Category: Genealogy

I talked to my mom this morning, and she solved one family puzzle and inadvertently created another. After doing some cursory searching and getting nowhere, I thought I’d poke around in some online newspaper archives. Boy, is that ever entertaining!

Wright County Monitor (Clarion, Iowa), 11 January 1951, Page 4

Pretty much everything in this particular paper seems to be comprised of chatty nosypantsing. I’ve gotten through about 1/3 of the 370 pages containing the name Meineke, and so far, every single reference has been about someone having dinner at someone else’s house, or someone joining or hosting some variety of social club.

It’s more of a singular finding, actually, than a findings. I may have misunderstood, but I thought Estelle Hoover (grandma’s grandmother) was paralyzed later in life (polio?). Not so! Whatever happened to her occurred at a young age, because she was listed in the 1880 census as being paralyzed. She would have been about seven years old in 1880.

Other than that, I’ve been cleaning up census info and trying to fill in some of the gaps as I come across them, which is why I saw the reference to Estelle being paralyzed.

Something else I turned up, which might be something and might be nothing. The 1870 census lists a Henry Hoover married to a Tallula, with a son named Adolphus. I’ve been assuming that this is Estelle’s family. The names are uncommon and the ages and locations match. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Henry’s occupation is listed as a physician. I don’t think that can be correct. If it’s not, then the enumerator made a mistake, Henry or Tallula lied, or it’s not the same family after all.

1870 US Census, lines 86-88

I just think it’s unlikely that Henry, who is listed as a dairyman in the 1880 census, a peddler the 1889-1890 Atlanta directory, and a repairman in the 1900 census, could have been a physician in 1870. I mean, I realize that doctors weren’t quite the same thing back then as they are now, but that’s a pretty big stretch even so. On he other hand, that would have been right after the Civil War. If he’d fought in the war, who knows what sort of position he held? He might have actually been trained as a doctor or medic, then not stayed with it after the war.

My aunt Dottie asked if there were any Revolutionary War soldiers in the Lord line of our family tree. Possibly (they were certainly in the right place at the right time). So I did some digging and found that my 7th great grandfather, Thomas Hamilton, was indeed a Revolutionary War soldier.

I only stumbled across that last night, which is odd, because I only just found Dottie’s email in my spam folder this afternoon. I haven’t a clue why it ended up there, as there’s not anything remotely spammy about it.

Anyway!

The Thomas Hamilton in question is buried in the White Settlement Cemetery in Tomkins County, New York. His (modern) headstone identifies him as a private in the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment. That seems to be incorrect, though. There was an interesting a discussion on one of the Hamilton surname listserves that details why the Thomas Hamilton who was a private in the 10th PA can’t be “our” Thomas. And, as well, a good reason to think that our Thomas was actually in the Northampton County Militia.

What we do know about our Thomas is that he was a surveyor. He married a woman named Sarah Westfall. They had five children. In 1875 the family, along with Joseph Brearley and his wife, Lydia Colborn, moved to Muncy, Pennsylvania. While crossing Sweet Arrow Creek, their wagon was overcome with water and Sarah and Joseph both drowned. Thomas later married Joseph’s wife, Lydia. (Since it ends in a wedding, I guess that makes it a comedy, right?)

My mom called the other day to tell me that my uncle–who apparently doesn’t know how to call or e-mail me himself–wanted another family history story. So, here goes. I have traced one section of the Lord line back to Joan de Beaufort (my 18th great grandmother), and from her, back to Cerdic of Wessex (my 50th great grandfather). On the road from Joan to Cerdic, things become increasingly mythic (I mean, we’re talking 6th century, folks, so this family history story is more of a fairytale).

As yet, I have found no witches. Sorry, Cal! You’ll have to make do with some minor Plantagenets.

This is also a cautionary tale. When you use other people’s research (or “research”), you should take it with an entire mine full of salt unless and until you can verify it. I have found cases where people were married before they were born, or were buried before they died, or an ouroboros where the father was his own son, so the pedigree was linked in an infinite loop, or people of European descent who were allegedly born in the Americas before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. If you import sections of other people’s trees, you will inherit their problems.

I mentioned that I had found the names of Henry Meineke’s parents in the 1925 Iowa census, and that I was almost certain I’d found the same family in the 1870 US census, living in Illinois. Well, I later found that the Auguste on the 1870 census was a daughter, not a son, as I’d assumed. She married ended up in Iowa. I know this, because I stumbled across Auguste in the 1925 Iowa census, married to a man named Henry Sheppelman. She was born in Illinois, and her parents were Christ Meinicke and Henrietta Liddke.

At that point, I was convinced that the folks in the 1870 US census belonged to Henry. Now, the question was to find their emigration information. When did they come over? According to the 1900 census, they (or Henry, at least) emigrated in 1871, which would make it impossible for them to be listed in the 1870 US census.

I did some more digging, and was about to give up, because I just wasn’t finding anything at all close to what I needed. But, then, I thought I’d go check the LDS website. The information there is limited, but their genealogical index sometimes has little nuggets that aren’t available elsewhere.

I turned up a record for an Auguste Dorothee Christine Meinecke (b. 3 December 1867 in Lebenstedt). Her parents were Johann Georg Christian Meinecke (b. 14 August 1813 in Lebenstedt) and Sophie Henriette Elisabeth Lueddecke (b. 16 December 1826 in Lichtenberg). Aha! Not only is it more confirmation that I’m on the right track, but it provides a few more useful clues.

With the proper (or at least an alternate) spelling of Henriette’s last name and more options for first names for both her and Christian, I was finally able to find an abstract of the emigration record for the family. It’s sparse, but they did indeed come over in 1869, as I’d suspected. The record also lists complete names for everyone in the family, including three more children and an unnamed stepchild.

I still can’t find any further information on Christian and Henriette, aside from the immigration record, the 1870 census, and the LDS record. In addition to that, for Henriette, I found her in the 1900 US census, widowed and living with Auguste and Henry Sheppelman.