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The GSOC Newsletter The Genealogical Society of

Okaloosa County, Florida

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 Revised: 18 Sept 2018

September 22, 2018 10:30 AM at GSOC

Virginia Shelby Presents:

“NATIVE AMERICAN RESEARCH”

Virginia Shelby was born and raised in Escambia County

Florida and graduated from the University of West Florida.

She then moved to Atlanta, GA where she resided for 20

years. While living in the Metro Atlanta area, Virginia

attended Kennesaw State University where she received her

qualifications to become a CPA. She has over 20 years’

experience in tax return preparation. Virginia worked for a

CPA in the metro Atlanta area, worked with a tax attorney in

the North GA Mountains and became proficient in tax

resolution.

In January 2013 she received the prestigious designation of

Certified Tax Coach. Virginia is one of about 200 Certified Tax

Coaches across the US and the only one in the Northwest

Florida Panhandle and South Alabama. As a Certified Tax

Coach Virginia works proactively to find all possible legal

deductions to reduce client’s tax burden. Virginia has owned

her own CPA and tax planning firm, “Shelby’s Tax

Consultants,” for the last nine years.

When not working on tax planning, Virginia loves genealogy

and the study of American History. She has written several

articles on family and American history that were published in

the “History of Escambia County”, Volumes 1 and 2 and she

also wrote and published two books “Shelby’s of Dixie” and

“The History of Beulah Baptist Church and Community.” She

loves seeing history come alive through her long family

history in America. She is a member of the West Florida

Genealogical Society and the Mid-County Historical Society in

Molino, FL, as well as, the Florida Genealogical Society and

the South Carolina Genealogical Society. She is a member of

the DAR and Daughter of War of 1812.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Page 1 THIS MONTH’S GUEST SPEAKER – Virginia Shelby

• Page 2 UPCOMING EVENTS – October – Annual Show, Share or Tell; January’s Guest Speaker – Hank Klein

• Page 3 NOMINATION OF 2019 OFFICES NOTICE

• Page 4 GSIG News, FOOD STORY Project, & Members’ Surnames Research List

• Page 5 List of Occupation Titles Used in Old Records

• Page 8 GSOC MEETING MINUTES – 25 August 2018

• Page 11 EVENTS AND INFORMATION

• Page 12 ANNOUNENT & MAILING PAGE

SPECIAL NEWS: The normal GSOC website is up and running.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flocgs

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October 27, 2018, 10:30 AM Fort Walton Beach Library

185 Miracle Strip Parkway SE, Fort Walton

Beach, FL

ANNUAL SHOW, SHARE OR

TELL PROGRAM

Members, or even visitors, can volunteer to do any

of the following:

• Bring in a family heirloom and talk about it.

• Talk about a fascinating or interesting

ancestor.

• Talk about a genealogy research trip and

what you learned.

• Talk about how you broke through a

“brickwall” for an ancestor.

• Talk about any other family history that

people will find informative, funny or

helpful.

Talks and presentations are limited to 5-10 minutes

unless cleared through Jon Sheperd, GSOC

President, at shepfam@cox.net.

Use of a Power Point presentation is fine but let

Jon know.

A sign-up list will be passed around at the

September meeting which will include presenter,

topic, and estimated length. Or you can contact

Jon via email and give him the same information.

We will also allow other “last minute”

presentations on meeting day, time permitting.

January 26, 2019,

10:30 AM Fort Walton Beach

Library

185 Miracle Strip

Parkway SE, Fort

Walton Beach, FL.

MAJOR U.S. PUBLIC LAND LAWS Presented by Hank Klein

Most of us have heard of the Homestead Act of 1862. While

that law opened up much of our new nation to settlement,

especially in the south, mid-west, and west, there were

many other Land Acts that were both national and regional

in nature. Destin historian and author Hank Klein will

present historical information about the difference between

Public vs. State owned land, Patent Deeds, the Public Land

Survey System, the division of public land into Townships,

Ranges, & Sections, and more. Learn about Veterans

Subdivisions that were made available for Homesteading in

Northwest Florida as late as the mid-1950s.

Mr. Klein has long been interested in the history of Destin, Florida, and the genealogy of his father-in-law's and mother-in-law's families (Marler and Shirah). Both came from pioneer Destin families and both were related to Leonard Destin, the original founder of Destin, Florida. Hank's father-in-law's aunt, Emma Marler, married George Destin, the first born son of Leonard and Martha Destin. While Hank's mother-in-law's sister, Alice Shirah, married George D. Destin the son of George Destin and grandson of Leonard and Martha Destin Klein has written books documenting his and his wife's family genealogy, and he has also had a monthly HISTORY MYSTERY column in The Destin Log newspaper since 2013. He recently published two books including newly discovered historical facts about early Destin titled: DESTIN Pioneer Settlers...A Land History of Destin, Florida from 1819-1940 and DESTIN'S Founding Father...The Untold Story of Leonard Destin Klein lived for many years in both Okaloosa and Bay Counties. He is now retired from his credit union management career, and he and his wife (the former Muriel Marler of Destin, Florida) live in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He can be contacted at klein@aristotle.net or at 501-256-7474.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

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GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF OKALOOSA COUNTY

NOMINATION OF OFFICERS FOR 2019

Dear Fellow GSOC Members,

The purpose of this email is to ask you to consider becoming a candidate for one of the GSOC officer positions

for the 2019 term. All the GSOC officers are elected each year, and it is now time to start the election process

for 2019. President Jon Sheperd has appointed me to head the nominating committee to develop a slate of

candidates.

The nominating committee will present this slate of candidates at the October meeting. The election will be

held at the November meeting, and the elected officers will be installed at the December meeting.

A detailed description of the duties of each position can be found in the By-Laws which are available on our

web site at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flocgs.

All members in good standing are eligible for any of the positions. The incumbents of these positions are

eligible to be nominated for re-election or to be nominated for any other of the positions.

The positions to be filled and the 2018 incumbents are:

• President, Jon Sheperd

• 1st Vice President (Programs), Vacant

• 2nd Vice President (Membership), Jerry Rush

• Treasurer, Phil Hoge

• Recording Secretary, Kathie Sheperd

• Corresponding Secretary, Val Moreland

The Special Duty positions are filled by volunteers who are appointed by the President. The incumbents are:

• Publicity, Val Moreland

• Genealogist, Margaret Harris

• Newsletter Editor, Edward Crosby

• Journal Coordinator & Editor, Cindy Barber

• Webmaster, Jim Young

President Jon Sheperd and Recording Secretary Kathie Sheperd have indicated that they will not be accepting

nominations for the 2019 term.

Please consider this request. You are needed! Send a note saying “I’d like to be a nominee for _________” to

youngjmy@cox.net now!

Warm Regards,

Jim Young

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GSIG is starting up again!

Since NWFGGS is meeting on the third

Saturday and GSOC on the 4th Saturday, we

decided to move the meeting to immediately

following the GSOC meeting. This also

eliminates interference with the West Florida

GS, who meet on the 1st Saturday.

Our meeting time will be noon-1:30. On

September 22nd, we will be in the media lab.

After that, we will stay in the meeting room.

Bring your questions! Let's DO GENEALOGY

Submitted By: Cindy Barber

Food Story Project

A local county citizen, Oso Wallman, is leading a Food Story Project which collects family food histories. This is part of a ten-year documentary on food linguistics and histories. Since January, Oso has been collecting these food stories at the Baker Block Museum on Fridays. The museum then

preserves these stories for future generations.

They also have potluck meals and share stores. More information can be found in the links below.

If you would like to support the project go to the Baker Block Museum on a Friday from 11-3 or contact Oso at

odubdocs@gmail.com.

Submitted By: Jon Sheperd, GSOC President

LIST OF SURNAMES BEING RESEARCHED BY MEMBERS

It’s located at: http://sites.rootsweb.com/~flocgs/MEMBERSURNAME.pdf

The surname research list is on the GSOC website so that members and non-members can see names being researched.

If you are interested in a particular surname you can get in touch with the member(s) who is also researching that family

by one of the following ways:

If you are a member, get in contact with the VP for membership.

If you are a non-member, please contact the GSOC at our email address, gsocokaloosa@yahoo.com or writing

to our mailing address, GSOC, P.O Box 1175, Fort Walton Beach, FL 32549-1175.

The list is updated periodically. Members are encouraged to update (changes/additions) their research list on their

annual membership application form or at other times by contacting the VP for membership.

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Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County (GSOC) Meeting Minutes, 25 August 2018

GSOC President Jon Sheperd welcomed members and visitors to the meeting, including Dr. Jamin Wells, GSOC’s guest

speaker. There were 22 people present.

OLD BUSINESS: Minutes: The minutes from the July meeting were in the August GSOC Newsletter. With no changes or additions, the

minutes were approved by acclamation.

Family History Fair: The LDS church in Panama City had a Family History Fair on Aug 4th. Jon and Kathie Sheperd were

the only GSOC members who attended. Jon gave a presentation on Military Records. There were many other

interesting topics discussed.

2018 Journal: The latest update from Cindy Barber is that we have 15 people that submitted a story on why they or

their ancestors came to NW Florida. Jon requested all other articles be turned in by the end of the following week to

Cindy.

West Florida Genealogical Society 2018 Seminar: As mentioned at the last meeting, the West Florida Genealogical

Society is holding an all-day seminar with guest speaker, Dr. John Colletta, author of the popular book, “They Came In

Ships” on October 27th from 9am to 4pm with continental breakfast and lunch. The deadline for registering is Sept 30th

and the cost is $35 for members or $40 for non-members. Go to their website to register/download a registration form.

https://wfgsi.org/eventListings.php?nm=34

NEW BUSINESS: Door Prizes: Jon won a jar of fig jam donated by Val Moreland and Marion Roberts won the jar of honey harvested and

donated by Ed Crosby.

New England Trip: Jon and Kathie just returned from a 3600-mile trip to the New England area. While there they

attended a family reunion on Kathie’s mother’s side, researched ancestors at the Connecticut Genealogy Society Library,

the Connecticut state genealogical library, the New London, Connecticut library genealogy room, and the New England

Historical and Genealogical Society (NEGHS) library in Boston. They both added numerous ancestors to their trees and

learned a lot more about their New England roots. Jon passed out some handouts from the NEGHS to include a

brochure on the NEHGS and a guide on caring for your personal heritage photographs. They also picked up the latest

NEHGS magazine called “American Ancestors” which was passed around and then left in the GSOC cabinet for reference.

It had a special section on Mayflower ancestry and Mayflower lineage societies (2019 is the 400th anniversary of the

Mayflower sailing to America).

Food Story Project: Cindy Barber forwarded Jon an email from Mr. Oso Wallman who is leading a Food Story Project

which collects family food histories. This is part of a ten-year documentary on food linguistics and histories. He is

collecting these stories at the Baker Block Museum on Fridays from 11-3. Jon will forward more information via email

and encouraged members to support the project if they have some family food recipes/histories to share.

CLL Classes: The Center for Lifelong Learning will begin its fall semester starting the week of September 17th. Classes

last for eight weeks. There are 64 classes offered with 24 of them new. The genealogy classes being offered include:

Beginning Genealogy taught by Hilma Jenus and Tom Sajwaj, Family History on the Internet being taught by Jon Sheperd,

Genealogy Forum being led by Hilma and Tom, and finally a new offering, Genealogy DNA Testing for Dummies being

taught by Cindy Barber and Tom. Registration for classes will be on Friday, Sep 7th from 9am to 1 pm. Due to

construction the registration will be in the Administration building 1 and not the auditorium. To find out more

information about CLL and courses being offered go to their new look page at http://cll-fwb.org/ .

Lunch at local restaurant: Lunch was at Fusion Bistro, 9 Eglin Pkwy

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REPORTS: 1st VP: Upcoming presentations: Virginia Shelby will give a presentation on Native American Research at the

September meeting. We will do a GSOC member “Show and Tell” at the October meeting. More details on that at the

next meeting.

2nd VP Jerry Rush: Nothing sufficient to report.

Treasurer Phil Hoge: GSOC funds are $2038.05. Recording Secretary Kathie Sheperd: Fort Walton Beach Library

Update: A large portion of the genealogy section’s books are still off the shelf until the library has the time to catalogue

them. Kathie will provide a further update next month. Marion Roberts donated 6 books for GSOC use and they will be

in the cabinet for the near future. These are older reference books about doing genealogy research in Georgia,

Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, etc.

Corresponding Secretary Val Moreland: Val reported that a couple of individual emails are not working. She will try to

contact those members for an email update.

Newsletter, Ed Crosby: Nothing sufficient to report. Jon thanked Ed for this month’s GSOC newsletter.

Webmaster, Jim Young: Just a reminder that our website is temporarily located at http://www.youngj.us/GSOC until

RootsWeb is back up. Jim said it is almost ready. He also passed around 2 very nice books which were published

through createspace.com. Members will recall that last month’s speaker spoke to us about this great resource for self-

publishing. (Update: As of 1 Sep, the website is back up and can be found at:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flocgs )

Genealogist, Margaret Harris: Margaret is still recovering, but Val Moreland reported that she is slowly making progress.

There was no other old or new business.

PRESENTATION:

Jon Sheperd introduced our speaker, Jamin Wells and said we are fortunate that he was able to speak to our Society. Dr.

Wells is an assistant professor and director of the Public History Master’s Program at the University of West Florida. He

teaches courses in local, environmental, digital, and public history. Dr. Wells has an undergraduate degree in history

from the University of Rhode Island and master’s degrees from the University of Rhode Island and the University of

Delaware. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware where he was a fellow in the Hagley Program in

Capitalism, Technology, and Culture.

Dr. Wells has special interests in Coastal history, history of capitalism, community history, history of violence, historical

memory, and digital humanities. He has written several articles for publication and one book all dealing with shipwrecks.

He is committed to researching, writing, and teaching a usable past.

Dr. Wells:

Oral History Workshop: Oral history is a huge topic. It’s an inherently radical and complex undertaking. Consider oral

history is everyday life and it is often stories that are excluded or ignored. Oral history humanizes the past, but it is a co-

creation; we are creating a historical document. What can we take from the story that is valuable? To know what

someone DID is to know only half of the story… For the genealogist, why did they buy the land? What did it mean to

them? Oral history goes back to ancient origins such as in West Africa or China, long before writing. In the U.S., the

birth of modern oral history was developed with the WPA, Works Projects Administration, a New Deal jobs program.

The WPA developed state and local guides and some are on line. Example: Florida Folklore with slave customs and

anecdotes. You can find this collection at the Library of Congress, with many other oral histories. Oral History grew in

WWII and when the cassette player was invented, it revolutionized the oral history movement. Then books were

published, like ROOTS and the Foxfire books.

An excellent resource is a book titled: Doing Oral History by Donald A. Ritchie (he was the former oral historian for the

U.S. Senate).

The experts all agree that there is no uniform way of doing oral history because procedures and interpretations are

constantly evolving. We tend to learn by doing. Rules for success: Preparation (for every hour spent interviewing, there

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should be 10 hours preparing). Interviewers must be flexible, empathetic (very difficult, but it helps to build trust) and

honest (why are you interviewing the individual?).

Step 1: Setting up the project: Who to interview and why? What is the focus topic? What kind of questions will you

ask? Who will benefit – a library, family or other people in the future? What will the outcome look like? The worst

outcome is doing nothing but adding to the family tree. Think about the family history you can get out, such as high

school experiences, what was significant to them. The most challenging issue: first contact. Remember to be honest

with the person, do preparation and discuss copy right. The interviewee must sign a release or a gift deed otherwise

he/she or their heirs will own the story/material and it can’t be shared publically. (Dr. Wells related how he and one of

his college classes interviewed (oral history) many town members of Century Alabama. The interviewed signed their

stories to the city library.

Step 2: Prep for the interview and do your background research: Make at least 10 open ended questions, i.e., “Tell me

what the library was like when you were in elementary school…” Practice interviewing – use a neighbor or friend to

ensure your recording equipment functions and that your questions are audible.

Step 3: Recording the interview: The legalities and ethics of oral history are rather specific – refer to Oral History

Association (www.oralhistory.org) for a Release/Gift Deed. Check out your technology: recording level and battery,

ensure you press record (!!), monitor the effort, and save and upload as soon as possible.

Step 4: Use good interview techniques: listen and don’t interrupt; be flexible. Respect their privacy and confidentiality

and show empathy and gratitude. Set the stage for later listeners with information like date, and place, and who the

interviewee is. Use those easy open-ended questions to build trust and demonstrate a strong interest in what they are

saying. Note topics to explore later. Do not offer your opinions. After they answer completely you can expand or clarify

earlier points with closed questions. Always keep confidentiality foremost and do not hesitate to point out apparent

contradictions as something to clarify. Hold sensitive questions until you can build trust and turn off the recording if

asked.

Step 5: The Final Project: Make transcribing the interview a priority and receive your narrator’s input. Share the story

through different outlets.

Step 6: Determine who gets your recordings and why: You may need to establish access authorization as well as

preservation. Remember that good notes and biographical paperwork are essential. See o.transcribe.com to help slow

down the digital recording so you can transcribe. Know when a project is truly finished.

To learn more, check out:

• Oral History Association (http://www.oralhistory.org/)

• Story Corps (https://storycorps.org/)

• UWF History Department (https://uwf.edu/cassh/departments/history/)

• Jamin Wells (email: jwells2@uwf.edu)

CLOSING: Jon thanked Dr. Wells for his informative presentation and thanked everyone for coming. The next meeting will be at

the Fort Walton Beach Library on September 22nd at 10:30 am when Virginia Shelby will do a presentation on Native

American Research.

/s/ Kathie Sheperd

GSOC Recording Secretary

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Officers for 2018 President, Jon Sheperd 1st Vice President (Programs), 2nd Vice President (Membership), Jerry Rush Treasurer, Phil Hoge Recording Secretary, Kathie Sheperd Corresponding Secretary, Val Moreland

Appointees: Immediate Past President, Sue Basch Journal Editor, Cindy Barber Genealogist, Margaret Harris Publicity Chairperson, Val Moreland Newsletter Editor, Edward Crosby Webmaster, Jim Young

Addresses

P.O. Box 1175, Fort Walton Beach, FL 32549-1175 Email: gsocokaloosa@yahoo.com

Newsletter Editor: edcrosby@valp.net GENIE Section: EditorGSOCFLnews@gmail.com

Genealogy Special interest Group: GSOCSGSIG@gmail.com

Membership Annual membership dues are $24 for individual and $35 for individual and spouse at same address. You can obtain a membership form from our web site or use the copy included in this newsletter.

The Newsletter

The GSOC Newsletter is now published on or before the third weekend of each month. Suggestions for articles are welcome. The editor, Edward Crosby, can be contacted by phone at (850) 678-5423 or by email at edcrosby@valp.net. Letters to the editor are welcome and may be published.

The Journal

The GSOC Journal, A Journal of Northwest Florida, is published once each year. The 2017 issue, was published and distributed in September 2017 and has been mailed to all GSOC members. The theme of the 2017 issue is the Education. If you are a member and didn’t receive your copy, please contact us.

NOTICE: Web Site has been restored:

http://www.rootweb.ancestry.com/~flocgs The site is updated frequently and contains information about future GSOC meetings, minutes of past meetings, copies of the newsletters, articles and items of genealogical and historical interest, and much more.

GSOC on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/okaloosagsoc

The address to the official page of the Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County is shown above; or you can go to your Facebook account and search for Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County. This page provides the latest information about our future meetings and other news that is important to members or prospective members. There is also a Facebook group. It is useful for exchanging information about your research and getting help with questions you may have about the Society or resources available to you. You can find it by going to your Facebook account and searching for Friends of the GSOC

The GSOC Books The five GSOC cemetery, marriage, and funeral books are all out of print, but are now available on the GSOC web site for reading on line and for downloading as searchable PDF files, at no charge. Please note that all these GSOC books are copyrighted by The Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County and may be only used for personal use. Reproduction is prohibited without the permission of the GSOC. Go to the web site, scroll down and click on the GSOC Books link, click on the name of the book to access, and read it on line. Save it to your computer to download it. Because of the size of these books, it may take them a few minutes to display (depending on the speed of your internet connection.)

GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF OKALOOSA COUNTY Web Site has been restored: www.rootweb.com/~flocgs E-mail: gsocokaloosa@yahoo.com I hereby apply for membership or the renewal of my membership in the Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County

ANNUAL DUES (Membership Year 1 Jan-31 Dec)

Individual $24.00 Family $35.00 (For Individual & spouse at the same address) Please PRINT or TYPE all information:

Name(s): ___________________________________________________________________________

Address:____________________________________________________________________________

Preferred Telephone (Home/Cell): ______________________E-Mail: _____________________________ Date: ______

Can information be shared with other members? Name: Yes/No, Address: Yes/No, Phone: Yes/No, Email: Yes/No

Your level of experience: Beginner __ Intermediate __ Advanced ___ Family Genealogist __ Professional __ Please indicate areas of GSOC in which you would like to serve or contribute:

Newsletter Editor__ Write Newsletter Articles__ Webmaster__ Journal Editor__ Journal Staff Member__ Write Articles for Journal__ Serve on Short-term Committee__ Nomination Committee__ Organize Field Trips__ Christmas Party Organizer__ Give Genealogy Presentation__ Workshop Leader__ Workshop Volunteer__ Special Event Organizer__ Special Event Volunteer__ Librarian__ Publicity__ CD Sales__

Research: Name of families and states you are researching Surname State or Area Surname State or Area

PEASE MAIL FORM (ALONG WITH CHECK) TO THE GSOC P.O. ADDRESS ABOVE (OR BRING FORM AND CHECK TO NEXT SOCIETY MEETING)

Events and Information of GSOC Interest

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Our next meeting will on Saturday,

September 22nd, at 10:30 am.

Featuring:

“NATIVE AMERICAN RESEARCH”

Presented By: Virginia Shelby

Fort Walton Beach Library 185 Miracle Strip Parkway SE,

Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32548

“Whatever you know, whatever you learn – Pass it On!”

Genealogical Society of

Okaloosa County (GSOC) P.O. Box 1175 Fort Walton Beach, FL 32549-1175