Original source unknown. A plaque commemorating the signers of the Tryon Resolves.
Happy 4th of July!
Most of the time people think of the Declaration of Independence on this day but before John Hancock signed big and bold there were “Associations.” These were folks who joined together against British Tyranny and did so in writing. You can read more about these associations and their “resolves” here at NCpedia.org.
Well, wouldn’t you know it? One of the nuts from my tree was an original signer of such resolves signed in August of 1775 in Tryon County, North Carolina. That would be my 6th ggrandfather, James McAfee.
I don’t know much about James McAfee. He appears to be the son of Irish immigrants, born in North Carolina in 1737. At the time of the signing he was married and had at least one child, an infant. I try to think of what it was like, what it meant, for James to put his name and life on the line to stand up to his government and join in the call for independence, to risk being called a traitor. That kind of conviction is rare today.
This great country we now know as The United States of America exists because of people standing up. I have several ancestors who took part in the American Revolution. I’m glad they and others like them were brave and willing.
Have you uncovered any Revolutionary War veterans in your tree?
There’s a little joke in my house. You remember the TV commercial where the girl says she has a blind date with a French model she met on the internet? This very not-French, probably-not-a-model dude shows up and greets her with a strongly American sounding “Bon Jour.” Bon Jour has become our phrase at home for don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
I get excited when I find stuff on the internet so it is hard to remember I can’t trust everything I read. I’m a sucker for things in print and sometimes I have to force myself to slow down and find out more.
Overjoyed to find this picture I quickly showed it to my husband:
(1965, August 14) The El Dorado Times El Dorado, AR. Retrieved from Newspapers.com
I said, look Husband! I found a picture of your grandfather. He looked the photo over really well and responded with, “That’s not him.” What do you mean, it isn’t him? The newspaper clipping doesn’t lie! There’s his name, right there! But then I got to looking at the photo, too. I had never met the man my husband called Papaw, but I have pictures of him and my husband favors him quite a lot. Either of these guys? Not so much.
So I then showed the photo to my husband’s uncle. He confirmed my husband’s thoughts- the man in the photo was not Papaw. Yes, that was his name listed, but the photo was not of him. Papaw was a Sheriff but the man pictured was one of the bailiffs or another deputy.
What to do with the photo as far as my family tree? I kept it and I even linked it to my husband’s Papaw with good, detailed notes attached. Papaw was probably involved with the case in some manner he just wasn’t in this photo. Lessons learned? You can’t believe everything you read (Bon Jour!) and sometimes it pays to have other people confirm your findings.
It’s exciting when you’re digging into your family tree and you find some of those “WOW” facts. The first of this, the first of that. Mr. Hero or the Matriarch of the County. One of my early wows came when my research led to this tombstone:
Find A Grave Memorial no. 43818822, created by wHerndon.com. Photo added by J.W. Latimer, Find A Grave member number 47569689.
Now that’s cool. Sarah here is my 5th ggrandmother and, according to her tombstone, she “was the daughter of the first american born Methodist minister.” Why in the world I was so pleased to find this I can’t say because it certainly isn’t my accomplishment. But I still thought it was kind of neat. Thanks, Find A Grave!
Except…hold on. The online memorial states Sarah was the daughter of Nicholas Watters. But the memorial for Nicholas’ brother, William Watters, says it was William who was the first american born Methodist minister. Time to do some more digging. 1. Who was the first? 2. Who was the father of my Sarah?
For question one the Methodists have lots of documentation indicating William Watters was indeed the first natural born of their ministers. There are several publications dedicated to the man, such as “William Watters, First American Circuit Rider” compiled by Duane V. Maxey from the writings of Nathan Bangs, Abel Stevens, and Matthew Simpson. A cursory Google search will bring up a dozen or more websites where you can read more. The preponderance of the evidence, and history as told by the Methodist church, shows William Watters to hold the title in question.
Now for the paternity of Sarah. Nicholas himself holds a place in the early Methodist church in this country as he, too, was one of their first circuit riders. Was Sarah’s tombstone a way to say she was William’s daughter? Or was the tombstone saying she was Nicholas’ daughter but taking a stab at William by claiming that Nicholas should have been recognized instead? My honest answer as of today is I don’t know. I’ve found trees that claim each brother as Sarah’s father but not a lot of documentation to support the claims. DNA results won’t do me much good here, I think, as we’re dealing with brothers. It is something I am still researching and something I may never have the answer to. But, good golly! We’re talking about a question dealing with my 6th great grandfather! What a problem to have! I’ll update you if I ever get definitive proof either way.
Let me also take this moment to caution about grave websites such as Find A Grave, Billion Graves and the like. These sites are awesome but they are the Wikipedia of genealogy with all information being sourced from the general public. Some folks get carried away with linking memorials that shouldn’t be linked or adding information that is just completely wrong. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine as my own dear Mammaw has an online memorial linked to WRONG WRONG WRONG information. I have contacted the person who could edit the source of the problem but he/she just will not do so despite sound documentation to support the correction. Even worse is that I’ve already found an online tree duplicating the errors. Lazy research is another peeve of mine; while I do a good deal of research online I try to make sure I’ve got solid sources for my information and I try to remain open to correction. I always try to do good research.
For Sarah Watters Oslin, I don’t know if she was the victim of poor research or an error in the linking of her memorial. But she is still one of my wow moments.
What have been some of your “WOW” moments in your research?
screenshot of the AncestryDNA ad from my social media feed.
I am not affiliated with AncestryDNA and don’t receive any compensation from them. It is simply the test I used. And just in time for Fathers Day they have begun filling social media with ads for their best price of the year. Just today I was telling a coworker now is the time to buy if you are at all interested in doing so.
My encouragement is usually met with indecision. Folks don’t know if they want to spend the money. They aren’t sure which company to use. They aren’t sure they trust the accuracy. They are afraid of what they might find. Or they are uncomfortable putting their DNA out there to possibly solve crimes in the future. These are all things you need to research and in the end you have to make the decision that’s right for you. But if you do it?
ALL THE COUSINS.
screen shot from my AncestryDNA page
Holy cow at the cousins. It is overwhelming. And neverending. The more people send in tests the more matches you get. They send you new matches as they are found so years later I still get new matches. I mean, just look at that picture! I have over 1000 4th cousins or closer. Those 44 starred matches? Those are the few I have researched and solidly followed how we are related. And the more information Ancestry gets from all the tests the more they can predict where you’re ancestors are from; that means your Ethnicity Estimate “changes” (actually just updated) and that can be confusing. My original results said 33% England/ Wales/ Northwestern Europe…that number is now 79%.
I have enjoyed looking into my matches. Some come with a common ancestor and are easy to research. Some are a complete puzzle..but I like puzzles. Then you get that one match that is definitive proof so-and-so really was your 3rd ggrandmother when you really weren’t for sure (true story!)
Sometimes you get messages from matches. I like that but some people don’t. I’ve reached out to a few of my matches with little to no response. Some matches don’t link a family tree for you to look at and compare and that can be disappointing, but you just move on to the next match and keep going.
In the end, I’m a fan of DNA testing for genealogical research. Lots of great info to be gleaned from the results. And great stories to uncover! I’ll tell you one of those stories in my next post.
Siblings are the best, aren’t they? At least from a research standpoint. You can have the greatest sibling, worst sibling, or no sibling in your own life but you should thank your lucky stars when you figure out your brick wall had one with all kinds of documentation to offer you clues.
In researching great-grandfather Harrison, I discovered he had twin brothers. I find twins fascinating and ended up going down the rabbit hole looking into this pair hoping to get more information about the family overall. I stopped short when I found one of them died rather young.
Find A Grave Memorial no. 5985540, Maintained by Annie202 (contributor 30783445) . Photo contributed by Mark Jordan, Find a Grave ID number 46613529 .
Only 28 years old. I know that it isn’t unusual for young people to pass on, especially in an age where medical care was quite different from what is available in the U.S. today. But I have a questioning mind. What happened to this young man? Was he married? Did he have children? Is he (fingers crossed) buried in a family cemetery?
I found no other family buried in the same cemetery. Disappointing because I had not yet located the grave of his mother (my gg-grandmother.) I could find no articles in the state paper about his death. To me, the middle name Jewell was unusual. I had hoped it would help me find out more. For several years I found nothing. I can’t write enough about patience or about understanding not everything is online…yet. Documents are being indexed, scanned, and digitized everyday. So what you search for one time with zero results may come up a few years down the road with these results:
(1913, September 17) The Times Shreveport, LA. Retrieved from Newspapers.com(1913, September 18) Daily Arkansas Gazette Little Rock, AR. Retrieved from Newspapers.com
These articles tell me the young man was married, left no children, and was the brother of J.B. Harrison, who I am showing to be the other twin in this matter. My research had already shown the twins worked at a local saw mill at one time but it seems Jewell branched out and was working for a new one that was being built. The articles also confirm for me the general area in which the family was living at the time. I note the cemetery is located in Holly Springs while the articles say he was to be buried in Bearden, AR. Keep in mind geography changes. These two locations today are about 18 miles apart but over a hundred years ago Holly Springs may have been a part of Bearden or Bearden may have been the post office for that area. It is helpful to look at nearby towns when researching.
So, at the end of the day what did I learn concerning my great granddad? Nothing directly. But being able to confirm these brothers eventually helped me confirm my gg-grandmother, their mother. Added bonus was getting to read the story. I’m sure Jewell would rather us know more personal things about him but those things have not yet been uncovered and may never be. Newspaper articles are typically about sad, serious, or shocking things so this is what we get to know about him. But I like to think our ancestors would just be pleased we remember them. This ancestor had no children and his wife was not buried by him so she may have remarried. I think I will look into how to clean tombstones and go spiff this one up for him.
Before I get to some of my weird stories, I want to tell you how I went from casual name collector to serious (albeit amateur) tree researcher.
I was surprised at how little I could find out about a great-grandfather. I knew his name and that was about it. Online research had me spoiled and I kept waiting on that hint to pop up and magically explain where he came from and who his people were. After years of that not happening, I decided to order my first death certificate.
Oh, the excitement! I was fidgety waiting for that piece of paper to arrive. I could barely contain myself when it showed up. I opened it to find this:
Confirmed info: great-granddad was a painter. His Dad was J. Harrison and his Mom was M. Harrison. New info: the “J” stood for James and the “M” stood for Mollie whose maiden name was Gasson. These details had been provided by the deceased’s child, my own dear grandparent, so I felt confident in the information provided. I also found out this death was due to an automobile accident.
I was able to confirm the automobile accident quickly enough by speaking with family and by searching out Newspapers.com:
Some goodies family let me in on: Mr. Harrison was blind ( a blind painter!) and used a sight cane to get around, and the odds were good he was intoxicated at the time of this accident. Alrighty then.
I added the new info into my tree and got NOTHING. Seriously nothing. I read and re-read the death certificate hoping for any clues at all. James Harrison is a plain name with too many hits to be useful. But Mollie Gasson? I was sure that odd last name would get me somewhere. But it didn’t. I found some folks with that last name but the background didn’t fit, the geography didn’t fit, and I found no records whatsoever to give me any kind of confirmation.
Because. The. Information. Was. WRONG.
Mollie was a nickname. Gasson was just completely incorrect. To wrap this story up, I spent months searching every version of that last name I could come up with. I finally hit an obituary that listed Mollie and her brother…with the correct last name but incorrect first name. But once I got to looking at the brother I was able to confirm Mollie’s real name and her real maiden name.
So the death certificate was wrong. It is easy to assume the official document is correct but it is only as correct as the person providing the details. I put myself in the position of the family. The informant was the deceased’s grown child although his spouse was living. Maybe his wife was distraught and just couldn’t help provide the specifics. That may have been true, too, for the child who did. That child also may not have really known for sure what the correct information was and just gave the best version that could be remembered at that moment. This was a sudden death and the family was likely in shock. They probably did the best they could.
The obituaries I found were also wrong. Same lesson as above. The additional lessons are to keep looking, use varieties, check newspapers, and look at siblings.
Looking at siblings plays a big part in the next story. I look forward to sharing.
