Bits & Bobs
Why your Ancestor wasn't born in "Randolph County" North Carolina prior to 1779
Randolph County was formed in 1779 from the county of Guilford, which in turn was formed in 1771 from Orange and Rowan counties. They were formed in 1752 and 1753, respectfully, from the following counties: Anson (1750), Bladen (1734, from New Hanover), Granville (1746, from Edgecombe), and Johnston (1746, from Craven). New Hanover was created in 1729 from Craven County, Edgecombe in 1741 from Bertie County, and Craven itself was formed in 1712, renamed from Archdale Precinct of Bath County; formally became a separate county in 1739.
So basiclly, if you were born in North Carolina prior to 1779, you sure weren't born in Randolph County.
See: NCGenWeb~List of Counties
"It's a Mystery"
While inputting data for a particular family group (Jedediah Taylor & Catherine Woolsey) some time ago, I noticed a very disturbing thing: four children died within eleven days of each other, and I can't figure out why. Was there an epidemic that year? If so, I haven't been able to find anything in regards to it yet.
Thomas Riley Taylor ~ Born 1 Sep 1888 Died 28 Feb 1890 Age 2
Sarah Melissa Taylor ~ Born 27 Feb 1885 Died 1 Mar 1890 Age 5
Julia Lovisa Taylor ~ Born 9 Aug 1882 Died 4 Mar 1890 Age 8
Mary Louisa Taylor ~ Born 2 Dec 1886 Died 10 Mar 1890 Age 4
Stephen Gorman married Cora Jane Cobb 20 May 1891; he died before June of 1900, when that year's census was taken. His father James was born in Ireland, his mother Jane Barney was born in New York; they had a total of six children. In 1880, he was living in Lockport, Niagara, New York. This is all I know about him, and I'm lucky to know that. In 2001 I found Aunt Cora listed in the 1900 census as Cora Gorman, a 32 year old widow living with her parents; 2003 I found the listing for their marriage on Orleans County, New York GenWeb, to which I am indebted. After they married, they moved; they do not appear in the 1892 census in Orleans County and Cora does not appear in the Orleans County census again untill 1900. So, when, where, how did he die? Where is he buried? Were there children born to them, and if so, when did they die?
This handsome young man is one Willie Elmer. The photograph was taken sometime in 1940, presumably in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. On the one hand, this is a priceless image of a cousin on my Father's side of the family. On the other hand, it's a mystery. This photograph belonged to my Mother's mother, Betty Lou Cobb. So, in 1940, my grandmother Betty was friends with a young man who was related to my Father, who was two years old at the time. Freaky little irony there, heheh. Now, the other mystery is which Willie Elmer is this?? In my Elmer family, William is the most common male name, so there are a few candidates out there. An image is worth a thousand words, and then some.....
This is another photo from one of my grandmother Betty's albums, taken in 1940/1941. The name on the back of the photo is Lorraine, but other than that, there is no identifying information. I know in my heart that she is a relative, and a close one, for there is a resemblence between her and my Mom. And what's more, my Mom is partly named in honor of her. I believe that this young lady may have died sometime prior to 1958, before my Mother was baptized into the Episcopal Church. On my Mom's birth certificate, her name is Mary Neil, but on her certificate of baptism, her name is Mary Lorraine Neil. So what I must answer is, "who was this young lady, where does she fit into my family, and what happened to her?"
"Mohawk"
I am blessed with Mohawk blood on both sides of my family; on my Mother's side, it is rarely discussed, nearly impossible to trace, and outright denied by many relatives. I know it's there though, my Mother's mother said so (with witnesses present), and she wouldn't have told me it was just because she liked me (which she didn't). My Mother's maternal grandmother wouldn't have told my Mom she was Native American if she wasn't because, at that time (1950's Utah), if you passed for White, you didn't admit to having "undesireable" blood. So they didn't talk about it. My Mother raised me with the knowledge, and I was (and still am) ultra-proud of that heritage. It would have remained buried if I had not been so proud, and filled with such a need to dig it up and celebrate it.
On my father's, however, it's documented (what luck). There are many hundreds of relatives with this blood, a couple of whom have written books about Ots-Toch, the ancestor from whom we descend. Olivetree Genealogy is the great place I purchased The Van Slyke Family in America from, and I consider the book one of the best genealogical investments I've made.
~Mohawk Links~
The confusing identities attributed to Stadacona and Hochelaga
Do you know who Harold Jay Smith is?
Then there's garbage like this: Living among the Mohawks. I don't give a fiddler's fig who the author says he was living with, I think he's full of himself. It's like something you might find while sifting your cat's litterbox, I think, and proof that you can't believe every "eye-witness account". Eye-witness? Right, like how some folks have eye-witnessed Elvis stepping out of a UFO. Complete and utter nonsense.
"Steven Who?"
Been doing a little digging in regards to an alleged ancestor, and not only is he not an ancestor, he never actually existed. However, if you take a stroll through the vast forest of Internet Genealogy sites, you find him everywhere. And I have to laugh. I have to laugh because folks just suck information out of Ancestral File and regurgitate it right back out onto the web without bothering to even remove the multiple unnecessary commas from locations or doing ANY research whatsoever. It took me less than 10 minutes to discover the information is inaccurate.
I've said it before, I'll probably say it 1000 times more: if you're not going to do any research, don't bother stepping foot into this pursuit.
So if you think you're descended from one "Estienne (Estevenon) Count of Burgundy", supposedly born sometime around 1170, you're not. Go check a list of Counts of Burgundy, you won't find him. Not as "Steven/Stephen" (the only Stephen on the list died long before 1170), or as "Henri/Henry". You won't find him on a list of Dukes of Burgundy, either. Don't knock, he ain't there.
Some people think that if the information came from Ancestral File or some other LDS resource then it must be true, which could not be farther from the truth. Again, as I've said before, even the LDS Church says on FamilySearch, none of the information contained in the files has been verified by them, and if you choose to use it, you must verify the information yourself. And some of that information was furnished by the Medieval Families unit of the Family History Department of the LDS Church itself.
My advice (because this is what I do myself) is look for more than one source and don't just rely on ones you find on the Internet! If you can read this, you can read a book (you know, those funny papery things we had before computers came along)...go to your library! Check one source against another; is one source simply quoting another without contributing anything? Do you have sources that conflict with each other? A fine example of this is the parentage of William Longespee. Rosamund Clifford was not his mother--William stated himself at least twice on paper that his mother was Comitissa Ida (de Tosney), who was the wife of Sir Roger Bigod. But there are still folks out there who cling to the Fair Rosamund, and if you look in Ancestral File, that's what you'll find. You'll even find that in otherwise respectable resources, so you have to keep looking. Just one source of information is often just not enough.
"A Genealogist's Lament"
Please, if you're going to share your pedigree (or even individual family group files) with other folks, please double and triple check your information before you do! Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but a woman can not have six children before she's 10 years old. Neither can she have 12 children once she's between the ages of 60 and 80 (prior to the "modern" era, anyway). And despite the fact that I believe in some pretty weird things, parents can not produce children after they're dead!
If you're born in England, why embark on a lengthy (and dangerous) sea voyage to America and get married, just to turn around and go back to England and have your children? Yeah, people do that now, but in 1610? Not bloody likely.
And I know strange things do happen between family members in Royal Houses, but REALLY folks, I'm 99.999% positive that "Lady Flubumper of Whatchamacallit" was not her own grandmother, and didn't also birth her nephew's children.
Common sense folks. This is GENEALOGY, not a competition to see who can compile the most names in stacks of notebooks, or fill a laptop with information that has been rendered useless. This isn't "whoever dies with the most Ancestors wins". I'm sick and tired of wading through the stupidity and laziness. An honest mistake is one thing, and we all make them. But some of the things I have to sort through and straighten out are not honest mistakes. It's just plain stupidity.
Now, I may spend an entire night, and I mean eight or more hours a sitting, walking through a single family group, researching the individuals therein. I love doing that. Tracing the intricacies between this family group and a cadet branch, who loved whom, who fought beside whom, who fought against whom, and who was left behind to mourn...things like this are the meat and milk of any true Genealogist and Family Historian. I'm grateful for some of the things I have learned that way. But when I have a GEDcom filled with horrific inaccuracies, sometimes I could just scream. There have been occasions when I have had to waste three days or more on a single family group, sorting through the impossible dates and individuals who don't belong (some of whom never existed). One family group like that is bad enough, but when there's three or more generations of parents born 75, sometimes 100 years apart from each other, and the children's birthdates scattered over 50 or more years, I question my own sanity.
Why am I doing this?
Dear Gods, sometimes I have such an incredible headache because of it. It was hard to keep going after my Mom died, but I did it, because Mary had been such an incredible inspiration for me. She was so proud of everything I had been able to do. But, after my Dad died, I stopped doing any research, I barely even opened my database. I'd just had it. I simply didn't have the energy to poke and prod the corrupted information anymore, even though I still felt the pull. And emotionally, I was totally drained. Well, the fact that two of the main reasons I was persuing my Family History had "gone on ahead" didn't help me any. I felt like the wind had gone out of my sails.
I was wrong, of course. My parents are the wind in my sails. It just took me a while to realize it.
So, why do I do this?
Because it is who I am. Literally. These people are not just names and dates on a sheet of paper, or a collection of pixels on a computer screen. They are my--our--Ancestors, and they are a part of me. They were flesh and blood once; they laughed and dreamed, they loved and hated, they fretted and mourned, just as we do today. No matter how far back in the records you go, no matter how many centuries, those names belonged to people who lived and breathed. And their breath is also yours. We are all made up of them, just as future generations will be made up of us. I feel them, my Ancestors, in my blood and bones, and somewhere buried deep in my genetic memory, I hear them. So when someone asks me who I am, I can stand up tall, and tell them, because I know.
I am a Genealogist.
Let me always be so.
