GeneaBlogie

2008-08-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

We've Moved! Come visit us at http://blog.geneablogie.net

But if you'd like, you're welcome to stay here and rummage around to see some of the best posts from the past as they originally appeared.

The Missouri Insurance Company

2008-08-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

In the first half of the twentieth century, it was a common practice of many immigrant families and African-American families to purchase life insurance policies on their infant children. Indeed, as late as the 1990's, an otherwise respected baby food company was sponsoring such insurance policies.

Why would someone purchase a life insurance policy on an infant? Isn't the textbook purpose of life insurance to provide for the survivors' needs in the event of the insured's premature death? Well, that's one of the purposes. The families who bought these policies [and my family was one] were told that the policies were a way to "build wealth" or to provide a "nest egg" for the young person's adulthood. Sometimes the less-educated or illiterate were simply told that it was a way to "protect" their child.

The policies that were sold in this manner were a species of "whole life" insurance (now sometimes called "permanent insurance"), which simply put, require premiums to be paid for the insured's whole life or for some other specified period until the policy's "cash value" is fully paid up. The insurance component remains in effect as long as the premiums are paid (i.e. for one's whole life--in practice usually to age 95, although I understand now in some cases, it can last to age 121!). The cash value is accumulated from a portion of the premium paid. The policy can be surrendered at certain points for the then-accumulated cash value. (This is a simplified description of what today is a somewhat more sophisticated product).

In the case of these policies on infants, the premiums were payable at least until age 18 or 21 to receive the maximum death benefit; and could be paid longer for a greater cash accumulation.

Whole life and its more recent companion product, universal life insurance, can be good investment vehicles in a well-planned and well-managed portfolio. But the folks buying these products in the first half of the twentieth century rarely had access to financial or estate planning information. And truth be told, they would have been better off in most cases putting their money in the bank.

Today, these policies don't turn up often because of the greater access to other investment and saving vehicles. More people can buy stocks and bonds today than ever could be before. These instruments are no longer just for the wealthy.

One company that sold the infant policies was the Missouri Life Insurance Company, formed in the 1830's as the first insurance company in St Louis (see Missouri History Recalled During Past Week, The Sikeston Herald, March 13, 1936, p.3, available from Newspaper Archive.com). In 1907, the company was issued a corporate charter by the Missouri Legislature. The company existed as a major business force in St Louis and Missouri for more than eighty years.

In 1956, the company changed its name to Life Insurance Company of Missouri (Business Notes, The Sunday News & Tribune [Jefferson City, Mo.], April 15, 1956, p. 9). But in 1957, it was taken over by Cincinnati-based Western & Southern Life Insurance Company, which remains in business today.

These infant policies will eventually become known as a bit of socioeconomic and anthropological ephemera.

Below is a copy of a policy sold by the Missouri Insurance Company in 1953. In addition to the death benefit, there are "Accidental Death Benefits" and "Dismemberment Benefits." The premium on this policy was $0.76 weekly for maximum death benefit of $1000 if premiums were paid for 18 years.

Feed Info for New Location

2008-08-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

The feed for our new location can be found at:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/geneablogie/Xtpu

Living in Two Places

2008-08-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

GeneaBlogie is between homes right now. No, we're not homeless; some of you have noticed that we have two homes! We are at both:

http://geneablogie.blogspot.com AND http://blog.geneablogie.net.

We will be moving permanently to the latter site. This has been in the works for quite awhile; we had several hiccups along the way. But with the recent spam-flagging of several legitimate blogs on Google's Blogger system, I really accelerated the process. I'm not in need of a nanny; I can be master of my own domains, so to speak.

If you visit us in our new home, you'll see it's not totally ready, but our guests will be comfortable. In a few days, our old place will be boarded up. So update your address books now to:

http://blog.geneablogie.net

Carnival Carousel: Harvesting & Sharing the Bounty

2008-08-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, I've been blessed with a bounteous trove of genealogical riches, nearly more than one person can handle. We've been slowly and carefully going through boxes of documents and photographs (and at the rate we're going, we're likely to spend the next 15 years at this!

For this Carnival, I thought I would give you a glimpse of some of the stuff. You'll see the challenges and the joys ahead. You can enlarge any image by clicking on it.

First, there is this curious picture below, which I call "Children in Wagon." I think that there are actually two, maybe even three adults in the picture. I have no idea when or where the photo was taken. I do suspect that it was taken in either Illinois or Missouri. On the back of the original is the handwritten notation "For Francis." That could refer to a number of family members, none of whom seem to be in the picture. Or it may refer to someone other than a family member. The problem is that the people most likely to know have all passed away.

"Children (?) In Wagon" (Photographer unknown; original in possession of Craig Manson, Carmichael, California)

The photograph on the right I labelled "Young Woman." Again, we have no idea of the woman's identity or when the photo was taken. We do have several clues, however. On part of the original which I have covered with the frame here, there is the embossed name and address "Maxwell, 2607 Lawton Ave, St Louis, Mo". This apparently refers to photographer William C. Maxwell, who had a studio in St Louis from at least 1910 until at least 1915. See Early St. Louis Photographers. I haven't found any evidence that the business still exists.

The other potential clues about "Young Woman" are that this was actually a post card. I've come across several post cards with identifiable family members in them, leading me to believe that this was a popular way in which to send pictures in the early part of the twentieth century. Below is the "Young Woman" post card. You can see what kind of shape the photograph is in by looking at the post card back.

There is an address on the post card. To me, it appears to be:

"Miss B. Mc. Quin
2828 Morgan
St Louis
Mo"

And I'm not sure that it isn't "McQuin." There were families named Quin and McQuin in St Louis in the period that Maxwell could have made the portrait. But beyond that, nothing else is known to me about the photo.

The next photograph I call "Surly Woman, Distracted Man." I have no idea who these people are or when or where the photograph was made. I presume that their clothes are a clue. Notice how the man has his right hand tucked inside his coat. And what does the sign behind the man's head say? Another challenge for you photo-sleuths!

Finally, I've come to realize that a lot of the material may be valuable to researchers looking at other families. So from time to time, I'll share some things that may be of broad interest. Today, somewhat apropos of a Carnival, here's a list of couples who were feted on their 50th (or greater!) wedding anniversary in the Archdiocese of St Louis in 2001. See if one of your surnames is there! [Click on pages to enlarge].

Dealing With Thousands of Photographs, etc.--Step 1

2008-07-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

We decided as a first step to "sample" one of the boxes. There we found hundreds of photos, a number of documents, vital records (including some for living family members!), and a lot of ephemera. Here's a partial inventory of stuff in that first box:

Photographs, amounting to several hundred.
Two family tree (descendancy) charts, filled out to the sixth generation (how cool is that?!).
Several funeral programs.
School records.
About a hundred newspaper articles dating from the 1930's to the 1970's.
Three Greyhound bus tickets from 1954.
Military records for several individuals.
Three life insurance policies taken out on infants in the 1940's and 1950's.
Two family address directories produced for family reunions in the 1970's.
Several high school diplomas from the 1930's.

As I said, that's only some of the stuff. Photos clearly are the dominant matter there. But here's the deal with the photos in this box: they include portraits from the late 1800's through about the 1940's; Kodak snapshots from the 1940's through the 1970's; and Polaroids from the 1970's and '80's. The portrait type pictures are great--like some we've posted here before. Most, however, are in need of serious rehabilitation. The Kodak snapshots have held up surprisingly well. They are all black & white, and generally show a sense of composition on the part of the photographers. The Polaroids are in better physical shape than one might expect, but frankly, they are just not as nice in most respects as the others. Many of them are contained in small plastic albums from which they are difficult to remove. Some of the pockets contain as many as five pictures. They may not be keepers.

A major problem with the photographs is identification of subject, date, and place. As for the older unidentified pictures, there are few living people who can credibly identify the individuals in them. Isn't amazing how we fail to label our photos?!

One of the things that struck me was a photocopy (and a bad one, too) of two portraits probably taken in the early 1900's. Somebody, I hope, has the originals, but who?

I think the next thing to do is go through all the boxes and segregate the photos, the documents, and the ephemera into separate temporary storage. This will take some discipline to do efficiently, because of the "Hey-look-at-this!" factor.

I've also begun a list of family members likely able to identify the photographs. We did identify a few today, though that was not our main purpose. By the way, I think it useful when labelling these to include a line that says: "ID'd by (name), (relationship), on (date)."

From Catholic Records to Illinois Slave Records

2008-07-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

Le vingt deux fevrier mil huit cent treize a ete baptiste George ne de Julie esclave de fem Mv LaChange ont ete parrein Ignace et marrein Marguerite tous deux esclaves de Mde Ve D'Amour

So it says in the records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, referring to one George Micheau. What does this mean? Keeping in mind that 19th century French is different from 21st century French, I used my self-taught genealogical French as well as my law and altar-boy Latin. Here's my original translation:

On the twenty-second of February, 1813, was baptized George, born of Julie, slave of Mr. LaChance; his Godparents were Ignatius and Margaret, both slaves of Mrs D'Amour.

But a couple of folks, including a reader in France, pointed out that I had missed or misunderstood somethings that turn out to be genealogically significant. For example, Julie's master is described as deceased (see the comments to the first post on this topic). And our Paris correspondent says:

Mde Ve = Mademoiselle veuve, in the Ancient Regime, Mademoiselle was used for the ladies, married or not. Today it is used only for unmarried woman, young or old.

"Veuve" means "widow" in French. So Ignatius and Margaret were owned by

Assuming that the translation is good (and thanks to my helpers, I'm confident that it is), we now perhaps have learned more about George Micheau (the elder) as we seek the origins of the Micheau/Mischeaux family in French Illinois. That we may be dealing with slaves could be a daunting realization for some; enough to throw in the towel for others. How are we going to begin to research slave genealogy?

Fortunately, Illinois has a Database of Servitude and Emancipation Records which covers the period 1722-1863. (Why 1722? That was approximately the year that Pierre Renault, agent for the King of France, arrived in Illinois with slaves purchased in the Caribbean to search for silver and gold). The Servitude and Emancipation Database includes approximately 3,400 names found in governmental records involving the servitude and emancipation of Africans and, occasionally, Indians. The Illinois State Archives extracted the names of servants, slaves, or free persons and masters, witnesses, or related parties from selected governmental records to produce this database. The online version is searchable by names, by counties, or types of documents.

We have several names to work with here: George, Julie, Ignatius, Margaret, LaChance, D'Amour. and we know that the relevant events occurred in Randolph County, Illinois. A search of the database with those variables yields abstracts of a number of interesting documents.

First, there is an estate document dated 27 January 1739 which says in part:

"TO CATHERINE IS GIVEN A NEGRO BOY NAMED IGNACE, ALSO A SON OF
CYBAS AND OF ANGELIQUE, ALSO A DAUGHTER OF LOUISON."

The abstract identifies "Catherine" as Catherine Vinsennes, a fact that we'll keep in mind for later use. We have perhaps identified "Ignace" (Latin/French form of Ignatius), the godfather (if not in fact the grandfather) of George.

Another document is a bill of sale from Louis Marein to Pierre Mulin for a slave named "Margueritte." It's dated 12 June 1740. The abstract notes that:

FEMALE INDIAN SLAVE SOLD FOR 800 LIVRES IN "NOTES OR FLOUR."
MAREIN "ACQUIRED SLAVE FROM MONCHARVAU."

Perhaps we have identified "Margaret," the godmother (if not in fact the grandmother). Note the double-T spelling of "Margueritte." The name "Margarett" with two "t's" occurs quite frequently in the Micheau/Mischeaux family, down to a currently living descendant, who's frequently asked about the spelling. She says that she's always heard it's a longstanding family name.

There are six documents that relate to slaves named "George" in Randolph County. But only one matches the relevant dates for our George. It's an indenture dated 12 August 1813 for a boy named George, described as one year old in one part of the document, but says "Born in Randolph County in April" in another place. His race is stated as "mulatto" which comports with later descriptions of George Micheau and his progeny. This document then may well refer to our George.

What about the discrepancies with respect to age? We know that George Micheau was born earlier than April 1813. It may well be that he was born in February 1813 and that the master did not know that; he being only aware that the child was several months old. There are some other issues raised by this abstract. For one thing, an indenture is usually a two-party agreement. Who was the party representing the interests of George. We no doubt will have to see the document. It's available for $10 from the Illinois State Archives.

Now we need to check the Servitude and Emancipation database for information on the bondholders.

What about the late M. LaChance? The database has a bill of sale dated 2 Jun 1774 from a Marie Franciose Ayet to one Nicolas LaChance. The memo on the abstract notes:

"SHE SELLS 4 NEGROES AND PERSONAL PROPERTY TO NICOLAS LACHANCE . . . FOR 3,705 LIVRES."

A second document in the database abstracts the 1820 census of Illinois--the first census in which Illinois appears as a State of the USA. On that census, there is a "Madame LaChance" in Prairie du Rocher, Randolph County, Illinois. The fact that a woman was enumerated as head of household in 1820 suggests that she was a widow.

We have to go to the 1820 census itself to understand the abstract. The household appears to consist of two white males under the age of ten; and two white males between 10 and 15 years old; a white female between 10 and 15 years old; and Madame LaChance herself, apparently between 26 and 44 years old. Then there appear to be two male slaves under age 14; one male slave between14 and 25 years old; two female slaves under age 14; and one female slave between 14 and 26 years old. There is one male "free colored person" between 26 and 44 years old.

All of this data on the LaChance documents needs analysis; we'll get to that later. For now, let's see what we can find about the widow D'Amour.

Just as in the LaChance case, the Servitude and Emancipation Database has for a Madam "Damore" an abstract from the 1820 census. She was enumerated in Prairie du Rocher, Randolph County, with two female slaves: one under 14 years old, and the other over age 45. Madam Damore herself was listed as being over 45 years old.

The D'Amour evidence also requires analysis before we draw any conclusions.

Remember, we're in search of the origins of the Micheau/Mischeaux family in French Illinois. So stay with us as we next analyze the evidence.

How Do I Deal With Thousands of Photos?

2008-07-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

My inclination is to dive right in like a kid at Christmas! But this isn't practical for several reasons:

I'm not sure how or where these were previously stored, and thus I don't know the age or condition of most of them.
I probably cannot identify many of then without family help.
I still must eat and sleep.

Given those issues, I have to figure out some temporary storage and cataloging system.

More Pictures . . .

2008-07-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

of boxes of pictures (and documents)!

ScanFest: Tell Me About It!

2008-07-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

July's ScanFest is tomorrow, but I can't make it--ironically because I've got too many photos! I mentioned a little while ago that I was anticipating receiving a number of photos from a relative in the Midwest. By Friday, 25 July, a total of nine medium-sized moving boxes of photos and documents had arrived by mail! Today, a 5'x7'x8' crate was off-loaded from a flatbed truck--the crate contains, along with antique furniture, more than 200 cubic feet of photographs and documents, some dating well back into the 19th century.

I'm not joking.

We have received probably more than 5,000 photographs, not to mention documents and vital records.

I could spend the next ten years dealing with this stuff . . . .

Above and below: Some of the smaller boxes that arrived by mail last week.

Below: One of the hundreds of albums that came by mail last week.

Below: Some of the antique furniture that arrived by freight today.

Below: The crew begins unloading.

Thanks to Faith Archuleta and her crew from Faith Full Movers, Citrus Heights, California, for their help today!

Doing Some Hard Genealogy With Catholic Records

2008-07-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I broke away from all the other toys to actually do some hard genealogy. I've written many times about Record Search at FamilySearch Labs. I noted awhile ago that I had found there the records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, which includes an area of my research interest, the village of Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County, Illinois. That's location from whence come the Micheau/Mischeaux family that I've been studying.

A few months ago, I translated and transcribed a number of the records relating to St Joseph's Chirch in Prairie du Rocher as well as Our Lady of Lourdes Church in nearby Sparta. It took a combination of skills that I've honed doing indexing for FamilySearch and my certainly imperfect recall of church and law Latin and the bits of genealogical French that I've picked up in the last few years. But I think I've got it right.

Having translated and transcribed some of the relevant records, I have now put them to some use.

I'm interested in the origins of the Micheau/Mischeaux line in French Illinois. Early in my research, I traced a line of present day family members back to George Micheau (1852-1942). That wasn't very hard because still-living family members recall him vividly. He was born in Potosi, Washington County, Missouri, lived in Prairie du Rocher, and died in St Louis. According to family members, he was married twice: first to Emma Roy, and then to someone the living family members recall simply as "Grandma Rosie." I also knew from the 1870 census that George Micheau appears that decade in the household of a senior George Micheau (their names were spelled "Misho" in that census). The 1870 census did not explicitly show relationships, but presumably, George was the son of George. I cannot find the family at all on the 1880 census.

So what did the church records add to my knowledge of this family? First, I found a death notice for Emma Roy. I had known that she was born in 1855, but not much more beyond that.

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, Mary Emma Roy, page 120, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

The Latin reads:

Die 12a Julii 1900 obit Maria Emma Micheau uxor Georgii Micheau, annos circa 46 nata, ejusque corpus sequenti tumulatum est.

And I translated it:

Maria Emma Micheau, wife of George Micheau, died on July 12, 1900. She was about 46 years old. She was buried in the general burial ground.

We learn her full name and her date of death. There is also a death notice for "Grandma Rosie," but it is in English:

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, Rosine Micheau, page 199, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

Now we know a bit more about Grandma Rosie, including her maiden name. Then, a curiosity: recall that Rosine was George's second wife who he married after the death of Emma Roy. But when he died in 1942, here's what the priest wrote:

[Click to enlarge]
Death Registration, George Micheau, page 221, Liber Defunctorum, Ecclesia St Joseph, Prairie du Rocher, 1864-1956, Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

Does this tell us something about the family or about the pastor or both?

Moving on to the elder George Micheau we find notice of his death too, on page 136 of the same set of records, also in English. The page follows another which is headed "1906."

Died May 13th George Micheau, the oldest colored member of the parish in his 94th year, as verified by the following extract of the baptismal record of 1813, viz.:

[Click to enlarge]
Baptismal Registration, George Micheau, unnumbered page included with Records of St Anne du Fort de Chartres, 1721-1765 Records of the Catholic Diocese of Belleville, Illinois (retrieved from Record Search Pilot, http://labs.familysearch.org)

This baptismal registration was found with the records of St Anne's Church at Fort de Chartres, Illinois, which existed before the church at Prairie du Rocher was constructed in 1765. It is in French:

Le vingt deux fevrier mil huit cent treize a ete baptiste George ne de Julie esclave de fem Mv LaChange ont ete parrein Ignace et marrein Marguerite tous deux esclaves de Mde Ve D'Amour.

What does this mean? I have an idea, but help us out, you French scholars! More to come!

Genealogy:The Next Generation

2008-07-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

We've talked often about getting younger folks involved with family history and sometimes we've lamented about the seeming lack of interest on the part of young people. We've been disabused of that latter notion by great folks like Jessica of Jessica's Genejournal.

And today I want to introduce my readers to Jeanna (pronounced like "Gina"), whose new blog is called RootsReading. She describes herself as a "a twenty-something African-American woman who, in the process of tracing her lineage, hopes to gain a better understanding of herself. "

Jeanna is just getting started with her research and is going through all the exciting and frustrating issues we all confronted early on. As for blogging, in her latest post, Jeanna wonders about balancing family privacy with the desire to discuss her discoveries publicly. We've all been there, too!

Please stop by RootsReading, meet Jeanna, and share with her your experiences!

San Francisco Mortuary Records to be Indexed

2008-07-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

I've written a lot about FamilySearch Indexing. And another reason I've felt a little behind with GeneaBlogie as well as reading the blogs I usually read is that I've done a lot of indexing! But I was particularly excited by the announcement the other day that San Francisco's mortuary records will be indexed in a venture involving the California Genealogical Society and Library, the San Francisco Public Library, SFgenealogy.com, the Genealogical Society of Utah, and, of course, FamilySearch Indexing.

I'm gooing to help out on this. This porject, like all FamilySearch Indexing projects is a worhty way to give something to the community.

For more details and an early progress report, see Kathryn Doyle's writeup on the CGSL blog.

How About "Irena Does the Macarena"?

2008-07-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

A New Zealand judge has taken extraordinary steps in a custody case involving a child wiith an unusual name.

Family Court judge Rob Murfitt [found] a girl had been named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

He ordered the girl, the subject of a custody battle, to be placed in court guardianship so her name could be changed.

A lawyer had reported the nine-year-old was so embarrassed about her name that she had not revealed it to her friends and was otherwise known as "K".
. . .
"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," the judge said.

Keeping Up: Facebook

2008-07-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

I've had a bit of difficulty keeping up lately. One cause among many: Facebook! (see Tim Agazio's remarks here. I concur with a lot of what you say, Tim!) I do enjoy the networking among folks with similar interests, but it can get out of hand

I actually did find people that I actually know on Facebook. That fact and George Geder's recent posts about his school days led me to post this photo:

That's me and a high school friend I hadn't seen or heard from in over 35 years until I noticed she's on Facebook. It was fun to re-connect and get caught up.

Like Tim, I got into Facebook primarily because I want to participate in the Unclaimed Persons group. But I haven't had time, what with all the Friend requests, Karma sending, updating status, etc.! I'm going to have to be more efficient at this.

From a research point of view, I see a number of advantages, though, to Facebook. The collaboration that goes on in the Unclaimed Persons group is a good example. I wrote once about an ad hoc group that convened by email to solve a problem in one of the family lines we were all researching. Facebook would have enhanced that experience.

I searched on Facebook to find possible cousins, but I didn't find this all that helpful. I did the same thing on LinkedIn and that seemed much easier.

The thing we have to keep in mind is that social networking is a tool, and not an end in itself. Otherwise, one could spend an entire lifetime with only virtual contact with human beings. On to Second Life!

And finally, in the category of keeping up with the Geders, take a look at this:

A Great Weekend

2008-07-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

I'm just now back from a great weekend at Lake Tahoe, where I performed the civil wedding ceremony of two great young people, Christopher and Melissa, both in their early thirties. The ceremony was outdoors on the very shore of the Lake, with the Sierra as the backdrop.

About thirty minutes before the ceremony, a nervous Melissa fretted that the weather didn't look very good. And it did not. About twenty minutes before the ceremony, it began to rain, and Melissa calmed herself by accepting that she wouldn't have the outdoor wedding of her dreams. Then, just moments before we were to start, the rain stopped and a patch of blue sky appeared overhead! Melissa had her dream wedding after all.

The couple has an eclectic group of friends and family, ranging from a social worker from Bristol, England (the maid of honor) to a Cal Tech Ph.D chemist born in Yugoslavia, and all sorts of other interesting people. One woman, a school psychologist from Southern California, told me her father's story as a Polish resistance fighter in World War II and his subsequent flight from Poland under the Communists. I talked to Melissa's mother and aunt about their father, grandson of German immigrants, who married their Mexican mother just before World War II. Christopher is a descendant of the French Negroes of Illinois. All things considered, the wedding was a great example of the variety of this American family to which we all belong.

Happy 55th Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

2008-07-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

My parents celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary this weekend. Here's a recent photo of them, but for a glimpse at their wedding in Houston, Texas, in 1953, see the Carnival post on weddings here.

[Updated 7/18/08, 10:15 PDT to add photo. Blogger was having an upload problem earlier. Previous post deleted]

Happy Anniversary to The World's Smartest Sister and Husband!

2008-07-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

The World's Smartest Sister and her husband mark five years of marriage this weekend. By the time they catch up with our parents (see post above), they'll be over 100 years old!

Hookin' Up

2008-07-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

I have in my computer a number of databases, some for my family, some for families of friends, some for families of folks who've asked me to research a particular issue.

This weekend, I get to participate in linking two of the databases together as I officiate at the wedding of two thirtysomethings at Lake Tahoe. (As a former California Superior Court judge, I have that privilege. Of course, truth be told, in California just about anybody can perform a marriage ceremony if they pay a $40 fee and take an orientation course. Having been a judge just gets me out of the fee and the course!).

The weather is looking like it will cooperate and Christopher and Melissa should have a great day, assuming everybody (including the ol' judge) recalls their lines!

Carnival of Genealogy: 106 Years in America--And More!

2008-07-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

One ancestor I'm really trying to learn more about is my great-great-grandfather William ("Billie") Sanford. He was born in 1809 in Virginia and died in 1916 in Texas at the age of 106! A book I read says that he is the oldest person buried in the "colored" section of the Old City Cemetery in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. (170 Years of Cemetery Records in Milam County, Texas, by N.H. Holman).

William Sanford was born a slave in a part of Virginia that is now West Virginia. He either was born as, or later became, the property of the James Sanford family. The Sanfords moved to Williamson County, Tennessee some time before 1820. James Sanford died in 1849; his son, Reuben, had died in 1846. Reuben's widow, Mary Wood Sanford, relocated her children and her slaves to Milam County, Texas in 1854. Those slaves included Billie Sanford. At some point in Texas, he married Emily Scott from North Carolina and they had four daughters, one of whom was my great-grandmother, Betty Sanford.

On Billie's death certificate (below), the term "old age" is mentioned not less than three times!

William Sanford's death certificate
(click to enlarge)

There's some longevity on my mother's side of the family as well.

William Henry Long, my mother's uncle, was born on March 21, 1889 and died on August 26, 1990, at age 101, in Kansas City, Missouri. The 1930 census says he was a truck driver.

Christina Alta Long Neal, sister of William Henry Long, was born on April 2, 1898, and died on September 14, 2000, at age 102, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tina and Will's sister, Rosetta Bell Long, was nearly a centenarian. She was born on May 28, 1900 and died on March 17, 1994, at age 93, in Kansas City, Missouri. "Rosie" never married but had a companion of over 50 years. I don't know much about him, except that his name was "RJ." After working in a laundry all of her life, Aunt Rosie retired at age 65. She taught herself to play the piano, and at age 68, she was ordained a minister by the Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ. She was pastor of Good Shepherd Spiritual Church in Kansas City for more than 20 years.

To her, age really was just a state of mind.

A Surprise Using FamilySearch's Record Search

2008-07-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

I have been enamored of FamilySearch Labs' Record Search since it first came online. I like the interface and the presentation of information. I just wish there were more records available. To help toward that goal, I've spent a fair amount of time on transcribing records on FamilySearch Indexing.

Recently, I was running names through the Texas Death Certificate database. One of the names was "Elias Bowie." That name may refer to either my great-uncle or his father, my great-grandfather. One of the neat things about Record Search is that it finds names that are in records whether or not the name is the direct subject of the record. So for example, you may find John Doe's death certificate, but you'll also find Jane Doe's death certificate if John is listed there as her father.

So when I ran "Elias Bowie" against the Texas death database, one of the things that turned up was a death certificate for a J.C. Bowie with Elias listed as "father." I pulled up the image (see below) and discovered it is for an infant who died at the age of six months. The baby's mother is listed as Hattie Bryant, my great-grandmother. All which means that my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie and great-uncle, Elias Bowie (Jr.), had a brother. I had never come across this information before in any record or through family oral lore.

J.C. Bowie was born in November, 1911 and died in June, 1912. Of course, this was between censuses, so he would not appear on a census record. And it may well be that this information was somehow kept from my grandmother and great-uncle who were two years old and one year old at the time of their brother's birth.

The death certificate tells us some other interesting things. J.C. was born in San Antonio. It is well established by record evidence and family oral rendition that both Jessie and Elias (Jr.) were born in San Antonio in 1909 and 1910 respectively. J.C. died in Rockport, Texas, but his residence is listed as San Antonio. We know conclusively that Hattie Bryant's parents lived in Rockport and that she grew up there. Like a lot of young people on the Gulf Coast at the time, Hattie headed for San Antonio at about age 19 or 20. The entries on J.C.'s death certificate suggest that he may have died during a visit home by Hattie. The death certificate says that the deceased infant was in Rockport for three months prior to his death.

Other questions are raised by this. Why did Hattie go home for such a long time? Did she take Jessie and Elias (Jr.) with her? We know that Hattie and Elias (Sr.) broke up sometime after 1910. Did he follow her to Rockport or was this the breakup?

Death Certificate for J.C. Bowie from FamilySearch Labs'
Record Search
(Click to enlarge)

A Memorable Visit

2008-07-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

In my Jamboree posts the week before last, I alluded to a special mission I had attended to as part of my trip to Southern California. I took part of the time I was there to meet my father's step-mother.

I never knew that my father had a step-mother, as such, until the last few years, or so it seems to me. My parents tell me that I had met her (let's call her Miss Mary) at my brother's wedding 25 years ago in Los Angeles, but I have no recollection of that at all. In any event, I would have been 29 years old at the time, and that would have been the first I'd heard of Miss Mary.

In the last few years, I've become aware that my father has kept in regular contact with Miss Mary, calling her about every other week and writing her from time to time. A few weeks ago, he couldn't seem to reach her. She's 94 years old and lives alone. Dad called me, quite concerned, and asked if there was anything I could do. I first checked with various sources to ascertain if she had died; these were inconclusive at best. I dialed her number on the chance that Dad had dialed the wrong number. The number just rang and rang without being answered.
When I tried later, it was busy. A final try got a ring, but no answer.

After consulting several geriatric and law enforcement professionals, I called the Los Angeles Police Department's division station for Miss Mary's area. I explained who I was and that I wanted them to go to Miss Mary's address for a "welfare check." The officer on the telephone said they would do that.

Within an hour, I received a call back from the LAPD. They were at Miss Mary's place and they had found her "little dehydrated, a bit disoriented, but otherwise fine." They gave her water and juice. I conveyed the message to my father immediately after I received it.

On the Jamboree trip, I had planned to visit the grave of my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (buried under the name Jessie Manson Tidwell), which is in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California, a thirty minute drive from Burbank. But I realized that her grave will always be there (or at least for a very long time) and Miss Mary may not always be here. So I decided to go see Miss Mary.

Miss Mary lives in a usually quiet area of southwest Los Angeles near the 110 freeway. (That morning it was not quiet, however, as LAPD helicopters roared overhead tracking a fugitive and LA news media choppers swarmed around the law enforcement airplanes).

I rang her doorbell and waited. I could hear a television on inside and voices, also. When nobody came to the door after a decent interval, I took out mt cell phone and dialed Miss Mary's number. I heard the telephone ring and a voice said, "Somebody's calling me." Nobody answered the telephone, so I left a message saying who I was and why I was there. Then a woman's voice said, "Somebody's at my door. Let him in."

A woman of about 30 years old opened the door and smiling, said,"Come in." I stepped into a small but uncluttered living room. At the back of the living room, I saw Miss Mary.

"Miss Mary," I said, "I'm . . . . " She cut me off quickly.

"I know who you is," she said curtly. "You your daddy's son." She was coming toward me in a walker, but at a pretty good speed and with a decent gait. Her voice was clear and strong.

"Sit down," she commanded. And to the younger woman, "Get him a cup of coffee."

"Uh, I don't drink coffee, Miss Mary."

"You don't? Well, the you're no friend of mine!" I actually couldn't tell if she was joking or not. I sat down on her sofa as she sat in a chair across from me. She was wearing a pair of blue slacks and a pressed pink shirt. She seemed to be sizing me up.

"What on earth possessed you to call the police to come to my house the other day?" Miss Mary demanded, her Texas drawl unseasoned by more than six decades in southern California.

Again, I wasn't sure if she was angry or not.

"I-I, uh, well, Dad was . . . we were concerned about--" I stammered.

Miss Mary cut me off again. "No, that wasn't it," she said forcefully. I started to protest, when Miss Mary held up her hand and said, "It was the spirit of the Lord made you call the police." Her facial expression softened into a smile.

"Yessir, it was the spirit of the Lord!" she exclaimed again. "How else would you know to call Los Angeles from Sacramento to save my life? It was the Lord's doing!"

Miss Mary had a bit more dramatic take on the situation than the LAPD had. She said she had fallen asleep the night before and had not turned on her air conditioner because the evening was cool. She slept on the sofa until the mid-morning hours. By that time, the heat wave had commenced in LA and Miss Mary was sweating and drained of energy. She said she couldn't get up to get water or to turn the air conditioner. After awhile, she could barely move at all. She knew she would die if she couldn't get up. She was preparing her self mentally for just that occurrence when the police showed up. The sofa being close to the door, she was able muster enough energy to let them in.

"They were like angels," Miss Mary said of the officers. "I'm going to witness about this in my church!"

After these preliminaries were over, we started discussing family matters. Miss Mary had been born in Cameron, Texas, 12 or 15 miles from my grandfather's birthplace in Rockdale, Texas. Contrary to family legend which said that they had never met until both ended up in Los Angeles, Miss Mary said that she and my grandfather had known each other in Texas. She said that she and a girlfriend left Texas in about 1941 to find better jobs in California.

When they got to LA (they went by train), they almost immediately found wartime jobs in a shipyard. A few years later, on the way to work on a bus, she ran into my grandfather, by then divorced from my grandmother. They renewed their acquaintance and later got married.

Miss Mary confirmed several details of family history that I was not sure about. Having grown up in the same county as my grandfather, she knew his family. For example, I asked her if she knew my grandfather's father, Otis Manson. She said, "He was a white man; he took good care of his family."

And who was his father? I asked. Miss Mary replied, "I don't know. You know, people didn't talk a lot about things like that in those days."

The census records describe Otis Manson as variously mulatto or black. But Miss Mary's declaration added credence to my father's story of having seen a white man on a horse in Midland County, Texas, in 1948 and being told, "That's your grandfather." What she said is also consistent with my theory that Otis Manson was the son of George Preston Birdsong, scion of a landed Upson County, Georgia, family, and Matilda Manson, a free woman of color who lived near George Birdsong. [By the time Miss Mary was born in 1914, George Preston Birdsong had returned to Georgia and died in 1905].

Miss Mary pointed out that at age 94, she cooks and cleans for herself and goes to church. [The younger woman with her that day is sent out by an agency at certain intervals to check up on her].

Miss Mary told me the basic genealogy of her family, the details of which I had already researched before starting my trip. But you know, there's just something special about hearing a living person describe their family when the vital facts square with your research!

It was a wonderful hour and a half spent with the most interesting and energetic 94 year old I've ever met.

Before I left, we took some photos. And that's the saddest part of the story. It was a new camera and I wasn't completely familiar with its operation. I either deleted the photos or never actually got them on the memory card. Which means I'll have to go back!

Back From . . . .

2008-07-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I return and find . . . . my mailbox is full of Facebook "Friend" requests! That's kinda nice! Thanks, y'all!

And I also found in the snail mail two boxes of photos from a relative in the Midwest--six more are coming! I can't wait. There's a lot to tell this weekend on GeneaBlogie . . . so stay tuned!

No Posts Here 'Til Next Week! Have A Great Fourth!

2008-07-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative

2008-07-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

Perhaps three or four years ago, the U.S. Surgeon General launched a "Family History Initiative." I first came across it a few weeks ago. The Surgeon General's Website says this:

Health care professionals have known for a long time that common diseases - heart disease, cancer, and diabetes - and even rare diseases - like hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia - can run in families. If one generation of a family has high blood pressure, it is not unusual for the next generation to have similarly high blood pressure. Tracing the illnesses suffered by your parents, grandparents, and other blood relatives can help your doctor predict the disorders to which you may be at risk and take action to keep you and your family healthy.

To help focus attention on the importance of family history, the U.S. Surgeon General in cooperation with other agencies with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a national public health campaign, called the U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history.

It goes on to say:

Americans know that family history is important to health. A recent survey found that 96 percent of Americans believe that knowing their family history is important. Yet, the same survey found that only one-third of Americans have ever tried to gather and write down their family's health history.

So, of course, to capitalize on the rising popularity of family history research and "[b]ecause family health history is such a powerful screening tool," the government came up with its own
family [health] history software, "to help make it fun and easy for anyone to create a sophisticated portrait of their family's health."

The software, which is also available in a web-based version, is called My Family Health Portrait. As genealogical software, it ain't great. It appears to allow you print two reports, the ones displayed here:

Above: Text-only Report
Below: Graphic Report
(Click on images to enlarge)

(Note: the family depicted above is entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental and unintentional.)

Is this as the government claims, a useful tool? Probably. And you could probably get the same info by customizing a report from your usual genealogical software. But for those not into genealogy, this tool may have two uses: first, it will help them trace family health issues and second, it may interest them further in genealogy.

Link:
The Surgeon General's Family History Initiative