Time sure flies when you're having fun. Where did the day go?
I was on the computer by 8 a.m., reading my email and Bloglines. By the way, do you use Bloglines to read blogs? You should - I sample over 200 blogs a day in a short time period. I posted "Letters from home - Post 6" on Genea-Musings. Then I decided that I needed to find out more about David Devier Smith (1863-1920) - Della's brother who wrote some of the letters. In Post 6, he tells how he married to Leava, whose family was in Jefferson County, Colorado. I got my research book out and found his obituary and SD City Directory entries, so I went looking in the census for him. I couldn't find him anywhere in the 1900 census, but found him in 1910 and 1920 married to his second wife, Amy. I found Leava, his first wife, in 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930, and his daughters Eva (in 1910, 1920 and 1930) and Maybelle (in 1930). Whoa -it's noon time - Rush just signed off - lunch time, so I had my VegBeef soup.
I jumped in the car and shopped for a Valentines card (see, my life isn't 100% genealogy!), dropped some CVGS flyers at the Senior Center, and went to the library for the table talk. Dearl and John were there with Kathleen - she and John just discovered they are like 6th cousins on the Mallett surname, so they compared notes for two hours - I listened and kibitzed. I left at 3, stopped at the County Clerks office and picked up a death certificate for a queryist, and got home at about 3:30. Linda was doing her email, so I read the paper and watched TV a bit.
I got on the computer at 4 p.m., and read email and Bloglines, then found a neat site on PBS about The Frontier House, and posted "Essays about Homestead History." Then it was dinner time.
I was back on at 7 p.m. I answered some email, then watched two Roots TV videos. I checked the USGenWeb site for Red Willow County, Nebraska (where Davie Smith had his livery stable in the 1890 time period) and found a court action against DJ Smith, DJ Smith's probate file number, a Funeral Home record for DJ Smith, and Sanborn Maps for 1889 and 1897 showing Davie's livery stable. Cool.
So who was Leava? Who were her parents? She was born about 1867 in Missouri, parents were born in Kentucky. Before today, I thought that her parents were George and Mary Gibson of Andrew County, Missouri because the name, age and birthplaces fit, and the DJ Smith family was in Andrew County MO in the 1870-1880 time frame. But then I found a Leavy Smith, daughter of Nancy Smith in the 1880 census for Jefferson County, Colorado (remember the letter?) with kids William, Leavy and Alice; I think that this is probably the right family. I found the Zachariah and Nancy Smith family in Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri in 1860 and 1870, with a bunch of kids, including 5 year old Leva and 2 year old Alice in 1870. Then I looked on Rootsweb and found an Isaac and Nancy Smith family in Pineville with the same kids, even birth dates, so someone probably had a family Bible handy. The contributor was David Smith (who else would it be, eh?) Done for the night!
Genealogy today was 11.0 hours total - 1.5 hours reading email and Bloglines, 1.5 hours blogging, 2.0 hours at the library talking, 0.5 hour at the Clerks office on CVGS business, 0.5 hour watching videos, and 5.0 hours searching for Smiths in the records. I had fun today!
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