Sadie Sutcliffe is no longer my family tree’s biggest mystery! Thanks to the New Jersey State Archives, there are plenty of new names for me to play with!
I hope your family trees are treating you kindly! My father’s side is definitely ripe with activity while I am waiting on my website to change servers. There are a couple more records that came with this one and I can’t wait to share them.
I’ve talked about the family tree my Grandma showed me when I was in the eighth grade. It was what started this genealogy obsession with me. There was always this little blurb in the beginning of it. It was the only little insight we had to George Washington Webb, his siblings, and his parents. I was always so fascinated with that little blurb. Maybe it was the problem solver in me, I just love to solve mysteries! Whether it be movies, books, or TV shows, I love a good mystery.
It told me that George and his brothers were orphaned at a young age and were three of five children. I found out that wasn’t quite right. There were at least 10 children born to his parents [1. Biographical History of Tippecanoe, White, Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren and Pulaski Counties, Indiana. 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company, 1899.]and his father, Reuben, was alive until he was at least 86 years old [2. 1850 U.S. census, population schedule, Highland County, Ohio. White Oak township, p. 322-A, dwelling 427, family 427, James Webb; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Sep 2015); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 694.
]. From what I can tell so far, the surviving children were all married by the time Reuben died. I can only guess that happened between the 1850 and 1860 census. I am still searching out those records!
The other part of the blurb that always stood out for me was that George was credited with discovering white burley tobacco. If you google it, you can find a little blurb about it and it does mention George but I was never quite sure what to go on. Well, before I went on a recent trip to Ohio with my mother, I decided I would look and see if there was anywhere I could go that would give me any idea about this. It turns out there is a Tobacco Museum right in between my two aunts houses.
The museum was closed when we went by, but there was this cool plaque sitting right outside! It’s technically been there since 1964, so it makes me wonder if my Grandma knew about it. She sure didn’t like to give me hints at all. Now I have to make sure I go back when the museum is open to see if there is anything at all about George Webb in there.
I had some amazing progress yesterday on my Mays ancestors. It all started on Tuesday, when I shared a bunch of old photos on my Facebook. I like to do that for my Aunts, Uncle, and other relations because it helps jog their memories of things. It was a wonderful day full of pictures and stories, and none of us were in the same place. Gotta love technology when you are far apart!
When I woke up on Wednesday morning I was refreshed and excited. After running the morning errands, cleaning, relaxing for a bit, and then cooking dinner, I really should have just watched a movie and went to bed. It must have been that boost from the day before though, because I just had to get onto FamilySearch and research more.
Usually when I’m searching FamilySearch, I just plug in various search terms and see what it finds. Don’t worry I smacked my own knuckles for that! I know I should make research plans, but it never turns out that way. However, I learned something new this week. I learned that if you have a specific locality you are wanting to search, you can use the catalog to see if FamilySearch has anything at all for that locality. It could be book, microfilm, or even online records. I know I’m late to the party with this. I knew about the catalog before but there is a newer feature I hadn’t know about previously.
Usually when I use the catalog I use a film number to see what record group the information I am looking at came from. This is the first time I’m reversing the process. Since I was talking with my Mays relatives the previous day, I thought I’d go for broke and see if Montgomery County, Virginia records would show up for me. Montgomery County is where indexes tell me my 4x great grandparents were married in 1798.
Oh boy, this made me excited. To know the records were somewhere in the records was wonderful. That means I just had to get to them. I knew from the indexes they were supposedly married in September of 1798. So I clicked on Register of Marriages, Montgomery County Virginia, 1773-1863.
I have no idea when those little icons started showing up but I am officially in love with them.
This is when I stopped being able to contain my excitement!
Luckily for me, I knew from the index that I needed the year 1798. I thought at the time I was looking for September 17, but this record clearly says that William Mase and Fanny Atkins were married on September 20th. I checked my dates one more time, and nowhere did I have the 20th as an alternate date. Since this was the first actual record that I saw with my own eyes, I added it as the preferred marriage date, entered all the information in and patted myself on the back. I got curious about those Marriage Bonds on the list of Montgomery County records though. I mean, it can’t hurt to look right? Where did the 17th come from anyway? That was the date given in the index. I usually can tell how a transcription error has happened, but that 20 does not look remotely like 17.
Nope, I suppose it can’t hurt at all! I found it pretty quickly in the 1798 section. This is also where the 17th of September came from, everything is so much clearer to me now! The interesting part is that it has Moses Atkins acting on behalf of Fanny. My excitement wanted me to add Moses as her father, but then I realized, it never actually says that. In bonds before and after this one, it will specifically say Father. I will take time right now to thank all the wonderful genealogists I learning from. If this was 5 years ago, I might have gone ahead and added Moses as her father. I would have assumed it was true and never thought twice. It makes me so happy to know that I have built better habits. Now if I can just learn some better ones in other areas of my research!
This is still an awesome find though, and I thought to myself, years I’d been looking for this and finally I’ve seen it. I am going to start planning a weekend trip to Montgomery County, VA. Not just for record searching, but because this is verifiable proof that my ancestors were there. This is the first known record of my Mays line, this is as far back as we go. There are still so many mysteries about them. Who is William’s father? Were they living in Montgomery County long term? Were they just on their way to Kentucky from a further East Virginia settlement? Now I am going to be diving into an uncomfortable place for me. The census records before 1850. I haven’t really used them before because they are hard to use in some of my families. When they are all named William, all about the same age, and all have 8 million children. Okay, I exaggerated the last part.
It doesn’t stop there, maybe because I was afraid to stop looking, I decided to look in another marriage records listing on the catalog page. The one that said Marriage Records, 1785-1861.
It looks like at some point, Montgomery County decided to make a much more legible, indexed copy of the marriage bond records. Once again, Moses Atkins is specifically not mentioned as Fanny’s father. I suppose that means I made the right decision in not putting him down yet. Now I just have to research those three witnesses and the area and see what that brings!
Even though my main focus is to clean up my source citations, every once and a while you just need to put in a little research time. So that’s what I do when I just need to do something fun with my genealogy.
This strategy has paid off for me because I managed to find William Travis and Sarah Booth‘s marriage record! That means I’m back one more generation since it gives the father’s names.
I was also able to confirm that this 1841 England Census entry was in fact William, Sarah, and their 4 month old daughter Frances. I was about 95% already but confirming that William’s father was named William gave me the last 5%. Now I have to figure out who David and Alice are. I’m assuming siblings of William, Jr. Or maybe David is a son of Alice. They are 20 years apart so anything is possible at this point.
I love figuring things out a small step at a time because I’m able to really take in the info! What’s your latest exciting find?
One of the things I’m doing is trying to find my Moore families in the New York state censuses. It’s not easy because of their commonly used names, but it’s fun looking anyway. I had found William H Moore Jr in 1915 at his usual address in Queens. In 1920, he lives at the same address, but in Brooklyn not Queens. I checked the map at the time and when I did, I completely understood!
The green line you see is the county line. It separates Kings County (Brooklyn) from Queens County. No doubt that border moved itself a bit before finally settling where it is now. Fun fact: That big green area is The Evergreens Cemetery where the Moore family is buried.
The above image shows where I had found William Jr‘s family in Queens in 1915. Just where I knew they would be, living at 47 Crosby Avenue.
This week I was working in Family Tree Maker. Making everything neat and tidy. Really just working on what I can without all my files, since I’m still waiting on the new computer. Imagine my surprise when a little green leaf showed me something a little surprising and informative!
William Jr‘s family was enumerated twice! This isn’t the first time this has happened to someone in my tree. It is the first time I’ve gotten extra information though, which is awesome. This one finally, finally, finally, suggests something I suspected, that the H in both William’s names stands for Henry. It also led me to William Jr‘s brother and business partner John. He is about 5 households up the street in this census.
