Genealogy Packages and Discoveries

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity on the genealogy front around here.  My best day was last Monday when I received two items in the mail.  One, a letter from a cousin helping me research my Combs family line, and two, books from my parents.  Boy, it was like my birthday at the mailbox ripping open packages.  The kids, once again, thought mom had completely gone off her rocker.

In the letter there were two marriage certificates.  These certificates are needed to complete the DAR and the GSMD lineage society applications I am still working on.  She had to do battle with an unfriendly court clerk to get these, and I am very thankful that she put up with lady to further our research.  I am sure I am going to get to do that the next time I get back to Indiana.    Oh course, there were a couple of surprising elements to the marriage certificates.

First was the certificate for William Hall and Malira Price.  They are my 3^rd great-grandparents who were married in Greene County Indiana on 25 February 1854.  It is a short form marriage register, so no good genealogical information for previous generations, but at least I have something for them.  From the form I see they received the license on the 23^rd and had the marriage recorded on March 1^st.  There isn’t any other information, not even a pastor’s name, but like I said I won’t be complaining.

Next was the certificate of their daughter Mary Margaret Hall.  She married Willis Franklin Combs in Greene County on 5 September 1877.  I stopped cold in my tracks, because something wasn’t adding up with that date.  I read, and re-read, and read a third time.  Then I went to look at my information on their oldest son Ira in my database.  Ira was born 29 October 1877.  Huh, that is interesting.  Now I wonder all sorts of things:  did they just wait a long time, was this "shot gun", was Ira his son?  I could go on and on.  Oh a puzzle and a family mystery!

The books were equally exciting, and proof that my parents spoil me.   A few weeks back I received two books through inter-library loan that have a significant amount of information on early colonial generations of my family.  I talked excitedly over the phone to my dad about it and he found a gently used copy online and bought them for me.  I jumped up and down with delight when I opened the package.  Tuesday I spent several hours reading and placing tabs in the book for each of the generations to make future look-ups easy.  It is going to take me a while to read and digest all the information presented, but boy is t going to be fun.  I particularly love that there are footnotes, sources, and a bibliography.  If you have any of the following lines check out this 2 volume book set.

It is going to be interesting to read about my ancestors who were from New Amsterdam.  I had no idea I had roots to Norway through one family.  Or that my family owned property in what is now Manhattan (60 acres…imagine what that would be worth today!).  Most unusual, “a husband selling his wife into Adultery”, I can guess what that meant.  I foresee several more days of night time reading in my future.

My most common recent ancestor with the author of this book is William Hayden.  William was born in Braintree, Massachusetts 5 October 1727 and died in Fayette County, Pennsylvania 18 July 1823.  He married Lydia Kierstede who was baptized 14 February 1725 in Staten Island, New York and died 1794-1795 in Hampshire County, Virginia.  This is the listing of their ancestor’s surnames that are covered in the book, all of whom are on my father’s side. 

Alden

Bass

Dey

photo credit: Bunches and Bits {Karina} via photopin cc

Duyts

Hayden

Holmes

Hyde
Jan

Jansen

Johnson

Laurenszen

Molenaar

Mullin

Neale

Pray

Pullen

Roelofs

Satyrs

Savil

Scott

Stillwell

Webb

The DAR

Some of you may know that I have taken the plunge and I am going to attempt to get all the paperwork in order to make my grandmother’s dream come true by applying to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.  I attended the meeting of the local chapter, Susannah Chandler, on the 10^th.  They are a nice group of ladies and were very welcoming to a prospective member.

I have 4 suspected lines that are in the DAR database; which when I discovered that completely floored me.  Only 4?  Bet you I can find more…go on, bet you.  Now, I was disappointed not to find my suspected Arvin ancestor (still proving that line) or my suspected Combs ancestor (which William Combs) in the database.  That is a personal goal of mine, to find them and bring them to the attention of my living relatives.

The lines that are there and I just need to gather the documents to prove my findings to their satisfaction are:

James Drake (mother’s side)
Rodolphus Norris (mother’s side)
William Hayden (father’s side)
William Price (father’s side)

A few of these lines I am still tracing, well, how about I am double checking the sources on published genealogies to make sure I am satisfied that the person is correct.  One of those very first lessons I had, not all trees that are published are sourced well…never trust an Ancestry.com public tree.

Of course, I also have a new trail to follow.  I was doing random surname searches on the DAR database and I came across a James Cannon who died in Daviess County Indiana 1849.  Looking at some of the information on the available descendants lists it appears that he and his children resided in Martin County Indiana…where my mother’s family is from. 

This is interesting to me as I have a Bethena (Betheny) Cannon on my mother’s side of the family.  She was born in Martin County Indiana 1838, to parents who were from Virginia and Indiana according to the census information given.  Taking the information from the DAR site I am going to go and do some searches for the family using the possible siblings and aunts/uncles listed.  Love it when I get new leads!

*Image from the Library of Congress, "Daughters of the American Revolution. Exterior of Daughters of the American Revolution Building"