Sunday Drive: Spearfish, South Dakota - 1953

The caption on this slide in Dad's handwriting reads "at Florence's Spearfish S.Dak. 53" so have all the information we need.

[From my personal collection]

Florence Christine Weisman (1900-1985) married Mother's older brother Gilbert Grenfell (1901-1928) in 1924 and the couple had a son Milton (1925-2003) and a daughter Joyce who died as an infant in 1926.

[From my personal collection]

Gilbert was killed in 1928 when the tractor he was driving overturned.

Florence became the wife of Ralph B. Courtney (1903-1956) in 1932 becoming the stepmother to his two children by his first wife.

She's buried in Little Dane Cemetery, Saint Onge, Lawrence County, South Dakota along with both of her husbands, her son and his wife, and her stepson.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Saturday Night Entertainment: Big Noses in Encanto

Dad Currey and his nephew and niece* were having some fun in our backyard in Encanto, probably in 1950. The tree in the background is a huge avocado.

[From my personal collection]

These images make me smile so I'm posting them even though the color is terrible.



*Nancy Lee Peterson (1937-1974) and Charles Frederick Peterson (1940-2008) were the children of Dad's youngest sister Marguerite and her first husband.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Christopher Colbert "Col" Chappell & Wife Cornelia Josephine "Puss" Stanley Chappell

This double portrait of Col Chappell and his wife was posted to her tree by a distant Freeman cousin who's an Ancestry DNA match.* Since my family tree has quite a few Chappells in it, including my 3X great grandmother Sarah Heath Chappell, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Col is also related to me through his father's line.**

Col was born in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, in 1849 and that's where he and Puss were married. They remained in Alabama (where five of their eventual twelve children were born) until about 1882 when they removed to Texas where they lived out their days.

Puss died on 1934 and Col survived her by three and a half years. They are both buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Hall County.

[Posted by their descendant KathyWhitaker51 to her Ancestry family tree]

Here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

*As a 5th - 8th cousin
**I'll have to research his lineage to find out.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Repost: Tip: Use HistoryGeo To Track Changing U. S. County Boundaries

Christine first posted this on September 23, 2017.

Brighton, Colorado (now in Adams County). Note:  I clicked on a random spot near the center of Brighton.

Mary L. (Burnight) Lytle (1853-1883), my 1st cousin 5x removed, died in Brighton, Arapahoe, Colorado.  By 1910 her daughter Isabel was living in Brighton, Adams, Colorado, same area. 

There are different ways to determine what county a particular place was in, and one that I've found to be very helpful is HistoryGeo, a subscription based website that takes Bureau of Land Management land records and maps them, called the First Landowner's Project:

Here, you will find our ongoing effort to accurately map the original landowners of the 29 U.S. public land states and Texas.

This limits the time period between about 1810 to 1940, and doesn't include the land in the eastern part of the U.S. that was measured by metes and bounds, but if you are trying to determine a place in that time period and in the more western areas you might find this helpful. 

U. S. County Boundary History, from 1810 through 1940.  Note that the info is from IPUMS, which is a sophisticated data tool that I have yet to really figure out lol.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Weddings in my Ancestral Line: December 8th through 14th

Two of my known direct ancestral couples were married during the second week of December:
maternal 6X great grandparents Moses Cooper and Mary Mathewson were wed in Glocester, Rhode Island, on December 10, 1732; and maternal great grandparents Lewis Logan Slater and Rufina Tomlinson in Severy, Kansas, on December 13, 1885.

[Lewis Logan Slater & Rufina Tomlinson Slater-undated double portrait

courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The following two couples also married during the second week of December but I'm less certain of my relationship to them: paternal 10X great grandparents Thomas Ford and his first wife Joan Way wed in England on December 13, 1610*; and maternal 5X great grandparents William White and Jemima Wright were married on December 13, 1781 in Adams, Massachusetts, by my 6X great grandfather Elder Peter Worden.**

*This is a line that I haven't looked at in years and so I'm not certain of my connection. In any case, I would be descended from his second wife Elizabeth Charde.
**This couple's relationship to me is entirely speculative and not to be relied on. If it's true they are the grandparents of Hannah Leonard, the wife of Porter Worden (my 3X great grandparents)



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Celebrations: Christmas, Agua Caliente - 1953

That was the year Mother made matching pajamas for me and my doll.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Celebrations: Apollo 8's Christmas Eve 1968 Message

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Vern Poff Rowing

Vern Wesley Poff, one of my distant Worden cousins*, was a native of Washington State. This photo was posted by her granddaughter Suzanne Koch, who is on my Ancestry.com DNA match list (5th - 8th cousin).

[Vern Poff rowing, Chelan County, WA-undated, courtesy of Suzanne Koch]

Here's our relationship:

[Ancestry.com]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

New England Weddings in my Ancestral Line: December 1st through 7th

Three of my direct ancestral couples married during the first week of December: 6X great grandparents Jonathan Palmer and Mercy Manwaring were united in Stonington, Connecticut, on December 1, 1706; 8X great grandparents John West and Renew Carpenter married in Rehoboth, Massachusetts on December 4, 1703; and 7X great grandparents Jonathan Aldrich and Mary Wilson wed on December 4, 1740 in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

The first paragraph of Old-Time Marriage Customs in New England by Alice Morse Earle published in The Journal of American Folklore in 1893 sets the stage for a wedding:

This excerpt from  Pamela McArthur Cole's article on New England Marriages,* gives us an idea of the traditional setting for weddings.*

Also my 7X great grandmother Sarah Nutting, left widowed by my ancestor Jonathan Farnsworth five years earlier, married John Stone on December 7, 1698, in Concord, Massachusetts.

*These two articles were originally published one after the other in the same issue of The Journal of American Folklore. Both are worth reading although I don't think either would meet modern standards of scholarship.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

December Weddings in my Family Tree

In 2016 the Martha Stewart Weddings website opined that Christmas is one of the worst days to get married, but I've noticed that date given for the nuptials of some of my ancestors. I asked Christine if she could create a list of those folk and she responded with 17 pages of December weddings. Of course most of those folks aren't in my direct line but I've decided I'll spend the next several days seeking out the ones who are and sharing them here.

This mid-19th century engraving hints at the small-scale celebration involved in a marriage,* but it would be misleading to think that many of my ancestors' unions would have taken place in such opulent surroundings.

[Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. The wedding. Forrest, J. B. (John B.) (ca. 1814-1870) (Engraver)

Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-d187-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99]

As far as we know, none of my direct ancestors got married on Christmas Day but there are two couples whose weddings took place on December 24th:

My 3X great grandparents Jesse Warren Jr. and Timney P. Watts married on on December 24th, 1824, in Morgan County, Georgia and 2X grandparents George Marion Tomlinson and Elizabeth "Betsey" Taylor on Christmas Eve, 1860 in Washington County, Iowa.

Coincidently neither of these couples were destined to have a long life together. Jesse Warren Jr. died a little over a year later (when his only child was an infant) and Betsey Taylor Tomlinson disappeared from records about the time of her daughter Rufina's birth in early 1863. Both surviving spouses married again; their second unions lasted for decades and produced more children.

Why get married during the Christmas season? This blogpost by findmypast focuses on England but I think some of the same reasons would be relevant for U.S. couples.

*You can find a description of mid-19th century wedding preparations here at a blog by NYC's Merchant’s House Museum.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Repost: Old Genealogies: Research Sources, Book Shelf and a Hat Tip

This was first posted almost three years ago. Since then the Internet Archive has nearly tripled its genealogy resources. (And it's still free.)

Just last week I consulted (via the Internet Archive) an 1868 book whose lengthy title begins "Some records of persons by the name of Worden" where I found a physical description of a sixth great grandfather, so I was excited to read a recent post in Vita Brevis by Emily Baldoni, New England Historical Genealogical Society's Technical Services/Metadata Librarian, about their project to make many of their late 19th and early 20th century genealogical writings available online. This is a big deal because, as Emily explains:

"NEHGS is sometimes the only library that holds a copy of the resource. In these cases, we are particularly happy to be able to preserve a digital copy and put it online so that it can reach a wider audience, now and for years to come."

I will certainly be checking out their collection.

The Internet Archive is also a great resource for books of interest to genealogists* This is how they describe their online holdings:

"The Archive's ever-expanding collection of genealogy resources includes items from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Robarts Library at the University of Toronto; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library; Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah;, the National Library of Scotland, the Indianapolis City Library's Indianapolis City Directory and Yearbooks Collection, The Leo Baeck Institute Archives of German-speaking Jewry Leo Baeck Institute Archives, and the Boston Public Library.  

Resources include among many things books on surname origins, vital statistics, parish records, census records, passenger lists of vessels, and other historical and biographical documents."

Here's a tiny sample of the titles they have available.

[Source: Internet Archive]

And I found another Worden Book to peruse. (I've heard of it but have never seen a copy before.)

[Worden "a weir in the valley" by Waite W.Worden, 1992.

Source: Internet Archive; original source: Allen County Public Library.]

I've also found old genealogy publications via Google Books but, unlike Internet Archive, not every listing there is available digitally.


*They're claiming 53,534 results from a search for "genealogy."And it's free.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Aunt Ann?

I believe the woman in this portrait from my great grandmother's photo album is Elizabeth Anna Worden Peregoy (1839-1887) because there's a note that says "Aunt Ann" and she's the only relative that I know of who could be called that. If I'm right she's one of my maternal third great aunts--her brother Dick Worden* is my great great grandfather.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Originally born in New York State, she moved to Iowa with her parents in the early 1850s and married Stephen W. Peregoy (1836-1883) in Brown Township, Linn County, in 1862.

Stephen enlisted in Company G, Iowa 4th Infantry Regiment just after the birth of their second child C.J.** in 1864 in Fairview, Jones County and served about seven months before he was mustered out on May 31, 1865.***

By the 1870 federal census the Peregoy family, with the addition two more children, were living in Richmond Township, in Ray County, Missouri. Ten years later they had moved on to Bourbon County, Kansas, with their five surviving children.***

Records indicate that Stephen died in Fairview in 1883 and his wife survived him by almost five years, although we don't know the exact date or place she died.



*I've written about my ancestor's Civil War experiences on this blog, starting here.
**We only know his initials and C.J. died in 1867.
***Given that date and that he was in Washington DC at the time, it's very likely that he had marched in the Grand Review of the Armies a week earlier.
****Their daughter Rachel, born in 1866 died at the age of 11.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Christmas Songs

I spent the evening with old friends singing Christmas carols after a delicious buffet dinner. It's the only fancy party I go to each year.

[Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Christmas song of gladness -..." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 19--. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-5fca-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99]

Now I'm ready for Christmas!


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

More McDonalds in Anderson County, Texas

This triple portrait of John Bethune McDonald (1851-1928), his wife Susie America Freeman (1867-1958) and supposedly Brice N. McDonald (1901-1986)* taken in Neches, Anderson County, Texas, was posted to findagrave.com by the late Nancy Franklin-Walling Bundrick who found it in The Portal to Texas History.

[John Bethune, Susie Freeman and Brice N. McDoinald [sic], Neches, Texas c. 1900

"The Portal to Texas History" - Anderson County.]

*If the date of 1900 is correct it could be Brice's brother Bethune Freeman McDonald (1892-1937). (The source states that the date could be approximate.)


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Johnnie Belle & Brice Norvill McDonald - About 1908

Johnnie (1894-1984) and her brother Brice (1901-1986) are several more of my distant Freeman cousins.*

[J.B. and Brice N. McDonald shared to Ancestry.com by jimkelly1803]

Johnnie attended the University of Texas, Austin, from about 1915 through 1920. Here's a group photo which includes her from the 1919 yearbook:

["U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012"; Year: 1919. Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1990 (database on-line).

Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

In 1925 Johnnie went to Europe although we don't know when she left the U.S. or what countries she visited. The only record I was able to find for her was this returning passenger list showing that she sailed from Rotterdam (on the S.S. Rotterdam) and arrived in New York on September 10th.

[Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls. NAI: 6256867. Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36. National Archives at Washington, D.C. Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957. Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls.]

[Ancestry.com. Passenger Ships and Images [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

Original data: Various maritime reference sources.]

A year later she was teaching history at Central High School in South Houston, Texas.

["U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012"; Year: 1926. Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1990 (database on-line).

Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.]

She and Samuel Charles Ballard (1892-1981) were married on June 24, 1928 and the 1930 U.S. Census found them living with her parents in Neches, Anderson County, Texas. Johnnie was teaching high school while Samuel clerked in her Mcdonald family's general store. Ten years later the couple were living in their own house, Johnnie still a teacher and Samuel was working as a salesman in a grocery store managed by another of the McDonald clan.

As far as I can find out, the couple never had any children.** They remained in Anderson County for the rest of their lives. From findagrave.com we learn that Johnnie was "[k]nown to be active in the East Texas Historical Commission and United Daughters of the Confederacy, John H, Reagan Chapter."

[Samuel Ballard and Johnnie Bell McDonald, photo shared to Ancestry.com by amreece1]

Samuel died in 1981 and Johnnie survived him by three years. They are both buried in the Neches Cemetery.



Here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

**Her brother Brice named his daughter for her.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Repost: Tip - Use the Terrain View on Google Maps

While Christine takes a break here's another view of one of her posts from 2017.

My great grandparents George Hartley and Minnie Nosler lived near Riverton, Coos, Oregon in the 1910 Census.  Looking up the location in Google Maps in Map View gives this image.  Notice there is a muted topographical aspect.

Switching to the Google Map Satellite View gives a better idea of the area, particularly giving some additional form to the river snaking around the higher ground.

The Terrain View in Google Maps (note: for some reason I can't switch directly from Satellite View to Terrain View, I have to switch back to Map View and THEN Terrain View).

I already knew that Google Earth had a terrain view, but I use Google Maps more often and had overlooked the Terrain View (as opposed to Map View or Satellite View, which are readily available as options when you first search in Google Maps).

The default is the Map View, and the Satellite View option is readily available at the lower left side of the map.

This is a very handy and quick way to check out the terrain for most places in the United States, particularly in rural areas not flooded for dam purposes.  Most rural areas have retained their form that they had when first settled.

To get to the Terrain View, you go the left pane with the left-pointing double arrows, and Terrain View (as well as other options) becomes visible.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Rufus Watson Freeman (1862 - 1921) M.D.

Someone radically trimmed this photo of Dr. Rufus Freeman, one of my paternal second cousins, twice removed.*

[RLouiseHazelip46 posted this to Ancestry.com] 

I was able to find his obituary:

[5 Mar 1921, Page 3 - The Chickasha Daily Express at Newspapers.com]

So he graduated from Vanderbilt School of Medicine just like my great uncle Hill Freeman Warren, the oldest son of my great great grandmother Nannie Freeman Warren.

*Here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Book Shelf: Women's Work - The First 20,000 Years

During the excavation of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland when a Viking-style spindle whorl was discovered, the archeologists broke out the bottle of champagne they had reserved for significant finds because it was proof that at least one woman had been there 1,000 years ago.*

The history of spinning and weaving fabric is a very long one and it was always women's work.

[Source: Amazon.com]

So if you want to picture the daily life of your distant female ancestors, it's a pretty safe bet that they were producing cloth (as Homer describes Helen of Troy doing in both the Iliad and the Odyssey).




*I'm currently reading The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown who looks at what we can know about a woman named Gudrid who is believed to have given birth to the first baby of European descent in North America. Homespun is described as "the Viking culture's chief export."


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Anna Delilah Webb Slater (1891 - 1973)

This 1957 snapshot of my maternal grandmother Annie Slater with her first granddaughter (and my first cousin) Sue* appears to have been taken in her backyard in Niwot, Colorado.

Sue sent a message correcting the location: "At my parents' home in Glen Burnie, Maryland."

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*Actually I was her first grandchild (and was 10 years old at this time) but that's a secret that, as far as we know, my mother never shared.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Jesse Rowe Persinger Hibbs & Daughter

The note on this photo, attached to Jesse's profile in an Ancestry.com by egodwin17, says only "aunt jess." I believe the child is her oldest daughter, another Jesse Persinger, who was born in 1921.* Unfortunately I don't know anything about the airplane she's standing in front of.

[Courtesy of egodwin17]

Here's the newspaper announcement of her marriage to Dr. Henry H. Hibbs, Jr. in 1918.

[8 June 1918, Page 4 - The Albany-Decatur Daily at Newspapers.com]

Jesse is one of my paternal 4th cousins (from my Freeman line):

[Ancestry.com]

*Her younger daughter Mary Sue Hibbs was born in 1925.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

And Now for Something Totally Different: Inside the Denisova Cave

In 2010 DNA sequencing of a young girl's tiny finger bone from this Siberian cave proved to be from an individual who was neither a Neandertal nor a modern human. Since then more discoveries* have been made and this extinct line of ancient humans has been named Denisovan in reference to the location where their traces were found.

Several days ago a new discovery was announced: A woolly mammoth tusk “tiara” that could have been worn by a Denisovan man. The Siberian Times has an extensive article about the find and they also provided a video of a visit to the cave which made me realize I had no idea of what the region looks like.

[Warning: this video's sound is very loud, be prepared to turn down your speakers.]

Oh, and that "tiara"? Here's The Siberian Times' graphic:

[Source: The Siberian Times]

Hat tip to The History Blog.


*Including a female (nicknamed Denny) whose DNA is a mixture from her Neandertal mother and Denisovan father.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Some Distant Cousins (Through the Porter Line)

John Graves Shedd (1850-1926) married Mary Roenna Porter (1853-1942), a paternal third cousin, three times removed,* in New Hampshire in 1878. The couple had two daughters, Laura Abbie Shedd Schweppe (1879-1937) and Helen May Shedd Reed (1884-1978). This newspaper photo of their children was taken a year after their grandfather's death.

[27 Mar 1927, 151 - Chicago Tribune at Newspapers.com]

John Shedd's obituary explains why he's referred to here as "the late merchant prince of Chicago."

[22 Oct 1926, Page 1 - Battle Creek Enquirer at Newspapers.com]

He was a noted philanthropist, donating $2 million to the creation of Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. He also supported the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Shedd-Porter Memorial Library in New Hampshire.



*Here's how we're related:

[Ancestry.com]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Augusta Ewing Haugh Hardy & Her Sons

Augusta married James Daniel Hardy* in 1928. The couple had two children, James Daniel Hardy Jr. and George Frederick Hardy.

[Augusta Hardy & Sons, New York, Fall 1938. George Hardy (age 1 1/2), Augusta Hardy, James Hardy Jr. (age 4 1/2).

Posted to the Hardy Family Tree  on Ancestry.com by Charles Hardy]

I just realized that today isn't actually Friday--for some reason I've been a day ahead all this week.



*Who is one of my paternal second cousins, twice removed, and someone whose career merited a biographical memoir published by the National Academy of Sciences. (We'll look at him in a later post.)


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Irish "DNA Atlas"

A year ago The Irish Times published an article about "a new Irish DNA atlas" derived using "DNA samples collected from 196 Irish people whose eight great-grandparents were born within 50 km of each other in Ireland." Here's the project's map as published in the newspaper:

[Thirty genetic clusters have been identified from 2,103 Irish and British individuals. The map shows the geographic origin of 192 Atlas Irish individuals and 1,611 British individuals from the Peoples of the British Isles project, labelled according to the geographic origin of their DNA. Source: The Irish Times]

The study has discovered that "before the mass migration of people in recent decades, there were at least 10 distinct genetic clusters across the country, roughly aligned with the ancient provinces or kingdoms of Ireland." And for the first time genetic evidence of Viking settlement in Ireland was confirmed.

It is hoped that data from the project will improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases, "particularly for illnesses that are prevalent among people with Irish ancestry, including multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis and celiac disease."

The article included a link to the original study which was published by the journal Scientific Reports.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

A Sunny Day in the Backyard in Encanto - 1973

Christine and Rastafari* hanging out together on the path next to our vegetable garden.**

[From my personal collection]

*Our handsome ruddy Abyssinian cat who was very protective.
**All that visible in this photo is a bit of the asparagus bed.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Book Shelf: Jamestown People to 1800

Deciding that it's time to take a closer look at my father's Warren lineage and its Virginia roots, I ordered Martha W. McCartney's 2012 book Jamestown People to 1800: Landowners, Public Officials, Minorities, and Native Leaders via Amazon and it arrived this morning.

[Amazon.com]

I already own another book by this author.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.