Celebrating Irish Heritage (Random pics from the Dublin Irish Festival)

Well, it's been months since my blog has been visited, but today's a slow day, and after taking a break for a while, the genealogy bug is biting again! I actually started this post back in September, but had trouble getting pictures to load, so I thought I'd better get this post up before moving on to meatier things! I hope you enjoy!
On August 7 and 8, I made my first trip to Dublin, Ohio's Irish Festival. The festival actually began on the 6th, and my best-y (along with her sister) went down the first night. I had another commitment on Saturday morning, so I joined my friend (her sister had already headed back home) that afternoon. I had heard about the festival for a couple of years, but had no idea how large it was... or how much fun it would be! In the 30 some hours I was there, there was no end to the good music, dance, story telling - I even attended an Irish "wake" (I say that in quotes because you couldn't feel too badly for the passing of the stuffed character they had laid out inside the tent!) Here are some random pictures, and hopefully a video or two if I can get them to upload, of the weekend I spent celebrating my heritage:


I got to meet up with the younger generation of Malone cousins!



Enter the Haggis!



Men in kilts! (There were many... and some looked better than others! *grin*)



Dancers!



Girsha - these gals were great!



The Clancy Legacy, for those who enjoy more traditional Irish tunes.



I didn't get to see Gaelic Storm, since they performed on Friday evening, but I was happy to discover Scythian... talk about a high octane performance! These guys were a ton of fun!






And the crown jewel of the weekend... meeting St. Patrick himself! Ha Ha!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - I Write Like...

I had been seeing comments on other blogs I follow about "Genea-Musings" but I just recently subscribed for myself. I guess each Saturday night, there is a fun challenge posted, and as usual I'm a day late and a dollar short, but I thought I'd participate.
The gist of last night's challenge was as follows:
1. Find something you have written that you are really proud of. Copy it.
2. Go to the website http://iwl.me/ and paste your text into the box.
3. Tell us what famous author you write like.

Well, I'd say my best written work would be some children's stories I've written, but I didn't have access to those at the moment. Instead, I chose one of my better blog posts to copy and paste. You can reference that post here.

And as for the analysis:

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Oh yeah... I write like a proper Irishman! HeeHee In case you don't know much about James Joyce, here's a mini biogrpahy.

Reflections on the 4th

What a terrible blogger I am! It's not that I've slacked off on my research, on the contrary, I've made some very notable discoveries of late, but having the time to sit down with a clear head, and blog about these finds... well, that's where I'm having problems!

However, today being the 4th, and everyone's minds being on all things American, I've been thinking about the number of ancestors I've had who quite literally fought for the freedoms that we so take advantage of, and often abuse. I've thought about my Mayflower grandfather, William Brewster, who helped forge a new nation; my frontiersman grandfather, Richard Malone, who came to Ohio when it was still considered wilderness. Then there's James Hamilton Cummons, the confederate soldier, who ended up fighting for the union army.

I recently came across this photo from the Library of Congress website. It's description was as follows: Washington, Disctrict of Columbia, Hancock's Veterans Corps on F Street, NW Washington, DC. 1st US Volunteer Infantry.


You can see a larger version of the image here at the Library of Congress.

You can imagine my thrill when I looked at this picture at thought, "It is very possible that my great, great, GREAT grandfather is staring back at me from somewhere in this picture." This picture was taken in March of 1865, and according to muster rolls, James wasn't mustered out until July of '65. If you remember from an earlier post, the 1st US Volunteer Infantry was also known as the Galvanized Yankees. These were men who had enlisted in the confederate army, been captured, and sometime after being taken to a union prison camp, swore allegience to the north, and were placed far away from the war, usually in western forts.

James was just 17 when he enlisted, possibly the son of an Irish immigrant, but when the call came, he answered. I could go on listing grandfathers who fought in the Great War, and World War II, uncles who fought in Korea and Vietnam. Just in my own family tree, there are dozens of men and women who fought, struggled, and died to make a home in America. I hope and pray I never abuse those freedoms they held so dear.

Surname Saturday (on Sunday) - McCutcheon

Not only has my mind been on the McCutcheon surname this Saturday, it's something I've been looking into all week long, and I'm amazed at how this once neglected branch of my tree has just blossomed! Thanks to my new friend and distant cousin, Sarah of mccutchentrace.org I have more information than I could have dreamed possible.

To begin with, let me show you how I fall in line with the McCutcheon name:

My grandpa has always encouraged me to learn more about his mother's family, the Sprouses and McCutcheons, but I always put them on the back burner. However, a couple of weeks ago, I came across a picture, and a document that sparked my interest, and started my journey.

This picture is of my great grandmother, Bessie Virginia Sprouse, sitting with HER mother, Sarah Catherine (Sallie) McCutcheon Sprouse.

Great Great Grandmother Sallie died in 1964, so this picture could quite possibly be one of the last she had taken.

But who was she? What was her legacy? I had heard stories about circumstances in her life, that made me believe she was a strong woman, one who deserved to be remembered and honored, and as the self-appointed family genealogist, it was my duty to start digging in.

The other source of information that intrigued me was a one page memoir my grandfather gave me, written by a Henry Lee McCutcheon. I knew that this man must have been related to Sallie in some way, for this memoir to come into our possession, and hopefully some of the contents in it could give me a lead into Sallie's family. (These memoirs are saved to my ancestry.com page, and you can read them here.)

To make a long blog post short, it didn't take me long to come across the mccutchentrace.org, and now not only can I begin getting to know Sallie, but also many generations before her. And since this is a surname post (although on Sunday, rather than the geneabloggers suggested Saturday!), I will end by giving you an overview of the McCutcheons of Augusta County, Virginia, Sallie's birthplace. This information was given to me by Ms. Sarah Splaun of mccutcheontrace.org:

Surname Saturday - Malone

Ah yes, yet another one of my Irish surnames that just magically appeared in America; this one in Ohio. From what I've gathered, my ancestor, Richard Malone (1790-1841) was somewhat of a frontiersman, which possibly explains why the records trail ends with him. But that's a story for another day.

About the surname Malone itself... there are many places on the web where the origins of the Malone name is explained.

Ó Maoileoin, literally grandson (or descendant) of the follower of John (possibly Saint John), is the original Irish form of this name and though originally anglicised as O Malone, we have here a name which is never found with its Gaelic prefix, the form Malone being the exclusive modern form of the name. The sept is a branch of the royal O Connors of Connacht who derive their name from Conchobhar (died 971), King of Connacht. The original Maoileoin from whom the clan takes its name was said to be a nephew of Roderic O Connor, the last Celtic monarch of Ireland. The main family of Malone was for centuries associated with the Abbey of Clonmacnoise, to which they furnished many abbots and bishops, for Clonmacnoise was for a time an independent See before being united with Ardagh. In the early Middle Ages, Clonmacnoise was the great centre of Christian scholarship by the River Shannon, south of Athlone.

You can read more about the Malone surname here .

On last year's glorious trip to Ireland, I found some Malones in Wicklow...



...and also in Clifden...

Follow Friday - 13 tips...

When I first started blogging a couple of months back, I started following another blogger, mainly because they were digging into Irish genealogy. Today, she shared a great post that I'd like to give props to for Follow Friday. You can read the post, "13 Tips +1 for conducting research in Ireland", on her blog, "On a Flesh and Bone Foundation: An Irish History"

Thanks for a great post, Irish Eyes.

My Workman Line - An Overview

My paternal grandmother is Nellie Joyce Tomblin Cummons. Her parents were Ebb Tomblin and Mary Workman. Mamaw Mary was the sweetest, most generous, hardworking woman I've ever known. She was a farm wife, working hard on the family's dairy farm in southern Ohio. I know everyone has had one of those grandmother's who can read minds, and Mamaw Mary was no exeception: "Put a sweater on. You're freezing!" "Eat another helping of (insert food item cooked in lard), you're still hungry!"
Much of my vocabulary was learned from Mamaw Mary. When a cool autumn breeze gave a sudden chill, Mamaw would say, "Boozy!" You never wore your farm clothes into town, because you didn't want to look "Jakey". And if you needed to be somewhere, but were running a bit behind, you'd be there "D'reckly".
In 1990, our family lost Mamaw Mary, and we couldn't imagine life without her. I was just 16 at the time, and it's only now, twenty years later, that I've began to wonder about Mary Workman Tomblin before she was a sweet, grey-haired old lady. So my search has started. Hopefully over the next few posts, I'll be able to share some of the history I've learned about Mamaw, and also her mother, Inez Dempsey. But for now, here's a look at the Workman line, as discovered through ancestry.com:

Wordless Wednesday: Cottage at Bunratty Castle and Folk Village, Ireland

Monday Madness - More Computer Misery!

Oh, the joys of technology! Just when I was getting used to being without my regular laptop, and had consoled myself because I had the forethought to save a lot of my files to the jumpdrive...*sigh*

I pull out the jump drive to access some genealogy files for Monday Madness... but there's no genealogy folder!!! Are you kidding me?

I mean, it's not like I'd cut my family tree down to a stump, but still, what an inconvenience! Fortunately the muster rolls I had just discovered on my Civil War grandfather has already been posted on the blog here, so I can retrieve them (a lesser quality than what I'd had saved, but at least they're here.) And a lot of files I can pull up again on ancestry, but the biggest frustration are the stories I had recently transcribed from my grandfather and great aunt. I wrote those up fresh, just hours after we had sat reminiscing. I'm sure I can still recount the tales they told, but they will no doubt lack the magic of the moment the original documents held.

I don't know what happened. I am 100% certain the genealogy folder was on the jump drive before the laptop crashed. Why or when would I have taken it off? Grrrr....

So today, my first foray into Monday Madness has me pulling my hair out, not over an elusive ancestor, or an unreadable census record. And it doesn't have me sharing any secrets of mental instability in my family's past (I'm sure I'll get to that in time!) I am simply driven mad today by that little thing we can't do without...TECHNOLOGY!

Matrilineal Mother's Day

I saw this challenge on Bill West's Blog - West in New England, and thought it would be a fun little exercise on Mother's Day. I'll admit, I tend to pay more attention to the male lines in my research, my father's Cummons line, and my maternal grandfather's Malone line in particular, and sometimes those wonderful women who contributed to my DNA are left behind. Bill's blog gave this challenge:

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:
1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!

2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.

3) Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Note or status line on Facebook."

I have never had the DNA testing done, although I would love to, but here is my matrilineal line, at least as far as I've been able to uncover it on ancestry.com

Beginning with my mother:
Carolyn Y. Malone (1955- present) m. Robert A Cummons
Margaret Y. Evans (1928? - present) m. Eugene G Malone
Nannie Carroll (1895-1980) m. Harvey Evans
Phoebe Ellen Smith (1870-1957) m. John Morgan Carroll
Martha Osborn (1845 - ?) m. Peter Smith
Phebe Lewis (1811 - ??) m. Lewis Osborn
Rachel Henson (1783-1987) m. John Lewis
Mary Polly Lewis (1796-1880) m. James Henson
Winetry Winnie Henson (1760-1824) m. James Theophilus Lewis
Elizabeth (?) (1738_?) m. Paul Henson

This trail of ladies began in North Carolina, moved into Kentucky, and later to Ohio. What a celebration of mothers!!