This is the tombstone of my mom’s brother. He passed away when he was just 2 years old. He left a big impact in the family. Until her dying day, my grandmother was still mourning for the little boy she lost so early in life. I always found it kind of surreal that both of my parents lost brothers so young.
Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging topic from GeneaBloggers.
To be quite honest with you, I’ve started this post 8 different times. Each time I used way too many details then I really wanted to use. It’s just once I get started, I can’t stop! So here’s the run down on my Menzies family, without all the not-needed details.
My Menzies officially start with the marriage of John Menzies and Jane Ferris/Farish. Her last name could be either. I’m using Ferris in my database with an AKA of Farish, just to be safe. I recently found the Menzies family in Parish Registers that were indexed on FamilySearch. It shows the marriage of John and Jane on 27 May 1825. It also goes on to show the births and christenings/baptisms of their first 5 children (James, Margaret, Alexander, Helen, John). You can read about the place they are from in my last Google Earth Adventure. Their last 5 children (William, Charlotte, Mary, George, Jane) were born after the family moved to Liverpool, Lancashire, England. I’ve found 2 of the children in Parish Registers there.
In 1853, most of the family packed their bags and moved to America. Alexander was already settled there as a druggist and the family was living with him in 1860. I still have to trace the family that stayed in England. As for the family in America, I’ve found most of them in the New York City area. They seemed to stay close to each other. There are still some gaps to fill in but I hope to fill them in soon. It was from this original family that the Menzies married into the Loves.
Now we’ll get on to the bit of mystery from the naming patterns of yesterday. I did find a family that does match up very well with my Menzies family. If I’m correct, this is one more generation back. Looking at the Parish Registers for Morton by Thornhill, Scotland, I really think I may have discovered John’s parents and siblings (Mary, Alexander, Jean, Helen). Just using the search terms of Menzies in Morton by Thornhill brings up all kinds of matches that would fit into the naming pattern. I can’t just add them though because there isn’t any evidence of this connection. I did find a birth record for a John Menzies born in 1804. It lists his parents as James and Helen. These names match perfectly with the naming pattern if it is true. A lot of the kids also fit in with the siblings names. This isn’t concrete evidence though, so I can’t add them to my tree yet. I have set up a separate file just for these Menzies offshoots. I’m hesitant to add them to my new, improved file for now.
Next on my Menzies To Do List:
I’ve had a pretty busy few weeks. If all goes smoothly, I will have a Surname Saturday post this weekend. I found something useful among some of my old papers that I wanted to share. To set the scene, I was trying to decide if I should mention a hypothesis I have about a generation of the Menzies family. I remembered that I had a list of 18th and 19th century English naming patterns. I decided to consult the list and if the names from the family matched the patterns, I’d go ahead and mention it. I’m sorry to inform you, you’ll just have to wait to see if it matched. Until Saturday, you can have fun with these helpful naming schemes. I’m unsure of the exact source. I’m pretty sure one of us printed it off in our beginning days.
Males
- First-born Son – Father’s father
- Second-born Son – Mother’s father
- Third-born Son – Father
- Fourth-born Son – Father’s eldest brother
- Fifth-born Son – Father’s 2nd oldest brother or mother’s oldest brother
Females
- First-born Daughter – Mother’s Mother
- Second-born Daughter – Father’s Mother
- Third-born Daughter – Mother
- Fourth-born Daughter – Mother’s eldest sister
- Fifth-born Daughter – Mother’s 2nd oldest sister or father’s oldest sister
Here are a few websites that basically say the same thing:
I knew I was tempting fate. Did that stop me? Of course not. It was so simple the first time, surely the second time would prove just as simple, right?
I know where I went wrong. I didn’t find this record in any index before sending away for it. I was hoping a scribbled date on the back of a cemetery deed was enough. I assumed he died in Brooklyn since he lived there for over 30 years. That’s where assuming things get you! I’ll just file this one in my paper records right next to the one from Chicago. That one let me know they didn’t have a record of his birth in Cook County for Robert. They checked 1870-1872 and found nothing. These are the breaks, I’ll keep looking! If he didn’t die in Brooklyn, he must have died in New Jersey. I’ll have to check directories and other things to see if there is any record of him in Caldwell between 1920 and 1925.
Shortly after 10PM on Sunday night, I finished entering my Dad’s side of the family into my website. The above image shows the Top 30 Surnames from his side of my family tree. The surprising part is that LOVE is the top surname. I used to only have 12 LOVE family members in my family tree. William Wallace LOVE and his 11 children. Now I also have his parents and siblings. I feel very accomplished! I owe it all to the Diner Tree, which gave me a step in the right direction.
Entering the information manually this time gave me a great opportunity to sync the ID numbers between all mediums. Now my Family File (RootsMagic and FTM), my website (TNG), and all my files are organized by the same Person ID number. When I want to find anything having to do with Llewellyn in my photos, I know she’s located under number 0049. This ID number is associated with her in every aspect of my research so there is no confusion later.
I can’t wait to see what the stats are on my Mom’s side once I trim down all the extra families. I really did have an impulse problem when it came to entering people in the beginning. I haven’t decided if I’ll use the old tree as a guideline yet. I think it’s a valuable tool but I did find quite a few errors in it. I just feel better knowing whatever I put up now will be sourced and documented. The Taylor tree is probably the most popular line I have, and it’s also the most incorrect on the internet!
