I had to head out to a conference in New York and decided to extend our family tradition of driving there and back. We've done it twice before when my oldest daughter was 6 months old and 1.5 years old. This time around we had both girls with us and we had a blast.
While I didn't have any plans to stop along the way and conduct any research, we did find out some interesting family facts. On the way north we drove through Spartanburg, SC where the Bishops and Brannons are from. It's good to know the drive up there is not that long and when I get my act together I will get out there again to try to figure out what happened to Calvin Rufus Bishop, who he married and what her maiden name was (my guess is Margaret Timmons). Then maybe I can figure out who her parents were and open up that branch in the tree.
We drove through Virginia from west to east on our way to DC and stopped at Luray Caverns. If you have never been, I highly recommend it. The line was not too long to get in and once inside, the caverns are just fantastic. But there was nothing of genealogical significance there so let's move on.
We didn't get a chance to see any of DC on the way up because we were already running late and just drove around in the rain. We decided to stop on the way back and visit the White House (which to my surprise is open to visitors only by appointment which can be made through your congressman up to 6 months in advance), the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and maybe one of the museums at the mall. It was a blazing hot day on the way back and we barely walked around the White House and made our way to the Natural History Museum. We then high-tailed it out of DC right smack into afternoon traffic. Lucky for us we were able to hit the HOV lane and zoom right out of the city.
We stopped to visit friends in Richmond and on our way out the following day we drove down Monument Avenue. When drove by the massive statue of General Lee, I commented to my wife and daughters that he was their cousin and then made a mental note to find the exact connection. I knew that one of my wife's great-grandmothers was Dorothy Lee who was married to Lodowick Tuggle but I wasn't sure how they were linked to the famous general. My father-in-law had scribbled something on an old family tree about being related to him but I have never made the connection.
We then stopped at Berkeley Plantation on the banks of the James River. Originally settled in 1619, where the first official Thanksgiving was celebrated, it is rich with American history. Benjamin Harrison who signed the declaration of independence lived there and his son William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the USA was born there. Berkeley is one of several famous plantations in the area.
We then made our way along the east coast back to Atlanta. We drove through Greene County where Lodowick and Dorothy settled after moving south from Virginia. Lodowick sold his Middlesex County, VA plantation in 1769, where his family had lived for 100 years. There are a couple of Tuggle cemeteries in Greene County today that I need to visit at some point in the future.
So last night I did a little bit of research and found that Dorothy Lee, my wife's fifth great-grandmother, was the third cousin of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, who was Robert E. Lee's father. So that makes General Lee my wife's fourth cousin, 6 times removed.
But there is another family connection there that I need to investigate further. Robert's mother was Anne Hill Carter Lee and was part of the Carter family of Virginia. Her father actually owned Shirley Plantation which is located right next to Berkeley Plantation. I've known that my wife's Carter branch is pretty big and in fact her 3rd great-grandmother was Sarah Whitehead Battle Carter Tuggle. She descends from more Virginia Carters.
So that's it for our trip report. I'll try to add some photos in a later post.
Just to show you all how much more information there is about my wife side of the tree I went ahead and created the 5th generation RM4 ahnentafel for her ancestors:
16. Jesse Travis BRANNON: born 2 Feb 1837 in Georgia; married 20 Aug 1861 in Gwinnett County, Georgia. USA
17. Isabella Elizabeth ATKINSON: born Feb 1843 in Georgia; died in Georgia. USA
18. Calvin Rufus BISHOP: born 3 Jan 1852 in Spartanburg County, South Carolina; married; died 6 Jan 1880 in Beech Springs, Spartanburg County, South Carolina. USA
19. Margret TIMMONS: born bet 1852 and 1860 in South Carolina; died 14 Jan 1912 in Atlanta, Georgia. USA
20. Alexander McD. "Alex" WILEY: born abt 1844 in Pennsylvania; married.USA
21. Emily GREENAWALT: born Mar 1846 in Pennsylvania. USA
22. Rev. Milton B. TUGGLE: born 2 May 1845 in Oglethorpe County, Georgia; married 9 Jan 1894; died 12 Jan 1910 in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. USA
23. Anna Frances DEAN: born 17 Nov 1866 in Floyd County, Georgia; died 27 Jun 1947 in Dekalb County, Georgia. USA
24. Jacob HYTOWITZ: born 1864/5 in Russia; married abt 1882; died 9 Sep 1937 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. RUSSIA (probably Lithuania)
25. Rose "Rosa, Rosie" FRANK: born bet 1866 and 1868 in Poland; died 11 Feb 1941 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. POLAND
26. Thomas Ward RIGHTMIRE: born 11 Aug 1849 in Webster, Taylor County, West Virginia; married 22 Dec 1882; died 25 Oct 1922 in Parsons, Tucker County, West Virginia. USA
27. Edith Mae CONLEY: born 15 Nov 1858 in West Virginia; died 16 Mar 1917 in Tucker County, West Virginia. USA
28. Conrad J. AUTH: born Jul 1832 in Hesse-Cassel, Germany; married 1864; died 19 Jan 1911 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. GERMANY
29. Elizabeth BANNANTINE: born Feb 1839 in England; died 9 Oct 1933 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. ENGLAND
30. Thomas KEARNEY: born Apr 1840 in Ireland; married 1868. IRELAND
31. Maria : born Jan 1843 in Ireland. IRELAND
Yep, we have 10 born in the USA (4 GA, 2 SC, 2 PA, 2 WV), 1 RUSSIA, 1 POLAND, 1 GERMANY, 1 ENGLAND and 2 IRELAND. If I go further back and try to see where all these US folks are from, I have several generations until I find them mostly in IRELAND, ENGLAND and FRANCE. But most lines have been in the southern USA for a couple of centuries.
Looking at this list I see that I have a lot of work to do on my wife's side as well. I am missing death/burial dates/places and other important information.
Does anyone have any time to spare? Yeah, I didn't think so :-)
I got Salena (Selena) Brannon's (my wife's great-grandmother) death certificate from the State Office of Vital Records, Georgia Department of Human Resources. I frantically searched for her parents names and this is what I found:
13. FATHER'S NAME
(Unknown) Bishop
14. MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME
Unknown
You've got to be kidding me! I was sure this will unlock the mystery of Margret Bishop/McElrath, her mother, who's maiden name and husband's name I have yet to verify or even learn. Well, this being my first ever encounter with actual vital records I guess I may have been a tad naive. I just assumed all the information would be there. I'm not sure how I reached this delusional state.
There is a whole lot of new information that I have now, though:
1) I know that Selena's middle name is Victoria. Before I laid my eyes on this document she has always had a middle initial L, not V. I am going to go over everything else I have about her to see if this has been the case all along. I can understand an error if they just had her middle initial as V but they actually spell out her entire middle name. Not only that but it looks like originally her first name was given as Victoria and then it was scratched out with a pen and Salena was typed in its place. Very strange.
2) I have her actual date of birth which is Oct. I2 I877. Until now I thought it was Nov. 1876 for some reason. But I can't even find the source for that right now. I think I may have calculated it based on some other source. This is very troubling to me and I am planning to go over all my sources and verify important dates and places. The other interesting thing is that throughout the entire certificate whenever the number 1 was supposed to be used an 'I' or 'l' were used in its place. Oct. I2 I877 - Did anyone notice that in the first line of this paragraph? Sneaky, sneaky. I wonder why that happened. Was the typewriter broken? Again, very strange.
3) I now know that she lived at the "Lusk Nursing Home" and it's address. I did a preliminary check and it doesn't look like it exists today. I will have to dig deeper and see if there any records left from this home that I can get a look at.
4) I can now verify that she was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that she was indeed married to William T. Brannon and that her maiden name was Bishop. But the biggest find is that the informant listed in the certificate is Mrs. E. B. Pendergras, her daughter. This would be her oldest daughter who I know as Leila E. Brannon. I found her living with her second husband Styles A. Pendergrass as renters at Selena's house in the 1930 census. So that is a big confirmation that she was indeed her daughter and was married to Styles. This opens up a new avenue of research. If I can locate her descendants on that branch I might learn something new.
5) I also know the Leila's address in 1964. She lived 2.5 miles from the nursing home where her mother lived. That's another clue.
6) I now know where Selena is buried. I will go to the cemetery and search for her grave site and honor her memory at some point in the near future. There might also be more information on the tombstone as well.
7) I now know that she died of ASHD w/ CHF, which I found out was atherosclerotic heart disease with congestive heart failure and she had previous hypertension (high blood pressure) for years. This was not typed in but added in handwriting.
Salena Victoria (Bishop) Brannon died at the ripe old age of 86 in Atlanta, Georgia. May she rest in peace.
I am embarrassed to say that I made one of the dumbest mistakes in my research so far. I guess I can blame my inexperience but that's really no excuse. What did I do? I didn't try enough spelling variations for Selena Bishop. I have seen her named spelled Selena, Selina, Celina, Alina and Salena. But only when I looked at the photo I took of the 1932 Atlanta City Directory did I decide to actually run some searches on Salena Brannon (her married name). And guess what I found? Her death certificate. Doh! So I ordered the death certificate through VitalChek and it should be here soon. I really hope it has her parents' names on it. That would crack open my biggest brick wall to date.
I really need to devise a research checklist and get organized. Does anyone have a good list? I know everyone has different tactics but I would love to hear some suggestions.
And now for a feel good story for the holiday season. Has anyone heard of Cliff Young? Well if you have or haven't, go read about this amazing athlete, who at the age of 61 ran his first ultra-marathon (543.7-mile (875-kilometer) endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne) and won! Here's the full story.
Margaret Bishop, later Margaret McElrath (maiden name unknown), was my wife's 2nd-great-grandmother. Click the McElrath tab on the right to read more about my search for her.
On my first trip to the Georgia Room at the Cobb County Central Library I found a book that listed marriages in Spartanburg County, South Carolina 1785-1911. The line that immediately caught my eye was the following:
Man - Bishop, _____
Woman - Margaret A. Wolf
File - 2165
Lived - 1870
At first I was pretty stunned that I completely forgot to take a picture of the page. I also forgot to read about all the other Bishop's mentioned on the page. And I totally forgot to properly cite my source. All I could think about was "Hey! I just found Margaret Bishop's maiden name!"
Eventually I came around and looked at the rest of the page:
I actually took this photo on my next visit to the library. This is so much easier than photocopying.
Anyway, let me point out a couple of things that caught my attention. The first is an entry for Calvin Rufus Bishop's (who I suspect married Margaret around 1870) parents a few rows above:
Man - Bishop, ____
Woman - Elizabeth Ann Collins
File - 443
Lived - 1849
And another line right above Margaret Wolf's entry of another Wolf on the same file:
Man - Bishop, ____
Woman - Adaline L. Wolf
File - 2165
Lived - 1870
The 'File' number is from the Probate Court record and the 'Lived' indicates that this is when the file was recorded and implies these people were alive at the time. The reason I thought this was my match was the year. My assumption is that Calvin and Margaret were married in 1870 and had their first child in 1871. In 1870 Calvin would have been 18 years old.
I started research the Wolf family members in Spartanburg County and the first thing I saw was that in the 1870 Census, Margaret Wolf lived next door to Calvin with another Bishop family. Turns out she lived there with her sister Adeline, who married a Bishop:
This made me think I was obviously on the right track. In researching the Wolf Family I came across a PDF file written by Dan W. Olds who lives in Spartanburg. I read the file with interest, but since it was published in the year 2000 I decided to contact Dan and see if he had any new information.
My theory was that Margaret and Adeline married Bishop men of different generations since it seems that Margaret was much younger. I thought that while Margaret married Calvin, Adeline married his uncle James. Dan got back to me and sent a much newer file as well as suggesting that he hit the library and try to help me out. That was very nice of him to do and I thought I would finally get my answer.
One of the problems I had with my theory is the birth year for Margaret Wolfe not matching the one of Margaret Bishop. Dan confirmed my fears in his e-mail:
"I did go to the library today and convinced myself that the Margaret A. Bishop I want is not the same as yours.And guess what, when I looked at my database I found Ann Wolf married to George Columbus Bishop. He was the brother of James A. Bishop who married Adelina A. Wolfe. So two brothers married two sisters and that makes sense. And both these guys are the brothers of Andrew Berryman Bishop, Calvin's father. So these two Wolfe women were Calvin's aunts. I got close, but not close enough.
I did look at the McDowell estate papers. One set of heirs were the children of Jane Wolf. At first, the administrator could not remember their names but in the Feb. 1870 distribution, the five of them signed as A. L. Bishop, Margaret A. Bishop, Elizabeth Cantrell, Harriet Seay and Wm. P. D. Wolf. None of the husbands were mentioned.
Second, I found the SC Death record for Mrs. Margaret Ann Bishop, age 81, d. 28 March 1927, daughter of Noah Wolfe and "DK" [don't know] as mother.
Also the Spartanburg Herald of March 29, 1927, carried the obituary of Mrs. Margaret A. Bishop, 81, wife of G. C. Bishop who survived and mother of five sons and four daughters who were survivors. Her parents were not named but she was survived by one brother, W. P. D. Wolfe of Charlotte."
On my trip to the Fulton Library I looked through the Atlanta City Directories and found another piece of information. When Margaret McElreath (not McElrath or McIlrath) shows up in 1897 she is listed as widow of Ira:
And there is no Ira McElreath anywhere. I tried every possible database and every spelling. I even tried to figure out who Emmett and Walter McElreath were and they are too young to be siblings of Ira. But guess what? Their grandfather is from Spartanburg, SC. So there might be something there.
I did uncover Margaret's Obituary in the Atlanta Constitution from Jan 14th, 1912:
(This was a lucky break because it doesn't show up in Ancestry's new search. The only reason I found it is that the computers at the library still use the old search and it was the first hit I got.)
I know I will figure this out, but it's just taking forever and I am running out of clues. I tried to find burials in Cobb County and Marietta, but no luck there. I need to find out where Greenberg and Bond's Chapel was and where their records are today. I am going to try to find her other descendants and see if any of them know who she was, but that is not going to be an easy task either.
Nobody said genealogy is easy, right?
A couple of weeks ago I stepped out of my internet genealogy bubble and went to the library. I went to my local South Cobb Regional Library which is one of 17 libraries in Cobb County. And I got myself a brand new, shiny library card! Then I went over to the reference desk and asked where their genealogy section was and got a blank stare from the nice lady across the desk. Apparently they don't have a section like that, all they have is computer access. And at that location they didn't even have AncestryPlus. I did learn that I could access all the online resources from home, if I needed to, using my library number and a password.
I remembered that the Central Library has a big genealogy collection in the Georgia Room, so I headed that way. I walked right in, checked in with the front desk and got some instructions and a map. Yes, a map. The room is pretty big (12,000 books), so they give everyone a map to help them figure out where they want to go.
Since nobody was in the room I asked for some help anyway. I was led to the South Carolina section and shown the Spartanburg County books. I found a book entitled:
Spartanburg County Marriages, 1785-1911: Implied in Spartanburg County South Carolina Probate Records
By Barbara R. Langdon
Published by Langdon & Langdon Genealogical Research, 1992
ISBN 0938741071, 9780938741077
317 pages
I did not know this at the time, but South Carolina doesn't have marriage records prior to these dates and the way Langdon got this information is from going through loose probate records and trying to figure out who's who.
And there I found that Margaret Wolf married a Bishop man around 1870, which matched the information about my elusive Margaret. But this will have to wait for another post.
A couple of weeks later I went to the Georgia Room again, this time looking for actual Cobb County burial information since I found Margaret's obituary, but couldn't find what I wanted. So I headed over to the Fulton County Central Library and found Atlanta City Directories dating back to pre-1900. Of course, I forgot to bring my digital camera, which I took out of my bag to take Halloween pictures with, so I had to hand-write everything.
And there was a lot to write. I tracked Bishop's, Brannon's, McElrath's, Tuggle's and Wiley's through about two decades of life in Atlanta. But again, that's the topic for another post.
I have to say, the library is a terrific source of information. I just wish I knew a little more about how it's organized and how to find things faster. But I guess that's something you learn from experience.
And never leave home without your digital camera!
This last Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day here in sunny Atlanta. We had to get out and do something so I came up with the brilliant idea of finding Cynthia's ancestors' homes in the city of Atlanta. I had found some of the addresses in the US Census images on Ancestry and remembered that most of them were easy to find. So with a 1/4 tank of gas we set off on our first genealogy road trip.
What struck us as very interesting is that these folks had moved from outside the city closer in over the years and eventually from the west side to the east of the city. Here's a map of our route that shows that west-to-east path:
I have a lot more investigating to do, as you will see, but here is the preliminary trip report:
A) 6 Edwin Place, Cook's District, Fulton County, Georgia. 1910 home of Emily Greenawalt, widow of Alexander McD. Wiley, parents of James Tecumseh Wiley Sr., husband of Pattie Stone Tuggle. Pattie, or as I found out this weekend was lovingly called 'Mama Pat', was my wife's great-grandmother. I need to do some digging to find out exactly what Cook's District was, but it was in Fulton County and is now part of the city of Atlanta. This house was on a beautiful wooded looped street that had a park inside the loop. Here's the picture:
B) 44 Neal Street, Cook's District, Fulton County, Georgia. 1900 home of Milton B. Tuggle, Anna Frances Dean and their daughter, Pattie Stone Tuggle ('Mama Pat'). Looking back on my notes, I have no idea how I came to the conclusion that this was the correct address. I have added this to my to do list. We couldn't find the actual house because the street numbers had changed. They are all triple digits now and that part of the city is not one where I wanted to get out and investigate. Does anyone know where I should look for house number changes? My guess would be somewhere in Fulton County. Right before we got there, we found an open gas station, but our luck ran out and the car in front of us was the last one to fill up.
C) 256 E. Fair Street, Atlanta, Georgia. 1920 home of William T. Brannon and Selena Bishop, parents of my wife's elusive grandfather, Lawrence Jefferson Brannon. This one was another no go. Fair Street is a fairly short street sliced in half by rail tracks with no crossing. The lower side had been torn down and some sort of warehouse has been built in it's place. That half of the street doesn't exist any more. The good news was that we found another open gas station and filled up!
D) 1186 Stewart Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia. 1930 home of Selena Bishop and her son Lawrence Brannon. Both Google Maps and my GPS found this address even though the street is now called Metropolitan Parkway. I was telling this story to a father of one of my daughter's friends and he said they changed the name to try to revive that part of town. The house was boarded up and up for auction after being foreclosed. As we drove off my wife saw a sign that read: "Pittsburgh Community est. 1883 - "A Weed & Seed Community". I need to check that out as well. Here's the picture:
E) 17 E. Ashland Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia. 1920 home of James T. Wiley, Pattie Stone Tuggle and their daughter Emily Anne Wiley (my wife's grandmother). Once again, we couldn't find the actual house because the numbers have been changed. It's a tiny street in the Inman Park / Little Five Points area. Pattie's parents, Milton and Anna lived in the house in 1910 and after Milton passed away in early 1910, Anna ran a boarding house at this location. By 1920 their daughter Pattie is living there with her family.
F) 215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia. 1930 home of James and Pattie. This house was in the family for several decades and was owned at a value of $6000 with a mortgage in 1930. I have found correspondence in the late 1950's for the same address. The house is on a beautiful and quiet side street in Decatur and both Cynthia and her older brother Frank remember it from their childhood. Here's the photo:
At the end of this trip down history lane we decided to go pay a visit to Cynthia's brother, Frank, and his family. We haven't seen them in a long time and wanted to see the renovations they have been doing to their house. We asked Kiki whether she wanted to go to Fernbank Museum or go visit her cousins and the decision was quickly made. And this is where the buried treasure part comes into play.
Frank had a box loaded with pictures, letters, love letters, memory books, and even old audio records (electronic transcriptions) that Emily Anne recorded especially for her husband who was a career military officer and stationed all over the world.
This is not a shoebox. This is a BIG moving box and it will take me a lot of time to go through it, scan, catalog and store everything. I will have a few posts detailing what I find, but for now I will leave you with a beautiful colored photo of Emily Anne and her second husband, Wallace H. Brannon. This was originally a black & white photo and on the back it lists all the colors that were used to paint it:
E. Hazel
H. Brown
Sweater Yellow
Dickie White
E. Blue
H. Brown
Bars Silver
Pre-Pearl Harbor
Good-Conduct
Leave last one uncolored
It also has the numbers 5-14 and 156787 on the back in pencil.
The photo is in a cardboard case and the only details is a small stamp at the bottom that reads: Dunbar, Charlotte, N.C.
I just ordered "Preserving Your Family Photographs: How to Organize, Present, and Restore Your Precious Family Images" and "Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photograph" both by Maureen A. Taylor. Maybe I can start using the correct terminology and figure out a little more about these amazing photos.
Well, that's it folks. Our first ever "Ancestor Field Trip" was a huge success and we look forward to many others. If you have any comments or ideas about how I should proceed with some of this new information, please let me know.
Where have I disappeared to? I have been busy. Busy with work, family and some more research. I have made tremendous amounts of progress, mostly by reaching out to people for help. I received a gigantic GEDCOM from a distant cousin of my wife's from the Bishop side and started adding it into my files. I only did this because this particular GEDCOM (as opposed to almost all the others I have seen) had a lot of sources and citations. I also got some additional information on the Kilchevsky (or should I just give that spelling up and go with the original Kielczewski?) side of the family. I also signed up with Footnote.com and started looking through their 43+ Million records. So, I have been a little busy.
Anyway, back to the medals:
1. Go Back and Cite Your Sources!
50 Citations - Platinum Medal
I am well into the hundreds here. And I have barely scratched the surface. Not only am I adding sources for everything I have, I also need to verify everything I have added from others. Lots to do.
2. Back Up Your Data!
This is definitely an important task. Let's see where I stand:
A. Prepare a comprehensive backup plan for your digital research files and a security plan for your hard copies and photos - I will make daily backups locally and then move all my files to my external drive weekly. I will also burn an image of the external drive to DVD once a month. Eventually all information will be secured off-line as well.
B. Secure your hard copies and photos in waterproof containers - That will have to wait another day. I don't have many documents and photos to begin with, so this became a lower priority.
C. Backup all your data using a flash drive, an external drive, CDs, DVDs, or an online resource - Done!
D. Have all your hard copies and photos scanned and secure them either in a fire-proof safe or off-site in a safety-deposit box/secure environment - It will take me a long time to scan everything I have, even though it's not much. And as far as off-site storage, that will have to wait as well.
E. All your data is backed up digitally and secured physically and you can recover from any disaster while losing only one month or less worth of research - Digitally yes, physically no (see D).
Completed Task A&C - Silver Medal - I have work to do.
3. Organize Your Research!
Complete five or more tasks - Platinum Medal - I have done everything but F. I'll work on that.
4. Write, Write, Write!
A. Write a summary of what your blog is about and post it on your blog – you may not have done this since you started the blog and it is a great way to have new readers learn more about your site. - This was my first post, July 29th, 2008.
B. Participate in a genealogy or family history related blog carnival. - I submitted one of my posts to the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy.
C. Prepare several posts in draft mode (if possible with your blog platform) and pre-publish. - Still a no on this one. I am an impulse blogger who can't pre-publish.
D. Write a brief biographical sketch on one of your ancestors. - Done.
E. Sign up to host a future carnival - Probably not going to happen just yet because of newbieness.
Complete any three tasks - Gold Medal
5. Reach Out & Perform Genealogical Acts of Kindness!
A. Comment on a new (to you) genea-blog. - Pretty much every day.
B. Join another genea-blogger’s blog network on Facebook Blog Networks. - Multi-done.
C. Invite other genealogists to join Facebook. - I decided to give this one my own spin. I have been talking about genealogy at every opportunity and getting people interested. I even hosted our monthly neighborhood poker night and after I was eliminated I checked some people's ancestors. So I will include this one as done!
D. Assist another researcher with a research request or look-up. - I have contributed to several researchers with small amounts of information.
E. Participate in an indexing project. - Not done. I am sure there is something that I could have done, but I just don't know where to start yet.
F. Join a genealogical, historical, heritage or lineage society. - I did not join the two I wanted (I will in the near future) but instead signed up for three SIG on JewishGen. So that should cover it.
Complete five or more tasks - Platinum Medal
Here's the final tally:
3 Platinum
1 Gold
1 Silver
This has been a lot of fun to do. Not only did I learn some valuable lessons about genealogical research, but I also managed to step up my research and incorporate some structure in it. Whatever I have not completed, I will strive to do in the next few weeks. Thanks to all who organized and spent time making sure we all have a good time.
One of the reasons I am enjoying this genealogy thing is the fact that it's like a big gigantic puzzle. Or perhaps a mystery that needs to be solved. There are facts, hints and clues everywhere and you just have to put it all together to make it work.
My most recent road-block is my wife's paternal great-grandmother. That whole side of the family is shrouded in a lot of genealogical fog. My wife's grandfather, Lawrence Brannon, was married for a short time (long enough to have one son) to Emily Ann Wiley. She later divorced him and married Wallace Brannon (sneaky trick on her part marrying another Brannon). Lawrence was a tough nut to crack until I found out he had a brother, Lester Travis Brannon, who was the father of Dr. Dabney H. Brannon.
All that back-story is important because the only way I was able to piece it together was when I found Dabney's obituary in The Northwest Arkansas Times. The obituary opened up that whole family and allowed me to find William T. Brannon, my wife's great-grandfather.
One of the goals of this whole genealogical research is to find out my wife's Native American roots. The only clue we have is that her father said that his father had a grandmother that was a Cherokee Indian. But that's it. That's all I have to work with. The fact that it's a grandmother means it will be harder to figure out because there is little information on maiden names.
I've been able to track the Brannon's all the way back to Caren (Caron, Karon) Brannon, who was born in Ireland about 1687. But the maternal lineage has proven to be a lot harder. William's Wife was called Selena. In the US Census information I found on Ancestry.com her name had been misspelled and mis-indexed several times: Selene, Selena, Celina (Alina). I was also able to confirm that her maiden name was Bishop. But this is where the trouble starts. I can't find her father and I have a problem with figuring out exactly who her mother was.
The problem really starts in the 1900 US Census. I found a record from Fulton County, Georgia that shows Margret McIlrath (age 40, widow) living with her two daughters (Eva Bishop and 'unknown' Brannon) and her son-in-law, William T. Brannon:
But I also found a 1900 US Census record for William T. Brannon, married to Selena, living with their two children in Madison, Morgan County, Georgia:
So are these two the same William T. Brannon? The first record shows that they have two children and so does the second. The first shows that William was born in Feb. 1873, in Georgia with parents also born in Georgia and so does the second. Both records show that his wife was born in South Carolina as did her parents. My only conclusion is that these are the same people and they were perhaps visiting or moving and even though the enumeration is only a few days apart, they were counted twice. The 'unknown' Brannon has to be Selena because in 1910 and 1920 I see William as married to Selena, so that one is pretty clear.
But why is Margret recorded with a last name of McIlrath? Her daughter Eva has a last name Bishop. Had she been re-married and widowed a second time in a 20 year time span? Did she give her maiden name to the enumerator? I tracked her back to the 1880 US Census:
Here she's still living in Beech Springs, Spartanburg County, South Carlina with her 5 children. And she is listed as being 28 and a widow! But she is recorded as Margret Bishop (with children John, Ellis C., Jonah, Selena and Eva). One of the assumptions I have been trying to make is that she lives one farm away from another big Bishop family, headed by Andrew B. Bishop. Andrew has 5 children living with him and wife Lizzie, but when I went back to the 1870 census I saw that they had an older brother, Calvin Rufus Bishop (I figured out the middle name from public member trees on Ancestry.com). He would have been just the right age to be married to Margret. So my guess is that they were married, lived next door to his parents and he died, leaving her behind with 5 kids.
I also found Margret in 1910, living with her daughter, Eva Hubbard (widow at the age of 30) and her son Archie. Eva's brother Jonah and his wife Nannie are also living in the same house. But once again, Margret is listed with the last name McElrath:
If I try to assume that McElrath is her name from her second marriage, then I also have to assume this second marriage occurred between 1880 and 1900. Since there is no 1890 US Census to work with, that is a bit of a blind spot right now. If I assume that McElrath was her maiden name then I find a Mulatto family of Thomas and Harriet McElrath from Spartanburg County, South Carolina all the way back to 1870. I am not sure which path to take and how to verify that this information is actually correct.
Here are my questions (feel free to take it as a genea-challenge and help me out):
1) Are the two records for William T. Brannon in 1900 for the same person?
2) Did Margret marry Calvin Bishop?
3) Did Calvin die before Margret was 28?
4) Did Margret re-marry a McElrath or did she just go back to her maiden name?
5) If this was her maiden name, is she the same Margie McElrath I find in 1870 listed as Mulatto?
6) What was the definition of Mulatto back then? Was it just used for a mix of Black and White or was it also used to describe Native Americans? I see there is an option of M (Mulatto) and I (Indian) but could the enumerator have gotten it wrong?
UPDATE: The Margie McElrath from the 1870 Census is not my Margret. I found the entire family in the 1880 Census and Margey was still living at home. Oh well, back to trying to track down her descendants to look for more clues.
