And The New Year Begins...

Today's goal is basically clean up the office.  During the holidays we made a mini trip down to Kentucky,  my younger sister, Sheila, lives in Kentucky.  So we took mom for a visit with Sheila and we slipped away to the Hopkinsville Public Library, which is in Christian County, Kentucky.

I've been working on my own personal lines for quite a while so I've decided to take a break and work on some of Mark's.  His SHANKLIN & MORRIS lines were in Christian County so we decided to see what we could find.  The library has a really nice collection of newspapers on microfilm.  We found tons of obits, and using the Flip Pal Scanner we managed to walk out with only two pieces of paper.  NICE!

There is also a very large card file cabinet loaded with obits from the local paper.  We found quite a few there as well.  There were a lot that I found in the newspapers that were not in the card file.  So be sure to always check both.

One of the highlights of the trip was that we found the obituary for Mark's gggg grandfather, Edin Morris who dies in 1879.  AWESOME!

All total I think we came home with about 125 obits, and only two pieces of paper.  Cleaning up the office today, is a lot of small stuff, ditching receipts from Christmas, filing bank papers, scanning some Christmas cards that had photo's on them and just general cleaning stuff.

Happy Researching!

Wedding Wednesday - Shanklin & Tillman (1822)

 This marriage record from 1822, actually has three actual parts.  The first part, at the top, is the marriage bond, the middle part is George Tillman, father of the bride giving his consent.  The third and bottom part is the actual marriage record stating that the two were united in marriage on the 19th of May 1822, Christian County, Kentucky.

Fielding Shanklin (1796-1871) and Mary Polly Tillman Shanklin (1796-1890) were the parents of 7 children - Lucinda, George, Elizabeth, William H.*, Sarah C., Robert A and Nancy P. Shanklin.

Fielding and Nancy are Mark's 4th great grandparents and are buried together in the Goshen Road Cemetery, Toddy County, Kentucky.

Tombstone Tuesday - Thomas W. Morris (1934)

T.W. Morris Rites Saturday Afternoon

Funeral services for Thomas W. Morris, 66, who passed away Thursday morning will be held Saturday afternoon, at 3 o'clock, at Westminister Presbyterian Church. The Rev. W. B. Holmes will conduct the last rites, and the balcony of the church will be reserved for the colored people who were the employees and the friends of the deceased. The remains will be laid to rest at Riverside Cemetery.

Mr. Morris, who had been superintendent of the Hopkinsville Water Company since its organization 39 years ago, subcumbed to a heart attack at his home at Walnut and seventeenth Streets. He had been in poor health for some months but his passing was entrely unexpected, and came as a terrible shock to his family and host of friends. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Ella Hurt[Hurst] Morris, and by two daughters, Mrs. Edith Cook, of this city, and Mrs. J.D. Ligon of Detroit, Mich., and by one sister, Mrs. Ed. O'Brien, of Hopkinsville.

 [This obit was in a file of things given to me by Dorothy Shanklin Trott. No date or newspaper name was found on the clipping.]

Obituary Thomas W. Morris (1934)

T.W. Morris Rites Saturday Afternoon   Funeral services for Thomas W. Morris, 66, who passed away Thursday morning will be held Saturday afternoon, at 3 o'clock, at Westminister Presbyterian Church.  The Rev. W. B. Holmes will conduct the last rites, and the balcony of the church will be reserved  for the colored people who were the employees and the friends of the deceased.  The remains will be laid to rest at Riverside Cemetery.   Mr. Morris, who had been superintendent of the Hopkinsville Water Company since its organization 39 years ago, subcumbed to a heart attack at his home  at Walnut and seventeenth Streets.  He had been in poor health for some months but his passing was entrely unexpected, and came as a terrible shock to his family and host of friends. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Ella Hurt (sic) Morris, and by two daughters, Mrs. Edith Cook, of this city, and Mrs. J.D. Ligon of Detroit, Mich., and by one sister, Mrs. Ed. O'Brien, of Hopkinsville. **This obituary was in a folder of "family" clippings that Mark's grandmother gave to me before she passed away. I've not been able to locate the newspaper source as of this posting. Thomas W. Morris passed away 31 MAY 1934 in Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky. He was Mark's great grandfather.

John G. Salmon Obituary (1950)

  John G. Salmon, Former Hopkins Clerk, Dies Here      John G. Salmon, Sr., 253 East Center Street, well known retired Madisonville business man and former clerk of Hopkins County, died i his home at 8:30 pm Thursday after suffering a heart attack.   Mr. Salmon, 79 years old, had been in decling health for several years.    Mr. Salmon was born Sept 30, 1871, in Christian County, near Empire, the son of the Late Lee and Fannie Salmon. He had been a resident of Hopkins County for practically his entire life.   A democrat, Mr. Salmon served two consecutive terms as Hopkins County court clerk during the years 1913-1921.  Prior to that he was associated with the McCleod Store on South Main for several years and in later years was interested in mining properties at Crabtree of the Norton Coal Mining Company.   Mr. Salmon had been a member of Madisonville First Christian Church for many years and was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Madisonville.   Funeral services will be conducted at 2 pm Saturday in William L. Barnett Funeral Service, East Center Street, with the Rev. J. Edward Cayce, pastor of First Christian Church officiating.  Interment will be in Odd Fellows Cemetery.    Surviving are the widow, Mrs. Roxa Salmon; two sons, Dr. David L. Salmon, St. Petersburg, Florida, and John G. Salmon Jr. 306 East Center Street, Madisonville; a daughter, Mrs. Henry Thorring, Hudson, Mass.; a sister, Mrs. Carrie Wright, Masonic Home, Kentucky; seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.   The body is at the funeral home. **Madisonville Messenger (Hopkins County, Kentucky), Tuesday, 8 Dec 1950, Pg. unk

Resource - Kentucky Vital Records Data Base

Spent most of last week & the weekend continuing my prep for the May trip to Kentucky. Mark's family on his mom's side has Kentucky roots, primarily in three counties - Hopkins, Christian & Todd. A few wandered out of those counties and into others, but the majority managed to stick pretty close to that basic 3. Searching for them in Kentucky records has at times been frustrating, mostly due in part to horrid indexing. But other factors also come into play as well.

Might help if there was some consistancy in the records. Most times whene I can not find someone its due to that particular county not having the records for that particular year. Ancestry covers from 1852-1953, but the Kentucky Vital Records project covers basically from 1911 to ? , they accept donations of vital records certificates but also maintain their own death certificate images. They do have some earlier records but it is hit or miss.

Many times I've been able to locate persons on this site that I could not locate on Ancestry. Whether its the indexing or something else I don't know. But when I can not locate on one I always try the other. The Kentucky Vital Records project is staffed by volunteers so they don't do any lookups or offer any genealogical assistance. No fancy bells & whistles - just a good basic genealogy resource for those with ties to the state of Kentucky!

Happy Researching!
Karen