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.
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!
Anne Mitchell from Ancestry.com wrote another blog post about how to use the new search interface. I have been struggling with the new interface lately, so I posted a comment:
The first thing I would add is a middle name optional field. If you search "Levi S" you will get any 'S'. I usually just drop the middle initial to get better results.
The locations should be able include and exclude by category. USA includes Illinois includes Cook County includes Chicago. This would make it easier to use and understand.
But my biggest issue is with the wildcards. You guys have to figure out a way to get over the hurdle of three letters before a * is used. In your example, the best way to search would be for first name, exact, L*, last name exact Baker. This would include all the L, Levi, Levy, Lou and Louis and anyone else starting with an L out there.
I did notice that some things have been tightened up. Over the last week I kept getting 1000+ hits in some Minnesota mining database that I don't see now.
One last thought. The old and new searches do NOT return the same results, which is a huge problem. Here's an example: Search for an exact match for Margaret McElrath and take a look at 'Newspapers & Periodicals'. New search returns 9 results. Old search returns 10. The one missing in the new search is "Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003" which has an obituary from The Atlanta Constitution. The exact record I was looking for! Had I not gotten completely frustrated with the new search I would never have found this. I think more continuity testing is in order and a lot of 'stare and compare' on behalf of your QA team.
All in all, I do prefer the new search. I can't wait for it to get better, though.
I really hope they get this new search working, because it is so much better than the old one.
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.
