1,000th Cousin Contact

1,000 extended cousins have now contacted me after finding my websites.  Years ago, I wondered if the effort to create the sites was worth the investment of time.   I wish all of my investments had such fantastic returns.

The contacts have been mutually beneficial for all of us.  I share information that I've found about our joint family during my lifetime of research and they share information that they have inherited or have found in their own ancestral quest. 

All of us have unique perspectives and advantages of local resources and family knowledge.  The combination of our efforts in continued research always produces more than the sum of our two data repositories.  Perhaps it is generated by the spark of renewed interest resulting our contact, but it is probably due to many factors especially the complimentary engagement of our skills and perspectives.

If you are reading this you are probably already using the Internet and social tools focused in genealogy in your own quest.  If you aren't enjoying a lot of contacts yet, don't give up.  Keep posting your successes, your brick wall lineages and the surnames and locations you are researching.

Help others if you can.  You'll always receive substantial interest from this investment of your time, talents and resources.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Cousin Contacts,Brick Wall Genealogy. Genealogy Social Networks

Grandpa Liked To Sing

While working to put additional information on the fact frames associated with my ancestors, I turned the music to random play.  A male baritone voice cycled into play as I added information to my grandfathers record.  I was immediately reminded of the stories I’d heard of his life long enjoyment of singing.

Looking through the words I’d added to his history over the years, the only mention of his singular public expression were the words, “Grandpa liked to sing”. 

The stitching of the word quilt that covered his life in my genealogical records didn’t contain one of the most important design elements.  This very private man had one sustainable public facet during his life.  Grandpa liked to sing.

My mother often described her two bedroom childhood home that housed ten or more family members.  They were crowded into every space, especially at night.  Even the screened back porch had cots where grandpa and some of the boys slept year round.  Privacy was just a word.

Grandma cooked from sun up to well after sun down, day after day, year after year, regardless of the temperature in the kitchen.  The old coal stove probably didn’t cool off completely for thirty years.  When it wasn’t heating or baking food, it was warming water for baths and with that many family members, even semi-daily baths taxed its ability to heat enough water.

The large family required a lot of food and the family raised and grew almost everything they consumed.  Grandpa augmented the meager earnings from their “cash crops” with his skilled blacksmith hands.

I only remember really talking to him a few times, even though he lived until after I was married.  He was a shy kind of a fellow unless you were working with him or in his presence regularly. 

Mom said that he would arise at 4:30 a.m. every morning and start the fire in the kitchen stove while the rest of the family slept.  The daily ritual always included numerous selections in his strong baritone voice. 

While the stove warmed, he would prepare a pot of coffee, gather enough wood to feed the stove until his boys got up to do their chores before school and then he’d stare out of the window above the sink trying to read the sky for the weather of the day.  And he would sing.

In the winter months, he stayed in the kitchen to drink his morning cup of Joe, but when the temperature was twenty degrees or warmer, he sat on one of the two steps on the front porch and serenaded the neighborhood. 

I’ve been told by several of those who were kids in the area during the years, that they loved waking to his songs.  He sang old-timey songs, love songs, songs of the season and songs that he made up. 

He didn’t take requests.  In fact, if anyone approached him or even glanced at him with too much interest while walking down the street, he’d immediately stop singing and go inside.  He was a shy kinda guy.

When I was five, he took me out to his blacksmith shop one afternoon while he worked to repair the rakes on a hay rake.  Even though I was a small town kid, I wasn’t a farm kid and was basically useless pumping the bellows.  At least, I was until he taught me the rhythm of the pump.  Singing a song with emphasis on the final word in each stanza, he showed me how to keep the heat in the hearth just right so he could work the metal with his hammer on the anvil for a few minutes before returning it for more heat.

It was an unusual day in my experience with him, because while my reedy five-year-old voice called out the bellows-pumping ditty, he sang harmony and circled my tune with layers and layers of beautiful music.  In fact, it was so beautiful that he had to remind me to start pumping again several times when I stood in silent amazement at music coming out of this quiet man.

He sang to his dog, to his sheep and to a cow that day too.  They liked it.  I could tell.  Their heads all popped up and they all moved to the point of their pens and pastures closest to him when he turned to face them over the bellows.  It wasn’t a new experience for them, but like me, they all stood still in rapt attention to the generator of such beautiful sounds.

Grandpa sang at funerals in town with three other fellows during most of his life.  I suppose he knew that the attendees weren’t going to ask him to sing a song just for them at those times and as one of four, most of the limelight spread away from him even though his voice was the pillar that supported the less dynamic notes sang by the others.

Some say that if he ever had a little liquor, his shyness retreated a little but even then it was contained among his circle of friends who each had a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon in their paws. 

I wish I’d heard his morning concerts, but never did.  I asked him to sing a few songs once when I was sixteen, but he declined.

Grandpa was a shy kind of a man.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Grandpa,Histories,Singing

GPS and Lost Graves

I’ve visited the grave of my great grandfather a number of times over the years. It was usually covered with Memorial Day flowers as were most of the graves in the cemetery. It is a memory of a sea of color and fragrant smells – folks greeting each other, pointing to headstones and markers – a reunion of sorts.

In the last decade, mylar windmills, balloons and plastic blossoms have almost overwhelmed the iris, peonies, babies breath and snowball floral tributes left by us older folks. There seem to be fewer of us visiting the burial locations of our families now. There are too many big boy toys, outing distractions and to some degree, lack of respect for our lineage that has become associated with Memorial Day in recent years.

I try to show our grandchildren where their ancestors are buried with pilgrimages to the cemetery every year or so hoping they will retain the ancestral memories after I’m gone or can’t remember them myself in some future day.

Apparently that future day is arriving even as I write this note. I couldn’t find my great grandfather’s grave this year. I couldn’t find my aunt’s grave.

There are only 20,000+ burials in the cemetery where their bodies reside and the old parts really haven’t changed that much but apparently someone moved their graves during the past couple of years.

At first I chuckled. Then I frowned and visually searched for the familiar landmarks that I’ve known since my youth. Finding some of them, I tried to triangulate and ‘walk to the graves’ like I’d done as a young man. That didn’t work. Someone really had moved the graves!

Apparently, the only thing that had moved were a few synaptic links in my brain because after an hour of walking up and down row after row of markers, I finally found the headstones. I enjoyed reading the markers during my walk but had other graves to visit, clean and photograph that day.

I’ve visited the graves of my ancestors in Plymouth, Massachusetts several times, but during the last visit, I couldn’t walk right to the ones that “I was sure of”. When have you fly across country to visit a cemetery, ‘wasting’ time to find a grave that you knew you can ‘walk to in my sleep’ but can’t find any longer is an expensive and frustrating exercise.

Could it be that I’ve now been to so many cemeteries in so many locations that they are starting to merge in to a blended picture in my memory? Probably so. Have I lost synaptic connections? Probably so. Hence, I purchased a GPS specifically for my traveling genealogy kit.

Now when I visit a cemetery, any cemetery, I record the lat / long coordinates of the headstones of my ancestors. That data is entered in my database directly tied to their burial data. Yes, I know that my commercial GPS handheld is only accurate to 14 feet or so of the real spot I’m standing on, even if it has acquired eight or more satellites, but, that means that I should only have to walk a maximum of 28 feet in any direction to find the grave in the future if I can’t ‘walk to it in my sleep’ that day. I can do that in short order.

I record the information on Find-a-grave, Names In Stone, Picasa, Panoramio, my own genealogy sites and other websites when I post headstone photos on them as well. Maybe the information will help someone else in the future. Additionally, I can use my web enabled cell phone to look at those sites and remind me where the graves are located in future visits.

One thing is certain. I will continue to visit more and more cemeteries in the future. The blended memory picture of them in my mind will continue to meld into an even more generic image as time goes on. I’ll probably forget how to exactly walk to even more of the graves too.

I won’t be alone. You’re all walking down the same path with me. Some of you are ahead of me. Some of you are behind but if you love to visit cemeteries like I do, you are right on track to arrive at the same destination eventually. If you haven’t purchased a GPS handheld or have the software in your iPhone or other device, you might as well put one on your ‘stuff I want list’ so your family and friends will know what to get you for Christmas, birthday or graduation.

Once you start documenting the exact location of graves, you’ll find that it adds to the fun of cemetery visits and you too will be able to find your great grandfathers grave in the future.

Technorati Tags: Cemetery,Lat-Long,GPS,Photos,Headstones

Grave Dowsing ~ More Stories

In a recent post, I briefly covered an article about dowsing for graves that I’d stumbled upon.  The article was the first that I'd every heard of anyone using dowsing for that purpose.

The response to my post was surprising.  Apparently, there are a lot of folks who engage in this activity to locate lost graves. 

The University of Iowa has a good treatise on the subject found here.  The document will download as a .pdf file.

In 2005, Dick Eastman posted about a grave dowsing experience by Tom Corey on the Oregon Trail.  As usual, his readers have posted some interesting comments in response to his post.

Linda Bell wrote about dowsing methods used to find county graves for the North Forty News.  Dowsing plays a key role in finding graves on the Roberts Ranch in Livermore, California.

The Archer Cousins Genealogy website has an article that covers their experience in dowsing to find the graves of family members that includes photos of their efforts.

The Hughes and Related Families site has a detailed article that covers the theory, tools and methods used to dowse for graves.

Jay McAfee posted an article written by Thomas A. Markham about dowsing to find old graves in a GenForum post in 2004.

Glenn Adams wrote an article on his blog about his use of dowsing rods in the search for the bodies of a murdered couple.

Wendell Culberson of the Mississippi GenWeb site wrote a great article on his experiences in finding lost graves in Shelby County, Illinois.

Chris Dunham of The Genealogue blog quoted an article about grave dowsing that was published in the Wichita, Kansas Eagle newspaper.

Brenda Marble wrote a detailed article for the cemeteries.missouri.org site about grave dowsing and the tools and methods used in this activity.

The list of articles about Grave Dowsing is surprising long.  A Google search for “dowsing for graves” produced over 1,200 hits.   Needless to say, I was surprised by the number of results given the fact that I’d never heard of the subject before finding the “Old Ways Help Women Find Old Graves” article two weeks ago.

Are you familiar with these efforts to find lost graves?  Personally, I don’t have interest in the occult or entities that use dowsing to tell fortunes, the sex of unborn children, etc.  As I noted in my first post on the subject, I’ve used dowsing rods to find water and power lines as simple convenience.  I’d witnessed dowsing to find water lines as a youth and as a young man working for a electric utility.  Simple tools.  Simple needs.  Quick and accurate results were produced followed by putting the hastily constructed wire wire rods in the trash or bent back to their normal shape for use in construction.

Reflecting on it, I suppose I always thought the metal dowsing rods simply reacted to gravitational disturbances created by buried metal pipes full of water or energized power lines.  Tenuous reasoning I know, but who cared.  The job they were used for got done faster with them than without.  I gave the dowsing rods no more thought than I would a tooth pick at a restaurant.

But dowsing for buried bodies?  What is that all about?  How does it work?  Is the power of the human mind greater than we’ve been able to measure thus far?  

Apparently so, or at least it is so for some folks. 

You’ll note that the people writing or quoting the articles above have had success using dowsing to find graves.   It’s just an example of folks having a small need that can be difficult to impossible to resolve via normal means, yet by exhibiting a little faith in oneself followed by the use of simple tools focused on a specific subject seems to bring results. 

Whether you decide to dowse for graves or not, research of the subject provides interesting reading.  I probably won’t use my bent up old galvanized tie wire rods for this activity, but who knows, maybe the need will arise for some unforeseeable reason in a future day.  If so, I wonder if it will work for me?  I guess I’d shouldn’t think about it too much and cobble up the works.

Technorati Tags: Dowsing,Graves,Tales

The Problem With Primary Source Documents

We know that primary source documents always are desired to assist in proving our lineage. Can we count on their accuracy?

The answer is NO. They frequently contain errors. Dates are wrong. Locations are frequently wrong. Names are wrong or misspelled. Why does this happen?

Looking at my great grandmother’s death certificate, I immediately noticed that her name was different than the one written in various publications and family records.

Great Grandma’s birth name was “Helen Marr Farrar”, yet the name listed on the certificate is “Helen Mary Drew”. Did the recorder hear the information wrong or accidentally write a name frequently used in his family?

That is one possibility. I make the same error at times. However, her certificate offers a greater clue to the problem. The informant listed on the certificate is "Lula H. Johnson”. For some reason, great grandma’s death information was given to authorities by her niece rather than by any of her six children that lived in the area.

Can you provide the full birth name, birth date and parents names for your aunts and uncles from memory? Not many of us can. Lula, was probably helping the family take care of ‘foot work’ while the children arranged the funeral, burial and mourned the loss of their mother.

We know that the birth information listed on a death certificate is suspect. It came from someone’s memory. The only facts that should be correct on the certificate are the name, death date and place and burial date and place and yet, even they are ‘suspect’.

The birth information and even the parents names on death certificates are secondary sources at best.

One of the key indicators that grandma’s name was Helen Marr was a letter from her “family historian” granddaughter that states that great grandma was named after her mothers sister, Helen Marr Tirrill.

Wondering if “Marr” was a rare name in that day, I searched for others that may have had the name and was surprised how frequently it was used. A misspelling was undoubtedly less of a factor than I initially suspected.

Errors abound in the birth and death certificates that I’ve found for my family. In fact, they are more common than not.

My aunt died as a young child in the now non-existent town of Knightsville, Utah. My grandparents lived in the area when grandpa had a wagon and horse team hauling supplies and anything else needed between Salt Lake City and the remote mining towns in Juab county.

The informant listed on Gladys’ certificate was my grandfather but unfortunately, the registrar, Mr. E. J. Howell incorrectly recorded her burial location. It states that aunt Gladys was buried in the American Fork, Utah cemetery, yet she and her baby sister are actually buried side-by-side in the family plot in the Alpine cemetery.

Was she initially buried in American Fork and later moved to Alpine? No. Her uncle Charles and aunt Ada were buried on the plot in 1901 and 1904 respectively. Two other aunts and an uncle died as babies and were buried on the family farm in the late 1880’s – early 1890’s, so the family didn’t own the cemetery plot then, but by the time their eldest son was buried in 1901, they owned or had purchased the lot.

Gladys was buried in Alpine not in American Fork. The “primary source” information on her death certificate is wrong.

I wonder how many errors exist in the thousands of certificate that that I’ve collected over the years yet don’t have enough other information to cause me to suspect errors in them. There are probably quite a few, but since I know that even “Primary” source documents frequently contain errors, I still list them in my databases with the highest level of confidence. What else can be considered a “Primary Source Document”?

You have the same problem in your own source documents. Don’t let it throw you. Don’t obstinately argue over minor factual differences with other researchers. Establish a rule in your negotiations with others declaring that the primary source documents are the base used for accuracy but that codicil statements can be added to that knowledge to argue or exhibit additional information to consider in the decision of the ‘true facts’ associated with the record of your family member.

Technorati Tags: Primary Source Documents,Death Certificate,Marriage Certificate,Birth Certificate

Dowsing For Graves And Other Wives Tales

If you are like me, there are graves of your extended family that have either lost their grave markers or were never marked for a variety of reasons.

In my family, three of my great aunts and uncles died as youngsters and were buried on the family farm in Fort Canyon, above Alpine, Utah. I made a post about them called “Little Ones Lost” earlier this year.

Today, I found an article titled, “Old ways help women find old graves” that describes the efforts of Cate Culver, who is using dowsing rods to find old unmarked graves around the Pioneer Cemetery in San Andreas, California.

As expected, scientists say that dowsing doesn’t work and that her efforts are a waste of time. Unfortunately, the soil in that area is less ‘soil’ than rock and has a fairly high copper and other mineral content. The article notes that ground penetrating radar won’t work in the area due to the terrain and of course, officials aren’t going to grant permission to open the suspected locations for ‘no’ reason other than to prove that the dowser can find old graves.

Long ago, I was surprised when I was first told that dowsing didn’t work and that it couldn’t be proven. I’d grown up watching people dowse for water, power and other buried lines with great success. In fact, when I was told that dowsing was bunk, I had actually dowsed for a long lost water line that was leaking the weekend before. Running water could be heard in a pipe that entered the basement of our home but wasn’t attached to anything inside.

Curiosity got the better of me one Friday evening, so I pulled out the dowsing rods, marked the location of the pipe on the lawn and started digging with a shovel. The location was about 100 feet away from the city water line feeding our home.

While dowsing, I had flagged a couple of 90 degree turns in the route of the line.

A few hours later, my wife was less than happy to find about forty feet of five foot deep trench winding its way through our north lawn.

Yes, the water line was exactly where I’d marked it and at the depth the rods had indicated. No surprises. The trench was so long because I had to follow the line to find the leak and then to clear enough length of pipe so that it could be lifted, cut, spliced and tested for new leaks.

As it turned out, the water originated three hundred feet south in the basement of the neighbors home. They had owned our home before building their new home. The water lines to the chicken coops that used to be on the back properties had originally fed from our home. When they built the new house, they simply capped the water line in the basement of the old house and fed it from the new house. Finally, decades later, the old water line deteriorated and began to leak.

Being on the end of the shovel doing the digging, I’d long ago decided that the dowsing rods had better work or you were only involved in a less than satisfying way to exercise.

We often used dowsing rods to find buried power lines when I worked for the power company. The younger generation had to use the expensive tools that semi-find electrical fields, but the old hands just grabbed a pair of iron tie wires, bent one end of each long enough to use as a handle and marked the line. No big deal. Fast, accurate and easy. And because the fellows were doing the digging by hand, the marks had to be accurate due to the seemingly never ending layers of river rock or they’d never use their dowsing sticks a second time. Inevitably, the dowsing marks were always more accurate than those created the using multi-thousand dollar buried line identification equipment.

I’ve continued to use dowsing rods to find the dozen or so telephone drop lines that cross our orchard when I’ve installed fence posts, sprinkling systems and other buried features in our landscaping. Thus far, they’ve always provided 100% accuracy. I guess that I need to read the scientific reasons why the rods don’t work but really don’t want to. If I do, I may believe the scientific reasons and then the rods won’t work any longer. After all, scientists are rarely wrong. Right?

Over the years, I’ve chatted with folks from all over the world who have dowsed to find water and other buried features for all of their lives with great success. They grew up using them and apparently, none of them had been taught that dowsing doesn’t work either.

My ancestors dowsed. Their ancestors dowsed. Maybe you have to have a naive faith that dowsing works for it to work for you. Maybe it is tied to string theory or quantum mechanics. Maybe you have to acknowledge that the laws of the universe are a lot stranger and more elastic than all of us whiz kids realize.

Maybe the old healing and ‘wives tales’ medical remedies that my mother, grandmothers and great grandmother taught and practiced don’t work either. I guess you’d have to convince the almost invisible scars on my body that the old remedies didn’t work though. While in that discussion, maybe you could tell the adjacent scars from wounds that were ‘healed’ by doctors that they shouldn’t be so big and ugly because they were treated by highly educated men who convinced me that my ancestors old remedies didn’t work. But that topic is a whole other discussion.

I wonder how many of the old remedies and ‘ways’ have been relegated to the pit by us as we’ve become more ‘educated’ over the generations?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m absolutely delighted to be living when so many medical, technological and other advances have been made to make our lives so much physically better than those of our ancestors, but I wonder what we’ve lost in the process of worshiping our scientific ‘Gods’.

What commonly practiced old ‘Ways’ and ‘Remedies’ in your ancestral history have been lost? Post a note and let us know.

Don’t necessarily expect us to believe them though. Maybe you can ascribe our unbelief to our being taught that they don’t work and hence our faith in them being literal is missing.

Remember, my dowsing rods ’don’t work’ either and most readers will probably assign me to the group of ‘characters’ of a past age. That’s ok. We’re relatively happy in our ignorance….. and, before you ask, no, I don’t dowse for water or power or telephone lines for anyone else. Who’d believe that it worked in today’s world anyway?

Technorati Tags: graves,dowsing,remedies,ancestors,wives tales

Gold In Your Drawers

Sometimes we have to look in the mirror and shake our heads in wonder. The person in the reflection doesn’t look as dumb as they feel, but it is hard to argue with facts.

I’ve looked for clues to aid in the quest to find of one of my ancestors for years. The results were always the same. Nothing. I’ve reread my research notes, rethought my research strategy and recommitted it to writing. The new plan required plotting possible migration routes of my ancestors, deep delving into the Family History Library Catalog and subsequent printing of dozens of pages of source materials that need to be explored at the library. A hand clasp binder is sitting on my desk bulging with these pages, group sheets, summaries of old research activities and the new plan.

I won’t need most of them now. One last reading of a page that I’d photocopied over a generation ago resolved much of the issue. I had to reread it four or five times to believe what I was seeing. I even suspected that it was a ‘new’ page that someone had slipped in to my file. Surely, I couldn’t have missed that brief sentence so many times ….. but of course I had.

We are creatures of habit. We form impressions that often eclipse reality. I remember reading the document on a microfilm reader when I first found it. I took notes from the page and even traced some of the hard to read writing on the page that day. I’ve probably looked at the page and the photocopy of the microfilm page a hundred times since then but my mind knew what it contained, and hence, the little sentence was apparently ignored, skipped or had become invisible to my mind.

How often have you reread your old research notes and reviewed the documents you’ve collected in your own ancestral quest? If you haven’t used a fine tooth comb review of them lately, make an entry on your calendar to look through them again. Mine them for hidden Gold.

Perhaps we have to turn the paper 50 degrees side to side to see something new. Personally, I’ve found that reading the data out loud is the best method to restart my frozen cognitive research review process. My ears hear information that the lobes of my brain used for reading seem to obscure.

Give it a try. You’ll probably find real treasures in your papers. Treasures that you’ve owned for years. Treasures that may open new windows in your quest.

Once you have finished your perusal and have then settled down enough to stop exclaiming your wahoo’s (and some of the grin off has melted off your face), walk to the bathroom, turn on the light and take a good look at the clueless person who is staring back at you. Do they look any smarter now?

Lesson learned. Go a little slower. Review frequently. Look at the data through a different window. Gold. There is Gold your drawers!

Technorati Tags: Certificates,Genealogy,Documents,Data Mining

Recording Life ~ Fishing

My father had a unique skill in interpersonal relationships. Without selling someone something they didn’t want, he could nonetheless divert their objections as if he was Obi-Wan in the Star Wars movie.

The power company needed to install a new feeder circuit in a fast growing city in Utah. Everyone wanted the power for their homes, offices and stores but none of them wanted the power lines necessary to provide that service. Frustrated with months of fruitless conversations, public meetings and incentives, the district manager responsible for the city turned to my father.

“Elwood, I’m taking you out of your position as foreman and am giving you a car, line plans and little if no money.” “Go get the right-of-way we have to have to upgrade that feeder circuit before the whole south end of the city goes black!”

Great! An assignment that had stymied numerous ‘professional’ right-of-way agents, management and even high level city officials. “Get the right-of-way”. “Much of the city will be in a permanent blackout by July - three months away.” “You have little money to spend.” In those days, little money was the $100 contingent fund in district offices. Management authorized their district managers to spend up to that amount without having to go through an arduous budget hearing.

Opening the rusted trunk lock on the 1962 Ford, he placed a bucket full of wood stakes, wood lathe, fluorescent marking tape and a hammer inside. A puff of smoke always followed the vehicle when a foot pressed the accelerator. Two hundred plus thousand miles of start, stop, idling driving in a city will cause that problem in a meter reading vehicle.

Within three weeks, Dad’s uniquely calm reasoning had awaken the common sense in all but one property owner along the route. He hadn’t approached the old man yet. Having heard the stories by the legions who had preceded him in the quest, he opted to resolve the issue last and with finality.

Wearing his normal tan Dickie work shirt, shrink-to-fit Levi’s with rolled up cuffs, work boots and a shirt pocket full of pens, pencils and a plastic template, he told the old man answering the door that he was there to finish driving the last stake in place before construction started the next morning. The old man shouted, “What power pole on my property?” “You aren’t doing anything on my property!”

Giving the old man a look of pity just as you would to a dunce and with a slight shake of the head, Dad pointed to the four foot tall lathe with four six-foot-long tails of fluttering survey tape centered in front of the man’s living room window. “It’s going in there.” “We’ll be here at 7:00 a.m. and I just wanted to let you know to not sleep in tomorrow.”

Sleep in? The old codger probably hadn’t slept past 6 a.m. in his life. Dad knew he was always up working around his house or yard shortly after 5:00 a.m. every morning.

With his hands on his hips, Dad looked at the stake then up at the living room window and back down again at the stake. Shaking his head, he unrolled the maps. “I’d have put it a little that way - closer to the house if I’d have designed the job, but it looks like one of the engineers has definitely taken your view into consideration.”

“What?” “A pole in front of my window is taking my view into consideration?” “Are they crazy?” Commiserating with the old man, Dad agreed that a fifty foot tall pole was hard to interpret as a window even with the best imagination, but that’s what Dad’s ink dot on the plans said … “See?” “Don’t worry, the auger on the truck is only 28” wide. In this rocky soil, the hole will get bigger as it bounces around, but it shouldn’t end up being much over four feet wide when we’re done.”

You know the rest of the story. After ten minutes of arguing, Dad let the man move the lathe stake to the fence line and pound it in the ground --- right where he wanted it when he arrived that morning.

Turning to leave, he heard the old man say, “See. You can’t push me around. I’m a better negotiator than all of you”. Yep. Dad had brought out the best common sense negotiation skills from the old man.

Flash back to the early 1950’s. A stream fisher all of his life, he frequented the hard to access streams where the big fish lived. The Ute Indian Reservation in eastern Utah includes the south slope of the Uintah Mountains. Rock Creek was a favorite stream for serious fishermen but it was both expensive to fish because of the fees associated with the permit and the permit restrictions themselves.

A fishing trip was needed. If you stayed just a little to the west, there were excellent streams to fish. The old Plymouth and LaFayette were loaded with tents, grub boxes, sleeping bags and fishing gear. My sister, brother-in-law, mother and myself enjoyed the two hour ride to the campsite.

Early the next morning, Dad and Roy went fishing and fishing was good. Some were released. Many were kept for breakfast back at camp.

Splashing behind them got louder. Looking up, they saw a federal game warden riding up on his horse. Dad lifted the front brim of his old fishing fly covered Stetson to get a good look at the wardens face.

“Good morning.” “How is the fishing this morning?” “Oh, its not too bad. We’ve released all the smaller ones. We just need enough good pan sized Brookies for a good breakfast.” “What fly are you using?” “Well, according to Ken Aycock over in the Basin, these rock roller flies are the best and they seem to be working this morning.”

“Ken Aycock?” “You know Ken Aycock?” “Sure we work together. I’m out this way working on projects all of the time.” “Do you know …. “ The list of names and places started to flow.

Staying close to hear when the power of the law was going to drop on them, Roy finally moved away to fish up stream while they talked.

When he came back almost an hour later, they were still talking. The fishing creel on Dad’s hip was still full of grass and trout although they were both getting a little dry. Dad’s old bamboo fishing rod was still in his left hand. The three pound test leader and fly was trapped between his palm and the pole.

Finally, the warden tired of reminiscing and comparing notes on people and features in the area. “Well, I guess I’d better ask to see your fishing licenses and permit.” Roy’s heart stopped and his blood ran cold. Fishing on the reservation without the permit could result in a thousand dollar penalty and loss of fishing rights for a long time.

Dad turned his head and the warden could see Dad’s fishing license in its plastic holder neatly tucked under the hat band on the right side.

“Well, you do have a permit too don’t you?” With a guffaw, smile and a headshake, Dad said; “You don’t think we’d be fool enough to be fishing here without one do you?” Apparently, the music of the conversation still echoed through the mind of the warden. He turned his horse and started off saying; “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Roy claims he didn’t start breathing again for twenty minutes, but everyone knows that even standing in water the temperature of ice, humans can’t hold their breath for more than fifteen minutes.

As I remember, the fish were very good eating although I was really hungry by the time they arrived back in camp to be cooked.

Another Elwood Drew story to add to the book. There are hundreds of them. Probably thousands. Forty years after his death, I still hear them from time to time, especially from people who were children in the families that received his quiet assistance.

There are choices. There are consequences. Paying it forward will eventually rebound to your own assistance.

I suppose you’ve recorded your own similar family stories so they won’t be lost in the next generations. Without them, how will your grandchildren know your parents and grandparents? Don’t let them be lost to time.

Spend a little time and effort and record your own precious family stories. They are the flavor, texture, smell and substance that extend the memory of our ancestors.

Technorati Tags: Family Stories,Pay It Forward,Journals,Drew

More Genealogy Research Aids

Author and podcaster, Lisa Louise Cooke, posted a new vidcast on her site recently about a new ‘beta’ tool called Google News Timeline.   The timeline tool displays news, magazine, book and other documents that discuss events in history.  Enter keywords and / or dates in your search and you’ll see results presented by day, week and month of the year.  Google News Timeline is a significant resource to family history researchers.

See Lisa’s vidcast at the bottom of this post. 

The Google News Timeline is located here.

Of course, published materials decrease significantly the farther you go back in time, but don't let that deter your timeline searches.   You may be surprised with the results from these searches.

Recently, I noted that the New York Times is now posting a lot of old articles on their site.  Search for names or events on the search box on the site.  The old articles are in .pdf format.  Most are free but some of the more lengthy articles require a subscription to the archival services at the Times.

Listening to Lisa's vidcast, I wondered if she had ever seen the wonderful articles about the San Francisco earthquake that the USGS has posted.  They include Google Earth (free download) files that show the fault lines and 'shake' values of the quake during the event.  Additionally, they have added before and after photos showing the destruction down to the house level.   Even though the earthquake is called the 'San Francisco earthquake' it affected a significant section of California and the Google Earth files show its impact in those rarely noted locations. 

If you don't have Google Earth installed on your computer, download it from here, then install the free program.  The files associated with the earthquake are listed as links on in the articles on the USGS site.  Browse to the links from the home page and you'll see them under each article heading.

If you haven't used Google Earth before, you are missing a real treat.  Not only does it let you view all locations on the earth, but it also includes the sea floor topography for all the oceans on earth and it also includes a full view and tour of all the celestial bodies.

Why am I focusing on Google Earth?  The answer is simple.  Technology has pushed through the brick and mortar walls of schools and extends knowledge, learning and research opportunities to our home computers, mobile laptops and mobile phones.  Google Earth is one of the tools that enable the spread of virtual education and knowledge. 

Mashups of various technological tools allow educators and folks like you and I to create interesting presentations of our research, stories and topics of interest in ways that exceed anything known just a few short years ago.  We are only limited by our imagination and desire to learn the use of technology.  The technological tools that most family history researchers will embrace is actually very simple to use.  We just have take the time to read the instructions and then apply the knowledge.

I know most folks think they can't create presentations, podcasts or vidcasts, but you really can.  Believe it.  You CAN produce presentations that will help you in your ancestral quest.  They WILL draw the interest of family members and others who are researching your common lineage if you post them on a blog or on your website and tell folks about it.

Now is the time to use the tools at hand to accelerate your research efforts.  Go for it!   You are the only person saying that you can't do it.  You know how much you love proving wrong that surprisingly older stranger that you see in the mirror every morning.

Start today by installing Google Earth.  Then use it to find the cemeteries where four or five generations of your ancestors are buried.  Mark them and create a slideshow of them to show to your family.   Change the angle of the inward zoom.  Spin the earth under you.  Label your bookmarks.  Put them in the order you want then save the file.

Once completed, you'll be able to send the file to family members and other researchers.   Remember that sharing a file like this almost always produces information in response and it frequently is the information or clues that you are seeking.

In another blog post, I referenced a Google Earth file that takes you on a flight to all the cemeteries of my ancestors on the island of Bornholm in the North Sea.  Now that you have Google Earth installed on your machine, download my file from the link near the bottom of the posting and see how a simple file used for genealogical purposes looks on your screen.  It is very simple presentation but it only took me ten minutes to create and it graphically conveys the information I wanted others to see in a format not available before.

One last time…   Try it ...  Mikey, Gina, Charles, Annette (insert your name here)....  You'll like it!

 

 

Technorati Tags: Google Earth,Google News Timeline,Mashups,Genealogy

Christmas in April

Christmas came to our house on Apr 30th this year.  Years ago, I saw the diary of my great grandfather, David Lewis Drew, in Copperopolis, California.  One of my older distant cousins had it in his possession.  He allowed me to take one photo of it and then sent me on my way.  When I developed the film, none of the photos on it were any good.  The film stock was bad from the factory.

When my cousin died, his attorney called and asked if I had anything coming to me.  I mentioned that my cousin said I could have the diary, but that was the end of the conversation.  I never heard from him again.

Last week, a second cousin in California found my website and sent me a note.  She'd had the diary in her possession since the death and had recently looked at it with renewed interest.  Searching the web, she found my family history website and sent me a note

Long story short.  The journal is sitting in front of me as I write this note.  I can't keep it but I'm touching it and will scan the pages.  They contain all my great grandfathers recorded thoughts during his first year in California during the tail end of the gold rush.  He left Plymouth, Massachusetts, sailed down around the Cape in a very long voyage and joined the rest of multitudes who were looking for their fortunes. 

Long ago, I transcribed the diary text from an old historical newsletter found in the Calaveras County Historical Society vaults.  It can be seen here. 

Two contiguous entries state that he finished the Bible and started reading it again the next night.  I love those two entries.

Over the years, several folks from around the country have contacted me about the diary.  Their ancestors are mentioned in its pages.  One of them is a professional genealogy speaker and uses my site and the entry about her great granduncle in her speeches.   I just talked to her and am going to send her a copy of the image for that page, etc.   She is as excited about it (her soon to be “held” treasure) as I am about my good fortune.

Looking at the names of great grandpa’s mining partner and other associates, I decided to find out who they were in life.  Two of the three men he partnered or worked with in the gold fields were his distant cousins!  In fact, his primary partner, Len Covington, was a distant cousin seven times over.  That happens when families live in the same area like Plymouth, Massachusetts for three hundred years before the descendants start to scatter around the world.  The other part-time partner was ‘only’ a cousin four times. 

Did these fellows decide to leave Plymouth for the wild and woolly gold fields in California together?  I’m trying to trace down any ship passenger records to see if they traveled together.  It was a very long trip across land and many of not most of the folks from Massachusetts who participated in the gold rush traveled went by ship.  Apparently, some of the intrepid young men opted to sail through the Gulf of Mexico and hike across Panama where they took passage on another ship to Sacramento. 

The remainder took the long journey south around the Cape of South America and then back up the west coast of the Americas to Sacramento.  No matter which path these folks took to find their fortunes, the trip was long and arduous. 

Now for the rest of the story...  Also in the package were a dozen photographs of David Drew's family in California.  Working from the smallest photo to the largest, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I think I have a photo of my brick wall ancestor, Thomas Farrar!  I've looked for him for over 50 years.  I can't prove it yet, but will spend considerable time trying to find out the truth behind the photo.

Next were photos of all of David's children except my grandfather (he ran away to Utah at age 16 and apparently was disinherited from the family).  

I was finally down to the last photo.   It is in the largest old mounting cover.   Opening the flaps, I found a photo of my father and aunt when they were youngsters.  It was obviously taken during at the same photo setting as a photo we have but none of the living descendants of my Utah Drew grandparents have ever seen this pose before.  It is in mint condition...  Wonderful...  AND I like the pose better…

I know a few of you have had similar experiences like this during your own ancestral quest and can appreciate my excitement. 

Christmas presents?  They are nothing.   It was Christmas at our home on April 30th.  The photos and diary are valued beyond price in my opinion.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Diaries,Family Histories,Family Stories,Handwriting,Journals,Photos

Spanish Flu of 1918 – 1920

 

With all of the news today of the outbreak of Swine Flu, my thoughts were drawn to stories my mother told me about her experience with the Spanish Flu in 1918 – 1920.

 

The Spanish Influenza or “La Grippe” (flu) was a pandemic that spread through almost every location on earth.   It was an indiscriminant killer, taking rich and poor, old and young victims.  Declared a crisis in March 1918 it continued in a pandemic state though June of 1920.  The total count of its victims ranged from 20 to 100 million people worldwide.   At my grandparents home in Utah, the family was quickly infected and were quarantined to their home.  Mom related that extended family and neighbors had to bring fresh food and milk to their doorstep and yell through the closed windows to alert the family to retrieve them after the benefactor backed away.  No face to face or touching contact could be allowed. Their home only had two bedrooms but housed nine sick children, two sick parents and two sick grandparents.  She said that the children were put in two bed in the same room and laid out head to toe in alternating rows.  Most were too sick to stagger out to the outhouse and multiple honey buckets often littered  the floor. Her grandparents were too ill to get up for weeks to help her desperately ill parents care for the children.  As one person would improve enough to rise from the bed, they would be replaced by one of the caretakers who was now too ill to stand.  Their doors were marked with quarantine signs to keep people away.  Wearing masks, a few brave souls would break quarantine from time to time to clean up the home, do the washing and bring in prepared meals.  These actions violated the law and exposed the benefactor and their family to the illness too. Fortunately, none of the family died although Mom’s description of their illness indicated that they often felt or looked like the walking dead. Worldwide the situation was equally dire.  Not only were the meager medical facilities stretched to the breaking point, the doctors and other medical personnel were also ill. In almost all locations, people had to take care of themselves, neighbors, family and friends.  The medical system simply could not handle the enormity of the pandemic. According to newspaper articles at the time, between 300,000 and 350,00 people had died in the United States in the three months spanning between September 15, 1918 and December 6th,  1918.  An article in this posting goes on to state that the record keeping was poor and that the number probably exceeded that estimate. The world was in a state of panic and  despair from not only the pandemic but the terrors of World War I.  A newspaper article dated 19 Nov 1918 stated that more people were dying in the United States from the flu than as U. S. soldiers fighting the Germans. Victims were ordered by local authorities to not leave their homes.  Special deputies and health officials were authorized to enforce the orders in the hope that containment, no matter how brutal to the afflicted would help contain the pandemic.

 

Personnel and resources to bury the dead were stretched so severely that even small communities in rural Utah struggled to keep up.  Public gatherings, like funerals, were outlawed.  If they were still alive, parents were frequently too ill to attend the burials of their  own children, spouses, parents, extended families and friends.  Indeed, attendance by more that a couple of family members was construed as a ‘gathering’ and hence fell under the penalty of the law.

 

By January 1919, the death rate in the United States had increased to 19.6 per thousand individuals.  The corner had not yet been turned, but in ensuing months the number of new cases would begin to decrease.  Unfortunately, the flu frequently started to take the caretakers.  They were worn so low by exhaustion that any semblance of resistance in their immune systems was compromised. By early March, 1919, the government inserted a constant stream of news articles alerting Americans that survivors of the flu were now coming down with Tuberculosis.  Survivors bodies and immune systems had been sufficiently weakened to the point that yet another scurrilous disease had seized the opportunity to infect them.  Despair and feelings of hopelessness spread around the world.  Illness upon illness afflicted mankind in addition to the terrors and destructions of war. Of course, many flim-flam men came out of the woodwork with Patent Medicine cures.  Desperate to find anything to treat and prevent further illness drove millions to purchase and take these often toxic mixtures. Governments told their citizens to not purchase patent medicines because they were a waste of money.  If people felt symptoms of the flu, they were instructed to have medical examinations several times a month and to “build up your strength with right living, good food and plenty of fresh air”.  “Become a fresh air crank and enjoy life” statements concluded the advice. The U. S. Navy has created a website that details the impact of the Spanish Flu Epidemic on their branch of the military.  They noted that victims suffered from “pneumonia and fatal pulmonary complications” and that “they literally drowned in their own body fluids”. Stanford University has written that the “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe” was a global disaster.  They state that “the average life span in the US was depressed by 10 years” because of the extreme virulence of the flu. Until reading the news of a possible pandemic today, I was felt far removed from the terrors that Mom described in her stories.  I had few to no reference points in my experience that allowed me to appreciate the scope and impact of the experience in her life. Today, the CDC, calls the 1918 Influenza pandemic “The Mother of All Pandemics”.  No wonder the survivors were so abraised by the experience.  Quite frankly, I’m surprised that I haven’t read more references to it in my ancestors surviving notes and journals.  No doubt they were too busy working on their farms and in their homes to take time to record something that was such ‘common knowledge’ among everyone on the planet.

 

 

When we are researching our lineage, we have to study their environmental and societal events and  conditions to really have any many of us have looked at our appreciation of their lives.   How many of us have looked at our records and quickly spotted an inordinate number of deaths in the families of our ancestors during the four years of the Spanish Flu pandemic? Have we even considered the causes of the deaths and tried to envision combined impact of illness, war, stress and family deaths in the lives of our ancestors? Lesson learned again.  Event timelines overlaid on the life spans of our ancestors should be studied in detail to aid in the creation of our research plans.  Failure to do so will severely impact our research success.

 

In our own lives, let’s hope that the current Swine Flu outbreak won’t turn into the life altering event that will be overlooked by our descendants.   We need to regularly write in our journals and include the events of our lives with some supporting news articles and related information so our they have the reference points needed to envision our lives and times.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Spanish Flu,Pandemic,Small Town Newspapers,Utah Digitial Newspapers,Research Tips,Newspapers,Town Histories

 

 

 

 

The Execution of Small Town Newspapers

If your part of the world is like ours, less ink and paper is being published that has any resemblance of the community that existed in small town newspapers of days gone by. Electronic media is probably the main culprit but coupled with corporate greed (need?) to ever increase the bottom line, their demise has been assured.

Newspaper organizations are laying off employees, reducing the number of pages in print by half and are becoming generic given that here only seems to be ten or so newspaper journalists remaining in the world. Everything on the page seems to come from a common pool of articles created by one or two news organizations. Pool all the daily and weekly articles together and the price per word goes down when you shop from the same trough.

Today, we rarely read about weddings, golden anniversaries, missionaries and who visited whom. Instead, the news organizations have created “Community Posts” sections on their websites. These sections were supposed to replace the hard copy weekly publications that we’ve loved for generations, but alas, they are nothing more than headline grabbers from the normal paper sprinkled with an occasional community concert, play or scout activity notice.

Gone are the papers we loved for generations. Gone are the informative articles that were like manna to genealogists.

Looking back through my own research, almost all of the ‘knowledge’ about the lives and personalities of my ancestors came from small town papers. At first glance, I thought that their surviving letters and notes probably had the edge, but on closer inspection of my files, it quickly became apparent that my memory was wrong.

I love touching my collection of letters and notes because my ancestors touched and created them. That alone has a big impact on how I perceive them as data mines and probably biased my thoughts that they provided the majority of the personality facts about my ancestors. In truth, most of my knowledge about them came from the thousands upon thousands of small town newspaper clippings in my files.

My mother was a perpetual newspaper article clipper with a determined focus on any that contained information about family and friends, near and far. A few years before her passing, she asked what I wanted from her estate. The answer was easy. Her genealogy and the newspaper clippings. In my opinion, nothing else had value by comparison. The clippings were significant additions to my own family history research documentation. The smell of the clippings has gifted the atmosphere in my office and genealogy library rooms in our home with the patina of old newsprint and documents. The hard core genealogists among us know that we’d rather smell that scent than the most expensive French perfume.

Knowing that the pages of the small town papers were dripping with much more information than mom had collected, I called the editor of the small town papers in our area a couple of years ago hoping to wrangle access to their storage library. With some vehemence, he related that the new owners, a national chain of mid-sized newspaper titles across the country, had ordered all of the old papers be trashed. Gone were the 100 plus years of the American Fork Citizen, the Pleasant Grove Review, the Lehi Free Press. “Trash the 'd___’d” things right now while we watch. We need the room for other things”. He was still as sick at heart as I now felt.

I argued the act was a capital crime in my book - that I’d have stored them myself - that I’d have digitized them for posterity out of my own pocket. How could anyone be so blatantly stupid to destroy them? Pound for pound, page for page, the small town newspapers contained the richest content in that medium for a genealogist. Now the old brittle yellow pages have turned to compost at the local land fill.

Small town newspapers of old will never be recreated in the modern world. Our times are too full of identity thieves, privacy laws, and the sons of Satan who feed on society through theft and deception. A current day recreation of the folksy articles in the old papers would be too inviting to these miscreants. We already have to guard homes during funeral services for family members because the bad guys know that the family will be gone at a set time and date. What would they do with the details found in stories of days-gone-by in a current day setting?

Fortunately, not all of the old papers have been lost. Many colleges and other entities are digitizing some of the old papers and making them available to us through the web, libraries and other similar venues. If you haven’t taken the time to find them and explore their content rich pages in your own ancestral quest, today would be a good day to do so. Don’t just read these words and nod in agreement. Dive in and find the genealogical Gold that awaits you in their pages.

In an earlier post I wrote about making the ‘Essence of New Mown Hay”. I wish someone would create the scent of yellowed old newsprint. A puff or two during our electronic forays into the old papers would add the aroma required to enhance the research experience. Add a weathered old page or two of a current day newspaper for texture, turn the lights low and clutter your office. Ahhh…. the cozy feel of researching old newspapers like it used to be in “the good old days”.

Technorati Tags: Digital Newspapers,Small Town Newspapers,Utah Digitial Newspapers,Digital Collections,Genealogy,FamHist

Finding Thomas Farrar ~ Attacking a Brick Wall

Little was known about my 2nd great grandfather, Thomas Farrar.  Time and location had separated his descendants.  Family stories and memories died over the generations. 

A cousin recorded a few notes about Thomas that she’d heard over the years and passed them on to my mother.   She related that he was from England, that his wife had died while still young and he had moved west to Copperopolis, California bringing his two small daughters with him in the mid-1850’s.  End of story.

When I visited my great grandmothers grave in Copperopolis, California, I noted the inscription on her tombstone said that she was a native of South Carolina.  I had a reference point to start the search.  The stone said that Grandma Helen Farrar Drew was born in 1851 and I knew she was age ten or younger when grandpa Thomas Farrar took Helen and her sister, Julia, west to California.   The 1860 census for South Carolina probably wouldn’t provide any help in finding the family and that quickly proved true.

1850 Census and Town History

Did Thomas and his wife, Mary Tirrill live in South Carolina in 1850?  After a long search, I found them there in Lexington.  The census entry said Thomas and Edith Farrar.  Edith?  Her name was a mystery for a quite a while, until I found a book titled “History of Bristol, Grafton, New Hampshire” by R. W. Musgrove.  In it, Musgrove listed Mary as a child in the family of Seth and Azuba Chandler Tirrill.  Her full name was Mary Adith Tirrill and her family lived in far northern town of Stewartstown, New Hampshire.  

The ear of a southern census taker no doubt heard the New England accent of Mary or the English accent of Thomas pronounce grandma’s name as Edith.  This census record told me that she went by her middle name … at least at that point in time. 

Thomas was listed as coming from England.  Importantly, the young couple were living with Jno. and Sibla Farrar and their four children, William, Alfred, Sarah and Samuel who were also born in England.   Were they Family?  I assumed “Yes” and knew that Jno. = John, so I had more clues. 

Thinking that the family emigrated together, I now had six more match points for ships passenger records.

Ship Passenger Records

Occasionally, researchers are lucky and find their ancestors listed in passenger records with no misspellings.  I was looking for a pre-1850 record, which always proves to be a more difficult search.   Ellis Island hadn’t been created as an immigration point yet, so I looked for records on the Castle Garden site which lists information on immigrants through New York from 1830 – 1892. 

Success … but not until I looked at the data with an open mind.   Thomas along with John and Sibla’s family did travel together, however, their name was listed as Fanin not Farrar.  I knew that I had to search for spellings other than those I was familiar with and that proved true yet again.   Traveling to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I found them listed on a CD of ships passengers records but this time listed as Farran.  Because of the numerous match points of first names, I knew that this Thomas was my Thomas Farrar.  They had traveled on the ship Columbine from London.

Citizenship

The History of Bristol, New Hampshire book said that grandma had died in Walworth, Wisconsin.  I never would have looked for the family there without that information.  What were they doing there? 

The answer took a lot of research effort.  I had to find records on most of Mary’s family and cousins to find the clues.  Other than some lumbering and sawmills there wasn’t much industry in Stewartstown, New Hampshire to support a new ‘crop’ of young men needing to start their adult lives and support their families.  Many of them migrated westward in search of their fortunes or at least in search of the opportunities offered on the ‘frontier’.  Several of Mary’s brothers and some cousins moved to Wisconsin with that thought in mind.  I surmise that Thomas Farrar heard of their plans and related them to his brother John, because they moved there too.

Another trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City provided great rewards in my quest.   I found the naturalization applications of both Thomas and John Farrar in Walworth County.  Thomas’ application stated that he was born in England in 1820 and had arrived in America in 1847.  The arrival date matched the ships passenger record information. 

The day at the library provided further rewards.  The Walworth County Historical Society had inventoried the cemeteries in their area and their publication had newly arrived at the library.  Looking through it, I found the burial listing for grandma Mary Tirrill Farrar, her son, Thomas and her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Farrar in the Brick Church Cemetery.  After three decades of looking, I’d found gold.  I contacted a member of the society and shortly thereafter had photos of their tombstones to add to their records.

Hopping the Pond and Tombstone Records

I could trace Thomas forward in time in California until he disappeared after moving to Sacramento after 1870.  How was I going to trace his lineage in England?   The passenger information and naturalization records told me that he was from England and had left from London.  Wonderful! …. There were thousands of Farrar’s in and around London.  Thomas and John were very common names.  How could I find ‘my’ Thomas in that group?

I’ve had to make an ‘assumption’ that I still hope is correct today.  In the Brick Church Cemetery in Walworth, all of the Farrar’s are buried  next to each other.  In fact, one of the burial spaces next to Mary and young Thomas is empty but in the name of Thomas Farrar.  He’d obviously purchased a burial plot for his family when his wife and son died within months of each other.  Adjacent to their graves is the grave of Elizabeth Farrar.  Her tombstone says she was born in 1795 and died within weeks of Mary and young Thomas AND that she was the wife of Eli Farrar.  My assumption is that Elizabeth is the mother of Thomas and John Farrar and that she died from the flu epidemic that killed her daughter-in-law and grandson.  Elizabeth was old enough to be the mother of Thomas and John.   Unfortunately, I have not found any additional evidence of her existence other than the tombstone.

After a few weeks of research, it was obvious that I had to look for another way to find the Farrar family in England.  Fortunately, John Farrar married a woman with an ‘unusual’ first name.  I found John listed in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 censuses in Macon, Missouri.  His wife was listed as “Selina”.  The passenger record listed her name as “Sibla” as did the 1850 census record in Lexington, South Carolina. 

Additional research on the Internet provided a link to obituaries in Macon, Missouri, that had been transcribed into a book that was placed in the Macon library.  I contacted a very sweet librarian there and was sent a copy of all of the Farrar obituaries in the book.  Selina Farrar’s obituary revealed that she was born near Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England and that she and John were married there.  Wow!  I’d been looking in London when they were actually from far north Huddersfield.  Looking at the Free BMD records on RootsWeb, I found their marriage entry in Huddersfield and have assumed that John’s family was from that area.

I still haven’t found “my” Farrar ancestry in Yorkshire.  The location seems to have been home to a huge group of Farrar’s, so I’m spending my time transcribing all of the Farrar census records in and around Huddersfield hoping to find enough clues to punch through the Brick Wall that is blocking my ancestral knowledge.

As time goes on, I’m confident that with enough hours spent in research, keeping an open mind and distrusting any of my ‘assumptions’, I’ll push through the wall.  It may be one brick at a time or I may find one keystone bit of data that causes the entire wall to collapse …. but that wall is going to come down.  Failure is not acceptable.

When you run into brick walls in your own research, remember to open your mind and look for spellings and locations that you’d never typically consider.  Assemble your known facts and review them constantly for clues that you haven’t explored.  You probably know a lot more than you think, but aren’t recognizing the clues in your hands.  Put on your Sherlock hat and assemble your thoughts on paper.  Draw a vertical timeline and add your discoveries along its length.  Then review everything you have found repeatedly over time, looking at the data through a different “window” every time.  Eventually, with focused effort, you’ll probably destroy your brick walls.  Here’s to success in all our own ancestral quests.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Brick Wall Genealogy. Thomas Farrar,Mary Adith Tirrill,Lexington South Carolina,Walworth Wisconsin,Huddersfield England,census,naturalization,cemetery,tombstone

The Kindness of Alexander Duff

Not all of the life of my 8th great grandmother, Jane O’Laggan, was perfect.  Born near the Glenlivet River in Laggan, Morayshire, Scotland to James O’Laggan, she married David MacWilliam of the Stewart Clan when she was eighteen.   The young couple were not rich, but David was able to make their lives comfortable with the earnings from his mill and a home at Pittyvaich, Morayshire. 

The land produced few crops but there was enough feed for the family to own some sheep and several cows.  Winters were especially hard but the residents of Dufftown were resilient and hundreds of generations had passed down the skills to survive in the ofttimes difficult climate.

The MacWilliam’s had a growing family of young children when disaster struck.  David became ill and died, leaving Jane with little income and in debt.

After struggling for a short time, David’s cousin, Alexander Duff, turned his eye to the family.  

Cousin Alexander was a rotter, according to a rare document that I found on a shelf in the basement of the Banffshire Field Club, titled “The Gordon’s of Laggan” written by John Malcolm Bulloch.

The document covers my Gordon ancestry and associated lineages.  The ancestral research was commissioned by my 5th great granduncle, Cosmo Gordon.  The MacWilliam branch of our family notes that there were two David MacWilliam’s in succession.  Reading from the entry for David MacWilliam Sr., a sad commentary spills off the page.

“David, his son, married Jane, daughter of James O'Laggan, and died while a young man, leaving her a widow with several children.  She was prevailed upon to dispose of Pittyvaich and the mill to Alexander Duff of Braco, her husband's cousin, in terms as little creditable to him as disreputable to herself, it being constantly reported in that part of the country that she sat down in the mill dam to stop the mill that he might take infeftment of it, the miller refusing to do it.  Be this as it may, her children were reduced to great distress, for which Braco appeared perfectly indifferent, being a man callous to humanity, as well as natural affection, if he could by any means gratify his thirst for the acquirement of lands.  The daughter (Jane O’Laggan) then married John Forbes of Keithack, son to Gordon Arthur Forbes, and left several children.”

With no thanks to Alexander Duff, the MacWilliam children survived these deep impacts on their lives.  One of the daughters, Anne MacWilliam, is my seventh great grandmother.  Anne married James Gordon of the Gordon family in about 1712.   James was born in Achlochrach, Morayshire and the couple were the grandparents the above mentioned Cosmo Gordon and my fifth great grandmother, Elizabeth Gordon.

Once again, history has recorded the bad deeds and avarice of man.  He couldn’t take any of his lands and properties with him when he passed but in their place left a sad story that will ne’r be forgotten.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Scotland,Gordon of Scotland,Duff of Scotland,MacWilliam of Scotland,Family Histories,Histories.

Choices ~ Consequences

Choices. Consequences: They never sleep.

From the time we are born, we make choices and enjoy the consequences of those choices. We often associate the word “consequences” with something bad, but it also represents something good happening in our lives. The “good” is a result of a choice or choices that are building blocks or enablers of positive positioning and positive results in the experiences of life.

My father was not known as a leader in the community, in business or even in his neighborhood. Rather, he was an activist who quietly and often anonymously improved the lives of others. His choices were usually simple, yet always consistent. He actively looked for a way to improve the life or outlook of others and rarely failed to immediately act on an opportunity. Frequently, his actions consisted of only a few kind words spoken to address an area in the personality of his contact that was shunned or ignored by others. On some occasions, he gave all the money he had to those in need. A pair of shoes for a twelve year old. A ride and tank of gas for a stranded traveler. He even gave his vehicle to a widow who was struggling to feed her three small children.

Over the years, many new people came into his circle of “friends”. They were from all levels of the social strata. Some were wealthy, some were movie stars and others lived in shacks hidden away along the river or in an orchard. However, most of them were just ordinary people who only needed the polishing of a few kind words or acts to help them reveal their nobility.

The term “Pay It Forward” was first introduced into his vocabulary in 1962 when his vehicle stalled in the center lane of a bridge in Seattle during the evening rush hour. Cars honked, people said things out of their windows and others shook their fists in frustration, but one young man stopped to help.

After years of quietly helping other people, he received a return payment for his way of life. The vehicle was easy to fix. The carburetor was only vapor locked. The young mechanic poured some cool water over the hot fuel system and the vehicle started easily. Dad tried to pay him for his help only to receive the words, “Pay It Forward” to someone else in need”.

Like ripples from a rock thrown into a peaceful lake, the good deeds of a lifetime had reflected off the far shore and had come back to help in a time of need. It was time to send them out again and continue to “Pay It Forward”.

During the visitation at his funeral, our family was astounded to be greeted by hundreds of people from all over the western United States who had come to pay their respect. We didn’t know most of them but the visitors all had stories to tell about how they were helped by our deceased father and husband.

Many of the visitors had only met him once, but the interaction had established a life-long feeling of friendship. They came from all walks of life. There were mayors, truck drivers, waitresses, a man on parole, a bank president, an attorney, and hundreds of other occupations. Their stories were as varied as the personalities telling them. Enthralled, we listened for hours.

One ‘friend’ was a police officer whose life had been saved, another had driven 16 hours non-stop from northern California to make it in time for the funeral. He explained that he received a hot meal when he was at the ‘bottom’ from a fellow who quietly walked over and sat by him. He said that he was now a successful husband and father and that his life had turned around after talking to the man at the counter in the bowling alley that day. Retrieving his wallet, he showed the worn, tiny slip of paper on which he’d written the name of his benefactor, saying that he often looked at it when life threatened to harden him.

The stories were new. The impact of repeatedly choosing to perform small positive acts resulted in consequences never imagined. Ripples were almost waves.

Choices. Consequences. They never sleep.

It has been said that the gate of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. The choices we make determine our destiny. -– Thomas S. Monson

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence;
two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference."
-- Robert Frost, poet

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