The 1800's Were Dangerous Times

Through my genealogy research, I've discovered that the 1800's were dangerous times, which kind of surprised me. I mean, we're talking southern Alabama here, not the untamed wild west, right? Or at least that's what I thought...

For one poor soul, his final exit was undertaken by the fine folks down at Clio Furniture (of Clio, Alabama), who not only sold some pretty fine furniture, but had a fair price for a funeral as well.

One (two?) of my favorite deaths so far is that of a woman named Jessie and the local sherrif. From what I've been able to glean, there was a bit of a land dispute between Jessie and a neighbor, so the sherrif came out to settle things. As it turned out, Jessie took issue with the sherrif on some point or another, and she shot him. Apparently this happened right about the time he shot her.

As it turns out for Joe Barrus, late of Barbour County, Alabama, 1827 was a particularly dangerous year because the cause of death listed on his death certificate was "shot by wife". Now you just know that if he'd listened to her just a little more often, then she wouldn't have had to shoot his sorry ass, right? Even way back then southern women didn't take any crap.

Yes, I Know, I Suck

Yesterday it was about 70 degrees here, a beautiful, sunny, warm day. This morning I woke up and it was snowing, with about 4 inches already on the ground, and the high temperature is supposed to be 32. Since this drastic weather change messes up any plans I might have had outside of the house (I didn't really have any plans like that, but in case I had, they'd now be ruined) and I really don't want to spend my day cleaning the inside of the house, I decided to blog so that I wouldn't disappoint the sole person who's subscribed to it. (See, I don't even know who you are, and I'm blogging just for you! :) ) Like I said, I know, I suck for not posting more consistently.

I'm still into the ancestry thing, and am having a blast. I've actually been in touch with a real, live relative who I'm related to from about 10 generations ago. Of course, I wouldn't know her if I ran her over with my car, but it's kind of cool to discover just how big my little world is. It turns out that the Riley side of the family is actually from England and not Ireland, as I'd thought, so now I can't go around touting the 'I'm full-blooded Irish' bit anymore which sucks, but whatever. I've traced the Riley side back to about the 1400's in England, but some of the dates are incorrect on the info I have. For example, someones child is born before his/her mother was born. That would be kind of cool, don't you think, if it were true, but I'm fairly certain that kind of thing is physiologically impossible. Anyway, I've upgraded my membership on the website to being able to look at documents from all over the world so I plan on figuring all that stuff out and making sure that what I do have is correct.

Hunter turns 11 tomorrow and is disgustingly excited about getting older. I guess at the age of 11 that's okay, but I gotta tell ya that at the age of 38, I'd be pretty content if I quit having birthdays. Wait, I don't really have birthdays anymore; I have anniversaries of birthdays. So that means that in August, I'll have my 19th anniversary of my 20th birthday, which is, in my not so humble opinion, much better than having another birthday.

Who Am I and Where Did I Come From?

A few weeks ago, I got a junk email from Ancestry. com, and instead of adding it to my junk pile like I would normally do, I actually clicked on the link. I figured what the hell. After a recent visit from my cousin, who I hadn't seen in over 10 years, I began to wonder a bit about where I came from and how I became me. There are some pretty obvious answers to those questions, and one of them begins with "When a man and a woman are really in love...", but that's not quite what I mean.

Once my mother died, I kind of lost touch with her side of the family. I guess that's as much my fault as it is theirs, so no blame shall be laid on that doorstep. But I do have questions about both sides of the family and unfortunately, those who might have been able to answer them are no longer around. So, blah, blah, blah, I went to Ancestry.com and plugged in what little information I knew. Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit - there are actually other people related to me! And they're out there in cyberspace!

I've found out a couple of interesting facts; the first one being that one of my ancestors on the Blake side of the gene pool came over to America from Ireland (okay, lots of them came from there), only to quite literally run off and join the circus, or at least run off with a man who was part of a circus. The other interesting tidbit I learned was that my great-grandmother on the Riley side was one of 11 children and apparently not a single one of them ever moved away from southern Alabama. EVER. FOR ANY REASON.

According to my father, one of my great-grandmother's brothers, Billy, was about as nutso as the day is long. I'm really going to see if I can find documentation to prove that, because I'd love to pin my crazy days on some long lost ancestor. ;)

Now, there is one little and potentially scary drawback to all this geneology stuff. The other night, just a couple of days after I discovered there are a bunch of potential southern cousins - way far removed, of course - Kenin and I were watching a show on Tru TV about the beach patrol in Panama City Beach, FL, which is a favorite exotic destination for those in south Alabama. Lo and behold, there was a redneck (I can call him this because he had a mullett haircut and it was obvious from the look of it that the old Billy Ray Cyrus was a hero to this guy) who was wearing rebel flag swimming trunks. Because he was, well, a dumbass, he decided to flash his rear to the beach patrol officer. Naturally, the officer wrote him a ticket and impressed upon him the importance of leaving his home in Luverne (pronounced Lu-vern), Alabama, and returning to Panama City for his court appearance. Now, it just so happens that Luverne is really, really, really close to Greenville, where my mothers family was from and it occurred to me that THIS COULD BE MY RELATIVE.

Maybe this geneology thing isn't so great after all.