Relatives in random places

You never know when you'll run in to a relative. A few stories.

My husband attended a conference recently. One of the last presentations he went to, somebody struck up a conversation with him about his surname. The other gentleman had the same surname in his ancestry. Maybe they were related. Semi-common surname, multiple branches unrelated to each other around here. Chances were small. But, it turned out to be true.

One of my brothers met a girl on a blind date. No big deal. Second date, somehow the name of her great grandma came up in conversation. My brother's reaction: "I think we're related." The name? Kezia. And we are.

My sister-in-law ended up marrying her husband because during a class somebody brought up Stephen Markham. She piped up that he was an ancestor. Future spouse said "Mine, too." They began to chat afterwards, and ended up dating and marrying.

I finally got the local newspaper account

You know that story about the ancestor who was part of the double murder that wasn't? I finally received a copy of the local newspaper account of the incident. (Much thanks to the Lincoln Lawrence Franklin Regional Library.) The basic story was true. There was bad blood between the Sheriff and my ancestor. They were arguing politics - maybe the Sheriff's election chances since he was up that year. They were both Democrats. The argument escalated. Sheriff pushed or slapped Eugene. Eugene pulls a knife and stabs Sheriff in the side. Everyone thought he was a goner for quite a while. From the story it sounds like everyone stayed out in front of the store where the altercation had taken place for a little while. Then Eugene went around back to the lot where his horse was so he could go home. Somebody followed him and shot him in the back. He bled out in 10 minutes. Other information I found earlier indicated the Sheriff lost the election and tried to contest it. He died three years later.

I have been doing some indexing as I have had the time for it. And as my wrists have allowed me. Since my last pregnancy, carpal tunnel has been more of an issue. I'm glad I had the chance to participate in the challenge to index 5,000,000 names.

https://familysearch.org/node/1726

Indexing

Doing family history has been difficult to keep up with in the last few years. I am getting back into it through Family Search Indexing. It is something to do that is easy, quick and gets my interest back up.

I am having fun.

Hurray! It wasn't murder!

Only attempted murder.

I found a more local (up the road a ways in the same county) newspaper account of my several times great grandfather's double murder. Turns out, he only wounded the other guy - who lived for about 3 more years. My ancestor was still followed and killed by friends or relatives of the victim.

Now, I REALLY want the account from the local newspaper.

What DID happen in the meantime?

My aunt called to ask for some help with some research. She gave me two different problems from two different branches of her family. One was fairly easy. The other, I'm still struggling to find out anything beyond what she has given me.

She said that some of these lines, especially the hard to find one, has records once you go back far enough. Not only are the records there but they are in excellent condition and contain tons of information. Then there is a black hole in information available. Then the records pick up again. So what happened in the meantime?

Some of the standard answers are:

• Fire
• Flood
• War
• Ran away from home and changed names
• Adopted when parents died/ran off/couldn't afford to keep them
• Moved to frontier

And the most popular of all:

• Poor record keeping all around for whatever reason.

I wonder what the answer will be this time? 

Indexing

Why does it take something like getting the stomach bug to get me to start indexing again? I think it is overload. I end up being so tired after work that doing any more family history work, even for myself, is too much.

But I finally did it. I did some FamilySearch Indexing today: The Rhode Island state census and some burial records from England. It felt so satisfying to finish them.

Finding hard to find people

I had the opportunity the other day to help someone find a person for LDS Temple work. This meant using New FamilySearch, combined with Ancestry.com, USGenWeb and other sites to see who in her long LDS Family History had never had their work done. We had to go back to some of the earliest LDS members and then go sideways to some of the siblings and in-laws. But we were successful.

It just goes to show that there is still a lot of work to do. I would have thought that someone would have put that family together by now but apparently no one had done anything. There was some extraction of records on the birth of one son but not much else in any database except for Census records. Once we had that confirmation, we could move forward and find more information.

It was also very gratifying to teach someone how to use the Internet to do real research. She is very excited and has made more progress on her own.

BREAKTHROUGH!!!!

My personal research just got a major boost in the last two days! I was named for one of my Dad's great aunts. She is the half sister of my great-grandfather. We have been trying to get more information on her father for years. And I just found stuff.

A while ago, using Ancestry.com and the census, I found a man who might have been her father in the 1880 Census living with his mother, Caroline, and his three children: Rufus L, Mary A, and Sarah O or E. They were living in Arkansas. In 1885, he married my great-grandmother whose first husband was the sheriff killer discussed a few posts back. The only tie I have between this Arkansas family and my family is the 1900 Census where Caroline is living with her son, John Washington Pool, Eugenia Pool (my great-grandmother), her two sons by her first husband and their four children. Other than the ages of Caroline agreeing, that wasn't much to go on.

Two days ago, I used Pilot.FamilySearch.org. I looked up Texas Deaths. And I plugged in John Pool(e). I got hits. His son, John Morgan Pool, listed his father. I already knew that one. The other three half-siblings of my great-grandfather died outside the date range. I did get a hit on one Mary Anna Cook with father John Washington Poole. It also listed a mother, Lucinda Brown. Mary Anna matches Mary A.

The next morning, I found under the same search, Sarah Ollie Parker, with father John Poole and mother Unknown Brown. Sarah Ollie and Sarah O or E.

Then I went back over the Censuses again. 1900 census in Texas shows Sarah Ollie Parker one county away from her father. 1910 Census, after John Washington Pool(e) died, shows Caroline Poole living with Sarah O Parker in the last known town that the Pools lived in. They live a little ways away from my great-grandmother, who now lives by herself.

I found Caroline Poole's death certificate. She died in 1914, 15 days shy of her 94th birthday. WOW! I shouldn't be that surprised. Aunt Clorinda, whom I am named for, lived until she was 95.

I think I have a preponderance of evidence. I have only summarized it all here but when you look at all the names, dates and places, it all seems to fit.

Fact or Fiction

I have been reading some books in my spare time. Some of my favorites include historical fiction, mysteries, and alternate histories. Recently, I read some books that were historical mysteries. The author, Margaret Frazer, has done extensive research on the era. She writes so well about real people and events, weaving her story in to the plausible gaps that exist in our histories and incorporating the history directly in to the plot. These are the Dame Frevisse mysteries and are set in Pre-Tudor England during the War of the Roses.

Why am I writing about books on a blog about genealogy? Because one of the main characters in some of the books is a real person named Alice Chaucer, daughter of Thomas Chaucer and grand-daughter of Geoffrey Chaucer. Alice Chaucer married three times: first to a mere "Sir", Sir John Philip; second to Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury; third to William de la Pole, who became the 1st Duke of Suffolk.

To anyone who has British nobility and royalty in their genealogy, the Montagus and the de la Poles will probably show up. The Duke is not a direct ancestor of mine, but his grandfather is. The Montagus show up as well. I know my genealogy file well enough that when I read the first Dame Frevisse mystery that featured Alice Chaucer de la Pole, I immediately opened up my PAF file to take a peak to see if Alice was real and how she fit in.

I like reading these also because it gives a good idea of what life was like (minus the mystery) back then. I like having the life and times filled in behind all the dates and places.
Reading these books makes me want to do more research myself and not just on that time period. In a previous post where I mentioned that a great-grandfather had murdered the sheriff over an argument about politics, I want to do research to see what was politically hot then. What could they have been arguing about? Was it a local thing? Was it a national thing? What was the city like where the argument happened? I'm going to find out.

So bring on the fiction based in fact.

BYU Computerized Genealogy Conference

I get to go!

I have been out of the Genealogy loop for a while. I attended one conference in Massachusetts while I lived in New York State. Other than some little Church-sponsored day seminars, I haven't been to a major Conference in a long time. I am very excited for it.

Now I have to work out what to attend.

All I Want For X-mas...

So the holiday season has arrived. Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is upon us. Or should I say X-mas?

This brings up a big debate. Is it appropriate to shorten Christmas to X-mas? Many religious people say "No! You are taking the Christ out of Christmas." Secular people seem to be moving away from even X-mas into things like Winter Celebration. Others simply do not care one way or the other.

However, for all those out there that are offended by X-mas, let me share a little history with you, genealogically speaking. I didn't know this either until I started looking at original documents and transcribed Latin documents from early church records, but "X" has traditionally replaced "Christ" it everything from "Christian" (Xian)to "Christopher" (Xopher or Xtopher). Since it was the church doing this, I don't think they were removing Christ from any of these things. They were simply abbreviating. In a culture where paper (or the equivalent) and ink were precious and space at a premium, abbreviations were very common. Think IM-ing or texting today where time and message length are at a premium.

The "X" also had the benefit of being the symbol of the cross as well as equivalent to or similar to the initial letter in the Greek rendering of Christ.

So the next time someone puts up a sign with "Merry X-mas" on it, especially if it is someone who doesn't always care for religion, just smile. The joke's on them.

Skeletons in the closet

I have to admit to having a few ancestral skeletons in the closet. But then again, who doesn't? Many people that can trace their lines back even a few generations tend to run in to one or two black sheep.

Am I embarrassed? Absolutely not!

You see, I want to know the stories, not just the names, dates, and places. The stories help fit ancestors in to the fabric of history as well as flesh them out in to real people.

One two lines on my father's side, I discovered how two of my ancestors had died. We had had death dates for years in the family group sheets but no places and no sources cited. Thanks to genealogical websites like USGenWeb and Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest, I have found the answers to when, where and how they died. On one line, the (almost) end of line ancestor Anthony Amend ended up being shot to death by his son-in-law over an argument about a child. Various county histories fleshed out the story somewhat. One said he was shot at around noon. They all agree that the son-in-law, John Pierce, fled, was captured and held for trial but lynched before that could happen. Another history said John Pierce was known for his temper and often carried a weapon around with him. John was also the school teacher for the community. John's wife, Ann Amend, ended up a widow with one son and lived with her mother for several years. On another census, however, she has two sons. I guess one skeleton begets other skeletons later on. No one wanted to marry the widow of a patricide (in-law).

The other line ends up in a similar vein. The death date is even more muddled than ever but the death place and why are fairly clear. Around the week of October 1st, 1883, newspapers across the country carried a short paragraph about the stabbing death of the Amite County, Mississippi sheriff by Eugene McElwee. Apparently, they were arguing over politics. Both were Democrats and highly connected. Eugene was shot right after the stabbing by someone in the crowd that gathered. He was dead in under 10 minutes. The death date is in doubt because the newspapers all have slightly different references to the date it happened. One lists the 30th of September (a Sunday). One lists, "the previous Saturday", or the 29th. Because they are quoting another, longer news article, I don't know whether to believe it or not. I am working on a way to get a local article looked up for me to confirm details.

So, a several times great uncle murdered one several times great grandfather and another several times great grandfather was a murderer. Skeletons - yes. Something to hide - no, at least not any more. It is a success story. I now know what happened.

I can also see why we didn't know for so long. Shame, embarrassment, and fear would cause the families to just not talk about it. Eugene's widow moved within two years with her father's family, siblings, etc in a great migration to Waco, Texas. She remarried sometime in there and stayed in Texas the rest of her life.

I hope to be able to flesh more out on my pedigree soon. If I find more skeletons, so be it. It will be fun.

Missing Persons

How many times has someone told you "It's all been done before; there's nothing left to do"? Or they say something like "I don't know; my mom/grandma/aunt/uncle/cousin has done it all." I always try to tell them to ask who ever is doing it. You never know when a new set of eyes will spot a missing person.

After getting a subscription to Ancestry.com, I decided to start documenting my ancestors. I would take a family and follow them backwards through the censuses for starters. I wanted to be sure all the families were complete. That is where I stumbled on to my first missing person: 1900 Census - mother of how many children - 3/number living - 2. Wait, who is the third one? Of course, it would be the 1900 Census with the 20 year record gap to the 1880. The 1880 only shows the young couple and child number 1 (or is she number 2?). I continued on for a while looking up other Federal Censuses for that and other families. Still I wondered, who was this missing child?

A few months later, I was going over a Family History compilation from a family reunion. One of the things included were obituaries of various family members including the mother of the missing child. There it stated that mother had been preceded in death by Addie who had died at age 6 of scarlet fever. I knew the name. And I could eliminate the possibility of Addie being the oldest. She didn't show in 1880 and the couple were only two years married with a one year old. It narrowed down her possible time frame to 1880 (after the census) to 1884. It was possible that Addie was the twin of the second (third?) child.

No more luck until the State Censuses came on line at Ancestry.com. Iowa State Census for 1885 provided the last link. There she was: Addie, born 1884 in Mills County, Iowa. Her birth date I found on the USGenWeb, Iowa GenWeb, Mills County extracted birth records. I still need to confirm the validity of this but I have filled in the blanks. Now I just need to confirm death information.

What's in a name?

Now that I have decided to join the blogging community, I have to make all sorts of decisions, such as, "What do I title this thing?" and "What look do I want?" I want this blog to focus on genealogy. I looked at other genealogy related blogs and liked what I saw, but I didn't want to be a copycat. I wanted something that would relate a little about me and my experience.

I finally settled on "A Pro-Am Family Historian" as a title after reading about it in Wikipedia. To quote:

• "Pro-Ams - people pursuing amateur activities to professional standards" —excerpts, The Pro-Am Revolution (2004)

That settled it. I have a Bachelors in Family History from BYU, but I haven't (yet) accredited or certified. I have worked in the field for companies and worked on my own. I have done it as a volunteer and as an employee. It is a passion as well as an interest. Once I can accredit or get certified, I will, by all accounts, be considered a professional. I am trying to do all my work to that standard now.

Now I have to decide on a look. Wish me luck.