2026 #52Ancestors, Week 12: An Address with a Story

At the corner of Sheffield and 13th street in Niles, Michigan

1106 N. 13th Street in Niles, Michigan.  This is where my great aunt Nettie lived with her 3rd (4th?) husband, Walter Miller, and her son, Joseph Miller.  It was, by far, the most stable of her 5(6?) marriages, lasting 15 years.  According to property records, this home was built in 1920, but the Millers were not its first owners.  However, this was where they were living by 1930.  In that census, Walter and Nettie owned this home, and it was valued at $3,000.

Do I know any actual stories associated with this house?  Yes and no. I know that, in 1929, Joseph was attending Niles High School. I imagine him coming back to this house in the afternoons, Nettie waiting in the doorway. I imagine arguments about grades, behavior...maybe girls.  The usual teenager stuff.

I know that, in 1933, Walter filed for divorce.

The Herald Press, 8 Dec. 1933, p. 3

The article suggests a hostile living environment, dangerous and destructive. How did Joseph handle it? Maybe he went down to the basement to hide from the arguments and projectiles.

I know that, while Nettie might have been volatile, she was not the only one exhibiting questionable behavior in this household.  Weeks after Walter and Nettie's divorce was finalized, Walter was found guilty of a litany of crimes.

The Herald Palladium, 21 Dec. 1933, p. 1

I can now infer that Nettie's conduct was not without its extenuating circumstances. So if I had to tell the story of this address from 1929-1933, I guess it would go something like this: 

Walter and Nettie, a happily married couple, purchase a home just before the stock market collapse of 1929.  Nettie's son (and Walter's adopted son) attends local high school and experiences the usual adolescent angst.  When the Great Depression hits, Walter is faced with the possibility of losing his home and tries to find ways to make/save money and keep his family together.  He steals electricity from the city, steals from his employer, and even tries to supplement his income by illegally distilling spirits in his home.  Nettie discovers his indiscretions and declares she will leave if he does not stop.  She threatens him with a knife, a gun, and - at dinner - with a pan of hot grease.  Joseph, not wanting to involve himself in adult business, excuses himself from the room any time the conversation becomes too heated. Walter sees no alternative but to file for divorce.  This address was witness to 15 years of marriage being destroyed by an economic disaster.

Based on the area surrounding their home, I don't think this story can be too far from the truth.  The place is surrounded by defunct factories and derelict buildings (see pictures below).  I wonder how many other addresses from the 1930s have a similar story...

*** All photos taken in July of 2025.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 9: Conflicting Clues

William Pearson. 
Born 17 July...1877? 1878? 1879? 1881? 1883? 
Son of Emma Kate Green and George William Pearson?  Or John Winston Pearson?

There are conflicting clues for both questions, and while I've been able to solve the second question, the jury is still out on the first question.

We'll start with the 1900 census because that's where my journey began.  The 1900 Pulaski County, Illinois, census for my great great grandparents, George W. and Emma Kate Pearson, lists 7 children belonging to the head of the household.  William Pearson is listed as being 16 with a probable birth year of 1883.

Household members
George W Pearson 38
Emma K Pearson 38
Rosa Pearson 18
William T Pearson 16
Cora L Pearson 13
Benjamin D Pearson 9
Payton E Pearson 8
Harris I Pearson 6
Nettie W Pearson 3

As one does when first starting out in genealogy, I let Ancestry guide me, and the next hint I received for William was his WWI draft registration card.

This document indicates William's birth year is 1878, but what is much stranger is the line for his nearest relative - J. W. Pearson in Anderson, Indiana.  So, I searched for J.W. Pearson in Anderson, Indiana, and found this 1900 census.

John W Pearson 49
Zana Pearson 41
William Pearson 18
Earl Pearson 14
Bertha Pearson 3

First, why does this 1900 census offer a different birth year for William - 1881?  Second, who is J.W. Pearson? Third, why is William in two 1900 censuses in two different states???  The story of William's father can be found here, but long story short, John Winston Pearson and Emma Kate Green had been married before Emma Kate married George William Pearson.  William is John's child, and I can only presume he split time between his parents' homes.

With that mystery solved, I attempted to figure out exactly when William was born.  Emma Kate and John married in 1874.  Emma Kate and George married in 1883, so I felt the 1883 birth year was unlikely.   A WWII draft registration card suggested 1877.

We won't even go into who Mrs. Daggins is.  Maybe a landlady?  I have no idea.

William's death certificate offers a birth year of 1879.

It also lists George as his father, so take that with a grain of salt...

The only other clue I have is a U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index entry that states William was born 17 Jul. 1881.  I'm really not sure. I tried to use his full sister's age as a clue, but her birthdates didn't agree either.  She is sometimes older than William, sometimes younger.  I can only offer the following.  William was most definitely the son of Emma Kate Green and John Winston Pearson.  He was definitely born on July 17th, but the year could be anywhere from 1877-1882.  I doubt I'll ever know for sure.

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 7: What the Census Suggests

After locating Joseph M. Miller in the 1950 census (a feat in and of itself), I was delighted to find that he had landed on one of the sample lines.  This meant I had access to additional information about his schooling, income, and family! 

The basic census information told me little more than that he was living with his mother, hadn't worked the week previous and was not currently seeking work.  The 'sample' section, however, was a plethora of intriguing information.

What is the highest grade of school that he has attended?: S12

Did he finish this grade?: Yes

Last year, in how many weeks did this person do any work at all, not counting work around the house?: none

Last year (1949), how much money did he earn working as an employee for wages or salary?: none

Last year, how much money did he earn working in his own business, professional practice, or farm?: none

Last year, how much money did he receive from interest, dividends, veteran's allowances, pensions, rents, or other income aside from earnings?: 480

Last year (1949) how much money did his relatives in this household earn working for wages or salary?: none

Last year, how much money did his relatives in this household earn in own business, professional practice, or farm?: none

Last year, how much money did his relatives in this household receive from interest, dividends, veteran's allowances, pensions, rents, or other income aside from earnings?: none

Here's what the census suggests.  

1.  Joseph finished high school. His mother, Nettie, only finished 6th grade.  The same for his biological father. His main stepfather, Walter Miller, completed 8th grade. So, in spite of the fact that his childhood was not particularly stable (2 different states, 3 different father figures), this census suggests someone made sure Joseph's education was a priority.

2.  The general information section on this census indicates Joseph was unable to work, but the sample information shows he was receiving money - $480 (about $6,500 today) from somewhere.  Because of his merchant marine file, I know that in December 1940, he was injured on board the Arthur Orr. Taking that into consideration, this census seems to suggest that he was receiving disability/a pension from the merchant marines. 

3.  Joseph's mother, Nettie, was not working, nor was she receiving any money from additional incomes. Taking all other information into consideration, this suggests that Nettie was serving as a sort of caretaker for her son who was unable to work.  It seems likely that Joseph and his mother were living off of whatever pension he was drawing from the merchant marines.

Overall, this census was instrumental in helping me connect the dots in both Joseph's and Nettie's lives. 

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

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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

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 25: Storyteller

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The Importance of Storytelling

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 24: Hard Times

This post was moved to the Collecting Dead People blog:

Hard Times

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 23: Health

Back to the Pearsons for this week.  Let's talk about heart problems.

William Pearson and family (spouse and children) all died from various heart ailments.  While William and his wife, Flora, lived into their seventies, their children were not as fortunate.

William, who died at 76 (roughly - his date of birth varies from 1878-1883), died from arteriosclerosis, commonly described as the hardening of the arteries.  Considering that he died in 1960, and the average life expectancy in the United States was 76 years in 2021, William had a pretty good run. 

His wife, Flora (Deven) Pearson, died at 70 from anteroseptal myocardial infarction (ASMI).  Contributing factors included a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) and a superior mesenteric artery (SMA) embolism.  For you non-medical people (of which I'm one), let me try to break that down.  ASMI is a type of heart attack commonly caused by the rupturing of plaque in the arteries.  CVA is a disruption of blood flow to the brain - a stroke.  An SMA embolism is when a clot breaks free of the heart, and the blockage cuts off blood flow to part of the intestine.  So, it sounds like some plaque broke loose in Flora's arteries.  The traveling plaque caused a heart attack, a stroke, and impaired blood flow to the intestines.

That's a lot of heart issues for two people, and unfortunately, heart problems are often hereditary.  In fact, Flora's mother died from mitral regurgitation (MR) - a heart valve disease, and Flora's father died from chronic myocarditis. William and Flora proved that heart problems don't necessarily mean an abbreviated lifespan, but that would not be the case for Dolores and Theodore, their children, neither one of which lived past the age of 17.

Dolores died in 1928 of chronic endocarditis and myocarditis (sound familiar?).  Basically, she suffered from inflammation of the heart.  Genetics can play a role in endocarditis, and looking at her parents' (and grandparents') death certificates, it seems likely this was the case for Dolores. She was just 16 when she died.

Her brother, Theodore, died in 1930 from acute endocarditis.  Whereas Dolores's ailment was chronic, Theodore experienced a sudden onset of heart inflammation.  It's difficult to read the handwriting, but it looks like Theodore was first seen for this illness on April 26th, and he died on May 8th, aged 17.

As previously stated, I do not work in the medical field, so if I got any of this wrong, please let me know!

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 22: Creativity

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Creativity

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 21: Nicknames

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Nicknames

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 20: Taking Care of Business

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Taking Care of Business

#52Ancestors #Week22 #Creativity

As a woman of a certain age, I'm quite familiar with advice on keeping your brain sharp.  Crosswords, they say.

Well, just lately as Cuzzin Rachel and I try to untangle to supporting lines of our Pearson ancestors, we've had to be plenty creative.  For instance, how many ways can one spell "John Staton"? There are John, Jon, possible Jonathans, the archaic abbreviation Jno., and Jack.  And the surname has been spelled variously as Stanton, Staten (like the island), Staton, Stayton and Stayden. If we're looking at handwritten documents from the 1700 and early 1800's, "S" is written as "F", and best of luck making out most of the rest.

Trying to use the "Find" feature in lengthy documents or indexes is even more challenging when your many-times great grandfather's surname is "Field." There are a lot of them, too.  An old Virginia family, with English names like John and Jane here as well, although they kindly named one son Obadiah.

The other place where we essentially have to play something akin to paper Jenga is maps or land records. County boundaries changed frequently, forming new counties of (often) two or three pieces from mutliple older counties. With sometimes slim or missing residential information, we have a group of about 7 counties in Kentucky that I look at regularly for the same people.

Who needs crosswords? (With apologies to my crossword partner, you know who you are!)

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 19: Preserve

Let's talk about the difficulties of preserving family history.  If you're like me, you have a full-time job that takes up much of your time - time that you would much rather be spending tracking down elusive ancestors.  Maybe you are also raising children.  I have a daughter.  She is in elementary school, so her folder must be checked and emptied every night, and there are always birthday party invitations to consider and permission slips to be signed.  On top of these responsibilities, we also have a yard to maintain and a vegetable garden to manage.  The garden is substantial - it used to be a 20x40 in-ground pool.  Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I steal an hour or two in the evenings to work on genealogical mysteries with my distant cousin, Heather.  What I'm saying here is that preserving family history takes time.

Time, however, is not the only necessity.

I inherited this stack of boxes from my grandparents when my maternal grandfather passed away in 2022.  I have sifted through them multiple times, trying to organize the photos into Grandma's side or Grandpa's side.  I have made some progress, but as you can probably tell from the items unrelated to genealogy piled in the foreground, these boxes have been sitting on the table for some time.  In fact, these photos have been sitting on a table in our dining room since October of last year.  They had been sitting on the floor in my library, but we rescued a dog, and I didn't want to risk finding out the hard way that he was a chewer.

Speaking of the library, this old TV stand has been repurposed into a coffee table for our book room.  Inside it, you will find another collection of genealogy materials.  I have my mother's DAR application (putting in my own application has been on my to-do list for some time), a cabinet card album full of my great grandparents' relatives, a book on dating photos using fashion, an assortment of pictures my dad gave me of his aunts and uncles, books detailing the tips and tricks of genealogy, a CD of information about my Arter relatives...and who knows what else.  The point is that while preserving family history takes time, it also takes space.  

You might ask, what is the point of this post?  Just this.  Thank your family preservationist because he/she has certainly dedicated more time and space to this calling than you realize.

2024 #52 Ancestors #Week19 - Preservation

When I saw this prompt, thoughts immediately went to my maternal grandma's strawberry freezer jam. I can't write much about that, except to say that it was a delicious treat, that I miss it - yes, I know I could learn to make it - and that I have a strawberry tattooed on my right arm in her memory.

I confess to being more than a bit obsessed with family photos (the older the better) and I spend most evenings chatting with my lovely Cuzzin, not always solely about genealogy but at least mentioned almost every day. I enjoy the research, the "hunt" as it were, more than most other hobbies or genealogically related tasks, and I enjoy sharing what I've learned.

The chore of preserving the "finds" properly never ends, and I am still learning to site my sources. This is a significant learning curve when one web link or note noted down 20 years ago leans to many a rabbit trail and too often, few actual discoveries.

I plan to leave everything to my youngest daughter, who shares my interest, and anything that she doesn't care to keep can be donated to the library or historical society. In that interest, getting scraps of paper and their sources documented properly, photos sorted and labelled and everything in some semblance of order is extremely important, as well as making sure much of this is digitized. This is a project I thought I might make some headway on this year, but it hasn't worked out that way quite yet. Binders and boxes and piles, oh my!

Meanwhile, I'll keep recording bits and pieces here until the heavy lifting gets a bit more traction!

2024 #52Ancestors, Week 18: Love, Marriage, and Divorce

Something that you hear frequently is that "divorces just weren't that common back in the day."  As I have researched various family lines, I have found this to be distinctly untrue.  I tried to come up with a unique spin for Week 18's Love and Marriage prompt, but it just seems to make the most sense to link to some of my previous posts where love leads to marriage...and then to divorce.

Nettie M. Pearson (divorced in approximately 1915, 1916, 1917, 1933, 1939, and 1945)
Nettie wins the prize for marriages/divorces with a grand total of six husbands. The link above only mentions five of them, but I have recently uncovered a marriage to Ansel Gus Hursey in May of 1917. This brief marriage occurs between her marriages to Roy Hudson and Walter Miller. While I do not have divorce documentation for each marriage, I do have divorce dates for "The Two Walters." I also know that none of these marriages ended due to the death of the husband.

Jennie Grace Terpinitz (divorced in 1936 and 1941)

Jennie was a highly educated and independent woman, but she was married three times and divorced at least twice. As I don't know what happened to her after she returned from World War II, it is possible her third marriage ended in divorce as well.

Dora Isabelle Green (divorced in approximately 1882 and again before 1895)
This sister to my great great grandmother was married and divorced twice, and her third marriage ended with the death of her husband.

Ann Elizabeth Echols (divorced in 1869)
My great great great grandmother is my earliest documented divorce. She and Thomas Green divorced in 1869 after she could no longer handle the changes in his personality caused by his Civil War service.

And if you're looking for a divorce record, I recommend checking out Dade County, Florida.