The mysterious Lucille Johnson

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As part of my New Year’s resolution to organize all of my family history materials, I’ve been going through and organizing boxes upon boxes of miscellaneous material I’ve been given over the years by family members to preserve.

This particular photo was one of two photo postcards that were mixed in with relatively recent photos from the 1980s and 1990s. I suppose that the person who gave them to me had a photo drawer and just put these much older photos in with everything else.

In any case, the photos were labeled by my grandmother, Harriet Eva (Askew) Prettyman and were apparently originally given to her mother, Gertrude (Scott) Askew. One of the photos was labeled “Loraine McCrea,” and as I have several photos of Loraine, I recognized her as Loraine. No mystery there.

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Home movies: Kansas mid 1950s

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For today’s post, I’d like to share another home movie that my father Keith Black digitized and that I recently found on his computer.

This home movie is from the mid 1950s (probably 1954 or 1955) and captures Keith Black as a teenager, with his younger brother Gary Black, and their parents Vernon Black and Dorothy (McMurry) Black. This film documents the same trip that was documented in Dorothy (McMurry) Black’s photo album that I wrote about in this post.

I’m hoping that family members (especially my uncle Gary and my Kansas cousins) will help me to identify many of the people and places shown in this film. Please leave a comment below if you can help me identify anyone or any locations.

I’ll write up additional details here as soon as I have them.

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Home movies: Christmas 1967

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Most of my recent posts have been about people who lived centuries ago, so I thought it would be nice to focus on more recent history in today’s post.

Before he died nearly three years ago, my father—Keith Black—thoughtfully digitized several reels of 8mm home movies that he had found while going through his and his parents’ belongings a couple of years earlier.

I haven’t had the chance until very recently to see any of this video for myself, and now that I have seen it I want to share it with anyone who might be interested. I’ll share the others over the coming weeks. These home movies were shot between the late 1950s and the early 1970s.

Today’s video is entitled “Our Merry Christmas 1967 with Mikie.” I was surprised to see me called Mikie in the title, as family lore states that when I was less than six months old my great-grandfather Clyde Askew held me in his arms and declared “Don’t ever call him Mikie.”

Starring in the movie below are Michael Black, Polly (Prettyman) Black, Keith Black, Gary Black, and Gary’s girlfriend Sandra Sederberg. The first part of the film was shot on location at either our Haskell Avenue or Vesper Avenue house (let me know if you know which) in Van Nuys, and at Vernon and Dorothy (McMurry) Black’s Hamlin Street house, also in Van Nuys.

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Two generations of Coddingtons migrate to the New World

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In today’s post I’ll continue my recent theme of focusing on ancestors who were early immigrants to the future United States. I’ll be purposefully focusing on details of the immigrants’ lives before they arrived in the New World, and will address their activities once here in another post.

Stockdale Coddington was baptized on March 8, 1570, in Saint Mary the Virgin Church in the village of Bletchingley, in Surrey county, England. Thus we can surmise that he was born somewhere within Bletchingley Parish in late February or early March, 1570. Stockdale was the third-born child and eldest son of the four children born to James Quidington (1530–1606) and Joan Stockdale (ca. 1537–1612). Quidington was a common Surrey variant spelling of Coddington, along with Cuddington and Quedinton.

1570 was 449 years ago, which may be hard to conceptualize for non-historians. To help you visualize England in 1570, here are a few guideposts: Elizabeth I had been queen of England for a dozen years, Pope Pius V had just excommunicated Queen Elizabeth (on February 25, 1570), Thomas Tallis was a 65-year-old composer, and William Shakespeare was not yet six years old (not until about April, 1570). The King James Bible would not be published for another 41 years. It would be another 12 years until England tried to colonize the new world (unsuccessfully, at Roanoke from 1584 to 1589), and 37 years before England founded its first successful colony in the New World—Jamestown in 1607. The voyage of the Mayflower was still 50 years in the future.

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Mayflower descendancy, part 8

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I spent nearly all of my genealogical time and focus in 2018 proving my descent from Mayflower passengers John Alden (and therefore also from his wife Priscilla Mullens and her father William Mullins, both also Mayflower passengers). I had hoped to hear by the end of 2018 that my lineage was deemed sufficiently documented to be accepted for membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (the “Mayflower Society”). Alas, January 1, 2019, came and I still hadn’t heard a decision from the California State Historian or the Historian General in Plymouth.

Just this past Monday, however, I received a letter from the California Historian that my lineage and application had finally been accepted, and that my membership would be formally voted on at the Board of Assistants meeting on January 19. That meeting just ended and I have received the long-awaited news—I am now a member of the Mayflower Society! I am the 94,495th person to successfully apply since the Society was founded in 1897.

Now that I’ve proven our line back to the Mayflower, my cousins on my McMurry side who descend from Lucinda Tracy (Bailey) McMurry can now also just by definitively proving their descent from our common ancestors (Lucinda Tracey Bailey McMurry for second cousins, or just to Dorothy Ruth McMurry Black for first cousins). The 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower is coming up next year, so if you’ve ever considered joining, this would be a great time to do so. If you’re interested in formally documenting your Mayflower line and joining the Mayflower Society, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help you out. Even if you don’t want to have your Mayflower descent certified, if you descend from Lucinda Tracy (Bailey) McMurry, know that you are indeed a descendant of at least three Mayflower passengers. I hope that makes you feel as good as it does me!

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Genealogical resolutions for 2019

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With 2018 now behind us, and with the optimism that comes with the arrival of another new year, it’s time to think about my genealogical resolutions. How did I do on last year’s resolutions? What lessons did I learn? What are my goals for the new year?

One year ago, I made two genealogical resolutions for 2018:

  1. Write more blog posts here on Blackenedroots.
  2. Join a hereditary society or two—most likely the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (Mayflower Society).

Let’s see how I did.

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Armistice Centennial

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Exactly one hundred years ago today, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed with Germany to cease fighting the Great War. One year later, on November 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the day would be called Armistice Day, to honor those who fought in World War I. More than three decades later—after the “war to end war” gave way to World War II and then the Korean War—the holiday was renamed Veterans Day, and was intended as a day to honor all veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

In today’s post I’d like to honor all of my family members who served in defense of our country.

This is a revised version of a post I did five years ago. Since then, some family members have died, and I’ve discovered twenty-seven additional family members who served our country. Note that I have included only relatives who served the United States or the colonies that would eventually become the United States.

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Mayflower descendancy, part 7

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Happy Mayflower Day, everyone! 398 years ago today—on September 16, 1620—102 men, women, and children left Plymouth, England, and set sail for the Colony of Virginia in the New World. They were unsure how long their voyage would take, whether they would survive the voyage, or what their lives would be like once they landed in the New World.

We now know that their voyage took 66 days, that 5 people died at sea, that the rough winter seas forced them north to Cape Cod, and that their late arrival led to the deaths of nearly half of the crew and passengers during that first winter. My 11th-great-grandfather William Mullins was among those who did not survive that first harsh winter.

Thankfully, my 10th-great-grandparents John Alden and Priscilla Mullins survived that first winter and went on to have ten children together, including their daughter Ruth Alden, my 9th-great-grandmother. Continue reading →

Mystery photo #6: Snowplow and songs

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It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, so I figured I’d write an easy post about a mystery photo I keep stumbling across. I’m hoping that someone out there reading this might be able to help me identify it. Maybe you’ll recognize the people, or the machines, the song list on the back, or the handwriting of the song list.

I found the photo in a small pile of papers that my grandmother Dorothy Ruth (McMurry) Black inherited from her aunt, Dorothy “Dot” Mary Bailey. Most of the papers were about Dot’s husband Clarence—his WWI service, his life insurance, his parents, and his recent death. Dot had apparently gathered together papers to help her collect Clarence’s life insurance and widow’s benefits. Clarence died in 1982.

There were, however, three prints from my grandparents’ 1955 trip to Disneyland, and an envelope of what look to be color negatives from a 1950s? family vacation. So from the context in which the photo was found, it appears to be from my father’s side of the family. Continue reading →

Mayflower descendancy, part 6

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It’s been an oddly ambiguous couple of months here in the BlackenedRoots household with  regards to my application to join the Mayflower Society.

As you’ll remember from my last update on this topic, I mailed off my initial stab at documenting my Mayflower line to the State Historian for the California Mayflower Society nine weeks ago. I expected to wait a week or two and hear back from the Historian about parts of my Mayflower line that needed to be better documented. That’s how I figured the Mayflower Society dance went—submit your best effort, be told many parts are weak, resubmit with better documentation for those parts, be told that still a few parts are too weak, resubmit with better documentation for those last few parts, be told that still one part is too weak, resubmit with yet more documentation for that one last line, and finally be told that your pedigree is ready for the scrutiny of the National Office.

Mine didn’t quite go like that. Continue reading →