Saturday Night Challenge - on Sunday Morning!

Last nights genealogy challenge by Randy Seaver was as follows:

"1) How old is your father now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel. Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick your mother, or yourself, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!"

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My Dad is 72 years of age now. So, dividing that number by 4, I was left with 18.

Well, it took me a few minutes to find #18 on my ahnentafel. [I had to find #18! He seemed to be hiding at first! Hmmmmm!]

When I finally saw that #18, low and behold, it is my great-great-grandfather, Reverend Samuel Perkins.

I've written about Rev. Perkins on this blog once before, but for this exercise, I will tell about him once more.

Samuel Perkins was born in 1778 to James Perkins and Elizabeth Bonderant in Virginia [we believe somewhere close to current Greenbrier County, West Virginia].

In 1809 he married Margaret Smith, who died within the following year.

In January of 1811 he married Rebekkah Hanley. She, too, died, in August of that same year.

In September of 1812 he married Elizabeth Tuckwiller in Greenbrier County, she was from a very prominent family in the area. They went on to have 9 children.

Samuel became a prominent Methodist minister in the area. And in 1845, beginning with services in his own log home, he founded Mount Vernon United Methodist Church. A year later, on land donated by the community, a church building was erected. Samuel was the minister there until his death in 1854. He was, in fact, the very first individual buried in its cemetery.

Samuel's 8th born child was a girl, whom he and Elizabeth named after his first wife, Margaret Smith Perkins. She was born in 1826. In 1852 Margaret married William McHarvey Bean. She and William had 8 children. Their 6th-born child was John Monroe Bean, Sr. My grandfather, who was born in 1866.

Each spring, on Memorial Day, my Dad and I journey to the little community of Fort Spring, where Mount Vernon United Methodist Church sits. And we pay tribute to the man who founded that church. My Great-great-grandfather, Reverend Samuel Perkins.