A Family Survey

For the last fifteen years, our family genealogist - cousin, wife, mother and grandmother; the inexhaustible, "Little" Alice Lindsey has been diligently working to extract information on the family from literally thousands of sources to create the "Lindsey- Watts" Family Story. Now, it's our turn to help. Please complete the following survey and email it back to me, ileverettjr@earthlink.net An easy way to do this would be for you to copy the questions, paste onto to a word document, type your answers beneath each question, save, then email them back to me. Feel free to include any great family anecdotes, traditions, rituals, myths and old photographs that will stimulate memoirs and interest in the project. 1. What is your full name and why were you named it? 2. Were you named after somebody else? If Yes, whom? 3. Did you have a nickname as you were growing up? 4. If you did, what was it and why did they call you that? 5. Where were you born and when? 6. Do you remember hearing your grandparents describe their lives? What did they say? 7. Do you remember your great-grandparents? What do you know about them? 8. Who was the oldest person you can remember in your family as a child? What do you remember about them? 9. How is the world now different from what it was like when you were a child? 10. Do you remember having a favorite nursery rhyme or bedtime story? What was it? 11. What were your favorite toys and what were they like? 12. What were your favorite childhood games? 13. What school activities and sports did you participate in? 14. Did you and your friends have a special hang-out where you liked to spend time? 15. Where was it and what did you do there? 16. Were there any fads during your youth that you remember vividly? 17. How old were you when you started dating? 18. Do you remember your first date? Describe the circumstances. 19. Name a good friend that you have known for the longest period of time? How many years have you been friends? 20. How did you meet the person that you would later marry? Describe them? 21. How many children did you have all together? 22. What were their names, birthdates and birthplaces? 23. Do you remember anything that your children did when they were small that really amazed you? 24. What is one of the most unusual things that one of your children did regularly when they were small? 25. What advice do you have for your children and grandchildren? 26. Who was the person that had the most positive influence on your life? Who were they and what did they do? 27. Is there a person that really changed the course of your life by something that they did? Who were they and what did they do? 28. Do you remember someone saying something to you that had a big impact on how you lived your life? What was it? 29. Where have you lived as an adult? List the places and the years that you lived there. 30. Why are you living where you are today? 31. Do you wish you lived somewhere else (If so, where would it be)? 32. Do you have any health problems that are considered hereditary in nature? If so, what are they? 33. What church, if any, do you attend regularly? 34. What are your hobbies? 35. Are you aware of the location of family archives and materials? Family bibles Church records Family documents (birth, marriage, and death certificates, divorce papers) Military records Diaries and journals Genealogies Scrapbooks Obituaries Anecdotes

"In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, bridge to our future.." Alex Haley 


The Primary Surnames for this Blog are the Lindsey and Watts.

Compiled and researched by, Alice Lindsey.

The Lindsey family and the Watts families are originally from Maryland, North Carolina and Missouri.

Our great-great grandfather Jacob Lindsey was a free black man from Maryland. He married Mary Coffin of Jamestown NC.

Mary Coffin is listed as the slave of Shubal Coffin in the 1850-1860 US census slave schedule.

The family story is that she was the daughter of Shubal and was listed as a slave to protect her from being kidnapped and sold.

Their oldest son Junius under the surname Coffin enlisted in the union army (see military record under official papers section below) during the Civil War. After the war he came back he and his family moved to Peru, IN.

His son, our great grandfather Henry Harrison, married Frances Porter, an orphaned Blackfoot Indian. They traveled the entire state of Illinois.

Our grandfather Harry Lindsey married Edith Watts; the family lived for a while in Peru, IN, and then moved to Chicago, IL. 

Quilted Family Histories

Slaves in George Washington’s house

Whatever the idea..... a quilt expresses our sentiments....

The “President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in Making a New Nation” project involves quilters who will depict in fabric creations the overall theme.

I first learned about this last April 2010 at the Wilberforce Barack Obama Quilt Exhibit -- a chance meeting with Michele Flamer... who has been deeply involved with the project in Philadelphia, PA.

SIPUEL is the family name that I pay homage to!  Born abt 1895 - Martha Bell Smith (Anderson) was the daughter of a slave woman named Lucinda, whose place and date of birth is unknown via genealogical records.  Living in Arkansas as a free, college educated woman, she married T.B. Sipuel;.....

she gave birth to my mother Helen Sipuel Huggins in 1926.

http://myauctionfinds.com/2010/12/13/slaves-in-george-washington’s-house/