Daughters of Gip Akin

My Grandma was the Daughter of Ula Mae Akin Durbin and Raymond F. Durbin. The Akin sisters, Joy, Ula Mae, Ida Faith, Ora Lea, and Lovella had a special bond, the love of family. Aunt Lovella was only a few years older than my Grandma and was able to share so many stories with us of those memories with her sisters. My Aunt shared this photo with me, and it was perfect for this MyMemories.com layout.

The Akin sisters were Gip and Nancy Ola Akin five daughters, and lived in Dawson, Texas; later Venus, New Mexico. Gip was an interesting gentleman from all that I have read on him. While Lovella was a young lady, Gip Akin had become a local Baptist Minister. In his early years he had been part of the Night Riders of Dawson Texas, and had written short stories. 

This is part of a story that was shared by Lovella Akin Moore, who first heard this from her father Gip Akin. I will have to transcribe the complete story at a later date.  

Gip came to Howard, Texas 1890 and lived there for 35 years. They worked on a the Slaughter Ranch, where he was a horse wrangler--he was 17 years old. He took care of 150 head of horses and lived with the wagon - it was home. Started out in the spring about the first of April--worked until Christmas. The Ranch covered 5 counties. The year 1897 branded 18,000 calves, stamped Lazy S on both sides--ear marked figure 7 under bit in each ear and worked for Slaughter 3 years. Then went to work for Barts Ranch - 200,000 acres. Headquarters where the city of Lamesa is now (worked there for 2 years). Then took up 4 sections of homestead Land. Post office called Chicago - got the mail two times a week from Big Springs. Built the house on what was called the home section, a little one room house facing the South. Part of this Land is in the city of Lamesa now, then went to Live 16 miles North of Big Springs.

Gip and his brother Mit Akin participated in the Texas Range Wars, and they fought against the Big Ranchers who didn't want them (the nesters) or homesteaders) in the area the outcome being many killings and burnings had occured. Gip & Mit Akin at this time earned the title "The Night Riders".

Here is Gip and Nancy in their later years, standing with my Grandma and her sister Pat Durbin. 

Created using Mymemories.com software, promo code for $10.00 off is STMMMS36408

More digital scrapbooking pages

I was really excited yesterday when my new Craft Artist Professional Digital Software came in. I have waited a couple weeks for this upgrade. I had played with the free version for the past year. I enjoy interchanging fonts, layouts, embellishments from each program to come up with unique layouts.

I installed the program late last night so that I could work with it today. Well little did I know that my WONDERFUL laptop would crash today. I must have overworked something on it because it wont start up. My hard drive is fine but something else is in need of repair.

But I was able to back up all my photos and software on an external hard drive. I am now using my husbands old laptop with my hard drive.

When working with photographs and technology it is very important not to have everything in one area. Back up sources are really important, rather it be on an external hard drive, thumb drives, CD Rom disks, backing up is important. I prefer the archival cd rom disks that can be bought at any office supply store. I am not always great about backing up my data and was really worried that the few photos that I was able to scan while visiting my Aunt last week would have been lost.. Thankfully this data wasn't and I am able to get it all backed up now.

While the computer is backing up my wonderful photos, I brought up the Craft Artist Professional Software and made this page is less than 10 minutes. It was really simple to add these photos and embellishments together. The first one is of my Great Grandparents Raymond F. Durbin and Ula Mae(AKIN) Durbin. I hadn't seen many photos of them together before this last trip. The layouts are from Daisy trail, it is part of the Craft Artist and Serif software company.

101 Brick Wall Busters Part 2

Grandma Ola, Aunt Lovella, and AJ at Aunt Lovella's home in Corona, NM

This was a common sight when visiting my Aunt Lovella. Many a day we sat around this table sharing photos, stories, documents. I was always amazed by all the documents she had. She had dedicated all her life in being the Family Historian, listening to stories, gathering documents and keeping photographs. 

Nancy Ola and Gip Akin with their two eldest children Joy and Roy Akin

Returning to the Brick Wall Busters, the next three steps will really help you. 

4. Identify your Sources, make a list of sources that you could find the information you need. Not only is family a great source for records, especially if family was born prior to record keeping, but Churches are wonderful places to search. Long before states started collecting data and information, Churches were the record keepers of births and deaths. Local Newspapers, censuses, naturalization papers, are great places to look. The Family History Library Catalog is a wonderful tool.

5. When you cant find the information needed online, and there are lots of records still being digitized. Expand your search, try different spellings of your ancestors names. On one census my Great Grandma was listed as Carla, instead of Ula. The location, parents, siblings all matched except her name. On the same census report her Mom was listed as Old N. Akin instead of Nancy Ola. Names got reversed, comparing with other information on these reports will help confirm the lineage. 

6. Research those who lived and were part of your family. Many multiple families lived together during those times and may have served as witnesses to their lives. Land deeds, tax records, the paper trails in communities can also help verify family members. 

Maggie Coffee Randell sister to Nancy Ola Akin

101 Brick Wall Busters

A few months back I took a wonderful course through Family Tree University, called 101 Brick Wall Busters. It is something that happens when researching our family. Records are lost, destroyed in fires, or never even existed. Record keeping wasn't as wide spread in the early days of our Nation, many areas never kept records until the past century, less in some areas.

In the age of Technology and instant information, it is shocking to many that there isn't a data base somewhere with every article of information on our ancestors. The LDS Church has done a wonderful job of gathering many records, but there are still gaps in the research.

In the course 101 Brick Wall Busters it discusses several ways to find this information or at least find information that can lead you in the right direction.
I will be touching on a few points each post.

1. You have to access the problem, what records do you have, what is it that you are trying to find out. Birthplace? Maybe the Date of Birth was left off or the common brick wall of a mothers lineage. For some reason the woman's line is always incomplete.

Ask family first, see if a relative ended up with a box of photographs, documents, letters between family, or land deeds. Recently while researching the death of my Grandma's little brother, I couldn't find any state records for 1929 of his death. My Great Grandma had given a trunk of paperwork, birth records, love letters between her and Great Grandpa to my Grandma's sister and now her Daughter has all the information. It was a real break through on proving his death and burial area. The photograph we believed was Grandma with her father and brother standing by a grave was not the grave of her brother, but her Grandfather who passed away in 1926.

2. Don't skip any steps, check all records here in the US before venturing overseas. If there are not State or County records, see if the papers of the time have any articles on your ancestors. I recently found a wonderful article written by the Senior Center that my Grandma was active in, honoring her crafts and involvement at the Center. County Fairs, Senior Centers, newspapers are a few places you can look for more information.

3. Create a time line of their life. Do you know when they lived, who else in your family was around during that time. My Aunt Lovella was my Grandma's Mother's youngest sister of seven children. I always referred to her as Aunt, when really she was my Great Great Aunt. Knowing the time line of the family helped when filling out the lineage chart. Other things to know is what sort of things were going on in the world during the time of their life. Was it during War time, there are a lot of War records that can help bridge the gaps.

 Gip and Nancy Akin, with their children.