The Stanford Cheek Family (Part 2)

Now that you know a bit about the family of Stanford Cheek and his wife Mary Polly Williams Cheek I wish to relate the remarkable tale from the unlikely source that confirmed some few facts I had and opened up much of what I just related.  As I said, I had hoped to verify the information with copies of the original documents, but hours of operation of the Georgia Archives are severely reduced because of budget constraints, such that we face the very real prospect that the Archives may close to the public altogether.  Alas for our state, and its history, and its reputation.

In any case, I’m lucky that someone else uncovered these documents.  As I said, a Google search turned up my first clues.  I was researching my third great grandfather John Farthing.  I had traced him back as far as 1860 in Jasper County, and was entering various combinations of his name and the counties in which he had lived, with and without enclosing phrases in quotes, hoping for that odd bit of luck that would turn up an historical reference.  One search turned up the phrase “the harassment of his father, his brother-in-law (John Farthing) and himself” and clicking on the link opened a Word document entitled Homicides of Adults in Jasper County, Georgia, to 1900.  It was a long 500+ page document, so I searched for Farthing and got a hit.  More than that, I found a new branch of the family, confirmed the maiden name of John Farthing wife independently of the Farthing family history I have a copy of, and uncovered a fascinating and forgotten bit of family history.

First, I must give credit to my source for this tale.  The document mentioned above is from the website of the Historical Violence Database, a project of the Criminal Justice Research Center (CJRC) of the Department of Sociology, Ohio State University (http://cjrc.osu.edu/researchprojects/hvd/usa/georgia/).  The other pages of the project website make fascinating reading, but I was specifically concerned with the results reported in this paper, part of the study “Homicide among Adults in Georgia and South Carolina, 1785-1900.“  The particular sections of the document that concern the Cheek family draw on the papers of Governor Rufus Brown Bullock, the Reconstruction-era Republican Governor of Georgia from 1868-1871.  While the study has some extensive quotes of the original source material, it is nevertheless a transcription, with all the potential flaws inherent in the transcription process.  Unfortunately, though, as noted above it is all I have to rely on for the time being.  I am grateful that the CJRC has made this study available on the internet.  Please see the section on Creative Commons license and Fair Use here on the CJRC website for information on distribution of this content.  All of the quotes are from pages 222-227, covering the sections "HOM:  Walter N. Cheek m. Jarret McGinnis" and "HOM:  unk. white men [prob. Elbert J. Campbell, Richard S. Campbell, William Parker, and ___ McGinnes] m. Malory L. Cheek.”

There are in the papers of Governor Bullock three letters dated 15 May 1870, 22 May 1870 and 24 August 1870 (Papers of Governor Rufus Brown Bullock, 1868-1871.  Record Group 1-1-5, Ga. Dept. of Hist. & Archives.  Box 58:  2740-13; cited in Homicides of Adults in Jasper County, Georgia, to 1900 [hereafter Homicides], pp 223-224).  The letters were written to the Governor by “John W. Cheek, formerly of Jasper Co., now in Yorkville, S.C.”  On 15 May 1870 John Cheek “writes about the harassment of his father, his brother-in-law (John Farthing) and himself & of the murder of his brother, Malory L. Cheek, in 1868.”  According to the letters, John & Mallory (or Malory) were "attending to our own business" as farmers during 1868.  Various “Democratic clubs” and early KKK organizations were out agitating and trying to force white farmers to join them in harassing the newly-freed blacks in an attempt to influence the outcome of election.  John says that “At last they were threatened with violence if they did not join, esp. [Mallory], ‘who had openly denounced the So called KuKlux.’”   As might be expected, this did not go over well with the agitators.

Mallory tried to hide from the group, but they continued to pursue him.

until the Ku Klux raided his house at night & broke into the house & went into the bedroom with guns cocked & ordered his brother's wife out of the bed (in only her nightclothes), but found he had escaped.  Then they went to “our brother in law” (John Farthing) & entered his house in the same manner, terrifying his wife & children.  Then went to their aged parents' house [age 70] & searched the house with guns drawn.  Then came to JWC's house & made the same threats & search.

“JWC” is John W Cheek. 

Finally, at 3am on 30 November 1868, they caught up with Mallory, “called [him] to the door of his house & shot him through the body & head.”  John reports that his brother died instantly.

In his letters of 22 May and 24 August 1870, John expands on his charges somewhat, and repeatedly names names, calling out brothers Elbert and Richard Campbell and William Parker, all of Jasper County, who he says “have never been law abiding citizens”, and that they “engaged in illicit Disstilling for two years previous to October 1868 at which time I was forced to seek safety by leaving my home.”  They local trio was joined in this crime and the ongoing agitation and harassment by a man who claimed to be an ex-Confederate officer from Tennessee, a Captain McGinnes, “who was at the time loafing about the country and who acted as one of the Ringleaders of the band" but has since moved to Bastrop P.O. in Bastrop Co., Texas.”  According to Homicides, the May 15^th letter states that the murder occurred on the 30^th of November and that John left the state shortly afterwards, yet here in the May 22^nd letter he is saying he left the state the month before (in October 1868), and in the letter of August 24^th he states that “It will be 2 yrs next Sept. when the crime was committed” (i.e., September 1868).  So unless there is a transcription error in the letter of May 15^th, the dates are slightly out of synch.  But it seems clear that the basic truth of the murder and the approximate time appear factual.

John Cheek is writing to appeal to the Governor to send in troops to effect an arrest because he believes the civil authority in Jasper County is sympathetic to the political goals of the murderers.

This is all interesting stuff, so I searched the Homicides document for more mentions of the Farthings and Cheeks.  There was only one other section mentioning the Cheek family, and it’s immediately before the one on the murder of Mallory Cheek.  Interestingly, it is the murder of a man named “Jarret McGinnis” by Mallory’s brother Walter Cheek.  This murder took place on 31 May 1868, and apparently was the result of a duel between Walter and this Jarret McGinnis, arising from some slight wherein Walter thought that Jarret had insulted him or Jarret thought Walter had insulted him or both.  I think that there is far too much coincidence in the name of the victim is this earlier murder “Jarret McGinnis” and “Captain McGinnes” who was a ringleader in the murder of Mallory Cheek.  It certainly bears further investigation and research, and has been added to my “to do” list.

That’s about it for now.

Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

The Stanford Cheek Family

In a previous post on my 3^rd great grandfather John William Farthing I briefly mentioned his wife Louisa Cheek.  While researching John William and Louisa using Google, an interesting bit of information turned up from an unlikely source.  I had hoped to verify the information with copies of the original documents, but with the reduction in hours at the Georgia Archives, and a visit being unlikely this year, I’ll have to rely for a while longer on the transcription I discovered.  This is not a primary source for me, but it gave me pointers to and confirmation of connections that I found in other sources, mainly censuses and Civil War records.

First the bare outlines of the family pedigree.  Louisa Cheek was born about 1825 in Orange County, North Carolina, where on 7 July 1849 she married John William Farthing (born about 1820).  Louisa’s parents were Stanford Cheek (1796-after 1880) and Mary Polly Williams (1797-before 1880).  Stanford and Mary were married in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1819 and had four sons and one daughter that we know of.

• John W Cheek (1821-?)
  married Emeline A Currie (1822-?) in 1846 in Orange County, North Carolina
  
• Louisa Cheek (1825-before1900) – my 3^rd great grandmother
  married John William Farthing in 1849 in Orange County, North Carolina
  
• Archibald W "Archy" Cheek (1832-1862)
  never married
  
• Walter N Cheek (1835-1870)
  married Amanda J Hardman, née Blackwell (1828-?) in 1866 in Jasper County, Georgia
  
• Mallory Cheek (1840-1868)
  married Artexas C Allen (?-?) in 1862 in Jasper County, Georgia

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com

The first census I have found documenting Stanford Cheek’s family was the 1840 census in Orange County, North Carolina, but we’ll start here with 1850, the first census to show details of the names and ages of family members residing in the household.  In District 1 of Orange County, North Carolina, the census record shows John and Louisa Farthing, and further down the same sheet, so undoubtedly living nearby, are Louisa’s parents and siblings, Stanford and Mary Cheek, with Archy, Walter and Mallory.  Oldest son John Cheek had already moved to Jasper County, Georgia, with his wife Emeline and son Marion, plus on the following sheet we see “Nancy Curry”, most likely Emeline’s mother.  Note also that John Farthing is a blacksmith, and Stanford Cheek and John Cheek are carpenters.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com

By 1860 the whole clan has followed John Cheek to Georgia.  Stanford, Mary, Walter and Mallory are living in Newton County, and John Farthing, John Cheek and Archy Cheek live in and around Monticello, in Jasper County.  Arch, who is now a carpenter like his father and older brother, lives in a boarding house run by Susan Fulton.  And “The War” is just a year away.  It doesn’t appear that either the Cheeks or the Farthings were slave owners, but their lives would be torn apart nonetheless.

Service record images courtesy of Fold34.com

Stanford Cheek was 65 when the War started, and John Cheek and John Farthing were both over 40, but the younger Cheeks all enlisted at the outset.  Their service records (which I found on the Fold3.com website) show that Archy, Walter and Mallory all enlisted in Company G, Georgia 4th Infantry Regiment on 25 Apr 1861, and mustered into service the next day at Augusta, under the command of Captain R. G. Cole. 

Walter served through nearly the end of the war.  He was captured at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia, on 12 May 1864, and released from the prison camp at Elmira, New York, on 23 June 1865, “on taking the oath of allegiance” [to the United States].  Mallory enlisted as a drummer, was hospitalized with syphilis in October and November of 1861, and finally discharged on a certificate of disability on 12 August 1862. 

Archy was also diagnosed with syphilis and received a medical discharge 26 January 1862.  But on 10 May 1862 he re-enlisted, this time as a corporal in the 16th GA Partisan (Cavalry) Rangers Volunteers (also known later as 12th (Wright's) Cavalry (State Guards) and 13th Cavalry).  His regiment was part of the command of Morgan's Raiders.  While on extended campaign into Kentucky in July 1862 he was killed in or around Harrison County while the unit was encamped at Cynthiana, Kentucky.  In January 1863 his father Stanford filed a claim for a settlement for his deceased son.  The death claim bears out the fact that Arch never married, for his father explicitly states that he left behind no wife or children.  The claim was settled for two months’ pay plus a $50 bounty due from enlistment, plus $25 for his clothing allowance, but $2.50 was deducted for a pair of shoes he received from the army.  Interestingly (to me at least) the “acting justice of the peace” for Jasper County who witnessed several pages of Stanford’s claim was Robert C Barnes.  I don’t yet know what, if any, relationship he is to “my” Barnes family.

Service record images courtesy of Fold34.com

Next time I’ll give the details of my unexpected discovery.

That’s about it for now.

Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

John William, Another Farthing

As discussed in my last post, my great-great-grandfather Ruben T “Fred” Farthing (1857-1932) was a blacksmith.  This is an important link in tracing his ancestry, because starting with his parents and working backwards it gets increasingly difficult to pin down any facts with certainty.  Records are scarcer, and prior to 1850 the US Federal Census listed only the name of the head of household.  Fortunately he appears on both the 1860 and 1870 censuses with his parents John William and Louisa [Cheek] Farthing.  “Fred” was their second child, and the oldest son.

Part of Orange County Marriage Records
from Ancestry.com

John William Farthing (1820-aft1880) and his wife Louisa Cheek (1825-aft1880) were my 3g grandparents (that’s 3 “greats” before the word “grandparents”!)  John William’s early years are somewhat uncertain, but based on census and marriage records he appears to have been born in 1820 in Orange County, North Carolina.  I have a family tree, undocumented and with no citations, which says his parents were Reuben Farthing and Joanna “Anne” Holloway.  There is a listing in Marriages of Orange County, North Carolina, 1779-1868 (Holcom, Brent H.; Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001; and available with subscription to Ancestry.com at this link) that shows a Reuben Farthing and an Anne Holloway showing they married in Orange County on 12 Dec 1816 with Thomas Holloway as best man.  The same source and page is the first reference to John & Louisa, stating that John Farthing and “Louiser Cheek” [sic] married on 7 July 1849 in Orange County, North Carolina, with James F. Gattis as best man.  As a side note, the Farthing family tree I have says that there is a will for Reuben Farthing filed in Orange County on 30 May 1839 but I haven’t seen or ordered that will yet.

The first federal census I have for John shows John Farthing, aged 30 and a blacksmith, with Louisa Farthing, aged 24. living in Orange County, North Carolina, on 16 July 1850.  If the birth years of 1820 and 1825 are correct this means that John’s birth date falls in the first half of the year and Louisa was born in the second half.   Interestingly, they live next to James H. Gattis (39), a carpenter, and his wife Nancy Gattis (also aged 39).  Was there a transcription error in either the marriage listing or the census record?  Could this be the same James Gattis that was John Farthing’s best man?  There is probably no way to know for certain, but it’s an avenue for future research.  One thing is clear from the census records of 1850, Orange County, North Carolina, was just brimming with Farthings.  So John packed up and moved southwest to the state of Georgia.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com

The 1860 census, on the eve of the Civil War, show John & “Luisa” [sic] living in or near Monticello, in Jasper County, Georgia, with their children Anna, Reuben and John W.  In 1870, the growing family now lives in Rockville (near Eatonton), Putnam County, Georgia, and consists of John, Louisa, Annie W, “Frederick” [i.e., Ruben], John W, Mary H, Lucy B, Ada C and Wm [William].  By 1880 they’ve moved again.  Now living in Morgan County, Georgia, in Militia District 397 (southwest of Madison), the family is listed as containing John, Louisa, Annie, Molly, Lucy and Ada, along with Louisa’s father Stanford Cheek, and two boarders, William Clay, a 24-year-old blacksmith, and “Thos. F. Davis” [Thomas F. Davis], a 21-year-old farm laborer from South Carolina.  It’s possible that William Clay was apprenticed to John Farthing.  If so, there may be court records of the indenture in either Putnam or Morgan Counties, so that’s another avenue for future research.  I also need to keep these surnames in mind as I research future collateral lines; they may be relatives of John or Louisa, or one or both might marry into the family at a later date.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com

SideTrack: OK, here’s why it sometimes takes me so long to write these posts!  I couldn’t leave it alone.  A quick search for “Clay” in the Morgan County marriage book for 1879-1907 on Georgia’s Virtual Vault website turned up W.F. Clay marrying Lucy Farthing on 14 Jan 1886 (page 99).  By 1900 (there is no surviving 1890 census here) William & Lucy Clay have moved to Fenter Township, Hot Spring County, Arkansas, where they live out the remainder of their days and raise a fine family.  Their oldest daughter Mamie Clay was born in November 1889 or 1890, depending on the source, and the next child, son John Clay, was born in Arkansas in October 1894, so they moved during that 4 or 5 year window.  In my quick detour here I found 3 census records through Ancestry.com, two tombstones (one for William & Lucy on FindAGrave.com and one for daughter Mamie by following one of Ancestry.com’s “shaking leaf” links; Mamie apparently married a Hunter Andrew Tyler in 1906 and they share a headstone).  I haven’t confirmed any of this with additional research, but the leads look promising, and you can see how easy it is to get distracted from your primary goal.  That detour took a couple of hours by the time I had entered the new information into Ancestry, saved a few images, and made a few notes for further research.

As rewarding as such meandering may be, though, I need to finish up with Mamie’s parents, John William and Louisa.  One reason for following up with Mamie, a process I will need to repeat with each of their other children, is that the 1880 census is the last record I can find of them.  It’s entirely possible that they passed away by 1900 (John would have been about 80, and Louisa about 75 by then), but I don’t have anything to prove that.  I can’t find any cemetery record or gravestone posting that belongs to them.  It may be that they are buried in Morgan County.  It may be that there is an extensive cemetery survey for Morgan County such as I’ve found previously for other counties.  But I haven’t located any yet.  I’m still searching.

There are discrepancies, of course, from decade to decade on the census, and from source to source.  Lucy Farthing, for example, is given the middle initial “B” on the 1870 census, but every other census that gives her middle initial and her gravestone give her middle initial as “T”.  Sometimes people gave their first names to most census enumerators, but most other records have the middle name they generally were known by.  It can get confusing, but you have to make a judgment call as to where most of the evidence is, or sometimes even against the prevailing tide of most evidence (such as ancestors who seemed to get younger and younger with every census year!)  you don’t want to make a decision too soon, but don’t be afraid to make your best call if the situation seems to warrant it, as long as you note the discrepancies and why you made your decision.  And don’t be afraid to go back later and change that call if you find additional evidence later.

That’s about it for now.

Here’s your summary:

• Always cite your sources, even in your research notes.  It’s amazing how much you can forget about where you read or heard something, even after just a short time. (I’m repeating this one and the next one because they’re so darned important!)
• The U.S. Census is still probably your most valuable source of information (after family resources) for the period from 1850 to 1930.  Just exercise some caution and common sense, weigh the possibilities, and remember the census isn’t perfect.  Even with a relatively uncommon name you can find people with the same name or initials.
• Marriage and death records can often be found online at Georgia’s Virtual Vault, a digital document resource from the Georgia Archives and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.  It’s worth a quick search many times before pursuing other avenues, especially when you’re trying to chase down female lines.  Unfortunately most books don’t have “bride” indexes, but it’s still worth a search if you have a likely groom candidate in mind.
• Don’t ignore all the “shaking leaves”, or hints, on Ancestry.com.  Just treat them with care as you would any unverified lead until you find proof to support the claims.  Even if you have ten or twenty bum leads in a row, the next one just might provide the hint you need to go to the next step in your research.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

A Few Farthings More

My great-grandfather Irving Colquitt Farthing (1885-1974) was the fourth of twelve children – six boys and six girls.  He was probably born in Putnam County. (Because there were no birth certificates yet, and no 1890 census survives, we assume the family was still living in the same place as in 1880.)  I did have a note that he might have been born in Morgan County, just north of Putnam, but it’s unsourced, so I’m not sure where that came from.  NOTE: Always source your notes, even if you think the information is tentative, or even if you’re sure it’s wrong.  Most of his friends and associates just called him I.C.

I.C.’s father was Ruben Theodore “Fred” Farthing, born 24 Feb 1854 in Orange County, North Carolina, and died 22 Jul 1932 near Brooklet in Bulloch County, Georgia.  Ruben was a blacksmith, the last in a line of blacksmiths stretching back as far as I can trace them, 3 or 4 generations altogether.  Nobody seems to know why he was called “Fred”.  One story is that there were so many Rubens and Reubens in the family that they called him that just so they’d know which one they were talking about!  There are worse nicknames to be stuck with, I’m sure.

By the time Ruben was three, in 1860, his father John, also a blacksmith, had moved the family to Georgia.  In 1860 they show up on the census for Monticello, in Jasper County, Georgia.  In 1870, they are living in Rockville, Putnam County.  In 1878, Ruben got married to Martha Jane "Mattie" Alford.  The Alfords are a fine old family with roots throughout the south and beyond.  In fact there is a family history association, The Alford American Family Association.  I got some information and some confirmation from their website at http://www.alfordassociation.org.  I still have every intention of joining this organization, I just have it on my list of things to do after the car and home repairs that always crop up when I think I’ve got a little extra money!  According to their website, Ruben and Martha (or Fred & Mattie if you’re family) were married 19 Dec 1878 in Dublin, Laurens County, but I have yet to locate a marriage record of any kind.  In any case, Fred and Mattie were living in Glades, Putnam County, with their eldest son John William when the 1880 census was taken.

Census images courtesy of Amazon.com (click view a larger image)

Apparently Ruben continued a family tradition of moving regularly because in 1900 the census shows them to be living in Stansells District, Newton County (remember, the 1890 census did not survive in most places) with their NINE children, and then in Dudley, Laurens County by 1910.  By this time Mattie has had 12 children, but only 11 survive.  The family likely moved to Laurens County well before 1910 because at some point my great grandparents met and wooed and wed in Dublin, Laurens County, in 1907, and by 1910 IC & Mamie Farthing were living in Savannah.  I can’t locate Ruben and Martha Farthing anywhere in the 1920 census year.  I can find several of their children and grandchildren, but apparently they were missed, on the move again, or their names are so seriously misspelled that it will take a page by page search of the census records to find them.  One of these days I’ll tackle that.  Also in the middle there was a little thing called The Great War (now we call it World War I).  The War lasted from June 1914 to November 1918, but the United States didn't get officially involved until April 1917.  All the Farthing boys registered for service, and I believe two of them actually served in the Army, but I have to confirm that.

I did find them in 1930, though, living in the Brier Patch area of Bulloch County, Georgia, on a farm with son John W and daughter Emmie.  According to the census, John apparently got married about 1915, but is now (1930) widowed, and Emmie has never married, but I haven’t yet thoroughly investigated all those collateral lines.  That’s quite a lot of work, as you can imagine, with 10 surviving brothers and sisters.  Ruben seems to have finally retired (he is about 73 afterall, give the man a break!).  Based on Martha’s obituary, where it says on 1 January 1958 that she "had been living in Bulloch County for the past 33 years" it appears that Ruben and Martha moved there about 1925.  Ruben died in 1932, two years before my mother was born.  Martha Jane “Mattie” Alford Farthing lived on another twenty-five-and-a-half years, until 1 January 1958.  Martha is the only one of my sixteen great-great grandparents to live past my date of birth (not that either of us would have remembered meeting, even if we had).  Strangely, her son, I.C., my great grandfather, is the only one of my eight great grandparents I ever met; all the others died before I was born.

Census images courtesy of Amazon.com (click view a larger image)

If you look for these areas on a map of Georgia, say through Google, you’ll find some of them, but others will never turn up.  That’s because Georgia’s federal census, as well as taxation and other government functions, is organized by “militia district” which is unique to Georgia.  There are a lot of sources which help you find out where those militia district lines were drawn, but none online that I’m aware of.  There is a good background article at the Georgia Archives website: .  Other than that, the Georgia Archives sells a state map with county lines and modern militia districts by number.  Usually the census forms will provide you with the number as well as the name of the district.  I don’t know if they offer it by mail, but you can contact them to find out.  For the eastern third or so of Georgia, there’s the excellent book Atlas of East and Coastal Georgia Watercourses and Militia Districts by Paul K. Graham, which I’ve mentioned previously.  Paul Graham is a Certified Genealogist^SM and his website is http://www.pkgraham.com.  The link from the book title takes you to Amazon.com, or you can order from Amazon by clicking on the link on the author’s website.  (I don’t get a kickback either way, so whichever you choose is OK by me.) 

Another source for historic towns and settlements is Georgia Place Names by Kenneth K. Krakow.  I was attending Mercer University in Macon when Mr. Krakow released this book, and I bought a copy of the first edition and had him autograph it for my mother.  From what I understand, the book is currently not in print, but Ken’s sons have graciously created a website and made the entire contents of the third edition of the book available online as PDF documents (http://kenkrakow.com/gpn/georgia_place-names.htm).  While you’ll still find missing names, and not every militia district name is covered, this is still my go-to site for finding out just where the heck something was, and it’s a great place to waste an hour (or an afternoon) just perusing the pages.

One last bit of strangeness.  Ruben Theodore Farthing was buried in the Emit Grove Baptist Church graveyard in 1932.  In 1958, however, Martha Alford Farthing was buried in the Brooklet Cemetery in Brooklet, also in Bulloch County.  We couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t be together until I found her obituary.  The obituary states the she “was a member of the Brooklet Methodist Church.”  That explains it.  Many churches, even today, have policies that restrict burials to current members, and that practice was even more common 80 years ago.  So now we know why Martha was buried in the city cemetery with three of her children, the widower John W (known as “Uncle Willy”), Emmie (who married at least twice) and Elmer L (“Uncle Lamar”, who never married). I'd like to offer a special thank you to Find A Grave user nu2ga (aka Allie Woodard) for posting Martha's obituary to her Find A Grave memorial.  Allie cites her source as "From Obituary File - Statesboro Regional Library - name of publication not given."  Thank you Allie!

John W[illiam] Farthing, Emmie Farthing Weston Burnam, Martha Alford Farthing, Elmer L[amar] Farthing

I’ll tackle more Farthings next time, unless I get sidetracked again.

Here’s your summary:

• Always cite your sources, even in your research notes.  It’s amazing how much you can forget about where you read or heard something, even after just a short time.
• The U.S. Census is still probably your most valuable source of information (after family resources) for the period from 1850 to 1930.  Just exercise some caution and common sense, weigh the possibilities, and remember the census isn’t perfect.  Even with a relatively uncommon name you can find people with the same name or initials.
• Google your surname and the phrase “family association.”  You might get lucky!  And don’t forget those collateral lines when looking for other family research groups.  Just because they aren’t in your direct line, or are in a maternal line, doesn’t mean they won’t have information that can point you in the right direction, inspiration to search in a new area, or even documentation that you might otherwise never find on your own (such as family bibles and letters between family members).  Just don’t balk if there’s a small fee to join; cataloguing, preserving and presenting all this data is not cheap, and not every group has an “angel” to pick up the tab.  
• Georgia Place Names by Kenneth K. Krakow is hands down my favorite resource for exploring bygone towns in Georgia.  You might find a copy in a used book store, but the entire contents are available online at http://kenkrakow.com/gpn/georgia_place-names.htm.  There are other similar resources out there, such as The Dead Towns of Georgia (Travel in America) by Charles Colcock Jones and Charles Jones (which is also available for free download from Amazon Books) and Cities, towns, and communities of Georgia between 1847-1962 by Marion R. Hemperley (check Amazon or your local library or used bookstores for availability, in or out of print).

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

SideLine: Robert D. White

Robert D White, ca. 1935

In genealogy, a collateral ancestor is the brother or sister of your direct ancestor and a collateral line is his or her descendents.  Researching your collateral ancestors can often lead you to details about your own ancestors that you might not otherwise discover.  In addition, adding their stories to your research makes for a fuller telling of your family history.  Plus sometimes they are just so darned interesting!  I can sometimes get distracted for days reading about a collateral ancestor such as the Rev. Dr. Henry Holcombe, a great Baptist preacher of the first decades of the 19^th century in Savannah and Philadelphia who was my 4th great grand uncle.  Another great reason for taking a detour into your collateral lines is to find distant cousins who can hopefully help you when you hit one of those pesky brick walls.  I have such a brick wall, so I’ll take a break from the Farthings here to talk about the family of I.C. Farthing’s wife, Mamie.

 
Mamie Clyde White (1884-1957) – “Mamaw” – was my maternal great grandmother, my mother’s mother’s mother.  She died about four months before I was born.  Based on what my mother told me, I was searching for Mamie’s parents Robert Alfred White and Elizabeth Rozier.  Except I was also told that Mamie’s mother had died when she was a little girl, and that her father had remarried, to a woman name Valeria.  Oh, and Mamie had one brother, also named Robert.  My mother doesn’t recall ever meeting Mamie’s father or stepmother, but “Uncle Robert” visited a couple of times.  We actually found a picture of him with my grandmother and grandfather and my mother, which was probably taken in 1935.  (We don’t know who cut the picture or when, but we do have both pieces!)

I started my search in the Ancestry.com Census indexes for 1900.  This is a rather targeted way to search, but since I knew that Mamie was born in the 1880’s and there aren’t any surviving records for the 1890 census in Georgia I was hopeful that I would find her family in 1900.  I also had already located the record of her marriage to I. C. Farthing in 1907 in the digitized microfilm of the Laurens County Marriage Book N on the Georgia’s Virtual Vault website.  So I focused the search even further to Laurens and surrounding counties in Georgia.  And I was successful.  I found a family of four listed in Dodge County, Chauncey District consisting of Robert A White (age 39), Valeria White (22), Robert A White (17) and Mamie White (15).  The 1900 census is valuable for the additional information it contains.  For example, it gives the month and year of birth as well as the age for each individual, the number of years married for couples and the number of children born/still living for the wives.  Robert A and Valeria have only been married 7 years, so it’s obvious she couldn’t be Robert D and Mamie’s mother.  And she’s only 22, so she’s more a big sister than a mother.  No wonder I heard a couple of stories that Mamie didn’t particularly care for her step-mother.  Of course, you can’t always depend on the dates or ages reported on the census, or the other information without corroboration.  For example, Valeria supposedly has had 2 children and 2 are living, but none are in the house of an appropriate age.  Did the census taker just put her down as the mother without asking any other questions?  We’ll never know.  The census form also indicates that Robert A was a teamster, and his son Robert D was already a laborer in a saw mill at 17 years old.

And that’s about it for Robert A White, my great-great grandfather.  The 1900 census indicates he was born in October 1860, so there’s no chance of finding him in the 1860 census, but I’ve also been unable to locate him with certainty in the 1870 or 1880 censuses.  My mother had written down Mamie’s mother’s name as Elizabeth Rozier, so I went to the Georgia’s Virtual Vault website again, searching for two marriage records for Robert A, again focusing on Laurens County first.  I rather quickly located a marriage license issued to Mr. Robert White and Miss Valeria Warren, married in Laurens County on 19 February 1894, so the 1900 census was wrong; they had just celebrated their sixth anniversary, not their seventh.  Finding the record of his first marriage was a bit more difficult.  I wasn’t even sure of the year.  Looking at the 1900 census again, it says that Robert D was born in May 1883 and Mamie was born in October 1884.  I started with January 1883 and started working my way backwards.  I found a record for a Mr. Robert A. White who was married in Laurens County on 18 July 1880, but his wife is listed as Leona Rozar.  So far I’ve had no luck tracing any of these three people back before their marriage licenses, or forward past 1900, with one exception.

1910 US Census, Georgia, Laurens County, Dublin, Ward 3 (courtesy of Amazon.com)

In the 1910 census for Dublin, Laurens County, I found a family of four again.  This time they were listed as Robert D White (Head; 28), Lula E White (Wife; 27), Vida Pearl White (Daughter; 2) and Robert A White (Father; 51).  Now the ages of the two Roberts are one year older than I would expect to see based on their ages an years of birth in 1900, that isn’t unheard of.  This census uses M1, M2, etc. to indicate how many marriages a person has had.  Robert A has M2, indicating two marriages.  It doesn’t indicate he’s widowed, but it does say 12 years for the length of marriage.  Again, an understandable error, particularly if this is a transcribed copy of the enumerator’s actual form … heck sometimes I mix up my own 2’s and 7’s!   I can’t find a “suitable” Robert A White in any succeeding census, but Robert D shows up in 1920, still living in Dublin, Laurens County with his family: Robert D White (38), Lula C White (37) and Veda P White (11).  And in 1930, once again in Dublin, it’s Robert D White (48), Lula White (48) and Pearle White (20).  The 1910 census said that Robert D & Lula had been married 5 years, but the 1930 census says that they have been married 22 years.  More transcription errors?  A search of the Virtual Vault turned up a marriage license issued by Laurens County to Robert White and Lula Gay indicating they were married on 2 October 1904, so 5 years as of the date of the 1910 census would be correct, and the 1930 census should have recorded it as 25 years.

That’s assuming these are the correct people, of course.  My mother didn’t think “Uncle Robert” had ever been married.  I haven’t located death records or gravestones for any of these people.  I can’t find a marriage record for a Vida Pearl White in the vicinity of Dublin or the neighboring counties.  In this case collateral research has not paid off entirely, though it has given me some interesting leads and raised other questions.  For example, whatever happened to Valeria (the second wife)?  Did Robert A die between 1910 and 1920?  Georgia hadn’t yet mandated death certificates, so there doesn’t appear to be any hope of one of those.  Who were Robert A’s parents?  Who was Elizabeth/Leona Rozar/Rozier?  There are quite a few Rozars in and around Laurens county, but I haven’t found a likely candidate for her in the 1870 or 1880 census.  What happened to the daughter, Vida Pearl?  Did she ever marry and have children?  Did any of the possible children inherit family memorabilia that might shed more light on the Whites of Laurens and surrounding counties?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Sorry to say, I’m leaving this detour with more questions than answers, but it was interesting nonetheless, and I did learn a few things which point to other possibilities.  Hopefully more information will come to light some day soon that will allow me to break through this wall.

* Marriage license images are from the Georgia's Virtual Vault website, courtesy of the Georgia Archives.

Here’s your summary:

• Exploring your collateral ancestors and their descendents can often be a rewarding effort.  Sometimes you will even acquire information that will help you break through brick walls on your other lines.
• Census forms, particularly from the decades surrounding the turn of the last century, are often rich in details which can add to the texture of your family history.
• Don’t forget to try to confirm facts with multiple sources.  Tombstones, marriage records, death records, family Bibles, census forms and family histories should all be weighed and considered carefully.  No single document can provide all the evidence you need, but each is a piece of the puzzle.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

A Farthing for Your Thoughts

I.C. Farthing & Mamie Farthing, 1955

I’ve mentioned before that my maternal grandmother was Helen Lois Farthing (1910-1984).  Her parents were Mamie Clyde White (1884-1957) and Irving Colquitt Farthing (1885-1974), “Mamaw” and “Papaw” as we called them (though I’ve discovered that my mom spelled their names “Mamma” and “Pappa”).  Mamaw and Papaw were married in Dublin, Laurens County, Georgia, on 1 December 1907.  I.C., as he was known, worked for an insurance company, and later became a lawyer.  I’ve always had a special fondness for this great-grandfather, not just because he’s the only great-grandparent I knew (!), but I was named after him.  His first name, Irving, is my middle name.

Besides my mother’s personal memories, one set of sources I used for some information about my great-grandparents was the city directories of Savannah.  So far I’ve looked them up in the directories for the years 1917-1923, 1925-1929 and 1934.  Those are the years I examined at the Bull Street Library in Savannah when I was able to spend a half day there last month.  There are more city directories available on microfilm through the Family History Center (Family Search Center).  I plan to order those microfilms later this summer.  City directories are interesting books, far more than just a phone book, though you can find elements of both the white and yellow pages there.  City directories date back to the 1700’s in the USA, though the heyday seems to have been the period from about 1870’s through the 1920’s.  Most major cities had yearly directories, and even many smaller urban areas had directories compiled every few years.  At a minimum, the “classic” city directory will list each address in the city along with the business or head of household and possibly a spouse in one section, followed by an alphabetical listing of the city’s residents and businesses.  Many times the employer of individuals will also be listed.  In addition, each employed adult (or older adolescent) would be listed separately.  Advertising appeared on every page, and later books added a section of just businesses.  Once phones were introduced, the phone number was listed if the person or business had one, plus the directory would often list what we would consider a “reverse lookup” – all the phone numbers in numerical order with the telephone subscribers’ names attached.  This is truly an embarrassment of riches for the family historian if you are lucky enough to have family living in an area that had city directories.

For example, this is a page (right) from the Savannah 1918 City Directory, published by The Savannah Directory Publishing Company.  (Remember, you can click on any image in the blog for a larger view, or right-click and open in a new tab or window to keep this page up, too.)  The listing reads “Farthing, Irvin [sic] C. (Mamie), agt. Metro L. I. Co., h 302 Hall w.”  Irvin was a common misspelling of his first name; I sometimes get that, too.  Interestingly, the Street Guide section (below) spells his name correctly.  They were living at 302 West Hall Street, and he was an agent with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.  By the next year, 1919, I.C. was listed as a lawyer with an office at 24 East President Street, and he had moved his family out to the suburbs, living in Pooler.  He moved back into the city by 1922, taking up residence on East 32^nd Street.  Like I said, not only is there an alphabetical listing of residents, but there is also a Street Guide, which lists households by address.  A nice dividend to the Street Guide is that you can see who your ancestors lived near.  Sometimes this may help in finding in-laws, children, cousins, parents, or other relations who may have been missed on the traditional census.  Each block is indicated by the cross-streets, so it becomes easy to look for where they may have lived.  One thing to keep in mind, though, if you look up old addresses on a modern map, is that oftentimes the streets have been renumbered and even renamed. 

Fortunately, for some cities and for some years, there is a resource that you can use to check this out – the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.  (For a nice introduction to the Sanborn Maps check out this Wikipedia article.)  I found a selection of digitized historical Sanborn Maps for a variety of Georgia cities at the Digital Library of Georgia website (click here).  Many libraries have copies of local Maps, and a Google search may reveal additional digital sources that can be accessed online (such as ProQuest – available through many local libraries – and the Sanborn Company itself, if you want paper copies.)  Google Maps’ Street View can come in handy for seeing what the location looks like today.  Just for kicks I looked up the address 302 West Hall on a 1916 Sanborn Map available through the Digital Library of Georgia.  In this case it appears the address hasn’t changed in the past 95 years.  Comparing the map section to the legend, it appears they were living in a flat located in a 2-story wood frame building.  When I looked at the Google Street View, it appears that could be the same building, but without further research there’s no way to be sure.  Still, it’s pretty cool, yes?

Guess that’s about it for now.  More next time.

Here’s your summary:

• City directories can provide valuable genealogical and family history information, as well as interesting details about life in the town or city where your ancestors lived.  Try Google Books, Ancestry.com and Googling the name of your town plus the words “city directory” for additional online resources.  There are researchers who will (for a fee) do lookups.  Additionally, many libraries have copies of their local or in-state city directories.
• City directories are no more, or less, accurate than census forms, but the two should corroborate each other.  One big advantage to the directories is that they were often printed yearly for larger urban areas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Sanborn Maps can be useful in urban areas for showing what buildings existed at the time and the information can be used to supplement and verify both printed tabular resources such as censuses and directories as well as pictorial evidence that may be derived from old family photographs, drawings and historic postcards.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

Maga: Another Grand-Mother (Grand-Mothers IV)

Helen Farthing at 18
(or 16, or maybe 14)

My maternal grandmother was Helen Lois Farthing (1910-1984).  In 1932 she married Frank Maxwell Perry (1910-1970).  Helen & Frank were divorced in 1950, and Helen married Joseph Matthew Solana (abt 1895-1961) in 1958.  Helen’s parents were Mamie Clyde White (1884-1957) and Irving Colquitt Farthing (1885-1974).  We called my grandmother Helen “Maga”, pronounced mah’-gah (emphasis on the first syllable).  The family story is that she didn’t want to be called “grandma”, so of course everybody tried to get her first grandchild to call her that.  But no matter how many times they said it, “gramma, gramma”, over and over, when he pronounced it he reversed the syllables, and a baby-talk “gamma” came out “maga”.  And that’s how she got her name.  But she wasn’t alone in having a unique name within the family.  Frank was called “Daddy Mack”, Joe Solana was “Pop”, Irving was “I.C.” to his friends and colleagues, and “Papaw” to his us, as his wife Mamie was “Mamaw” to her grandchildren.  There is some variance in spelling, Papaw-Pappaw and the same with Mamaw-Mammaw.  We pronounced them with a short “a” in the first syllables, like “pat” and “mat”, and the long drawl of “–paw” and “–maw” trailing after, so I’ve adopted the single middle consonant spelling.

I haven’t yet obtained copies of Maga’s marriage licenses or her death certificate but hope to do so this summer.  Mamaw and Papaw were married in 1907, and I do have a copy of their marriage record from the Georgia’s Virtual Vault website.  They obtained their marriage license from Laurens County (Dublin) on 30 November 1907 and were married the next day, 1 December 1907, by A.L. Hobbs, N.P. & J.P (Notary Public & Justice of the Peace).  And there’s plenty of information on the next three censuses.  In 1910, they were renting at 217 Gaston Street in Savannah.  Irving C and Mamie (they stretched the truth a little bit, claiming 3 years of marriage), their twins Elmer C & Ethel F (1 7/12 years old), and Papaw’s brother Troy. Under employment it looks like I.C. was in the Const [?] Dept, Insurance, and Troy was an Insurance Agent (my mother remembers her mother’s Uncle Troy; I think he might have been Papaw’s favorite brother maybe).  In 1920 the family had moved a bit north of the city to the small town of Pooler and were renting on Morgan Street (no house number was recorded).  My mother said that her grandfather rented all his life.  He never bought a house.  He didn’t believe in going into debt for anything.  Irving C and Mamie are now living with five children: Ethel F, Elmer C, Helen L, Bernard C & Alvin R, and I.C. is a lawyer.  1930 found them back in Savannah, living in rented digs at 205 W Gwinnett, and paying $40 per month in rent.  Irving C., Mamie C, Ethel F, Helen L, Bernard C & Alvin R live together, Elmer having moved out and gotten married.  Papaw is still a lawyer, and interestingly three of the children are working: 21-year-old Ethel is a stenographer in a loan office, Helen, 19, is a saleslady in a department store, and even 13-year-old Bernard works “curb service” at a drugstore.  Only the youngest, Alvin, 12, doesn’t work outside the home.  No doubt he had more than his share of chores to keep him out of mischief!

 

Robert White's marriages

Since Mamie and Irving were both born in the 1880’s and the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire, there’s only one earlier census for each of them.  In 1900 Mamie was living with her father Robert A White, brother Robert and step-mother Valeria in Dodge County.  Mamie’s father was a teamster, which in 1900 may have meant he actually handled teams of work horses in addition to hauling freight.  Meanwhile, Irving was living with his father Reuben Farthing, a blacksmith, mother Martha, and eight brothers and sisters.  Unfortunately, this is nearly a dead end for Mamaw’s family until I can discover more clues or uncover more documents.  My mother was always told that Mamie’s mother’s name was Elizabeth Rozier or Rosier, and that she died when Mamie was a little girl.  I found a marriage license recorded in Laurens County for a marriage between Robert White and Valeria Warren on 19 February 1894, but so far the only close match in a marriage record I’ve found for his first wife is for Robert White and “Leona Rozar”, married 18 July 1880, also in Laurens County.  I can’t find any Rozars, Rosiers or Roziers in Laurens or the surrounding area in 1870 or 1880 with a daughter names Elizabeth or Leona of the appropriate age.  Nor can I find a family with a young Robert A White.  I did find a Robert D White, aged 28, in the 1910 census living in Dublin with his wife Lula E, 27, daughter Vida Pearl, 2, and father Robert A White, 51, but the 1900 census has father and son named Robert A White, and their ages are 39 and 17.  So it’s acceptably close if I could find more corroboration.

 
The Farthings are another story.  There is a long line of blacksmithing Farthings stretching back at least a hundred years, but that’s a tale for another day.

Helen Farthing with Tim, 1958

Here’s your summary:

• Family stories and histories can provide valuable clues.  Sometimes all you need is a name to help confirm some documentation.  It’s not proof, but it can move up the probabilities, so that it becomes reasonable to pursue additional research which can provide corroboration.
• Census forms, particularly from the decades surrounding the turn of the last century, are often rich in details which can add to the texture of your family history.
• The handwriting on the census forms can be difficult to decipher.  Don’t waste time trying to decipher the printed column headings.  Use a resource such as the census blanks available from Ancestry.com or another source.  Many websites provide the blanks in downloadable form, and they can also be obtained from most FamilySearch Centers (formerly Family History Centers).
• Don’t forget to try to confirm facts with multiple sources.  Tombstones, marriage records, death records, family Bibles, census forms and family histories should all be weighed and considered carefully.  No single document can provide all the evidence you need, but each is a piece of the puzzle.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim