'Melia

My great-grandmother Lyda Ellen Maxwell Perry’s parents were J. A. O. Maxwell and Permelia Ruth McNair Maxwell.  Like many of my ancestors Permelia (or Amelia, or simply Melia, as she seemingly was often known) lived a good long time.  She was born before the Civil War (or “The War Between the States” as we called it, because “there was nothing civil about it”), 22 March 1857, and lived until 7 September 1946.  Repeating myself, the picture here, one of the few I have of her, was taken in 1934 and the baby she is holding is her great-granddaughter, my mother.  So in two swift strides, from me to my mother and from her to Permelia, I can be carried back over 150 years of American history.  If that doesn’t give you goose bumps there’s no hope for you!

I had been working under the assumption that Permelia lived and died in Decatur County all her life.  But in trying to fill in some of the details on Lyda's siblings I found that in 1918 the next to the youngest daughter Julia Permelia Maxwell married an electrician with Western Union Telephone and Telegraph Company named Jacob Livingston Bower and they moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  Jacob was from Fowlstown, about halfway between Attapulgus and Bainbridge.  So I looked in Nashville for Jacob and Julia Bower on the 1920 census and found Jacob L, Julia and Ernestine Bower (ages 22, 21 and 6/12).   On the 1930 census in Nashville I came up with Julia Bower, age 30, widowed, her daughter "Earnestine", age 10, and mother "Amelia” Maxwell, age 73.  The also had two boarders, a young “filling station salesman” named Clarence Farris and Louise Patterson, a 23 year old insurance clerk.  To-Do Item: Hmmm. Permelia’s mother was a Patterson.  Could Louise be a cousin?  The 1930 census gives street addresses for urban districts, so it’s possible to see that they were living at 105 12^th Street.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com.

1938 Polk's Directory of Nashvill

Looking further, I discovered that Ancestry.com has some of the Polk's City Directories for Nashville, including for the years 1938 and 1940.  Searching for the family in those directories I found Julia living at 1109 Holly Street in Nashville with her daughter and her mother.  According to Google Maps 1109 Holly Street is just around the corner from 105 12^th Street.  In the 1938 directory, it has "Bower, Ernestine student" and "Bower Julia Mrs slswn Lebeck Bros Inc" and "Maxwell Amelia (wid Jos A O)".  In the 1940 directory, it lists "Bower, Ernestine student" and "Bower Julia Mrs slswn" and "Maxwell Amelia (wid J A O)".

1940 Polk's Directory of Nashvill

Interestingly, under the "Bower" heading in both directories there is a "Bower, Jacob L asst automatic chf WUTelCo" rooming at 621 Woodland.  I looked on Google Maps.  621 Woodland Street is about a quarter of a mile away from 1109 Holly Street.  So I took another look at the 1930 census looking for Jacob Bower and found him living right there in Nashville, working at Western Union, and with a big old "D" for Divorced in the Marital Status column.  So either someone in Julia's household was embarrassed to say she was divorced in 1930 or the enumerator messed up.
 
Next I went searching to see if there were Tennessee divorce indexes online.  I didn't find one, but I did find a 1924 Polk's directory for Nashville which shows both Jacob and Julia living in the house at 1109 Holly Street.  So somewhere between 1924 and 1930 Jacob and Julia Bower got divorced.
 
Anyway, the point of all this was that by being pointed towards Tennessee I found Permelia's death certificate.  So adding the final bit of confirmation that I was looking at the right Julia and Permelia, it says right there that

• Permelia died on the 7^th of September 1946
• she lived at the 1109 Holly Street Address in Nashville
• she was born in Calvary, Georgia
• she is a widow
• her parents were Dr. Robert McNair (that’s a new piece of information) and Nancy Patterson
• she will be buried in Piedmont Cemetery in Calvary, Georgia

As usual, the accuracy of the information is dependent on the knowledge of the informant (in this case, her daughter Julia).  An interesting additional fact gleaned from the death certificate is the cause of death: chronic myocarditis (definition here, http://www.healthcentral.com/encyclopedia/408/734.html?ic=506048), essentially a chronic inflammation of the heart muscle.  Judging by the definition at the Health Central web site, she may have been bed-ridden for an extended period of time before her death.  But if there is any truth to genetic proclivities towards certain behaviors, she stayed in bed only when she couldn’t get up, no matter what her doctor or daughter said to the contrary.  It’s hard to keep a good woman down!

What happened after 1940?  I know from the SSDI (the Social Security Death Index) that Julia lived in Nashville until her death in September 1979.  So far I’ve been unsuccessful in discovering either an obituary or a burial site for her.  What about Jacob?  Did they really get a divorce?  An interesting clue is that in the 1944 Polk’s Guide Jacob Bower appears to have moved to 950 Seymour Avenue and is listed with a wife, Mattie L. Bower.  What about Julia’s daughter, Ernestine?  She no longer lives with her mother after 1940.  Did she get married?  Did she die?  Did she enlist as  WAC or WAVE in World War II?  So far I haven’t found anything for her.  I did however serendipitously discover a marriage announcement for Jacob and Julia from that her mother Permelia had placed in The Atlanta Constitution, 23 June 1918.  It came up in an Ancestry.com search.  So you never know what will turn up!  The marriage announcement uses the spelling “Amelia for both mother and daughter.  And after starting this blog post I talked to my own mother.  She said that until we went to the cemetery in Calvary and saw the tombstone she had always thought her great-grandmother’s name was Amelia.  So there!  If I had already known that piece of information I might never have embarked on the long round-about search that led ultimately to Permelia’s death certificate, and a whole lot of other questions yet to be answered.
 
As Scarlett said, “I’ll think about that tomorrow … tomorrow is another day!”

That’s about it for now.

Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

  


 

JAO & Permelia Maxwell

My great-grandmother Lyda Ellen Maxwell Perry’s parents were J. A. O. Maxwell and Permelia Ruth McNair Maxwell.  The J.A.O. initials stood for James A. Oliver Maxwell.  And the “A”?  Well, that depends on who you talk to.  Albert? Alexander? Archibol?  Two of Lyda’s granddaughters were told separately that the “A” was for Albert, but then he does have a son named Alexander.  And one unpublished Maxwell family history says that it’s Archibol.  Apparently he most commonly went by “Oliver” for at least part of his adult life, but he’s mostly called J.A.O. nowadays because that’s what’s on his grave stone.  I actually have a picture of him, courtesy of my mom’s cousin Barbara Perry Walker.  I don’t have any early pictures of Permelia.  (Remember, you can click on any image in the blog post to view a larger size.)

J.A.O. Maxwell was born 12 Sep 1856 in Decatur County, Georgia, to Elder John A. Maxwell (1824-1906) and Elizabeth "Elizer Margaret Anders (1829-1918).  Permelia Ruth McNair was also born in Decatur County, on 22 Mar 1857, to Robert Martin McNair (1807-1869) and Nancy Patterson (1816-1905).  They were married 15 Jan 1878.  The marriage license is recorded in Decatur County Marriage Book B (1867-1896), page 296.  The digitized book images are available through the Georgia's Virtual Vault website (http://cdm.sos.state.ga.us/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/countyfilm&CISOPTR=119283&REC=3) and copied here.  Note that the clerk transposed his initials – the record says “J.O.A Maxwell” instead of “J.A.O. Maxwell”.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com.

J.A.O. and Permelia (who was often known as Amelia, or just Melia) made their home near Attapulgus in Decatur County for the next 36 years, until J.A.O.’s death at 57 in 1914.  They owned their own farm, and raised a passel of young’uns, as they say.  The 1880 census shows no children.  The 1890 census was lost, of course, but the 1900 census shows that Permelia had borne 10 children, 8 of whom were still living.  An unnamed infant boy lived but one day in October 1879 and is buried near the parents and many other Maxwell family members in the Piedmont Cemetery in Calvary, Georgia (now in Grady County, it was until 1904 in Decatur County).  Another son, John Robert Maxwell, died in February 1898 just a few weeks shy of his 12^th birthday.  And the 1910 census shows that there were only 7 surviving children, young Corry Thomas Maxwell having departed this life at the age of 14 in February 1910.  There is a picture of six of the children from about 1904 in the last post.

J.A.O. died 3 May 1914; Permelia lived another 32 years, until 1946.  But they were buried side by side in Piedmont cemetery.  In fact they share an obelisk-style headstone, beautifully engraved on one face with his epitaph and on the other with hers.  

His side says: J. A. O. MAXWELL SEPT. 14, 1856 MAY 3, 1914 --- Beyond the doubts and hopes and fears, Beyond the cares and joys and tears, Beyond the smiling and the weeping, Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Our loved one rests in slumber deep, In silent and eternal sleep.   On her side are the words: PERMELIA RUTH MCNAIR MAXWELL MAR. 22, 1857 SEPT. 7, 1946 --- Dear mother, tho' we miss you much, We know you rest with God.

The few photos I have of Permelia are from 1934.  In this one the baby she is holding is my mother. 

I was able to find Permelia in the 1920 census still living in Decatur County, with her son Malcolm Oliver Maxwell and his family.  But Malcolm died in 1924 and I could not find her anywhere in the 1930 census.  The story of that search is best left for another post another day, so …

That’s about it for now.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

Lyda Ellen Maxwell Perry

Where did the summer go?!?  I didn’t intend to take four months off from writing, it just sort of happened one week at a time.  I haven’t been idle; indeed, carrying on my genealogical research has become virtually a second job.  Not many people “relax” by spending hours scanning microfilm or searching dusty tomes at a library or historical archive.  But my writing has suffered – not for lack of material or inspiration but rather the opposite, a wavering indecision and paralysis of will brought on by profusion, indeed a surfeit, of ancestral distractions.  Now, I’ll try once again to return to a regular schedule of publishing.  I may change up the style of this blog and experiment a bit in the coming weeks, interspersing shorter posts among the longer expository as I share my discoveries with you.  I will put less emphasis on the “instructional” aspects of genealogical blogging, and more on sharing personal research.

This beautiful young lady was my mother’s father’s mother, Lyda Ellen Maxwell.  Lyda was born 24 Oct 1890 in Amsterdam, Decatur County, Georgia, the fifth of ten children of J. A. O. Maxwell and Permelia Ruth McNair Maxwell, though the first-born, an unnamed son, died at one day old in 1879, and only seven of the ten would live into adulthood.  And Lyda and another brother both died at age 31.  I’m not sure when this picture was taken, but my guess is 1904, certainly between 1902 and 1906. 

Remember, you can click on any image to view a larger version.

In 1900, Lyda lived with her parents J.A.O. Maxwell (spelled out as “Jay A”) and Permelia Ruth McNair Maxwell (inexplicably named “Lizzie R”; a nickname, perhaps? This is the only place where I’ve seen her so named.), and her siblings, near Attapulgus, Decatur County, Georgia.  (Ancestry.com inexplicably has the name indexed as Maswell.  Go figure!)

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com.

This second picture was apparently taken the same day as the solo portrait above, and portrays Lyda with some of her brothers and sisters.  Someone has scrawled this legend on the back:

Brother Oliver Maxwell's children. Two oldest not here.

He had 3 boys and 5 girls.

The largest boy here was Bessie Maxwell's husband - Malcolm.

The little boy, Corry, was crippled and died young.

In picture:

1 Lyda (wife of John Isaiah Perry Sr.)

2 Sallie (Aunt Sarah)   3 Julia,   4 Elsie

5 Nancy (Aunt Nan) not in picture

6 Joseph not in picture

7 Malcolm

8 Corry

The “two oldest” mentioned were Joseph, born in 1880, and Nancy, who was born in 1883.  Lyda was born in 1890, Sarah in 1892^{footnote 1}, Malcolm in 1893, Corry in 1895, and the two youngest girls, Julia and Elsie, were born in 1897 and 1899.  (I actually think the youngest girls’ names are reversed in the picture’s caption.)  In 1902, their ages would have been Lyda 12, Sarah 10, Malcolm 9, Corry 7, Julia 5, and Elsie 3.  Four years later, in 1906, Lyda would have been 16, and the younger girls would have been 7 and 9, which seems a little old for the pictured children, so that’s why I settled on an approximate date of 1904, when Lyda would have been 14, Sarah 12, Malcolm 11, Corry 9, Julia 7 and Elsie 5.  As a further circumstantial clue, elder sister Nancy Mae Maxwell married Matthew Henry Overstreet on 16 May 1904, so this could be a group shot of the rest of the bride’s siblings taken during the wedding festivities.  It’s an interesting possibility.  To-Do Item: Try to find some Overstreet cousins who may still have wedding pictures of Nancy and Matthew Overstreet, possibly including the parents of the bride.

My great grandfather John Isaiah Perry, Sr., married Lyda in Decatur County, Georgia, on 17 May 1908, when she was seventeen-and-a-half.  (See my previous post on my Perry line discussing John Sr.)  He was twelve years her senior.  I still don’t have the marriage record or marriage license, but this summer I located a transcription of the index to Decatur County Marriage Records, 1825-1945, at the Decatur County GAGenWeb pages of the GAGenWeb Project (http://www.thegagenweb.com/gadecatur/Marriage/surindex.html).  To-Do Item: Contact the Decatur County Clerk's office in Bainbridge to order a copy of the marriage license.

Census images courtesy of Ancestry.com.

By the time of the 1910 census, enumerated in June just after their second anniversary, tragedy had struck again, for the census shows that she had born one child, but none were living.  The 1910 census was taken on the 18^th of April, so Lyda was seven months pregnant with my grandfather.  Unfortunately, the 1920 census did not question women on the number of births and surviving children.  I know that one son, Jessie, was born in September 1913 and died in March 1914 while she was visiting her parents down in Attapulgus, Decatur County, Georgia, just 60 miles southwest of John & Lyda’s home in Sale City, Mitchell County.  I found his grave near to those of his grandparents J.A.O. Maxwell and Permelia Ruth McNair Maxwell in Piedmont Cemetery, in Calvary, Georgia. 

There are also two unmarked child-sized grave covers at the feet of John and Lyda’s graves in the cemetery at Sale City (see below).  That implies there might be a third, unknown child who died in infancy or early childhood.  Another To-Do Item: try to find out if the Sale City cemetery has active management and records from the first decades of the 20^th Century in hopes of discovering the identities and burial dates of the two persons buried in the unmarked graves.    

The picture here at left (courtesy of Barbara Perry Walker) of Lyda with sons John I, Jr, and Maxwell (my grandfather), and she is holding a baby Ruth, so this would be about 1915. 

This second picture (courtesy of Ann Perry Jones) show Lyda with son Maxwell (standing to the left) and Maxwell’s cousins, the children of Lyda’s sister Nancy Maxwell Overstreet, taken about 1918.  Starting with Maxwell in the upper left and proceeding clockwise the picture shows Wilbur, Juanita, Doris, Nell and little baby Ralph Overstreet, who is being held by Lyda Maxwell Perry. 

In 1920 the census shows John and Lyda living on Barnes Street, on the north side of Sale City, with sons Maxwell, age 9, John I Jr, 7 and William P, 6 months, and daughter Ruth, age 5^{footnote 2}.  John Sr was a prosperous merchant, owning a dry goods store in Sale City and selling to farmers throughout the neighboring counties.  But this happy world soon came to a crashing end.  On January 8, 1922, Lyda Ellen Maxwell Perry, age 31, died suddenly.  Her death certificate^{footnote 3} lists the cause of death as “apoplexy” – essentially the diagnosis at the time for any sudden loss of consciousness followed quickly by death (see the article on Apoplexy in Wikipedia).  I know that my mother told me her father was terribly devoted to his mother, so I think it must have been a terrible blow to him and his siblings to lose her at such an early age.  This was a terrible time again for the family.  The next month, in February, John Sr’s brother Jesse Green Perry took ill and died unexpectedly at the age of 39, leaving behind a wife (Harriet "Hattie" P Mason, 1892-?) and young daughter (Frances Perry, 1916-?).  Then in August 1923 John Sr's mother Elizabeth Margrette Cutts Perry died after a short illness; she was only 69.  Elizabeth Perry's tombstone was shown in a previous post.

John Isaiah Perry, Sr, Family Plot, Sale City Cemetery, Sale City, Mtichell County, Georgia
Top (left) row, near to far: Lyda Ellen Maxwell Perry (1890-1922), John Isaiah Perry, Sr (1878-1956); Bottom (right) row, near to far: two unidentified infant graves, Elizabeth Margarette Cutts Perry (John Sr’s mother, 1854-1923), unidentified grave (possibly a child?), and Jesse Green Perry (John Sr’s brother, 1883-1922).

Footnote 1: The 1900 Census gives a Jun 1888 birth for “Sallie Maxwell”; I can't find a 1910 census listing her.  By the 1920 census she is married to Paul A. Branch and living near John & Lyda Perry in Sale City.  The census reports that she is 28, which would mean she was born about 1892).  The 1930 census gives her age as 37 (born about 1893).  And finally, her tombstone gives her birth date as 29 June 1892. Which is it?? Is she two years older or two years younger than my great grandmother Lyda Maxwell Perry?

Footnote 2: Frank Maxwell, born in 1910, John Isaiah Jr in 1912, Ruth in 1914, and William Preston Perry II, born in 1919 and named after his grandfather who fought in the Civil War and died in 1908, the year John Sr and Lyda were married.

Footnote 3: Death certificate saved 10 Sep 2010 from the Georgia’s Virtual Vault web site of the Georgia Archives; Death Certificates, Vital Records, Public Health, RG 26-5-95, Georgia Archives; (http://content.sos.state.ga.us/cdm4/gadeaths.php). 

That’s about it for now.

 Later y’all,

*GeorgiaTim

For Father's Day

I put this up on my Facebook page but decided to post it here, too, as one last homage for Father's Day.

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