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Genealogy Notes

Rose and Joe

We are Rose Golden Schlatter and Joseph Augustus Schlatter, Jr.  We were married in Oxford, Alabama, on July 30, 1966. 

We have two children, Joseph A. Schlatter, III, and Stephanie Hope Schlatter.   They are twins, born in 97th General Hospital (US Army hospital), Frankfurt, Germany, October 3, 1968.

In early 2005 my wife and I moved to Bay Saint Louis, MS, where we were building our retirement home when we were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina.  We returned to Knoxville, TN, where my parents lived, to decide what to do next.  A few weeks after we arrived in Knoxville, my father died of a stroke.  A few months later, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; she lived seven months and died in March 2007.

My mother was our family historian.  She had folders, notebooks, and boxes full of photos and "stuff."  After her cancer diagnosis, I spent many days with her going through the family history material she had and taking notes on what she knew of our family history. 

Earlier -- in 2002 and 2003 -- Rose had made several trips to her hometown of Oxford, AL, to interview elderly family members and collect material about her family from local sources.

At the same time, I started doing online research on my family and Rose's family. 

These pages are the result of our research.  Come back from time to time because we continue to find new information.

Family Tree on Ancestry.com

You can view our family tree on Ancestry.com where it is a public family tree.  We keep the family tree somewhat up to date though we can't guarantee that it contains the latest information.

Rose's Family:  Golden, Cobb, Harris, and Others

Rose is from Oxford, Alabama.  Her father is  Ernest Edgar Golden, born in Hico, Louisiana and her mother is Zelma Louise Cobb, born in Oxford, Mississippi.

The same is true of Rose's ancestors as is true with many other families in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.  That is, the families are mainly of British, Scotch, or Irish origin with an occasional ancestor from mainland Europe.  The families first settled in the mid-Atlantic or southeastern coastal colonies -- Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas.  From there, branches of the family moved west, usually to take advantage of newly-opened land in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and points west.  As the families moved they often were in the company of other "emigrants," sometimes groups of families pulled up stakes and moved to "new lands in the west" together.  Some family members settled at various places along the way while others continued west, thereby spreading the extended families into Texas and some as far west as California and the west coast.

The Golden Family

Golding, Golden.  We have traced my Golden name back to Eastern Virginia where the name was Golding.  We have quite a bit more research to do and will publish the results here -- please come back to visit.

Golden Springs, Alabama.  In Alabama, near the towns of Oxford and Anniston, is the small community of Golden Springs.  The community is named for Rose's great-grandfather James Harleston Golden (1843 - 1918) who was a Congregational Methodist minister.  He established a home and small store near a good, reliable spring that became known as "Mr. Golden's Spring," later shortened to Golden's Spring, eventually becoming Golden Springs.

Go to this page for more on Rose's  Golden ancestors.

The Cobb Family

Cobb.  Rose's maternal grandparents were Raymond G. Cobb and Autrie Harris.   The Cobbs and the Harris's from whom Rose is immediately descended were from the White Plains area of Calhoun County, Alabama. 

Go to this page for more on Rose's Cobb ancestors.

My Family:  Schlatter, Waldner, Richardson, Dudding, Coon, White

I was born in Centreville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi.  My father was Joseph A. Schlatter, Sr., born 1 August 1915, Shaw, Mississippi, died 29 November 2005, Knoxville, TN.  My mother was Annie Lee Richardson, born 21 October 1924, near Norwood, East Feliciana Parish, LA, died 18 March 2007, Knoxville, TN.

Schlatter

  My paternal grandparents were Adolph Schlatter and Emma Waldner. 

•  Adolph was born 1863 in Switzerland.  On his application for US citizenship, which he completed in 1923, Adolph listed St. Gallen, Switzerland, as his birthplace. 
  •  Adolph's father was Josef Schlatter, born 1830, Switzerland; he was a shoemaker.
  •  Adolph had two brothers, Alfred and Heinrich Reinhold. 
•  Emma was born in Baden, Germany, in 1884; her home was St. Gallen, Switzerland.  Family legend says that her father was working in Germany when she was born.  Her brother, Louis (Alois) Waldner, was born in Germany, came to the US, and returned to St. Gallen where he died in 1954.

My paternal grandfather, Adolph Schlatter

Adolph Schlatter was a baker.  Family legend has it that a friend of his in Memphis  invited him to come to Memphis and open a bakery.  However, as I am discovering, it was a lot more complex than that.

• My research shows that he made three trips to the US -- August 1890, June 1897, and October 1910.
• I have a small notebook in which he made entries between 1903 and 1910.  From the entries in this notebook, I learned that my Grandfather Schlatter married a woman named Louise Kleiner, in Memphis, TN, in 1906.  Later, my brother found copies of their marriage license and divorce decree.  My grandfather and his first wife had a child and they operated a bakery in Senatobia, MS.
• In 1908, Adolph, Louise, and "the baby" returned to Switzerland where he made entries in the notebook regularly until July 1910.
• Then, in October 1910, he arrived in the US with my grandmother, Emma Waldner Schlatter.
• We have no further records of Louise and "the baby."
•  Adolph's journal

Adolph's father was Josef Schlatter.  As of March 2010 we have information suggesting that he was born in Switzerland in 1830, was a shoemaker, and came to the US in 1896. 

My grandfather Adolph Schlatter had two brothers who came to the U.S.

•  One brother was Alfred Schlatter:  Born in Switzerland 1873; came to the US in 1890; died in November 1905 in Patchogue, Long Island, NY.  Here's an article that describes what we know about him and our search for more details.
•  My grandfather's other brother was Heinrich Reinhold Schlatter:  Born in Switzerland 1866; came to the US in April 1892; died in Brunswick, GA, of yellow fever in 1893 -- 18 months after arriving in the US.  Here's an article about him.

My paternal grandmother, Emma Waldner

My paternal grandmother is Emma Waldner.  Emma was born in Baden, Germany, 1884. She married Adolph in September 1910 and accompanied him to the US in October 1910.  Adolph and Emma settled in Shaw, MS, where they operated a bakery.

•  Adolph and Emma had three sons:  John, Joseph (my father), and Fred.
•  Adolph suffered a stroke and died in November 1930.  Emma had a brother, Louis, who came to Mississippi after Adolph's death and worked in the bakery.  Later, Louis would be a baker at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
•  Here are some photos that I believe are of Emma's family in Switzerland.
•  This article lists all we know about Louis Waldner, Emma's brother.

Here is the Schlatter Family Photo Album -- as of mid-February 2010, I am adding to this photo album almost daily.

Richardson

My maternal grandparents were Clarence James Richardson and Annie Lee Dudding.  The Richardson's have been in the US since before the Revolution.

Follow this link to my Richardson Family Pages.

Dudding

My maternal great-grandmother died when I was 12 years old and I remember a little about her.  She was Nina Anna Statia White and was married to Maurice Dudding.

Family legend has it that the Duddings lived in Putnam County, West Virginia and, in the late 1800s, they put their belongings on a flatboat and floated down the Ohio to the Mississippi, disembarking near the Louisiana - Mississippi border and making their way to a homestead near the village of Norwood, East Feliciana Parish, where they started farming. 

While researching the Dudding family, I found the Dudding Family Website -- it is an excellent site put together by an individual who is descended from the same Duddings I am related to.

There is in our family a copy of an old map of the area of Washington, DC, showing an area named "Duddington Pasture."  The family story is that this property belonged to the Duddings before they moved to West Virginia.

Dudding family heirlooms

Maurice Dudding (1869 - 1929) and Nina Anna Statia White (1872-1957) were my great-grandparents.  Nina Anna Statia White Dudding -- my great-grandmother, whom I knew as "Nanny" -- lived with my mother's family.  When she died, her possessions passed to my grandmother, her daughter.  When my grandmother died, my mother inherited some of Nanny's possessions and, when she died in March 2007, my brother and I divided Nanny's possessions -- which had been in our family for four generations.  The Dudding family heirlooms that are in my possession, or in possession of my children, are:

•  The Dudding dining room table
•  Nanny's Long Box
•  Nanny's hooked rag rug
•  Nanny's oak chests
•  The five-generation quilt
•  Momma Richardson's  grubbing hoe

White

White.  The White family originated in Great Britain then emigrated to South Carolina.  They appear to have migrated from SC to southwest Mississippi or southeast Louisiana, much as did the Richardson family. 

My maternal great-grandmother is Nina Anna Statia White, b. 1872, d. 1957.  She married Maurice Dudding (b. 1869, d. 1929).  They lived in East Feliciana Parish, LA.  When Maurice Dudding died in 1929, "Nanny" moved in with her oldest daughter, my grandmother, Annie Lee Dudding Richardson, and lived with the family until her death in 1957.

I have little information about the White family but I am researching that branch of my family and will post information as I find it.

Go to this page for articles about the White family.

Coon (Kuhn)

Coon (originally Kuhn).  My maternal grandfather, Clarence J. Richardson, was the son of Reverdy Hunter Richardson and Martha "Mattie" Coon.  Martha Coon had several siblings, one of whom was her younger sister, Ada Adair Coon (married John Davis, Woodville, MS, in November 1907).  When Aunt Ada died in 1962, she left a number of documents to my mother.  Here are two of the items in those documents -- Ada Coon-John Davis marriage license, and, a handprint from "Little Willie."

The Coon family name originally was Kuhn and they are descended from one Hans Kaspar Kuhn, who was one of several immigrants from Switzerland to the South Carolina colony in the early- to mid-1700's.

Family Photos

Here are links to several pages of family photos.  I've tried to organize these in some logical fashion -- hope this is not too confusing.

Schlatter family photos, mostly pre-1950, four pages

Family Friends

Here are miscellaneous articles about friends of our family.

• "Judge" Sullivan -- Mr. Henry R. Sullivan.  Mr. Sullivan, his wife Beth Merritt Sullivan, and their daughter Ellen E. Sullivan lived next door to the Schlatter's on Natchez Avenue, Knoxville, TN, in the mid-1950's.

Future Work

I use the Family Tree Maker genealogy software from Ancestry.com.  Also, I subscribe to the Ancestry.com search services and we have been able to track down a lot of our ancestors through records on that site.  I also use the following online genealogy search services:

•  Church of the Latter-Day Saints genealogy records.
•  Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System.
•  Family Search
• GenWeb genealogy forums

Miscellaneous Family History Notes

I have written several memos based on my genealogy research.  Here is a list of these memos with links to them.