Jimbo's Troll Genealogy

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Genealogy was an obsession of mine 20 years ago but I haven't done much of it in 15 years or so. But a cousin emailed me the other day, after 8 years of silence, and I decided to hunt down a few lost families who've stumped everyone for a century. It took me less than a week to find many of them. This morning I signed up for Ancestry.Com to do some work on my wife's family tree. I was an Ancestry virgin till today.

I was expecting miracles and got none. Half of genealogy is scanning bazillions of census rolls, one-quarter is scanning old newspapers for obits, weddings, suicides, and crimes, and another one-quarter is searching for official records. Ancestry has the census rolls, and a dab of the others. More money at other sites.

Still, paying a few sites $20 a month each is cheaper than gas, motels, restaurants costs. I spent $35,000 doing it the old fashioned way. The online sites may cost you $200....if you know what youre doing. Pick the strangest name you can imagine, and prolly 5000 people have the same name, and 3 of them will reside in the same town at the same time 150 years ago. I shit you not.

So if youre interested in this pastime stay tuned.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I signed up for Ancestry.com some years ago to try and find out some things about my Grandmother for my mum. I found it very useful and worth the fee's at the time, but once I found what I was looking for I did not go further and let my subscription go.

My sister and I travelled half the day to look up old obituaries and find contact details. We went to the cemetery and the nice man broke the law and gave me contact details and information about some of the graves and funeral arrangements etc. It was fascinating and intriguing and once I started we could not stop.

We ended up finding out my Mum has a three half-siblings she never knew about, the truth about her biological father and why my Nan left him, and a whole lot of other relatives on the other side of the country none of us ever knew about.

In that regard it was great, it gave my Mum some answers to some of the secrets my Nan took to her grave, and it gave me some new cousins who in 2 years I am really close to.

I did find ancestry.com like a bit of a house of cards, I'd find one bit of information and then have to follow a trail of often dead ends, but in the end it was worth it. It filled the wee hours when I'd have to get up in the middle of the night to feed a newborn anyway.

My mother had the same problem. She had no idea who her father was, my grandmother wouldn't talk about it and had sworn the aunts to secrecy. My mother died believing she was a love-child. I asked my grandmother to fess up, she refused. I offered to conceal any scandals till she died, and she still refused. So I gave her fair warning and went looking for the man. OMG

My mom had a real daddy. Her parents had a real wedding, and ma wasn't early. What happened was grandma left my grandpa and got pregnant by her next husband. She divorced my grandpa and married husband #2. I got cut out of the will for the facts I uncovered. Ma wasn't the bastard, her half-sister was. And my grandpa's next family wasn't delighted to see me, either. He died when I was 3 so I never met him. He's buried across the street from my ma's house (she died in 1971), I mean cross the street, hop over a ditch, and there he is. She had no idea he was THAT close.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Different times to now. There's no way that would be such a scandal or kept so secret these days.

Same with my Mum's mum.... We found out she left him because he was an abusive alcoholic and she didn't want Mum to grow up like that. The new siblings we found of Mum's (same father) confirmed he was a horrible man who died alone and was buried with no one coming to say goodbye.

I can't imagine thinking that was anything other than heroic behaviour on my Nan's part in that day and age.

I spoke to a bridesmaid who told me AGNES AND ARTHUR JUST DIDNT GET ALONG. No hint of criminal conduct or records. I suspect he was a lot more social than my grandmother, she was a recluse content to stay home all the time. I cant name one friend she ever had. She wasn't hostile, I think she was shy and anxious to expose her poor education. I usta eat dinner with her Wednesday evenings, and she asked me the most outrageous sexual questions. She wouldn't discuss sex with anyone...but me. It was all very clinical and odd.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

POINTER #2

I determine the pH of soil by looking around, noting the trees and weeds that look healthy, and look up their optimal growing conditions. I do not waste money paying the state ag agent to test the soil.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think you've got your threads mixed up, Jumbo!

I'm blind. One place looks like another.

 

[LWulf]

I was going to pay to have my DNA genealogy done (At the time (8 to 9 years ago), for the full 9 yards, that would be about $1000)

I didn't end up going with it, and I'm glad that some of my thoughts were validated by more knowledgeable people, like: it depends on how many other people participate as to whether or not you find any results, they can't really say that you are descended from, or kin to, some important person or not, that it's nothing more than genealogy astrology. In other words, it's guess work.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So I'm researching my old lady's family tree.

I spent the morning discovering that her mother filled a family group sheet with bullshit. She prolly thought it was correct, but it wasn't. But I fixed it and surprised everyone with what I uncovered.

My wife's maternal grandfather let her paternal great grandparents adopt his oldest child. They did the same with her paternal grandfathers oldest child. That and the great grandfather was a different man from whom the family group sheet identified. I found the real man. Now both great-grandparents descend from a common ancestor.

 

[quietlylooking]

Ancestry.com lead me to the knowledge that my great-grandparents were first cousins. And that I'm quite distantly related to both Agatha Christie and Elvis Presley.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Spent the day scratching my head over a major snafu on an old census. I have no idea how the enumerator got DANGLEY outta DOUGLASS. But I noticed that 3 generations of Dangleys lived next door to the Barnharts and had all the right first names and ages of the Douglass team. Problem solved.

 

[bailadora]

Looking at some of these old records, I have to think that those whose job it was to record all this stuff really didn't give a shit. I was looking for my great-uncle's birth certificate, but couldn't seem to find it. Until I realized the transcriber had listed him under the feminine variation of his name - despite the fact that it's clearly stated that a MALE child was born.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The Ancestry commercials make genealogy look simple...just type in names and Voila!

It doesn't work that way. I'm prospecting for my wife's people and know all the right family names, but there's a huge amount of searching thru census records, death certificates, and newspaper clippings. I spent yesterday examining the census records for Bradford County PA. Every town has 25-55 pages of names, and there are prolly 30 towns. I found people the search function ignores. I was confident they were there, somewhere, and they were. Transcription software isn't exact.

But the search area is larger than one county, her people lived inside a region formed by Elmira NY, Binghamton NY, and Scranton PA. That's maybe 10 counties. Gotta look at census records for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880. Then search all the old newspapers.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I found an ancestor who's common to me and Britney Spears. His name is Esau Bass. Back about 1800 he moved from Alabama to Mississippi. My line remained in Alabama, Britneys went to Mississippi.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Spent yesterday reconstructing an obscure Cuban-Spanish family. Almost all of them were cigar makers in Tampa when it was The Cigar City. My client now has a solid foundation to build upon. I charge $200 a day to collect the facts, and draw a line with each immigrant ancestor. Clients get an eye full for their money. And I enjoy the thrill of resurrecting the past.

 

[Que]

I found an ancestor who's common to me and Britney Spears. His name is Esau Bass. Back about 1800 he moved from Alabama to Mississippi. My line remained in Alabama, Britneys went to Mississippi.

I thought your mug reminded me of someone famous! grin

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I thought your mug reminded me of someone famous! grin

I shoulda exploited her.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So I'm on the trail of a mystery mother.

The family Bible gives one name, an application for citizenship names another, and a ships passenger list names a 3rd woman.

 

[Riles]

My mother has done the genealogy hunt for near a decade now. She works on both sides of my family. On my paternal grandmothers side I am related to the Black Donnellys. On my paternal grandfathers side I am related to Michael Douglas.

She has travelled many places to obtain accurate info, and is near OCD with details so I have no reason to doubt her. Her research is gathered into huge binders with detailed accounts of the families movements and such. You could pick one of them up and read it like a book, complete with pictures and supporting documents like birth/death records, land ownership, travel documents.

It's pretty damn cool.

 

[Que]

My Dad was an avid geneaologist. He passed away last year. Apparently before he did so he sent in his DNA to Ancestry.

His Maternal Grandmother was straight out of Ireland and his Paternal Grandfather straight out of Germany. His Dad's side started out German at the revoulutionary war and married into English blue-blood since.

Came back 38% Irish, 29% British, 14% Western Europe, 11% Italy/Greece. 4% Scandinavia, and 2% each Iberian Peninsula and Northwest Russia/Finland.

Not sure how any of that helps, really.

I could see this being a scam. Basically, the above is probably roughly true for any blue-eyed white guy.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My mother has done the genealogy hunt for near a decade now. She works on both sides of my family. On my paternal grandmothers side I am related to the Black Donnellys. On my paternal grandfathers side I am related to Michael Douglas.

She has travelled many places to obtain accurate info, and is near OCD with details so I have no reason to doubt her. Her research is gathered into huge binders with detailed accounts of the families movements and such. You could pick one of them up and read it like a book, complete with pictures and supporting documents like birth/death records, land ownership, travel documents.

It's pretty damn cool.

Sure! I started 50 years ago, back in high school. I didn't get good at it till 20 years ago, and now I amaze myself at how quickly I reconstruct lost families. But there are mysteries that challenge me. Like the man with 3 mothers. One more than Old Solomon had to puzzle out.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My Dad was an avid geneaologist. He passed away last year. Apparently before he did so he sent in his DNA to Ancestry.

His Maternal Grandmother was straight out of Ireland and his Paternal Grandfather straight out of Germany. His Dad's side started out German at the revoulutionary war and married into English blue-blood since.

Came back 38% Irish, 29% British, 14% Western Europe, 11% Italy/Greece. 4% Scandinavia, and 2% each Iberian Peninsula and Northwest Russia/Finland.

Not sure how any of that helps, really.

I could see this being a scam. Basically, the above is probably roughly true for any blue-eyed white guy.

The DNA testing is a waste of money and time. Thomas Jefferson is the putative father of Sally Hemmings kids but he was one of 6 possibles, based on genetic tests and access to Sally.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Genealogy is detective work.

People post tons of crap to Ancestry and the other sites, and others gather it up like its gold nuggets, fools gold nuggets I mean.

Among my wife's people its assumed that one of their ancestors' names was JEMIMA. And Jemima was closely related to a man called Daniel. They devoutly believe Jemima and Daniel were married, they think it because Jemima and Daniel appear together on an official census, and their respective ages are close.

But I found Daniel's daughter's death certificate, and she identified her mother as JOANNA. Who was Jemima? Daniel had a mother and sister named Jemima. In old age, after Joanna died, Daniel and his sister shared a home.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Found 2 Mayflower Pilgrim ancestors for my wife today.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I was impressed with the Mayflower Plymouth Pilgrims till I realized New York City was 7 years older, Jamestown was 13 years older, and Saint Augustine was 55 years older than Plymouth.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Almost done collecting my wifes family tree, I started examining really old Pennsylvania newspapers a couple of days ago. Obituaries and wedding notices fill plenty of empty spaces.

But somethings I find always astound me: Back in the early 1800s plenty of kids burned to death in their fireplaces, shot their siblings, fell into cotton presses or sawmill trolleys or sawdust evacuators. All of it fatal. They fell into outside flaming log fires. Lotsa mothers killed themselves, too. One of the best involved a baby who drowned when two brothers were snake bit. Mountain lions eat many, alligators eat plenty, and one dad smoked his boy in the smoke house.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Most of my wife's people are found so now I'm panning the old newspapers for news about them. Obituaries, marriage announcements, divorce notices, etc. I occasionally come across a photo. I even find people no one suspected existed. Most died young and were forgotten. Especially soldiers of the Civil War.

I've studied the Civil War for more than 50 years. The idea that this nation would slaughter 690,000 men in a war that changed nothing, I find absurd. When the South surrendered blacks were still the slaves they were on the first day of the fiasco. Dred Scott remained the law of the land. The 13th and 14th Amendments that changed the laws passed because Congressional leaders expelled enough states from the Union till there were enough Yes votes. It caused a problem. Lincoln argued against secession, the Supreme Court ruled against secession, and millions fought to stop secession yet the leadership expelled all the Southern states and a fair number of Northern states to change the legal status of blacks. And blacks remained peasants till the 1960s.

Slavery was only relevant for two purposes. Southerners paid most of the taxes in the USA, and the real fight was over a location for the first transcontinental railroad. Lincoln was a railroad lawyer. His side wanted a route from Chicago to San Francisco. The South wanted a route from New Orleans to California. Slavery was about the votes in Congress to approve a route. Few know that Lincoln's team funded the Kansas-Missouri violence before the war. The money came from somewhere.