christmas in august rockwood tennessee style

 



on the first weekend of december every year, many rockwood, tn residents open the doors of their homes to visitors for the rockwood christmas tour of historic homes. i've heard about it for a couple of years, and since the moment i heard, i've been telling myself that i need to make my roane county visits coincide with it - at least once. until her sudden death last year, a distant cousin, sara grasham mee, was one of the tour's organizers. in doing a search on my ellis family today, i came across a wonderful set of pages that let me remember sara and let me tour some of rockwood's homes any time i want. they're all part of a site called rockwood 2000+ :

• an introduction to the tours which explains what they're all about is here


• on that page, too,is a photo of my cousin sara (in red, on the left)


• part of a news release for the 2005 tour was a tribute to sara link


• photos of the homes that were featured last year are here


• the photos for the 2004 tour include many indoor shots and give, i think, a better flavor of the kind of celebration the tour really is. the 2004 pages can be accessed here

♥ and maybe my two favorite albums - because i feel like i'm walking around rockwood - are here and here [this last one is a two-page pdf brochure with a walking tour of the town.♥

the look of the day your ancestor died - the u.s. navy just might help you

"Pa said he was shooting at some pigs"... from the court testimony of frank ellis, 11 year-old son of charles d. ellis
Photo copyright 2006 D Giles Loiselle

the u.s. naval observatory has several interactive tools online, some of which can be handy, if not imperative, for genealogists. one of my personal favorites is the rise/set/transit/twilight data calculator | here |. using it, i am able to get a sense of how much light the might have been left when my great-grandfather, charles david ellis, was shot and killed in an altercation over pigs in a cornfield.

because trial papers tell me it was near 6 p.m. and because i know the location of his death, i am able use the calculator to determine that he likely died a little more than half an hour before sunset that early september evening in arkansas.

if i were more astronomically savvy, i could also use the sun or moon altitude/azimtuth tables to get a better picture of the lighting at the edge of the cornfield. but exactly what does it mean that the sun was 7.7 and had an azimuth of 273.5 east of north at 6 p.m.? (see the same page | here |.) is it possible that a low sun was in his eyes? i know he fell with his head to the west.

so, hey, if you can help me better visualize what happened with the help of the altitude and azimuth information, why don't you let me hear from you, okay?

charles ellis' family data is | here |.

roane county, tennesse genealogy records - document photos of primary materials

in addition to creating web photo albums for the delozier cemetery and the bethel cemetery in roane county, tn today, i have also begun an album that has photographs and/or scans of some of my primary source records which county genealogists can download for their personal, noncommercial use (see copyright notices in my albums). the permanent link to this tn type picasaweb album is http://picasaweb.google.com/
TnType/DelozierCemeteryEmoryGapRoaneCoTennessee

the album name is roane county, tennessee genealogy sources

the initial postings to the album follow:

• French HAGGARD 1848-1918, Death Certificate
• Jane HAGGARD (nee GILLILAND) - Roane Co, TN documentation showing she was the daughter of Robert GILLILAND
• 1890 Roane County, Tn marriage license for James MAJORS and Rachel MONTGOMERY

roane co, tn cemetery listings, photos, and transcripts

view roane county, tennessee cemetery photo albums, and transcriptions i have posted on companion pages of this blog (always free access!)


here on my rootsweb pages


and

here on Tn Type, a companion blog to this one

some surnames in the albums: giles, ellis, mcpherson, brashear, haggard, majors, phillips, morgan, kurtz, brandon, montgomery, and more....


check the links often for new additions...

update:you can also view tn type's public picasaweb roane county, tennessee cemetery albums | here |