Quotes - Never Truer Than At This Moment In our History

A government can't control the economy without controlling people. Our founding fathers knew that when a government sets out to do that, they must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose..

Aside from its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private economy…

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so….

Our natural unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government and freedom has never been so fragile and so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

—Abraham Lincoln, to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them—they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to up-rear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, un-decayed by the lapse of time, and un-torn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a Trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

It's time to clean our houses!

When injustice becomes law; resistence becomes duty!

Researching Common Surnames

I was recently contacted by an individual wanting to sponsor research on their family with a surname of Miller. I’ve done a fair amount of planning and research on common surnames and thought I’d write about how finding the right information for a family with a very common surname requires different research methods.

First of all, you have to establish that the surname your performing research on is a common surname. Names like Smith, O’Brien and Miller are definitely common. You might go to your favorite search engine and search for “most common surnames” which will give you a variety of web sites which convey the most common surnames.

I use another quick method. I just surf to my favorite genealogical search engine and enter the surname to search one of the U.S. Federal census. Almost any year will do, but for the purpose of esstablishing surname commonness, I like to start with 1880. If you get like two million results from your search, you most likely have a common surname, and then my friend.. the rules change. Let’s say the family you’re looking for is one Abraham Miller who has a wife who’s name is Mary. Doing a search for this family can easily result in hundreds of resultant families with the exact same given names.

When you have a surname that is not common, it’s fairly easy to find your target family. One can fairly quickly identify the correct family using the normal mthods – looking at the children’s name, their ages, the location they’re living in, the parents ages and birth locations and so on.. However, when you have a very common surname, one must look additionally at middle names, the street and address the family lives at, the occupation, where the parents of the individuals were born as well as other factors based on what is known of the ancestor your searching for.

I like to create a table, and then take all the candidates who are close matches and evaluate each based on what we actually know about the indivduals in the family. If we know the birth year, then that becomes an attribute. If we know the occupation that becomes an attirbute. Once you have all the attributes for evaluting each record, you simply place a checkmark into each attribute that is true. You can also use a number. While there can be exceptions, the record having the most checkmarks or the highest numeric score is generally the best fit.

Once you get a “best fit” family for a given census year, the next step is to search another census to find the same family. What you’re trying to deterime is when the family arrived in the area they’re living in and how long they remianed there. Once you can do that, you can then take a look at other records to help validate that your target family is indeed the family you’re looking for. Other records, might include newspapers, city directories, voter registrations, probate records and so on. Also, the longer a family is in a particular area, the more likely they are to be written up in the local newspaper or in a book detailing the history of the county.

I hope this helps you with you search. You’ll need to take more time and dig deeper to successfully research a family with a common surname in order to validate continually that the records you’re looking at are indeed for the family you’re interested in.

Third Time’s the Charm

Sometimes it takes a few times before something sinks in and becomes ingrained as a part of one’s research methodology. These learned behaviors have to be experienced – for some of us more than once.

While searching for my GG-Grandfather Isaac Preston, I was unable to find him in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census record. The family had been in Ohio circa 1820s-1840s and subsequently migrated to Illinois. I finally found a biography of one of the family members which indicated they migrated to Iowa for a few years. Working with the local Genealogical Society in Lee County, I found that my GG-Grandfather had died on the migration to Iowa and that his widow, Sarah Preston had remarried to one Robert McNair. Finally, after years of searching, I found the family in the 1850 census record with my GG-Grandfather listed not only as a female, but also as Isaac McNair! I was so elated when I found him; vowing to remember that sometimes, people’s surnames were changed when mother remarried.

A customer engaged us to find her ancestry. She knew the family lived in San Francisco and some of the names of her ancestors, but nothing more. Her surname was Campbell. Her GGGrandmother’s name was Josephine. In addition to Ralph; Josephine had also given birth to Ralph’s brother Robert and sister Fern. She also knew that Josephine had been married upwards of seven times.

We almost immediately found a California Death record for her Grandfather Ralph Campbell which listed the date he died, as well as the date his was born (August 8, 1909) along with his Mother’s maiden name which was listed as Burdick.

Searching the census record, we found a record for Josephine Burdick, who was born in Illinois. The family had migrated to Iowa and on to California. We found her as the wife of William Campbell in the 1900 Census in Siskiyou County, California. They had just been married (2 years) and had no children.

We could no longer find William Campbell in the 1910 Federal census record, instead finding Josephine, married to Ralph Randall. We knew it was the correct Josephine due to her age, her birth state listed, her indication of where her mother and father were born and the fact that living with her and Ralph Randall were children Robert and Fern Campbell. We also knew from the California Death Record that our Ralph Campbell should have also been with the family in this census because he was born in 1909. Instead, we find a Ralph Randall Jr. who is the right age. Curious! Was our Ralph Campbell really born as Ralph Randall Jr.?

Searching California birth records, we found nothing for Ralph Campbell nor Ralph Randall Jr., but we did find a birth record for one James Randall who was born on August 8th, 1909 to a mother with a surname of Burdick. In obtaining a copy of the birth certificate from Sacramento County, they indicated that this birth was written in a book, and that no other details of the birth exist.

In searching the 1920 Federal census record, we again find our target Josephine and establish her identify by her birth state, her age and the birth states listed for her mother and father. In this record, she is listed as Josephine McNeil, now living in San Francisco, having no husband and with three children living with her - Ralph, Fern and Robert Campbell.

Regarding Ralph Campbell - based on the evidence collected thus far, we have a person, who married and died as Ralph Campbell, and who was listed in the Federal census record as Ralph Randall Jr. in 1910 and who was born officially as James Randall. Oh my! My customer was rightly asking, “Am I a Campbell or a Randall in reality?” Again, I told myself that, “when researching, one must always consider that the surname of the children to change when the mother remarries” – and vowed not to forget that lesson!

A customer recently engaged us to find his Great-Great Grandparents in Iowa. He had been searching for months and could not find his family earlier than the 1900 U.S Federal Census record. He knew his Great Grandfather’s name, but not his parents.

The first thing we did was validate the information he already had; and sure enough, there was our Henry Thomas Mallory in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 census record. He had died in 1923 and so was not in the 1930 record.

Henry Thomas Mallory was a laborer. In two of the three census records, he was listed with his wife and children with his occupation designated as a Laborer or Farm Laborer. In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census record, the enumerator had written “NG 0-0-5” which means his occupation was not given and that he had five unemployed dependents. In all three census records, Mr. Mallory indicated that he was born in Pennsylvania, and that both his mother and father were also.

In his obituary, our Henry Mallory’s family said he was from Pennsylvania, that he had been born in 1840 and that he had migrated into Iowa with his family when he was seven years of age; arriving in Muscatine County; and finally that he’d been married in 1878 and migrated to Howard County after his marriage.

The first Federal census we should find him in is the 1850 U.S. Federal Census or some earlier Iowa State Census record. We focused our efforts at finding him there. We found a lot of Mallorys, but not our Henry so we pressed on to the 1860 Census record and again found nothing, even though we used different spellings of the surname, a Soundex search and different age ranges. Hours were poured into the search fruitlessly.

Finally, he was found in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census with a misspelling of his surname and a different initial for his middle name – he was listed a Henry P. Malorie and was living with his family in Howard County, Iowa.

A search of Civil War records indicated that he and his brother George had served as “substitutes” in the 10th infantry, company A. They had enlisted in 1864 and were mustered out in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1865 as the war ended. They served in the Union’s push to the sea and in marches through the war-torn Carolinas. A look for a Civil War Pension file resulted in nothing other than a pension card with a number on it. This was not pursued further because we didn’t feel that it would lead us to an understanding of who Henry’s parents were; and this was the research objective.

Next we looked through local newspaper records, finding many articles about the family visiting relatives, being sick, falling down, as well as the obituary of Henry’s wife and other family members. While these were valuable clues to the family, they did not contribute further to our knowledge of Henry’s mother and father; nor help in finding Henry in the 1850, 1860 or 1870 Federal census record.

Next, we took every Mallory person found in the 1850-1920 census records and recorded each; along with all of the details contained in each census record onto a spreadsheet. We then determined a probable age range for Henry’s parents given that his obituary indicated a birth year of 1840. Once we had a probable range, we sorted the spreadsheet so that we had every Mallory in Iowa that was born within the appropriate age range. We then further filtered our list so that we only had people within this age range who were born in Pennsylvania. This gave us about 50 candidates for Henry’s parents.

Using these names as our base, we went through biographies contained in published Howard County histories. There were biographies of Samuel Mallory, William Mallory and several others. Using these, we were able to further refine our list by eliminating individuals until we got down to about 25 candidates. This was good, but we still had a lot of candidates and only a few of them seemed like good fits.

Finally, we searched the Iowa State census records; first looking for our Henry and brother George. We found an 1856 State census record that had a Henry and George of the right ages. George was listed as being born in Iowa and this fit what we knew, but the surname for the family was Vandenberg and not Mallory and the Henry listed in this record was enumerated as being born in New York instead of Pennsylvania. The mother’s given name was Freelove, also born in NY. There were no other good candidates found in the state census records and so we looked through county vital records and found that a Freelove Mallory married Oliver Vandenberg in 1850. Wow! This was the smoking gun! Freelove was a Mallory and these boys, listed as George and Henry Vandenberg were in all likelihood George and Henry Mallory!

A search of the 1850 Federal census found the family in our target Iowa County, again listed as Vandenberg boys but each of their middle initials was listed a M. which was not their middle names but we surmised stood instead for Mallory! Finally, the 1860 Federal census record was checked and sure enough, the Vandenberg family was found, with Oliver and Freelove at the head, three other Vandenberg family members who were new children to the couple and finally George and Henry “Vandenberg” listed again with a middle initial of M. We had them! We ended up making contact with both Mallory and Vandenberg descendents in Iowa and providing our customer with the rich tapestry of new found family.

Once again, after this exhausting search, I reminded myself, that many times CHILDREN’S SURNAMES ARE CHANGED WHEN MOTHER REMARRIES!! Hopefully, the third time will be the charm!

Gregory

2nd Annual Mesa Family History Expo a Success!

This last weekend, my daughter and I attended the second annual Family History Expo in Mesa, Arizona. I’d been looking forward to the conference for a couple of months because I had no idea how large or diverse the genealogy community is in Phoenix; and I was dying to find out.

The conference price was right at $65.00-$75.00 per person (depending on the options selected) and the program was rich with genealogy specialists, companies, presentations and classes by some of the people that keep the genealogy pastime moving forward and shining bright.

The day before the conference was a weather nightmare for Phoenix. It had rained all day long and stormed with winds up to sixty-five miles per hour. My daughter and I stood in our living room watching as the wind nearly tore our lemon tree right out of the ground. As we were lamenting the loss, we saw a large portion of roof peel off and blow away on a home close to our house. It took mere seconds. What remained was a skeleton of beams to weather the storm.

The morning of the conference we needed to arrive for registration by seven-thirty a.m. It was still dark as we motored through downtown Mesa, turned left off Main St. to Center and following it until we arrived at the Mesa Convention Center. We heard a news report about storm damage throughout the Phoenix area; which received more rain in this single storm than in the last twenty years!

Mesa is a city making up the southeast portion of the Phoenix Metropolis area. I’d been in and through it many times, but never to downtown Mesa before this conference. Even in the dark, I was impressed by this area. It’s really nice with Technical Schools, Medical Colleges and government buildings as well as a downtown that looks like downtowns of the past – before malls and large shopping plazas put these critical arteries out of business. Took me back to years past and just what I needed before the conference to remind me how important community functions like this are to genea-nuts.

It was still very cold and raining when we arrived; and as the doors finally opened, attendees poured smoothly into the chandelier lit conference registration area, appointed with tables, each marked with a first letter of surnames, and attended by helpful registration agents assisting attendees to retrieve bags of essential conference materials.

The conference was sponsored by the likes of genealogy heavyweights such as Family Search, Ancestry.com, Roots Magic, Legacy, Generations Maps, Ohana Software, Ancestral Quest and Genealogy Gems Podcast.

Tim Sullivan; CEO of Ancestry.com kicked off the rainy-day conference by showing attendees methods used to digitize books and records at Ancestry.com, how time consuming this process is, how fast the machines can turn the pages of books (several thousand pages per hour), light spectrums and other digitizing technologies used to ensure the best quality for final images of ancient records rescued from mold filled courthouse basements.

The exhibit hall was free to all and opened directly after the conference kickoff concluded. There were approximately thirty-five or forty booths with genealogy vendors of all kinds sharing their solutions and products. T-shirts, rubber stamps, books and even scrapbooking sellers were mashed up with larger companies such as Legacy, Ancestry, Family Search and Roots Magic.

Conference goers were excited as they were treated with great give away gifts such as software, flash drives, books, gift cards, bags, nick-knacks, gift baskets, memberships to leading genealogy repositories, subscriptions, a NetBook PC, and a five day Family History Library retreat in Salt Lake City!

Every hour, during two full days of conference, classes and presentations were given by truly great people, expert and passionate about genealogy and sharing their knowledge with others. Almost every facet of genealogy was touched upon, from Swedish, Scottish, Italian, Irish, German and Polish research specialties to preserving records, software demonstrations, getting the most out of Ancestry.com, Footnote, Twitter and Facebook, using various record types such as state and territorial records, staying organized, digital photography, the latest in using the technology available to all in Google, iGoogle, using your mobile phone, and so much more!

Family Search representatives were delayed on the first day of the conference by weather and got in late; but once there they provided a good deal of great information about using FamilySearch.org and changes they are planning for thier site. In addition, they provided purely LDS related information about preparing Temple Ordinances.

The 2nd annual Mesa Family History Expo was a success. It was well run, well sponsored, provided valuable information and an overall learning and socialization experience that genea-nuts like me just can’t get in one place anywhere else.

Those of you in other cities – the Family History Expos are coming to a city near you – browse over to http://www.fhexpos.com/ and sign up! You’ll be glad you did!

Stagecoaches and robberies

A friend recently asked me to validate a stagecoach robbery that purportedly occurred in the late 1880’s.

According to the report on one of those Treasure Hunter Internet sites, there was $85,000 in gold taken during the robbery and it was never found; and that was compelling enough for my friend who has time on his hands and a metal detector!

The report went like this: “In the late 1880's, the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route was robbed of an $85,000 payroll bound for the old Pinal Silver Mine. The holdup took place along the stage road at a bend in Queen Creek about 3 miles E of Hewitt's Station, located in a canyon now named after it and E of Comet Creek, about 12 miles NW of Old Pinal Town. The bandits rode off to the W following Queen Creek and were caught by a posse about 10 miles down the creek and off to the hills around Comet Peak. One of the outlaws was shot and killed, another escaped and the third was badly wounded. The dying man confessed that the loot was, "...buried along the trail under a Palo Verde tree." A search was made, but nothing was found.”

I looked at the request as a real challenge. Having never done any research into the authenticity of old stagecoach robberies or anything in “the old west”; when I sat down at my desk to begin working on it, I was excited.

First thing I did was to break the story down into individual research components; each predicated on the success of the previous goal. If the first goal wasn’t successful, then there was no reason to go on with the remainder.

However, because I’ve only lived in Arizona a short time, I took this opportunity to learn more about my state’s rich history of mining and the old west as well as accomplish the overall research mission.

Research Goals
TD01 - Validate the holdup / robbery actually took place. “In the late 1880's, the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route was robbed of an $85,000 payroll bound for the old Pinal Silver Mine”
TD02 - Validate the amount of money. “an $85,000 payroll”
TD03 - Validate the money was never recovered. “A search was made, but nothing was found.”
TD04 - Determine location of Hewitt’s Station “3 miles E of Hewitt's Station”
TD05 - Determine location of Hewitt’s Canyon “located in a canyon now named after it”
TD06 - Determine location of Comet Creek “and E of Comet Creek”
TD07 - Determine location of Florence-Pinal Wells route. “the stage on the Florence-Pinal Wells route”
...You get the picture.....

The primary goal was to validate whether or not the holdup actually took place. Stage coach robberies were well publicized in those days and since they had the telegraph, news accounts of such daring holdups went far and wide across the nation; being printed in many newspapers. In addition, the name Wells-Fargo was mentioned in the story, which meant that the company more than likely had a report of this in their archives somewhere. Eighty-five thousand dollars is a lot of heavy gold. That one should show up for sure and certain on the radar somewhere because of that fact alone.

The search began with archived newspapers. Although there were many news stories of holdups and robberies of stages; nothing about this particular robbery was found. I did read about the purported “last” stagecoach robbery in the old west; which was executed in 1898 by a woman named Pearl Hart and her accomplice Joe Boot. They robbed the Globe, AZ., stage. Pearl was 27 and working in an Arizona mining camp as a cook. She used her feminine wiles to convince poor old Joe that they could make a heap of money and not have to work so hard by pulling off a few robberies. They held up a stage all right and got a little over four hundred dollars. But, being new to the thievery game, after they robbed the stage they got lost in the Arizona desert where the posse found them several days later. The trial was a sensation because of this ornery woman. Old Joe Boot got 35 years and Pearl got 5. She was the sole female prisoner in the Yuma Territorial Prison, and the governor was relieved when he released her after 2 1/2 years. I found her in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census for Yuma, Arizona Territory, Roll T623_48; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 85 where both her and Joe were listed as prisoners.

With no luck finding any report of this stagecoach robbery thus far, I switched to a search of books at several Internet sites which boast in their promotions of having thousands or millions of digitized books on hand. Again, after a few hours of searching, I found nothing on this specific robbery.

I then focused on general Internet searches and again logged goose eggs for my trouble. When I tried to send an email to the owner of the web site goldrushmining.net in an effort to ask about the source for the story; the email address offered for contact was returned indicating it was now defunct.

Finally, I came across a book - "Encyclopedia of Stagecoach Robbery in Arizona" – by R. Michael Wilson ISBN 0966592530 Published: 2003 - and ordered a copy from Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Stagecoach-Robbery-Arizona-Michael/dp/0966592530

While waiting for the book to arrive, I read information about it located here: http://www.wildwesttales.com/books_articles/Stagecoach_Robbery_Arizona.htm which told me that stage coach robberies began in earnest in between 1876 and 1903 and in fact the last robbery was not by Pearl Hart in 1898, but instead “The last stagecoach robbery in the Arizona Territory occurred near Yuma in 1903”.

I used Google Maps to plot the details of the landmarks in the report. I wanted to see if the underlying context of the story made sense, especially for robbers riding horses and found in fact, the story had plausibility from that perspective:

Once the book arrived, I read it and found it to be very thorough and well written. I searched it thoroughly for any sign of this robbery; but could find nothing. I wrote to the author asking where he got his information and if he’d ever heard of this event. R. Michael Wilson (http://www.wildwesttales.com/index.htm) was kind enough to express an opinion by saying that this reported robbery “sounds like one of those "lost or hidden treasure" stories concocted by someone trying to create a fascinating event. There are many such stories, and many actual events are manipulated or twisted to make it seem as if there are millions of dollars in gold or silver hidden somewhere to be found by some fortunate person”.

While writing "Encyclopedia of Stagecoach Robbery in Arizona", Mr. Wilson researched stagecoach robberies in Arizona by scanning every major AZ newspaper for the pertinent years (1865-1910) to find any mention of stagecoach robberies and once found, followed up with date/place-specific research. I would recommend the purchase of this book for anyone interested in a reference about the old west and in particular stagecoach robberies.

Mr. Wilson indicated that it's not uncommon to find outright hoaxes in "true" magazine stories and many instances of manipulation by those writing "lost treasure" stories. Mr. Wilson has researched over 650 stagecoach robberies and has found only a few instances where there might have been a lost treasure, as captured robbers typically traded hidden plunder for a reduced prison sentence.

Based upon what I discovered, I told my friend that I believe this event never occurred; however, I sent inquires to the Pinal County Historical Society, the Superstition Mountain Historical Society and the Wells Fargo History Museum asking for their opinions. I also sent a query to the Pinal County Main Library Reference Desk challenging them to weigh in on the authenticity of this story since the story supposedly happened in Pinal County, AZ. None of these organizations responded.

My friend and I are going to take a drive out to Pinal County, AZ., just to take a look around the areas that were included in the story. It’s so interesting to think that the remains of old Pinal, Hewitt’s Station and other artifacts of the old west and stagecoach days are still there today.

While researching this event, I also ran across the old ghost town of Pinal, AZ. In its heyday, the local newspaper was “The Pinal Drill”. The publisher was one James Denoon Reymart and in another author’s eyes (Warren Getler), this individual could have been a member of the KGC (Knight’s of the Golden Circle) and came to Pinal County to help store and guard a cache of gold that would allow the Confederacy to rise again.

The book is - "Shadow of the Sentinel: One Man's Quest to Find the Hidden Treasure of the Confederacy" – by Warren Getler and Bob Brewer - 2003. This book mentions the author finding hidden underground areas in Pinal County, AZ. It speculates that the publisher of the Pinal Drill was actually a Confederate sympathizer who worked to store hidden caches of gold for the Confederacy.

I’m reading this book now and it’s also really interesting. You can pick up a copy here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yg8qM3AD9uEC&sitesec=buy&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Gregory