Genealogy - Diggin up Dirt

The Photographic Trail

Sun, 11 May 2008 13:22:29 GMT

Because I am simply fascinated with the artistic members of the family, seeing as they fit right in with my own passion, I have been trying to sort out the photography studio group and how it all began.

From what I can tell so far Marcus Eyth came to Pennsylvania around 1850 and settled into the Butler county area. This family started up several different businesses and ran them successfully. Francis Eyth, son of Marcus, ran a hotel in Centreville from 1870 until his death in 1916, called the “Eyth Hotel” and a Daguerreotype studio in the city of Butler around 1860.

Bernardina Eyth, daughter of Marcus, would marry Ulrich West in Butler county and have a son Jacob in 1848. I suspect that young Jacob took a shine to what his Uncle Francis did in his photography studio and decided when he came of age to pursue the career. In the 1870 census he was listed as a photographer. Jacob would marry Mary M Zuver in 1870 and she would join in the photography business and eventually become very popular in Bradford, Pa.

Mary’s two younger brothers Lewis W Zuver and Leander L Zuver would also catch the photography bug. Lewis in the 1880 Census and Leander in the 1910 Census would list themselves as a photographer.

Jacob and Mary would build their careers in the McKean county area, specifically in Bradford, Pa. Mary’s brothers can be found listed with studios from Olean, NY, just north of Bradford across the Pennsylvania line as far south in Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh. Leander or “Dick” as his friends referred to him had the shortest career in the photography business. His brother Lewis seemed to have been more creative in his approach to his chosen career.

In 1885 Lewis and a man named Atherly had small steamboat built in order to hawk their wares in the river from Olean, NY to Pittsburgh, PA. This path would allow them to hit some of the busiest oil centers in Pennsylvania including, Warren, Oil City, Tidioute, Tionesta and Franklin. In the 1885 papers I found these articles on the new scheme.

The Olean Democrat (Olean, New York) > 1885 > March > 10

The Cattaraugus Union says that an Allegany Steamer is now being built on the river bank just below the bridge, which when completed will be commanded by commodore L. W. Zuver, who will proceed down the river, stopping at all desirable points for the purpose of doing some fine work in photography. Zuver is a first class artist, and we think his scheme is a good one. Another boat, lower down the river, is nearly completed by Mr. Martin, for the same purpose.

Titusville Herald, March 13, 1885
A man named Zuver is building a photography gallery on a small steamboat which will run up and down the Alleghany River next season, stopping for a few days at a time at the principal places.

The Olean Democrat (Olean, New York) > 1885 > April > 28

Messrs. Zuver and Atherly have their photograph boat completed and launched. Everything is in satisfactory condition, and they will soon set out on their journey. We expect they will secure a fine gallery of views, while they "Sail and they Sail."

Although it is a guess that the Zuvers and the Wests began their careers because of a member of the Eyth family, I still think it may be a pretty close call. Lewis would continue to enjoyt he photography profession until selling out to H. S. Sheffler in 1910 and moving to St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mary would sell her business, after Jacob’s death, in Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1906 to Howard Spangler and move to Butler to live with her family in 1907.

Scandalous Gossip or Brutal Fact?

Fri, 09 May 2008 11:43:41 GMT

It was no secret in the family that my great grandfather Van Houtte was a miserable man. There is a story that is told about a door that needed to be put on the family home. Although he would bring a bag of candy home for the children on pay day he never bought things that were needed for the house. The door was ordered and it came in, just as they do now without hinges or a lock. My Great grandmother, Clemence Mary, got a neighbor to hang the door with old hinges and purchased a lock set at the lock hardware store. They had been keeping the door shut with a nail. My great grandfather, Emil Victor, asked how much the lock set cost and decided it was too much and took it off the door and took it back.

A month later Emil went into town and bought another lock set that he claimed was the same price as the one that he had taken off of the door. All of this happened before 1920. Much to my surprise I found 2 articles on newspaperarchive.com that helped support the story of Emil’s temper and started gossip about Clemence.

McKean County Miner, June 19, 1919

Beefsteak and the Boarder

Sheriff E. W. Jones and Deputy Sheriff, C. C. Choate served as members of a Belgian relief committee Sunday, when they were called to Mt. Alton to straighten out the marital as well as martial troubles of one Victor Van Houtte, a Belgian.

Their findings were as follows: Victor works in a chemical plant at Newton. His wife keeps the family home at Mt. Alton and also a border. Victor usually spends the weekend in the bosom of his family and upon arriving on one such occasion recently found the boarder in his wife’s bedroom. With commendable fortitude he passed up this irregularity, but the following morning when the “missus” fed him bread and black coffee and produced delicious beefsteak for the boarder he decided he had a real grievance and chided his wife rather sternly.

However, open hostilities did not result until last Sunday when his wife criticized his methods of gardening while he was hoeing in the truck patch with the sweat of honest toil dripping from his brow. This was too much and the long suffering husband pursued his wife and threatened her with the hoe. She escaped and sought the protection of the strong arm of the law. The relief commission responded and after hearing both sides of the case impressed upon the belligerents the beauties of peace and strongly advised them to avoid strife in the future and from outward indications succeeded in patching up the difficulties.

A week after the publication of their fight another article appeared in the Mckean County Miner:

McKean County Miner, June 26, 1919

Van Houtte Was Arrested

Upon a surety of the peace warrant Victor Van Houtte, who is employed in the chemical plant at Newton, was brought before Justice Gleason by Constable Dickinson, Saturday and after a hearing held under $300 bail for his appearance at court. His wife was the complainant in the case and claims that her husband threatened her with a garden rake and double-bitted axe and that his general conduct has become unbearable. Mrs. Van Houtte is described as an entirely respectable hard-working woman, the mother of four intelligent children, three of whom appeared at the hearing and testified in their mother’s behalf. The husband appears to be insanely jealous without apparent reason. Van Houtte secured bail some hours after the hearing and was released from custody but must face the charge at the next term of court.

By the time the Census was taken in 1920 Clemence was living in Bradford with her children and Emil was still living in Lafayette.

Another Find

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:30:32 GMT

I have wondered for some time if purchasing a membership with newspaperarchive.com would be valuable to me. I wondered if there was going to be different newspaper articles available from what was posted on ancestry.com. To my surprise it has turned out to be very valuable.

My paternal great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Burgess, was in the Civil War and was at one point in time one of only seven survivors. I found many articles on newspaperarchive.com with mention of him in it, including his obituary, which did not mention his deceased wife at all. I knew that her first name was Mary and that she was alive up until 1920 but that was about all I knew about her.

I started reading every article with the mention of B.F. Burgess in it. For once the tendency in the late 1800s and early 1900s to post everything about every move made by residents in the newspaper was about to pay off. I found this article:

Olean Evening Herald, June 22, 1920

Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Burgess and family of Olean visited at the home of Mrs. Burgess’ brother, John Donigan, Sunday.

I now knew her maiden name and was about to discover a whole lot more. I kept reading the society articles and found not only that she had a brother named John but had one name Thomas also. It was at this point I was about to be confused. One of the articles mentioned siblings named “O’Keefe.”

I had been searching the census records in the Olean area to find the Donigan family that would have a Mary, John and Thomas, pretty common names for an Irish family. It all became clear when I found Mary’s brothers living in the Olean area as step children of Patrick O’Keefe. Mary’s mother, Mary, had remarried after her first husband, James Donigan’s death about 1860 – 1865. I found 6 children from the marriage of James Donigan and Mary and another 2 children from her marriage to Patrick O’Keefe.

Of course since I have solved the problem of Mary Donigan, I have now created more problems, like the names of James Donigan’s parents and Mary’s mother’s maiden name and then her parents and then…. It never ends.

Co. G Fort Devens, Massachusetts, 1952

Sun, 04 May 2008 19:04:29 GMT

This is Dad's army photo. On the back of the photo, signed by each of the members of the photo are the names of each soldier. My uncle, my mother's brother, is in the front row. This is before mom and dad were married.

Photo –

Front row Left to Right –

Russ Duint, Erie, PA, Norbert Walkiewicy, Erie, PA, James E Hollenbeck, Erie, PA, George Hamilton, Erie, PA, Sargent Roebuck, Dale West, Bradford, PA, Dub Strohmeyer, Erie PA, Fred Bubl Jr., Erie, PA, Eugene Walker, Hazel Hurst, PA

Second row –

Herbert Schmalenbach, Erie, PA, Jack Sherman, Steve Frolch, Erie, PA, John Heintz, Erie, PA, Dick Van Houtte, Bradford, PA, Deek Taylor, Bob Schwab, Duke Center, PA

Third row –

Darurn Turner, Eldred, PA, Ray Fronchnett, Erie, PA, George Hoetzl, Erie, PA, Charles Swartz, Mt Alton, PA, Chet Chojnathi, 120 41^st, Erie, PA, Philip L. Smith, Eldred, PA

Back row –

Len McLaughlin, Erie, PA, Bruce Sherwin, Bradford, PA, Clarence S. Lube, Erie, PA

One Step Closer

Sat, 03 May 2008 20:32:43 GMT

It took reordering blotter paper three times before I was finally able to try flattening out my dad’s army group photos. The smaller of the two photos has the names of the soldiers in the photo on the back.

I got a Tupperware container out because of the tight seal, and found a smaller plastic container that would hold water to place inside. I added warm water to the small bowl and set it inside the Tupperware with the 2 separate rolled up photos and waited. I checked them every couple of hours and could feel the paper backing starting to become less brittle.

After about six hours I found I could unroll the photos without them wanting to bend. I folded the blotter paper in half to make a folder and carefully inserted the photos into the homemade folder. I grabbed some heavy books to help flatten out the photos and I now have them resting on the counter.

Tomorrow I should be able to scan them in and share them.

Planning Ahead

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:03:01 GMT

I decided that I needed a better way to organize my photos if I am going to be scanning in gazillions of old slides. I want to be able to identify them by the people that are in them, date or holiday and the place they were taken. The file name just isn’t long enough to get the needed detail.

I did a bit of searching and found CyPics, Photo Album Software, v3.6. After downloading the trial software I copied a selection of photos into a separate file and started playing with the setup. It claims to be easy to learn, but there are a lot of steps and knowing a bit about data base set up helps, a lot. It builds an Access data base in the background and with the tool you are entering information into the tables allowing searching and sorting.

All of this required a very deep breath before plunging in. I have played with Access a couple of years ago, I was at that time determined to figure it out. My first try had been a success and then it was all down hill after that. There is a tutorial workbook with CyPics that helps step you along and explains at a high level what the data base verbiage means. You can get as detailed or as simple as you choose. I am currently still struggling with the difference between Keywords and Attributes and what each will do for me when completed.

I have a 30 day trial to get use to the application and decide if it is what I will use for the new files I will be loading. I am considering trying it out with the family files I already have. From what I have learned so far you can create CD and DVD slide shows, pdf color sheets organized with selected information and can email photos with captions. I played with the pdf version of a photo book and was happy with the results.

My New Project

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:23:49 GMT

Like many families, off in some corner, crammed in boxes, are hundreds of little celluloid family slides. I can vividly remember talking dad into watching slides for hours on weekend evenings.

After much labor of putting up the screen, clearing a table to prop the camera on and then fishing through slides one at a time to display, up would pop old memories. The photos even then always seemed a bit yellow splashed on that white flimsy screen. It was fun.

Every trip home to Pennsylvania I have looked at the boxes of slides my grandfather and father had taken packed onto a shelf in my old bedroom and wondered what in the world we would do with them, until the other day. My Bed, Bath and Beyond flyer showed up and in it was this VuPoint slide scanner for $99.99. BB&B are great at sending out 20% off coupons at regular intervals and sure enough I had one that was still good. I did a bit of research and found really mixed reviews on the product. There were a lot of complaints about the scanner software and some concerning the quality of the scan. Some people raved about it and the cost savings. The one thing that I did find mentioned was that the drivers were compatible with my Adobe Photoshop program. I figured I could do color correction in the program if they scanned in that bad. For $80 it would get those memories stored safely, even if they weren’t professionally done at a much greater expense.

We ran out and bought one. I figured I had a full evening ahead of me with fighting to get it to work. I opened the box and looked in the documentation for installation directions to use with Photoshop and didn’t see them. I slipped the dvd in to load the drivers. The menu was set up so that you loaded the drivers and the scan software separately. I loaded the drivers and then plugged in the device. Windows recognized it as a new device and started looking for the drivers; I pointed the wizard at the installation dvd. Once that was complete I started my Photoshop program and went to file > Import and found the VuPoint Scanner listed. I couldn’t find any slides lying around so I inserted a negative strip. The image displayed, I copied it and then copied another after pushing the slide through to the next section in the strip.

It copies the negatives, as negative, so the next step was to select Image > Adjustments > Invert in Photoshop, for the positive version. I was pleasantly surprised how well they turned out. Some needed more color correction than others, but I think that was how it would have been originally.

To speed things up once I get the slides in August I ordered another set of slide and negative holders, which should make the scanning go a lot faster. I am planning on developing a quick slide show for the family reunion in Pennsylvania in August. With mom’s help and dad’s old slides I think we can create a quick digital display of old photos to run on my laptop. I am anxious to see what ancestors are hidden in all of those old boxes of slides.

Another Mystery Solved

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:32:08 GMT

I decided to dig through the only Bradford High School Yearbook, The Barker, 1934, that is published on ancestry.com. I flipped through the pages of graduates looking for any member that may have been in my direct line or one of its many branches. After passing the last listed graduate photo and moving on through the accomplishments and legacies of all of its’ members I was getting a bit tired and thinking of giving up when I got to the page on the class trip.

Twelve years following my grandmothers’ trip to Washington, DC it seems the senior class was following the same route. What caught my eye was the paragraph stating:

“On Monday morning we boarded our buses and left for Mount Vernon where we visited the estate, mansion and tomb of Martha and George Washington. While in Mount Vernon the entire party posed for a group picture.”

I did a quick search for images of Mount Vernon. I finally found out what building was in the background of my grandmothers’ graduation trip photo – Mount Vernon. The photo was taken on the back lawn of the estate, the front of the building did not have the long white pillars.

The mansion was erected in 1741-42, is made of wood and located on the banks of the Potomac River. The plantation would remain in the hands of a Washington descendant until 1858 when the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union would acquire the building and a portion of the land rescuing it from neglect. During the Civil War the estate was a neutral ground for both sides. Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania History

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:28:28 GMT

I stumbled about and fell out of my tree and into another interesting one. For the past couple of days I have been doing research on the Speer family. Henry Speer and his four boys came to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1773. One of his sons, Solomon, would be killed by Indians; another, Noah, would marry Nancy Virginia Frye and start a large family of thirteen.

After buying a tract of land in Westmoreland and Fayette counties, Noah would lay out the land for Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. He would also develop a farm estate, and became a successful agriculturist and stock-grower.

The Speers were wealthy people of that time and owned slaves to work their farm estate. In The Courier newspaper August 2, 1895 from Connellsville, Pennsylvania I found an article on one of the slaves that had been owned by Noah Speer.

A Historic Colored Woman, Now a Patient at the Cottage State Hospital Tells the Story of Her Life.

Some Incidents that Happened During the National Pikes’ Balmy Days

At a Famous Old Brownsville Inn

Reminiscences of General Wm. H Harrison, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and Others.

Patients with interesting histories are often brought to the Cottage State Hospital here, but none have ever entered with as much lore stored up in their memory from events of actual life scenes as a bright old colored woman who is now under treatment as a private patient in the little room off the north ward. Her name is Frances Workman. About a month ago she fell over a stake driven into the ground at the residence of James L Bowman of Brownsville and had her leg badly lacerated by the fall. It was her first serious accident during an eventful life. The Bowman’s, to give their faithful old servant the best possible care, sent her to the Hospital here and she has interested doctors and nurses alike with her historical reminiscences.

She was born on June 2^nd, 1815, at Columbia, PA. At that time Negro and slave were synonymous in the Union, and the little Frances and one other of five sisters were sold when mere infants to Noah Speer of Belle Vernon. Speer owned one-half the real estate of the present site of Belle Vernon and the quarters occupied by his Negro slaves stood on the spot where the Gibson distillery now stands. When nine years old, Frances and her sister were sold by their first master to Solomon Krepps of Brownsville, who, at that time, was a member of the Legislature. Krepps was not an advocate of the slave traffic, but he said that since everybody kept them and bartered in them he could not afford to support his establishment with other labor. He paid better prices than most of the slave dealers, giving $1,600 for Frances and her sister. “Our life,” said Frances to a COURIER reporter yesterday, “during the eight years which I served Krepps, had none of the terrors related of the slaves in the South. I was employed as a field girl, working with the harvesters, the gardeners or other outside laborers. We lived in a plantation house out in the fields near our work. Our food, however, was the same as that prepared for the master’s family and was brought from his kitchen each meal. There were two white masters over us, as Krepps was away from home most of the time. If either of the white masters treated us unjustly we appealed to Krepps for satisfaction and we always got it.”

When Frances was 17 years old the Brownsville Legislator died from eating too much honey and drinking buttermilk. She was then sold to James Workman, who was proprietor of an inn at Brownsville. Everybody traveled in those days by stage coach over the old National Pike, and the little Workman inn at Brownsville was the stopping place of nearly all the notable officers and government officials on their way from the Middle Atlantic and some of the Southern states to Washington.

Frances gives the following account of her first meeting with some of the distinguished guests of the inn: “One day, while I was yet young, there was a considerable stir at the Inn by the announcement that the Ex-President John Quincy Adams was going to stop there on a trip from the Capital, West. I think it was about in the year 1832. Adams was a Congressman at the time. I was greatly delighted when told that I was to bring the Ex-Presidents dinner to him on a tray and to attend him while he dined. He was a stout gentleman with a pleasant face and we all thought he was very handsome.

“General William Henry Harrison, while journeying from Hamilton county, Ohio, to be inaugurated at Washington in 1841, stopped at the Workman Inn and was compelled to remain there two weeks on account of sickness. Only a small party accompanied the President –elect, and it was whispered about the inn that the sturdy old Indian fighter was more a subject for a place in the grave than a seat at the Capitol, as he was pale and thin, and feebly walked about with bent shoulders. He took both, dying thirty-two days after his inauguration. General Winfield Scott was another guest at the inn whom I attended. He too was aged and feeble at the time, 1852. He was then the Whig candidate for President. He was detained at the inn about a week by sickness. During that time I became well known to the old veteran, waiting on him and serving his meals regularly to him.

“General Andrew Jackson also stopped at the Workman Inn in 1845. He was on his last journey to “The Hermitage,” near Nashville, Tenn. He was accompanied by his wife and nephew, a distinguished servant who had been George Washington’s sword case carrier, and several other parties. It was in the pleasant month of May, and the party remained at the inn a few days, during which time they were attended at the table by me. About two weeks after Jackson left Brownsville, word was received that he had died at “The Hermitage,” June 8^th, 1845.”

“Old Rough and Ready” Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay and other lights of the country’s most stirring times were personally known to the aged patient at the Hospital. There was a law in Pennsylvania during slavery times that after 28 years of service a Negro was free. Accordingly, about 1845 Frances Workman was freed, but she liked her master’s home and did not leave until several years after, when she and a number of other Negroes determined to take advantage of their freedom and see some of the county. They were traveling down the South Carolina coast, when Fort Sumter was fired upon and immediately started north. The heroine of this sketch then entered the homestead of Jacob Bowman, one of the most influential men of Brownsville. There she remained for eight years, nursing Mrs. Bowman till she died. She then went to live with Jacob Bowman’s son James L., where she now makes her home.

The old woman has snowy white hair and has lost her teeth, but there is not a wrinkle on her face. Like every person who has never suffered an accident, she is distressed over her present injury. The staff of physicians and hospital authorities is taking special care with her, and she will likely be able to return to historic Brownsville in two weeks.

DNA and the Burgess Line

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:31:26 GMT

The one thing that I have a lot of in my data base is the Thomas Burgess of Barnstable, Massachusetts Line on my father’s side of the family. While searching on a Richard Burgess that was said to have died in the Florida War in the early 1800s I stumbled across this page that was verified by DNA. One of the things that was noted on this web site is the number of Burgess’s that could possibly have been related to my Thomas Burgess of Barnstable, Massachusetts line. From their account Thomas Burgess of Barnstable Co., Massachusetts, of Josiah Burgess of Monroe Co., New York, and of Thomas Burgess of York Co., Ontario, Canada have a common relative somewhere in the line.

They have connected several other Burgess lines through this project:

Albert Burgess, born about 1811 in Massachusetts of Tolland County, Connecticut
Thomas Burgess of York County Ontario
Josiah Burgess, born about 1785 possibly in Connecticut, of Monroe County, New York

It is fascinating how it can be determined through DNA different branches of your family. We have watched the 2006 PBS program on DVD of African American Lives. It shows how they can track a direct line of your ancestors this way.

Civil War Pensions

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:14:29 GMT

I decided to focus on my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Burgess, born Jan 9, 1845 in Thompkins, New York. I have his wife's first name as Mary but do not have her maiden name. I decided to order his Civil War Pension information for more detail on him. I carefully filled out the form and hit submit. An error message informed me that the Archives only held up to 1929 and because my grandfather had died in 1932 his documentation would be held at the VA.

I entered the URL that was provided and started digging. Reading the information I figured I was among the minority of people that would be requesting assistance. Most of the users would be looking for information for themselves, not a long deceased ancestor. Without a clear direct path, other than it seems that I will have to send via snail mail for information, I entered information into their request system for insturctions. The form asked for a good bit of information. I filled it all out, read the warning to only hit submit ONCE, that it could take upwards of 25 seconds to clear, and hit submit. I waited and waited and opened another browser window to continue on a different website. I returned and looked at the page still grinding away several times. Minutes later I noticed that I had recieved a timeout on the page.

I was a bit frustrated and decided to make my request at another time.

By George, I Think We’ve Got Him!

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:21:19 GMT

In the process of writing this blog I have, many times helped myself to review my findings and turn up lost avenues to search. It didn’t work that way for the blog I had written about George just the other day. What it did do was give Terry Snyder from Desktop Genealogist, enough facts to go on to do a search. Terry didn’t have the family buzzing in her ear with misinformation that mislead. I was so focused on what I was hearing and what couldn’t be true to see the forest for the trees.

Terry did a bit of searching on Albert, son of George and Nancy Catherine “Katie”. She found his death record which had Missouri as his birth state. I had it as Tennessee, thanks to the infernal buzzing in my ear. With that she went looking for George and Katie’s wedding certificate. Missouri has a wealth of information posted on births, deaths and marriages. Sure enough she found the certificate in Stoddard county Missouri, with a matching date to the one that was written in a family bible that a relative has. G. W. Click had married a C. N. Yates.

She went looking for George in the Census and without tunnel vision she found the family in Kentucky in 1850 and then right across the Kentucky/Missouri line in Stoddard county, Missouri in 1860 without George. She didn’t find them in 1870, although I did later and with George in the household. The transcriber had read the original image as “Slick” instead of “Click”.

She mentioned other individuals in the family that also had marriage certificates listed. With all of this information I dug in. Researching on the siblings of George I found them in Puxico and Duck Creek Stoddard county, Missouri, where I had been told that Albert went to visit relatives in the boot heel. Exactly where the family had landed and then spread out. Some would eventually move into Arkansas and others down into Texas.

A very big thanks goes out Terry!! Now I am stuck with Michael Click in 1814, could he possibly be related to the Baltas Cleek family…..

George W Click

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:55:27 GMT

George W Click has turned into a major block for me. He is on a tree that belongs to a friend of mine that I have been working on. What I know about George is relatively vague.

George was born in Tennessee, his exact location unknown, on May 18, 1840. He would marry Nancy Catherine Yates on October 9, 1872 in yet again another unknown location. What I know about Nancy Catherine Yates is that her family came from Tennessee and she was born there in 1848. Nancy moved from Dickson County, Tennessee after the 1850 Census and ended up in Center Township, Dade County, Missouri. In 1880 she would be found in Hutton Valley Township, Howell County, Missouri.

You would think that the 1870 Census would give me some sort of clue as to where George might be if I could find Nancy in the Census, and I can’t. There are several George Clicks living during that period. One of which I have completely ruled out because he was still living and married after the noted death date I have for George. From what I have been told by a relative with the family bible is that George died September 8, 1877, location unknown.

I sent to the National Archive for information on George’s service record. I sent them everything I knew about his marriage so that they would be sure to send me the correct George. According to the records George served in the Confederate army, in Tennessee. At one point he was wounded. I figured if he died in 1877 that there was a good chance I might find a widows pension for Nancy and her son Albert, who was born July 26, 1873 in Tennessee.

The National Archives wouldn’t take the application because Confederate pensions were handled by the southern state that the soldier was living in. My best guess for Nancy would have been either Tennessee or Missouri. On further investigation I found stated that the Confederate pensions were very few and a person had to be completely incapacitated to receive one. I haven’t found out yet if there were widow and children pensions for them to draw on.

I am not sure how Nancy and George met. She would have had to have come back to Tennessee from Missouri at some point to meet George. Her family either stayed in the Hickman county area of Tennessee or moved into Dade county Missouri. From Census records Albert, her son was born in Tennessee in 1872, placing her back in Tennessee at that point.

I am really at a loss where to go from here to find the correct George.

Blog Bug

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:42:07 GMT

I couldn't imagine myself with the care and feeding of 2 infant blogs, as many bloggers do, but I have gone and done it. The part of me that is creative has been bugging me for a blog of its own. I finally gave in.

My new blog feeds the creative part of my soul that my dead ancestors have yet to commandeer.

The Johnstown Pennsylvania Flood

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:13:03 GMT

I remember growing up and occasionally hearing mention of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood. Pennsylvania is known for its floods and other relatives would survive the Austin, Pennsylvania flood 30 years later. The residents of Johnstown were use to water filling the streets, the town being built in the river valley. It was common a couple of times a year to move belongings to a safer place in your home to avoid their soaking when snow would melt rapidly in the spring.

The flood had devastated Johnstown and all of the residential areas between it and the dam. It would take almost an hour from the break of the dam on May 31, 1889 until it would hit the town around 4 p.m. that day. Heavy rains at 11 a.m. would threaten the dam and by 11:30 a.m. engineers were predicting that the dam may fail.

At 3:10 p.m. the bridge failed. South Fork would loose 20 to 30 homes and the first 4 victims would die. Thirty people lived on the main street at Mineral Springs, a mile below the viaduct. Bare rock would be the only thing left after the water passed and sixteen people would die at 3:30.

John Hess would race his train and lock the whistle down to blow warning to residents from Buttermilk Falls to East Conemaugh. His act would save many lives but still 50 would die, including 25 from the train. At 4:05 the flood water would divide into 3 waves hitting Westmont Hill and flooding Kernville.

The water would gain speed and claim 314 of the 1,000 residents of Woodvale. Twelve miles from its start, carrying the remains of buildings and bodies the waters with its disaster would hit Johnstown at 4:07 p.m. The wave would split again for the last time. The debris would pile up at the stone bridge causing water to back up 30 feet in Johnstown until breaking through and flooding Cambria. The debris piled against the stone bridge would catch fire at 6 p.m., claiming 80 more lives and burning for 2 days.

When the waters finally stopped and the count of the dead totaled 2,209, bodies would be found as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio. Included in the count was my 3^rd cousin 4 times removed, William Alexander Kilgore and his entire family, wife Annie “Lizzie” Cope, daughter Jessie, 15 years old, sons Fred and Alex, ages 12 and 9 respectively. They lived at 327 Washington Street in Johnstown. Washington Street ran along the edge of the river that would flood with water and debris. Mr. William F Lewis would give eye witness account of the destruction of the Kilgore’s house.

“In about twenty-five minutes after, he (Mr. Lewis) was down at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot and saw the avalanche of water coming on the town. He saw the steeple of the German Lutheran church fall, then Mr. Kilgore’s residence, and after that the Assistance engine-house. He noticed that the houses on Iron Street rose bodily and began to twist and grind one another to pieces; and after that everything changed as in a kaleidoscope…”

According to morgue records Alexander’s body was found before the 10^th of June and held in morgue C, the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot, as number 168. On the 10^th of June the morgue was moved to Millville in the First Ward School House. The remaining bodies were never found.

William Alexander was a clerk in the Cambria county office. He had grown up in the Westmoreland county area the oldest of four children of David and Emily Kincaid Kilgore. His youngest brother John Presley Kilgore was killed in a train accident on the Pennsylvania railroad in 1868 at the age of 17. His middle brother, David Hunter, passed in 1884 leaving only his younger sister Anna Burrel Kilgore Jack.

Dead Ancestor Soap Opera - Part V - Details

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:29:48 GMT

An article on the discovery channel on Willa Cather’s trip when she was just a child from the east coast to Nebraska in a wagon had me thinking of the trip that George Oakley and Edith Tyrell would have made. The trip from Olean, New York to Omaha, Nebraska on today’s roads is 991 miles, taking about 16 hours. In a horse and buggy with just wagon ruts to follow and multiple dangers to avoid it could take a couple of weeks at 10 miles an hour. The other thought is that they may have taken the train. I decided to do a bit of searching on Omaha, Nebraska for 1889.

What in the world is the chance? It is just one of those really odd things. If I had found it before I would have looked right past it, not knowing the importance of it. Knowing what I know now, that George and Edith had been in Omaha, Nebraska during 1889-1890, really strange. Of all of the Directories on ancestry.com, they have the 1889-1890 Omaha, Nebraska directory and George W. Oakley is in it. Not just George but his second son John is in it too. From the description posted on the directory the listing is just for the heads of households, so I couldn’t find if Edith was calling herself an Oakley or not.

The directory shows the location as 314 South 16^th street, Omaha, Nebraska. George’s occupation was listed as boarding as was his son John’s. The street still exists according to Google, although it is near impossible to discern what the building now contains. I think this might be the location of what Edith referred to as the “Peabody House”. No mention is made of the second location she claimed they owned near the Board of Trade building.

One of the reasons that I never found George in this Directory is the way the ancestry.com search did the rationalization for me. I entered George W. Oakley, born in 1842, with New York as the state selected. It gave me every George in New York it could find, even with the “W” included. If I make the states section “all” leave in the “W” and the year, it then pulls up George as the 3^rd selection.

From John Oakley’s statement in the special pension examination, I know that this is my George W. Oakley, although John’s statement makes their return to Olean later than what Edith had claimed. From John;

“She bore the name of Edith C. St. Clair when I first knew her. She came here and kept house for my father and then they went to Omaha, Nebraska and were gone for about two years, which I think were about the Spring of 1889 that they went away from here to Omaha and returned here along about 1891 or 1892. I was with them in Omaha, Nebraska for about 3 months which was in January, February and March of 1890. They kept a rooming house there in Omaha. Yes, they then lived together as husband and wife.”

The other thing that I know is that George met Edith, according to Edith, on July 4 of 1889 and didn’t start to work for him until March of the following year. She corrects her story after finding ledgers from Nebraska that showed that they had been living in Omaha for part of 1889 and had returned to Olean around April of 1890. When tallied it seems they weren’t gone for 2 years and possibly not even a full year. They would be married in July of 1891 after George’s second wife died some time between October of 1890 and February of 1891.

The directories for each year must have been released at the beginning of the year, this would mean that George and John wouldn’t have been in the 1889 directory but did show up in the 1890 directory even after leaving during the first part of the year. One other thing that I noticed about John from my research, he was married in 1888 and doesn't mention bringing his wife with him to Nebraska for 3 months. Traveling to Nebraska during the winter in a wagon with a wife a possibly a small child or 2 would have been very difficult. I assume that she was there as he was noted as a head of household.

Old Photos

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:57:36 GMT

I was reading in my ancestry magazine and found a link to a site with genealogy resources on it. From there I found this photo site. It mentioned that is was originally started for old photos in the Western Pennsylvania area, which is where my mother’s family came from. I thought I would give it a try.

They have a surname search which I find a lot more helpful than the guessing game you play with searches and surnames. It didn’t take long and I found a first cousin five times removed. Her name is Margaret Kilgore, they called her Peggy, she was married to John Gilmore. Her grandfather was my fifth great grandfather.

In the area in western Pennsylvania that she lived in, families would lease out their land for oil prospectors to drill on. The hills were stripped of trees and fields were loaded with tall wooden drilling rigs. There is a picture of Ellen Gilmore, daughter of Peggy and John Gilmore, and her husband Newton Mortland, sitting in front of one of these rigs on their property.

“antique Enquirer”

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:26:14 GMT

It has been a bit like running the “antique Enquirer” on the blog lately. I have been amazed that it involved my family. The ancestors managed to pretty much kill the story by the time my mother came around. From what she said they just didn’t talk about family and the past at all, the story has been a real surprise to her too.

In the midst of the chaos that Edith and George created, 3 families took a hit. George’s family, the youngest being under 10, was scattered about when he took off to Omaha with what would become his third wife. I imagine his oldest son, who was 30 at the time, was left to deal with his younger siblings. Elijah Booth, George’s second wife Lizzie’s son, seemed to have been farmed off from the beginning of their relationship and her so called slide into insanity. The boy would never see his mother again after turning 12 when she was placed in the asylum.

Then there was Gertrude Harbottle-Tyrell, Edith’s illegitimate daughter. That child was marked on more than one occasion as an orphan. She was far from being an orphan as both parents were alive until she was about 21. Her father, Thomas Erastus Harbottle, according to Edith, recognized his daughter and paid for her support while she was housed in various places around Buffalo, New York. Both of Gertrude’s parents came from large families. Her mother came from a family of 6 siblings that eventually moved to Northern Michigan.

Her father’s family, according to a write up on her uncle, had 16 siblings. I have found 10 of the 16, seven boys and three girls, most of them remaining in Canada and at least one of the boys, Captain Harry G Harbottle, ended up in the Cleveland, Ohio area. At one point or another, Gertrude’s uncles sailed the great lakes as captains of ships. Heart disease would kill her father Thomas on board the ship Havana, outside of Houghton, Michigan before 1899, when he was near 40 years of age. Several of her uncles would also die from heart disease.

Colin Clark Harbottle, yet another uncle, would be famous for his bicycling ability during 1894 and 1895. He would then become infamous for the chase across the northern hemisphere after allegations were made of embezzled money from the bicycle club he belonged to. They would find him in Havana and extradite him back to Canada. Eventually he would polish up his tarnished name by entering WWI and earning the title of Colonel. Heart disease would claim his life too.

No matter what I search by I am having difficulty finding any trace of Gertrude. Her life consisted of being housed with the Keefs in Canada until being placed in the Episcopal Home. She would be a playmate for the son of Mrs Poole, his name was Gardner. Senility had taken over Mrs. Poole by 1918 and she had difficulty remembering writing letters, shown to her, to Edith and Gertrude. She did remember, vaguely, Gertrude being a playmate of Gardner’s. At some point in time Gertrude moved from the Poole house to the home of a widow.

Although her grandfather, Captain Thomas Harbottle would die in 1897, her grandmother Euphemia Clark Harbottle would survive until 1924. Gertrude would have been 48 by then and I wonder if she ever met her paternal grandmother.

What happened to Lizzie?

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:35:15 GMT

Once I do my first couple of run throughs on the paperwork from the NARA, I look again, and usually more than once. I sat and put in order the 89 pages of the special examiners report so that I could see in their order the documentation. It took me a couple of hours to dig through the 369 pages for the ones that were numbered for the report. I’ll deal with ordering the remaining pages according to date and topic later.

This time through will be a much slower process and sure enough on page seven I stopped. I remember running cross the letter with the information in it on my first wild and reckless review of all of the pages looking for the big chunks of gold. I had made a mental note of it and now was the time to do a bit more digging.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” McFarland Booth Canfield Oakley was institutionalized for being insane. From everything I have ever read in those days it was very easy to throw someone in the insane asylum for the simplest display of anger. By the time the asylum finished drugging you up, shock treating you, and giving you freezing water baths, if they hadn’t driven you insane you would wish you were.

There are a lot of discrepancies as to where Lizzie even was. The one thing most people seem to agree on is that the second week of March of 1887, after 6 years of marriage to George, Lizzie “went insane”. George’s daughter, Hattie, helped her stepmother pack for her trip. All seem to agree that she was entered into the Machias Poor House which at that time took patients that were insane. Machias is about 27 miles from Olean, where the Oakleys lived. By horse and buggy the trip could take 3.5 to 4.5 hours one way on an average of 8-10 miles per hour.

Searches of the old records do not turn up Lizzie at the home in either the 1880s or 1890s. In 1892 the laws changed and it seems that she would have had to been moved to a state mental institution if she were still alive. Some of the family believed that she was moved to Buffalo. Buffalo is 74 miles from Olean.The new law would have had her sent to the Buffalo Hospital but the records that were searched show that she wasn’t there.

Edith claims that on the day she met George in 1889 he had been to the asylum in Machias to deliver a pair of slippers to his confined wife. This possibly could have been an attempt on her part to soften George’s reputation as a deserter in the examiners report. There was no other mention of any visits to Lizzie by any member of the family in 89 pages of documentation. It is really no wonder that they managed to lose her.

Other searches were requested of State Hospitals in the area that Lizzie could have been sent to. The examiner went to the county seat in of Cattaraugus County, New York and made a search of the records held there. A charge for Elizabeth Oakley for 52 weeks from the Machias Home ending on October 31, 1890 was made to the town of Olean for $64.48 for room and board. Her name didn’t appear in the following years and a headstone with E Oakley can be found in the pauper’s cemetery there. The Machias Home couldn't find a record of her admitance when inquired.

The State Board of Charities in Albany, New York was contacted about Lizzie’s case. The reply from them was that an Elizabeth Oakley was admitted to the Willard State Hospital on May 9, 1887 and died there on October 8, 1890; she was 34 years of age. The Willard State Insane Asylum was 126 miles from Olean. When contacting the Willard State Hospital directly and inquiring about the admittance of an Elizabeth Oakley, no record of her admittance could be found.

By the time anyone looked for Lizzie most of the people that knew of her existence were dead or feeble minded. Paper trails were gone, letters thrown away, people had moved on with their lives. The sheriff that had received the original message to deliver to George of his wife’s passing was long dead. Her son testified that she had died in 1894, but he had heard the message through 2 other people. Like the whisper game played in grade school, the message could have changed before it ever reached the final destination.

I searched on each of the hospitals to see what type of information could be found. To my great surprise there was an article about the Willard State Hospital. Craig Williams, a curator of the New York State Museum had driven out to the State Hospital about the same time it was to be shut down. To his amazement, in the attic he found 400 suitcases that had belonged to patients of the Hospital that had never been claimed. I emailed him at the New York State Museum to see if he could tell me if one of those cases had belonged to an Elizabeth “Lizzie” Oakley. Take a moment and read the touching story in the Village Voice from 2004.

Photo Album: Zuver

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:05:12 GMT

Zuver

Mary Zuver West 1851 - 1936 North Cemetery, Butler, Butler County, Pennsylvania

Lewis W Zuver 1854 - 1927 North Cemetery, Butler, Butler County, Pennsylvania

Lotta M Zuver 1859 - 1925 North Cemetery, Butler, Butler County, Pennsylvania

Agnes Zuver, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville, Venango County, P

Arthur Zuver, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville, Venango County,

Brownlee Zuver, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville, Venango County

Grace K Zuver, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville, Venango County,

Lee L Zuver, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville, Venango County, P

Zuver monument, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville

Zuver monument 2nd view, Fairview Cemetery, Pleasantville

More Photos...

Photo Album: Siffrinn

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:48:55 GMT

Siffrinn

Alice Mary "Ma" Burgess Siffrinn, 1880-1961

Peter and Alice "Ma & Pa" Siffrinn abt 1950

ma_siffrinn2

Photo Album: West

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:33:43 GMT

West

Chester Davis West, b Oct 01, 1902, photograph taken by Mary Zuver West, his grandmother.

Children of George and Josephine West - Shirley, b 1900, Gail, b 1901, Chester, b 1902, Josephine, b 1903, Charles, b 1905, photograph taken by their grandmother, Mary Zuver West

Chester West in a Tom Thumb Wedding, Bradford PA c 1912-1915

Thelma Mariah Oakley West, 1904-1977

Joyce Elaine West, daughter of Chester and Thelma West

Marjorie West, b 1934, missing 1938, daughter of Shirley Mills West and Cecilia Rose Charles West, Marjories dissappearance lead to one of the largest man hunts of it's time. She was never found.

Chester Davis West and Thelma Mariah Oakley West, 50th anniversary Oct 27, 1976

Allen Arthur West 1930 - 1993

Cecilia Rose Charles West

Dorthea West

More Photos...

Photo Album: Davis

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:33:43 GMT

Davis

Davis Meat Market 1887-1893 Bradford, Pa

Lillie (Elizabeth) Mckim Davis 1854

lilliemckimdavisplaybill1854

William (Will) Russell Davis Sep 06, 1888, and Ross Edward Davis, Nov 19, 1892

Will and Ross Davis

Photo Album: Oakley

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:33:43 GMT

Oakley

George Claire Oakley, 1877-1953

Harriet, b 1905, Thelma, b 1904 Dorothy, b 1909, Oakley

Photo Album: Van Houtte

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:33:43 GMT

Van Houtte

Amos and Helen Siffrinn Van Houtte, 50th anniversary, Sep 14, 1978

Emil Victor Van Houtte ship Manifest March 1907

Genealogy - Diggin up Dirt

More On the Slide Scanner – Learning Curve

The Photographic Trail

Scandalous Gossip or Brutal Fact?

Another Find

Co. G Fort Devens, Massachusetts, 1952

One Step Closer

Planning Ahead

My New Project

Another Mystery Solved

Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania History

DNA and the Burgess Line

Civil War Pensions

By George, I Think We’ve Got Him!

George W Click

Blog Bug

The Johnstown Pennsylvania Flood

Dead Ancestor Soap Opera - Part V - Details

Old Photos

“antique Enquirer”

What happened to Lizzie?

Photo Album: Zuver

Photo Album: Siffrinn

Photo Album: West

Photo Album: Davis

Photo Album: Oakley

Photo Album: Van Houtte