Birth Certificates - How Correct Are They?

After reading the Blog, Anglers Rest today, I decided to tell a very personal story.  Julie Goucher, author of the blog is offering prompts for "The Book of Me, Written By You" to help us write our own story. Perhaps, then, our grandchildren won't be saying in future years, "There's so much I don't know about my grandparents - I never thought to ask the right questions."

The current prompt is about birth.  In looking at the questions, I realized that my own story has a certain relevance for research regarding adoptions. Could even explain why curious results happen in Y-DNA testing when suddenly there appears to be what is called a non-paternal event.  Family secrets can remain secret.

My mother divorced my birth father - she left him before I was age two and we lived with her parents in Arkansas.  I was her first child.  She remarried when I was six and my new stepfather immediately legally adopted me, also legally changing my surname to his.  My birth certificate in the state of Tennessee was changed during the process - my stepfather was listed on the certificate as my father and my surname is his. There is NOTHING on the certificate to indicate that he was not my father, or that this certificate was ever amended or changed in any way.  If in years to come, a descendant ordered this certificate from the Tennessee Department of Health, there would be nothing to suggest the father on the certificate was not, in fact, my father.

Now I was the flower girl at the wedding of my mother to my stepfather, so I always knew perfectly well that he was not my father.  Details on my birth father were much harder to come by as lips were sealed when I asked questions.  Not until I had grown children of my own, did my mother produce an original copy of my birth certificate that she had kept. That was the first time I ever saw my own father's full name. So I do have a single copy of this birth certificate with my birth father's name - a single copy.  Of course I have made a digital image and made numerous paper copies for lineage societies.  But I cannot order this copy of my birth certificate from the state of Tennessee - only the altered one would be received.

I can think of many situations in which my half-adoption might never have been known. If I had died young. If my mother had never gone back to live near family, her neighbors and friends might never have known. My siblings are much younger and would not have known if they had not been told.  I could have kept this secret from my own children.

I do not know if other states handle adoptions in this manner - I have only my own experience.  My "birth" certificate is, in truth, incorrect.  We all know of instances when names are mis-spelled, dates are in error - but how many times do we think that a birth certificate might have an incorrect parent?

Hats off to FamilySearch!

I'm in Fort Wayne at FGS and to enjoy the Allen County Public Library  Last night I attended the annual FamilySearch Bloggers Dinner.  What a great event!   Good food, fun techie gift, good news from Family Search.

A new director for the Family History Library was introduced - Diane Loosle.  I've either had her in a session sometime in the past, or talked to her in a booth (maybe both) - she has a great personality.  Her goals include increasing the family and youth-oriented experiences, collaborative research areas in the library, continuing to increase the online information. She said the volunteers will be coming out from behind the desks (the "fortress") to work closer with patrons.  I believe she'll be perfect for this job.

We were also entertained with a video of the new oral history rooms and how they will be set up in the larger Family History Centers and the new Family Discovery Centers.  Anyone can schedule an hour to either tell their own story or interview a family member - $8 for the programmed flash drive and you take home a DVD of the experience.

Plans for the new Family Discovery Centers were impressive - hope one comes somewhere near me or where I travel.

Certain of the Family History Centers, and the new Discovery Centers, will have scanners that can scan your photos and upload them to your Family Tree site at FamilySearch.org.   How exciting is that!  No dates or locations were disclosed.

The most obvious emphasis of the presentation and the evening as a whole is that FamilySearch is really on board for telling "the rest of the story" about family history.  Not the dates, but the stories of our ancestor's, and our own, lives - both in words and pictures.

Appreciation was expressed for indexers and arbitrators - a show of hands indicated most of us in the room did one or both!   There's a great new fun video on the website that demonstrates how important this work is.  There are currently about 140,000 persons indexing - not nearly enough for the number of names that are being added in the uploaded images every day.   We were also promised that revisions are coming to improve this experience.  My own experience is that improvements are needed.

Now ...I'm off to the Allen County Public Library.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

I haven't done a "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" post as proposed by Randy Seaver in quite some time. I am really intrigued with the one for this Saturday, January 5th, 2013.

The Mission is:

1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago.

2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?

3)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, .....

My maternal grandparents, Kenney Marcus Comstock (1887-1958) and Nora Lee Hays (1887-1973) had married in January of 1908, Crawford Co, AR.  The 1910 census shows them living in Union Township, a rural area, in that county.  Kenney was 22, Nora 23.  Their first child, a son, Graydon Comstock had been born, November, 1908.   I know that my grandfather first tried to make a living a farming and my grandmother taught the primary grades at the country school.  Their second son was not born until 1914 and he was born in the nearby town - Van Buren.  Then my Mom, born in 1916, was born back in the country near where they had lived when first married - an area called Stony Point, but not an actual town. I do not know exactly where they were on 1 Jan 1913, nor what house they lived in then.  I do have a picture of the house where my Mom was born, but nothing from the earlier residences.

My great-grandparents, James Monroe Comstock (1860-1928) and Lucretia Ellen Wood (1867-1963) were also living in Union Township, Crawford Co, AR in 1910 - but they were enumerated about 60 families away from my grandparents.  Of course, they may have lived closer together than that indicates depending on the route of the enumerator.  They still had six of their eight living children at home - and all of them would have still been in the household in January of 1913.  They were Ira, 17; Maude, 15; Edna, 10; Lettie, 8; Pauline, 4; and Paul, 3.  The town of Uniontown was located in Union Township and the enumerator did not differentiate who lived in the actual town, but I believe that this family was living in town.  My great-grandfather had a general store; he wasn't a farmer. I do have a picture of a large two-story white home with all of the above standing in the yard and based on the ages, it appears to have been made just about 1909 or 1910.  I'm reasonably sure they were still living there in that house in early 1913, because my Aunt Maude married in Uniontown in December of 1913.  The house burned some years later after they had moved into Van Buren.

My great-grandparents, John Jefferson Hays (1856-1950) and Philena Josephine "Josie" Allen (1856-1935) were living three residences from James & Ellen Comstock, in 1910.  Again, I believe they were residents of the town of Uniontown.  Two of their five living children were still at home and would have been with them in 1913.  In 1910, John and Josie were both 53, married for 34 years.  Daughter Minnie, was 20, teaching school, and son Arthur was age 18.  Neither married prior to 1913.  John was a farmer, but didn't always live on the farm - he raised strawberries on a hillside near Van Buren and also ran a cotton gin.  I don't have any pictures of their homes in Uniontown.  By 1920 the Hays would be living in Van Buren on what is now McKibben Street that runs north of Fairview Cemetery.  I do have a picture of this house that I took several years ago - it is still there.

My great, great grandfather, Elijah Thomas "Tom" Comstock (1838-1917) had lost his wife in February of 1912.  In 1913, he would have likely still been living at their homestead, on Lee's Creek, Crawford Co. You can look across the Creek and see Oklahoma.  Their youngest son and his family lived on part of the homestead so would have been nearby  The home they lived in there has been gone many, many years and no pictures have survived.

My great, great grandparents, Joseph Christopher Wood (1841-1927) and his wife Letitia Ann Mayberry (1844-1926) were also living in Uniontown, Crawford Co, in 1913.  They were the first household enumerated in Union Township in 1910 and they were on the same page with the Hays family and the family of their grandson, James Monroe Comstock.  Grandpa Wood was the postmaster of Uniontown for some years and may have been at this time.  Living with Joseph and Letitia in 1910 were a son Andrew, age 41, a barber, and a granddaughter, Mabel Burchfield, age 18.  Andrew would probably have still been with them in early 1913 as he didn't marry until 1914.  The house they lived in also burned some years ago.  No pictures have survived.

My paternal grandparents also lived in Crawford Co, AR, but in another part of the county.  My parents did not meet until they were adults and my mother had moved back to the small town of Chester in Crawford Co to teach school.  These grandparents were Ray Weymouth Adamson (1884-1958) and Mary May Harrison (1894-1929).  They were married July of 1912, but in 1910 they were living in the same household because Ray, his mother and a brother were apparently renting rooms [or perhaps a cabin] from the Harrisons.  As newlyweds, I have no idea where they lived in early 1913 except they were in Chester, or nearby.  It's quite possible they still lived with her parents.

My great grandparents, Elisha Shelton Harrison (1850-1929) and Edith Jane Irwin (1855-1932) were living in Chester, Crawford Co, AR in 1910 - there were three families enumerated in the same household and two of them as part of the same family.  It was either a very big house or possibly they had a cabin or two on the same farm.  In 1910, they had been married for 34 years and had twelve children, ten of them still living.  Several were still living at home - son Frederick was 28, Edwin was 24, Benjamin 19, and twin daughters, Margaret and Mary [my grandmother], were age 16.   The Adamsons were enumerated as a different family, but with the same household number.  My great grandmother, Mary Elizabeth "Molly" (Harmon) Adamson (1849-1912) was living there with her sons, Ray age 25, and Clair, age 17.  My great grandparents Adamson had lived in Rogers, Benton Co, AR about 50 miles from Chester but my great-grandfather had died in January of 1910 and his obituary mentions that he had fruit orchards near Chester. Perhaps Molly had gone there to live temporarily to take care of the orchards, but she died back in Rogers in 1912.  A Tribble family was listed as part of the same family as the Adamsons, but they were not kin to either the Adamsons or the Harrisons.  The only reasonable explanation other than simply an error on the part of the enumerator is that there might have been two houses on the Harrison property - one that the Harrisons lived in, the other a duplex.  The Harrisons & Tribbles are marked as renters, and the widow Adamson as an owner.  As I write this, I realize I should be examining land records for this time period!  The Harrisons had been in Chester since the 1870's - I feel sure they owned their property.  I have no pictures of the homes.

I had one great, great grandparent still living in January of 1913 on the paternal side as well.  He is the only of my direct living relatives to be somewhere other than Crawford County in Arkansas at that time. Ira Perrin Irwin was born 1831 in Ohio and died in August of 1913 in Schuyler County, IL.  He had married a second time to a lady quite a bit younger than he was.  In 1910 they were in Bainbridge Township in Schuyler Co - Ira was age 79, his wife, Kate, 68.  His obituary states he was still living in Bainbridge at the time of his death.  I have no pictures from Illinois.

This was a very interesting exercise.  Crawford County was a very rural area - then and much of the county is today.  Most of the homes of the period were basic cabins on homesteads, or those in town, wood frame homes.  Any existing fire department was a bucket brigade and I know at least two of the family homes were destroyed by fire - both incidents happened after my families had moved.  I have only two pictures and one of those was a home lived in a few years after 1913.  One hundred years is a long time...

Found Myself in the 1940 CENSUS

I was born 4 January 1940 so anticipated finding my little baby self in the 1940 census.  I had an address from my birth certificate in Nashville, Tennessee.  I used that address and Steve Morse's wonderful website and found the Enumeration District some weeks before the Census we released. I was already an indexer for FamilySearch so I thought I was good to go.

I manged to get on one of the websites late evening of April 2nd and went straight to that ED in Nashville - I found the address and it was obviously an apartment house.  Alas and alack!  My parents and I were not to be found. I could only conclude that perhaps they moved into a larger place to accommodate me.  Hoping it was nearby, I viewed every page of that ED, and the one before, and the one after it.  Nada, nothing.  Would have to wait for an index.

I have indexed some 8500 persons in the 1940 census to date.  Most of those in the state of Tennessee, but never did I download a page for Davidson County, or any part of Nashville.  I watched for any of the sites to post Tennessee with an index - I read several Blogs that follow the progress.  Somehow I missed the first announcement when Ancestry.com posted Tennessee.  I was away most of May and didn't read the Blogs too closely during that time.  However, this morning in a recap of what sites had what states posted, I realized that Tennessee was indeed available on Ancestry.

I FOUND IT.   Apparently nowhere near the first apartment, but living in a three-family dwelling was my little family.  The circled x revealed that neither my father nor mother had given the information; two other ladies in the building had, so perhaps one of them "filled in the blanks".  Almost every entry had an error - but of course I know we hadn't been in that place long so possibly they just didn't know us very well.  But one wonders why they would presume so much.  They did spell the last name correctly - Adamson.

This is such a good example of why any researcher must use multiple sources for their information.  There are so many things I could have interpreted so wrong from this census.

Here are the errors:
     My father's given names were Weymouth Donald, but he was called "Ernie" [no, I've no idea why - my mother left him within a year or so].  His given names are listed as Wm. F.  Not even close.  Yes - I have his birth and death certificates - and other census and voter's records from California.  I know his name.
     My mother's name was JoEllen - they do have her as Joe Ellen.  In indexing, I've discovered that many people spelled the feminine Jo the same as the masculine Joe.  Her name was actually Josie Ellen, named for her two grandmothers - my maternal grandmother, who named her, told me.  I was lucky enough to have this grandmother until I was age 33.  And, yes, I've found her in 1940 - living in the very house I expected to find her in, along with my granddad, and three of my mother's brothers.
     My name is Karen Kay and my mother always called me by both names until after she married my stepfather.  Some of my older relatives called me Karen Kay their whole lives.  My birth certificate plainly says Karen Kay. On this census, I am "Kay B."  For "baby"?  Who knows?
     My father is listed as age 23 - he was 25.  Mother is listed as 22 - she was 24.  I am 3 months which is about right, since the enumerator was there on April 3rd.  Again, I know these facts from other records.
     My father is shown with 2 years of high school - no, he graduated - he played basketball in high school.  My mother's brothers knew him and told me this.  Mother is shown with 1 year of high school, but she had gone to college three years, long enough to get her teacher's certificate and had taught for a year before she married.  Yes, I have corroborative information.   Interesting that everyone else in the household, including the two ladies who had given the information, had only an 8th grade education.  Maybe they just couldn't conceive higher education.
     We are all given the birthplace of Tennessee - but I'm the only one who was born there.  Both of my parents were born in Crawford County, Arkansas - as were all their parents, and some of their grandparents before them.
     My parents are said to have been living in the "same place" in 1935. No, they weren't even married until 1939.  My mom was likely in college at Arkansas State, Russellville, Arkansas in 1935.  My father was living with his married sister in Chester, Crawford County, Arkansas - his mother has died and his father gone to California.
   
I did get something new from this census.  They were paying $10 a month rent.  My father is listed as working as a clerk in a dry goods store - I had never known this.  He later moved back to Chester and worked for many years as a concrete finisher.  Mother had worked for 16 weeks as a restaurant waitress - she worked while she was pregnant with me.  She had told me that herself.  It has been a horrible experience as my mother was painfully shy at that time in her life, but they needed the money.  No pregnant teacher was allowed in a classroom back then - and not in Arkansas even when I was in school in the late 1940's and 1950's.

And, would you believe I was one of the two selected - on line 66 - for additonal information.  But there was nothing else to say about a three-month-old!

1940 Census Indexer

1940 First Indexer Award        

The displayer of this badge certifies that he or she is a proud indexer of the 1940 Census.

1. Name: Kay Haden
2. First Indexed: 2 April 2012
3. First Batch: Oregon
4. Favorite experience: The first one - just knowing I was taking part.
5. I learned about this award from the blog of: The Ancestry Insider (http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2012/04/1940-first-indexer-award.html)
If you want to help index, visit http://indexing.familysearch.org.

Award Rules To earn this award you must index or arbitrate at least one batch of the 1940 Census. Once you have submitted a batch:

1. Copy this entire post, including the rules.
2. Replace the answers to the questions.
3. If you wish, replace the badge with a different size or background. Pick from the choices at http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/2012/04/1940-census-award-badges.html
4. Post on your blog.
5. Display the award with pride alongside other awards and badges on your site.

1940 Census

I certainly don't want to be left out of the discussions regarding the 1940 census.  Here is my experience to date.

I am a FamilySearch indexer and I did index three pages (120 names) on the first day - April 2.  They came online late in the afternoon.  My goal is to index at least three pages per day for the month of April.  I'll be away most of the month of May without computer access so I'll index more during April if at all possible.  I'm just picking whatever state pops up first - because my own states of interest - Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas - aren't available.  I was already an indexer, but these images are clear and readable - they are a pleasure to index.

Now, I was born in January of 1940 so I should be in this census.  The Instructions were to include those born prior to 1 April 1940 so that would be me.  I had the address of an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee, that was on my Birth Certificate in January.  So early-on I went to the Steve Morse website and found the Enumeration District for that address - only one choice.  I was ready!  None of the sites had Tennessee available on April 2nd.  By Tuesday, the 3rd, Tennessee was up and I hurried to that Enumeration District.  Alas, alas - I found the address [obviously an apartment building which I expected] in a very short amount of time and the surrounding addresses reflected the block I had found through Google maps and Steve Morse's website.  No question this matched the address on my birth certificate.  But my parents and myself weren't there anymore.  Looks like they moved soon after my birth.  I'll have to wait for an Index for Nashville.  So sad!  I'll probably be clicking through that whole Enumeration District and those surrounding, as I have time - hoping they did not move far.

The success story.  My husband was born in early 1939 so should be age one in the 1940 Census.  I didn't know for sure, but believed his family was living in Ladonia, Fannin County, Texas in 1940 - by the next year they had moved to Arkansas.  Without doubt his grandparents and great-grandparents were living in Ladonia, in 1940.  On Tuesday, April 3rd, I saw that Fannin County, Texas was up on Ancestry.com and had only a single Enumeration District - 74-21.  Not surprising - I've visited this little town many times.  Was bigger then than now, but never largely populated.  There were only 36 images.  On 3B there they were!  My mother-in-law and father-in-law, my husband's older brother, age four, and one-year-old Robert D. Haden.   A poignant moment - my husband passed away in 2004 - the others deceased several years earlier.  From that small family only my husband's younger brother - not yet born in 1940 - is still living.  They were renting a house at 80 Church Street in Ladonia.  The next time I go back I can probably find the very house - and I'll be checking Google Earth.  My father-in-law was driving a truck for a wholesale vegetable company.  I happen to know that was his father's business - they grew a lot of sweet peppers and onions.  My husband's brother, when consulted at the time of his birth, had suggested they name my husband "Onion Plant".

With only 36 images for the whole town, I quickly found my husband's Haden grandparents and great-grandparents, as well as the families of two great uncles on the Haden side.  I found several cousins of my mother-in-law's family but surprisingly her parents aren't there.  However, they were farmers and it's likely they are in another Enumeration District outside the town - they have always been elusive in the Censuses.  I found Dr. Sam Fry who delivered my husband - rather he arrived just after the birth.  He was my mother-in-law's uncle on the maternal side.  Dr. Fry failed to note the baby's name on his birth certificate - years later when we ordered a copy, we discovered my husband was Baby Boy Haden.  Would you believe I own the antique oak hall tree that stood in Dr. Fry's reception area?   Dr. Fry had no children and when he died, his sister, my husband's maternal grandmother, inherited that piece of furniture and later gave it to us because of the very curious connection to the good doctor.

I have work to do - I did not download all of the above images and I'm sure in my haste to view the pages, I missed other people I'll recognize when I take the time.  My husband's families, both maternal and paternal, lived in this little town for over a century.  I also have two counties in Arkansas to visit....

Happy hunting to all of you!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ancestral Name Roulette

It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) What year was your paternal grandfather born?  Divide this number by 100 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."


My paternal grandfather was Ray Weymouth Adamson, born in 1884.  Divided by 100 and rounded off that would be roulette number 19.

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel"). Who is that person?


Emma Elizabeth Miller, a second great grandmother is 19 in my ahnentaful report.  She was born 1825, Indiana, and died 1871.  

3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number."


Elizabeth, as she appears in most records, was a June bride, married in Boone County, Indiana, 17 Jun 1847, to William Alexander Harmon.  Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850.


Her parents were William and Nancy (Meek) Miller.  A biography of William Miller listed Elizabeth as one of his daughters and stated she was deceased.   Early life and times in Boone County, Indiana, Harden & Spahr, Lebanon,  Indiana. May, 1887, p. 455.

Elizabeth and her husband William Harmon are buried Salem Cemetery, Eagle Township, Boone County, Indiana.  Cemeteries of Boone County, Indiana, Vol. 1 , Rosemany Peterman and Marilyn Walker, compilers,  p.217-218 

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post.


I just did!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - The Ancestors GeneaMeme

The GeneaMeme just looked like too much fun to pass up!
The Ancestors' Geneameme
The list should be annotated in the following manner:

Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item

1. Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents [Andrew Jackson Adamson, Rachel Ann Garner, William Alexander Harmon, Emma Elizabeth Miller, Nathaniel M. Harrison, Sarah Ann Gabbard, Ira Perrin Irwin, Elisabeth Ann Avery, Elijah Thomas Comstock, Miranda Jane Brown, Joseph Christopher Wood, Letitia Ann Mayberry, Elias B. Hays, Martha Frances Crutcher, Peter Buell Allen, Mary Rowena Hoskins.  I can name my husband's 16, too...]

2. Can name over 50 direct ancestors  [Absolutely!  Ahnentafel reveals 59 by the end of the fourth generation - one of my German lines has been traced back about 14 generations.]

3. Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents [Have only the 4 on my mother's side.  My mother left my father when I was two - she cut up all the pictures of him.]

4. Have an ancestor who was married more than three times  [Have a sister who's been married 4 times ...does that count?  One of my gg grandma's had a sister that married 5 times - each one was a neighbor and she got his land when he died.   Hmmm.... ]

5. Have an ancestor who was a bigamist   [YES - my ggg grandfather Ephraim Comstock left a wife in Kentucky and married another in Tennessee - the abandoned wife married again, too.  No divorce.]

6. Met all four of my grandparents  [My birth father's mother died at age 32 of pneumonia - I never knew his father who had gone off to California and never, no he never, returned.]

7. Met one or more of my great-grandparents   [Two.  My maternal grandmother's father lived until I was 11; my maternal grandfather's mother lived until after my first child was born.  She died in 1963 - we had five generations.]

8. Named a child after an ancestor   [All three of my children have a middle name from an ancestor.]

9. Bear an ancestor's given name/s    [I wish....  My mother heard my name, Karen Kay, from a total stranger the day before I was born and stuck me with it.]

10. Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland   [Most of them....]

11. Have an ancestor from Asia   [No]

12. Have an ancestor from Continental Europe   [Germany - two family lines]

13. Have an ancestor from Africa  [No]

14. Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer   [Lots of farmers - some were storekeepers and schoolteachers, too, but they had farms.]

15. Have an ancestor who had large land holdings (what's large? Larger than 40 acres? Yep. Larger than 640 acres? Probably.)       [Just small farms....]

16. Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi   [My gggg grandfather Richard Jones was a Union Baptist Minister in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.  I had lots of Quaker ancestors - they could all preach if they wanted.]

17. Have an ancestor who was a midwife    [Doubt it.]

18. Have an ancestor who was an author   [had some wannabees...]

19. Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones     [YES - all three, Smith, Murphy, and Jones and two families of Brown that are not related!]

20. Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng   [No]

21. Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X   [No]

22. Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z    [No.  My gg grandma Wood has asister Zella.]

23. Have an ancestor born on 25th December    [I'm cheating - my husband's grandfather, James Frank Pippin, was born on Christmas day, 1892]

24. Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day    [I was born on Janury 4th - almost New Year's....]

25. Have blue blood in your family lines (supposedly if Royal Descendants book is right)     [We thought for awhile my husband did, but the line is faulty....  Even though it goes through a person approved for Colonial Dames ...DNA indicates not!  I never could make the line work out anyway, I always thought something was very wrong - people just not in the right places at the right time.]

26. Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth   [Nope]

27. Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth    [Nope]

28. Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century   [all but a few]

29. Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier [several]

30. Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents   [The best one is my great grandfather Mon Comstock's permission for my grandfather to marry my grandmother.  It's written on his store letterhead.]

31. Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X    [Yes.  And everything else.  My Samuel Brown in Old Pendleton couldn't sign his name - he was the only one of five Sam Browns living there, that could not sign his name, so I was able to separate and identify him.]

32. Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university   [Likely not - I don't know of any]

33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence   [The same ggg grandfather that was a bigamist was also convicted of forgery in Breckinridge Co, KY, and sentenced to a two to four year prison term, but was found to be "not in that Commonwealth".  I know where he was, but I'm not tellin'.]

34. Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime   [They say an ancestor isn't an ancestor unless they are direct.  But I have two uncles of sorts who were murdered in the same family line.  My 2nd great granduncle James Irving/Ervin Comstock was poisoned in October of 1893 - either by his second wife or his stepson.  They were never convicted.  He was a brother to the criminal & bigamist above.  My great grandfather's brother, Hardy Comstock, was shot & killed by his neighbor Chester Lemon who turned himself in.  Lemon was acquitted because Hardy was reported to have been seeing Lemon's wife - made the killing justified in 1936.

35. Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine  [Both in Blogs and in local genealogical publications.]

36. Have published a family history online or in print  [Just online]

37. Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries   [Most of my ancestor's homes were burned during the Civil War.  I would like to visit Providence, RI where the Comstocks came from, even though there is no home there now.

38. Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family  [One of my husband's family homes is still owned by descendants of a different child - homesteaded in 1848.  The house has been added on to, but the original part is still there.]

39. Have a family bible from the 19th Century   [They burned in the fires during the Civil War.  My husband's great grandma was reported to have a Bible, but it disappeared and no one will own up to having it.]

40. Have a pre-19th century family bible   [I wish!]

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ahnentafel Roulette!

I haven't participated in Saturday Night fun for a long time, but I decided to do so tonight.

My great-grandfather, James Monroe "Mon" Comstock, was born 23 Feb 1860, so he would be 151 years old.  Divided by 4 and rounded off that would be number 38 in my Ahnentafel.

Number 38 is William Miller, a third great grandfather and here are three facts about him.

William Miller was born 30 May 1781, in North Carolina.  The exact place and his parents are unknown to me.  He married Nancy Meek probably about 1808.  William and Nancy moved to Boone County, Indiana, about 1830, settling in the Eagle Creek coomunity as one of the first settlers. Birth places of their children indicate they probably lived somewhere else in Indiana as early as 1815 - and they quite likely spent a few years in Tennessee after leaving North Carolina.

There were at least ten children - the ninth of which was my 2nd great grandmother, Emma Elizabeth Miller, born 10 Jul 1825.

William and Nancy (Meek) Miller are buried in the Eagle Village Cemetery, Zionsville, Boone County.  William Miller died 25 Aug 1844, aged 63 years, 2 months, and 26 days.  Nancy died four years later.  Their graves, including pictures of the stones, can be found on FindAGrave.

My Own DNA

I have just received the results of my own FamilyFinder DNA test at FamilyTree DNA.  I had quite a few matches and several of them have already led to the discovery of new cousins, particularly among the Gabbard-Baker-Smith-Bowman families that lived in several Kentucky coutines - Madison, Clay, Owsley, Jackson, etc.  Some of new cousins are related in two or more ways.

Then there are those intriguing matches which don't seem to match - some of these are at the 3rd cousin level which suggests we share great, great grandparents ....but we can't find any surnames at all in common, much less great, great grandparents.  One really starts to wonder what some of our ancestors were up to!

At any rate, I've been busy all day, comparing notes and discovering new information and new friends.  The above families in Kentucky were all quite far back and I've not included them on my webpage in the past, but after today, I will be doing just that.

I don't pretend to understand all the ramifications of the results of the test, but I do know this:  my DNA is "out there" for comparison.  I have also ordered a mtDNA test because I can only go back five generations on my direct female line to a lady named Mary Rowena Hoskins.  She seemingly had no family, but I'd really like to find one for her.

I wish I had a crystal ball and could see what the future holds regarding DNA studies.

Happy New Year!

The Christmas Decorations are put away and it's 2011.  Hopefully I'll be back to researching soon.  Meanwhile you can check the Labels or the Blog Archives.