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Letters from Sue Rorabaugh Clinton, daughter of Jesse Walter Rorabaugh, son of John William Rorabaugh, my grandmother's brother.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Carroll
To: Sue Clinton
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 10:27 AM
Subject: Fw: John M Rorabaugh Marriage License
 
Hi, again, Sue -
Finally getting around to reading your note more closely and comparing the data to my database.  The John M. Rorabaugh that you mention is not in my database.   I do have his father, Nathan Augustus Rorabaugh, however, I have no children listed for him.  Nathan had two wives; it appears by the dates that John's mother was Fanny Malinda Logsdon.
 
I had seen John M. Rorabaugh's name in some funeral records in Ponca City, but I didn't know how he was related.  Thanks for this additional information.  Does the marriage certificate give information that might tell us the birth date or age of the bride when they were married? 
 
I have also the names and relationships of you and your father now in my database.  I see that your father was indeed my grandmother's nephew.  I would love to enter in dates and places for your parents, siblings, etc.  So if you can send those to me, I will enter them in as well. 
I have a three or four websites that I manage.  Besides my own genealogy website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ourkin , I am coordinator for the Noble County site, part of the US GenWeb project. I also coordinate three sections of OKGenWeb's Photo Gallery.  I took Noble County since it was available and has so much history relative to my own family.  You know of our great-grandmother's connection to Perry.  Grandma lived there with her mother and step-father when they homesteaded.  The homestead was actually in Blackbear Township.   My dad was also born in Perry, though he was raised near Drumright, in Creek County.
 
Are you a member of your local genealogy club?  Do you have any dealings or association with the Noble County Genealogy Society?  I would be happy to surrender my Noble County website to someone there locally.  It is hard for me to continue to add new materials since I live in Tennessee.  I've spent time at the library in Perry and have added what I can, but I'm sure a local person could do a better job than I.  I just don't want to surrender it back to OKGenWeb and have another volunteer take it over who ALSO doesn't live in Oklahoma.  Probably sounds petty, oh well.  I've had the site since about 1998.  I gave it up for a short time and it was run by someone who just changed the look of it, but didn't add any substance.  When they gave it up, I volunteered to take it back.
 
Does your genealogy club have its own website?  I don't see a lot of that, but I would think in this day and age that that would be one of the best ways to attract new members and to publish the location of local resources.  Of course, I've never been a part of a local genealogy club, so what do I know, huh?
 
Well, Sue, maybe I'm beginning to ramble.  I really would love to hear from you; also, I would like to add your name and e-mail address as a Rorabaugh researcher on my personal website.  I have a letters section where I publish genealogy related correspondence, but I always ask for permission first. Thanks so much for writing me again.  Let's try to stay in touch.  I'd love to meet you someday when I'm in Oklahoma.  My wife and I both still have a lot of family back there.
 
Sincerely, your second cousin -
 Jim Carroll

----- Original Message -----
From: Sue Clinton
To: Jim Carroll
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 5:40 PM
Subject: John M Rorabaugh Marriage License
Hi, It has been some years since I wrote to you but I wanted to let you know I have the original marriage certificate for John M Rorabaugh, son of Nathan Augustus Rorabaugh. It was sold at a flea market and I found it through our local genealogy club. He was born July 7, 1907 at Perry, OK  and married Opal Whitmore of Ponca City, OK, 16 June 1928 at Kingman, KS  on their way to Colorado to join other family members who had found jobs there. 

John died June 25, 1959 here in Ponca City, OK . Opal died July 2, 1998  also here in Ponca City, John is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Perry OK. No children were mentioned in either obituary. I just thought it was worth mentioning. In the Rorabaugh Genealogy book written in 1982 it gives his approximate date of birth and "nothing else known". It bothered me and I thought this would give closure to his life in our genealogy programs.  My full name is Carol Sue Rorabaugh Clinton. My father was Jesse Walter Rorabaugh, son of John William Rorabaugh and Eliada Rebecca Beach. 

I remember going to" Aunt Eliza's" house when I was a small child with my parents for a Sunday afternoon visit. How I loved that organ. I only live an hours drive from Perry if anyone needs anything looked up there I would be glad to try to help. Sue

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