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.
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:
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.
T