Wading through the Genealogical Swamp

Footnote.com

2010-02-27T10:10:00.003-06:00

I think it's worth checking out Footnote.com if you have an ancestor who was a Confederate soldier. Their Civil War documents collection is pretty good, and you can either sign up for a free trial to print things out, or you can (I think--we'll see how this works) sign up on a monthly basis for $12 a month. They give you the option of automatically charging your card every month or NOT--I chose "not." As I say, we'll see how opting out after a month goes.

As far as I can tell, they have all the CSA soldier records scanned in. For Union troops, they have Arkansas, Dakota, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Colored Troops.

Also available under their Civil War category is (among other things) the Civil War Pension Index, Civil War Widows Pensions, Confederate Amnesty Papers, Confederate Citizens File (vouchers filed by citizens and businesses with the Confederate govt. for services rendered--I found one from a 3x-great grandfather for hiring out a 4-horse team; I have to check dates to see what it's connected with). So far I've found records on 6 relatives, averaging about 20 pages each. Pretty good deal, I think

I haven't thoroughly explored the site yet. They have quite a miscellaney of material, though, so I think it's worth a look, and I think that it will be worth checking in on at intervals to see what new things they get.

Back to the Browns

2008-10-26T12:42:00.003-05:00

Harriet (Colville?) Brown, b. June 15, 1808, KY; m. Alexander Richard Brown abt 1836, KY (possibly Breckinridge Co.); d. 11 Jan 1873; buried in Hardin Cemetery, Ray County, Missouri.

I've been so busy knitting that I haven't done much genealogical work recently. Last night I piddled with it a little, and found that John H. Brown's mother, Harriet (Colville(?) Brown, is buried in the Hardin Cemetery in Ray County, Missouri.

This raises a number of questons:

1. Why is she buried in Ray County? She died in 1873; in the 1870 census, she was living with her three youngest sons in Carroll Co. (Ray is west of Carroll, which is west of Chariton Co.)

2. Is she, perhaps, buried near one of her daughters? Her husband is not listed as being buried in this cemetery. Her oldest and youngest sons, John and Colville, are buried in the Brown family cemetery in Chariton Co. Her son Alex is buried at the Confederate Home in Johnson Co. I don't know yet what happened to her other son, James Oscar. Her youngest daughter, Sarah, died in Texas. There were two other daughters, Elizabeth and Harriet; I haven't been able to find what became of them. Elizabeth was 22 in 1860 and Harriet was 18, both old enough to have been married. There are several 22-year-old Elizabeths who were born in Kentucky living in the area (Lafayette/Carroll/Ray) in 1860, but is one of them the right one?

3. Why isn't she buried beside her husband?

4. Where is her husband buried? Lafayette Co. or Carroll Co.?

I think the next step is to write to the Hardin Cemetery Association and see if the records show who she was buried beside. The cemetery was badly damaged in the 1993 flooding, but from what I gather from the website (http://genealogytrails.com/mo/ray/Hardin/hardincem.html ) she appears to have been buried in an undamaged portion of the cemetery.

NARA records arrive!

2008-07-20T08:46:00.004-05:00

In my last post I mentioned sending off for whatever records NARA had for my gg-grandfather, John H. Brown, who served with the 3rd (later 3 and 5) Missouri Infantry, CSA. Saturday the packet arrived, containing a Compiled Service Record.

I hate those things. I mean, I appreciate them, it's more information than I had before, but it always leaves so many things unanswered!

He appears to have been out sick twice (I know disease was rampant in the camps during the Civil War) and wounded once. The first time was in April, 1862 (4 months after his muster-in date of January 1862); his company muster roll card for March and April note that he was "in hospital Memphis, Tenn April 11 1862." Which means he missed the surrender at Vicksburg (the 3rd was involved in the Seige of Vicksburg), which is why I couldn't find a parole for him at Footnote.com.

He was absent again, May through August, in 1863; the May/June card notes: "in hospital in Canton, Miss." and the July/August card "absent on detached duty."

Finally, he was wounded and sent to hospital June 3 1864, and noted as being on sick furlough for July/August. There's a card titled "Appears on a Register of Way Hospital, Meridian, Miss." that says "Complaint: wound," "Admited January 27 1865," and "Remarks: Furloughed." Another card notes he was wounded in the shoulder and reported to command in February 1865. He's on a Roll of Prisoners of War dated Meridian, Miss., May 11, 1865.

Bezaleel Brooks, the subject of my last post and John H.'s uncle-in-law (he was the younger brother of John H.'s wife's mother) was also wounded, in the upper thigh, so badly that 10 months after being wounded he submitted his resignation.

So now I'm curious about the hospitals and medical care of the time. Also, apparently neither man lost the wounded limb, but I'm wondering how their war wounds would have affected their lives after the war. I feel like the Elephant's Child, full of 'satiable curiosity.

Bezaleel "disappears" after his 1863 resignation, and John H. didn't live long enough to apply for a pension when Missouri started providing them in 1911 (though he survived the war by 40 years), nor have I found any evidence that his second wife, who died in 1924, ever applied for a pension. So pension files as a source of information are out, at least for these two men, at least for now (hope on, hope ever).

I am, however, wondering whether it would be worth the $75 to send off for the pension file of my Yankee gg-uncle, John A. Boston, who served with the Ohio 100th Infantry during most of the war. $75 is pricey for me. I'd like to see a "sample" file before I try to come up with the money.

You can, btw, order compiled service records and pension records online from NARA

Yee haa!

2008-07-01T18:07:00.003-05:00

That's a Rebel Yell.

Since I've been watching Ken Burns' Civil War while I knit lately, I've been inspired to do some more poking around, trying to find more info about my Civil War ancestors.

Imagine my joy to find the military records for gg-grand-uncle Bezaleel Brooks online at Footnote.com, a site I've never visited before. It's a pay-for site, but like Ancestry, you can get a free trial, so I signed right up.

Treasures! Including a letter of resignation in his own handwriting! He was shot in the thigh at Malvern Hill and, ten months later, the surgeon testified that it would be years before he was fit for military duty again; that the leg was shorter than the other and deformed. (Actually, all things considered, he was lucky he didn't lose the leg; think of all the amputations that took place during that war.)

This was in 1863, so of course I immediately had new questions: what did he do for the rest of the war? What did he do with the rest of his life, with that bum leg? What happened to him? (He's the one I can't find in the census after 1860.) Did he write to his sister (my gg-grandmother) Sidna?

Didn't find anything about the other two ancestors, but hey--I'm happy. For now. (You can't be a good genealogist if you ever stay happy with what you have.)

I also read something at a site for someone who'd been in the same unit as one of my Civil War ancestors, and the information cited hospital and medical records from NARA. That sent me sprinting for NARA to send in a request for hospital/medical records for my gg-grandfather Brown, who was "seriously wounded" on or about June 6, 1864, near Kennesaw Mountain, and who didn't rejoin his unit until February 1865. Might be a waste of $25, but you never can tell.

American Civil War

2008-06-25T16:42:00.003-05:00

I'm doing some knitting on commission, and if I'm inside I like to have something on TV that I can listen to but don't necessarily have to watch every moment, so I got out my old Ken Burns' Civil War videotapes to knit to. They're in very good shape, considering how old they are (I've got to get them transferred to DVD--wish I could afford the DVD set with all the great extras, but even the used sets are too pricey for me).

At any rate, it reawakened my interest in my Civil War ancestors. Since both sides of the family were in Missouri by that time, most of the men served in the EMM (Enrolled Missouri Militia), which was a state thing--Missouri, like Kansas, was terribly torn, a miniature civil war in itself. It got put under Federal military governance, which didn't help much, and it seems like most men in my family were of the Union persuasion and stayed home to defend their families and farms from jayhawkers and bushwhackers. I know, this isn't exactly accurate; I need to read more about Missouri in the Civil War.

However, the Brown boys joined up to regular CSA regiments, and John H.--one of my great-great-grandfathers--served with the 3rd Missouri Infantry. I have copies of some records of his service from the State of Missouri, and they don't tell me enough! Like--it says he was severely wounded on June 3 1864, just before Kennesaw Mountain, and didn't rejoin his unit until February 1865, which would argue a pretty serious wound for it to be such a long recovery, even if he took a furlough home, which isn't indicated in the records--but I don't know where/how/whether it affected him in his later life. It's likely he was at the Battle of Shiloh, and the 3rd Missouri went through the siege of Vicksburg, and in 1864 were at Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, and New Hope Church. They also were part of the Siege of Atlanta, but according to the records John H. hadn't returned to the unit then.

Meanwhile, my great-great-uncle Bezaleel Brooks was fighting with the 57th Virginia Infantry, Co. A (the "Jeff Davis Guard"). He went in as a 1st Sgt and got promoted to 2nd Lt. Records on Ancestry say he "resigned" in 1863. I want to see their sources. But it's possible he was at Malvern Hill, 2nd Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredricksburg, and Gettysburg. I've been told he died in 1883, but while I can find his son in his home county in 1870, I can't find Bezaleel or his wife in either the 1870 or 1880 census. His wife may have died by 1870--she's not living with the son, William, who moved his family out to join his aunt Sidna in Chariton County by 1880 (and did he bring her any mementos of her brother?).

Meanwhile, on the Yankee side, another great-great-uncle, John Boston, fought with the 100th Ohio Infantry. They were at Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, and New Hope Church, as well as Kennesaw Mt. and the Siege of Atlanta, but then were part of the pursuit of Hood and wound up in North Carolina in April 1865. He was wounded in the foot at Dallas (near Kennesaw Mt.) on June 6 1864 (or maybe near Pine Mountain on June 8--the Company Muster Roll and Company Descriptive Book differ). I have John B's NARA records, and records of his stay at the Dayton Military Home, which are very unsatisfactory, since, although they answered some of my questions, they raised others. He was on the roster as a deserter for a while, but was vindicated and reinstated without penalty. There's a description of him, and it makes me wonder how much like his brother--my great-great-grandfather--he looked--they both had dark hair and dark eyes.

It's really--strange--to think of John H. and John B. being at some of the same battles. John B. might have received his wound at the Battle of Dallas, too.

So--I've been posting on various surname lists and plan to find some Civil War lists to post to, to see if I can find any further information. And I've been prowling through the on-line University of Virginia Library records, looking for anything about Bezaleel. Wish me luck!

Apologies

2008-06-08T09:39:00.003-05:00

I've been neglecting this blog shamefully. The truth is that genealogy is one of those things I do in spurts. Since I do a lot of work online, I find that if I go 4-6 months between spurts, that's enough time for new information to turn up on my favorite sites.

I want so much to go to my mother's hometown to do some actual on-site research--the local historical and genealogical societies, county records, newspaper records. It's only a few hours drive, but my 1992 Dodge Caravan is not really anything I want to do highway driving with, bless its little heart. But I just came into a little money--not a lot, but it might be enough to finance a trip. So I'm thinking of renting a car, boarding the dogs, finding a place to stay--I think there are some B&Bs nearby-- and driving over to spend maybe 3 or 4 days with my laptop and camera and travel drive. And maybe some photos--I think I still have kin there, and maybe someone could identify some of these people for me.

One of those things I'll never know more about

2008-05-03T18:03:00.003-05:00

but wish I would:

March 2, 1785 - Bart township, Lancaster County, Feb. 17 1785
Whereas Agnes M'Ready, the wife of the subscriber, of Bart township, in the county of Lancaster, hath upon the insidious advice and interference of pretended friends, eloped from him, and now resides with her father Hugh Colter, of said township. This is therefore to give notice to all persons whatsoever, that I will pay no debt of her contracting, nor will allow any person indebted to me to pay the same to her. The subscriber has taken this public method to prevent those pretended friends or others from lendng her money, which he is convinced they would not be induced to do from any other motives than to oppress him, and increase the animosity that now subsists, occasioned by their interference and advice.Daniel M 'Ready
(Posted by Joyce Peck on Rootsweb Colter Surname Board, 12/12/2005, from "Runaway Women, elopemens and other miscreant deeds, as advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1789 (together with a fewe abused wives and unfortunate children)," compiled by Judith Ann Highley Meier, pub. Closson Press, 1993, p. 88)

I am, of course, very grateful to Joyce Peck for posting this. and I sure would like to know more about what was going on. Daniel and Agnes apparently got back together. They had a son, Stewart, born about this time, and another, Hugh, born three years later. Stewart married Margaret McCoy, and they became my 4th great-grandparents on my father's side; their daughter Julia married Samuel McGowan/Megown. There were two older girls, as well, Mary (b. 1779) and Elizabeth (b. 1781). I imagine they got married, but haven't found any information about them. Elizabeth would have been 4 and Mary 6, so I imagine Agnes took them home with her.

Why did she leave, and why did she go back? I'll probably never know.

Daniel was "plantation Irish"; the information I have is that he was born in County Donegal. Agnes was born in Pennsylvania, but her father Hugh was another plantation Irishman, born in Belfast. The McCoys also immigrated from Ireland, so I'm guessing they may have been plantation Irish, but it's possible they were Irish-Irish.

Ancestry.com - love it or hate it

2008-04-12T09:12:00.002-05:00

Ancestry.com can be a real pain, and it's cordially hated by a lot of people--including, occasionally, me.

However, it is occasionally worth the price of membership. It was Ancestry that helped me piece together the Meyer family--all 12 of them--by acquiring and publishing ships' passenger registries.

The most recent coup is in their new collection of Missouri records. So far I've found images of marriage licenses or certificates for 15 relatives, including some of the people I've done the most work on and spent a lot of time wondering about. One is as early as 1853. It's been a thrill to see these people's names written down--handwriting seems so much more personal than type, don't you think? And this is just the beginning.

Okay, it's not complete. Although the marriage record database says it's through 2002, I haven't found any marriages I'm looking for after about 1880.

Still. If asked, I'd suggest a subscription is probably worth it, at least for 3 or 4 or 6 months. Even one of the free trial subscriptions--they're easy enough to end. I've never had any trouble with calling and having one cancelled. The census material alone is invaluable, and you just never know what the heck you're going to find in the other databases. You have to be very cautious about accepting family tree information submitted by other members--extremely cautious--but they can give you a place to start, good clues, and sometimes some actual information, like a will or a story of some kind. I've even found pictures of Judge John Megown and his family--the Judge being my gg-grand-uncle and his bevy of 11 children my first cousins 3x removed. That was exciting, putting faces to names, esp. since I haven't many photos on that side of my family. The Megown family photo also includes his parents, of the Pennsylvania Megown and McCready clans, and the judge's wife is holding a painting of what I guess must be her father. (And my sincere heartfelt thanks to Ron Evans, who posted them.)

Thoughts on Software: My Heritage Family Tree Builder

2008-02-20T18:54:00.003-06:00

I've been downloading free genealogy programs, looking for one I like. The one I use now is FamilyTree Maker v. 16, a commercial offshoot of the free Ancestry Family Tree, which was a GOOD program. FTM v. 16 is good, I like it--among other reason because it's an Ancestry.com program, so if you have a subscription it's easy to run searches. But it has failings, including not being able to print out a list of places. My tree has about 5300 names on it at the moment--what can I say, I get carried away and include a lot of side-branches!--and I can't always remember who's from where, which might be useful, if you find out one family has been in the same place as another, or, for instance, the *time* a family was in a certain place helps you link up historically (like the group of Musicks, Shacklefords, and Newsoms who relocated to Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century).

So I got Map My Family Tree, and what a disappointment that's been. I just haven't been able to get it to do anything I want it to do, and I'm pretty darn good with software, usually.

I also ordered Family Tree Maker 2008, which I have ranted about in a previous post. I was never able to get it to reocgnize that I was, indeed, hooked up to the Internet, in fact that I was online at that very moment. And the reviews I've read of it are almost 100% negative, so it may be just as well.

Okay. So I ran across a free download called My Heritage Family Tree Builder, which can be downloaded from www.myheritage.com. I found myheritage.com when I read somewhere that they have a face recognition program, which I hope to be able to write about sometime in the future. It was a smooth download and installation, no problems. As you begin to set up you have a choice of 17 languages to work in.

The basic page is, I think, kind of messy, or jr. high, or something, but that could be because I'm used to the no-frills AFT/FTM pages. Male and female entries are color-coded, and you can pick the colors you want to use, and there are a number of other options to dress the working page up or down.

It's very easy to load pictures, and you can indicate which picture you would like to have come up with each person's main entry. You can also link or "associate" pictures with "person," "fact of person," "virtual cemetery of person," "family," and "fact of family." Person and Family are fairly self-explanatory, and I suppose "fact of person" could be, for instance, a birthday, and "fact of family" could be a wedding. I think it may be helpful to link a photo to the individual as well as the individual's birth family and married-into family, but initially I found it difficult to locate the families, since they're listed by ID number rather than family name. I did finally figure out that you can sort alphabetically by husband's surname or wife's surname (I'm not at all shy about pushing buttons to see what will happen!), which helps.

Overall, I would say navigation is easy and fairly intuitive, though, because of all the frippery, moving from one person to another isn't quite as smooth and easy as on FTM, at least on my computer.

There is a research feature which I have yet to find very helpful, but it does include many more sites than just Ancestry. There is a Smart Match feature which is only useable if you put your tree on the MyHeritage site, so I can't report on how that works.

It has the usual complement of reports: Family Group Sheets, Ancestors, Descendants. My favorite is not so useful, but is more fun: the Relationship Report, which starts with the obvious ("Alexander Richard Brown is the father of John Hales Brown") and goes to the esoteric
("Robert Bransford is a cousin of the wife of a brother of a grandfather of the wife of John Hales Brown"). This is the kind of thing on which I could happily spend hours for no particular reason--just the enjoyment of seeing how the various puzzle pieces fit together. Also it's a kind of "small world" effect. John Hales Brown's Relationship Report was 93 pages long (no, I didn't print it out!), and while there were a few people who were not related to him, there were far more who were, though it wasn't spelled out ("Elizabeth Schaldtl is related to John Hales Brown [16 steps]").

There is a Timeline report which has potential. It doesn't include military service, but it does include births, deaths, and marriages, including dates and places, so you can track the movement a family.

Charts include the usual: Ancestor (vertical or horizontal), Descendant (vertical or horizontal), Fan, with lots of styles and options to make them as fun and fancy or sober and professional as you want.

There's a feature that will make you a book in pdf format which is kind of neat--it does all the indexing for you, and includes photos and sections for family trees, notes, and sources--but again, it left out military service, and there are some syntactical oddities (example: "In 1959 he was educated (1 year college)"). The book report feature can be upgraded to a paid version, The Complete Genealogical Reporter v. 2008.1 ($27.95, http://www.tcgr.bufton.org/tcgrpurc.htm). As is, it looks pretty impressive, and if you're more judicious about your notes than I am, it would make quite a nice book to give to family members.

All in all, for a free program, you get quite a lot (although still no place report). I don't know if I'll ever use it as my main working program, but it's certainly a flexible and good-looking option.

A different part of the swamp

2008-01-19T15:16:00.001-06:00

Well, I'm in a real mess now, and this time I can't blame it on the Agees.

I've got a Lucy Herold married to a James Hardin in Randolph Co., MO. Problem is, I can't figure out whether she's married to James W., son of Colden Hardin and Margaret Jones., b. 1840, or James H., son of Benjamin Hardin and Sarah Hubbard, b. 1841. (Yes, Colden and Benjamin are brothers, sons of James Hardin and Sarah Williams.)

Plus, I have a Frederick John Brandt, who appears to be the son of Charles H. Brandt and Mary Feaker, b. 1868, and a Frederick W. Brandt, who seems to be the son of Herman Brandt and Christine Karff, also b. 1868. One of them--I think Frederick W.--married Nellie Musick, niece of my great-grandfather John Smith Musick II. There are a bunch of Brandts living in Chariton Co. in the last half of the 19th century, obviously related to judge from the naming patterns (2 Fredericks, 4 Charleses, 3 Williams).

I think I have them figured out, but it's going to take a while to untangle the James Hardins.

Kinda cool

2008-01-14T19:50:00.000-06:00

My great-grandfather William Butler Ensor had a younger sister named Georgia. Georgia's first husband was William Ansel Boone, whose great-great-grandfather was Edward Boone, younger brother of the famous Kentucky pioneer Daniel Boone.

Okay, it's pretty tenuous, but I still think it's kind of cool.

Yikes

2008-01-09T19:11:00.000-06:00

I keep running across suicides in my family. Sometimes not in the direct line, but brothers or sisters. I'm going to start keeping a list because I've got so many people in the database right now, I can't put my finger directly on the others when I stumble across one and think "Holy shi*t, there's another one!" And it's not exactly anything that you can get FTM to do a search on. And that's mostly after death certificates started being kept; who knows how many others there were before that?

Right now there are 6 I can think of right off--3 self-inflicted gunshot wounds and 3 hangings.

Kinda creepy.

SPLASH*!

2008-01-04T19:44:00.000-06:00

Into the Swamp!

Okay, so last night I was doing some backtracking on Hardins, trying to fill in some blanks, and while letting FTM v.16 do a search, who should pop up but--Ella M. AGEE of Chariton Co., MO, married to a Hardin.

Who, I asked, the heck is Ella M? So I ran a check and found she's the granddaughter of Powhattan Agee, and my 4th cousin 2x removed. She married Samuel Buckner Hardin.

So, having identified Ella, I set out to identify Samuel. Samuel turns out to be the son of Charles Buckner Hardin and Lunette Mosby.

Wait a minute, I said--Mosby. MosbyMosbyMosby. That's really familiar. Ran a check--and found that somewhere in the 1780s, Susannah Mosby married a Colonel Lipscomb. Their daughter Nancy Lipscomb was the second wife of Joseph B. Agee, a grandson of Matthieu ("The Immigrant") Agee, and is the 1st cousin 2x removed of Lunette Mosby Hardin.

Powhattan is the gg-grandson of Matthieu, through Joseph's older brother John.

I tried to sketch it out because it's a lot easier if you can look at the relationships, but the vertical lines disappeared when I published the post, darn it. My printer here isn't working, but I'll see if I can print the chart out, then scan it in as a photo, and insert it that way.

Future Chart Here

I'm not 100% positive on the Mosby dates, but census and death certificate verify the Hardins and Lunette, and the Agee line is pretty thoroughly researched. I haven't tracked Charles B. Hardin back yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a descendant of Mark Hardin/Hardouin, who was, like Matthieu Agee, a French Huguenot immigrant. I don't *think* my Hardin line descends from Mark Hardin, but I'm still trying to learn if the Benjamin Hardin line is English and separate from the French Mark Hardin line.

The reason I keep up my subscription to Ancestry

2008-01-01T17:16:00.000-06:00

They're arrogant and obnoxious, but they have stuff you just can't find anywhere else.

After my story about Charles Boston yesterday, I decided to just for the heck of it have Family Tree Maker do a search for him, and gosh darn golly if he didn't show up in the new Passport Application database!! With a picture, no less!!

In one swell foop, I discovered that yes, the older man pictured yesterday is indeed Charles Boston, and the woman in the picture with him (not included in the blog) was indeed his wife, Mary Scott, a native of Galveston, Texas. I discovered his middle name was Edgar, that he'd actually been born in 1871 (not 1872), and that he'd been living and working in Mexico between about 1909 and 1917 as an electrician for a British-owned mining company. In 1917 he was living in El Oro, Mexico.

I still don't know when or where he died, but I consider this brick wall to have been blown to smithereens, thanks to Ancestry. It drives me crazy, but--I'd never ever have found any of this out on my own.

More little surprises and puzzle pieces

2007-12-31T19:16:00.000-06:00

My great-great-grandfather Boston had a son named Charles, born in 1872. He's one of my brick walls; I don't know what happened to him.

I vaguely remember some stories about him going to Mexico, and we used to have a glass jar with old Mexican bills and coins in it (which I probably sold in a garage sale). In his father's 1932 obituary, he's said to be living in "Aire Libre, New Mexico," but darn if I can find any current town or ghost town known as Aire Libre in New Mexico.

There are a few drab pictures--I'm looking at one right now with "Raising poles in Mex." written on the back. Why they're raising poles and what made this worthy of photographing, I have no clue.

I also have a postcard postmarked August 12 1918, ElPaso, Texas, from "Uncle Charlie." On the front is a picture captioned "Bird's Eye View of Columbus, NM." Looks like the set of a Western movie.

Actually, I MAY have three photos of Charles. The earliest is maybe 1880-1890, judging from how old the girls look and what they're wearing. 1888 would have been Jacob and Mary's 20th wedding anniversary, and the girls would have been 13 and 15; Charles would be 16 or 17.

The 2nd photo I have is a family photo taken on what was probably Jacob and Mary's 50th wedding anniversary in 1918, when Charles was 46.

The last is a photo of Jacob and Mary sitting on the steps of a porch with a younger couple. Mary died in 1924, so these mystery photos would have to have been taken before then--but not too much before; both Mary and Jacob have obvious aged. I suppose the man in these pictures could be 54.

Of course, the problem is that the photo isn't marked at all--no names, no dates, no places.

On the back of the postcard, Charlie has written to his niece that he and Grandpa (presumably Charles' father) are going sight-seeing, and in the same group of photos I found one of Jacob holding binoculars (which I realized are now in my posession), standing in front of a landscape that is clearly NOT Missouri. And I know that in 1920 Jacob and Mary visited their daughter Lena and her husband T.I. Beazley, who were chicken-farming in Albuquerque NM in 1920. So I suspect that photo was taken somewhere in New Mexico.

Now. If I can only find Charles in some census. It looks as if he married. Who did he marry, where did they live, did they have children, when did he die?

Stay tuned. Or better yet, if you know anything about Charles Boston or recognize this man, please get in touch with me!

Genealogy and holidays

2007-12-29T18:35:00.000-06:00

They say you should get out your tape recorder and talk to all your older relatives on holidays. Unfortunately, for my part of the family, I *am* the oldest relative. There are cousins--children of my father's brother and sister and my mother's sister--and children of my mother's cousins--but I don't know them or where they are, except one.

However. There were some good genealogical things over the holiday. Some friends invited me to Christmas dinner, and for some reason we got started talking about genealogy, and they brought out a beautiful book someone had put together for the husband's family--hand-drawn family charts, old pictures, newspaper articles--it was a wonderful work of care and love. I hope to see it again some day when I have my glasses! I introduced the term "plantation Scots" to my friend, who is a Stevenson and thinks his people are Scotch-Irish, so he may follow up on that.

For myself, I photocopied the collection of my maternal aunt's letters to give to my sister and brother when they came to visit--I'll be very interested to see what they think when they've had time to read through them, and if their chronological reconstruction is similar to mine (my aunt didn't believe in dating letters, but some of them were still in their envelopes, with postmarks, and there's some internal evidence to help date them very roughly). And my sister gave me and my brother framed copies of a photo of my mom and dad, a snapshot taken soon after they were married. My mother looks radiantly happy.

So family members who have gone on beyond were with us in our memories this holiday season.

The Little Surprises of Genealogy

2007-12-26T18:15:00.001-06:00

Linnie Maude Musick, daughter of Elijah Combs Musick, the older brother of my gg-grandfather John Smith Musick (my maternal grandfather's grandfather), married Julius Ragsdale.

Julius Ragsdale was the son of Julius Ragsdale, the older brother of my gg-grandmother Louisa Ragsdale, who married James Hardin (my paternal grandfather's grandfather).

Which, as my brother says, is really cool in a slightly messed-up kind of way.

Note to Terry Parks

2007-12-20T11:48:00.000-06:00

The email I sent in reply to yours bounced. Could you get in touch with me again, please?

HARDIN family (starting abt 1790)

2007-12-19T08:34:00.000-06:00

I just posted this on the Hardin rootsweb list:

Once upon a time, when my family first moved here, we rented a house. The mailman started pulling his hair out: the Richard L. Hardin family lived across the street from the Robert L. Harding family. *lol*

I confess, I neglect my Hardin research, compared to some of my other families. I think it's because either I had more connection with them (my mother's family was very clannish) or I know some anecdote or story about them that makes me curious, that makes them "real." I know virtually nothing about my father's family. I didn't meet his sister until I was in my late 20s, and I never met his older brother. His uncle lived less than 75 miles from us, and I never met him or any of his family. I don't know any of my Hardin cousins, not even their names (except my aunt's two daughters, but of course neither of them was born a Hardin and they're both probably married, so it would be a bit of a trick to find them). My dad was (obviously) very UNclannish.

So I have a lot of names and dates, but no pictures or stories or anything to bring them alive for me. I don't even know very much about my dad--I pounce on every new little factoid as if it were pure gold. Kinda sad..

So I thought I would list a few of those names and dates, in honor of my dad:

Descendants of James Hardin

1 James Hardin 1790 KY - 1870 MO
.. +Sarah Williams 1792 SC- 1850 MO (marriage location: Christian Co., KY)
........ 2 [1] Colden W. Hardin 1809 KY - 1870 Adair Co., MO
............ +Margaret Jones 1815 Mercer Co., KY - 1860 Adair Co., MO
................... 3 Jesse St. Clair Hardin 1838MO - 1903 Sullivan Co., MO
....................... +Columbia Lorton 1845 IA - 1896 Sullivan Co., MO
............................. 4 Margaret A. Hardin 1860 -
............................. 4 Ida Hardin 1871 -
................... 3 James W. Hardin 1840 -
................... 3 Sarah Hardin 1845 -
................... 3 John Hardin 1846 -
................... 3 Margaret Hardin 1850 -
................... 3 Jenanna Hardin 1853 -
................... 3 Colden W. Hardin 1855 - 1910
....................... +Mollie E. 1855 - 1900
............................. 4 Anna Hardin 1879 -
................................. +George W. Lisetor 1873 -
............................. 4 Ethelyn Hardin 1880 -
............................. 4 Leona Hardin 1882 -
........ *2nd Wife of [1] Colden W. Hardin:
............ +Julia Ann 1831 - 1870 Adair Co., MO
................... 3 David Hardin 1865 Adair Co., MO -
........ 2 [3] Benjamin Hardin 1810 Christian Co., KY - 1879 Randolph Co., MO
............ +Sarah Hubbard 1818 NC - 1870 Randolph Co., MO
................... 3 Sarah Hardin 1838 Randolph Co., MO -
................... 3 James H. Hardin 1841 Randolph Co., MO -
....................... +Lucy A. Herold 1847 MO - 1919 Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 John B. Hardin 1865 - 1900 Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 Ora N. Hardin 1868 Randolph Co., MO-
............................. 4 Charles B. Hardin 1870 Randolph Co. MO - 1937 St. Louis, MO
................................. +May F. ? 1866 -
............................. 4 Langley N. Hardin 1874 - 1900 Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 James H. Hardin 1886 Randolph Co., MO - 1930 CO
................................. +Nettie L. ? 1888 -
........................................ 5 James H. Hardin 1914 Randolph Co., MO-
........................................ 5 Charles B. Hardin 1916 Randolph Co., MO-
........................................ 5 Robert F. Hardin 1926 CO-
................... 3 Zerilda Hardin 1842 Randolph Co., MO-
................... 3 May Hardin 1844 Randolph Co., MO -
................... 3 Nancy Hardin 1846 Randolph Co., MO-
................... 3 John H. Hardin 1850 - 1925 Randolph Co., MO
....................... +Nannie Hubbard 1858 - 1924
................... 3 [2] Benjamin T. Hardin 1852 Randolph Co., MO - 1930 Kansas City, Jackson Co., MO
....................... +Ethel V.K.
................... *2nd Wife of [2] Benjamin T. Hardin:
....................... +Clara Rebecca Phillips 1852 MO - 1921 St. Louis, MO
................... 3 Susan Hardin 1855 Randolph Co., MO -
................... 3 Asa Hardin 1858 Randolph Co., MO- 1900
................... 3 JoEllen Hardin 1860 Randolph Co., MO-
........ *2nd Wife of [3] Benjamin Hardin:
............ +Elizabeth Owen 1828 KY -
................... 3 George S. Hardin 1867 Randolph Co., MO - 1940 Saline Co., MO
................... 3 Martha C. Hardin 1868 Randolph Co., MO-
........ 2 B. Bruce Hardin 1811 KY -
........ 2 [4] Nancy Hardin 1812 KY - 1880 Howard Co., MO
............ +Williams - 1850
................... 3 Sarah Williams 1834 -
................... 3 Mary Williams 1836 -
................... 3 Margaret Williams 1839 -
................... 3 James M. Williams 1841 -
................... 3 Ann J. Williams 1845 -
........ *2nd Husband of [4] Nancy Hardin:
............ +Thomas Magruder 1792 KY - 1880 Howard Co., MO
................... 3 Joella Magruder 1856 -
................... 3 Benjamin Thomas Magruder 1858 -
................... 3 Aaron Magruder 1862 -
........ 2 Hardin 1819 -
........ 2 Martha Ann Hardin 1820 MO - 1860
............ +James Martin
........ 2 Hardin 1825 -
........ 2 Sarah Hardin 1828 MO - 1900 Howard Co., MO
............ +William A. George 1825 - 1865
................... 3 James L. George 1854 Howard Co., MO-
................... 3 George George 1855Howard Co., MO -
................... 3 Matt George 1858 Howard Co., MO-
................... 3 Colon George 1860 Howard Co., MO-
................... 3 Susan George 1861 Howard Co., MO-
................... 3 Amicett George 1865 Howard Co., MO-
........ 2 James Hardin 1830 Howard Co., MO - 1911 Randolph Co., MO
............ +Louisa Ragsdale 1830 KY - 1913 Randolph Co., MO
................... 3 John Reese Hardin 1854 - 1926 Moberly, Randolph Co., MO
....................... +Mary H. Patton 1856 KY - 1931 Moberly, Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 James Edgar Hardin 1874 - 1953 Randolph Co., MO
................................. +J. Anna ? 1879 -
............................. 4 John R. Hardin 1877 Randolph Co., MO-
............................. 4 Maud Hardin 1882 Randolph Co., MO - 1936 Ralls Co., MO (my 1st cousin 2x removed)
................................. +Samuel Megown 1880 - 1955 Moberly, Randolph Co., MO (my great-great-granduncle, brother of Agnes Megown [see Marie Ensor below])
........................................ 5 Agnes Beatrice Megown 1904 Randolph Co., MO -
........................................ 5 Marjorie Megown 1907 Randolph Co., MO-
........................................ 5 Hershel Megown 1910 Randolph Co., MO - 1975 Centralia, Boone Co., MO
........................................ 5 Samuel Howard Megown 1913 - 1979 Randolph Co., MO
........................................ 5 James Edward Megown 1917 - 1997 Randolph Co., MO
............................................ +Zana Mildred Daniel 1918 -
.................................................. 6 [living descendant]
........................................ 5 Kenneth Megown 1921 Randolph Co., MO -
............................. 4 Louisa Hardin 1887 Randolph Co., MO -
............................. 4 Ray Hardin 1888 Randolph Co., MO -
............................. 4 Julietta Hardin 1890 Randolph Co., MO -
............................. 4 Murry Hardin 1893 Randolph Co., MO -
................................. +Pauline Boardman 1900 -
........................................ 5 Darrell W. Hardin 1921 Randolph Co., MO-
........................................ 5 Donald E. Hardin 1924 Randolph Co., MO-
............................. 4 Rolla Hardin 1897 - 1910 Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 Deedee Hardin 1900 - 1929 Randolph Co., MO
................... 3 Elizabeth Hardin 1856 Randolph Co., MO - 1919 Renick, Randolph Co., MO
....................... +Bide Truby 1855 - 1880
............................. 4 Forrest Truby 1878 -
............................. 4 Gertrude Truby 1880 -
............................. 4 Milton Truby 1882 -
................... 3 Sarah C. Hardin 1858 - 1931 Randolph Co., MO
....................... +James Genola 1849 - 1910 Randolph Co., MO
............................. 4 Joseph Genola 1886 Randolph Co., MO -
................................. +Eliza Ash 1887 - 1914
.................................. + second wife (name unknown)
........................................ 5 Margaret Sarah Genola 1920 NM -
............................. 4 John Gaugh Genola 1887 - 1966 Randolph Co., MO
................................. +Bessie Beach
........................................ 5 James Arthur Genola 1913 - 1917 Randolph Co., MO
........................................ 5 John B. Genola 1920 -
........................................ 5 Eleanor Genola 1923 -
........................................ 5 Joe E. Genola 1925 -
................... 3 Arminta Hardin 1862 Randolph Co., MO -
................... 3 Anna Lee Hardin 1864 - 1900 Randolph Co., MO
................... 3 Charles Henderson Hardin 1867 Randolph Co., MO - 1952 Centralia, Boone Co., MO
....................... +Mary Virginia Pyle 1869 Randolph Co., MO - 1954 Boone Co., MO
............................. 4 James Orville Hardin 1893 Renick, Randolph Co., MO - 1977 Moberly, Randolph Co., MO
................................. +Marie Ensor (daughter of WB Ensor and Agnes Megown) 1897 Randolph Co., MO - 1983 Texas Co., MO)
........................................ 5 Darrell Henderson Hardin 1919 Montgomery Co., MO - 1987 Greenville, Plumas Co., MO
............................................ +Mildred Schmidt
........................................ 5 Dorothy J. Hardin 1921 IA -
............................................ +Wattles
.................................................. 6 [living descendants]
........................................ 5 (stillbirth) Hardin 1922 - 1922 IA
........................................ 5 Richard Lynn Hardin 1923 Oscaloosa, IA- 1983 Macomb, McDonough Co., IL
............................................ +Mildred Marie Musick 1923 Brunswick, Chariton Co., MO - 1983 Macomb, McDonough Co., IL
.................................................. 6 [living descendants]
............................. 4 second child Hardin 1897 -
............................. 4 Denzille L. Hardin 1902 Randolph Co., MO - 1979 Jacksonville, Morgan Co., IL
.........................................5 [living descendants]
................... 3 Arthur Hardin 1872 - 1941 Randolph Co., MO
....................... +Josephine B. 1884 -
........ 2 John Hardin 1836 -
........ 2 Amicetta Hardin 1837 MO - 1895 Howard Co., MO
............ +William G. Evans 1831 - 1880
................... 3 John J. Evans 1858 Howard Co., MO -
................... 3 Rolla Evans 1860 Howard Co., MO -
................... 3 Sarah Evans 1861 Howard Co., MO -

As you can see, there are many holes that need filling in, but I hope there may be something useful here for someone.

Two Civil War Families

2007-12-14T19:14:00.000-06:00

First, I'd like to apologize for taking so long in getting back to people who e-mailed me. That particular account is my secondary account and I sometimes go several weeks without looking at it. Obviously, I must mend my ways!

Now. I thought perhaps it was time I started putting some names and dates here, and I mentioned I was going to enter some information about relatives of mine who fought in the Civil war, so here's the first installment:

Browns Corners, Huntington Co., Indiana, 1860: Sometime between 1850 and 1860, William H. Boston moved his family from Fairfield Co., OH to Huntington Co., IN, by ox-cart according to the obituary of his son Jacob. The family consisted of

William H., b. abt. 1801, maybe Virginia, maybe Maryland
his wife Rachel Rader, b. 1804 in Virginia
daughter Mary, b. 1830, Fairfield Co., OH
daughter Lucinda, b. 1834, Fairfield Co., OH
son John A., b. 1838, Fairfield Co., OH
son Jacob, b. 1840, Fairfield Co., OH
son William H., b. 1842, Fairfield Co., OH

The elder William was a wheelwright, and his three sons worked as carpenters. In 1862, the oldest son, John, enlisted with the 100th Ohio Infantry, Co. E. The regiment's history, according to the National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors site (http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/regiments.cfm)

Organized at Toledo, Ohio, July to September, 1862. Ordered to Cincinnati, Ohio, September 8, thence to Covington, Ky., and duty there till October 8. to 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, Army of Kentucky, Dept. of the Ohio, to October, 1862. 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, Army of Kentucky, to January, 1863. District of Central Kentucky, Dept. Ohio, to June, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 23rd Army Corps, Army Ohio, to July, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 23rd Army Corps, to August, 1863. 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 23rd Army Corps, to February, 1865. 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 23rd Army Corps, Dept. of North Carolina, to June, 1865. SERVICE.-Ordered to Lexington, Ky., October 8, 1862, thence to Richmond, Ky., December 1, and to Danville, Ky., December 26. To Frankfort, Ky., January 3, 1863. Duty at various points in Central Kentucky till August. Expedition to Monticello and operations in Southeastern Kentucky April 26-May 12. Burnside's Campaign in East Tennessee August 16-October 17. Telford Station and Limestone September 8. (240 men captured at Telford Station while guarding railroad.) Knoxville Campaign November 4-December 23. Siege of Knoxville November 17-December 5. Pursuit to Blain's Cross Roads. Duty at Blain's Cross May 1-September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge May 8-11. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Cartersville May 20. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Lost Mountain June 15-17. Muddy Creek June 17. Noyes Creek June 19. Cheyney's Farm June 22. Near Marietta June 23. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Nickajack Creek July 2-5. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Peach Tree Creek July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Utoy Creek August 5-7. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Lovejoy Station September 2-6. Duty at Decatur till October 4. Pursuit of Hood into Northern Alabama October 4-26. Nashville Campaign November-December. Columbia, Duck River, November 24-27. Battle of Franklin November 30. Battle of Nashville December 15-16. Pursuit of Hood to the Tennessee River December 17-28. At Clifton, Tenn., till January 16, 1865. Movement to Washington, D. C., thence to Federal Point, N. C., January 16-February 9. Fort Anderson February 18-19. Town Creek February 19-20. Capture of Wilmington February 22. Campaign of the Carolinas March-April. Advance on Goldsboro, N. C., March 6-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 21. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Near Raleigh April 13. Bennett's House April 26. army. Duty at Greensboro, N. C. till June. Mustered out June 20, and discharged at Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 1865.

John returned to his family in Indiana after the War, where he worked as a "house-joiner" in 1870. Then I lose him until 1900, when he's living in the Dayton Military Home, Montgomery Co., OH, and where he died in 1918; he's buried in the Dayton National Cemetery. (Here's a link to a virtual tour of the old Dayton Military Home, now the Dayton VAMC: http://www.dayton.va.gov/museum/index.asp) I haven't been able to learn whether John was ever married: I haven't been able to locate him anywhere in the 1880 census, while the 1900 and 1910 censuses show him as being a widower, and his death certificate indicates he was single.

The middle son, Jacob, enlisted with the 153rd Indiana Infantry, Co. C, in 1865.
Organized at Indianapolis, Ind., March 1, 1865. Left State for Nashville, Tenn., March 5. Stopped at Louisville, Ky., while en route and sent to Russellsville, Ky. Operating against guerillas in vicinity of Russellsville till June. Lyons County April 29 (Detachment). Moved to Louisville, Ky., June 16, and duty at Taylor's Barracks till September. Mustered out September 4, 1865.

Jacob somehow met Mary Meyer of Brunswick, Chariton Co., MO, married her, and returned to Browns Corners, where he lived and raised a family until about 1882 or 1883, when he moved his family to his wife's hometown. He died in 1932.

I haven't been able to ascertain whether the youngest brother, William, served in the War or not. There is a William Boston in the roster of the 10th Indiana Light Artillery, and one in the 8th Ohio Infantry. He died young, apparently unmarried, in 1872.

Lafayette Co., MO, 1860 - Sometime between 1840 and 1850, Alexander Richard Brown moved his family from Breckinridge Co., KY, to Lafayette Co., MO. The family consisted of:

Alexander Richard Brown, b. 1795, Virginia
his wife, Harriett A., b. 1808, KY. I believe her maiden name may have been Colville, and that she had Hales connections, but haven't yet been able to prove either idea
daughter Elizabeth, b. 1838, KY
son John Hales, b. 1840, KY
daughter Harriett A., b. 1842, KY
son Alexander Richard, b. 1844, KY
son James Oscar, b. 1846, KY
daughter Sarah Louise, b. 1848, MO
son Colville G., b. 1850, MO

In 1862, oldest son John enlisted with the 3rd Regiment Missouri Infantry Volunteers, Co. F.

3rd Infantry Regiment [also called 2nd Regiment] was organized near Springfield,
Missouri, in January, 1862. Many of the men were from St. Louis and Jefferson
and Franklin counties. The unit soon moved east of the Mississippi River and was
active in the engagements at Iuka and Corinth. Later it was assigned to Bowen's Brigade, Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. The 3rd fought in various conflicts during the Vicksburg siege and was captured on July 4, 1863. Exchanged and assigned to General Cockrell's Brigade, it was consolidated with the 5th Regiment. This command participated in the Atlanta Campaign, endured Hood's winter operations in Tennessee, then aided in the defense of Mobile. The 3rd lost 5 killed, 65 wounded, and 23 missing at Corinth, had 13 killed, 63 wounded, and 44 missing at Champion's Hill, and during the Vicksburg siege had 18 killed and 83 wounded. In the Atlanta Campaign, May 18 to September 5, the 3rd/5th reported 128 casualties and 68 at Allatoona. Very few surrendered in May, 1865. Its commanders were Colonels William R. Gause, James A. Prichard, and Benjamin A. Rives; Lieutenant Colonels Finley L. Hubbell and James K. McDowell, and Major Robert J. Williams.

The two middle Brown boys, Alexander Richard (who sometimes appears in records as Alex and sometimes as Richard) and James Oscar (frequently listed as J.O., sometimes as Oscar), signed up with Co. C., Elliot's Regiment.

Col. Benjamin Elliott's Cavalry regiment was also known as the "1st Missouri Cavalry Battalion" or the "10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment" as well as the 9th Missouri Cavalry. 1st Cavalry Regiment was formed during summer of 1861. Many of its members had served with the Missouri State Guard. The unit fought at Elkhorn Tavern, then moved east of the Mississippi River and was dismounted. After fighting at Iuka and Corinth, it was assigned to M.E. Green's Brigade, Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. It took an active part in the fight at Big Black River Bridge and on July 4, 1863, was captured at Vicksburg . After the exchange it was assigned to General Cockrell's Brigade, and consolidated with the 3rd (Samuel's) Missouri Cavalry Battalion. It fought with the Army of Tennessee throughout the Atlanta Campaign and was part of Hood's operations in Tennessee. Later it was involved in the defense of Mobile. On May 4, 1862, the regiment contained 536 effectives and lost 9 killed and 54 wounded at Corinth. The 1st/3rd Battalion reported 25 killed, 80 wounded, and 3 missing during the Atlanta Campaign and sustained 56 casualties at Allatoona. The small command surrendered with the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. The field officers were Colonel Elijah Gates; Lieutenant Colonels Richard B. Chiles, George W. Law, and William D. Maupin; and Majors Robert R. Lawther and William C. Parker.

The youngest boy, Colville, was not necessarily too young to have served, perhaps as a drummer, but I haven't found any indication that he ever enlisted.

Alex and Oscar married and raised families in Lafayette Co., MO. Alex and his wife Julia were admitted to the Confederate Veterans Home in Higginsville, MO; Alex died in 1928 and is buried in the Higginsville Confederate Cemetery. (http://www.mostateparks.com/confedmem/geninfo.htm)

J.O. had 5 sons, but in 1910 is living with one of Alex's daughters and her family. He applied for a Confederate pension from the State of Missouri in 1914. I haven't been able to find a death certificate for him, nor have I been able to find him or any of his sons in the 1920 census, in
Missouri or any other state, but the search continues.

Young Colville went to live with his eldest brother John after the death of their mother, and died in 1876. He's buried in the Brown Family Cemetery in Chariton Co., MO.

John married Drucilla Raiford Agee of Brunswick, Chariton Co., MO, where he farmed his mother-in-law's land. The couple had 5 children, only one of whom survived to adulthood. John died in 1907.

Being an incurable romantic, I love the parallels between the two families--both families making a long and arduous move to new territory at about the same time, sons from one family fighting for the Union and from the other for the Confederacy and being at the same place at least once (the siege of Atlanta), one brother from each family ending his days in a veterans' home and being buried on the grounds, the youngest son in each family dying young.

And the best part? John Hales Brown's son Lon married Jacob Boston's daughter Nora, and they became my great-grandparents.

(If you have any questions about any of the principals mentioned above, please contact me, as I have more information about the various Browns and Bostons.)

Happy Holidays to My Genealogical Friends

2007-12-13T19:23:00.001-06:00

May your days be merry and bright

and your year full of genealogical discoveries!

How did our foremothers DO this???

2007-12-11T18:37:00.001-06:00

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/browse.html

This is a site where you can read old cookbooks, starting as far back as 1798. Cooking back then was an aerobic workout!!

Another thing that's interesting is a sort of upstairs/downstairs thing--several of the cookbooks mention servants and how to handle them, and there are two or three books that technically aren't cookbooks, but that contain recipes ("receipts"), that were written by servants.

Interesting stuff--how to select meat and fish at the market, how to preserve eggs, how to make butter, how to get stains out of white lace, what to feed the sick and infants... There's a "western" cookbook from the utopian community of New Harmony Indiana Well--back in the 1850s, Indiana was pioneer country. Not exactly California or Oregon, but my Boston family moved out to Indiana from Ohio via oxcart at about that time.

Lots of good reading on this site.

Genealogical Software (mostly griping)

2007-12-08T18:28:00.000-06:00

I was going to post a Frappr map here tonight, but couldn't get Frappr to cooperate. It started out by not recognizing me, so I had to set my account up again, then it kept freezing on me.

Okay, it's in beta, and some genius I shall not name at the place where I work decided to take our e-mail off Outlook and switch to Zimbra, and I hope you are never so cursed as to have to deal with Zimbra as an e-mail client--among other things, unless you have a gigantic server, it slows down EVERYTHING, even if you're not on dial-up, which I am, and we do not have a gigantic server and word is that our server provider won't provide us with anything bigger. (I really really REALLY hate Zimbra.) So it's probably not all Frappr's fault.

But this leads me to the subject of genealogical software. I'm sort of a software freak--I love software programs and have all kinds of stuff that I don't often use on my computer just because I was overcome by the gee-whiz factor (I also don't often use some of them because I tend to download the free trial/demo versions, which are generally pretty limited).

For genealogy, I started out using AFT, which was free. Free is good. And if you poke around, you can still actually find it as a free download (try browsing here: http://boards.rootsweb.com/topics.software.ancfamtree/mb.ashx). I liked it a lot--it was very easy to use and had some good features which my current software doesn't have, like the ability to print out a list of places.

My current software is Family Tree Maker, which is an Ancestry product. I'm using v.16, and it's okay--very much like AFT, minus a few things (which is weird--I never understand the purpose of messing around with perfectly good software and coming up with a new version that doesn't have the good features of the previous version and is usually *more* complicated to use instead of less--Office 2007 being a real good example). Its best feature, as far as I'm concerned, is that if you have an Ancestry subscription, it will search Ancestry for you (sort of--I have some problems with that, too, but still, it's a good starting place) without your having to leave the program.

Let me say right now: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET FTM 2008!! It is a gigantic software lemon and a waste of your money. I've seen nothing but complaints about it on the board. So far, I've been unable to get my version to recognize that I'm connected to the internet, so I haven't even been able to register it, let alone download any of the patches, but from what I've been reading, this is a good thing. FTM v. 16 is still available, so if you're looking for genealogy software and are thinking about FTM, v. 16 is the one to get.

Okay. So since you can't print a list of place names using FTM, I got Map My Family Tree, which seemed like a good idea at the time. It's not quite what I'd hoped. In the first place, every time you start the thing, it goes through your entire tree all over again and if you just wanted to get started working, sorry--it's going to take 10 or 15 minutes for it to re-sort everything. In the 2nd place, it doesn't show county lines on theUS maps, which is dumb. In the third place--well, this is partly my fault and partly FTM--there's only one slot to put things. By this I mean, if you enter a Fact in FTM like Occupation, there's a box for the date, and then there's a box to enter the occupation. Map My Family Tree insists on reading this stuff as place names and goes through all sorts of contortions trying to find Housejoiner or Banker, and flags pop up in Africa and China and other extremely unlikely places. You're supposed to be able to permanently block it from considering stuff like that, but I haven't been able to get it to work. The part that's my fault is that when I'm doing Residence, I'll often enter the place, and add a note like "living next door to parents," and since computers are so literal, it considers those all different places. Obviously, FTM should have three boxes for entering a Fact: date, place, and notes. There's a Notes tab, but when I've got the Facts tab up, it's much easier to have those little 5- or 6-word notes attached to the Fact itself, where I can see it.

I confess I've gotten so aggravated with the basic sorting process in Map My Family Tree that I haven't done much playing around with the other features of the program. It might actually be helpful. There's some kind of timeline feature; that might be something useful.

Another thing I got was a download of the demo version of Timeline Maker, by Progeny. I've made several timelines for individuals, and though it's a bit cumbersome because I don't have hard copies of my families, so have to switch from the FTM window to the Timeline Maker window when I'm entering events, the results are kind of neat--for instance, you can color code things. For John Hales Brown, I did the events of his life in green, added in his wife in lavender, and his children in yellow. That makes it really easy to see at a glance when various things happened in his life. And the demo download is free. Free is good. http://www.timelinemaker.com/index.php?p=products_basic It looks like they've created another version since I was there last, the professional version, so I may download the trial version of that, too. I can envision doing timelines comparing the Civil War movements of various soldiers, or comparing family migrations. I'm not a huge visual learner, but sometimes it helps to have a bunch of information condensed into a visual, like a graph or map.

Yet another piece of genealogical software I have is a trial version of GenSmarts. I haven't entirely made up my mind about GenSmarts yet. It's a good idea--it's supposed to sort through your data, make notes of gaps in information, and make suggestions about where or how to research the information. It's set up so you can look through the suggestions by a list of individuals, by location, or by research collection, or you can query a specific person for suggestions. I suspect it might actually be worth buying the official version of this, and it's actually pretty affordable. Check http:/gensmarts.com (where I see they have an updated version, which I'm downloading as I type this).

I know there are a number of other genealogy programs out there, like PAF, Legacy, and Brother's Keeper. I know nothing about them, and would be interested in hearing from others what software they use and what they feel the pros and cons are.

Follow-up to yesterday's post

2007-12-05T10:36:00.000-06:00

While you're organizing, keep this in mind:

A Tip for Researchers Visiting Libraries, Archives, and Various
Repositories
By Evie Bresette
eviebresette@everestkc.net

I volunteer at the National Archives' Central Plains Region and it is surprising that researchers will leave notebooks and file folders filled with original documents and other important research. Most of these items that are left are not marked with the owner's name. We hold these materials for about one year in the "Lost and Found" box, but some of them are never claimed and we have to dispose of them. The archives will mail back the materials if they are marked with a name and address. Most people have a large supply of adhesive address labels. Keep a sheet of address labels with your genealogy work and when you go out to research, put one of these labels on every notebook. Most places will hold the materials if they are marked.

This is a tip from the Rootsweb weekly newsletter. Do you subscribe? If not, here's a link: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/

The "Stuff" Problem

2007-12-04T20:26:00.000-06:00

How often have you looked at your genealogical "stuff" and said, "I've just got to get organized!"

I wish I had an answer for you. Organizing your genealogical material is in large part a personal thing--some people like to assign numbers, some people color-code, some people use folders, some use binders.

Me? Well, I need to get organized. So how would it work best for me?

Well, I keep most of my data on the computer, and I make sure to back up every month or so. Yes, I should probably do it every week, but every month is okay. As long as I'm at my computer it's easy to flip back and forth and find things, and it certainly saves on space!

But there is paper: death certificates, obituaries, pictures, etc., and none of it is where I can easily find it. Of course, I could scan it all in to the computer. But maybe I'll just file it.

Ideally, I think I would get 3 four-drawer filing cabinets, one for my dad's side, one for my mom's side, and one miscellaneous. Then I'd get a ton of office supplies: dividers, hanging file frames, hanging files, hanging box files, file labels, page protectors. Then I'd get all my "stuff" and start dividing it into piles--first two big piles, Dad's side and Mom's side. Then I'd start breaking down each side into the various surnames. Then I'd start getting serious with the labels.

I think I would make a section for each surname. Then I'd have a file at the front that had a descendant printout--i.e., starting with the earliest person I had and working forward. Then I'd have a file for each family, with a family group sheet and whatever paper records I might have--birth certificates, death certificates, etc. I'd have a separate folder for photos, which I would try to store in the right kind of envelopes and be sure to label. It's so aggravating to have photos and not know who they're of! Letters--I do have a few letters from my mother's side of the family, and I would put them in sheet protectors and file them with the family group of the person who wrote them, in a folder marked Letters or Correspondence or something.

Of course I'd have to tinker with this and change things as I worked with it. Possibly for more recent relatives, for whom I have more material, I would have to have separate folders for them to keep their things straight. The hanging box files would be for families like that. For 18th century families where I mostly have lists of names and dates, a family like that would go into a regular hanging file folder.

About that miscellaneous file cabinet. I think I would have a drawer for military, with files inside for each war. This would enable me to know immedately and without a lot of digging who fought in which war and (if necessary) on which side.

I think I would have a drawer for maps. I'm currently obsessed with maps. For instance, a lot of my families immigrated to Virginia. But--Virginia's a pretty big state. Henrico Co. isn't all that close to Rockbridge Co. I'd like to have state maps that show counties, labeled with the families associated with each county. I'd like to have--what do you call them? Platte maps? They published them a lot at the end of the 19th century, books that showed where everyone's property was in the county, and where the schools and cemeteries and hospitals were. I'd like to have maps that track each family's movement across the country.

I'm sure there are other miscellaneous things like that, that would be best organized outside of the family files, but I can't think of any more examples right now.

Oh! A to-do file, of course. Various reports that FTM can cough up, like Data Error Reports, place reports, things like that. Definitely a kinship report.

(Ready for a step off into the genealogical swamp? Try this - from a kinship report generated by FTM:

Benjamin Guerrant Agee is:
my 2nd cousin 4x removed
3rd cousin 3x removed
4th cousin 5x removed
5th cousin 3x removd
5th cousin 4x removed
6th cousin 2x removed
6th cousin 3x removed
Husband of my 2nd cousin 3x removed
Husband of my 3rd cousin 3x removed
Husband of my 5th cousin 4x removed
Husband of my 6th cousin 2x removed
Husband of my 6th cousin 3x removed

And if I could place Maria Susannah Agee, I'm sure it would be even more complicated!)

Brick walls and a stop in the swamp

2007-12-02T20:35:00.001-06:00

We all have 'em, right?

Here are a few of mine:

Maria Susannah Agee. B. abt. 1785 in Buckingham Co., VA, d. 1861, Buckingham Co., VA. Married Vincent Reid Brooks, had 11 children. The problem is that no one seems to know for sure which Agee family she belongs to. Buckingham Co. was crawling with Agees at that time, but when you consider that they were all descended from the 3 sons of Matthew Isaac Agee, who arrived in Virginia with a group of Huguenot immigrants around the end of the 17th century, you wouldn't think it would be that hard to track. No go, though. Buckingham Co. is a "burned" county, and most of the official records are gone, and what information I have found about her seems unlikely.

William Butler Ensor. How cool a name is that, anyway? B. 1856 in Washington Co., KY, d. ? Married Mary Agnes Megown, had 3 children, is last seen officially in the 1915 Kansas state census, last mentioned unofficially in his sister Fanny's obituary in 1925. Vanishes without a trace.

William H. Boston - b. abt. 1801, maybe in Virginia, maybe in Maryland. First officially shows up in marriage records in Fairfield Co., OH, when he married Rachel Rader in 1825. Had 5 children, died in Browns Corners, Huntington Co., IN in 1872. Can't go any farther back with the Bostons than William.

John A. Boston - eldest son of William, b. 1838, Fairfield Co., OH. Served with the 100th Ohio Infantry in the Civil War, went back home and worked as a carpenter with his brothers in 1870, then disappears until 1900, when he's listed as living at the Dayton Military Home. In 1900 and 1910 censuses, he's shown as a widower; on his death certificate it says he's single (which, technically, he was at the time of his death). Where was he between 1870 and 1900, and was he or wasn't he married?

Harriett L. Brown - b. 1808 KY; d. 1873 Ray Co., MO. Don't know what her maiden name was. She married Alexander Richard Brown, and had a son named Alexander Richard--Brown family names. There was also a son named John Hales Brown, and a son named Colville G. Brown. It's purely a guess that Hales and Colville are from her side of the family: I have enough information to know it's not from the Brown side, and Colville is a fairly unusual name. Problem is, I can't find any Hales or Colvilles/Colvils/Colevilles in KY in the 1800 or 1810 census.

Bezaleel Brooks. Great name, isn't it? You wouldn't think I could lose someone named Bezaleel. Bezaleel is one of the sons of Maria Susannah Agee and Vincent Reid Brooks, b. 1822 in Buckingham Co., VA. He was a 1st Sgt/2nd Lt. of the "Jeff Davis Guard," Co. A. of the 57th VA Infantry. I've found nothing to indicate he was killed in action. I can't find him or his wife, Ann Moseley Brooks, in any post-Civil War census; his son, William Reid Brooks, went out to join the Chariton Co. Agees by 1880, which would seem to indicate that his parents had died.

Hales. If Harriett Brown's maiden name was Hales, or if her mother's maiden name was Hales, my next question is: Is there an Agee connection? When I talk about the genealogical swamp, it's the Agees I'm talking about. The Agees and their extremely complicated family relationships. With the Agees and "allied families," as the genealogists say, you have to enter everyone in every family into your database, because if you don't, 2 or 3 generations down the line you're going to find out that person A married person B, who turns out to be the son of the guy whose half-sister's mother was the daughter of person A's grandfather's younger brother. You can get lost for days following the twists and turns of these people, until you get dizzy and fall in. They would fit right into The Shire (you may remember that hobbits love genealogy and everyone knows who is related to whom in what degree). Fortunately, they're reasonably easy to track because of their naming habits, and if a name like Darby or Mourning pops up, you know you need to backtrack and see where it came from, and if there's a Maria Susannah in someone's family, there's likely to be a Maria Susannah or Mary Susan in the families of all of Maria Susannah's siblings (so you'd better get your dates straight).

Therefore, when John Hales Brown shows up and marries Drucilla Raiford Agee (Drucilla Raiford married John Dickerson Mask, and is the great-grandmother of Drucilla Raiford Agee), AND when Elizabeth Hales marries Matthew Ayres, who is the father of Nathan Ayres, who married Mary Agnes Bondurant, who is the first cousin 3x removed of Drucilla Raiford Agee (are you dizzy yet?) -- well, I just get suspicious, that's all!

The Civil War in Missouri

2007-12-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

First, I want to say yikes and wow! 324 visitors already! Looks like I'd better get posting!

There's so much I want to put here, but I know that with this kind of blog it's best to keep each post limited to one topic (and I'm terrible at sticking to one topic). After exchanging a couple of posts with a fellow Missouri Musick, I thought I would post a bit about a couple of my Civil War families.

I'm by no means an expert on the Civil War in Missouri, but I do get the idea that it was pretty nasty--no big battles, but lots of families fighting other families within the same communities or counties--a little like Iraq today, maybe. Think Kansas bushwhackers. A lot of the older men didn't enlist into regular units for either side, but banded together into home guards to try to protect their families, farms, and businesses. These groups were called Enrolled Missouri Militia if they were Union. I'm sorry to say I can't remember what they were called if they were Confederate. Men who served with the Enrolled Missouri Militia or the Confederate equivalent weren't considered regular soldiers and weren't eligible for pensions, so they often don't show up on Civil War sites.

BUT--If you have a male Missouri ancestor who was alive during that time, you might try looking for him here: http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/ This is one of the State of Missouri's on-line searchable databases (and how I wish more states had these online!), and covers Missouri soldiers from the War of 1812 through World War I. One nice thing about these records is you can just plug in a county and indicate which conflict you're interested in, and it will pull up all the records for the county, so if your ancestor's name got spelled differently or transcribed differently, you might still be able to find him--or his cousin or brother-in-law or some relative you didn't know you had.

Another place to look for Missouri Civil War-related information is the index of Missouri's Union Provost Marshall Papers 1861-1866. http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/provost/default.asp This is incomplete--261 of 300 rolls of microfilm, according to the site--but in progress. I need to do more reading to really get what it was the Provost Marshall did, but there's no telling what you might find here. For instance, I found this entry:

Moberly, Wm. E.
Chariton
Brunswick
Peter Abee, currently on trial, is a good and loyal man
08-23-1864
F 1213

My guess is that "Peter Abee" is actually "Peter Agee" in part because I'm not aware of any Abees in Chariton County (there were Abees, but they seem to have been mostly in North Carolina and Ohio in 1860), and in part because there was a Peter Agee (my 2nd cousin 4x removed) living in Brunswick at this time. What's interesting about this is that Peter came from a slave-holding family, though his name isn't in either the 1850 or 1860 Slave Schedules, and Moberly served as a Colonel in the Chariton Co. EMM. The microfilms are part of NARA records, and I assume one could request copies, so getting a copy of this statement is on my "to do" list.

I was actually going to talk about the two families I've done the most Civil War research on, but this is already too long, so I'll save it for later.

Colonial coins

2007-11-29T17:06:00.000-06:00

For anyone who's researching ancestors in the Colonial period, I thought this might be helpful:

"The basic colonial coin was not British but foreign--the Spanish dollar or piece of eight--a fact that in itself tells a good deal about the state of the currency. But coins from France, Portugal, and Holland were also legal tender in America, all valued in terms of the Spanish dollar. The English pound, always in short supply, was the equivalent of one dollar. Among other Spanish coins in use, the silver pistareen was worth about twenty-five cents, the gold escudo two dollars, and the gold pistole or doblon about four dollars. The Portuguese dobra or double johannes, called in America a 'joe,' was widely used and had a value of about sixteen dollars."

From A New Age Now Begins Vol. I, Page Smith. McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1976, p, 141. A fascinating book about the beginnings of our country; I've no doubt I'll be quoting from it again.

Intro

2007-11-24T22:11:00.000-06:00

I have a blog where I talk about my knitting, my garden, and my GSDs, but I thought I would start a blog specifically for the genealogical work I'm doing. It always helps me order my thoughts to write them down, and perhaps, if I get enough readers, I can help someone and someone might be able to help me.

First things first. Here's a list of the main surnames I'm investigating (there are, of course, a lot of other families who come into it):

Agee (and related families: Ayres, Bondurant, Bransford, Brooks, Chastain, Faure/Ford, Garrett/Garrott, Guerrant, Mask, Maxey, Moseley, Renault/Reno, Sallee) - The Agees were a French Huguenot family who immigrated with a group of other Huguenots to Virginia in the late 17th or early 18th century, settled in what eventually became today's Buckingham Co., then spread out mostly across the South. My branch moved through Kentucky into Missouri.

Boston - one of my brick walls--the farthest I've been able to trace this family back is to 1825 Fairfield Co., OH, though it's possible they came from Virginia. My Bostons moved from Ohio to Indiana, with my direct ancestor moving on to Missouri.

Brown (related family: Alexander) - a direct line to Scotland; immigrated to Virginia in the 18th century, passed through Kentucky on their way to Missouri.

Hardin (related families: Ensor, Ragsdale) - Probably English, immigrated to Virginia ca. 1700, went through Kentucky on their way to Missouri. There seem to be a lot of Hardin Counties, but I haven't tied any of my family in to whichever Hardins these counties were named after.

McGowan/Megown (related families: McCready, McCoy, Coulter, Edie, Lemon) - "plantation Scots" - Protestants forced off their land in Scotland and moved into Northern Ireland, who arrived in Pennsylvania a generation later. There seems to still be a concentration of McGowans in Beaver Co., PA. My branch came on out to Missouri and, so the story goes, changed the spelling to Megown because the paterfamilias didn't want to be called "Mac."

Meyer (related families: Feaker/var., Filser/var., Gross, Kuechler/Keechler, Mortimeyer, Sasse) - The core family is a father, the surviving 10 of his 13 children, and their families, who arrived in New Orleans in the 1840s and made their way up the Mississippi to Missouri where they settled in Chariton County.

Musick - Probably English, arrived in Virginia sometime in the 17th century, and started moving west, through Kentucky into Missouri.

As you can see, much of my research is concentrated in Missouri, specifically the north-central counties of Carroll, Chariton, Lafayette, Monroe, Ralls, and Randolph. Early research is largely in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia. After 1900, families really started to spread out and using the censuses of 1920 and 1930, the SSDI, and online records I've found cousins in Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Montana, California, and Oregon.

I started out using the free program AFT, and in the beginning was pretty sloppy about keeping records and acknowledging sources. Currently I'm using Family Tree Maker--largely because I also have a subscription to Ancestry.com, with which I have a love/hate relationship, and FTM does automatic searches of Ancestry databases.

I do a lot of my research on-line. Over the past ten years, sources have gotten much closer to the original records--that is, I no longer rely so much on the (sometimes incorrect) research others have done because now I have sources such as the Missouri state death certificate online database between 1910 and 1956, and from which you can print copies of the death certificates for most years (they're still scanning), and of course Ancestry's complete collection of printable images of the American census through 1930, as well as those of other countries, and the US Park Service's Civil War Soldier and Sailor site which enables you to search for a soldier by name. If your Civil War ancestor was a Union soldier, you can then go to the NARA site and request to have a copy of his records and/or pension file sent to you. It is, I'm thankful to say, much easier to find sources, access copies of original documents, and to request copies of documents than it was 15 or even 10 years ago.

Other on-line sources I use are Rootsweb, FamilySearch (LDS), and USGenWeb. Since this is all run by volunteers and information is submitted by users, some sites on USGenWeb are more useful than others, but almost all have links to the county historical and/or genealogical society, the county courthouse, and the local library. I've found the volunteers who work at county historical/genealogical societies to be very helpful, friendly, and prompt, and the charge for researching and photocopying to be very affordable.

I need to do something about my paper organization, which is totally out of control, but that's a subject for another post.

I haven't posted my family tree anywhere on line. Yet. I feel quite guilty about this, since other people's family trees have helped me so much. I'm currently constructing a website for my genealogical data, and plan to also feature various families here.

I hope this blog will be informative, interesting, and/or helpful. Please feel free to comment!