What I know about Wealthy Susan CHANDLER

I find it so interesting that my great great grandparents would name one of their children Wealthy. Were they hoping for the best for this baby or their family? If so, that didn't work out.

My grandmother went by her middle name, Susan. She was born, according to her birth record, on Aug 13, 1877. However, her death certificate states her birthday as July 24, 1877. I have to go with the birth record.

Most of the trees out there have her listed as Susan Chandler and I was determined to prove her name was Wealthy. Her birth record only says W. S. Chandler but I found a delayed Birth Certificate for one of her children, Herman Stevens, with her name "Wealthy Susan Chandler" BAM! That was one of those moments where I jumped up and down!

She married my great grandfather, Millard Stephens (the name spelling changed to Stevens somewhere between Millard and my Grandfather Steward and was spelled Stephenson on the record) on October 18, 1898. They had 10 children in their 41 years of marriage. Millard died on September 4, 1939. 

At age 65, five years after her husbands death, she marries Marian Edward Kidd. Now the funny thing here is she marries him again two years later in 1946. There is a story where she takes to her bed at a daughters home for a long period of time after the first marriage but that is just a story. I have not found a divorce record to date but who knows, it may be out there somewhere.

It was not a glamours life for Wealthy Susan Chandler Stevens Kidd but she lived to a ripe old age of  92. I can only imagine the things she saw change during her lifetime and the things she had to endure. I would have been eight years old at the time of her death. I never met her and even if I did I would probably not remember which makes me a little sad. As we would say at Genealogy Happy Hour, "Cheers!" GG Grandma Susan! 

Church Record Sunday - Where do you belong?

Last  week I headed out to Salt Lake City with my partner in genealogy crime and attended the Roots Tech conference. What a great experience. I learned quite a bit at  the tech classes and got to spend two full days at the Family History Library researching my family. Last year we attended the National Genealogy Society conference and I have to say, if you have not attended a genealogy conference of any kind, get out there and sign up for one.

One of the things I was researching in the library was church records. I did not find anything that would actually help my search but just learning about the churches in the area where my ancestors lived was fascinating. After returning home I continued filing my records in my binder and happened upon my grandmothers Certificate of  Membership to the Presbyterian Church of Ameagle in West Virginia.

This document answers questions and creates more, don't they all?. I  learned that my grandmother joined on the 6th of April in the year 1947 but I don't know how active she was at church. I saw that it was only her name on the certificate so I wondered if my grandfather joined also and had his own certificate or if she joined alone, which is what I suspected. I have the name of the church and I have the name of the Pastor but not the location of the church.

Now talking to my mother, and yes I am lucky I have someone who might have the answers I seek, I found that my Grandmother joined alone and became quite active in the church. I also learned that the church was located beside the Dr. office and across the street from the company store which had a soda fountain in the basement. This was a coal mining town and they had company stores for the workers and their families.  I also learned that my grandmother was a member of two women's groups at this church. The Willing Workers and the Missionary Society. One or both of these groups had a Hat Party once a year. Looks like they had a good time at these hat parties!

Welcome to my blog! I have to admit that this is a bit out of the box for me and has taken quite a while, not gonna say how long exactly, to get this going. Thanks for checking it out.

I hope to meet new relatives and share family information with other researching the same branches and limbs. Just to get started some of the family names I am researching are: Burke, Schwiebert, Herman, Freytag, Curtiss, Stimmell, Roesch, Freytag, Preston, Frettinger, Stevens/Stephens, Florentz, Chandler, Pierre, Adkins, Herald, Eitenne, Meisler, Griffith, Adkins and Bartram. I think that is plenty for now and goes back 5 generations. I am sure more names will enter the picture.

Most of these families are found in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, France, Germany and England. Do these names and places sound familiar? Maybe we are related.