Saturday Night Challenge

Randy Seaver is at it again! Giving us yet, again, a wonderful challenge for blogging! This time, Randy has challenged us with the idea: "Decide what year and what place you would love to visit as a time traveller. Who would you like to see in their environment? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?"

I don't have to think very hard for this one!

If I could go back in time to any time, I would go back to 1800 in Monroe County, Virginia [now West Virginia]. And I would have a little visit with William and Sarah McBean, and their sons, John and William [and maybe Roy?].

William and Sarah McBean are my gr-gr-gr-grandparents [my Dad's side]. I'd ask William who his parents were, and where he came from! This is my biggest brick wall.

Sometime between 1803 and 1804 William dies and his widowed wife puts their sons up for indenture. Son, William, is my gr-gr-grandfather. He is indentured to be a blacksmith apprentice on his 12th birthday. As an adult he became a gentleman farmer, and quite the wealthy gentleman for the times. He went on to marry Rachel Wiseman, and one of their many children was also named William. That William is my gr-grandfather.

William marries Margaret Perkins. And among their many children is born John Monroe Bean, my grandfather, in 1866.

John is in his 30's before he marries the first time. He goes on to marry 3 times, his first two wives dying tragically [one from tuberculosis and one from complications of child birth]. He fathered a total of 15 children, the last 3 being born after he was in his late 70's. It is from this last marriage that my Dad was born.

Needless to say I never knew my grand father. He passed away in 1954, just a few years before I was born.

But it is my gr-gr-gr-grandfather that stumps me, and has stumped the past 3 generations as well!