Rockdale County GaArchives History .....Rockdale County Genealogical Society-Newsletter May 2006 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Larry C. Knowles http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00012.html#0002854 March 16, 2009, 6:59 pm JEANS & GENES Rockdale County Genealogical Society Publication-May 2006 __________________________________________________ May 21, 2006, Meeting The Rockdale County Genealogical Society will meet on Sunday, May 21, 2006, at 3:00 P.M. at the Nancy Guinn Memorial Library, 864 Green Street, Conyers, Georgia. This meeting is being held on the third Sunday this month because Mothers Day falls on the second Sunday. Our speaker will be Susan Sloan who will speak on "The Census Takers Tracks". The public is encouraged to attend. There is no attendance fee, however, donations are appreciated. _____________________________________________________________ Meeting Location Change for June, July, August, 2006 The Rockdale Genealogical Society will be meeting at the Family History Center of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints at 1275 Flat Shoals Rd. S. E., Conyers, Georgia during June, July, and August of 2006. This is made necessary by the construction of new additions to the Nancy Guinn Memorial Library which will be underway during this period. The library will be closed on Sundays during the construction. This is a temporary change for the Society. Hopefully, we will be back meeting at the library in September, 2006. We can all appreciate what this will mean for the library. It will be better able to serve us and the public with much needed improvements. We thank the Church for allowing us to use their facilities during this time. This will be an opportunity for us to become reacquainted with the History Center and the fine work which the Church has done to make their records available to the public. We may have come to take the Church’s availability for granted since it is so convenient to us. We need to let it be known that we appreciate their efforts. The Church is located on Flat Shoals Road between Hwy. 138 and Old Salem Road. [map graphic omitted] _______________________________________________________ 2006 Scheduled Speakers May 21 (3rd Sunday) - Susan Sloan “The Census Takers Tracks” jandssloan@mindspring.com June 11 - “Show off and Share Day” Society members share research and tips. July 9 - Dale Couch “Georgia State Archives” dcouch@sos.state.ga.us August 13 - Walter J. Freeman, Ph.d. “Using Your Genealogy Software to prepare a Manuscript for Publishing” sswjf@gmail.com September 10 - Ken Thomas, AJC Genealogy Columnist (topic to be determined) ktomjr@aol.com October 8 - Bill Freese “Using the Federal Census” billyfreese@cs.com __________________________________________________________________ Books Added to the Library Shelves Donated from the Late Joyce Bland’s Genealogy Library: Douglas County, Heritage of GA R 975.8243 Some Emigrants to Virginia Records of the Regiments of the S.C. Line in Rev. War GA R 975.734 REC South Carolina Wills GA R 975.7 MOO Henry Co. Ga. Marriage Records 1851-1900 Forsyth City Cemetery Vol. 1 Wilkes Co. Ga. The Story of Early Families Along the James River Handy Book for Genealogists 8th Ed. First Steps in Genealogy GA R 929.1 ALL Historical Families of Diemfreschires-??? Original Scots Colonists of Early America Colonists From Scotland - Emigration to N. Amer. The Scotch-Irish A Land Afflicted - Scotland & the Coventer ?? A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland Early Georgia Wills & Settlement of Estates - Wilkes Co. Cemetery Records - Fayette Co. GA R 975.8426 FAYETTE FAY Cemeteries in Monroe Co. Ga. & Vicinity 1830 Census of Meriwether Co. Coweta Co. Ga. Pioneers GA R 929.3758 COWETA COW Cemeteries of Taylor Co. GA R 975.8493 HAY Crawford Co., Ga., Wills of Ga R 975.8562 WIL Crawford Co. Ga. Federal Census 1830, 1840, 1850 Ga R 975.8362 HOW Marriage & Deaths from the Butler (GA) Herald 1876-1896 Ga R 925.848 WIN Meriwether Co. Ga. Marriage Records Vol. 1 GA R 929.3758 Crawford Co. Ga Marriage Records 1823-1899 GA R 975.3562 ______________________________________________________________ Other Books added to the Shelves: Union County, Ga. Images of America Ninety-Six The Confederate Constitution Ga. Counties: Their Changing Boundaries History of the Indians of the United States Land Afflicted Index to the N. C. Historical & Genealogical ? A Taste of War GA R 973.7 FOX Red Clay to Richmond Winston (Barnwell Co.) S.C. Minutes of County Court & Will Book 1783-171 N. C. Archives Research Genealogist Companion & Sourcebook Butlin? Families Series 1 - 5 North Carolina 1800 Census Index North Carolina 1820 Census Index Find Public Records Fast Barrow County Ga. Marriages 1915 - 1932 GA R 975.8195 BARROW BAR Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Atlanta Historical Society Rise Up So Early - Florence, S.C. GA R 975.784 KIN Maryland Marriages 1778 - 1800 GA R 929.3752 BAR Three Hundred Years Along the Pasquotank GA R 975.6185 PUQ Gwinnett Co., Ga. 1860 Census Ga R 929-3758 McDonald, John & His Descendants GA R 929-2097 Windsor, Conn. Some Early Records 1639 - 1703 Ga R 974.62 CON Smyrna News Items - Rockdale County, Ga. GA R 975.8215 Smy Beneath These Waters GA R 975.8724 KAN Fulton Co. Ga. World War I Draft Rec. GA R 975.823 COO ___________________________________________________________ Other Wars To Research Genealogists tend to forget that there have been other wars that their ancestors and relatives were involved in besides the Revolution, the Civil War, and those of the 20th Century. Besides the Indian Wars and the War of 1812, there were also the Seminole War and the Mexican War. The first group of Georgians who fought in Mexico during the conflict that lasted from 1846 to 1848 can be found in a list published in Rev. George White’s “Historical Collections of Georgia (1854)” which has been reprinted. On pages 115 through 120 Rev. White lists officers and privates who belonged to the “Georgia Regiment of Volunteers” mustering at Augusta, Columbus, Savannah, Macon, Sumter County, Pike County, Cobb County and Cherokee County. This list contains approximately 1,000 names. There were other units not mentioned by the Rev. White, such as one published in the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly Vol. 10, number 1, which lists volunteers from Newton County, not found in White. In 1887 Congress authorized pensions for Mexican War Veterans or their widows and the National Archives has an index both to pensions and service records related to this war. Anyone with an ancestor or his widow who survived past 1887 might want to check with the National Archives in Washington to see if they applied for a pension. (Thanks to Ken Thomas, “Ken Thomas on Genealogy” for this information) _______________________________________________________________ Pitfalls of Using Tombstone Inscriptions I thought this, nicked from alt.obituaries, is a good illustration of some of the perils of genealogical research, using monumental inscriptions. March 26, 2006 Sunday 7:01 AP Mike Branom Headstone naming Missouri boy sits in Gold Canyon Boys and mischief go hand-in-hand, but Leo Goldman is a special sort of troublemaker. Not every kid can throw a Gold Canyon neighborhood into an uproar 94 years after his death. For years, Leo’s 2-foot-tall granite headstone sat at Sandpointe Mobile Home and RV Park, a dusty plot of trailers and cactuses off U.S. 60. Nobody asked why Leo was buried there. Legend around the property said the 5-year-old was traveling with his family when a fatal illness struck. He died on Oct. 22, 1911, according to the stone. While the residents may not have been concerned with Leo’s history, they cared about his dignity. Doing what they could to maintain Leo’s resting place, the grave was surrounded with a split-rail fence, and residents would lay flowers and pull weeds at the plot. It seemed young Leo’s remains had found a peaceful home, just as his family hoped his soul had. His stone says, quoting Matthew 19:14, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And then hell broke loose. Last summer, before the property was sold to a California firm, people were alarmed to see a backhoe near the grave. There was digging, and the stone was moved to a fenced storage area, amid cinder blocks and assorted junk. As for Leo himself, Sandpoint’s upset residents wanted answers. Why was he dug up? On whose orders? Where were his remains? Unearthing Leo’s bones may have made him a crime victim, notwithstanding his long-ago death. State law makes it a crime to disturb human remains or funerary objects without permission of state history officials. While the aim is to protect prehistoric American Indian sites, experts said Leo would be covered. “By law, it is a violation,” said John Madsen of the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. “If anyone observed it, they should’ve reported it.” Residents said they kept quiet because they didn’t want to cause trouble with the new owners. As it turned out, it wouldn’t matter Cal-Am Properties, of Irvine, Calif., gave everyone 180-day notices of eviction in January. To answer the question of “What happened to Leo?” a good place to start is by asking “Who was Leo?” History’s first record of Leo Goldman occurs in 1910, when he appears on a census roll taken in St. Louis. He was the son of Solomon and Nellie Goldman. Brother Earl was six years older. Father supported the family by making shoes in a factory. Working backward, records show Solomon Goldman was born in 1879 in Jefferson City, Mo., to Prussian immigrants, and was the youngest of seven children. Mother Nellie Gibson was born in Texas, also in 1879. It isn’t known when Sol and Nellie married. The second and final appearance by Leo on an official document is Nov. 10, 1911. It’s his death certificate, filed with Pinal County after issuance by the Arizona Territorial Board of Health. Statehood is still three months away. Leo’s age is listed at 4 years, 10 months and 4 days. That puts his birthday in 1906, as confirmed by the census, and not a year earlier like his stone claims. Length of residence in the county is listed as “a few weeks.” The attending doctor, Ira E. Brown, states Leo died the night of Oct. 22 after a nine-day battle with diphtheria. It is a once-common respiratory disease now all but eradicated in developed nations. But listed under the Goldman’s address and Leo’s place of burial is Kelvin. Kelvin was a small mining community and stagecoach stop on the banks of the Gila River. Gold Canyon is 35 miles, as the crow flies, to the northwest. There is no known explanation why Leo’s body would’ve been moved. Upon further examination, the hole that was Leo’s grave is matched by holes in Leo’s legend. If Sol Goldman was a cobbler working in a here-today, gone-tomorrow mining town, how could he afford such a nice headstone for his son? The old cemetery in Kelvin, seen in a photo by Pinal historian Eddie Peed, shows a typical marker a rough-hewn wooden cross, painted white. If Leo was Jewish, as evidenced by his surname and Prussian heritage, why does his stone carry a verse from the New Testament? And why does the stone show little sign of aging despite exposure to Arizona's elements for more than nine decades? The answer is, because Leo never was buried at Sandpointe. Geff Gunsalus said he knows that for certain. As Sandpointe's former property manager, he's the man who oversaw the excavation of Leo's "grave." As Gunsalus explained recently, before the property was sold last August, Cal-Am declared they wanted Leo gone. Cal-Am refused comment on why. That left Gunsalus with the responsibility of determining how to move Leo. He called funeral homes and historians, he said, until the Arizona Department of Health stumped him with an obvious question: What evidence do you have he's buried there? Health officials instructed him to dig up the grave and if he saw bones, stop immediately and call the sheriff's office. The bones will be calcified, he was told, so they'll be easy to spot. So, the backhoe "dug and dug and dug," Gunsalus said. The hole went 7 feet down and 5 feet out in all directions. "And there was nothing there." Had Leo been found in that plot, Gunsalus planned to move him to an Apache Junction cemetery. Meanwhile, historians brought to the site cast a wary eye on the stone. Ninety years old? Hardly, they said to Gunsalus. It probably dates back to the 1960s or 50s. But who would create a fake tombstone? Gunsalus said the property's old-timers, never believing there was a body, told him it may have been the work of a long-ago owner, Ed Kosak. "You have to know Ed," they said. Kosak, in his 80s, lives in Apache Junction. He did not return messages seeking comment. Hopefully, he won't take the true story of Leo Goldman to his grave. Steve Hayes E-mail: hayesmstw@hotmail.com (see web page if it doesn't work) Web: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/ _____________________________________________________________________ How to Find Cemeteries Using the WEB Cemeteries can be hard to find. They are often hard to find on maps. Modern technology offers an answer to this problem. The United States Geographic Survey Web Site located at: will give you information on more than just towns through its Geographic Names Information System Query Form In fact, you can type in the name of the cemetery and then be given the county, state, type of feature, latitude,longitude, and USGS map for each entry in the GNIS database that meets your search criteria. The Latitude and Longitude will help you pin down the exact location of the cemetery and also give you driving directions to the cemetery. This information is available on MapBlast The Latitude and Longitude must be entered with a period after the second digit in order for MapBlast to use it correctly. You also need to drop the “N” for north or “W” for west for example. You need to give MapBlast a starting point in order for it to be able to provide point by point directions to the cemetery destination. This information and much more is available in “Your Guide to Cemetery Research” by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack which is on the shelves in the Special Collections Room at the Nancy Guinn Memorial Library. GA R 929.CAR The book was donated by Mr. & Mrs. Thomas V. Cartwright in appreciation of Bob Phillips’ Genealogical Research in their behalf. __________________________________________________________________ JEANS & GENES is a publication of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society. % Nancy Guinn Library, 864 Green St. SW, Conyers, Ga. 30012 President: Norman Swann V. President: Bill Freese Treasurer: Jackie Smith Secretary: Jane Conn Program Chairman: Sherry Pierce Membership Chairman: Gerre Byrd Membership Committee: Norma Owens Membership Committee: Jenel Ship Trip Coordinator: Martha Brown Board Member: Bertha Little Newsletter: Marion T. Farmer 1500 A. Pine Log Rd NE Conyers, GA. 30012 mtf@mindspring.com http://mtf.home.mindspring.com _______________________________________________ Additional comments: This back issue of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society newsletter has been copied with permission from the personal website of editor, Marion Farmer, as his website is nearing capacity. For simplicity the few photos or graphics have not been included here. Websites previously linked from Marion’s site will not be operative here. Sites that are still active may be found by entering their listed URLs. 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