Monday, January 15, 2007

Did You Know #2


Happy Birthday, MOM!!!

January 15th has always been a special day for me, but not just me. For thirty years before I was born in Dr. McLaughlin's VW Beetle, parked alongside the highway in Dalton City, IL, someone very special to us all celebrated the day as her special day.

Over the past few months I have devoted some time to tracing out our family history. In that process I discovered that the 15th of January held special significance for many others connected to our family. Consider the following individuals born on January 15:

Marvin Bragg (1946). Tracing his family backwards looks like this: Marvin, son of Alrick, son of Nathan, the first cousin of Frank Bragg, my great-grandfather.

Marcus E. Bragg (1859). He was Frank Bragg's brother.

Thomas Jefferson Bragg (1813). From my generation you have to go backwards seven generations (Don, O.B., Frank, William, Hugh Lewis, Richard, and John). John, who was born in 1733, had a half-brother (his father married twice) named Dozier. Thomas is believed to have been Dozier's grandson.

Homer Jesse Bragg (1899). John, born in 1733, had another half-brother named Joseph (born in 1719). That Joseph had another son named Joseph (1756), who had a son named John, then came John W. (a famous pioneer preacher who raised a very large family), his son Lewis Alderson Bragg was the father of Homer Jesse.

Another individual was Thomas Milton Bragg II, but I'm not sure how his family and our's are connected.

On Mom's side of the family January 15th pops up again as the birthday of her great-great grandfather, Franklin H. Standerfer.

January 15 had special significance for other portions of the Bragg family:

Joseph Bragg (1830) and Catherine R. Comer were married on January 15, 1851.

Glenna Georgia Bragg was also married on January 15th, but in the year 1955.

Lon Hampton Richmond, whose mother was Martha Ellen Bragg, was born in Summers Co, WV on September 7, 1885 and died January 15, 1970 at the age of 84.

James Milton Bragg II, who was born in 1880, died on January 15, 1929. Tracing his family backwards: David G. Bragg, (1808-1863), John Bragg (1786-1854), and Joseph Bragg (1756), and Joseph Bragg (1719; our family is traced back through this Joseph's half-brother, John, who was born in 1733).