John Riley, Sr. - Robert Earl Woodham's Records

Robert Earl Woodham's Records

Disposition of Robert Earl Woodham's Research Records

Hi Everyone. I thought I would give you an update on the status of Robert Earl's records at the AUM library.�

I was finally able to go there yesterday and work on getting them unpacked and cataloged.� I was VERY pleasantly surprised at how organized he was....I thought he probably was, but I had no idea what to expect.

SO FAR....everything is in notebooks and yesterday, I cataloged 134 notebooks.� Of those, more than half were for the Turnage family and there were some really wonderful notebooks that I hope I will find for the Woodham family as well.� LOTS of notebooks full of Family Group Sheets, birth records, death records, marriage records, wills and estates and military records.� A good bit of research from England as well.� Some of the other family names I saw are Hightower, Andrews, Galloway, Mixon, Skinner, Richardson, Daughtry and Faircloth.� Some of those are familiar to me as connected to the Woodham family.� There was also a notebook full of photos that I couldn't resist looking thru but didn't see anyone I knew.� There is a notebook full of Turnage Family newsletters.

I really didn't take time to look very closely at any of the books since my goal was to get them out of the boxes and cataloged but I did take a few minutes with some of them that caught my attention......It was a struggle to keep moving on.....

They do have his computer and some discs.� They had to take the hard drive out of the computer and he is working with an IT person to help him retrieve and save what is there.� He hasn't yet worked on the discs.......� I'm not really a computer person, so I don't know what will be involved in this.� I did tell him that we think Robert Earl was working on books from his research and we hope those might be found on the computer.� I think we have to keep our fingers crossed on this one and I will follow up with him next week.

I'll be back for another work day either next Wed or Thurs.� He thought I was over half way thru the boxes, so maybe this won't take as long as I had thought.�

I'll keep you posted on my progress.....� If there is something in particular you would like me to keep my eyes open for, please let me know and I'll try.....

10/20/2010 dssgriffin@gmail.com

The message below is from cousin Donna Griffin, who spoke with Jason Kneip today. (He's professor at Auburn's Library). Donna has graciously offered to help Jason catalogue Robert Earl's records. Many thanks & much appreciaton is extended to Donna!! If you would like to contact Donna, her email address is dssgriffin@gmail.com

Clay Logue 09/13/2010

HI Clay. I just spoke to Jason and he is working on getting a room made available to put the boxes in so they can be sorted out. It sounds like they are still in a storage area as they were dropped off there and are not at all accessable now.

His plan is to get that done this week or next and then he will set up a day with me to come there and get started helping him go thru the boxes. Hopefully that will start in about 2 weeks and I may have to make multiple trips to help get this done so we can all have an idea about what is there. I imagine that Robert Earl was very organized with all of his records so I am hopeful that it will just be a matter of cataloging what is there......BUT I have no idea and I don't think anyone has even looked in the boxes since they arrived. I hope they will be available for everyone to use in their research soon.....

If you could let the others know what is going on, I'm sure they will all like to know. I'll keep you posted.

Aloha.....donna