Archives for FEATURED
From Creede to Eternity – Charles Cochran Moudy O’Reilly
December 7, 2019 A few years ago I started researching the tree of a close friend of mine, Larry Chiri. I figured I’d just fill in a few generations for him and his mom Pat. I also wanted to see what I could find out about Larry’s father Charles, who…
Graham-Thornton Cemetery
In 2016 I visited the graves of my great great grandparents GJ Thornton and Maggie Boothe. They are buried in the Graham-Thornton Cemetery near Snowville in Pulaski County, ; The Graham-Thornton Cemetery has 32 identified burials between 1912 to 1979 spanning 4 generations of Grahams and ;All but one buried…
Christina Behringer Strebe
In 1891 my great grandfather William Weiler came to America from Germany at the age of 14. He went directly to Lafayette, Indiana to stay with his aunt Christina. This is excerpted from Reverend William Weiler's autobiography Photos found on Ancestry - originally shared by Jodi Austin Christina (maiden…
Reverend William Weiler Autobiography
A fantastic taste of life in a small German peasant village in the late 1800's and the voyage to America, hand written by the flying parson himself. This is the autobiography of Reverend William Weiler, the father of my grandmother, Louise Adelaide Weiler Wagner. Rev. Weiler wrote it at the…
Santa Claus, Indiana founded by John and Dora Hanning
My 3rd great grandparents John and Dora Hanning helped found the town of Santa Claus, Indiana in 1854. Half a century later my great great grandfather Rev. Weiler returned to Santa Claus having married John and Dora's grandaughter Addie Hanning to preach in the church there between 1912 and 1917.…
Thornton DNA Update
For years, many people (including me) have assumed our Thorntons descended from William "the immigrant" or Luke (spoiler alert - we aren't). William and Luke immigrated from England in the 1600s and settled in Virginia. Their descendants were connected to some famous names - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others…
Historical Sketch of Snowville, Virginia by WR Hundley
I discovered this original typed manuscript in the Radford, VA library. It is a delightful memoir of a lost time and place by a former resident of Snowville in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia written in 1931. My ancestors lived there during this time. Cousin Mark Francis gave me…
Wagner Family Home Movies
These are the Raw unedited videos from the Super 8 Transfer. There is no sound or captions. The number corresponds to the DVD/chapter. It takes hours to upload each one, so as they finish I'll post and email out. If it doesn't have a link, I'm still uploading. My next…
Staryn Wagner Home Movies
This is a 15-minute compilation of some of the home movies of Staryn Wagner taken by his dad Will Wagner. I've pieced together multiple clips and stills. It's so wonderful that he took and kept these videos. I couldn't include all the footage (then again, how many minutes of crawling…
Old Bill Wagner
Jacob William (later dubbed "Old Bill") was born in 1840 in Elleringhausen, Germany. At the age of 6, he and his family joined the waves of German immigrants after their friends in Quincy, Illinois, kept writing for them to come. Six-year-old William took his little sister Henrietta by the hand…