Family Traditions

I think everyone knows of at least one family tradition that's been passed down from generation to generation. A popular one is that "two brothers emigrated to America, one went North, one went South..." or something of that sort. With my family there really wasn't too much information passed down on earlier generations. There were no spoken traditions on where we came from, on either side, and no one spoke of those before then. Probably the closest thing I had growing up was the story my Grandpa told me about how he and his father and grandfather had been in a car in 1921 and they drove across the train tracks right as a speeding train was coming. My Grandpa, then about 4 years old, was in the backseat and got thrown through the windshield. His father, who had been driving, made it through the crash with only some minor scratches and bruises. His grandfather however (that would be Ira Gilkison for those who read about my search for a surviving photo of him), was severely injured and died at the hospital. I don't know how much of a family tradition it is, but it was information passed from one generation to another so I guess it applies.

So there wasn't much in the way of family traditions in my family. I would find out a little bit about why later on. But once my Mom and I started looking into the family history, it didn't take long for us to connect with some Stevens cousins who clued us in on that family's tradition. I think I may have gone over this one before, but I can't remember for sure so here it is again. As usual, it surrounds our alledged immigrant ancestor, Charles Thomas Stevens. The story, as recounted by one of his many grandchildren, is that Charles was born in Bristol, England around 1755. He was a mariner who sailed around the world "several times" and was a naturalized citizen of many countries. He came to America during the Revolution and participated in that rebellion, as well as the War of 1812. He spent time as a POW during both of those wars, first on a galleon and then in a POW prison in England (more specifically, in Bristol, England-the town of his birth). After being released from prison, he returned to America and settled in Dover, NH. The story ends by saying he was the last person buried under the Old North Church in Boston in 1843.

There's quite a bit in this little gem. I've really only scratched the surface on Charles but I have been able to find some facts within this rather grandiose tale. He is in fact buried at Old North and died in 1843 at the age of 88, though he was not the last man to be buried there. He also settled in Dover, NH at least from 1805 which is the earliest I've been able to find him as a grantor in the land indexes there. On that deed however, he was described as "of Dover" which implies that he had been living there prior to this transaction. So I haven't been able to establish exactly when he came to Dover yet. Keeping in mind the story that he was a POW for a time, there is always the possibility that that played a part in the break between records of residence. But there are really quite a few other possibilities to look into as well and quite a bit to investigate about his life too. Sounds like an interesting guy for sure though.

Working, working, working...

Hi all, I know things have been a little quiet this week. I got hit with a nasty virus or something earlier in the week that I couldn't shake until yesterday and then I had to play catch up with my ProGen assignment. This month we had to take the transcribed document that we worked up for last month's assignment and build a research plan for it. We also wrote our background resume, as if we were creating it for our BCG certification application. That was an interesting exercise for sure. I can definitely see where I'm lacking. I really need to get some article ideas on paper and try to get them out there. Yikes! Also this month, I've been working on Lesson 2 of the NGS Home Study Course. This lesson is called "Family Traditions and Family Records". The first assignment is to tell and then evaluate a family tradition. The second assignment is to make a list of family papers that you have been given by earlier generations and briefly tell who gave them to you, who had them before you, and what genealogical clues they contain.

And if being sick and working on two ProGen assignments and two NGS assignments wasn't enough, I've also been getting the brainstorming for my potential James Bromagem article on paper, finally. Seeing that you may be the only one in your ProGen group without published work really keeps you motivated!

More Cemetery Desecration

I'm just wondering why we have to be worried about the resting places of our ancestors in this day and age. It seems like every week there is word of more cemetery desecration and it just makes me sick. With all of the scandal there has been in the Chicago area, with Burr Oak Cemetery employees selling plots several times over and dumping bodies, and possible missing loved ones at Mt Hope Cemetery in Chicago, and my own situation at Oak Woods with 3, possibly 4 people gone from their records with no idea on their whereabouts, getting a link to the following article this morning is just another example of the horrible treatment of cemeteries lately. This is from Wayne County, Indiana where my in-laws are from.

http://www.pal-item.com/article/20091023/NEWS01/910230303/1008/100+-gravestones-damaged

Surname Saturday/Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

We've got a new Saturday blogging theme and I thought I'd use it to shine a light on a couple of names that haven't gotten much airtime here yet. I couldn't decide between two people so I'll just briefly (as brief as I can that is, LOL) talk about them both.

The first is Simpson Gilkison. Unfortunately I only have a very basic knowledge of his life and what I do "know" comes from an unsourced paper from a cousin. The paper says that Simpson was born to John Gilkeson and Margaret Manley in September 1830 in Fleming County, KY. I was able to confirm that the family moved from Kentucky to Indiana in the 1830s. They were settled in Parke County by the 1840 Population Census enumeration and despite John's death there in 1854 (according to his tombstone and the opening of intestate procedures), the family remained in Parke County. Simpson married Susan Cole about 1856, probably in Parke County, and had something in the range of 10 children. Susan died in 1880 (again, according to the unsourced paper) and Simpson supposedly lived in Parke County until his death in
1899.

In terms of research, I've barely scratched the surface for Gilkison records. There are quite a few things to do on my list, including ordering records for several of his children in the hopes that their records will give me clues to details of his birth and perhaps confirmation of his death date and place. Preliminary searches turned up nothing in the limited church records that I have found as of yet, nor have I found a burial site and tombstone for him to help confirm his birth. No record of death has been found yet despite Parke County's taking records of death going back to 1882. Probate records and research into the availability of marriage records in the county, and the surrounding counties, still needs to be addressed. So there is a ton to do with Simpson and one of these days I'll have more than 24 hours in a day to get started.

The second subject for today's theme is Samadras Savery. Samadrus is another dark spot in my files because all I know of him, like Simpson Gilkison, is what I have been told. Unlike Simpson though, details of his life have been researched by several Savery ancestors and these same researchers have done a wonderful job with collateral lines which have been accepted to the Mayflower Society so, while this doesn't completely negate the possibility for errors, for now I feel pretty comfortable with their work. Unfortunately for the purposes of tonight's spotlight, the Savery files are with my Mom. So I'm going to have to wing it tonight.

Samadras was born in 1830 in Cotuit, Barnstable County, MA to George Savery and Catherine Baxter. Samadras would spend his entire life in Barnstable County, a fishing community on Cape Cod. He married Lydia Sturgis by 1856 and the couple would have at least 10 known children, probably more. On census enumerations, he appears as a mariner like most other Barnstable County men. He died there in December 1888. I've often wondered what the origins of his given name were. It seemed unusual to me the first time I heard it, but the Saverys were the very first line that my Mom and I started working on together when I was about 13 years old and I didn't know any 13 year olds named Samadras at the time. By now, I've spent a little more time with New England records and have seen the name more often, but I still don't know where it came from. It would be nice to find out one day.

Nothing like a perfect article to motivate you

After reading Rachal Mills Lennon's 2004 NGSQ article, "The Wives of Jonathan Turner...", for this month's NGSQ study group discussion I decided to get motivated. This article was smooth as silk. The format used made it easy to read, and easy to follow. The methodology was flawless and the conclusion, that even the impossible is sometimes possible as long as you expand your search to anything and anyone that could shed light on your subject, was infallible. After reading an article like that, it's hard not to get motivated about your own work.

So here's my idea: Ever since I first found my Bromagem Great Great Great Grandfather, James M. Bromagem, I always felt that his life would make a pretty good article. There are a few angles but the one that intrigued me was his occupation as a printer/newspaper published, especially after reading another NGSQ article about using one's occupation to help fill in the details of your subject's life and to help find him through the census years(see Hinchliff, "Job Davidson, Cooper in Baltimore, Maryland...:Using Occupation and Birthplace as Census Finding Aids" in NGSQ 94, June 2006, pgs 85-100). Now don't get excited, he wasn't successful; he didn't form any presses that are still in operation today and in fact, most of the presses he did start closed down within a year's time. But this is actually the part that appeals to me as far as being an article topic. Because of the relatively short lifespan of his endeavors, he spent the whole of his life on the move and determining where he could be during any given year was next to impossible. Until I discovered a published bibliography of Indiana newspapers that is. With that tool, I was able to match up his work sites with the births of his four children (whose birthdates were given by the Dr who delivered them in James' widows' pension file) and track his movements by a year, or two at the most, throughout the 1850s and a portion of the 1860s. Being able to track him that closely was something I never thought I'd be able to do when I first started researching him, and it was all due to the fact that he was an on-the-go newspaper man. He attempted to set up presses through the Eastern Indiana border counties and since he was poor, with no land, he didn't leave many other clues such as deed records and the lack of extant tax lists in some of the areas in which he lived made things harder and this is where the importance of occupation came in. Thank goodness for that!

I'm thinking of naming the potential article, "Where in the world is James M. Bromagem, of Ohio, Indiana, and Washington, D.C.?: Another Lesson in the Importance of Occupation as a Finding Aid." :) I'd like to think I could come up with something half as effective as Rachal's article but who knows. I've been too intimidated to try up until now so thanks to that article I've at least got the gumption to attempt it. Now I just need to get it all down on paper.

Taking some time to revisit some names

I am going to try to take a break from the Bromagems for while...yes, again. Some of you may remember what happened the last time I tried to do this. I ended up getting some records that brought me right back front and center to them. Since I'm having some down time with that branch, I thought it might be a good idea to go back and take some time to check out some of the other branches. I have a big list of names on the front page of all the names, or at least most of them, that I have been researching so I may as well chit chat about some of them.

The Gilkison side is my Dad's side of the family and one that he really wishes I would go back to. It's also one of the most challenging and has been the hardest for me to work on long distance. One issue involves the earliest proven generation, John Gilkison (b.abt 1801 KY d. 15 Sept 1854 IN) and Margaret Manley (b.abt 1799 KY 5 Mar 1872 IN). Both birthdates have been handed down by a cousin of my Dad's but she does not have the source written nor has she been able to find out where she got them from. So that's one problem. I have found confirmation of John Gilkison's death date and was lucky enough to find a photo of his gravestone online. So that's a good thing, however, the death of his wife is another shady point since I have not found an obit/death notice for her (not for lack of trying either) so who knows if she actually did die on the date given. Finding some confirmation of Margaret's death and finding out whether the birth dates found by our cousin are correct are on the list of things to do.

Another branch I've worked on are the McKeevers of Delaware Co and Philadelphia Co, PA. I think I've spoken about the McKeevers here in the past. I was focusing on the family of J.B. McKeever and his first wife, Elizabeth Saunders (his first wife's name is a fairly new development and I haven't had a chance to find anything out about her yet). They're a really interesting group and for a while things were just falling into place and I was able to take them back further than I first expected. There is still a ton that I need to do, mainly order a ton of FHL microfilm for church records and that's another reason why I've been putting off going back to work on this branch. I guess I'm saving it for a little extra money to use for ordering the film. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to work with this group again soon.

One branch that I have listed on the homepage are the Sargents. My Grandpa Stevens' middle name was Sargent in honor of his father's family and it's a line which I haven't spoken too much of here because the line has pretty much been covered by other researchers. My branch of Sargents were from the Kittery, Maine area; Hannah Sargent married Charles T. Stevens in 1834 in either Boston, MA or Portsmouth, NH. They had four children before her death in 1848. Charles married her younger sister, Sarah Augusta Sargent (b. 1834 d. 1915), in 1849 and the couple had something like nine more children before Charles died in 1887. Hannah and Sarah were the daughters of Henry Sargent (b. 1786 d. 1866) and Sally Caswell (b. 1794 d. 1855). Henry Sargent was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a distant Stevens cousin that I "met" through the genealogy message boards many years ago discovered that he had been a POW during his service. He returned to Maine and hero and I've found a few wonderful newspaper articles which gave a few characteristics of Henry and told some of his experiences. This same Stevens cousin did a wonderful job documenting her extensive research and the facts that I have gone back to check have been correct. Her work places the Sargents back to England in the 1500s and though I haven't worked my way back there yet to verify the info, it's been great reading (whether it's true or not).

That's probably enough for now. I'll look at a few other lines soon.

Whoa!!!

With all the talk this week on various blogs, I decided to check out the google news archives search function again. I've used it previously but didn't have many outstanding results; I didn't find anything that I was looking for, but found a few items of small interest so it wasn't a total loss. This week though, I had a few new names to the tree to search and I think that was the clincher that led me to the explanation of a family story that I never thought I would understand.

The backstory here is that my maternal Great Grandfather, Charles L. Stevens (son of Lillian Bromagem and Charles T Stevens), was born in Toronto, Canada in the 1880s. Were any of the Stevens' or Bromagems from Ontario, or even anywhere near Canada for that matter? Big fat negatory on that one. The only family word on the story was that he was born there because his parents had gone up to Toronto for a wedding and his mother gave birth prematurely. No one seemed to know whose wedding it was. Over the years though, I've found more and more evidence of Bromagems living briefly in Toronto during the time frame Charles was born so I began to think that the story must be true, although the wedding part still didn't make sense. I just figured his parents went up there to visit Mary J Bromagem, Lillian's mother, and gave birth to my Great Grandfather while they were there. But there was still something else. When I discovered the Van Wormer connection (Lillian's eldest sibling, Eliza/Lida, married Clemson Van Wormer and Charles Stevens' mother married Clemson's father, Matthew Van Wormer), I found that the Van Wormers were also living in Toronto around the time Charles L. was born there. Again, just another piece of evidence to put towards the theory that he was born there while his parents were visiting their families...

that theory got blown out of the water this week thanks to the google news archives search (keep in mind, the article is from 1887, my Great Grandfather was born in 1888in Canada).

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05E4DC1630E633A25754C2A9659C94669FD7CF

Hmmmmmmmm, now I really don't think they were up there for a wedding :)