Chasing Dead Ancestors

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...

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 ...

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.