Wordless Wednesday - Virginia Faye Spurlock

Virginia Faye Spurlock

1936 - 2001

(my half-first cousin, once removed)

© 2013 Denise Spurlock

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - How Many Children/Grandchildren in Your Birth Surname Line?

Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings.com has provided this exercise for this week’s fun:

1. Consider your Birth Surname families - the ones from your father back through his father all the way back to the first of that surname in your family group sheets or genealogy database.  List the father's name, and lifespan years.
2. Use your paper charts or genealogy software program to create a Descendants chart (dropline or graphical) that provide the children and their children (i.e., up to the grandchildren of each father in the surname list).
3. Count how many children they had (with all spouses), and the children of those children in your records and/or database.  Add those numbers to the list.  See my example below!  [Note: Do not count the spouses of the children]
4. What does this list of children and grandchildren tell you about these persons in your birth surname line?  Does this task indicate areas that you need to do more research to fill out families and find potential cousins?
5. Tell us about it in your own blog post, or in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+.

Here's my Spurlock line!

Ransom Spurlock (1807-1896) had 10 children and 62 grandchildren

• Three children had no offspring
• One child had 19 children
• Remaining six children had an average of just over seven children each

John F. Spurlock (1850-1945)

John Fedrick Spurlock (1850-1945) had 19 children and 63 grandchildren

• Two children did not live to adulthood
• Remaining children averaged 3.7 children each

Jasper Jackson Spurlock, Sr. (1876-1940) had 4 children and 7 grandchildren

• One son had no children
• Other three children had an average of 2.3 children
• Other two sons had only daughters

Jasper Jackson Spurlock, Jr. (1912-1978) had 3 daughters and 7 grandchildren

• Three daughters had an average of 2.3 children

With the exception of my great-grandfather John F. Spurlock, family size seems to be about average for the time periods in which each man lived.

I have researched my Spurlock lines fairly well. Several of Ransom's children died before their children reached adulthood; widows remarried and information is scarce on a couple of the families. I continue to conduct descendancy research on a fairly regular basis, picking up bits and pieces of information about the collateral families.

My father had only daughters, so my own Spurlock line has "daughtered out" with no male children to carry the surname forward.

© 2013 Denise Spurlock

Wordless Wednesday - Edward Harold Crawley

Edward Harold Crawley

1908 - 2004

(my first cousin, once removed)

© 2013 Denise Spurlock

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Semi-Random Research

Randy Seaver, of Geneamusings.com, has provided the following mission for this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

1. We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...what is your first name? [This is the easy part!]
2. Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the first person in your alphabetical name index is with a surname starting with the first two letters of your first name (e.g., my first name is RAndall, so I'm looking for the first person with a surname starting with RA).  [If there are no surnames with those first two letters, take the surname after that letter combination.]
3. What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!
4. How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?
5. Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

This semi-random research mission has provided me with source citations for information in my genealogy database. Here's how I got them!

1. My given name is Denise.
2. The first person in my database with a surname beginning with “De” is John Richard Dean, born on 29 May 1865 in Arkansas, and died 5 March 1956 in Polk County, Missouri. I am not related to this individual; according to my database, he was the husband of my 2^nd cousin 4 times removed Mary Isabella Hammontree.
3. Since there are no sources listed for any of the information about John Richard Dean or Mary Isabella Hammontree, it’s clear that I entered this information as a “newbie genealogist” before I realized the need for accurate source citations.
4. I did find a photograph of John and Mary’s grave marker on Findagrave which includes full dates of birth and death for each of them.
5. I did not locate a record to verify their marriage on 26 November 1886 in Greene County, Missouri. However, I did find a census record for John R. Dean in the 1900 census with his wife Belle and four children. The birth information for John and Belle is consistent with the information on the tombstones; the enumerator noted that they had been married 14 years which is consistent for an 1886 marriage.
6. My genealogy database now includes the source citations for the information found! Yay!

© 2013 Denise Spurlock

Wordless Wednesday - Jewell Florance Spurlock

Jewell Florance Spurlock

1915-1997

(my grandfather's half-sister)

© 2013 Denise Spurlock

Wordless Wednesday - Gus Hobson Spurlock

Gus Hobson Spurlock

1899-1968

(my grandfather's half-brother)

© 2013 Denise Spurlock