COUSINS ~ What treasures can you find when you visit your cousins?

 

I can never say enough about how wonderful cousins are.  Why?

·       They are often your very first friends outside the family circle.

·       If you are an only child, they may be as close as a sister or brother.

·       Later on you can talk about family stories and share memories and photos with each other.

·       If you meet these cousins later in life via your research or DNA or whatever method, they might provide very valuable information about your ancestors.

·       As bloggers, we often call our blogs “cousin bait.”

Here’s my cousin story for this week.

My cousin Paula lives about 3 hours up the coast from me, here in California.  She and I reconnected in 2003, well into our adulthood.  We had last seen one another in 1966.  Since then we have become very good friends and fellow family researchers.  It’s been an interesting journey, with discoveries on both her side and mine.

Our grandmothers were sisters, which makes me and Paula 2^nd cousins.

It had been a couple of years since I’d been to Paula’s home and I knew we were overdue for a visit.  When I spoke to her, she told me that her sister, Shirley, was coming into town for a couple of weeks.  Most of our family still lives in Michigan, including Shirley.

I knew right away that I should make the drive up there, as I had never been able to spend much time with Shirley. 

We cousins enjoyed one another for 3 days. 

A surprise during the visit was that Paula and Shirley’s grand nephew was in town from Michigan.  We were able to have dinner with him.  I’d not met him before.  What a nice young man.  In the scheme of family relationships, he is my 2^nd cousin, twice removed.

During my stay, Paula brought out an envelope of photos that she had gotten during her last trip to Michigan, from her other sister.

As we looked through these mostly black and white photos, we all found treasures.  For me it was pictures of my own grandmother, Marie Lindsay Gould and my grandfather Harry W. Gould sharing moments with Marie’s sister’s family. Additionally, it was seeing a picture of my granduncle Bill Lindsay’s wife Matilda Vera Ena KIDD for the first time.

(Click on any image to enlarge it)

Matilda Vera Ena Kidd Lindsay

Left to right - Marie Lindsay Gould (my paternal grandmother), Shirley Hockster, Edith Curry Jessop, Elizabeth "Betty" Hockster, Paula Hockster, Mary Ortell Hockster and Bessie Lindsay Hockster (Marie's sister)
Shirley, Betty & Paula are my 2nd cousins and Mary is their mother

Back row - William "Bill" Lindsay, Bessie Lindsay, Everett Hockster, Joyce Lindsay, Robert McConnell, Harry W. Gould - Middle row - Marie Lindsay Gould, Matilda Kidd Lindsay, Ellen Hockster McConnell, May (in her lap is Betty Hockster) - Front row - Patricia McConnell, Shirley Hockster and Ralph Hockster

I’d call those things great finds.  Thanks Paula!

Any photo find is always a bonus.  I’m going to put this out there right now.  If you are LINDSAY descendant, belonging to our particular line, and you have photos, we’d love to see them.  We are willing to share any of our own photos with all the cousins out there.

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch.  Let’s exchange information.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY’S TIPS ~ New cousin connections made from watching a 10 minute video

No matter how long we have been researching our ancestors, we are always learning something new.  Whether we attend classes at our local society, read any of the wonderful blogs by my fellow bloggers (there are over 3,000 of them), get a tip from a fellow genealogist, watch webinars, learn from Facebook groups,  or attend a conference in person (when that becomes possible again).  There is no shortage of learning opportunities.

I decided to watch a quick 10 minute video offered by Legacy (the software program I’ve used for years).  This was a short tutorial about how to make connections on the 23&Me website for DNA.

While my DNA and my mother’s are on that site, as we both tested there.  I’ll admit to not using the site very often (I use the Ancestry DNA site all the time).  All of us have our favorites.  I’ve tested or have results uploaded to all the major DNA sites.

The tutorial I watched was called Connection Requests at 23andMe by Michelle Leonard M.A., PgCert.  As I said before it is 10 minutes long and rated as Beginner.  Click here for a link to the video. 

After watching it, I went right to 23 & Me and began inviting some of my matches to share their DNA with me.  Now, we all know that sending any kind of message to someone on any of the sites is a “longshot.”  Will they respond?  Did they even receive my message? The chances of getting a response are low (I speak from experience and information from others).  But, I had not really sent requests for more than a handful of matches on 23 & Me over the past 7-8 years.

I wanted to try and make contact with some of the people in the DNA tree automatically built on the website.  Knowing that some of the suggestions I’ve seen on that tree are quite accurate and others are not.  I was going for the low hanging fruit.  These are the people at the bottom of the tree created using my DNA.  Here is an image showing how these people appear in the automatically created tree.

(Please click on any image to enlarge it) I have blurred the names for privacy 

I sent 9 requests to connect, using the suggestions from the video.  As suggested I kept it simple, no attached message, just a request to share DNA. This allows me to see the matches we share in common and to view the chromosome browser.  Viewing the chromosome browser allows me to paint that match into DNA Painter.

How many would you expect to hear back from?  I thought I’d be very fortunate if one person responded. 

SURPRISE!  I heard back from 3, accepting my invitation to share.  They all responded within a day. None of the other 6 have responded...yet.

In the past few days I’ve been communicating with all 3 of those matches and have new cousins to add to my tree, as a result. 

As a matter of fact I was so excited to figure out the match between me and a match named Cheryl, that I spent 4 hours building a tree on Ancestry, for her family.  She only gave me 2 names to go on, Edward Riggs and Audrey Gerkin.  No dates, no places.  Using Blaine Bettinger’s Quick & Dirty trees idea, I began building.  I used obituaries, census records, birth, marriage and death records to try and build this tree back several generations.  We’ve all seen CeCe Moore and others go through this process to find unknown parentage and criminal suspects.  I’ve built several of these kinds of trees before, but cannot claim much success. 

NOTE:  When you do build a Q&D tree it should be private AND UNsearchable. You don’t want anyone else to use it or take items from it since you are not conducting exhaustive research on each person and do not want to proliferate errors.

Within four hours of starting that Q&D tree, at 10:59 p.m. I located who I believed to be our Most Recent Common Ancestor!  WOW! I was excited and very proud of myself. 

Now what?  Time to go down the descendant line from that common ancestor and really look closely to make sure I’m correct.  This is where you slow down and look at all the records as in our regular, due diligence, research.

What was my conclusion?  I was right on the money.  Cheryl and I share my 3rd great grandparents, Monson THORP & Lany COOPER.  They are my 3rd and her 4th great grandparents.  She's a generation younger than I am.  I also share DNA with her mother, a woman who’s name I have seen numerous times on various DNA sites and had no idea how we connected…..until now. 

Here is an image of that Q&D tree

Now, Cheryl and I are talking back & forth and she told her mother about our discovery. There are things they didn’t know about some of the lines I have information about.  We will talk more after the new year and they may have some photos and other information for me.  I will gladly share anything I have with them.

On another note. One of the other matches and I have also been in touch and she actually lives in Detroit.  We are also connected through the Thorp line, but via another route.  She has all her parent’s family research and lots of information.  We also plan to talk after the new year.

ALL of this from a 10 minute video.  Never stop learning and never stop looking. 

If you have any comments or you’ve had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2020   Diane Gould Hall 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

COUSINS ~ Such a wonderful resource–What I learned about Mary Emily King (1921-2019) in one afternoon

Cousins!  We can have an unlimited number of them.  We all know that they are special members of any family.  Whether you grew up with them or you have met them along your life’s journey, they can be a source of joy.

I received a phone call a few days ago from a cousin I’ve met through my genealogy research.  She just happens to live within an hour of me.  She is a maternal 3rd cousin.  Our common ancestors are James Gillen Hunter and Susan Caroline Boggs.

She informed me that her Aunt, Mary Emily King, had recently passed away.  She knows that I like to try and stay informed about family events, births, marriages, deaths etc.

Yesterday I sat down at my computer to take a look at my Legacy database and see what I had entered for Mary Emily King, my 2nd cousin once removed.

I had her as the daughter of Joseph Edward King & Maria Rhoda Downing.  Having been the 5th child born to that couple. 

I had a birth date of “about 1920 in Indiana.”  That was the extent of my knowledge of Mary Emily King.

WHAT DID I LEARN IN JUST A SHORT TIME (ABOUT TWO HOURS) THIS MORNING?

• First I did a Google search to see if I could find an obituary for Mary Emily.  Most or many obituaries are published online now and a simple Google search of the name + obituary will bring results.  Sometimes I add the year also, depending on how common the name is
• The obituary was a great source of information and confirmed what my cousin had told me.  Mary Emily died 4 Apr 2019.  The obituary gave her exact date of birth & place, the names of her parents, who she married & when, names of her family both living and deceased, her military service, other information about her life and her place of burial.  Doesn’t get much better than that.
• 
  
• OH!!  Did I mention there was a lovely photo of Mary Emily included with the obituary.

Screenshot from her obituary

• The next place I looked for information was FindAGrave.  Even though Mary Emily recently passed away, you can, many times, find a memorial has already been created.
• Sure enough there it was.  You can visit her memorial here #198091880.
• Her memorial had links to memorials for her parents, her husband and one sibling.
• I returned to Ancestry to add her husband’s name to my tree.
• From there I was able to find more information about him, including family photos AND his birth & death certificates.  THAT WAS A BONUS I WAS NOT EXPECTING.
• Interestingly, I cannot locate a marriage record for this couple.  I’ve tried specific and general searches on both Ancestry & Family Search.  Both Mary Emily’s and her husband, Harold’s obituaries give the same date and place of the marriage.  For now, that will have to do as evidence.  However, I will need more solid evidence and will continue to search.
• By learning that Mary Emily & her husband had a daughter named Maria, I was able to locate her obituary (she just died last year).  This included all sorts of vital information about her, including exact birth date, marriages, children's names etc.

NOTE:  I have searched high and low for a marriage record for Mary Emily King & Harold Hanna.  According to both of their obituaries, they were married 12 Aug 1972 in Danville, Illinois.  HOWEVER, how is it they have a daughter born in 1947?  Could this daughter be from another marriage or relationship for either Mary Emily or Harold?

 

For now, I’ll finish this post and move on to the next boat load of information I have received from another cousin (whom I met online via FB groups and then discovered and confirmed via DNA, she is my paternal 3rd cousin!)

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

How I Save Cousin Contact Info Using Evernote

Cousins, Cousins and More Cousins

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2019   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

THOSE DISTANT COUSINS ~ Colonel Samuel Camp Johnson, Jr. & Rachel Z. Frampton–of Lawrence County, Ohio 1800’s

Sometimes I enjoy researching and learning about my distant cousins.  In this case I was researching another line of my Frampton family, my 4th great granduncle Martin Frampton and his wife, Sarah Mann.  This couple had 12 known children from 1819 to 1841.  Sarah Jane, Barbara Ann, Mary Ann, Elizabeth Isabel, Rachel Zanetta, Martin Mann, William G., Jane, James Robert, Caroline Gertrude, Isaac Gillen and Lucinda Alice.

Today I’ll be talking about Rachel Zanetta Frampton who married Colonel Samuel Camp Johnson, Jr. on 20 Feb 1848 in Chesapeake, Lawrence, Ohio.¹

Rachel is my 1st cousin, 5 times removed.
 
According to the obituary published in the Ironton Register, 15 Oct 1885 for Col. Johnson, he was born in Durham, Connecticut on 2 Feb 1820.  He came to Lawrence County when he was a young man.  He is said to have served as County Commissioner, Representative in the Legislature and Member of the State Board of Equalization.

Ironton Register
JOHNSON, SAMUEL C. COLONEL I.R. OCT. 15, 1885
Col. Samuel C. Johnson died at the house of a farmer, 18 miles from Columbia, Tenn., where he happened to be while engaged in looking up ore lands for a Birmingham furnace company. . . . His son Fred, who had seen him 10 days before . . . Col. Johnson was born in Durham, Conn., Feb'y 2, 1820; moved to Western Reserve when a mere child, and came to this county when a young man; living in this region - - at the Rock, at Burlington, at Ironton, on Symmes Creek, in Huntington. He at times held the position of County Commissioner, Representative in the Legislature, and Member of the State Board of Equalization. He had ten brothers and sisters, nine of whom are living; one brother (Sherman) is dead. Eight were at the funeral: T. N. and F. L. Johnson of Portsmouth; Orin Johnson, of Ashland; Seliman Johnson, of St. Louis; Mrs. G. A. Knight, of Cincinnati; Mrs. Amelia Johnson, of South Point; Mrs. Turner Kemp, of Whitwell; Mrs. Eba, of Catlettsburg. But one living, Mrs. Wright, of Kingville, O., was absent from the funeral. The deceased leaves a wife and six children to suffer the grief.

NOTE:  The Ironton Register contains hundreds if not thousands of articles about the families in southern Ohio.  It is not available on any of the newspaper websites.  However, you can find some of the articles on The Lawrence Register website and also obtain assistance on the Facebook page for Lawrence Register, which is very active.

Colonel Johnson registered during the Civil War draft registration in 1863.  I don’t, however, find a record of any service. How did he come to have the title of Colonel?  Is that one of those titles that sometimes was assigned or attached to a particular person as a nickname?



In the 1860 census, Colonel Johnson was working as a Farmer.  I have not located the family, yet, in the 1870 census.  By 1880 he was a Hotel Keeper.

I do notice that in the 1860 census, there are 3 of Rachel’s family members living with her family.  Her mother, Sarah Mann Frampton, age 61, who was widowed in 1856 when her husband, Martin Frampton committed suicide by hanging.  It is said that Martin had gone blind and that may have been the cause of his despair, he was only 68 yrs. old.
 
Also living with Colonel Johnson & Rachel and five of their children were Rachel’s sister, Alice, age 20 (she later married Joseph Sylvester Stewart) and Rachel’s brother, James Robert, age 26.  James Robert is enumerated as “blind” in this 1860 census.  His occupation – broom maker.  James Robert did eventually marry and have 8 children.  I wondered if other census records would indicate he was blind?  I found that the 1900 census also indicates this condition.  He obviously didn’t let it slow him down from living his life.  Was he born blind or did he have a condition or accident that caused it?  That is subject for another blog post.

Of Rachel and Colonel Johnson’s 7 children his obituary states that 6 of them lived to adulthood.  Their first child, Lucius Martin Johnson died at age 4 yrs 9 mos. when he was run over by a 4 horse wagon, near his grandfather, Martin Frampton’s place.  This must have been very sad for his family.  His two other siblings, Frank and Jessie would have been about 3 and 1 at the time of the accident.
  
Here’s the excerpt from the Ironton Register

JOHNSON, LUCIUS MARTIN I.R. OCT. 06, 1853
Sad Accident - A little son of S. C. Johnson, of Hecla Furnace., aged about 5 years, was instantly killed last Friday, being run over by a 4 horse wagon, near the residence of his grandfather, Martin Frampton, at the Mouth of Symmes Creek . . . son of S. C. and R. Z. Johnson; aged 4y 9m 21d.

Colonel Samuel Johnson died at age 65 on 6 Oct 1885 in Columbia, Maury, Tennessee.  He was apparently on a trip to look for ore lands for a Birmingham Furnace Company.  He died at the house of a farmer. Was he taken suddenly ill?  Did he have a stroke or heart attack?  I have not been able to locate his death certificate, so I don’t know his cause of death.

You may visit the FindAGrave memorial for Colonel Samuel C. Johnson here #111492790.

According to her FindAGrave headstone, Rachel died in 1897.  She and Samuel are both buried at Woodland Cemetery, Ironton, Lawrence, Ohio.  Again, I have not death certificate or record for her.  You may visit her memorial here #111492893

Sources: 1 - Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993, film number 000317716 and U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900

I will continue to research this family as the Frampton’s are a direct line for me.  If you are related to any of them, in particular this couple, I’d love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment or send me an email.  You can see my contact information at the top of my blog under the “contact me” tab, or click here.

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION