Happy Census Day!

Tags

1940, adventure, familysearch.org, genealogy, hunting, information, investigation, journey, search, US Census

I know a lot of us are excited about the 1940 US Census being available for the first time today.  I’m wondering what your plans are, and who you plan on looking for first?

Unfortunately, I’ll need to wait another ten years before I’ll be able to see my parents on the census.  However, I still look forward to seeing my aunts and uncles on my Dad’s side of the family.  And, on Mom’s side, I look forward to seeing her older sister make her only census appearance.  I mentioned her in February; the little girl who died tragically.

Only “Poppa”, my Aunt Jeanette’s father, was my only living great-grandparent on my Dad’s side, but my great-grandparents on Mom’s side (with one exception) should all be alive.  And, I was interested to find out more about their children and where they were in 1940.

I asked Bill who he would like to find out about first on his side of the family, and he said if possible, he’d like to find out more about his great-grandparents.  We knew his great-grandmother Sabados would still be alive.  We also knew his great-grandfather Schreckengost would be alive.  However, we had no idea about when his mother’s maternal grandparents had died, and we had so far come up empty on the 1930 census, so they might be long dead, or we just hadn’t found the right connection to them yet.

One of the things I’m also excited to do tomorrow is that I have volunteered to help index the census records.  I’m looking forward to it.  It’s a way of giving back to the genealogical community, a community that has been so great in answering questions and giving advice to help further my adventure.  I’m setting a goal to transcribe 1,000 names for the month of April.  That’s about one full census sheet a day.  I know it’s probably just a drop in the bucket, but together with all the others that will be volunteering, it will help in getting the information out there to all.

So, I wish you all the best in your searches.  Good hunting!

🙂 Pam

Discovery

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adventure, Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Daviess County, discovery, Dunklin County, genealogy, information, journey, Malden, Missouri, Nebraska, obituary, Taylor, US Census, West Virginia

At times, on a journey, you come across something unexpected, a discovery that lends a bit of excitement to your adventure.  When Bill and I were last in Michigan several years ago, we visited Mackinac Island, a place I hadn’t been to since I was a kid.  When I had been there with my family all those years ago, we had ridden bicycles around the perimeter of the island.  Bill and I walked some of the paths farther in, and saw many wonderful wooded landscapes, and , a fort that I had never seen before.

Flags being raised at Fort Mackinac

Fort Mackinac was a well-known fort, and we got there early enough to see these Girl Scouts raise the flags that day.  The fort we discovered though was not nearly as well fortified.

Bill in the doorway into Fort George/Fort Holmes

The fort was not much more than raised dirt walls, but according to the sign nearby it “was the bulwark of British defenses in 1814 when the American attack was repulsed.”  I could see why.  It was at the highest point on the island, and looked straight down on Fort Mackinac.

Looking down from our newly discovered fort, we could see the flags that we had watched the scouts raise a few hours before.

Not all discoveries come in the form of forts or buildings though.  With genealogy, discovery often takes the form of documents; various records and photographs.

One such genealogical discovery I made was in the documents my father had sent me.  One in particular I called “genealogy gold”.  It was the obituary of my paternal great-grandfather, William H. Taylor.

William Henry Taylor Obituary

OLD RESIDENT OF THE CITY BURIED LAST FRIDAY

William H. Taylor, age 75 years, 3 months, and five days, who died March 15th, at his home here, was buried in Park Cemetry last Friday afternoon, following religious services which were conducted at the Methodist Church by the Pastor, the Rev. W. J. Velvick.

Mr. Taylor was born on Nov. 1o, 1857 in Upshur County, West Virginia, the son of John and Eliza Taylor. He moved with his family to Nebraska in 1884 and for nine years resided in that state. In 1893, he moved to Gallatin, Mo., where he made his home for sixteen years, moving from there to Arkansas, where he lived for three years. In 1913, he moved with his family to Malden and opened a furniture store having operated that business up until he was stricken with paralysi two years age. Mr. Taylor suffered his first paralytic stroke while serving on the election in1931, and had been unable to continue his business after that time.

He was married on March 15, 1883 to miss Georgia Chrisman and to this union nine children were born, three of these having preceded their father in death. Mr. Taylor is surviced by his wife and six children, these being: Roy Taylor of Carbondale, Ill.; Mrs. Dell Lukeheart, Ceadar grove, Iowa; Mrs. Ethel Littell, Mounds, Ill.; Mrs. Maud Hester of Malden;Mrs. Hazel Nobel of Parma; and Ralph Taylor of Flint, Michigan.

On the date of his death, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, having been married for fifty years.

(handwritten) 2 of the songs (Some Day We’ll Know, Abide With Me)

 Wow!  I was blown away!  Basically this one document confirmed every bit of census data that I had already found, and filled in a few details as well.  Within about a year of marrying my great-grandmother, they had moved to Nebraska, where census data showed that five of their children were born:  Millard Dee (1885), Roy Oscar (1887), Boyd (1888), Lucy Dell (1891), and Ethel (1892). In 1893, the family moved to Gallatin, Missouri in Daviess County and lived there for sixteen years, enough time for three other children to be born:  Anna Maud (1894), Hazel (1896), and Floyd Ralph, my grandfather (1900).

My Grandfather and His Family

Now looking at the fact that 9 children were born and only 8 were living, I knew that child number nine could have been born in West Virginia prior to the first move, in Nebraska, in Missouri, or possibly somewhere along the road.  My best guesses were that, barring the possibility of a twin, it would be a child older than Millard, a child born in the gap between Boyd and Lucy Dell, or in the gap between Hazel and my grandfather.

They would live there until about 1909, when they moved to Arkansas, just in time to be there for the 1910 census.

Now there was no question; my family had indeed lived in Arkansas!

With the information from the obituary, I was now able to figure out which of the children were still living and which had died.  Ethel, Maud, Hazel and my grandfather were still living with their parents.  Roy and Dell were listed in the obituary.  Therefore, Millard and Boyd had died.  I was able to confirm this. I found a picture of their grave marker at findagrave.com.  Boyd died in 1905; Millard in 1907.  They were buried in Gallatin, Missouri.

Finally, my great-grandparents didn’t stay in Arkansas long; they moved to Malden in 1913, which is where they lived out their lives.  My great-grandfather ran a furniture store until he had a stroke in 1931 when he was serving on the election, and he died in 1933 on the day of his golden wedding anniversary.  It seems like the Ides of March was both a good and a bad day in his life.

I am not sure why this obituary was typed rather than a newspaper clipping like the one I was given for my great-grandmother.  Perhaps the copy was in a very deteriorated condition, and the person who typed it wanted to retain the information, even if it wasn’t in its original form.  Perhaps they copied it from a clipping that belonged to another member of the family.  This likely was done before the age of the Xerox machine.  It could have also been typed by one member of the family and mailed to another farther away.

The one piece of information that is on this typed copy though is one that you would not find in the newspaper.  That is the handwritten note that indicates two of the songs played or sung at the funeral.  Whoever wrote that down was either at the funeral or had spoken to someone who had been in attendance.

It’s always great to discover a new piece of information.  It’s greater still when a piece of information confirms the data you have.

A Trip Interrupted by Flood

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death certificate, Flint, flood, funeral card, genealogy, information, interruption, journey, McCombs, Michigan, military, obituary, path, road, Slaughter, Taylor

Turning aside from my own family tree, I had been travelling the path of my husband Bill’s ancestors.  I enjoyed learning about his Transylvanian heritage, and discovering the ships that had brought his great-grandparents and grandparents to the United States.

Now, I turned my attention to Bill’s mother’s side of the family.  Once again, I was entering data for all the family members we knew of, and I was getting hints here and there to explore further into the past.  Already, we had seen some of the direction that this path would take us.  Bill’s cousin had shared with us information about the research a friend of his had helped him with, and how it had taken them back to Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where Bill’s mother’s paternal line had settled.

However, the trip I was taking into this portion of the family tree was soon interrupted.  It was not because we had run out of items to research; we had barely scratched the surface of what Bill’s cousin had told us.  The interruption came from the fact that I had received new information from my father regarding my side of the family.  It was time to return to my original path.

The information my Dad sent me came to me via email over the span of a few days. My original request had been to see if I could get any more information for the brother whose children I was trying to locate.  We were still waiting for the military records my Dad had requested.  Apparently, because my Uncle had at one point served in a classified area, the military wanted to find out exactly what we were looking for.  They actually called my father to discuss it with him.

So, Dad started by sending me the obituaries he had for his brother, which at least then gave me dates of birth and death.  One was from the Flint Journal, the local paper in my home town.  The other was from the Arkansas Gazette, which was from the state my uncle was residing in.  In the email, my Dad mentioned that he had other obituaries and asked if I wanted them.

Did I ever!  I told him to send me whatever he could as far as the family went.  Obituaries, birth and death records, pictures; I wanted whatever he could send me.

And so, I began getting email after email (nine in all). Besides my uncle’s obituary, I got his funeral card.  My father had obituaries for his other brother and sister as well.  I received funeral cards for his parents and for my Grandma Opal, my grandfather’s second wife.  My Great Aunt Jeanette’s obit was there, and there was a funeral card for her father, Joseph McCombs as well as his obituary.  There was a funeral card for a cousin of my father’s, one that I remember very well, and for his father, my Aunt Jeanette’s brother-in-law, James Slaughter.

There was even more to come.  My Dad sent me death certificates for both his parents and for my great-grandfather, Joseph McCombs!  He also sent me obituaries for both of my Taylor great-grandparents, as well as a newspaper story about a family reunion, and a “ripped from the headlines” story that could very well have been a plot of a story for Law & Order:  SVU if the show had been on back then.  That story intrigues me, and though it does not appear to have been about my family, someone kept it for a reason, and I’m curious as to why.

So, my trip through Bill’s family history was interrupted by flood.  It was a flood of information about my own family that had me postpone working on his tree a while, so I could delve back into mine.  I was glad I could.  One of the pieces I mentioned turned out to be quite a discovery!

Arrivals/Departures

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Ancestry.com, arrival, departure, genealogy, Hungary, immigration, information, Mauretania, ship, shoebox

Every time I have been at an airport, I watch the board that lists the arrival and departure times of the various flights.  When I am the traveller, it allows me to estimate the time I have before my flight leaves; if I have time to get that last cup or coffee, or make a last-minute pit stop before boarding.  When I am waiting for someone at the airport, it allows me to gauge the wait, and usually gets me more excited with the anticipation of their arrival.

In reviewing the census data, I now had the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of four of my husband’s relatives:

• Michael Sabados Sr. – 1906
• Anna Sabados and Michael Sabados Jr. – 1908
• Mary Sabados (née Bakai) – 1921

We had gotten Bill’s grandmother’s maiden name from one of his aunts.  We would not be able to find her arrival without it, as she had not been married to his Grandpa Mike when she came to this country.

I was very excited about this part of the investigation.  I’ve always had a certain amount of fascination about ships.  I’ve never been on a cruise before, but I have always wanted to travel on an ocean liner.  Growing up near the Great Lakes, I’ve seen my share of freighters and tankers.  Even smaller boats have held my fascination.  I can remember being young and going to Boblo Island with my school.  I don’t really remember much about the park or the rides, but I loved that cruise down the Detroit River.

Even ship wrecks capture my imagination.  I kept tabs on the recent events with the Costa Concordia for several days.  Growing up in Michigan, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was more than just a Gordon Lightfoot song.  And the first movie Bill and I went out to see on a date?  Titanic.

So, I was very excited to find out about the ships that brought them to the United States.  We found Mary’s ship first, and I was really excited, because I knew the name of the ship when I saw it.

Name of the ship from the alien passenger manifest - S. S. Mauretania

Picture of the Mauretania

The Mauretania was a ship on the Cunard Line.  In its heyday, it was one of the fastest ships crossing the Atlantic, and only its sister ship ever beat her record prior to 1929.  The Mauretania was the younger sibling of a ship made even more famous by historical event; the Lusitania.  In 1915, during World War I, the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo.  Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard, 1,153 drowned, among them 128 US citizens.  While the US did not enter the war until two years after this event, the sinking of the Lusitania did change public opinion regarding the war, and likely made it easier for the US to later become involved.

The Mauretania spent a portion of the war docked, as passenger service declined during the war.  Later, the “Maury” would see service as a troop transport ship and a hospital ship.  In 1919, she was put back into her duties as a passenger ship, and two years later, Bill’s grandmother would board her to come to America.

One piece of information I noted was that in July of 1921 (the same month and year Bill’s grandmother arrived), A fire broke out on the Mauretania in Southampton, and she was out of service from that time until March of 1922.  The date of the fire was July 15th, ten days after Mary arrived in the US!  Who knows how history for our family would have changed if the fire had happened a few weeks before!

There was more difficulty in trying to locate Anna and Michael on their arrival in the US.  I was looking under Sabados and under Szabados (the Hungarian spelling), and was finding some hits for Anna, but nothing for her son.  Then, I realized that I’m looking for a Hungarian using his anglicized name!  So, I went to a search engine and quickly typed in “What is the Hungarian equivalent of Michael?” and got the response:  Mihály.

Now looking for Anna and Mihály Szabados, I found a possible match!  I still wasn’t sure it was them, and I did store the passenger list in my Shoe Box for a time.  I would soon find I already had a piece of information in my possession that would confirm this match, and lead me not just to the port of call they had departed, but back to where their journey had begun.

Intersections and Mergers

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Ancestry.com, Hungary, immigration, information, intersection, investigation, journey, merge, merger, path

In our journeys through life, two paths can come together.  They will sometimes intersect, crossing one another for a brief time.  When a marriage occurs, that intersection becomes a merger, as the history of one life melds into another.

My husband Bill and I had our paths intersect at first in the late 90’s, and before the end of the millennium, our paths had merged.  Over our years together, he has shared with me some of his family stories, and, with parts of my own family history becoming blocked off for the time being, I took the opportunity to now turn my attention to Bill’s family history.

On my side of the family, I still didn’t know when my ancestors had arrived in the United States or even from where they came.  On Bill’s father’s side of the family though, while he didn’t know the when, he most certainly knew the where.  His grandparents had immigrated from Hungary and eventually settled near Columbus, Ohio.  Family lore stated that they came more specifically from Transylvania.  He would joke about being from the area where Vlad the Impaler  (also known by his patronymic Dracula) ruled.  Mainly, he would reference Dracula, the character in Bram Stoker’s novel.  My “Hungarian Bloodsucker” as I would teasingly call my husband, also had another potential tie-in with vampires on his mother’s side of the family.  His maternal grandfather’s name was Schreck (a shortened form of Schreckengost, and Bill often wondered if Max Schreck, the actor who had played Count Orlock in F. W. Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu, could possibly be related.

Bill's Dad (also Bill) with his mother Mary and father Mike. Funny...none of them look like vampires to me.

So, for now, putting thoughts of ancestors that could possibly turn into bats or go off in search of a blood feast, I started looking for records that could lead me back to the time when Bill’s grandparents came to the US.  It didn’t take me long to find them in the 1930 US Census (names of the children have been blurred for privacy).

Grandpa Mike (as Bill calls him) is doing pretty good for himself.  He owns a home, valued at $2,100.00 and he has four children already.  He is a laborer and works at a boltworks.

When I looked at the rest of the fields for this census data, I found that all of the children were born in the US, and that Grandpa Mike and Grandma Mary had not become US citizens yet.  Both could speak English though.  We do know that Hungarian was spoken in the home; Bill said that he can remember his grandmother speaking Hungarian most of the time to his grandfather, especially when she got angry at something.

Bill’s Dad, who was the youngest, was pushed by his brothers and sisters to learn English before going to school; they didn’t want him to struggle the way some of them did.

One last thing I noted on this census was the years that each had come to the US. Mike arrived in 1908; Mary didn’t arrive until 1921.  This meant that I would not be able to find her in any other US census previous to this one.  My search would then need to focus on Mike and his family.

Joseph is the name of the youngest son.

As you can see, Grandpa Mike’s father’s name is also Michael.  That made for some interesting conversations when I was trying to explain some of the records to my husband.  Grandpa Mike is working at the boltworks on this census too, while his father, Michael Sr., works for a scrap iron and metal company.  Bill’s great-grandfather has done well enough since coming to the US to own his home free and clear.

I was really surprised by the gap in Grandpa Mike and his brother’s ages.  I wondered if they had tried to have other children in the 14-15 year span between the births of these two boys.

I did note that Bill’s great-grandparents had come to the US about two years apart.  Apparently, Mike Sr. came over about 1906, and two years later, wife Anna came over with Mike Jr.  So now I was going to be looking for three boats and not two.  I would be looking for the boat that brought Michael over to prepare the way for this wife and son, the boat that brought Anna and Michael over to reunite the family, and finally, the boat that would bring Bill’s grandmother to the US where her path would intersect and later merge, with that of his grandfather.

 

Twists and Turns

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adventure, Ancestry.com, draft, findagrave.com, genealogy, information, journey, Lawson, path, road, shoebox, Whittaker

I was fortunate to know most of my grandparents.  On my father’s side, I did not get to know his mother; she died when I was just a baby.  His father remarried, and it was his second wife that I knew as my Grandma.  Once he died though, she moved away to be closer to her children from a previous marriage, and our family didn’t keep in touch with them.  On my mother’s side, I was very fortunate to have both grandparents alive to see many milestones in my life.  They were able to see me graduate from high school and later from college.  While they didn’t get to see me marry the first time (since I eloped), they did get to be there to see me get married to my present husband.  My grandfather died later that year.  My grandmother, now in her 90’s, is still with us.

I only ever met one of my great-grandparents.  My grandmother’s mother, Thenie F.  Whittaker Lawson, had come to Michigan to stay with the family for a time.  I was about eight or nine, and somehow, she intimidated, even scared me a little!  She seemed much sterner than the smiling image of her daughter above, and I don’t remember her talking much.  When she did talk, I don’t remember understanding her much.  She mumbled and muttered much of the time.  She was in her 80’s at the time, and was probably the oldest person I had ever seen at that time.

I remember the day that she died.  My Mom and Grandma had gone with her to the store (Yankees, I believe, but it might have been about the time they were taken over by Zodys).  I didn’t go into the store with them; I stayed out in the car (that was back in the days when people left their kids out in the car without fear of them being abducted or overheating).  What I remembered was the ambulance coming, sirens going off and lights flashing.  I don’t remember much after that other than going home.  I didn’t know what had happened to my great-grandmother until later.  She had a heart attack while in the store.

In trying to go back into Thenie’s history, I thought it would be easy.  After all, Thenie is a rather unusual name.  However, I didn’t realize how many twists and turns I would take with the name Whittaker!  It didn’t take me long to realize that this again, might be a journey that would not be the straightforward path I had thought it to be.

For example, here are some of the variations of Whittaker that I found on my initial searches:

• Whittaker
• Whitaker
• Whiteaker
• Whitacre

And, as to Thenie being helpful because of it being unusual?  I failed to take into account how census takers can mangle a name.  And, in this case, I feel they did more than just that.

I had to make some educated guesses with these records, and I believe they all are showing the same family group.  However, there is still a possibility that I could be wrong.  Judge for yourself.

This is the one census that I know is correct for my family. Notice though that my great-grandmother is listed as Thenia instead of Thenie.

If you think that’s bad, let’s go back to 1910.

Now, Whittaker has become Whiteaker, and Thenie is now Othena? What gives?

Now, here’s also where family lore and census data start to butt heads.  My great-grandmother did have a twin whose name was Mary.  However, family lore stated she died as an infant.  Yet, here she is, almost an adult!  The lone son listed here is named Vetery.  My great-grandmother had a brother named Vetter.

When I saw my great-grandmother listed here as Othena, somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear someone, in a voice very much like my grandmother’s saying to the census taker, “Now let’s see, we have a Sarah, a Mary, and a Thenie….”

When you get to 1900 though, things really start to get wonky:

OK, what is wrong with this picture?

OK, now the family has their last name listed as Whitacre.  Thenie has now changed into Venie.  The twin Mary is still there, and the birthdate is shown as May 1891 (which is the month and year of my great-grandmother’s birth).  However, there is a big difference in ages between the Rebecah here and the Rebecca of 10 years later.  I do notice though that the 1900’s Rebecah has 9 children of which 5 are living.  The 1910 Rebecca has 10 children of which 5 still live.

The big problem I had here was the mystery of the youngest child.  ‘Vetery’ who was listed as being about four years younger than the twins (and was listed as a son), had disappeared!  In his place was a daughter named “Legie”, born in June of 1896 (which is, coincidentally, when my relative Vetter was born).

Talk about a roller coaster ride!  I felt like I was zigging and zagging all over the place with these records.  Just when I thought I would find something that would tie everything up neatly, a wild curve sent me whirling into a spin!

Ancestry.com has the option of saving items you aren’t sure tie into your family tree to a ‘Shoebox’ so that you can review them at a later time.  I thought for sure that the 1900 and 1910 US Census records I had found would be in my Shoebox for a long time.  Then, one day, I decided to do a search on Vetter Whittaker trying to see if I could find out more about him, and I stumbled across this record that I think ties it all together:

Lige (or Leige) Vetter Whittaker – now it was all starting to make sense!

So, Vetter’s first name was Leige.  To me, this tied Vetter into the Legie that was listed in 1900.  Their birth dates were the same month and year.  They had somehow entered the gender wrong!  Could it have been that the census taker wasn’t paying attention and copied information from the previous line.  Had he made an assumption, thinking that Legie sounded like a girl’s name?  I know that I’ve seen pictures of very young children, both boys and girls being dressed very much alike.  If this boy got any hand-me-downs, they likely came from his sisters.  Could the census taker have put down ‘daughter’ without asking anyone what the gender of the child actually was?

It was about this same time that in my journeys out in cyberspace that I came across the website www.findagrave.com.  Find A Grave has contributors around the world that update, maintain, and add to the list of over 75 million grave sites.  Searching the records is very easy, and you can sometimes find a great deal of information.  Vetter was one of the first people who I searched for.  Not only did I find him listed, but someone had actually taken pictures of his grave marker!  Even more exciting was the fact that a piece on the head stone contained a picture of Vetter and his wife!

Vetter and his wife Arizonia. This is a close up of the picture medallion on their grave marker.

Eventually, I ran out of steam on this line as well, and so, I turned away from looking into my side of the family tree entirely and began to journey into my husband’s ancestral past.

Road Blocks and Detours

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adventure, Air Force, Ancestry.com, detour, genealogy, Hungary, immigration, information, investigation, journey, military, Missouri, National Archives, road block, Taylor, US Census, West Virginia

In my earliest post, I mentioned that part of my motivation to begin research on my family tree was a request by my Dad to track down his brother’s children, whom the family had lost track of after their parents divorced.  I had decided to try and use the past to help make the link to the present.

However, my uncle was a rather elusive character in the past.  Part of that was the lack of information I had on him.  Sure, I had his full name.  I had his military service number.  I knew some of the general places he had lived, and one specific place (the one place we had as a family visited several times when I was young).  From census data, I was able to get an approximation of when he was born.  But as far as specifics, I knew little.

While I had gotten from the US Census data on Ancestry.com a year and a month of birth, I did not have an exact date.  My uncle had been in the Air Force.  I did not know when he enlisted or when he left the service.  My searches on Ancestry.com were not revealing much of anything on the Air Force at all.  It seemed strange, so I started expanding my search. which led me to the National Archives.

As I was looking around, I happened to spot a link about a fire in 1973, and so I decided to follow it.  I was dismayed by what I read.  Fire had devastated several of the records for both Army and Air Force personnel; 75% of the records for those in the Air Force discharged between September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964 that were in alphabetical order after Hubbard, James E. were gone.  There had been no copies, and no indexes.  They were totally destroyed.

I felt I had reached my first major road block to any progress in finding the information I sought.  Military records might have listed information on my uncle’s dependents, so I might have gotten more information about them that way.  Without those records though, I might not ever be able to find the information about my aunt or my cousins.

However, this particular road block could possibly be cleared.  After all, what if my uncle was discharged after January 1, 1964?  What if his was one of the 25% that somehow survived the fire?  Without investigating further, I would not know whether the fate of my uncle’s military records was safe or in flames.

Since I knew that military records could be requested free by next of kin, I turned to the only living next of kin I knew of:  my Dad.  I made it as easy as I could for him.  I filled out the forms with all the data we had for my uncle, and then sent them on to him to sign and then mail.

While we waited for those records, I wasn’t going to stay idle.  I did take some detours on my journey at this time.  I decided to see how far back I could go on the Taylor side of the family tree.  I had found information on my great-grandfather, William H. Taylor, in Missouri in 1900, but not anywhere near where I expected him to be.  I knew based on the census data that he was born in West Virginia.  How had he gotten from West Virginia to Missouri, and from the upper part of Missouri down to the southeast corner?

My second detour would actually be a jump from the Taylor path completely.  I would begin researching my mother’s side of the family.

Finally, my third detour would not even be about my own family tree at all.  I would begin looking at my husband’s family tree.  My husband’s paternal grandparents had immigrated to the US from Hungary.  I wondered when and where they had arrived in the US, and from whence their journey had begun.

While I had hoped that at least part of this adventure would be a snap, it was proving to be a bit more arduous in the earlier stages.  Answers were not going to always come easily.  Genealogical records were not always going to be out in plain site, and not every person on my tree at Ancestry.com would have a hint leaf next to their name.  I would need to dig to uncover the information.  My ancestors were out there, waiting to be discovered, and I knew the best way to find them was to keep looking.  One path may be blocked, but others were open to travel and be discovered.

Adventuring Allies

Tags

adventure, Ancestry.com, descendant tree, Elder, genealogy, information, journey, Malden, McCombs, Missouri, Schreckengast, Taylor

On Ancestry.com, they make it easy to connect with others that are researching similar interests.  There are forums available to ask questions about family members you are trying to investigate.  When a hint appears for a family member that links to another person’s family tree, you can choose to contact that person directly.  At times, this person can become an ally in your journey, offering guidance, and in my case, a few new stories to add to your tree. One such ally I found in my early journey has the screen name Kaderquin.  Kaderquin’s tree came up as a hint for me because of a possible tie-in with my great-grandfather, William H. Taylor. My first note to Kaderquin:

Hi! I’m pretty new to all this, but a leaf attracted me here because my great-grandfather (William H Taylor) appears to be connected to it. I guess I would like to know how I can confirm it’s the same person, and where do I go from here?

Thanks for any help you can give in advance! 🙂

The advice I received was simple, but very helpful:

Good question! You have to compare what you know about your great-grandfather with the information on the “leaf” record. There are probably dozens of William H. Taylors. When was your great-grandfather born? Where did he live? Names of wife/wives, parents, children?

It’s always best to work from the known back…..list all you know, and find out all you can, about your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins….and expand from there.

Good luck on your research. I can’t help you…the William H. Taylor on my Daniel line is there because his son Roy married a third cousin of my grandmother…..or so I think based on current research.

So, I found out quickly that Kaderquin and I had no real family ties, although our lines may have crossed briefly because one of my grand-uncles possibly married her grandmother’s distant cousin.  When I was able to share information about my great-grandfather’s family after some additional research, Kaderquin helped me in locating death certificates for both of my paternal great grandparents. In looking at Kaderquin’s tree, I also discovered she was working on a type of tree I had never seen before:  a descendant tree.  With a descendant tree, instead of starting with yourself and working back, you start with a particular relative and work forward.  I haven’t tried this with my side of the family tree yet since I’m not that far back, but with my husband’s side of the tree, we have started working forward from one of his distant great grandfather’s on his mother’s side, the first known person with the last name of Schreckengast.

About the same time that I had found Kaderquin to be a helpful ally in my journey, I  also located Mary, who turned out to be not only an asset and an ally, but also a somewhat distant relation!  I also discovered Mary through Ancestry.com.  She happened to be researching two names that I knew from my family history:  McCombs (my paternal grandmother’s family name), and Elder (a family name that I knew was somehow related, but I had never understood the connection).  Mary helped me join up the two names with the following facts:

• Mary Emma Brazal (Mary’s grandmother), and Georgia Almeda Brazal (my great-grandmother) were sisters.
• Georgia Almeda (Meda for short) married Joseph McCombs, my great-grandfather (who was always called “Poppa” by the family).  They had four daughters, one of which was my grandmother.  Meda died in 1911.
• Mary Emma married Michael Elder.  They had two sons.  Michael died in 1914.
• Some time after this, Joseph McCombs married Mary Emma Brazal Elder.  This meant that the children from their previous marriages were not only cousins, but also step brothers and sisters!

I had always heard my Aunt Jeanette refer to Poppa’s second wife as “Aunt Emma”.  Up until learning this, I had always thought that she had called her that because she had not wanted to call her “Mom”.  It turns out Aunt Emma really was her aunt!

Mary was gracious enough to share with me some of the family pictures she had.  One of them came with a story I had never heard before:

— Mary’s Comment: “I don’t remember the man’s name but Jeanette was engaged to him and she stood him up on the wedding day left him standing at the alter [sic], a year later they got back together and on their new wedding day he left her standing at the alter [sic].”

 

Kaderquin and Mary were the first allies I found on this journey, but by no means are they the last.  Adventuring allies can assist you, give you advice, and sometimes, they will surprise you with a bit of family history you never knew.

Road Maps and Guides

Tags

adventure, Bunny, genealogy, guide, information, journey, Malden, Missouri

When I plan a journey, I don’t just head out the door and hope for the best.  I do a bit of homework first.  If I’m travelling by car, I might open up a road map and trace out my route.  If I know people who live in the area, or friends that have visited my destination previously, I may ask their opinion on places to go or things to see.  For a place I cannot ask about from those I know, I may turn to the Internet or the local library for additional information.  In arriving at a destination, I might even ask a local or two to suggest a good restaurant, or a place to see.  Guidance and advice can often lead to interesting finds on the journey.

My journey in genealogy started off with some homework as well.  The road map that I consulted was my own knowledge of my family tree.  I knew both my parents’ full names and dates of birth.  On my father’s side, I knew both his parents’ names, as well as his mother’s maiden name.  I knew the name of the city they had both come from (Malden, Missouri).  On my paternal grandmother’s side, I knew her parents’ first names, but I did not know the maiden name of my great-grandmother.  I had no clue about my grandfather’s parents at all.

As to the uncle about whose children I was trying to find more information, the only guide I could consult was my father, and at the beginning of my journey, there was not much guidance he gave.  He knew his brother’s full name; he could even rattle off his military ID number by heart.  But, when I asked what I thought would be a simple question (“When was he born?”)  I got this response:  “I don’t know.”

Other questions turned out to have similar frustrating conclusions.  While he knew the names of the children, he knew none of their birth dates.  The name of my aunt from this previous marriage (at least what they called her) was Bunny; was that her real name?  He didn’t know.  While he thought my aunt and uncle met (and possibly married) in Texas, he couldn’t be sure, and since my uncle had been in the military while they were married, they moved around.  He knew of one or two locations, but as to when they had been in each, again, I met with the dead-end that is “I don’t know.”

On my mother’s side of the family (which I also decided to look into), I had a better road map.  I had been given a copy of research someone in the family had already compiled.  It contained birth and death information, names, some locations, and on some, even the cause of death.  Once again, the information stopped pretty much with my great grandparents, but at least I had both of my maternal great grandmothers’ maiden names; one better than I had on my father’s side.  I did some similar queries with my aunts, but their knowledge stopped at about the same place as the printed family tree.

So, I had consulted the maps of my family tree, and I had asked for guidance from my family.  I was now ready to embark upon my genealogical journey, and let the adventure truly begin!