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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 27 -- Solo

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“How about someone on a line where you feel like you're the only one researching them? (I have a couple of those!)” --Amy Johnson Crow I know exactly how you feel, Amy. Welcome to my SHEHORN family. Unaided, unaccompanied, unassisted I search. I fly solo because I haven’t encountered another researcher since the mid-1980s who knows anything about this family.  My confidence that I’ve found “my” Shehorn family is fairly low, because there are so many unknowns. Here’s what I know as fact: Me < My Mother < My Grandfather (Ralph Wayne Jones) < My Great-Grandfather (John Henry Jones, Jr.). These first four generations I know exist, as I have the primary source evidence. :) Then the record gets a little sketchy when the Shehorn name is introduced. John Henry Jones, Jr.’s mother may have been Mary Eleanor Shehorn (b. 1835-d. ~1908). Mary’s father may have been William Shehorn (b. ~1802-d. 1846). The only “evidence” I have connecting John Henry Jones, Jr. to his mother is (1)
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 2 -- Favorite Photo

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Simply not possible, so here's one of many favorites. Taken in Van Nuys, California ca. 1953, pictured (left to right) are my Aunt LaVerne, her son and my first cousin Robert, and my Uncle Bill who was visiting his sister while deployed to the Korean War.* LaVerne had been living in California for years, far away from most of the family back in Texas, so presumably this was the first time that Bill had met his nephew Robert. I don't know if Bill was traveling to or from Korea when this photo was taken. I assume the photographer was Harold, LaVerne's husband and Robert's father. (*Since two of the three people in this photo are still living, I am not including complete names.)
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 1 -- Fresh Start

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I started the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge in 2018 and managed to write for almost four months before being completely overwhelmed by life and abandoning the task. Since then, I've kept up with each week's theme and written little blog entries in my head but never published them (which isn't terribly helpful for those of you who aren't mind readers). Entering 2020, I hope I can make a fresh start. I retired at the end of 2019 from my job of 23 years so I won't have that time-consuming peskiness getting in the way of genealogy research and writing. I won't over promise that I will (or can) write about each weekly theme, but I'll have a better chance in 2020. UPDATE 30 June 2020: Wishful thinking. I wrote for a whopping TWO WEEKS before being completely overwhelmed by life and abandoning the task. And just as I was contemplating another attempt, the COVID-19 PANDEMIC happened.
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 27 -- Independence

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My maternal 5x great-grandfather Zebulon Brevard was born 29 March 1724 in Cecil Co., Maryland and died 8 Aug 1798 in Iredell Co., North Carolina. In between he married, raised a family of 10 children and "assisted in establishing American Independence" [1] by serving as an ensign in the colonial militia in Mecklenburg Co., North Carolina. He also served as a jury member in the same county. (Perhaps that will make you rethink avoiding jury duty.) Obviously not a Brevard from the 1700s. This is my paternal grandfather John Frederick Goehring with a 48-star U.S. flag. I estimate this photo was taken ca. 1942 near the beginning of America's involvement in World War II. Although I don't know much about Zebulon Brevard (yet) as an individual, the Brevard family from that era were well-known and appear in many written histories of North Carolina. • The first Brevard ancestor in America -- Zebulon's father, John Brevard or Jean de Brever -- was a Huguenot refu
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15 -- Taxes

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Have you heard of poll taxes? Generally speaking, a poll tax is a tax levied on every adult, without reference to income or resources. (In Middle English, "poll" meant "head" so this was a tax on the head of every adult.) As a practical matter, poll taxes were a pre-condition of the exercise of the right to vote. [1] "After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the 15th Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws, which often included a grandfather clause that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws achieved the desired effect of disfranchising African-American and Native American voters, as well as poor whites who immigrated after the year specified." [2] Although my Goehring ancestors presumably weren't denied any rights by failure to pay poll taxes -- being white, land-owning males and all -- I
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 14 -- The Maiden Aunt

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My maternal grandfather Ralph Wayne Jones' favorite aunt was his maiden aunt, Margaret America Brevard (his mother's oldest sister). "Aunt Mag" was born 7 Dec 1860 in Red River Co., Texas, and died 20 Jan 1933 and is buried in Crews, Texas beside her mother, Julia Matthews Brevard. No one in the Jones family who I knew, knew much about Aunt Mag. I've always loved her name. Apparently she was special to my grandfather, as my mother has always told me that she was Wayne's favorite aunt. He sent "Maggie" this postcard in 1910 from his home in Crews to her home in Ballinger, just 15 miles away. I love this postcard because not only does it preserve my grandfather's handwriting, it has a picture of him on the front which he makes fun of in his message to his aunt. Postmark Dec 14 A.M. 1910 Crews, Texas: "After 10 days return to Wayne Jones Crews, Tex. Miss Maggie Brevard Ballinger, Texas Well Aunt Mag I will send you
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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 13 -- The Old Homestead

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My Goehring family has farmed and ranched the same land in Concho County, Texas, for 115 years . My great-grandfather John Lewis Goehring bought the property in 1903 along with his son/my grandfather John Frederick Goehring. My father was born in 1932 in the old house on the property and my parents were still living on the property in 1962 when I was born (although my birth occurred in a hospital 60 miles away). My parents still live on and work the same land today. The original house (with modifications) on the property since 1903 purchase. The house built by John Frederick Goehring in the early 1940s. JFG's house in 2006, now in a new location dictated by Lake O.H. Ivie.
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