Originally posted HERE on Wednesday June 1, 2005

My husband, John, teaches IT classes at a community college here in Durham, NC. During the summer break, he contracts to teach the same classes at businesses all over. Last week he went to Gaithersburg, MD, so I went along because it’s very close to Washington DC. I spent three days there looking at Civil War pension files at the National Archives. Besides being the place where everyone can view originals of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, our government also stores other important original documents in this building! If you have an ancestor who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, those pension files can be a goldmine! There is a lot of great "how-to" information at the NARA website. I would recommend going thru them thoroughly before you visit, although there are lots of friendly employees and volunteers at the Archives to help newcomers!

I have visited the Archives a few times in the past. The first time, I was able to look at the files for my g-g-g-grandfather, Michael McDaid, and three of his sons, George, Samuel, and William McDaid. I was overjoyed to find a letter in Michael McDaid’s file, apparently written in his own handwriting! Something like that can really make a person come to life. Michael was an "interesting" person. I’ll surely write more about him in the future. His son, my g-g-grandfather, Samuel McDaid, didn’t serve long enough to collect a pension, but just the fact that his wife applied after his death provided information that I may not have found anywhere else.

On this trip, I looked at the files for ten other relatives who served in the Civil War. It’s a pretty simple process to find a Civil War ancestor with the resources they provide there. The pension index is on microfilm, arranged in alphabetical order. Also on microfilm are lists of members of specific regiments who applied for pensions. I have lots of relatives who served together, so I browsed thru a couple of those, too. You can view the info I have collected about these relatives:

James B. Ackley

George Lyman Atkinson

Samuel Andrew Carter

Carroll B. Chase

David Parkhurst Chase

Milton B. Chase

David McKeag

James W. Milligan

Jerome Potter

William H. Potter

If you happen to be related to any of these people, or anyone else whose pension files I mention within my genealogy files, feel free to drop me a line. While I don’t usually make copies of every page in a file, I would be happy to copy and send you what I have. Or if you know the info for your ancestors Civil War service, you can order copies online directly from NARA. The index which the Archives keeps on microfilm is also available from Ancestry, although I do not subscribe to that database. Many public libraries and Family History Centers have access, so you should check to see what is available locally to you.

I thought some people might be interested in seeing this PowerPoint presentation that I made for a computer class I took in 2004.  If you don't have PowerPoint on your computer, you might want to download a viewer first:

Windows

Mac

Now watch Atkinsons Through History 

If it opens in a browser window, click on each slide to move to the next.  When you reach the end, you can click the "back" button on your browser to return here if you want!

(BTW, I got an "A" on this presentation!)

In the first comment made to this new journal, Duane (fdtate714) has hit upon a constant in every genealogist's life, frustration!

If I had a low tolerance for frustration, I would have quit long ago.  Yep, it would have been great to know exactly what year John A. and Mary Catherine Eckroat first came to Oklahoma (family stories say they were real "Sooners", that at least John Eckroat was there before he was supposed to be.)  And I was disappointed to find that the number of great-grandchildren was part of the information that was illegible.  But when dealing with old records, especially if you're looking at them on microfilm. 

Personally, I HATE transcribing wills.  I have found that they are some of the greatest sources of information about families and how people are related to each other (overall, most tend to mention their heirs by name and relationship, but there are exceptions) but I have a real problem reading the copies I make from the FHL microfilms.  If the top part is clear, then often the bottom is too dark or too light to read.  Sometimes I make several copies, changing the brightness so that a section will be legible on each separate copy and that all together, I'll be able to read the whole thing.  Or the handwriting might be messy so that I can't make out what's being written.  Or they might use legal language that makes it hard to figure out exactly what the will writer wanted to do.  There's one will, that of my 5th great-grandfather, John McCormick of Allegheny County, PA, who died in 1828 that I have been working on transcribing for over a year.  Not constantly, of course, but a little at a time, until I get so frustrated that I want to tear the thing up!

Interested in taking a look at what I'm looking at?  See McCormick.pdf (Warning, it might take a while to download!)

Another place where frustration is common, is trying to find people in the census.  The quality can be awful, but the indexing can be even worse.  From what I understand, if the census-takers couldn't speak directly to a member of the family, then they would ask the neighbors, which can be one explanation for the many mistakes the census can contain.  And then those who made the indexes that we use had to read the handwriting of the original census-taker, which is many times VERY difficult.  Recently I was able to find my g-g-aunt and her husband in the Ancestry.com index for 1930 by searching for a man named Eugene and a wife named Alice in New Jersey.  No wonder I hadn't been able to find them, their surname, "DeVergnies" had be indexed as "Stevergnies".  And at that time, I had no idea how the name had REALLY been spelled.  The only source I had was the writing on the back of an old photo that read "Camden New Jersey, Aunt Alice and Uncle Eugene DeVernie's (Grandma Fife's oldest sister)" and I had been told the spelling was incorrect by another cousin who also didn't know what it was really supposed to have been.

And you never know how the census-taker might misspell a name.  Back in my early days of research, I looked and looked for John's g-g-g-grandfather, whose name was Batte Peterson Clark.  I knew he was born in Georgia in about 1820 from some research that had been done in the 1950s by John's Uncle Terrence.  Terrence had also known that Batte Peterson's children had been born in Alabama, probably near Tuskeegee.  I searched and searched for Clarks in the 1850 index for Alabama, concentrating mainly on Macon County where Tuskeegee is located.  No luck at all!  I think I even tried going thru the microfilm itself, page by page, but it's easy to miss someone if you're tired and not even sure you're going to find what you're looking for.  Still came up empty.  Then, in a desperate attempt to see if I could have possibly missed the family in the index, I looked once again at the index.  This time my eyes wandered to the other side of the page where I noticed some people indexed under the spelling "Clarck"!  Now who could imagine that anyone could misspell "Clark"???  I had looked for an "e" at the end, but I never, before that, would have thought of someone adding an extra "c" to the middle.  But there among the Clarck families was a B. P. Clarck.  Finally I was able to find the entire family in the 1850 census.

Unfortunately, I still have not been able to find any of these family members in the census for 1860 and 1870, but I have a logical explanation for why this might be.  Sometimes you have to think about what was going on at the time when you're looking for people.  In 1860, the Civil War was about to start.  I imagine that many southerners weren't very cooperative when the Federal government sent people out to take the census that year.  And by 1870, I think there was probably still in a lot of turmoil in Alabama.  Things like that can lead to a lot of frustation for genealogists.

These are just a couple of the challenges that have faced me as I work on genealogy.  I'm sure if I thought about this longer, I could come up with more, and I bet other genealogists could name their own pet peeves!  But over all, the rewards must outweigh the frustrations, and I have to hope that the info I can't find one place will be available somewhere else if I just look hard enough!

NOTE:  The link for Sooners in the first paragraph is no longer valid.  The closest substitute I could find is on Wikipedia.

Originally posted HERE on Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Yesterday, I spent part of the afternoon looking for obituaries and other newspaper articles online for part of my husband John's family.  His mother grew up in Oklahoma City, and several months ago I discovered that the OK City newspaper has an archive online back to 1903!  His grandmother's maiden name was Eckroat, an unusual family name that had many relatively prominant members in the Oklahoma City area, so it was easy to find articles about them.  I paid for a 24 hour subscription to the archives, and I was able to download 24 articles that mentioned members of the Eckroat family.  My most exciting discovery was the obituary for his grandmother, Mary Catherine (Baechler) Eckroat who died in 1943.  It had been printed on page 3 of that day's newspaper, and included a photo.  Unfortunately, the archives online are made from microfilm copies of the original newspaper, and that page had a part of the left margin cut off, as well as part of the photograph, but I was able to figure out most of the words, and it was amazing to see the family resemblance between my mother-in-law and her grandmother, below.

Obit copied from The (OKC) Oklahoman, Jan 9, 1943, page 3

(Words and blanks inside []s are illegible or added by me.  Also, she was born in Canada, not in France.)

Services Set Monday For Mrs. Eckroat
City Church Worker, Native of France, Was State Pioneer

Mary Catherine Eckroat, 79 years old, wife of the late John A. Eckroat, pioneer resident of Oklahoma City and early contractor and builder here, died Friday afternoon in her home, 601 Northeast Tenth street.  Services will be held at 9 a. m. Monday in Corpus Christi church, and burial will be in Fairlawn cemetery.  Rosary will be recited at 3 p. m. Sunday and at 8 p. m. in the Watts and McAtee funeral home chapel.

Born in France, Mrs. Eckroat came [to] Oklahoma with her husband in [   ].  The couple first settled on a [   ] southwest of the city where now [     ] located Packingtown.  Later they [mov]ed to another farm southeast of [the] city.  Eckroat subsequently played [    ] in the laying out of the section [kno]wn as Eckroat addition.

[In] addition to his farm activities, [Eck]roat engaged in the building con-[tract]ing business here, and became [   ]ly known as builder of many of [   ] early establishments of the city.  [Bus]iness blocks, homes, and such [bui]dings as Corpus Christi church, St. [Jose]ph's church, St. Anthony hospital, [Sac]red Heart church, and St. Jo-[sep]h's orphanage were among those he [bui]lt.

Mrs. Eckroat was active in many [cha]ritable and other organizations of [the] city.  She was one of the first [me]mbers of the Altar society of Cor-[pus] Christi church, and prominant in [   ] activities of the church.

[S]urviving her are six sons, Frank [of] Mission, Texas; John, William, Daniel, Lawrence and Paul, all of Ok-[la]homa City, and four daughters, Mrs. [Ma]ry Koelesch, Sister Mary Philomena [an]d Mrs. Lillian King, Oklahoma City, and Mrs. Rose Stvirenzski of Enid.  [Sh]e also leaves 33 grandchildren and [  ] great-grandchildren.

The archive for the Oklahoman are available at: http://www.newsok.com/theoklahoman/archives/ and the rates are reasonable.

Almost every year, John and I visit Salt Lake City.  He goes to a computer convention there every March, and I go along so I can go to the Library.  This year, for the first time, I took some pictures inside and outside of the library.  Hope you enjoy them!

Originally posted HERE on Monday, April 11, 2005

People I talk to when I visit Salt Lake City often wonder if I'm a member of the LDS church.  For those who don't know, the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, research their genealogy as a part of their religion.  They believe that they can baptize and perform other ordinances for their ancestors to make sure they go to heaven.  In order to make this easier for their church members, they have created a huge collection of Family History resources.  The center of this is the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, which is the largest genealogy library in the world.  And to make this information more accessable to people who can't get to Salt Lake, they have a system of Family History Centers all over the world where they make microfilms of their documents and books available, either as part of their permanent collection, or for a fee, they can have any film sent from the FHL.  And the best part is, one doesn't have to be Mormon to use it!

Occasionally, the Mormons upset some people with their practice of baptizing the dead.  I belong to several Rootsweb mailing lists, and every once in a while a discussion will start up about exactly WHY the LDS church collects family history information.  And predictably, there will be someone who will be VERY upset at the idea that their ancestors may have been baptized by a church they probably had never heard of.  According to the head of their church, "We serve in behalf of those who have died without a knowledge of the gospel. Theirs is the option to accept or reject the ordinance which is performed."   I think of myself as a practical person, though.  If our ancestors who are long dead are even aware of what we're doing here on Earth, they must find us pretty amusing, and I have a hard time believing that anything we do now can affect their condition in Heaven or elsewhere.  I just feel grateful that there is a very rich organization willing to spend so much money on my hobby and they're willing to share it with me!

That being said, I do find the following article somewhat disturbing.  (Jews, Mormons to meet over baptism for the dead)  I was under the impression that Mormons were only performing ordinances for their own ancestors.  According to the article, this is not always true.  However, it doesn't change my appreciation of the resources available to me from the LDS Church.

*Note:  The link in the last paragraph is no longer valid, but you can read an archived version of the article (along with the blogger's commentary) at:

Posthumous Jewish baptisms

 
For my final entry today, let me share with you a photograph of my grandmother with her brothers and sisters.  My guess is that it was taken about 1910.  Grandma described it to me once, I wish I had been more interested back then.  My advice?  Always pay attention to your older family members when they talk about their families, you never know when you might wish you had!

From left to right:
Florence (b 1906), Velma (b 1903), Rowene (b 1901), Raymond (b 1899), Genieve (b 1900) and Selwyn (b 1905).

They were all the children of Charles E. and Martha L. (Skiles) Fife, who lived in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

Everyone who does family research will surely come to a dead end, reaching a point where they can't get back any farther, or where they can't seem to find out very much about a particular person.  I have lots of them.  And every once in a while, one of those dead ends becomes a mini-obsession.  Right now, I'm concentrating mainly on my great-great-great grandfather and mother, James P. Skiles and Martha Hair.  After all my research, I know what state they were born in.  I know about when.  I know where they lived most of their lives, and I know where they were buried.  I also know who their children were, or at least I think I do.  What I'd really love to know is who their parents were!

What I usually do in cases like this is try to fill in as much info on their children, grandchildren, etc. as I can find!  You never know where a clue might come from.  Since I have my database online, I get emails all the time from people who are related to these collateral lines, and sometimes those people have information about our common ancestors that I might not have found on my own.  The more information I show about those people who were my cousins, the more likely someone will find my information and recognize their ancestor!

An example of this is how I was able to determine Martha (Hair) Skiles' maiden name.  For years, I didn't have a clue.  But in 2004, while on a trip to Salt Lake City, I was browsing through delayed birth certificates for Washington County, Pennsylvania, which are archived on microfilm at the Family History Library.  Sometimes when I don't feel focused, I just browse through a source of information from a place where my family lived.  (Note:  This is usually helpful for me, since my family didn't move around very much and I have lots and lots of cousins all in the same area of the country.  It doesn't work as well for my husband's family, since almost every generation migrated to a different state!).  One of the delayed birth certificates was one for my grandmother's aunt, whose name was Maude (Skiles) Emery.  In the information she provided in order to get a delayed birth certificate was her father's full name, James Hare Skiles.  James H. Skiles was my great-grandfather, and was a son of James P. and Martha.  I realized that often people would give a son his mother's maiden name for a middle name, and I started investigating the name "Hare."  But just a day later, I got confirmation that I was on the right track.  I received the following information from a woman researching the family of the man who married two of James H. Skiles' sisters:

Before PA raised the price for a death certificate I sent away for a batch of them, one was for Martha Skiles Lesnett - according to the certificate she was born in PA, a daughter of James P. Skiles and Martha Hair. Both the parents are noted on the certificate as being born in PA. The informant for the certificate was Martha Lesnett's step-daughter, Ella Lesnett Templeton. Martha Skiles Lesnett is buried at Melrose Cemetery in Bridgeville, Allegheny Co PA. Also buried at Melrose is husband William and 1st wife Rachel J. Skiles, who after looking at your genealogy info I believe Rachel is the older sister of Martha - and both are sisters of your ancestor James H. Skiles.

Eureka!

But so far, it hasn't led me to any real information about Martha Skiles' parents.  But a web search just a few days ago gave me a place to look.  The cemetery partially transcribed here: Old Claysville Cemetery - Washington County, Pennsylvania, shows several people named "Hair" and one woman with the surname "Skiles" who were interred there.  A coincidence?  Maybe, but might be a real clue!

As for James P. Skiles, I feel very certain that I DO know who his father was, but I cannot, at this time, confirm it.  In the early 1800s, a man named Gideon Skiles moved from Lancaster County, PA, in the eastern part of the state, to Washington County, which is in the far western part of Pennsylvania.  The early US census records only show the names of the heads of household, unlike the census for 1850 and later, which show every member of the household by name.  So until 1850, there is no way to know for sure, from the census, who the other people living in Gideon Skiles' home actually were.  By 1850, James P. Skiles was married and had his own home.  But he lived less than 10 miles from where Gideon lived, and Skiles is a very uncommon name.  So far I have had no luck with wills or with secondary sources, but I just KNOW that somewhere out there someone is holding on to a family bible, or a letter, or some other record that will tell me that James P. Skiles' father was named Gideon.

Below is a link to most of what I have collected over the years about James P. and Martha (Hair) Skiles, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Take a minute to browse thru, you never know where you might see a familiar name!

Descendents of James P. and Martha (Hair) Skiles

I've decided to start this journal as a record of my work on my genealogy. 

I thought it might be interesting (to me anyway) for me to record what I'm finding and the process I use when I'm searching for information about my family.  I'll begin with how I got started.

In 1996, I was visiting my father for Christmas.  He showed me some pages printed from a genealogy program that had been sent to him by my cousin Russell.  Russell had taken the time to contact all our cousins, descendents of my grandparents, Charles and Rowene (Fife) Atkinson, and he had entered everything he collected into a program that printed out that nice chart.  Russell had also entered some of the information from a family genealogy done by a cousin of my grandfather's that took our Atkinson family back to our immigrant ancestor, John Atkinson, who had come to Ohio County, VA (now WV) in the 1700s.  My dad saw how interested I was in the chart and he let me take it home with me. 

I had at about that time just gotten interested in the Internet, and I had the "crazy" idea to look to see what I could find to help me learn how to "do" genealogy.  One of the first sites I found was the US GenWeb Project, which has links to every US state and every county in each state.  I worked my way to Ohio County, WV, and started reading queries people had left about their own families.  I was shocked when I came across a person who was researching my very same Atkinson family, someone I had never heard of before.  I was hooked for sure then!

I started seeing websites with family information around the web, and that made me want to try to create one, too.  It has changed a lot over the years, but you can see it's current look here:  Cherie's Genealogy

I want this journal to be a mix of old and new, a record of how I have done things in the past and what I am working on currently, as well as my plans for the future and my conjectures about where my research might take me.  I hope my experiences, and my many mistakes, will help others become interested in their family history!

Garden Potato Salad

2 lb. medium potatoes
3 hard cooked eggs, sliced
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper (definitely optional IMHO)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Wash potatoes and cook in a small amount of boiling water until tender, about 30 minutes.  Drain, let cool slightly.  Peel potatoes and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine potatoes with eggs, celery, onion, green pepper, parsley, mayonnaise, salt mustard, and pepper.  Serve well chilled.