Crack Of Dawn Train Ride To NARA

 

Last Wednesday, Jan. 13, I made my first trip down to the National Archives. Along with Sandra Rumble and Donna Bremer, it was an exhausting day trip that I would gladly do again. While Sandy was interested in pulling 11 Civil War Pensions and Donna was wanting to search for family who fought in the War of 1812, I wanted to find letters. Letters in particular regarding Confederate soldiers.  Amongst the thousands of documents and pictures that are held by the National Archives is Record Group 249: Records of the Commissary General of Prisoners, 1861-1905. And it contains 161cu.ft! Here is a sample of what you can find in this Group:

 

• Volume 43:  Letters Sent by to  Office of Major General Benjamin F. Butler, 2/23/1864 - 4/29/1864
• Volume 241: Morning Reports of Confederate Military and Political Prisoners of War, 9/1863 - 6/1865
• Registers of Letters Received Requesting Information Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1864-1867...within this section there are letters received from 1862-1865 and 1861-1867.

After filling out all the pull slips it’s time to wait. Since we arrived early and had our slips in just before 10.a.m, we didn’t have to terribly long of a wait. We headed to the second floor and there I picked up my first cart…well you could have knocked me over!

 

My First Cart!



But it was my second cart that was totally over whelming!

My Second Cart

Some of these boxes contained letters from wives, parents, or even grandparents requesting information regarding their loved ones. Some were requesting that an exchange be made or that the prisoner be released into their custody.

 

One letter was from Mrs. Celia Coe to Maj. Gen E. A. Hitchcock at Fort McHenry regarding her husband John Coe. In her letter she tells how she met John in Illinois and they were married in 1858. He returned to Virginia in 1862 to secure some property that was left to him by his father only to find it had been confiscated by the Rebels. He also finds his "mother in a very lonely and unprotected state."

Portion of Letter From Mrs. Celia Coe

He was promptly arrested and charged with being "very disloyal". She goes on to further state that he had taken an Oath of  Loyalty and has the certificate.  To gain his release, she was required to send a copy of his certificate of Oath of Loyalty.  Sadly there is no record if the copy was received. Perhaps its in another box! I can't wait to get back and start going through these boxes AGAIN! Want to come help?



 

 

 

Hiding in Plain Sight and Hidden Treasures

Where do I begin? Since my last post so much has been discovered that it has been slightly overwhelming! From finding family connections to getting hidden treasures from the National Archives it has been a banner couple of weeks.

Let me go back to Nicholas Singsheim. I have in my possession, copies of some of the pages of Saint Joseph Schenectady, New York Marriages August 1862 to December, 2000 from the Schenectady County Historical Society Library. On page 398, there are two records of particular interest:

1.      Zinchsheim, John              08 Feb 1872                Mayer, Elisabeth

         Frederick & Margaret Faerber                          Francis & Barbara Sauter

         WITNESSES Nicholaus Endres, Mattew Lauter*

          *Susan Lauter & Mary Endres; Groom is 59 years old, widower,

            born in Sinheim Prussia; Bride 34, born in Feningen Rehno-Bavari

2.      Zingsheim, James             01 Jul 1872                  Sauerborn, Helen

         John & Elisabeth Roehrig                                     John* & Margaret Benz
        WITNESSES Mathew Gruen & Anne Marie Eva Gruen
         * Schmidt; Groom is 29 years old widower, born in Sehnheim Prussia;
            Bride 23, widow, born in Lach Rheno-Bavanria

It is my belief that John Zinchsheim is the father of James. He is 30 years older than James and they appear to be from the same town in Prussia. Both men are entering into a second marriage. John’s new wife who is 24 years his junior and is definitely of child-bearing years.

Going to the pages I have from the St-Joseph Schenectady, New York Baptisms June 1862 to November 2002, we find this on page 392 and page 479:
·         Singsheim, Andrew                                       (John & Elizabeth Meier)
           Birth: 18 Aug 1876                              Bapt: 10 Sep 1876
·         Zingsheim, Nicholas                                      (Joseph & Elizabeth Meier)
           Born 15 Aug 1881                               Bapt 04 Sep 1881

Nicholas and Andrew are brothers! After all, what are the chances that two different men named John Zinchsheim and Joseph Zingsheim marry a women Elizabeth Mayer/Meier.  Keep in mind that Mayer and Meier are variations of the same name.  If this holds true, as I believe it does, than Andrew and Nicholas are half-brothers to James Zingsheim who married Helen (Schmidt) Sauerborn, my Great-great Grandmother!

Which in turn connects me to Mr. Frank “Red” Singsheim, whose Grandfather was Nicholas Singsheim, as half second cousins twice removed. How cool is that! I can’t wait to get up to Schenectady to meet him. The other cool thing is that since my last post one of the granddaughters of Nicholas Singsheim’s sister contacted me too. Who would have thought that one simple phone call would have led to all of this fun. And to think that all of this was hiding in my own files of documents, quietly sitting there waiting for me to put the pieces together. Man, I love Genealogy!

Now for the other exciting bit of news. This past Wednesday, my good friend Sandra Rumble hopped on a train and headed to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. to do some research. Being the good friend that she is, she asked if she could pull any records for me. Of course I had one, Jacob Singshimer!

Now, Sandy had her own research to do but somehow she managed to find the time to pull Jacob's pension packet from the Civil War for me. And yesterday in my Dropbox waiting for me was a folder with 70+ images for Jacob/James Singsheimer. Hiding in this wonderful folder was Jacob's Certificate of Death naming his parents John and Elizabeth and numerous depositions from various friends and family members verifying that Helen and Jacob were married. It also contains the names and burial information of Jacobs first wife and Helen's first husband.

 

 

But it also had this:



This is a Certificate of Marriage of Helen's first marriage to John Sauerborn, my Great-Great Grandfather! Does it get any better that this? (I apologize that this picture is sideways, for the life of me even though it's saved right-side up, it inserts sideways.)

AND it had the original Baptismal Certificate of Anna Singsheim, Helen and Jacob's youngest. Apparently they were questioning the date of her birth.

Seriously, was this folder not full of hidden treasures? I'm still going through it and finding more exciting tidbits.

So what are you waiting for get thyself to the National Archives you never know what you'll find!

Chance Encounter

Lately, I've been researching my mother's side of the family that lived in Schenectady, New York. Years ago, before I knew how to organize my thoughts, my husband and I traveled up to Schenectady to search the records at the Historical Society, and to find and photograph headstones of those family members buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery.  Though I found a few records at the Historical Society, my luck ran out when it came to the cemetery. I hadn't made a list of potential surnames of the families that lived and died in the area. This was a crucial mistake that caused me to have a less than successful trip.

It's time for me to make a second trip to Schenectady and this time I vow to be prepared. With the help of GenDetective® software I’ll be able to make a list of ALL the families that lived and died in the county. It won’t be necessary for me to remember who and when because the trip report will do it for me! Thank you so much, Sandra Rumble.

But I also wanted to be able to find my way around the cemetery more efficiently. So I made a phone call to St. Joseph’s Church to inquire about the cemetery and plot locations. This was the best phone call I have had in a long time! The Secretary was extremely nice and she cheerfully gave me the name of the gentleman who runs the cemetery. She then asked me what names I was looking for, so I gave her the names of Sauerborn and Singsheim. Her voice lit up and she proceeded to tell me that she was familiar with those names. In fact she knew this one couple, the Singsheims who had been members of the parish for years. Well, to make my story short, I asked her to pass my phone number on to this couple. Which she did and to my surprise Mr. Singsheim called me that very afternoon!

We had a wonderful conversation and though it is unclear at this point in time if we are cousins, I love it that I have made a connection with this delightful man. He proceeded to tell me what he knew about is father Leroy, Grandfather Nicholas and his Grandmother Esther. It turned out he really knew very little, his father died when he was 27 years old and his grandfather supposedly deserted the family just after his father was born back in 1912. His grandmother eventually remarried and he did know that name which was Strout. He also knew the name of another man, Andrew Singsheim. He didn’t know how he was connected to the family, however. WELL! This was more than I could stand. As any red-blooded-hound-dog genealogist I had to try and find something about his grandfather.

With the sparse information I had, the hunt was on. My first find was in the 1910 census and that led to the 1905 New York Census. Searching more broadly, I also was able to find Nicholas in the 1900 census when he was only 19 years old. Knowing the name of his Grandmother’s second husband led me to her Social Security Application which gave the names of her parents. This allowed me to find her family in the 1892 New York Census which supplied the names of her siblings at the time.

But it was frustrating that Nicholas could not be located beyond 1910. Where was he? Going back to search the census records I decided to look outside of Schenectady.  Low and behold, I find in the 1910 census for Albany, New York a prisoner in the Albany City Penitentiary named Nick Singsheim, 29 years old. Esther must have lied! But where did he go after prison? Is there a surviving criminal record? Did he die in prison? And who is this Andrew? And did he know anything about Nicholas? Who was Nicholas's father? Is he connected to my Singsheims?

My trip to Schenectady just got more involved!

What's In A Name?

There is a Chinese Proverb that states:The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
But what if you can't find the "right" name?

Searching for our ancestors can be quite daunting. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to sort through various spelling variations to find your family members. My maiden name is Schralla but that is not the surname of my 2x Great-Grandfather. His last name, according to the church records from Germany states his last name as Schütte, known as Schrell. On the passenger list from Bremen to New York in 1860 it appears as Schrill. In the 1870 U.S. Federal Census for Quincy, Adams Count, Illinois it appears as Schriller and in the 1880 census it’s Schreller. It’s not until the 1900’s that it finally morphs into Schralla.

So when it came to do researching my Mother’s side of the family with the name Sauerborn, I was prepared to do some digging. Surprisingly in the New York passenger list of 1856, the name is Sauerborn as it is in the church records from Germany. But in the 1860 U.S. Census it is clearly written as Sawborn but in Ancestry.com the name is listed a Swborn. Then in the New York State Census for 1865 it’s written as Souerbourn In 1870 U.S. Federal Census it has the wonderful spelling of Sarbarn but once again Ancestry has it indexed as Sarbam. Searching the 1875 New York census I find the name as Sowborn but again Ancestry has it indexed as Lowborn. And finally, in the U.S. Federal Census for 1880 the matriarch is living with her daughter and the name is Sauerborn.

William Shakespeare once said, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Our family is our family regardless of how the name is spelled. It sure would be nice, however, when records are being indexed that the person doing so had good eyesight; and can read and write English. Because how can we gain wisdom if we don't know what the right name is?

You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me...

Lately I have been researching my Mother's family who lived in New York. Unlike my father's family that lived and moved in the southern States, her family stayed in and around the Keuka and Seneca Lake area. Predominantly in the towns of  Geneva, Seneca of Ontario County and Penn Yan in Yates County are where I find these relatives. Even still, with names such as Grady, Kelly and Cummings it hasn't been easy. Because of this my husband has often found me muttering to myself as I bang my head on my desk.

 

Recently I started to look into Jeremiah and Mary (Ginty) Cummings my 2x Great-Grandparents. According to the 1870 U.S. Federal Census they are living in Fayette, Seneca County, New York. Jeremiah is a farm laborer and is 30 years old. Mary is 25 and she is keeping house as well as caring for two year old twin daughters, Maggie and Lizzie and a six month old daughter Mary, (my Great Grandmother). Also living with them is Mary's sister Ann Ginty who is 14 years old.

 

In the 1875 New York census they have moved to Geneva, Ontario County and Jeremiah is still working as a farmer laborer. Everyone is five years older and the family has grown, Anna is three years old, Richard is two and John is six months. But then something happens, for in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census Mary is 35 years old, a mother of nine children ranging from 13 years old to one years old and she's a widow! Can you imagine the overwhelming despair she must have felt? The anxiety of how she would provide for these children is unimaginable.

 

Searching through Fultonhistory.com for anything regarding Jeremiah was just a bit daunting. But then in the Geneva Gazette for January 9, 1880 I find this:

 

 

Andrew Desmond it turns out is a Grocer in Geneva. Did Jeremiah owe him a considerable amount of money or was there more to it? Nothing else was found online so I'll have to return to Geneva to search for any court records.

 

Searching further through the newspapers I then come across this in The Post-Standard, Syracuse New York, June 1 1908:

 



It reads: "Geneva May 31-Word was received in this city to-day of the death in a private sanitarium at Wichita, Tex., of Jeremiah Cummings, formerly of this city___of whom nothing had been heard in twenty years and who was supposed to have been dead. At the time Mr. Cummings disappeared it was though he met with foul play and the family and relatives used all kinds of means to end mention of his whereabouts but without success." It goes on to say he was 68 years old and that he is survived by a brother, a wife, three sons and five daughters. No burial information is given. Also notably he wasn't aware of the birth of his youngest daughter and ninth child.

 

My next step was to contact the Historian of the Town of Geneva for any burial information for Jeremiah. Unfortunately she did not have anything but she made contact for me with her counterpart in Wichita County Texas. She wrote back that in Riverside Cemetery there is a Cummings buried in Section Q, Lot 300. His burial date was May 28, 1908.

 

Why he left his young wife and children will probably never be known. Why he traveled to Texas will also be a mystery. But my guess is that the family said to heck with him, he can just stay in Texas and rot! 

 

Mary's life was difficult after her husband left. From the various censuses from 1880 to 1910 she worked as a domestic, a laundress and a cook. The younger children lived with their older siblings as they married and started their own lives. Two of the younger sisters lived with their sister Maggie, the three brothers lived with their sister Lizzie. Mary eventually lives her with her youngest son, Jeremiah until her death in 1914.

 

Authors own picture; St Patrick's Cemetery, Geneva, Ontario, NY


Rest in peace Mary, you deserve it!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





What's Cookin'?

Baking is something I enjoy doing. Though I'm not one to strike out on my own, and develop my own cookie, cake or pie recipe, I'm pretty good at determining which new recipes are going to be really yummy.

 

Growing up sadly I don't remember my mother doing much baking. She was however, a great cook! One of my favorites was her Chicken and Rice with gravy. Sounds simple I know, but I have yet to duplicate it exactly. Oh I've gotten close but it's not quite right. Then there was her Ham and Bean Soup. This soup was thick and totally satisfying on a cold winter night. It was especially good with warm cornbread!  It wasn't until I said something to my Dad when I was visiting him (Mom died in 2000), that he said he thought Mom had written that recipe down. Sure enough, after searching through all her cookbooks, there on a small scrape of paper was the recipe. Now, when I make this soup it really does taste just like hers! But it was also her stuffing/dressing she made for the turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas that probably is my all time favorite. It isn't complicated it's simply celery, onion, poultry seasoning and pork sausage. But whether it's hot or cold it really is the best. In fact, my eldest son's ex-wife loved it so much she now makes it too. But, it was my Dad who gave me the recipe for Lamb Chops! These chops are melt in your mouth goodness that makes me salivate just thinking about them.
 

Both my boys have their favorite foods that only I can make. For both of the boys it's the Lamb Chops, of course and Turkey and Dressing. One time while visiting Patrick in Tulsa for Christmas, I made for the full turkey dinner. The apartment smelled wonderful and when we finally sat down he said to me, "Now, it really feels like Christmas!" This was music to my ears. Though this happened years ago, to this day, it still warms my heart whenever I think of that moment. Both of the boys have their favorite dinners as well as desserts. Among them are Grasshopper Pie, Oatmeal cookies, Chocolate Chip cookies and Apple Pie and when they come to visit, they expect these goodies to be made. Baking and cooking for them is a joy. I just wish they were closer so it could be done more often.

 

But this got me thinking, shouldn't we be passing down recipes and baking secrets? Shouldn't family favorite recipes be preserved and cherished as much as our pictures and documents? I think there's a new project looming in my life. What are your family favorites?

 

 

The GRIP Experience

Last week I attended the Genealogy Research Institute of Pittsburgh, commonly know as GRIP. This was my second time to attend GRIP. Last summer I took the Intermediate Genealogy: Tools for Digging Deeper coordinated by Paula Stuart-Warren. Paula exposed the class to often obscure and overlooked resources using her own experiences as examples. This summer, I decided to jump into the deep end and take the class, Advanced Research Methods coordinated by Tom Jones. Let me be perfectly frank, by no means do I consider myself an advanced genealogist. But I felt that to increase my knowledge it was important to  challenge myself. And boy did I ever!

Tom is a professor, researcher, editor and writer for the NGS Quarterly, and a much sought after educator. His latest publication is Mastering Genealogical Proof, (Arlington, VA National Genealogy Society, 2013). Despite all these credentials, he is quite personable and a great speaker. He wants his students to learn and understand the who, what, where, when and why for analyzing information found in different records. He constantly amazed me how one could determine various generations just by using tax records. Or even better who was a step-child. Tom strongly suggests to his students to make charts whether it be an Excel type or time-line to analyze information. I ashamedly admit that I don't often do this, keeping everything in my head. Which of course leads to going over things multiple times because I failed to write down what I found or even what I didn't find; and where I looked. This is my biggest sin! How many times have I looked at the same record over and over again is simply too embarrassing to even think about. Between the class projects we did and the assigned nightly homework by Friday my brain was ready to explode from information overload! I was exhausted.

Despite the exhaustion, the week was stimulating, challenging and overwhelming and I loved every minute! It was a week to get reacquainted with friends I met last year and to make new ones. But mostly I came away with renewed energy and confidence that I could move forward with my research. Everyone should have the GRIP experience. And yes, I would do it again in a heart beat.