iGenealogy Blog

About 16 years ago, at a Gubler family reunion, we (the kids) decided to reenact the life story of our ancestor Susanna Mehitable Rogers Sangiovanni Pickett Keate.  Quite a long name, but she filled it with such an interesting life.  From being born in Montreal, growing up first in rural Quebec and then moving to New York City, marrying an Italian Napoleonic revolutionary, moving to England, joining the LDS (Mormon) church and moving back, and eventually crossing the plains with her two sons and dying at the age of 91 in St. George, Utah, she led a very exciting and unusual life for a woman of her time.  My mom’s cousin Jane Rae Topham has written a book about her life entitled “In Search of Living Water”.  However, this blog is about her scoundrel of a husband, William Pickett. Read the rest of this entry »

I think it’s always interesting when I discover a relative that leaves his mark on the landscape. Since I don’t have many “famous” ancestors to speak of (except my one connection to Abraham Lincoln - my relative was his mother’s step-father), it’s always nice to find visible remnants of my relatives.

While looking on Google Maps I found a road called “Tinnin Ford Road”. This road is named after my relative Hugh Tinnin who purchased 500 acres of Colorado River frontage land (land now that would be included almost entirely in Austin City limits) in the 1850’s. His daughter - Lucy Jane Tinnin - from his first wife Betsy Rutherford was my third great grandmother.

Here’s a small history on him:

Hugh Tinnin
Born in 1800, died in Burleson County, Texas 13 December 1869.

HISTORY: Hugh Tinnin moved with his family from Mississippi to Washington County, Arkansas in about 1836. When his first wife Betsy Rutherford died, he married her sister Fanny Rutherford. Betsy probably died while the family still lived in Mississippi. Fanny died in Washington County where he met his third wife, Helen Mary Kirkpatrick, whose family had moved from Kentucky to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Letters addressed to him were addressed to Mr. Hugh Tinnin, Esquire, Boonsboro, Arkansas. Federal Census shows his residence in Mountain Township.

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As do most genealogists, I have a few (well, many) projects that I have floating in the back of my head, waiting to be finished.  One of these was to compile the descendants of my Swiss ancestors, Johannes (John) Schmutz and his wife, Elisabeth Lehmann.  In this day and age, with the fears of identity theft, I know that it’s next to impossible, but we can always dream. 

In any case, as an individual with LDS heritage, I had ‘inherited’ my family history in its ‘complete’ form.  After proving this theory incorrect more times than I could count, I decided to ‘clean’ up some of my family groups - find the original sources, make sure the birth dates and christening dates and places were accurate, etc.  And so I began with the Schmutz family.  I found all the entries for the children of Johannes and Elisabeth, and continued on to their generation.  After I’d gathered all of Johannes’s siblings’ information, I began working on their parents, and made a startling discovery.

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James Ewell McCall (J.E.) is the grandfather of my great-grandfather Robert Lee McCall who married Etoyl Montgomery through his son John Keener McCall (J.K.) You can find him listed on previous posts of the Clan Cholla charts that I’ve updated. Here’s the timeline of his life that I’ve put together thus far:

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I wrote about the Clan Cholla Sheets in a previous post, and had links to all of them (15 total charts). Below is a transcribed version of sheet S.C. 10 labeled “John of Mountain Creek” that I posted online a few years ago. In the next month I hope to post the most updated version as a pedigree chart for easier searchability. (I’m currently transfering my genealogy from an old PC laptop to my Mac.) You’ll also find this version has a lot more information. PLEASE NOTE: All edits or additions to the original chart from my research (or for ease of use) appear in GREEN.

(The transcription was last updated 9/13/2002)

—————-
CLAN CHOLLA GENEOLOGIES SC 10

MACCOLLS of MOUNTAIN CREEK, N.C.
Traced from original by Hugh G. McColl - Scotland
Circa 1930

By O.J. McColl August 1970
S.C. 10 (2 SHEETS)

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In review of the McColl Family Papers, I found an old letter (scans of it to come soon), that was written in 1846 by the Chief of the Clan McColl at that time to an unknown person. The name is written so I can’t quite read it, but looks to be similar to “Kul”? McColl. Perhaps someone could help me determine the origins of this letter, and verify its contents. The letter outlines the history and traditions of the Clan McColl of Appin. (Please note that any misspellings or missing information are original, or due to the difficulty of transcribing this old document)

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This is the first of many timelines I’ll post about several key members of my family, in order for search engines to pick up and possibly connect with other family members. I call this a “Historical Timeline” and have found putting together these charts extremely helpful in doing my genealogical research. I simply start by putting the information I know in 3 columns - Year, Location and Event. (Events include birth, death, marriage, children, etc.) I also include a line for each year of the census. This helps me to quickly see what information I’m missing in a particular timeline, and gives me insight on where to look. (For example, if I know one child was born in one state, then a census occurred, and then another child was born in another state - I will look on the census records for both states.)

Steve Guthrie Nees is the father of my great-grandmother Minnie Bell Nees who married William Ingram.

To view this timeline, click to Read the rest of this entry »

I’m planning on using the Wickli family for my accreditation from ICAPGen, so I thought it appropriate to talk about this family on my first blog.  I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, so I’ve been procrastinating sending my research report etc. in for the long (8 hour) test for the accrediation. 

I always thought it was kinda sad that no one really knew what happened to this Wickli family, most of whom joined the LDS Church.  The parents, Johann Jakob Wickli and Margaretha Haab had seven children; all lived to adulthood.  However, it seems out of those seven children, only 2 had descendants.  I’d wanted to contact the descendants of these children, but I haven’t been successful.  Anyway, I made it sort of a goal to find out what happened to the kids.  This is what I found: Read the rest of this entry »

So it was a chart from my Great-grandmother Etoyl Montgomery McCall, that was given to her by someone passing through town asking about the McCall surname, and then copied by my mother before I was born that got me started on the genealogy trail of the McCall / McColl family line.

Click to See a Larger Image

This single photocopy pushed me on to find the rest of the charts, because it looked like it was part of a much larger charting of the McCall family line. I couldn’t find any of these charts in the Genealogy Library in Salt Lake City, UT, so I posted a note online at genealogy.com in search for them. I also began researching the names on the piece of the chart I had in my possession and posted some of my research online. While researching I discovered a link to the inventory of the Manuscripts Department at the Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This link outlined an inventory of the McCall Family Papers that contained genealogy for the McColl family of Marlboro County, SC. I called the library and ordered the collection in on microfilm.

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Welcome to iGenealogy.org. What do you get when you combine two amatuer and one professional genealogyist who research their family roots? This site, of course.

iGenealogy.org was started by three friends who all share the common interest in doing family genealogy. Only one of us gets to do it as a full-time job, while the other two find time to do research on evenings and weekends as time permits. Living in Utah makes us spoiles by having the largest depostory of genealogical records - the Family History Library in Salt Lake City - to gain quick access to research materials.

We hope you enjoy the site and glean some good information. If you’re working on the same family names or lines, or just genealogy buffs yourselves, we’d love to hear from you.

Thank you! - Abraham, Daniel, Brad