Frankfort, KY
October 19-22, 2000
This year, the tenth annual Mock Family History
Conference was held in Frankfort, KY. The dates
were October 19-22, 2000. The gathering was held
in the Holiday Inn Capital Plaza Hotel and Conference
Center. This location was conveniently located near
the new Kentucky Archives and Historical Society in
downtown Frankfort where a few of the early comers
spent time researching on Thursday and Friday.
Friday morning and afternoon several of the members
visited the courthouse in Paris, Bourbon County, KY
where many records of the descendants of Rudolph and
Catherine Mock are housed. The old Duncan Tavern is
in the vicinity and now is a historical museum. This
was a short distance from Frankfort. The trip also
resulted in finding the old Rudolph Mock, II homestead
which after his death was taken over by his son,
Rudolph Mock, III and wife Margaret. The home is an
old stone structure with two chimneys and grown
over with vines. No one has lived there in years.
Friday evening was the official opening of the conference with a welcome reception held in the Hospitality Suite of the Mock Family Historian. This was a good chance for new members to meet the rest of the group and getting to compare their own Mock/Mauck research. Although some in the group were distantly related as far back as 5th or 6th cousins, all felt much closer.
Most of the meetings this year were held on Saturday and in the morning, the group was treated to a talk by Sandi Adkinson of the Kentucky Secretary of State Office who gave a very knowledgeable presentation on the process of how individuals obtained land warrants which may have eventually ended up with a land patent. This was illustrated with examples of Randolph Mock in Mercer County, KY and Mauks in Carter County, KY.
The Saturday afternoon session was given by Ron Bryant from the Kentucky Archives Office who gave an excellent presentation on the History of Kentucky. His belief is that history is ordinarily a very boring subject but with stories it comes to life. His presentation showed that he was an artist in making history an interesting topic.
Saturday evening everyone with the Mock group, met in one of the special meeting rooms of the hotel's conference center, for a sit down dinner. Following the meal, the group was again favored by another talk by Ron Bryant. This time his talk was more of a general one of interest to the entire group. His topic was "Flights and Fancy of Genealogical Research" and was a highly interesting topic illustrated with many personal experiences he has collected through the years.
One was the story about a very proud elderly lady from the South who called him and said that she wanted to put up a special memorial for her ancestor who had served as a Confederate in the Civil War. Mr Bryant stated that he did the necessary research and found out that her man had indeed served in the Civil War, but was in the Union army and not with the Confederacy. In addition, he was charged with going AWOL.
He was reluctant to call her right away and she eventually called him and although he was not anxious to speak with her, he went ahead and reluctantly did so. After he explained to this very proper southern lady about his findings, there was a long pause and then it was followed by some of the most fowl language and names he had ever been called. She soon hung up on him.
After the dinner there was still ample time for visiting and discussion about each of our member's Mock or Mauck research.
Sunday morning, those that were still left, met to discuss more about plans for the future of the Mock Family Historian. Several decisions were reached. One was that next years conference will be held in October in Fort Wayne Allen County, Indiana. The exact date will be announced and depends partly on the availability of facilities. Fort Wayne has the second largest genealogy library in the US and the largest East of the Mississippi River. In addition there are at least 6 or more major Mock or Mauck lines that came to Indiana in very early times. This promises to be another good conference.
Another decision announced at the Conference was that Barbara Dittig, the Editor of the MFH, has agreed to continue for at least one more year. She would like extra help and anyone who has extra time to help. Please e-mail her at:
BDittig@aol.com
More than anything right now she needs all of our help to try to get articles written for future issues. If each of us would take the initiative to do this, it would be a big help to Barbara and the Mock Family Historian.
One of our members, Tom Mock who has the Mock Family Home page entitled "The Mock List", has agreed to be in charge of advertising for the next meeting.
Most of those who attended this meeting felt this tenth annual Mock Family History Conference was one of the best we have had so far. Barbara Dittig and others who coordinated this are to be congratulated.
©2002 Mock Family Historian