Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year - 100 Year Old Postcard

Although I started blogging for the first time a little less than a month ago I decided to dive in even deeper and begin another blog.  Ancestral Times is a genealogy blog that I primarily want to use for information about my husband's family. With this blog, I also plan to report family findings and news, post pictures, and tell stories about my paternal and maternal lines - Robbins and Conley. Hopefully what I post here will be of interest to family members since it's in small doses.

The name for this blog is for my maiden name, Robbins.  "Nested" was added as a play on words since robins nest. Those familiar with computer programming know a nested loop is a loop within a loop and most are familiar with nested dolls.  In genealogy we have family within family, so those examples of the word "nested" appealed to me as well.  It challenges genealogy programs when two sisters married men who were brothers or a distant cousin of my dad's is also my aunt by marriage to my mother's brother.  Of course there's also a distant cousin of my mother's who was an aunt by marriage to my father's brother. We all have those and other complexities to sort through in our research.
 
Choosing to begin posting to this blog on January 1, 2012 made me instantly think of some New Year's postcards I have that were given to me by Granny Conley, my maternal grandmother. I was pleased to find one with birds on it.  They are not robins and they are not nested, but they're birds!


When I looked at the back of this one, I saw it was postmarked in both Llano and Lampasas, Texas on Jan 25, 1912 - almost 100 years ago!  It appears to have been addressed to Mr. J. F. Conley, my maternal grandfather, in Adamsville, Texas.  It was written in pencil and reads as follows:
Hello Nora [my maternal grandmother] - Ella [my mother's paternal grandmother, Amanda Ella Taylor Conley]
How are you
Say Nora Mama said tell you if you wanted to see Grandma you better come at once and tell Earl and Violet if you all want to [sic] hear alive you come at once
Mama card

One question is, "Who is Grandma?"  Is Ella the writer and referring to her mother, who would be Nora's grandmother, as "Mama"?  Ella's mother did not die until 1926 and Ella did not die until 1956.  Does this refer to my grandfather's mother?  I'm still trying to prove her name was Mary Williams Conley and do not have a death date for her or any other information. If it referred to my grandfather's mother, then why tell Earl and Violet, my grandmother's sisters?  Why does it have the word "card" after "Mama" at the end?  This will take some thought and research, so it's a good beginning for the blog, for the new year, and more research.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations on your new blog! I love the postcard - I love how it "plays" on your family name. I love and collect old postcards and use them often on my blogs. Look forward to reading more posts of your family history!

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