Ancestry Saturday: More Genealogy Memories

She had a room just for growing plants. She couldn't hear very well or see very well, but she was so happy to see us every time we visited. We sure posed for a lot of pictures with her.

A U.S. senator, one my grandfather didn't much care for, stopped by her 90th birthday party.

We bought her a new toilet seat at the mall before visiting one year. I remember her funeral and her burial too.

My Great Grandma Sallie (Bernard) Naylor was my other still-living great grandparent about whom I can recall sketchy memories. She died January 29, 1975 when I was eight years old.

Just as I wrote the other week, I'm the source for future generations of my family looking to learn personal memories of past generations.

I can fill in the memories with forty years of knowledge since.

Her Clintonville neighborhood home in North Columbus had a solarium where she kept a wide variety of plants. She had bad hearing most of her life, and was legally blind before she died at age 90.

We had visited her three times that I can remember and once met her at Salt Fork Lodge for her 90th Birthday party. U.S. Senator John Glenn just happened to be at Salt Fork at the time and stopped by for a hello. Glenn was a Democrat and my grandpa was a Republican.

One of our Columbus visits, I traveled with my grandparents and we stopped at Lazarus at Northland Mall. Neither Lazarus nor Northland Mall exists today.

My memory of her burial helped me find her gravestone without the need for a list almost 40 years later.

Future generations can just ask. I'm their source for family memories.

Ancestry Saturday: Happy 169th!

The Ancestry App reminded me of a birthday. Today is the 169th anniversary of the birth of Charles Bosworth Bernard who was born January 17, 1846. He was my great great grandfather.

A write-up about his birth said, "He was born in a log cabin in the Fairview Community on what has been known as the Elijah M. Bernard farm and more recently known as the Gumly farm on St. Rt. 729, near Lees Creek, Clinton, Ohio."

He lived his whole life in Green Township in Clinton County. I've been to the farm where he was born.





I've also been to his adult-life home and farm a couple of times because it passed down generations. His youngest daughter, my great grandmother Sallie Bernard, was born in that house in 1884.

Happy Birthday!

Ancestry Saturday: More Photos From Cousins

The latest ancestral photo passed along to me by a second cousin once removed is actually a photo of a charcoal sketch. Harriet McConnell Bernard (1810-1892) was my third great grandmother.

The sketch closely matches what was previously thought to be the only likeness of her I'd ever find. The resemblance tends to confirm both are of the same person.

My Kids Have Revolutionary War Patriots' Blood

Today is Veteran's Day 2013.  It has me thinking of my ancestors.

Two names are on the plaque at the Highland County, Ohio courthouse to commemorate Revolutionary War patriots buried there who were blood relatives in my family tree.  There should have been three.

Thomas F. Bernard, John Foster Leaverton, and Samuel Woodmansee are the three who boasted service in the Revolutionary War and who are now buried in Highland County.

When I added it up recently, I found a confirmed list of 21 Revolutionary War patriots in my kids' pedigree.

Here's the complete list, at least as of November 2013, of my kids' patriots' blood.

The eleven confirmed patriots from their Dad's side:

Robert Jameson
George Daubenspeck
James Ebenezer Smith
Michael Reitenauer
James Wygant
James Gutridge
John Foster Leaverton
Thomas Fleming Bernard
John Downing
Joseph Conway
Samuel Woodmansee

The ten patriots from their Mom's side:

Joshua Quance
Ebenezer Cole, Sr.
Ebenezer Cole, Jr.
Zadock Bosworth
Daniel Walton
Thomas Adkins
John Nay
Charles Gatliff
Charles Booth
Samuel Ferguson

There's still some potential more to show up as my research efforts continue.  Stay tuned kids.

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UPDATE December 2013: Add Jeremiah Shontz, Daniel Smith, and Henry Guthrie to the Dad's side of the list.  Add Moses Searle, James Felix McGuire, and Ebenezer Gage to the Mom's side.  Now, that's 27.  But, I still bet I find more.

Ancestry Saturday: Let Them Eat Turkey

The Bernard Family Reunion saw it's 84th edition early last month, and it's still on my mind.

 

Fairview Farms

The farm that my great grandmother Sallie Bernard Naylor grew up on was built on land that was part of a Virginia Military District land grant where my ancestors moved in 1807.  She was born there. 

Her Uncle ended up with the farm and passed it on to his son, Donald.  It stayed in the Bernard family in Ohio for 200 years.



The Bernard's Turkey Farms booth at the Ohio State Fair

It''s also where the turkey business started that is so associated with the Bernard name in Southwest Ohio.  My grandpa's cousins got into the turkey business in a big way.  Most people who lived in Clinton County, Ohio in the 1960's and 1970's will remember the Bernard's for turkeys.

I remember visiting the turkey pens in the early 1970's.  They sold turkeys year round and made a good living.

They were entrepreneurs.  I remember hearing about turkey hot dogs too during those 1970's visits.  Bernard's Turkey Farms were making hot dogs out of turkey before anyone else was. 

They grew their business outside of Clinton County too with an annual trip to the Ohio State Fair.

Ancestry Saturday: My Part In an 84-Year Tradition



A transcription of the minutes of the 1929 Bernard Family Reunion.

Two weeks ago, I took part in an 84-year family tradition.  My ancestors started with the first one in 1929 and their descendants have continued it every year since.

The transcribed list of attendees at the 1929 reunion.

 My great grandparents and my then 13-year-old grandfather were there in 1929.  It was my grandfather's mother who was a Bernard.  She was born in the house, Fairview Farm, that was just a long three-iron shot up the street on Antioch Road outside of New Vienna, Ohio.  She attended church at the Fairview Friends Meeting House where the 2013 reunion was held.



The sign-in list for the 2013 edition of the Bernard Family Reunion.

It was great to meet relatives I've never met and a few I haven't seen in a few years.  It was especially great to see the great collection of family tree information one of my cousins has so dutifully built and maintained.

Someday, maybe 84 years from now in 2097, my grandkids will marvel at the fact their grandpa was there.