30 Dec 09 - I just noticed the last several weeks worth of notes I made here have disappeared. I suppose the text exceeded the limit of the field and was truncated. I've saved what remained, and will be incorporating this into a permanent Changes page, when I figure out how I intend to do that. I probably will break the current Changes page into two pages, for 2007 and 2008. And make a new page for 2009 with the notes I've saved from what I made here, and whatever else I can remember of the various spurts of genealogical activity I've had over the past year or so.

Howe → Major Joseph (1720-1794) - In any case, my current spasm of genealogical activity began about 12 Dec 09 when (as a result of going through a book of old Alabama newspaper transcriptions) I discovered Listen to the Mockingbird by Daniel Dunbar Howe, published 1961, was available on HeritageQuest. This may be the definitive genealogy of the descendants of my 6^th great-grandfather Major Joseph Howe. To my knowledge this is the first a copy was available west of the Mississippi, other than one at the Mormon Temple to Genealogy in Salt Lake.

My software tells me I cited 3,816 individuals from the Appendix, which is the genealogy section: pages 287-372; the families of Hoge, Howe, de Jarnette, Heavin (Haven), and Patton.

Mastin → Gustavus L. (1815-1880) - While going through a compilation of "Marriage, Death, and Legal Notices from Early Alabama Newspapers (which I probably wouldn't have done if I weren't volunteering a couple of days a month at the genealogy room in the local library), I a ran across an entry for Gustavus Lyle Mastin (1815-1880), indexed under Hoge, that stated the following:

Gustavus was the son of Arbela Hoge, and she was the great-granddaughter of William Hoge & Barbara Hume, which makes him my 3rd cousin 5 times removed. His wife, Mary Eleanor Fearn, shows as my 6th cousin 5 times removed, our common ancestors Thomas Lee (1679-1733) and Elizabeth Keene (1701-????), who's daughter Leanna Lee (1728-1759) married John Fearn (1717-1782).

While the only source I've been able to find for Arbela Hoge as daughter of Solomon (so far) is in FamilySearch International Genealogical Index, these tend to be based on something - which is more than can be said for some of their Ancestral and Pedigree Resource files. That Arbela Hoge was the mother of Gustavus is supported by his first daugter being named Arbela Mastin. Cartmell's Shenandoah Valley Pioneers in 1909 declares

In 1929 The Family of Hoge is more reserved:

The Solomon Hoge that was the son of my 6^thgreat-grandparents James Hoge & Nancy Griffith, brother of the 1st Moses Hoge, would have been around the right age as well. And, quite possibly, in the right place.

In the course of all this I added numerous families for various reasons, among them:

Clayton → William Wirt (1812-1885) - William's first child, Julia Frances Clayton, married Edward Foster Hoge, my 3^rd cousin 4 times removed. They had only one child, Augustus, who died as an infant.

On the 1860 census, William declared a real and personal estate of $63,000, which would be worth between $10,779,300 and $209,389,051 in 2008, according to Measuring Worth.

The Seldons of Virginia, which traces William Wirt Clayton back, on the one hand to the Pendletons, who's family probably intermarried with the Hoges and other related families already in my database. And back, on the other hand, to Roger Dixon (1754-1799) and Lucy Reade Rootes (1727-1802). A FamilySearch Pedigree Resource File declares Lucy to be the daughter of Major Philip Rootes and Mildred Reade, where Leo's Genalogics picks up and takes us back to my common ancestors Henry Percy 3º Earl of Northumberland & Heiress Eleanor Poynings (1421-1484), my 16^th great-grandparents.

The Seldens of Virginia also contains the descendants of Andrew Hunter, among them Ann Kean Hunter (1798-1882) who marrried my 1^st cousin 6 times removed, Reverend John Blair Hoge. There were also a number of connections to very distant Randolph and Tucker cousins, and so forth.

I cited 320 individuals from The Seldons of Virginia.

Rust → William (1634-1688) - Listen to the Mockingbird carries the line of Emory Eaton Hoge (1854-1910), mentioned by The Family of Hoge, my 2^nd cousin 4 times removed on my mother's side, through John Hampton Hoge and Mary Estelle McIntosh (????-1931).

This time, when citing Georgie/Georgia Rust, I decided to check for connections and found that Georgia is my 6^th cousin 4 times removed through Samual Rust who married Martha Garner, daughter of (According to the Wingfield Family Society, among others) my 9^th great-grandparents on my father's side John Garner (1634-1702) & Susanna Keene (1644-1716).

I was about a third of the way done entering Rusts from a FamilySearch Pedigree Resource File when it occured to me to check for a published Rust genealogy, and I found one on Heritage Quest, which begins with the descendants of Samuel Rust and Martha _____; Rust of Virginia (Washington, D.C.: Rust, 1940). It appears to be what the FamilySearch file was based on, and the largest part of it is transcriptions of wills.

George Hoge (1733-1805) & Elizabeth Blackledge (1737-1803) → A search, for what reason I can't recall, turned up a limited preview of Tenmile County on Google Books which had a great deal of information about the descendants of George Hoge. I ended up citing 440 individuals from that limited preview which begins with the Hoges on page 100 and goes through the descendants of William, son of William Hoge and Barbara Hume - through his son William Hoge & Ann; through their sons George who married Elizabeth Blackledge, and William who married Esther Ewing - through 15 pages or so of various descendants and interwoven families.

Flora Cook → I'm currently in the process of removing Flora Cook from my Who's Who page, which was formerly my Home Page. I've been meaning to do that for some some time now, as several sources which have come to light make it appear most unlikely she was my 4^th cousin 4 times removed, as claimed by The Family of Hoge. But I couldn't figure out who to replace her with and didn't want to take the time to do it. I thought about Wallis Simpson, but the Duchess of Windsor wasn't a very nice person, and she wasn't close enough of a relative to be on my Home Page, being something like my 6^th cousin 3 times removed on my father's side. I ran across Wallis while looking over WARGS genealogy of Obama. Our common ancestors are John Gaither (1646-1702) and Ruth Morley (1655-1719).

Anyway, I decided to replace Flora with Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, my 4^th cousin 5 times removed.

With the wonders of Google Earth and its National Register of Historic Places overlay, I've been able to obtain coordinates for many mystery locations, and have taken much time finding and entering coordinates for those that do not have them; many of them prominent in the history of the Hoges and the Howes and their descendants. I've also taken some time to detail the formating of my online presentation, something I've been wanting to do for a long time now. I've added a page view/visits counter, which started from zero on 29 Dec 2009.

I also have several hundred email, including many photos and much other information from my mother, which I hope to add, not the least of which is a history which she had published about Bemiston, a textile milltown in Talledega. Since June I've spent pretty much all my time writing articles for examiner.com as their Santa Cruz Drug Policy Examiner. This has brought me more than a little attention, and a some talk of a book, but it has meant no time for genealogy. I can only spend a few days more on genealogy before I must return to writing articles for Examiner.com, and perhaps a book.