Layla

This is our new baby, Layla. She is Husky and Catahoula Leopard thus the blue eyes. We adopted her from "Animal Services"; they don't call it "The Pound" anymore.

Her name was Layla when we got her. Of course now the Eric Clapton song is forever stuck in our heads.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

I'm a Yankee doodle dandy
A Yankee doodle do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam born on the 4th of July

We all know the song. When we were little my brother and I always thought it was so cool that Leonard Leachman was born on July 4, 1776.

This is according to Leachman genealogy that my grandmother had. My Dad said it was done by a cousin trying to get into the DAR. Unfortunately it does not have the cousin's name.

Leonard (my great-great-great grandfather) married Sarah Sanford in 1804 and they had 11 children. Baby number four was Leonard who married Pauline Lewis, whose anniversary articles are posted below.

Happy 4th

To Leonard and Pauline

These are copied from Pauline Leachman's scrapbook

Newspaper articles about her grandparent's anniversaries.

Wish I had the gold and silver nugents :)

Back up your files

We were robbed on June 3 between noon and 1pm. I assume they saw me leave the house. They took all the usual things thieves take when they rob houses. They took the computer which was 6 years old so no great loss however all my files went with it and that's what I miss. YEARS of pictures and family videos. And MY FAMILY TREE MAKER PROGRAM with thousands of names and dates and census records and military records. So ... today's genealogy lesson is back up your files. And I know everybody says it but I never did it because this was never going to happen to me!!!! Actually once, in December 2004, I did back up the Family Tree program. As much as I enjoy genealogy, if I had to go back and start by entering my own name in Family Tree Maker, I might have to get a new hobby.

I also had lots of things scanned. If I scanned it, I have the hard copy but most of those things are so old I hate to keep touching them. I scanned them so I could just look at them on the screen. And then some things I had scanned because I wanted to post them here.

The police did get a lot of fingerprints so I have not given up hope of getting some of my things back.

Ellen Goodman's column

Ellen Goodman is a columnist for the Boston Globe her column Sunday was "The secrets buried under my family tree." The secret is that her grandparents married just five months before her Mother was born. I really liked this paragraph.

But what we really want from the generations past are not just the facts or the DNA. We want the stories. Love, passion, success, disappointment, humanity. There may be no way to know - really know- their interior life. But how many of us would trade in the data for one good diary?

I don't know how long the link work but this is the column.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/04/18/the_secrets_buried_under_a_family_tree/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Ellen+Goodman+columns

I love quilts

I love quilts. Love the colors, the patterns, the fabric, the creative / artistic part, the social part that was a quilting bee ... did I mention I love quilts?

This double wedding ring quilt is hanging in my den now. It was made by Almira Griffith, my great great grandmother, for my Dad. I also have the one she made for my uncle. She had six grand kids so I guess she made one for each.

I sew but I don't like to hand sew so I can't image
all those tiny stitches.

William Leachman and The Frontiersman

Copied from Kentucky Ancestors, Volume 7, Number 4 dated April 1972 contributed by Robert Jobson of Jeffersontown, Kentucky

“Regarding the article on Leachman Family Bibles in Kentucky Ancestors, Volume 5, Number 1, July 1969, I thought it appropriate to bring to your attention the following story which I have extracted from various sections of The Frontiersman, a narrative by Allan S. Eckert….

Simon Kenton, born April 3, 1755, in Price William County, Virginia (now the northeastern section of Fauquier County), fell in love at the age of 15 with Ellen Cummins, three years his senior. She, however, did not reciprocate and married in 1770 William Leachman, born 1750, son of Sam Leachman. In 1771, Simon, previously beaten in a fight with Leachman, beat Leachman unmercifully and, thinking him dead, departed for the Middle Ground and his place in Kentucky history. He changed his name to Simon Butler, by which name he was known until 1780, when he learned that Leachman was living. Meanwhile, due to Leachman's bloody appearance and Simon’s disappearance, Leachman was tried for his murder but was acquitted.

William and Ellen had a son born 1772, and she died a few months later. William with his son removed to Kentucky in December 1784, and settled at Simon Kenton’s Station on Lawrence Creek, where he was given land by Simon. He hung himself April 1, 1804.”

I borrowed The Frontiersman from the library. I did not read all 400 plus pages but enough to decide that the summary does match the book. The funny thing is the author spells Kentucky as Can – tuck – ee. Which reminded me of the Ben Stiller spoof from Last of the Mohicans.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=66350
Watch all the way to the end where he says “Can-tuck-ee”

The Leachman Bible, which I posted earlier, says Sampson Leachman went to Kentucky with Simon Kenton.