Carnival of Genealogy: Gulf Coast Summer 1962

Right: Craig and The World's Smartest Sister at the beach in Rockport, Texas, August 1962.


As far as I recall, my first time at a beach was in the summer of 1962. Later that year, at age 8, I did my first major writing project. It's presented here just as it was written 46 years ago, including photographs (the notes are new).

From the book My First Vacation Trip, copyright 1962, by Craig Manson


The Book Cover


My brothers, sister, and I live in New Mexico. On July 28, 1962, my Nana¹ came for a visit. She wanted to take my sister and I on a trip to Texas. Arrangements were made. So my Father, Aunt², and I went to buy my sister and I some "swimming clothes." When we came back, Nana sat down at the sewing machine and made us some beach jackets. Father readied my fishing line.

At last the day came. On Sunday, August 5, 1962, we left for Houston, Texas. The ride was comfortable³,. . . . .Next morning, I was up at 4:00 with Nana and later my sister got up at 5:00. I changed clothes in the men's room. Sister combed her hair, and Nana got ready too. At 11:00 we arrived in Houston. The train backed into the station. On the platform we met Uncle Herman⁴,. I relaized that in Texas, it's quite hot! Uncle Herman drove us to his house. At the house, we met Aunt Ida⁵.

Left: Sister with Uncle Herman Walker

[After several days in Houston, it's time for our travelers to move on!]

. . . Mrs A. Dolphin⁶ took us to the Greyhound bus depot where we would leave on a bus bound for Rockport, Texas. There we would meet my other Aunt Ida⁷ and Uncle Johnny⁸. It took us 5 hours to get there. . . . When we met Aunt Ida and Uncle Johnny, it was quite joyous because we had not seen each other since 1958. After we had unpacked, Uncle Johnny took us down to the beach where we went swimming as we did every day.

Above Right: We play in the Gulf

When we went fishing, I caught mostly catfish, but sometimes I caught perch and trout. Sometimes we went to visit cousin Ethel⁹ and Rabbit¹⁰.
One day Rabbit took us to Taft where we met Aunt Pearl¹¹. Aunt Pearl owns a motel and cafe in Taft. So we stayed at her motel. When we got back [to Rockport], Aunt Maria¹² and her husband¹³ came to take us to Corpus Christi.

In Corpus Christi, I long talked with Uncle Leroy¹⁴ who I had not seen once before in my life. After staying in Corpus Christi one day, we started back to Houston.

Right: On the shrimping dock



Below: Modeling the "beach jackets" Nana made

NOTES

¹My paternal grandmother, Jessie Bowie Manson (1909-1973), then known as Jessie Manson Givan.

²My mother's sister, Delorise Annrie Gines, then 22 years old, and spending her summer break from college with us.

³In pre-Amtrak times, "the ride" was the Atchison,Topeka & Santa Fe RR's Super Chief.

⁴Herman Walker (1906-2002), Nana's brother.

⁵Ida Mouton (1910?-1992), Uncle Herman's wife.

⁶Alice Dolphin, who was a major figure in my fathr's early life story.

⁷Ida Bryant (1895-1991), widow of Nana's uncle, Sam Bryant (1881-1951).

⁸I have no present clue as to this person's identity or actual relationship to me.

⁹Ethel Bryant (1903-1996), daughter of Isaac Bryant (1879-1936), Nana's uncle.

¹⁰I have no present clue as to this person's identity or actual relationship to me.

¹¹Pearl Bryant Richardson (1897-?), Nana's mother's sister.

¹²Should be "cousin Maria." Maria Bryant (1905-?) was Ethel's sister (see note 9).

¹³I do not know his name.

¹⁴Leroy Goins, aka Leo R. Bryant (1924-1983), Nana's brother.

Happy 55th Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

My parents celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary this weekend. Here's a recent photo of them, but for a glimpse at their wedding in Houston, Texas, in 1953, see the Carnival post on weddings here.


[Updated 7/18/08, 10:15 PDT to add photo. Blogger was having an upload problem earlier. Previous post deleted]

Carnival of Genealogy: 106 Years in America--And More!

One ancestor I'm really trying to learn more about is my great-great-grandfather William ("Billie") Sanford. He was born in 1809 in Virginia and died in 1916 in Texas at the age of 106! A book I read says that he is the oldest person buried in the "colored" section of the Old City Cemetery in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. (170 Years of Cemetery Records in Milam County, Texas, by N.H. Holman).

William Sanford was born a slave in a part of Virginia that is now West Virginia. He either was born as, or later became, the property of the James Sanford family. The Sanfords moved to Williamson County, Tennessee some time before 1820. James Sanford died in 1849; his son, Reuben, had died in 1846. Reuben's widow, Mary Wood Sanford, relocated her children and her slaves to Milam County, Texas in 1854. Those slaves included Billie Sanford. At some point in Texas, he married Emily Scott from North Carolina and they had four daughters, one of whom was my great-grandmother, Betty Sanford.

On Billie's death certificate (below), the term "old age" is mentioned not less than three times!

William Sanford's death certificate
(click to enlarge)

There's some longevity on my mother's side of the family as well.

William Henry Long, my mother's uncle, was born on March 21, 1889 and died on August 26, 1990, at age 101, in Kansas City, Missouri. The 1930 census says he was a truck driver.

Christina Alta Long Neal, sister of William Henry Long, was born on April 2, 1898, and died on September 14, 2000, at age 102, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tina and Will's sister, Rosetta Bell Long, was nearly a centenarian. She was born on May 28, 1900 and died on March 17, 1994, at age 93, in Kansas City, Missouri. "Rosie" never married but had a companion of over 50 years. I don't know much about him, except that his name was "RJ." After working in a laundry all of her life, Aunt Rosie retired at age 65. She taught herself to play the piano, and at age 68, she was ordained a minister by the Metropolitan Spiritual Church of Christ. She was pastor of Good Shepherd Spiritual Church in Kansas City for more than 20 years.

To her, age really was just a state of mind.

A Surprise Using FamilySearch's Record Search

I have been enamored of FamilySearch Labs' Record Search since it first came online. I like the interface and the presentation of information. I just wish there were more records available. To help toward that goal, I've spent a fair amount of time on transcribing records on FamilySearch Indexing.

Recently, I was running names through the Texas Death Certificate database. One of the names was "Elias Bowie." That name may refer to either my great-uncle or his father, my great-grandfather. One of the neat things about Record Search is that it finds names that are in records whether or not the name is the direct subject of the record. So for example, you may find John Doe's death certificate, but you'll also find Jane Doe's death certificate if John is listed there as her father.

So when I ran "Elias Bowie" against the Texas death database, one of the things that turned up was a death certificate for a J.C. Bowie with Elias listed as "father." I pulled up the image (see below) and discovered it is for an infant who died at the age of six months. The baby's mother is listed as Hattie Bryant, my great-grandmother. All which means that my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie and great-uncle, Elias Bowie (Jr.), had a brother. I had never come across this information before in any record or through family oral lore.

J.C. Bowie was born in November, 1911 and died in June, 1912. Of course, this was between censuses, so he would not appear on a census record. And it may well be that this information was somehow kept from my grandmother and great-uncle who were two years old and one year old at the time of their brother's birth.

The death certificate tells us some other interesting things. J.C. was born in San Antonio. It is well established by record evidence and family oral rendition that both Jessie and Elias (Jr.) were born in San Antonio in 1909 and 1910 respectively. J.C. died in Rockport, Texas, but his residence is listed as San Antonio. We know conclusively that Hattie Bryant's parents lived in Rockport and that she grew up there. Like a lot of young people on the Gulf Coast at the time, Hattie headed for San Antonio at about age 19 or 20. The entries on J.C.'s death certificate suggest that he may have died during a visit home by Hattie. The death certificate says that the deceased infant was in Rockport for three months prior to his death.

Other questions are raised by this. Why did Hattie go home for such a long time? Did she take Jessie and Elias (Jr.) with her? We know that Hattie and Elias (Sr.) broke up sometime after 1910. Did he follow her to Rockport or was this the breakup?

Death Certificate for J.C. Bowie from FamilySearch Labs'
Record Search
(Click to enlarge)

A Memorable Visit

In my Jamboree posts the week before last, I alluded to a special mission I had attended to as part of my trip to Southern California. I took part of the time I was there to meet my father's step-mother.

I never knew that my father had a step-mother, as such, until the last few years, or so it seems to me. My parents tell me that I had met her (let's call her Miss Mary) at my brother's wedding 25 years ago in Los Angeles, but I have no recollection of that at all. In any event, I would have been 29 years old at the time, and that would have been the first I'd heard of Miss Mary.

In the last few years, I've become aware that my father has kept in regular contact with Miss Mary, calling her about every other week and writing her from time to time. A few weeks ago, he couldn't seem to reach her. She's 94 years old and lives alone. Dad called me, quite concerned, and asked if there was anything I could do. I first checked with various sources to ascertain if she had died; these were inconclusive at best. I dialed her number on the chance that Dad had dialed the wrong number. The number just rang and rang without being answered.
When I tried later, it was busy. A final try got a ring, but no answer.

After consulting several geriatric and law enforcement professionals, I called the Los Angeles Police Department's division station for Miss Mary's area. I explained who I was and that I wanted them to go to Miss Mary's address for a "welfare check." The officer on the telephone said they would do that.

Within an hour, I received a call back from the LAPD. They were at Miss Mary's place and they had found her "little dehydrated, a bit disoriented, but otherwise fine." They gave her water and juice. I conveyed the message to my father immediately after I received it.

On the Jamboree trip, I had planned to visit the grave of my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (buried under the name Jessie Manson Tidwell), which is in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California, a thirty minute drive from Burbank. But I realized that her grave will always be there (or at least for a very long time) and Miss Mary may not always be here. So I decided to go see Miss Mary.

Miss Mary lives in a usually quiet area of southwest Los Angeles near the 110 freeway. (That morning it was not quiet, however, as LAPD helicopters roared overhead tracking a fugitive and LA news media choppers swarmed around the law enforcement airplanes).

I rang her doorbell and waited. I could hear a television on inside and voices, also. When nobody came to the door after a decent interval, I took out mt cell phone and dialed Miss Mary's number. I heard the telephone ring and a voice said, "Somebody's calling me." Nobody answered the telephone, so I left a message saying who I was and why I was there. Then a woman's voice said, "Somebody's at my door. Let him in."

A woman of about 30 years old opened the door and smiling, said,"Come in." I stepped into a small but uncluttered living room. At the back of the living room, I saw Miss Mary.

"Miss Mary," I said, "I'm . . . . " She cut me off quickly.

"I know who you is," she said curtly. "You your daddy's son." She was coming toward me in a walker, but at a pretty good speed and with a decent gait. Her voice was clear and strong.

"Sit down," she commanded. And to the younger woman, "Get him a cup of coffee."

"Uh, I don't drink coffee, Miss Mary."

"You don't? Well, the you're no friend of mine!" I actually couldn't tell if she was joking or not. I sat down on her sofa as she sat in a chair across from me. She was wearing a pair of blue slacks and a pressed pink shirt. She seemed to be sizing me up.

"What on earth possessed you to call the police to come to my house the other day?" Miss Mary demanded, her Texas drawl unseasoned by more than six decades in southern California.

Again, I wasn't sure if she was angry or not.

"I-I, uh, well, Dad was . . . we were concerned about--" I stammered.

Miss Mary cut me off again. "No, that wasn't it," she said forcefully. I started to protest, when Miss Mary held up her hand and said, "It was the spirit of the Lord made you call the police." Her facial expression softened into a smile.

"Yessir, it was the spirit of the Lord!" she exclaimed again. "How else would you know to call Los Angeles from Sacramento to save my life? It was the Lord's doing!"

Miss Mary had a bit more dramatic take on the situation than the LAPD had. She said she had fallen asleep the night before and had not turned on her air conditioner because the evening was cool. She slept on the sofa until the mid-morning hours. By that time, the heat wave had commenced in LA and Miss Mary was sweating and drained of energy. She said she couldn't get up to get water or to turn the air conditioner. After awhile, she could barely move at all. She knew she would die if she couldn't get up. She was preparing her self mentally for just that occurrence when the police showed up. The sofa being close to the door, she was able muster enough energy to let them in.

"They were like angels," Miss Mary said of the officers. "I'm going to witness about this in my church!"

After these preliminaries were over, we started discussing family matters. Miss Mary had been born in Cameron, Texas, 12 or 15 miles from my grandfather's birthplace in Rockdale, Texas. Contrary to family legend which said that they had never met until both ended up in Los Angeles, Miss Mary said that she and my grandfather had known each other in Texas. She said that she and a girlfriend left Texas in about 1941 to find better jobs in California.

When they got to LA (they went by train), they almost immediately found wartime jobs in a shipyard. A few years later, on the way to work on a bus, she ran into my grandfather, by then divorced from my grandmother. They renewed their acquaintance and later got married.

Miss Mary confirmed several details of family history that I was not sure about. Having grown up in the same county as my grandfather, she knew his family. For example, I asked her if she knew my grandfather's father, Otis Manson. She said, "He was a white man; he took good care of his family."

And who was his father? I asked. Miss Mary replied, "I don't know. You know, people didn't talk a lot about things like that in those days."

The census records describe Otis Manson as variously mulatto or black. But Miss Mary's declaration added credence to my father's story of having seen a white man on a horse in Midland County, Texas, in 1948 and being told, "That's your grandfather." What she said is also consistent with my theory that Otis Manson was the son of George Preston Birdsong, scion of a landed Upson County, Georgia, family, and Matilda Manson, a free woman of color who lived near George Birdsong. [By the time Miss Mary was born in 1914, George Preston Birdsong had returned to Georgia and died in 1905].

Miss Mary pointed out that at age 94, she cooks and cleans for herself and goes to church. [The younger woman with her that day is sent out by an agency at certain intervals to check up on her].

Miss Mary told me the basic genealogy of her family, the details of which I had already researched before starting my trip. But you know, there's just something special about hearing a living person describe their family when the vital facts square with your research!

It was a wonderful hour and a half spent with the most interesting and energetic 94 year old I've ever met.

Before I left, we took some photos. And that's the saddest part of the story. It was a new camera and I wasn't completely familiar with its operation. I either deleted the photos or never actually got them on the memory card. Which means I'll have to go back!

Juneteenth

At the time of this order, my BRYANT family lived in Nueces and Refugio Counties, Texas, and my SANFORD families were both slaves and slaveholders in Milam County, Texas.

Texas Death Collection at FamilySearch Labs

Record Search at FamilySearch Labs has recently added a collection of Texas death records covering 1890-1976. I've tried this and it's quite a good collection in terms of content and useability. Like all the indexed collections at Record Search, name variations are automatically retrieved in search results. I like the fact that there is a "Copy to Clipboard" link on the record details page, which in one click copies the details--and only the details--to the clipboard. On Ancestry.com, by comparison, you have to go to "View Printer-friendly" and then select and copy the details.

There is a link to a PDF version of the actual death certificate; however, that link seems not yet functional.

All things considered, this addition to Record Search is a solid "A" in my gradebook.

Open State Vital Records: Some of the Best States

One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy

I've made a brief survey of state vital records laws and here present some of the "best" states in terms of "openness." These determinations are based on several factors: whether law provides that vital records are "open" or "public"; whether reasonable "confidential periods" are imposed; whether reasonable fees are required; whether procedures for obtaining records are uncomplicated, and whether in my sole judgment, the state is more user-friendly than not when allowing access to vital records.

A note about some terms used by states to describe their records policies: some states say that they are "open" or "public" records states, while others say they are "closed" records states. Do not put too much emphasis on these self-descriptions. The fact is that states use these terms without much consideration. As a result, some so-called "open" records states may have, in practice, more restrictive access than so-called "closed" records states.

In my view, a confidentiality period longer than fifty years for death records or seventy-five years for birth records is unreasonable. And any confidentiality period for ordinary marriage records is unreasonable.

Now, some of the best states for access to vital records:

• Arizona: supposedly a "closed" records state. Allows public access to non-certified copies of birth records after 75 years, death recotds after 50 years. What else makes Arizona great: the Arizona Dpeartment of Health Services has placed birth and death records online.
  

• Illinois: Uncertified birth records after 1916 available after 75 years; uncertified death records after 20 years. What else make Illinois great: very good website; no images but easy to search.
  

• Missouri: Birth records seem to be highly restricted, but the Show-Me state makes this list because death records are available after fifty years and the Missouri State Archives has a great website of death certificates with PDF versions of the certificates. Jackson County [Kansas City area] has an excellent website with images of marriage licenses.

• Texas: Birth records available to public after 75 years; death records after 25 years. What else makes Texas great: an easy-to-use online order system for vital records.

• Wisconsin: Uncertified copies of birth and death records are available to anyone who applies. Caveat: No birth record is public concerning (1) a child born to unmarried parents when paternity has not been established, or (2) a child born to unmarried parents when paternity was established by court order.

Black History Month: Black Catholics in America

I have obliquely alluded, in this space, to the fact that I am of the Roman Catholic faith. This may come as a surprise to a lot of folks, some of whom believe a black Catholic is rarer than a campfire at the North Pole. Frequently, when people learn that I'm a Catholic, they say, "When did you convert?" Well, in my case, I didn't convert--I'm a so-called "cradle Catholic." But I will admit that I'm just a second generation Catholic.

I come from a maternal line that has a lot of Baptist preachers. Most prominent of these would be my great-grandfather, James William Long (1866-1945). He was a deacon at Kansas City's renowned Paseo Baptist Church before becoming pastor of Sunrise Baptist Church. My mother's uncle, Henry Willie Gines (1903-1980) was a Baptist preacher as was his son, Frank William Gines (1935-1999). My aunt, Delorise Gines, has a ministry that grew out of her participation at Paseo.

So how did I end up Catholic? Well, the earthly answer goes like this: my grandmother, Annie Florida Corrine Long, had a stormy relationship with her father, the aforementioned Rev. James William Long. I don't know all the details, but I'm sure it was not helped by her desire to be a dancer in Kansas City's vaudeville revues. When she left her parents' house in the 1920's, she became a dancer and never opened a Bible nor set foot in a church (except for weddings and funerals) ever again. Her children, including my mother, grew up "unchurched," for the most part.

But, as a teenager, my mother had three close friends, who, in today's vernacular, "hung out" together. They took turns going to each other's churches. One girl was Baptist, one Methodist, and one Catholic. As a result of these friendships, my mother eventually became very active in the Methodist church. She was a leader in a statewide Methodist teen group. Even while she did this, my mother continued to attend her other friends' churches and continued to study religion on her own. Ultimately, for reasons personal to her, my mother at age 16 became a Catholic.

Meanwhile, in Texas, my father was having religious experiences of his own. I don't know of any clergy on my father's side and I don't really know of any specific religious preferences in his family (with one exception). But because the Depression-era schools in Aransas County, Texas, refused to educate black children, the first school my father attended was a Catholic grade school. This evidently made an impression on him and he, too, became a Catholic as a teenager.

When my parents met in college, their Catholicism was something they had in common.

As I grew up, the only other black Catholic family I knew of was that of my paternal great-uncle, Herman Walker (1906-2002). And I don't think he was born a Catholic; rather I think he converted when he met and married his wife Ida, a French Creole Catholic from Louisiana. But he was a devout Catholic. His funeral program noted that he had attended St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houston for sixty-six years and that he was a member of The Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society.

Despite their apparent invisibility, black Catholics have played important roles in the Church in America due originally and derivatively to the nation's French and Spanish heritages. In fact, the first blacks in America were Catholics. They helped settle America's oldest European-established city, St Augustine, Florida, in 1565.

Over the next few posts, we'll tell the stories of significant African-American Catholics.

History Comes to Dinner

Actually I'm going to dinner at the home of my great-great grandmother, Matilda Manson, in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas, on a day in 1900. Grandma Mattie has been kind enough, at my suggestion, to invite her son Otis, and his wife Bettie Sanford, as well as Bettie's 90 year old father, Billie Sanford. Bettie is pregnant with their fourth child, my great aunt Julia Mattie Manson. They'd left at home their three sons, seven-year-old Carl, six-year-old Otis Preston, and three-year-old Silas Leroy. I wonder who's babysitting.

But most interestingly of all, Grandma Mattie has invited Otis's father, 59 year old George Preston Birdsong, and his 55-year-old brother Albert Hamill Birdsong. Preston and his brother live in the nearby town of Cameron which is the Milam County seat.

To recap what will make this an interesting dinner, George Preston Birdsong is the son of the late George Lawrence Forsyth Birdsong and his wife Susan Thweatt. The Birdsongs were a prominent landowning and slaveowning family in Upson County, Georgia, through most of the 19th century. Larry Birdsong in fact was a deputy sheriff of Upson County and served as a captain in the local militia which was called to duty with the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The Birdsongs owned a number of slaves, but Matilda Manson was not among them. Matilda was a free woman of color who had been born in neighboring Talbot County. At some time during the 1870s, soon after Larry Birdsong had died in 1869, Matilda Manson and George Preston Birdsong found themselves living next door to each other. Preston appears to perhaps have been estranged from the rest of his family, who lived some distance away. In 1884, Preston, Matilda, her son Otis, and Preston's brother Albert all took off for Texas.

The family lore about Matilda and Otis's absconding to Texas is told here. That story is not true. Family lore also has it that every Sunday Otis would take his family down to the train station in Rockdale Texas where they would await a train from a neighboring town. When the train arrived a white man would get off the train visit with them and give them money. Then he would get on the next train going back until the following week. This appears to be true.

Preston and Albert worked in Cameron. Preston lived with a couple of brothers from what is now the Czech Republic. (At that time it was known as Bohemia). One brother was a bartender, and the other was a salesman, according to the 1900 census. Preston worked as a night watchman.

Dinner this evening should be very interesting. I don't think Preston has ever met Otis's wife Bettie. Likewise I don't think Bettie's father Billie knows anything about Preston. And I'm eager to hear some stories from all the parties concerned. For example, I want to know what it was like when Preston and Matilda got together in Georgia. I want to know exactly why they left Georgia. Where they run out of town as I suspect? Or did they leave of their own volition? Why did Albert come along? And why of all the places in Texas did they choose Rockdale? How did they get to Rockdale from Upson County, Georgia? According to the book, A Frontier Link with the World: Upson County's Railroad, by historian David E. Paterson, Preston had been for a short while an engineer on the railroad in Georgia. Did they take a train from Georgia to Texas? What did it cost? How long did it take? What was their relationship like as they traveled and once they got to Texas? And what was Preston's relationship with his family like after he left Georgia? Did he receive letters from them? Did he write to his mother? His mother died in 1892 while he and Albert were in Texas. Did they know of their mother's death at the time? Did they return to Georgia for her funeral? And since this dinner takes place in 1900, I obviously know some things that are about to happen that they don't know. I won't tell them but Preston returns to Georgia in just a few more years, and he dies there in 1905. Albert also returns to Georgia but he lives until 1921.

And as for Matilda, I'm curious what became of her mother Jane. And what became of her sister Mary? Did Matilda and Mary know their grandmother, a Scots-Irish woman named Charlotte? What exactly was it like to be a so-called "free woman of color" in Georgia in the 19th century? What did Matilda and Mary and Jane do during the Civil War? Where were they during the Civil War? And for Billie Sanford, how did the Sanford family of Virginia into which he was born in slavery, treat their slaves? Billie followed the Sanford's from Virginia to Tennessee to Texas. Where did he meet his wife Emily? Had he been married before? What did he think of Otis marrying his daughter Bettie? Who were his brothers and sisters? Did he remember his parents from Virginia? To what did he ascribe his long life? (Here in 1900, Billie doesn't know that he will live another 16 years in die at the age of 106).

I'm interested in seeing Matilda's dwelling. I'm wondering what she's going to serve for dinner. Will it be a recipe from Georgia? Or perhaps it will be something she's learned since she moved to Texas 16 years ago. What ever, I'm sure it will be delicious. After dinner if it's not too late, maybe we'll walk over to Otis and Bettie's house. Perhaps they'll invite Bettie's sister Addie and her husband Abe White over for coffee.

Tomorrow if the weather's good, I'll do something really daring. I'll stroll over to the home of Reuben Henry Sanford, the son of the woman who brought Billie Sanford as a slave to Texas from Tennessee. Now that will be interesting!

The other things that I know but can't tell Otis and Bettie tonight are that their son Otis Preston and their daughter yet unborn Julia Mattie both will die of tuberculosis in 1912. So it will be an interesting joyous yet bittersweet evening.

Where Was Your Family in 1908?

Lisa, who has the energy to write several interesting blogs, posed the question, "Where was your family in 1908?" on, appropriately enough, her 100 Years in America blog.

A century ago, neither of my paternal grandparents had been born yet, although one, my grandmother Jessie Beatrice Bowie, was just a year away. Her parents, my great-grandparents, Hattie Bryant and Elias Bowie, Sr., had recently met and were living in San Antonio, Texas. Hattie's and Elias' parents were also in Texas. Guy Bryant and Maria Martin lived in Rockport, Aransas County, Texas, in 1908. Guy was a butcher. John Wesley Bowie and Amanda McCray made their home in the east Texas town of Longview in Gregg County. They lived at 114 Morgan Street and 63 year old John did "odd jobs."

My other paternal great-grandparents, Otis Manson and Bettie Sanford, lived on a farm near Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. My great-great-grandmother, Matilda Manson, lived near them. Bettie's father, Billie Sanford, a 98 year old former slave, was still alive, also in Milam County. Billie would live to be 106 years old.

My maternal grandfather, Eddie Gines, was 10 years old and lived with his parents, Richard William Gines and Sylvia LeJay, at 1540 Ashton Street, Shreveport, Louisiana. Great-grandpa Dick was a fireman at Shreveport's electric powerhouse. I know nothing of Dick's parents. Sylvia's parents were Lewis LeJay and Syntrilla Brayboy. By 1908, Lewis had probably passed away. Syntrilla, however, still lived in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, not far from where she had been held in slavery.

My maternal grandmother, Annie Florida Corrine Long, was six years old and lived with her parents, James William Long and Mary Elizabeth Johnson. Their house was at 2711 Wyoming Street, on the west side of Kansas City, Missouri. Great-grandpa James was a Baptist preacher and in 1908 was the pastor at Kansas City's Sunrise Baptist Church. His parents, Richard and Pauline Long, were deceased. My great-great-grandfather, Zeke Johnson, was still alive and well in Kansas City. My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Gilbert, may have been alive in 1908, but this is not certain. Zeke's father, Dan Carpenter, was alive at age 83, in Clay County, Missouri, just north of Kansas City. He died at age 95. There is some evidence that Zeke's mother, Harriet Mitchell, was alive and living in Johnson County, Kansas, but this is not certain. She would be about 83 years old as well.

In 1908, none of these ancestors could have foreseen me and life as it is today.

Important Genealogical Tip: Try, Try Again!

An important tip in genealogical research is to re-plow ground you've already been over before. And if that's not productive, do it again!

Why?

Because it works.

Miriam at Ancestories had a Christmas Day surprise when she finally found some elusive in-laws for whom she had searched for years. In an idle moment, she tried again on-line and there they were.

Coincidentally, I had a very similar experience on Christmas morning as well! For a number of years, I've wondered what became of my grandfather's brother, Otis Preston Manson. I knew he had been born in 1894 based on Milam County school records that I found at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. But he doesn't appear on the 1920 census--and seemed to have simply disappeared.

Yesterday, while I--like Miriam--was waiting for the rest of the household, including guests, to stir, I Googled Otis Preston Manson, just on the chance that I'd missed something in the past. And was I surprised when that search turned up a transcription of his death certificate! It was contained in Genealogymagazine.com. That's a source I rarely use (but you can bet I've spent some time with it now!). Turns out that Preston, as he was known, died in 1912 at the age of 18. The transcription doesn't have the cause of death, so I immediately ordered a copy of the certificate itself from the state of Texas. I used the convenient process found on Texas Online. It should arrive in 10-15 days.

Preston's sister Julia also died in 1912 of tuberculosis. She was just 12 years old. I'm guessing that Preston also died of TB. We'll know shortly.

Going back over area that I've covered before has frequently paid off for me. It did again today in a big way. See the next post. So don't hesitate to review where you've been and look where you've looked before. At some point, something always turns up.

Ancestral Gleanings from the Dinner Table

Thanksgiving is a great time to learn a little or a lot about one's relatives and ancestors. Unexpected things may pop up. I gleaned a fair bit from our Thanksgiving conversations, most of which I'll share after some further processing.

But one of the surprising bits was this: I asked my father if he recalled ever talking to a census taker. He replied, "I was a census taker."

In 1950, he answered a newspaper ad in Houston, Texas, to become an enumerator for that year's census. He was assigned to Houston's fifth ward (where he lived). He said it was hard work, involved a lot of walking. Most everybody was cooperative, including Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, who was awakened after just having gotten to sleep following a long night of work.

My Families' Weddings

She's there every morning, watching me, this pretty teenager. Her eyes dipped slightly, confident yet demure; slender and shy. She grips a rosary in her hands. A long veil falls down her back to the floor where it merges with the pool that is the train of her dress. She watches me, this teenager from across the room, from across more than six decades, perched above the fireplace.

The picture is of my mother-in-law, Edna Mary Micheau, on her wedding day in 1940. Still healthy now past the mid-point of her eighties, she doesn't speak much of that day anymore. Her reticence serves to remind me that I don't know much about weddings in my family.

The first wedding of record that I know of is that of Ezekiel Johnson and Sarah Gilbert. According to records in Clay County, Missouri, they were married 140 years ago this year, on September 5, 1867. Zeke was just back from his service in the Civil War. What kind of wedding did they have? I don't know. The records say that the officiator was Richard C. Morton, M.G. [Minister of the Gospel]. The Reverend Morton performed a number of weddings in Clay County; like a lot of people there, he was from Kentucky.

The second wedding of record that I know about was that of Guy Bryant and Amanda Maria Martin Pane. According to the records of Aransas County, Texas, they were married on June 28, 1882, in Rockport, Texas. John F. Cooke, M.G., presided. Maria Martin had been married briefly before to one James Henry Pane. They had been married in June of 1878; it's not clear when they split. Her son from that marriage, Isaac Pane, was born in November 1879. He later began using the surname "Bryant."

I have no artifacts of Guy and Maria's wedding either.

James William Long married Mary Elizabeth Johnson, the daughter of Zeke and Sarah Johnson, on May 30, 1888, in Kansas City, Missouri. Mary was just seventeen and Zeke had to sign giving his consent. Zeke was illiterate, so the record shows "his mark." What kind of wedding did they have? I don't know.

The marriage license of James William Long and Mary Elizabeth Johnson
(click to enlarge)

On August 19, 1890, Otis Manson married Betty Sanford in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas. Three days later, Betty's younger sister, Addie, married Abe White in the same town.

All of the above set the stage for the wedding that really matters. On July 19, 1953, in Houston, Texas, my parents married. They had a Catholic wedding with Father Ralph Urma McLane presiding. You've no doubt already figured out that July 19, 1953 was a Sunday and some of you know that Catholics typically do not have weddings on Sundays. The problem was that both my parents worked six days a week back then and their bosses wouldn't let them off on Saturday even to get married. It was much simpler to ask the bishop to let them get married on a Sunday! And with His Eminence's blessing, they got married on a Sunday!

They had a twelve hour honeymoon at a place loaned by a friend. They were back on their jobs Monday morning!

My parents on their wedding day, July 19, 1953, in Houston, Texas, with my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie

HARP is Off to a Great Start!

HARP, the Historical Appellate Review Project, has had a great launch. We are already pursuing several cases and have had inquiries about several more. These may take months to resolve, but we'll tell the stories here!

A HARP Case

One of the HARP cases I'm pursuing for my own family is that of my great-grandmother, Bettie Sanford Manson. She was born in 1872, one of four daughters of Billie Sanford and Emely Scott. She married Otis Manson in Rockdale, Texas, in August of 1890.

My father says he only saw his grandmother once--that was in 1948 in Midland, Texas, where she and Otis had moved their family in 1947 for reasons still not clear to me. He says that he saw her from a distance--she was standing out in the middle of a field. The family would not let him get any closer, explaining to him that she was mentally ill.

In an index of Milam County records, I found two cases in the 1930's concerning a conservatorship for Bettie Manson. When I tried to get the records, I was told that they were sealed and I would need a court order to unseal them.

I would like to know the reasons for the conservatorship and especially who applied for it. Otis Manson was an illiterate man; did someone persuade him that his wife was mentally ill? What was the evidence that she was mentally ill?

In this case, HARP will be going to court in Texas to move to have the records unsealed. Bettie Manson, her husband, and all of their children are deceased. Only three of her grandchildren remain alive; my father is one of them. As far as I know, none of her great-grandchildren recall her. She died in 1955 and her oldest great-grandchild was born in 1951. So there should be little reason to keep these records sealed.

This case will be interesting for its procedure as well as its outcome. It will be instructive as to how HARP goes to court. Stay tuned!

Debunking A Family Myth

I've written about this before, but it fits this topic exactly, so I've reached into the archives and dusted this one off.

Matilda Manson is listed in the 1850 census of Talbot County, Georgia, with her mother, Jane Manson and her sister, Mary Manson. Matilda's age is given as 6 years old; Mary is reported to be 4, and their mother Jane's age is listed as 24. All three are described as "mulatto." Matilda next appears in federal census records in 1880 in nearby Upson County as 30 year old "Mat" Manson with a 9 year old son, Otis. They are both described as "mulatto." Sometime during the 1880's, Matilda and young Otis relocated from Georgia to Milam County, Texas. Otis married Bettie Sanford (1872-1955) and they had seven children. Matilda Manson was my great-great-grandmother.

I asked my father why Matilda and Otis left Georgia for Texas and he said:

She was Spanish. And he [Otis] was the only Spanish boy in school in Georgia at that time. So I think he was being picked on . . . and she decided they had to leave . . . That's what I heard--that she was Spanish.

No doubt they had to leave when somebody realized that she wasn't Spanish.

So Matilda Manson and her son Otis had to leave Georgia . . . .okay, but why did they chose little ole Rockdale in Milam County, Texas? Well, maybe they knew somebody there.

For months, I stared at the 1880 census of Hootenville, Georgia, until I saw it. Right there on the first page it says:

1 1 BIRDSONG, GEO. P. M W S 38 Farmer

2 2 MANSON, MAT F Mu S 30 Servant, House
- - ---------, OTIS M Mu S 9 At Home
- - McCRARY, ELIZA F B S 18 Farm Laborer

3 3 DAWSON, ELLEN F B S 22 Farm Laborer
- - ---------, JOHNSON M Mu S 5 At Home
- - ---------, HORACE M B S 3 At Home
- - ---------, FANNIE F B S 20 Farm Laborer
- - --------, MAT F B S 3 At Home


To decipher that: At the second household in the neighborhood (2), which was also the second household visited by the enumerator (2), the enumerator recorded that he found "Mat" (Matilda) Manson, a female (F), mulatto (Mu), who was unmarried (S) and thirty years old (30). [Age in the 19th century censuses is often an estimate or a guess. With no government records, limited literacy, and few compelling reasons to know one's exact age, enumerators and citizens sometimes missed the mark by as much as a decade. In this case for example, we know that Matilda was older than thirty in 1880, because she is listed as six years old on the 1850 census of Talbot County]. She was a household servant.

"Next door" to Matilda (that is, in the next household in the neighborhood), lived Ellen Dawson, a 22 year old farm worker, and her two sons, Johnson and Horace. Also in that house were Ellen's 20 year old sister, Fannie, and her young daughter, Matilda.

If Matilda was a household servant, whose household was she serving? If her teenaged ward Eliza McCrary was a farm laborer, just whose farm was she laboring on? And who were the Dawson sisters working for? Well, it's not as if they were commuting anywhere in 1880 in Hootenville, Georgia. What about the farmer who lived "next door" to Matilda and Otis? Maybe they worked for him . . .hmmmm. . . .

"The Farmer Next Door" was George Preston Birdsong, born May 25, 1841, died 1905. (The Birdsong Family website is a useful). He wass the eldest son of George Lawrence Forsyth Birdsong and Susan Francis Thweatt Birdsong. Several interesting and unusual facts about George Preston Birdsong can be gleaned from available sources. First, according to information on the Birdsong family site, he was one of twelve children, nine of whom were boys. Apparently, three of the boys did not survive into adulthood. Of the six surviving sons, George and his brother Albert are the only ones for whom there appear to be no record of marriage. As shown above, even as late as age 38, George remained single.

George Preston Birdsong lived with his mother and brothers at least until he was nearly thirty (see 1870 census of Upson County, Georgia) on property his mother had homesteaded in 1868.The Birdsongs were collectively and individually well-off after the Civil War. Mrs. Birdsong's real estate was valued at $3,000, while George's personal property was worth $350--not insignificant sums for the Reconstruction Era. Before the War, the Birdsongs had one of the top-valued farms in the county. George was a veteran of the War, having served with his brother in Company K, 5th Georgia Regiment, which unit surrendered to Federal forces at Greensboro, North Carolina, in April 1865.

So in 1880, when he appears to be living alone, George P. Birdsong (a) has survived the deadliest war in American history; (b) is accustomed to family living; (c) seems to be a successful farmer. In other words, he would seem to be a highly desirable marriage prospect and being a man of his time, would seem naturally to gravitate toward marriage and a family of his own. And yet, approaching 40, elderly in relative terms, George Preston Birdsong remained unmarried, without a family of his own, or . . .so . . . it . . . would . . . seem . . . .

As has been noted, Matilda Manson and her son Otis left Georgia for Milam County, Texas, sometime between 1880 and 1890. By 1890, Otis had married Bettie Sanford. By 1900, the year of the next available census, Otis and Bettie had three sons and Matilda lived nearby in Rockdale.

Rockdale, Texas, is about 15 miles from Cameron, the seat of Milam County. The 1900 census shows George P. Birdsong living in Cameron.

The second son of Otis and Bettie Manson is named Preston, which is George Birdsong's middle name.

So now we start to get a picture of why Matilda and Otis went to Texas. That picture is rounded out by another family legend. According to this family legend, Otis and Bettie would take their children to the train station in Rockdale occasionally. They would wait for the train coming from Cameron. A white man would get off that train, visit with the family and give them money, then leave on the next train back to Cameron.

I wonder what the Birdsong family legend is about why George Preston Birdsong went to Texas? Maybe because he was involved with a "Spanish" lady?

Centenarians

Yesterday, we reported here the death of Brooke Astor, the former Roberta Brooke Russell, at age 105. I noticed also yesterday that the world's oldest person, 114 year-old Yone Minagawa, had died in Japan.

According to the Census Bureau, in the year 2000, the United States had 50,454 persons over the age of 100, out of a total population of 281,421,906. I couldn't find a breakdown by gender, but we all have a pretty good idea who's got the edge!

There are several centenarians on my family tree.

William Sanford was born in 1809 in Virginia and died at age 106 in 1916 in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas.

William Henry Long was born on March 21, 1889 and died on August 26, 1990, at age 101, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Christina Alta Long Neal, sister of William Henry Long, was born on April 2, 1898, and died on September 14, 2000, at age 102, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tina and Will's sister, Rosetta Bell Long, was nearly a centenarian. She was born on May 28, 1900 and died on March 17, 1994, at age 93, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Kudos

Once again, in our Credit-where-Credit-is-Due Department:

1. Congratulations to Missouri, whose State Archives has now added images for the year 1935 to its Death Records project. This project is rapidly closing its gaps!

2. Thanks to the Local History Department of the Corpus Christi Public Libraries, which outdid its usual great service by responding to my request for a scanned copy of an obituary in an incredible twelve hours! I don't imagine they can do that all the time, but I appreciated this week.

3. And since I'm up and about to an extent I really didn't expect this soon, kudos to my doctors and the hospital staff for a job well done!

New County Clerk in Milam,Texas

Laverne Soefje, county clerk for more than sixteen years in Milam County, Texas, has retired. Under her leadership, the office was friendly and efficient on all requests including genealogy issues. Her former chief deputy, Barbara Vansa, has been elected to replace her.

According to the Cameron Herald,

Soefje and her husband of almost 40 years, Harold, have an exciting retirement ahead of them. They will begin in April as camp hosts at state parks across Texas. They will work a month at a time with two days off each week. Their first park duties will be at Brazos Bend near Needville. In June, they will be at the Guadalupe River State Park north of New Braunfels. [Link]

Best of luck in retirement to a fine public servant!

Some Resources

Nevada marriage and divorce records are now available on Ancestry.com. These resources can be useful to those researching in just about any state. That's because when many states had restrictive laws about marriage and divorce (especially divorce), Nevada traditionally has had rather liberal laws on these matters. Thus, those who could afford to do so would sometimes head for Las Vegas or Reno for a "quickie" divorce. And folks who wanted something a little different in a wedding ceremony find their way to the unique Nevada wedding chapels.

Not surprisingly, Californians tend to predominate. There are more than 3,800,000 Californians in the Nevada Marriage Index from 1956 to 2005. Anyone doing California research should treat the Nevada resources as if they were California resources. I was looking for California marriages I was certain had taken place and couldn't find them. Then I went to the Nevada index and there they were! Unfortunately, there are no images available for viewing or downloading.

Getting Nevada records means doing it the hard way: writing county clerks and asking for them; or sending money to Vitalchek.

Clay County, Missouri

As you know, I do a lot of research in Missouri sources. So I'm embarrassed to say that it had escaped my notice that the Clay County Recorder of Deeds no has a fairly decent web site. Information about marriages, deaths, marriages can be found there. Again, however, there areimages to download.