Earl William Carson and Dorothy May Huff

Last week I was contacted by researchers, Art and Miriam Belding about their interest in the Baker family of the Ohio River Valley. They are working on the Baker branches that moved to Charlevoix Co., Michigan. These were the branches of interest to researcher, Earl William Carson, who many years ago wrote to Mrs. Fedorchak about his genealogy quest. Mrs. Fedorchak published at least one article in The Spirit of Democracy, published in Woodsfield, Monroe Co., OH, about their correspondence. As far as I can recall she never listed Earl's middle name and where he fit into the Baker tree or the name of his wife, Dorothy May Huff. I don't think she mentioned that both Earl and Dorothy had Baker ancestors.

Now, thanks to Art and Miriam, I was able to include Earl and Dorothy into my genealogy files for the first time. I'm pleased to learn that Art and Miriam have copies of many pages of Earl Carson's notes. It's a great thing for Baker family research to learn that Earl's notes aren't lost and to know that Art and Miriam are working on extracting the data and putting it into their Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

This morning, for the first time, I was able to prepare an Ahnentafel Chart that shows the Baker lines of both Earl and Dorothy.

When a contact like this happens it's always so much fun because you never know when, or if, a mystery will be solved. For me one of the most frustrating aspects of doing genealogy has always been that often we can't tell where a researcher fits and often no one knows what happened to their notes or whether they ever published anything and left it where those who come after can find it.

Dick Henthorn
1 Jun 2010