52 Ancestors - Week 19 - At the Library

52 Ancestors – WEEK 19 – At the Library

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

I love libraries. I have tried as a professional genealogist to visit as many libraries, particularly in my local area of Kansas City, Missouri as I can. We are so fortunate to have the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, arguably one of the premier research facilities in the United States. But I love our other libraries as well.

The Mid-Continent Public Library system and the Johnson County Library across the state line are both excellent sources of not only books, but online resources, DVD's, audiobooks, computer work stations and rooms available to individuals and small groups to use for homework or meetings.

One library branch, Green Hills, has a wonderful children's play are with a small kitchen and they have several story times throughout the week. There is also a full chef's kitchen and classes are offered to all age groups. Finally, there is a coffee shop/cafe where patrons can use the internet and enjoy a chat with friends or a "work remote" situation.

Don't leave libraries out of your game plan if you are doing family history research.

52 Ancestors - Week 13 - 2025 - Home Sweet Home

52 Ancestors – WEEK 13 – Home Sweet Home

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

My son and his wife recently shopped for and bought a new house. They had been in the older one for almost thirteen years, and in that time frame I have moved and lived in 4 different houses. I moved not because I was itching for a change, but because circumstances (jobs, commute, number of step-children needing space, etc.).

I have had a lot of time to reflect on "home". Home is where you hang your rucksack. I have had to make myself "at home" in a trailer at the edge of an airfield in Kuwait and in a motorhome overlooking a small lake while I worked as a contractor in another state.

Each time I try to have a very few small items that make wherever I am "home". Often it is a favorite coffee cup or pillow. I always have photos of loved ones and for a long time I carried around a little flag of the US to put in a pencil holder on my desk or dresser. But primarily I brought memories of home. Those parts of our heart that nothing can take away.

The memory of our mother in the kitchen making dinner while we did our homework at the kitchen table. The smell of freshly bleached sheets when you crawled between them after a long day playing out in the sun. The Christmas season, laying on the living room floor going through the Sears toy catalog longing for gifts we dreamed of.

Later as an adult, the memory of bringing our son home from the hospital and celebrating wedding anniversaries and birthdays with each person's favorite meal and cake. I have lived in a LOT of places. I have had a LOT of furniture. But it is the abundance of wonderful memories of love, laughter, and family that make my "Home Sweet Home".

52 Ancestors - Week 10 - 2025 - SIBLINGS

52 Ancestors – WEEK 10 – Siblings

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

I come from a fairly large family--six children. Well today that is a large family, back then it was pretty normal. My brothers and sisters and I had a great time growing up together. There were 3 girls and 3 boys. The birth pattern was girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, and boy. Mom always told people about that. When my oldest sister Deb was 15, the youngest Scott was born. They never really knew each other until adulthood. Deb was off in college, married, and raising children while Scott was finishing high school.

One of my favorite memories of childhood was us playing "City". We usually played on a rainy day or exceptional hot afternoon in East Point, Georgia ( a suburb of Atlanta). I was a middle child but took on the role of "leader" and assigned everyone a position in our little city's businesses. It is interesting to reflect back now and see how prophetic the jobs we took played a part in our future careers.

Older sister Deb and brother David were usually not involved. Deb was down in her basement bedroom reading college level books as a teenager. She went on to own a bookstore and become an early pioneer in computer coding working for large companies like Target. Today she writes for a local newspaper https://southsidepride.com/columnists/debra-keefer-ramage/ in the Minneapolis suburbs.

David was an avid Scout and self-taught photographer. He worked at an early age as a newspaper delivery boy. He liked to build things. His careers included service in the Army/Army National Guard and teaching at the college level in the theater department all things set design, lighting, and sound. Article from David's career

I would always want a "shop" that sold clothes, or to be the Librarian and card catalog all our children's books. I created a "check out" method using 3 X 5 cards taped inside the book jackets. As the natural born leader, I ended up serving 26 years in the Army as well (active and Reserve) and started numerous business ventures in my lifetime including renovating and managing rental properties, buying and selling antiques, consulting with businesses on computer skills, and eventually owning a leadership consulting business that supported Army programs. Today I am a professional genealogist, telling the story of mine and others families. Cynthia Keefer Patton - Genealogist

My little brother Kevin always played the banker, with his Monopoly money tray on the back of the toilet and he would sit backwards and wait for us to come withdraw and deposit funds for our businesses. He didn't follow that path, but his gentle nature and love of others resulted in him becoming an EMT and Fire Chief. Kevin's Obituary

My younger sister Denise always played the teacher. And lo and behold after many years of education and earning her Doctorate she is currently the Provost at the University of Alaska. Denise at UAA

Finally, little brother Scott always wanted to run the restaurant. In true nature, he became a chef and worked for many years in the that field. Today he does IT work for a large company, and manages the Gift of Music https://giftofmusic.org/about/, an organization that provides musical instruments to children and is co-founder of Authenticity Theater https://www.authenticitytheater.org/about/, which he and wife Sasha started to produce shows that tackled difficult subject matter.

I am super proud of all my siblings and cherish our relationships. We were a tight knit group because we lived far from all our other relatives in Pennsylvania and New York. Our time play-acting in the little city we created prepared us well for the outside world.

52 Ancestors - Week 7 - 2025 - LETTERS & DIARIES

52 Ancestors – WEEK 7 – Letters & Diaries

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

We kept a family daily diary when my husband Shephard Patton, Sr. and I owned a farm and were building our life and family together. We called our place “Shady Oaks.” We started recording the diaries in 1983 and they were something I purchased called “Our Old-Fashioned Country Diary”. It had a place for us to write about our expectations, record family events. I used it almost like a family bible. We also recorded the weather, the passing of friends and neighbors, hurricanes, crop losses, and the addition of cattle to our herd. We wrote in these for over 25 years and only stopped when my husband was battling terminal cancer.

 

For many years I kept these in two banker’s boxes and carried them from house to house when I moved after relocating to the Kansas City area. Recently I decided I should try and transcribe them. I wanted to turn them into something I could easily share with others, while not losing the intent and integrity of the original diaries.

As I transcribed I added footnotes, introducing each new character and providing background to the daily entries. I found photos or illustrations when I could. This was a labor of love. Only one diary took me several weeks to complete.

I hope to find the time each year to continue transcribing other diaries until the set is complete and then I can donate the file to the Gulfport Historical Society and some other repositories where people named in our diaries resided.

Here is a sample of my transcription of the first few pages of the first diary:

52 Ancestors - Week 1 -2025 - In the Beginning

52 Ancestors – WEEK 1 – In the Beginning

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

In the beginning of my genealogy journey my husband had just lost his mother and he wanted to search more diligently for her ancestors and his birthfather, that he had been estranged from since his was a baby.

I sat by his side at the local LDS Genealogy Room requesting films using the Soundex forms and returned for our allotted appointments to review the rolls and rolls of film for people with the names BAILEY (B400) or HAMNER (H560), KEEFER (K160) or MAHANNA (M500).

Today there is a nifty converter to help us determine the Soundex if we still have a need for it.

https://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/SoundEx1/SoundEx1.shtml#SoundExConverter

Once he determined that a lot of original vital records would be in Barnwell, South Carolina for his Bailey family, we were off on a journey. We took our Chevrolet van, or less than willing ten-year-old son and mapped out where we needed to visit. There we found a wealth of information about his forefather—Samuel Johnston Bailey, born in 1783 in Charlotte County, Virginia and died on Valentine’s Day in 1862 in Barnwell, South Carolina.

We went to the South Carolina to libraries and archives. We searched books and papers. We did get a xerox copy of Samuel Bailey’s will and discovered that he was a doctor and others in his family had been lawyers.

Today, with just the click of the mouse I can review the 1850 census and learn more about this family that my late husband sought so hard to discover. Another few clicks and I happened upon the 1850 census for Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia[1] where son Samuel Johnston, Jr. was with his new little family after the death of his first wife during childbirth.

First I want to say, OMG what beautiful handwriting the census taker had. Would be that ALL census enumerators had that kind of penmanship. I studied the entries and transcribed what I found.

    Samuel J. Bailey, 29, a timber merchant, born in Barnwell District, South Carolina

    Georgiana H Bailey, 20, his wife from Mississippi with land a value of $5000 [she had the money in this relationship]

    Sarah, 5 ½ born in Barnwell. This is Georgiana’s stepdaughter

    Elizabeth, 3, born in Barnwell. Her mother Elizabeth Ann Trotti died giving birth to her on 13 Oct 1856.[2]

    Anderson B. Bailey, 1 3/12, born there in Savannah, Georgia.

A younger, far less experienced genealogists would have missed all those clues. The fact that Georgiana was likely too young to be Sarah’s mother. And that it was her that had wealth, not Samuel the head of household. He had travelled from South Carolina back to Mississippi to get and marry Georgiana after losing his young wife. My new research question is: When and where did Samuel J. Bailey, Jr. meet his future wife Georgiana Bean from Maben, Mississippi?

So, in the beginning I was curious and eager to do genealogy research. Now I am more confident and ready to revisit the work done by my late husband and bring it up to the Genealogy Standards.

 [1] 1860, U.S. census, Chatham County, Georgia, population schedule, Savannah, District 1 p.1 (penned), dwelling 1, family 1, Samuel J Bailey; digital image, (http://ancestry.com: accessed 2 Jan 2025); citing National Archives microfilm M653, roll 115.

[2] Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18750337/elizabeth-t.-bailey: accessed December 10, 2024), memorial page for Elizabeth Trotti Bailey (-1856), Find a Grave Memorial ID 182750337, citing Barnwell Baptist Church Cemetery, old Barnwell, Barnwell County, South Carolina, USA; Maintained by Wimsang (contributor 47338429).

52 Ancestors - Week 52 - Resolution

 52 Ancestors – WEEK 52 – Resolution

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

Here we are at the end of this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. I feel good about my participation. I ended up posting 27 blogposts. I learned a lot. I cried a lot. I had to think twice about what I posted taking into consideration of living relatives.

I definitely expanded my research. I reached a larger audience of genealogy clients and friends. I am happy I have left albeit a small footprint in the forever web of stories. I hope they still exist in some form 50 years from now, but who knows. Where were we 50 years ago in terms of the types of media we used to share our stories?

My resolution for the year 2025 is to continue this journey, but with a little moderation. I will pick my favorite prompt each month and write 12 blogposts.

My second resolution is to shift away from client work and focus on my own family story--making me the client.

My third resolution is to continue seeking ways to preserve and share our family stories with repositories and historical societies in the areas that our family came from.

My wish for everyone is a Happy and Prosperous New Year and much success in tracing your family roots and telling their remarkable stories.

 

52 Ancestors - Week 50 - Chosen Family

52 Ancestors – WEEK 50 – Chosen Family

By Cynthia Keefer Patton 

I am the lucky, lucky mother of an adopted son. Our chosen family. When I tried for 10 years to conceive, but suffered two ectopic pregnancies, tubal repair surgery, and attempts at in-vitro, my late husband and I arrived at the conclusion that we would add to our family through adoption.

Of course we had worries. What if the child didn't love us? What if we didn't love them? What if our family didn't accept this child? Would my husband feel differently than about his two biological children?

I was young and headstrong and nothing could deter me through the process. There was a lot of paperwork, costs for healthcare for the bio mother. Legal documents, waiting, heartache, and more waiting. Part of our journey including allowing another pregnant girl to live in our home for three months as she awaited the childbirth. This kept the costs down overall for all the adoptive parents working with our private agency.

We were blessed to get to know a wonderful young woman and watch her life altering decision to give her little girl to a waiting couple. It allowed us to see all sides of the process. 

I prayed on New Year's Day of 1988 that my dream to become a mother would be fulfilled that year. In anticipation and with faith I furnished a nursery and bought tiny baby clothes. I kept this close to my heart, not sharing with many others. The girl living with us gave birth in early September and not five days later after we said goodbye to her at the bus station, we got the call that our child--a baby boy--had been born.

He would have had to have been conceived late December or perhaps even New Year's Eve. God is good and there are no mistakes. My chosen family grew to include his lovely wife, my sweet grandchild, my daughter-in-law's mother, and so many more people.

PS I couldn't have loved anyone more, his father adored him, and he has been a total blessing in my life.