"Ellie" Moore Death Certificate

Here is a recent find, the death certificate of my great-grandfather Josh Moore's stepmother, Elizabeth "Ellie" Moore, from Bremen, Georgia, with date of death of 10 May, 1925. Cause of death was pneumonia. She was not a blood relation, but this is still a nicely informative bit of family history.

Ellie was the second wife of Rev. Thomas Moore. Per her memorial page at Find A Grave, she had been previously married to P.K. MacKenzie*, an immigrant from Scotland, and by him had one daughter, Priestly MacKenzie (1865-1935), who married local physician Dr. Marshall H. Stephens. Through her marriage to Reverend Moore she was the mother of William Claude Moore (1874-1946) and Leila Moore (1879-1898). William married a woman named Toka W., while Leila married Oscar Bullard. At this writing there seems to be no evidence that either of them had children of their own.

*Note and trivia: Kinney tradition holds that the family is a sept of Clan MacKenzie, but this has recently come under dispute. A copy of the Kinney family history that has been a major source of information for those reseraching the descendants of William Kinney from Scotland who traditionally fired the first shot at Guilford Courthouse during the Revolutionary War, is said to have been bound in a copy of the Clan MacKenzie tartan. It would be interestng to know what relation, if any, Mr. MacKenzie might have been to the ancestor of the woman who eventually married Ellie's stepson, Josh Moore.

March of the King of Laois

Our family anthem, the March of the King Of Laois, (Ruari Og O'Mordah),  as performed by Dan Ar Braz:

eBay Finds: Hoge Davis Drug Company

While skimming through eBay I found the following item, a bottle from the Hoge Davis Drug Company, housed at one time in the E.K. Hoge Building in Wheeling, West Virginia. The comapny's founder was a distant cousin on my mother's side, part of the "Quaker" line of Hoges that immigrated from Pennsylvania to Virginia and West Virginia.

Happy Birthday, Nannie!

Today would be the 105th birthday of my paternal grandmother, Christeen Taylor Moore (1906-1993), forever known to me as "Nannie."

The Wingfields of Rutland and Tickencote

Part of my great-great grandmother Sarah Margaret Huckeba Moore's line goes back to the Wingfields, who at one time owned much of the land in Rutland emcompassing and surrounding the village of Tickencote. Below is a video of a walking tour of the Rutland Round, including views of the church in Tickencote with a stone commemorating its rebuilding in 1792 by Eliza Wingfield, a distant relation.

Sarah Margaret Huckeba

Photo of my great-great grandmother Sarah Margaret Huckeba, first wife of Rev. Thomas Moore and mother of my great-grandfather Marion Joshua Moore. At this writing I am researching her bloodline, which thus far extends to the Garlands, Wingfields, Cromwells, and Seymours. More will be posted at a later date.

Update: Her memorial page at Find A Grave, including an obituary from the Carroll County Times, may be found here.

Pellagra and the Death of Zach Kinney

A recent find, the death certificate of my great-great-grandfather Jim Kinney's brother, Zachary Taylor Kinney. cause of death was pellagra, an all too common malady in the southeast US and parts of Europe prior to World War II. It was especially common among older people who had lost their teeth at a time when dental care and dentures were not widely available, forcing them to subsist almost entirely on corn mush. Corn is rich in niacin but in a form which is not easily absorbed in its natural state. Native Americans had long ago learned the trick of washing maize in wood ash lye to release the niacin, but curiously European settlers never bothered to learn it from them.