Genealogy

Thomas Hamilton

Shelly

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?)

Music

Margaret vs. Pauline

Shelly

I’ve been cat sitting for folks who live out in the country, so I’ve been doing more driving than normal. I grabbed some random CDs, because I wanted new car music. One of them was unlabeled. It had a couple of Neko Case songs on it. I love this one, but every once in awhile it sneaks up on me and makes me teary.

Margaret is the fragments of a name
Her love pours like a fountain
Her love steams like rage
Her jaw aches from wanting
And she’s sick from chlorine
But she’ll never be as clean
As the cool-side-of-satin Pauline

Uncategorized

Grief

Shelly

Somewhere near the top of the list of Bad Advice for Condoling the Bereaved is the expression, “It’s for the best.” Why on earth would anyone say that, even if they believed in their heart of hearts that it was 100% true?

On the other hand, Echidne, who recently lost someone very dear to her, had some perfect and beautiful words to say about grief

It’s like having to learn the world again. Every day the new world is more familiar, of course. But I still wake up feeling as if my outer shell has disappeared, feeling as if I have to defend myself against my own grief.
[..]
It’s all about those intricate webs of memory, love and dependency, and the webs have been cut through by that dark sickle of death. They must be mended, rewoven, repaired, and while that process happens one grieves.

She also talks about how grief keeps sneaking up on you. She likens it to rotten floorboards, where everything seems fine until you take one random step and it swallows you up again. I think that’s a pretty good analogy.

Genealogy, Pets, Photography

Little Things

Shelly

It’s nice to have crazillions of databases searchable from one interface (Ancestry.com). It’s easy to forget that not everything tha\’s available online is accessible through Ancestry, though, even when the state/county in question has opened their databases to Ancestry. Things slip through the cracks.

I looked and looked and looked and could find no marriage records for Henry Meineke and Mary Shoemaker. I found birth records for their children, which listed Mary’s maiden name, but no marriage record. It occurred to me, though, to see if Illinois had their vital records online. And they do. And look at what I found!

MEINECKE, HEINRICH–SHUMAKER, MARIA ANNA–1894-08-23 00K/0070 00010815 MC LEAN

I don’t know why they were married in McLean County[1], but that’s definitely my grandfather’s paternal grandparents. And interestingly, though the Minnesota birth index lists her as Mary Shoemaker, grandpa spelled her name Shumaker, which seems to be the way she spelled it at the time of her marriage. Also, I now have a middle name and a known variant spelling of her first name. Since I have not been able to trace her parentage, this could be helpful. Or not, as it’s a common name. But it’s a new clue, and those are always exciting.

It also narrows down her possible emigration date, as she supposedly came over not long before marrying. Another clue.

And, because I have nothing topical to illustrate this post with, I shall include some random Harriet cuteness.

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She is of German extraction, at least!

_______________________________________
1. Actually, this is clue number 3. There’s a gap between the 1870 census (the first one that Henry shows up in, as his family arrived in the US in 1869), which puts them in Tazewell County IL, and the 1900 census, which puts them in Wright County IA. The 1890 census is useless, as most of it was destroyed in a fire. But what about 1880? I can’t find Henry, his parents, or any of his siblings in the 1880 census.

Now I can at least look for him in McLean County IL. And, I’ve got reason to believe that not all of them stayed in Tazewell County. Maybe even none of them. There are several possible candidates in the Illinois Death Index. I also need to take anther look at the Illinois voter records, because I may have enough information to start weeding down those “possibles,” too.

Unfortunately, it’s possible that the whole family was somehow missed during 1880 census. It happens.

Genealogy, Photography

Instant Review: Firefox 3.0

Shelly

A) So far, so good. My only complaint is that the text size increase/decrease (ctrl + mouse scroll wheel up/down) is backwards. That will take some getting used to. I really like the basic skin that comes with it, and I love the enhanced browsing history. It’s also supposedly much more memory efficient, so hopefully it won’t be as slow to wake up or quite so crashy.

B) The chairs I mentioned yesterday? The ones that sat upstairs, in the public area, for months and months? The ones that I was sure would sit in the SLIS hallway for more months and months? Gone. I’m glad I got a photo when I did, even if it was a crappy one.

C) Genealogy update:

I don’t know what got into me, but I started looking at my younger brothers’ father’s family. They’re no relation to me, but my brothers are, and they might be interested. Anyway, the Saxons? Apparently they were one of the first white families to settle in what later became Connorsville, Fayette County. Alexander Saxon arrived there in 1811, just a year or two after John Connor (brother of William Connor), the town’s namesake.

The family stayed in Fayette County until Herbert Saxon moved to Rush County. I haven’t yet figured out when that was. He was still there in 1920, according to the census.

And now I’m curious to go back and look at some of the old family photos that my brothers’ dad left at my mom’s. I may be able to put some of them into context, now.

And speaking of which! I found this photo a genealogy board. A woman had bought it from an eBay vendor who’d gotten it from an estate sale in Gulf Shores, Alabama. It has the names Robert and Joseph Saxon on the back. The guy on the left bears a scary resemblance to Herb. Actually to both Herbs II and III.

Robert Saxon and Joseph Saxon

Uncategorized

Mystery Call

Shelly

I finally emptied out my old voice mail box and set up the new one on my Comcast account. It’s only been a few months. Anyway, there was a message from a few days ago that was all in French. Despite the last name, I do not speak French! I haven’t a clue what the message was about. Upon looking at the caller ID, though, I saw that it was from a J. Couvrette.

I’m mystified.

J. Couvrette, why are you calling me?!!!

Photography

Chairs on the Move

Shelly

100_4899

They were last seen on the third floor, west tower, lined up near the elevators. There they’ve sat since December, biding their time. Over the past week, they’ve been slowly migrating to the ground floor, outside SLIS. Is this the final step in their plot for world domination? y0u hAV3 b33n wArN3d!11!!!!

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I, for one, welcome our new Chair Overlords.

Crankypantsing, Photography

BREAKING NEWS

Shelly

I just took some trash out to the dumpster. While I was doing so, Mr. Upstairs carried a couple of boxes down to his car, and then, a microwave. I’m almost afraid to hope, but it seems like he might just possibly be moving.

I really think it might be true, though. The past week, he’s been extra noisy, with serious cleaning and furniture shifting.

Yay!

And if it’s not true, it’s an awfully dirty trick to be playing on me, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.

In other news, I went to the grocery store and the gas station this morning. My cupboards and my car were on empty. Despite everything at the grocery store having gone up in price since the last time I went (for example, the cheap-assed unbleached flour went up 25¢, and don’t even get me started on the subject of rice), it cost more to fill my gas tank–$59.26–than to buy two week’s worth of groceries.

But! I got some very cute little asparagus spears (tiny and tender), vidalia onions, green tomatoes (they’ll be fried, so I thought they were worth the risk), some very nice looking portabella mushrooms, limes, and some gorgeous green peppers (I eat them raw, like some folks eat carrot sticks).

Also, chives, but not as nice as the ones in my mom’s garden.

IMG_1686

Genealogy, Photography

Morning Clouds

Shelly

Picture 008b

I spent last night cleaning up alternate names in my genealogy database. If I’d RTFM, I’d’ve input them correctly the first time, but I didn’t. So now the alternate names are properly cross-indexed, and that you can look up someone by any of their names (assuming I added alternate names to that record).

This becomes important when you’re looking for people like my great grandfather, who was named Cecil but went by John. Both names now show up properly in the index.

Next, to fix the census fields so that they display properly. Aieee! That is going to be a nightmare. Along with that, occupations also need to be moved so that they no longer display as dates.

RTFM, folks!