Alexander Douglas Martin of Tennessee and Georgia (1844-1925), Confederate Veteran

Alexander Douglas Martin
(photo credit: "walkerchet" at Ancestry.com;
provenance unknown)

Alexander Douglas Martin was born 1 September 1844, the third of twelve children born to Russell M. and Mary (Rogers) Martin in the Red Bank Community of Hamilton County, Tennessee. His family had been there for a number of years already and would remain there for many more. As a young man, "A. D." enlisted in the Confederate Army on 20 September 1862 for "three years or during the war." He joined the 2d Co. K, 1st Regiment of Confederate Cavalry, which had formerly been known as Captain Tyner's Co. Tennessee Cavalry. The first muster roll, dated 14 May 1863 covers the period through 30 April 1863 and indicates that he "has never been paid." Further muster rolls indicate that he often operated as a messenger to other units and indicate almost continuous service through 31 July 1864.

Shortly after the war ended, Alexander traveled south of the Tennessee border to Newton County, Georgia where he met and married Virginia Ann Dill Ramsey, daughter of Alfred M. and Harriett Asenath (Starr) Ramsey on 22 October 1865. In the period of time between January 1867 and December 1890, Harriett would give birth to at least 12 children: Alford Russell, Augustus Seymour "Aughaby," Alice A., Florence, Eddie, Willy Lee, Daniel Alexander, Paul R., Charles Hamilton, Mary, Mattie, Lottie, Andrew Young "Buck," and Robert Ernest.

During the 1870, 1880, 1900 and 1910 censuses, Alexander is enumerated as a farmer living in counties in the Atlanta area: Newton, Clayton, Henry and Putnam. He applied for a pension from the state of Georgia in 1897 in Henry County, Georgia and was granted a pension. In Dec 1904 he was sent a letter from the Commissioner of Pensions in Atlanta asking him to prove why he shouldn't be struck from the Indigent Pension Rolls of Henry Co., Georgia. They contended that he was capable of working and supporting himself. He replied on 28 December 1904 with his own explanation and an affidavit from three physicians that he was unable to work due to "chronic gastritis and neuralgia of the stomach... disease of the heart and hemorrhoids" and that he had not been able to "perform labor in the last 15 years." 

Another letter, dated January 1909 found in the Georgia State Archives digital collection, requests that his indigent pension should be transferred from Henry County to Putnam County. His first wife, Virginia, had died 14 June 1909 and was buried in Berea Church Cemetery in Henry County, Georgia. Alexander appears to have remarried almost immediately on 4 July 1909 to Maggie Ivey in Putnam County and they are enumerated on the 1910 federal census there. 

From records of the Confederate Soldiers Home in Atlanta, it appears that Alexander was admitted sometime around 20 May 1920. He was released on his own recognizance 26 December 1922 and reinstated on 27 September 1924. He later died in his room there on 19 May 1925. He was buried next to Virginia in Berea Church Cemetery in Hampton, Henry County, Georgia.

Transitions

So, you know how they say "today is the first day of the rest of your life?" Well, today really feels like that. Tonight will be the last time I attend a class for my second bachelor's degree. I don't really even have to do anything, just show up and evaluate my classmates' presentations (we did ours last week). But it will be bittersweet. I've spent the better part of two years getting to know these people. A number of us are graduating after this quarter and the rest will finish up in June. Some have become like extended family and it's going to be strange not seeing them for the three months between now and commencement in June. So there's an ending there...

But there's a beginning too, because this means that I'm moving on to a new career in IT! I worked an internship last summer and was offered a position with the group I interned with. It's kind of exciting (and yet a little scary, too) to think about. A 40-hour/week job after 20 years of raising children? Ought to be a cakewalk, right? Well, it'll be different, anyway. And hey, it'll be nice to actually be earning money instead of constantly writing tuition checks! I really am looking forward to it.

Today is also my 25th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe it's been that long, and when I think of some of the things we've been through, it's amazing we're both still here to talk about it! Building a house, getting my first degree, having and raising three wonderful children (and all that entails), three brain surgeries in three weeks for me 10 years ago now, David falling off our roof and breaking his leg, the loss of both of our sets of parents... But there's so much to look forward to in the next 25! Being able to travel, spend our free time together, and eventually grandchildren, just to name a few... I'm sure there'll be some rocks in the road too, but hey, after what we've survived in the past 25? With love and faith, I think we'll survive stubbing our toes on those, too.

I'm also about to embark on another exciting new adventure: serving a part-time LDS service mission from home for FamilySearch Support! My papers are in and the call should be coming any time. I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to use both my genealogical research and IT skills in serving the Lord and FamilySearch users in whatever way I'm asked to. I'm a little nervous, but I imagine that's normal. I'm also totally excited to get started! That will have to wait until I get back from my genealogical travels, but what a fun thing to look forward to when I get back!

So, I guess it just seems fitting to feel like I'm on the brink of something. Standing on the edge and looking over (and totally freaked out by the height, by the way). But looking back, I've had an incredible life so far. Challenging, fun, stressful, brilliant, and full of love and laughter! And I'm so looking forward to more of the same to come!

Future Plans

Is it really possible that it's been almost a year since I wrote last? This is becoming dangerously like my journal writing efforts...

However, as I am now on the very brink of graduating from college (AGAIN!) and starting a full-time job in June, I'm staring down a traveling schedule that makes me wonder what I was thinking. I'll be attending RootsTech again this year in Salt Lake City, and I'm excited to see what all has changed in the past year. I know FamilySearch is making progress by leaps and bounds and I'm sure I'll get to learn a lot of new stuff relative to family history and technology. My hubby and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary (on my last day of finals? Yep, you guessed it...), and are planning a fun road trip to Canada. We'll barely be back and I'll be leaving on a research/meet-the-cousins trip to Georgia, South Carolina and SE Alabama. Can't wait to meet the cousins I've been corresponding with and researching with for (in some cases) over a decade! Stay tuned, as I plan to use my blog to post information on how my research pans out and pictures of all the fun people I meet and places I see. I'll be back from that trip only a day and a half before heading off to a meditation retreat for a week. I've wanted to do something like that for a long time, but am finally biting the bullet now and just doing it.

Then I'll be in the thick of getting my youngest graduated from high school and then he and I will both get to enjoy the thrill of graduation in June! It's going to be an amazing and busy time, but then most people that know me aren't certain I've ever had anything else...

I hope you'll come and read about my adventures. I'm looking forward to sharing them!

Contributions and Community

As I am approaching finals week this quarter, I'm finding that I'm suffering from that demon that haunts me: procrastination. Why is it that when I want so desperately to just be done with things that I can't just push through and do them? Not sure, really. Maybe I'll put that off and think about it later...

I feel badly that I've neglected my blog of late. There has been so much going on. This quarter has been one full of group projects, including an amazing project taken on by a group in my Managing Technical Teams course. The main requirement for this project was that it had to contribute to the community utilizing technology. We decided to help the Heartland Weimaraner Rescue (HWR) back in Missouri by updating their website and giving it a fresh new look and some greater functionality. I focused my attention on doing the website makeover while other members of the team toiled to get their social network presence integrated into the site, created a publicity video to help bring in funding, created an e-commerce solution that would better meet their needs, and provided a back-end database that we will be implementing hopefully in the near future. It was hard work, don't get me wrong, but every time I see now that one of these beautiful dogs has been adopted it just gives me a little thrill! These are people with amazing heart and they are doing wonderful work. We were thrilled that we even got our press release into the Kansas City Star. I look forward to continuing to help this great group.

I also attended RootsTech 2012 back in February, and that was an extraordinary experience. To sit in the same room with all those genealogists and technologists was not only educational, but surprisingly inspiring. I found myself wanting to come home and dive into several genealogical projects I have, but of course life tends to get in the way of our best intentions. While there, I met Steve Morse who will be coming to speak to our Jewish Genealogical Society of WA State meeting next Monday evening about the upcoming release of the 1940 census. This is another really exciting event for the genealogical community! While my mother will not appear in the 1940 census as she wasn't born yet, my father will be. I'm excited to see that! This will be the first time the census has been released digitally and a number of organizations are coordinating their efforts to get it indexed. If you are interested, you can go to The 1940 Census and volunteer to help. What a great way to give back to the community!

And now I guess I'd probably better get back to some of the stuff I'm procrastinating, which includes finishing up end-of-the-quarter projects. Not my favorite thing, but then, this too shall pass. That's probably what I find fascinating about life in general as I get older. Problems that seem so insurmountable at first can eventually be overcome. Patience (something I am in short supply of, I'm afraid), endurance, and most of the time just putting one foot in front of the other eventually finds you leaving that seemingly unconquerable mountain behind. Mind you, I have to constantly remind myself of this. Knowledge is not necessarily wisdom and I end up having to give myself a good stern talking to once in a while. But as I've said before, another thing that makes our own problems seem small is reaching out to others and helping them. So given that, I'm very grateful for the opportunities I've been given over the past few months to contribute to HWR and I can't wait to get started on that census!

You Know You're Nerdy When...

Well, as I write this I have just completed two presentations for two different IT classes I am taking. One in a web design class, where we presented the web site we designed for a local law firm. Thought that one went ok, but then I've been designing web sites for a while and that's in my comfort zone. The other one had to do with Storage Area Networks (SANs) and the whats, whys, and wherefores. Thank goodness I didn't have to do either on my own as they were team projects, but especially the last one. Hardware and I just do not seem to get along! I was gratefully relegated to the end of the presentation where I discussed some software options and who would best implement a SAN. Let's just say I was glad we were running short on time...

Thing is, as I'm preparing for finals next week, I'm amazed at how excited I can still get about all this stuff! We had a presentation on cloud computing today (reference my inaugural blog post) and I found myself thinking of all the cool ways this is going to affect genealogy. Then for some reason, I decided to check the RootsTech 2012 conference site when I got home. For those of you who are not aware, 2012 will only be the second year this conference has been held.

"We interrupt this blog to bring you this important commercial announcement..."

What is RootsTech? It's an awesome opportunity for genealogists of all expertise levels to be in the same room with developers who are interested in creating applications (desktop, online, and mobile) for family historians. I didn't attend last year, but I heard some pretty amazing things about it. Hands-on workshops, interactive classes, rubbing shoulders with the people who have brought technology to the field of genealogy. Microsoft even had a game room set up! Other companies that will be there in 2012 include Oracle, brightsolid, Dell and a number of the major players in the online genealogy world, including Ancestry.com. If you find yourself with some extra time on your hands in February, come join me at RootsTech!

"We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog..."

So, having been a genealogist for 30-some years, I went to look at the classes being offered, and of course went straight to the User track. I scrolled down the list and found a few interesting things (I have got to listen to D. Joshua Taylor's talk on metadata, for instance...), but then thought I'd tiptoe through the Developer track. WOW! Simply reading some of the titles of the classes got me just itching to get on the plane and get down there. Too bad the conference isn't until February 2nd! Developing a new GEDCOM standard, learning about FamilySearch's API, Developing Applications with JavaScript and JQuery (I now know just enough JavaScript to be dangerous...), PHP & MySQL, and a class on Visualization of Genealogy Data are just a few that I'm fascinated by. I am definitely no hard-core programmer (ask either of my programming professors), I don't even know SQL yet, and algorithms can sometimes throw me for a loop (no pun intended...). But for some strange reason, if you put words like computer, database, genealogy, cloud, and web development in the same sentence, the fog seems to clear and I want to learn more and right now please! One would think I've had enough for the time being, but apparently not.

So, I guess I will not so patiently wait until I can get on a plane in February and head to Salt Lake City. I'm sure I'll attend some of the user classes, after all, that's primarily what I still am. But being a wannabe developer with 30+ years of genealogical research experience does have its merits, I suppose. I'm hoping that between knowing what I'd like to see developed in the next several years (bigger and better databases with much better search engines for starters...) and continuing to learn about the many facets of IT in school, that at some point I'll be able to meaningfully contribute to the world of genealogical technology.

How do you know you're nerdy then? When you're tired because your brain is so stuffed with information about CPUs, C# programming, inheritance, UML diagrams, DOM, and secondary storage that you dream about them at night, and yet you can still get excited about going to a technical conference.

Perspective and Legacy

A picture I took this past week from the waterfront near Des Moines.

I suppose that in genealogical circles, we think more about leaving a legacy than some others do. I've had occasion to ponder this over the past few days. In the genealogical community, I've been reading about Bridgett Schneider, the founder of the website Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness, who passed away this week at the far too young age of 64. I never had a chance to take advantage of the incredibly kind natures of the many volunteers that worked to help others make their genealogical research a success, but was always very grateful that such a place existed. The site will be down for a little while, but Bridgett's husband, Doc, has promised Bridgett he'll get it back up and running. Over 4,000 volunteers helping each other with their family history from all over the world; it's an amazing thing...

Bridgett's passing made me think of my sweet mother who died six years ago now at the age of 63. I wonder if when she was my age she realized that she had less than 20 years left on this earth? That she wouldn't live to see her oldest granddaughter get married, her next oldest graduate from high school, or her grandson graduate and leave on a mission? I'm sure she had all kinds of plans, including great-grandchildren. After all, her mother and grandmothers lived into their 80s and 90s. It makes me sad, but it also makes me reflect... Would I change something if I knew that about my own life? I like to think I would, but I wonder. Life has a way of just taking over and swamping our best intentions. At times I feel positively bulldozed by circumstances!

Even when I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day. Just recently, in the midst of frantically preparing for and taking midterms, I received several very interesting genealogical queries from distant cousins that demanded attention. It would have been easy to just put them off, but I found that answering them helped me to keep my perspective and gave my mind a rest from C# programming and CSS layout. If I had to think one more time about all the components of a CPU... but it also occurred to me that sometimes I get overwhelmed and a few of those 50 balls I'm trying to keep in the air drop with a resounding thud. What I have often wondered is which ones will I regret dropping the most? I'm smart enough to know that I will regret some. Maybe it will be spending time being silly with my teenage son, or quiet time with my hubby. Since my girls have gone off to school, time spent just chatting and getting giggly on the phone has come to mean a lot more, believe me!

But, in the end, as a very wise woman told me today at church as I was preparing to perform a duet during Sacrament Meeting and was feeling a bit panicked, "You can only do the best you can do." And in the end, I suppose that's the answer. As we near the Thanksgiving season, I'm most grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows my limitations and while He expects me to do my best to overcome them and to grow, He also understands when I've done my best and can do no more.

So maybe it's time we all were just a little gentler and kinder to ourselves and others, did our best to help them bear their burdens, and spent some time letting those we love around us know about it. We don't always know what's around the next bend, and that's ok too. Just do your best to leave a legacy of love and service and try to keep a perspective that allows you to keep moving forward and live your life with joy.

On Education

I taught a class on organizing your family history yesterday to a genealogy society and I'll admit that a few days before I was thinking, "Why do I do this?" I have taught at various venues for a number of years here in my community and have always enjoyed it. But every once in a while, when I look at my absolutely crazy schedule, I wonder if I should continue. Is it really worth it? But then I teach again and I remember, "Oh yeah! This is why I do this!" I have to thank everyone at the Jefferson County Genealogical Society for being so warm and welcoming. It was a beautiful drive to Chimacum (near Port Townsend), and the view of the Olympic Mountains as I drove over the Hood Canal Bridge was inspiring. But really the highlight of the whole day was getting to teach those wonderful people. They were so gracious and kind, and I just had so much fun!

I have always loved attending genealogy seminars and programs. Heck, I just enjoy learning period, full stop. I remember taking a Career Interest class at Bellevue Community College back in the day and one of the things they measured was how much you enjoyed learning and what type of situation you learned best in. Were you a college lecture-type person? Maybe you learned better in a hands-on trade school environment? As soon as I got my results back, I knew they had me pegged: I was listed as potential PhD material. Now, this had nothing to do with being intelligent or not. It was simply that I love to learn in the college environment and apparently they figured I was good to go for long enough to get to that level. Truth is, I'm back in college for my second bachelor's degree (it's tough to go get a Master's in Computer Science when your original degree was a Bachelor of Science in Zoology). Is it harder at my age? Yeah, I'll admit that I find some things more difficult. Am I enjoying it? You bet I am!

What I find interesting these days is how I'm viewed in the classroom. I am, on average, old enough to be most of these kids' mother. No kidding... I attended the orientation in August for the program I'm starting later this month at the University of Washington Tacoma campus and actually had one of the kids say to me, after I explained the pros and cons of the workshop classes, "Ok Mom, we'll sign up for the workshops." When I later asked the department advisor how I got into the program (since as a post baccalaureate student I didn't have a very good chance), she said that the head of the program took a second look at my application and said, "Oh definitely. We want this kind of diversity." That led me to think, "Me? Diverse?" When I told my husband about this, he laughed and asked how it felt to be diverse because I was old. Let's just say I didn't find him all that amusing, especially given that he's 14 years older than me! But I really do enjoy the atmosphere I'm in with those kids (and I can rightfully refer to them as kids, since I have children their age) and the energy they bring to what they do. It makes me remember what it was like to be that age, going to college for the first time, and trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up. (By the way, when I solve that little mystery, you all will be the first to know...)

The interesting thing that I've found is that the more I learn, the more I love to teach. I have taught genealogy seminars in public libraries, retirement communities, LDS Family History Centers, and at our state genealogy conference. But then I have also taught teenagers in early morning seminary for church (yeah, 6:00 a.m. every weekday morning back then!), little ones in Primary classes, music during Sharing Time, preteens in Sunday School, women in Relief Society, and occasionally Sunday School. I'm currently teaching some of the young women in our ward. I even recently had the rather unnerving opportunity to fill in during our Sunday School class with no previous preparation. And let me tell you, we have amazing sisters that teach our Sunday School class; they are a tough act to follow! I'll be honest though and say that I found it a very interesting experience. It's not often you have to fly by the seat of your pants, but I got the chance that day, and thank goodness for wonderful class members who contributed and didn't let me fall on my face! So I think that's why I enjoyed teaching yesterday so much. I often find that I get as much out of it as the people that attend. The people who attended yesterday's class asked interesting questions; they obviously wanted to learn, and that made all the difference for me as the instructor. It just feels good to share what you know and be appreciated for it.

In reality, education at any age is a choice. We can choose to rest on our laurels and just go with what we already know, or we can get out there and try to learn one more new thing. Or may two... or three... I find that in the genealogical realm, there are a whole host of ways to do this, including taking online classes through the National Institute of Genealogical Studies in Toronto (I'm about 2/3 done with my certificate program!), or through the National Genealogical Society. Don't have that kind of time? Try the lessons on FamilySearch.org that involve finding your ancestors during their Five-Minute Genealogy courses. How did I learn about those? I read Cyndi Howell's blog and you can too!

So go out there and learn something new today. It doesn't have to be genealogy related of course, but then again, why shouldn't it be?