Tag Archive for Johnson

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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Grand Genealogy Journey: My Kansas City Families

September 27, 2010 Craig Family History, Genealogy

The Gines Family

My closest relatives in Kansas City would be in the Gines family, descendants 0f Richard and Sylvia Gines of Shreveport, Louisiana, (who, as far as anyone knows, never set foot in Kansas City).  Two of Richard and Sylvia’s  sons, William Edward Gines (1898-1955) and Henry William Gines (1903-1980) left Shreveport in 1920 and headed for Kansas City.  Why they left Shreveport and how they got to Kansas City is unknown to me.

“Eddie” Gines, as my grandfather was known, left his baby daughter, Grace, in the care of his mother, Sylvia.  But he apparently brought to KC with him one Sarah Green, also of Shreveport, whom he married in 1920 in Kansas City.  No documents exist as to what happened in their marriage, but in the 1930 census, Eddie is living with Annie Florida Corrine Long, and their two  sons, Richard Edward Gines (1926-1996) and Perry Wesley Gines (1928-1985).  They had four more children, two boys (Alfred and Kenneth) and two girls (my mother, Lillian, and Delorise).  I could find no marriage license for Eddie and “Flo,” and once was told cryptically by a relative, “There probably isn’t one.”

Eddie Gines was a gregarious man who could and would talk to anyone about anything. After having worked at a fine hotel in Shreveport, he found similar work in Kansas City.

Most of Eddie and Flo’s descendants remained in the Kansas City area or nearby.  I wrote about Grandpa Eddie in Faces & Places, March 2006, and My Favorite Photograph, August 2008.

Henry William Gines married Ora Mae Wilkerson in Kansas City on December 22, 1934.  Records in  Shreveport show that Henry had been married to a woman named Corrie Mae Simmons. What became of her and that marriage, I do not know. Henry and Ora had three children, twins Frank (1935-1999) and Henry (1935-1993), and a girl, Sylvia.

The Long Family

As previously noted, my grandmother was Annie Florida Corrine Long, daughter of  Rev. James William Long (1866-1945) and Mary Elizabeth Johnson (1870-1946).  The Rev. Long and his wife had fifteen children, some extremely long-lived and others who survived a very short period after birth.  The Long children were:

  • William Henry Long  (1889-1990)
  • Theodore Roy Long (Feb 1891-Oct 1892)
  • Clarence Long (1892-1970)
  • Benjamin Franklin Long (1893-1953)
  • Luther T. Long (1894-1896)
  • Julius Walter Long (1897-1970)
  • Christina Alta Long (1898-2002)
  • Rosetta Bell Long (1900-1994)
  • Annie Florida Corrine Long (1902-1986)
  • Mary Beatrice Long (1905-1921)
  • “Baby Boy” Long (lived for two days in February 1907)
  • David Long (Nov-Dec 1908)
  • Rafael Matthew Long (1910-1988)
  • James Robert Long (1912-1977)

What accounts for the number of lengthy lives and the number of premature deaths in the same family? It’s difficult to know. Here’s what the available death records show:

David Long died of pneumonia.

“Baby Boy” Long died of intestinal hemorrhaging.

Luther Long died of whooping cough.

Mary Beatrice Long died of tuberculosis.

From Missouri State Archives, Missouri Digital Heritage Collection, Pre-1910 Births and Deaths at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/birthdeath/ and Missouri State Archives, Missouri Digital Heritage Collection, Missouri Death Certificates, at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/.

James William Long was a Baptist preacher who began his career as assistant pastor at Kansas City’s well-known Paseo Baptist Church and later pastored the Sunrise Baptist Church.  Folklore has it that at the time, Sunrise Baptist was on the west side, straddling the Kansas-Missouri state line. Supposedly, the pulpit was in Missouri and the congregation in Kansas.

What makes that story plausible is that the Longs lived on the west side at 27th and Wyoming, a location barely more than 50 feet from the state line.

I wrote about my misadventures in trying to identify James William Long’s parents and siblings in The Wrong Longs? May 2007, and The Right Longs, May 2007.  I analyzed the mistakes in Evidence, Hypotheses, and Analyses, May 2007, and You Say Regetha, I Say Rozetta, May 2007.

The Johnsons

No family has given more joy of discovery and yet more frustration at the same time as the Johnson family.   James William Long’s wife, Mary Elizabeth, was the daughter of Ezekiel Johnson (1847-1933) and Sarah Gilbert (1849-1880-85?).  Ezekiel, “Grandpa Zeke,” has given me the joy; Sarah, not so much.

I discovered that Zeke was born a slave in Clay County, Missouri,  and that his mother’s name was Harriet Mitchell.  His father likely was Clay County businessman and church leader Daniel Carpenter (1825-1920). Either Harriet or Zeke himself was at one time owned by a man named Emmons Johnson,  a Kentuckian who moved to Clay County, Missouri, with so many other of his Blue Grass fellows.  In 1864, Zeke, all of seventeen years old, ran away from his then-owner, Henry Wilhite, and joined the 18th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry.  H saw action at the decisive Battle of Nashville and throughout Tennessee and North Carolina, before being mustered out i n 1866. He returned to Clay County and married Sarah Gilbert on September 5, 1867. I’ve written about Grandpa Zeke a number of times, including How Grandpa Zeke Collected a Bounty on Himself, July 2009.  My mother actually met her great-grandfather when she was a year old. he died shortly thetrafter.  There supposedly exists a photograph of him holding my mother, but I haven’t found it yet.

Now Sarah Gilbert is my most elusive ancestor.  I have found virtually nothing about her other than the 1867 marriage record and her listing with Zeke in the 1880 census.  I presume she died sometime between 1880 and 1885, because in April of 1885, Zeke married a woman named Rena Neal, and Sarah is no longer to be found in any census records, city directories, or any records that I have found.  Family lore says that she was an Indian, but I’ve never been able to substantiate that either.

I’ve written a lot about Sarah Gilbert, hoping that someone will know something about her.  See:

The Elusive Sarah Gilbert, October 2007

Once Again, There are No Easy Cases in Genealogy, August 2007

Sarah Gilbert Johnson: A Trip to Kansas, A Step Forward, March 2007

The Lost Families–Part II, September 2006

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Happy Mother’s Day, Haplogroup L3!

May 9, 2010 Craig Uncategorized

Yes, a genetic genealogy remembrance of Mitochrondrial DNA Day!

Here are my mothers (my matrilineage), as far as I know them, with their spouse’s name in [ ]:

Lillian Gines (living)[H.V. Manson]
Annie Florida Corrine Long (b. 1902, Kansas City, MO; died 1986, Kansas City, MO)[Wm. E. Gines
Mary Elizabeth Johnson (b. 1870, Clay County, MO; died 1946, Kansas City, MO)[James W. Long]
Sarah Gilbert (b. 1849, MO; died btwn 1880 and 1 Apr 1885) [Ezekiel Johnson]
==============BRICKWALL=============================

(There’s nothing more that I would like in the world than to find Sarah Gilbert’s parents!)

I’m within Halpogroup L3d. L3 originated in East Africa about 85,000 years ago according to GeneTree.com, and is the predecessor of many other haplogroups. It is said that L3 “is also the haplogroup from which the haplogroups M and N have arisen covering the mtDNA pool of all non-African lineages.” [Source]

I am aware of several matches via Ancestry.com and GeneTree.com, but have been unable to make contact with them.

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Black Catholic History Month: The Catholics in My Families

November 16, 2009 Craig Family History, Genealogy

The number of black Catholics in the United States is small.  I know this both anecdotally and empirically.   I  was probably a teenager before I met another black Catholic family.   My parents, each for their own reasons,  converted to Catholicism as teenagers.   They did not know each other at the times of their conversions.

My mother was raised as the granddaughter and niece of Baptist preachers, and not surprisingly was the cousin of a couple more Baptist preachers.  Later, she was active in Methodist youth activities.   But having concluded for her own reasons that she belonged in the Catholic Church, she’s been a faithful and devout Catholic for, well, let’s just say more than a few decades.    I never knew until recently that there were other Catholics in her family tree.  For example, her cousin Amos Johnson, Jr. (1908-1975) , grandson of

Amos R. Johnson, Jr.

Amos R. Johnson, Jr.

Ezekiel Johnson and Sarah Gilbert, was Catholic.     A longtime federal civil servant, he was a member of Blessed Sacrament Church in Kansas City, and served on the Catholic Interracial Council and the National Council of Catholic Men.  He is buried in Mt Olivet Cemetery in Kansas City.  I don’t know how much more of the Johnson branch of the family was Catholic or how any of them can to be Catholic.

On my father’s side of the family, uncle  Herman Walker (1906-2002) was a Catholic. He was born the son of my dad’s grandmother, Hattie Bryant.  Living his mother’s peripatetic life,  would seem not conducive to regular religious instruction except of the most primitive sort.   I do know that Herman became Catholic about the time he met and married Ida Mouton, a Louisiana woman who was a life-long Catholic.   H became very active in St Paul’s parish in Houston where he attended Mass for nearly seventy years.   He was a member of the Knights of Columbus.

cmm-herman-walker


Herman Arthur Walker (1906-2002), our only known Catholic paternal uncle, with my sister, in Houston, Texas, 1962.

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My DNA Adventure, Part II: The Search for Sarah Gilbert

April 21, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

When last we met, I had been going over the results of my DNA submission to the DNAAncestry.com project.  Frankly, nothing I saw came as any huge surprise.   My Y-DNA places my ancient ancestry in West Africa; my mtDNA  also seems to be grounded in West  Africa.

There were three “exact matches” on my mtDNA results.  All three of the profiles of these persons had a link through which they could be contacted via Ancestry.com.   The profiles also indicated that each such person had last signed onto their DNA account many months ago.  They likely had not seen my results matched with theirs.

I contacted each pf the three individuals through Ancestry.com.    It’s been several months now and I haven’t heard back from any of them.  Their profiles show that none have signed on since before I contacted them.

The reason the mtDNA is so important to me is that it may give me a clue about Sarah Gilbert (1843-btwn 1880-1885) who was the first wife of Zeke Johnson (1847-1933), mother of Mary Elizabeth Johnson Long (1870-1946)  and thus my great-great-grandmother.  Sarah Gilbert has shown nothing of herself save for a record of her 1867 marriage in Clay County, Missouri and her residence in Kansas City at the time of the 1880 census.  Supposedly, she was an Indian.

I decided to take some alternative steps to locate the three mtDNA “matchees.”   I started with the first one and ran the name against several “people finder” databases.  One of them produced five possible matches in an eastern state.   The five matches appear to be the same person.   I think this is likely the mtDNA person.  The search directory has a middle initial that is consistent with the middle name that the DNA results reported.  (And the whole name is, if not “unusual”, at least, “uncommon.”)

The search database indicated that the person may have been born in the late 1920s or early 1930s.   This bit of information told me that there was a chance that the person might be on the 1930 census.  There were two persons with nearly identical names on the 1930 census. One person was born in Texas in 1902 and was eliminated as being obviously too old.  The other person was born in Kentucky in 1927.

But I felt I needed some additional evidence on this issue.  So I went on to examine birth, marriage and death records.  This yielded a number of persons with similar names, but who were also either too old or too young to be the person I’m seeking.  But two individuals piqued my interest.

One person of interest was born in a northeastern state in 1922 and died in 1985.   This is obviously not our subject because our subject was alive in 2007 to submit a DNA sample (additionally, the person just slightly beyond our age parameters).  But this person could be a relative of our subject–again, the name we’re seeking is not all that common.

The second person of interest was born in 1885 and died in 1976.   This  person has the same name as our subject and is old enough to be the subject’s parent.  And also tantalizing is the fact the person died in a county in a southern state, which county has a large population of people with my mother’s maiden name.

I then was moved to examine passenger manifests for New York.  There I discovered that a person with the same name and middle initial had arrived in New York from a European country in 1956, traveling on an American passport.  The US passport and the name of the ship made me relaize that this person was in some way affiliated with the US military.  The person was accompanied by a child, but appparently no other adult.  This fact, though explainable, is unusal for a military family returning from overseas.

To further locate and identify this person, I checked the child’s name against various databases, but came up with nothing. I’m willing to bet that the person I found in the search directory is the same person who submitted the matching sample. So I’ll try to write a letter.

The other two people with whom I had matches on the Ancestry site I could not reasonably identify further because too many similar names exist.

But there are other alternatives. Once you have DNA results, you can submit them to a number of other puicbl DNA databases and look for matches. I did that with the sites described below.

The first one is called mitosearch.com, sponsorted by the folks at Family Tree DNAmitosearch.

Above is the mitosearch Welcome page.  On the page below, one can enter mtDNA values from any test.

I entered my Ancestry.com mtDNA values here.

I entered my Ancestry.com mtDNA values here.

On the following page are the registered mitosearch users whose mtDNA “matches” mine.

Three individuals had exact matches with me for HVR1

Three individuals had exact matches with me for HVR1

As you can see, three people matched my HVR1 value exactly, and several others were with one mutation. Using the “Compare” feature for the matches produces a page like this one below:

A "match" compared

A "match" compared

I can now contact the “matches” through mitosearch.   I can also determine if their most distant female ancestor appears in my family tree.   I did not find any of these in my files, but I will be contacting several of the individuals for more information.

Another database in which to enter mtDNA results is the Sorenson Molecular Genetics Foundation (SMGF) database.

Sorenson Molecular Genetics Foundation mtDNA Database Search

Sorenson Molecular Genetics Foundation mtDNA Database Search

The  page below is produced by my search.  There were 14 “zero mutation” matches in all, molstly in Africa.  Notice the pedigree symbol at each of the matches.

SMGF mtDNA Comparison Page

SMGF mtDNA Comparison Page

Some of the pedigrees were useful; some were not because all the data was marked “private.”  Here’s mine so you can see what they  look   like.

My pedigree as shown on the SMGF site

My pedigree as shown on the SMGF site

The SMGF site has the smallest database and most of the other users seem not very easy to contact.

But I’ve gotten some ideas from the other databases, so next step:  Contact!

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Names, Places & Most Wanted Faces

February 26, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

I started this with a note on Facebook and it was suggested that it would make a good meme for bloggers.  The idea is to publicize your surnames and locales to see if anyone elseknows something about them.  For me on Facebook, I got several research-helpful replies. So how much better to take it to a wider audience.

List the surnames you are researching and the general localities.  Then tell the names of your “Most Wanted Ancestors,” that is, the ones you most want to find behind that brickwall.   (You can tag people if you want; I’ve chosen not to do that here so that all readers are included).   Let’s see your lists; maybe we can each help someone out!

Surnames & Locales:

MANSON: Georgia (Talbot, Taylor & Upson Counties) Texas (Milam, Midland Counties)
BOWIE: Louisiana (Cataholua, Avoyelles, Monroe, Rapides Parishes) Texas (Gregg, Harrison Counties)
BIRDSONG: Georgia (Talbot, Upson Counties)
BRAYBOY: Louisiana (Caddo, De Soto Parishes) South Carolina
BRYANT: Texas (Aransas, DeWitt, Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio Counties)
GILBERT: Missouri (Clay, Jackson, Platte Counties)
GINES: Louisiana (Bossier, Caddo, Tensas Parishes) Mississippi (Claiborne, Hancock, Hinds, Pearl River, Walthall Counties) Texas (Harris, Nacogdoches Counties)
JOHNSON: Missouri (Clay, Jackson, Platte Counties)
LeJAY: Louisiana (Caddo, De Soto Parishes)
LONG: Kansas (Johnson County) Missouri (Jackson County)
MICHEAU/MISCHEAUX: California (San Mateo, Los Angeles County) Illinois (Randolph County) Missouri (St Louis)
SANFORD: Tennessee (Williamson County) Texas (Milam County)

Most Wanted Ancestors: Parents of Sarah GILBERT (b. 1849, Clay County, Mo); Parents of Richard William GINES (b. 1860, Bossier Parish, La); Parents of George MICHEAU (1813-1907; Prairie du Rocher, Ill.)

What about you?

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Ancestry.com Adds Lincoln & Civil War Docs

February 12, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

This announcement on the 24/7 Family History Circle blog today:

PROVO, UTAH – Feb. 12, 2009 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online resource for family history, announced today it will commemorate the 200th birthday of one of the nation’s greatest Presidents – Abraham Lincoln – with the addition of five new databases to its Civil War Collection. This historically significant collection includes unique content such as photographs, handwritten letters, slave manifests and pension applications, and spans the days of slavery to the Civil War and through Reconstruction. The new databases will make millions of important Civil War era records easily searchable alongside other records already available at Ancestry.com, creating the largest online collection of Civil War documents, containing more than 12 million names.

Among the five new databases, The Abraham Lincoln Papers is an incredible collection of more than 20,000 documents – most from the 1850s through Lincoln’s presidential years – which include drafts of speeches and the Emancipation Proclamation, incoming and outgoing correspondence and notes, and printed material. The Abraham Lincoln Papers Collection will be searchable for free on Ancestry.com.

“We’re very proud to be adding these amazing Civil War era historical materials to our already robust Civil War Collection,” said Gary Gibb, Vice President for U.S. Content for Ancestry.com. “As the 200th birthday of one of our nation’s greatest Presidents approaches, we thought it was the perfect time to add these databases to our site and to help individuals discover their family members who lived during a time of such dramatic change in America.”

The Civil War Collection is part of Ancestry.com’s U.S. Military Collection, which includes more than 100 million names from the 1600s through Vietnam. The five new Civil War era databases now available on Ancestry.com include:

  • Abraham Lincoln Papers (from the Library of Congress) – a collection of more than 20,000 letters written to and from President Lincoln, as well as drafts of speeches. The collection includes a letter from Mary Lincoln, Lincoln’s wife, who chides him for not responding promptly to her letters and requests a check for $100. Other documents include a draft of Lincoln’s speech from 1863 condemning slavery and a letter from May 11, 1863 written by Ellie B. Reno, niece of Brig. Gen. Jesse Reno – who had disguised herself as a male to fight in the Union Army – asking him, “…iff [sic] I can remain in your Service…” These letters can be searched for free on Ancestry.com.
  • New Orleans Slave Manifests, 1807-1860 – includes images of ship manifests transporting more than 30,000 slaves en route to New Orleans from the upper Southern states. It offers insights into the lives of these men and women, who were likely being moved to the lower Southern states to provide labor for the booming cotton industry. The manifests will be transcribed by a global community of family history enthusiasts through Ancestry.com’s World Archives Project in the coming months.
  • Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia – more than 60,000 records documenting pension applications filed in Georgia from Confederate soldiers and their widows. As part of the application process, applicants answered a series of questions about themselves and signed the document, resulting in a wealth of personal information.
  • Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons – a collection containing more than 15,000 records of former Confederate soldiers and government officials requesting Presidential pardons.
  • U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles – contains more than 4.2 million records and profiles about nearly every officer and soldier who fought in the Civil War. Many of the records include actual photographs of the individuals.

Over the next two years, Ancestry.com will add millions more historical records from the Civil War period to its Web site, as the country approaches the sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary of that historic conflict. The five new Civil War databases are now available online as part of Ancestry.com’s Civil War Collection.

About Ancestry and The Generations Network
The Generations Network, Inc., through its flagship Ancestry.com property, is the world’s leading resource for online family history. Ancestry.com has local websites in nine countries and has digitized and put online over 7 billion names and 27,000 historical records collections over the past ten years. Since July 2006, Ancestry.com users have created 9 million family trees containing 865 million profiles and 16 million photographs and stories. The Generations Network also includes myfamily.com, Genealogy.com, Rootsweb.ancestry.com, MyCanvas.com, dna.ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Magazine. More than 7.9 million unique visitors spent over 4 million hours on a TGN website in December 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).

I was thrilled about this announcement. But then, in a brief moment of cynicism, I thought, “Okay, but I bet they forgot the U.S. Colored Troops!” So I went to the U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, and entered the name of my gg-grandfather, Zeke Johnson.   Much to my delight, his name and profile immediately appeared!

I then looked up my Confederate gg-grandfather, George Preston Birdsong’s name in Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia.  Here I found a transcription error. George P[reston] Birdsong was listed as George R. Birdsong.  Every other identifier (unit, county, etc.) was correct for George P.   So I made a correction to that page.  George P. Birdsong was from Upson County and served with the 5th Regiment, Georgia Infantry.   George R. Birdsong, his cousin, hailed from Clay County and served in  the 51st Regiment, Georgia Infantry.

I learned quite a bit about George P. Birdsong, including why he didn’t get his pension–something I had wondered about for many years.  I’ll write about it one day soon.

These are great additions by Ancestry.com–be sure to check them out!

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Decoration Day Roll Call

May 26, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

Today, we honor our war dead. If I could, I would be placing decorations on the following family veterans gravesites:

Charles Troy Bowie (1915-1945), U.S. Army, Epinal American Cemetery, Epinal, France.

Rene C. Mischeaux (1948-1969), U.S. Army, Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, California

They both gave “the last full measure of devotion” in service to our nation.

While we’re here at our virtual national cemetery, we note the service of these other relatives, who, while not war casualties, nonetheless served valiantly:

Zeke Johnson (1847-1933), 18th U.S. Colored Infantry, Blue Ridge Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.

Frank William Gines (1935-1999), U.S. Army, Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Henry Edward Gines (1935-1993), U.S. Army, Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.

Perry Wesley Gines (1928-1986), U.S. Coast Guard, Leavenworth National Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas.

Richard Edward Gines (1926-1996), U.S. Army Air Forces, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

Bobby G. LeJay (1938-2007), U.S. Army, Carver Memorial Cemetery, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Herman L. Brayboy (1935-1996), U.S. Army, Zion Rest Cemetery, Shreveport, Louisiana.

William G. Wells (1929-2005), U.S. Navy, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, St Louis, Missouri

There are 363 Bowies, 246 Mansons, and 168 Birdsongs buried in America’s National Cemeteries.


Epinal American Cemetery, Epinal, France
Final Resting Place of Charles Troy Bowie of Longview, Texas
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An Indirect Lead to The Elusive Sarah Gilbert?

April 19, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

In the last post, I mention Ancestry.com’s excellent collection entitled, “Missouri Marriages 1805-2002.” As I tried it out, I may have come across an indirect lead to my elusive ancestor, Sarah Gilbert.

The only matters of record that I have ever found concerning Sarah Gilbert are her 1867 marriage to Ezekiel Johnson in Clay County, Missouri, and her residence with her husband and children in Kansas City on the 1880 census. Other than those things, Sarah Gilbert is a phantom. There is no one alive today who knew her or saw her. There are not even any hearsay stories about her, except the persistent and unsupported rumor that she was an Indian. That’s it; that’s all.

Based on the fact that she seems to have disappeared after the 1880 census, I have surmised that she may have died sometime after 1880. No children appear to have been born to her after 1880.
Today, as I checked out the new Missouri marriages collection on Ancestry.com, I came across an 1885 marriage in Jackson County (Kansas City) between Ezekiel Johnson and one Rena Neal. If this is the same Ezekiel Johnson who married Sarah Gilbert, this may lend some credence to the notion that Sarah Gilbert died sometime after 1880. More investigation need on this, but it could be an indirect lead to Sarah Gilbert.

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Where Were They in 1808?

January 28, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

Awhile ago, the challenge issued by Lisa was to describe where one’s ancestors were in 1908. I blogged about that here. Now the topic is where one’s ancestors were in 1808. Many bloggers have written about this already; I’m just getting caught up.

1808 was a signal year for some of my families. That was the year that Congress banned the Atlantic slave trade from the United States. The U.S. Constitution of 1789 had provided in Article I, section 9:

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.

This somewhat obtuse sentence was one of the several compromises in the Constitution on the issue of slavery. The importation of slaves could not be banned by Congress for two decades after the Constitutional Convention. Note that states were free to ban slavery at any time; and several had done so prior to 1808.

Manson: Charlotte Manson, the likely first ancestor born in America, was probably still with her Scots-Irish parents in South Carolina or northern Georgia. We have not yet discovered her parents’ names.

Gines: I have no information about the Gines family that goes back to 1808. I do know that they likely came from the Carolinas.

Bowie: James Bowie, free man of color, is believed to have been born in the 1790′s in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, and probably was living there in 1808.

Brayboy: William Brayboy was born into slavery in South Carolina in the 1790′s. I do not know where in South Carolina.

Johnson/Carpenter: Benjamin Carpenter had been born in 1745 in Gloucester, New Jersey. In 1808, he and his wife, Elizabeth McFarland Hughes, lived in Harrison County, Virginia (now in West Virginia). Their son William, grandfather of Ezekiel Johnson, was born in Harrison County in 1790.

LeJay: I am reasonably certain that my LeJay ancestors were held in bondage in South Carolina in 1808. They were most likely in the eastern part of South Carolina.

Birdsong: John Birdsong III and his wife, Elizabeth Latimer, had moved to Oglethorpe County, Georgia, by 1808.

Sanford: The earliest known ancestor in this family, William Sanford, was born into slavery in Virginia in 1809.

Bryant, Long, Gilbert, Martin: I have no information on these families in 1808.

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