Finding that long lost leaf. At last!

This is a post that I have been putting off writing. Partially because it is a rather emotional topic and story, and my now pregnant self is already simmering over in the emotional area. Also, because many of those directly involved are still with us and I do not want to violate privacy. However, today is as good as any and I would like to do this before I forget any of the wonderful details.

~ ~ ~

I got started in genealogy as a result of my father's doing. We were to take a trip with my grandparents (mother's side) and we all needed passports. Everyone in our family that needed on got theirs without incident. Except my father. His came back as being filed under an alias and he would need to correct the paperwork and refile. He wound up finding out that the name he thought was his most of his life, was not his. His surname had never been legally changed from his surname at birth. However, everything was under the assumed surname- marriage, business, accounts, house, everything. So he began looking and asking questions and thus began his journey into genealogy.

He started talking to me about what had been going on and it got me curious. I was not in school at the time and had all kinds of free time to really look into it that he did not have at his disposal. I also remembered a file that I had looked through for a project (and then hoarded it) that had some genealogy done on one line from my mother's side. So I grabbed those files and bought a copy of Family Tree Maker and started inputting what I had in the file and what little I knew about my father's side. He was able to help with what little he had found, but there were still many dots that needed connecting. I started a trial with Ancestry and the tree exploded. I was soon in contact with a Brady researcher (my father's maternal line) that had been working on the line for over 60 years and had questions about our particular line. I went to the cemeteries, went to the the courthouses, connected with local researchers and made strides on the lines that I had available.

There was one line that I had very little. My father's paternal line. I was able to find the marriage certificate of my biological grandmother and grandfather's wedding. That confirmed his name and that they were married, but little else. I needed access to more resources and I needed more information. Efforts of inquiry to my grandmother were left unanswered. My father helped with the rumors and stories he had heard, and though they were just rumors, they proved to be helpful.

The rumor was that my grandfather had passed away in a car accident in Alaska. I searched Ancestry time and time again and found nothing. I Googled his name, and again came up empty handed. It was only after I got an subscription to Newspapers.com did I find something.(Click for larger image.)

This was wonderful news! He was, in fact, in a major car accident, but he did survive, despite the rumors being otherwise. After finding these I knew I needed to show my father. We were celebrating Christmas at their house the following weekend so I took them with me.

Shortly after we arrived I sat my father down and broached the subject. I asked him if he was sure what he was being told was true and showed him the articles I had found. After he had some time to read and absorb the news, I told him that I had sent a DNA kit off 2 weeks before and we should have results in another 6 weeks or so. It was very optimistic to think we may find a connection, but that's all we had at this time.

Fast forward 6 weeks. My results were in! I went to Ancestry to see what they said. Apparently, there was a lot of Scandinavian ancestry in me. Which was surprising as the lines I had worked with were predominately Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and German. I then went to look at the matches. One user came up with multiple people in their tree as being very closely related. So I clicked around and nothing really clicked. None of the names, etc. The majority of the places were Washington, and I figured it must be somewhere in my mother's line or my paternal grandmother's line. The results were overwhelming and confusing to me so I didn't look at them much more.

It wasn't long before this user contacted me. We had close relation and my tree was private. I told her I didn't recognize the names but she was welcome to take a look around and see if anything matched and where. I sent her an invite to view my tree and then I left for work. When I got home I came back to the following messages:

"OK, I just had a few minutes to look. What I found so far is the Rice family Joseph and Helen Rice is also my family. Helen G Rice (maiden name is Thompson: see my tree at "All in the family Tree") is my grandmothers sister. So if you are one of Joe and Helen's grandchildren or ?? that is our match. You have to have Helen as part of your DNA. But if not we need to keep looking. I will try to look more later tonight also."

"OK I just look again and Helen and Joe are your great Grandparents I believe. Welcome. I would be happy to share Helen's family...."

And then I kind of freaked out. This is what we were hoping for and it was a one in a million chance that a relative on that line had also taken the DNA test. She concluded the second email address with her email and we got in touch quickly. A couple emails led to a 2 hour phone call, which then led to a 2 hour phone call with my Aunt Sandi, Tom's sister. This led to yet another phone call. This time from my grandfather. Neither of us knew what to say but you could tell there was some true happiness on both side of the line.

I called my father and told him the news. I updated him on what we had heard versus what I was made privy to, gave contact info, etc. Eventually they began talking and talked regularly, and still do, I believe.  We went out in August to meet them and had a wonderful time. I really connected with them and we are looking forward to having them out our way this coming summer. All iin all, a hapy ending.

 Shirley, Travis, Tom, and Kyle

Kyle, Joe (my father), Tom, and Travis

"Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten."

~David Ogden Stiers

50 what?

Ok, so I failed miserably at doing the 51 ancestors in 51 weeks. But it did get me thinking.

One of the points of genealogy is to know where you came from. I am only about 5 years into this HUGE undertaking and I am just now getting to the point where I am wanting to know the actual stories. Yes, fact are great. Facts and records and such are the bones of the stories. I have been gnawing at the bones for years. Now I'm ready for the meat.

So, where do we start? When trying to piece together bits of information for my second week ancestor, I found myself struggling. I even have personal memories of this person. How do we go from the basic facts to a full on story? How is that equilibrium of documentation and memory met? This is especially challenging when there is no one alive that has personal memories.

The details can fill in those blanks. So you know your grandfather lived on 4th St up until he turned 20. A larger look at those census records would tell you (or could rather) that they lived near family the whole time. There may be an arrival date- did they all come together and settle together? What brought them here? What was going on in the world, historically speaking, at that point? Land patents? War?

I find myself zeroing in on a person, collecting as many records as I can then moving on to the next. After getting past the initial "this is how I think this goes" point and getting to the "but WHY" point, this record collecting has been the bane of my existence. When you take on a challenge like blogging about your ancestors- a new one each week even, you need to know their stories. This is, in part, why I failed. I realized that though I had a lot of the records and documents, I had very little of their story pieced together.

So how do I forge ahead? Now that I have the documents to show the who and where, and even some that show how, I still have details to fill in. Starting lineally, I need to proceed to fill in those details to paint that full picture. This will help me better understand why I am who I am, why my family is who they are. That is, after all, the point of the whole thing, right?

Road block... now what?

Road block. The evil "r" word of genealogy. We all hit one and many of us are able to break through them.

This one I am not sure of.

I have very limited information on my dad's bio father. I have a name from a marriage certificate and the name J. R. Rice listed as a witness, from what I have been told is his father- my great grandfather. I am on the search for Thomas Richard Rice. He and my grandmother married when they were young. Like 16 young. I was told he is from the Chicago area, however the marriage certificate states King County, Washington. I have not been able to verify his existence in the 1940 census, mainly because I am going off an assumed name for his father and have not been able to find anyone that would give me a straight answer.

My family has been pretty stand- offish about him - even going so far as to say he died at the age of 26 yet no records can verify this. What is even more strange is that as this is coming out I am seeing these changes show up on a family tree that my aunt has been "working on".

So, where do you turn when your family doesn't want you to find someone? I have some leads for even more distant family members that have also been working with that side of the family tree. But I am worried I will get the run- around as well.

As anyone who has worked on family trees for any period of time knows, when researching, you often find the skeletons that others had hoped were buried forever. I have a feeling this is one of them. I can only guess by the strange behavior that has been exhibited by family m,embers that he must have done something horrible. It doesn't matter to me at this point.

My dad never knew who his bio-father was and that is no way for a person to grow up. I really want to find some info- even a bit. I think he is still alive and remarried and living in Washington. I have found several records to suggest this but nothing concrete.

So, to my much more experienced researchers: what would you do? What methods do you utilize to break down these road blocks? My go- to methods are not usable at this time as family will not cooperate.

I know he is out there somewhere, I just have to find him!

It's Tombstone Tuesday!!

It's Margaret Brady Brown- missing link for 20 years!  I found her wandering in Prairie Grove Cemetery (another missing link for many) in Utica, Seward, Nebraska, USA.

Genealogy Sayings

I trace my family history so I will know who to blame. 

Every family tree has some sap in it.

Friends come and go, but relatives tend to accumulate.

Genealogists never die, they just loose their roots. 

Genealogy: A hay stack full of needles. It's the threads I need.

Genealogy: Collecting dead relatives and sometimes a live cousin!

WDYTYA Brooke Shields Episode **Spoiler Alert**

I watched this a bit earlier in the evening and wasn't too sure whether I was going to comment on it or not.  I found her tracing of her royal blood not all that interesting.  A lot of people claim to have royal blood, and as it turns out *gasp* they don't.  She, did in fact, have a royal line.

The interesting part was her grandmother.  She had faced tragedy so many times throughout her life.  As Brooke said it best "she never did recover from it".  Her mother died when she was 10 leaving Brooke's grandmother to help her father raise 2 other children.  Her younger brother drowned at age 13.  What a tremendous loss!

I thought it was an OK episode.  Nothing compared to Lisa Kudrow's heart-wrenching story.  But that is the joy of genealogy.  Every family has a story worth telling.  No family is a "boring" family.

My Dearest Daniel and Mary

We all have those ancestors that just seem to vanish. Their stories are passed down but no one really knows where they came from and if they are true- my grandmother told me so it must be, right?

The stories that we were left with for Daniel were that he sold his youngest son as a white slave after coming home from the war to "find an extra mouth to feed" and that he "threw Mary out of the house". It is believed that Daniel filed for a divorce shortly after.


 
With these stories and a copy of Theory of War (a book written from the journals of my ggg grandfather – Daniel's son) in hand, I set out to find out exactly what had happened to Daniel. Census records came up and Mary was gone by 1870. Daniel was not marked as a widow. No signs of Mary either. The book did not shed any light as to Mary's possible whereabouts.

Mary wound up in our tree from a previous project. There were no documents to verify her in our family- the marriage was so short that she didn't even appear in the 1860 census. She is not mentioned in her children's obits, or in Daniel's. Daniel went on shortly after to marry again, only to have that result in divorce as well. The existence of their divorce decree has yet to be proven.


 
Daniel was very, very poor and sent his children out to work at a young age. Alexander was one of his children that were sent to live and work with a local family. He was treated very poorly and a book (Theory of War) was written from his journals. Later in life, Daniel had contact with all of his children, including Alexander, who escapes this lifestyle and worked his way out west with the railroad.


 
I later found what I thought may be Mary in a later census with a different last name. With her was a son, Albert Brady. A few weeks later, I received a message from a relative of Mary's seeking out what info I had on her. I shared what little information I had and contact has continued since.


 
It is amazing how quick things can fall together. I kept searching for that missing piece and though I have yet to find it, I am closer. The divorce record has yet to make its appearance and I am skeptical of that happening. As poor as they were, I doubt they would have spent money for a legal divorce. Daniel never owned any property- not even his own grave! He died in his daughter's home and as a result she died 5 years later of the same disease (sharing is caring!).

As far as we know, there are no photographs of Daniel or most of his children. We have one photo of Alexander as a child, and a couple from his adult life with his own family.


 
Oh the journeys our ancestors send us on!

Never Judge an Ancestor by Your Family Legends...

When I first started working on my family tree, I had no idea what was in store for me.  We had stories passed down from living family that said that one of our ancestors sold his son- who was thought to be illegitimate into servitude.  The man was Daniel Brady and he is my 3 great grandfather.  Alexander is his son.
We had come to think of Daniel as a heartless man.  He had disappeared from records for several years and as far as we knew died alone in Seward, Nebraska in 1886.
Turns out, he was poor and couldn't feed his children.  So they worked as child laborers and indentured servants until they came of age.  Alexander just got caught in a bad situation.  The family he worked for was cruel and he wasn't sold.
From the Blue Valley Blade  Seward, Seward, Nebraska  April 14, 1886
"DIED
Brady.-In Seward, on Thursday evening, April 8, 1886, at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. J.W. Shipley, of consumption, Daniel Brady, aged 58 years.
Mr. Brady was born in Indiana county, Pa., in 1828, and at an early day the family moved to Ohio.  Shortly after the war broke out he enlisted in the 92nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry for three years and served until its close.  Soon after the war he moved to Iowa, where he resided for two years, when he came to Nebraska and settled on a homestead in this county, near Tamora, where he resided for a number of years before removing to this city.
Mr. Brady leaves one sister, Mrs. Margaret Brown, living south of Tamora; two daughters, Mrs. Margaret J Hurst, of Doddridge county, W.Va., and Mrs. Sarah L. Shipley, of this city; three sons, William and Alexander of Car Valley, Benton county, Oregon, and John I., of New Athens, Harrison county, Ohio.  Deceased was a member of Seward Post No. 3 G.A.R., and was so much respected by his comrades and all who knew him.  The funeral services took place on Saturday afternoon at the M.E. church, the Rev. G.M. Morey officiating.  The remains were escorted to the grave by the Post, where the burial was conducted under their auspices.
_______
HEADQUARTERS OF SEWARD POST, NO.3
Department of Nebraska, G.A.R.
Seward, Neb., April 12,1886
WHEREAS: In the view of the loss we have sustained by the decease of our comrade, and associate, Daniel Brady, and of the still heavier loss sustained by those who were nearest and dearest to him; therefore be it
Resolved; That is but a just tribute to the memory of our departed comrade to say that, in regretting his removal from our ranks, we mourn for one who was, in every way, worthy of our respect and regard.
Resolved; That we sincerely condole with the family of the deceased on the dispensation with which it has pleased our Supreme Commander to afflict them, and commend them for consolation to Him who orders all things for the best, and whose chastisements are meant in mercy.
Resolved; That this heartfelt testimonial of our sympathy and sorrow be published in all the Seward papers, and a copy forwarded to the daughter of our deceased comrade.
W.R. DAVIS,
R.R. SCHICK,
E.C. PARKINSON.
               Committee.
_________________
Card of Thanks
We take this method of returning our grateful thanks to the Grand Army Post and other friends of Seward, for their kindly aid and sympathy during the last illness of our departed relative, Daniel Brady.
SARAH L. SHIPLEY,
J.W SHIPLEY."


Our family legends were very wrong about him.  I am so glad that we found this today, as it provides us with more insight into Daniel's life and more places to search for him.