That’s my grandma Jeanne as a little girl (I’m guessing about 3 years old?), sitting on her grandma’s lap. Estelle had polio, and you can see her crutches leaning against the wall behind them.
And, I just noticed, there’s a baby doll tucked under Estelle’s right arm.
Cecil Meineke 1904-1988 and Clarice Lord 1906-1996
My great grandparents, Cecil Meineke and Clarice Lord. I believe this was their wedding portrait, which means it was taken in 1923.
My great-great grandparents Homer Charles Lord (1877-1953) and Clarisa A. Perry (1878-1940)
Wedding portrait of my great-great grandparents, Henry Meineke (1862-1927) and Marie Elisa Shoemaker (1865-1905).
My aunt Dottie scanned these photos of my great grandma Nell and sent them to me.
Grandpa left me a comment with some information on his father and paternal grandparents. I’d hit a dead end on that side of his family. It’s funny, though. I’d found his parents in the 1930 census, along with him and his brother. His father was identified in that census as John F. I could find no trace of him in earlier censuses. The only Meineke I could find who was born at the right time, in the right place, was a Cecil. Meineke is not a super rare name, though, and there were several in the upper midwest at that point in time. I had no reason to think that Cecil and John might be the same person, until Grandpa said that his father’s name was Cecil.
So now I know. And with that little tidbit, and the fact that Cecil’s father’s name was Henry and that his mother was a Shoemaker, I was able to go to work. I found a 1900 US census record for Henry and Mary Mincke (lines 65-69).
1900 US Census, Wright County, Iowa
According to the 1900 census, the couple was living in Iowa. Henry emigrated in 1871 and Mary in 1893. Henry would have been about 8 years old when he came to the US. I haven’t looked for an emigration record yet, and I’ll have to, because I think the emigration date on the 1900 census is a little off. That sort of thing is not at all uncommon, especially not for someone who came over as a child. Henry could have easily misremembered or misguestimated the date.
Mary is not on the 1910 US census, and Henry is listed as widowed, so Mary must have died sometime between the birth of her last child (about 1904) and 1910. I found census records for Henry and his children in 1915, 1920, and 1925. Grandpa remembers that Henry died around 1928, and there’s no record of him in the 1930 census, so we know he was gone by then.
According to the 1900 and 1910 census, Henry and Mary were in Illinois when their first child was born. That’s probably where they met and married. I know from the 1925 Iowa census that Henry’s parents were Chris Meineke and Henryetta Litteke (line 99). Also note that Henry’s sons Clarence (line 97) and Henry Jr. (line 119) are on the same page.
1925 Iowa Census, Wright County
And guess what I found? A Christian and Henriette Meineke in the 1870 US census, living in Tazewell County, Illinois. They have three children: Henry, Juliano, and Auguste. Henry is 8 years old as of the census date, which would mean that, if this is the correct family (and I think it must be), they actually emigrated a little earlier than Henry recalled in 1900. Like I said, that happens and is not outside the realm of logic.
1870 US Census, Tazewell County, Illinois
And boy, I thought the name Basquill was open to mangling. You should see what some of the census enumerators did with Meineke. Aieee! Grandpa, if you’re reading this–I don’t know if you can tell or not, but on the 1870 census, the name is spelled Meinecke. Mom said that you thought the there was probably a relationship between the Meineke and Meinecke families. I think it’s just two variations of the same name, sort of like some of the Basquills tacked an e on the end of the name. I’ve also seen it spelled Mineke and even Mohneke. On the old census records, the enumerators sometimes had to literally play it by ear. They did the best they could, but it makes finding people difficult.
And to make matters more confusing, the transcribers added another potential level of misdirection. It’s kind of like playing telephone. You tell someone a word and they write it down, perhaps spelling it phonetically, to the best of their ability. Then, a hundred years later, someone else comes along and tries to decipher the handwriting. So you tell the enumerator that your name is Meineke. He writes down Mineke. The transcriber sees Minske. That’s what happened with the 1900 census, and it made finding it somewhat akin to searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
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1. And if Tazewell, Illinois sounds familiar, it’s where Esther Munro‘s mother’s family lived at about the same period of time. Small world, eh?
I spent yet another weekend doing family tree research. I reached a dead end awhile back on my grandma’s side, but at that point, I hadn’t yet begun with my grandpa’s family. I didn’t even know his parents’ names. I got those from my mom a couple of weeks ago, and immediately hit the jackpot. I was able to trace a couple of branches of grandpa’s family back to the Colonial period, and even back a bit farther in some cases. I was surprised that there is a pretty large Dutch branch. I had no idea! And it’s a bit of a clusterfuck, too, with some cousins intermarrying.
I went ahead and uploaded what I had yesterday to WordConnect, but quickly had to update that file when I found more information. Most of the information before the 1750s came from my own research of census records. Boy is that ever tedious! But interesting, too. For now, I’d like to just point out that we have Cheesemans in our family tree. Ha! And a minor Kellogg. And a Walter White who married a Mary Browne.
Talula, Talula
I don’t want to lose it
It must be worth losing
If it is worth something
Talula, Talula
She’s brand new now to you
Wrapped in your papoose
Your little Fig Newton
I spend most of the weekend doing more genealogy research. I found out two things that were interesting. Well, three, but one of them is a little tangential.
1. My great-great-great grandmother was named Tallulah. I don’t know anything about her family, because I haven’t found her maiden name. She married Henry L. Hoover, and their daughter Estelle married a Thompson, and their son Louis married my great grandma Nell Basquill.
But! Tallulah! How awesome is that? A quick Google shows that it’s a Choctaw name meaning “leaping water.” My mom said that grandma immediately identified the name as Indian, which I thought was odd. To me, it’s just an old-fashioned southern name. It’s funny how associations change over time. Here’s something interesting, though–Tallulah came from Alabama. The only Tallulah I know of is Tallulah Bankhead. She was named after her grandmother, who was from Alabama. I wonder if there’s a link there?
2. It appears as if my great-great aunt Margaret wasn’t quite as widowed as I thought. I don’t know that it was a big secret, so much as just how stories get told and how assumptions get made about them. I’d always been told that she was widowed, but I found Margaret in the 1930 census, and she was listed as divorced. At first, I thought it was an enumeration error, because my great grandma Nell was living with her at the time, and the census listed her as widowed. We know for sure that that wasn’t true. She divorced her husband, Louis, and he later remarried. So, I assumed the enumerator had mixed them up.
However! I also came across a record for Sterrett Pooser in the 1930 census, only he was living in a boarding house in Massachusetts. He was born in Georgia, so I’m fairly certain he has to be Margaret’s husband. I refuse to believe that there was more than one Sterrett Pooser in the world. Ever! So I talked to my mom, and she talked to my grandma, and apparently Margaret and Sterrett did separate before he died. God only knows what the heck he was doing in Massachusetts, though. His family were southerners.
Which brings me to my next, and tangential, point of interest.
3. Margaret’s husband’s people were, as I said, southerners–from South Carolina and Georgia. And, they were apparently slave owners. Not surprisingly, several of them were soldiers in the Confederate army. It’s not a pleasant thing to stumble across, but you have to be prepared to unearth the bad with the good, if you’re going to dig around in the past.
In my searching, I stumbled across a Walter Baskval born about 1806 in Ireland. He turned up in the 1841 Scotland census, living in Lanarkshire. He was a private in the 17th Lancers. There was a Lucinda Baskval born about 1806 listed in the same census, as well as three children with the last name of Baskoal: James, John, and William. All born in Ireland.
I don’t know that this is at all helpful in any concrete way. I have no proof that these two names are variants of Basquill (though how could they not be?), nor can I connect the names and dates to any Basquills I know about. It’s conceivable that this Walter–and that’s not a very common name in Ireland at this point in time–is Walter’s grandfather. If so, he’d be my, let’s see, great-great-great-great grandfather. He could also be my Walter’s uncle. Or he could be no relation at all, though I find that unlikely.
The real question, though, is where the heck did this variant of the name come from? I wish there were a scan of the census page available, because I’d like to see the actual handwriting. Sometimes, weird variants are due to bad transcription. Other times, they might be due to the enumerator not having a good ear. This is especially problematic if the enumeratee is illiterate or not fluent in the enumerator’s language, which is a distinct possibility in this case. Walter could well have been unable to read or write, or he may not have been very fluent in English, if Gaelic was his first language.
As for the different spelling between the parents and the children, I wonder if they were enumerated separately? The kids were pretty young (1, 4, and 5 years old), so they were certainly unable to read and write. They also may have been in the care of a neighbor or someone who didn’t know how the name was spelled. Without seeing the actual census form, it’s impossible to guess.
I also found a Peter Basguill born 1801 in County Mayo, Ireland. Peter was in the 1851 Scotland census. He was a grocer in Fort-William, Inverness. Possibly a brother of this older Walter? Possibly the father of Michael? Or, even, the grandfather of Michael? As far as I can tell, this is the only instance of this variant of the name showing up in the UK census records.
And just for fun, I tried Google. I got no hits for Baskval and Baskoal and only three for Basguill. Two were for a Martin Basguill who is buried in Pennsylvania, and the third was for a patent application.
While searching through passenger manifests, I came across a few that puzzled me. They were for women who had been detained, and in the detained column, there were notations stating “to husband” or “to father.” What were the women detained for, and what did the “to X” notation mean? I asked Teh Google, and Teh Google directed me to the Manifest Markings website.
What a wonderful resource! In the section on alien detentions, it explains that unattended women entering the US had to have someone who would take responsibility for them. It could be a cousin, a father, a husband, or one of the various immigrant aid societies. Sometimes, the woman was released directly into that person’s custody, but other times, a telegram would be sent to the custodian, a reply received, and the woman would be released to go meet him. Customs officials just needed to know that there was someone who would take responsibility for the woman.
An annotation of “to Tel” or “to Tel $” meant that the passenger was detained because they arrived in the US without a ticket through to their final destination. The notation meant that a friend or family member had been sent a telegram requesting money, and the passenger would be detained until funds arrived. I haven’t any idea what happened if there was no one to send funds, or if the funds weren’t available. Did the passenger just get set loose at the port of entry? Or were they sent back home? Or was the shipping company held financially responsible?
red paper boat 
