HOW I FOLLOW A TRAIL OF RECORDS & ANALYZE WHAT I FIND–HENRY HART FAMILY–PART 3

MY GOAL:  CAN I PROVE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MY 2ND GREAT GRANDFATHER, HENRY HART & A REPORTED FIRST WIFE? 

 

HE IS REPORTED TO HAVE MARRIED & HAD 4 CHILDREN WITH THIS WIFE, PRIOR TO MARRYING MY 2ND GREAT GRANDMOTHER.
 

I WILL SHARE WITH YOU, IN THIS POST AND UPCOMING POSTS, HOW I FOLLOW THE LEADS AND WHAT I FIND.
 

THIS IS AN ONGOING SERIES.  PLEASE REFER TO PREVIOUS POSTS, IF NECESSARY. 
 
Here are links to the first two posts:
HOW I FOLLOW A TRAIL OF RECORDS & ANALYZE WHAT I FIND - HENRY HART FAMILY - PART 1
HOW I FOLLOW A TRAIL OF RECORDS & ANALYZE WHAT I FIND - HENRY HART FAMILY - PART2

I HAVE RESTATED MY GOAL ABOVE AND WILL RE-STATE THAT GOAL AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH POST FOR THIS SERIES.
 
Let’s now go to the third child of Henry Hart & Sarah Sumner.  

Benjamin Tyler Hart. 

BENJMAIN T. HART & HIS WIFE MARY CAMPBELL

Here is the family group record that I received from Judy Haynes who descends from Henry Hart & Sarah Sumner

 

YOU CAN SEE THAT THIS TYPED RECORD LISTS BENJAMIN HART AS A CHILD OF HENRY HART & SARA SUMNER AND HIS DATE OF BIRTH AS 28 JUL 1820

WHAT RECORDS HAVE I ALREADY COLLECTED FOR BENJAMIN TYLER HART?

• The above family group record from a descendant, which gives his name & date of birth and states that he was a child of Henry Hart & Sarah Sumner.
• A marriage record from Westminster, Middlesex, Ontario, Canada from 20 Jun 1843 for Benjamin Tyler to Mary Campbell.
• An 1850 census record with Benjamin Hart & his wife, Mary & their two sons, William & Alonzo.   NOTE: They are living next door to Hiram Hart (brother of Benjamin) and a young girl named Clarissa, who is the right age to be the daughter of Hiram.  Where is Hiram’s wife, who is also named Clarissa? This is a question I will write down and come back to later.
• An 1870 census record with Benjamin Hart & his wife Mary and children, Isaac, Harriet, John & Charles.  There are two other people in the household named Ellen William, age 59 and James Johnson, age 20.  They are listed as a domestic servant and a laborer.
• A record of Benjamin’s death from Michigan, Death & Burials Index, 1867-1995
• A picture of Benjamin’s headstone from a FindAGrave memorial.

WHAT DO I WANT TO LOOK FOR NEXT?

• An actual copy of his death record or certificate.  I happen to know that familyseach.org now has images of the Michigan death records from 1867-1897.  In fact I wrote a post about Michigan death records and how to find them.  Here is a link to that post:  Michigan Death Records - Where can you find them?

I have located a death record for Benjamin T. Hart on familysearch.org.  He died 14 Jun 1897 in Clyde, St. Clair, Michigan.  

Male, white, married
Age 26 yrs. 10 mos. 14 days
Place of death – Clyde
Disease or cause of death – Bright’s disease
Birthplace – Canada
Occupation – Farmer
Parent’s names & residence – Henry & Sara Hart, Canada
Date of record – 29 Jun 1898

Here is the document recording his death.  He is the last one on the page.  
(Please click on any image to enlarge it)

  

Anyone see that item in red in the list above the document?  His age is listed as 26 years.  Our Benjamin was supposedly born in 1820.  He was married in 1843.  

What am I to think?  Is this the wrong person?  In my opinion, No.

First of all, if I calculate from the date of death 14 Jun 1897 and use the age 76 years and not 26 years, 10 mos. and 14 days, we have a birth date of  31 Jul 1820.  Our information from cousin Judy, says 28 Jul 1920.  Pretty close.  If you look at all of the numbers written on the death record, the writer seems to always have a curl at the bottom of his or her 2’s.  

It is my opinion that the number so easily mistaken as a 2 could easily be a 7.  

HOWEVER, I would hope to find another piece of evidence that this is the correct Benjamin Hart.  

Let’s look at the headstone for Benjamin and see what it says.



Don’t you just love it when headstones have more that just a name & year on them?  

Look at this one!  For both Benjamin T. Hart & his wife Mary C. Hart, we have exact dates of birth and death.  I know the two children Laura & Nancy are their infant daughters.

This is pretty good evidence that the death record I found was the correct one.  Can headstones be wrong?  YES!  Just like any other record we find, they too can have mistakes.

How about an obituary?  Let’s go look on genealogybank.com and see if they have something.  Darn, not a thing on that site.

One more piece of evidence that Benjamin died in 1897.  His wife Mary is listed as a widow, living with her son Isaac & his family in the 1900 census.

I am satisfied that the death record is for the correct Benjamin.  

BUT WAIT!

WHAT DID WE START OUT LOOKING FOR?  That’s right, proof that my 2nd great grandfather Henry Hart was, in fact, married to Sally “Sarah” Sumner prior to marrying my 2nd great grandmother, Olive Doten.

Doesn’t that death record for Benjamin T. Hart name his parents as Henry & Sara Hart?  YES!

Have I accomplished my mission on this date.  I would say so.  

There is one more piece of evidence that lists Henry & Sara Hart as the parents of Benjamin Hart.  It’s a Michigan, Deaths & Burials Index, 1867-1995.  Again, we have a little discrepancy.  His middle initial is listed as “J.” instead of "T".   I can’t look at the original as there is only an index on Ancestry.  This could easily be a transcription error.  Given the other information on this index, I conclude that it is the correct Benjamin Hart.



Is this definitive proof about Henry & Sara’s marriage?  I wouldn’t call it proof, but it’s a start.  At least we have their names appearing together on two different documents.  Although her maiden name is not listed.  

TIP:  Sometimes we have to come to conclusions in our research based on evidence we find that isn’t the proof we’d like.  I would like to find a marriage record for Henry Hart & Sara Sumner.  I would also like to find a death record for Sara Sumner Hart.  I'm not sure if I will be able to find either, but I'll keep looking.

For now, I'll be satisfied with what I do find.

I’m going to stop for today, or I’ll have to publish this as a book and not a blog post.  

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
Surprise! A birth record where it wasn't supposed to be
Cemetery Records - What can they tell you? How do you use them? 

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - MY FIRST GENEALOGY ROAD TRIP

IN 2007 I WENT TO DETROIT, MICHIGAN - MY PLACE OF BIRTH, FOR MY FIRST GENEALOGY ROAD TRIP

HERE'S WHAT I DID

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

MEDICAL TERMS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

CAUSE OF DEATH – That’s one of the things I always want to know when I’m researching my ancestors.

WHY?  Because, to me, it’s very interesting to see the different kinds of things that people died from during different times in history.  Also, because it will give you a good idea of what types of diseases or conditions run in your family.   

Where can we go to find the definitions for the various causes of death we see on all the records we locate?

You can always use your favorite search engine, Google or Bing or Yahoo or whatever you prefer.

I used Google and typed in “Medical terms in the nineteenth century.”

Here is just the first few choices that were listed.

Clicking on the very first one brings up an 11 page report listing medical terms from that time period.  That was easy.

Then I got curious and wondered if I could create a list in Legacy, that would show who died of which disease or ailment?

The answer is YES, I can.  Here are some of the results of my search. 
 (Legacy users please go to the bottom of this post to find specific instructions)

For Typhoid Fever (click on any image to enlarge it)



For Dropsy



And for Consumption



Of course there are many more that I could look up. But, you get the idea.  

How many of our ancestors might have lived longer had they been born in modern times? 

How many of us living today would live longer 100 years from now?  The advances in medicine have been astounding during the past 100-150 years.  

In the 19th century the doctors arrived in buggies or on horseback.  Surgical instruments like the ones below might have been used if needed.
 

       

What kind of unusual causes of death have you found in your family?  

Do you look for the definition of a disease or cause, if you don’t know what it is?

NOTE:  If the cause of death is something that isn’t ordinary by today’s terms, I try to enter a definition.  Now that I’ve typed that statement I realize something.  I should be entering a definition for every cause of death, shouldn’t I?  Because in 50 or 100 years will our descendants know what our definitions were?  Sure, they will be able to look them up, but maybe I will save them the trouble.

Legacy Users – here are the steps I took to create the cause of death list. 
I went to the “search” tab at the top of my screen, then clicked on “find.”
Next, click on the “detailed search” tab.  Here is what I chose for each question:
Look for whom?  Individual
Where to look?  Cause of death
How to look?  Contains
What to look for?  I typed in whatever disease or ailment I wanted to search for
Then click on “Create List” at the bottom of the screen.
If you want to create a list with more information, just use the “Or” option under the second and third condition and repeat the above steps, only enter a different cause of death.

That’s all the fun for today.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

SHAKY LEAVES ON ANCESTRY CAN LEAD TO NEW RECORDS

Researching is always fun to me because of the new records & information I run across all the time.

Today I opened Ancestry and there were those inevitable shaky leaves.  I’m not one who will look at each and every one of them, every time I open the website.  However, I do tend to take a “look” to see who they are highlighting.   This has proven valuable to me on many occasions.  

Today I saw a reference to one of my GILLEN clan, Sara Wilson Gillen.  I clicked on it and low and behold I found a record I had never seen before.  And, I don’t mean just a new record for this ancestor, but a new record I didn’t know existed.  Name of this record?

U.S., APPOINTMENTS OF U.S. POSTMASTERS, 1832-1971

Have you seen this group of records before?  

Sure enough, there she is on lines 2, 3 & 4.



What can this record tell us?

- the obvious – she was working as a Postmaster
- it puts her in a place & time

Of course I entered this information as an Event/Fact in my Legacy database right away.  I included the image and entered this as a source.

What I did next…

I went right back to Ancestry and looked at what other records they might have for me for Sara Wilson Gillen Friel.

I found a 1942 Ashland, Kentucky city directory which lists her as the Postmaster.



Now I will enter this city directory listing in Legacy as an Event/Fact, including the image.  And of course making sure I cite my source.

There is more on Sara Wilson Gillen Friel, and I intend to document all of it. Adding it to my Ancestry tree and my Legacy database.

I thought I would look in the Ancestry card catalog and see if I can find the U.S. Postmaster list there.  

NOTE:  I have found the card catalog to be quite evasive when it comes to giving me any results.  I’ve been using the Ancestry site now, almost daily, for over 10 years.  Sometimes what seems to me to be a certain keyword will bring up nothing.  

Example:  In the card catalog under keyword I typed in “postmasters.”  The first result I got was “no records found.”

Then I typed in the Title field “Appointment of U.S. Postmasters” and got the exact list that I have cited above in this post.  

Out of curiosity, I cleared all fields and then went back to the “keyword” field and typed in “postmasters” again.  This time the Appointment of U.S. Postmasters came right up.  I can’t figure it out.  My work around is that I just play with both the Title & Keyword fields until I get some kind of results that may be of use.

Let me know if you’ve found any new or unusual records lately.  We know there are thousands of records on various websites and we can only begin to know what a few of them are.  

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST:
Following Leads on Ancestry
Millennium File on Ancestry

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

LEGACY 8 - CENSUS LIST–HOW WILL I USE IT TO SEARCH FOR MY FAMILY?

WHAT IS THE LEGACY CENSUS LIST?

This is a feature of Legacy 8 that I had not yet discovered or used.  We all know that we don’t use the full potential of any of our software programs. Whether you are a user of Legacy, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, The Master Genealogist or Reunion (to name a few), these programs are much more powerful than we can imagine.  

This report was new to me and I really like the potential it presents for helping me with my research.

This tool is located by
- Clicking on the Search tab and then Census List
- You can also go to Help, click on Help Index and type in Census List.  

This brings up the help screen for this particular feature.  Rather than repeat everything that is said on this help screen, I will let you read it in the program.  However, I will say that this particular feature was “inspired by the release of the 1940 U.S. Census and the Create a List of Potential Individuals feature.”  Apparently that feature was so popular they expanded it to include all census reports.

Let’s take a quick look at what I found today.  

For our purposes, I chose the following criteria using the drop down list in each section.

• Choose a country – United States (the list includes many other countries)
• Place – I typed in United States.  You could type in a specific state
• Choose the census year – I wanted to see the 1840 list
• Date Range – I let it default and it chose 1 Jun 1840
• Average Life Span – I left the default of 80 years
• I chose to ONLY include males.  You can leave this box unchecked and include all genders, or choose only females.

On the right hand side of the list there are two tabs.

For the Search List Options tab I left the default choices

For the Report Options tab I left all the default options, except I wanted to “Exclude Individuals from the report who appear to have already been found in this census.”

Here is a screen shot of my choices, prior to running the report.

Then I clicked on the box on the lower right that says “Preview a Census List Report”

The result was a 65 page report!

The list is alphabetical and includes
Name, Birth/Christening
Death/Burial
Age on Date (which would be the age on the date of the census you chose)
Possible Location

Like you I have those brick walls in my family.  I wanted to see what the report had generated for the surname GOULD.  My 2nd great grandfather, John C. Gould,  is a huge brick wall for me. I have not been able to tie him to parents or siblings.

Pages 24-27 of the report contained the surname Gould.  Here are those pages.

 

You can see on the second page, that John C. Gould, my 2nd great grandfather is listed as the 3rd person on that page.  

This tell me that he would have been about 7 years old in 1840 and that there was a 90% chance he would be located in Michigan (based on his birth).  The record also lists everyone in his family.  

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO ME?

First of all, I apologize. I could have picked an easier census.  You know, one that has the names of ALL the household members.  But, since this blog is about my journey in finding my family, I’m taking you right along with me, no matter how difficult it gets.  

Back to the question. This tells me that I need to go to the 1840 census records and find a head of household, in Michigan, named Gould, with males 7 years old.

The 1840 census only lists head of households.  I will have to settle for the tic marks made by the enumerators that indicate the numbers of household members in a certain age group.  

Using a blank 1840 census record that I have at my desk I can see that the John would be marked in the “Males – 5 and under 10.”

WHAT IS MY NEXT STEP?

I am going to go on Ancestry.com and search specifically in the 1840 census in Michigan.  I will look at every Gould family in Michigan.  I know from previous searches that there weren’t hundreds of them at that time.  Maybe under 50 families.  I will look at every Gould family and see who has sons marked between 5 and under 10.  

NOTE:  I have every census record for my John C. Gould from 1850-1910.  They all indicate he was born in Michigan.  I know he was married in Michigan and I know he bought and sold land in Michigan.  I know that his only living child, a son, was born there as were his grandchildren, great grandson and great great grandchildren.  Those are pretty strong clues that he was, indeed, born in Michigan.  Now, was his family living in Michigan in 1840?  I don’t know.  They could have moved and come back.  But, I have to go with what I know.

Because I uncovered, completely by accident, this feature in Legacy, I now have another GREAT tool to use.  I’m excited about the possibilities.  There are numerous options when creating your reports.    I can’t wait to create more lists for other census records, from the U.S. and other countries.  Oh my!!!

This post was not meant as a complete tutorial on how to use the Census List, but rather just a means of letting you know that it exists.  I’m certain I have much more to learn about the search queries we can run and oh so many other features of the program.  

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO YOU
Adding Sibling Links to FindAGrave Memorials
How to Find Family Statistics in Legacy 8
Legacy 8 - A quick guide to Label & Tab colors 

Until next time.  Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

OFFICE CLOSET CLEAN OUT–THE FINISHED PRODUCT

I’m doing my happy dance!  I’ve done it! 

THE CLOSET IS ALL REORGANIZED.  What a project and what a reward. 

 HERE IT IS!  MY NEW SPACE.

I’m still in a bit of shock that this project is finished.  Oh, I’m still making tweaks here and there, but for the most part I am done.















BONUS!
In cleaning out that closet space I have also completely cleaned up any stacks of junk & paper and reorganized the office too.  

WHAT IS LEFT FOR ME TO DO?

• Make a few more labels for the plastic containers
• Buy a new light fixture for the closet
• Complete the clean out of my grandmother’s secretary desk
• Hang some new items on the walls of the office 
• SCAN, SCAN, SCAN

I have a box of pictures and documents that need to be scanned.  My goal is to work on them each day.  Even if I only spend 15 minutes, at least I will be moving forward.

This project from start to finish took just over two weeks.  I worked on it nearly every day.  We’ve lived here for 19 years and that closet was the catch all for everything for all those years.  I don’t think two weeks was a very long time, all things considered.

In case you missed my first post with the pictures of that horrible space, please click on this link:  Office closet clean out & organization project

WHAT’S NEXT?
I think I’ll settle in for some good old genealogy research right now.  We are making a very important trip in April and I need to be ready.  

I hope this has inspired some of you to dig in and get started on those awful projects that you think you just can’t do.  That’s how I felt about this one. 

Speaking of organization....OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
Digital Folder Organizing & Naming Made Easy
Easy Document Editing

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall