A River Runs Through Us

I recently attended a conference sponsored by the Hamilton County Genealogical Society. They brought in a speaker, John Phillip Coletta, who works with the National Archives and conducts workshops on preserving your family history. He encouraged us to lay out our documents and try to come up with a theme.

That advice struck a chord with me because I've always known that as far as the Jones Family in Cincinnati is concerned, the Ohio River and boats ties all of us together over six generations. The picture at the left is one of my Dad, Johnny Jones, who grew up on Eastern Ave., now renamed Riverside Dr., in the East End of Cincinnati. His home was right across from the river and he passed on his love of the river to all seven of his "river rats". This picture is loved by our family because we know he had to sell this canoe to buy a sewing machine for my mother. They had four children in less than four years of marriage, and I'm sure they were looking for every way they could save money.

The more I research my Jones line, the more aware I've become of the role that this river and boats have played in each generation. The first Joneses in Cincinnati came here about 1843. Alexander Jones married Elizabeth Kinley in Aberdeen, Ohio across from Maysville, Ky. in 1840 (and boy is there a story about that). When they arrived in Cincinnati, Alexander got a job as a carpenter building steamboats, a booming occupation at this time. They lived in the area called Fulton, a neighborhood that spread east along the river for about two miles. This was just the beginning of the Jones family connection to boats of every shape and size and the Ohio River.

As I am new to blogging, I hope you are patient with me as I learn about this wonderful tool