Tag Archive for Alabama

Getting Back to Some Hard Genealogy

October 5, 2011 Craig Family History, Genealogy

It took a near-disaster in the form of a hard disk failure to bring me back to doing some basic genealogy. I took me a week to recover and reassemble my files, which had been backed up onto three different systems. The redundancy was a fortunate thing born out of some lethargy in organization. As a fortuitous happenstance, I lost not a single file.

But as I reassembled and reorganized my files (an ongoing project), I came across several items that I had not looked at in awhile. That fired up the research imagination and fueled a new round of seeking some of my MIA ancestors.

 Desperately Seeking Sarah

As my sole remaining Loyal and Constant Reader, you recall that I have spent years trying discover information about my maternal gg-grandmother, Sarah Gilbert Johnson, said by family tradition to be an Indian. Here’s what we know about her:

  • She seems to appear with her husband on the 1870 US Census in Liberty, Clay County, MO [The entries are for “Johnson” (no first name; male, black, farmer) and “-------”, female, black, “keeps house.”]. I think this refers to her because they are the only black Johnson couple in the county without any children and their ages are within an appropriate range.
  • She seemingly appears on no other census records after 1880, by which time she has six children, living with Ezekiel in Kansas City, MO.
  • “Zeke” marries one Irena Neal in 1885; suggesting that Sarah has died.

We then undertook the following search efforts:

  • Searched US Censuses 1850 & 1860, for “Sarah Gilbert.” We looked in Clay, Platte, and Jackson Counties, Missouri. We chose these counties for their proximity to the site of her marriage and where she lived in 1880. We didn’t find her in those places in those years.
  • We searched marriage records in Jackson County, Missouri and found that several “Sarah Johnsons” had married after 1880. A possible implication here is that Sarah did not die in the 1880s, but was divorced from Zeke. There is no further evidence that would allow a conclusion on that theory,
  • One clue I found tantalizing from the Kansas state census is a woman named Hannah Gilbert, married to one William Gilbert. This family is African American. Could they be Sarah’s parents? However, they appear for a brief while, then vanish from the records. There’s no reasonable path from them to Sarah.
  • We looked at marriage records for Clay County and Jackson County in Missouri. We found no Gilbert other than Sarah herself, marrying Zeke in 1867.
  • We examined a limited sample of newspapers from the appropriate times and locations; again we found no Gilberts.
  • We examined the pre-1910 Missouri Death Certificates from the Missouri State Archives. This was also unproductive (as it might be if our supposition that she died in the 1880s in correct; Missouri didn’t have mandatory death certificates until 1910).
  • We examined the post-1910 Missouri death records for Jackson County and the counties comprising the greater Kansas City area. There are several “Sarah Johnsons” listed. However, further identifying information is missing. For example, one “Sarah Johnson” had a unknown birthplace and unknown parents.

Part of our thinking about the methods shown above was to locate collateral relatives of Sarah’s who might lead to a clue about her. But the main assumption we made was that Sarah was born and lived in the greater Kansas City area her entire life. This theory would have Zeke perhaps having known her or known of her before he joined the Army and returned to marry her. Or the other possibility is that he met her upon his return from the Army.

Thinking about Zeke and Sarah marrying after his return from the war brought me back to the realization that he was mustered out of the Army in February 1866 in Huntsville, Alabama. He married Sarah in September 1867. What was he doing in that intervening year and a half? Well, for one thing, he was finding his way back to Kansas City.

So suppose Zeke met Sarah somewhere along his way back to Missouri from Alabama?

What route and what mode of travel did he take? How long did it take him to make the homeward journey? Did he perhaps stop in St Louis where he had been inducted? Did he meet Sarah there? A reasonable route on the nearly 700 mile trip would pass through Nashville and St Louis. The answers to these questions may shed light on the origins of Sarah Gilbert.

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Halloween Census Whacking

October 31, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy, Oklahoma, United Kingdom

With the crisis of my father’s recent illness and the minor drama of my own, I feel like I’ve been way out of touch the last two weeks.  It’s time get back into the flow of things.   I thought  little census whacking for Halloween would ease my way back into writing.  So I went hunting for Vampires, Zombies, Ghosts, Ghouls, Goblins, Witches and Pumpkins.

Vampires

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the incidence of Vampires is extremely low in the United States.  In 1880,  four Vampires: Otto; Jean; Julianne; and Mary, all in their twenties, were living in Cheyenne,  Wyoming.  They claimed to be actors. In 1870,  there was just one Vampire in the United States, 26 year-old machinist George Vampire.  Of course he lived in New York City.   What happened to these five Vampires  in the 20th century?  Were they forced to leave or did they on their own just pull out up stakes and leave?

According to the World Names Profiler (WNP), Germany and the United States have the greatest incidence of Vampires in the world.  Germany’s statistic is 0.04 per million, while in the U.S., the figure is 0.01 Vampires per million people.  Regionally, the American Vampires are located in Oklahoma, according to the WNP.  The Sooner state has a Vampire index of 1.04 per million.  With a 2008 estimated population of 3,640,000 or so,  there would be about four Vampires in Oklahoma.   I found in public records three listings in Lawton, Oklahoma, for Madonna Vampire.  Unfortunately for her, there are at least thirty people named Buffy in Oklahoma presently.

Zombies

Nearly all the Zombies in the census records turned out to be mis-transcriptions of other names.  The WNP reports no Zombies in the United States.  Public records reviews show about 14 Zombies in various places around the country.

Ghosts

Kraft Ghost of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and Leonard Ghost of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, both listed on the 1790 federal census appear to be the first two Ghosts in America.  But in the 1900 census, the number of Ghosts expands exponentially.  Most of these “new” Ghosts are Native Americans in the upper Midwest.  The WNP indicates a Ghost index of 18.29 per million in South Dakota and 3.37 per million in Nebraska.  South Dakota’s estimated 2008 population was 804,000, which would yield about 15 Ghosts. Public records reveal about 17 Ghosts in South Dakota (when obvious duplicates are eliminated).

Nebraska’s estimated population is about 1.8 million, suggesting something a bit more than six Ghosts.  I was able to find only one Ghost in Nebraska in public records. The rest seem to have vanished.

And how about Pennsylvania where it seems to have begun for Ghosts in America?   WNP’s Pennsylvania Ghost index is 2.58 per million.   That would mean about 32 Ghosts presently among Pennsylvania’s estimated 12.45 million folks.  I was able to identify 25 Ghosts in Pennsylvania public records after eliminating duplicates and two entries which appeared to refer to religious organizations.

Ghouls

Apparently, the first Ghoul in America was 66 year-old Christian Ghoul of Maryland, a German immigrant.  He appears on the 1870 census.  Few other Ghouls seem to have been counted until the 1900 census, where like the Ghosts, the Ghouls grew rapidly in number.  And like the Ghosts, most of the “new” Ghouls were Indians, living primarily in Tehama County, California.

When it comes to Ghouls, the United States doesn’t even register in the WNP top ten. (Number one is France, with a Ghoul incidence of 4.59 per million; Switzerland is a distant second at 1.92 per million, supporting evidence that the Gauls may be the most Ghoulish people on Earth). (Hey, I just report the facts!)

Within in the U.S., however, Ghouls seem to be concentrated around Las Vegas and Chicago, at least according to the WNP.  Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, and Will County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago, were the only two counties in which the WNP found any Ghouls at all. Curiously, public records show no Ghouls in Nevada and six in the Chicago area.  Overall, public records indicate something more than 100 Ghouls in America presently, with perhaps as many as 10% of those in California.   This is the biggest disparity I’ve ever seen between WNP data and public records. [The WNP's FAQs state: "All our names and location data are derived from publicly available telephone directories or national electoral registers, sourced for the period 2000-2005."]

Goblins

A man named Goblin was first in recorded in New York City in the 1850 census.  In 1860 there was still just one Goblin on the census and that was 14-year-old Lucinda Goblin who lived with the Davenport household in Columbia, Missouri.  But just 10 years later, the 1870 census showed that three fourths of the (four) Goblins in the USA lived in North Carolina.  By 1900 however, the number of Goblins in America had increased nearly eight-fold to a total of 33, to be found in every region of the country.

Globally, the number of Goblins in the U.S. doesn’t make the slightest statistical ripple, using WNP data.  Number one is France, again, with  0.2 Goblins per million.  The United Kingdom is far, far, behind with 0.02 per million.

Witches

We all know the history of Witch hunts in America. Surprisingly enough however only one Witch appears on the 1790 census and that would be Peter Witch of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (just what is it with Pennsylvania and Lancaster in particular?).  There was also a Witch in Rutledge County, Alabama, in 1790.  By 1900, Witches were routinely enumerated in the census all over the country.  Sadly, two of them were little boys: Jacob Witch, 10 years old, and his brother, Henry Witch five years old, who were apparently in an orphanage in Las Galinas, Marin County, California.

Turns out that there are far more Witches in the U.K. and Canada than in the USA (the only countries reporting any Witches at all).  The British Witch population (0.5 per million) is concentrated in Newport (Casnewydd), Wales, and the southwest jurisdictions of North Somerset, Bath and Northeast Somerset, as well as the City of Bristol.  There are also a few Witches in Surrey.

According to WNP, Manitoba’s  Witch frequency of 2.93 per million accounts for the whole of Canada’s 0.23 per million Witch index. Manitoba has an estimated population of 1.2 million; all of Canada consists of 31.6 million people. Mathematically, that does not work out.  Unfortunately the WNP provincial map of Manitoba gives no further details.

The U.S. Witch frequency is a comparatively minuscule 0.04 per million.  WNP finds Witches concentrated in Dickinson County, Kansas, and Howard County, Maryland.  A public records search reveals about twelve Witches in  the USA (eliminating commercial enterprises like plumbing and construction ["Ditch Witch"] and fast food restaurants [Fish Witch"]).  None of the Witches were found in Kansas and of the two in Maryland, neither was in Howard County.

Pumpkins

John Pumpkin appears as the only one of his surname on the 1820 census.  He lived in Fayette Count, Kentucky.  Virtually no other Pumpkins are found in the census until 1880.  In that year, Pumpkins were concentrated in two areas of the country: Fresno County, California, and Greene County, Georgia.  The latter jurisdiction included a young lady, 15 years old, named  Etta Pumpkin.  Following a pattern that we’ve seen before, the 1900 census showed a huge increase in the number of Pumpkins in America. Again this had to do with the number of Native Americans enumerated on the census in that year.  The Indian Pumpkins were primarily on reservations in the upper Midwest.  By 1910, however, they were concentrated in Madera County, California, and Cherokee County, Oklahoma.  The Oklahoma Pumpkins included one Mary Pumpkin Gritts.

The WNP data shows the expected distribution of Pumpkins in the USA based on historical data.  South Dakota, Montana, and Oklahoma are leading Pumpkin states, based presumably on the frequency of the name among Indians.

Other “Important” News

While I was whacking away on Halloween themes, I started wondering about some other things. Not only did I find unexpected discrepancies with the usually reliable World Names Profiler, but I also now have reason to question the competence of the Census Bureau, whose data report not a single Fool, Clown, or Jackass has ever been enumerated in Washington, D.C.

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"Open" State Vital Records: The Bad and the Ugly

March 26, 2008 Craig New York

One of Several Posts about Open Government Laws and Genealogy

Previously, we spotlighted several states that are particularly “genealogy-friendly” concerning access to state vital records. Now we wade into the swamp of vital records-access horribles.

At the edge of the swamp are states that have unreasonably long (100 years or more for birth records; more than fifty years for death records; or any period for ordinary marriages and divorces) confidentiality periods. These states include:

  • Alabama: 125 years for birth records!
  • Alaska: 100 years for birth records; fifty years for marriage records
  • Arkansas: 100 years for birth records
  • Delaware: 100 years for birth records
  • Hawaii: 75 years for death and marriage records
  • Idaho: 100 years for birth records; 50 years for marriage and divorce records
  • Iowa: 75 years for death, marriage and divorce records; even then, records are simply open for inspection and copying; no copies issued by the state except to persons of a certain relationship.
  • Louisiana: 100 years for birth records
  • Michigan: 100 years for birth records (on the other hand, anyone can have access to Michigan death records).
  • New Jersey: 50 years for marriage records
  • New Mexico: 100 years for birth records, but not prior to individual’s death (but see below).
  • New York: 50 years for marriage records AND both husband and wife are known to be deceased.
  • Oregon: 100 years for birth records
  • Rhode Island: 100 years for birth records
  • Wyoming: 50 years for marriages and divorces

Vital Records Access Hell

  • Georgia: Birth certificates appear to be available only to (1) the person whose record of birth is registered; (2) either parent, guardian, or temporary guardian of the person whose record of birth or death is registered; (3) the living legal spouse or next of kin or the legal representative of the person whose record of birth or death is registered; (4) a court of competent jurisdiction upon its order or subpoena; or (5) any governmental agency, state or federal, provided that such certificate shall be needed for official purposes. This is my reading of Georgia Code section 31-10-26(a) & (e). The law appears to prohibit the issuance of informational or uncertified copies of birth certificates and even abstracts or indices of birth records. If I’m reading this incorrectly, will some Georgia genealogist or lawyer please set me straight.
  • Indiana: Birth and death records are closed to the public and may be disclosed only (1) to an applicant having a direct interest in the matter recorded; (2) when the information is necessary for the determination of personal or property rights or for compliance with state or federal law; or (3) in any extraordinary case that the state registrar determines is a direct tangible and legitimate public interest. That’s my interpretation of Indiana Code section 16-37-1-10. If I’m reading this incorrectly, will some Indiana genealogist or lawyer please set me straight.
  • Kansas: One of the worst! “Currently, the Office of Vital Statistics does allow requests for genealogical research. Pre-1940 records may be requested by an individual related as at least a cousin. Post 1940 records must be requested by an immediate family member.” Kansas Department of Health and Environment vital statistics website (viewed 3/27/2008)
  • Mississippi: “Vital Records are not considered public access documents. Certified copies of records in the custody of the Department of Health may be obtained by persons having a legitimate and tangible interest in such records.” Mississippi State Department of Health Vital Records Rules and Regulations (viewed 3/27/2008). The statute says:
    • Records in the possession of the Mississippi Department of Health, bureau of vital statistics, which would be of no legitimate and tangible interest to a person making a request for access to such records, shall be exempt from the provisions of the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983; provided, however, nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit any person with a legitimate and tangible interest in such records from having access thereto. Miss.Code 1972, 41-57-2 (1983).

  • New Mexico: “New Mexico Vital Records are restricted access records and are only issued to immediate family members or individuals who demonstrate tangible legal interest,” so says the New Mexico Department of Health’s website. But, that seems to contradict the statute, which says that records may be disclosed 100 years after birth (but not before person’s death) and 50 years after death. See N.M.Stat. 24-14-27. So the Land of Enchantment makes the hell list not only for being unreasonable, but for confusing people as well.
  • Pennsylvania: Vital records are not open to the public. Eligible requestors are (1) person named on a birth record; (2) legal representative of decedent’s estate; (3) immediate family members; (4) extended family members who indicate a direct relationship to the decedent. Pennsylvania Department of Health vital records website (viewed 3/27/2008).

  • South Carolina: Entitled recipients: (1) the person named on a birth certificate (if eighteen (18) years of age); (2) the parent(s) named on the birth certificate; or the guardian, or a legal representative of one of these persons. On the other hand, any applicant may be provided a statement that a death occurred, including the date and county of death. South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control vital records website (viewed 3/27/2008).

There are several states (some listed here, some not) that say that records are open to persons with “a direct and tangible interest,” or a “legitimate interest,” or words to that effect. Without some mitigating factors, this should be enough to consign a state to Vital Records Access Hell. These phrases frequently have no definition, leaving a requestor to the whims of a vital records clerk. It certainly seems to me that genealogical research is a “legitimate,” “direct,” or “tangible” interest!

Special Place in Hell for Online Records Sites

This series has not been focused on online records. A state can earn kudos without having online acess to its records. But if a jurisdiction is going to have on-line access, it should be convenient and affordable. Alas, such is not the case with the Caddo Parish (La.) Clerk of Court’s office, so they are awarded this year’s SPIHFORS. The Caddo clerk’s online marriage records search function frequently doesn’t work properly. And then there’s the matter of fees for the other databases: a $100 “setup” fee and $30.00 a month to view images! Outrageous! Just about fifty miles west of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, in Gregg County, Texas (much smaller in population than Caddo Parish), the County Clerk provides free online access to some of the same types of documents for which Caddo wants exorbitant fees.

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