Mystery Solutions sometimes come in small notebooks

 When my sisters and I opened up our mom's cedar chests last week I knew there would be many finds to capture my genealogist's heart. She tended to hold on to the very things that would interest me. Mom has been gone for almost 7 years but schedules, location and a promise to wait until we all could look inside together has kept us from opening her hope chest and our grandmother's cedar chest until last week.

I came home with a crate, a box and a bag of pictures, files and artifacts tucked in the back of my car. The dining room has been covered with stacks of pictures, letters in new sheet protector homes and a variety of other documents and artifacts.

When I pulled out a small, red, loose-leaf notebook from one of the folders last night, I knew I had something special in my hands. On the first tiny page, the handwriting said:

"Family Record
Presented to Forest R.E. Dibbens (my grandfather) 

from Mother (my great grandmother, Jessie Christene Field Dibbens) Written Mch 9, 1932 

Cheney Kansas"

Besides the fact that it was written by my great grandmother, I was excited to find an answer to a mystery that I have been trying to solve for several years. My great grandfather, ARJ Dibbens Jr.'s family came from Isle of Wight, England. It has been very difficult to go back very far in England because of some names that keep confusing me. The surname, Cobb was showing up on both of his parents branches within one generation. I always thought I had something confused but Jessie devoted almost an entire tiny page to that mystery. On page 26 (yes, she numbered each page!) she wrote:

"Grandfather & mother Cobb

Great grandfather

Linnington

Leah Linnington married

Mr. Cobb then

daughter Ann (Cobb)

married William Dibbens"

That may not be exciting to some people but it left me saying, "aha!" Now it makes sense! I love a solved genealogy mystery!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone which is a very advanced skill! ;-)

Decisions, Decisions!

It has been a while since I have posted. I've been spending quite a bit of my genealogy time doing research lately and now I have some decisions to make. Which story do I want to write about next?

Here is part of my list:

• Great Uncle Reuben Johnson who traveled the country by empty boxcar, canoe and motorcycle when he was young. 
• Great Uncle Emil Johnson's 7 year disappearance and how his family found him.
• The special, fragile, and everlasting ingredient that Great, Great Grandma Anna Dibbens brought with her from Isle of Wight when she moved to America.

Any preferences?

Their eyes were my eyes - No Tombstone Tuesday - Part 2

The woman on the left is my 2nd Great Grandmother, Anna Ruth Jarman Dibbens. She was born very close to the place this picture was taken in June of 1843 in Newchurch, Ryde, Isle of Wight, England, and died shortly after this picture was taken in Southsea, England, on December 20, 1919. It's the journey in between those two dates that is the real story.
Anna married Arthur R Dibbens in November, 1865 in the island and they started their family with the first five children; three of whom survived and moved with them to America in 1873 where they added three more children to their family. By 1876 they were living in Wichita, and finally settled near Kingman, Kansas by 1900. They found the land they had been looking for along the banks of the Ninnescah River. The family moved into a sodhouse on that land with six children and survived at least one river rising while in the sod house, but it was worth it as they watched their kit home coming toward them on wagons. It had traveled to them by train from halfway across the country; a mail-order house that is still standing over 100 years later. (I hear there is a picture of the kit being delivered somewhere at a local museum but I have yet to find it.) I began this blog back in 2009 with some pictures and stories about that house, which is still a home. (pictures of the home are in my blogs from 2009.)

Anna and Arthur raised their children in the kit home, making several trips back to England. The last trip to England to visit family was in 1919. The picture above was taken during that trip. Anna died, just across the bit of ocean that separates the island with the mainland, in Southsea and was buried in Highland Road Cemetery in Southsea: Plot M, Row 2, Grave 23. Her stone is no longer there. The acid from the bombings that happened over the area during WWII destroyed many of the stones in that cemetery according to the historian who works there. Her stone may be gone but her legacy lives on and... her eyes are my eyes.

Here is the passport application for their last trip to Isle of Wight and Southsea, England.

Their eyes were my eyes - No Tombstone Tuesday - Part 1

"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes.”

                                                    
 - Richard Llewellyn from How Green Was My Valley

I've had questions about this picture and now I can't resist telling about it. The woman on the left is my 2nd Great Grandmother, Anna Ruth Jarman Dibbens. She was born on the mainland in Barnstable, Devon, England, married very close to the place this picture was taken in June of 1843 in Newchurch, Ryde, Isle of Wight, England, and died shortly after this picture was taken in Southsea, Hampshire, England, on December 20, 1919. Its the journey in between those two dates that is the real story. (See next post)