Family and Friends Newsletter Friday 30 April 2010

Research

This started out as a bad research week for me, but it got better.

1. For a while I thought that the FamilySearch Record Search pilot page had gone away when all I could pull up from the main page was census information. I found links directly to the databases on Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musings, and was able to access the them, but many of the databases I use (Arkansas Marriages, Alabama Deaths, among others) did not have images (Texas Deaths did). Then later the images were back and new databases were added. Sigh of relief!

I was even able to find a few new items on some of the new databases.

2. We installed a new version of Microsoft Office for Mac on my computer, and Reunion has decided it does not want to use it for generating reports. It is telling me that we have to buy iWork. I’m doing the 30-day tryout for now, but really…. Oh, yes, and I don’t like this version of Office – palettes gumming up my screen, among other things. Why is it that some people can only feel they have accomplished something when they have completely redone something that didn’t really need to be changed?

Norman

Norman research earlier in the week did not go as swimmingly without the Arkansas Marriage images, but I’m back to work on them.

Brinlee

This has been a great Brinlee week and I haven’t even been doing any Brinlee research! Earlier in the week a second cousin once removed, a granddaughter of Clarence Brinlee (see A Noble Life) got in touch with me and has sent me information and pictures! I am so thrilled that I can find out more about Clarence and Ethel Brinlee.

Today another researcher, who is not part of my Brinlee family but descends from Brinleys who are not related and has been involved in keeping track of the various Brinlee/Brindley/Brinley families I this country, sent me some material he had received from a couple of Brinlee researchers. I was familiar with a little bit of it, but there is a lot of detail and some good information supporting the theory that John T. Brindley (m. Ann Twitchett) of Christian County, Kentucky was the father of George and Hiram Brinlee Sr. (my great-great grandfather), with whom the spelling “Brinlee” apparently started.

There is apparently a Brinlee family legend that Hiram Brinlee Sr.’s older brother George ran away from the family home in Kentucky to Texas when he was sixteen years old; by my reckoning, that would put him in Texas at the same time or earlier than Stephen Austin!

I also tried Google News Archive for "Brinlee" and there were a lot of hits; I'll have to take some time to go through all of them. One of the first things I found was an article on my father's death in a car accident.

Late Acknowledgement

For some reason I forgot to include Dee Akard Welborn at Funeral Cards & Genealogy in my acknowledgements for the Ancestors Approved Award. Thank you so much, Dee! Funeral Cards & Genealogy has also been added to my “Texas Team” list. I would also like to thank Jennifer at La Mia Familia for this award. You all are the greatest!