The Thrill of the Hunt!

Last year I was proudly sworn into the Daughters of the American Revolution. Luckily for me, this was an easy task to do. My Grandmother, her sister and my Aunt, all on my Dad's family, had done all the leg work when they joined back in the 1950's. For my application all I had to do was prove my relationship to my Grandmother. It couldn't have been easier.

 

This past January, my Dad turned 95. For his birthday, I put together a family history/story. In doing all the research for this little book, I found that there could possibly be at least three more relatives who may have been involved in the Revolutionary War. But it wasn't till this past weekend that I looked into these ancestors.

 

I started with James Charles, my 5xGreat-Grandfather. Going to the DAR website, I find him listed as a Patriot but there was a problem. He has a bright red line next to his name that says: More on Back---See Comment. It seems no one has submitted proof that Sarah Halbert was his wife. This could be a problem, because I will need to prove that my 4xGreatGrandfather is the son Sarah and James Charles. So I turned to Familysearch.org to search for a marriage record or a will, anything that may list her and James Charles. I find a will that lists her as his wife and also the children by name, but it doesn't tell me her maiden name. Turning to Ancestry.com. I began by searching through other members' family trees. I find that the majority have Sarah Halbert as James's wife but they offer no proof. A few however, have that they were born and married in Virginia! How they know this I am not sure but it gave me another state to search on Familysearch.org. Sadly nothing was found.

 

Back to Ancestry.com, but instead of searching the family trees for James Charles, I started searching under Sarah Halbert. BINGO! Under one of the trees, just waiting for me to find, is an excerpt from a deed abstract book.  

Thankfully this person who posted this included the County name, Deed book and the page number. On Monday morning, I made a phone call to the Clerk of the Court office, Essex County, Virgina. I spoke with a lovely woman named Agnes. I explained that I live in PA and I was looking for a copy of a Deed and a Bond from 1754. Her only question was, “Do you have a book number?” . Thankgoodnes I did, and with that she put me on hold. Not more than a minute later she came back and said she had three pages for the Deed and Two pages for the Bond. She even read to me the part that clearly states that Sarah Halbert is the wife of James Charles.The fee for the copies would be $3.00. My total time on the phone was four minutes.

Today I received the copies and I couldn't be happier. This is the proof I was going to need:

 

I know it's a bit hard to see, but the third line down reads: "NOW if sarah the Eldest Daughter of said Joel Halbert now the wife of said James Charles...

This undeniably proves that Sarah Halbert was the wife of James Charles! The other exciting thing is, it gives me the names of Sarah's father, Joel and her younger sister Mary. I now know the name of my 6x Great-Grandfather! Looks like I have more research to do.

But for now, happily Supplemental DAR application, here I come.

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling

March has been designated as National Women's History Month. For the past 35 years the National Woman's History Project has brought the contributions of women from around the nation to the forefront. The theme for 2015, as stated on the website: www.nwhp.org, is Weaving the Stories of Women Lives. “This years theme presents the opportunity to weave women's stories-individually and collectively-into the essential fabric of our nation's history.”

What a powerful statement, weaving the stories of women back into our history . How often has society overlooked the women, from all classes,who have made contributions in our lives? Sadly it's numerous, shamefully too numerous.

I'm a member of a book club and recently we read a wonderful book, “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy” by Karen Abbott. It's a story of four women during the Civil War who actively spied and fought for the cause they so heartily believed in. Regardless of their station in society, they risked everything from family to their very lives to support their troops. These women were fearless determined fighters in their own way. One changed her identity and kept it hidden so that she could fight side by side with the men. Another used her wealthy position to entertain Generals to garnish any information that might pass from tongues made loose from too much wine. This is a fascinating story of four young women, Yes, young women they were from 17 years old to no older than mid 20's! And apparently they were not alone. Many women spied and fought during the war. I had no idea. I highly recommend this book , it's a good read.

 

Then there's the Ruth Faith. Ruth is the 6xGreat Grandmother of my friend Sandy Rumble. Ruth was a widow who, as legend goes, donated her deceased husband's clothes and saddle to the troops. But that wasn't enough for Sandy who wanted to join DAR through a woman's contribution. It turns out that she also paid supply taxes, which is just the type of proof DAR wants. Because of this record Sandy was admitted to the DAR last spring. But even though it isn't provable, that Ruth gave her husdand's clothes, saddle and probably boots to a soldier in need, it was a selfless act. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there is a diary out there waiting to be found in which a soldier had written how the Widow Faith gave him her husbands clothes. It could happen.

 

And then last but not least, there's my grandmother, Miriam Green Schralla. My grandparents met in Tallahassee, Florida n 1917 and married in 1918. Shortly after my Dad was born in 1920, they move back to Quincy, IL where my grandfather was from. There she went to a local business school and learned typing, shorthand and everything else a good secretary needs to know. Her first and only job after graduating was with Adams County Treasurers office. This was sometime in the 1930's, when it was definitely a man's world. For the next 30 years, she worked and learned everything she could about the treasures office. Then in 1953 the county treasurer resigned his position to take a job with the state. The county commissioners appointed Grandma to fill out the unexpired term. In a letter to the editor from the Quincy Herald-Whig, Sunday, August 9, 1953 Lula Bailey wrote:

“Thirty-one years ago a little lady from Georgia began work in the county treasurer's office and worked hard to learn the many details of the office, and she went to work to learn it with vim and vigor because she loved the work and the people she worked with and for. Elected county treasurers came and went, but she kept on in the background, and every year mastered more and more of the work so that she had her fingertips on every phase of the work done in the office...her name became a symbol of efficiency, politics being entirely in the back...It doesn't surprise us who know her that she should be the choice of the supervisors to fill out the unexpired term of the county treasurer, made necessary by the resignation of E.W. Thompson...Honor to whom honor is due. Just a woman who has labored faithfully and well not seeking anything but the joy of work well done.”

 

And it doesn't stop there, another small article that was cut out of the paper, so sadly I don't know which publication it is, states; “...When E. W. Thompson resigned to accept a state position, the board gave proper recognition to the woman who has served longer and done more than any other to make the treasure's office function smoothly, It was a deserved honor.”

The Supervisors by a vote of 21-17 appointed her! She won out over the Deputy Sheriff . She is the first woman to hold this office for Adams County and only the third in the state!

Is it any wonder then that in 1954 she announces that she will seek a full term as county treasurer.

  

 

 

She wins the election, of course, with over half the votes. Out of 24,525 counted votes she received 13,943 while her opponent, Robert (Red) Bickhaus only obtained 9,534 votes....I think I hear the shattering of that glass ceiling. How cool, right? And I can't help wonder if the current treasurer, Peggy Crim realizes she has my grandmother to thank for her being in her job?

 

I didn't grow up near my Grandma so I hardly knew her but I sure wish I could talk with her now.

 

 

Hidden Treasures

My Mother was an avid antique hound. She especially loved hunting for marble-top wash stands. She managed to buy five very different ones. Intending one for each of us. Each stand is unique and beautiful in their own right. I can't help but wondering when looking at them, who used them what joys and misery did they witness.

I have my own antiques. One is an East Lake washstand, circa 1880, that I bought in Chanute, KS. I love it! It's hand carved leaf design is lovely and it has the original hardware which is really nice.

 

 

But I've always gravitated towards wicker rockers, I have two. One came from a house that my former mother-in-law and her sister inherited. It's huge! With a wide seat, back and arms, I've not seen one like it before. The other one, which I bought in PA is just the opposite. It's very petite and has a geometric design on the back. I don't know how old these chairs are but that doesn't matter to me. I like them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have a set of Victorian chairs from my brother-in-law Fred. They belonged to his Grandmother. He remembers being told that his Grandfather brought them to El Paso, TX from New Orleans, LA. Fred's brother died a few years back and the chairs were actually his, but Fred and my sister Lynn didn't want them. My mouth dropped! I immediately asked, if I could have them. Without a second thought, Fred said sure. So before he could change his mind, out to my car they went. Wouldn't it be nice to know the story behind these chairs? It's a shame how some of our stories are lost and all we have left is a piece of furniture or an undated, unidentified photo.

When my son's Dad and I were first married we lived it a great flat in Oakland, CA. I don't remember how I found this place but I'm really glad I did. When I went to look at it, it was full of the previous renters furniture. There was a beautiful red velvet Victorian couch, a Zenith radio, and a wonderful yellow Formica kitchen table with chairs set. When I agreed to rent the place I was in need of a kitchen table so I asked how much for the table. The landlord said $15! Perfect. Feeling brave I asked about the radio and you won't believe this she said, “Oh that thing, you can just have that!” The radio is beautiful and it still works! I think it's from the late 1930's to early 1940's. Okay so technically it's not an antique but as far as technology goes it certainly is! And what I love too is that my youngest son wants it. But as for the lovely Victorian couch, I could just kick myself for not taking that as well.

 

When my cousins (1st cousins, 2x removed) in Penn Yan, NY died, besides the photo albums that I previously wrote about, I took some furniture. They had a lovely Duncan Phyfe dining set, a mahogany china cabinet, a Maddox secretary desk, circa 1920 and a Windsor chair with a rush seat, circa 1920. I love the desk and chair. The desk and chair had been well used . The chair seat in fact was literally falling apart and I recently I had the seat redone and it looks fantastic. The desk is full of scratches and if the light hits it just right, you can see words where someone pressed down too hard as they were writing. I especially love the secret compartments where one can “hide” their treasures.

All these pieces of furniture must have wonderful stories behind them, especially the desk. The girls were school teachers during a time when Yates County, NY was still dotted with one room school houses. I can just see them taking turns using the desk for grading and lesson planning. Can you imagine the conversations they must have had regarding their students? Who was doing well, who was being a nuisance or who needed extra help.

Something else that was wonderful about this desk was what was hiding inside. Inside one of the drawers were two handwritten charts. Each one was for our ancestor the Roche/Roach family. Apparently the girls, would challenge each other to write down the family tree starting in Ireland and ending in present day!. It's pure gold. Not only do they have siblings written down, but who they married and the children they had and who they married! I'm even listed! I can't put enough explanation points to emphasize how exciting this was to find. Though no dates are given it certainly gives me a starting point and not to mention all the maiden names! Gold, pure gold! Downside is it's written in pencil so it really needs to be protected. But what a riot. How competitive these two sisters must have been. I'm not sure who was the winner as each one looks pretty much to be the same. But that's not all, there also were some individual family pages. These pages that were all stapled together and listed in a bit more detail names and dates of birth, marriage and death and where, and when if known

. Unfortunately they don't have any supporting documentation but just the same it's a starting point.

The Girls Family Challenge

 

 

Mildred and Carrie Adams with my Mom, Mary Charlotte in the middle

Thanks Mildred and Carrie, you two must have been quite the characters.

Living The Dream!

Back at the end of January my friend Dana Leeds, The Enthusiastic Genealogist, wrote in her blog about telling our own story.  She reminds us that our stories are just as important as those of our ancestors. In researching our past we often acquire tunnel vision and fail to make notes of our own momentous moments. Dana’s story about her childhood was charming, and something I’m sure her daughter and eventual grandchildren will enjoy.

This got me thinking about my husband and his story of how he came to the United States. My husband grew up in India. When he was born, India was still under British rule. His father was a policeman and about 18 years older than his mother, who was a mere child of only 14 years when he was born. Despite the fact that his father was employed, their life was a struggle. There were often times when there was not enough money for food. Every rupee and paise needs to be accounted for.  Somehow Raman manages to get through school, even graduating from college and even gets a Master’s degree in Physics. At age 19, he lands a prestigious job as a junior research fellow at the National Aeronautics’ Lab, Bangalore  earning 250 rupees a month.

The Jayamahal Road Building was actually a stable of the Mysore Maharaja's Palace

 There he works directly under the director and founder of the lab Dr. P. Nilakantan. He was rich! He was on top of the world! But it was short lived, for his father suddenly drops dead. His carefree world collapses as he becomes the sole provider for his mother, grandmother and three siblings.

His job at the Nat’l. Aeronautics Lab is not as copacetic as he hoped. Co-workers are jealous and are full of resentment of his position. But disaster strikes here too, in 1964 the Director dies. Now suddenly his job is in jeopardy. The writing is on the wall as his research slows down. No one was willing to take him on to help continue the work. Something had to change. His only hope and dream was to somehow get to the US continue his education and earn more money.

But this takes money too. Applications to any university have a fee and then there’s postage. All this added expense was difficult to come up with. It also took time. Raman applies to Harvard, Princeton, and John Hopkins and he was accepted at all of them. But none of them offered any stipend or scholarship.

Call it Karma, call it Fate or the alignment of the stars, we all know life can change in a heartbeat. One night when he was visiting a fellow co-worker he noticed an application in the wastepaper basket. It was for Brown University.  His friend’s parents refused to let him travel to the US for further studies. The reason behind their refusal is that for the Braham class of India, it is taboo to travel across the ocean. But Raman put that thought behind him and asked if he could have the application. Armed with renewed hope, he sends in the application with a letter pouring out reasons why the application fees should be waived. And then he waits.

Brown University in 1964 was celebrating its bicentennial.  In celebration of this momentous occasion the University has extra money to give to well deserving applicants.  Raman was one of those lucky applicants. He was given a stipend of $163 a month and tuition was waived!

Somehow he manages to get the money for a passport and airfare and with just $7.00 in his pocket, he leaves India. Fifty-one years later with a PhD, one son, a lovely daughter-in-law, a handsome grandson and a wonderful second marriage with me, he continues to live the dream!

                                   And of course he lives happily ever after.

Behind Every Dark Cloud

In the book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner his philosophy basically is, it happens it just plain happens. It's part of our lives. We can deal with it or let the event overwhelm us, and paralyze us into despair.

 

About nine days ago, my computer crashed! And I mean crashed. Thankfully, my husband is a retired university professor and  the IT department is willing to help. Hopefully they can do their magic and get things running. Sadly though I already know that I've lost ALL my family documents and photos. No I did not have a backup.

 

When this reality set in, I assure you, there was a ROYAL melt down. Can you blame me? Years of work gone, just gone is a matter of seconds. I had three choices: 1) blame everybody else or 2) curl up and never touch a computer again or 3) figure out  if I had a flash drive or a CD that had some of these items. Well I could not blame anyone else. It was clearly my fault for not having a backup. Option 2 was never an option. But option 3 offered a glimmer of hope.

 

That glimmer of hope, that sliver lining appeared when I remembered that I had three flash drives that at various times I had copied over documents and photos from an old computer. Though this isn't an actual backup it does have some of the valuable documents and pictures.

 

Sadly I guess this means there's a Do Over in my future whether I wanted to or not. But more importantly what is the lesson I learned, BACKUP, BACKUP,  BACKUP!

Now What?

Now that things are easier to find, the question arises do I do a complete do over as Thomas MacEntee suggests? I really hate the idea of “tossing” things aside and starting over it seems so overwhelming. It occurred to me that perhaps the next logical step would be to figure out what do I have and what am I missing. Luckily for me I have Sandra Rumble’s wonderful software GenDetective. Yes, Sandy is my friend; no she didn’t ask me to do this nor am I an employee of Rumblesoft, just to be clear.

GenDetective is a wonderful tool to help you visualize your family research plus it is easy and fun to use. Anyone can use it as it’s compatible with FTM, RoootsMagic, Legacy and Ancestry. All you have to do is make a GEDcom file, export it to GenDetective click on Analyze My Family and your done!  With this software you can run all kinds of reports that help you see your progress in your journey of researching your family history. From bar graphs, footsteps and maps your progress becomes tangible.

 

For example, this screenshot shows me who is missing a birth date, birth location and if I have full names for the parents. The little foot prints at the top show me I’m not too bad. But clearly there is info missing as indicated by the purple, pink and blue colors on the graph. This report can also be run for more specific things such as immigration, census, military, and occupation. You can make it as detailed as you want. It also becomes a wonderful companion when planning a trip to a courthouse. Sandy also has a whole section devoted to preparing for a trip. Guiding you through the five w’s-who, what, what, where and how.

But the report I love the most is, My Family: Research Progress for …and you pick your ancestor.

This partial screen shot shows me what I have for one particular ancestor, my 2x Great-Grandfather Joel D. Charles. According to the little footie’s at the top I have 8 out of 10. Not bad! The report tells me I need to find his occupation, a burial date, an obituary, a will or probate records and a cemetery marker. Life after organizing my files will now make it easier for me to find the missing information. I know, for example that I have a picture of his headstone.  I also have an index for his probate records which will help with searching on Familysearch.org.  Armed with this new courage, going back to my RootsMagic or FTM or even Ancestry.com to fill in the missing information will be easy. Doing a complete do-over is daunting to say the least and I’m not sure I’m up to the task. But filling in the missing information one ancestor at a time is certainly a more do-able approach for me.

Check it out at GenDetective.com.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust YOurself Off, And Start All Over Again!

It was only a few weeks ago, that my genealogy documents, books, and all that goes with it looked like this…

              Now I am proud to show off what it looks like today…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though it still needs a bit of tweaking, it is considerably easier now to locate a census, a vital record, church records or a photo.  This tedious process also brought to light what I am missing! There is so much more to find to complete a family’s history.  It actually took me by surprise because I thought I had been fairly thorough. But then I realized, when I started in my family research, it didn’t occur to me to source my findings. Just about everything I have will need to be found again and documented properly. UGH! Talk about a Genealogy Do-Over™!