Friday, August 22, 2008

375. Inquiry

Most everyday I read the list of visitors to my site. I honestly don't pay too much attention to who comes and goes, it is just a curiosity thing. I have three different gadgets which record who visits, whence they came, and how long they stayed. They all give me different information and, oddly, they don't always seem to be in synch. Then again, I don't always know what I am reading.

Anyway, if there is a passion of mine bigger than politics, which of late has caused/cost me more than a little anguish among other things, that passion is genealogy. So my curiosity is piqued by a visit about 3:47 today which was prompted by a Yahoo search of "Elijah Milford Hockensmith, Sr." Those are pretty exact search terms - they constitute in fact the full name of my mother's grandfather, for whom my youngest nephew is named. The visit may have been at 4:47, since my gadgets operate on different timezones for some reason which I can't seem to correct.

I have been back on a genealogy kick of late, filling in some gaps in my Galbraith and related lines from Pennsylvania in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as my Noble line from Alabama, which I am just beginning to build with data from the late 1800s. The Hockensmith line, back to Konrad Hockensmith, Sr. (there are various spellings of both his first and last names) is pretty well established and confirmed. He was born in Europe around 1720, arrived in the United States in 1739, and fathered several children by his first wife whose name is presently unknown. He lived and died in the Frederick, Maryland area where he is buried. He died sometime between the writing of his Last Will on May 31, 1793 and its probation on May 15, 1795. I am related to him through two of his children, Conrad Jr., also known as Edward, and Johann Michael, who went by Michael. A number of his descendants eventually arrived and lived and died in central Kentucky and our Commonwealth's capital city is home to more than its fair share of Hockensmiths and Hockersmiths which are the same family.

But, I digress.

At 3:47 pm today, someone from Atlanta, Gerogia using a bellsouth.net email address, or at 4:47 pm, someone using a Time-Warner Telecom address, interestingly also in Atlanta, entered the search terms "Elijah Milford Hockemsith, Sr." into a Yahoo search and ended up reading either the July, 2007 or August, 2007 archived entries of this blog. I have never asked my readers to out themselves before, but I am curious. If whoever it was is back reading this, drop me an email. My regular email address is jtn960@hotmail.com.

Thanks.

1 comment:

Bruce Maples said...

Galbraith, eh? The thought immediately comes to mind of Gatewood -- whom you said would actually make a pretty interesting Sec of Agriculture, which I thought at the time was both accurate and hilarious. (Mental image of Gatewood in cabinet meetings.)

Enjoy the week -- it's going to be great fun!

Bruce (on a writing holiday, somewhere in Indiana)

The Archives at Milepost 606

Personal

Louisville, Kentucky, United States
Never married, liberal Democrat, born in 1960, opinionated but generally pleasant, member of the Episcopal Church. Graduate of Prestonia Elementary, Durrett High, and Spalding University; the first two now-closed Jefferson County Public Schools, the latter a very small liberal arts college in downtown Louisville affiliated with the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. My vocation and avocation is politics. My favorite pastime is driving the backroads of Kentucky and southern Indiana, visiting small towns, political hangouts, courthouses, churches, and cemeteries. You are welcome to ride with me sometime.