Military Memories: Figuring out who served in which war

While work continues in the background on our Farrell's Connections project (see some previous posts) I'm following the GeneaBloggers writing prompt for the month of May with short posts on Military Memories, from Jennifer Holik. One of the things that stumps me and gets in my way is trying to figure out which ancestors might have served in, say, the Revolutionary War or the Civil War. Have to confess to ignoring the Spanish-American War entirely. At least I've kept a list of Revolutionary War Patriots on a big post note next to the desktop computer as I stumble into them. But really, isn't that kind of pathetic? There must be a better way.

This morning I read a blog post with the solution to this problem from Michele Simmons Lewis who writes the helpful blog, "Ancestoring". Her post provided a very useful link to another blog run by Ancestry.com with a beautiful chart of each major war and the war years with a corresponding range of birth years. The Ancestry blog says:

You know you should look for military records for your ancestor, but what war did he serve in? Our friends over at Fold3 created this handy little infographic to use as a rule of thumb. There are exceptions to every rule, but this will get you started!

 

 

OK, now just to be clear, click here to get to the infographic. I'd love to post it here for your immediate enjoyment but also want to respect copyright of the Ancestry folks.

 

Thanks Michele!! I can not even begin to tell you how many times I've sat here counting on fingers trying to figure out if it was possible a particular ancestor served. Now if Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings would just come up with some super slick way to search our tree programs for possible candidates... problem solved!

 

 

Enoch Clise (1843-1896), served in the Civil War, my second great aunt's husband who was mayor

of Frostburg twice. Frostburg is the little mountain town in Western Maryland where my  recent ancestors came from. Nice photo, huh?

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/05/military-memories-figuring-out-who.html



My photo file tells a story

While looking at my photo files, discovered two big fat files that hadn't yet been processed. I'm a little miffed that I've overlooked these treasures when I would have bet that all the photos had been properly processed by photo editing, sorting and naming, with details put in labels within the file. But I'm also thrilled that there are more delicious pictures. So off I went to start that task and that's gonna take time. That's OK because I just love working with old family photos.

What I realized when looking through the yet to be sorted files as well as the older sorted photos is that they tell the story of photography in our family as well as photography in general and in the small Western Maryland world in which the taking of photos in our family operated. So I'd like to share with you what I observed, here in this post.

The oldest photos come from the mid 1800s, about 1850 or 1860 and on to about 1910-ish. They are formal portraits taken by professional photographers in their studios. There were a number of photographers operating in Western Maryland then. A couple in Cumberland, the largest town in the region, and two or three in Frostburg which is smaller and situated just west on the Old Pike or National Road, a major route west before the railroad came to the area. Let's start with a couple of those images.

The above was taken by a photographer named E. Gilbert Irwin and bound up in a book documenting the National Road about 1910 which Mom has in her collection. As far as I've been able to discover he did this project under the auspices of the management of the National Road.

The small plate in the rear of the book identifies him by name, and you can see that up top. The middle image shows the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania where the Maryland road work ends. As you can see, It looked bad for Maryland and the state of the road is pretty awful compared to how Pennsylvania took care of their portion of the road. That would have been a perfect shot to document the need for more Maryland funds to be allocated. The last image is included just because it's one of my favorites. Plus it was probably handy in demonstrating the general terrain which was farmland and forest. This image is often referred to as an example of the photographer's artistic eye, and indeed while this album had a practical use, it is a work of art, as well of history.

The real formal studio portraits are a treasure to us, and I bet you have your own grouping of these. Here are just a few. I love to look at what our ancestors are wearing. I'll put these in presumed order by date with the oldest first. They stop about 1913 with the formal wedding portrait of Dad's parents and they were married September 30, 1913.

Enoch Clise (1843 - 1896) in his Civil War uniform. He is not an old man here and died in 1896, which leaves a window of about 1865 to 1880-ish. Maybe.

They were married 19 April, 1878 and this is thought to be their wedding portrait.

Joseph E Whetstone 1816-1897.
He is quite old here so maybe about 1890?

 

 

His son, Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858 - 1939) on the right, in his Frostburg Fire Department uniform. Date about 1890s, maybe.

Moretta Workman 1859-1946.
Maybe she's in her 20s here?

Moretta's husband, Gustav Zeller 1858 - 1925.
Wondering if these two images were their wedding portraits? If so then there would have been a couple photo. None of the relatives seem to have that. Too bad.

Their daughter and my paternal grandma, Helen Zeller Kelly 1894-1985. About 1900.

Wedding photos, 1913.

 

 When Grandma, above, married Grandpop, John Lee Kelly (1892 - 1969) these two photos of his family were also taken. That's he and his mother in the oval, and the whole Kelly bunch, with labels.

 

I like to examine all of the formal portraits we have and especially the backgrounds to see which were taken in the same studio. Those big backdrops are a good clue!

Just about the time Mom was born in 1918, the informal snapshots start to appear. These are wonderfully plentiful and their informality tells so much about the people in them. I'll just share a few for your enjoyment.

 

 

Mom with her parents, Emma Susan (Whetstone) Williams (1897 - 1956) and Cambria Williams (1897 - 1960).

John Lee Kelly (1892 - 1969) with his children, about 1925.

Mom with a kitten.

Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858 - 1939) who we saw in his fire department uniform, above. What a difference! This image tells a broader story of family as he and his wife Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone (1865 - 1947) sit with some of their grandchildren, Mom in the big hair bow.

These pictures tell, I think, a fuller story, about the family and times. The frequency of the images and their abundance tell me that it was easy and relatively inexpensive for the family to take their own photos. They are, of course, less formal by stretches! The family would have chosen, as we all do, where and when the picture was to be made so it tells even more about them. Plus, and I really like this, it catches them in their every-day clothes. Candid's: gotta love them!

Mom with her camera, August 1942.



After this date, photos in our file multiply like rabbits. Mom has a camera and is obviously using it. I bet she got it for her birthday on July 29. I mean now that I think about it, if you have your own camera you are going to take pictures, for sure!

Do you remember your first camera? I sure do. And the thrill of going to the drug store to pick up the processed photos to see how they came out? I usually went with friends. Once you have your own camera, you are free to capture your personal world as you see it, and that makes all the difference to those of us interested in family history. We get to see the family as it saw itself, or at least as one member saw it.

Here are some images from Mom, as photo documentarian. I won't label them because I want you to look at the content of the images and se what they tell.

 

Yeah, it's all there in those pictures: all the family history of the most recent generations. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every generation going back just five or six had their own cameras with which to document family? Wouldn't that be a treasure?

And so I ask myself, what with all the new media, are we taking enough photos? I wonder if I am?


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/12/my-photo-file-tells-story.html

Treasure Chest Thursday: Frostburg Mining Journal

Let's see what's in the Olde Treasure Chest this week. So much to choose from... I'm such a lucky girl! Oh, here's a goodie. The Frostburg Mining Journal published in that Western Maryland town from 1871 to 1913. You can find it at the Maryland State Archives here. Here's what the MSA has to say about this publication:

The Frostburg Mining Journal was published September 30, 1871 [v. 1, no. 1] to April 17, 1880 [v. 9, no. 31]; April 24, 1880 [9th year, no. 32] to 1913. It was published weekly. It was also published as the Frostburg Journal and the Mining Journal. "Mining" appears in masthead ornament, September 29, 1883-December 1889. "Frostburg" appears in masthead ornament, January 1890-[1913]. The newspaper was continued by the Frostburg Spirit (Frostburg: 1913).

Mom and I were on a crusade to get the FMJ available online and then discovered that the Maryland State Archives was already doing just that. We sent them donations, and when they put up rolls of the microfilm they sent us a down loadable file of those rolls as a nice thank you gift for sponsoring that roll. Good all around.

The FMJ is the kind of thing you can spend hours browsing, and Mom and I do. I keep it as a reward for completing some particularly distasteful but necessary task. It whisks you back in time and gives you a real peek into the lives of the miners and their community of 15,000 strong by 1900 surrounding the market town of Frostburg in Western Maryland. Chickens gone missing, the mayor speaking to a ladies group, who wed whom, and which naughty married lady had run off with which fellow. It's all there. Life lived on Main Street in 10 point lead type.

So today I want to post a couple of items from the paper. The first is an ad for corsets. There were
plenty of ads and the income from them likely made the whole effort profitable for the paper's owner, J. B. Order.

 

 

Corsets not your thing? How about a cocktail?

 



 



 Christmas time was a boom time for J. B. Order when all the merchants ran ads!

 

Obits were common too and I like them because they went into depth and gave a feel for the lost beloved. This one below is for my great grand aunt, Elizabeth Jane Whetstone Clise. Enoch Clise, her husband, was mayor of Frostburg twice.

 

 

My favorite section is called Breveties. Here you'll find short mentions of all manner of information that didn't fit elsewhere. The one below is a story about my GGF Gus Zeller, owner of a very popular barbershop, receiving a shipment of 63 fancy goldfish. Some went in the big fish tank in the window of his establishment and others went into a pond on a property he owned. Mom has speculated that the reason he's mentioned so often in the Frostburg Mining Journal is that the publisher, J. Benjamin Order, must have gotten free services from Gus.

 

News to the left, ads on right. Entertaining stories of length (a substitute for TV) occupied the entire front page. My guess would be that mats (used in letterpress printing) were probably subscribed to and shipped in to newspaper printers because the stories on the front page were of general interest and not timely. Mr. Order was then left to typeset the rest and fill the four page paper with local ads and news. Here are some typical pages. Enjoy:)

May you find your own version of the Frostburg Mining Journal online containing the daily news of a town some of your ancestors lived in... that you can browse in your pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers:)

Treasure Chest Thursday is a blogging prompt of GeneaBloggers.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/treasure-chest-thursday-frostburg.html

Amanuensis Monday: Sarah's Letter

Amanuensis Monday

What's an Amanuensis, you say? It's a copyist: someone who sits like a crazy person squinting their eyes and probably ruining eyesight to read that old document hand-written so very long ago and type it out. We do because we love:)

Mom warned me that this letter we'll be looking at today and penned by my 4th great grandmother, Sarah Wooten Waggoner Yeast (dates unknown, but possibly 1808 - 1870), to my 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Waggoner Whetstone (1825- 1880) on 5 Mar 1869 was hard to read. It also showed the limit of Sarah Yeast's literary skills, and I have to tell you those limitations make this whole thing more charming. Add that to the fact the she likely wrote it in the 6 months to a year before she died and you have one of our favorite finds in Mom's Archive!

This family line is really interesting with lots of stories to tell. Sarah, the mother and let's call her Sarah Mother, had Sarah Daughter on 20 Feb 1825 in Grantsville, Garrett Couty, Maryland. Garrett County is the western most county of the state and even now it's mostly farm land and woods. Back in 1825 it was really wild and life was impossibly difficult for us softies to even imagine, except if frontier history and times is your thing. Sarah Daughter lived in Frostburg, Maryland, a distance of about 19 miles. Easily travelled today but at that time, very difficult over roads that were not much more that dirt pathways through the woods and a hard day's ride by horse or wagon.

Mom and I find this letter has a poignancy all its own. Sarah Mother is all but pleading for her daughter to come for a visit. She's old, she writes, i am gitting ould. Then she goes on to give a news roundup of Sarah Daughter's step-siblings. I wonder how much Sarah Daughter was moved by this plea and did she make the visit to see her mother that spring or summer?

Sarah Daughter was the first of Sarah Mother's children and fathered by a Mr. Waggoner, who it seems is missing from the records as far as we can tell. Mom has dug in every archive in Garrett County and the mysterious Mr. Waggoner or Wagoner (given name unknown to us) has come up missing. Mom heard a rumor still afoot in Grantsville that Sarah Mother was never married to him. There are a hundred possible explanations.

Peter Yeast came along and married Sarah on 15 Mar 1841. It was his will that was transcribed last week and you can see that post here and the mention of his wife Sarah but no mention of the daughter Sarah: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-will-of-peter-yeast-ancestry-tree.html

Peter and Sarah had 7 children together and with Sarah Daughter that's 8 kids in all. Daughter Sarah married Joseph Edward Whetstone (1816 - 1897) and they had 13 children. Two of their daughters married the same guy, Enoch Clise and that's a whole can of worms right there and I'll save it for another day.

But while I'm sorting around this family for interesting stuff, here's a copy of an email Mom sent about Peter Yeast's brother, Daniel Yeast, and here's what she wrote.

Another Story
Here's another one for you. Daniel Yeast was born on 24 Apr 1818 in Mercer Co Ky. His parents were John Leonard Yeast and Elizabeth Peavler. John Leonard's brother was Peter Yeast who married our g.g.g. grandmother Sarah Wooten.
This is the story of Daniel Yeast who married Mary Jane Curry. Daniel was a traveling salesman and on 02 Apr 1875 on this way home he stopped at a saloon for a libation. He left the saloon and was robbed and murdered and his body was found the next morning near the river. Apparently he was 43 when this happened. He left 6 sons.
The next thing I want to know is what river was it and how far away from home was he when it happened.
Love M
PS: I think it is the Salt River as near as I can tell. Love M
PSS: Our ggg grandmother Sarah Wooten Yeast would have been Daniel's aunt. Love M
July 27 2011


Now on to the letter from Sarah Mother. I'm not the best transcriptionist and haven't had much experience, so this is my best shot... and fair warning! But the best way to learn, I've always thought, is by doing.

So here's the image of the letter and I'm disappointed in it because it's a copier version of the real deal... and why I didn't just go ahead and scan the actual letter last time I was back east to see Mom, I do not know! On the list for next time: redemption. Click on the images below to have a closer look.

March the 5 1869

Deair Sarah i take my pen to
rite to you few line to let you know
that we air owl well at this time
and I hope that when this lines I have
Seen you and some times I think
you have forgot your hare ol mother
but i have not forgot you i often
think you mite come to see mee
it is not so fair but what you
mite cum and see your mother
you must think i am gitting
ould and not abel to git souns (?)
but likel(?) and therefore you out
to come to see mee it is a giting
near Spring time and I would like
to now if you air going to move
from whair you aire this Spring
or not and if you air I wod like
to now

well Sally Sissy has moved
near accident Bill is a making it
Shook and he is duing verry well
James is living in Grantsville
Alfred is living on the hil
i often hear from Billy and Thom
tha air (?) a giling along well i will send
Billy leter(?) to you well Sally i will
tell you that magor is not well
nor sarant (?) benn all winter
I do not now if he will git beter
when warm withe cums or not
but I hope he will but we have
plenty to dyeait (?) i inted to cum
to see you this winter but it was
to cold I lold (?) not lurne out
well I delera(?) that . I save no
more to rite this time rite
to me very soon and tell
all about the children
no more at this time
but remain your Mother
til later(?)


Sarah Wooten Waggoner Yeast and Peter Yeast's children are:
William Yeast 1828 - ?
John Yeast 1830 - ?
Alfred Yeast 1834
Thomas Yeast 1836 - ?
FF Yeast 1836 - ?, died in Minnesota
Elizabeth Yeast 1840 - ?
James Michael Yeast 1842 - ?

How many does Sarah Mother mention in the letter? And who is Sally Sissy, do you think? And who are Sergeant and Major? This letter was written after the Civil War but none of the boys achieved those ranks as far as I can tell.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/amanuensis-monday-sarahs-letter.html

Introducing...Well, I'm Not Sure What!

Am working on this book project. See there, I am now able to call it what it is. It's intimidating to be sure and it's taken me this long to be able to call it what it is. Up to now it's been simply "the project."

Frankly, I'm not sure I can do Mom's work and family stories justice! I've stumbled around looking for a proper format for quite a while. The usual descendancy books are not what I'm looking for. I realized that when I had a browse through the book by Samuel Doak Porter, A genealogy of the Porter family of Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan. Upon reading this well researched book it came to me that the most useful aspect was the short biographical sketches of each male family head. Of course no proper mention of the wonderful and fascinating pioneer women! Grrr.

Then I read The Journey Takers, by Leslie Albrecht Huber, which was a wonderful read in narrative form. Very  much liked and enjoyed the way it's organized by family line capturing what she has found out about her ancestors and each generation's time and place. Everyone who mentions this book is enthralled by how the author interweaves her own imaginings about the lives and times of each ancestor, done with love... and tons of solid research.

So what was this book going to be: fish or foul? Am seeing that the Porter book could easily (perhaps more easily) have been an online tree. So that leaves narrative form for me.

Am at present working on the introduction bit by bit. (See previous post, below, Beginning at the Beginning.) It's slow going now and that's to be expected. This funny thing happens: I write a bit and then slow to a halt, then I realize that what I've written wants more or something slightly different. And so it goes. A story here, a thought there, all strung together like - what did someone say - a strand of pearls. Well, that's making too much of it! Right now it's more like a strand of broken macaroni.

Today's photo from the Archive:

Enoch Clise (1843 - 1896)
Civil War Veteran, Mayor of Frostburg, MD twice and
Husband to two of my Great Grand Aunts...

Don't ask;)

The URL for this post is:

Military Conflicts

Even though I'm a newbie to this genealogy stuff, I really do love it all... well, all except for the military stuff. I'm conflicted about it. Have to keep asking my husband which rank is higher than which and so on. It's way beyond me to keep up with campaigns and battles. Picket's Charge is like algebra to me... and that's so obscure I haven't a chance with it.

I only bring this up because I have a little side project going to write up my notes on the life of my Revolutionary War ancestor, Nehemiah Newans. I have the first couple of sections done and am up to his service in General Braddock's British Regulars, either the 44th or the 48th. As of yet I have no proof that he served there. Would very much like to find my way around the British Archive to see him on a muster roll. That hasn't happened but it's not keeping me from plugging in some framework for that section of my project.

Thing of it is that my mind goes mush when I get to the details of the Braddock Campaign or any military campaign. I get it that it was pretty much of a disaster and then Braddock went and got himself killed, so it didn't end well.

As a kid I remember going on rides past Fort Necessity and the memorial near where Braddock was buried and hearing the story of how Braddock's men buried him under the roadway so the French troops wouldn't dig him up. Cool then, cool now. Check it out at http://www.nps.gov/fone/index.htm

But I'd like a better understanding of exactly what happened in the Braddock Campaign. And how George Washington came to take over from Braddock. And then after all was over and done, how and why my ancestor ended up settled in York Pennsylvania. Guess I'm going over to the San Diego Genealogical Society and crack open the books. Hey, San Diego is a military town ... there should be someone around to explain this to me:)

Enoch Clise, married in to the family, and served in the Civil War.

After the Athey's (or Is That Athy?)

Mom is busy consolidating the binders in her cabinet. They are organized by family surname and some binders are thick and some meager. So she's combining the thin ones together as it makes sense alphabetically. Guess you have to know Mom;)

She mentioned the Atheys. Who are they, I wondered? I'm a newbie at this family history stuff and trying hard to learn all the surnames that belong to us.

I launched my Family Tree Maker and opened Mom's latest GEDCOM to find that the closest Athey/Athy is my mother's father's mother's sister's husband. That makes him her great great uncle and a non-blood relative. Again I used the Steve Morse One-Step web site at http://www.stevemorse.org/ . Go to the menu in the upper left and look under Vital Records. That gives you a drop down and Relationship Calculator at the top of the last section.

I just love all the work Steve Morse has done and offers free to anyone who can use it. I saw him lecture and met him afterward, thanking him for all the good he has done. Think he's gets a little shy about gushing comments and I was kinda gushing.

But back to the Atheys. Mom had mentioned a book written by Larry Athy and off I go on a hunt for said book and Athy family history. Four hours later, I realize that this is a very fascinating story. Check it out at:

http://www.glenn-cook.com/Family%20Data/8%20Feb%202007/8051.htm

I do love a good story! Then, while I'm driving on an errand, I think wait, he's not a blood relative, is he? I call Mom - hands free on my cell phone - and she thinks maybe he is, but she's got her head in multiple binders, reorganizing. When I get home I check the relationship calculator and sure enough, not a blood relative. (BTW, could have done the same thing in FTM, right?)

So here's my question: am I interested in him at all because he's not a blood relative? Should I keep my story-gathering limited to blood family only? How far should I cast my net? Or not worry too much about that relationship issue and just go gather up good stories wherever they are? Any thoughts?

Enoch Clise 1843 - 1896, also not a blood relative,

but another good story for another day,

In his Civil War uniform. Also married to two

of our Whetstone sisters and mayor of Frostburg, MD, twice.