Hope to see you all there!
Jun
30
2009
Final McGinnis Reunion Reminder
Jun
24
2009
Reminder: Reunion Less Than a Month Away!
Just a reminder that the McGinnis Reunion (or gathering – depending on the size)
will be held:
Saturday, July 18th
12pm-4pm
McCauley Falls Pavilon, Kittanning, PA
Directions and other information forthcoming. If you haven’t already, please take a few minutes to let me know whether you plan to attend or not. Attendance is roughly at 18-20 right now – give or take a few.
Hope to see you there!
May
23
2009
McGinnis Reunion 2009 Announcement
Most of you will have already recieved an email, but in case I have an old address, or I don’t have an email at all for you,the announcement is below. If you did not receive the response form, I added a link to the right under “Links of Interest”. Simply click on the link, fill out the form, click “Submit” and it will open your email program to send it back to me.
Enjoy the holiday weekend!
Thanks to the hard work of Carole Curran, I can officially announce that the date and location of the 2009 McGinnis Reunion is confirmed!
It will be held:
Saturday, July 18th 2009
12:00 – 4:00pm
McCauley Falls Pavilion, Kittanning, PAExact directions will be sent later, but it is just a few miles north of Kittanning. If you want to get a better idea, you can Mapquest “McCauley Falls Rd, Kittanning, PA), and it will show you the road where the pavilion is located.
Please take a second to fill out and send the attached response form. You can send it by email with the click of a button. At this point, other than the three Jesse McGinnis folks who have already contacted me, my mom, and my family, I don’t know who is planning to attend. Once I have a tentative number, I’ll send out more information as the date draws nearer. If you regularly talk to family that might be interested in coming, just print a copy out to give to them, or include them in your response.
Hopefully everyone will be able to make it. For the way out-of-town folks (like CA, TX, UT, etc), you are of course very welcome, but I am assuming that the trip to PA is a little much, and we won’t think less of you if you’re not there.
I hope to see you all this summer.
Thanks!
Chris
May
10
2009
Happy Mother’s Day! To Celebrate, I Present All My Mothers.
Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. As I thought about it, it occurred to me I had never listed out my strictly maternal line – that is the mother of my mother, the mother of her mother, etc. So here they are, beginning with my grandmother, and in reverse order from there:
Ellajean Marie Snyder
b. 5 Dec 1925, Vandergrift, Westmoreland, PA
m. Floyd Albert Johns, 20 Mar 1946, Vandergrift, Westmoreland, PA
d. 28 Aug 1995
Bessie Irene McGinnis
b. 3 Jan 1892, Manorville, Armstrong, PA
m. William Albert Snyder, 3 Dec 1914, Vandergrift, Westmoreland, PA
d. 23 Jan 1972
Ella May Ruffner
b. 10 Feb 1868, Marion Center, Indiana, PA
m. Harvey Jackson McGinnis, 19 Oct 1887 Orbitello, Lincoln, KS
d. 2 Oct 1961, Arnold, Westmoreland, PA
Sarah Best
b. 31 May 1835, Butler County, PA
m. Archibald Ruffner, abt 1855, PA
d. 25 May 1914, Saltsburg, Westmoreland, PA
Susan Sumney
b. abt 1806, Butler County, PA
m. Alexander Best, 2 Oct 1828, Butler County, PA
d. ?
Unknown wife of Jacob Sumney
b. sometime between 1770-1780
m. Jacob Sumney, ?
d. bef 17 Jan 1842
And that’s it. That’s as many mothers as my maternal line goes. Enjoy your day, all you moms!
May
08
2009
Cross-post from staatsofohio.com: Family video from Emerald Isle, NC: 2003
Sorry for the cross-post, but I just posted this on my other site. Since there hadn’t been any updates here, I though I would post it here as well.
I was trying to find my grandfather’s video from 1989 or so – when we all went to Emerald Isle, but I am having trouble. In the meantime, I thought I would upload a slightly more recent video from our trip there in 2003. I know, I know, “*yawn*, boring family video”. This particular video was made while I was first exploring the capabilities of Windows MovieMaker. For anyone who doesn’t already know, Windows MovieMaker is a program that was included with Windows XP (and possibly as early as Me or Win2K). I think it is also included with Vista. It’s not overly fancy, but it was a nice, free little tool to edit and assemble videos. I used still photos, but played with some of the effects to at least create the illusion of motion. I also got a little carried away with the transitions, but hey – that’s why I was doing this, and it just happened to turn out good enough that I never bothered to redo it.
One day I should probably get these photos back out, scan them, fix them, and redo the video. There are so many crooked horizons in these photos it hurts.
Without further adieu:
Emerald Isle 2003 from Chris Staats on Vimeo.
Apr
26
2009
Ella May (Ruffner) McGinnis, Irene (McGinnis) Snyder, Buelah (Snyder) McLaughlin, sons Richard and David
I just uploaded this pic to my genealogy site. If you would like to see/download the full size version, either click on the “McGinnis Family Photos and Documents” link to the right, or go directly to this picture
Apr
21
2009
Looking for Something Summery?
What says “Summer” better than some good old-fashioned ice cream? Here we have some amateur confectioners hard at work keeping a watchful eye on the ice cream maker. Not quite sure who the man on the left is. It might be Orvel Johns? The man in the middle is my grandfather, Floyd Johns. The third man is Dale Fulton, husband if Ida Johns. While not necessarily “McGinnis”, there are a number of you that on the McGinnis list that will recognize these fellows
Orvel Johns? , Floyd Johns, Dale Fulton making making sure the ice cream doesn't get out of hand
Apr
18
2009
A Genealogy Haiku
In response to Randy Seaver’s Saturday night Genealogy Fun , I have chosen the path of simplicity. I have written a Henry haiku:
Henry McGinnis
Your children – there were seven.
Where did they all go?
Apr
17
2009
Jesse McGinnis: A Tax Record Search
Today being a nice day for a ride, my mom and I headed over to Armstrong County for an impromptu research jaunt. I didn’t have time to plan anything extravagant, so the only courthouse agenda was to check tax records. One of the goals was to try and confirm the date of death of Jesse McGinnis. His second wife, Lyannah, reported his death as 1884 in Mahoning Furnace in the Civil War pension application for her first husband, Lewis Griffin. Lewis was captured in North Carolina, and died in a prison camp in Savannah, GA in 1864.
From the 1880 census, I knew that Jesse was already living separately from Lyannah at that time. So I checked the tax records for the years 1880-1885 for Mahoning Twp. Jesse appears from 1880-1884 in those records, but not in 1885. This would appear to confirm the fact he died sometime in 1884. Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me until I got home that I have never checked for any Orphan’s Court case. In 1884, Jesse would have left several minor children. I’ve written for an index check, so hopefully something will turn up.
For those not familiar with Jesse – he is, according to the little evidence I have been able to uncover, a brother of James McGinnis. More research is needed to try and confirm this, but this is the most likely scenario given the information available thus far.
Apr
15
2009
Wordless Wednesdays: By Special Request
Wordless Wednesdays is a regular feature in the genealogy blogging world. Photos, documents, etc, are posted that are interesting and don’t need words to convey their significance or meaning. And sometimes, there just aren’t words that will do the image justice – as is the case below:
Richard McLaughlin... having shed the Easter suit for the more comfortable Polynesian dance outfit