Switching things up

I was using Find A Grave for a family member.  How many of you click on the find all ---- in (cemetery) on the left side of the website after getting information for a person?  I do it quite often and I'm guessing you do too. 

Many times I am surprised at the number of people with the same surname in a cemetery.  Today was no exception and what was even better, I recognized several names.

Because of the recognition I decided to 'take a break' from my regular researching tasks and update my records for this family name from this cemetery. 

I was able to connect to everyone in the list except for two.  I figured they had to be related somehow, but, I couldn't find them.

Their stones were similar and the dates of birth were such that it could be a mother and her son. 

I was just about to give up when I realized that the one died in 1991.  Had I paid more attention I would have realized they both died in 1991.  On the same day. 

Lucky for me they live in a part of Pennsylvania where the local newspaper has archives online dating back to 1984.

Google, my friend, was able to find some articles. 

OMG. 

They are mother and son.  They were both in the backyard when they were murdered.  By a neighbor.  With a rifle.  Mom shot once, then the son.  Then each shot again.  Witnessed by a grandson/nephew.  Over a parking spot. 

What a tragedy.  

More Pin Ball Action

I am continuing to work on a family in Pennsylvania.  I always take the parents of a spouse back as far as I can to determine if there is a connection to the family.  PING!  Another connection.  I had to go four generations.  The spouse is the great-granddaughter of my 1st cousin 6x removed.  That means, yes, you guessed it, the spouses are distant cousins.  I have to wonder how well they all knew each other from generation to generation.

It's no wonder it takes days/weeks to get one tiny little branch updated and researched.

Back to the pinball machine! 

Pin Ball Action

Researching my family in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania is like playing a pinball machine.  I start off with one family and quickly I'm pinging all over the place from family to family.  Sometimes I get so far away from who I am working on I have to stop and write the name down so I know who to go back to when I'm finished with the side family(ies).

On my father's side, I descend directly from two out of three brothers who ended up in Northampton/Lehigh County area many, many years ago.  I am always finding cousins (distant) who married cousins (distant) and finding connections to my husband's family who has a family line in the same area.

My mother is in the action, too.  She has two lines in the area.  One was there for an extremely short time and I haven't found any connections with the other lines.   The other line, well, I've found connections there, too.

I have neglected my father's side in this area for far too long.  Today I plan to ping, ping and ping!  I hope I get my highest score yet!  Wish me luck!





PING! - 5th cousin 1x removed married a 5th cousin 2x removed.  The bride is related to me through two branches.  I believe they are distant cousins to each other.

PING!  - A different 5th cousin 1x removed married a 4th cousin 1x removed.  I think they are distant cousins to each other, too.

Another Mystery

James B. Cook married Ida M. Howard in 1880 in Iowa. 

They had two known children.  Floy, married to John Nickel and then Frank Yocum, and Merle.  Merle was married four times.  Nellie Morey was his first wife, Ella Neiman, was his second wife, number three was Mathilda Brunnier and finally Beatrice, last name unknown.  If he had any children, I am unaware of them.

While researching today I found another child, Greg Cook who was born in 1887 and apparently died before 1900 as he is not on the 1900 census.  His mother (Ida) is listed as the mother of three children, two alive. 

Also while researching today, I found a Marvel D. Cook, daughter of James and Ida married to Hubert W. Trent in 1920 in Iowa.  What is strange about her (my mystery) is that according to her marriage record she was born in Seattle.  She was born about 1901 and is not listed on the 1910 census with her parents.  Is she the daughter of my James Cook and Ida Howard?  Is there another James Cook married to an Ida Howard?  I find no record of the family ever in Seattle other than her marriage record.  Is the marriage record wrong?  I'm really starting to think she doesn't belong in our family as the 1910 census lists her mother as having three children, two alive.  Could she be an adopted daughter?  Adopted sometime between 1910 and 1920? 

Anyone out there know anything about this?  I would be grateful for any additional information on James and Ida (and family) along with any information about Marvel. 

Legacy vs FTM

I finally broke down and bought Legacy.  I was tired of the excessive pop-ups when accessing Ancestry through FTM.  A new one started popping up and that was it.  I still haven't figured out which browser it is using because it is not using my default browser.  It is up-to-date.

So, Legacy.  Well, I hate having to figure out how a new program works, but it is coming along.  I still haven't figured out where to put extra descriptions for details. FTM has a field with the date and place which is handy.  Where do I put the cemetery a person is buried in?  I have more to learn.

I do like how easy it is to add sources, not that FTM was hard.  I haven't figured out how to use the same source for more than one field so I'm having to retype some information until I get that figured out.  It's probably something simple, but it hasn't been for me, at least not yet. 

Reports and speed were more reasons why I wanted to switch.  The Legacy program is much faster.  Maybe it is because it is not searching while running. (However, I have turned the online portion of the FTM program off and it didn't make any difference.)  FTM has messed and messed with their reports until I'm frustrated.  So much for being able to create your own report.  The parameters have been reduced and the report is worthless.  I haven't found where I can create my own report in Legacy and I still can't get the report I want.  I want a report I can run for a county in any state so that when I am planning a trip I can find out who I have in the area and their birthdates/death dates and where buried.  I finagled FTM's to do list, but I am not sure how to finagle Legacy.  So much to learn and so little time. 

Update: Sept. 19 2015
The pop-ups on FTM stopped after purchasing Legacy.  What's with that?  Now I get one when I view a document in another window on my browser.  Apparently it doesn't like my cookie settings.  Every once in while I will get one of the old pop-ups on FTM, but nothing like what I used to get.  So, I still use FTM to search Ancestry because I find it is easy.  Maybe I am just too lazy to search with Legacy as I haven't attempted to use the search features with it.  

I am still frustrated as I cannot get a cemetery report with either program.  I like to know what cemeteries are where and who from the family is buried there. 

Connections

Yesterday was a fun day researching as I found more connections between my branches and also connections between my husband's Pennsylvania family and mine.  No, we are not cousins...yet. 

I spent some time this summer connecting the dots on my Luxembourg family thanks to a distant cousin. He posted just enough information about my great-great grandmother for me to realize that she is his great-great grandfather's little sister.  One branch of his family ended up in Kansas in the same county as my great-great-grandmother.  I wondered if they knew they were all related after a generation or two.  (This wondering stems from going to school with distant cousins and finding out after high school that we are related.  In fact, three of us in one class are in three different generations of the same family.)  I contacted the source of the family information. I think he was as excited to hear from me as I was him.  As we asked questions and gained more information he realized he had heard my family name before.  He has pictures of some of my family from generations past.  That answers my questions about whether or not they knew they were related.  As time passed after the family settled in the area, that knowledge was lost.  It's been fun to bring the family back together.

Abraham Baldwin

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would find a connection to one of the signers of the US Constitution.  Abraham Baldwin, a signer from Georgia, is a very distant cousin of my husband. 

I was looking for information on a Great Grandmother Cross on his (my husband's) side of the family and I found a document with a tiny piece of information that led me to her sisters and parents.  Eventually that led to a great-grandmother by the maiden name of Baldwin.  As my husband has Baldwins on his father's side, I was doubly intrigued. 

I took the new Baldwin line back as far as I could ending up in the same area of the US as the old Baldwin line.  I still haven't found a connection between the two other than my in-laws share cousins.  I think at some point the families are related (meaning my in-laws are distant cousins to each other) but that connection is probably back in the 'old country' before any of them immigrated to the US.   It will be fun to continue to research and hopefully find the connection. 

This has been a fun line to research.

Don't Go!

Dear JP,

I learned about you last night.

You are my 3rd cousin 3x removed.

Absolom Carr is our common ancestor.

I read about your military training from articles your mother placed in the paper.

In July 1943 you wrote about joining the 25th Regimental Choir and how young men need the discipline and training they receive in the Navy.

I chuckled when you talked about how the food is served by 'some very attractive WAVES' which apparently makes the food there the best there is in September of 1943.

You received the third class petty officer's rating as aviation radioman in Jan of 1944.

Your mother and sister visited you in Florida in February of 1944.  This is when I first knew about you.  I had already been told about your sister, but I didn't know about you.  It was exciting to learn. I love finding new cousins!

In June of 1944 you left Indiana for San Diego, California.

Your military training reminds me of my own brother and oldest son.  Neither learned the skill you trained for, however, boot camp in Chicago -that's the same, school in Florida -my oldest, and then stationed in San Diego like my brother.  Yea for the Navy!

 I read where you became engaged in 1945.  How exciting!

I've given you the timeline that I have of your military life.  You lived it.  However, before I found some of the articles posted above, I discovered you were missing in action over the Pacific Ocean during a bombing mission.  My heart sank to learn about your tragic fate.

This turned me into Sandra Bullock's character in The Lake House where she was able to send letters back in time.  Every article from before the tragedy I found myself thinking, 'don't go' and, of course, there isn't any realistic way to change history.

I want you to know you are remembered.  You are much more than a statistic from the war. 

Your cousin.

Maude, Where Are You?

I don't have any record to prove her existence.  Maude B. Brasher is supposedly the daughter of Joseph and Mary (Mollie) Kester Brasher.  She has a sister, Lou, born in 1877.  I am assuming that Maude would have been born between 1880 and 1883, probably in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Did Joseph and Mary/Mollie have a daughter named Maude?

Family is Family

A very distant cousin caused confusion today until I figured out he married his second wife twice.  Altogether he had four marriages.  The first marriage produced a daughter, the second/third marriages produced three more daughters, and the final marriage produced two sons.  The fourth wife had a son from a previous marriage to bring into the family.

I found most of the kids out on Facebook today and discovered the kids from the last marriage are not FB friends with the sisters from the first marriages.  I find that sad.  I hope someday they put aside whatever differences they have and get to know each other.

Kate and Frank

I found where someone thought Kate had married Frank, but I found a marriage record for her with someone else.  I finally found a marriage record in another state for her and Frank. Then it was a dead end until I found a possible Find A Grave record for them in Minnesota. But, I just didn't have enough to connect the dots. Google, who is a really good friend of mine, came through. I found an old music critic document authored by someone who apparently loved some good gossip. Kate divorced her husband of less than ten years and ten days later married her vocal music teacher, Frank. Yes, that information was pretty much in the article.


 

Last Laugh?

Jarsey (yes, that's her name) had a tragic beginning to life and it didn’t seem to get much better.  Her mother died giving birth to her. Her father died while she was a child and she was raised by grandparents. She married young and the marriage went sour after two children. Then her only son was killed in action in France in 1918. 

Her husband remarried and had four more children. 

He died several years before she did. 

Their daughter listed Jarsey as a widow and created a life for her parents that did not include the second wife or the half-siblings in the obituary. 

Do you think it was a bitter divorce?

Missing Puzzle Pieces

On Lee's headstone application a signature belonging to Ethel appears.  Ethel has a different last name than his.  Is she a sister?  No.  I wonder who she is.

I found Lee on the 1920 census married to Edna.  Maybe Ethel and Edna are one and the same.

Mix-ups like that happen on the census records.

Sometimes.

I found Lee on the 1930 census.  I found Ethel with him. I am still thinking that it could be possible that the Edna on the 1920 census could be Ethel.

It happens.

Well, not this time.  I still don't know who Edna is, but she's not Ethel.

Ethel and Lee had two girls listed with them with a different last name.  They are listed as daughters, not step-daughters.

Sometimes step-children are listed as biological children on the census records.

It happens.

I find Lee, Ethel and one of the girls on the 1940 census.  The daughter has his last name this time.

I stumble across an obituary for one of the girls.  Or at least I think it is hers.  Year of birth is possible, Ethel is her mother, father listed has the same last name as hers on the 1930 census and there is her sister.  I believe I have a match.

Except...

The obituary reports the family moving to another state when the deceased was nine.  Lee is never mentioned.

The family did NOT move to another state according to the census records.

I suppose it is possible that she went to live with her father when she was nine.  Her sister is with the mother and Lee in 1940.  The deceased was married and listed with her husband in 1940.  I haven't found her biological father in the 1940 census yet.

Remember Lee's headstone application and Ethel with a different last name than his?  She used her FIRST marriage name.  The same name as her daughters.  They were adults and married.  I don't understand why she used that name.  

Her headstone has her listed with the first married name and the social security index has that name, too.  She's buried in the same cemetery as her first husband.  She was married to him for less than ten years.  She was married to Lee longer.  I wonder if Ethel and Lee divorced after the 1940 census?

I still don't know who Edna is. 

Wrong Place, Wrong Time? Premeditated Murder?

A very distant cousin hitchhiked his way to Colorado from Wisconsin in March of 1939.  Why was a young husband of less than a year hitchhiking to Colorado?  Was he going to visit his mother's family?  Was he looking for work?  Why wasn't his bride with him?

Somewhere near Akron, Colorado, the young hitchhiker was picked up by a salesman.  The two argued, possibly scuffled, and the driver was shot in the head with the young man's pistol.  Was it an accident?  Was it premeditated murder and robbery?  Was it really the young man's pistol?

The newspaper accounts of the tragic event have been interesting in their reporting.  Newspapers all over the United States picked up the story. 

I found it fascinating to read all of the 'confessions' and facts as described and quoted in the papers.

• The pistol confiscated by the Denver police when he was picked up (and released) for hitchhiking matched the bullet found in the victim.
• He confessed.  His confessions consisted of:
• 'in a jam in Colorado'
• Argued with the victim and struck him over the head with a pistol; denied shooting victim
• 'having some trouble with a salesman who gave me a lift'
• didn't get rid of gun because "...after all when a man commits a crime, what's the use of throwing the gun away.  They will get you sooner or later."
• When asked if he shot the man, he replied, "Yes, I did.  I lost my head. ....I wanted to go one way and he wanted to go another."
• He told the sheriff, "I know the laws in Colorado and it could be death."
• He was identified by photographs as having been in the car with the victim.
• He admitted he rode with the victim and after the shooting drove the automobile to Denver where it was abandoned.

The Colorado District Attorney believed the young man's statement of 'having some trouble with a salesman' was enough direct evidence to impose the death penalty.   I am hoping the police had more than that to justify asking for the death penalty.  

Within three months the articles were reporting the victim was shot AND beaten.  Sometimes the articles reported one shot and sometimes it was multiple shots. Sometimes the victim was tortured. The consistent report of physical harm (other than being shot) described the left arm wrenched out of its shoulder socket.

The young man testified he had no intention of harming the victim.  The two men ended up in the school building garage because of impeding weather and the victim wanted the young man to get out of the car as the car belonged to his employer and it was against company policy to pick up hitchhikers.  It was an accidental shooting according to the young man.  Eventually the newspapers reported (in 1953) the young man paid for gas which is why he protested being ordered out of the car.  The owner of the gun was a point of confusion and contention in the articles even though the first trial supposedly proved it belonged to the young man, not the victim. 

The jury verdict of first degree murder was unexpected by the young man.  According to one article he claimed he would home eating a chicken dinner with his parents and wife the next day.  Instead, he was given a life sentence and had a jail house dinner. 

The next legal step for the young man was to seek a new trial.  Because it was overruled, the defense attorney requested the right to appear before the Colorado Supreme Court to appeal the conviction.

Requests for financial help for an appeal were denied.   The Colorado Supreme Court (CSC) was approached for permission to file appeal briefs and abstract with a waiver of the appeal docket fee.  The family savings were gone having paid for his defense in the first trial.  Permission was granted.

In 1940 the new documents placed before the CSC claim the young man was "coerced' into withholding facts during his first trial.  The defense attorney at that time was also the county attorney in the county where the trial was held.  He used a fear of a sentence of execution to manipulate the defendant.  The CSC in a 4-1 decision denied a new trial.  One justice dissented and two did not participate in the ruling.  No explanation given.

Sometime between 1940 and 1942 the young bride divorced the prisoner and moved on with her life.

The young defendant stayed out of the newspapers (at least the ones available to me) for the next twelve years.  In 1952 he married to his cousin's former wife.  Yes, married.  Their story made headlines across the nation.  His bride, a former war bride from Australia, married the 'lifer' and vowed to wait for him forever.

The new bride met her husband through letters.  She first married his cousin when the cousin was stationed in Australia.  That marriage started falling apart.  She claimed it was breaking up before 'meeting' the prisoner.  She started writing the prisoner when she heard about him from one of his aunts.  At first she asked for help in straightening out her marriage to his cousin and eventually the letters became romantic.   She moved to his prison town and started visiting him once a week.  She divorced her first husband and the new couple requested permission to marry nine years after first corresponding.  The state attorney had to give permission and he did.  The first time they had ever touched each other was at the wedding where they held hands and kissed.  Their honeymoon was a two hour conversation in the visiting room of the prison with a wire screen between them.

The prisoner's lawyers were working to get the life sentence commuted.  This would create the possibility of parole.    In the meantime, the prisoner had become a 'model prisoner' as described by the warden.  The prisoner had a watch repairing business and manufactured jewelry within the prison walls. He also received a degree in religious training and dentistry.  He was moved from the state prison to a reformatory where he was a dental technician.

Not to be unexpected, the widow of the murdered salesman opposed clemency for the murderer.  She said the murderer was turned down in 1953 by the then governor, and she hoped the current 1956 governor would do the same.

The governor met with the widow in 1956.  He later stated the prisoner was lying about his part in the murder and denied clemency. The governor said the prisoner had a fair trial and went on and on about the prisoner lying and showing no remorse. 

The wife of the prisoner was angered by the governor's letter.  Along with all of the other judgments by the governor, he accused the prisoner of breaking up his cousin's marriage.  He described it as "treachery and disregard for decency."  She worked to compose a reply and said she would release it to the press.  If she did, I have not been able to find it.

Apparently one of the items the wife asked for in her letter was an interview for her husband with the governor.   Surprisingly, he said he would.  At the same time he claimed his disgust over the penal sentence for allowing the wife to be with her husband when he received word about the denied clemency.  "A convict under a life sentence at hard labor gets married and serves that sentence as a family man."  (This governor makes inane remarks that make me think of the current Kansas governor.)   Whatever happened at that interview, if that interview ever happened, has not been found in any of my sources.

The next information I can find about the prisoner is in 1958.  He filed a petition in the US District Court asking to be released from a life sentence.  His attorney charged the prisoner was denied his full rights at the 1939 trial. 

In Jan of 1959 the Supreme Court refused a hearing.

More legal maneuvering continued in 1959 and 1960 which did not produce the results the prisoner was after.  The prisoner requested a record of the proceedings.  By July 14 the case would be heard in the US District Court.  The transcript of his first trial was not available which did not allow the higher courts to adequately review his trial.  News reports claim the trial notes vanished and the court reporter at the original trial passed away.   The attorney general felt the prisoner should get a new trial if the court officials were unable to find the transcript of his first trial. 

During the summer of 1960 an US District Judge told the state they had to provide the prisoner a transcript, or grant a new trial, or release the prisoner.   The judge gave the state eight months to comply.  By March of 1961 the newspapers report the state attorney general's office was obstructing justice according to the prisoner's attorney.  In a written argument he stated, "We think the time has come when justice can no longer be subject to the changing whims and afterthoughts of each new assistant attorney general assigned to this case." 

I am unable to find any documents or articles stating when the prisoner was released, but a reliable family tree on Ancestry has him released Dec 24, 1961.  He eventually moved out of the state and lived the rest of his life with his wife.  He no longer used his first name. 

His mother lived long enough to see him out of prison.  His father died two years before he was released.

Names

Some names are easy to research because they are so unusual.  Unusual because they are not necessarily used in the everyday context of conversations.   Keep in mind that my definition of 'easy' to research simply means I don't get a bunch of other stuff when searching for hits on the name.

Scott is not an easy name to research.  It is common as a first and last name.

Snyder is not easy because it can be spelled more than one way and is a fairly common name.

 Ulshafer, now that one is easy to research.  You will either find it or not. However, I suppose it could have more than one spelling, too.

Valentine, well, I'll let you decide on that one!

How about the name Mary Sprinkle?  Nope, not easy.  I received many hits where the sentence had something along the line of "Mary sprinkled..." when searching.

Try searching for Robert Lick!

I could list more but I have research to do.  :)

You have to be kidding!

Warning!  This is a disturbing story!

Don't mess with this widow!  Her husband died in 1889 and the life insurance company contended that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.  On that defense they were denying the $11,000 claim.  The widow exhumed her husband's body, had his head cut off, and brought the decapitated head to court to prove he died of other causes.

I don't know if she won her case or not, and no, she's not related.
 

Research by others

I complain (a lot!) about sloppy research by others and how it is posted and reposted online without care it seems.  Why do I bother to look at other people's research? Because it can provide clues.

I found a tree for a 4th great grandfather on my husband's side that had information I have never seen before.  I wondered where the information came from.  The tree had one source linked to it.  That source sent me on a treasure trove of information.

That source was from the War of 1812.  It was a pension index card.

I have a subscription to Fold3 which I haven't been all that happy with as I haven't ever found anything of real value in my opinion there.  That changed last night.

I found the entire pension file for the 4th great-grandfather.  His wife, my husband's 4th great grandmother, filed in 1819.  Now I had documents for information in the family tree I found plus more.

One of the grandmother's sisters provided an affidavit for the marriage of the veteran.  Now I had her married name and location in 1819.  That led to census records and finally her family information.

I am now building a family tree for the 5th great grandparents, parents of the 4th great grandmother.

All because I took the time to investigate a clue from a family tree posted online.

Riedy or Donat

I have two Williams both married to a Sybilla.  One William had no parents listed, the other did.  One William had children listed and the other did not until I started working on his line.  The children are the same as the other William.  Makes you think they are the same, right?  The only problem is the maiden names of the girls.  They are different.  Everyone has the wives' dates of birth/death the same on the internet.  Did Syblla remarry after her husband's death?  Is that where the other name comes in?  He did before 1900 and she lived to 1936 so it is possible.  However, I have parents for the Riedy wife and I am unable to find anything that makes me think she remarried.  

Did Ms. Riedy marry a William and researchers have confused the too?

I am confident of her maiden name as Donat, finally.   I found her marriage record and her maiden name is listed on several of the death certificates of her children. 

Now to figure out the Riedy.

Update:

They are the same person.  Her father died when she was young and her mother remarried.  Wow.  It has taken me hours to get this figured out, but I did it! 

1895 Estate

Just read about an estate worth $80,000 in 1895 in Pennsylvania.  Wow.  Wonder what the same estate would be worth today?