This website's 25th anniversary online is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the tireless work of the late Jeanette "Blanche" (Clark) Tarter to connect the dots in her branch of the massive family tree. The path leads back to Daniel Minor Sr. and his wives Mary and Margaret "Peggy" Fluckey of eastern Ohio and their combined 17 children and 74 grandchildren who are part of the broader fold of descendants of southwestern Pennsylvania pioneers Jacob and Maria (Nein) Minerd Sr.

Blanche’s genealogy research and writing efforts began in earnest at age 89. A look at her output provides a rare, vivid and irreplaceable view of this pioneer branch of our family, and proves that one person can make a difference. This photograph was taken on her 94th birthday on Oct. 16, 1974

The daughter of George "William" and Helen (White) Clark of Missouri and granddaughter of Kansas pioneers Luther and Mahala (Minor) White, Blanche began her work as a widow in 1969, after 65 years of marriage and having raised two sons. Her searches were conducted in an era when everything was done in person or via the postal mail, with large waiting times in between. A major focus of her mental energy was to find out where her Minor great-grandfather had originated.

The seeds had been planted years before. One day in 1949, Blanche opened a letter from an unfamiliar name and address, Verda (White) Richey of Canton, Ohio, who asked for information, writing: "Now surely Luther White's family kept a family record in the middle pages of the big parlor bible -- as everyone else did. If so, who would have access to them?"

Blanche’s immediate reaction is unknown. Unfortunately, there are no further known letters between the two for a span of 21 years. But after becoming widowed, Blanche rekindled her letter writing with Verda, who offered up a number of theories and sent family papers for study.

Blanche's 1971 book

Working from her home in the Kansas City suburb of Raytown, Blanche and Verda collaborated with cousin Edith Marguerite (Peterie) Hoyt (of the family of Jesse Thomas and Blanche Ethel (Bailey) Peterie) to co-publish a small book in 1971 about the Whites, entitled Ancestral and Chronological History and Lineage of the Family of Luther White and Mahala (Minor) White, Their Forbears and Descendants, 1665-1971.

Blanche also published a booklet, Ancestral and Chronological History and Lineage of George William Clark. The print run was very small, perhaps 36 copies in all. An original is on file today at the Grundy County Genealogical Society at the Jewett Norris Library in Trenton, MO.

Once these publications were completed, Blanche changed her focus to the Minors. She embarked on a letter writing campaign, with her son Paul and cousin Alba (McGirk) Kristensen Peck, and many others, using correspondence to remotely explore courthouses, historical societies and other sources across the nation. Paul himself did research on weekends, in libraries in Oakland/San Francisco, and on occasional business trips, including in Ohio in 1974.

At first Blanche and Verda theorized that Daniel Minor Sr. was of the English family of Miner-Minor which settled in Connecticut in the 1600s. But Daniel's name was never found among this well-documented group. It was one of many dead ends.

In the summer of 1974, Blanche finally began to crack through the frustrating barriers. She wrote to the Somerset (PA) Historical and Genealogical Society, with her letter forwarded to Society archivist Marguerite (Lepley) Cockley of Meyersdale, PA. In her reply, Cockley provided some leads that have proven to be accurate, which gave Blanche her first real clues. Cockley said: "Have not found very much to report. Jacob Miner was a taxpayer in Turkeyfoot Township in 1793. Daniel Miner or Minor may be a son or the above or a brother... So the family was here."

Blanche sent a delighted reply: "You will never know how happy you have made me by repeating the name of Jacob Miner as a citizen of Somerset Co. Turkeyfoot Twhip. [sic] Pa. It is the first clue I have had to anyone who might be the father of my g. grandfather, Daniel Miner."

In all, Blanche and Cockley exchanged dozens of letters. In her Missouri home, eagerly awaiting replies, Blanche understandably was impatient from time to time. In a letter to Blanche in 1974, Cockley wrote: "I know it's hard to be patient at 93½ -- you need to know, now."

Complicating matters was that Blanche began to lose her eyesight. But with her mind active, and her curiosity highly aroused, she relied on her sons Paul and Rodney to help keep the quest going.

The countless dead ends were a frustration. In one letter in 1974, Verda wrote: "Congratulations on your successes in family searches. It all means W-O-R-K. Your writing is good even though you cannot read newsprint." In a 1976 letter, Cockley lamented that the work was “so time consuming and so often produces so little. But we must work with what we have."

Later in 1974, Cockley again sent a research summary from Pennsylvania. Without realizing it with precision, the letter shows that they were ever more closely circling around Daniel's brother and nephews.

I have not forgotten you, nor my promise to check Wills and Deeds at the Somerset Court House... There was a John Miner and a Jacob Miner who received tracts of land in Turkeyfoot Twp.... There was also an estate paper for Jacob Miner and wife Catherine... which shows a John married to Hannah, Jacob m. Rachael, Joel m. Kate and Charles m. Adeline.

And in 1975, Cockley shared this accurate hunch: "I think that Daniel and Burket Miner may have been sons of Jacob. Burket Minor married Francis Skinner and appears to have gone to what is now West Virginia. Since your Daniel Minor shows up in Perry County, Ohio where so many people from Turkeyfoot settled, it is very likely that he went there with them..."

Blanche’s continuing enthusiasm despite age and blindness was contagious. A 1976 letter from Cockley said "I am still thinking of our search. It's almost as if I were hunting for one of my own."

By 1976, Cockley had found one of the vital facts that finally -- though only a suspicion -- established the connection. She wrote of having located an early land record where "D.F. Miner" and "Frederick Miner" had bought land in Perry County, Ohio. In reality, "D.F. Miner" was a clerk's sloppy shorthand for the joint purchase of 160 acres in 1812 by Daniel and his brother Frederick, establishing a relationship between the two men. And thanks to the pioneering genealogical records of Allen Edward Harbaugh – of which neither Blanche or Cockley were aware – we know that this same Frederick was of our family.

In August 1976, in the last known letter Cockley sent to Blanche, she wrote: "I have all my friends looking for any early Miners they can find... I feel certain that your Daniel Minor is the one in Turkeyfoot Twp. in 1800. But where did he come from? Wouldn't we like to know?

Blanche died in a rest home on Feb. 8, 1978, at the age of 98, almost certain, but never assured, that Daniel Minor Sr. was the son of the Minerd Western Pennsylvania pioneers. While her hunch has proven correct, this fact was not established for another two decades.

In 1988, the founder of this website visited with Cockley in her home in Meyersdale. She shared what she had learned about Daniel Miner and Blanche and suggested follow-up. In the early 1990s, the founder and his cousin Eugene Podraza first traveled to Perry and Morrow Counties in Ohio to learn more about Daniel's story.

It actually was Blanche's son who made the breakthrough but did not know it. On one of his trips east, he walked through the cemetery near Somerset, OH where Daniel’s first wife and his brother Frederick and wives are buried, all closely aligned in the same row. It had not meant much at the time, and was mis-written in his field notes, and filed away in his papers. But the fact was rediscovered by this website’s founder in 1996 after reviewing Marguerite’s papers and then revisiting Perry County to confirm the cluster of burials.

Today the Minerd.com Archives is proud to hold Blanche’s genealogy paperwork, a gift of her son Paul.

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