Monday, April 10, 2017

#A-Z Challenge 2017 - G



My friend Renate, from Into the Light, turned me onto this blogging challenge a little over a week ago. I immediately decided that I would participate as it would help me get back to blogging but as you can see, here I am a little over a week later and haven't posted a thing.

So, my goal is to start today and then, hopefully go back and get caught up on the days I missed. Now I admit, some of these may be previous posts from years gone by but at least it will hopefully, finally be a start in getting me going, again.

G was the letter of the day for this past Friday, April 7, 2017. I've decided to use G for the surname Gaynor and to highlight a post that I did in 2011.

Wordy Wednesday - A Name But Still No Clue


What do you do when you have a name but still have no clue who the person is?

Per the inherited photo album from my Aunt Martha, the man pictured above is William Gaynor and he's one of our cousins.

During my research I've never come across any Gaynors, so I have no clue how he fits in. I'm not even sure where he was born and raised, and I definitely have no clue who his parents were.

Aunt Martha also had pictures of some of Mr. Gaynor's descendants and per conversations with and letters from Aunt Martha during her lifetime, some of the Gaynors settled somewhere in Texas. Yes, when I was a beginning genealogist, I made the cardinal mistake of not being interested in the collateral lines and it's always coming back to haunt me.

Aunt Martha always wanted to know how and where the Gaynors fit it. Perhaps one of these days I can unearth the answer to that question.


Since this was originally posted, I have tried to do a bit more research on the Gaynors. I followed the trails of his son, Hollis Burke Gaynor, whom my Aunt Martha used to also keep in contact with. Unfortunately, Hollis passed in 1999, 9 years before I would finally get back to my research and nearly 20 years before I would really start trying to research the Gaynors. I hope that perhaps, I may one day be able to get in touch with some of William Gaynors other descendants and be able to solve this mystery. 




4 comments:

  1. I'm happy to see you joining in on the A to Z Challenge! I hope you find out who the Gaynors are. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and research to figure out where those mystery lines fit in. Good luck!
    Finding Eliza

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  2. Okay, Mav; I've been reading these in backwards order on my Feedly, but I'm feeling some kind of way that you started after me and just zoomed right by me! LOL! (Proud of you, though.) :)
    I'm going to get back on it and try to get caught up. Thanks for all the mentions.
    Great post!

    Renate

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  3. Mavis,
    I ran across your name as I was perusing to find information about slaves in Martin County. I dibble and dabble in finding out information about my family. I see that Jones is a surname that was listed. My grandfather was Levi Jones. He spent sometime in Jamesville, but spent his adult life in Robersonville. Have you come across his name before?

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    Replies
    1. I've not gotten much father than my grandfather on my Jones line. Please email me at maviswjones@gmail.com so that we can converse further.

      Delete

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