Dekalb Co. TN--District 6

Several of my ancestors lived in Dist 6 of DeKalb Co TN between the years 1840-1880. I have been putting abstracted indexes of the US Federal Census for that area and have gotten 1840-1870 finished. The families in my line were the Pitmans, Adcocks and Lunas(maternal lines). I would like to do a study of the families from that area but have not had the time to put into it and didn't want to do something half the way.


The new additions are for the 1850 and 1860 census..but you can view each of the years for Dist 6 at the following links.

• 1840


• 1850


• 1860


• 1870

52 Weeks To Better Genealogy - Challenge #2

I'm choosing to write about Wallace State Community College's genealogy collection rather than my local library(Hanceville branch of Cullman Co. Public Library System). WSCC Genealogy library is one of the best library collections for southeastern US research. I am fortunate to live only 2 minutes away from the library although I don't get to visit nearly as much as I'd like. I first became interested in family history research in the late 1980's. In 1990 after experiencing a personal loss, I decided that researching my family history would be a good way to keep busy. I was correct. A friend took me to the WSCC library, which at that time was mainly on the 5th floor of the library. Today the genealogy collection is housed on the 5th and the 6th floor of the library. The 5th floor contains mainly microfiche, microfilm, indexes and military books as well as computer stations. The 6th floor has many books covering a wide variety of research topics, surnames and areas.

The Genealogy and Family History Department is headed by Bob Davis(genws@hiwaay.net). The department offers a wide range of genealogical classes for college credit however if you wish to take them without college credit you can do so for $30 a semester regardless of how many you take under the Continuing Education Credit. You can also order microfilm from LDS's vast collection through WSCC.

If you have a PDF reader you can read and print outlines for research on a variety of topics by clicking on the links in the left column of the page. If you don't have a PDF reader you may download by clicking on the word ADOBE. Try a search of the WSCC Card Catalog or take a virtual tour of the campus.

Smile for the Camera-18th Edition--Travel

This edition of Smile for the Camera is the 18th edition and the word prompt is Travel.
My contribution is a picture of my Uncle Morris B. Cooke(my Dad's brother) on his Indian Motorcycle. I'm not sure what year this was taken. My guess would be late 1940's/early 1950s. I believe the motorcycle would be a model made some time in the mid-40s. My Cooke family lived in Old Hickory, TN which was for the most part a company town built around the Dupont plant which opened there in 1918.

A Genealogist's Holiday Wish list

The holidays are drawing near and about this time every year people are wondering what to get the genealogist on their list. I've read articles on this subject which have suggested

• Subscription to Family Tree Magazine, Heritage Quest or another genealogy related magazine
• Database Subscriptions(Footnote.com, Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords etc.)
• Week long trip to the FHL in SLC
• A Genealogy Conference
  

All of those are wonderful ideas. I love my subscription to Family Tree Magazine as well as my Footnote.com subscription.

Now if Santa is wondering what I'd like for Christmas:
(Cue the "Santa Baby" music)

• William Clifford Cook's parents' names(he married in Williamson Co TN and lived in Bedford Co. TN)
• Census Entries for the Wm. Taylor Hale family in 1860 & 1870(minus Wm.) they should be in Van Buren Co. TN
• Thomas Adcock's parents' names--(Warren Co TN area)
• Records from Annie Pitman Dunham's visit to Talequah in 1866
• Pictures of the six GG Grandparents( I have pics of 2 sets): Wm C. & Elizabeth Putman Cook, George & Catherine Morrow Jakes, David & Rebecca Manley Frizzell, Elisha & Keziah Rigsby Luna, David and Mary Adcock Pitman, Wm P. & Nancy Arminda Hitchcock Hale.

These should all be fairly easy for Santa. After all, at one time he had to know where these people were in order to deliver Christmas goodies(or perhaps their lump of coal).

In Search of Confederate Pension Records

I read an article from the Terre Haute News entitled GENEALOGY: Confederate pension records out there for the asking written by Tamie Dehler.

It has some good information for those researching Confederate soldiers but one section in particular caught my attention.

Dehler writes:

"However, the National Archives has no Confederate pension records in its files. To order these, one would have to contact the state from which the Confederate soldier served."

The last statement is not correct. To order PENSION files a researcher would contact the state in which the soldier or widow was living when they applied for pension. This wouldn't necessarily be the state in which the soldier served since the majority of states that granted Confederate pensions did not do so until 20+ years after the war(on average).

I've done a bit of research using Confederate Pension Records mainly with Tennessee & Texas pensioners. Most of the TX Pensions I have worked with were for soldiers who had served in TN.

See my Confederate Pension Abstractions for an idea of what is on the TN & TX applications. These application did vary in the questions that they asked even within the same state and year to year.

My favorite question that they asked the Soldier is:

Do you use intoxicants?

Clues from Pearl

I've spent the last few weeks pouring over old letters postcards and receipts that my grandmother had in her scrapbooks. I was able to get a lot of information about where my grandparents lived at different times by studying things that you might not think would contain genealogy information.

Television repair receipts, postcards from family & friends, insurance policies, hospital bills, money order receipts....yes my Grandma Pearl Jakes Cooke was a pack rat but I'm thankful for that.

Sept 1945 911 Dotson St. Old Hickory, TN
Nov 1952 1209 Calvin Ave. Nashville, TN
July 1953 1209 Calvin Ave. Nashville, TN
Nov 1957 903 W. Eastland Ave. Nashville, TN
Mar 1965 402 North 16th St Nashville, TN
June 1966 1020 W. Eastland Ave. Nashville, TN
June 1970 144 Harrington Ave Madison TN
Dec 1971 203 North Charlotte St Dickson, TN
June 1974 110 Mae Circle Dickson, TN