Madeline Bowie

Some time ago, I came across Texas state records which indicated that my father had a sister that he had not known about. Her name was Madeline Bowie, born on May 27, 1930, in Rockport, Texas. I spent some time thinking about whether it or how I would tell my father about this discovery. I wondered if he would be upset at having learned this more than 75 years after the fact. Finally, after a discussion with with my mother, I did tell my father about his sister. He was excited and enthusiastic about the possibility of finding her. Well now after more than a year of pursuing various leads, I have learned that Madeline died the same day she had been born.

The Lost Families -- Part One

After several years of working day and night on the family history, I'm pleased with the progress we've made in most cases. But there are some situations that are not much further along than they were when we started. These I referred to as the "lost families."

The Martins

About three years ago, my father told me that he had a great-great-grandfather named Isaac Martin. He wasn't exactly sure where Isaac Martin had been born, but he knew that Isaac's wife was named Amanda or Mandy. He also knew of course that Isaac and Mandy lived along the Texas Gulf Coast. Their daughter, Maria, he believed to have been born in Indianola in Calhoun County Texas. Census records show that in 1870, Isaac Martin, age 44, lived in Refugio County, Texas. Refugio County in 1873 lost its southern territory along the coast to the newly formed Aransas County. The 1870 census shows the Martin family consisting of Isaac, wife Amanda, and children Amanda, Emma and Charlie. The younger Amanda I believe to be Maria, because her age appears to be that which I can confirm for Maria. Isaac's occupation is given as brickmaker. In 1880, the census takers found Isac Martin (and apparently misspelled his first name) in Aransas County with wife Amanda and children Charlie and Ida. Isaac's age is given as 35 and his place of birth as Texas. But I'm confident that this is the same Isaac Martin because of the concurrence of facts of location and family. (We wouldn't expect to find Maria with the family in 1880, because we know from Aransas County marriage records that in 1878 she married James Henry Payne and that in 1879, they had a son Isaac Payne. In 1882 Mariah married Guy Bryant, which is how she got on to my family tree.)

In 1900, Isaac, wife Amanda, and son Charlie were enumerated as still living in Rockport, Aransas County. Daughter Ida, who would be about 20 years old, had married a man named Nelson Steen in 1885. This time, Isaac's birth date is placed in 1839 and his place of birth is given as Texas. I'm not very concerned about this discrepancy; if the 1870 census was correct, Isaac would now be about 75 years old, and who knows what he was able to recall. By 1910, Isaac was found living alone in Rockport. His age was given as 82. Texas state records show that Isaac Martin died in Rockport on October 26, 1914.

I know that Isaac and Amanda Martin had many grandchildren through their two daughters Maria and Emma. Maria of course married into the Bryant family; Emma married a man named Moses Brooks. They had at least five children. In 1885 Charlie married a woman named Melinda Thompson; I know nothing about her or whether they had children. And Ida and Nelson Steen seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth after their marriage in 1885.

But the things I don't know include where Isaac Martin was actually born; who were his parents; where Amanda Martin was born and who her parents were. Some family lore suggests Amanda was a Cherokee from Alabama or Mississippi. I have no evidence on this issue at all. What happened to Charlie and his wife Melinda and Ida and her husband Nelson also remain shrouded in mystery. I've been unable to find any record of them or anyone who remembers them.

Now For Something a Little Bit Different . . .

Sasha Volokh, one of the most interesting young intellectuals in the country, has this take on succession to the British throne.

Big Brother or Merely Uncle Sam?

This blog is read all over the world, literally. Sometimes people come upon it accidentally while they're looking for something else, but there is a corps of loyal and constant readers. [Thank you!] And I'm always happy to welcome new or occasional readers.

I was rather surprised, however, when recently someone from the United States Department of Justice and the Washington, DC area, spent a full 20 minutes combing through the various posts in the blog. Note that this was on a government computer on government time. Now I don't mean to alienate any genealogy fan, but come on now: 20 minutes at work? At the Department of Justice? Either someone doesn't have enough work to do or I'm under investigation! Was my visitor Big Brother or kindly old Uncle Sam?

The Ancestral Neighborhood

Starting in the 1860s, my great-grandfather Richard William Gines lived at 1540 Ashton St, Shreveport, Louisiana. Although I've been to Shreveport, I've never been to 1540 Ashton St. Thanks to Mapquest, however, I know that that residence is between Pierre Avenue and Allen Avenue, just a little bit north of I-20 in Shreveport. MapQuest also tells me its a 28 hour, 57 minute drive of 1,934 miles from the Bloggcast Center to 1540 Ashton St in Shreveport. And thanks to the wonder that's Google Earth, I can see a photograph of that section of Ashton Street. Number 1540 is one of three houses set apart in a relatively underdeveloped neighborhood.

But what I really want to know is what the neighborhood looked like in the late 19th century. That may soon be possible. Dick Eastman reports on a new service called Historic Map Works which describes itself as "the first GIS-linked, address-searchable maps of 19th and early 20th century America." The site currently is limited to just a handful of states, primarily on the East Coast but including Texas. But when built out one will be able to "search our collection of over 35,000 high quality, fine art reproductions of antique property maps using either place names or addresses."

In addition to having a rather limited collection, the functionality of the site when I tried it today was not very good, but the idea holds promise. I'll be interested to see how it turns out and I'll report the results in this space.

Smithsonian Opens Photo Archives... Sort Of

The Washington Post reports this morning:

From its very beginnings, the Smithsonian Institution has taken and collected photographs. Masses of them.

John Brown's steely eyes were captured in a daguerreotype by August Washington in 1846. A now-extinct Tasmanian hyena, sleek and striped, attracted photographer Thomas W. Smillie in 1891. Harry Bowden went to Jackson Pollock's chaotic studio in 1949 and found an unintentional abstract of cans and brushes. As the 20th century ended, the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory Center recorded hot gas in the Milky Way.

Spread across the Smithsonian's 18 museums, nine research centers and the National Zoo are 13 million photographs. In the hallways and laboratories are about 700 collections of photos. Harnessing them into a form that gives researchers and the public some access has long been a goal for Smithsonian caretakers.

But like a lot of things at the Smithsonian, you had to know where to go to find what you were looking for. Some photos were locked away in the researchers' storehouses.

Tomorrow, the Smithsonian Photography Initiative is launching an electronic means of looking at a small part of this vast collection. A Web site, http://www.spi.si.edu/ , will provide access to 1,800 digital images, the work of 100 photographers, who used 50 different processes.

Read the whole story here.

The article goes on to quote Smithsonian administrators who admit that less than 2000 images out of some 13 million seems rather a paltry effort. however, they say that they will see how people use the site and determine from that usage how to proceed with putting more images online.

Obviously there is probably a lot here of interest to and family historians. So I will be interested to see what's been chosen in the first tiny increment of this project and will urge that the Smithsonian move to open up more of their photographic archives. I suspect that genealogists and family historians will be among the most interested users.

Texas Death Index at Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com has changed its look and feel and added a number of new databases lately. The stylistic changes are somewhat of a mixed bag in my opinion. In some ways, the site looks cleaner; on the other hand at least one change has made searching a little harder and not easier as Ancestry.com claims.

One expanded database that has interested me is the Texas Death Index. Previously, the Texas Death Index was limited to to deaths which occurred between 1964 and 1998. The new index has been vastly expanded to cover the years 1903 through 2000. This is a tremendous improvement and a significant boon to Texas researchers. Users should be aware, however, that not every death during that period is included in the index. The data in the index comes from that which is on file with the Texas Department of State Health Services. I would urge researchers to check county sites as well. Here's an example: Gregg County's records site lists 26 individuals named Bowie who died during the same period covered by Ancestry.com's Texas Index. That index however lists only 20 individuals who died during that period. And there are other examples.

My impression is that the errors and missing data occur during the early part of the 20th century specifically between about 1903 and 1920. Overall though I'm pleased with the addition of the new data and the way it's presented on Ancestry.com.

Hattie Bryant's Death Certificate from Texas Vital Records

Hattie Bryant (1888-1944) was the daughter of Guy Bryant (1860-1910?) and Amanda Mariah Martin (1863-1920?). She was my father's grandmother. Although she was married briefly to a man named Christy Morales, she apparently went by the name Bryant throughout all of her life.

I recently obtained Hattie Bryant's death certificate from the Texas Department of State Health Services. The cost was $20, and it arrived in about 10 days time. Most importantly, it was a certified copy. A certificate of a death more than 50 years ago is a public record in the state of Texas and certified copies may be obtained by anyone.

Texas allows death certificates to be ordered and paid for online. However, the individual's date of birth and date of death as well as parents' names must be provided. I have about four other requests from the state of Texas pending. I was impressed that an analyst from the vital records office called me concerning one of the request to clarify some information. I've been very satisfied with the service that Texas provides concerning vital records.

I knew that Hattie Bryant had died on June 1, 1944, because I had seen online a document from the Cage Funeral Home in Aransas Pass, Texas. According to that document, the funeral arrangements were made by Hattie's daughter Jessie, my grandmother. [At the time, my grandmother Jessie had been married to a man named Exa Givan. The funeral home document misspells her last name.] So I was a bit surprised that the death certificate gave the name of the informant as "Georgia Bryant." I had never heard the name Georgia Bryant at all. A quick search of census records reveals several people with the surname Bryant, including Georgia, in the area around Corpus Christi, Texas. None of the names are familiar to me. Furthermore, these Bryant's appeared to have come to Texas from the state of Maine.

I had previously understood that our Bryant branch came to Texas from Tennessee and North Carolina. Alfred Bryant, born in about 1825, was the eldest of three brothers who somehow ended up on the Texas Gulf Coast. Alfred's son, Guy, was Hattie's father. Now this mention of "Georgia Bryant," who may have been from Maine, opens up an entirely new line of inquiry about the Bryant family history.

The other bit of information on the death certificate that I had not known was that Hattie Bryant died of diabetes. Fortunately, as far as I know, she's the only person in my paternal line to have had that disease.

Perry Gines

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA-- Nearly everyone who comes here for any length of time, ends up staying here or wishing they could. "Alaska is different," people here say, and that is evident everywhere one looks.

I'm here for a few days on non-genealogical business, but of course I took some time to find a genealogical connection. That connection is Perry Wesley Gines, Sr. (1929-1986). Perry, who was known as "Bobby," was the second son born to William Edward Gines (1898-1955) and Annie Florida ("Flo") Corrine Long (1902-1986), in Kansas City, Missouri.

After high school, Bobby joined the Coast Guard. He loved the Coast Guard and thrived in it. What Bobby loved at least as much as the Coast Guard was Kay Frances Fulks (1932-1986), a girl from Arkansas, with two little boys by the time she was 15. When a man loves a woman as much as Bobby loved Kay, there are bound to be some dramatic elements to the story. And indeed in this story, there were. For many reasons, those are not for the retelling here.

Bobby got stationed at Kodiak Island, Alaska, and he loved Alaska too. When he retired from the Coast Guard, after more than 33 years of service, he decided to stay in Alaska. That's not an uncommon decision by military personnel. Anecdotally, more than 90% of Alaska's black population came here with the military.

Bobby was a chief warrant officer when he retired. He opened a business, Gines Construction Company, in Anchorage. After making a go of their business for several years in Alaska, it was time for Bobby and Kay to return to Kansas City in late 1985. They were both ill, as was Bobby's mother, Flo.

On April 1, 1986, Bobby's mother died. Bobby and Kay would soon follow. Kay went first on May 29, 1986, and then Bobby on July 25, 1986.

Perry Wesley Gines, Sr., and Kay Frances Fulks are buried at Leavenworth National Cemetery in Leavenworth, Kansas. But the legacy of their devotion to each other and Bobby's devotion to the Coast Guard lives on in Alaska. At the University of Alaska Anchorage's Kodiak College, the Kay and Perry Gines scholarship provides funds to allow military personnel, former military personnel, and their dependents an opportunity to further their education.

Read Nita Ighner

Unabashed (well, may be somewhat abashed) praise for fellow researcher.

Nita Ighner is the extraordinary scribe of Diggin' Up Bones, which chronicles her search for her paternal ancestors. Nita does hard work, the results of which can be described as real scholarship. But hers is a humanizing scholarship. She does her work with such an obvious personal pride and empathetic connection that is unrivaled in the personal genealogical blogs that I read. She is an excellent writer which makes her posts compelling reading. I think her material is essential reading for anyone doing family history research.

Now Nita has a new blog, entitled "On the Other Side," which can be found at www.ermasroots.blogspot.com. It chronicles her search for her maternal forebears. She's just launched it this week, but it's obvious already that she will put the same hard work, sensitivity, and enthusiasm into it which characterizes her other work. I'm eager to see more.

Now for the slightly abashed part: I must say (*blush* if I could), that I am intrigued by the somewhat enigmatic profile than Nita has written for herself. The hip picture is particularly compelling. Of course it may not even be her; it may simply be an avatar. Perhaps the striking rendition represents what intellect and empathy look like combined.

Go read the latest from Diggin Up Bones and On the Other Side.

Diamond Anniversary

Today marks the 75th wedding anniversary of James Robert Long (1912-1977) and Thelma Cloretta Smith (1914-2001). James was the 14th and youngest child of James William Long (1866-1945) and Mary Elizabeth Liza Jane Johnson (1870-1946). Thelma Cloretta Smith, sometimes referred to as "Aunt Sis," was one of nine, and perhaps more, children of George Gershon Smith Sr. (1882-1943), and Lena Mae Moten (1884-1965).

Both parties were under age at the time of their marriage; both of their mothers consented to the marriage.





James and Thelma Long had four children: Blanche Louise Long (1931-1996), who was married to Delbert Stovall, and then Arthur Wallace Jr.; Adolf R. Long (1933-1993); Doris Long Bilberry (1939-1998); and my cousin Eddie Long who survives his siblings.

If my arithmetic is correct, there are presently living 52 descendants of James and Thelma Long.






Parental consent form for marriage of James Long and Thelma Smith

Property Records May Help Correct the Record

I mentioned the use of property records to find an elusive spouse. But while I was doing that, I had a rather disturbing experience. I was at the site for the Department of Records of Jackson County, Missouri [I've praised this site often so it's worth showing the link again.] I was primarily looking at records pertaining to descendants of Ezekiel Johnson (1847-1933). The disturbing part was that I came across several records purportedly signed by individuals years after my previous information shows them as having died! The death dates in the case of the Johnson family come largely from the Social Security Death Index. But a challenge in the case of the Johnson family has been the use of similar first names in successive generations as well as the "commonness" of the surname. I've long been aware of these issues and have tried to be exceptionally careful as a result.

So now I'm going to have to retrace the descendants in one branch of the Johnson family to ensure the accuracy of the research.

An issue also arose in the property records related to one member of the Gines family. A probate document in the file puts her death 15 years later than does the SSDI.

Resolving these discrepancies is a project for this weekend. Again it demonstrates the importance and value of these property records.

Research Note: Finding an Elusive Spouse

So I was looking for the name of Cousin A's spouse. She apparently lived her entire life in Kansas City, Missouri, but the excellent Jackson County records site, of which I've spoken glowingly in the past, had no evidence of her marriage. Perhaps, I reasoned, this meant she had slipped across the county line to one of the suburban counties to get married or even across the state line into Kansas for her nuptials. It's fairly difficult to get marriage records in Kansas. And for some reason, her spouse's name never turned up in any available census records. Then it occurred to me that perhaps she owned residential property in Kansas City. So I checked the property records, and indeed, there were several warranty deeds that listed Cousin A and her spouse as grantors or grantees. From the deeds, I learned the name of her spouse, and could glean a lot of circumstantial evidence about the date of marriage and other things. While not as complete as a marriage license or certificate, property records reveal a lot about the marital life of an ancestor.

Worth Reading: Your Brother Kings

With our unofficial motto "learn, share, enjoy and appreciate," we from time to time come upon other personal blogs that are well worth reading. One of these has come to our attention recently: it's called Your Brother Kings. Well-written, well laid out, easy to navigate, this site gets our strong recommendation.

Possible Underground Railroad Families Discovered?

In October 1929, my great uncle Julius Walter Long, who was known as "Walter," married a woman named Laura Crosby. She had a 14 year old daughter named Violet. The following year, Walter's brother, Rafael Matthew Long, who was 13 years younger than Walter, married Violet Crosby. Rafe was 20 years old at the time.

The strange marital relations, however, are not the most interesting aspects of the Crosby women. The 1930 census for Kansas City, Missouri, shows Laura's birthplace as "Canada English." Violet, who was living with Laura and Walter at the time of the 1930 census, was reported to have been born in Ohio.

The 1910 census shows Laura Crosby, birthplace "Canada English," living with her then-husband George Crosby in Toledo, Ohio. George also said to have been born in Canada.

[The term "Canada English" referred to Anglophone Upper Canada, meaning primarily what is now Ontario as opposed to Francophone Lower Canada, which constitutes present-day Quebec.]

The 1870 census of Washtenaw County, Michigan, shows Lafayette Crosby born about 1838 and his wife Sarrah, living in Ypsilanti with their children, Martha, age 9; George, age 4; and Mary, age 1. Lafayette is reported to have been born in Ohio, while Sarrah is said to have been born in Kentucky. The first two children, Martha and George, are recorded as having been born in Canada.

George Crosby apparently met his wife Laura in the late 1880s, and they were probably married in Ontario. Unfortunately, I do not presently have access to the indexed Ontario marriage records. It may have been a rocky marriage, because according to census records, in 1900, George was back in Ypsilanti living with his mother, Sarrah, and a younger brother named Lafayette. But by 1910, George and Laura were back together living in Toledo. They're shown in Toledo on the 1920 census with children Lillian, Isabel, Mary, Albert, and 4 1/2 year old Violet. Also living with them were Laura's parents, Frank and Victoria Gaines. While Frank is said to have been born in Michigan, his father and mother are listed as having been born in Georgia and Kentucky, respectively. Victoria is reported to have been born in Tennessee; her parents are listed as having simply been born in the United States.

[Two interesting facts appear about the Gaines family. First, in the 1900 census, there appears a white woman named Victoria Gaines, born in Canada, who is a prisoner in the Toledo Work House. She is about the same age as the black woman named Victoria Gaines described as Laura's mother in the 1910 census. Then, in the 1910 census, what appears to be the same Franklin Gaines is found in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is in the same county as Ypsilanti. There, his wife's name is given as Sarah. A son, also named Franklin, is described as having been born in Canada.]

By 1929, however, George may have been dead, and Laura was married to Walter Long in Kansas City.

My speculation is that the Gaines family moved north into Michigan and later Canada before the Civil War. At some point, the Crosbys also moved north into Michigan and Canada. There's probably a great story here.

August Again

Yes, it's August again! Unlike the past four years in Northern Virginia, we're actually looking forward to August in Northern California. We've just made it through one of the hottest Julys on record in Northern California, and August promises to be relatively cool.

Now that we're more than halfway through the year, it's worthwhile to look back at our goals for the year set in January and see where we are. The answer is not all that far.

For the Gines family, we set the goal of discovering the parents of Richard Gines who was born in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, in about 1860. I know nothing more about this than I did eight months ago. But I have a research strategy that is evolving in my head that concerns looking at a number of plantations in Louisiana. Another Gines family goal was to link the Gines, LeJay, and Brayboy families of Louisiana those in South Carolina. No progress here either. On the other hand, however, I have learned quite a bit more about the Gines family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

For the Manson family, the idea was to learn the parents of Charlotte Manson. We made one small step forward on that goal. But we're still several steps away from achieving that goal.

For the Birdsong family, we are still looking for evidence related to George Birdsong's trip to Texas in 1884 and subsequent return to Georgia in about 1905. No progress there.

For the Gilberts, we were seeking to verify the rumors that Sarah Gilbert was an Indian. We may be close on this one, as we have narrowed down to three possible death certificates from Kansas City, Missouri, which may identify Sarah Gilbert.

For the Long family, we wanted to discover the origins of James "Old Man" Long, who was reportedly born in about 1831. We didn't do that but we did learn a lot about the Long family, some of which we'll be posting here shortly.

We did learn about the connection of the Johnson family to that of Dan Carpenter, an important figure in the development of Clay County, Missouri and the greater Kansas City area.

on the overall goal of "Learn, Share, Enjoy, Appreciate," we're doing pretty well.