Research – Moore-Mays Genealogy

Word of the Day: Avoidance

Posted on 07-Nov-202407-Dec-2024 by Kathleen

Definition: The action of keeping away from or not doing something

Well, that definitely describes me. Not only for today, but also for a long time when it comes to the Johnson line of my family tree. I actually need to be more specific, because I have a Johnson line on both my Mom and Dad’s side. Right now I’m talking about my Dad’s side.

Definitely looking a little... sparse.

Mary E. Johnson married my 2nd great grandfather, Robert James Moore. This is all I know about her side of the family. I’m feeling pretty guilty that I haven’t been able to figure out more about her. I don’t even have a confirmed death date for her. Which I will explain in another post… after I look back to see if I’ve talked about it already, lol. Right now I want to focus on her family a little more.

Here’s the records I have from her family:

1865 New York State Census – Islip, Suffolk County, New York
1870 United States Census – Huntington, Suffolk County, New York
1870 Suffolk County Deed – Ann Johnson, wife of Arthur Johnson buying a parcel of land from Alexander S. Brown. Who the family lived next to in the 1870 Census.
1880 United States Census – Babylon, Suffolk County, New York
1881 The Brooklyn Eagle news article – Mentioning Arthur Johnson of Babylon has lost his wife and 2 children within a fortnight.
1882 Suffolk County Deed – Arthur Johnson’s land is mentioned as adjoining land being sold by Stephen Wright to Charles Hallock
1884 New York State Death Index – Arthur Johnson died in Babylon (have not ordered this yet)
1888 map of Babylon – Showing Johnson in between Wright and Hallock properties, matching what I know from land records.
1896 Marriage Record for Mary E. Johnson to Robert James Moore. Listing her parents as Arthur Johnson and Ann Moffott.
1899 Birth Certificate of Mary Florence Moore, confirming that Mary Johnson was born in Babylon, Long Island, New York.

That’s it. That’s everything. For having so many siblings I really think I should have more information on this family. The New York death records are notoriously a long wait time. I’m on year 2 for another one. I think I will have to get the process started for that 1884 one though. I kept holding out hope the wait time might lesson over time, it has not.

Next Steps

Currently, I’m just cleaning up and become reacquainted with my computer files. I took quite a bit of a break and now it’s all unfamiliar to me. In the long run this will probably be a good thing because I’m coming at it with fresh eyes. Right now it feels a little overwhelming because I don’t have a lot to go on at all.

Create a detailed timeline for the family, infer what I can from each record.
Order the Arthur Johnson death record to see if I can confirm it’s my Arthur and maybe get a clue about one of the other children.
See if I can find Arthur’s wife and two children in the death index in 1881 to see if I can get any additional information there. Death certificates for NY state are $22 so this will be a staggered process.

Answering Comments: Bartholomew Taylor and Nancy Dismukes

Posted on 29-Oct-202307-Dec-2024 by Kathleen

One of the most popular posts on the blog

Two of my previous blog posts have comments from people who are wondering about my Bartholomew Taylor. They want to know if my Bartholomew is connected to the one they are researching. Their Bartholomew Taylor married a Nancy Dismukes in Georgia in 1819.

04 Nov 2024 Edit: Apparently this post was garbled when backing up and importing to the new URL. I’ve used the Wayback Machine to restore the post the best I can.

My Bartholomew

I can say with certainty that my Bartholomew Taylor is not that Bartholomew. My Bartholomew was born in Somerset County, Maryland in the 1755 and lived there until 1796 when he left. He eventually ended up in Bracken County, Kentucky. I learned this information from Bartholomew himself. He gave a sworn statement to the court when he was applying for a Revolutionary War pension.

3rd where were you living when called into service, where have you lived since the revolutionary war, and where do you now live?

Answer, I lived in the county of Sommersett aforesaid when called in to the service and lived in said county until the year 1796 and until I removed to Bracken County Kentucky where I have lived ever since and where I now live.
– Revolutionary War Pension application of Bartholomew Taylor, 19 May 1834, Bracken County, Kentucky

So from here, we infer that my Bartholomew was in Maryland and then migrated to Kentucky. He does not mention Georgia anywhere in his comments about his history. There will be more on my Bartholomew in another entry!

The other Bartholomew

From what I can find, there isn’t a lot known about the other Bartholomew. If I’m honest it would take me months, probably longer to even familiarize myself with this group enough to really tackle the question of any connection between the two. I did some quick searches just to see if maybe there is a chance.

The Marriage of Bartholomew Taylor and Nancy Dismuke

On Ancestry, I was able to find a marriage record between Batthew (Bartholomew) Taylor and Nancy Dismuke in 1819. Like most records of the time, parents information isn’t given here. This doesn’t mean no parent information will be available. Just that it isn’t on this particular page or record. There still might be land transactions, marriage bonds, or other court records that will give hints to who is connected with these two. If I were hunting this Bartholomew’s origins, my next step would be land and court records to establish a timeline around this first known event. To see what he was up to and see if there is any hints about where he came from. Are there other Taylors around? If he’s the only one, is there a family he seems to gravitate towards?

The Will of Bartholomew Taylor

Looking at the 1840 will on file in Meriwether County, Georgia, it seems the two Bartholomews are definitely in two different places at the same time. It is nice to see the children’s names laid out, this would help to establish a bigger timeline of the family to see if there are more connections to other Taylors. I would even venture far enough on this case to trace the friends and others mentioned in the will that aren’t Taylor or Dismuke. You never do know where those connections will come from.

All of this information doesn’t mean the two families aren’t connected at all. There just isn’t enough information on all the Taylors to know how far and wide they’ve spread right now. It’s been notoriously difficult to trace them. They do love to use the same names over and over again. 😂

I really hope those searching for answers about Bartholomew can find answers. We all have a bit of an uphill battle it seems like, no matter the Bartholomew.

Author’s Note: I am an out of practice, amateur genealogist. None of the thoughts above are meant to deal in certainties or conclude anything other then my rambling thoughts. In fact, I’m also an out of practice blog writer. So we are really dusting off the cobwebs lately!

Sucked into the DNA Trail

Posted on 13-Oct-2017 by Kathleen

Here I am again, after another absence. This one was partially on purpose. Sometimes you just need a mental break from genealogy. It’s not a bad thing. Over the years, I’ve learned it helps me to focus better if I just walk away from it for a week or two. The rest of my break, I have been working on learning about DNA. Oh, man has that been a journey! I’m obviously still learning and probably will never fully understand.

During Amazon Prime Day this year, I purchased three 23andMe DNA tests. I had previously tested myself and my Dad on Ancestry. I thought since I had never used 23andMe before, I might want to go ahead and re-test my Dad to see the differences between the companies. In addition to testing my Dad, I also tested my mother and her brother.

Information Overload

The biggest thing I’ve gotten from DNA test results is information overload! Learning from my fellow genealogists, I know that the cure for information overload is learning and organization. The overload comes from not understanding what you are looking at. That means I have to learn more and I have to find a better way for my brain to process it. Okay, that’s definitely something I can do!

The image above is the Excel spreadsheet that I made to wrangle my DNA matches. This is after I watched about 10 DNA webinars, and some of them I watched twice. The main problem I have found from a research standpoint with Ancestry DNA matches is you have to go into each tree and click on multiple things to see all the information. From a research perspective, that’s a lot of wasted clicks and time.

Before carpel tunnel sets in, I wanted to have a way of pinpointing a focus subject without having to click 3,987 times. The following are my headers and the reason.

The Explanations

Username: Ancestry uses its own messaging system for DNA matches, so I made sure to put down the username of all my matches. In the case of someone who has a manager of their DNA test, I put Username (managed by Username).
Predicted Relationship: This is the relationship that Ancestry thinks I share with the person. I have 473 4th Cousin or closer matches and my Dad has 223. That’s a lot. Not only is that a lot but there are hundreds of pages of more distant matches. I chose to stick to the 4th cousin and closer matches except for the case of Shared Ancestor Hints. If I had a distant cousin match but we also shared an ancestor hint, I added them to my spreadsheet.
Shared Hint, Common Ancestor: This is my favorite column. This one shows me who is already showing as having an ancestor match with me. Before I actually started tracking these matches, I didn’t realize I had so many on my Dad’s side. I always assumed most of my matches came from my mother’s well-documented side.
Public or Private Tree?: This one speaks for itself. I’m able to tell at a glance if the tree is public and might hold a lot of clues, or if I’m going to need some caffeine and my thinking cap. Probably some patience too.
Unlinked Tree: This is one of those hidden, but wonderful clues into those Private trees everyone is so upset about. Sometimes, if you are lucky, someone has an unlinked family tree on their account. In Ancestry, you have to go in and link test results to a tree. People don’t always do that and they certainly aren’t required to. However, sometimes they might have a tree already online and just haven’t linked their results to it. Of course, you can never be sure unless you ask them if those results go with that tree, but it’s better than no information at all.
Shared cM: This is the section I know the least about. This number is how Ancestry determines that Predicted Relationship. Mostly what I know is the higher centi-morgans you share, the closer your relationship. There are tons of tools and charts out there that break this down much better than me!
Confidence Level: Ancestry gives every match a confidence level. It was pretty interesting to compare my results with my Dad’s. Some of those High results were Extremely High for him or even the other way around.
Shared Matches: A simple yes or no. There aren’t many no answers but now I’m able to see them with 1 click of my mouse.
Contacted: This column is for if I’ve contacted the person yet or not.
Matched with Kathleen or Dad?: The column says something different for each tab. On my test, it’s an easy way for me to see what is most likely a paternal match. On my Dad’s test, it was an easy way for me to filter out the yes answers and delete the no answers after copying the tab. It saved me from re-typing 83 matches.

What about Notes? What about those 23andMe results?

Well, I’d like to tell you all about it but I can’t! The Notes section will take a little bit more space to explain and this entry is already really long. As for 23andMe, GEDMatch and other DNA results, I’m still figuring out how to organize them. This is a work in progress, but you can be sure I’ll keep my family and friends updated!

Moore Children

Posted on 31-Aug-2017 by Kathleen

Last time that I wrote here, I was wondering why Mary was so contrary. In that post I decided that I would need to search out more records for Mary’s children. I just didn’t have nearly enough evidence to decide if the family that lived on Long Island was the right family. The first step in that journey was to order the birth records of the other two known children in the family.

The Moore Children Birth Certificates

The Things that match up:

Place of Birth is the same for all children
M. Friedman, M.D. was present at all three births.
Parents names are the same on all three.
Father is listed as an Insurance Agent on all three.
The birth order is correct (Mary first, Robert second, William/Lawrence third)

Things that are slightly off:

Marion Moore is the name the oldest child and only daughter is known as in all other records. In her birth certificate she is listed as Mary Florence Moore.
Mary Johnson-Moore’s birthplace is listed as Brooklyn on Robert’s birth certificate and Babylon, L.I. on Mary/Marion’s birth certificate. On William/Lawrence’s certificate only U.S. is given.
Great-Grandpa Moore’s birth certificate is listed under Lawrence Moore. In all the documents I have for him, he lists his name as William Lawrence Moore. Grandpa Moore even told me that his father had a hard time finding his birth certificate when going to the Vital Records office. The middle name being listed as the birth name makes sense. I also have a certified copy of the same certificate dated for 1942.
Chicago, Illinois is the listed place of birth for the father, Robert Moore Sr. The family was living in Chicago at the time of Robert’s birth but unfortunately Chicago couldn’t find a birth record for me at the time. William/Lawrence’s birth certificate only lists U.S. for the place of birth.

Conclusion

Just basing my conclusion on the three records above I can say some things for certain. Mary Florence Moore, Robert James Moore, and William Lawrence Moore are definitely siblings. They are definitely the children of Robert James Moore and Mary Johnson. They lived at 518 Railroad Avenue between 1898 and 1901. Robert James Moore Sr. was working as an Insurance Agent between 1898 and 1901.

Using the same three records, I’m strongly leaning toward a few conclusions as well. I’m almost certain that Robert Sr. was born in Chicago and Mary was born in Babylon, Long Island. I can’t say for certain that the Johnson family from the last post is Mary’s family, but it’s definitely moving in that direction.

The last conclusion I can make is that my family, in general, does not like to use the names on their birth certificates. We still do that today! 🙂

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Posted on 14-Aug-2017 by Kathleen

It’s not fair of me to call Mary contrary. I don’t even know Mary. However, her blood is running through my veins. Maybe that gives me a little wiggle room to be a little cross with her for being so hard to track sometimes. The funny thing about Mary is that before my Genealogy Do-Over, I didn’t even think Mary was that contrary. It’s all these new rules I put in place for myself. They keep me second and third guessing everything!

Records of Mary’s life

Mary E. Johnson is the first time that my Genealogy Do-Over has made me sweat. It would be easy to just add in the family I believe to be hers and continue working off that assumption. The problem with that being, can I prove that is actually her family? The answer to that is nope, not even a little bit. It’s going to be so bad of me to admit what I thought before, but I have to do it. That’s the whole point of starting fresh.

The following record is the first record I am able to use to see into Mary’s life before she married. My great-grandfather’s birth certificate just gives her maiden name, which helped, but doesn’t say anything about her parents.

Mary Johnson and Robert Moore Marriage, 1896

How I know this is the correct couple

The names of Robert, his father Wm. H., and mother Mary all match up with what I know. This is the first instance I have of Mary’s maiden name. (Robert’s mother)
In 1900, my Robert does list his occupation as an Insurance Collector.
While the address given for Robert’s residence isn’t familiar, his brother’s ran a printing business just down the street at 1567 Broadway. Maybe the brothers decided to move into an apartment together close to work?
I have found records for Robert’s siblings that also give their mother’s maiden name as Starret.

Where I Went Wrong Before

Previously, when I did a search for Mary I just typed in what I knew and I went with the top result. Not just because it was the top result, but because it was the only result of Arthur, Ann, and Mary Johnson in a household with the right ages. Jackpot, this must be them! Oh boy was I green.

Most of the Mary Johnson’s I was finding didn’t have an Arthur as a father or the parents weren’t born in Ireland. In fact, I was getting a lot of Sweden results when searching for Ireland. Maybe I should reverse that and look for Sweden to see if more Ireland pops up? The family below is the only family living in the New York City or surrounding area to fit the bill. I know Mary was born in New York. The family below was living on Long Island in the village of Babylon. So far there is nothing to connect my Mary Johnson to this family. For now that means not linking this family into my main family line.

The Temporary Solution

I’ve already found this family in the census returns between 1860 through 1880. That includes the 1865 New York State Census. The 1875 State census would be grand but Suffolk County, where this family was living, was lost. What to do with that information? It’s a waste to just throw it out. Technically while there is nothing to say this is my family, there is nothing to say that it isn’t. The dilemma was how to keep track of this family without adding them in and possibly assuming in the future that they belong there.

My solution is to add the family un-linked into my main genealogy file. This allows me to follow all my same procedures and keep things organized. If after researching them, I decide they are the right family I can just merge them into my main line. Carefully of course!

What Next?

My plan for now is to keep researching this Johnson family. I will try to build the family out from this starting point. If I can rule them out of my search, I will consider moving them to a separate file. Another option is to start a Johnson file where I can research multiple Johnson families and keep track of them. I don’t mind having one orphaned family in my working file, but anymore and I’m afraid it will turn into a mess.

Some of you might be wondering why I didn’t start off with a new Johnson file to begin with. While it would have been better keeping it away from my working file, I didn’t have other families in that area at the time that looked promising. Had I found 2 or 3 families that were living around each other, I probably would have gone that route.

Open to Suggestions!

I am going to be open to suggestions when it comes to the Johnsons! My main priority is still going to be my Do-Over. That means gathering as many documents for my Mary Johnson’s children before spending too much money buying records trying to identify her parents.

For the curious, I’ve included a screenshot of what my plan tab looks like right now in my Research Log. The List tab is the big list of names as I’m verifying them. It’s what tells me who is next to document. This is really working for me! I don’t know how I would keep it all straight otherwise.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to update everyone again soon!