Arlene Eakle’s Kentucky Blog

Arlene’s webmaster Kathryn posting today. If you have recently emailed Arlene and not received an answer, she’s not ignoring you. The computer she used for email has recently been giving her more and more problems, to the point she can’t download email. Her grandson is going to update the computer soon, hopefully by the end of the month, and then she will start catching up. So please be patient.

Today, at the Family History Expo, Arlene was speaking on documenting your common ancestors in Congressional Records. She talked about Peter Force’s “American Archives”, a Documentary History of the early days of the United States. The set is comprised of 6 volumes in the Fourth Series, and 3 volumes in the Fifth Series for a total of 9 volumes. She has access to one of the volumes in physical format and said that because of the computer problem, she hadn’t yet Googled to see if they had been digitized. So I did that while she was talking and found that all 9 volumes are available at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22Peter%20Force%22 for free, and can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats (PDF, text, Kindle, etc).

With the computer problem, she won’t be blogging either. I’ll keep you posted if it looks like it will take longer than the end of the month.

Kathryn Bassett, webmaster for our favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle

On a used book table I picked up a reprint of  A Century of Wayne County Kentucky, 1800-1900 by Augusta Phillips Johnson.  It was originally published in Louisville KY, 1939 and reprinted by Whipporwill Publications (Unigraphic, Inc.) of Evansville IN, 1988.

And I read it, cover to cover.  Wayne was carved from Lincoln County, then Green County (located South of the Green River), then Cumberland County, and finally created in 1800 from Cumberland and Pulaski.  Parts of Wayne were adjusted when Adair County added some territory, Wayne and Pulaski exchanged lands, Clinton and McCreary counties were created.

None of these facts–which many genealogists stop with–describe why Wayne County is significant.  And this neat little unhistory, with its carefully selected accounts, provides a glimpse of that significance.

The author began to write a family history of her Phillips kin and switched to a county history because so many of the families were interrelated.  The first important consideration in studying a rural county in Kentucky:  Are the families who settled there related? Does the history demonstrate those relationships?

The second element: identifying the origins of the settlers, including who traveled with whom and how were they connected?

Third where did the land titles come from?  How did the settlers apply?  What records were generated?  These questions will usually get you started.

All grants to the year 1797, in this area of Kentucky were military awards.  The surveyors had varying skills and the surveys often overlapped–this led to numerous lawsuits later on as the veterans and their families tried to clear property titles.  These circumstances helped to document and preserve the information for genealogical study–

__warrants

__surveys and resurveys

__land grants

__court minutes

__reports of commissioners appointed to view the property lines

__testimony of the chain carriers

__newspaper accounts

__ads placed in papers by local attorneys

__ads announcing sales of bounty warrants

These are just a few of the records you can expect to find to detail the experiences of your ancestors who settled in Wayne County territory before the county was formed.  And the parent counties, today, are many miles away from this area–you might not consider searching Lincoln County for your ancestors who were physically located in present-day Wayne.

Actually you can anticipate the records to look for, when you give some attention to the reasons your ancestors were out there to begin with.

Bounty land records identify:

1. earliest date of residence/arrival and frequently supply other places of residence.
2. names of sponsoring groups or individuals–kinship networks for new immigrants and a variety of clues to places of origin.
3. boundaries of military reserves were set by law.  Virginia awarded bounty lands for French and Indian War service which crossed major rivers and mountain ranges.
4. if heirs claim the lands, they had to submit proof of service as well as document their exact relationship to the veteran.
5. proof of military service includes names of officers, with dates and ranks.  This proof can be used to qualify for lineage society membership.  Caution:  once military warrants could be assigned to others, and used as currency for purchase and exchange–military service may not be proven.
6. experienced fighters were needed to hold the frontier against the Indians.  Remember that foreign governments–France, Spain, Netherlands, and even England–enforced their territorial claims with Indian warriors.
7. these records are the original recordings for land holdings.  ORIGINALS!

After 1797, lands left over or escheated lands not claimed were opened to settlement by headright.

There is some evidence that before Wayne County was formed, Virginia awarded bounty lands for settlement with lists of imports filed in local county courts and submitted as proof for land claims. Watch for these.

Because of record loss when a courthouse burned, bounty records are especially important–claims, supporting documents, testimony taken in special land courts, surveys and resurveys were filed with the state and will be found among the records in the State Land Office–now preserved at the Kentucky State Archives in Frankfort.

Stay tuned for references to printed and online resources to document headrights and bounty lands in Kentucky.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Watch my bookstore for the posting of an updated book list and new descriptions of books and other items already offered in my store.

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Where are the marriage records for Kentucky?  Is there more than one category you can expect to discover  at the county level?  The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives issued a short description of the records, based upon the laws passed by the state legislature:

1. The bond.  A performance bond was filed by the groom and a kinsman or guardian of the bride.  This bond assured the court that there was no lawful impediment  to the marriage.
2. If either bride or groom were under age, a consent was required by the court from a parent or guardian.  The bond, consent, and license became loose papers filed by the clerk in the early years.  Later these documents were copied into a Marriage Record Book.   The consent usually included relationship of the signer to the bride or groom.
3. The license was taken to the minister or judge who was to perform the marriage, as a permit that the couple paid their fees and had permission to marry.
4. A marriage certificate was filled out by the officiator and given to the bride.
5. Once the marriage was performed, the officiator was required  by law to register the marriage or file a  return of the event to the county where the marriage.  In rural communities, the clergyman or justice was permitted to send in his returns once or twice a year.  If he moved or died, the marriage may never be returned to the county.
6. 1852-1861, marriages were recorded by the County Assessor  and sent to the State Auditor’s Office.  In 1862, the law was repealed because it put too much work on the Assessor’s Office.
7. 1874-1878, marriages again recorded by the Assessor.  Repealed in 1878, marriages were recorded in a haphazard way until about 191o.
8. Since 1958, marriages are recorded by the state Vital Statistics Office consistently.

No wonder it is so difficult to build a family tree in Kentucky!  Your family tree begins with the marriage of your ancestor (most of our ancestors were married).

“The Magic of Differences” Week provides cultures and individuals with an opportunity to cease being threatened by differences.   And to awake to the value that differences bring to our world.  Genealogy is all about differences.  And the discovery of  what makes you and me truly unique.

Sometimes the discovery comes from DNA that doesn’t match.  Or family groups that do not have a gap where your ancestor would fit, but next door is another, slightly different family where a gap in the right date-span is available.  

Sometimes you meet difference in a new occupation or one that was practiced differently than the normal dictionary description.

Sometimes your ancestor made a new choice of religion that surprises you–because you have focused for so long on another one.

Sometimes you discover a second wife you didn’t know or a first wife with children farmed-out to relatives so the father could work without interruption.  Or, fight in the current war.

Of all the pursuits you could spend your time on, genealogical research prepares you for the unexpected, in ways that other studies do not.

Enjoy the differences, this week especially.  Join other Kentuckians  as they celebrate “the Magic of Differences” Week.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle.  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Will you share with the readers of this Kentucky blog  some of the differences you discover?   Please email or make a comment.

In 1801, Cane Ridge, Bourbon County Kentucky hosted a non-sectarian camp meeting.  Ministers from Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist Churches preached from stumps throughout the grounds.

20,000 to 30,000 people attended–from Tennessee, from Pennsylvania, from Ohio, they came.  They arrived on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and carriages filled with supplies for the six-day event.  From as far away as NC!

In 1804, the Cane Ridge Disciples of Christ was organized.

Let me share a strategy with you that can lead you to the origins of your Kentucky ancestors–follow the minister.  Your ancestors frequently emigrated from Ireland in a group of “saints” on their way to “Zion.” Lead by a clergyman they had already followed.

If your ancestor was…– or you suspect he was–a Presbyterian, check the Fasti of the Irish Presbyterian Church, 1613-1840, compiled by James McConnell.  304 pages, printed in 1936.  See The Genealogists’ Magazine (1936-37) for a short review.

There are many other Fasti for both Ireland and Scotland, as well as those published in America for ministers of the American churches.  Some are contemporary with the time your ancestors emigrated to America, some are compiled from church records by modern scholars like:

Fasti  of seceder ministers ordained or installed in Ireland 1746-1948,
arranged and edited by W D Bailie and L S Kirkpatrick. [Belfast, Northern Ireland] : Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 2005. Includes
short biographical sketches of ministers of various groups which seceded from the Presbyterian Church starting in 1733: Anti-burgher ministers 1747-1818, Burgher ministers 1749-1818, United Synod ministers 1818-1840, Other Seceder ministers 1816-1948.

If you do a key word search in the Family History Library Catalog for Fasti, you can review a major list of these publications. Copies are available on fiche, film, and in print through the Library and its branches.  Use the FHL Catalog as a finding tool for titles, then check your local library environment for copies that you can access close to home in person or on loan.

Google these titles to see if the older ones are already scanned online at books.google.com.  Also run the titles of interest onWorldcat which gives you the nearest library to you where a copy is on deposit.

Look also for ministers’ diaries, journals, memo books, and correspondence–where they might keep a record of persons they baptized or visited or persuaded to attend their own congregations.

It is such an amazement when a book or article provides a list of clergymen who served particular churches.  And I examine their footnotes and lists of sources.  These personal records may not be cited–I find them in library and archive catalogs, first.  Then I try to locate copies or search them when I am in the vicinity of that library or archive.  Do you?

Camp meetings provided contact points for young people seeking a husband or wife–the meetings ran morning, noon, and night.  And the families camped at the meeting grounds or stayed with relatives who lived nearby.  So there was plenty of opportunity for young people to meet.

Have you ever speculated where your ancestors met each other?  In Ohio?  In Pennsylvania?  in Kentucky?  You can see from the places of birth in census entries that family members were there.  What if…?  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Local county histories and heritage books may also list the ministers.  And they are identified in the census–problem:  when you only search online census entries, you need a name.  The census used to be the first place you got the name of a local churchman.  Oh well…progress requires adaptation.  Right?

An article appearing in Diggin’ for Davises 16 (Feb 2010), entitled “What are your Plans to Preserve your Research Data?” started me thinking.

As I drove the long miles, from flooded Kentucky where I had planned to do research for a week or more, to my home in Tremonton UT, I thought about that article–talking of the impermanence of today’s acid-based paper, and toner ink from cartridges on computer printers which fades in 10-20 years, and early computer discs–called floppies–which can only be read on the machines that generated them, and the laptops of great 20th-century writers like John Updike and Norman Mailer with uncertain storage dates, and the NASA photos of US moon landings stored on magnetic tapes assembled on huge pallets and the enormous size of the machine that had to read them, and on, and on, and on.

It is still a little too early to get a full assessment of water and subsequent mold damage to records that may have been in the paths of the flooding rivers in Kentucky and Tennessee.  The water rose so quickly and almost without warning–Did we lose records for which there are no copies?  No digital scans?  No printed versions?  Still too early to tell.

My husband Alma and I started the Genealogy Library Center, Inc. with the idea that your personal genealogy files could have a permanent home if family members decided they could not preserve them.

Actually, the GLC was begun as much more selfish and narrow idea–the preservation of my own collections of data.  My genealogy,  Alma’s genealogy, my mother’s antique music collections, Alma’s mother’s antique music collections, my 15,000 genealogy books, my 22 file cabinets of historical, social, and genealogical materials–my own stuff!

Then it expanded to files of no longer active of all my 600 genealogy research clients and over 400 consulting clients–also my stuff!

Then it expanded to include the files of clients and their relatives who had no place to put their stuff.  So I began to collect these.

Then it expanded to any collection that needed a home.

NOW, I want to solicit Kentucky genealogy and history books, magazines and periodicals, newspapers, family Bibles and their family data pages, wherever they are currently stored–WHEREVER THESE PRECIOUS RECORDS OF THE PAST ARE IN DANGER OF DESTRUCTION!

Gentle Readers–your Kentucky cannot be traced online alone.  Nor can it be traced in records currently on microfilm–there or in the Family History Library’s Granite-Mountain Storage Vaults alone.

My recent trip–when I couldn’t get to Kentucky, I stopped at the Midwest Genealogy Center, part of the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence MO.  This new genealogy facility is two-stories filled with ancestors.  I reviewed the Kentucky collection–and as good as it is–you can’t depend on it alone.

I also visited the Dallas Public Library Genealogy Collection on the 8th floor.  Newly re-organized to make searching and finding much more efficient and sure–and as good as it is–you can’t depend on it alone.

An interesting observation–every library has a different collection of Kentucky research materials.  It is the darndest thing!  Also an exciting discovery–by mixing and matching, you can trace a lot of genealogy.

So what is your favorite Kentucky genealogist to do?

Ask for donations–

1. From libraries running out of shelves.
2. From local genealogical societies who are willing to share copies of their quarterlies and the duplicates donated to them.
3. From specific genealogists and historians who have collected stuff over the years–that no one wants anymore in hard copy because “everything is being digitized and posted online.”
4. From map stores who replace their atlases and maps with new imagery and often dump their old-out-of-date maps because they are no longer current.
5. From government agencies who no longer have shelf room for inactive and non-current records they are not required by law to keep.

My Genealogy Library Center, Inc., is a non-profit facility, purchased especially to house such records.  (See my Home Page for a picture and description of collections already received–about to be updated with three times the entries.)

Please consider what Kentucky stuff you are not using and donate those items to the GLC.  You will provide a legacy for years to come.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle    http://arleneeakle.com

PS  At the Kansas City Family History EXPO 30-31 July 2010, I will compare KY lineages within my Southern States Curriculm–4 classes on Southern Ancestry?  You could come!

For many years my seminar presentation on American Migration Patterns has remained one the most popular sessions I offer.  And I separated out a section which I titled Migration into the Central United States which includes all those areas “west of ye Laurel Hills.”  (The Laurel Hills form a short boundary line in western Pennsylvania and Maryland. )   And that session has proven as popular as the more encompassing presentation.

Two or more  times a year you will find me somewhere speaking on these topics.  They are fun to do.  Not only do I get to share some of my choicest research examples,  there are always people in attendance who have an “Ah Ha!” experience during the session.  And head for home determined to capture their hardest-to-find ancestor with these new insights.

Now, to these presentations, I can add details that are finally documented by scholars who study why people of different ages and genders move.  Where they go.  What they do.  And when or if they are likely to return to their origins.  So here goes:

  Disclaimer:  Since I am writing this at the Family History Library without my list of references, you will have to tune in to the next episode for these).

1. Up to 45% of families enumerated in the census have persons living in their households who are not “father-mother-all the kids.”   And these persons are usually related by blood or marriage.  If your family has emigrated from Europe or the British Isles within the last two generations, these persons come from the same  local place of origin or nearby.
2. Young people, who are related by blood or marriage, form the first choice “work force”  regardless of occupation.   Relatives with a business to run seek young family members to build an employee base.  If your family is Scottish, they will only employ kin–they believe they have the capacity to control the honesty, the dependability, the focused commitment of the person hired.  Whether there is salary or just room and board along with training in specific skills–employee is tied to employer.
3. Women of all ages living  in someone else’s household–from as low as age 5 years–are related by blood, or marriage, or close community ties.  These ties remain constant over the lifetime of your ladies.  The census enumerator did not have to report relationship until the 1880 census.  Even then, there are females named in the household you can later  prove had a connection to those living in the family–whether you recognize their surnames as related to begin with or not.
4. Young children, generally under age 12, are related regardless of their names.  Even when you later find formal adoption papers–collateral relationships exist.
5. The average time for a family member to work without returning home, is one to five years.  Have you read the census every ten years, or even every five years where extra state and local censuses were taken, and found a gap?  Your ancestor is there, then gone, then there again, then gone.

These are just a few of the demographic trends that determine whether you put your family together correctly or not . 

Let the work of other professionals help you build a family tree based on the evidence–whatever that evidence is, or was, or whatever…

While it is true that more Kentuckians descend from Virginia than any other place–after all, Kentucky was a Virginia county– 

1. They also descend from North Carolinians–whole wagon-loads left Wilkes county and Burke county and settled in eastern Kentucky.  They went from one set of mountains to another to live.  And you can often name every person in the group because their names have been held in remembrance all these years or published in county histories and genealogical periodicals.
2. And Marylanders–central Kentucky became the home of Roman Catholics who no longer felt safe in Maryland.  These migrations are well-documented too.
3. And Pennsylvanians–who moved easily up the Potomac River drainage valleys.  Even today, You can travel more easily on the Interstate road system through those valleys than any other route into or out of Pennsylvania.  And the people who settled in the lower [Delaware] counties found their way into Pennsylvania first, then Kentucky second.
4. And New Yorkers–actually New York originally claimed some of the choicest parts of Kentucky among its western lands.  And sent its sons (and daughters) out West for new beginnings.   There is also a focused migration from the area of old Genesee county with offers of land exchanges, especially for Irish who sought a new life and new fortune.
5. And Vermonters–genealogists who always considered their pedigree to be pure South are shocked to discover that their origins are Vermont.  Vermont was (and in some ways still is) a difficult state to live in.  Your ancestor could leave the craggy mountains with too little area to farm and a harsh climate both summer and winter for the lush green-covered countryside of the Blue Grass–where horses could swish their tails unattended all year long.

When you analyze your pedigree for places of origin, don’t be mislead by the surnames you find there.  People from many backgrounds can share surnames.  And Americanized surnames can be espcially troublesome–for people from different origins can have the same name.  Or your ancestor could emigrate to America 100 years behind earlier relatives, and share the same naming patterns.  These ancestors present a special challenge.  And beware of genealogical studies that purport the same origins shared by the same names–many not be so!   Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle.   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  My next turn to speak on Migration into the Central United States is at the Southern California Jamboree, 11-13 June 2010.  You can join in the fun by registering at Jamboree 2010.  New this year–registration on Thursday evening, 10 June; bloggers and Google Earth mini-courses using your own laptops, free sessions and workshops as well as paid admission–and although not new, ME.

A few weeks ago, I consulted the early Kentucky land patents databases online.  And ran head-on into some of the most difficult problems of indexing records for digital recall.

1. Multiple spellings of surnames.  You know the importance of watching for other spellings of your surname of interest.  Anticipating those spellings enables you to search databases more completely.  And while some online programing, like Ancestry’s online census access, includes a variety of surnames alternates, some does not.
2. Indexing the principal parties in a document vs every-name indexes.  If one record series has an every-name index, do all the record series include every name?  When these indexes are merged into a single index, the gap may not be obvious.  It takes use to spot the problem.
3. Are multiple entries for the same name on the same page all individually indexed?  The typist may conclude that seeing the multiple names as they appear on the page is enough.  The index does not have to be expanded to a separate entry for each instance of the same name.

What the Kentucky government has done is extraordinary.  Twelve (12) different record categories are now indexed online:

__Kentucky Cities

__Virginia and Old Kentucky Patent Series (called Virginia Surveys                             and Grants)

__Revolutionary War Warrants

__West of Tennessee River (Jackson Purchase) Military Patents

__Certificates of Settlement and Preemption Warrants

__Virginia Treasury Warrants Database

__Lincoln Entries  (Lincoln County)

__County Court Order Patents

__Jackson Purchase Database

__West of Tennessee Non-Military Patents

__Wills included with Land Patent Files

__County Formations and Boundary Changes Database

And when you request a name in the search screen, the pages where that name appears are links.  When you clkick the links, the name you requested appears on the page highlighted in yellow for easy spotting.

Just be very careful that you request, separately,  all the different spellings for your surname of interest.

For example:  I requested Isaac Ruddell in the search screen.  Yellow highlights appeared  on two pages–as Isaac Ross and as Isaac Ruddell.

Then I requested Isaac Ruddle.  Yellow highlight appeared on one entry for Isaac Ruddle. Immediately above the Isaac Ruddle entry, was an entry for Isaac Ruddell, not highlighted.  Nor was it found in the Ruddell search.

Since the entries are alphabetical by surname, I then checked under the alpha spelling of Ruddle–Bingo!  Two more Isaac Ruddle entries that did not appear in the index search.  AND:  two entries for George Ruddle, one entry for James Ruddle, four entries for John Ruddle, Heirs of and listing James Ruddle & Heirs as the grantee for each of those four entries.  Also discovered were two entries for Cornelius Ruddell, in the alpha list for that spelling.

The four grantee entries for James Ruddle were lost–since they were not in the alpha section, where they could be easily retrieved.  And no entries appeared for Stephen Ruddle/Ruddell, although he was a resident of Woodford County KY where he died about 1800.

My recommendations:

1. Check under each and every spelling of your surname of interest.
2. Search the alpha arrangement to spot additional entries not yet found.
3. Note other persons named in the entries with your surnames.  And check each of their entries by index and by alpha arrangement.  Often, men had partners as they applied for land.

This way you have a greater chance of finding all the entries.  And when you are trying to fit everyone into family units eventually, you need everyone identified in the record series.

This is not a commentary meant to question the integrity of the indexes.  It is a commentary to ensure that you find all the entries that concern your ancestry.  Online indexing is an art, not a science.  So is research.  And you and I both need to invest extra time when we use digital indexes.

Too many genealogy/family conclusions are based on shallow use of indexes.  And those conclusions are too often faulty.  Break your losing streak!  Invest the time to find the entries.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I am planning a genealogy research trip into KY and TN the first week in May 2010–I have a conference in Dallas TX then and I will have time to do the research.  If you have research problem that you have not been able to solve–let me take a crack at it–in the field–in records you have had access to.  I am often able to get your research going again.  So let me know by email of your interest!

Question: What gives  sports greats like Michael Jordan and Ron Jaworski, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, their athletic value?  Why are they worth the gigantic contract payments they command?

Answer: “Muscle memory”–they have drilled their bodies in the same motion until their muscles (and other body parts) respond without conscious thought or deviation.  Jaworski threw the same pass, to master the perfect throw, more than 20,000 times!

The Utah Jazz, a basketball team who has fielded some incredible players, could never get it right.  There is a point in many games when, as a team,  they falter.  They tire.  They lose focus. They slow down.  And they lose.

In Kentucky genealogy research, “muscle memory” is needed–perhaps more than any other state.  The ability to recognize data gaps and determine which substitute sources and records will fill in the missing data must be honed to a science.  Not just an occasional show of brilliance; a constant, over and over understanding is required.

Kentucky ancestors are difficult to trace–

• through other Kentucky counties
• into and through North and South Carolina
• back to Virginia, and Maryland, and into Delaware, but mostly to Virginia.

Who are these ancestors?  Who flow like water cascading down a chasm into the mountain valleys of Eastern Kentucky?

In A Darkness at Dawn:  Appalachian Kentucky and the Future, Harry M. Caudill poses such a question. This is just a little book.  Part of the Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf published 1976 by the University of Kentucky Press in Lexington.  A small companion piece to his other perceptive studies of Kentucky:  Night Comes to the Cumberland, Dark Hills to Westward, and My Land is Dying.

Most of the family names that sound in the Kentucky hills today were already in America, mainly in Virginia, a full century before Thomas Jefferson took up his quill pen to write the Declaration of  Independence.

I am, of course, aware that many careful students, including the eminently respectable genealogist, William C. Kozee hold to the view that the Scotch-Irish is the predominant strain in Appalachia.  There is a possibility that they are right, but other evidence is against them.

Caudill makes a compelling argument:  the structured religion of the Scotch-Irish, accepted by covenant in Scotland and carried like a banner with these people through Ireland into America.  By the beginning of the Revolutionary War, one-sixth of the total population was of this stock, clinging passionately to their Presbyterianism.

Not so in eastern Kentucky.  When the tireless Presbyterian evangelist, E.O. Guerrant traveled through the Kentucky hills, he found 90% of the people unchurched! Although only 10% belonged to the Baptist faith, almost the entire population considered themselves to be Baptist.  Presbyterianism was nowhere to be found.

Another circumstance that argues against the notion of Scotch-Irish predominance among the settlers of Appalachian Kentucky was their persistent illiteracy.  The Ulstermen were, in the main, well schooled by the standards of the time, with a deeply rooted insistence on an educated clergy.

Few [Kentucky] counties had a school of any kind a half-century after settlers began to arrive. Notwithstanding the rough terrain and the distances between families, it is hard to suppose a populace strongly influenced by Scotch-Irish would have lapsed into the unrelieved illiteracy and general ignorance that gripped the region when the “mission teachers” began to arrive eighty years ago.

More than 90% of Scotch-Irish signed their names to documents, petitions, and other written instruments.  Few made a mark.

These circumstances reflect an original populace that was essentially rootless, deprived by their history of church, schooling, and other established cultural facets.  It was a populace that wanted mostly to be left alone and was significantly lacking in the ambition for worldly gain that drove the Scotch-Irish, Huguenots, and Germans, and later the Jews, from Europe’s ghettos.

What we need is more practice.  More study.  More in-depth contact with the ancestors who resided in eastern Kentucky, and whose descendants are still to be found there today.  So that we can recognize, with “cultural memory” just who these ancestors are and where they originate.  The last word for Appalachian Kentucky has not been written.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  My apologies for the gap in Kentucky blog entries:  My entire communications system failed in mid-September and was not restored until early December.  There is a lane along the edge of my property line.  It is being used by large construction equipment to re-build the county high school.  As nearly as we can figure out, a large machine took out the whole system.  My provider company had to re-run the line and supply a new modem.  Satellite television sets still do not work correctly.  So those modems may have to be replaced too.

PPS  A warning:  I live at the end of the world.  No kidding, I’m serious.  And the state-wide power company is installing a new power grid through the Northern part of the state of Utah–with power poles the likes of which we have never seen.  Objective:  to prevent power outages and brown-outs.  That will be wonderful.  Until it is all up and working well, we still have frequent outages.  So my system may fail again.  I will have a wireless laptop later this month–and it may be able to fill in.

Sometimes I feel a kinship with those worthy ancestors in Appalachian Kentucky!

Webmaster Kathryn here to let you know that’s why she’s missing in action.