Mattie Reed ---- granddaughter of Robert Reed (Sr.) of Donegal, northern Ireland, and Mary (Polly) (Pomeroy) Reed.

Robert's father was Robert Reed (Sr.) of Donegal, northern Ireland, born circa 1730; Robert's mother was Mary (Polly) (Pomeroy) Reed. By 1800, Robert (Sr.) was decease and his wife Mary, age 45 or over, was living in Fairfield Township with one female under 10 and one male age 16 and under 26. Both Robert (Sr.), and Polly are buried in the West Fairfield Cemetery, Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County.
Robert Reed (Sr.) along with Charles Clifford, James Clifford, Isaac Stimmel and James Flack came to the Ligonier area in circa 1759 and built a fort. For 16 years these families lived and prospered in this area. The Indians were kind and all was well. But when the War started, the British incited unrest with the Indians. The British convinced many Indians that the settlers were there to take their land and kill them. Also the British taught the Indians to "scalp" and sell the scalps to the British for money. It was after this the men of the fort had to work as someone stood guard.

It was in this season that Robert Jr's daughter Mattie Reed began to work along with her brothers to plant, harvest and in general, did hard manual work. Mattie grew to be extremely strong for a woman. One of the past times of the people was to have foot races or other competitions of physical strength. Mattie and one other boy (a couple of years older) were always the favorites to win in these foot races.

It was 1778, a very dangerous year with the British and the Indians, one day Mattie, a female companion, Mattie's brother George, and another young man walked two miles away to pick berries at another farm. Just as they met a Mr. Mc Dowell from Fort Ligonier, the group of five were attacked by Indians. The British had given the Indians guns to fight the settlers promising the Indians protection, and money. George was shot right away. A bullet hit Mr. Mc Dowell's rifle laying across his shoulder. The rifle blasted into numerous small particles of metal which they needed to pick out of his face and neck. And the girls began to run. Mattie ran so fast she left her companion in fear for her own life.

A young warrior was in pursuit of Mattie. He ran and ran and could not keep up with Mattie. So he started to his Indian hooping and hollering which usually intimated the settlers so much that they were weakened by fear. But Mattie explained with every holler, it just caused her to run faster. She did not want to be killed or even worse fate at that time, captured and imprisoned by the Indians. Finally others from the fort came to Mattie's rescue having heard the gun shots and the Indians' hollering. Mattie explained what had happened and the men went out to investigate. George was dead and the young lady, Becky Means, was dead and scalped. The other male companion was captured and taken to be a prisoner of the Indians. Mattie became a heroine, later married and had many children.

For three more years the British continued to incite the Indians. But after the war the Indians and Colonist resumed their peaceful ways. The before-mentioned prisoner of the Indians, was returned home. The story he told was interesting. The warrior whom had chased Mattie was humiliated the rest of his life. It seems this warrior was engaged to the Indian chief's daughter. But when he came back labeled as the "no-warrior out ran be a "pale-faced" squaw, the Indian princess was disgusted and refused to marry him. The returning white man having spent three years in captivity explained how the dishonored warrior spent the rest of his time in menial tasks and shunned by the rest of the tribe.

This story was taken from THE REED FAMILY A History of the DESCENDANTS of Robert Reed Sr. by J.P. Lytle of Home, PA printed at the INDEPENDENT OFFICE Marion Centers, PA; 1909 but was first published in THE LIGONIER ECHO Volume IX, no. 37

First 10 Lessons

What are the first 10 lessons a beginning family history researcher should start with (in order of importance)? #familyhistory #genealogy asked by fellow genealogist Holly Hansen Oct 23, 2009 via FACEBOOK.

1. Start Small---- Just you and your parents, siblings etc. Keep it simple ---Only the things you know. KISS. There are record keeping, documentation revision rules that many occupations use. Having a background in documentation does help.

2. Be prepared to be surprised, you will even find things about your immediate family you did not know. HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT.

3. BE DISCREET!!!!! Do not publish anything publicly ---- what seemed to be a fact may very well not survive the test of time. But by then you have mislead a huge group of people.

4. ORGANIZE and be prepared to abandon your special planned organization process to reorganize again as your database changes and takes on a life of it's own. Get organized. Spend time learning how others are organizing their materials (by lineage, by families, by location), records (census, military records, cross referencing?), time (cut out time to work on genealogy, when families favorite tv show on? after Saturday chores? early in the morning? what days will be library days??? and travels (Can you visit more than one library, cemetery, court office in the same area?, can you pre-order documents to be available?, can you check on days/hours open ahead of time?).

5. BE CURIOUS Ask questions DRIVE YOUR RELATIVES CRAZY!! THINK LIKE A CHILD ASKING WHY? WHEN? WHO? of your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Who were your siblings, where were they born? Start with family photos add names and relationships to photos, photos of family gatherings. Questions to ask: where was the picture taken, what was the occasion, who are the people?? family Bibles (take notes of any blanks with small notes not actually in the Bible.), archive the Bible, read obituaries found around the house, and ask who was this?, read old letters, or listen to old recordings. Sometimes people far away sent recordings in the 1940s or even earlier.
When the letter or recording mentions a name (such as Johnny) ask: Who is Johnny?

6.Be prepared to handle documents and books. Be prepared to use cotton gloves, acid free paper, and document archiving practices. Photo copy or take camera shots of documents when possible. This allows for zooming and enhancing lettering when required. Digitize everything.

7. Back up everything. Back up all data monthly on two or three programs at least. Keep a hard acid free paper copy, Back up software copies on 3 hard drives. One for general use, easy to retrieve, one in a bank safe and send one out of state to a safe place.

8. Network, network network Get involved with Genealogy Societies, workshops, Internet networking. Genealogy is such a fast paced, growing hobby right now, even last years greatest finds are obsolete. Learn what software updates there are? What libraries will be most helpful with your region, date span, studies?

9. TRUST NO ONE. Dear Cousin Molly in her letters may have left out a whole generation. Or called Uncle Obie (Uncle Pete) just because she wanted to... that can really confuse things, Realize there is at least 50% "proven bad" data out there! Consensus are wrong, birth records are wrong, death certificates are wrong, newspaper articles are wrong, ship manifests are wrong, cemetery tomb markers are wrong. And not just of the real old stuff---it still happens today!

10. And most of ALL Have fun! Remember it can be fun but if you hit an extremely hard brick wall, or get root bound. Just remember why you are involved with this endeavor and set yourself a "time" to look at it and then put the problem away for awhile. That person will not be going anywhere and when he/she is ready to be found -- then you can celebrate with a genealogy HAPPY DANCE!!

6 am to 10 pm genealogy why???

October 20, 2009 was a wonderful productive genealogy day for me. Life had me stuck in a rut! My elusive ancestors had me stuck in a rut. My attempts at developing a genealogy web site had me stuck. I was feeling just stuck. I felt attempts to do "what was considered necessary but difficult" was going to waste time and become frustrating. So I turned my back (literally) to those issues and began to focus on other genealogy tasks.

I worked a good 2 hours on photoshop and established several thumb size "face only" shots to add to my tree. I see this used on many trees. I like the conformity and neatness of this way of introducing physical characteristics of my ancestors. Extracting and enhancing faces out of group pictures. I will also publish the group pictures else where. I was hoping to demonstrate what I wanted so while Bill is here he would help me with this photoshop project. But lo and behold I received a correspondence from a Messesmith link, and he said he enjoyed cleaning up old photos and asked me to share. He indicated if I would send my Messesmith photos (that I admitted to be of poor quality) he would fix them and return share photos with me!!! WOW, my Messesmith lineage grows leaps and bounds!!!

I then revisited my Dearman lineage and followed my grandmothers instructions to a "T". Seeing other Dearman genealogist lineage I discovered how and why they made some assumptions regarding Solomon, son of Thomas, and Anne, daughter of Jonathan. I then posted my grandmothers notes and indicated this as my resource. I also mentioned the chart matches the book ---the D'Armonds of America and several other sources.

I added reasons for death to the Dearmans and then proceded to back it all up. From Ancestory.com to My Heritage to RootsMagic 4 and Rootsmagic TO GO. Then I had fun in RootsMagic writing several reports. Trying out the bells and whistles of the program. Although I print problem reports as a finish to my work monthly, yesterday I printed a timeline chart. This helped me trouble shoot my data a lot more efficiently and effectively. I became so engrossed with the program that I am going to office supply store today so I can print these reports . My shopping list includes acid free paper, more printer ink, and an automatic 3 hole punch.

My brother suggested I write a book. But because there is soooooo much going soooo many places --- I explained writing a book adding everything kind of did not make sense to me. The book would be just boggled, confusing and a collection of unrelated data. Hee hee so my brother approached me later and said if one book was not sensible maybe a series of books was the solution.

So I stayed away from my frustrating "brickwalls" ignored my huge "BLACKHOLES" and had fun with genealogy yesterday for the first time in a while.