Review of 2017 and Goals for 2018

2017 turned out to be an amazing year for my genealogy pursuits.  I have been working (usually daily in some capacity) on my genealogy since about 1995.  I am constantly amazed at the new findings out there, especially as access to old records open up.

I felt like I did a good job keeping up with the Ancestry hints.  They can get very overwhelming if one isn't vigilant on that.

I had two very major breakthroughs this year.  As stated, I have been working on genealogy for over twenty years.  And one of the very most elusive challenges has been trying to locate my great-uncle's children.  The family lived about four hours away from us. Oddly, the children are younger than I am (my mother's uncle was only seven years older than her).  The children's father died in 1963 and there was only sporadic contact with them over the next few years.  Once I started working on genealogy, my mother continued to ask if I could find them.  I never could.

Then in the middle of last March, out of the blue, I received an Ancestry message from the oldest daughter, my first cousin one time removed.  She had been on Ancestry and found my family tree. It has been wonderful catching up with her and sharing with her over the past few months.  I've been able to share pictures with her, and even some of her father's letters from WWII.  I hope to be able to visit with her in 2018.

The other breakthrough was finding the will of Luke Tippitt as I have written about on this blog.  It took some tenacious work, but I did it!  And it has opened up some other clues for the Tippitt family, although so far, I haven't been able to successfully follow up on them.  But the discovery was from a hint on Ancestry, where old records were open for access.

My goals for 2018?  I am going to participate in the #52Ancestor Challenge again this year.  I did it a couple of years ago and it was very helpful in getting me to dig deeper for records and information, so I am hoping that I can stick with it!  It is a lot of work.  I have begun a genealogy bullet journal to help me with my genealogy pursuits.  It will be interesting to see if I find it helpful or burdensome!

Benjamin Tippitt

Benjamin Tippitt was the son of Luke Tippitt and Nancy Adamson.  His name was the one that I had not known and found in the will of Luke Tippitt.  I have not been able to learn anything more about him.  I don't know or even have a good estimate of when he was born. The 1825 Edwards County Illinois Census shows three sons in the family, which fits with Benjamin being there.  The only "clue" about Benjamin that I have is from Luke's will where it states:

"Will of Luke Tippett
 Luke Tippett during his last sickness declared the following to be his last will and Testament.
 To my son William Tippett I give and bequeath my sorrel mare. To my son Matthew I leave my sorrel horse.  At the same time he requested that his son-in- law James Sawyers take the boys and learn them a trade and that Sawyer take the horses and dispose of them or keep them and at the time the boys attain the age of twenty one he Sawyers deliver them horses equal in value or their worth in _______ at the time he received them-he Luke Tippett stated that he gave to his wife the old sorrel mare and the remainder of his property for her support and to raise the children to wit Milly and Benjamin Tippet." 

So I'm not sure if by the "boys" he meant William and Matthew, and was leaving the remainder of his property to his wife to care for their daughter and Benjamin? So does that mean that Benjamin was the youngest of the children? I know that Milly was born in 1812, William in about 1815, and Matthew was born in 1817. So William and Matthew were only about 11 and 9 years old when Luke died.

I have searched census records but have been unable to locate Benjamin Tippitt.  I have not found his mother Nancy Tippitt after Luke's death in the 1830 or any other census.  I don't know if she remarried or died early.  In a biography of Matthew Tippitt, it states that:

 "A short time afterward (after Luke's death) our subject, accompanied by his mother, removed to what is now the city of Olney, then in Lawrence County, and settled upon a farm." 

So what happened to Benjamin Tippitt?  Or to his mother, for that matter!