En route to Tokyo

180 degrees Longitude (International Date Line)

North Pacific Ocean



In the time it took to type the preceding words, I’ve traveled through time from 2:45 pm Tuesday September 28 to 2:45 pm Wednesday September 29. Very weird.

So I did leave the country. My day job is taking me to the so-called “Far East” for about ten days. Though this trip has nothing to do with genealogy, I didn’t want the blog to be dark for that long. And maybe I’ll find some genealogical resources of note in Asia. As diverse as my American families are, there are no Asian connections to the best of knowledge.

Indian Museum Opens

Back at home last week, the National Museum of the American Indian opened on the National Mall after a couple of decades of planning. About 20,000 Indian people celebrated the opening along with many others, great and unnoted. (By the way, a prominent Indian leader whose acquaintance I’ve made was asked why it’s not called the “National Museum of the Native American.” He said the term “Native American” is not generally accepted in “Indian Country” and that if one must insist on labels, “American Indian” is acceptable and tribal names are preferable.)

Many Americans have Indian roots, of course. But genealogical research for American Indian ancestors has special challenges.

I’m aware of two of my American Indian ancestors. Mandy Martin (1861-?) was a Choctaw woman who lived in south Texas, but whose people apparently came from Mississippi. Sarah Gilbert (1849-?) was a Plains Indian from Missouri or Kansas. In both cases, I’ve had no success tracking any further. If we were still “quantifying,” I’d be 1/16 Indian.

My day job was quite complicated this past week, so there was very little time for quality research or blogging. I did find another excellent, easy-to-use Website in Missouri. This one’s the Jackson County Records Department in Kansas City. Their on-line records search function is accessible from almost any main page on the Jackson County site. Available records include marriage licences, tax records, deeds, and more. I especially like the marriage licence area, because it has neat images of more recent licences.

A resource that deserves special mention is RootsWeb. This site is a treasure trove for genealogists–the candy store of Web-based info. (This blog is registered on the RootsWeb link registry). I get very excited every time I visit!

Well, I may be out of the country for about ten days–or then again, maybe not–, and if so, GeneaBlogie may be silent during that period–or then again, may be not!

Genealogists have to depend on the prior work of others who create or compile or index records. When someone has made record-gathering easy, it makes the genealogist’s task easier. And as much fun as this is, there’s enough frustration to measure as well.

Today’s kudos go to the Secretary of State of Missouri, the Honorable Matt Blunt . His office has an easy-to-use, searchable database of birth and death records online right here. Last night, I was researching the James Long family of Kansas City, and was able to quickly find numerous records of both births and deaths on this site. For example, several of James Long’s descendants had told me that the family had a baby named David who “died young,” although they did not know how young or what caused his death. In a matter of minutes, I was able to ascertain, sadly, that David Long, son of James W. Long and Mary Elizabeth Johnson, died at home, 2711 Wyoming Street, Kansas City, on December 8, 1908–just one month after he was born. The cause of death was pneumonia. Using the Print Preview and Print features of my Mozilla Firefox browser, I was able to produce a clean, easy-to-read “Permanent Record of Death.” I will pass the document on to two of David Long’s nieces, who happen to be my mother and my aunt. In a time when many states have slim budgets for good recordkeeping, and others are driven by privacy paranoia, Missouri has done a great service for the public good. Here’s the site again: Missouri Birth & Death Records Database.

While I’m at it . . . .

Might as well pass on some other praise also. I particularly like The SS Hypertree’s

design and layout. I like the friendly tone of Janet’s Genealogy Blog. Lorine McGinnis Schulze’s The Olive Tree is chock full o’ genea-info. Thanks to them all for advancing this endeavor.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt?

So I had been looking for George Micheau’s (1851?-1942?) forebears (see I’d Like to Teach the World to Gene). And I had a theory about that. Genealogy is like other evidentiary endeavors: theories, hypotheses, inferences, assumptions, and sometimes the outright WAG (“Wild A– Guess,” for the uninitiated), all play roles in getting to the “facts.”

My theory was that George Micheau was the son of either John Micheau (b. 1796) or Auguste Micheau (b. 1799). Based on the evidence I’d seen, and the fact that any more evidence would be very unlikely to turn up, I was ready to settle on the “fact” that George Micheau was the son of Auguste Micheau. The evidence persuaded me that this was “more likely than not.”

I was cleaning out some “old” files when I found the smoking gun in the form of the 1870 census of the village of Prairie du Rocher, Randolph County, Illinois. There was the following:

Misho, George 55

” Margret 36

” William 20

” George 18

” Chess 16

” Nicholas 14

” Antcinan 7

So . . .proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Maybe not, but I’m glad I never throw anything away!

Matilda Manson is listed in the 1850 census of Talbot County, Georgia, with her mother, Jane Manson and her sister, Mary Manson. Matilda’s age is given as 6 years old; Mary is reported to be 4, and their mother Jane’s age is listed as 24. All three are described as “mulatto.” Matilda next appears in federal census records in 1880 in nearby Upson County as 30 year old “Mat” Manson with a 9 year old son, Otis. They are both described as “mulatto.” Sometime during the 1880′s, Matilda and young Otis relocated from Georgia to Milam County, Texas. Otis married Bettie Sanford (1872-?1935) and they had seven children. Otis’ grandson, Harold V. Manson, recalls having seen his grandfather just once, describing him as a white man. I asked Otis’ grandson why Matilda and Otis left Georgia. Here’s what he said:

She was Spanish. And he [Otis] was the only Spanish boy in school in Georgia at that time. So I think he was being picked on . . . and she decided they had to leave . . . That’s what I heard–that she was Spanish.

No doubt they had to leave when somebody realized that she wasn’t Spanish.

Good People, Good Stuff

I recently went to Longview, Texas, to research records at the Gregg County courthouse.
I had previously been impressed with the quality of information and ease of use of the Gregg County clerk’s records website.

As it turned out, the actual clerk’s office was easy and friendly as the website. Records were easily accessible. In fact, my only criticism is that some of the older records are too easily accessible for sake of preservation. Otherwise, “Miss Gladyce” and her ladies are to be congratulated for running a topnotch operation. One employee, Gloria Caraway, spent over an hour with me tracking down a death certificate for my 3rd great-grandmother, Amanda McCray Bowie (1848-1924). A research visit is well worth the effort.

Another Lone Star Tale

So Matilda Manson and her son Otis had to leave Georgia . . . .okay, but why did they chose little ole Rockdale in Milam County, Texas? Well, maybe they knew somebody there. One of my theories is that they knew the heirs of John Manson, who inherited a lot of land in central Texas. A great site for land transactions information in Texas is the archives of the Texas General Land Office. According to the state records, John Manson was entitled to 320 acres of land as a bounty for his service in the Army of the Republic of Texas. I was curious to learn more about John Manson, so I went in search of his military records. I found them at the Texas State Library and Archives, which has a friendly easy-to-use search function. Military records are not accessible online, but all it took was an e-mail to the State Library and ten days later (wow! That’s service!) I received the entire remaining contents of John Manson’s Texas military file.

I hate the word “diversity” in its current political connotation. Curiously, though, genealogy demonstrates both the “diversity” and the (now-politically incorrect) “melting pot” aspects of America.

I also hate people who, despite doing genealogical research, can’t take off their blinders about the realities of human nature. In this field, we all know of incidents like this:

A: I’m researching the St Amont family of Michigan.

B: What a coincidence! I’m a descendant of the Ohio St Amonts! Possibly I have info you’d find useful.

A: (harrumphing via IM) Uh, well, I don’t think so . . . those St Amonts are . . . uh, well, not white.

That’s just denial.

Consider the case of Leroy Goins (1924-1983). His mother was a black woman, Hattie Bryant (1886-1944) and his father, also named Leroy Goins (1887-1946), was a white man. The union between Hattie and the senior Leroy most likely was an extramarital one. Now I don’t know any currently living members of the Goins family, but they, if there are any, might well be surprised to know that Mr. Goins Sr. had a son that many would consider “black.” Especially perhaps since the venue of these events was south Texas during the Jim Crow era.

But, wait, there’s more!

An examination of the ancestry of Leroy Goins shows his forebears came to Texas from Louisiana (Henry Goins, 1822-1870), thence from Mississippi (Jeremiah Goins, b. 1792), thence from North Carolina, and thence from Virginia. Six generations of the Goins family can be traced back in Virginia from the mid-18th century to the early 17th century. The spelling of the name changes from Goins to Going to Gowin to Gowan to Gowen and finally to Gaeween. All of these people apparently are white except . . . Mihill Gowen (1633-1708) who was a slave and his father, John Gaeween (born about 1615), a black African. So the Goins family comes full circle.

Next: She’s Spanish

I came across the name of one of my cousins on a genealogy website. I’d never heard of her before, but I decided to write her a letter. “Dear K, You don’t know me, but I’m your cousin. My mother, L, is your grandfather P’s sister . . . .” That was seven months ago–still haven’t heard from her.

One of my grandfathers had a fairly unusual (or so I thought) name. I was surprised then to find three other men, father, son, and grandson, with the same name. So I wrote them a letter. “Dear Messrs.——, You don’t know me, but . . . . I can assure you I desire nothing but information for my research . . . .” That was three months ago, still haven’t heard from them. They live about ten miles from me.

Cold-contacting is another one of those necessary evils of genealogy. I know how I would have felt a few years ago to get a letter like the ones I’ve sent. Oh well . . .

Some people think I’ve become obsessed with this genealogy thing. But see the last post, “Resistance is Futile.” I suppose it can become an addiction. With the growth of computerized databases and widespread availability of technology, it’s never been easier to do some basic research. Finding one’s way past the brick walls still requires actual examination of actual documents, however.

The Mormons research their family history for religious reasons. I asked a former LDS member about this and she gave me an explanation that certainly within the tenets of their faith is internally consistent. It wouldn’t be fair to the LDS Church or anyone else for me, not being of that faith, to attempt an explanation.

Whatever one may believe about the LDS beliefs, one surely must credit them for their magnificent work in genealogy. And further to their credit, they have made it accessible to the public, believer or not.

Genealogy is art and science. It exists as a field of endeavor because of uncertainty–like all science. And like all science, it offers some answers in which there will be necessarily a degree of ambiguity. “Facts” rely on assumptions and are established within “confidence intervals.” Perhaps in this sense, genealogy and all science share something in common with religion–to a degree, at least.

As a practical application, take the case of George Micheau (1854?-1944?). For the benefit of his now 83 year old granddaughter, I set out to discover his ancestors. She knew he had been born in Missouri and had lived his life in two places: St Louis, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. She knew he had died when he was about 90 years old. I found federal census records that indicate that George Micheau was probably born in about 1854–but the census in the early part of the 20th century did not record or report exact birth dates. The census records confirm that he lived part of his life in St Louis and part in Prairie du Rocher. The census records do not say who his parents were.

I found other federal census records that show two men named Micheau turned up in southern Missouri in the mid-1800′s. John Micheau, born in 1796, and Auguste Micheau, born in 1799, both were born in Kentucky and ended up in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri. Ste. Genevieve is just south of St Louis and directly across the Mississippi River from Randolph County, Illinois, where Prairie du Rocher is located. Auguste had a son, Philip, born in Illinois in 1852. What confidence should I have that John and Auguste are related to George Micheau?

That’s more than a rhetorical question.

Having been born in the 1950′s, I grew up in what was then called “The Space Age.” My grandparents, all of whom in the 1950′s were about the age I am now, had been born at “The Dawn of Aviation.” (In fact, my mother’s parents were born before that certain day at Kitty Hawk).

Just before I started school, the nation was convulsed by self-doubt and racked by intense debate over its educational system–angst brought on by the Soviets’ launch of an artificial Earth satellite called Sputnik. When I was in second grade, the new President, John F. Kennedy, spoke of a “New Frontier” for America to explore and set a goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. No surprise that I grew up wanting to an astronaut. The defining issues of the 1960′s were sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, civil rights, Vietnam and “The Space Race,” approximately in that order.

In a 1969 television interview, I told a reporter (I was 15–what was I doing on TV?) that I intend to study “relativistic astrophysics” in college. I understood that discipline to be a branch of science in which astronomers peer back through time across the vastness of space in search of clues to the origins of the universe. I could imagine no greater vocation. Just a few weeks after that interview, the lunar module Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their footsteps in the dust of celestial history. (Decades later, I found myself with Armstrong and Aldrin in the dust of a field at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on the day after my grandmother’s 101st birthday).

I am not an astronomer today. Yet, every day I peer back through time across the vastness of humanity in search of clues to a universal mystery. Some days, I detect faint familial objects orbiting around known relatives; the newly discovered points of light gently re-shaping the common understandings of the family galaxy. Other days I find nothing but more darkness. On other days, my persistence is rewarded with the appearance of previously unimagined clusters of stars pulling me toward them for great exploratory adventures. For me, like my almost-colleagues in astronomy, entreaties of that nature are not to be denied. . . .

. . . or more precisely IE6 ate my post! It seems that XP SP2 installs a pop-up blocker as part of its new security features. When composing on Blogger, the new pop-up blocker will perceive the Blogger spell check function as a threat and navigate away from the composition page without saving your data. To solve this problem, set the pop-up blocker to allow pop-ups on the Blogger site only. Better yet, get Mozilla Firefox. (Note: the new Netscape 7.2 popup blocker will also block the Blogger spell-checker, but won’t nuke the data.)