I made my first serious genealogy research trip in January of 2018. I want to tell you a little bit about it. The calendar above and the map below give you the framework for my trip.
This was part of my research for a project I had been working on for most of 2017 – trying to figure out where my great-grandparents had lived in 1900. I was stimulated to do this by an Ian Frazier book called Family. Here is the first paragraph of his 367-page book:
The twentieth century began on a Tuesday. On that day, all of my great-grandparents but one were living in Ohio or Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Frazier and their four children lived in Indianapolis, in a neighborhood of many vacant lots and telephone poles. Mr. and Mrs. Louis W. Wickham and their three children and the hired girl lived at 237 Benedict Avenue, Norwalk, Ohio. The Reverend John Bachman and his wife and two daughters lived in New Knoxville, Ohio, where he was the pastor of the First German Reformed Church. Mrs. Elizabeth C. Hursh and her three grown daughters and one son lived at 86 Greenfield Street, Tiffin, Ohio; her husband, Professor O.A.S. Hursh, lay in a nearby cemetery, beneath a $200 monument inscribed with a Latin quotation and the years, months, and days of his life.”
When I read this book, I decided that I wanted to do this – set my family in place and time. I didn’t realize until I tried it that 1900 would work as well for me as it did for Frazier. I don’t plan to write 367 pages about my family, but I can start by writing an “origins” paragraph about my family in 1900, as Frazier did:
The twentieth century began on a Tuesday. On that day, all of my great-grandparents but one were living in Illinois, Oklahoma, or Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Warner Lismond Arnold and their eight children (including their youngest son, my grandfather John Cecil Arnold) lived in Montebello Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Howard P. Ellefritz and their two children (including their oldest daughter, my grandmother Orpha Lydia Ellefritz) lived just a few miles away, in Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois (they would go on to have eight more children). Mrs. Franklin Anthis (Mattie) lived with her ten children (including her two-year-old daughter, my grandmother Susan Vernon Anthis) in Justice Precinct 7, Lee County, Texas; her husband Frank, who had been dead for just a little over a year, lay in Forest Grove Cemetery in Milam County, Texas, a few miles from their home. Mattie would join him there 32 years later. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Calvin Workman, Sr., and their 10 children (including their youngest son, my grandfather Thomas Calvin Workman, Jr.), lived on the homestead in Bear Creek Township, Logan County, Oklahoma, that Tom had claimed in the Oklahoma Land Run a decade earlier.
I’ve used these paragraphs as a writing prompt for the students who have enrolled in some genealogy classes I have taught for our local Osher Lifelong Learning Institution in Williamsburg, Virginia. I ask the students to pick a year that works for their family and write a series of simple statements of fact that mirror what’s in these paragraphs. The response to this assignment is very positive and it gets our class off to a good start. Anyone who is doing genealogy research can write an origins paragraph like this.
After writing my “origins” paragraph, I began to flesh it out, and soon began to feel the pull to visit the locations where these people lived. That’s when I began to plan this trip, which resulted in two self-published books that I created through Lulu.com. Here are the covers of these two books.
This is the project where I learned how to use Excel spreadsheets. I started with simple information and gradually expanded what I knew. In the process, I learned more about the power and utility of spreadsheets.
The things I learned on this trip provided powerful reminders of the value of visits to physical locations to advance your understanding of your family’s history. Here’s one example of what I mean.
This is an excerpt from the will of my 2nd great-grandmother Susan Amesley Overman Kyle, who died in Lee County, Texas, in 1911. The paragraph in the red box notes that she bequeaths “the sum of one dollar each, and no more” to her son W.W. Kile, her daughter Mattie Anthis (my great-grandmother), and three of her grandchildren, and in the next paragraphs she leaves the bulk of her estate to her grandson Joe Ellis, who lived with her during her last years.
This is not as rude as it sounds; I learned that the “one dollar each” language is a standard “no contest” clause, which makes any challenge to the terms of a will more difficult for potential heirs who did not receive a substantive bequest as part of an individual’s estate. I suspect this reflects a family decision for Joe (20 years old and not yet married) to help take care of his grandmother in exchange for her estate – which was not substantial, although she did own a house and a bit of land in Rockdale, Texas.
This will has never been transcribed so it is not online anywhere. I found a reference to its existence in an index at the Clayton Genealogy Library in Houston, Texas, in the few hours I spent there before I went to Lee County. I was able to use that reference to find the right volume (among the literally hundreds of bound volumes in the cluttered basement of the Lee County Courthouse) when I was there two days later. I used my phone to take a picture of this will. I particularly like the fact that I was able to see her signature on this will:
I have a lot more to say about this trip. I’ll do that in later posts.
Both from your Osher class on genealogy and in private conversations, you have been a great model for me in my own family research. I particularly liked your comment about the signature you were able to capture. Seeing my dad’s signature strongly reminds me of my life with him. Seeing my Mother’s signature provides me with a tangible piece of evidence of her life I never had. Signatures are powerful totems.