Where Did the Time Go

I was on a great role in March of updating through out the month. Being women's history month really gave me a trail to follow. It also helped that I was doing the prompts from Facebook. But then I got side tracked and the next thing I knew it was almost the end of May.

It's so funny that I would be updating now as I am on vacation but I started talking to my Uncle's about his family and low and behold I found not just his grandparents on a census but their marriage license. The marriage license was a big deal for me as I never seem to be able to find those on Ancestry but this time it just popped up and I about fell out of my seat.

I also think I found his paternal grandfather as well. That one is a little harder since the name for the mom isn't the same as what he says it should be but everything else lines up. I will have to do some more research with it when I get back as they were living in Missouri. What are the odds that I would be stalled with my immediate family but be able to find some extended family through marriage. It's crazy how this genealogy thing works.

My father is also on his way to Mississippi to do some more research and I meant to give him some information to look up for me but I didn't get a chance to write it out before I left. I am hoping that I can give him a call while he's working on it so that I can give him the information that I would like to find.

Either way I really want to get back into the swing of my research but right now I am having a hard time seeing when that could happen. I just have so much set up for the next month that it might be until July realistically before I can get deep into it. Either way I will keep trying to update here and letting you know what I find.

Why Can't I Find Henry?

Alright I have been looking for all things Henry as you all know so well. I have looked high and low for this man and he is just not cooperating.

I now know that he died in Missouri but I am thinking that it would help to have at least a year before I try to find going to the records department. I'm not sure if I will find someone willing to look through every death certificate for a decade.

Anyway, I finally found a website called kindredkonnections.com that had a great list of Social Security death indexes. On it I found his wife's death index, my grandfather's death index, my great grandfather's death index but not his and there were close to fifty Henry's that died during the 1960's.

I completely don't understand. You would think that it wouldn't be this hard to find information about him in my own state. In Mississippi I was finding things left and right and now that I'm back it's like he had dissappeared again. I simply don't understand.

I know that he was a black man living in the middle of the end of slavery, segregation, and the freedom movement but you would think that if I can find information on his wife, who was a black woman living through the same things, than I could find something about him.

Rest, Relax and Recharge

We got back from our Mississippi trip a few days ago and I am still getting back on my feet. That would be the funny thing about research trips I now know. It takes a while to get back on track but I guess that is to be expected. You're on such a high while your there.

Up at six in the morning heading out to find all that you can. Staying up till eleven, twelve or one o'clock in the morning to go over what you found and add it to your family tree. Talking about nothing but who you're looking for, who you found, and where the information might take you. It's a little draining. Truthfully I haven't been able to look at a family tree since we got back.

But I'm back now and ready to get back in the swing of things. I want to find my great, great grandparents death records since I now know that they both died in Missouri which I didn't until I actually asked my aunt where in Mississippi they died and she told me they were in Missouri. I also found that they lived in Arkansas so now I'm all over finding them there. I'm also hoping that if I can find them there then I can find their youngest son who I haven't been able to find on any census.

Okay so back to the keyboard. Wish me luck.

Where In The World Is Henry?

I have a relative that I really want to find information on. He is my great, great grandfather. I can find him in 1910 but for some reason he seems to have disappeared from every other census. What is that about?

I've mentioned the show "Who Do You Think You Are" before and as I was watching the show with Matthew Broderick he had a similar problem. He had a relative that was in the 1850 census and then his wife was in the 1870 census but neither was in the 1860 census. Where did they go? They found out the relative was in the Civil War during the 1860 census. Still why wouldn't the rest of the family be on that census?

I joked with my father that maybe someone came by the house to record the family but since the father wasn't there they just kept on going. I like to hope that isn't what happened. Maybe they were out visiting or it was Sunday and they were at church. Either way you would think that they would send someone back later to make sure everyone was counted.

Think about it this way. Every time I watch any television show these days I see at least five to six commercials about how important it is to send in the census. How is it so important now but back then you could just skip whole families? Does that mean that not everyone will be counted this time either?

All I know is that when you come across some one like ol' Henry here it makes you want to throw your notebook across the room and stomp away vowing never to search for anyoen again. It's a lie and we al know it as soon as we say it. Why? Because secretly we love the Henry's. They challenges that they repersent and when we finally find that information there is a vindication that comes with it. A sense of beeting the odds and learning something more. And it's that why we all started researching in the first place?

Got A Shovel?

My last post I was excited because I thought that I had found my great, great, great grandfather was a prisoner in the Civil War. Well, that didn't pan out. It is absolutely amazing that you can have a name and date of birth and still not have the right person. How did I figure this out you might ask? Let me tell you.

See my great, great, great grandfather was Sol; maybe short for Solomon I'm still checking. I found the Civil War record for him but when I really sat down and looked at the dates that he would have been imprisoned it didn't add up with when my great, great grandfather Porter would have been born. He would have been somewhere far from home for at during the time that not just Porter was concieved and born but also at least one of not two of his sisters. Now don't get me wrong, I know that not everyone was faithful and I have a whole other blog coming about the skeletons you will find, but to believe that he might have been away and my great, great, great grandmother Caroline might have been stepping out would just open a whole different can of worms. Plus being that we are African-American then it stands to reason that he would not have been kept alive and so that would mean that he shouldn't have been there for the 1870 or 1880 census and I have him on both. When you add all that up is leads to the believe that whoever this Sol was he was not the one that I was looking for.

That is the fustration part of this research. You get all excited and ready to add a link to your family tree but when you stop and really, really look at dates and places and the sporatic information that you have then you find that what you thought you knew you didn't know at all.

Now I am searching for any relatives to him that might give me an insight into his parents names. The only problem there is that the last census I have him on is 1870 and I think I remember hearing that African-Americans where included on any census past that unless they were slaves and listed as such. This is where it will get muddy. If Sol was born a slave then I have to figure out where, to whom, and what their names were. I have found a few white people around him with the same last name but again there are no guarentees. You just have to keep digging.

Have A Little Faith

So a few days ago I was really excited because I thought that I found a record of my great, great, great grandfather and he was a prisoner of war during the Civil War. I wasn't excited because he was captured and most likely tortured or killed. No, I was excited because it was more information on the man himself. I ran to tell my father and the first question he asked me was if I was sure it was the correct person. This killed my buzz because of course I wasn't sure. I have never met the man. If my great grandmother could cook, if my grandmother could sew, if my mother had a weird sense of humor; these are the things I'm sure about. That there are Native American roots on my mother's side and a strong military presence on my father's; these are the things that I'm sure about. But if a name that I found on a U.S. census in 1880 is the correct person just because he has a child with the same name as my great, great grandfather who happened to be born around the same time; not a clue.

It accured to me then that to go as far back as you can is going to require a little faith. There is going to be no way that I will or he will or any of us will be one hundred percent sure that the person we are look at is the correct relative. Names have changed and documents get smudged. I found my great, great grandmother on a 1910 census as Carrie when we had always called her grandma Cassie and looking at it I could see how it could be either one. So does that mean that I throw that census out and start again looking for Cassie. Absolutely not. That census had the correct husband for her and children listed as well as the correct area of the United States. That's almost like finding the triffecta; the holy grail. I just keep that one and look for a 1900 or 1920 census with the correct name or the misspelled one because that could be a clue as to why I wasn't finding any information on her originally.

Yes, it would be great to be sure that every relative you think you found is the right one but unforunately with the way that records were kept, especially if you were African-American, it just isn't possible. And lets face it, even if the records were maticulous when your looking in 1860 for someone that no one still alive remembers it's a guessing game. Does the names match up with what you have aready found out about their decendent? Do the dates line up within a five year grace period? Are they living in the correct state? Do they have the right siblings or parents? If you answered yes to all those questions then chances are you have the right person but are you a hundred percent sure? That is a question only you can answer but I would bet you answer with a little faith.