Sunday, January 4, 2015

Candice Buchanan led me to more ancestors

Our genealogist friend Candice Buchanan administers this "Greene Connections" group on Facebook. It addresses the history and residents of Greene County, Pennsylvania, the birthplace of my husband, Larry Jamison. When she added the above post yesterday, Candice called my attention to it and asked me to review the photos represented, which were actually uploaded to the Greene Connections Flickr page

In this photo my husband and I recognized his great-grandparents, John and Alice (Gregg) Roberts (#6 and #7) and two of their sons Arthur (#37) and Russell (#40).  
Also posted in the collection was this School Souvenir.
John Franklin "Frank" Roberts, Teacher
We are so grateful that these photos are included in the collection as described here: 
The Arthur Ray Main Collection photographs were probably first assembled by Joseph Benson "Joab" Main [1871-1938] and his wife, Malissa Dell Kiger [1869-1941], and later passed to their son, Arthur Ray Main Sr. [1893-1954] and his wife, Toilie Frances Moninger [1897-1934], to their son, Arthur Ray Main Jr., to his son, Arthur Ray Main III, who owned the photos in 2007. Each generation likely added to the collection with photos from their own family and in-laws. Arthur provided the photographs to his cousin, Sherry (Main) Wise, who shared them with the Greene Connections: Greene County, Pennsylvania Photo Archives Project in 2007.

We noticed that, while J. F. Roberts was the teacher at Oak Grove School in Ash Tree, Pennsylvania for the school year 1901-1902, the students included siblings Russell, Oscar (who went by Arthur as identified in the group photo above), Crawford and Goldie Roberts. As you can see by the chart below, Russell (shown at right) is my husband's grandfather and the Teacher, J. F. Roberts is Russell's first cousin. 

A search on Ancestry.com brought me several documents relating to John Franklin Roberts:
 (1) WWI Draft Registration 

(2) WWII Draft Registration, 
(3) Marriage Certificate for his second marriage, 

and (4) his Death Certificate
  J. Frank Roberts' death certificate reveals the sad circumstances which led to his death on December 17, 1952. He fell down the stairs from the main floor to the basement in a clothing store, striking his head on the cement floor and suffered a skull fracture. 

I'm grateful to Candice Buchanan for drawing my attention to this collection of photos relating to Greene County, Pennsylvania and asking me to review it for possible ancestor identifications. Not only was I able to identify Larry's great-grandparents, but I learned more about Larry's first cousin twice removed. 

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