My dad and my mom used to tell me family stories, some of which I used to think were tall tales…
I eventually found out they were mostly true, only the details being slightly bent in the oral history.
I found out, for instance, that my father came from a family that had been very determined to keep family records, before and after coming to America.
And that my mother had a grandmother who’d lived a real western adventure.
And that my parents both grew up in Oklahoma during the wild days, just after the state came into the Union.
The outlaw Cole Younger, associated with Jesse James, had a nephew who worked on my mother’s parents’ farm. And it was this gentle-spoken young man who introduced my mother to my father. Cole Younger himself had been in prison in Stillwater, MN, and had been released, to spend his final years in Missouri. Most of Cole Younger’s family had been killed in the violence of the post-Civil War period in Kansas—it was a bad place and a bad time. But one of his brothers or sisters apparently lived long enough to have a son, whose name was Bill or Bob, as my mother recalls, who worked on the family farm in Anadarko OK, and who apparently visited his uncle in Stillwater. When my father admired my mother from a distance, Younger, acquainted with both, managed an introduction. My father worked at the Anadarko ice house, and my mother began to insist on doing the drive into town after ice that summer. They were secretly married in El Reno OK, and didn’t tell relatives on both sides until some months later.
My maternal great-grandmother was the survivor of an accident that drowned or separated her family as they were crossing a major river on the move west. Her name was Missouri Duff. But in my searching census records, I found her on an old census report from before the accident, and I found, in the next census, her mother and a brother living in a town near the Missouri river. Evidently they’d survived, her father and other children had drowned—and she’d survived, taking the name of Missouri and moving first to Kansas and then to Oklahoma, to grow up and marry with never a notion she had living relatives.
My grandfather was a cowboy turned salesman as Indian Territory became settled towns. His mother was Louisiana Carolina Boone, and my father named me after her. She was one of those Boones, and she came into Indian Territory out of Texas with her husband, my great-grandfather, and ended up living with my grandfather, then taking care of my father when he was very small.
When she died, my father went to live with other relatives, an uncle, and only came home to live with my grandfather when he married my step-grandmother, a spectacularly gracious lady, in every sense of the word.
Well, I got all the family stories—including the night St. Elmo’s fire turned up on a herd of cattle when my grandfather was riding herd in an impending thunderstorm: horns and hooves glowed—the herd spooked, and if you remember the song “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” it must have been like that.
A part of my family is Dutch, and used to own a major slice of New Jersey and Manhattan: they became bankers, and one a Supreme Court judge—but half that family broke off and went down to Virginia and the Carolinas. That was my half, poor as church mice, and working in farming, from Virginia to Nebraska during the Civil War and down to Kansas in the Bleeding Kansas days, then on into Oklahoma.
But when I got seriously into genealogy, I began to fill in the pieces of various things. I found Missouri Duff’s missing family. I found how we connect to Daniel Boone’s father, Squire Boone, and how we connect, though part of the Boone family fiercely disputes it, through a dubious union, to the de Bohuns, one of the kingmaking families in England. Whether or not the Boone line does connect—I’m related to the de Bohuns down another line as well. And here’s an interesting point: these families keep connecting and reconnecting: geographical closeness, and social circles: availability of potential good matches, strengthening economic and political ties, in an era of arranged marriages. When you have a nest of connections that keep reiterating, I think it likely that relationship is true.
A great number of my forbears came over from England: read: ran for their lives to get out of England during the English Civil War. A lot of them were Charles I’s supporters. My ancestors were not fans of our Pilgrim fathers, quite on the other side of the political fence.
I’ve been able to trace relations going back and back and back…a lot of lines through those English emigres…
And here’s the kicker. It turns out Jane and I are related to each other—back in England. One of her folk married one of the de Bohuns, both of us in direct descent.
One of the really fun things is going through Wikipedia finding out about these people. Mine had a penchant for getting involved in royal politics and getting caught on the losing side—many were very creatively executed in a very brutal age.
Fortunately, they managed to reproduce before meeting their nasty end.
Not all were saints. I’m related to Hugh the Despenser—-reputed as one of the most corrupt men in England. And to William Marshal, reputed as one of the most honest.
I’ve found answers to family mysteries: the family story is that we came over from Ireland, when most geneologies try to make us German. Well, we’re right: our guy, John Cherry, married to Bridgett Haney, was of British origin, but had been living in Ireland, and his wife was apparently Irish—when they, or he, immigrated to the states. And that was the origin of the story. That family came over from Normandy, but not in the invasion: the name(of, originally de Cerisy, has a ‘de’ (of)—which is the sort of thing that ordinarily denotes some lordly family, but in this case I think it simply means “from the village of Cerisy”, a little place in Normandy, France, no nobility involved, and not one of William the Conqueror’s lot, just a guy from a French village who came to England.
And—a very interesting update: research in French records gives another story—not de Cerisy, ‘from the village of Cerisy’, but de Chery, from the town of ‘Chery,’ in the Centre district of France. It seems that one Jean de Chery held property in Normandy, or had some ancestral rights in William the Conqueror’s land, but that one could not at that time enter Normandy from the rest of France without a royal permit—which Jean de Chery sought from his king, Charles. King Charles, now called Charles the Mad, had once been known as Charles the Good, but he had had a mental breakdown, what they call the glass syndrome, becoming convinced he could shatter, literally, and convinced that assassins were on his track.
Actually, re Charles’ paranoia, it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you, and it wasn’t a bad guess. There were three contenders for the French throne: the Capets, descended from Charlemagne, the Burgundians, who claimed southern central France as their ancestral domain, and had allies clear across France; and the de Courtenays, who contended they should be kings of France. Burgundy was assassinating people who stood in his way.
And there is a document which indicates that the de Cherys were a) in charge of the substantial town of Chery, and b) closely tied to the de Courtenays who were c) increasingly split as to where their fortunes would best advance, in William’s enterprise, or in France, trying to succeed the failing Charles Capet the Mad…that Burgundy was intent on killing and supplanting. There was a de Courtenay branch, the lords of Arrablay, one of whom, I think also named Charles, is documented to have married his neighbor, one Jeanne de Chery; so there were marriage ties between the de Cherys and the vastly powerful de Courtenays.
Burgundy began to gain ground, and while the de Courtenays didn’t sail with William the Conqueror, a number of them went over to England after the Conquest—possibly because they were feeling the heat from Burgundy and Charles the Mad was, well, mad…
The de Courtenays who emigrated to England set up a castle with William’s permission, in Leicestershire, central England.
Well, now we have one Jean de Chery (the male form of John/Jeanne) who at a certain point seeks the permission of Charles the Mad to go visit his properties in Normandy, after which he vanishes from history, and the de Chereis turn up in Leicestershire…attached to the de Courtenay branch that had established in England. It was, thanks to William, *no* trouble to get ship from Normandy to England in that time.
And Burgundy was busy assassinating his rivals, and King Charles was getting crazier, and the de Courtenays in France finally dwindled down to a few, one female unable to pass the title, and virtually powerless, though they still existed.
Part of the de Chereis family moved from Leicestershire and set up in the south, at Maidenhead and Bray, in Berkshire, and those folk by then are spelling it Cherry, and still marrying people of some substance, to judge by the graves, the literacy, and the constant interweaving of spouses of some indication of wealth, even title. Then from Bray, a Cherry (they all tended to be named John and David and Thomas) went over to northern Ireland, and after a few generations, a John and his son David emigrated to Virginia, in a time of religious unrest and civil war. So my little guy from de Cerisy may instead be a much more politically connected guy skipping out of the town of Chery, in central France to go join the de Courtenays in Leicestershire, before the king who was his patron went entirely over the brink.
Jane’s family name, possibly originally Faucher, may, according to one name-origin, have come from the Limoges area of France, then to London, then to the Americas, which is kind of generic information and not easy to attach to individuals, but there is new information, too—indicating a substantial house in England, the house at Fanshawe Gate, which is now a beautiful garden showplace in Derbyshire—and a connection of her very definite ancestor, via records in Massachusetts, to a Fanshawe from the house at Fanshawe Gate who went from that Derbyshire hall down to London: that ancestor married one Eunice Bouton, who seems like a quiet New England lady of French ancestry—until you get into her past, and figure that—ironically enough—that lady’s ancestors run back to the dukes of central France, back before the Norman Invasion. Both these possible connections are still under investigation—but they do answer some interesting questions and fill in some gaps; and they are better connected to specific individuals whose time and place we can say match and intersect. It’s worth more study, at very least. The de Chereis are in Burke’s Peerage.
Anyway, hunting ancestors one of my favorite winter-evening hobbies. I was amazed that I could trace anybody by real, checkable records, but the computer age has made it an easy-chair kind of hobby; you can access, almost instantly, every digitized census report and village record, not just in the States, but in Britain, Italy, France, and now apparently into Japan and Germany, the Netherlands, you name it. They open up more of these every month, and if they ever digitize Creek County, OK, I may be able to open up a whole new part of the tree by finding my paternal great-grandmother. That could happen.
The software system I use is www.ancestry.com and if you’ve ever wanted to get into this, it’s a marvelous way to learn history: it gets pretty personal when you know it was your great-great-great-great grandfather in that battle…
For any of you who are in the Ancestry network, our tree is “It’s the Eleventh Century and We’re All Barbarians…”, a quote from our favorite Christmas movie, The Lion in Winter, which is appropriate on so many grounds.
Somebody would have to be into that rarified atmosphere of pretty-iffy themselves to take one of my ‘fun’ excursions for truth. In the case of a few of more recent date, however, I have a note attached saying: connection questionable, or unsure about this one. And another branch I was unsure of turns out to have some DNA results linking up with mine. Unfortunately ‘iffy’ has to be pretty much everything about my paternal gran. The connections inside her probable family are sound, but theirs to her, not so much. My maternal great-gran, ditto, since she claimed to be the only survivor of a river accident: I suspect at least her mother and a brother did survive and ended up elsewhere, but can’t prove it.
My Great-Grandmother, Mary Augusta, married at Spangle in 1883, her mother was a Peach, her father was a Dashiell. The Dashiell side has a long history with records dating back to “Vuillelmus de Chiel b. 1050, “Eminent gentleman.” Hugues de Chiel b. 1085 d. 1150 Knight of the middle of the 12th Century – (so on and so forth.) Jacques de Chiel, gentleman, son of Gullaume de Chiel, was born at Lyons, in 1575, three years after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Possessions included Chiel, Chateau of average size, with a drawbridge, in Lyonnais (Department of the Rhone, France) belonging in former times to the High (Chief) Justice. Jacques 1560’s emigrant from France to Scotland was born in 1600. James Dashiell 1663 immigrant of Maryland.” This is according to the Dashiell Family Records published by Benjamin J Dashiell 1928.
I will be entering some of the more interesting ancestors that are in three volumes of this family history. I will enter the most romantic story soon…”The Beautiful Lady on the Hill.”
In 1916 a story was published in the Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal that told about my dear Great-Grandmother Mary Augusta’s Uncle Robert and his journey to find his mother’s gravesite that was located at a house on a hill which happened to be located near “The Cabbage Patch” made famous by the stories of Mrs. Wiggs written by Alice Heagan Rice. His Mother, my GGG Grandmother was Mary Downes Corrie married to Dr. George Dashiell and died when he was 3 months old so he never got to know her. As a young adult Robert and 2 brothers headed west ending up in locations near Spangle, Davenport and the Columbia River. A niece wrote a letter that described their Mother and the home they lived in which was also located near the famous Oakland racetrack in the 1840’s and that there were “many elaborate entertainments given at the house on the hill in honor of many distinguished men such as Henry Clay and General Zachary Taylor.” She was described as having pale golden hair and very blue eyes, very musical with a pleasing voice singing all the lovely old Scottish melodies, her favorite being “The Flowers of the Forest.”
At the age of 74 Robert left on his journey to find her grave and fulfill his cherished dream. The house was still standing though ownership had changed he was allowed to search for the grave. There were several set-backs however he did not give up and finally after a minute inspection found traces of an old rock wall that placed the site so he was able to have a monument erected that reads: The Beautiful Lady on the Hill. The story was also published in the Spokesman Review Jan. 28,1917.
so neat!!
I was just re-reading your account of connection to Cole Younger, I recently saw a film about the James Gang with Cole Younger and his brothers, I had not known anything about that gang and it was fascinating actually so I read up a little on them. My oldest son was born on the same day as Jesse James. It is amazing the degrees of separation that occur in our lives to historical figures. The film I saw had Dwight Yokum (sp?) play his part which interested me because when I was taking a geology night class in Alaska at Ft. Greely, I was walking to my room and I passed a guy that smiled and said hello – I found out later that it was Dwight, he was doing a concert for the troops – which I had no knowledge of.
I have a few more gems (in my mind) to comment on. I don’t want to do it all at once then have nothing left! Take care.
I went down a rabbit hole the other day: I read about Lt Gov Julian Fairvax of VA having, in his inside pocket when he was sworn in, a copy of the emancipation doc for his several-times-great-grandfather. It was witnessed by William Gunnell, frequently called “William of Thomas” ecause there were other Williams. It’s possible, but not proven, that Gunnell might be ancestor of Fairfax by one Sally Ambrose (she was a freedwoman and he was white).
And William Gunnell is a second cousin of two of my own ancestors, Oliver and Moses Gunnell, and a relative (though degree is unknown) of my mother’s stepmother (her tree gets unreliable just as it gets to the interesting part – her records were a mess, and we couldn’t figure them out; she never got us an organized version of her own tree).
I don’t suppose it’s unusual for people to check their genealogy for ancestors who died in 1348, the year of the plague, the “Black Death”. But how about 1258? Who died then?
My ancestors, those we know, seemed largely to have escaped the plague. There were many people who were naturally immune, for reasons unknown until relatively recently. (I suppose, reminiscently of an old Monty Python sketch, only to be accused of being a witch!) But in 1258:
Fulk III Fitzwarren, supposedly comingled with the Robin Hood story. Also playmate of another ancestor, “Evil King John”, in Henry II’s household.
John Fitzgeoffrey, Lord of Shere and Justiciar of Ireland.
Matthew Louvain, son of Godfried III de Louvain or Leuven, Duc de Brabant.
Beatrice (from Savoy).
“Witnesses reported a death toll of 15,000 to 20,000 in London. A mass burial of famine victims was found in the 1990s in the centre of London.
Swollen and rotting in groups of five or six, the dead lay abandoned in pigsties, on dunghills, and in the muddy streets.
— Matthew Paris, chronicler of St. Albans,”
Why?
“The 1257 Samalas eruption was a major eruption of the Samalas volcano, next to Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island in Indonesia. The eruption left behind a large caldera next to Rinjani, with Lake Segara Anak inside it. This eruption probably had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, making it one of the largest eruptions of the current Holocene epoch.
It was stronger than the eruptions of Mount Tambora in 1815 and Krakatoa in 1883.”
Yeah, Indonesia. What a surprize!
Interesting! Samalas, eh?
In 1258 London wasn’t what it is today! “In 1100 London’s population was little more than 15,000. By 1300 it had grown to roughly 80,000.” That 80,000 would have been after the demise of the 15-20,000 roughly two generations ago, subsequent births and inmigration. A straight-line interpolation would suggest the population in the 1250s would’ve been around 60,000, so to lose even 15,000 would’ve been 25%, 1 in 4! Presumably the weather & famine wasn’t restricted to London. One wonders why this catastrophe is so little known.
A few guesses: The Black Plague came through Europe and lingered, with outbreaks over some period, around a hundred or so years, I think it was. It was alluded to in O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin books as a reason for extreme caution about other ships at sea and seaports in the late 1700’s / early 1800’s. An outbreak could have accounted for a large drop in any city in the Middle Ages.
But really, any contagious disease or bad water, etc., fires, could also reduce the population of a medieval town severely. Bad water, for instance (unknown as the cause) affected London and other UK cities in the 1800’s, before they had a real idea that disease could be carried in contaminated drinking water, for instance. (I recall this from at least two documentaries on the Discovery or History channels about historical town life and the development of modern medicine. One outbreak led one scientist to a bad pump or well in a city square, one of the first uses of forensics and detective work to home in on a cause and source they didn’t yet understand, which led to a key in understanding the speed of disease and how to combat it.)
Lack of good clean water, poor sanitation and hygiene, a lack of understanding of disease transmission and how to prevent it, and crowded conditions and fire hazards, all were cases for periodic problems in cities, even into the 1800’s, and up through the 20th and 21st century.
Maybe the incident you’re writing about has just been lost, forgotten in time, or maybe it wasn’t so uncommon during that time? Also, record-keeping was more spotty back then, or prone to flood and fire and vermin damaging the records (or human action, accidental or purposeful.)
It’s a good question why a major event like that isn’t better known. Another good question would be, how common was it back then? Are there a few or a lot of similar incidents across Europe, Asia, and Africa at the time? That could put it in perspective. There’s the tendency of people to forget what happened a few generations ago, and to only hold onto specific things in memory, widely-known history (written or folklore), songs and stories, lengends.
My Grandmother Naomi a granddaughter of the marriage of a Peach and a Dashiell was always very pleased that Dashiell Hammett was her distant cousin. She required her children and grandchildren to read his few works. She was a school teacher, getting her teaching certificate from Eastern Washington University 1916. She was a very proper lady and had “proper” tolerance toward Dashiell Hammett for his overindulgent and radical behavior. It was funny because as I remember – she was still tickled to be related.
My father told me that his father, who was born in 1885 was adopted as a boy. We don’t know who his biological parents happen to be, so I ordered up a DNA test from Family Tree. So far, I’ve found nobody that I know, it does show about 3,000 matches. I’ve also got a very good ancestor chart made up about 29 years ago that lists my lineage through my paternal grandmother. Apparently, my great-great-great-great-grandfather was beheaded in Scotland, for what, who knows? I’d suspect that he was of minor nobility, at least, if they beheaded him rather than hanged him. I know that his wife moved to Ireland where she had a son, married an Irish woman, and after he died, she moved with her sons to the U.S., landing in Philadelphia sometime around 1784. From there, the family seems to have moved across Pennsylvania to Southeastern Ohio, and then across Ohio to my home county. My maternal side can be traced back to about 1845 in Missouri for her father, and 1850 or so for her mother’s line.
At the moment, I have no idea how to go about finding any relatives, there are a couple of pages on Facebook for that purpose, but I’ve not been able to figure out what I should (or should not) be doing. I’ve built up the trees, done a GEDCOM upload to a couple of sites, Family Tree and My Heritage, but still don’t know what else I can do. My paternal grandfather’s line stops at the Childrens Home where he and his brother were adopted, and there was no paperwork ever found for them. I don’t know if they were just dropped off one night, or if the parents suddenly died, or just decided that they couldn’t support two little boys. I envy those people who can trace their lineage back to say, the days of Richard I.
I’ve also built a family tree at Ancestry. Tonight, I ordered another DNA test, this one from Ancestry, so I’ll have two of them out there, and maybe more matches.
Heh. There’s a remote chance you may be distantly related to me, although Harrison County is slightly more central east than southeastern Ohio. Got any Pattersons or Chereeks in the woodpile?
Apparently editing is currently on the fritz — I was just going to say seeing who’s related to whom is like playing genealogical ‘Go Fish’!
You’re right, editing is on the fritz and I agree with the “Go Fish”. 😀
Not to my knowledge. My paternal grandmother’s line was Laughlin, and I’ve been able to trace back to around 1750. There are Cunningham, Buirley (or Byerley), Piper, Calhoun, Elenor. I just don’t know my paternal grandfather’s line. I have my maternal grandfather’s lines going back to about 1840 and supposedly from France, emigrated to Quebec, and down through New England, spreading to Missouri and then returning to Ohio. Grandmother’s line was in Germany and I don’t know when they arrived in North America or when they moved to Ohio.
I found a woman in my home town who is actually a member of the county’s genealogical society, and is a distant relative. I’m not sure how far distant, it’s in the 2nd or 3rd cousin range, I believe, but I’ve not located her in any of the family trees. She says I’m in her family tree, but all of the information I’ve gotten so far hasn’t come up with her father, grandfather, etc., so I’ll keep looking. I do believe I know who she is, as far as name, etc., but I’m not going to go to see her. I’ll keep this strictly as a correspondence (Facebook Messenger), until she’s comfortable meeting up somewhere. I still need to go to the library, too.
IF you get to Quebec – they have records. Lots of records. So many records you’ll be overwhelmed. (Parish registers were Official Documents for birth, death, and marriage. Women kept their maiden names, so they’re trackable through multiple marriages.)
My second DNA test kit, from Ancestry, came in today’s mail. I’ll send it out tomorrow, they estimate at least 6 – 8 weeks after they receive it before the results are ready.
One of my cousins told me that somewhere along the line in my mother’s family, her ancestors emigrated from France to Quebec, and from there down to New England and eventually settled in Pike County, Missouri (county seat: Hannibal ).
I’ve looked for a place that would let me search records from Quebec, but the ones that are free are limited, or don’t search for what I’m looking for.
Meanwhile, my DNA test for Ancestry was received on April 16, they estimate 6-8 weeks for results, depending on workload. After they are sent, I can do a comparison between Family Tree’s results and Ancestry’s. We get into the realms of centiMorgans, 1C1R, 3C2R, etc. I don’t know if I’ll ever find my paternal great grandfather, but if other people have been successful, then there’s a chance.
I know of two sites online that are free, at least for some searching:
http://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/genealogie.aspx?lng=en
(they also have a French-language sitel this one include 19th and 20th-century people)
http://www.francogene.com/genealogy/
(you can get a DVD with this database for about US$120, and it has annual updates available; it stops about 1800, though)
I looked over the sites, and one of them took me to a search that required me to pay, so I went to the other one, and I don’t quite know where to start with it.
On a side note, I had found a DNA match, and sent her an email telling her about the match, and what my intent for the DNA testing was. She answered me today and told me that she’s not sure where we are related, as her brother was doing the DNA testing, etc. So I sent her a link where she can look at my family tree for any person who is no longer alive or has passed away more than 100 years ago. Of course, I’m in the tree, as I’m the “root” person. I haven’t found any of the people she mentioned in her past 3 generations.
I have the DVD database version, and can look people up in that one. (Sister-in-law’s stepfather has a grandfather from Quebec.)
My patternal grandfather was born in 1884. Yes, long lives and marrying late go back to at least his generation or earlier.
My paternal grandmother (my grandma and not the grandmother I usually mention) was born in 1902. Yes, there was that much age difference, about 18 years.
But that wasn’t completely uncommon back then. It was a small town and even the county seat isn’t large. Both families knew each other, the couple courted a long time, and when they married the town had a “shivaree” for them, a usual celebration back then, involving teasing, pranks, and sending them out of town on their honeymoon with cans tied to the back of the wagon. (Horse-drawn wagon.)
My grandma would’ve been around 17 or 18 when they married, making my grandpa yes, around 33 or 34 or so. They went on to have 5 kids, with one other, her first, not living long past his birth. They had a happy marriage, mostly. My dad and his three sisters and one brother all did fine.
By comparison, my mom and dad went together for about a year, with a long engagement, and married later too, when my dad was 31 and my mom was about 29. I didn’t arrive until five years later, despite multiple attempts before and after. They’d wanted lots of kids, they loved each other, but they had an only child (me) instead. A baby girl was born when I was about 5 or 6, but she only lived a few hours, and my mom nearly died giving birth by Caesarian section. (My mom had a near-death experience during this, which she was certain was real.) — They never adopted or fostered a child, and I always wished I had a brother or a sister.
Er, and I’m gay. Some recent research says that each successive birth, especially for boys, tends to increase the likelihood that a younger son or daughter will be gay. How much of this is biochemistry of the mother or age or also involves possible genetic inheritance, is not really agreed upon. — But growing up, being gay was something I could not talk to my parents about, or knowing any friends at school who were rumored to be gay. (I didn’t know for sure, but I now suspect two or three were. That doesn’t prove it, though.)
A former family friend had twins later in the month after my birthday, when I was 18, the year I graduated high school. She was in her early 40’s and her husband was more than 15 years older, a second marriage for both of them with years divorced in between. The two had a good marriage, and their twins recently turned 34. But I haven’t seen the family since shortly after my mom died. I was grieving and didn’t answer a couple of phone calls. I regret this. It is very strange to know there are two grown men now who could’ve been close, but life didn’t end up that way. The last time I saw them, they were around 10. — But this also is poignant for me, because I’m now the age my dad was when I was a mid-teen, and because that together with those twins being in their mid-30’s, means if my life had been different (if I’d been straight) I might have had kids and possibly grandkids by now. That’s sort of spooky and bittersweet.
Oh my dad’s side of the family, both my grandpa and grandma’s family lines go back to before the Revolutionary War in the Colonies. My family line had the farm there since around 1805 or so, I no longer recall the exact date of the oldest deed records. Before that, the male ancestors had come over, a father and son or two brothers or cousins, in 1755. Philip or Phillip and Johan or John, with multiple spellings recorded for the last name, although evidently they themselves were literate, and the recorders were not always so literate. Spelling was not standard back then anyway. But they were either northern English or else Dutch or German. (I think there was a Dutch or German port given for the point of departure from Europe.) They arrived and moved into what was then Pennsylvania but subsequently was diviged off into Virginia colony, plus, they moved from Pennsylvania down into Virginia before they or there family (sons and daughters) moved to a town miles from where those or later descendants would buy the family farm.
My paternal great grandfather was well-off enough to be an accomplished carpenter and woodworker, and made furniture himself, besides farming or other work. But how well educated or wealthy they were, I’m not sure. (I also can’t think of the time periods, if he would’ve been of majority during the Civil War.)
Apparently, my dad’s dad’s family (my family name) had someone who fought on the Union side. I am not sure if other young men from the family fought on the Union or Confederate side. On my dad’s mom’s side, I have the impression they may have fought on the Confederate side, which would have been usual, given that it was Virginia. I know that when the war started, the father at the time deeded the farm to his wife before any menfolk of age went to war, and after the war ended, the farm was deeded back, either to the husband or a son, I don’t recall which. — And I don’t recall any of those “half a person” things indicating slave ownership. I _think_, I’d have to recheck old deed records (etc.) to be sure, but I think they did not own slaves. Given where they were, it may not have been common anyway. (Near Cumberland Gap, and near what had been the Old Martin’s Station, connected with western expansion.) Those were mainly smaller family farms, and a set of neighboring families. (In my own family, there are my own family name, as well as Kopenhauer/Copenhaver and others with K or C, U or V, and other names from English, Scots, German, or Dutch origins. One neighboring family could be English or “Melungeon,” a colonial group with mysterious origins, black or others, and French or Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) or Native American, all of whom might have been less well received over the generations, as Colonial America and then Antebellum America became more and more toxic and prejudiced about race/color divides.
There’s also at least one family connection on my dad’s family’s side which means Cherokee or other Indian ancestry from the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee being one) is likely to have entered the family tree. (But I don’t have positive proof on that side, just an important and tragic local history.)
On my mother’s side, I have an Indian ancestor on her dad’s side of the family. The woman would have been my great-great-grandmother or great-great-aunt. The marriage was accepted openly by both the white and Native American Indian families, and she lived in northern Texas near Oklahoma Territory, in the latter half of the 1800’s, the 1880’s, I think it was. There is or was a photo which I hope is in storage and not lost, which shows her in a pioneer dress with a teepee in the background. She is very clearly Native American. I do not know at all if that side of the family are related to a branch with the same family name, who were important allies of the Cherokee in the Oklahoma Territory. But it could be why, or it could be coincidence, that the marriage happened, and it may be further coincidence that my mothers’ mother’s brother (other side on my mother’s line) had a middle name also connected with those allies. As far as I know, those are coincidences, though, but it means that people were intermarrying then. — Other than that, though, the families are English, Scotch-Irish, possibly some French.
Notably, I think it was my mom’s dad’s dad who had been an orphan and was raised by another family. Prior to being in northern Texas and Oklahoma, they had been in Missouri.
Of note: although my mom’s dad’s family lived in town and were more educated, townies, better off, even so, my maternal grandfather’s name is spelled very non-standard, and so is my maternal grandmother’s, and her mother’s, and most of my grandmother’s siblings names are a mix of standard and idiosyncratic spellings. — One of my mom’s cousin’s name is pronounced as if it were “Ellick,” although it’s spelled Alec, the standard way. — I am sure CJ is very familiar with an Oklahoma accent, so she knows the curious things that go on with vowels and R’s (dropping or intrusive) there. — So Lorance sounds like “loh-RANCE,” like it’s spelled, instead of Lawrence or Lorenz or whatever they were aiming for, and Lieu-Emma is spelled like that, instead of Lou-Emma, and my grandmother’s middle name, which she went by, was spelled both as Aline and Aileen, and pronounced with a short A like in cat, “AA-leen.” (Instead of the long I in Eileen, say a short A like in ash and cat, and you’ve got it.) One of her sisters was named with the spelling Ivor, pronounced like they expected, Iva, which would have been much simpler. And then there’s an Aunt Willie and a female Bennie friend or relative from whom my grandmother got her first name. And my grandmother always claimed that my mother’s name was “spelled (and pronounced) the Scottish way,” so my mom went through life as Janet, pronounced like Jeanette, (Juh-NET), to great confusion for all who met her. Friends remembered the difference. (I personally doubt the Scottish bit. My grandmother said she had a friend with that name. But it may have been to cover that she wasn’t sure at the time of the spelling. She later became good at spelling, though.)
And I got named after my dad’s first name, but I go by my middle name. My dad’s parents named him with a first name they liked, and saw or heard somewhere. But it is, in America, usually a girl’s name. I’m told it can be either, in the country of origin, but my grandpa and grandma would have seen it here in America, they weren’t from Europe. The family has a long tradition where the firstborn boy gets one name from his dad and one new name. And so I got my dad’s first name and my own middle name, and go by my middle name, Ben, for Benjamin.
My whole life, I have had people confused because they expect a girl or a woman from that name, and not a guy. It has, fortunately, been a long time since I got any samples of women’s products in the mail, as free trial samples. Er, I really can’t use those. — And it is still a problem when dealing with clerks and officials and banks sometimes. (Such as getting looked at severely to determine if I’m cross-dressing or transgender, despite a mustache and a long trail or records of maleness going back to my birth certificate, which gives a couple of details of a more private nature about that. Heh. Apparently, hospitals record such things.) Or the more common one is that they want to speak to “Ms.” me, or to my wife or the lady of the house. Well, no, she can’t come in because she doesn’t exist. That’s ME. Heh. — But I don’t believe that has anything to do with my identity or orientation. (I’m definitely male and turned out gay. Only the second part was a difficult personal issue…and in person, I am very quiet about that. I rarely say so unless I need to tell someone.)
So — I’d seen the bit about family from the 1880’s and an orphan connection. — Joe, I doubt we’re related, but it’s interesting. I don’t know of any connection to CJ’s family either, and I think her folks are from a different part of Oklahoma than my grandmother’s side.
However, I have cousins of my mother’s in Texas and Oklahoma, and my dad’s cousins are mostly in Virginia, though others are there or in Kansas, and at some point, a remote cousin started a branch in California, whom my dad’s dad may have known. My own first cousins are in several states, and former friends and their kids are mostly in Texas or a few other places.
So — it’s always interesting.
I had uploaded my raw autosomnal DNA data to GEDMatch.com, and checked on a “one-to-many” match on Wednesday. I found a 1st cousin (maybe once removed), but when I went to check on Thursday, it was removed. Fortunately, someone else had taken a screen shot and sent it to me, so I have the information, but I am not going to contact this person. I don’t know if this was coincidence, or if they saw that they’re a match with me and so removed their test, or what. What I did find out is that I have cousins on my father’s side that I didn’t know about, and this person is one of them. I’ve also found that my great-grandmother (the one who fooled around) divorced my great-grandfather (or vice-versa) and she married another man. So, we still don’t know if I’m her first husband’s or second husband’s or one of her paramours’ descendant.
One of the “search angels” on the Facebook group DNA Social has helped me locate this cousin. She’s on my father’s side of the family, she lives about 70 miles from me, and that’s about it. On the advice of the “angel”, I sent her a brief email, telling her who I am, how I came to find her, and our common ancestor (my father’s parents). Now, I haven’t done anything else other than to invite her to look at my family tree on Ancestry.com, so we’ll see if she replies.
Wishing you luck, Joe. I sometimes take a very long time replying to genetic match queries, just because I don’t go there often enough. I’ve tried to help a few who were down to a very thin thread of id, and I know with my granddad’s lot, they were a huge family, but it was Indian Territory, it was a smallpox epidemic that seemed to curtail the cattle industry (Great-grandfather was trading with the Sauk-Fox; and the epidemic which hit the tribe so hard also may have taken out my great-grandfather, so that lot is kind of scattered. I’m the one with the grandfather that hung close to Great-grandmother, while most of the others went off to California, likely before the dust bowl, but maybe during.
I’ve found two cousins so far, and both of them have responded favorably. The most recent was this morning, so I invited her to look at what I’ve got so far on Ancestry.
I don’t have a lot of information on my own generation of cousins and their offspring, because for years, I wasn’t anywhere around that I could do this research (gallivanting with the Navy for 22 years), and we didn’t have the vast resources available to us with not only genealogical papers, but also DNA testing and those databases. And, to be honest, I wasn’t all that interested until my father said he wanted to know who his grandfather was, because he’d been told his father was adopted. Well, that was a little white lie in the family. There is some question as to whether or not my great uncles are full brothers or half brothers. I suspect they’re half brothers, as dear great grandmother ran around with other men. Family!!!!
Not to keep beating this, but I got an email from a woman in Puyallup who matches me as a probable 4th cousin. I’ve done the searches on Ancestry and 23&Me and she shows up. I don’t know who our common ancestor might be, it would be somewhere at or before my great-great-great-grandparents, and there are maybe 32 people it could be?
Sadly, I don’t believe that Jane and I are related, but that would definitely be a treat!
First cousin: common grandparents.
Second cousin: common great-grandparents.
and so on.
So you’d be looking for third-great-grandparents that you share (out of 32).
yes……
Some time back I shared the story of the Beautiful Lady on the Hill. I spent over 30 years in Alaska raising my children and when they were off and running my Mother hoped I would come home and be with her in her “golden years.”
I actually was able to make that move and return to my roots and one thing my Mother wanted to have me do was find the story of the Beautiful Lady on the Hill, she could not remember where the story came from or why it was stuck in her head. She thought it was an old nursery rhyme or some lost story of sorts; I looked through several volumes of books I have and the internet, – no luck. Well, time went on, sadly my dear Mother got into a terrific car accident and never did make it back home.
A few months after her passing I ran into a Dashiell cousin who had 3 volumes of the family records which he loaned me. As I got to the generations of my Great-Grandmother and her uncle Robert, I came across a reference to the story of The Beautiful Lady on the Hill and the information of publication in the newspaper in Kentucky.
My Mother must have remembered her Mother telling the story of the Uncle Robert. I so wish my Mother could have realized that beautiful lady was her Great-Great Grandmother.
I want to add that I was able to get the full story/article from the Louisville Courier Journal by emailing them. They responded right away with the article in full attached. I was elated (and shocked) to have the mystery solved. Newspapers are amazing and so long-lived; I do hope they survive the tech age.
The Hathi Trust Research Center is a digital library in collaboration with Indiana University and University of Illinois (where my daughter teaches)- they have three volumes of the Dashiell Family history and I was able to finally find the story I was looking for about an ancestor, Captain Charles Dashiell listed as Mariner, American Revolution which says –
“Letter from GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON to JOHN HANCOCK, dated Headquarters Morristown, March 31, 1777.
Sir:
Captain Dashiell of Mr. Buchanans Ship from Baltimore who was taken by the enemy and Carried to York, Made his escape from thence on Saturday evening etc, ———– Captain Dashiell being in Company with Captain of the Packet but unknown to him, heard him say that a war with France was much expected when he left England which was about the beginning of February.
Md Arch; State Council, 1777-1778.
I have copied the text as it is written in the book, I wanted to finish with the Dashiell side of the family before I enter some of the stories from the Peach side. There are many interesting wills and property deeds in these volumes – it is fortunate that we have these records.
I came across the article from the Louisville Courier Journal about my Great to the 3rd Grandmother the Beautiful Lady on the Hill and saw that there was an address for the home where her Son put in a monument to her, assuming he had her grave site. I love Google Maps and realized I should be able to locate the property and I did! It is now a one story modern business with no residential area. A little more research in local cemetery’s and I found the actual headstone with inscription which tells me it was moved so now my mission will be to contact the cemetery and see if a body came with the stone and when it was moved. Also found where the original “Cabbage Patch” was and Churchill Downs mentioned in the story as nearby landmarks. Am reading the Social and Political History of England and seeing quite a lot of the movement of my early ancestors. It is fun. Take care.
Over the winter I was delving into my Father’s family homesteading history with the help of a book my Father wrote and assembled with photographs and deeds, immigration papers etc. A cousin of mine also was able to help with photographs her Mother had and her own ancestral research which included going to Slovenia and finding info from churches! Now at present I drive past “the old homestead” on my way to Hwy. 395 here in the Jump-Off-Joe area and have been stunned and very pleasantly surprised at what I – don’t see. We colorized several photos which brought out details that did not come across in Dad’s book and made me realize the extent of the settlement. I was able to zoom in on area’s using my Corel software and start playing, I turned certain interesting sections into nice art prints that amaze me (my opinion).
The buildings are no longer in existence though in the late 1800’s there was not only a home but barns, cellar, blacksmith shop, etc. along with the corrals and fencing and an amazing flight of stairs that went from the barn area to the house up quite a steep slope. I had never realized the stairs were there, there are over 50 steps in one set and shorter flights here and there. Another surprise was that though I could see a woman in front of the house in her long white dress it wasn’t until I zoomed in I saw she had a bicycle and she was making sure it was in the picture – mind you, these people were posing, they knew they were getting a photo taken, the whole family was arrayed at the bottom of the stairs – or on a horse or in the wagon and in the field – everyone in place!
Now all that is left are fruit trees and two fading barn foundations. I have permission to wander around up there so hope to do that this summer. The house I was born in and lived in until I was 3 had been built on the homestead across from the original site which still stands and is lived in so I remember a couple of the buildings that were cleared in the 1960’s. It was a good way to keep busy during this tough year and learning so much about this group of people has been very rewarding.
It was so nice to check in and see you have been back on this site; you are such a busy couple of humans and I appreciate the time you put in here. I will try to just tell you a tiny bit of my fun from my research into the journals of my Great grandfather that settled the Big Bend Country near Almira. I was able to locate his homestead using his legal description and backing it up with the Government Land Office records (GLO) then Google Earthing the spot which showed me what looked buildings or ruined structures. I was able to identify the current owner of the property and see he was a descendant that was a neighbor and friend and was mentioned many times in the journal. Now he owns sections of that land and grows wheat! I was able to contact this man in January and this spring he drove me right to the place, a two-story house, still standing, all weathered but there and so amazing. This place was started in 1889. I have had such an interesting time and have more plans to go back after wheat harvest. I wish I could share more stories of what I have but it would take up too much space. Anyway, take care. Thank you, C.J.