So, Great Grandpa was a Farmer - Land Records - Part One

Land Patent Records I come from a long line of farmers. During the nineteenth century, most branches of my family tree made their living in agriculture. This is good news, because being successful in farming, meant owning land. And owning land meant a paper trail of information left for descendents. If your ancestor bought land from the federal government in the Eastern Public Lands States between 1820 and 1908, than you can use theBureau of Land Management’s website to view the actual land patent used to transfer ownership from the US Government to your ancestor. 

What states are included in the Eastern Public Lands States?

1. Alabama 

2. Arkansas 

3. Florida

4. Illinois 

5. Indiana

6. Iowa 

7. Louisiana 

8. Michigan

9. Minnesota 

10. Mississippi 

11. Missouri 

12. Ohio 

13. Wisconsin 

In addition, the Bureau of Land Management is slowly adding the land patent images for the seventeen Western Public Land States. 

The Western Public Land States are: 

1. Alaska

2. Arizona 

3. California 

4. Colorado 

5. Idaho 

6. Kansas 

7. Montana

8. Nebraska 

9. Nevada 

10. New Mexico 

11. North Dakota

12. Oklahoma 

13. Oregon 

14. South Dakota 

15. Utah 

16. Washington 

17. Wyoming 

What information will you find searching the land Patent records? PATENT DESCRIPTION

As you can see from the image above, the Patent Description gives you the following information for a parcel of land purchased by my GGG Grandfather, Joseph Good. 

1. Patentee 

2. Issue Date

3. Land Office 

4. Cancelled

5. US Reservations 

6. Mineral Reservations 

7. Authority Note type of Entry – Cash in this example) 

8. Survey: State 

9. Acres

10. Metes/Bounds (Post will be No) 

11. Document Number 

12. Accession/Serial Number

13. BLM Serial Number

DESCRIPTION OF LAND 

Below is the description of the land that Joseph purchased.

 

Believe it or not, those seemingly undecipherable notations will tell me exactly where Joseph’s land is located. 

The easiest way, is to find a Plat Map in the county where the land is located. It doesn’t matter what year the plat map was produced, the numbering of the township and range will remain the same. (However, in counties such as Gallia County of Ohio where the boundaries have changed, you might find the land listed in another county depending what year the land was purchased and what year the Plat map was produced.) Look for the range and township number to match.

In this case, I would look in Seneca County for Township 3-N in Range 14-E. However, if you know how to read it, the information taken from the land description will tell you precisely where great grandpa’s land was located. Public lands used the rectangular survey system, which utilized principle meridians and base latitudinal lines as their basis. 

Below is a Map taken from page 47 of The Auditor of the State of Ohio’s Publication, “The Official Ohio Lands Book.” It illustrates how the rectangular survey system worked.

 

1. Meridian - 1st PM

Refers to the first Meridian which is the Ohio/Indiana Line

Base Line – In Northwest Ohio, the base line is the 41st parallel of north latitude.

2. Range: 14-E

This tells you that the land is located 14 ranges east from the 1st Principal Meridian. This takes you into Ohio. (Anything with an E designation would be in Ohio. Anything with a W designation would be located in Indiana.)

3. Township 3-N

The 3-N tells us that the land is located in the third township north of this baseline, in Range 14. This township happens to be Liberty Township, in Seneca County. Township 4-N in that same range, for example, would be Ballville Township in Sandusky County.

Townships are divided into 36 sections with 640 acres in each section. Below you can see the numbering system used. Notice section 8 and section 5 would are adjoining sections.

In this instance, Joseph had purchased 80 acres. The location of the acreage is described as E ½ NE. You can see the section pictured below.

DOCUMENT IMAGE

And finally, there is the land patent document itself. You have your choice of viewing it in four different formats – small GIF, large GIF, TIFF, and as PDF file. The website says the PDF file is the best for printing. Below is an example of my small GIF file.

Notice the Certificate No. 4785 in the upper left hand corner matches the patent number on the Patent Description. This number is important if you decide to order a land entry file from the National Archives.

My next post will discuss doing just that.

Until Next Time…

© 26 April 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder

Wordless Wednesday - The Old Feasel Homestead

© 4 March 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

My Seneca County Ohio Roots

Whether we know their names or not, each of us has 16 sets of third great grandparents who served their own specific role in our existence. The decade of the 1830’s played a pivotal part for a quarter of these individuals in my own family tree. My paternal grandmother’s contributions were living presumably somewhere in Pomerania. On my paternal grandfather’s side, not all of the players had yet been born. Of those that were living, some were in Ohio, and some were in Pennsylvania. It would be three decades later, before the all the necessary parties had made their way to Southern Ohio’s Appalachian region, playing their own part in my eventual existence. My maternal grandfather’s family were scattered about in New Jersey and Ohio, and it would take two additional decades before for the “right” people would find themselves in Henry County of Ohio ensuring that my siblings, cousins and I would eventually come to be. 

But the early birds to this party were my maternal grandmother’s people. All four sets had found their way to Seneca County by the mid 1830’s and they had all settled in Liberty Township. The Lutheran contingent had come from Shenandoah County in Virginia by way of Fairfield County, Ohio. The German Baptists were also from Shenandoah County, although there is no reason to think the two groups had ever known each other, it is interesting that they both had made their way to Liberty Township. The Armstrongs came from Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, and the final piece of my genealogical puzzle, the Lynches, were also originally from Pennsylvania with stopovers in Fairfield and Franklin Counties in Ohio. 

 If you had family that spent any significant time during the last seven decades of the nineteenth century in Liberty Township of Seneca County, Ohio, we are, quite likely, related. If you aren’t related to the Lynches (Daniel and Margaret Anderson Lynch), then you are probably related by the Armstrongs (William and Leah Shupe Armstrong.) If not the Armstrongs, then we are certainly related by the Goods (Joseph Good and Magdalena Click Good.). But if you still haven’t found the connection, then may I suggest the Feasels (Henry Feasel and Jane Kendall Feasel) as the source of our mutual genetic inheritance? For the Feasels came to the county in full force. 

Brothers George and Henry both took out land patents in 1831, George on August 12 and Henry on November 14. Both had large families and with the later addition of a nephew, Samuel Cotter Feasel, who located near Bascom, Ohio, it is fair to say that the county was awash with Feasels. There were so many Feasels, that the area in which they lived was called, Feaselburg. While to my knowledge there was never such a place on a map, to this day there is a cemetery located on what was once old George Feasel’s land, called Feaselburg Cemetery. 

 Below is a partial plat map of Liberty Township in 1865, showing where all the Feasel plots were located. The red dots stand for the various Feasel holdings, with the Green dot indicating the location of Feaselburg Cemetery.

 

While tracking done errant Goods, Armstrongs, and Lynches is difficult business because of the commonness of the name, there is no such problem when it comes to my Feasel relations. According to Feazell researcher, Don Feazell, who maintains a website dedicated to all things Feazell (Feazel, Feazle, Feasel, Feezel and Feezell), almost all individuals who use the F-E-A-S-E-L spelling of the name descend from Michael Feasel Sr, with the a large number descending from his son Jacob Feasel, who was the father of Henry and George. According to Don, “Only a few family lines are known to use this spelling today.” 

 Which is why, anytime a new database comes online; I plug in the Feasel name just to see what interesting tidbits I can find. I solved a little family mystery in this very manner when the Family Search’s Pilot Site program added the database for Michigan Marriages 1868 – 1925. I plugged in the name Feasel, and surprisingly enough I found 39 matches for the name. 

The most interesting result was the name Ross W. Feasel, my great grandmother Laura Jane Feasel Lynch’s brother. Ross and Gertrude Betts were married in Seneca County on August 25, 1896. Their eldest daughter, Bernice was born that same year. In looking at family records I noticed that their next living birth happened February 16, 1914 when twin daughters, Evelyn and Vivian were born 18 YEARS LATER! That had always seemed odd. Odd, until I found the wedding of one Ross W. Feasel and Gertrude Greak married December 21, 1912 in Monroe County, Michigan. Gertrude’s father, listed as Isaiah Betts, confirmed that this was the same Gertrude who had married Ross 14 years earlier. Obviously, there was a divorce and a second marriage for Gertrude, but in the end, the two of them remarried, and in addition to the twins, they went on to have daughters Irene and Mildred before Gertrude died in 1923. Interesting to note that their second marriage occurred three months after Mama Feasel’s death. 

 As a student of family history, I am always amazed at the confluence of events that had to take place for my own existence to have been made possible. The more I study my own roots, the more I realize how heavy the word “if” floats atop my head. All the events that had to happen in precise order, with the correct people and at the perfect time make me shake my head in wonder. 

 The next time you are feeling low, or are angry with the moron who just cut you off in traffic, it might be wise to remember this: Each of us who have made it here, to this often troubled world, did so because we beat the odds and won the most important lottery of all – life. And that’s gotta count for something. 

 Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging 

  Note: For more on the Feaselburg Cemetery, see the posting I have done at Great Black Swamp Graveyard Rabbit website. Some of you will notice that I took an unintended two-week hiatus from the Geneablogging world. A quick thank you to all of you who nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award (including the first to nominate me – sista crankypants.) I have some catching up to do on responding to comments. The Monthly Mélange for February may be a little later than planned this month because I also have to do some major Geneablogger reading! PS If you found this post by googling one of my family names, please feel free to get in touch with me. I always love to do some mutual sharing when it comes to the family tree.

© 1 March 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Looking for Catherine

When I first saw her picture that summer of 2000, I admit I was not the tiniest bit interested. There was no sense of recognition, no feeling of familial kinship, just mild amusement at my mother’s latest passion, and maybe a sense of gratitude that I had not inherited the looks of the woman in the picture. I confess, now, to being a little embarrassed by my own shallow arrogance.

Still, there must have been something in that picture that reached out to me, because like a bag of forbidden Halloween candy, I kept stealing back to take a peek, picking up pieces of information here and there, studying them intently, looking for clues, trying to discover who Catherine Good Lynch really was.

 I discovered that she had married George Washington Lynch in Seneca County, Ohio on December 17, 1852. I learned that the family had moved to Crawford County, Illinois in 1874, before moving to what was then Greer County, Texas. (A boundary change later would put the county in Oklahoma.) Catherine and George had run a general store in Mangum, Oklahoma. She was the mother of four children, her second eldest, a son, was my great grandfather. I learned that she had died of typhoid fever in November of 1900, and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Mangum.

 But knowing these few details was not enough. I wondered, who were her parents? Did she have siblings? 

 Through the census, I discovered three Catherine Goods in Seneca County. None was the correct age, but they were close enough to make me take a second look. Eventually I settled on Catherine Good, the daughter of Joseph Good. I narrowed it to this Catherine because of the family’s close proximity to the Lynch family farm. When I had finally discovered Catherine living in Crawford County, Illinois in 1880, I found that both of her parents had birthplaces in Virginia, and only Joseph’s daughter, Catherine fit the bill. But how was I to prove it? 

 Joseph had not made out a will, but he did have an estate. It was my first look at probate records, and while the clerks in Seneca County were helpful, there was nothing in the microfilmed papers to suggest a relationship between Joseph and Catherine. I began to collect names of other Goods who might be siblings, then reading the obituaries of these “maybe siblings” to see what I could find. I came up empty handed. Finally, one night as I drifted off to sleep, I thought, “What happened to the land?” For Joseph, who was a farmer, had farmed the land right up until his death in 1873. 

The probate record, mentioned nothing about land. By chance, I had made an Internet connection with a woman who did title searches in Seneca County. I posed the question to her in an email. She wrote back asking me for details of the land Joseph had owned. She told me she would take a look.

 Finally, one day, she wrote me that she had found the land, and noticed that there was a court case attached to it. This made her curious, and she said that she would see what she could find. A few days later, she called to tell me she had the case file, but in looking at a list of the heirs, Catherine was not mentioned. I was crushed. I had been so sure that Joseph Good was Catherine’s father. About 20 minutes later, she called back and said she had found “something.” She would not say what, but asked if I could meet her at her house later in the week. Without a moment’s hesitation, I said, “Sure.”

 On arriving at her home a few days later, she handed me a sheet of paper. On the top it read, “Statement and testimony of Susannah Miller.” It began as follows: “My name is Susannah Miller. I am one of the defendants herein and oldest daughter of Joseph Good, deceased. I was present when my father and my brother in law, Willis Morse, came to my house in Cass County, Michigan where I now live in September 1871 and heard my father give directions to said Morse in writing into a book he had for that purpose, the amounts he (my father) had paid on advancement to his children respectively and in number the amounts and items, and some of which I know to have been advanced viz: “ 

Susannah’s deposition went on to list her siblings, the children of Joseph, and the amount of money he had advanced to each child. The fifth name on the list, made my heart race. “To my sister Catherine Lynch $50.00.” Catherine had not been listed as an heir, having sold her share of the estate to a nephew-in-law, Dennis Blue before moving west. Dennis, anxious to get his share of the estate, which had been sold at a sheriff’s sale, was getting set to close the deal when Susannah and two other siblings, brought suit to halt the proceedings, thus the reason for Susannah’s deposition. 

 It had taken three years of tracking down leads, and in the end, my happy dance resulted from a generous, knowledgeable friend, a court case, and a $50 debt. It was as simple and as complicated as that. 

 Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Written for the 65th Carnival of Genealogy - The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy

© 1 February 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Stories My Grandmother Told Me

Though my writing and speech tends to be littered with superlatives – the greatest, the most, the best – the truth is, I’m much too wishy-washy to say definitively that I have a favorite of anything. So, when the glorious fM proposed “My Favorite Photograph” as the subject for this edition of “Smile for the Camera,” I admit to a slight, panic-stricken feeling at committing to a favorite photograph so publicly. I mean, won’t the other photographs be hurt? So after careful consideration, I came up with the winner. If it isn’t my favorite photograph, it is certainly one of my favorites.

 

In my family, old pictures are few and far between. The one I’ve chosen was taken in 1899 at a photography studio in Tiffin, Ohio. It is a picture of my grandmother, Katheryne Cecile Lynch and her twin sister, Elizabeth Lucille Lynch. Katheryne and Elizabeth, born October 4, 1898, were the youngest children of Laura Jane Feasel Lynch and John Perry Lynch. Laura Jane and JP appear not to have been sentimental when it came to naming most of their children. The other children – Flossie, Owen, Elbert, Hazel Grace, and Harry Victor, were not named after family members.

 

But perhaps because they had lost little Hazel Grace at age 3 or maybe it was the unexpected delight at the birth of twin daughters eight years later, Laura Jane and JP decided it was time to give their daughters family names. My grandmother, Katie was named for her paternal grandmother, Catherine Good Lynch while Elizabeth was named for her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Armstrong Feasel. Eighteen ninety-nine appears to be the year that they set out for Greer County, Oklahoma. JP’s parents had settled there more than a decade earlier when Greer County was still considered a part of Texas. According to my grandmother they traveled by covered wagon, and she swore as little as she was she had memories of crossing the Red River.

 

Somewhere, during this time, and it may have been here in Ohio (though I have found no record of it), little Elizabeth contracted measles and died on July 7, 1899. She was nine months old. My grandmother is the one sitting on the left hand side of the picture, with Elizabeth to her right. It is possibly the only picture taken of the two girls.

 

My grandmother passed away on March 25, 1990. She outlived her twin by more than ninety years.

  Information Sources: 

1. Digital Image of PJ Keller Photograph taken Tiffin, Ohio, 1899, supplied by Phyllis Sloan 

2 .Photographic Images of leaves of George Washington Lynch Family Bible supplied by Anna Belle Lynch Mauldin 

3. Information about Greer County supplied by Dee O’Hara AND 

4. Greer County, OK GenWeb, http://www.okgenweb.org/~okgreer/ 

5. Personal conversations with Katheryne Lynch Hoy Runion

© 27 June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Mary, Mary Mary? Part Two - Will the real Mary Shirkey please step forward

Yesterday, I wrote about Mary Shirkey of Seneca County, who had not one, but three different identities. Because I wanted to put the correct Mary with her children, I embarked on a little extra research of each of her supposed identities. In my previous post, I summarized my findings and conclusions on Mary Armes Thompson and Mary Beam. Today I conclude with the final Mary, Mary Good originally of Shenandoah County. 

Identity 3 - Mary Good of Shenandoah County, Virginia, daughter of William Good II and Susannah Kauffman Good. 

This theory was advanced by Thelma Shope who like me, descended from Mary’s eldest brother, Joseph Good. Velma June Good Hulvey wrote a book entitled, “The William Good Family” which traced the descendants of William Good II’s father, William Good I. 

The original book came out in the late 1970’s. Because so many people responded with new information, a revised edition was printed in 1996. This version included the information that Mary Good was the wife of John Shirkey and that the family settled in Seneca County. No supporting information or documentation was given, so in March of 2004, I called Mrs. Hulvey, and asked about the source of the information. Mrs. Hulvey was very gracious and told me that Thelma Shope (whom she had listed in her book) was the source of the information. Unfortunately, Thelma had died in July of 2003. I had never met Thelma, but had stumbled across her queries and other information as I was doing my own research. I decided I would have to reconstruct the information Thelma had used to decide that Mary Good was Mary Shirkey, 

1. Velma Hulvey in her book, “The William Good Family,” had included a transcription for a Land Deed done in Shenandoah County, Virginia dated August 27, 1830. I was later able to get a copy of this deed from the Library of Virginia. Located in Shenandoah County’s Deed Book 11, pages 495- 498, the first few sentences read as follows: “This Indenture made this 27 day of August in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty between Susannah Good, widow and relict William Good deceased, Thomas Toppin and Elizabeth his wife late Elizabeth Good of the County of Shenandoah, Joseph Good and Magdalene his wife, Jacob Good and Catharine his wife, John Shirkey and Mary his wife late Mary Good, William Minick and Nancy his wife, late Nancy Good, all of the County of Rockingham and State of Virginia, John Good of the County of Shenandoah, Michael Zirkle and Margaret his wife, late Margaret Good of the county of Clark and State of Ohio and Samuel Bulman and Susannah his wife late Susannah Good of the County of Shenandoah and State of Virginia aforesaid, children and heirs of the said William Good deceased of the one part and John Zirkle of the County of Shenandoah and State of Virginia aforesaid of the other part.” This establishes that Mary Good did marry one John Shirkey, that she was the daughter of William and Susannah Good, and that as of August 27, 1830 John and Mary were living in Rockingham County of Virginia.

2. Joseph Good and Magdalene, my great great great grandparents and son of William II and Susannah Kauffman Good migrated to Ohio in 1831. Both John Shirkey and Joseph Good were issued land patents from the Tiffin Office on May 25, 1832. As it turned out, May 25 was the only day that land patents were issued from the Tiffin Office in May of 1832. 138 patents were issued that day for land in Seneca County, Ohio. It is interesting to note that Joseph Good’s land patents were numbered 4785 and 4786 and that John Shirkey’s land patent was 4787. It is tempting to ascribe the consecutive numbers with patents that were applied for at the same time.

3. According to the Original Land Entries listed in Warner, Beers & Company’s “History of Seneca County”, 1886, for Liberty Township, only 4 land entries were completed in June of 1831. One entry was dated June 18, 1831 and was for land in Section 1 for Isaac Myers. The other three entries were dated June 3, 1831. These were Joseph Good, e. 1/2 n. e. 1/4 sec. 8, John Shirkey, e 1/2 s. e. 1/4 sec. 8 and Joseph Good, w. 1/2 n. w 1/4 sec. 9. Below is a graphical representation for original land entries for Sections 8 and 9 of Liberty Township of Seneca County, Ohio. It is easy to see that the entries for Joseph Good and John Shirkey were side by side. This together with the fact that the land was acquired on the same day makes it easy to assume that the two were acquainted prior to moving to Seneca County. This is especially true when you consider that it is a known fact that Joseph Good had a brother-in-law named John Shirkey, that the original land entries were entered on the same day and that the land was side by side and that both Joseph Good and John Shirkey disappear from Rockingham County sometime after 1831. (Note John Shirkey appears in personal tax lists of Rockingham County 1829, 1830 and 1831 – there was no record of him prior to the 1829 list nor after the 1831 list.) There were a number of Joseph Good’s located in Rockingham County at this time. It is known that a Joseph Good with wife Magdalene sold two pieces of property. One was sold in November of 1830 and a second in April of 1831. 

4. Additionally, while I was doing some searching online, I found a message on Genforum from a Good researcher who listed all the children of Susannah and William Good II along with birth years. To make the long story short, as was the custom in the Good family, a family bible was given to the youngest child in the family - in this case, that child was Susannah Good Bollman, sister of Joseph and Mary. In Susannah Good Bollman’s family, the bible was handed down through her only daughter Margaret Ellen Bollman Pearson. The researcher had heard rumors of the bible. On a visit to family in Bloomfield Iowa in 1985, she tracked the bible down. Apparently, it was being kept in cardboard box on a screened in porch and was mildewed and badly worn. The researcher wrote to me saying, “I almost promised to give up my first born in order to get it away from her long enough to run to a local grocery store to make copies and return it immediately. One of the cousins even accompanied me – as if I planned to make a break for home.” After I explained what I was trying to do, copies of the birth dates (which were in German) of William and Susannah’s children were made and sent to me. Though the copy is difficult to read, I can make out Maria’s (or Mary’s) name and the date of her birth. “In Year 1798 on 3 October was our daughter born that was named Maria” – this is the English translation of the entry. 

5. The bible inscription presented a problem as the tombstone of Mary Shirkey indicates (according to transcriptions) that she was aged 71 years 4 months and 20 days, with her death date listed as February 24, 1873. By my calculation this would make a birth date of October 4th, 1801, which was 3 years and 1 day off from Mary Good Shirkey’s indicated birthday. This was suspiciously close, and made me continue my investigating. Unfortunately, when I went to the Crissa/Andrews Cemetery myself, I was unable to read the inscription. Therefore, I had to look at other record and newspaper clippings. 

6. Census – 1850 Census, State of Ohio, Seneca County, Liberty Township, visit 2067 lists Mary Shirkey as 48 which would coincide with the date of Oct 4, 1801 as Mary’s birth date. 

7. Census – 1860 Census, State of Ohio, Seneca County, Liberty Township, visit 955 lists Mary Shirkey as 62, which would support an October 3, 1798 birth date. 

8. Census – 1870 Census, State of Ohio, Seneca County, Liberty Township, visit 183 lists Mary Shirkey as 72 again supporting an October 3, 1798 birthdate.

9. Record of Deaths, Probate Court, in and for the County of Seneca, Ohio, Volume 2, pages 51 and 52 list Mary’s death as the following: Date of Record: June 10, 1873 No: 116 Name in Full: Shirky, Mary Age: 74 Sex: (left blank) Color: White Condition: Married Occupation: Wife Disease: Dropsy Direct or Indirect Cause of Death: (left blank) Date of Death: 1873, February 24 Place of Death: Liberty Township Place of Birth: Virginia Last Place of Residence: Liberty Township Names of Parents: (left blank) The age would support a 1798 birth.

10. Newspaper Article, Seneca Advertiser June 5, 1873, page 3, column 3: Deaths – The following deaths of old citizens over fifty years of age are taken from the Accessors records: … Liberty – Rachel Kime, 65; Mary Sherky, 74; … Conclusion: Based on the above information I believe Mary Shirkey, the wife of John Shirkety of Seneca County, to be the daughter of William Good II and Susannah Kauffman Good. 

Note: I believe that the tombstone was carved incorrectly or that a 4 was mistaken for a 1 in the age listed for Mary Shirkey. Since I could not read the inscription myself, this is only a theory. So, does my research and logic make sense? Have I solved the riddle of Mary, Mary – who’s the real Mary? I leave it for you to decide. 

Until Next Time!

© 19 June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Mary, Mary, Mary? Part One = Will the real Mary Shirkey please step forward

Normally, my problem with female branches of the family tree is a missing maiden name. In the case of Mary Shirkey, wife of John Shirkey of Liberty Township, Seneca County, Ohio the problem is just the opposite. Mary has too many maiden names. She has been given three identities! 

I came across Mary when I was doing research on my ggg grandfather, Joseph Good. One of her three identities was Mary Good, sister to Joseph. Imagine my surprise to find her also listed as Mary Beam and Mary Armes Thompson – all three with Virginia roots. Though my goal had been only to do research on Joseph, Mary and her three identities nagged at me. How would I feel if 200 years from now, some descendent assigned someone else as the mother of my children instead of me? Not only would that wipe out my relationship with my children, but also my children’s relationship with my parents, and both of my grandmothers, all of whom played important roles in their childhood. So, I decided to take a closer look at each of Mary’s claimed identities, hoping to find a winner in the “Who is Mary” sweepstakes. 

Today you will see a summary of my findings and conclusions of two of Mary’s personas. Tomorrow I will conclude with the final identity. If you see any holes in my logic, please feel free to let me know. My concern is that I may have let my own bias creep into my deductive reasoning process. After all, my true goal is to put the correct Mary with her correct children, not add another relative to the family tree.

Identity No. 1 - Mary Armes Thompson of Botentourt County, Virginia and daughter of John Thompson. 

1. John Shirkey of Seneca County was probably of German extraction, as several marriages and deaths of the family were reported in the German Language Newspaper, The Fremont Courier, in neighboring Sandusky County.

2. There are two distinct and separate Shirkey families in Virginia in the late 18th century and early 19th century. One Shirkey family was of Irish descent – some would later use the name Sharkey, and one was of German speaking descent. 

3. The Irish-speaking group lived in Botentourt County, Virginia and it is into this family that Mary Arms Thompson married on September 9, 1821.

4. The 1850 Census finds John and Mary with a number of their children living in Botentourt County, District 8 visit 772 at this same time John and Mary Shirkey are listed as living in Seneca County, of Ohio in Liberty Township. 

5. Sometime between 1850 and 1860 the family moves to Victoria County, Texas - John dies and in the 1860 Census, Mary and several children are found in Victoria County, Texas, Victoria City, visit 207. 

Conclusion: Mary Armes Thompson is not Mary Shirkey, wife of John Shirkey living in Seneca County, Ohio.

Identity No. 2 - Mary Beam of Rockingham County, Virginia.

(The information stating that Mary Shirkey was Mary Beam was found on World Connect. I contacted two different researchers to find the basis for their information. This led me to the “original” researcher who was the “source” of their information.) 

1. The source originally appeared to be a bible found by Daisy Shirkey Rearick. However, upon questioning of information, I found the source to be another Shirkey researcher who had been looking at both Irish and German Shrkeys and had in the 1980’s been in contact with Jo Shirkey Holbert. Mrs. Haubert had employed a genealogist in Virginia. The genealogist had found a John Sherfy married to a Mary Beam of Rockingham County. It was felt by this genealogist that Shirkey might be a corruption of the Sherfy name. Jo had passed this information to the Shirkey researcher and along with the finding of a family bible, and the two pieces of information were erroneously conjoined and said to be the proof that Mary Beam was Mary Shirkey. It is possible the genealogist was referring to Mariah Beahm, daughter of Abraham Beahm who married John A. Sherfy. This family relocated to Tennessee where Mariah is said to have died in 1839. John went back to Rockingham to choose a second bride, Catherine Garber. Mariah’s sisters, Catherine and Margaretha also married into Sherfy family. 

2. The date given for Mary Beam’s birth was from Mary Shirkey’s tombstone or the transcribed copy of the tombstone located in Crissa/Andrews cemetery. A date of birth for the supposed Mary Beam was not given or found in the family bible. 3.

Conclusion: Uncertain whether Mary Beam is or is not Mary Shirkey, wife of John Shirkey living in Seneca County, Ohio.

 © 18 June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Thanksgiving and an Anniversary

My grandparents, Frank Eugene Hoy and Katheryne Cecile Lynch, were married 91 years ago today at Ebenezer Evangelical Church in Tiffin. The picture attached to this post was taken on the day of their wedding. Talk about opposites attracting, they don't get more opposite then Frank and Katie.

I was not yet 10 when grandpa died in 1963, so my memories of him are vague and fuzzy. I know he was short, with mounds of white wavy hair. He always seemed to be smoking a cigar, so that cigar smoke intermingled with the scent of lilacs from the bush that grew in his yard, conjure up his memory for me. A gentleness and warmth surrounded him, and though I didn't know him well, I always felt peaceful and loved in his presence.

My mother tells the story of Grandpa, who did not drive, walking all the way to our house to give his youngest daughter, my mom, flowers for her birthday.

The story I like best, the one that cements Grandpa's character for me, is the one my mother has told about the German bible that Grandpa had in his possession. During World War II an old German-speaking gentleman would walk to Grandpa's house every week so he could read Grandpa's German bible. This made the family a bit nervous — it was during World War II after all and nobody like those “dirty Germans.” Grandpa ignored it all, figuring if this gentleman wanted to read his old bible, the bible would be there for him to read. Grandpa — my gentle-hearted hero.

Gentleness, however, would not be the word to describe my grandmother, Katie. In her younger years she was a temperamental, larger than life red head. She and her twin sister, Elizabeth were the youngest children of her family. Grandma once told me that she was her dad's favorite and Elizabeth was her mom's favorite. This seems highly unlikely since Elizabeth died at nine months of measles. I think this was Grandma speak for “Daddy said yes, and Momma said no.”

When Grandma talked her arms would fly in all directions, punctuating her words as she spoke. For a shy child like me, grandma could be mighty intimidating. However Grandma had two things going for her in my young mind, she made great fried chicken and she loved to tell stories. I never saw her at a loss for words or for stories. I would settle into a corner, far enough away from her flying hands and listen as a child. I can only remember vague pieces of some of them, enough to know that, as I have often said, she never let a little thing like facts, get in the way of a good story.

To this day, I don't know if the story she once told me about she and Grandpa meeting at a Halloween party is true. However they met, I'd lay my money on Grandma being the one to start the flirtation.

As is often the case of opposites, the attraction eventually wanes and then turns to irritation, which turns into anger and frustration. When my mother was still a child, Katie and Frank divorced. I know their divorce caused their children a lot of sadness and because Katie had instigated the divorce, she had some very angry children.

But it is appropriate to give thanks, on this day of Thanksgiving, that these two opposites, somehow found and married each other, because from their union came nine children. Nine perfect gems, each one shining in his or her own right, who have gone on to have children, grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren to grace this earth. As one of these descendants of Frank and Katheryne, I am truly thankful for this small miracle.

May you and yours be blessed with a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging!

Note this post first published online, November 22, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 22 November 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Seneca County Cemeteries

In yesterday's post, I mentioned my visit to some of Seneca County's cemeteries this past weekend. If you have relatives or ancestors who lived in Seneca County, you will certainly want to visit Kristina Kuhn Krumm's Seneca County graves Web site, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ohio/seneca/list.htm. She started the project in 2001, and thanks to the aid of many volunteers, it has grown to its present size.

It also offers a search engine that you can use to locate where your ancestor was buried in Seneca County. The nicest part for me — she has included maps taken from the book, “Seneca County Ohio Cemetery Inscriptions” (Tiffin, OH: Seneca County Genealogical Society, 1987). Each township has a map showing where each Cemetery is located. 

This turned out to be a lucky thing for me, because, while I was familiar with two of the cemeteries that Lois and Dawn wished to visit, a third, Bethel-South Bend Cemetery (see picture above) was one I had never visited. 

Bethel-South Bend is located near McCutchenville, and is not an area that I know. The signpost for Township Road 54 was no where to be seen, so unfortunately, I missed my turn, but thanks to the able map reading of Lois, my co-pilot for the day, we were able to get ourselves oriented and find the cemetery. 

Kris also maintains a homepage with additional Seneca County information, including Township plat maps of 1874. She also has a link to other cemetery sites she has put on the Web including those in Crawford County, Wyandot County and some in Sandusky County. 

Kris's homepage is http://kriskuhn.net/. Thanks Kris!

 Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 23, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02 

© 23 October 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder

Fulfilling A Grandmother's Wish

I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with two charming cousins and their husbands wandering through some of Seneca County's cemeteries. Lois and Dawn, like me, descend from Joseph and Magdalena Good (the couple I talked about in my Ague Fever post). Their grandmother had always wanted to find and visit the grave of her great-grandmother Rosetta Good. Rosetta, the daughter of Joseph's son John Good and his wife Sarah Baker Good, died of typhoid fever in 1869, along with a younger brother Joseph and a sister Sarah Florence. Their common gravestone sits in Liberty Center's Cemetery that is located on State Route 635 just south of Bettsville. 

Rosetta left behind a 9-month-old son, John Heckman Jr. Apparently, the grandmothers of little John both wanted to raise him. A story handed down in the family of Lois and Dawn told of John's paternal grandmother sending a wagon down from Michigan, plucking him right off the school grounds and spiriting him back to Branch County, Michigan, where he would grow up.

I'm not sure of the accuracy of the story because John is clearly listed in the 1870 census in Michigan living with his grandmother. However, a court case involving the settlement of his great-grandfather's estate in 1874 does open the door for the possibility that John was living in Ohio at the beginning of the case, but was in Michigan by its resolution. (John has a 1/49 claim to the estate.) It may well be that young John had been passed back in forth between Ohio and Michigan more than once before he ended up in Branch County permanently. 

John's descendants knew that he had been born in Seneca County near Tiffin, but they had no idea where his mother, Julia Rosetta Good Heckman, had been buried. To complicate matters further, she is listed in the cemetery as Julia R. Good. This is how she is also listed in the 1870 mortality records, but in the Seneca County Probate Record, she is Rosetta Heckman, which makes the mind dance with all kinds of speculation. 

In any case, though their grandmother was never able to make the trip, her granddaughters fulfilled her wish, paying a visit to Rosetta's grave. It was nice to play a small part in helping them complete their grandmother's wish.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 22, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©22 Oct 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

It's All in the Details

Sooner or later, when people find out that I “do” genealogy they will ask the inevitable question, “How far back have you gone?” Invariably they will know someone who has taken their family history back to William the Conqueror, the Mayflower or some other very old, very proper family line. The question always makes me squirm, though it's a perfectly logical and valid question.

Early on, my goal was to take each family line back to when they had “crossed the pond”, but something funny happened along the way. I started getting absorbed into the daily minutia that was each ancestor's life. With each newly found ancestor, I was unable to move on until I had devoured every stray detail. As a child, I used to imagine that if I colored the picture of Sleeping Beauty perfectly, with the right colors, staying in the lines, the picture would come to life. Apparently, I operate under that same principle when it comes to genealogy. If I can just fill in enough details, add the color of their daily lives, then maybe my ancestors will “come to life” for me. The approach didn't work at four, but ever the optimist, a half-century later my heart still believes it can happen.

Above is the only picture that I have of either my great-grandfather, John Perry Lynch or my great-grandmother Laura Jane Feasel Lynch. It was taken in either 1923 or 1924, a few short years before Laura Jane's death. In the picture, JP and Laura Jane are surrounded by their four living children, a daughter-in-law, and some of their grandchildren. John Perry is the grumpy-looking man on the left and Laura Jane is seated directly in front of him. John Perry was a creative man — he was an amateur artist and a musician. As a creative fellow, JP found it difficult to make a living. He was, at various times, a farmer, a laborer, a merchant and a telegrapher. I don't think he found joy in any of those professions. He was always restless, ready to move on to something else. 

He lived in Seneca County, Ohio; Crawford County, Illinois; Greer County Oklahoma; Washington County, Arkansas; before finally moving back to Fremont, Ohio where he died in 1930. His obituary appeared in The Fremont Messenger, May 20, 1930 with a caption that read, “Poison Fatal to John Lynch”. (A typed account of the obituary appears at this link — http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/n/y/Teresa-Snyder/FILE/0019page.html.)

Somehow, JP always came back to Northwest Ohio. I think that it was Laura Jane, who acted as the rubber band that pulled the family back each time. I know from postcards and letters that even when the family was living in other places, Laura Jane would make extended visits back to Seneca County where her mother and siblings lived. The visits would be so long that young Katie, my grandmother, would be enrolled in school for the duration of the visit

Laura Jane died before my mother was born so mother has no first hand memories of either JP or Laura. My Aunt Florence, the little blondie in the back row of the picture, has filled in some of the blanks. Florence tells stories of Laura letting the children play and run around on the front porch. There apparently was a music room in the house where JP had his musical instruments including a piano. The grandchildren were not allowed in this room. However, when JP was out in the fields working, Laura would open up the door to the room and let little Florence go in and bang on the piano to her hearts content, all the while Laura was watching out the door for any signs of JP. When she would see him coming she would tell Florence to close up the keys, and they would close the door. Florence was wise enough to know this was a secret shared only with Grandma.

In this picture, I can almost feel the sun caressing Laura's face, the casual swinging of a foot back and forth, and the contented smile of a woman surrounded by the family she loves. For me, this is where the research leads. For a moment, I feel connected to this woman, my great-grandmother. Just a moment, but for me that is enough.

Until Next time — Happy Ancestral Digging Note this post first published online, September 21, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©21 Sept 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder