A Family Legacy

By now, you’ve probably already received your copy of the long-awaited family history by G. Wayne Bradford, “Descendants of William M. and Artemese E. Green Sullivan.” I received it several weeks ago but my family’s busy schedule wouldn’t let me give it an adequate study. In our busy world, we are losing the opportunity to share not only the histories of our parents and grandparents but our own personal stories. Kids rush off to computer games after dinner while we attend a meeting, so there’s no lingering over the table to share family experiences. We send e-mails instead of writing letters. If someone in front of us at the grocery store lingers to tell us something funny that happened to him, we get irritated for the delay. Wait. Stop. Slow down—A book of gigantic proportions (1,040+ pages) and gigantic impact is whispering—well actually yelling—to me to spend some time with it. This book is not a simple family tree with names and dates, rather it is a collection of so much more. It is not just a simple history of the struggles the families faced, but a endearing tribute to those who have made our histories. It brings a level of intimacy to a family that was already close. Wayne Bradford took the time, three years in fact, to track down the descendants of William Sullivan and Artemese Green and he didn’t stop there. Wayne not only provides the names and dates of their descendants but he sought out and collected these marvelous stories and photographs that will live on as a legacy to our family. I wasn’t surprised when he told me that people are ordering three and four copies at a time. It’s a project that’s been sorely needed for a long, long time. Not only does it provide a wonderful tribute to our ancestors but it provides a legacy to our children and grandchildren.
I don’t know how he did it, but Wayne managed to track down and include so many wonderful photographs too. All but one of William and Artemese’s children are featured. In addition to the photos included in the family history, there are two photo albums (over 180 pages!) to include every branch of the Sullivan family.
Being very modest, Wayne did not insert his own biography, which I really missed. He did give credit to all of the researchers who had contributed to the book. I am a little embarrassed to see my name quoted in there so much, but I am pleased that Wayne was so adamant in documenting the sources of the information included. I am also pleased that when faced with a disputed fact, Wayne made every effort to include sides of the argument.
I am extremely grateful to Wayne for this lovely and humongous book that will hold a place in our home forever.

April

Yep, We've Moved!

"You say Yes. I say No.

You say Why? I say I don't know.

Oh,

I don't know why you say goodbye.

I say hello."       --- Lennon-McCartney

• What kind of world would this be if I didn't zig while the rest of the world zagged? After all, I have a history of choosing the other lane, don't I? Examples: When everyone else disco'd through the 70s, I rocked out with Ozzy. When my childhood girlfriends oohed and ahhed over the likes of David Cassidy and Michael Jackson, I proudly displayed my Al Unser and Mario Andretti posters. My entire family left the state of California, and here I sit, happy as a lark.

So, what do you expect me to do? Join the thousands of genealogists who have bought into the MyFamily.com craze? No, not me. I've been completely happy with the outcome of my past decisions, and so with confidence, I have decided to leave the likes of MyFamily.com and their sister site "Freepages" at Rootsweb. The truth is that freepages wasn't exactly free. Visitors were bombarded with ads, both pop-ups and banners, some of them so largethat the visitor couldn't even tell that our website was underneath it. In addition, visitors were placed on a spam e-mail list that added insult to injury. In the good old days, freepages were actually free and I am grateful that they gave us the opportunity to grow there. However, they were bought out by MyFamily.com, which is dedicated to the idea that you can make a buck or two on genealogy. They soon began charging us to access our own family trees, which they placed onto Ancestry.com without even asking. When we started in 1996, we were just a group of cousins who wanted to share our research and I am delighted to say that, even though we've grown by leaps and bounds, we still have the same philosophy. It is my hope that the only brick walls we run into are in our family trees and not our wallets.
So I'm breaking out and I'm taking you with me. I hope you don't mind. I hope you don't miss the non-stop pop-up windows. I hope you don't miss the banner advertisements. I hope you don't miss the spam from Ancestry.com promising to solve all your problems if you just send them your credit card number.
I had planned to do this much later when I could afford to get my own server. Right now, I simply bought a domain and paid a service provider to host our site. It is a little lower cost than it will be when we have our own server. It is limited in size to 4 gigabites. Believe it or not, we've grown that big. As a result, I haven't completely brought everything over. I am still trying to make everything fit. I haven't managed to get our Family Album on our new site yet, but hope to soon.
You might also wonder where our search engine has gone to. Honestly? I can't get it to work on this server. Having to write my own code is one thing, but getting the server to recognize it is another. In short, I am still working on it.
In the meantime, please take a look around. Let me know what you think. If you see any broken links or errors, please let me know. This is your site as much as it is mine and I need all the help I can get.

• April

In Loving Memory

I need to apologize to all the members of heycuz. Lately, I haven’t been responding to any queries on the group or working on the web site and I need to explain why. Ever since my Aunt Josephine Sullivan Davis passed away, I’ve had a hard time getting motivated. In addition to the great pain over the loss of my Aunt, I found it difficult to participate in a group that she helped start. The group started in 1998 so that my aunts and I could keep up e-mail communications without losing the threads. From her enthusiasm in the beginning, to her storytelling and encouraging words and contributions, she made me feel proud of what we had started so long ago. Aunt Jo became such an important part of heycuz – and in my life – that I wondered how I could continue the group without her. It was emotionally draining to even open my e-mail program. Her name is the first name in my e-mail address book and I have kept a folder of all of our e-mails to each other. I finally realized, however, that she would want the group to go on.
I last saw my Aunt two years ago and I thank God that we got to spend so much quality time together. She was wonderful, vibrant, and welcoming. I enjoyed seeing her new home and, as always, was impressed with her wonderful sense of style. Every room was hand painted, every piece of furniture carefully placed. She proudly displayed the things she loved and took me through each room explaining every item from her collection of everything from crystal birds to her mother’s ambrosia bowl. (My great-grandmother only used that bowl for ambrosia salads and it brought back special memories for Aunt Jo as I listened intently to her recollections of her beloved mother, Anna Ruth Buchanan Sullivan.)
Aunt Jo also showed me collections of antique hairbrushes and curling irons, a few of which were owned by her grandmother. I was blown away when – as I was working on scanning some of her old photographs – the smell of my favorite meal wafted into the room. Not only did she remember that my absolute favorite meal of all time was barbequed ribs, but she also knew that it wasn’t complete unless there was corn on the cob served along with it. The day before, we had gone to a tourist attraction together with my son, Lucas, my Aunt Kittie and her grandson Nick. Aunt Jo was so healthy and vibrant that whole day that I never had the slightest inkling that something was wrong. But, shortly after I came back home, I learned the truth about her health, and that after a lot of testing, the doctors diagnosed her with cancer. She battled it bravely and never seemed to give up hope.
The prayers that you said on her behalf really meant so very much to her and I want to thank you for that. It was hard for me to understand what happened because I am positive that your prayers saved my life. It was incomprehensible to me that they didn’t save hers. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.
I didn’t even take her name off of the group address list, thinking that one day she’d drop me another line. Just a quick update on anything that she was working on – her hand-made bird houses, her garden, amusing anecdotes about her husband Dick’s model planes, or fishing and hunting trips, maybe the birth of another grandchild – to let me know that she was just as busy as ever.
Aunt Jo was the youngest of my grandmother’s sisters and her passing still doesn’t make any sense. One day, my Uncle Dick called and asked to remove her address because he couldn’t deal with the flood of e-mails. I knew that I should have already done this, but still it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I couldn’t do it, in fact, until my hubby, Steve, stood behind me and wouldn’t stop pushing me until I hit the delete button. I was shaking so bad.
Many of you came to know Aunt Jo as just about the kindest woman you’d ever met. No matter what the situation, she had only kind words to say about everyone and I always hoped that her positive thinking would rub off on me. In fact, that is the thing I had most marveled at about her. I wish that I could be a big enough person to have that kind of strength of character.
She was also very, very talented. She was quite an artist with an uncanny talent for color and depth. When I visited her home as a child, I was always impressed with her paintings and also the exquisite way she decorated her home. No bland white walls for Aunt Jo! Her impeccable taste was apparent in her elegantly furnished surroundings. And, her sense of style wasn’t just indoors. She also had a “green thumb” which showed in her beautiful roses and the other plants in her garden, as well as in the rest of the landscape. Her taste was also apparent in how she was always beautifully dressed. As a child, I thought that my Aunts Jo and Rose were the most beautiful women I’d ever seen and I wished some of their “style” would rub off on me. I loved the hand-painted cards she often sent me so much that I saved them all.
I know how important the group was to her and I wouldn’t let the group fold away, but I may still be a little slower with things as I deal with her loss. I found a new source of inspiration, however, when I decided to dedicate this group to her memory.
Thanks for your understanding,

• April

 


From The Flint Journal:
Davis, Norma (Jo)
DAVIS, Norma (Jo) - Of Otisville, age 63, died Friday, April 9, 2004 at Genesys Health Park. Funeral service will be 11AM Tuesday, April 13, 2004 at St. Francis Xavier Church, Rev. Fr. Francis Faraci officiating. Burial in Flint Memorial Park. Prayer vigil to be held at the funeral home 7PM Monday, April 12, 2004 with visitation on Sunday from 6PM-9PM and Monday from 10AM-9PM.

What are Friends For?

My girlfriend Carol and I were very close. We were getting home late from school and we were so worried that we would get in trouble for being late that we decided to take a short cut through a junk yard. I'll tell you right off the bat that this wasn't my idea. Carol was tough. She was so tough you didn't say no to anything she said for fear of getting popped in the jaw. So, I agreed and we climbed up over the chain-link fence.
We were casually strolling through the yard and had pretty much made it safely through when suddenly we heard the low growl of a monster. Carol grabbed my hand in fear which really shocked me because as I told you she was bad. I glanced over my shoulder and the mangiest dog you have ever seen was plowing down on us fast. I swear that dog was foaming at the mouth. I was sure that he knew he was about to get a nice dinner of two little lambs. The dog wasn't more than a foot away from us when I realized we weren't going to out-run him. Self-preservation kicked in and I grabbed Carol, turned her around with my arm locked around her neck, and used her as a barrier between me and the mutt. I dragged her kicking-and-screaming carcass backward toward the fence. With each kick, the jaws of that mangy yellow dog snapped inches from her toes. Carol didn't know whether to hit me with her one free left arm or focus her attention on the dog. She flaled her arm behind her toward me in a vain effort to free herself. I WAS NOT letting go.
Finally, I reached the locked gate which opened enough for me to squeeze through. I dropped Carol as I backed butt first through the thin opening of the gate while the dog approached his unwilling victim's kicking feet. I turned to run and realized that I was safe and I'd better not leave Carol for dog food. But if...I debated, if I do save her she's going to kill me. Well my heart got the best of me and so I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her through the fence gate. Unfortunately, she lost her shoe to the dog and her pants legs were ripped to shreds but that's the price you pay. Luckily, for me, Carol was so relieved to get out of there alive that she only hit me in the arm. ;-)
Heycuz.net

Publish or Perish

I always liked those Dell Logic Puzzles. You know the kind I’m talking about—
 John wore a red shirt and liked green lollypops. Fred wore a shirt of another primary color and played basketball. Suzy’s dress did not match Fred’s or John’s but she liked both lollypops and basketball. What color was John’s hair?
Then they’d give you a table to use to assist your thought process. OK OK. I know that the puzzles are a little easier than that. But at least you know that there IS a solution for the puzzle and so you keep going ‘til you’ve solved it. I’ve often thought that a genealogical question should be solvable with a logic puzzle formula. A problem arises though when you don’t know if you have all the clues, or have too many clues that don’t pertain to the problem.
Recently on Heycuz, Dan Sullivan voiced his frustration over solving the dilemma over the parentage of Owen Sullivan. “With all the information that we have collected, why can’t we know for sure who his parents were?” he wondered.
I know exactly the frustration Dan feels. I think every one of my lines has reached a dead-end. Now, more than in the past it seems every one of my lines has a road-closed sign. I keep hoping that if I keep looking, one day that long-lost (document type here) will be found and solve our deepest most agonizing quandaries.
Hugh Sullivan, on the other hand, changed the rules of the game by changing the equation from “who is he?” to “who is he not?” and said that he made the decision about his Sullivan ancestor by using a preponderance of evidence and challenged others to disprove it. Hugh has battled this for years. For instance, a while back he wrote on the Sullivan-Rootsweb list:

"I was guided by the Sherlock Holmes philosophy - eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be fact. Unfortunately I can't eliminate all the impossible. So, at some point, I switched to the task of finding the most probable (and least improbable) - I have done that. I think I know my entire lineage. But it is based on preponderance of evidence, circumstantial evidence, logic, proximate location and a little "everybody’s gotta be somewhere".
Both Dan and Hugh battled over the decision whether to publish the information they had, since neither could provide proof. They finally decided not to publish. Robert Bryant countered that he would prefer that his children know at least something about his family’s history, being careful to note what was proven and what was conjecture. One of my cousins, Wava Boyd Tory, has a ton of information that makes my head spin, but repeatedly says she will not release it until she has absolute proof. I know where she is coming from, yet I mourn the loss of such a great vehicle of information, work and time.
As a publisher, I have had a lot of experience dealing with the idea that errors will occur in my finished product. After pulling many all-nighters scouring every page to eliminate an error, you finally "put the paper to bed" and inevitably when you pick up a freshly printed piece there's the error slapping you in the face. Publishers deal with this because we have deadlines. We also have the saving grace of retractions.
In research circles, educators and scientists also have their own "excuses" for publishing data that might contain errors. Institutions with a publish-or-perish philosophy fund most of them. Errors or not, they are contractually obligated to publish a certain number of works. Of course, no one wants to publish errors and so every effort is made to keep them to a minimum. The best-case scenario is that the error is only a typo. Worse case is that your entire piece is based on previously accepted, but false assumptions.
How is genealogy any different?
Listening to genealogists on this subject, one would get the idea that the field of genealogy is somehow different from any other field of research. Many say that they cannot publish because they haven't proven everything absolutely. The volumes and volumes of work that have been lost because of this excuse break my heart. I am certain that Wava and Hugh have been working on genealogy for at least 20 years, if not 30. If a scientist or researcher has that number of years under his or her belt, he is given the rank of "Expert." Having a number of conversations with Hugh over the years, I wouldn't hesitate dubbing him an Expert on the subject of North Carolina Sullivan genealogy or Wava as an expert on my particular family line. I have incredible respect and admiration for the information for both of them. If Wava says something is true, it’s highly likely that it is. But, they and many, many other genealogists with just as much experience, are robbing us of their work because of some unforeseeable repercussions.
What could happen if you do publish an error?

2.     Your great-great-great-great grandfather is not your grandfather. Well, you know what I mean.    
3. Someone copies and republishes your work along with its errors. Happens all the time, and in increasing numbers with the Internet.
4. Someone checks your sources. You did list them, didn't you? Tell me you did!
5. Somebody proves you wrong. Hey, isn't that what you wanted all along? The Truth?

I can hear the comments now: “Oh you would say that April; Look at your own website.” I have. I wrote it and continue to rewrite it. It's an evolving website with lineages based on information I have today. Tomorrow it will be different. Every effort has been made to note when something is not proven, to correct every error and yet I know there are errors on it. At least family members have found a home to share their research and reconnect with their cousins.
What could happen if you don't publish?

2. Absolutely nothing. Cousin Mary won't know that you found her great-great-great grandmother moved to Minnesota of all places, remarried and had a whole other family; you'll never meet the many cousins who were related to the man whose crumbling tombstone you stumbled across in dilapidated cemetery; and young budding genealogists will never praise your name, because after all you didn't publish.

 Many genealogists also drag their feet because they don't have all the "facts." But let's not forget the sources that genealogists use, as facts are often wrong. One example:
Funeral records state that Preston James Sullivan died January 26, 2000 in Nashville, Davidson County, TN. The obituary, published the next day, also stated the same place. However, his daughter Sylvia Lane explains how the "facts" are wrong.
"He wanted to die at home (Nashville), but he was taken to Baptist Hospital and because of the severity of his Alzheimer's, he was transferred to Tennessee Veterans Home in Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, TN. … My father opened his eyes, smiled at me, and closed his eyes again. He was gone." She was there when he died, so obviously she knew his place of death better than the so-called "facts." Unfortunately, most of the time we don't have living sources to tell us the truth. That is just one example, and I've run into many errors from vital records to errors by court clerks while transcribing documents.
If genealogists wait until all the facts are gathered, they'd never publish. If a newspaper waited until they had the "Truth," we wouldn't have many daily papers. If a scientist waited 'til they had the "Truth," we wouldn’t have many cures.
My advice for the genealogist: Don't let your work perish, publish.
Elsewhere:
My mind and time have been occupied lately on a variety of projects, so I have not written the annual“New Year’s Resolutions.” Looking at last year’s column, I see they haven’t changed much anyway. It’s not that we haven’t accomplished a lot. We have added a number of new members, corrected family lines, and moved to our new home at heycuz.net. I am still in the process of moving everything from the freepages website at Rootsweb with my focus right now on getting the Family Album over here to this site. The problem is that the software that I used to use for cataloging and writing the captions for all the photographs is incompatible with my new computer. This means I’ve been copying the information for each photo one at a time. The second area of focus is to write the script for a search engine to make the vast amount of information more accessible to visitors.  So far, I haven't been satisfied with any of my efforts.
April

What's with kids these days?

Not long ago, after browsing a bunch of old family photographs, my son asked his grandparents what life was like when everything was black and white. Angry about the onslaught of laughter, he didn't wait around for the explanation that the film was black and white, not everything else.
Excuse me for sounding like an old geezer, but what's with kids these days? Are they smarter, bolder, ruder, or what? It occurs to me that kids today question everything… unlike my childhood days when it was infinitely more safe to "shut up and do as you're told." When I was a kid, I never questioned the idle threat of a frustrated mother. "If you don't stop I'll knock you into the middle of next week!" But my son will. He'll ask how that's possible unless I've got a time machine hidden somewhere.
I can remember my mother's old standby saying, "Go look it up," meaning of course to check the dictionary or encyclopedia. But, I was floored when my son told me to "go look it up," after I told him that "Ain't ain't a word." Whelp, he was right. It is in the dictionary so it is a word after all. I wouldn't say that my parents were from the South (they're several generations removed), but their language was nearly as colorful as Jeff Foxworthy's was, which was sometimes very embarrassing. "Mow the grass, it's taller than a Chinaman's arse." Hoping none of my playmates, were within earshot, I'd quickly get to the task at hand. Put that phrase to my son and he'll probably discuss how the height proportions differ for various ethnic groups. Then there's the phrase "like shooting fish in a barrel," which of course meant something was pretty darn easy, but my son will ask why they put fish in a barrel or why someone would want to shoot fish. My parents had phrases with roots beyond my grasp, but they seemed to make sense. Some of the phrases I've heard include:

…Two shakes of a sheep's tail

…Ya got an axe to grind?

…Happy as soap on a rope

…Butter my butt and call me a biscuit

…Have a cup of coffee. It's already been saucered and blowed

…I'll slap you so hard, your clothes will be outta style

…Put on yer goin'ta meetin' clothes

…Rolls off you like water off a duck's back

…Don't rain on my parade

…I've got some work to do at the woodpile

…You'd argue with a fence post!

…Like a chicken with its head cut off!

…Gives me the heebies

…Puttin on airs

…Just look at yourself

…Surer than a two-headed nickel
I too am guilty of using phrases that draw blank stares from those younger than I. For instance, recently I described something as better than an E-ticket at Disneyland. This statement made no sense to the younguns whose parents pay only one price for general admission.
All this brings me to the point that the culture in which I was raised compares to the culture of my son as if we were reared in entirely different lands. Speaking of different lands, Steve mentioned the Greek saying, "A fish smells from the head," meaning that the leaders of an organization are usually the cause of its problems. I suppose there's something good about my son's ability to question phrases that I'd accepted on face value. One of the stories recently submitted to Heycuz's Newsgroup by Martha Barnhill Peach made me chuckle when an old clipping "The History of Craigfield, Williamson Co., TN" described some mechanism as similar to "the mule driven equipment which makes the sorghum." Thanks, now I know exactly what you're talking about - NOT.
Share the Wealth
While updating indexes to the Share the Wealth section of our site, I was reading some of the extractions and noticed odd phrases and terms. For instance, in the deeds area, which includes many new submissions thanks to Sylvia Lane, Virginia Greene, Opal Hayes and Wava Tory Boyd, land was described by poles, links or chains. In marriages, which also has a huge amount of new submissions thanks to Wayne Bradford and Virginia Greene, wedding terms include bonds and bans. At any rate, new items have been added to Deeds, Bibles, Births, Deaths, Marriages, Military and Pensions, Letters, Census and Taxes, Cemeteries, Histories... in short just about every section of Share the Wealth and I am slowly getting around to adding them to the indexes. I want to thank everyone for their submissions. If I named everyone who submitted something in the last months I'd list practically every member of Heycuz. Thanks guys, you're really great! I've also combined the extractions and scans and placed them all under the header, Share the Wealth. It was just becoming too difficult to find all the wonderful information contributed by our members.Color Color
In addition to the Indexes of Share the Wealth, I've added photographs submitted by Sylvia Lane, Robert Bryant, and Wanda Talbot to the The Family Album.
I've updated the Player Listings, because we have some new and valuable new cousins who have jumped right into our cause of celebrating the lives of our ancestors and sharing their research.
You may have also noticed that the look of the site has changed once again and that some features are missing. Ever since our webserver (freepages at rootsweb) was bought out by MyFamily.com the number of advertisements in the form of banner ads and pop up windows has trippled. Who knows what we have to look forward to now that Genealogy.com and MyFamily.com have merged. I shudder to think! But, since I cannot yet afford our own server. I've been told that it'll cost me about $500 a year for a limited space. Our site is too huge for this option. Anyway, the massive amount of ads, wreaked havoc on visitors whose browsers would only load the search engine and no other links. Since the search engine only indexed a partial list of this site's vast contents, it proved frustrating. At any rate, I had to simplify the whole site, getting rid of the extras of search engines, guest books, etc just so the web pages would load.
On a personal note
Many of you are aware that we've had some personal obstacles lately, including the deaths of Aunt Gayle Rennie, cousin Todd Adams, Great Aunt Talma (Buchanan) Hayes. There were days when I just wasn't able to keep up with this column or with email. But, your prayers and kind words kept me going. In addition, I want to thank you for your continued prayers for our cousins who are going through some difficult times now including my Aunt Josephine Sullivan Davis and cousin Kelly DeVoll Robson, who are battling cancer. Please also remember Floyd Lynn Bradford, son of Johnie Clinton Bradford, who is in critical condition.
Love,

April

P. S., Did you miss the last column? Or want to read old, What's New columns?

Happy New Year

I'm really looking forward to a new year with my cousins. I hope that we all can solve our biggest puzzles, form deeper, lasting relationships, and perhaps even meet each other. I have written down some of my New Year's Resolutions:
New Year's Resolutions C

Organize Email by Surname, not by Date. Sheesh! Have Index of all email, -- all in one place/CD for faster searches.

• Update Source listings and Player Listings, correcting email addresses that have changed or are no longer valid.
• Get snail mail addresses of all sources.
• Get the original of every document (not extractions) that I have listed as a source.
• Find my ancestors in every census that they are in, get hard copy.
• Find Virinda Estes' grave.
• Find Nancy Elizabeth Thorn's true father, William.
• Move up one generation on every line.
• Actually go through the Broderbund CDs I have and find possible links
• Highlight, and where possible correct, all dates that seem impossible. (i.e. people who marry before they are born, or die at an impossible age)
• Update my own generation by getting all the new births of my own neices, nephews and cousins
• Scan all records and upload to Share the Wealth library. This may require a document feeder/new scanner, though.

• Don't input any (ZILCH, ZERO, NADA) information without a source. Also, find a place/way to record and track information listed as "for your eyes only."
• Add new photographs to The Family Album in more timely manner.
• Get new stories for The Past Lane.
• Add Grandma's Secret Recipe section to The Past Lane.
• Spend more time at the Family History Center Library, transcribe notes in a more timely manner, and keep a more accurate search list of sources.
• Spend more time, researching dead-end lines by looking at collateral individuals.
• Search web regularly for new documents that have been transcribed and if new documents are found get a hard copy.
• Update the What's New surname list regularly
• Find a way for Heycuz/website to have its own server.
• Respond to every email in a more timely manner even when I don't have the answers
• Finally, don't forget my own family by doing the laundry, cleaning house, and spending time with them more often.

Best wishes for a Happy and Successful 2003!

• April