My Genealogy Obsession

I can still remember the day when I was in my teens when I first saw the Gage genealogy that my great grandparents had.  I really didn’t know how to look at it properly or really even find the ancestral line easily.  All I knew was that my great grandparents names were in it as was my grandmothers.  I think Mom borrowed a copy of the book and I can remember looking at it and wondering about those names in that book.  I’ve since compiled my own genealogy books…as well as books with my mother.  They are self-published and full of the research that has been an accumulation of years of research and countless hours of work.  I’m not sure many of those starting their research in today’s technological age can truly appreciate the differences.

The actual record of the marriage of Moses Johnson and Nancy Mayfield!

Mom bought a genealogy program called “Family Tree Maker” in about 1997 and we loaded it on our computers and began putting in information.  We thought we knew quite a bit, but it turned out that we really didn't.   After putting everything we knew about our direct lines – there were missing gaps of dates, birth locations, death locations, maiden names or maternal parents.  (I wish I could say that all those gaps have been filled after 15 years – but I would be lying)  That is when we started learning about the work of genealogy research.  Back then, newslists and genealogy forums were just getting started – there was little real genealogy information online.  So, Mom and I went down to the local LDS Family History library and started looking through their books and microfilm and microfiche.  We went down to our local library and started looking through their books.  There were lots of indexes – but not a lot of detail that could tell us if we were looking in the right places.  We both started posting information requests on genealogy forums and newslists and one day we got a break.  One of those gaps in our family tree was someone we called “Unknown” Johnson.  He was married to Nancy Mayfield…but his first name remained a mystery.  Mom had posted a query on the Mayfield forum and one day we got a lead.  We were told that a “Moses Johnson married a Nancy Mayfield on 6 May 1816 in Granville Co., NC”.  With a little more research – we had filled in one of our missing gaps.  I have no idea how many hours that my mother and I spent searching on the internet, looking through countless books and learning how to use the equipment at the family history center to get that first genealogy victory…but I can tell you that it was sweet.

I can’t say that the genealogy research is all drudgery because that would be dishonest.  The pursuit is great fun and can be a great adventure.  My mother’s grandparents homesteaded on Grouse Flats, Wallowa Co., OR.  We found out that my great grandfather’s uncle Albert was buried up there.  So, one early summer afternoon, Mom, Dad and I took a drive up to Grouse Flats.  This involved going up a winding grade from Asotin to Anatone, WA and then down another winding grade aptly named “Rattlesnake grade” until we turned up a road heading towards Troy, OR.  From there we headed up another winding grade to go to Bartlett cemetery.  We didn’t exactly know the location, but we kept our eyes peeled and soon enough we came to a turnoff that led past the Bartlett cemetery.   We got out and walked around the small cemetery (this is how I know it was early summer – my mother never would have gotten out and walked around that cemetery because of her fear of snakes!)  We found cemetery stones that showed children who had died young, families buried together, and eventually Uncle Albert’s grave.  There are a lot of people who wonder at the sanity of walking around a cemetery and seeing it as an enjoyable activity.  When I walk around a cemetery I see family histories, untold stories of the loss of a child or the long life well lived, mother’s buried next to children whose death dates are the same or symbols on gravestones that tell of a military background.  You never know what you will find – sometimes a smile and sometimes a sense of sadness.

In the years that I have done research I've spent money on death records, land records, pension records.  I've spent hours in a courthouse pouring over land records or marriage records and then have taken the time to photo copy those precious records.  I've driven long distances and flown in an airplane clear across the country to fuel my appetite for answers.  I've spent hours on the telephone with distant cousins and countless emails to other researchers.  As records have become available online, I've spent untold hours looking through census records to find familial patterns.  I can remember the thrill of finding the grandparents that I personally knew in those census records. 

I've been engulfed in my genealogy obsession for many years now and have been fortunate to gain many friends with whom I've been able to share theories and information with.  I’ve learned family anecdotes and have been able to share them with other family members.  It all started with curiosity and a genealogy program so many years ago.  My mother and I sat back in the den with both of our computers humming and our fingers moving along a keyboard.  Mom died seven years ago and now I continue on my own.  I’m sure Mom is up there finding all of the answers that we hadn't found – I just wish she could send me an email and let me know what she found out!

A Great Resource…

A few days ago, I became aware of a fabulous new resource for the researcher in the Lewiston-Clarkston area and nearby environs.  There are a lot of newspapers that have been uploaded to Google News Archive so this applies to a lot of other areas as well.  If you go to http://news.google.com/newspapers# and look for your newspaper – you might be surprised what you will find!

Now I have spent a lot of time down at Lewis Clark State College, here in Lewiston, Idaho looking at the microfilm of the Lewiston Morning Tribune looking for obituaries or other types of news stories.  I didn't really hope that my local newspaper would be available in the near future – but after an email from Jill Nock of the Twin River Genealogical Society, I found out that my local newspaper was online which is available at http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=BtfE7wd9KvMC .  Now, this isn't a perfect system, there are a lot of issues that aren't available yet, but the archive starts on January 2, 1900 and runs through the 2000’s and they are in black and white.  You might wonder at some of the usefulness of the archive.

I was wandering around a little bit and looked at the issue from late January 1944 and found the obituary of my step grandfather’s grandmother.  I knew that she died in Oregon and didn't really expect to find much, but there in black and white was her obituary.  It gave me a piece of information that I had always been curious about.  Mary Crumpacker was originally married to Jesse Green Shearer and he died in 1888.  I never knew what the cause of his death was…because he was a young man.  According to the obituary posted for Mary Crumpacker Earl (Thomas Perrin Earl was her second husband) Jesse Shearer died of pneumonia.  Now, I most likely would not have been able to obtain a death record because of the time period and without a lot more research and time I don’t have, I might not have found that Jesse Shearer had died of pneumonia.  There are lots of interesting tidbits in these old obituaries.

Then I decided to try out the search engine and typed in Ora + Gage to see what I would find.  I knew that my great grandparents might have several entries in the local newspaper.  I was pleased with some of the information that I located….and it wasn't just only in my local paper.  It searched all of the newspaper archives.  I found announcements of when their sons were home on leave during Korea and National Guard service.  I found an article about my great uncle’s first marriage.  I loved these marriage articles from the early 1950’s – they mention all types of details such as what the bride’s maid of honor was wearing and how the mothers of the groom and bride are dressed.  I assumed that one my uncle’s brothers was his best man…but I never would have guessed that it was one of his older brothers.  Right below that article was another announcement of my father’s teacher who was widowed while he had her as a teacher and her remarriage.  In fact, her son ended up as part of the family when he married my cousin. 

I foresee many happy hours looking through these archives and am excited by what I may find.  With my little clipping program in Windows 7, I can save these images and attach them to my genealogy database with very little effort on my part.  Sounds like a win – win situation for me!

Eastman Research

One of my favorite pastimes is to take a second look at some favorite ancestors or relatives.  I live in Lewiston, ID and have not had too many opportunities to study most of my ancestry first hand nor do I have the availability of a world class genealogical library to reference.  What I do have is a computer and the persistence of searching for information and an eye for what is good info…and what isn’t.

Back around 2000, I discovered one of my favorite characters in all of my genealogical research, Susanna Eastman. Susanna is my 8^th great grandmother…here is my lineage.

• Susanna Eastman m. John Swan
• Nathaniel Swan m. Mahitabel Brown
• Jesse Swan m. Elizabeth Baldwin
• Nathaniel Swan m. Harriet Shutter
• Cynthia Swan m. Potter Gage
• Gilbert Gage m. Phebe Allen
• Orlando Gage m. Edith Gallup
• Ora Silas Gage m. Florence Christine Shawver
• Helen Gage m. Frank Johnson
• Eugene Johnson m. Betty Tannahill
• Me!

Now Susanna lived a long and interesting life.  As a young woman she married Thomas Wood and had a daughter with him.  Both he and her child were killed in an Indian attack in 1697.  Susanna remarried in 1699 to John Swan.  They had 7 children including my ancestor, Nathaniel.  In the history of Haverhill, MA there is a story about an attack that was made on her and John Swan’s home.  They were pushing against the door and had started to enter the home when Susanna skewered them with the baking spit.  In the History and Genealogy of the Eastman Family of America there is also the story of when Susanna and John moved to Connecticut.  Susannah put her young son down in a basket and told her husband that the basket needed to be loaded onto the wagon.   Sometime later (about 2 miles down the road) it was discovered that the baby had been left behind.  I imagine the 2 mile return trip to retrieve the sleeping child had to be a difficult one for both parents with the father getting the majority of the dirty looks.  Susanna lived to be 100 years old which is pretty remarkable.  She was born about 1673 and died in 1772 – right on the cusp of the Revolutionary War.

So…every once in a while I do a search on family members.  Sometimes I don’t have their full dates or perhaps I don’t have the maiden name of the mother.  There is new information that is being put on the Internet all of the time and more and more primary documents that have been posted.  In addition there are also old genealogy books that are posted.  So, when I did a search on Susanna Eastman tonight I found some additional information. 

• The History and Genealogy of the Eastman Family of America  published 1901, is published online at http://www.archive.org/stream/historygenealogy01inrixg/historygenealogy01inrixg_djvu.txt - I will be going back and filling in some details on Susanna’s family sometime soon!
• Another link netted me a photo of Susanna Eastman’s tombstone.  This was located on my good friend Midge Frazel’s blog at http://granite-in-my-blood.blogspot.com/2010/06/tombstone-tuesday-susanna-eastman.html - I can’t believe I missed that posting in 2010.  I would have been very excited to see it.  Midge also posted the page that gives the story about Susanna.  You can actually look at the book online on Google books.

You can also spend some time looking at different websites that might have information.  This whole process can be time consuming but also very rewarding.  So – occasionally sit down at the computer and go to your favorite search engine and see what you can find.  You might find something new like a photo of the grave or new cousin.  This can be truly a rewarding experience!

Pennington Research Lessons...

In 1997, I decided to spend the big money and get dial up internet service.   I lived in the little town of Cottonwood, ID and this was an expensive monthly purchase for me.  At that time, most of my correspondence took place through email messages.  One of the first genealogy organizations I became involved in was the Pennington Research Association.  I had a name to research and I figured that they were the best place to start.

 

We had a family tree that had been embroidered and was hanging on the wall in our hallway.  I knew that my great grandmother’s grandmother was a Pennington and that her first name was Elizabeth from that family tree.  I started out with what I knew and started asking questions.  Elizabeth Pennington was born around 1840 in Ashe Co., NC.  She married Alexander Monroe Dollar and had at least one son, John Dooley Dollar, my great grandmother’s father.  One of the first people that emailed me back from the queries that I had placed was John French.  He told me that Elizabeth Pennington was the daughter of Levi Pennington, granddaughter of Levi Pennington and great granddaughter of Micajah Pennington.  This was my first “aha” moment in genealogy.  I now had a line that stretched back into the 1700’s.  I became an enthusiastic researcher in all things “Pennington” and joined the Pennington Research Association based on that one query that had been answered.

John French was the Research Director for the PRA (Pennington Research Association) and was a great researcher.  He did something that was quite forward thinking at the time – he took all of those paper notes on families and individuals and put them in a genealogy database.  Computers were still pretty new to a lot of people doing genealogy research so this was a pretty meaningful activity.  John French took people’s info and entered it into the database and then tried to connect the families and information as best he could.  Everything that we take for granted was not easily available through the internet back in 1997 and certainly wasn’t easy to research if it was available.  So his data became a great starting point to be able to help any researcher who only had a little information.  Very soon after my joining the PRA, I became the Group Leader for Group 7 – the descendants of Micajah Pennington.  Not too long after my initial contact, John French passed away.  This was a blow to a lot of Pennington researchers because John had pioneered a lot of research and there was a fear that it would be lost.  The PRA quickly appointed a new Research Director (Gene Pennington) and the data that John French had put together was saved and accessible by the Research Director.

Fast forward several years – the JFMF or John French Master File, as it was now called, still seemed to be to a lot researchers a depository of all Pennington knowledge.  By this point, I had a lot more experience with the JFMF because I had been managing it for a while as the Asst. Research Director for the JFMF.  Everyone wanted access to it on their own.  It was hard to communicate too many of the members what the JFMF really signified.  It was essentially a data file with a lot of theories but not much evidence.  It wasn’t necessarily a common practice to put sources down when John French compiled that information and now much of it was suspect because we didn’t know the source.  Not only that, further research had shown that some of the conclusions made were inaccurate.  What John French had accomplished was wonderful for its time – but the fact of the matter it was too difficult to modify and correct so the PRA decided to leave it as it was…So it became a source of clues rather than a reliable source and it became accessible to all interested PRA members through the www.myfamily.com website.

One only has to look at my line to understand what I mean by the statement that new research had changed some of the conclusions that John French had made.  My Elizabeth Pennington was the daughter of Levi Pennington b. 1794 and Elizabeth Henson.  However, she was not the granddaughter of Levi Pennington b. 1767.  Instead, Levi b. 1794 was the son of Ephraim Pennington.  I had never stopped researching my Pennington line and had gathered a lot of interesting materials because I was the Group 7 Leader.  One of these items was a letter written by a Daniel Pennington that referenced a brother who lived in Laurel Bloomery, TN and talked about visiting his son’s uncle Levi the next day.  That Levi was Elizabeth’s father.  You might have noticed that I use dates to differentiate the names.  That is because there a multitudes of Levis in Pennington research.  It makes it easier to figure out who you are talking about. 

So…what is the lesson here?  First of all, do your own research.  If you are really interested in a family – use other people’s data as clues but confirm it with your own research.  Just because you think you know the family well – don’t stop checking research as new data becomes available.  That new data can change your conclusions.  Correspond with other researchers.  Many of them are looking at the same families and they may have stories, pictures, letters, etc. that might enhance the genealogy that you are researching.  Add stories to your research about individual people.  Some of those stories or small facts enrich your history and may give either you or someone else one of those “aha” moments that really make research fun.  Lastly, join a genealogical one name association or genealogy society in an area that you researching.  Joining the PRA all those years ago has made me a much better researcher.  My research has expanded beyond just the research into the descendants of Micajah Pennington but now includes all Ashe Co., NC Penningtons.  These Penningtons ended up in VA, TN, KY, MO and many other states including my home state of Idaho.  The PRA has given me contact with other researchers who are exploring the same families but has also given me many close friendships.  The internet is a marvelous tool.  Primary data is now available online through free and paid for websites. Email correspondence can allow researchers from clear across the country trade information and documents at the click of a mouse.  I think of the marvelous work that John French did so many years ago.  He had the foresight to record what he knew and has left a marvelous record of clues for future researchers.  

My Friddle Brick Wall

Anyone who has done genealogy research has come up against at least one brick wall…and like any stubborn fool we keep pounding on that wall hoping to burst through.  I have several “brick wall’s” but my longest and most difficult one – might be my great great grandfather, Moses Friddles.

Moses Friddles 

Moses was born about 1826 probably in South Carolina.  The first time I find mention of him in any records is on 9 Dec 1859 in Carter Co., TN where he marries Amanda T. McKee.  When I first found this bit of information, I was troubled because the record was in Carter Co., TN and not Johnson Co., TN.  With a little research, I found out that Johnson Co., TN didn’t exist at that time.  In the 1860 census,  Moses is recorded with his wife Amanda and three children.  Julia b. 1852 in NC, Albert b. 1854 in NC and Thomas b. 1856 in NC, so there had to be a first wife probably in North Carolina. The next record that I find is that he married a Mary Ann Crosswhite on 29 Nov 1868 and I can find no trace of Amanda Mckee so I make the assumption that she probably died.    Somehow or another – Moses and Mary Ann Crosswhite either divorced, separated or had the marriage annulled.  She is still alive and lives until about 1917 in Johnson Co., TN.  As far as I can tell, there are no children from either of these two marriages…and at this point I have no idea what the mysterious first wife’s name was.  Moses then marries Martha “Mattie” E. Brown on 12 Oct 1878 in Johnson Co., TN.  He is 52 years old and she is 16 years old.  Mattie and Moses have six children: Roby b. 1879 d. bef 1898, Jesse b. 1881 d. aft 1920, Calia b. 1883 d. bef 1910, James b. 1884 d. 1928, Roy b. 1887 d. bef 1891 and David Carl (my great grandfather)  b. 1889 d. 1955. Moses dies 11 Mar 1890 in Mountain City, TN.   He is listed in the 1890 Veteran’s Schedule with the following notation:  Moses S. Friddles - Private, Company M, 13th TN Cav. Fed; enlisted Feb. 2, 1864, discharged Sep. 5, 1865; length of service 1 year, 7 months 3 days. Post Office Address, Vaughtsville, TN, Disability incurred, chronic diarrhea, rheumatism, piles. He is buried at Hawkins Cemetery, Johnson Co. TN with a Civil War military stone.

Moses Friddles - Hawkins Cemetery, Johnson Co., TN

This is the most complete information that I have been able to find – I can locate him in the 1860, 1870, & 1880 census as well as the Veteran’s Schedule of  1890. However, I can find no trace of him in the 1850 census or any trace of him in any other record.  From what I have gathered from his grandson (who knew very little about him) there was the story that Moses was actually a foundling child whose last name might have been Howard.  Nothing I can find either supports this refutes this story…not only that – Moses had little to no money so there are no land records or wills that one can reference.  However, he did have a military pension.  For those who don’t know – pension records can be very expensive to get – I paid $40 to get his pension record about 10 years ago.  It is interesting reading (what you can read – the handwriting is a bit difficult) but it raised more questions than answers.  After Moses Friddle’s death, his wife continued to claim all of their children until she was caught claiming children who were no longer alive.  She was also claiming children who didn’t live with her.  In the 1900 census, my great grandfather David Carl, his sister Callie, and brother James are listed in other households as servants and Mattie is listed with her new husband.  She loses the pension when it is also discovered that she had remarried.  She dies sometime after 1904 and her burial location is unknown.

My next step is to try and get some information from a different source.  I ordered the death records for both Albert Friddles and Julia Friddles Prestwood (David Carl’s older siblings)  One of the records has no information on the mother and the other record lists Monday as the name of the wife.  So…now at least I have an unknown wife with the last name of Monday.  I find from Albert Friddles obit that the Friddle family moved from North Carolina to Vaughtsville at an early age which is in Johnson Co., TN.  After a few years, I made contact with some descendants of James Friddles.  They tell me that James was forced to give up his children by his second wife and when he was making plans to come out west, his second wife murdered him.  The official record claims that it was suicide.  Since he was poor and had no family who really cared, he was probably buried in a pauper’s grave and there was no further information on him.

In reality, I will probably never find where Moses Friddles came from or who his parents were.  Of the possible 10 children that he fathered – I know information about four of those children.  My great grandfather had a very close relationship with his older brother, Albert.  I’m sure that he was a father figure to Pop Friddle (David Carl Friddle).  Albert was actually 34 years older that Pop Friddle and was the one who encouraged him to come out west.  In the early 1900’s, Albert’s sister Julia either left her husband or divorced,  either way, her husband remarried back in North Carolina and Julia’s two children came west with her.  Pop’s sister, Calia was married and died before 1910.  James Blaine Friddles had several children and his wife died – when he remarried both of them agreed to give up their children.  James did and the second wife didn’t.  James was found alongside the road in 1928 as I mentioned earlier. My great grandfather never knew his father as he died when he was a year old.  By the time he married in 1908 and left for Oregon in 1910, he virtually had no family in Tennessee and never had any interest in going back to visit. 

When I first started researching Moses Friddles – I really only had a name.  I’ve really only be able to establish certain details about his life gathered from census records, pension records, and marriage records.  The sad fact is I may never discover much more.  I’ve already asked anyone who might be connected only to find out that I was giving them information because they didn’t have anything.  So, Moses remains a brick wall – I have a photo of him and his gravestone but little else.  However, I will keep trying to knock that wall down – persistently trying to chink away the barriers.  Who knows – I may still find the answers someday…of course at that point – there will be new questions!