Holidays

As the holiday season is in full swing, a lot of us are spending time with our families. Use this time to take a minute (or two) to remember family members who have passed and to share stories about ancestors you did not have the opportunity to meet. My family seems to shrink year after year and sadness sometimes overshadows our hearts when we remember those losses. But, let us give thanks for those around us and let us share our cheerfulness with others. This holiday season, take some time away from the hustle and bustle  to label family members in old photographs, or listen and learn a new family legend told by an older relative.

Our relatives are tremendous sources for family history information, and if you're just starting out, living relatives should be the start of your journey. Tracing your roots is easier when you have others with whom to share your knowledge.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Good Luck tracing your roots!

Mary Boleyn, c. 1500-1543

Yes, THE Mary Boleyn, aka "the other Boleyn girl." She was the sister of King Henry VIII's second wife, Anne "the most happy." I am directly descended from Mary Boleyn Carey twice: through her daughter, Catherine, and her son, Henry. Subsequently, she is my 13th great grandmother twice. To put this relationship into perspective, I found this handy chart that can be accessed here http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pamonval/howbig.html . The chart calculates how many grandparents we have in each generation through the 15th great grandparents. It's pretty mind-blowing.

Generation #	Relationship	No. in generation	Accumulated Total
1	Parents	2	2
2	Grand Parents	4	6
3	Great Grandparents	8	14
4	2 X Great grandparents	16	30
5	3 X Great grandparents	32	62
6	4 X Great grandparents	64	126
7	5 X Great grandparents	128	254
8	6X Great grandparents	256	510
9	7X Great grandparents	512	1,022
10	8 X Great grandparents	1,024	2,046
11	9 X Great grandparents	2,048	4,094
12	10 X Great grandparents	4,096	8,190
13	11 X Great grandparents	8,192	16,382
14	12 X Great grandparents	16,384	32,766
15	13 X Great grandparents	32,768	65,534
16	14 X Great grandparents	65,536	131,070
17	15 X Great grandparents	131,072	262,142

That's right. Mary Boleyn is two of my 32,768 13th great grandparents! This is why genealogy takes some people a lifetime. I would have to track down over 400,000 people to complete a pedigree chart that goes back 17 generations. Depressing and exciting all at once!

On another very cool note, Mary's daughter Catherine (12th great-grandmother) is accepted by many historians as the illegitimate daughter of King Henry VIII and her son Henry (my 12th great-grandfather) has also been speculated to have been Henry's son. That means Henry VIII is pretty well accepted to have been my 13th great grandfather at least once, and maybe twice.

I'll briefly describe the lineage for Mary Boleyn within both lines:

                                                         Mary Boleyn 1500-1543

Catherine Carey (1524-1569)                                                                  Henry Carey (1526-1596)
Lady Anne Knoylls (1557-1608)                                                             John Carey (?-1617)
Gov John West (1590-1669)                                                                   Thomas Carey (1613-1687)
Col John West (1632-1689)                                                                    Thomas C Carey (1633-1681)
Cap Thomas West (1670-1714)                                                              Thomas Carey (1666-1720)
Thomas West (1690-1777)                         married                                  Bridget Carey (?-1777?)
                                                        Thomas West (1740-1802)

                                                        Thomas West (1760-1848)     

                                                        John F West (1796-1885)

                                                        Barney West (1827-1914)

                                                        James West (1858-?)

                                                        Hazel West (1917-1974)

                                                        My Grandma (1949-living)

                                                        My Mom (1967-living)

                                                        Me (1987-living)      

There's more to come along these lines. In the West part of my family (my great-grandmother was born a West), there are several noble and royal lines. Once you find one noble or royal, you usually find an abundance. I've also learned that many of these aristocratic lines ended up being American colonial settlers. I thought my family was full of recent immigrants, but I was wrong. A lot of my family lines end up being colonial. 

                                                      

Tracing my Roots

I have begun to find fascinating facts about several of my family lines. These family histories date back to the colonial days of America and some date back to medieval Europe. With my recent family history discoveries I have had to change my perception of certain family traits and mottoes. For the longest time I believed my tree was tenuously rooted in a dusty, red clay-soil with no hope of recovering a past that involved illiterate, undocumented farmers and housewives. Recently, I have begun to uncover a treasure trove of ancient family lines that I hope to share with anyone willing to listen.

To begin, I have to preface these fantastic discoveries by telling of my most recent ancestors. My grandmother grew up in the 1950s and 60s with no running water or electricity. To put this into perspective, color TV began broadcasting in the early1950s. My grandmother had never seen white bread, or any other pre-packaged food until her marriage in the mid-1960s. Put bluntly, she was poor and inexperienced. Her parents were uneducated and believed in working hard, playing harder and dying young. She has told me that the only thing she ever learned from her parents and grandparents was how to survive, that they were too busy feeding the family to worry about bettering their children's lives. I am using this brief description to put into context my grandmother's rich, noble, and royal family history.

More to come...

Cinderella Vankirk, 1855-????

Cinderella Vankirk was born in May 1855 in Virginia to Arthur Vankirk of Ohio and Elonvia (maiden name unknown) of Virginia. The surname Vankirk is, according to Ancestry.com, 100% German. Cinderella is my third great-grandmother through my paternal side. The lineage is as follows: Cinderella Vankirk was the mother of Mary J. Woodruff, who was the mother of Thelma Clotine Sayles, who was the mother of my grandfather, who was the father of my father, who is the father of yours truly.

Cinderella married Cornelius C. Woodruff on February 24, 1876 in Sangamon County, Illinois. They had two children (according to the 1900 census): Mary J. in 1887 and Marion in 1891. The 1900 federal census places Cindrella in Champaign, Illinois at the age of 45. I have yet to find a record of her death, but she may have died between 1900 and 1910.

In the 1904 directory for Champaign, Illinois I discovered an entry for Cornelius Woodruff, electrician, living with Mary Woodruff (who would have been 17 years old at the time.) I then discovered a Nov. 1903 document from the "Judge's Miscellaneous Journal" that states Cinderella Woodruff was committed to a hospital for the insane in Kankakee, Ill in November of 1903. After that, she disappears off the grid. There is no record of her death in the state of Illinois.

I will add to this entry if I find anymore information. I'm currently (yes, like right now!) searching through the 1910 census record for the Kankakee State Hospital. Sometimes genealogy is detective work...

May Lindley Nelson diary continued

Here are a few more entries from the Nelson diary. I couldn't help transcribing the events of the 1885 summer months. 

June 1885 

 Davis* called (he is sergeant and wore his uniform) and said he was disappointed in me.

 *Davis appears in several earlier entries as a family friend. I assume he is close in age to May, perhaps a few years older. He features in many routine entries, especially ones concerning school dances, driving around town with friends, and parties. 

 June 1885

 L. wants me to marry him--never saw anyone so passionate and jealous in my life. Uncle D. won’t let L. come anymore says he is wild and I can’t go with him. He says he loves me “above heaven and Earth.” And talks dreadful. (I don’t like the way he talks.) says I am his first, best and only darling, etc. says will get married at the parsonage and [defer] Uncle’s folks. and my people too. he says Papa and Mamma wouldn’t approve of him and I don’t truly suppose they would. 

 June 1885

 I told L. not to come as it was best not to, since they all objected to him I think I spoke ladylike and nice. but he--well he swore at me and threatened me! dared to. I called Uncle & he came in to show him out and behold! he was no where to be seen.

 June 5 1885

 Went driving with Richard. he told me to be afraid of L. that he was dreadful. asked me to write to him. 

 June 1885

 C. came up & bid me farewell and asked to write to me etc. etc. and gave me his photo. talked sentimental! (he’s that kind.)

 June 1885 

 Anna and I attend Regents Reception. L. came up to me (he lives in Atlanta, Georgia) and asked me to shake hands and forgive him before he went away. also Anna, whom he had talked about because she told me about him. and dear old U of I. Good bye, his bad ways. 

 July 1885

 Maplewood again.
I receive the largest package of letters each week or so. Received a box of confectionary from C.W. Foster of Chicago__the violinest. 

 Aug 1885

 Have not answered Mr. C.’s last letter, think I shall not--he is so very irreligious and kind of cynical. Mamma thinks I ought to stop writing so I will. 

 Aug 1885

 Received such a lovely gold bangle with my initials on one side and June 5 ‘85 on the other also the most loving, boyish, trusting letter I ever received saying “I can trust you dearest--I feel sure you will be true to me” etc. (I never promised anything though.) I wish to enjoy myself--not to get married for a long--while. 

 Nov. 1885

 We attend the Beacher lecture. I go with Mr. G. jolly time and Oh. how fine the lecture was.

 Dec. 1885

 Albert sent me some flowers from New Mexico. We have sleighing parties here often from Urbana to Philo. 

 Christmas

 A dear, quiet day at Maplewood. 

 New Years 1886

 A nice day Arie and Ruth are here.

 Feb 1886

 Chas Parkman and sister organized a society and wish me to belong. it is the H.L.S.

 Feb 1886 

 Oh the fun we have at the H.L.S. ! Our paper and dialogues, etc. And the time L.H. fell over in the chair and broke it! I laugh and laugh all the time when I think of how he looked!

 Feb 1886

Anna wrote a letter to me. (we correspond I think of her as next-to-Nell in my affections. a dear friend indeed and always was such.) telling me not to have anything to do with Albert Richards as her brother who was with him in Mexico knew something against him. I asked for all my letters back--they were truly friendship letters still I would like them back. he is not the dear nice boy I thought him so I will have nothing to do with him. Anna would know best about him anyway. He wrote a terrible letter and said Anna had lied and that he was coming back to find out. 



 *Transcribed from the Anna May Lindley Nelson diary located at the Champaign County Historical Archives of The Urbana Free Library. Materials are to be used for educational purposes and are not meant to infringe upon copyright laws. Permission is required before using these materials for publication. 

May Nelson's diary

Anna May Lindley Nelson, ca. 1870-1931

Brief Description: 

May Lindley Nelson's diary begins as that of a young girl recounting some of her earliest and fondest memories. Her diary entries date from 1877-1909. The first half of the diary describes silly, girlish activities, such as the number of callers she has received over a single summer. She also recounts heartbreaking tragedy, like the loss of her eldest brother (24 years old) and her youngest sister (7 years old) within two months of one another. Both frivolity and tragedy are depicted with a young girl's fervor and vivacity making the diary a fascinating historical artifact for the reader's immersion into late nineteenth century life.

Brief Bio:

Anna May Lindley was born in 1870 or 1871 to Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Lindley, who were early pioneers of the Philo, Illinois Township. She married Urbana jeweler John R. Nelson in 1890 and the two resided in Urbana until 1920 when they moved to Hollywood, California. She died in 1931 in Hollywood, California at the age of 60 after a battle with stomach cancer.

A few early entries transcribed:

September 1877

I remember farther back than this, but not very well. One of the things I remember was riding a big sled through deep, deep snow, cuddled up close and warm to Mamma, also Papa used to sing me to sleep on his breast with some old fashioned church song, Old Langsyn [sic], and how he told us stories--the “eagle story” for one, and always took our part when we were naughty and deserved punishing. I also remember when Josie was born. One thing I cannot forget is how extremely mischievous and full of pranks, romantic, exciting and otherwise I was. The dear old Christmas times, how we hung our little stockings and the lovely things old Santa Claus gave us, that wonderful feeling of mystery and joy. I remember those times well. And when I attended beautiful festivals and wanted to stay in Papa’s arms the entire evening because I was afraid. I use [sic] to speak some and can remember yet how gratifying the applaus [sic] was, I was so little then. And dear Aunt Mattie and her stories and many, many other things, after all, but I will commence at Sept. 1877 with our dear old Pickwick Society. I read of it in “Little Women” and straightway organized a society--Nell Edwards my one dearest and best chum with her sister Minn, and my sisters Bert and Josie with myself constituted the society and what fun we had.

Sept 1880

Our brother Melville died. Ah, it seemed terrible.
Melville Watson Lindley--died
5 o’ clock a.m. Mond. Oct. [?] 1880.
(he died a Christian.) Aged--24.

Nov. 1880.

Josie Lindley--died. Thur Nov. 16. 1880
aged. 7. yrs.
The darling baby of the family. truly. This year is terrible for us all!

Sept 1884

My people say I can go to College if I will give up on M., they think it is all for my good. M. asked me to elope (think of it.) with him. I told him I knew nothing of housework, how to run a house I mean, so he would not like me but he said he did not want a housekeeper but a wife to love. He also said he would love me...and be a help to me through my life and that I should have all the joy, pleasure and love that he could give “God help him” he said. I told him to wait and maybe I would love him after I had been away and had a chance in the world, but he said when I saw others I would forget and that if I gave him up it would be almost death to him as he had never loved anyone else so well he begged me so hard. I hardly knew what to say.

Feb 1885

M. has gone out west he wrote a not very complimentary or kind letter first.

May 1885

Mr. Piper called to bid me goodbye and coaxed so hard for my photo said if I would write to him, etc, etc, would bring down the loveliest ring he could find in Chicago to me if I would take it. And a lot more. but I couldn't let him have the photo. I like him because he is a thorough gentleman.

The boy said he loved me and was going to ask me___for he told one of them so, etc. but, I at least never gave him any cause to think I was in love with him I never never will again do as I did with Mr. P. and then have them accusing you and calling you that dreaded thing "a flirt"!





All transcribed material was retrieved from original documents housed at the Champaign County Historical Archives of The Urbana Free Library. Duplication is provided for educational use and is not intended to violate copyright laws.

Diaries and Journals

I'm currently working on an article for the Champaign County (Illinois) Genealogical Society's quarterly publication about using diaries and journals as a resource for family history research. For the past two months I have been constructing two artificial collections for our county archives, one consisting of diaries and the other other autograph albums. I can't believe I get paid to look at these awesome pieces of history!

Diaries are a great source for family history information if you are lucky enough to inherit one. The diaries I have been working with in the archives span the years 1857-1958--that's over a century of diary entries! I've chosen three diarists to focus on for my article, all three of whom were either Champaign County pioneers or descendants thereof. Due to intellectual property rights, I can't publish the article here, but I can share my research. I will post a few highlights from these collections soon!

Tabitha Dale, 1769-1849

Pedigree and brief bio

Tabitha Dale is my fifth great grandmother on my mother's side. Here is the pedigree: Tabitha Dale, mother of John West, father of Barney West, father of James West, father of Cora West, mother of my grandmother, mother of my mother, mother of yours truly.

Tabitha Dale was born on August 12, 1769, in Snow Hill, Maryland, the daughter of John and Tabitha Melbourne Dale. She married Thomas West on November 30, 1791, in Sussex, Delaware. They had one child--that I know of--during their marriage, John Franklin West, in 1796. She died on March 2, 1849, in De Kalb, Tennessee, having lived a long life of 79 years, and was buried in Alexandria, Tennessee.

Records and using Find A Grave

Since Tabitha was born in the eighteenth century, there are no federal census records to verify her birth, life, and death. One tip I often give to beginning genealogists is to work backwards, in other words start with the ancestor's death date and work back towards their birth. I often begin these types of searches on FindAGrave.com. This website is growing from the addition of tens of thousands of entries daily. Researchers can search for a grave or memorial by the peron's name, date of birth and/or death, and location. Researchers can also volunteer and add information to the site in the form of memorial creations or by adding photos. Members also request photos and those requests are filled by volunteers. Once you find out when and where a person died (and often his or her birth date and family relations), you can continue your search for vital records.

More to come soon!

After a one-month hiatus to finish out the summer, I'm back! I plan to post a lot this fall and spring, and forgive me if I post about graduate school related topics as well as genealogy in general. Here are some commitments I am making to the Tracing Your Roots blog:

-beginning in September I will be attending monthly genealogy society meetings and will blog about special topics addressed during those meetings

-I will post about an "ancestor of the day" at least once per week

-I will discuss current and ongoing projects at the Champaign County Historical Archives

-I hope to attend at least one conference this fall/spring and will blog about that experience and any tips I learn from panels and/or workshops!

Kermit Krugh from The Homerian

Since I haven't posted in a while (sorry!!!), I though I would add something I found in the archives the other day pertaining to my husband's family. Here are some yearbook pictures of his grandfather, Kermit. Unfortunately Grandpa Kermit died of a heart attack in his 40's, decades before my husband's birth.

 Above: Kermit's freshman year, 1943. He is the farthest to the right in the top row.

Above: Kermit's sophomore year in 1944. He is the second from the left in the first row.

And, my favorite, Kermit's senior picture in 1946. He looks so similar to my husband when he was a senior in high school that it's a little unnerving! 

Local county archives are a great place for digging up old yearbook pictures. A lot of times searching for the pictures are for altruistic or nostalgic reasons, but they can be great additions to your genealogy collections. This is especially true when you find a picture that looks very similar to a living descendant! 

Isabella Worth 1804-1886

Isabella Worth is my 5th great-grandmother on my paternal side. She was born on 27 January 1804 in Tuscarawas, Ohio. Her parents are unknown at this time. On 4 October 1821, Isabella married Absolom Kent in Harrison County, Ohio; she was 17 years old. In the 1850 census she is listed as the wife of Abraham Kent, most likely a transcription error. She had 7 children living with her at the time ranging in age from 2 years old to 22 years old.

Norma Faller from ancestry.com provides this bit of history on the Kent family:

"When Sally Dugan Kent met her husband, George Clabaugh, both were living in Owen County, Indiana.  They married there and spent some months there before moving north to St. Joseph/Marshall County Line.  At the end of her life, Isabella Worth Kent (mom) came to live with Sally and George and when they buried Isabella in the Fair Cemetery, they made sure she got one of the largest tombstones there.  It's entirely possible that Isabella herself asked that her daughters, Margaret and Sally, who were all living together in this one small farmhouse, to make sure her father had a nice tombstone over his grave.  The Clabaugh's themselves seemed to take great pride in the tombstone which was to cover their final resting place.  Isabella has a "Plinth" or "Oblisk", I'm not sure how you would describe it.  It's made from that ubquitious white sandstone which is the bane of all modern genealogists as it wears down so fast and I've been told it's not very readable today." Her memorial is pictured below.

Isabella Worth Kent died on 11 January 1886 in Marshall County, Indiana. She was two weeks shy of her 82nd birthday. 

Soundex and Miracode

What is Soundex?

Soundex is a phonetic coding system used to link surnames that are spelled differently yet sound alike (i.e., homophones). The American Soundex code was adopted by the federal government in the 1930's to index federal and state census records from 1880, 1900 and 1910. It was originally created using a system of handwritten index cards, which have over time been microfilmed and/or digitized for current use. The necessity for developing such a system is apparent to anyone who has conducted genealogical work involving U.S. census records. If a surname was spelled in a non-standard way on the census, Soundex links that name to the standard spelling and other variations of that name found in the census record. Here is an example taken from The Soundex Reference Guide (1990):

Name       Soundex Code
Stewart     S363
Stuart        S363
Steuart      S363
Stuert        S363
Steward    S363
Steuard     S363
Stuard       S363

Multiple spellings of the "Stewart" surname are assigned the same code and are grouped together in the Soundex. This makes finding unusual spellings of a surname much easier when conducting genealogical work.

How does it work?
The basic rules for encoding surnames are:
-Use the first letter of the name as the first digit in the code.
-Convert consonants to the following numerical digits
     1 = b,f,p,v
     2 = c,g,j,k,q,s,x,z
     3 = d,t
     4 = l
     5 = m,n
     6 = r
-If a letter is doubled, only use the first occurrence of the letter. For the name "Miller" use only the first "L" and skip to the "R" as the second consonant.)
-Repeat the three steps above. The end product should consist of one letter and three numbers. If there are not enough consonants in a name, add a "0" as a place holder. For the name "Miller" the code is M460; "M" is for Miller, "4" is for the first "L," "6" represents the "R" and the "0" indicates the lack of subsequent consonants.

How is Soundex used today?
I was inspired to research Soundex coding when I discovered the code for my last name was also the first four digits of my driver's license number. In many states Soundex or Miracode coding systems are used every day to assign identification numbers to driver's licenses and state issued identification cards.  In Illinois the code is as follows: the 1st section of digits represents last name, digits 4-5-6 represent first name and middle initial, digits 7 and 8 are the last two digits of a person's birth year, and the last three digits represent birth month and day. There is a coding system to these numbers and one can easily access a key online if interested in learning more.
Genealogy resources such as Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest use Soundex as a default search setting for the researcher's convenience. Researchers can change these settings if a Soundex match is not wanted. Heritage Quest also contains a .pdf document under the "Help with the Federal Census" section that contains a Soundex and Miracode Coding Guide and an Explanation of the Soundex and Miracode Indexing System.

Ancestor of the Day--Mary Jane Woodruff

Mary Jane Woodruff was born 7 Jul 1887 in Illinois, most likely in Champaign County. The first record of her birth that I have found is the 1900 census, which places her in Champaign, Illinois at 13 years old. Her parents were Cornelious C and Cinderella VanKirk Woodruff. Yes, Cinderella, or Sinderella, or Sindereola, depending on the document. Cornelious was born in Kentucky and Cinderella in Virginia, according to the 1900 census. Cornelious was listed as being a farmer.

Mary Jane's occupation is listed as "housewife" on her death certificate, so she was not employed (not surprising) and left no records via an employment record. She was married to Arthur Sayles and their first daughter, Florence May, was born in 1905. I suspect the two were married in 1904, meaning Mary was 17 when they married. Their second daughter, Thelma Clotine (my paternal great-grandmother!) was born 26 Jun 1906. These were their only two children as far as I know.

I have yet to find the 1910 census with her listed and since she died in 1918, she would not be listed in any other census records. I'm also still looking for the 1890 state census that may have listed her at 3 years old.

Mary Jane died 30 October 1918 in Champaign, Illinois of pneumonia, a complication that resulted from influenza. Because of the year and the local newspaper headlines, I suspect she died of the Spanish Flu, though her death certificate simply says "pneumonia" and lists the secondary condition as "influenza." Her death certificate can be found at the Champaign County Historical Archives in Urbana, Illinois.

She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Urbana, Champaign, Illinois under her married name, Mary J. Sayles next to her husband, Arthur Sayles and her mother-in-law, Florence May (Baker) Sayles. Their memorial is pictured above.

Ancestor of the Day

I will try to post an ancestor of the day as often as possible. These posts will include pertinent genealogical information, pictures if available, and pretty much anything interesting about that person. I will not post on anyone still living for privacy reasons. If I can find a birth date or death date that corresponds to the day of the post, I will use that information when choosing an ancestor of the day, otherwise it will be random.

My New Blog!

Welcome to Tracing Your Roots! I'm based in Central Illinois, so my main local history focus will be in that area. My genealogy research has led me to several states including Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Virginia, and others. I hope to post lots of interesting genealogy and local history tidbits very soon. For now check out my links to useful resources located to the right. Thanks for stopping by!