Bryan Family Bible – The Best Laid Plans…

Posted on June 22, 2013 by kathy

Since the front cover and first few pages of the Bible are missing, I don’t know if anything of interest or genealogical value were lost with them. The pages designated for recording family information are between the Old and New Testaments, and those pages are mostly intact. First is an untitled page on the left and a page to record births on the right.

Here’s a closer look at the Births page

James W. Bryan was born June 28th 1856.
Rosa Hoskins was born Jan 2th 1869
William F. Bryan Was born September the 6th 1885 188(5 or 3)
““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
Jesse James Bryan was born July 4th 1887.
Georgia Anna Bryan was born Oct 16th 1888.
Henry Ward Bryan was born Feb. 4th 1890.
Frances Jane Bryan was born Sept 18th 1891
Daniel Webster Bryan was April 1th 1893
Della Mae Bryan was born April 2th 1895
Nancy Luella Bryan was born Oct 17th 1896
Thomas Wesly Bryan was born March 14th 1898
Sarah Alice Bryan was born Oct 2th 1899
Mamie Myrtle Bryan was born Sept 12th 1901
Lewis Marion Bryan was born Jan 18th 1904
Edna Lelia Bryan was born June 15th 1905
Nellie Ruth Bryan was born Aug 30th 1909
Hattie Rosa Bryan was born Feb 3 1912

How exciting to find all of this information recorded by a family member! A wealth of names and dates!

It looks to me as though the same person recorded most of the births. There is a little wavy line drawn about an inch below the word “births”. It makes me think that whomever recorded these births knew they were missing information about births that occurred before the first one they knew – the birth of Jesse James Bryan in 1887 – so they left a space where earlier births could be added. Someone else appears to have recorded the birth of William F. Bryan, but used all of the allotted space for this one entry. This addition looks like it was first written in pencil and then gone over in ink. The second writer may have also made the little wavy pencil line, which mimics the little line printed below the word “births”.

Ah – the best laid plans! Once Person-With-Too-Big-Handwriting added the birth of William F. Bryan, it looks like the first writer took matters back into his or her own hands and recorded the births of James W. Bryan and Rosa Hoskins at the top of the page and still in chronological order.

Since William’s birth looks like it was first written in pencil, it could have been erased. Did the first writer preserve the dignity of the second writer and let the addition stand even though it wasn’t what he or she wanted the page to look like?

I initially thought that the second writer was probably a younger member of the family – and the addition of the wavy line seems to support that. But as I look at the handwriting again, I see that it could be the handwriting of an older person. Maybe three people contributed to the page: the primary writer, the second writer, and the wavy line drawer – a question that may never be answered. I like to think that the primary writer chose to preserve what the second writer added – but with one correction. The year was first written “out of bounds”, and it looks like the first writer wrote the year a second time, closer to the rest of the entry.

I have no idea who recorded these births, but he or she was alive in 1912 as that is the last recorded birth on this page in their handwriting.

Now that I’ve started this, I’m not exactly sure of where I’m going. I hadn’t even noticed the purpose of the little wavy line until I started writing this post so certainly had not planned to write about it. I think I’m just going to let the genealogy muse lead me along. And the muse is telling me that we will come back to the page on the left at a later time.

I wonder if I’ll be able to determine the possible writers as I work my way through the pages of the Bible?

Treasure Chest Thursday – Bryan Family Bible

Posted on June 20, 2013 by kathy

It took me a while to realize I had the Bible in my possession.

I had borrowed lots of pictures and papers that belonged to my Coates/Hoskins grandparents from my mom’s house. I was new to genealogy, and wanted to dig in and see what we had. I sorted though letters, pictures and other papers, putting them in page protectors and attempting to put them in some kind of order. I set books, Bibles and other odd-size items aside, put them in a box and ….. forgot about them.

I had seen the George Washington Bryan Bible referenced several times by other Bryan researchers and sometimes my grandfather, Thomas Hoskins, was named as the person who was in possession of the Bible and who had provided the information. I wondered what had happened to the Bible.

Time passed – probably a couple of years – and then one day I pulled out some of Grandma’s things again and found a big old Bible. It was in terrible condition – no front cover, stained, torn, falling apart. I was sure I had already looked through this Bible seeking clues. But this day I decided I had better look again.

Not a very pretty treasure, but there was gold inside.

There it was – the George Washington Bryan Bible – right in my grubby little hands.

George Washington Bryan was my 2nd great grandfather. I have never seen a picture of him, but it is my belief that the loveliest handwriting in the Bible belongs to him.

George Washington Bryan was born April 1, 1819 in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky, the 3rd of 12 children born to John Franklin Bryan and Hester Jane Westfall. He married Sarah “Sally” Stokes on June 9, 1842. The youngest of their 11 children, Sarah Elizabeth Bryan, was my great grandmother. My mother was about nine years old when Sarah Elizabeth died, and she doesn’t really remember her.

The front cover and the pages that follow are missing. The first page I have is page 7. Thankfully, the New Testament has it’s own “cover” page which dates the publication of the Bible to 1854 by the American Bible Society.

I don’t know how my ancestors came to be in possession of this Bible. They probably arrived in Ray County, Missouri in the spring of 1854. Right now, I’ll just assume that they received it after their arrival in Ray County as that seems most likely. The American Bible Society was expanding its reach in the rural areas of Missouri at the time. Something else to look into…

There are still the remains of the back cover and spine. It appears to be embossed leather.

What lurks inside the pages of the Bible? I tried to document it all and will share in the next few days.

Non-Familial Person of Interest Located – A Happy Blogging Story

Posted on June 17, 2013 by kathy

Squirrel in a Hole

I have been absent from my blog for a few weeks. I’ve been feeling like a squirrel in a hole (you really must click on the picture to understand the feeling I wish to express) and the creative juices seemed to just stop flowing. The result – no writing.

I’ve been reading other blogs, though.

A couple of weeks ago I hopped from one blog … to another blog mentioned in the comments … and on to another blog related to the story.

Do you ever hop down those internet trails?

Sometimes I think I shouldn’t do that – it’s a time waster!

It turns out this wasn’t wasting time after all. This was research! I just didn’t know it at the time.

I’m not going to tell the whole story here because the person at the end of that trail has done that for us and I’m sending you over to her blog to read about it.

Please visit the blog Past-Present-Future, where Smadar Belkind-Gerson has written about the serendipity of our blog hopping and how it led us to a greater understanding of our own family histories.

It involves floods and bananas.

We often hope for cousins to find us when we blog about our families. And we sometimes put something on our blog as “cousin bait.” But sometimes people who are not related can add another layer of information and texture to our own family histories.

What shall we call these people?

neighbors?
peers?
contemporaries?
non-familial persons of interest?
people-who-might-have-known-someone-in-my-family?
people-in-the-general-area-of-my-ancestor-at-about-the-same-time?

I think they may be worth looking for. Choose the moniker of your liking and send out a little bait.

And please – Go read this story!