CREATING SENSIBLE FAMILY TREES

I have been writing about family stories for a while, so today is a LESSON DAY.  Non-genealogists will just have to excuse me today, and go read another blog like FRENCH ESSENCE, my current favorite.

My Tree

Lately I have been doing some family trees for people other than my family.  In doing that, I always check with Ancestry.com to see if there are already some trees registered with that name before I start my serious research.  I realize that you MUST verify everything you find in these trees yourself, but it will give you a start, and you can see what others have already found (or think they have found.)  Sometimes you will get a hint about a question you have in mind.  Sometimes you will find (in their citations) some bit of information you did not have.  I have found much information on Find A Grave, citations where they give you a photo of the stone, or record a memorial or obituary.  I often find names I did not have, lists of children, and facts about the wife (or wives when I did not know there was another.)  But in doing this, in comparing all the trees that are out there, I find the most glaring ERRORS!  I sometimes wonder if these people even read with their brain engaged what they have recorded.  I would be embarrassed to have others see these glaring errors on my tree.

One of the most prevalent mistakes is in listing children.

Take the following as an example:

Assume the mother, Mary, was born in 1840 and was married about 1859.  Father Josiah is a poor farmer, born about 1835.  They live in Buford Township, Union Co, NC.

CHILDREN               BORN                                    PLACE

John                           Nov 1          1860                 Buford, Union Co, NC

Mary                          March 18     1862                 Buford, Union Co, NC

Robert                       June 12        1864                 Buford, Union Co, NC

George                       Nov 2          1866                 Buford, Union Co, NC

Looks OK so far.  Mother is of child bearing age, and married right before first child.  Children’s birthdates look logical, and are all in the same place.

Now the next line should throw you:

Emeline                     April 14        1867                 St. George, Person Co, Illinois

Annie                        May 3          1868                  Buford, Union Co, NC

Thomas                     April 4         1870                  Buford, Union Co, NC

It is possible but highly unlikely that this poor “dirt farmer” and his wife moved or traveled to Illinois and had a child “Emeline” there.  This is highly suspicious.  Also there is not enough time between George and Emeline – only five months.  And the next child Annie is born back in Buford, NC, and also the following child.  Unless I had unquestionable proof such as a document which absolutely showed that the family had traveled to Illinois at that point in time, I would not put this child in my tree.

Now using this same “fictitious” family, let’s suppose the wife, Mary, dies in 1874.  There is a citation proving this.

Then we have listed:

Samuel                      June 30      1879                  Macon Co, NC

This child cannot belong to Mary.  It is possible that Josiah married again.  In those days, people often married again and soon.  After all, there was a farm to run, a house to be kept, and children to be looked after.  Sometimes “romance” had little to do with it.  They needed a spouse, and FAST!  But what was Josiah doing in Macon Co, which is up in the mountains, far from Union Co?  The 1880 census shows him still living in Union Co.

I would see if future records ever showed Josiah with another wife – a will, land records in Macon Co, etc. or these same children on a census with Josiah and another woman or these children on a census with another woman with Josiah’s last name after he died.  If I could not prove he remarried, or moved to Macon Co for a couple of years, I would not put Samuel on this tree.

Let’s assume that Josiah died in 1890.  You have a Find A Grave record for this (you might find Mary buried right beside him.)

On the same family tree I have seen another child added:

John                                                1906                  no location

And even:

Roger                                              1925.                 Edgecombe Co,   NC

This sounds ridiculous, but I have seen this many, many times.  It seems that some people will grab ANY record with the same last name and stick it onto their tree beyond all logic.  I find this so often that it seems like an epidemic.  Do people really not “examine” their tree after it is done?

There is one other error I find often.  I found it in trees in my family name on Ancestry.  When I first found it several years ago, there were only two trees with this error, distant relatives living in the same location.  They were probably working together, copying each other.

Old Haywood Deed

First some background:  I have written about my GGGrandmother Catherine Wentz (Haywood) before. There is the family homeplace  on Hiwy 74 just above Monroe, NC where Catherine and Benton established themselves when they came from Lincoln County about 1832..  Over the years as land was shifted around and redeeded, there was always a portion called “The Katy Haywood Homeplace.”  It was always set aside for her and she lived her whole life there.  There is a Haywood living on that “homeplace” today.

She had her first son, Josiah my GGrandfather who was lost in the Civil War, and second son John Franklin.  She and daughter Margaret Pamela, Josiah’s widow Margaret, and John Franklin all lived on the original Haywood land, right beside each other, verified by the censuses through the years (1840 - 1900.)  Catherine was still in her house with daughter Margaret P. in 1870 when she was 65 years old, but she was living in the household of her son John Franklin in the 1880 census when she was 75 years old.  And, of course, we don’t have the 1890 census.  (Don’t you just hate that!  It is so “inconvenient.”  I have loads of events that happened during that 20 year time period which I cannot document!)

Catherine went to MorningStar Lutheran Church all her life.  It was founded by her GGGrandfather, Johann Andreas Wentz in the 1750’s. Her children were baptized there.  Catherine died sometime in the gap between the censuses.  She was there in 1880, she was gone by 1900.  Her descendants and relatives were mostly buried in four cemeteries in the Monroe NC area – Old Bethel Methodist, MorningStar Lutheran, and Shiloh Baptist Church, and Bond’s Grove Methodist, a later cemetery.  Catherine is not recorded at Old Bethel.  The people at MorningStar, as excellent as their records are about births, baptisms, and attendance, did not record deaths!  There are no tombstones apparent in the old original wooden church cemetery.  John Franklin who she was living with at 75 years of age, and a lot of his family are at Shiloh Baptist.  Catherine is not there.  She should be at MorningStar, but I cannot prove it – yet!” 

 

But I am pretty certain that after 1880 at age 75, she had NO connections with any other church or burying ground in this Union County area, OR in South Carolina!

As I stated above, several years ago I found two trees with an evident error.  They had Catherine buried in Newberry, South Carolina!  Newberry is across the state line and a good distance from Union County NC.  There is NO evidence of any connection with Newberry in any of the HAYWOOD families.  Somehow they had found this tidbit and put it in their trees.  It was bad enough when there were only two of them.  In re-researching my facts for this blog I now find that 74 people have picked up this bad information and put it in their trees!  (This is evidence of how interest in Genealogy has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years.) 

I should have sent them a message when I first found this, but since I can’t prove anything about Catherine’s death, I did not.  I should have anyway!  Now there are 74 trees with this bad information.  Since I cannot “Prove” Catherine’s death and burial, I just don’t put any info in my tree other than Death: bet 1880 and 1900.  There is no proof about this, it is just COMMON SENSE to know Catherine was not buried in South Carolina.

Please READ your trees with a “common sense” attitude.  Don’t put in a “fact” unless you can prove it.  BE SENSIBLE!

Create Believable Trees

And enjoy

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How My Dad Bill Got Arrested in Paris

 

Sgt. L. G. Haywood
c  1920

 I have written previously about My Dad Bill (and how he got his name) soon after he  returned from France after serving in  WWI.

 In his old trunk where he kept souvenirs from  his time in the army, Daddy had a picture of  his “French girlfriend.”  (This was long before  Mama came along.)   She had on a big black  overcoat, and a big black hat with a large      brim like they wore back then, which was crammed directly center top of her head.  But she was standing in a field, and the photo was taken from so far away you couldn’t really see her face, see what she looked like.  Maybe it was planned that way!  We, Mama and my sister and I, would drag that picture out every now and then when the trunk was opened for some reason, and kid him about “his beautiful French girlfriend!

  

Google Image

However the most exciting (maybe not for him) and humorous  (maybe not for him) thing was when he got arrested in Paris!

His unit was situated in northern France, near Montbizot and Le Mans.  And sometimes the boys were granted weekend leaves to go away from the front lines for a little respite from the terrible fighting. Bill and some of his buddies were granted a leave to go to Paris.  

Can’t you just imagine these young unsophisticated farm boys who have never been anywhere, or seen any large city, on the streets of Paris, gawking at everything, their heads thrown back staring up at the tall beautiful buildings, completely awestruck and oblivious to all around them.  

Along comes this “newly minted” 2^nd Lieutenant.  So proud of his rank!  So wanting to be acknowledged!  And they never even saw him! Horrors!   They didn't salute him!

           Antoine Blanchard theatre_du_gymnase_boulevard_bonne_nouve lle

             http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en

So he had them arrested and they were thrown in jail for the afternoon - until finally some more level headed officer came along and, understanding the situation, let them go. 


But we always accepted it as a badge of honor.  Not

everyone can say that their revered father was thrown in jail in Paris!  

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                 the tab above – Announcements, info, and incidentals.

THE KRAUT BARREL                                  Tentative  AUG 7^th   

My Grandmother made sour kraut!  This was always puzzlement when I was a young child.

Until I began my genealogy work, if I gave it any thought at all, I always assumed that our family was completely of English origin.  After all, with names like HAYWOOD, HOUSE, YANDLE, PARKER, and ARANT, what else could it be?  Ah, the utter ignorance of the uninformed!

As I’ve written before, my family did not sit around on the front porch and tell their history over and over like the folks in ROOTS until everyone knew WHO they were and WHERE they had come from.  My people were not storytellers.  All I had to work with was my (PARKER) mother’s  “they said we were Scots-Irish,” and my (HAYWOOD) dad’s “they said we came from the west!”  I more-or-less considered the Scots and the Irish as generally English.  (I know – I know – I apologize!  As I said above – the uninformed.)  And really you can’t get a more southern country English sounding name than Arant!

But as a child I was aware of something different.   All southern ladies canned things.  Good things out of their vegetable gardens.  All my aunts made pickles and piccalilli and chow chow.  I can see my Grand aunts Virge and Sallie on a Sunday afternoon at my Grandmother Blanche’s house on Mint Street in Charlotte all sharing their different offerings for that year.  Each one would have made the product by their own recipe and it would be slightly different from the others.  So they would share with each other.  The dinner table was never set without a dish of piccalilli or chow chow on it.  It was as necessary as the salt and pepper.  It was always selected to go with the meat in that meal.  Chicken would need one taste,  beef roast another.  And ham would require a different one, maybe one with some mustard in it.  Piccalilli was made mostly of green and red bell peppers with onions and seasonings, and chow chow was mostly cabbage and onions and seasonings, all chopped very fine and pickled.  This was ordinary and normal.

What was different was that MY GRAND- MOTHER MADE SOUR KRAUT!  Southern ladies did not usually make sour kraut!  It was very good kraut.  Not like the kraut you buy in the supermarket today.  It was not too sour, it had just a touch of sugar, and there were hot pepper flakes in it, giving it a faint tinge of pink.  I was vaguely aware of all this as a young child, but since I had nothing else to relate it to, I just filed it away as a rare strange thing, and let it ride.

Then entered my adventure into GENEALOGY!   A whole new universe opened to me.  I ventured  out of that “ignorant uninformed” state into a world of wonderful knowledge.  I learned marvelous  things!   I learned that along with my English HAYWOODs and NELSONs and YANDLEs, there were the Scots-Irish PARKERs,  the Scots ALEXANDERs, the Irish Mc CAINs,  the Welsh WALTERs, and the Germans.  Oh my, the Germans!  Before this time I had NO earthly idea that we had any German ancestry!  And I doubt anyone else in my extended family knew it.  Well except maybe the WENTZs, who had kept the knowledge of their history.

There were the HOUSESs who turned out to be German (Haus).

There were the afore mentioned WENTZs, who always knew they were German, I just didn’t know the WENTZs!  (This was my GGGrandmother Catherine whom I have written previously about finding.)  And then there were the ARANTs.  When Johann Hermann left Germany with his family, they were the ARNDTs.  But due to the practice of spelling names like they sounded, when the ARNDTs landed in Philadelphia, you can just imagine them standing before the man stating their name with their German accent  “Ar-rndt”  with a strong accent on the “dt.”  And the man sat there and wrote “ARRANT!”  For two generations they used ARNDT.  Then it became ARRANT, and sometime after 1800 our line dropped one of the “r”s and it was ever after ARANT.  These were my “English” southern country ARANTs!  No, actually they were my German ARNDTs from Nordhausen, Rhineland-Phalz.  They had floated on a raft down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, got on a boat, and on 28 AUG 1733 arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Hope.  They traveled down the Great Wagon Road to Salisbury, and then on to Chesterfield, SC by 1771.

My ARNDTs and my WENTZSs, both German, both of the same generation, were finally settled in the Charlotte area before the Revolutionary War.  They lived near each other, and it is possible they could have known each other.  They would have led similar lives.  I imagine their households would have been similar, with the same tools and equipment.  Their kitchens were more-than-likely identical.  Their daily lives probably would have been very much alike.

And this brings me, finally, back to the kraut barrel.  When I came into possession of a copy of the will of Johann Andreas WENTZ who died in Mecklenburg Co, NC, in 1807,  there it was…important enough to be listed in the will… important enough to be legally passed down

…the kraut barrel!

I am sure there was also one in the ARNDT household.  And then I knew why my Grandmother made sour kraut.  She probably didn’t know why. . . why this tradition was in her family. . . what the back story was.  It had been done all her life, and was for her just the normal thing to do.

But now I know why my Grandmother made sour kraut.

. . . Experience your history . . .

Make your own Sour Kraut

I plan to make some kraut this fall, but I have to wait a little longer until it is cooler here where I live.  I make big dill pickles each year in this manner.  I set the big jars in the bathtub of my guest bath (luckily no guest at the time,) to ferment.  Then they go in the fridge and will last up to a year!   There are easy ways to make kraut, also using large Mason jars instead of a crock or barrel.  Put this in your search box:   make_kraut_in_glass_jars.  You will get loads of ideas.   The ones made with red cabbage look gorgeous!   Be sure and put the "underline spaces" between each word so you won't get ads for selling glass jars.  Learned that neat trick in the the webinar I told you about in my blog: "My Dad Bill."   The Ancestry webinar was named  “Google Search Strategies for Common Surnames.”  which was not about Surnames at all but search tricks instead.  Find it here:  http://www.familytreewebinars.com/watch-video-free.php?webinar_id=174

I found  a good kraut site with pictures at :

http://heartlandrenaissance.com/2012/11/lacto-fermented-sauerkraut-in-10-simple-steps/    (It works best to copy the address and paste it onto the search box.)  It looks very interesting.

Let me know how your venture into history turns out, and I will do the same.

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