free for the Smedley's, it is a precious gift to me from my bestie, Andrea!

So, something I want to talk about is the information I provide here. I want to assure you, if you see someone on my family tree, they have been confirmed, reconfirmed and most likely triple confirmed. How do I do this? Well Andrea and I traverse websites, like Ancestry and others, gathering census information, birth records, death records and because I am centrally located in Oklahoma where my relatives seem to originate, it is easy for me to hop over to a cemetery to grab some pictures for further confirmation.

Rarely does my information come from word or mouth, or friends or family information I can't confirm. Although I don't see anything wrong with that type of information, for me, I need to be able to confirm it before I commit it to fact. For every fact, it seems we disprove 5-10. Family word of mouth and he said she said, is great for starting information but for me, I want to bring life to that information by gathering the aforementioned forms of 'proof'.

I won't make this post too long, tomorrow I want to discuss name spelling, transcription errors, Okie Accents, and the stumbling blocks it can place in our searches! Good stuff!

See you tomorrow, I am in the throws of creating my LARGE family tree to place on our site here so you all can take from it what you need, help me add to it, and add to yours so our family trees are flourishing with Smedleys!!!

Take time today to enjoy life, enjoy your search,

~Alisha~

Day One of Website Oklahoma Smedleys

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....ok, I feel better! Welcome to the world of the Smedley's, if you are one then you already have a very deep sense of what that means! This is certainly a labor of love, some days it is far more heavily weighted towards the labor than the love, but the love always seems to keep me motivated.

I am new to this journey, but as most great journeys, I am not traveling alone. My bestie, Andrea (you will hear and see her mentioned here often), travels this sometimes smooth sometimes jar shaking journey. We are embarking on both our family trees, so wow, what an adventure we are on!

I am learning as I go, but I have found a quick, I am told, knack for finding things and people. Ever family has that 'thorn" that seems to hide, our family is no exception, I WILL sort you our, Rev. Joseph Smedley!!

So, that being said, building this site, to keep information going out to our family, please remember this site is not 'free', it has been paid for lovingly, so please respect it and use it for gathering and sharing information with one another. Even if you aren't a direct Smedley related to me, if you are on a Smedley journey, you have come to the right place!

Alisha