Hello Friends and Family First of all, if you no longer want to reciece notices when the Messerville Gazette is updated, please send me an email telling me to take your name from that list. Secondly, I am sending this informtion to everyone in my email address book, which is an old one. My computer that was connected to the Internet bit the dust. The motherboard and CPU went out and in the copying three files, including my current address book, so I am haveing to reconstruct my contact list with a hard copy that is well over a year old. If you have contacted me in the last two months with a request for information, it would be helpful if you could send it again, I will answer promptly and try to be of as much help as I can. The reason that I have sent this the various lists that I belong to is that I am still requesting help on my Civil War Project. If you have a Civil War Ancestor from Haywood County, NC I would appreciate any help on family information, documents of proof [including pension or military records, marriage documents, delayed or birth records and death records] for your ancestor. I have quite a bit on the majority of the families, but at the present, I have found several families who apparently moved from Haywood shortly after the war and seem to have been invisible as I have not been able to find much on them. If you have any questions on this project, please feel free to contact me at geneslady@compascable.net or you can call me at 828-433-7003. I am also finishing third edition of The Registry - The Family of David Messer by July 1 as I have had a few requests for the David Messer book and since I have found additional families to add to this lineage since the second edition, I have decided to do a third editon. If anyone who bought on of the first two editions has any corrections or additions to their family, I would greatly appreciate this as soon as possible. Another book to be done by June 1 is The Ancestors of Ervin Otis Messer. Mary Louise Messer Patrick asked me this book two years ago for her brother and when I told her earlier this year that I would not have an entry into the awards review of The North Carolina Society of Historians, she told me, "I would be so proud if you would enter my Daddy's book", so I have decided to update the information in that book and see if the judges think it is as good as what Louise thinks. The have been some new additions to that family line also since the book was ori! ginally done.* ******** I also have converted two rolls of microfilm that I purchased from the North Carolina Archives to digital microfilm. I have the following available: Buncombe County Record of Pensions 1903-1959 C.013.90014 This digital microfilm was made from the original film that I bought from the NC State Archives. I have made this so others can utilize their time more efficiently by using their computer at home to search the records of their Civil War Veterans from Buncombe County, NC. This CD shows all payments to both Confederate Soldiers and their Widows, as well as to the Union Soldiers from these years. Some of the lists show why the soldier was receiving a pension [cause of disability], as well as where the payment was sent [City or township]. At a certain age a soldier who had in the course of his service had to take soldier at that point" was entitled to the pension whether disabled or not. Most of the men who took "the Oath of Allegiance" were still in the War at it's close, had deserted and actually joined the Union, or at a later date applied to the President of the United States for a pardon. If one of these criteria was met, the soldier or his widow could draw a Pension, either as a result of disability or attaining a certain age. The State Auditor sent lists to the Superior Court Clerk with the names and amounts of payments to be paid. A voucher paid these pensions from the office of Superior Court Clerk, who kept a detailed record of ! all payments and sent periodic reports to the State Auditor accounting for the payments required by the state. It is my wish that this CD will become a useful research source for those people either researching the Civil War or just wanting to find out more about their ancestors. Haywood County Record of Pensions 1899 - 1938 C.049.900140 This digital microfilm was made from the original film that I bought from the NC State Archives. I have made this so others can utilize their time more efficiently by using their computer at home to search the records of their Civil War Veterans from Buncombe County, NC. This CD shows payments to both Confederate Soldiers and their Widows. This roll of film the name of soldier was receiving a pension, as well as where the payment was sent [City or township]. At a certain age a soldier who had in the course of his service had to take soldier at that point" was entitled to the pension whether disabled or not. Most of the men who took "the Oath of Allegiance" were still in the War at it's close, had deserted and actually joined the Union, or at a later date applied to the President of the United States for a pardon. If one of these criteria was met, the soldier or his widow could draw a Pension, either as a result of disability or attaining a certain age. The State Auditor sent lists to the Superior Court Clerk with the names and amounts of payments and the vouchers from the state. The voucher, which paid these pensions from the office of Superior Court Clerk, was deposited into the bank and the Clerk of Superior Court kept a detailed re! cord of all payments to the veteran or widow. He then sent periodic reports to the State Auditor accounting for the payments required by the state. If a soldier or widow died while receiving a pension, the death date was included. It a veteran died within a quarter and funds were still available, the next one or two checks was allowed to the next of kin in some cases by the State Auditor. Also on this CD are images from the lost book of records that disappeard from the Haywood County Superior Court Clerk's office some years ago and was returned after being sold to a kindly soul on Ebay. This person brought the book back home to the Haywood County Superior Court Clerk's office. I made a request of the clerk to photograph the book. The lighting in the room where I was allowed to do the photographing and the quality of the writing in the book made it impossible to get all the pages to photograph for a readable image. I have included the good pages from that book, as well as the loose pages that were in it. The clerk let the loose pages be copied on a copy machine. I scanned these in and they turned out beautifully. Most all of these were assignment of agents from the pensioner for that agent to be able to get the check. Fortuantely, it gave the relationship of the pensioner to the agent, and the signature of the pensioner. These records were done on a! weekly basis when the payments to the pensioners were paid and included the name, amount of payment and address [township or other city or state]. They were pretty much the same records contained in the microfilm above for the years 1921 - 1939, except the microfilm records were ledger accounts of each pensioner [not several pensioner accounts to one page]. It is my wish that this CD will become a useful research source for those people either researching the Civil War or just wanting to find out more about their ancestors. If interested in either of these CD's, you may contact me for the price and ordering information. *********** Two of our Messer Family Babies are entered in the Cool Hat, Baby! Photo Contest at americanbaby.com These beautiful babies are my grandson, Jacob Allen Bell . Jacob's paents are James Allen and Rutha Messer Bell. Ifanyone would like to vote for him, you can find his picture at the following link: http://www.americanbaby.com/photocontest/vote.jhtml?entryId=872300001 His picture ID is # 872300001 The second Messer Family Baby is Wallace Franklin {Wally} Sevier, II, the grandson of Sharon Upton, who is a third great-granddaughter of John and Rebecca Messer. His parents are Matthew James and Melane Upton Sevier. You can vote for him at the following link" You have to register to vote and you can vote to five votes each day. I usually do all my voting at one time insteead of going in several times each day. The Messer Family Reunion will be on October 1 [first Saturday in October] at The Panther Creek Baptist Church in Haywood County. The fellowship hall has been finished and it has been confirmed by the pastor that the facility has been reserved for our Family gathering. I will get the Messerville Gazette updated with new obituaries and births sometime in the next week to ten days. The following link will take you to the Messerville Mayor page. http://www.cccdesigns.biz/mm.htm Be sure to check out all of the links. Remember, if you would like to be removed from the Messerville Gazette list or my email contacts, please send me an email and specify which to remove you from. Please send any new family information, such as birth announcements, funeral notices, wedding announcements or reunion iinformation to be posted. I look forward to hearing from each of you whenever you decide to contat me and will make an effort to reply promptly. Regards Brenda Messer geneslady@compascable.net 828-433-7003