Labeling Pictures

As anyone knows, or should knows, writing on pictures in pen is a definite no-no because, after time, the ink begins to a) fade or even worse b) fade through the pictures. And, as anyone dancing with the ancestors should know, labeling pictures is highly important because . . .

. . . after you die, yes, it's going to happen one day, someone is going to go through your stuff, find all these photos and they may or may not know the ancestors in the photo.

So, I have a process, which goes something like this . . .

Catherine Delana Langdon-Sweat

Oct 15, 1837 - Oct 15, 1925

Daughter of Roswell Lee & Chloe (Richradson) Langdon

Wife of Alexander Sweat

Great-Great Grandmother

That, is the label which will go on the back of the photo so that, someday in the far distant future, after I'm gone, my niece or nephews who inherit the photos will know that the photo in question is that of their 3 x great grandmother. Woo-hoo!

Yes, I know, should have thought of this sooner. Do you have any idea how many photos I'm going to have to take out of frames to place labels on the back of the photos? Far too many, dear readers, far too many.

So, when dancing with the ancestors, don't write on your photos, but label the photos so future generations will know the who-who of your ancestry.

Paper, Paper Everywhere

When dancing with the ancestors it is not possible to not accumulate multitudes of paper. Trust me on this one. Before you know it, you'll have paper, paper everywhere.

The first step in this paper not overwhelming your life, or the closet in my office, as the case may be, is to get some file folders and a sharpie! Any color will do. 

Then, you print off that Census Record for your 3 x great grandfather. Get a file folder and . . .

. . . label it!

For example ~ Maternal: Sweat

Now, this can get out of hand if you have a folder for every ancestor. The further back you go, the greater the number of ancestors. For me, I create a surname folder only, stick everything for members of that surname in the folder, and label as indicated above. Next, on the inside of the folder, I include the descent from that surname down to me.

So, for example, my Boarman line. The folder label would be ~ Maternal: Boarman

On the inside of the folder I would write out the descent as follows . . .

Boarman - Halswell

Boarman - Linle

Boarman - Pile

Boarman - Edelen

Boarman - Boone

Boone - Hagan

Boone - Hagan 

Boone - Duvall

Boone - Watson

Boone - Sweat

Sweat - Mitchell

So, when next I pull out that folder, I can easily trace the descent.

The second step of file storage is digital. SCAN EVERYTHING! Or, just save the file rather than printing it off and save a tree or two!!

Once you have everything in a digital format, you need to save it in some semblance of order so as not to drive yourself - short drive with me sometimes - insane trying to find the document you know you saved, but just can't find.

First, I create a Folder called: Family Tree

Then, I create four folders within that main folder using my grandparents surnames: Mitchell, Smith, Sweat, and Boone.

Now that I have the main branches of my family tree, I then create folders within those folders. For example . . .

Mitchell: Forrest, Tate, McGregor, McGee, Clendennin, etc. 

Smith: Lane, Halterman, Sevier, Campbell, etc.

Sweat: Morris, Langdon, Hare, Page, Hussey, etc. 

Boone: Watson, Duvall, Hagan, Edelen, Blandford, Bevan, Boarman, etc.

Anytime I find a document, picture, or whatever related to a particular family, I save it to the appropriate folder.

First, this makes things much more organized and easy to find. Second, when doing a blog post about a particular surname, or deciding to work on a family history book, the source information is in two locations: the paper file and the digital file.

I also save the digital files to three locations: hard drive, flash drive, and external hard drive. Better safe than sorry!

Last, but not least, is naming the files. You don't want to just save a file as 1850 Census Record or a picture as Tombstone. I actually do the following: James D. Tate - 1850 Warren County Census or James D. Tate - Tombstone. This way, I can easily go to whatever file I need at the moment, without having to open up a bunch of files to find what I'm looking for in the first place. Yes, I wasn't so good at labeling in the beginning. I learned from my mistakes. Ha!

So, when dancing with the ancestors with paper, paper, everywhere, organization is important!!

S

Ancestral Mysteries

Dancing With the Ancestors is rarely a dull endeavor. A person never knows what they might find as they dance into the past. Yes, a few nuts fall out of every family tree. There's a skeleton or four lurking here, there, and everywhere. It's an adventure. 

There are stumbling blocks, i.e., brick walls you can't seem to get around, along the way. Luckily, the family tree has more than one branch, so when one branch abruptly ends, there's always another branch to explore. 

I've had my share of abruptly ending branches in my quite extensive family tree. Frustrating, doesn't even begin to cover it when that happens. Still, with so many branches to explore, I just leap here, there, and everywhere, and, eventually, came back to that abruptly ending branch.

There are also mysteries . . .

• Why wasn't 2 x Great Grandmama Elizabeth Hall-Morris on the 1860 with her husband and children?
• What are the actual ages of 2 x Great Grandparents Alexander & Catherine (Langdon) Sweat? Why do they have different birth years on every Census Record?
• Why did Great Aunt Euphemia Smith marry multiple times?
• Who is the father of 2 x Great Grandpa James Douglas Tate?

On and on the mysteries appear before me as I dance with the ancestors. In many cases, bit by bit, I peel back the layers and discover some, if not all, of the answers.

Great-Great Grandmama Elizabeth Hall-Morris was actually at her parents house, who lived next door to her and her husband, when the census taker came to take the information. Thus, she appears on the record at her parents house, while her husband and their children appear on the census for her house. Mystery! Solved!

Great-Great Grandpa Alexander Sweat, from what I and a distant cousin have theorized, altered his age when the census takers came because he didn't want to go to war. He needed to be at least ten years older in order to avoid the Civil War draft so . . . he and his wife both lied about their ages, and never stopped lying. Great, talk about a skeleton in the family closet: Great-Great Grandpa Alexander Sweat was a draft dodger. Note to self: omit that fact from the family history book. Ha!

I don't have a clue why Great Aunt Euphemia married multiple times, but she did. At first, since she was on the 1900 census with her husband and children, but not the 1910, I thought she had died, until . . . I found a marriage record for her that stated she was divorced. The Horrors!! Ha! Then, every death notice for a member of her family seemed to have her with a different last night. Obviously, the woman could just not commit!

And now, the mystery that I probably won't ever solve, but have come to a definite conclusion about: the parentage of Great-Great Grandpa James Douglas Tate.

My belief has always been that, due to popular theories, he is not the son of John Tate and Leodicia Hogg-Tate, but rather their grandson. He was born in 1839. Leodicia, his alleged mother, was born in 1783. She would have been 56 when he was born. I seriously doubt, back in the 1800s, a woman was still having children at the age of 56. So, my theory has always been that James Douglas was the child of John and Leodicia's daughter Sarah (aka Sally) Tate. This supposition was upheld by the fact that in 1870, Sarah Tate was living with James and his family. 

Well, my mind being what it is, and traveling down varied paths as I attempt to reach a conclusion, suddenly hit upon another idea: What if Sarah/Sally was not in fact a child of John and Leodicia, but the widow of one of their sons? It would have made sense that, after the death of her husband, she moved in with his family, since that often happened back in the day. Then again, she could be his older sister-mother who had him out of wedlock. 

Still, my line of thinking now is that his father was a Tate, the son of John and Leodicia, who died prior to 1850. Sarah and her child, potentially children, moved in with Leodicia and, eventually, with her son James Douglas and his family. 

So, when dancing with the ancestors, don't let a mystery stump you, just keep digging away, even if you have to leap to other branches for a bit!

S

Forrest-Mitchell

Dancing with the Ancestors is never an easy dance. Okay, sometimes, but more often than not, it's a series of complicated dance steps that require spot-on concentration or . . .

. . . BAM! you stumble and fall!

Okay, the BAM is more like you hit a brick wall and can't proceed any further with certainty, which is - trust me on this one - a frustrating feeling.

Such was the case with my Mitchell line. It all started with Great Grandpa Charles A. Mitchell's death certificate which listed his parents as . . . 

Mitchell and Forrest!

Oh . . . Great! Fine! Dandy! Last names only? Seriously? Can you make my life any harder Grandpop, aka Pop, Mitchell? Okay, in his defense, women are normally the record keepers of the family, and he was an only child, but . . . 

. . . a wee bit more information would have helped your grandson, that'd be me, btw, once he decided to do the whole dancing with the ancestors thing. Just sayin' . . .

But, I digress, because . . .

. . . in continuing to do research on this line, I came across 85% positive documentation that my great-grandfather's parents were Martha Forrest and William Mitchell. 

Martha was the daughter of Reverend Richard Albert Forrest and Sarah Matlock, or at least the Martha I was researching was the daughter of Reverend Richard Albert Forrest and Sarah Matlock. I just didn't have proof positive until . . .

. . . a little old thing called DNA! 

Yes, the DNA test I took with Ancestry matched me up with a 4th to 6th cousin who has a direct descent from Reverend Richard Albert Forrest. This cousin is descended through Martha's sister Rachael Caroline Forrest!

But . . .

. . . the DNA and Tree Matches confirm my theory that Reverend Richard Albert Forrest is/was my 3 x great-grandfather!! 

So, with confidence, I can now say that Charles A. Mitchell is the son of William and Martha (Forrest) Mitchell, and the grandson of Richard Albert and Sarah (Matlock) Forrest. It is also my guess that he was named after his mother's brother Charles Matlock Forrest. 

So, when dancing with the ancestors pay attention to those complicated steps!

S

The Tate House

The Tate House was a boarding house run by my great-great grandparents James Douglas (aka Dug) Tate and Mary Jane (McGregor) Tate in the late 1890s.

Tate House & Boarders

Photo Taken Between 1902 & 1915

The Tate House was located on the corner of East Main and Sparta Streets in McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee.



James Douglas & Mary Jane (McGregor) Tate

Photo Taken before 1902

After James' death in 1902, Mary Jane continued to run the boarding house along with the help of her daughter and son-in-law: Martha Ann (Tate) and Charles (aka Charley) Mitchell.

Martha (Tate) Mitchell, Mary Jane (McGregor) Tate, Charley Mitchell & Dog

Photo Taken Between 1902 & 1915

Tate House Boarders

Charley Mitchell (my great-grandfather) is seated, 2nd person from end on right.

Charley Mitchell (standing) in front of Tate House

About 1915, the Tate House was sold to the Brown family, as Mary Jane, Martha and Charley relocated to Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee. Sometime in the mid 1920s the house burnt down, and by 1926, the Brown Motel was built on the same spot.

The Tate House was originally the Tate residence, most likely the house built by John Tate and his wife Leodicia Hogg when they first settled in the Warren County area in the very early 1800s. At some point, I'll dig through microfilm to find the deeds. At some point . . .





Small World

When dancing with the ancestors, even after years of doing it, I'm still amazed that it's a small, small world after all. As anyone who reads this blog with any amount of frequency knows, on my mother's side, the smallness of the world is, well, small. On my father's side . . . well, not so much.

Okay, I thought not so much, but just found out . . . well, a wee bit smaller than I first imagined.

My paternal great-grandfather is Charles A. Mitchell. He married Martha Ann Tate, daughter of James Douglas Tate and Mary Jane McGregor. Mary Jane McGregor was the daughter of Mary "Polly" McGee and Ezekial McGregor. Mary was the daughter of Esther Clendennon and John McGee. Her brother was Clendennon McGee. Remember that name, it plays into it's a small, small world after all.

Charles Mitchell, from what I have determined, is the son of William Mitchell and Martha Forrest. No, I don't have 100% proof. What I do have is verification that the only Forrest family in Warren County, TN was that of Richard Albert Forrest and his wife Sarah Matlock and their children. Their daughter Martha married William Mitchell. Enough proof for me, at least at this point. Anyhow, Sarah Matlock died in 1827 and her husband Richard Albert Forrest married Lucy Wilcher-England, who had children from her previous marriage, one of which was her daughter Martha who married . . . Clendennon McGee.

I told you to remember that name. Oh, and Martha also divorced Clendennon! Go figure, and back in the mid-1800s! Now that was a rarity! 

So, Clendennon McGee was my 3rd great grand uncle and brother to my 3 x great grandmother on my paternal side, through my great grandmother Martha Ann Tate-Mitchell. Clendennon's wife was the daughter of Lucy Wilcher-England who married Richard Albert Forrest, my 3 x great grandfather on my paternal side, through my great grandfather's mother! Oy!

So, you see, it is a small, small world when dancing with the ancestors. You never know when your 3 times great grandfather's step-daughter will actually be your 3rd great grand aunt by marriage!

S

Obituaries/Death Notices

The more dancing with the ancestors I do, the more I learn. Go figure. Ha! Seriously, I just sort of stumble along, finding what I find, and discovering new ways to find information as I go along. Yeah, I know, I could buy a how to book about genealogy and make dancing with the ancestors a wee bit easier. I didn't, I haven't, and maybe one day I will. For now, I kind of like this stumbling along willy-nilly.

Anyhow, what I discovered recently was . . . obituaries and death notices are a great source of information.

Recently I went out to CA to visit a first cousin on my dad's side and go through old, I'm talking some of them over 100 years old, family photos, letters, and whatnot! Included in the whatnot was a bunch of death notices various relatives had saved over the years. Woo-hoo!

In reading the obituaries/death notices, I found out that my great-great grandparents were Presbyterians and that my great-grandparents were Methodist, and that my grandmother's family was Church of Christ. Talk about some religious disparity. And, my great-great grandmother's family was, at some point, Baptist. Oy! So, down the line, probably through the marriages, the religious affiliation changed somewhat. My father, the son of a Methodist father and Church of Christ mother, actually went to both churches every Sunday and, just to be a bit of an overachiever, went to the Catholic and Episcopalian churches every now and then since he had friends in those churches, and to the synagogue. 

I also learned that great Aunt Euphemia had, by 1935 when her half-sister Olive Mae died, remarried . . . for the third time. How did I learn this? Why, let me just type out a snippet of the death notice . . .

She is survived by her daughter Mrs. Martha Smith of Nashville, and six sisters, Mrs. Mary Clark and Mrs. J. F. Bridwell of Chester, PA; Mrs. J. C. Morgan of St. Louis; Mrs. C. B. Hoffman, Mrs. J. F. Mitchell and Mrs. Clara E. Smith of Nashville.

In order of appearance the sisters are . . . Mary "Mollie" Smith-Clark, Francis Ida Smith-Bridwell, Euphemia Smith-Cofer-Hock-Morgan, Octavia Smith-Hoffman, Osie Lee Smith-Mitchell (my grandmother), and Clara Smith (she never married, but the newspapers always seem to put the Mrs in front of female names). 

So, by having the death notice, I was able to figure out Aunt Euphemia's third marriage and, hopefully, that information will help me track her a bit further. Hopefully!

The death notice of my Aunt Octie (that's what I called her) husband listed his sisters. Using that information, I was able to track down his parents name, as well as who his sisters married. Woo-hoo! 

So, when dancing with the ancestors don't discount the obituaries/death notices. They can be a treasure trove of information that just might help you trace your family back a bit farther.