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!

The Long and Winding Road

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adventure, Ancestry.com, Arkansas, Dunklin County, Flint, genealogy, investigation, journey, Malden, Michigan, Missouri, path, road, Sevier County, Taylor, US Census, Virginia, West Virginia

When I decided to trace my great-grandfather’s journey from West Virginia to Malden, Missouri, I never realized what a long and winding road his path would take!  Malden was his family’s final destination, but by no means was it their only one.

I had already found a 1930 US Census that showed my grandparents had already moved to my home town of Flint, Michigan.  As my grandfather was their youngest child, it was likely all the children were married or out of the house.  Once I found the 1930 census, it confirmed my suspicions:

Portion of the 1930 US Census showing my great-grandparents.

My great-grandparents were living by themselves.  I knew where my grandfather was at this time.  Where were all of his siblings?

I did learn a few things from this survey.  My great-grandparents owned a home, valued at $1,500 (not bad considering that this was after the start of the Great Depression).  While you cannot see it from this except, my great-grandfather was not working, nor had he ever been a veteran.  There was a discrepancy between the 1900 US Census and this one:  back in 1900, my great-grandmother had been listed as being born in West Virginia like her husband, William Henry.  However, on this census, she was listed as being born in Virginia!  Which one was correct?

I decided to keep working backwards, and found them again in 1920 in Malden, Missouri, this time with one child still at home.

1920 and one child left in the house: my grandfather!

Georgia didn’t seem to know which side of the state line she was born on.  This time, not only is she born in West Virginia, but so are her parents!  In 1930, they, like her, had crossed over the border to be born in Virginia.

As I continued research on this and other parts of my family tree, I  would learn over and over again that records can contain inaccurate and sometimes misleading information.  I also began to distinguish between primary source data, and secondary source data.

The US Census contains a mixture of both.  It is a primary source for where a person resided on the date that the census occurred.  Much of the other data though is a secondary data source.  Ages and birth year and month, places of birth, and places of parent’s birth are second-hand information on these records.  Other records (like a birth certificate) would be a primary data source that could confirm the information on the census.

For now though, I would continue one more decade back and fill in the last gap.  With the information on the 1910 US Census, I would be able to see the movements of my ancestors over a 40-year span.

So:

• 1930 – Malden, Missouri
• 1920 – Malden, Missouri
• 1910 – ?
• 1900 – Daviess County, Missouri

My working theories were:

1. The family would still be in Daviess County.
2. The family would be somewhere in Missouri between Daviess County and Dunklin County, where Malden is.
3. Since some of the children had been born in Nebraska prior to 1900, the family might have moved back there for a time between the two locations in Missouri.
4. The family would have already moved to Malden.

It’s nice to have theories, but of course it is the facts that will show where their path had really taken them.  And, once again, the path led to a place I didn’t expect.

In 1910, my family lived in...Arkansas?

Here’s a copy of the 1900 Census too:

My Grandfather and His Family

It didn’t faze me in the least that in 1900 my grandfather was listed as Floyd R. and in 1910 was listed as Ralfa.  Ralph was his middle name, and Ralfa I am sure, was a misspelling on the part of some well-meaning census worker.  The M in Anna M. stood for Maud, so again, they had been easy to match up.  Of course, Hazel and Ethel were pretty obvious matches.

What of the other children?  Well, I knew from 1900 that my great-grandmother had nine children and eight were living.  I noticed in 1910, the number of living children had dropped to six.  Two of my grandfather’s siblings had died.  We knew for sure the four children listed on the 1910 Census were alive.  The four not on this census were Millard D., Oscar R., Boyd, and Lucy D..  Which two had lived, and which two had died?

I wondered what had brought my great-grandparents to Arkansas.  You could almost draw a line straight down from Daviess County to Sevier County.  What had sparked their southern migration?  And why, within 10 years, had they returned to Missouri, this time settling in the southeast corner of the state?

It was certainly a long and winding road I had discovered on my great-grandparents’ journey to the West.  From the information I had gathered so far, they had left West Virginia some time prior to 1885 (the approximate year their oldest known child was born in Nebraska).  They stayed in Nebraska long enough to have at least five children.  From there, the family traveled to Daviess County, Missouri, which is likely where my grandfather was born (and possibly at least two other siblings as well).  The unknown 9th child could have been born in any of these locations.  All we know for now is that as of 1900, the child no longer was alive.

By 1910, the family had lost two more of its children, and gained one new family member, a mother-in-law (which means this would be my great-great-grandmother).  The name is listed as what appears to be Luveza Olaker (Ancestry.com listed the name as Luvcza Olaker, but I think my interpretation of the handwriting is closer to the truth).  Two of the children had also moved on to their own paths in life.  The family had also moved south and slightly west to Sevier County, Arkansas, a county just to the east of the Oklahoma border, and not too far away from the northeast border of Texas.

Ten short years later, the family returned to Missouri, this time residing in Dunklin County in the town of Malden.  The 1920 Census only shows my grandfather residing in the home with his parents.  There is not information given on this Census to indicate whether there are fewer living children now; we only know that by 1920, my grandfather’s remaining siblings had left their parents’ home.  In 1920, I also learned that my great-grandfather was running a furniture store, and my grandfather was listed as being in sales (was he working for his father?).

By 1930, my grandfather had already moved out on his own and was working on raising a family of his own in Flint, Michigan.  His parents, still residing in Malden, were no longer working.  They lived in a house they owned.

I had exhausted this path for the moment, and so I turned to yet another detour.  However, a surprising piece of information would soon come my way that would confirm much of the research I had just done.

 

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

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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.

First Step

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adventure, Ancestry.com, Daviess County, genealogy, journey, Malden, Missouri, mystery, Taylor, Who Do You Think You Are?

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

I had a myriad of choices available to me on what my first step into researching my family tree would be.  Sources are available in many places.  Libraries have many genealogical resources available, especially on the local level.  There are many resources available on the Internet.  There are historical and genealogical societies in abundance.  States have archives available for those tracing their roots, though what items are available readily can vary widely from state to state.

Since I live far away from where my grandparents grew up in Malden, Missouri, I decided that it might be best to start my search online.  Poring over local history resources I felt, would be better once I knew more about my family.  I knew that with genealogical societies, there would likely be a membership fee involved, and I decided again, that would be something that could wait.

About the time I was getting ready to start my search, my husband and I had been watching the NBC show “Who Do You Think You Are?” on Hulu.  I knew that they did much of their searching online through Ancestry.com, and it was there I decided to take my first step into online research.  I knew that I could sign up for a 14-day trial for free, and after that I could do a subscription if I chose.

So, starting with myself, I started entering the information I had gathered.  My first step was inputting all the names, dates, and places that I had gathered together.  It didn’t take long, and it didn’t take long to Ancestry.com to show me a potential next step to take.

Ancestry.com has a little green leaf appear next to a name that has a “hint” to look into.  A hint could lead you to a historical document, or it could lead you to the family tree of someone else that might be researching the same people you are.

One of the first hints I got led me to the 1900 US Census, where I found this record of my grandfather and his family:

Excerpt from the 1900 US Census

What was strange to me at the time was the fact that while the family was in Missouri, they weren’t anywhere near Malden!  This census was from Daviess County, which is more to the north and west of the state; Malden is nearer to the southeast corner of Missouri.

Yet, the names of my grandfather and the aunts and uncles my father had told me were correct, and my father had said that there were eight children in all.  One thing caught my eye though.  In this particular census, they had asked a question about how many children a woman had given birth to, and how many living children she had.  My great-grandmother had eight living children, but she had given birth to nine!  What had happened to this ninth child?  It looked like my adventure now had given me a mystery to solve.

In this census, I also found I had new destinations on my journey.  While Missouri was where my grandfather Floyd R. was born, it was not where some of his siblings were born, and neither of his parents were born there.  Five of my grandfather’s siblings were born in Nebraska, and my great grandparents were both born in West Virginia.  Their parents were born in Virginia and West Virginia.

And what of the mystery ninth child?  Was he/she born in Missouri, Nebraska, or even West Virginia?  Could the child perhaps have been born somewhere in between these places as my great grandparents traveled west?  More hints awaited me, and more steps would be taken on this genealogical journey of mine.