Cousin Bait

I will readily admit that a nice side benefit of this blog is that it provides a point of contact for unknown cousins.  A couple of distant cousins have already found me through this blog, and others have found me through ancestry.com.  It is always exciting to get a notice that a distant relative has found an entry on my tree and wants to connect.

Today, I’m putting it out there for people to Google.  Here is a lengthy list of direct-line ancestors in my research family tree.  Hopefully someone will find a name that they care about when they search, and we’ll be able to connect and exchange information.

Ruth Antle (1751-1842) [Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky]

Joel Appling (1752-1838) [Virginia, Georgia]
John Appling (1798-1840) [Georgia]
Mary Frances Appling (1823-1880) [Georgia, Alabama]
Thomas Appling (1726-1801) [Virginia, Georgia]
Minerva Adeline Barrett (1842-1870) [South Carolina, Texas]
Oliver Barrett (1810-1877) [South Carolina, Texas]
Winifred Buckner (1751-1840) [Virginia, Georgia]
Mary M Childers (1837-1909) [Georgia, Alabama, Texas]
Albert Buell Collins (1862-1942) [Kentucky, Texas]
Samuel Collins (-1834) [Virginia, Kentucky]
Thomas Alexander Collins (1824-1892) [Kentucky]
Amanda H Davis (1861-1902) [Alabama, Texas]
Thomas Davis (1811-) [South Carolina, Alabama]
William T Davis (1831-1863) [Alabama]
Augustus Newell Edmonds (1846-1920) [Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma]
John Edmonds (1716-) [Wales, Virginia]
John Edmonds (1746-1830) [Virginia, Georgia]
William A Edmonds (1814-1902) [Georgia, Alabama]
Susan Martha Ellis (1838-1912) [Kentucky]
Lemuel Green (1814-1852) [South Carolina]
Susan Emma Green (1867-1953) [Texas, Arkansas, Colorado]
William Pinkney Green (1837-1907) [South Carolina, Texas]
Leo Edward Habich (1903-1976) [Kentucky]
Leopold Habich (1847-1920) [Germany, Kentucky]
Mary Hamner (1755-) [Georgia]
Nancy Harper (1821-) [North Carolina, Tennessee]
Buford Knight (1801-1850) [Kentucky]
Talitha Jane Knight (1827-1885) [Kentucky]
Agnes Maxwell (1795-) [Virginia]
David McCoy (1742-1822) [Scotland, South Carolina]
Susan Emma McCoy (1814-1883) [South Carolina, Texas]
Mary Polly McElroy (-) [Georgia]
John McElvain (1874-) [Kentucky]
Mamie Violet McElvain (1899-1979) [Kentucky]
Alexander McKinnon (1818-) [North Carolina, Tennessee]
Amanda Bell McKinnon (1858-1931) [Tennessee, Texas]
Elihu Melton (1798-1885) [North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama]
Emily Jane Melton (1835-1910) [Alabama, Texas]
Nancy Emily Murrah (1821-1893) []
Adeline Neal (1821-) [Kentucky]
Kemp H Parker (1815-) [North Carolina, Tennessee]
Kemp Hawkins Parker (1853-1928) [Tennessee, Texas]
Lula Mae Parker (1894-1928) [Tennessee, Texas]
Amanda Jane Perryman (1860-1945) [Kentucky, Texas]
George Washington Perryman (1804-1878) [North Carolina, Kentucky]
William Perryman (1760-1854) [Maryland, North Carolina]
Elizabeth Price (1841-1913) [Kentucky]
Harvey Price (1819-) [Kentucky]
Edward Prince (1803-) [South Carolina, Alabama, Texas]
James Nathaniel Prince (1860-1902) [Texas]
John W Prince (1837-1921) [Alabama, Texas]
Sarah Simmons Richards (1807-1898) [Georgia, Alabama]

Sarah Jane Rippetoe (1808-1886) [Kentucky]

William Rippetoe (1781-1863) [North Carolina, Kentucky]

William Rippetoe (1748-1839) [Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky]

Nancy Sherrill (1805-) [Tennessee]
David Standley (1797-) [Tennessee]
Louisa Standley (1828-) [Tennessee]
Elizabeth Steitz (1859-1934) [Germany, Kentucky]
James C Swinney (1818-1887) [Kentucky]
Thomas Gilbert Swinney (1900-1979) [Kentucky]
Thomas Wilson Swinney (1865-1940) [Kentucky]
Emily Vaughan (1816-1864) [South Carolina]
Cora Vincent (1876-) [Kentucky]
John H Vincent (1844-1917) [Kentucky]

Elizabeth Vinson (1787-1844) [North Carolina, Kentucky]

Hallie B Wellman (1875-1907) [Kentucky]
John Wellman (1839-) [Kentucky]
Anna Pearl Woods (1900-1997) [Kentucky]

Census Mistakes: Parent’s birthplace

We all know that there are mistakes in the census.  We complain about mangled names which make it difficult to find our ancestors.  We are confused by ages when the women seem to get younger with every passing 10 years.  I am always skeptical when I see conflicting birthplaces listed for parents, but I figure that a wife (who might have been the one giving the information) might not really know where her husband’s parents were born.  I consider them “hints” rather than “facts”.

In this example from District 16, Waco, McLennan County, Texas, in the 1930 census, the birthplaces of the parents are switched.


Since the people in this listing (L. Lloyd Edmonds and his 4 children) are lodgers, their relationship to each other is not indicated in the census.  However, I know that Amanda M., Lloyd Jr, Lee O., and Vivian are the children of the widower.  (I also know that they spelled Loyd with one L rather than two.)

You will note that the father’s place of birth is listed as Texas, but the place of birth of father on each of the children’s lines is listed as Tennessee.  If you took this at face value, you would think that Loyd might be an uncle rather than the father of these 4 children.  However, the birthplace of the mother is listed as Texas.  In reality, the two columns (birthplace of father and birthplace of mother) are swapped.  Their deceased mother was born in Tennessee.

This makes one wonder if the entire page is similarly transposed, or possibly every page completed by this particular enumerator.

This is just one more thing that we have to be on the lookout for.

Who’s in that Picture?

While gathered with family over the holidays, I was asked a couple of times about the people in the banner photo for this blog.  One brother asked me to blog about it, so here goes.

The picture was taken during the summer of 1928 in Colorado, near the home of Susan Emma Green Prince, “Emma Prince”.  Having been a widow since 1902, Emma Prince was the family matriarch.  Oral history indicates that she lived near Boulder, but she is listed in the 1930 US Census in Lakewood, Colorado, just west of Denver, which is south of Boulder.

The children help with dating of the photograph.  Carolyn (left-most child) was hit by a car and died that summer.  Also, the absence of Golda Emma Prince Collins (Carolyn’s and Grammy’s mother) helps date the photo since she died of pneumonia in 1927.  The children spent the summer with their grandmother, Emma Prince. 

Adults (left to right):

Mallie Prince -- Known in the family as Aunt Mallie, she was born about 1898 in Borden County, Texas.  She was the youngest of the daughters and married A L Jones.
Arthur Prince -- According to Grammy, this is Arthur Prince.  He was the eldest son of Emma Prince, and was born in 1889.  At this time, he was living in Abilene, Texas, and was married to Lela Barker.  It is unclear why his wife was not in the photograph, unless she is the unidentified woman.
Louise Goodwell -- Daughter of AP Goodwell from a prior marriage.
Susan Emma Prince – Grammy’s grandmother, the matriarch of the family.
Unidentified woman
AP Goodwell -- Married to Winnie Prince.
Winnie Prince -- The middle daughter of Emma Prince.  She was born about 1895 and was married to AP Goodwell.

Children (left to right):

Carolyn Collins -- Grammy’s younger sister.  She was almost 5 years old at the time of this picture.
Grammy
Arthur Goodwell – son of AP Goodwell.  I don’t know whether Winnie Prince was his mother, or if he was the son from a prior marriage.

Comments welcome – especially any information about the Goodwells or the Jones.

Death Location vs. Burial Location

When you find a grave marker, it is easy to assume that the person died close to the place where they were buried.  This can be a bad assumption, though.  Here is an excellent example.

Amanda H Edmonds (nee Davis) was born in Alabama in 1861.  In 1892, she married Augustus Newell Edmonds and returned with him to Hill County, Texas.  Augustus Edmonds was widowed and had 8 children by his first wife.  Amanda and Augustus had two more children (Loyd and Blanche).

About half of the public trees on ancestry.com show her to have died in Hill County, Texas; the other half show her to have died in Fayette County, Alabama.  She is clearly buried in Texas (Grandview Cemetery, Johnson County, Texas) as I have seen and photographed her grave marker.  Augustus (who died years later) is buried between Amanda and his first wife Elizabeth McDuff.  It is easy to think that the report of death in Alabama might be a mistake.  However, the fact that she is buried in Texas, does not mean that she died in Johnson County, or even in neighboring Hill County.


Here is the story:
For Christmas 1901, Augustus, Amanda, Loyd, and Blanche travelled back to Fayette County, Alabama, to visit family.

Augustus’s sister Ella wrote:

On December 23rd, we looked out from our humble home and saw the hackman drive up to the gate; and oh, how our hears were made to leap with joy, when we saw that the passengers were our dear brother, wife and two little children….But alas!  In a few days all the family were sick, caused by the sudden change of climate.  And how said it is to say that death claimed for his victim the Wife, the Mother, our sweet sister."

An account in her hometown newspaper in Itasca, Texas, indicates that she lived only 30 hours after becoming “suddenly ill with congestion of the bowels”. Some suggest that it may have been appendicitis, but that doesn’t fit with her sister-in-law’s account that the entire family was ill.

On a recent trip to Fayette County, Alabama, I found a photocopy of the original death register.  It lists her death on January 5, 1902 of “congestion of stomach”. 


Augustus relayed information of his trip back to Texas in a letter to the editor of the Fayette Banner newspaper, published on January 21, 1902.

Please allow me to inform my Fayette friends, through the columns of your paper, of my safe arrival at home from Alabama, with my wife a corpse, on Wednesday the 8th. We were met at the depot by a great number of people, who marched to the grave to pay the last tribute of respect to my bosom companion who departed this life at 8 o'clock p.m. on Sunday the 5th….I wish to specially thank Propst Bros. and J. P. Dickinson for their noble deeds of kindness to me. I, perhaps, would have had to bury my wife at Cordova, had it not been for brother Dickinson. At that point we were transferred from the Southern to the K. C. R. R., a certificate had to be signed, and I thank God that brother Dickinson volunteered to sign it and let me through with my little children and corpse of my wife. My home is a lonely home now; a vacant chair at the fireside, at the table, at church and at Sunday school, and everywhere I go I miss Amanda. But there is one consoling thought and that is, she is at rest from the cares of this troublesome world and that I was permitted to bury her where she so much desired to be.

There you have it.  Amanda died in Fayette County, Alabama, and her body was returned with her family via railroad to Texas, where she was buried in Johnson County, which is neighbors to where she lived in Hill County.

In my records, I now enter a Death fact and a separate Burial fact.  I find that I often have evidence of the date of death but not the place, and of the place of burial but not the actual date.  However, this technique helps me avoid adding incorrect details to my family tree.

Mother Lode of Cemeteries

I recently took a brief trip to Fayette County, Alabama, where my great grandfather (Augustus Newell Edmonds) and his second wife (Amanda H Davis) grew up.  Although he left the area for Hill County, Texas, in the 1870s, there are many family roots in the county.  I planned to search for a few key grave markers and take pictures of any one I saw with a related family surname.

My first stop was Find A Grave to figure out which cemeteries to visit.  Much to my surprise, there are 218 cemeteries in Fayette County.  With a county population of just over 17,000, and an area of 628 square miles, that makes for one cemetery for every 79 living people, and more than one cemetery per three square miles.  I compare this with my own county in Texas:  169 cemeteries, 782,000 people, 850 square miles.  That’s one cemetery for every 4600 living people, and one cemetery per 5 square miles.

As I entered the county by country roads, I was taken by the presence of so many cemeteries.  Most were beside small country churches.  I loved the fact that residents were laid to rest where they had worshipped.

I ended up visiting and taking pictures at 7 cemeteries, including taking pictures of every grave marker at 2 of the smaller cemeteries.  I would love to return some day, take more pictures, and learn more about my roots.

Watch Out: Census Pages Out of Order

I recently found the following census index listing on ancestry.com:



It seemed very odd to have 6 young Appling children living with Melton Keesmon. 

The first Appling I found here was Aretha.  Since I was looking for Althea/Aletha, I first assumed that this was not the person I was looking for.  Then I realized that Nancy, John, Americus, and Oscar were siblings of Aletha, as listed in the 1860 census.  Hmmm. Seems like the right family.  But what’s with the head of household Melton Keesmon?

Since the children’s father was William Burrell Appling, I looked at his 1850 census listing.  I found him with his wife and 4 children, ages 14 through 21.  But who are Isabella and Eliza King?



The answer to both mysteries comes from realizing that the pages are out of order.

Melton Keesman is listed in family # 690 at the bottom of image 100 .

Burrell Appling, with his family # 717 is listed at the bottom of image 104.

The Appling children (Nancy, Cordelia, John, Americus, Oscar, Aretha) are listed at the top of image 101 with no family number.  However, the family immediately following them is numbered 718.

Similarly, the King children (Isabella and Eliza) are listed at the top of image 105 with no family number.  The family immediately following them is numbered 743, so presumably they are part of family # 742.

Mystery solved:  image 101 should follow image 104.  This is one more reason to look past the index and review the scanned document, especially when the information provided in the index seems a little fishy.

You can’t always believe what you read

As family historians, we’ve all been told that you can’t believe everything you find on the Internet.  It’s easy to believe that a fact must be true because we find it in several places, but it is possible that they are all derived from the same faulty source.

One place that we often find errors is in the census.  Usually one family member gave the information to the census taker, and he or she might not actually know the facts.  For instance, a wife who is at home when the census taker arrives may not know the birthplace of her husband’s parents.

It is easier, though, to believe that a “fact” in print is accurate.  However, there are many reasons that an incorrect “fact” can creep into a printed work as well. 

Consider the following confusion that I came across.  A self-published (comb-bound) family history book states the following:

Clarence Gordon Self was born 28 March 1893 in Grant, Oklahoma, to Berry Crenshaw Self (born 14 November 1856 in Cumberland County, Kentucky to William Jennings and Marry C. “Polly” Guinn Self) and Viola Frances Bledsoe Self (born 5 March 1873 to George Chilton and Nancy Sloan Bledsoe in Russell County, Kentucky).  Clarence lived with his family in Kentucky from age two to nine, where he spent time with his uncle Jim Self, a lawman of some repute.

The 1900 Census states that Clarence was living with his parents in Creelsboro, Kentucky, and that he was born in Kentucky.

The 1910 Census shows that he was living with his parents in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, and that he was born in Texas.

In the 1920 Census he is shown living with his widowed mother in Washita County, Oklahoma.  His birthplace is unreadable, but appears to have been Kentucky overwritten by Oklahoma.

The 1930 Census shows him married, living in Washita County, Oklahoma, and with a birthplace of Oklahoma.

His WWI draft registration card shows that he was born in Creelsboro, Kentucky.

My first inclination would be to believe that Clarence Self was born in Kentucky – because the census closest to his birth indicated so, and because he listed Creelsboro, Kentucky, on his draft registration card.  Since he filled out the registration card, you would think that would be correct.  However, the author of the book, a relative, seems to have “insider” information.

When you find conflicting evidence like this, you just have to consider all to be candidates until some conclusive evidence arises.  Texas doesn’t seem like a very convincing candidate, but Grant, Oklahoma, and Creelsboro, Kentucky, both seem viable.  Until someone comes up with a birth record from one of those places, this fact needs to stay in the “inconclusive” category.