2026 #52Ancestors - Week 4: A Theory in Progress

 

Back to tangential Pearsons this week.  I've written about this fellow before, but it's probably time for an update.  When I first wrote about Pierson McClure/Joseph Marion Miller, I was only able to track him from his birth in 1914 until the early 1940s.  During those 26+ years, Pierson McClure became Joseph Marion Miller, moved with his mother and various stepfathers from Illinois to Michigan, and was eventually employed in the merchant marines. Considering he experienced a name change (and his mother's last name changed four times) during that period, I consider it a blessing I was able to track him at all.

Receiving his merchant marine file filled in a few more blanks.  I was able to determine that he moved with his mother back to Mattoon, Illinois, (a place familiar to them, as they lived there in the early 1920s). I learned that, while living in Mattoon, he got into an altercation with a neighbor; this article also identified Joseph as being blind. That information allowed me to identify him in another newspaper article, this time in East St. Louis, but there was still plenty about Pierson/Joseph that I didn't know. For example, why did he and his mother move back to Mattoon in the late 1940s, and when/why did they then make the decision to move to East St. Louis?  What was the extent of his previously mentioned blindness?  Oh...and where/when did he die?

So, here is my theory in progress.  Nettie-of-the-many-marriages must have divorced/been divorced by husband #5 some time in the mid-to-late 1940s (I haven't found a divorce record yet). Because she was now caretaker to her disabled son, she wanted to move somewhere that felt familiar. Maybe she had some friends in Mattoon and wanted a fresh start for herself and Joseph.  

Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet Joseph was more than a little difficult to handle.  The altercation referenced in his merchant marine file and the article about assaulting his neighbor lends credence to that theory, and various articles about Nettie indicate she was no shrinking violet.  On top of their strong personalities, Nettie probably realized she needed to get Joseph closer to services for the blind.  After all, she wasn't going to live forever. Somehow, she found out about The St. Louis Society for the Blind.  They offered classes on life skills, and assisted the blind with transportation, resources, and access to social workers.  She and Joseph didn’t necessarily need to live in St. Louis.  East St. Louis was just over the river, and she thought she might still be able to find her way around based on the time she spent there with her 1st and 3rd husbands.  

I like this theory because it explains why Joseph and Nettie had different addresses in East St. Louis at the time of Nettie's death in 1968; he had learned the skills necessary to function autonomously thanks to The St. Louis Society for the Blind. The above theory offers at least a partial answer to all my questions...except where/when Joseph died.  All I have to go on is his last known address in 1968, and it is now an open field.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 1: An Ancestor I Admire

Well, I certainly fell off the genealogical bandwagon in 2025!  I think I got through the first month and a half of #52Ancestors and then self-destructed. 😳 I'm hoping for a better showing this year. That being said, let's move on to the prompt for the first week of January - an ancestor I admire.

Now, I could be predictable and write about Horace for the dozenth time.  (If you are new to this blog and don't know about Horace, please go to the above link.  He was an amazing and resilient man.)  I could also write about his ancestor, Thomas Pearson, who fought in the Revolutionary War. Instead, I'm going to write about Horace's paternal grandfather, Joseph Allen Pearson.

**Any letter excerpts included are from the compiled Letters to Raintree County by James B. Cash**

Joseph was born in Franklin County, Virginia, in 1814.  He was a third generation Franklin County Pearson, and many of his siblings remained in the area and gave birth to a 4th generation of Franklin County Pearsons.  Joseph, for whatever reason, had other plans. In the late 1840s, it seems he succumbed to wanderlust.  It is uncertain exactly when or why he left the family homestead, but he traveled west and stopped long enough in McCracken County, Kentucky, to marry Nancy Ann Fields and have a daughter, Lizzie Pearson (born in July of 1848).  By July of 1849, though, he had most certainly settled in Illinois.  A November 1849 letter from his parents to his sister and brother-in-law notes they had "received a letter from Joseph A. Pearson some time...in July and that he was living in Illinois and that he was doing well."  As far as I have been able to ascertain, he did not have any connections to Pulaski County, Illinois, but that is where he chose to settle. The 1850 census indicates he was a farmer.

Far from his family and the familiarity of his childhood home, Joseph built a life for himself, his wife, and their children. They had (at least) 10 children between 1848 and 1872, but it was not all joy.  Their first son, John, born in 1849, died in 1850 from croup.  Their next daughter, Catherine, born in 1850, died in 1851. Two more girls would follow, Nancy (1853) and Mary Ann (1855).  They survived infancy, but Joseph and Nancy's next son, Joseph, did not. Born 13 Jul. 1857, he died on August 6th. It was not until my great great grandfather was born (in 1858) that a son survived. Next came Thomas J. (1862) and Mattie (1870). A final daughter, Lila, was born to Joseph and Nancy in 1872, but she died in July 1873.  John, Catherine, Joseph, and Lila were buried in a small family cemetery.  I like to believe that Joseph and Nancy made it a point to visit them from time to time.  

In spite of  his decision to move half-way across the country, it is obvious Joseph missed his family back in Virginia.  In 1870, he wrote to his sister, Nancy, and brother-in-law, Aaron, and was clearly trying to convince members of his family to join him.  He suggested, "Tell Little niece Nannia Coble I have a charming beau picked out for her," and seemed to be encouraging his family to move when he wrote "good land here is worth about half what it is up there."  His youngest brother, Benjamin Everett, did briefly join him in Pulaski County after the Civil War, but Joseph lived the majority of his adult life far from his kin.  

In 1880, the census indicates Joseph was suffering from rheumatism, but he was still farming. When he died in 1882, he was buried beside his 4 infant children in the family cemetery.  

It takes courage to leave the comfort of family and travel 650 miles to a place that is utterly foreign.  It takes fortitude to establish a home on the pioneer and learn to grow and harvest unfamiliar crops. It takes perseverance to weather several infant deaths.  It takes determination to continue working through old age, joint pain, and stiffness.  He didn't have to overcome physical disabilities like his grandson Horace Pearson, and he didn't fight for his country's independence like his grandfather Thomas Pearson, but Joseph came to Pulaski County with a wife, a daughter, and the goal of starting a new life for himself.  He succeeded.

Echols - Challenge Round

Jesse, William, and John Echols - 3 brothers who were instrumental in the formation and settlement of Illinois.  I descend from Jesse, and Heather descends from John.  Both of us applied for and received Illinois Pioneers certificates which means that we successfully traced our lineage back to these two men.  What we have been unable to do, however, is locate and prove who their parents were.

Here's what we know:
* The brothers were born in Georgia (most likely Franklin County) and migrated to southern Illinois in the mid-to-late 1810s.
* Jesse was a Justice of the Peace in Johnson County, Illinois, in 1814.  He died in 1838 in southern Illinois and left a will.
* Though we suspect he arrived earlier, Heather proved John was settled in Union County, Illinois, by 1819.
* William was a Constitutional Assembly delegate for Union County in 1818.

* We have recently been in contact with a distant cousin who is descended from both John and William.  Alas, she does not know their father either.

What we suspect:

Heather and I feel the top contenders for the parents of Jesse, William, and John are Benjamin Echols and Sabra Hendricks.  They fit geographically and chronologically, but we have not been able to find any documentation that definitively proves we have the correct people.

Even combining our documentation with Teresa's (distant cousin) amassed information, it is clear we have our work cut out for us.  Heather and I have land records, various books about the history of southern Illinois, and a number of legal documents that Jesse, John, and William signed their names to.  Teresa has records from the National Archives as well as a family history compiled by an Echols descendant.  We have all perused Terry Echols's family tree of John Echols and Mary Cave. None of these has led us any closer to determining the progenitors of Jesse, William, and John.

As any genealogist knows, the further back you go chronologically, the harder it is to find existing documents (and we won't even talk about whether or not they are legible). 

(Not a) Nickname

When I was researching my Pearsons in Pulaski County, Illinois, I ran into many issues with what people were named vs. how they identified themselves/how other people referred to them.  For example, my great great grandmother was Emma Katherine.  However, depending on the document, she was E.K., Emma K., Kate E., Catherine, and a plethora of other derivations/variations of her first and middle names.  The same went for her children.  Peyton Eric was usually Eric or P.E., and Daniel Benton was often Ben, sometimes D.B. - and once, Benjamin. Thus, I assumed naming/nicknaming conventions would be similar for Emma's daughter, Nettie M.  

Nettie has been the topic of many posts on this blog, and I doubt this will be the last time she is mentioned.  Well, I looked at the name 'Nettie' and thought, "I highly doubt that's her given name.  I bet it's a nickname for something."  But what?  The internet offered more possibilities than I was expecting. Antoinette, Nanette, Annette, and Jeannette were the most popular suggestions, and I tried all of them and more while looking for Nettie's 1920 census.  I still haven't found it... 

Similarly, I wondered if I might find her under her middle name as was typical of her brothers, Ben and Eric, and sometimes her mother, Kate.  Unfortunately, I had only the middle initial to go on.  Fortunately, it was an 'M,' and I thought to myself that it was very likely that her middle name was Marie.  Oh, how foolish of me to think the simplest answer was the correct answer.  Searching for Marie N. and other such combinations yielded just as little as trying recognized names that typically used Nettie as a nickname.

A few months ago, after much fruitless searching in all other areas, Cuzzin Heather decided to try her luck by requesting the death certificate for one 'Nettie Miller' who had died in Illinois in 1968. It was possible it was "my" Nettie, even though Walter Miller was only her 3rd (possibly 4th) husband, and there were at least two more after him. Imagine my surprise when the following arrived: 

Son: Joseph Miller ✅

Parents: George Pearson and Catherine Green ✅

Legal name: Nettie...Mabel???

Nowhere in this line or any other connected to it have I found another Mabel.

So, in the end, I learned at least two valuable lessons.

1. Don't assume that naming/nicknaming conventions apply to everyone in a given family.  

2. Occam's Razor apparently doesn't apply to genealogy.

Oh, and 3, don't assume government records are most likely to be correct.  The SSDI indicated Nettie's date of death was June 15th, but that was actually the date she was buried.

Long story short - Nettie was NOT her nickname.

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 29: Automobiles

Ah, the automobile.  We use it for mundane tasks like driving to work, hauling landscaping materials, and toting groceries.  Today, though, I'd like to declare my appreciation for this fine piece of technology that allows me to visit ancestral places with relative ease.  Without an automobile, how likely is it that I would have visited West Virginia and the spot where Colonel John Field lost his life?  Not likely!  Or the cemetery with the monument to the now non-existent town of Wilmington, Kentucky - a place where John Field purchased land with the hope of residing in the new county seat?  Nope, probably wouldn't have made the trek to visit that place either.  Over the last several years, I have enlisted the trusty family steed to take me to various areas of genealogical importance, so today, I pay homage to...the automobile.

In August of 2014, my sister's automobile took us to Pulaski County, Illinois.  Here, I learned where my ggg grandparents were buried and was able to visit the stone of my gg grandparents.  G.W.'s missing date of death has since been rectified.

Then I took a long hiatus from lengthy travels because I became a mom, but in July of 2022, I was back in the driver's seat to southern Illinois.  This time, we were on the hunt for another ggg grandparent, Thomas Green (the above Emma K.'s father).  We found him in Anna Cemetery.

I have visited Thomas one other time since then. 

The next month, I drove across the Ohio River to make the aforementioned trip to Kentucky to locate a cemetery with a couple amusing headstones.

It was in this town that John Field (my 4x great grandfather), purchased 3 lots of land in January 1827 with the intention of building in what was supposed to be the McCracken County Seat. I doubt it happened. When Wilmington flooded in 1832, only a jail, courthouse, and six houses had been completed.  Now, there is no Wilmington - just a couple of commemorative monuments in Wilmington Road Cemetery.

In June of 2023, I took my brand new automobile to Minnesota.  This time, though, I wasn't looking for a dead person.  I was visiting my "Cuzzin Heather" in person for the first time.  This was the only genealogy-related trip for last summer, but it was well worth the drive!

In June of this year, we took a whirlwind road trip through the states of Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky.  While in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, my daughter and husband were anxious to visit the Mothman statue and museum, but I had genealogy on the brain.  Just down the road from the cryptid tourist traps was Tu-Endie-Wei State Park, a sort of cemetery/historical marker for the Battle of Point Pleasant that occurred in 1774.  At this battle, sometimes recognized as the first of the Revolutionary War, my ancestor, Colonel John Field, died.  He was buried with other soldiers of rank at The Magazine.

Just a few days ago, we returned from a trip to southern Missouri.  For the first time, I was able to visit Hayti - the place where Great Uncle Horace perished.

The site of the former Keystone Building which was partially destroyed by a fire in 1941.  Horace and Commissioner Houston H. Buckley died in the fire.

And then, I went to visit Horace's final resting place.  It took some sleuthing and posting in various Facebook groups, but I was able to determine where the now-defunct cemetery is located.

County Poor Farm #2 was/is located just off the intersection of 412 and Highway Z next to the Pemiscot County Special School District administrative building.  The district superintendent was outside when I pulled up, and he gave me permission to walk the empty field.  I said a few words, left a note and some flowers, and felt a great sense of peace at finally being able to "Find Horace."  Thank you, automobiles, for your assistance.

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 26: Family Gatherings

This post was moved to the Collecting Dead People blog:

Family Gatherings

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 28: Trains

Trains?!  Trains, you say?!  Well, my family has a long, proud history of being involved with the railroad - thought not necessarily in a positive way.  The inspiration for this blog, Horace Pearson, lost both of his legs (completely - they were amputated just below the hips) in a train accident when he was 8 eight years old.  His father, my great great grandfather, worked for the Illinois Central Round House in Mounds, Illinois.  He managed to keep all of his limbs.

Horace's sister, Nettie Pearson, married a man by the name of Roy Hudson.  She married a lot of men, but I digress...  Nettie and Roy were married in Caruthersville, Missouri, in November of 1915.  Not long after, in January of 1916, Roy (after evidently having a bit too much to drink) attempted to hitch a ride on a northbound Frisco train.  All he accomplished was losing his leg.  The amputation occurred just below the knee.

The Democrat Argus, 11 Jan. 1916, p. 1.

On the other side of my mother's family, Nils Wedberg also ended up under a train.  He lost one leg at the knee, but he was able to get a prosthetic.  Believe it or not, he lost the prosthetic in another train-related accident.  

You have to keep a sense of humor about these things, though.  I've now made it a point to take a picture under any train that isn't in danger of moving.

Me, in Paducah, Kentucky, by the Flood Wall Murals

Heather (who also has her fair share of train-severed limbs) and I in Duluth, Minnesota, at the Duluth Scenic Railway Museum