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Good Morning,
Thank you for the kind comments on this series of articles. We spend most of
our time following our surnames back one generation after another, so it was
good to stop for a while and consider the Mothers in our Family Tree. It has
encouraged me to revisit several maternal lines I had put on the back
burner...hope it has done the same for you!
Have a great day,
LaRae
Seven Steps for Researching Female Ancestors
by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, CGRS, FUGA
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven Steps for Researching Female Ancestors
1. Start your search by focusing on the woman herself, obtaining all the
records you can which she created or which were created about her.
2. Next, broaden your research scope to her immediate family.
3. Now broaden your research even more and look at her neighbors, friends,
and relatives. Look carefully at records created by relatives and friends.
Women of the past generally spent more time in the company of other women
than with men. Perhaps a female friend or relative left information about
your female ancestor in a surviving letter or diary.
4. Also look at her husband's associates: classmates, business partners,
friends. Some of these people could be your female ancestor's relatives.
5. Leave no record unturned. Check all possible types of records for the time
and place of your female ancestor. You never know which record will reveal a
clue or piece of information.
6. Traditional genealogical records will only take you so far. Expand your
horizons and read women's social histories -- these fill in the gaps left by
genealogical documents and help you augment the data. Social historians
research many of the same record sources as genealogists -- wills, court
records, land and tax records -- but historians focus on an entire community
rather than on specific individuals. This research yields information about
the typical daily life in a given community. You can find social histories in
public libraries, university libraries, and new and used bookstores. Here are
a couple of examples:
Nancy (Donnally) Bane (1819-1903) was institutionalized in a state insane
asylum in Ohio during the 1860s. I learned this information from census
records and a special census enumeration. To learn what this experience must
have been like for Nancy, I read a social history called Women of the Asylum:
Voices from Behind the Walls, 1840-1945. It had firsthand accounts of women
like Nancy who were committed to asylums.
Lucy (Stuart) Shough (1817-1887) was a housewife in Virginia. Genealogical
records on her are scarce. Just about everything I know about Lucy came from
census records, where her occupation is "keeping house." To learn about her
probable daily activities, I consulted a social history entitled Never Done:
A History of American Housework. This book details typical household chores
of the nineteenth century.
Placing your female ancestors into historical perspective by reading social
histories of the time and circumstances can add a whole new dimension to your
research. There are social histories for nearly every type of woman (rich,
poor, white, black, Native American) and every time period conceivable.
Women's periodicals from yesteryear are also worth investigating. Godey's
Lady's Book, a monthly women's magazine, was started in 1837 and had a
national circulation of 150,000 by 1860. Godey's featured articles on
fashion, homemaking, and health, as well as presenting fiction, poetry, and
recipes. The more emancipated woman of the 1860s might well have read the
weekly newsletter Revolution, which covered fashion, food, health, work,
unions, women in trades and professions, and notable women.
7. Don't get discouraged. Researching women takes time, patience, and
creativity. Every woman's life is important to research, document, and write
about. Your female ancestors wait silently for you to discover their stories.
By listening to their histories and the records, they will tell you who they
were and where to find them!
==================================
A Recipe for Family History
by Alyssa Hickman Grove
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Writer and historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich writes about the idea of tracing
“female inheritance through recipes.” Its an interesting thought, although
she finds it has its flaws, as you'll see when you read her story, “Danish
Pancakes.” However, family recipes certainly have a connection to family
history. A simple (and often-told) story about pot roast started me thinking
about this connection. In the story, a young bride is preparing pot roast for
dinner. Her husband watches as she carefully cuts each end off the roast
before putting it in the roasting pan and placing it in the oven.
“Why did you cut the ends off the roast?” he asks.
“I don't know,” she replies, “that's just the way my mother taught me.” The
next time the young woman talks to her mother, she asks about trimming the
ends off the pot roast.
“I don't know why,” her mother answers, “but that's how your grandmother
always did it.” On a visit to her grandmother, the young woman asks about the
pot roast.
“Oh,” replies the grandmother, “I had to do that simply because my roasting
pan was too small to fit an entire roast.”
Grandma's answer explains the mysterious “cut off the ends” tradition. It
also raises the question, Why didn't Grandma have a larger pan? The answer is
probably simple enough -- perhaps she just never bothered to buy a larger
one. On the other hand, a family historian with an active imagination might
indulge in a slew of fanciful questions: Were Grandma and her husband too
poor to afford new pots and pans? Could they only afford a small home with a
tiny kitchen and scanty cupboard space? Had they been forced to jettison a
lot of household goods to travel to America or across the plains?
Granted, these questions take a sizable leap from the starting point of the
pot roast story. But they do illustrate how details of a family's history can
be linked to what, and how, a family cooks.
>From Cookbook to Novel
Handed-down recipes in a family often have stories associated with them which
add richness to a family history. These recipes and stories can make your
family history more vivid. Just ask Janice Woods Windle, the author of True
Women, a historical novel based on the lives of her ancestors. Windle started
out with the intention of compiling family recipes as a wedding gift for her
son and his bride-to-be in 1985. But as she pored over piles of recipes,
letters, and diaries, she pieced together a fascinating story. Not long after
presenting her son with the recipe book, she borrowed it from him so she
could use it while writing True Women, a novel chronicling the lives of three
generations of her family in Texas, from the fall of the Alamo to the Second
World War.
Initially, Windle thought that her mother, a former schoolteacher and
historian, would be more involved in writing the family story. But her mother
kept urging her to write episodes, “And over the course of six years, it just
kind of escalated.” Windle says she eventually chose the historical novel
format, rather than a traditional family history, so that she could write
dialogue and “capture the melody of the women's voices.”
Runaway Wedding Cake
True Women was published in 1993. Twelve years after getting the idea to
compile the recipe book, Windle finally had time to produce the True Women
Cookbook, published this year. The cookbook is full of stories about Texas
history and about Windle’s family and forebears, and features such recipes as
“Reverend Potter's Hellfire and Brimstone Chili,” “Every-Sunday-After-Church
Chicken,” and “Runaway Wedding Cake” (a cake prepared for an ancestor's
elopement). Windle says she discovered a lot about her relatives by looking
at their recipes: “Women write around the margins of a recipe, making notes,
mentioning events where the dish was served -- baptisms, family reunions, and
so forth -- so you can really track a woman's life through her recipes.”
While she was researching her ancestors’ cookbooks, Windle was struck by the
way the women had taken responsibility for their families’ well-being: She
found notations such as “Peter is allergic to pecans” and “this soup
sustained Bettie through her long illness.”
When asked what advice she would give others who are interested in compiling
a family history or recipe book, Windle says she feels its important to
involve children in the process, to teach them about their lineage. She also
recommends recording stories that you've heard, then recording interviews
with family members. Taking along old photographs, Windle says, may help jog
an older relative's foggy memory.
Bathtub Gravy
There are those who haven't felt compelled to pen a sweeping historical novel
inspired by the lives of their forebears, but simply wanted to preserve
family recipes for posterity; this is what my mother and her sister decided
to do. They conceived of compiling a family recipe book to give to each of
their families as a Christmas present. Thus began the arduous task of going
over their own recipes, as well as the recipes that my grandmother, who
passed away a few years ago, had left behind. The long and involved process
produced a welcome gift: Our families now have a cookbook that includes all
the family favorites, many of which have been handed down from my
great-grandmother to my grandmother, to my mother and aunt.
My family's English heritage is evident in such recipes as Yorkshire pudding,
plum pudding, and mustard pickles. My great-grandmother passed along her
recipes for homemade bread, roast beef, and gravy (the gravy was always a
favorite, and the family joke was that it was made in the bathtub to make
sure there would be enough to meet the demand).
My great-grandmother's parents were early settlers in Utah, and the necessity
of laying in provisions for the winter was reflected in Great-Grandma
Carrie's penchant for canning and preserving. My mother remembers the
delights contained in Carrie's fruit room: jars and jars of peaches,
cherries, and raspberries. Today my mother and aunt still use Carrie's
recipes for making home-canned peaches and chili sauce.
An Heirloom in the Making
Sometimes a family recipe book doesn't necessarily contain handed-down
recipes, but recipes that will be handed down to future generations. Ken and
Connie Bean married later in life, combining their families from their
previous marriages. When they created a family cookbook, they included
recipes that both sets of children had learned to love, and then personalized
the book with inspirational thoughts and quotations for their children to
pass down through the family.
There are as many ways to preserve a collection of family recipes and
traditions as there are families. If you want to create an heirloom recipe
book, think about including these elements in it:
--Original handwritten recipe cards
--Stories telling how certain recipes came into the family
--Anecdotes about which recipes were family favorites
--Photographs of ancestors
--Stories about ancestors
Janice Woods Windle cherishes a steamed pudding recipe given to her by her
beloved grandmother-in-law, and talks about families becoming close through
the sharing of recipes. My mother puts it this way: "Food, what we eat, what
we cook, is the core in so many families.”
========================================
>From the Ancestry.com Newsletter....
ARTICLES FOR TRACING THE MOMS IN YOUR FAMILY TREE
"One Crimson Petticoat: Female Lines and Real Lives," by Yvonne P. Divak
Part 1 -- http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/600.asp
Part 2 -- http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/623.asp
Part 3 -- http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/650.asp
Part 4 -- http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/744.asp
Seven Steps for Researching Female Ancestors
– Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, CGRS, FUGA
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/ancmag/756.asp
"A Recipe for Family History," by Alyssa Hickman Grove
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/ancmag/712.asp
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Crimson Petticoat: Female Lines and Real Lives —Part 3
– Yvonne P. Divak
_____________
Another source of information is the obituary. There is an old saying that a
lady's name appeared in the public newspaper only twice: once when she
married and once when she died. This saying applied to most of the women of
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Some women did not make it
even then. In order to use effectively an obituary, you have to know the
death date of you subject or, at least, the year in which she died. If her
husband was famous, her name can usually be located in newspapers other than
those of her hometown. An example is Maria Ketchum Walworth (1795-1847). Her
husband, Reuben H. Walworth (1788-1867), was the last chancellor of New York
State. Mrs. Walworth died in Saratoga Springs, New York; however, this short
obituary appeared in the New York "Municipal Gazette," 30 June 1847:
Departed this life at Saratoga Springs, on the 24th of April, Mrs. Maria
Ketchum, wife of Chancellor Walworth, aged 51. Upon her dying bed she bore
the most decided testimony of the truth of the Christians' hope; her Saviour
sustained her, and her end was peace.
But, you might argue, and with some reason, this obituary does not really say
anything at all. Take a closer look. Mrs. Walworth was a lady. A true lady of
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had no career--no life,
actually, outside of her home and family. This obituary, besides giving us
Mrs. Walworth's maiden name, death date, place of death, age at death,
husband's name, and occupation, also tells us that she was religious, and
that she sought to teach those around her at the end the "right" way to
die--just as a proper wife and mother was supposed to.
Unfortunately, if you are searching for a poor woman or for one who is Native
American or Black, your chances of finding an obituary are very slim. This
also tells us something of the culture and environment in which these women
lived. If a white, wealthy, woman was "invisible" to the public, save on very
special occasions such as marriage and death, the poor, the Black, and the
Native American never appeared at all. These women are the hardest to locate.
If your male subject owned property and died before his wife, you might try
the dower records. A dower gave the widow a lifetime right to one-third of
her husband's property, which, you might recall, may have belonged to her in
the first place. When Gideon Putnam of Saratoga Springs, New York, died in
1812 from pneumonia at the age of forty-nine, he left a widow and nine
children, ranging in ages from twenty-six to four-and-a-half years. He also
left a substantial amount of real estate in and about Saratoga, which
included a large house and two hotels or taverns. His wife, Doanda, sold the
newer hotel, but kept the old Putnam Tavern as her dower right. For years,
she and her sons conducted a very profitable business at what later became on
of the most popular hotels in the United States.
All right, you have tried just about everything: census records, wills,
church records; obituaries--everything. But your subject was not rich, and
she did not come from New England. In fact, she was a black slave who lived
on some plantation in southern Georgia sometime between the Revolution and
the Civil War. Give up? Of course not. First, learn all you can about the
state of Georgia. From where did these planters import their slaves? The
foreign slave trade was prohibited by the U.S. Constitution in 1807; but it
was done secretly right up to the beginning of the Civil War. Many Georgia
planters obtained their new slaves from Virginia, which served as a "breeding
ground" for the rest of the South. Learn about these plantations. How large
were they? What kind of crops did they raise? What was the general treatment
of slaves?
You may never actually locate your ancestor or subject; however, you will
gain an insight into the type of life that she led. And do not discount your
relatives. Very often, stories handed down from one generation to another,
those legends that an older relative tells you, probably have kernels of
truth hidden in them--clues that may lead you directly to your own ancestor.
Remember, that is how Alex Haley got started.
====================
One Crimson Petticoat: Female Lines and Real Lives, Part 4
– Yvonne P. Divak
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Eat the foods that your subject may have eaten. Listen to the stories told in
the language that she spoke. Sing the songs that she sang. Did she speak the
lilting English one finds in the King James Bible? Or did she speak Gaelic,
or German, or Italian, or Oglala Sioux? Did she live on the Great Plains or
in Boston? Was she a "lady" who hired other people to work for her, or did
she labor on a farm, or in a cotton mill, or on a plantation? Did she live to
be one hundred, or did she die at thirty?
Names are important. Our names separate us from other people. My name is a
part of who I am. But do not forget your subject's "spirit." After all, if
she is your ancestor, a part of her still lives within you. Try to see her
life as she would have seen it. If your female ancestor was a pioneer in the
early American wilderness, think about what this must have meant to her: To
be left alone, surrounded by the darkness and wild animals, with only a
candle to offer light and only a fragile log cabin to keep her safe from the
dangers without. Often these women were left alone for days at a time as
their husbands went hunting or off to war. The movie, "Drums Along the
Mohawk," gives an excellent portrayal of the growth of a pioneer woman--from
a dependent, frightened girl to a seasoned woman, filled with quiet strength
and determination. Could she have been your ancestor?
If you can find you female ancestor's full name, congratulations. You are one
of the lucky ones. You can now go back or forward to another generation. But
if you cannot find her full name; if you cannot find much, or any,
information about her, don't despair. Think of this name as a real person,
and try to put yourself into her situation--a reversal of genes, if you will.
A short time ago, I came across the inventory of one Mary McDonald, who died
about 1824 or early 1825 in the town of Ballston, Saratoga County, New York.
I have no idea how old she was or what she looked like. I think she was
married to Michael McDonald, an early pioneer of the area who died about two
years prior to her own death. But I am not certain. Her inventory was
finished in April of 1825 and contained three, neatly written pages of
articles that she had owned, debts she had owed, and money owed to her. She
does not seem to have been a poor woman. I recall reading down the lists of
"Personal Property" in a casual way--I have read hundreds of these things,
and usually they are rather dry.
"One Beadstead [sic] and Chord. Two old Callico [sic] Quilts." Yes, yes, I
thought. Nothing new here. "2 Flannel Shirts. 1 Red and Blew [sic] Plaid
Gown. 1 Crimson Petticoat . . ."
Whoa! The nameless subject that had appeared to me in shades of pedestrian
grey, suddenly took on a new personality. It seems that Mrs. Mary McDonald
also owned "1 Scarlet Cloak." Did she wear the cloak when she wore her
crimson petticoat? Did her eyes twinkle when she walked down the street? Did
she deliberately lift her skirts, just a little, in order to show off her
bright undergarment? Ah, Mary, I wish I could have known you better. I wish I
could have met you.
Despite legal opinion, despite lingering beliefs, the women of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries were not nameless, faceless, invisible
shadows. They were people with real fears and real loves, with real lives.
And, as you can see, some of them did sparkle.
================
Hello all,
As genealogists, Mother's Day also means we focus on our Maternal Lines...8-)
Many years ago, an elderly lady told me that the only real challenge left to
those who have been doing this a while is to trace the Mothers...and their
Mothers...and...you get the picture!
To honor the memory of all the women whose strength and love and dedication
nurtured the families we research, I'm going to send you three posts over the
next three days that will give some new insights into tracing our Maternal
Lines. Each post will contain two of a series of articles from the
newsletter put out by the Ancestry.com folks.
Hope you enjoy them!
LaRae
CHEATHAM listmgr.
-------------
One Crimson Petticoat: Female Lines and Real Lives - Part 1
– Yvonne P. Divak
_____________________
Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the
gates.
----- Proverbs 31:31
Ranluff Glanville, chief justiciar in 1180, under King Henry II of England,
is supposed to have written " . . . legally a woman is completely in the
power of her husband . . . and his wife is bound to consent to this as to all
other acts of his which do not offend against God . . . "
If you think that American women have progressed well beyond this belief,
think again.
Not too long ago, I stood in a beautiful little cemetery in the town of
Broadalbin, Fulton County, New York, copying interesting tombstones. A woman
drove up, parked her car a few feet from me, and emerged with a pot of fresh,
red geraniums in her hand. She very carefully proceeded down a long row of
ancient tombstones, some of which were so weathered that it was impossible to
read them. Halting before one near the end of the row, she paused, then
placed her offering at the base of the stone.
"My great-great-great grandfather," the woman told me proudly. "He was in the
Revolution."
"Really?" was my sage reply.
The woman continued to gaze reverently at the ancient stone for a few more
minutes, then entered her car and drove away.
Somewhat later, as I admired the flowers, it occurred to me that the woman
had neglected to place any flowers at the base of her great-great-great
grandmother's grave, which was to the right of the man's. Born in 1756, this
woman too had lived during the American Revolution. Though she hadn't carried
a musket or fired a cannon, perhaps she had made bandages for the wounded, or
perhaps, as many women did, she made sure that the crops were harvested and
that the stock was fed while her husband was off fighting the British.
Perhaps she had lived at the very edge of eighteenth-century civilization and
had had to look constantly over her shoulder for hostile Indians. Was she not
a veteran too? Unfortunately, no one seemed to be heeding the brief motto at
the base of her tombstone: "When this you see remember me."
Nothing in American history seems so ethereal as the married woman of the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. She literally
disappears before your eyes into lists of "married women under 45," or she is
named only as the "wife of . . . ." How many times have you searched
cemeteries for the distaff side of your heritage, only to find a gravestone
such as this one?
Hannah
Wife of Pilgrim Durkee
Died Nov. 9 1841,
In the 68 Year Of her age.
Ah, Hannah! Where did you come from? What was your name before you married
Mr. Durkee? Where were you born? At least the above stone does give you a
clue as to the year in which she was born. Some stones of married women do
not even do that.
The main problem here is that when Hannah Whatever-Her-Maiden-Name-Was
married Pilgrim Durkee, she became Hannah Durkee, and as far as the legal
system of her time was concerned, she no longer existed. She could not sell
any property she may have inherited from her father. That property now
belonged to her husband to do with as he pleased. A married woman could not
even sign a legal contract. When the great novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe was
ready to publish her masterpiece, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in 1853, her husband
had to sign the contract with the publishers for her. Mrs. Stowe was
forty-two years old at the time and the mother of six living children. But
the law considered her to be invisible.
So how can genealogists locate someone who is "invisible?" It is not easy.
But it is not impossible. I have seen many researchers give up because they
cannot locate a great-great-great grandmother's maiden name. The following
article lists a few methods that I have tried over the years in search of the
elusive American married female. The methods have not always been successful.
Sometimes, I have run into stone walls. But, sometimes the methods do work.
The important thing to remember here is not to give up. She is your ancestor
too; and if she had given up, you would not be here today.
===========================================
One Crimson Petticoat: Female Lines and Real Lives - Part 2
– Yvonne P. Divak
__________________
According to "History of Saratoga County," by Nathaniel B. Sylvester,
published in 1876, Seth Sadler was one of the first white settlers of
present-day Saratoga Springs, New York, coming to the area after the close of
the Revolution. In fact, the first burying ground in Saratoga Springs was on
his land. Though later information indicates that Mr. Sadler fathered several
children, no mention of Mrs. Sadler was made by Sylvester. This deliberate
omission was quite common in the nineteenth-century histories--the invisible
factor at work again. The 1820 federal census listed an Olive Sadler as a
widow, living in Saratoga Springs. Were Seth and Olive married at one time?
Were they even related? No wills, inventories, or dowers' rights existed--all
of which, by the way, can be excellent sources. This was clearly a puzzle.
Looking for something else one day, I came across a short article that stated
that a William Sadler was "descended from Revolutionary War veterans." No one
that I can recall had ever mentioned that Seth Sadler was a Revolutionary War
veteran. However, he was a mature adult in the 1780s as was Olive Sadler. It
was certainly worth looking into.
The Daughters of the American Revolution have published literally hundreds of
volumes concerning the veterans of the Revolutionary War, cemetery records,
Bible records, pension records, and short biographies of veterans including
their military service, their wives' names, and sometimes, lists of other
family members. I looked, and not only did I find that Olive was indeed
Seth's wife, but that her maiden name was Battle, that she and Seth had
married in 1774, and that Olive had died in 1823. (Seth's death date was
unknown, but he had preceded Olive by at least three years.)
Even if you doubt that your male subject was a veteran of the
Revolution--even if you have never heard of any service--give it a try. Even
a brief stint in the local militia qualifies as military service. You might
find him listed in among the veterans and his wife right beside him.
Clues that are too often overlooked are the names of children. Ellen Hardin
(1832-1915) of Illinois and Kentucky, married Mansfield Walworth (1830-1873),
of Saratoga Springs, in 1852. Of their eight children, three were given the
middle name of Hardin. And their second son, John Hardin Walworth
(1855-1862), bore the name of Ellen's father, John Hardin, who was killed in
the Mexican War. This was also true for Doanda Risley Putnam (1768-1835), the
wife of Gideon Putnam (1763-1812), another early settler of Saratoga Springs.
She named her eldest son, Benjamin Risley Putnam (1788-1846), after her
father. Risley became a popular name in the Putnam family and was used for
several generations. Is there a name in your family that seems to have been
handed down from the beginning of time? A name that no one can recall the
origin? Perhaps, it is the maiden name of your long lost female ancestor.
Cemeteries can also be valuable sources. Granted, one finds far too many,
"Mary, wife of . . . " tombstones; but, occasionally, gold is struck.
Remember poor Hannah, wife of Pilgrim Durkee? Well, not far away from her
tombstone is the following:
In memory
Eliza wife of
George Finch and
Daughter of Pilgrim
& Hannah Durkee who
Departed this life Feb.
6, 1831 in the 31 Year
Of her age
With this stone we have the subject's maiden name as well as her married
name. As an added bonus, we have the names of both of her parents, so there
can be no mistake when a search is made of her life history. The Scots-Irish,
who settled the northern parts of Saratoga and Fulton (New York) counties
just prior to the American Revolution, often included the maiden name of a
married woman in the following fashion:
In
Memory of
MARGRET KIER
Wife of Patrick Rob
Who departed this life
July 28, 1832, in
The 82 Year of her
Age. She was a native
Of Perthshire
Scotland
The above stone, located in a Perth (Fulton County), New York, cemetery is a
great help, in that it provides very important information about this woman:
her maiden name, her married name, the date of her death, her age at death,
and her birthplace. Armed with all of this data, along with the fact, or at
least the strong implication, that she died in or near Perth, New York, you
cannot help but find something about her in a local obituary, will, or
article. Mrs. Margret Kier Rob is no longer invisible.
Here is another slightly different tombstone located in Greenridge Cemetery,
Saratoga Springs, New York:
Temperance Kempton
Mother of Phebe Patten.
Died: Jan. 10, 1853
Aged: 79 Years.
>From this stone, we receive some "roundabout" information. Phebe Patten was
originally Phebe Kempton, unless, and watch out for this one, her mother had
married again after Phebe's birth. Second and third marriages can be real
headaches for any genealogist. The term "tied in knots" comes to mind. All I
can suggest for anyone caught in this situation is to move very slowly.
-----------------
Hi!
Here are my CHEATHAMS:
57. Mary (Polly) CHEATHAM, b. 12 Oct 1777 in VA. Passed on to heaven 16 May
1850 from Williamson Co. TN-- of dropsey--Smithson Cemetery near Arno, V
Farm, CHILDREN: Samuel Cheatham,
She married:
56. Nathaniel B. SMITHSON, b. 16 May 1773 in Lunenburg Co. VA. He married Mary
(Polly) Cheatham 30 Mar 1799 in Lunenburg Co. VA. Passed on to heaven 3 Aug
1859 from Williamson Co. TN--Probably Baptist and maybe a Farmer, had a big
house
built on property given as payment for his services as a Revolutionary
Soldier, the house was completed in 1832 by his Grandson, Nathaniel Greene
Smithson, it has been remodeled and is a historical house today, buried in
Smithson Cemetary near Arno, Williamson Co. TN
Bill Cheatham on here told me that he thinks this Polly's parents were Samuel
& Sarah CHEATHAM. I'm inclined to agree with that, but don't have proof yet.
So, I think I descend from these:
THOMAS CHEATHAM, b. c.1644/5 England, d. 1726 Henrico Co. Va., m. ??? .
THOMAS CHEATHAM (JR.), b. c.1682 Va., d. c.1761/2 Dale Parish, Chesterfield
Co. Va., m. Mrs. Tabitha Osborn Branch, dau. of Edward Osborn & Tabitha Platt.
THOMAS CHEATHAM (III), b. c.1711 Va., d. c.1770/71 Dale Parish, Chesterfield
Co., m. Anne Pride, dau. of Halcott Pride & Martha ??? .
SAMUEL CHEATHAM, b. 1740's Va., m. Sarah ??? .
Some say Tabitha's maiden name was HARRISON instead of OSBORN. Why is that?
Bill, and anyone who can help,
Do you know any more about these people?
Thanks for any help! :))
Elise
LaRae:
I am descended from Archibald Cheatum born in VA and probable son of
Leonard and Thurza. (Not able to prove it.) Don't know lineage of
Leonard, either. This is the brick wall. If I can ever prove
Archibald's relationship to Leonard and then find out which branch of
the Cheatum family Leonard sprouted from, I think I have all the rest of
the family information in early Virginia.
There was a large report on the Cheatum family from its earliest times
in Virginia in the "Virginia Genealogist" (periodical) Volumes 27, 28,
29, and 30. Printed in 1983, 84, 85, and 86. These were done by
Alberta Marjorie Dennstedt, and she did a comprehensive family history
research with voluminous documentations. Very impressive. I found
these periodicals at my local library (Denver). I imagine they would be
at major libraries elsewhere. I didn't count, but there are probably at
least 80 pages.
I would recommend that Cheatum researchers who are past the roadblock of
the post-revolutionary population shift and are looking for their
Virginia roots look for a source for these magazine reports.
Sandra
Hello,
I hope you all have been able to make some time for family research this
spring, and have found many new ancestors to include in May's Roll Call!
Share with us some of your more recent research efforts...and let us know
where your favorite online sources are located. What publications have you
used that would be of help to others? What was your latest CHEATHAM family
find?
Personally, I've been foraging through the USGenWeb Archives in various
counties where I know my families have lived. They are presented in
barebones black and white for long-term archival storage, and are great for
finding census records and other types of records that have been carefully
transcribed and proofed by volunteers.
In contrast, the County webpages -- which can be reached through the State
pages -- are filled with submitted material relating to the early residents
of those counties, including some unexpected gems such as early
birth-marriage-deaths reported in newspaper articles, and sections for family
histories, many with photos of early life in the area. I've visited County
pages with a wide variety of material, such as church membership rolls,
military service records, school rosters, and even those licensed to drive in
the county during the first few decades...beginning with license number one!
One County page varies from the next, but that is the fun of discovery...8-)
USGenWeb Project States List
http://www.usgenweb.net/statelinks.html
USGenWeb Archives Search Page
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ussearch.htm
For our list members who live in the Ireland-UK or Australia, please share
your favorite sources and your latest research discoveries, and visit these
sites:
The BritishIslesGenWeb Project
http://www.britishislesgenweb.org/
AustraliaGenWeb Project
http://www.rootsweb.com/~auswgw/
For this Roll Call, we'll not only pick up some new family information, but
find lots of terrific new sources!
Happy Hunting!
LaRae
listmgr.
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