Bluebonnet Country Genealogy

dated 16 Jul 1867

Please click on this image for a larger, readable view. In the red squares are J. M Stanley (Jesse Mercer Stanley, my 3rd great-grandfather) and John J Davis, another of my 3rd great-grandfathers, both from my Stanley line.

If you have Alabama ancestors, check out the Alabama Department of Archives and History. They have tons of documents and images online!

Trilla Maryland Stanley

September 20, 1855

December 5, 1932

Grandview Cemetery

Grandview, Johnson, Texas

Trilla Maryland Stanley was my second great-grandmother and my Mom’s namesake.

This certifies that Isaac Turner and S. S. Vance

were united by me in the

Holy Bonds of Matrimony ??? 29th day of ??? in the year of our Lord 1855

in presence of

Signed:
Samuel Vance, J. B. Ellerge, S. A. Vance, M. A. Ellerge

Sadly, there are only four pages that remain of the Turner Family Bible. These page remnants were repaired by simple scotch tape and mounted on cardboard. Not the ideal manner of salvaging 160+ year-old documents. But it’s done and this is all that’s left.

By comparing the word “Turner” at the top of this page with Sarah Turner’s signature on Isaac’s Civil War pension documents, it appears that this Bible page was completed by Sarah herself. Most of the writing on the 3 other surviving pages also appears to be that of Sarah Turner.

Even though these documents are in poor condition, they do contain a wealth of information, most of it amassed “in the first person”, as it were.

Thank you, Sarah!

I went back to my blog, clicked on Log in, and…

Obviously, deleting the suspect plugin caused Wordpress to revert to the default login script, thereby allowing me to log in to my site and create these posts.

This dilemma is analogous to a typical situation found in family history research:

A theory looks to be supported by reliable evidence and sources and seems to fit, only to suddenly find that some of that evidence is faulty, the sources are in question and the theory just doesn’t work.

What to do?

First, don’t panic. Stop and think. In most cases, doing nothing won’t hurt. Third great-grandpa Joe is already dead. It probably won’t bother him much if you take a break.

Step back and look at the big picture. What do you actually know about this man?  His family? The period in which he lived?

Review your evidence and sources. Has anything changed recently? Anything new been added?

Did you find something? Does that marriage date that you just added to your database seem not quite right? A closer look might reveal the culprit. 3GGF Joe most probably wasn’t married at age 12.

Yes, sometimes it’s that obvious and simple to correct. Throw that marriage date out, delete that plugin.

Maybe I don’t have the fancy login page that I wanted, but my site works again!

Same with genealogy. If it doesn’t work, throw it out and keep looking.

I have a Wordpress.org blog, which is a Wordpress blog that is self-hosted. In other words, I can trick out my blog anyway I want to, pretty much. My blog, image gallery, RootsMagic database, all mine, to run as I please. A Content Management System for my genealogical research. I love it!

But even the best systems sometimes suffer a hiccough, a glitch, a bug. And mine did this morning. And I nearly had a heart attack!

I went to my website and clicked on the Log in link and… 404 Error Page Not Found appeared. Oops, that’s not good, ‘cuz now I can’t log into my site.

Not yet hysterical, I sent a support request off to my hosting company. These guys are really great! I’ve not had many problems, but when they do appear, these guys respond to requests usually within an hour or less.

So I sent off the request, closed my laptop, changed out of my jammies and headed off to my local Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Who Do You Think You Are. But that’s for another post…

About an hour later (had to wander around B&N for a bit, ya know!), I came home, opened my laptop and checked my Gmail for a message from the Support Team. There is was, punctual as always:

“Sadly, you may have to write a ticket to the support forums on wordpress…”

Not really the  solution I was looking for. Unfortunately, the Wordpress forum isn’t quite as prompt as my hosting company. I didn’t really want to wait ‘till they got around to helping me.

What to do?

Suddenly I remembered that a plugin that I use to make my login page match the rest of my website was updated yesterday. I wonder…

So I went to my ftp site, logged in and navigated to the plugins folder. There it was, the “person of interest”, the updated-just-yesterday plugin in question. I hesitated, held my breath… and deleted the plugin.

Did I just delete my entire site? Destroy all that research (Yes, it is all backed up. Stay with me here, for dramatic effect!)? Would the sun even shine tomorrow? What have I done?

I went back to my blog, clicked on Log in, and…

TO BE CONTINUED