An Early Education If the census record is correct, Andrew McCracken was was attending school and could read/write at age 4.  Andrew went on to the be director for Johnson School in Crawford County, where his children went to school.   Rocky Vale   Andrew passed his passion for education on to his son Joe, who became the director of Rocky Vale from 1922 until all his kids finished grade school.  Joe expected his kids

Researching the McCracken family seems to always be a matter of looking where you don’t expect.  This is true of both Lemuel and his wife Louisiana.  They just never seem to be where you expect them to be or they have records that don’t quite match their names although they are definitely for the right people.   Lee County, Iowa   Lemuel showed up alone in Lee County, Iowa.  I found him there in the

  The challenge for Week 2 is a “favorite photo.”  I have no clue how to pick a favorite photo.  So, I asked others and I ended up with this 5-generation photo.   Shown in the photo are Judge Sharpless Klinefelter, his daughter Blanche Klinefelter Thomson,  her son Alexander Thomson, his son James V. Thomson, and his children.  Judge lived to be 100 years of age and this was taken during the last year of

The challenge for week 1 is to consider who you would like to meet.  I considered several obvious people:  Lemuel McCracken, Roger Ellis, and George Nicholson for example. I would love to know who their parents are and hopefully they knew.  However, I decided to write about Tabitha, who married Passco Peele (1733).   Why?   The reason I chose Tabitha is that meeting her would hopefully  put to bed a debate over her parentage