Family History–Kentucky History

We left Bardstown last week and moved upstate to the Capitol, Frankfort.  We checked in at a cute RV park right on the Kentucky River, Still Waters Campground.  We had to go over an old single lane bridge which I thought might be a challenge for our 40’ RV, but we had no problem.  We were not there 10 minutes when the rain began. Boy does it rain BIG drops in Kentucky. 

This is an old campground that rents kayaks and fishing gear, but we didn’t do any of that because we were on a quest to check out Tom’s gr. gr. gr. gr. grandfather’s information at the Kentucky History Museum and Genealogy Library.

After driving to the Library/Museum we discovered the library is not open on Monday, but the Information lady let us go through the Museum for an hour. This has a wonderful display of the history of Kentucky which once was a part of Virginia which makes it hard to pin down family information in the mid-1700’s.

 

After our visit to the museum we went to dinner, but not before stopping at a bakery that had a lot of recommendations on our Droids. We had just stopped when the STORM hit. This thing made the news from Ohio to Kentucky.  We were parked right next to the covered walk so we decided to make a run for it. That was a bad decision.  We were drenched in 5 seconds!  We got our muffins and scones and ran back to the car.  The drive on a steep hill was only 1 block to Jim’s Seafood. It was a challenge with inches of water running downhill on the road. This time we used the umbrella to get the 15 feet to Jim’s door.  We had a window seat overlooking the Kentucky River, the dam and lock #3.  Dinner was super and the view was too. We sure were glad to be inside and dry.

The people at the bakery and at the restaurant all said this storm, heavy rain and lots of lightening was definitely not normal.  As you can see from the picture,  above, the dam was not holding the water back.

The storm only lasted about an hour and by the time we left we had clear skies and wet roads traveling home. 

This part of the country has been under extreme hot weather watches most of the week. In spite of the rain, it was still hot and sticky but not unbearable.  Now the next day was a different story. We were glad to be inside the museum all day as it was a heat index of between 105 and 110 degrees. It  is not a dry heat that we are used to in Fresno.  It was muggy, steamy, almost foggy because of the oppressive moisture in the air.

We spent 3 days doing research; it’s like eating peanuts – so addictive.  We had to look in just one more file cabinet, one more area of the stacks, one more book. Then every evening we spent time on Ancestry.com to make more connections.  We did find wills, marriage, and tax records.  We found that John Ralston was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was pensioned from Virginia. All in all it was quite productive.  We’ll be sending our discoveries to cousin Susan when I can get it in the family tree maker.  I also found a very cool app, GedStar Pro, for the Xoom and Droids that we can move all data from Family Tree Maker onto these Androids. Very cool to have all our genealogy information with us when in the library without having to lug in the laptops.

We did have a tour of the Old Capitol on Thursday when the library stays open until 8 P.M.

 

A couple of interesting facts: notice no windows in front, the architect wanted the look of honor, authority like a Greek Temple.  The staircase was constructed like an arch with no supports, only the wedged keystone at the top holds the entire staircase in place. This was designed in 1900; pretty smart architect.

		Old Kentucky Capitol VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We also drove over to see the New Kentucky Capitol, but it was too late to have a tour.

Back at the Library/Museum (we visited on and off over 3 days) we discovered another very interesting fact about the swearing in of all the governors even today.  A part of the oath includes the following, “have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this state,  nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, not have I acted as a second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person to fight a duel with deadly weapons…”.  I guess in Kentucky they do not want their governor dueling.

We left on Friday and took the back roads and drove 5 hours to  Lancaster, OH.  We are staying at Lancaster Camp Ground, a very interesting religious campground that was build around 1881 and followed the Chautauqua movement. 

We have had a couple of days of catching up on sleep, doing mountains of wash (two days to the laundry),  and mostly watching the storms roll through.  Yesterday, Saturday, it rained so hard and long we waded through inches of water just to get from the RV to the car.  And did I mention HOT!  Thank goodness for 2 working air conditioners. 

Until we send another blog we will be Caching on the Road.