Surprise! Finding relatives
by Arliss Treybig
    On my first visit to Büdesheim, Germany, in 1987, I stayed and traveled with my cousin Gene Treybig and his wife Jane (now of Boerne, Texas). At the time, they had lived in Germany for 25 or so years. They took me to visit Büdesheim and meet the two gentlemen who had done my Burtschell and Braden family history research in church books. Several years later I discovered that Gene is descended, as am I on my mother’s side, from both the Burtschell and Braden families. Gene did not know in 1987 when he took me there that he was visiting the village of his ancestors as well.
    Shirley Brandes Thomas and I were friends involved in many mutual activities during our four years at Wharton County Junior College and Sam Houston State. About a year ago I discovered we were kin, also through the Burtschell and Braden families. Shirley’s daughter, a teacher, attended our Burt(t)schell Family Reunion and discovered her school secretary is also a cousin.
Gigi Reese, of the Burtschell-Braden line, was a Clear Creek High School counselor several of the years I taught there. She moved to Clear Lake High School when it was formed and some of her students were at our reunion. A number of my students and yearbook staffs are Burtschell descendants. There is truth is the old saying: “Be careful; the person you talk about may be your kin.”
About the author
Arliss Treybig, El Campo, Texas, began doing genealogical research about 28 years ago. She says her research and meeting family here and in Germany has given her a different sense of who she is.

Famous census
    Michael Neill has posted census images from the “rich and famous.” The main page is www.rootdig.com/1930census/. Some of the many images linked are Lucille Ball, Marlon Brando, Mel Brooks, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Katharine Hepburn, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson and Dr. Seuss.

Pryer/Gilbert attendance at 1,800!
    The first Pryer Family Reunion was held in 1989 in Rosedale, Louisiana, attended by 550 relatives. The second Pryer/Gilbert Family reunion was in 1996, with over 1,500 relatives attending.
    The further we dig, the longer our roots have grown, and based on this year’s expected attendance of 1,800, the history of our family is proving to be “overwhelmingly” long and deep. What’s even more amazing is that the family has such a long lineage, which continues to blossom, despite the many buds now faded away.
    Attendees came from Belize, New York, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, California, Maryland, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, and where “the roots” began, Woodville, Mississippi.
    We are all very blessed to know that from one acorn, a tree with a rich heritage, continues to grow long and strong. I feel our family tree is one of the great sequoias of our time.
Reported by Melonie Pryer, San Francisco CA

Not only can you announce your own events through Roots Central, you are welcome to embed the Roots Central video player on your own websites, and keep your users up to date on what is happening in the genealogical world. Contact us at rootscentral@rootstelevision.com for more information.

Family tree searches produce reunion stories
   The president of Philadelphia’s African-American Genealogical Group, John T. Logan, still returns to central Kentucky to search family tree branches.

    Logan, 51, was born near Muncie, Indiana, but from the age of just a few months he grew up on a farm in Garrard County, Kentucky, where his mother’s family lived.

   “I think there have been changes among black people toward their family histories,” Logan said. “Alex Haley made a major impact on black people, if not on the world” with his novel Roots. “He displaced some myths about black people having no history in this country by proving he could research and find his history.”

    Inspired by Haley’s work, Logan began searching for lost chapters of his family’s history. It proved difficult, but he has traced his maternal line back six generations. His family database now contains more than 5,000 names associated with the Logans, Rays and Kennedys of Garrard and surrounding Kentucky counties.

    Logan’s paternal grandparents died before he was born and his maternal grandfather, who died when Logan was 10, was orphaned at about age 6, having lost his father, mother and older sister during an early 1890s epidemic. Little family history was saved.Logan’s discoveries are seeds for family history tales he tells at his reunions. His great-grandfather, Mason Logan, was a member of the 6th US Colored Cavalry at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, and was buried in a country church graveyard in Buckeye community, Garrard County. “I found his military headstone one evening while visiting and doing research, but have been unable to find out any more beyond his Civil War records and his birth date.”

   Logan learned many of his mother’s ancestors were slaves on the infamous Kennedy Plantation near Paint Lick in Garrard County, which many historians believe was the setting for Harriett Beecher Stowe’s powerful antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

    “The difference in African-American genealogy many times is we have to parallel our research to the slave owner,” Logan explained. “We have to know their genealogy almost as well as our own, because through their travels, ownership, transactions, wills, farms they owned and where their family came from, we may discover more information about ourselves.”
   Contact John T. Logan or the African-American Genealogical Group of Philadelphia, at jtlogan@africamail.com.
Taken from a column by Byron Crawford, Courier Journal, Louisville KY.

Resources

Reunion friendly Destinations Locations

Products & Services

Free Trial Issue

Send us your name and address to receive a sample copy of Reunions magazine.

Reunions Forums
Share your planning advice and experiences with other reunion planners, attendees, newbies, and the editors of ReunionsMagazine in our Reunions forums!