Dear Descendant,
I'm going to try to write more frequently. Actually, right now I have a lot of "irons in the fire" (remember that talk about speaking in 'Idiom'?). I'm going to get some of them out of that fire. They are all collectively keeping me from doing more of what I really want to do. But, enough about me. You can piece me together rather easily so I'm not wasting time.
Ancestor #3 that I'd like to have a sit-down with is my 3rd great-grandfather, James F. Jenkins. I suspect the "F" stands for Francis. So far, I've not been able to find out for sure but that name shows up here and there in the family. If you don't believe me that he is Number Three or you can't find the original post, here it is.
I'll warn you up front, James is a brick wall. I can't find a marriage record for him. In fact, I don't find much about him. Much of what I have depended on is family oral tradition passed down from my great-grandfather, Milton Minturn Jenkins, known as "Minton" and as "M.M.", who was the grandson of James F. Jenkins. Grandpa told the story he remembered to my grandmother, , his daughter, Monta Lee Jenkins Kells. She wrote it in one of those stenographer's notepads. (You'll have to look that occupation up; stenographers have been gone for a long time already.) I have also done a lot of looking here and there for this family. There are apparently some holes in the story, hence the looking around part. The upside is that you won't get very much incorrect information from Ancestry trees (if they still have them) because there isn't much on this line in the family out there and much of what is on Ancestry, came from me. One thing for sure, the Jenkins tribe will get in touch and nobody knows any more than I know. They will gladly share anything they have with you about their particular families. They are "giving" and cooperative folks. I like to think that's a quality that was passed down through James' line.
Know that my grandfather's people were good people. Take that to the bank. Their word was gold. They weren't ones to intentionally tell a lie. They told what they knew and they ALL knew the story I'll relate here. I've talked to some of Grandpa's nieces and nephews and some of their children and grandchildren and even though their parents gave some incorrect information to E.E. Barton, they tell the family tradition EXACTLY the same. So much the same, I can hear Grandpa Minton saying the words. Sometimes, however, I think they left out the unpleasant facts. Actually, I KNOW they did. I think that came from Grandpa Mathew, James' son. I think there were just things he didn't want to talk about concerning the Civil War and the family's role. It was just easier to let that part of our history be unspoken. I hope you will find that story fascinating and not be ashamed of our family's part in this era of history. Contrary, I hope you will be proud of them. We are currently in a social climate that is particularly harsh on the Confederates.
Above all, know that I consider us among the luckiest people in the world to have descended from this group of people. Also, know that I refer to M.M. Jenkins as "Grandpa". I do so because he raised my mother and she, like her mother and her uncles, called him "Pop". Both of my grandfathers (Carr & Kells) were either long dead by the time I was born or died shortly after and Grandpa was the only grandfather I ever knew. The summer that I finished the third grade, he and Grandma Kells came back to the family farm he sold my parents in 1959 to live next door to my parents, my siblings, and me. He was living there at the time of his death. To date, the farm is still in the family. Grandpa bought it in the 1920's so that's closing in on a hundred years.
