Claude LaVern Cripe, born 1892

I've added the first of 6 parts of the transcription from Claude Cripe's audio recording about his life. See it at Olde Guest Column where our Ancestors get to give us their stories. The link in the right bar gets you there too.

Read Full Article HERE...

The Long Lost

There is almost no bigger thrill than when I'm able to re-attach to the tree a previously snapped-off twig or branch. Over the past few years I've been able to find a number of "long lost" cousins. 4th and 5th and 6th cousins, once or twice removed, or more. This is great! Suddenly there are pictures and records and, very importantly, recollections of people who were previously only names on a census or worse, totally unrecorded.

My methodology, if it's not immediately apparent, is to try to start with the oldest provable ancestor and then try to find ALL descendants from that person. In my case this ancestor is George Sheffler born around 1779.

So I have thick bulging files for some of his kids, and absolutely nothing but a birthdate and christening for others. I start working top down, finding George's kids records and attempting to stick with each succeeding generation down each line.

But with the long lost 6th cousin, now I can move bottom up, and gain whole families and places of birth, etc, for people whose records are not yet public.

The best part about this, though, is sharing common histories with each other.

Recently, I've spoken to CRIPE family members. Levi Sheffler ( Frederick2, George1) married Maria Culberton. They had a son who died yound, and two daughters. Ella Sheffler married a Whitten, and Jesse Mae Sheffler married Jesse Cripe. I was finally able to make contact with Jesse's great grandson Duane Cripe, and he put me in touch with Marylee Olson, his cousin.

Jesse and Jesse's oldest son Claude, born 1892, recorded an audio tape in 1967 with his wife Maybelle Ort Cripe,. On the audio he recounts his life, as well as one can do so in an hour of recollections. A number of times he mentions his "Uncle Henry", my great-grandfather, and added a couple of "new" insights to what I knew of Henry already. Later, both my father and his Uncle Bud both recalled Claude and Maybelle from many many years back, and told me a few things that even they had really forgotten about over time.

Thanks to Marylee and her son for sending a copy of that tape. I am in the process of transcribing it in order to include it in the records.

Read Full Article HERE...

The Ancients Speak !

NEW Added Feature : The Olde Guest Column

This is where our long-past line of Ancestors will appear with stories of their lives and communities. Yes, they will be telling it like it was.

There is a new link on the right that will always take you there for the latest.

In our search for family history, once we get past Gramma's stories of her childhood, we find ourselves building whole lives around a handful of dates and facts, like a baptism record, a marriage date, and a headstone. It's a mountain of difficulty to combine sterile facts with what little we know of the historical context, in order to reconstruct what we hope are our ancestors' very biographies. We're reduced to digging for slips of paper, so really, most genealogical research is as human as you can imagine an electronic card catalog to be. Good luck. Finding your great-grandfather's address on a WWI draft card is exciting, but it doesn't tell you much about his Saturday afternoons.

So this could be fun.
Don

Read Full Article HERE...

First New Idea

A number of months back I received an email from an Ed Sheffler, also in California, about our possible Sheffler connections back in Pennsylvania. He is descended from Johannes (John) Sheffler, the first son of George Sheffler. I am descended from 3rd son Friederich (Frederick).

Ed just found this site, commented, and gave me an idea in the process. I see that Ed will have his own blog centered on the VAST descendancy of Johannes Abner Sheffler, and Ed, as soon as you have it up I will have you on the blogroll of this site, a link directly to your blog.

I highly encourage any interested researcher or family member to start your own blog if you haven't yet. It's a great way to upload photos, links, notes and comments, brick walls, etc., in real time.

Then comment on this site and give us your site name or your profile link and we'll get you added to the blogroll. If you have a web site but not a blog per se, FINE! Get us that link and we'll add it.

My first thought with www.Sheffler.org would be that we could simply link to any researcher's site, and we can, but additionally and probably more efficiently, we'll have all links to all researcher's pages here on the Sheffler Daily News so that any comments can be linked back directly right away.

And there's my bright idea for the day.

Read Full Article HERE...