RLP 265: Edward Raymond Kelsey’s Cabin

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 265 Edward Raymond Kelsey’s Cabin Welcome to Research Like, a Pro a genealogy podcast about taking your research to the next level. Hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited Genealogist professional Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket dot com and the authors of Research Like, a Pro A Genealogist Guide with Robin Wirthlin. They also co-authored the Companion Volume Research Like a Pro with D n a, Join, Diana, and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (42s):
Today’s episode is sponsored by newspapers.com break down Genealogy Brick Walls with his subscription to the largest online newspaper archive. Hi, everyone. Welcome to research. Like a Pro.

Diana (53s):
Hi. Nicole, how are you today?

Nicole (56s):
I have been working on separating a bunch of different James Dyers in Granger County, Tennessee. So I’m feeling very fascinated by the fact that there are so many people with the same names in these seemingly small counties.

Diana (1m 10s):
Oh yeah. Isn’t that always amazing? You think that yours is gonna be the only one or maybe two, but then there’s everybody’s got that name, so interesting.

Nicole (1m 18s):
Yes. Well, there’s an A scene like an older James Dyer, And I, don’t think he’s related. And then he has a son who, he names James Dyer. And then there’s my James Dyer that I’ve been working on who I discovered through D N A. Luckily he married a woman named Betty And. I know I’ve mentioned this, B E D E Y or Biddy. So that’s been helping me kind of keep things separate because his wife has such a unique name. And then they had a bunch of children and all their children got married there in Granger County and then Betty died and James got remarried. And I was trying to figure out the identity of his second wife. She was previously married to a Shafer, but there were tons of Chafers there too. And so it’s been kind of tricky figuring out who her first husband was and what her maiden name was before she got married.

Nicole (2m 4s):
And probably isn’t that important to know all of that, but when you’re putting it, I’m making it as a floating branch in my dire tree. So I kind of wanna know. And as I’ve been looking at everyone else’s trees, I can see they’ve just mixed all of these people up and just attached all the wrong sources and, and some of the sources attached don’t even make sense. Like, Like the source for the Find a Grave is in a totally different county in Tennessee, but has James and Betty’s children. But it’s for a different James Dyer who moved to Union County and had like a will there mentioning his children and his wife. It’s like, hello, this is a different person.

Diana (2m 42s):
Interesting.

Nicole (2m 43s):
But when it’s just listed as a hint, I think people just attach it without even reading it. So, or

Diana (2m 49s):
They just think, well, maybe this could be it And, I like that on Ancestry that you can say maybe when there’s a hint, you know, because you need to do some more work. But I think a lot of people just don’t understand how to even do the analysis and figure it out because it’s not as easy when you’re just beginning, you know? Yeah. We’ve made those mistakes plenty when we were starting out. It, it takes

Nicole (3m 11s):
True And. it is surprising to realize there’s multiple people with that name in the that time period in a small area.

Diana (3m 17s):
Well, it’s so interesting that that’s what you’re working on, because I did a lecture for the National Genealogical Society conference that was held in Virginia on separating men of the same name in Virginia And. it was a similar situation where the original settler was named Isaac Norman, and he named a son Isaac Norman, and all the sons named one of their sons and Isaac Norman. I mean, there were so many Isaac Normans all in in the same county in Virginia. And so that was fun working on kind of teaching eight, some of the strategies and methodologies you can use and tools. A lot of our tech tools, you know, like Airtable or Lucidchart diagrams, can really help to separate these people and find their unique identities.

Diana (4m 5s):
So

Nicole (4m 6s):
Yes, And I love using my research log to put in what I’m finding, because then I can clearly link records to the right person, but I don’t have to build like a branch for the wrong person in my tree. I can just put it in my log. So then I remember, oh yeah, I looked at this source, discovered that it was for the other James Dyer, and decided not to attach it to my tree. And so then I don’t forget about it. I’d get confused later. It’s in my research log.

Diana (4m 34s):
Right? It’s so much better to do your research using a research log than just using a tree and looking at hands. It just, yeah, especially for these complicated cases, you know, we have easy Ancestors where it’s just like, oh yeah, that’s right person. you know, it’s easy to attach, but when anytime you’re working on separating people the same name, you need a good research log and a project And, you need to write a report.

Nicole (4m 58s):
Yes. And that’s why I’m doing this is because I’m trying to still wrap up my study group project and you know, it’s taking some time, but I found so many good things during the D N A study group earlier this year that I want to make sure I capture it and finish writing it all up.

Diana (5m 14s):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s do some announcements. We have our Airtable quick reference guide available on P D F from our website FamilyLocket dot com and our Research Like. a Pro Webinar series is ongoing, and we have a fun Webinar coming up in August. And the title of this one is Surprise My great Grandfather was the Milkman. And this will be a D N A case study by Ruth Campbell. Ruth is one of our original study group members and uses the D N A process now to solve mysteries. So that will be really fun to hear how that was all put together.

Diana (5m 54s):
And we’re excited to start our next Research Like, a Pro study group. It will begin at the end of this month on August 30th, and we will be meeting weekly for 11 weeks. So exciting to think of starting a brand new study group. The registration ends August 10th, so if you’re still on the fence, hurry and get your registration in. We have our peer group leader application on our website if you’re interested in being a peer group leader. And join our newsletter for coupons and deals for all of our various offerings. And we are excited about the upcoming Association of Professional Genealogy Conference.

Diana (6m 35s):
This is called the P M C or Professional Management Conference. And the theme is Refresh, reset and Refine Your Genealogy Career. And this will be downtown Salt Lake City on October 19th to 21st. And virtually on Hova and Nicole And I are excited because we will be presenting together. We’re going to do a lecture titled Incorporate Multiple Income Streams to Increase your company’s revenue. And then I will be doing one on D n a reports titled How to Write Client Reports That Include D N A Analysis and Findings. So we’re excited to be a part of this conference, and if you are thinking about being a professional Genealogist or if you are one already, this is a great conference to come and network with people and get some really great ideas, specifically applicable to you.

Diana (7m 27s):
I know the first P M C I went to was out in Kansas City where I spoke with my colleague Julie Soard about Accreditation And. it was really fun. So I’m excited to be going back this fall.

Nicole (7m 41s):
Me too. I’m excited. It’ll be my first time, so that will be really fun. Yay. Yay. Well, today we’re talking about one of Diana’s posts about her Ancestors, which happened to be my Ancestors, which is always fun. And I’ve been learning a lot through her series she’s been doing with the 52 Ancestors prompts from Amy, Johnson, Crow. And this particular one we’re talking about today came about because of the prompt being about social media. Have you considered using social media to Discover more about your Ancestors? And so Diana thought about this and came up with a story that she could share, and it’s cool to see how social media can be a powerful tool to learn more about Ancestors and to share stories about them, and also to connect with others who are probably relatives or at least neighbors or other people in the community where our Ancestors lived.

Nicole (8m 32s):
So, you know, before there was Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the social media of our Ancestors was the local newspaper, and they often featured interesting things like gossip columns and just reporting on different people visiting the town and other happenings. And recently there was a Facebook post from a relative of ours, giving the history of the Cabin that My great grandfather Edward Raymond Kelsey moved to his home in 1952. So using the information from these Facebook posts and newspaper articles, Diana was able to reconstruct the story of this Cabin.

Nicole (9m 15s):
So we’re gonna talk about that today.

Diana (9m 18s):
Well, it’s so fun to talk about the Cabin because I grew up visiting my Kelsey grandparents every Sunday, and the Cabin was on their farm slash ranch. They had a lot of outbuildings, you know, they had the main house and garden and huge lawn, and then in the back they had all these sheep pens, chicken coop, corrals, and then farmland. So, you know, it was always fun to kind of go exploring in in the backyard, which was pretty big. And there was this old Cabin there. Well, my grandpa Kelsey collected antiques, and he had that Cabin filled up with those. They were on the outside, they were on the inside, and he especially liked collecting anything, having to do with horses and farming, which you know, were his loves his livelihood.

Diana (10m 7s):
And he would display this antique farm equipment on the outside of the Cabin. Well, my mother, his daughter Anna, she compiled his history. And I would also say that she inherited that love of antiques and had her own little collection of those in her later years. But she wrote about this, she said Dad occupied his spare time collecting antiques at one time. He was the proud owner of an old coffee grinder, bear trap, saddle lanterns, bridles, et cetera. A shotgun used in the Wild West was also in his possession. He kept his antiques in a Cabin near the home.

Diana (10m 48s):
The century old Cabin was hauled after being dismantled piece by piece from Ca Creek. The Cabin had been used there for a living quarters schoolhouse, blacksmith shop and bunk house for freight drivers in its day old newspapers lined the Cabin. Originally with an 1881 date line where the Cabin was moved, each log was numbered as dismantled and reset on the farm site. The numbering still shows the Cabin was donated to the CAA County Historical Society. After dad’s death, it now rests on that site and has been resorted as a schoolhouse.

Nicole (11m 22s):
Wow. I just really didn’t know that great Grandpa Kelsey liked collecting antiques, and that is just so fun. And, it makes sense now because I’ve been in the Cabin and seen all the antiques, but I just didn’t realize that he collected them as like a hobby.

Diana (11m 38s):
I know And, I’m so glad my mom wrote that because, you know, she has a much different perspective than I do because I was just a little girl. you know, to me it was just a fun Cabin And I knew about the newspapers. And I knew that they had brought it from somewhere else and saw the the numbers, but it’s always good to get other people’s opinions and stories. So I’m so glad that she wrote that up.

Nicole (12m 3s):
That’s so cool. Well, as my grandma Anna mentioned, after Ed’s death on March 9th, 1972, the family donated the Cabin to the Caja County Museum, and that’s where it is today. Mom, you knew that your grandfather had dismantled the Cabin log by log and then reassembled it on his property in Delo, Idaho. And then you, it sounds like you learned more about this from the series of Facebook posts from an extended family member who shared the details. So that was fun. So it sounds like after Ed and his sons Ted Bill and Bob reassembled the Cabin at the Delo Ranch in 1955, they put spikes and glue on it to stabilize it.

Nicole (12m 45s):
So hey, they really made it so that it would last. Also, as mentioned at the Museum, they cut the long ends off of the upper timbers in 1972. It wasn’t necessary to take the Cabin apart, but was loaded in one piece of, on a trailer and then hauled to Burley,

Diana (13m 4s):
Right? And I. Remember that when that happened? I was, I don’t know, I don’t think I was quite a teenager yet, but it was a big deal, you know, moving a Cabin, it was in the newspaper, And I would go over to my grandma’s house, And, it was gone, you know, it was kind of sad to not have it there anymore, but it was right on Main Street in Burleigh, Idaho. And so now as we drive by, I always look over and go, there’s the Cabin and it’s there for everybody. you know? Now it’s, we’ve since sold that Kelsie property off. And it’s nice that the Cabin is a place that’s public And. you can go in at any time that the museum’s open. So the really neat thing about this whole story is that there were some Facebook posts all about this Cabin.

Diana (13m 52s):
you know, sometimes we think we’re the only people that are researching our family. Well, I have cousins who live there in Burleigh and they’re very interested in family history, and they’ve been doing a lot of research in newspapers and just all sorts of different things about local history. And they did several posts on Facebook talking all about the history and location of the Cabin, originally And I. Remember hearing a little bit about this, but of course I didn’t remember any details. So what I learned was that the early southern Idaho settler, William Kelsie Rice built the Cabin in 1872 on the Kaja Creek in Kaja County, Idaho.

Diana (14m 32s):
He and his wife were the second settlers in the small community of Elba. I think it’s so interesting that the middle name is Kel because there is absolutely no connection to the family. So it’s just one of those little coincidences that maybe if you were doing research, you would think, oh, there’s gotta be some connection. But there isn’t. So the 1880 census shows William with a wife, four daughters and a son. And it’s fun that it was in Elba. Elba is several miles away from Delo and Burleigh, you know, where my grandpa lived and where, where I lived, kind of up in the hills and still remains to this day, a very, very small place.

Diana (15m 15s):
So I think it’s so fascinating that at the time it was this Cabin was used for so many purposes. So in my mind it was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, but at the, at the time, it must’ve been kind of a hopping place,

Nicole (15m 32s):
Who knows something like a hopping place. So that’s neat to learn that the original owner who built the Cabin, you know, lived in elbow to find that on the census to see who, who lived in the household in 1880. That’s great. So this happened several years before. Great-grandpa came to Burleigh. Do you remember when he came?

Diana (15m 56s):
Yeah, he got there about 1915 and he settled in what was then called marshland, I believe, but became Delo, which is where he got a land grant and developed all the land built, you know, all of his buildings, his house and such. So this was, yeah, probably about 20, 25, 30 years or so before he arrived there.

Nicole (16m 24s):
Yeah, like 35 to 40 years before he arrived. The original settler was building his Cabin and having a family. And that’s so funny about the middle name being Kelsey. That’s just so random.

Diana (16m 37s):
It is. Well, and part of the reason that my grandpa moved there was they had started irrigating the land. This was, you know, desert land sagebrush, unless you water it and if you water it, it’s great land. But they were developing this system of canals from the Snake River. And so as they did that, more and more people came into the area. And so, you know, maybe at the time elbow was, I said a hop in place, but it, it was apparently the Cabin, a place where freight drivers rested. And so there must, it must have been on some kind of a trail, you know, there that they used. But once the Snake River was, canals were built from it and they were irrigating it, then really all the growth became around that.

Diana (17m 23s):
And so, you know, Elba just stayed its little thing while Burleigh and De of that area brought in more people ’cause they could actually farm now.

Nicole (17m 32s):
Oh, that makes sense. Yes. And I have fond memories of swimming in the canals in Burleigh when I was a young child.

Diana (17m 41s):
Yes, you did. And the Snake River too. Yep. Lots of fun days on the river.

Nicole (17m 45s):
Yes. Well, let’s take a little time for our Sponsor newspapers.com. Did your ancestor disappear from vital records? Maybe they moved or got married. newspapers.com can help you find them and tell their stories. Or have you ever had trouble figuring out how people tie into your family tree? Newspapers are filled with birth notices, marriage announcements, and obituaries. Items like these are a great resource for determining family relationships on newspapers.com. You can explore more than 800 million newspaper pages from across the us, uk, Canada, and Beyond in just seconds. They’re easy to use. Search feature lets you filter your results by date, location, a specific paper, and more.

Nicole (18m 26s):
When you find something interesting, the newspapers.com clipping tool makes it a snap to share it with family and friends. You can even save it directly to your ancestry Tree For. listeners of this podcast, newspapers.com is offering new subscribers, 20% off a Publisher Extra subscription. So you can start exploring today. Just use the code FamilyLocket at checkout. Well, the Museum that holds the Cabin holds some photos of the original settler. And then what happened to the Cabin after the Rice family was done with it? So the first picture shows the William Kelsey rice branch with the rice family pictured in front, and apparently the Cabin was somewhere on his property.

Nicole (19m 8s):
This picture is great because it, it just has all these trees and a fence and it’s kind of cool to see the different, you know, buildings on the property and the people living there. And they’re wearing like 1880s clothing like you would see in a Wild West movie with like a white shirt and a hat and a vest. And the woman’s wearing like a long white blouse, long sleeve white blouse with a a long skirt. So you can just imagine the time period when you see this picture. And so that’s cool to have. It does have a label on it at the Museum must have figured out like which building was the log house. So they said two room log house on the south side.

Nicole (19m 51s):
So I can kind of see that one of the buildings looks like it’s made of Logs. After the Rice family had built a larger home, the Cabin became a schoolhouse for the neighborhood children. And so that photo is really fun to see as well because you get a little idea of how many children were attending the school there at Conant, which isn’t that another little community near all of these towns we’ve been talking about in Idaho. Yeah, it

Diana (20m 15s):
Is.

Nicole (20m 15s):
Yeah, it’s neat. And, you can see this school teacher in the back, she’s barely taller than the oldest kids. And then you’ve got some little kids in front and some older kids in back. There’s eight children and the Cabin just looks tiny. I can imagine going to school there was pretty confined. But it’s so fun to think about them going to school there in the Cabin and you know, I wonder if they just didn’t even have a schoolhouse before the Cabin. you know,

Diana (20m 44s):
Probably not And, I love in the picture. The little girls’ dresses. They’re so cute. They just,

Nicole (20m 50s):
They are, they’re matching. Yeah, the two little girls,

Diana (20m 52s):
It feels like they dressed up in their best dress to go to school.

Nicole (20m 57s):
And, I’m sure their mother sowed those for them and that’s great. And the Museum has even labeled the names of everybody. So we’ve got some of the rice children, some Alvy children And, it looks like the teacher lived on the Rice ranch, so it’s great.

Diana (21m 12s):
Yeah, it’s just a, a fun little view into history, isn’t it? Yeah,

Nicole (21m 15s):
It’s great.

Diana (21m 16s):
Well the Facebook posts continued with showing some Google maps showing this specific location, which I really appreciated because I had really no idea where this was originally. I think my mother knew if she were still alive I could probably take her up there. And she, she always remembers places so well, she’d say probably say turn here on the street road or turn there, but I would have no idea. And so the Post said the old Homestead Cabin was located near the south edge of the modern bridge across Ca Creek, one mile east of Connor Creek store and about seven miles upstream from Malta. The bridge is actually an enormous culvert.

Diana (21m 57s):
The tiny Rice creek came in from the north and according to Uncle Bob Kelsie’s newspaper interview, the Stagecoach station store and permanent rice farmhouse were to the south of the Kelton Stagecoach Road. The old Cabin was north near the creek I rode up there last fall. There’s nothing left on the south side of the creek. The north side has the later large Edward conant frame house in a depression era. Nice Brick home, probably built by the wards. Well that’s kind of fun. I mean there’s a lot of details there. And, it kind of cracks me up that’s from Uncle Bob’s newspaper interview because he had such a good memory for all of the history and he loved that and, and so that’s awesome that there was a little bit of that preserved.

Diana (22m 41s):
So yes, if this was, you know, near a stagecoach road, there would be, you know, people coming and going. I would think through this area.

Nicole (22m 50s):
That’s great that you could learn all these fun details from the Facebook post. And that’s where those pictures were shared as well. So it really was fun to, to see all the things that were shared.

Diana (23m 4s):
Yes, And I feel like with the Google Earth photos, we could take a trip there and we could probably go see exactly where it is. It would be fun to see if that would be possible. Well I mentioned that this Cabin that I remember when this Cabin was moved And, it was on the opening of the Cadge County Historical Museum. And that was a big deal. My uncle Ted had also a love of history. So he was the oldest son of the family and he had this idea that it would be great to have a Museum there and keep all of the history alive for people to go and see.

Diana (23m 45s):
And he tragically died at, he was only 52, so he died in 1971. And then Ed, my grandpa died six months later. So after, you know, they were both gone. My grandma Florence and the five surviving children decided he would be really appropriate to move that Cabin from the Kelsie homestead to the Museum grounds because both grandpa and Uncle Ted loved history so much. And this would be a lasting memorial to them. So the local paper, the South Idaho Press has an issue where it shows them loading up a trailer with the Cabin inact didn’t have to take it apart because those Logs were glued together.

Diana (24m 32s):
It probably wouldn’t be as easy this time to take it apart. And so they pulled it into town with, it looks like my Uncle Bill’s pickup truck, but I’m not sure, maybe it’s just a pickup truck at the era. And when they first put it on the grounds, it looked pretty forlorn because you know, we have this building that’s a Museum and then there’s just this Cabin and a bunch of dirt. It wasn’t landscaped at all. And I was used to seeing it on the ranch and you know, having all the antiques on it. And so it looked kind of forlorn, but now they have it all landscaped and they’ve got grass. And so anyway, it’s, it’s fun to look at pictures.

Nicole (25m 14s):
Yeah, I love these pictures from the newspaper showing the pickup truck hitched up to some sort of flat trailer with a Cabin on it. It was neat.

Diana (25m 26s):
Yeah. And the family created a plaque that notes its history and so the plaque clearly states all the name of the family. It says Cabin, presented by er, Kelsie family, Mr. And Mrs. Er, ed Kelsie. And then it gives the names of all the children and that’s right on the front, this really nice plaque. So that is still there.

Nicole (25m 48s):
That’s cool. And you know, we visited the Cabin a lot growing up, so I think I have several pictures of us going and visiting.

Diana (25m 55s):
Yeah, I always felt like I wanted to go back and visit it when we’d go visit my mom and dad, your grandparents, just because it was such a part of my childhood. And I wanted you guys, my children to have that connection to your past. And so now they have made it into a little schoolhouse, kind of put it back to that time period or that use of it. And the inside they have some desks and they put a coal stove and they have a chalkboard. And so that’s fun that they’ve recreated a little old time schoolhouse within it. And so I really like that they’ve done that because that was one of the uses. So I thought that was very appropriate.

Diana (26m 37s):
So it is fun to look at the pictures and we’ll have to go sometime and take the grandchildren so your children can connect with their history.

Nicole (26m 46s):
Yeah, they would love that. It’s fun to do those type of visits. In fact, we had the chance to visit another Cabin of my husband’s Ancestors in Arizona, I think it was in Taylor, Arizona, which is like northwest Arizona. And it, it was neat. They had preserved it as if it were still like it was when the town midwife lived there, who was my husband’s ancestor and an Irish immigrant and she delivered a lot of babies. So they had all of her like midwifery equipment. And so that was a neat Cabin to visit. And we got to go up there and they, there was like a loft in it and stuff. So my kids loved it.

Nicole (27m 28s):
And kids love hands-on heirlooms. Like anytime you can go and show them history where they can touch it and see it and feel it, it just becomes so much more real to them.

Diana (27m 38s):
Yeah, and especially if it’s got a family story. Yeah. you know, it’s, it’s fun to go to places where you, they can do that, but it’s even better if it’s connected to them. So it’s pretty neat. Well it was fun to see those posts on Facebook and after I wrote the blog post, I posted it on my Facebook page so that family members could see it. And I got a fun comment from my cousin and she said, loved reading the story about the log Cabin. While it has a lot of interesting history, it is the wonderful memories I had as a child that I remember my cousin, And I used to go in there on Sunday afternoons to explore all the treasures in the Cabin. There were always saddles on sawhorses that we would ride with our imaginations, we would ride the range sinking adventure.

Diana (28m 23s):
It was thrilling. Grandpa didn’t like us in there, but it was worth the scolding to venture into the magical Cabin of the old west. So that was so fun for me to read because I was one of the younger cousins and these cousins were at least 10 or 12 years older than me. And so when I visited I didn’t ride on the sawhorses or I just, you know, went in and walked around. So it was so fun to hear about what these older cousins would do when they would go visit the Cabin.

Nicole (28m 53s):
Cool. Well what a great example of how we can use social media to connect with cousins and learn more about our family’s shared history.

Diana (29m 2s):
Absolutely. It really is a nice way and you know, for these 52 ancestor blog posts, you don’t have to have a blog to write them. You could simply just do a post on your Facebook account and write a little story about your ancestor and post some pictures. you know, we’re all on social media now. Could put it on whatever, whatever format you use. but it is a way to get your cousins and other people commenting and telling you more, which is awesome.

Nicole (29m 31s):
For sure. Well thanks everybody for listening and we’ll talk to you again next week.

Diana (29m 35s):
Alright, bye-bye. Everyone

Nicole (29m 38s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make, make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like, a Pro and Research Like a Pro with d a on amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket dot com slash services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday. Subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket dot com slash newsletter. Please Subscribe rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.