Researching while sick... just blame it on the cold meds: Next FTF post is up!

My next post is up at Family Tree Firsts, and you can read it here.

For those of you following this blog, you can tell when I wrote it.  Yep, in the middle of my nasty fight with bronchitis.  Yuck!  However, not being able to sleep, or lay down, appears to have some good side affects.

I realized when I was reading the post that I didn't include the link to the family tree I found.  Oops!  Well, for my future reference, and so you can go and see it for yourself, check it out here.  I have also been in touch with the woman who created it.  She has been very helpful and extremely friendly.  Very happy to have found someone willing to answer my questions and be willing to share with me.

Of course, my mother-in-law is just happy to know the family rumors that they are from Cornwall are turning out to be possibly true.  One more place to go on my next trip overseas!

Due to my vacation, I am still in the process of analysing and going through the information from the website and a few extra bits that she has to sent me.  Including an article about Xantippe and her husband, Dr. James M. Burt, which was very informative.  It has presented me with some conflicting information to what my husband's grandmother wrote which means I have some correspondence to write. 

Image from the Library of Congress

Charles Greely to Maude Crabb 1903

Letter from Charles Greely, Sr to his daughter
Frances Maude Greely Crabb
Pioneer Washinton
Owned by my mother-in-law

Mar 16, 1903

My Dear Daughter

So you think you are feeling lazy.  Well if you feel that way, you had better be that for a while and let the work go.  If you take life easy now for a while it may make lots of difference as to your health in the future.  You are like the rest of the Greelys too much on the work to last long.

I ordered the harrow(?) and it went along from Wade and leo last Friday 3/13.  Let me know if you get it all right.

We had unusually fine weather in Feb. and lots of seed was put in the ground but since then we have been having rain with snow in the foot hills and some here last night the ground froze some and everyone is afraid their seed will rot in the ground.  We got 30 acres seeded.  It will be a long time coming up but I think it will be all right.  This morning Charley boy has gone to Farris Mill for a load of lumber.  When he gets back we are going to put a ton of loose hay down to Jon Eastman.

Charley boy has a bad cold and it has been hanging onto him for a month or more.  Carl is well only he is having a time with his teeth.  I have been trying for a year or more to get him to have them filled and fixed up but he is not like you and Charley boy he does not seem to care much about doing as I would like him to.  Gramma and Jossie(?) are at the washing today.

I think John has done well in taking Chester for a partner.

The mail is here and I will have to quit.

Your affectionate

Father

A Mayflower Family or Not

There was a sense of awe in me as a child when I thought about the Pilgrims; with their bonnets and starched white collars sharing a meal with the friendly Indians.  Yes, as an adult I know how unrealistic this was, but as a child it was the image of the Pilgrims and their friends that permeated all you saw, and knew, about those historic events.  Imagine my glee when I was told by my Grandmother how our family was related to people who sailed on that ship!  She read to me the poem by HenryWadsworth Longfellow, TheCourtship of Miles Standish,   and seared into my memory the line “speak for thyself John.”  My world was crushed when I learned it was a fictional account.

According to the article Mayflower Descendants by Jim Faber, 25% of Americans think they are descended from the 26 surviving Mayflower passengers.  Best guess is that actually only 35 million people worldwide have a Mayflower ancestor; much less that the 25%, or 70 million who think they do.   The odds looked like they would not be in my favor from the outset, but that is no reason to quit!

One of the first long-lost-cousins I connected with online had grown up with the same story about John and Priscilla, which made me think that there had to be something to the story.  She also had a clue, which family line the connection was to be through!  That was something I could work with.  According to her family source (which I later found out was the same source my grandmother had, Aunt Eliza Jane) the connection was through our 3^rd great-grandmother Mary Jane Hayden. 

 Thanks to many different societies, organizations, and published works on the subject many of the lines are well documented and proven.  My task was to connect my line into the ones already proven.  Easier said than done I have to admit.  Almost a year later I think I am pretty sure of my research, but not completely.  I think it will take a trip to New England, or a really good genealogy library, to make me feel 100% confident in my work.  I found this website just a few days ago, and it helped me confirm my line past Mary Jane. 

The working hypothesis for my family line is:

1.       John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
2.       Ruth Alden
3.       Ruth Bass
4.       Priscilla Webb
5.       William Hayden - Revolutionary War Soldier
6.       Noah Hayden
7.       Noah Gilpin Hayden
8.       Mary Jane Hayden
9.       Franklin Willis Combs
10.   Everett Combs
11.   Paul Combs
12.   My Dad
13.   Me

Of course, this little endeavor left me looking  sideways at my Texan husband; the one with deep roots in New England.  He had to have someone in that web of New England genealogy that could trace a possible lineage back to a Mayflower passenger.  My bloodhound instincts have been working on this for well over 6 months.  Finally I had a break through, and I am a little more confident in his line than mine.

The working Hypothesis for his family line is:

1.       Stephen Hopkins
2.       Giles Hopkins
3.       Mary Hopkins
4.       Mary Smith
5.       Mary Hamilton
6.       Elizabeth Mayo
7.       Slathiel Nickerson -Revolutionary War Soldier
8.       Polly Nickerson
9.       James Cunningham
10.   Eliza Cunningham
11.   Charles Greeley
12.   Frances Maude Greely
13.   Elsie Crabb
14.   His Mother
15.   Him

Our families appear to have come over on the same boat!  My oldest child can't wait to get to school on Monday and tell everyone.  Especially the story of dear Stephen Hopkins, a Mayflower Compat signer and a Jamestown Settler.  Thankfully his teachers humor his history obsession and just go with it.

Well, there it is.  Anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or comments for me about how to completely prove this lineage?  I have twiddled with the idea of actually going on and submitting both of us to one of the many lineage societies for the Mayflower, like the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

*wikimedia commons:   Sculpture of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins: "Why Don't You Speak for Yourself, John?"

*Photograph taken by me at Jamestown archeology site, Jamestown, Virginia.

Crabb Family

This is my husband’s maternal grandmother’s line.  They start in Indiana and end up in Washington State. 

Lineage:

My husband
His Mom
Elsie Crabb married Howard Mills
John Jeremiah Crabb and Frances Maude Greely
Stephen Crabb and Margaret Brundage
John Crabb and Jane Swan

Stephan Crabb was born in Indiana in 1838 and Margaret Brundage was born in Illinois in 1852.

As of the 1880 census their family and Stephen’s mother Jane were all living in Vancouver City, Clark County, Washington.  According to the census, Jane was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania, her mother was from Virginia and her father was from Maryland.  In the handwritten family history I was given it says that Jane Swan Crabb was born in Cole County Illinois.  However, on every census record she lists her place of birth as Pennsylvania and that her parents are from Virginia and Maryland.

Jane's Husband, according to family history, floated rafts down the Mississipi from Indiana to New Orleans with his brother.  He died from a fall on the docks in New Orleans the same day thier last child was born 27 December 1835.  I would love to be able to prove this...

Margaret was Stephan’s 2^nd wife.  In the 1870 census he is listed living with his mother Jane and Frances Crabb who was 6.  According to the 1880 census the next child was born when she was 9.

The 1860 census has Stephan (aged 22) and Jane living in Ashmore Township, Coles County Illinois.
The 1850 census has Jane (aged 46) living in Clinton Township, Vermillion County, Indiana with 2 daughters. Mary aged 19 and Zantippe aged 14. 

Found John Jeremiah’s Spanish American war enlistment records:

From the Register of Enlistments US Army
Crabb, John J
Enlisted: Aug 12, 1896; Vancouver; by Lt. McCain; for 3 years
Born: Pioneer Washington
Age: 21
Occupation: Barber
Eyes: Brown
Hair: D. Brown
Complexion: dark
Height: 5'10"
Regiment: 14 Inf Company E
Discharged: Aug 11, 1899

Also found his WWI draft card.  It states he was tall with a medium build, brown eyes and hair.  Occupation Farmer, and Married To Maude F Crabb. (Just love how people changed their names on a whim back then.  First to middle, middle to first, spellings….argh).

Bit of family trivia for you:  John Jeremiah’s older brother William enlisted in the army the same time he did.  They both were stationed in Manila together and unfortunately while they were there William died from an illness.  William was originally to marry Frances Maude, but John Jeremiah did instead upon his return.