Blog Archive
Welcome to the Blog Archive for Itowler.com
You can use this to browse older postings, by year and then month. To get started, just click on a year, and then click on the month that you are interested, and you will be shown all of the blog posts in that year and month.
Joseph Towler in the American Revolution
Ian —Thu, 05/28/2009 - 04:00
I am not sure that I have ever mentioned it, but I descend from several individuals that fought in the American Revolution. I actually share a surname with one: Joseph Towler (click on the name to view my genealogy data). Using some online Genealogy resources, I discovered that Joseph Towler Fought with the 7th Virginia Regiment. I have even found a few images of Muster Rolls from the unit (see the image on the right, click to enlarge). I find these records really fascinating, as they provide more insight into the lives of the people that are included.
To date, I have only found 2 Muster Records for Joseph Towler, and they are both when he was stationed at Fort Pitt. The area around Fort Pitt would become the modern day Pittsburgh, PA. One of the things that I find interesting is that Fort Pitt would have been about 340 miles away from where Joseph lived (or Bedford, VA). This is a long way to walk.....
Russell Toler: Born 1817 Virgina
Ian —Fri, 05/22/2009 - 04:00
Last week I talked about a "New Toler" line be discovered, and the Last person in the line that we could trace was Russell Toler. This discovery was a little bit of a surprise for me, and a few of the other Toler / Towler researchers that I know. Part of the reason for the surprise is that they are come from Virginia, and moved into Indiana, like my ancestors, but these are all names that I have not run across before. The other "twist" to the surprise is that they end up in Kansas, and we had a ancestor, Caleb Anthony that was in Kansas (albeit not the same town). Well I have done a little more digging, but have not been able to find all that much. The only real solid clue that we have so far is from the 1870 US Census record.
A "New" Toler line found: DNA Results Confirm
Ian —Fri, 05/15/2009 - 04:00
As of today, there have been 3 people who have taken the 67 marker DNA test for the Toler / Towler DNA Project. I started off with the 67 marker test, and then 2 other have upgraded from the 12 to the 67. One of the upgrades can trace his line back to David Toler of WV. The other upgrade is a mystery. I was talking and we discovered that we may have found a "New Toler" branch. Obviously it is not a "new line" but it is new to me and the other Toler / Towler researchers, and as such it is a bit of a mystery....
This is all important becuase the upgrade shows that we are a 66 for 67 match, so not exact, but we are related. It is likely that our most recent common ancestor (MRCA) will be found at the start of settlement in the United States (read: James Town / early VA) or just before they came to the United States.
Using Drupal to create websites
Ian —Mon, 05/11/2009 - 14:02
10 years ago, many websites were just using static html pages, with a single file for each page. These days, many people are moving to a CMS (Content Management System) platform. I have talked about CMS platforms before, and this site used to run on one called Xoops. Now it runs on Drupal. The first site that I actually built using Drupal was a high school reunion site (www.lnhsalumni.com). It worked pretty well, and better yet, I was able to put it together pretty fast. Since then I have moved itowler.com to drupal, and created / helped create several more websites with drupal. By my count, I have now used drupal in at least 5 different sites:
Alright, Alright....
Ian —Mon, 05/04/2009 - 04:00
Alright, alright... I'll get it done as soon as I can.....
Yesterday I recieved not 1, but 2 different contacts via my "Contact Me" page. This is pretty unusual, I normally recieve about 1 a month, so to have 2 in one day was a little odd. On top of that, it was both of the "grandmothers" (My mother and my Mother-in-law) contacting me about the same thing.... getting pictures of Keira up on the site. Here is what they had to say: