My Blogiversary

I noticed about midweek that there were a few more hits on the blog. Then it "hit" me: Monday was my  blogiversary. It was a year ago on June 2, 2013 when I began. Thanks to Geneabloggers for the reminder. And Happy Blogiversary to ME!

Memorial Day- Remembering Winslow Brainard Rogers

Grove Cemetery, Holden, Massachusetts

Reading up a little this morning, I discovered that Memorial Day was originally Decoration Day and was established especially to remember those lost in the American Civil War. This Memorial Day I would like to remember the man who piqued my curiousity  about my family. Winslow Brainard Rogers enlisted in the Union Army in 1862. He was a bugler in Company G of the 36th Massachusetts regiment. He died of smallpox after the siege of Vicksburg on July 25, 1863. He was only 38 years old when he died. There is a marker in his name at the town cemetery in Holden, Massachusetts and his name is engraved on a plaque in the town hall. As a child we had a packet of letters written from WB to his wife Cassandria. I no longer have the letters available to me, but I remember how sad they were and how terribly he missed his family and his small hometown. For those who made the ultimate sacrifice, on this day we remember.

The Family Scandal-That Wasn't

June Walley-Second row, second from the left

This is both a sad and a happy story. It is the story of family lost and family found. When I began researching my Tapply relatives, I knew there were a few "skeletons" in the family closet. I had heard the stories of divorces, misbehavior and one in particular about a baby born out of wedlock and adopted by another family member. When I filled in the original family tree, I plugged in what I knew and hoped I'd find more.

Before 1920, my grandmother's sister Bess Tapply and her husband Samuel Walley were living in Rutland, Vermont where he worked for A T & T. I found a very sad record of a stillborn child early in my research and I knew that her only other child was adopted, so Bess was unable to have children of her own. Bess was one of the loveliest and most loving people I have known.  I could only imagine how long she and Sam tried for children. It made me very happy to find this in the 1920 census:

There is the child they adopted living with the Walleys at 1 1/2 years old. In a later census she is recorded as Eunice Haskins Walley. The story as I heard it was that Bess's brother Harry has gotten a girl "in the family way" and that Bess and Sam had adopted the baby. They always called her June. So I recorded Harry as the father with mother "unknown" and Bess and Sam as the adopted parents.

Clearly there was some trace of her beginnings in the census. Could the mother's name have been Haskins? I looked in Ancestry and FamilySearch and didn't turn up anything. In the meantime, I was also turning up Tapply cousins who were interested in genealogy. One was Holly Jones, Harry Tapply's granddaughter. Did she know the family story? I hoped so. But one day she emailed me and asked "Who is this June?" This is one of the moments in genealogy you don't look forward to. I told her the story I knew and referred her to the family reunion photo. In the close-up above you see June in the second row, second from the left next to her half-sister. Did they know? Probably not. Holly had never heard this story from her mother Beryl or her aunts Fern and Janice.

Holly felt sure there was more to this story-the 1920 census showed Harry living with his parents and listed as a widower. I began to suspect so as well. I think it was BillionGraves that turned up the record that made us sure. Gertrude L. Tapply showed up in a search, buried in Westminster, Massachusetts in the Haskins family plot.

 Unlikely that she'd be buried as a Tapply if they hadn't married. Next we found the death record:

So we know she died in February of 1918, that she was married at the time, and that June was born in late 1917 or very early 1918. The cause of death doesn't seem like a death in childbirth.
Finally we located the marriage record:

So clearly Gertrude was pregnant when they married and Harry was in the Army fighting in WW I. Was he even around when the baby was born? When his wife died? Perhaps not. Even so, he'd be hard-pressed to care for an infant by himself and there was his sister longing for a child. So June lost her mother and her father early in her life and became the very loved child of Bess and Sam Walley. Bess and Sam had a large house in Newburyport, Massachusetts and went on to raise June's son, Ted as well. Family lost, family found. And another family myth dispelled!

Those Primary Sources

Here is my great grandmother, Ellen Benn Tapply with my grandmother Primrose Tapply on her lap. From the age of my grandmother  in this picture I would guess this was taken about 1900 in Newton, Massachusetts.

When documenting a birth in genealogy records, we are told to get as close to the primary source as possible. So here is what I found for my grandmother. First we have the family Bible:

This is generally a somewhat reliable source, but this depends on who did the recording. I notice that the first four entries are all in the same hand. The later ones are not. Plus in another spot in the Bible it says the Bible was "given to her by her mother". I don't know anyone who refers to themselves in the third person. So my guess is that Ellen made those first entries and the later ones were made by one of her daughters. At the bottom you can see the entry for my grandmother : October 24, 1898.

Next I found the register page for the city of Newton where my grandmother was born:

There at the very bottom, entry 679 was recorded in the register on January 16 of 1899. For a long time, I thought that was it. I'd found my primary source. Then Ancestry made a whole new set of Massachusetts birth records available. You see, what I'd completely forgotten was that my grandmother would have been a home birth. All of Ellen's children were. Attended by a doctor perhaps...or not. That was how it was done back then. And in that new set of records I found this:

Now I know by the date at the bottom that this is the source of the information for the register entry. I also see a physician's name on the right side and the place of birth is Eddy Street. So this was the official physician's record of the birth for the city. I don't know if he made notes and transcribed them later, or just filed a card based on information supplied by the parents when he made a home visit, but I would guess this is about as primary as a source could be.
Always keep looking. Never give up.

Foolishness- How Reliable is That Source?

On this April Fools Day, I can't help but think of how wide-eyed and trusting I was when I began this genealogical adventure.  I must confess that although I had had some curiosity for years about the family, it was watching "Who Do You Think You Are?" that inspired me to actually begin this hobby.

I signed up for Ancestry, I began contacting family members and before I knew it I had more information than I could deal with. Totally. Now I did know enough to look closely at the hints on Ancestry that I was getting.  Once I got the tree back far enough for the information to be more obscure I realized why we are cautioned to be so careful. People on Ancestry who have public trees copy and paste and borrow willy-nilly. And mistakes get copied from tree to tree and become someone's version of "fact".  I soon became very wary. (and BTW I consider my online Ancestry tree as more of a "worksheet"- I try to only put things on my computer-based genealogy program that have some documents to back them up)

So let's look at a fairly glaring example of this. My ancestor Joseph Rogers arrived with his father Thomas on the Mayflower. That much we know. We know he lived on the Massachusetts Cape, married, had children and died there. There are records in Barnstable County of his death. His birth, however, is less certain. We know it was probably in England. Here is what I find when I follow the hints on Ancestry.

So first we have this. Right away I'm suspicious because it is from the Family Data Collection. That could be an actual Bible or it could be "family stories" or it could be a written history passed down or it could be "Old Aunt Fanny always said". No knock on family records, I just have learned to be wary.

In this record we have a very confusing birthplace. I'm thinking they meant either Holland or Norhamption, England...but who knows? And the mother's name is different. There has been a lot of chatter online about whether there really was an "Alice Cosford", so this doesn't surprise me.

This one I found for Joseph in someone's tree that was "shared". Now you would think that with four sources that would be pretty solid. But as you follow out those hints, not one of them documents Stratford-on-Avon as his birthplace. They merely confirm his name and a birth in England. In fact, one of the sources was One World Tree. Argh...don't get me started on that topic!

Then you have the Ancestral Files on Family Search. Again, nothing against family research or old family records, but what you see online gives you no idea where this information came from. It was submitted to the records of the Mormon Church, but no citations beyond that appear.

So on this April Fool's Day, don't be foolish or hasty in accepting everything you find-especially online. Do a little digging and a little legwork.  It will pay off in the long run.

It's All in the Genes

Tapplys about 1900
No download or reproduction without express permission

As I look at family photos, I'm often struck by little characteristics that are passed from generation to generation.  The Tapplys were in two camps. You can see the dark hair and deep-set eyes on the three
oldest sisters in the back: Annie, Daisy and Nell. Mabel, on the far left, Ethel (next to her) and my grandmother (the baby on Ellen's lap were more fair and had rounder features. But I was taken aback to see two somewhat distant cousins who were more than a bit alike.

Mark Tapply                                                      William G Tapply

A few years ago I began reading the mysteries of the late William G Tapply because I knew as a "double p" Tapply we were somehow related and frankly I was curious. I turned over one book in the series to find this picture.  For the curious cousins reading this, I made a simple tree from my further research.

This makes Mark and William G third cousins. When you compare the jacket photo to my cousin Mark I wouldn't say the resemblance is close, but you can definitely tell they are family.

Sometimes some very distinctive features skip a generation. My brother Mark is most certainly a Fitzgerald, but the resemblance between his son Patrick and his grandfather (both at 16 years) is quite remarkable.

Patrick Fitzgerald                                            John J Fitzgerald
No download or reproduction without express permission

The chin, the ears, the brow...the set of their eyes...Wow! 

I've been told I look a lot like my father as well and my mother and my grandmother Katie (dad's mom) and my two times great grandmother Cassandria. And I do look a bit like all of them. But then I looked more closely at a picture taken in 1927 of my great grandmother Ellen.

The photo is pretty grainy, but look at the chin and the jawline, the smile lines of the nose, the lips......and my mother always said my very thick blonde hair came from Ellen. Maybe I'm more Tapply than I thought.

Family photos are just one more way to reach into the past and make that gene-alogical connection.

♣ A Little Irish Mappy Monday

Considering how little my mother actually knew about her genealogy, she could be quite a snob about her family...of course some of her attitudes came from small-town upbringing and things she heard at home as a child.  So I was gleeful to discover that there was quite a bit of Irish background in her family.
What I present here are the bare facts I've gleaned from the few online records and family histories....hopefully in the future an ambitious genealogist will find the records to back this up.
James Dunn and Martha Long married some time in the mid-1700's in County Down, Ireland. Down is in Northern Ireland right on the Irish Sea. I found this rather cool map at one of the Irish heritage sites. James and Martha had several children in Ireland, including my ancestor Samuel Fowler Dunn. At some point after his birth around 1750, they emigrated to the Colonies and lived in western Virginia. Samuel married Eleanor Brewster and moved to Mercer County, Kentucky. From there the Dunns spread out all over Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Indiana. My direct ancestor, John Dunn, was one of the first settlers in Owen County, Indiana.
Happy St. Patrick's Day, mom!