genealogy musings

the death of Jonathan Stone...

2009-07-13T14:56:00.003-04:00

In 1856, Sybil Adams applied for a pension based on her father's Revolutionary War service, stating that she is the only surviving daughter and heir of Jonathan & Mary Stone. Sybil states,

"My father lived at TempletonMass. He enlisted and went and left his family consisting of his wife and 3 children in a log house in the Wilderness. I was the oldest and was 7 yrs ... the land was sold ... the children had to be put out and suffered a great deal the youngest was 3 years old when his father was killed."

Jonathan appears to have enlisted at the very beginning, 27 April 1775, signing up for 3 months 12 days. Along with others he signed a receipt for advance pay on 8 Jun 1775. He was a private in Captain Joel Fletcher's Company of Colonel Ephraim Doolittle's Regiment which was at Bunker Hill. The company was at Winter Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in October and December of 1775. By September of 1776 he was in New York at the Battle of Harlem Heights.

Nathan Stone son of Seth Stone who was brother to Jonathan Stone states he has no direct knowledge of the death of Jonathan Stone except that which he has been told by his father and others:

"which was that he was killed on the retreat at the time of the Battle of White Plains at or near a place called Harlem in New York. The news was brought to his wife and friends by a Mr. Fillmore who stated he was shot through both knees by grape shot and he (Fillmore) and others helped him into a barn and left him after [putt]ing some rum into his canteen which was all the assistance he could render."

Nathan's sister Abigail Stone Stratton and Sybil herself give similar accounts of Jonathan's death. There are other bits of genealogical data in this pension file: Jonathan md Mary Gates 29 Oct 1765 in Worcester and they had three children, Sybil, Nabby and Samuel. Sybil was sent to live with Seth Stone's family in West Cambridge until she later married Joel Adams, Nabby married Thomas Grey and Samuel died a few years before the pension application was filed.

Jonathan seems to have been an ordinary sort of fellow, trying to build a life for himself and his young family on the frontier. Along comes the War for Independence and he promptly signs up, whatever his motivation or, probably, combination of motives. The advance pay probably went mostly to his wife and children and off he marched. A few months in camp at the fort on Winter Hill and then eventually to end up shot in the knees at Harlem Heights and the battle of White Plains. On the run from the British what else could his comrades do but leave him with what comfort they could provide in the shelter of a barn, probably difficult for them as well as Jonathan.

And imagine the wife and three young children in the cabin in the wilderness, perhaps months of not knowing. Then along comes the neighbor with the report of his death and life is turned upside down, the land is sold, the children sent off to other homes. Mary Gates Stone is said not to have married again, remaining a widow until her death in Northboro, Worcestor County, Massachusetts, on 2nd December 1839.

The Vital Records of Shrewsbury Massachusetts list Jonathan Stone died 15 Sep 1776, buried at Shrewsbury: Jonathan Stone [Jr] wounded 15 Sep 1776 at the Evacuation of New York, supposed to have died soon after. [Leg broken and captured by the British.]

Reading this pension gave me chills and I will never see a movie or television show about the Revolution (or other early American wars) in the same way nor see the pieces of genealogy information add up to a similar scene without seeing it in my mind and my heart.

Are there bits of your genealogy research that made a profound difference to you?

eeney meeney miney mo...

2009-07-11T17:39:00.004-04:00

... my brain is turning inside out! In 1699, Evert Bancker and his wife Elizabeth Abeel had a son Willem. Sometime after 1710, they had a son Johannes. The two brothers, more than ten years apart in age, married sisters. In 1726, Willem married Annatje Veeder and some years later, Johannes married Annatje's sister Magdalena, both daughters of Gerrit Symonse Veeder and his wife Catrina Otten.

Now, particularly in isolated areas, it is not unusual for a pair of siblings to marry another pair of siblings. The difficulty here is that researchers can't seem to agree on which of these pairs is the father of Thomas Brouwer Bancker born about 1729 (or perhaps a bit later) and married in 1754 to Annatje Mabie and this is one of my direct lines!

Pearson in his First Settlers in Schenectady lists Johannes and Magdalena as Thomas' parents but Howard Banker in The Bancker Genealogy lists his parents as Willem and Annatje. I started to lean towards Willem and Annatjje because Thomas named his first daughter Annatje but then realized duh! his wife was named Annatje so there went that scrap of thought.

The Vader Genealogy (Veeder family) states that Thomas was baptized 8 Dec 1729, in the Bancker Genealogy it is given as born 8 Dec 1729. Confusion between baptismal and birth dates is common in Dutch Colonial research but generally speaking baptismal dates are close to the birth date so Thomas was probably born towards the end of 1729. Now, Willem is certainly old enough to have a son in 1729 and had married Annatje 17 Dec 1726. Johannes on the other hand is perhaps 18 or 19, old enough yes but customarily most men were into their 20's when they had children. The date of his marriage to Magdalena is unknown.

Willem's children are listed with clear birth/baptismal dates and there is a gap that just fits Thomas. Johannes's two known children, Elisabeth and Gerrit, are listed in 1735 and 1737, a big gap from 1729. Willem and Annatje "feel" right but there is absolutely nothing I have found YET (notice the smidge of hopefulness) to truly indicate one or the other. Perhaps someone will find Thomas' baptismal record and it may list parents???

Have you had any knotty problem in your research that made you crazy and gave you headaches? Did you ever get it solved?

revolutionary thoughts...

2009-06-20T14:18:00.003-04:00

... have been obsessing my brain for the last couple of days. A couple of days ago I pulled up a couple of Revolutionary War pensions on footnote.com for brothers to my direct line, Elijah and Charles Stanton. Both, as I am used to for my New England (paternal) ancestry, spent most of their time well away from their homes for months or years at a time.

But then I went chasing after RW pensions for my early New York (maternal) ancestry primarily in the Mohawk Valley around Schenectady and west of there. For the most part these men were in the State Militia and were called up for mere days or weeks at a time and not too far from home so their pensions are full of detailed listings, such as this one from the pension of Frederick Vedder, who was enrolled as First Sgt in Captain Outhout's company (summarized):

September 1779 ordered out to Stone Arabia, three weeks

October 1779 marched to Caghnawaga, three weeks

22 May 1780 ordered to Caghnawaga "at the time the family of the Fishers were murdered" for another three weeks

1780 to Fort Hunter for two weeks

1780 "when Canajoharie was destroyed he was at that place to repel the enemy on an expedition of two weeks"

1780 marched to the Fort Clyde, two weeks

Oct 1780 an expedition to Ballston, 8 days

1781 stationed at Claus Vielies Pass or the Rifts about four miles west of the City of Schenectady from 1 Aug to 1 Nov, 3 months

1781 summer, expedition to Beaver Dam in pursuit of Tories, 3 days

and undated, an expedition from Schenectady to Currysbush

Other pensions for men from this general area are much the same in that they have lengthy lists of assorted short expeditions within the area. What caught my attention though was that not only were these men from my families but the places they fought or protected were also the homes of ancestors, siblings or cousins of my lines.

The Mohawk Valley area of New York State was not a good place to be during the Revolutionary War. Some of those still living there were hidden enemies, Tories who had not declared themselves and left. The area was subject to raids out of Canada by the British and the Indians, often aided by these hidden enemies.

Vedder refers to the murders of the Fisher family, or Visscher family. These are more cousins of my family, there at Caughnawaga (multiple spelling variations on that place!!), the place was later called Fonda, the home of many of my blood.

Not that there weren't other areas of the country equally terrifying but I visualize all these homes and farms and ordinary everyday people living with the possibly of war in their front yard everyday for several years. When you hear someone come up the road, are they friend or enemy or an enemy posing as friend? The sounds in the night are they just the wind or the dog on the porch or are they coming to burn the house down?

Do you ever place your ancestors in history like this? In what I call small history, not the major battles and events but the little stuff?

another digression ...

2009-06-14T12:55:00.003-04:00

Although I have always had a tendency to digress well into collateral lines, the growth of internet records has encouraged this wandering off into unrelated byways. One of these is Helen Fairchild so first allow me to set up the connection to my family. My maternal grandmother Lois Kellogg's maternal grandfather was Edward Payson Willson, a native of Dutchess County, New York, probably named after Edward Payson, an important and well known pastor in the early 1800's.

In his early twenties, E.P., as he was usually known, headed west as many young men did and landed in Leavenworth, Kansas where he began the foundations of Great Western Manufacturing which still exists there today. The first few years he focused on his business, living either at the foundry itself or in boarding houses. Perhaps it was his 30th birthday in 1862 that set his mind to thinking of marriage and family as on 18 October 1863, shortly before his 31st birthday, he married Helen Fairchild.

Helen Fairchild was born 21 August 1837, perhaps in Ulster County, New York. As a girl the family moved west, first to Cincinnati in Hamilton County, Ohio, and then to Leavenworth. I have a reference that there was a deed or other instrument from Edward Payson Willson to Helen five days before their marriage but I have yet to locate the deed itself although I am quite curious as to what it included.

Early in my research on E.P. Willson I found this first marriage and then her 1864 death notice, "Died this morning, July 6th, at 6 o'clock, of consumption, Helen, wife of E.P. Willson and daughter of William Fairchild, Esq." At that point I left it and moved on to other research.

Several years laterI was researching the Willson family's burials there in Leavenworth including obtaining the lot and interment records from the cemetery office, not just the tombstone information. It was here that I learned that the lot was jointly owned with E.P. Willson using the north half and William Fairchild using the south half.

I also discovered that although there were 6 stones in the Willson plot, there were actually 7 burials, the seventh being Helen Julie Willson died 18 June 1864 of "debility" age 9 days. So the mother possibly already weakened by her consumption had delivered the child, possibly too early, and both had soon died.

All this fits in with the usual in family research but then I noticed that in the adjoining Fairchild plot, there were only four headstones but there were nine burials. The stones were for Helen's parents, William and Barbara (Hunt) Fairchild and for her brother DeForrest and his wife Josie. But, who were the other five people buried in that plot? The cemetery records give us Marietta Mildrum age 37 in 1875, Helen Fairchild, age 18 in 1884, William Edmund Pierce, age 19 in 1888, Edwin DeForest Pierce, age 15 in 1889, and Claudius B Pierce, age 73 in 1902.

From here the research took off into the Fairchild family ultimately going back another couple of generations and into Helen's siblings. The last four were fairly easy:

Helen Fairchild was the only daughter of DeForest and Josie (Creter) Fairchild. Obviously named for her aunt Helen Fairchild Willson who had died the year before, she was born 23 Dec 1865 in Leavenworth, dying there of consumption on 31 August 1884.

William Edmund Pierce and Edwin Deforest Pierce were sons of Helen's sister Mary and her husband, Claudius Buchanan Pierce. William died 31 Oct 1888 of spinal miningitis [sic]. Edwin (who had a twin brother Edward), drowned 14 Feb 1889. I have yet to have the opportunity to pursue newspaper research to find out how he drowned.

Claudius B Pierce was husband to Mary Fairchild and father to the two above boys. He died of a fever in 1902 in nearby Kansas City, Missouri. His wife, ten years younger than he, did not die until 1932 and is buried in Alta Mesa, California.

The fifth unmarked burial was a bit more difficult. Helen's father was William Fairchild, whose father was Benjamin. Among Benjamin's other children was a daughter Maria who married Andrew Mildrum. About 1838, they had a daughter Marietta in Hunter, Greene County, New York. This is the Marietta Mildrum who died of consumption 3 Mar 1875 in Leavenworth at the home of her uncle William Fairchild.

Four years later, E.P. Willson married Olive Sinks, sister of Tiffin Sinks who had also come early to Leavenworth to make his fortune. Tiffin was a doctor and pharmacist as well as an investor and civic figure. He never married and is buried in the Willson plot. E.P. and Olive had four children, one being Martha Ann, their oldest, who died in 1872 of "congestion of the spine." She is also buried in the Willson plot, as are E.P. and Olive.

The Willsons had three more children, all surviving into adulthood: Hiram (1874-1948), Lida (my great grandmother, 1877-1959), and Olive (1881-1960). This last married Thomas Logan Rithie and it is their second son, James Logan Ritchie, dying shortly after his first birthday, who fills the final grave in the Willson plot.

Well, this was intended to be more about the Fairchilds but has digressed itself into more of a discussion of the unmarked graves in the two plots .. oh well, that was probably the cause of the original digression anyway. One final small note, Helen Fairchild Willson and her daughter Helen Julie were originally buried at Greenwood Cemetery and were moved to the Mount Muncie plot 23 April 1867.

At least unlike some of my digressions, the Fairchilds left descendents although not poor Helen.

a lost mystery....

2009-03-15T10:05:00.007-04:00

stumbled over again while digging through stuff. One of the many things found in my paternal grandfather's things was a medal presented to his father in 1908 (shown at right). Charles Stanton Adams was born 8 Jun 1870 in Winchester, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1895 he married Grace Estelle Newhall and, in 1896, they had Arthur Stanton Adams, their only child and my grandfather.

Through 1905 he is listed as a clerk but by the 1910 census he had become a proprietor of a grocery store and he and Grace had settled into the home they lived in for the rest of their lives at 7 Mystic Avenue in Winchester.

The mystery is the medal itself ... what was it given for and what group gave it?

The inscription on the back is:

Presented to Charles S. Adams By Aberjona Cl.(?) No. 1102 Jan 1908.

Aberjona is the name of a river running through Winchester. I am not certain of the reading of the two letters "Cl" although I am certain the first letter is a C I am not as certain about the second letter, it could be an h or possibly something else.

The other main clue is the design on the bar on the bottom of the ribbon. There is a closeup to the right. These appear to be intertwined letters, a C, W, A, and ???

I thought at first that these might be some sort of lodge initials such BOE for the Brotherhood of Elks or the like. But, this morning while poking around trying to find clues, I found a title pages from the 1895 and 1899 Winchester City Directories so this may be some sort of civic award.

Any clues or suggestions as to where to look would be appreciated !!!!!

Putting flesh on Alonzo's bones...

2009-02-22T13:31:00.011-05:00

... by including the events around him, not just his own dates. His pension provided a lot of the impetus for this as the personality that emerged from the many depositions included in the 436 pages of the file were mostly blandly negative.

Although only my 1st cousin 4 times removed, Alonzo has been one of my personal obsessions as noted in my very first post on this blog. From the various depositions, his character is painted as not of much value as a man with hints of alcohol abuse and messing around with women and not much interest in working.

He was born 20 February of either 1840 or 1841, the information varies, to Captain Martin Ulmer and his wife, Zoa Pease. It is not certain whether his brother Eddie was older or younger than Alonzo but Eddie died as a boy, certainly before 1850 and probably earlier. His sister Virginia was born about 1845 and the little family was probably doing well, living in Thomaston, Maine, where Martin and his family were active in the maritime trades.

But, in August of 1849, Alonzo's father dies and in 1850 Zoa Pease Ulmer household includes only herself, Alonzo and little Virginia. Within the next couple of years, Virginia also dies, and Alonzo is left as her only surviving child.

Early in 1854, Zoa and Alonzo have traveled to Illinois where her family had settled in Warren and Rock Island Counties in 1837. Zoa's sister Ellen had died in March of 1853 and in May of 1854, Zoa married Ellen's widower and took on the raising of Ellen's five children.

So here is Alonzo, just 13 or 14 years old, having lost both his siblings and possibly being something of a mama's boy, and he is yanked off from all that is familiar and landed in a housefull of other children that now require much of his mother's attention. Adding to that, his mother adds two daughters to the household, one in 1855 and the other in 1857. Her focus is definitely no longer on Alonzo and his stepfather disliked and distrusted him. He appears to have spent time on one or the other of his maternal uncles' farms, particularly that of his uncle Martin Pease.

He was still in Illinois in 1858 when he witnessed his uncle Martin's father-in-law Robert Pollock's will but by 1861 he had returned to Maine where he enlisted in the 4th Maine Infantry soon after the Civil War broke out. Although he remained a private, he seems to have managed adequately in Company B which included several of his friends and relatives from his boyhood.

Then came July of 1863 and Gettysburg where Alonzo was wounded in the side at Devils Den, apparently a straight forward through and through wound but he was captured and came to in a rebel field hospital, untended for three days. The rebels retreated abandoning the prisoners and Alonzo was hospitalized in Philadelphia for a while where his mother visited him. He was transferred to the 19th Maine to finish out his three years of service. He appears to have then returned to Rockland, Maine, where he enlists in the 9th U S V V for a one year term on the 5th of April, 1865, and marries Adelia Pendleton immediately prior to departing. Several depositions indicate that Alonzo and Adelia never lived together but she enjoyed his reenlistment bonus.

For a few years Alonzo seems to vanish but reappears in November of 1869 when he enlists in the 1st Regiment US Infantry for a term of five years. His enlistment papers state he was residing in Lincoln, Massachusetts, at that time and this may coincide with the statement in a deposition that Alonzo had visited Adelia once to try to get money from her. The Army Register of Enlistments states that Alonzo deserted 30 May 1870 and with one small exception that is the last we hear of Alonzo for years.

Various depositions imply that Alonzo moved around in Nevada, Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, often working as a cook and a notice that there is a letter for him in the Silver City, Idaho, post office supports this. He probably visited his mother every so often but not until after his disapproving step father dies in 1884 does he appear to stay mostly in Illinois with his mother. In the 1880's he also starts trying to get a pension.

Alonzo's first wife, Adelia, had died in 1880 in Maine although later uncertainties about the status of their marriage plagued his pension claims. In 1898, he marries Anna Armstrong, a divorcee from Nebraska, and he brings her to Illinois to live with his mother. Their daughter Virginia is born a year later. His mother dies in 1901 and by 1903, Alonzo had entered a soldiers home and he was in and out for the following nine years. There are letters and depositions revealing that he did not want to share his pension with his wife and child even when he was in the soldiers home. In 1912, Alonzo dies and is buried in the Danville National Cemetery.

Anna dies just five years later, leaving Virginia on her own, not yet 18 years old. Virginia ended up in Nevada by 1942 where, with the surname Clarke, she applies for a social security number. The next bit of information on her is her death, 11 Feb 1989, in Las Vegas, with the name of Virginia Opal Carrupt. Her brief obituary states, "There are no known family survivors."

Thus Alonzo's life tails off into nothing but along the way he must have had hopes and dreams although I would not be surprised if he also felt a bit put upon and unwanted. His initial army years may have been the best part of his life.

Has anyone in your genealogy research obsessed you?

who are you...

2009-01-10T18:36:00.004-05:00

... I really want to know? The photo of the fellow at the right is one of many in a huge box of photographs from a branch of my husband's family. I find this fellow particularly interesting with his somewhat unique hairstyle and facial expression.

The photographer was located in Spencer, Iowa, so presumably the subject lived in that area. The bulk of the photographs and letters (mostly in German) in the box appear to have been sent between 1880 and 1920 to the Frederick and Augusta Voss family which moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1882 from Ritzerow (near Stavenhagen) in Mecklenberg-Schwerin, Prussia. None of the letters nor other photos in the box have any reference to Spencer, Iowa, and I am utterly clueless as to who this young man may be.

Do you have any clues?

oh baby....

2008-11-08T10:13:00.006-05:00

... my grandmother, Lois Dorothy Kellogg, was born 20 Jun 1899 so this photograph was probably taken in late 1900. Her father, Spencer Kellogg, Jr., was something of a dilettante, avoiding the family business as much as possible and exploring the arts and other interests.

He was part of a group of amateur and professional photographers in the Buffalo, New York area. There are therefore a large number of photographs of his only daughter throughout her childhood although none of them are dated, sigh! In the photo to the right she looks to be in her early teens, perhaps only 11 or 12 years old.

I never knew my great grandfather as he died three days before I was born but I think he was an interesting person although I am not sure I would have liked him.

To complete this little pictorial eddy in the stream of life, I include a picture of him, identified as being taken in 1912, where I believe he was trying to appear serious and intense... perhaps he was serious and intense in reality ... and also a photograph of him as a young boy, perhaps 7 or 8 years old.

This has been an interesting experience. I have never really looked at some of these photographs closely and now I see some family resemblances particularly between myself and my grandmother that I have never noticed before...

a small anomaly....

2008-10-25T16:34:00.001-04:00

... has caught my attention again. I frequently find that the small blips or anomalies of my ancestors lives grab my focus and sometimes even become obsessions. Alexander Gottlieb Weller, one of my maternal great great grandfathers, immigrated from Wuertemburg in 1832 with his parents, a sister and three brothers, settling in Buffalo, Erie County, New York. By 1850 he is listed as a carriage maker in the household of Jonathan Whitney, blacksmith, as are another blacksmith, a second carriage maker, a painter and a carpenter, he is perhaps an apprentice.

In 1855 he is with his mother and brothers, listed as a carriage maker. By 1859 he marries Catherine Wilson, born in England and is listed as living on Mortimor near Sycamore, a wagon-maker. Their daughter Elizabeth is born that winter (age 6 months at the 1860 census) and in 1861 they have twin daughters, Ida and Harriett. In 1863, another daughter, Emma is born in Illinois but by 1865 they are back in Buffalo where Alexander is in the carriage making business with Alonzo Armstrong. The following years bring more children and a growing carriage making business there in Buffalo.

A normal, upperwardly mobile life... but, what’s with that one child born in Illinois? We know Alexander was in Buffalo in 1860. In 1861, the twins are born there so Catherine is still in Buffalo although he may have already gone to Illinois. Emma is born somewhere in Illinois about 1863 and by June of 1865, the family is back in Buffalo in time for the 1865 state census and Alexander is in the carriage making business with Alonzo as Armstrong & Weller, employing five adults and one boy.

I’ve spent most of today trying to find sources for anything he may have done in Illinois and all I found was the 1863 Chicago City Directory: “Weller, Alexander, carriagemaker, h. 10 Hills.” That was found at footnote.com but no listing was found for him in other years.

The only theory that occurs to me is the Civil War which began 12 April 1861 and ended 9 April 1865 ... did he take his wife and their three little girls to Illinois to make wagons for the Union Army? ... perhaps making enough money to go into business for himself? But, perhaps he just went to Chicago to try his luck there and returned to Buffalo within a year or so? What do you think?

and on wordless wednesday ....

2008-10-22T14:16:00.004-04:00

I have no clue why I am inspecting my younger sister's tongue but this picture makes me smile every time I see it

caught by a meme ...

2008-10-18T15:18:00.003-04:00

... and tagged for it by Judy Schubert of Genealogy Traces. Even though she got my name wrong, I forgive her ... so here goes:

Ten years Ago I...
1) was living in Cleveland, Ohio
2) had been sober almost 20 years
3) but was still smoking
4) my youngest two sons were still at home
5) and I had been happily remarried for 3 years

Five things on today's to-do list:
1) find the surface of my desk under all this stuff
2) catch up on my email including the one from a newly discovered 5th cousin
3) work on the local society quarterly
4) chat with another cousin and fellow blogger online
5) make some new to-do lists

Five snacks I enjoy:
1) Cheddar Chex Mix
2) cheese and crackers
3) oysters and crackers
4) doughnuts
5) anything chocolate

Five places I have lived:
1) New Canaan Connecticut
2) Boulder Colorado
3) Sonora Texas
4) Harlan Kentucky
5) Pasadena California

Five jobs I've had:
1) file clerk
2) bookkeeper
3) waitress
4) long distance moving van driver
5) medical insurance eligibility specialist

I couldn't find others I knew to tag so have funked out on that part and simply challenge anyone who wishes to join in to either comment here with it or, if they have a blog, post it there and comment here with the link. If you don't have a blog of your own yet, you could always start one with this meme !!

the interesting and the unexpected ....

2008-10-14T09:10:00.005-04:00

... found during the "Would You Care to Comment" Challenge at the looking4ancestors blog which turned out to be even more interesting than I had thought. The first stop of course was the challenging blog,

1) Looking4Ancestors where I naturally commented on the challenge itself.

I've not been in the blogging world for long and only had read a very few with any regularity so I followed up with the ones I knew:

2) Lori Thornton's Smoky Mountain Family Historian and

3) Bob Franks' Itawamba History Review

These are longtime friends and the quality and readability of their work is worth checking out. The sheer beauty of Bob's photographs are worth a visit even when, like me, you have no Mississippi interests at all.

Through visitors to my blog, I had discovered three more blogs I was already following:

4) Joe Beine's Genealogy Roots Blog with it's reporting on online databases

5) Bill West's West in New England with a flair for storytelling and roots in my own deeply rooted New England

6) Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings where not only did I find an interesting and well written post (Digging in the Putnam Garden of Genealogy Mysteries) but it turns out Randy is a distant cousin of mine through the Bradt family!

Now I had run out of the blogs I had already found for myself and liked so I forged on using links from those blogs to check for more. I found quite a few that were good but I really had no comment on, the topics were too far outside my interests, no blog had been posted in months, or simmply totally useless and I didn't feel that I should comment on just any blog simply to fill the quota. My remaining choices for comments:

7) footnote Maven, one of the most attractive and readable blogs I saw

8) Thomas MacEntee's Destination Austin Family

9) Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers and more by several authors, and an absolute neccesity for this beginner to the blogging world

10) The Virtual Dime Museum and a post on The Elephant hotel mong other posts on NYC area neat stuff.

do I have to stop now??

an unexpected face found ...

2008-10-10T17:54:00.005-04:00

... while 'long shot' browsing. Every so often I'll toss a name, sometimes with a location, into the google search box and see what might turn up. A few months ago it was "Sophia Stanton" and "Louisiana" that I threw out there. Sophia was the wife of the John Stanton whose passport request is in the blog header graphic and thus mentioned in my last post. Within a year or two of his death she had relocated back to their native New England and in 1858 remarried to Samuel Richardson.

The google search results were mostly unrelated but then I stumbled on a link to a digital image at the Louisina Digital Library (LDL) at http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/, "an online library of over 84,000 digital materials about Louisiana's history, culture, places, and people." The full link (http://www.louisianadigitallibrary.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/LPS&CISOPTR=363&CISOBOX=1&REC=4) led to a digital image of a painting titled Sophia Stanton in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum, a thumbnail of which is shown here.

At this point I was fairly skeptical that this would be my Sophia Stanton, wife of John Stanton who was brother to my direct line, Hatevil Stanton, and whose sister, Nancy, was married to yet another brother, Jacob Clark Stanton but my email to the museum confirmed that this was indeed "Sophia Stanton, wife of John Stanton, owner of Stanton & Co. Wholesale and Retail Dealers of Ice" of New Orleans. My further inquiry regarding how the portrait (along with some other odds and ends) ended up in Louisiana elicited the information that it had been bequeathed to the museum by Mrs. Elizabeth E. G. Mann of Sarasota, Florida, in 1997 and that Sophia Cook was her "grandmother".

At that time I checked the research I had done and was certain that Elizabeth Mann could not be a granddaughter as a check of the SSDI (and a friend with access to more place of birth and death information for Florida deaths than Ancestry) finds her as born 26 April 1909 in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and died 9 Feb 1997 in Sarasota, Florida, and none of John and Sophia's children had a daughter Elizabeth at anytime, much less at that late a date. Then I had to lay it aside and concentrate on other things.

Today, cleaning up the assorted debris on my desk, I ran across my notes on the portrait and the question about how the owner, Elizabeth Mann, related to the family. Sophia and John Stanton had five children: Adelaide Bartlett, Charles Benjamin, Ada Sophia, Helen Elouise, and John Gilman Stanton. Three of the children were quickly eliminated: Ada died as a child and Adelaide had no children according to the 1900 and 1910 census schedules. John Gilman Stanton married and had one daughter, Alice, who is still at home in 1910 at the age of 30, showing no evidence of marriage or children.

This left Charles and Adelaide. Charles proved difficult to trace. In 1880 he and his wife and children are in Chicago, Illinois, and none are found again until 1910 when he and two of his four children are in Tacoma, Washington. His wife Florence is shown with 4 children all still living but the two missing children, Victor born circa 1878 in Illinois and Helen born circa 1874 in Kentucky remain stubbornly hidden.

Failing in that direction, I turned to Helen. In 1873, she married Henry Hill Goodell (or Goodale) and they had two sons, John Stanton and William. From notes on Ancestry's family trees, John married Edith Friese and William married Ethel Morris. John Stanton Goodell was elusive and all I found were John and Edith with her mother Matilda, enumerated in 1920 Ellsworth County, Kansas but there is no daughter Elizabeth age 10. William however turned out to be a bit easier and I located him with his wife Ethel and daughter Elizabeth (!!!!!). In both 1910 and 1920, they are in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth is age 12 months and then age 10 respectively. For both John and Williams's households I was certain I had the right people, not because of the Ancestry tree but because the father was born in Turkey and the mother in Louisiana, an unlikely combination.

With the solid listing of a daughter of the right name and age, I turned to the New England Historic Genealogy Society site and searched their Massachusetts Vital Records 1841-1910 database for Elizabeth Goodell's birth and hit the jackpot!! In City of Springfield records of births, Volume 583, on page 175, at Entry 670, recorded on 15 May 1909: Elizabeth Electa Goodell was born 26 April 1909 in Springfield to William Goodell, physician and wife Ethel Morris.

So the identity of the portrait owner is determined, Elizabeth Electa Goodell, married to (--?--) at some time prior to her death, was the great granddaughter of Sophia Cook Stanton through Elizabeth's father William Goodell and his mother Helen Stanton. I suppose I ought to write the museum to update their information ... how come research seems to add to the stuff to be done?

too many choices....

2008-10-05T14:29:00.005-04:00

... all clamoring to be in the blog banner! After some stumbling around to figure out how to add an image to the header, I determined to get one done today. It was of course a foregone conclusion that it would be bits and pieces of my ancestors but frankly, I have far too many bits and pieces on hand and nearly all of them wanted to be there!!!

Anyway, the bits that ended up above are as follows:

The background is part of the sampler completed by my 3rd great grandmother on my father's side, Sukey Foster, and completed by her in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August of 1803 when she was 12 years old.

The story of the sampler is at

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sukey.html

and the sampler itself is shown at

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/foster/sampler.html

The small journal on the left is a "Mathison's Life Diary" that was given to my great grandfather, Charles Stanton Adams for Christmas of 1905. After a small section for entering information about family, it commences with Jan of 1890 with three months to the page and continues until December of 1964. Charles, or "Thuddy" as he was called by family, made a scattering of back entries from 1890 to 1905 and then for a little over ten years he made frequent entries including listing everyone who came for Thanksgiving or Christmas and a number of small entries about his son and only child, my grandfather, Arthur Stanton Adams, who was born 1 July 1896.

The miniature on the journal is a mourning locket with a braided lock of hair under glass on the reverse side along with the name "Wm Adams." It is believed to be William Adams, my 5th great grandfather, grandfather of Charles of the journal. There are two William's in a row but Charles' father William did not die until 1905, rather late for the miniature and portrait. The elder William was born 11 January 1789 and died 26 March 1827 and is the liklier candidate.

The little girl with the book is myself, circa age 2 or 3, and the book is Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and certainly typifies my childhood and much of my life, buried in a book!!!

The two girls to the right are my maternal great grandmother, Lida Deshler Willson, on the right and her sister Olive Sinks Willson on the left. The girls were born and raised in Leavenworth, Kansas, but the picture was taken in Dayton, Ohio, possibly on a trip back to see their mother's family in nearby Williamsburg in Clermont County.

The final item, the paper behind myself and the sisters, is my third great grand uncle, John Stanton's letter requesting a passport. On 4 November 1848, he writes, "Being out of health and ordered by my physicians to travel through the south of Europe for its restoration, I am desirous of obtaining a passport." He dies at sea on 25 January 1849 "on board barque Star, 25th Jan, on the passage from New Orleans for Marseilles, Mr. John Stanton, 39, of the firm of Stanton & Co, of N.O." as noted in the Boston Evening Transcript of 30 Mar 1849.

I guess now I will have to figure out how to add images to the actual blog so I can stop the clamoring of all those who got left out.

where the obsession leads I follow...

2008-10-04T17:20:00.000-04:00

... or I suppose anyway. Some of my fellow genealogists even look askance at how far out on the limbs I will go chasing a collateral line to absurd lengths or researching all the bits of a line that is barely connected.

A couple of months ago I got caught up by Alonzo Ulmer, a nephew of my direct line and spent days chasing him across the country. (At least I got an article for our local genealogy society quarterly on "Pajama Genealogy" out of it and as editor I ALWAYS need articles.) If you'd like to see the start of this most recent obsession, the article, with a few added notes, is posted at:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hft/dad/ulmer/

Alonzo, who seems to have been something of a ne'er do well wanderer, is still nagging me to continue the research even though he is only a first cousin four times removed. Even the costs of his 436 page pension file didn't satisfy him. I've pressed on to his only child, daughter Virginia Opal, as well but she (and probably Alonzo) will come up in another, future, blog.

What concerns me is why do I get so fascinated and enthralled with these peripheral people. Last year, hours and hours were spent researching the family of Helen Fairchild for example. Okay, Helen was the first wife of my maternal great grandfather, Edward Payson Willson but she died the following year along with their first and thus only child. Certainly it was reasonable to add her parents and perhaps her siblings but I followed ancestry and descent and even the families of her siblings' spouses. To this day I keep an eye out for further bits on her relatives.

Do others get as intrigued and absorbed by people with little or no significance to their own work?