Family History

My Twisted Search for Absalom Craddock Watkins

My mother’s maiden name is Watkins. One of her second-great-grandfathers is Absalom Craddock Watkins, who first shows up on public record in the 1820 Census of Bond Co., IL. With him is his wife Mary “Polly” Little, and enumerated just before him are his father-in-law James Little, Sr. and brother-in-law James Little, Jr. In the 1850 Census, A.C. and Polly are identified as being born in KY, which kept me running in circles for many years following many Littles and Watkins without a connection.

Grandma Wallin: Ahead of Her Time

Grandma was born in Nebraska on November 8, 1894 and died nearly 100 years later, in 1986.  She grew up at a time when girls, especially daughters of immigrants on the Nebraska prairie, didn’t think about much except getting married and having a family.  But Grandma was smarter than most, and more ambitious than most.  She managed, after graduating eighth grade, to attend a nearby coed ‘college’ (as the word was used then), Luther College, and then get a job at a local bank, the Hordville Bank.

Charles Anderson, Boatman and Black Sheep

One of my great-grandfathers was a Swede named Charles Anderson (1859-1916), a boatman on the canals of northern Illinois—and he was quite a character.  Grandma never talked about him—but being a big fan of black sheep stories (especially when the aforementioned stories come from within my own family), I think I shall.

Ancestors Speak Out: Creating Scenes in Your Family History Book

How do you write about the past in ways that bring the characters to life, while being true to the facts of the time and place? By writing “…books that communicate information in a scenic, dramatic fashion,” says Lee Gutkind, who was once described by Vanity Fair magazine as “The Godfather” of creative nonfiction.

Reflections on ‘The Dash’ by Linda Ellis

I recently attended with my fiancee the funeral of a young man who not only died too young, but to whom my fiancee had been a sort of second “mother,” his being not just a contemporary of her own children, but living in the neighborhood, thus spending many hours in her home as a child, so his death struck particularly close to her. While I never met the young man, I have reached an age where it is not unusual to pick up a newspaper or receive a phone call, email or letter, and learn of the death of someone I not only knew, but remembered fondly, with it becoming increasingly common for those persons to be my age if not younger!

The Mysterious Anna Grimm

When researching the ancestry of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm.  Anna was Susie’s great-grandmother (at least on paper!) and Eva was her infamous sister—and both of their stories fascinate me.  I’ll start with Anna.

Letters from the Front, Part One: Don’t Worry, Please

The war hasn’t affected me the way you might think it would, and I have seen things that I never thought I would see, but they just seem everyday.  After it is over, the letup on my nerves may make me jumpy for a while, but that is all…  I’ll be home soon, I hope, and I will be happier than I can ever say.  I have the folder with your pictures in it, and the Bible that Aunt Ithel gave me in my pocket, and when things are hot, I feel them and think, ‘How can I miss with these in my pocket?’”…

How Wildcard Searches Can Uncover Ancestors

As part of the exercise, we matched the records to the on-line index of the NYC Health Department. While initially creating some of the records and, later, doing some of the matching, I gained a renewed appreciation for wildcards. First, while at least 90% of the records created by the Church were readable, I could not guarantee some of my transcriptions. Then, when I did the matching, it became clear I was not alone. I found some obvious mistakes in both databases and even some data entry errors where one groom was matched to two different brides and visa-versa. Having spent over 30 years in Information Technology, I was not at all surprised. To err is human.