Sources and Intent:
It has been my desire to present an historical
family study which sedgeways the events of the history experienced by the
persons catalouged in its genealogical study. As a result, Within the Vines
has many pages of historical commentary linking to the ancestors forming
its basis. While it is true that I love genealogy, I love history more,
and genealogy is my vehicle to its study.
Genealogically, great effort has been
made to source all entries at each data entry in an effort to promote the
health of the tree itself and to allow others to evaluate the sources
for themselves. I see no surname as more important than another;
All lines have been treated with
similar respect, although research
on some lines is more advanced than others. Sources include primary reference
material
[census entries, deeds, baptism records,
family bibles, wills, newspaper obits, orphans dockets, etc], interviews
with living
family members yielding solid "living
history" to persons known to them in their youth, secondary sources such
as books and publications relevant to the study of the genealogy of the
particular line under consideration, and the work of fellow researchers
via direct communication and webstudy. Each detail is sourced so that the
reader can evaluate its merit for him or herself ; The reader is strongly
encouraged to review the sources on each page. As with all genealogical
studies, this work is imperfect. Please contact the webmistress
for any omissions or errors encountered or thought to occur.
Persons included in this web study:
I include all known children of the
direct family group. For those children who were adopted thus giving
meaning, fullness and vitality to the units into which they were gratefully
enfolded , when known and where information does not conflict with privacy
issues, dual ascendancy is provided in awareness of the enormously
precious gift of life that allowed them to become members of my family.
Wholeheartedly included are those children in the direct family group who
either died at birth or young childhood and likewise those who lived to
adulthood but did not produce their own progeny. Often neglected, early
infant loss and young children's deaths formed the pysche of our forebears,
and adult, childless members of a sibling group frequently
assured the vitality of the previous generation and / or their own , served
to cement the alliances of the greater family group through their own childless
marriages, and / or provided support and resources for the child producing
siblings of their birth family group; Any omission of them or the details
of their lives neglects the often important roles they played in forming
circumstances assuring the continunity of the tree itself through its more
obvious, child producing members.
Generally, I have ommited the detail
on the children of siblings to our directs beyond mention of their lifespans
and marriages.
This rule is broken if an entry is
of great historic interest or somehow folds back into our direct lines
in some way in later
generations,even if folding back
they fold back very distantly into our own direct lines.
About the Author and her familial
history in Gettysburg and at the time of the battle:
I was raised a 6th generation Gettysburgian
through many of Pennsylvania's Adams
County surnames, & inherent love for history
was the battlefield's legacy to me.
In asking about the battle and its effect on our family, my father told
me we of the Swope
surname
living
in Gettysburg at the time [the John Adam Swope family]
were "hiding in the basement as were all the other civilians". Huddled
with his parents was my father's grandfather, Samuel
McCurdy Swope , then just a teenager and who would later figure
in the development and commemoration of the battlefield. He told my father
just what he did during the battle, and when he finally got into that basement
with his parents, he was likely entertaining and terrorizing them with
his morning's escapades, for he had just returned from
Willoughby run, having risen with the sun on what would be the first
day of the battle, chatted up the cavalry there and got two men to agree
to let them water their horses. But the boys watered the horses at Marsh
Creek, became aware a battle had started, and had to return very near it
and to two frustrated and angry cavalry . THEN he raced home to his
basement. Out very near where Sam had ventured at dawn was the home of
my GGG Grandparents, Gabriel and Nancy Baughman Meals. Later in the
day, as a result of the fighting and in concern for her home she thought
she saw in flames, Nancy and her daughter Lydia rushed in attempt
to save personal items only to find their home sound and occupied by several
confederates, one of whom was eating an onion as if it were an apple.
Lydia threatened him with her brother, then part of the artillery surronding
the doomed southern force in possesion of their home, while her mother
cried out in alarm that she must hush. They managed to get a few
things, and scrambled back to town. Meanwhile, likely in their own
basement in town were my GG Grandparents John and Maria Troxell Slentz.
I suspect, but have not yet proven with conclusiveness that our Slentz
family forebear of the era , John just named, was a sibling to
the tenant farmer in residence at the
famous Slentz farm involved in the first days fighting at Gettysburg.
When I wondered at our stand in the
conflict, I was assured our Swopes were a staunchly abolitionist family.
I have documented that truth. But I have found other truths. I have
a brother to my Hoke Family direct found in marriage to the half
sister (Sabina
Swope.) of my Swope direct. Sabina was responsible for
her family's removal to North Carolina, and among her
southern grandchildren serving are several esteemed generals
and many brave enlisted , one family of whom lost two boys during Pickett's
charge. I have found that among my Howard Allied directs, the
specifics of which alluded my parents and the unravelling of which has
consumed several years of study, I have a slaveless ancestor, Jabe
McGehee of the McGehee family
fighting in the war he called of Northern Aggression, and I
have found slave ownership in direct lines spanning 1623-1820, always in
Virginia, and often, paradoxically, among the Quaker plantars arising
from the Howard allied lines. This slave ownership appears to have begun
unwittingly , involving both Abraham
Piersey and the John
Woodson family [via the 1623
precense of black Americans in the home of our Woodson forebears of
Virginia before the term slave could be truly applied to any person of
the American British colonies] , and appears to have ended in guilt, enlightenment,
and convenience via the will of John Pleasants, Sr who released more than
500 slaves in death and with his will. Unable to accomplish this act for
reasons unknown to me before his passing, John Pleasants, Sr left
it for his family to deal with the legislation and difficulties arising
from white Virginia's unwillingness to have such a large number of its
slave population emmancipated; The desire of his will took, sadly , 20
years to be accomplished. I have dedicated a page to those directs holding
slaves not only for the substantial global historical significance of several
of the individuals involved [both black and white] but also in deference
to fellow genealogists studying their enslaved ancestors, the patience
for discovery of which requires fortitude beyond any brick wall I have
encountered anywhere in my lines. See Slaveholders
Within the Vines.
