The Slovak Yankee

Journal Penetration on the Web

I'm going to start an unscientific study to see if scholarly genealogical journals are being read and the information is being transmitted on the Internet.  I'm going to pick random articles on 17th century people and see what happens when you run a basic Google search on those people.  The first example is the article:

“William Varney of Ipswich and Gloucester, Massachusetts” by Kathleen C. Barber and Janet Ireland Delorey, TAG 81 (2006):161-171, 316-321. Although bearing a 2006 date, this journal has been behind and the article likely was published in 2007.  Running a Google search on "William Varney" "Bridget Deverell" you get four hits, one of which is my old web page.  Search "William Varney" Bridget Ipswich and you get 737 hits, the second of which incorrectly notes Bridget as Bridget Knight. Running that search, "William Varney" "Bridget Knight" and you get 284 hits.  So 284 wrong and 4 right.  Not good news.

Second example: "The Fraudulent Ancestry of Deacon John Dunham of Plymouth" by Paul C. Reed, TAG 73 (1993):101-103.  A google search of "Thomas Dunham" "Jane Bromley" (incorrect ancestry) still yields 448 hits.  However, the search, "John Dunham" "Paul C. Reed" yielded 515 hits.

Third example: "Genealogist John Farmer Discovers His Ancestry: The Warwickshire Family of Edward Farmer, Isabel (Farmer) (Wyman) (Blood) Green and Thomas Pollard of Billerica, Mass." by Nathaniel Lane Taylor, NEHGR 160:261-72, 161:62-72, 146-55, 209-22, 289-99, 162:299-300.  A google search of "Edward Farmer" "Mary Moore" yields 342 hits.  However, the immigrant's parents "John Farmer" "Isabel Burbage" yields only 52 hits.

Last example: "Ancestry of Bennet Eliot of Nazeing, Essex, Father of the Seven Great Migration Immigrants to Massachusetts" by William Wyman Fiske, NEHGR 161:85-91, 186-98, 250-59, 162:65-72, 128-39.  A search for "Simon Eliot" "Katherine Haynes" yields only 82 hits whereas "Bennet Eliot" "Lettice Alger" yields 10, but Google suggests "Bennett Eliot""Lettice Alger" for 365 hits.  So assuming overlap only 82 websites have Bennet's parents out of 365 (22%).  Still not good news.

 

I'll be trying more examples from the 1990s which may indicate that time and word-of-mouth play a crucial part.  However, it does seem there is a definitive gap between the good information in print and that on the Internet.

Irish Family History Foundation Databases

I occasionally use Internet databases in my research. No really.  One of the best is offered by the IFHF.  For years researchers have wanted and now they have the capability of searching for Irish parish records of births, marriages, and deaths, across an entire county and across all of Ireland.  

I have had two successes using this database.  I found the baptism of my ancestor Abigail Cody in Lisgoold, Cork County in 1821.  I also found Michael's ancestor, Bridget Cashin in 1841 in Rosbercon, County Kilkenny.  I have also spent some money needlessly using this database, for indeed, it is a paid database.  I just consider that amount a donation to the organization.  However, I had to look for several Thomas Stacks in Cork (the husband of Abigail Cody) and never found the right one.  

Pros:  Searchable across counties.  You register for free and can see the following information for free: the type of record, surname, given name, and year of the event.  At that point you must pay 5 Euros (or slightly less the more credits you purchase) to see the actual record which will give parents, the exact date, and place.  And 5 Euros is much cheaper than an airplane ticket to Ireland.

Cons: Not all counties are online (or in the case of Cork, only half is).  Not all parishes are in yet either.  And you do have to fly blind in viewing records.  This is particularly bothersome when you have a common name to research.  I couldn't see the parents of Thomas Stack (which I know from his death certificate) in order to choose wisely among the 20+ Thomas Stacks baptized around 1819-1821.  

I'm sure more records will be added in the upcoming years and this resource will be a great boon to anyone searching for Irish forebears.

Abram Brown 1806-1876

I was going to write about Abram or Abraham Brown, the husband of Amanda Berkley in a Monday Madness posting.  Yet, on the heels of my discovering things in Michael's ancestry, I found some more.  Again, this is a man who is born in Virginia and likely married there; moved to Ohio; then to Illinois and finally ends up in Kansas where he dies.  I have much information on him such as knowing he was a lawyer and state legislator in Kansas (a republican!).  However, I couldn't figure out his parents.  Anyone in genealogy will tell you that right after Smith and Jones comes Brown, Johnson and Williams, in the third to fifth slots of popular surnames.  

So, how did I break through?  An obituary--not uncommon.  But I've tried to get Leavenworth obits and they are mostly in the 1860s and not 1870s.  However, an Ohio paper ran this obituary:

The death of Hon. Abraham Brown occurred at his residence in Leavenworth, Kansas, a few days since after a protracted illness. The deceased was a man eminently respected by all who knew him. He was posessed by a kind heart and generous impulse, and by acts of kindness had won the love of many warm friends who deeply deplore his death. He was at one time a member of the Kansas legislature, Judge of the Court, and during his sojourn in Kansas, had filled many positions of honor and trust. He was a brother of the late Isaac M. Brown, who was so many years a resident of Zanesville. (Ohio) He had attained the ripe age of seventy years.

Zanesvile Daily Courier, published: Zanesville, Ohio
Thursday October 26, 1876

Now it was looking for an Isaac M. Brown and an Abraham Brown.  That led to Isaac's obituary:

There is a sad warning to all in the death of an old friend. There is a deep, quiet voice in the empty seat and the name that has lost its owner-a voice that recalls to our memory the kindly heart, the genial face, and the affectionate nature of a good man, and a respected fellow citizen who has passed to his long, long, home.  Such a man was Isaac Brown, who died in Paris, Ky., Oct. 8, 1870, aged 73 years with paralysis of the brain, while visiting his oldest daughter, Mrs. Charles E. Mundy.  Mr. Brown was born in Middleburg, Loudon county, Va., May 21, 1797, and married Christena Kyle, Jan 8, 1818. He left Virginia November, 1832, came to this city (Zanesville, Ohio) 1833 and continued to reside here the greater part of that time. A good friend, a true patriot, a kind husband, an indulgent father, and above all, an honest man.  Mr. Brown was essentially a man of charity, with a heart that ever beat in unison toward all, and with a fund of genial humor that ever rendered him a welcome guest to all, both old and young.
His remains were brought to this city and laid by the side of his inestimable wife, who crossed the river just one year and eight months before him.  He died in full fellowship with the Masonic fraternity, where he had been a member for many years.  Buried: Greenwood cemetery Zanesville, Ohio.

Now there is a town in Virginia to look for.  So, the breakthrough for a Kansas man, who was born in Virginia, was in an Ohio record.  Go figure.

Breakthroughs Part II

I also want to add that just like when you found a breakthrough in a print secondary work, the rules of genealogy still apply to Internet secondary sources.  I will be writing away for the Nebraska Death Certificate of Sarah Ann (Glenn) Morrow to corroborate what I found.  I already had her marriage record at Obion County, Tennessee Marriage Records 1824-1877 compiled by Grace Dietzel Gary and Carolyn West Stricklin (Union City, TN, 1978), p. 32.  Her husband, William Lindsey Morrow's birth I also already had from Bible records as recorded in “Pioneers of the Six Bulls: The Newton County, Missouri Saga”, Volume VI, Pioneer Families, pp. 30-1, compiled by Larry A. James (1982).  I had Sarah's parents in censuses as well in 1850, 1860 and 1870.  So, this useful clue is just that: a clue to further research.  I can now efficiently jump back to Smith County, Tennessee and look for primary records there.

Breakthroughs

I've often thought if you have a so-called brick wall, it means you're looking at records in the wrong place or under a wrong name.  It's never easy to figure out where the answer will lie.

In the same vein as my story on Luther Pinkham, I made a breakthrough in Michael's genealogy in a source that I would never have consulted in print.  I found the clue merely because Google Books searches all the books it has imaged.  His great-grandmother was born Alice May Morrow in Missouri in 1857; lived and married in Kansas, and then moved and died in Oklahoma in 1941.  Her parents William Lindsey Morrow and Sarah Ann Glenn were born in Tennessee where they married and eventually moved to Kansas.  I had a guess on who Sarah's parents were, but no more than two census entries and proximity.  

By searching William Lindsey Morrow's name in Google Books, I came upon volume V of the History of Kentucky, a series from 1922. Look above at the states named.  Why would I ever look at Kentucky?  As it turns out Alice May Morrow's sister married a doctor from Kentucky named Prather and their son was famous enough to warrant a biography with an extensive genealogy in that series.  I even have a picture of him Alice kept noting her sister Maddie Prather and son.  

This work gave complete dates and places for several people, including the death date and place of Sarah Ann (Glenn) Morrow (Nebraska in 1909!) and, of course, her parents.  I was right in my guess.  They were Daniel and Mary Jane (Bransford) Glenn of Obion County, Tennessee.  I am also guessing that Daniel Glenn was a soldier in the confederacy during the Civil War and died during it.  That would be Michael's first southern combatant (he has several northern ones already).  

So, again, without a computer, I would not have made this connection in the old-fashioned world of print [without some serious time and effort on the Prather clue I had.]

Luther Hale Pinkham

After the death of his first wife in April 1838, Luther Hale Pinkham (1815-1873), son of Jonathan⁶ (Thomas⁵Jonathan⁴ James³ John² Richard¹) and Alice (Runnels) Pinkham, sailed to New Orleans.  In October of that year he sailed back to Portsmouth.  The story of how he tried to get a cheaper ticket back is gleaned by a news story in the 27 October 1838 edition of the Times Picayune.

"True, Luther H. Pinkham, the Yankee, could prove satisfactorily, that he had given the collector a ticket, and that his lawful name was Luther H. Pinkham.  All eyes were now turned to Luther H. Pinkham, the tar; for the passengers had, by this time, quite as much to do with the case as the captain."

A tar, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the third definition is a familiar appellation for a sailor, perhaps short for tarpaulin.  However, in this case I believer the meaning is from definition 1 (c): in reference to extraction from a negro or dark-coloured ancestry.  In other words, one Luther was white and the other black.

The quick jury verdict was guilty.  The facts, the story says were not ascertained, notwithstanding the verdict, but when the "tar" was told that the Yankee had come out and told the whole agreement:

"Well, said the tar, I've got into a scrape, and if he has come out, I will.  My name is Gooding of S. Berwick, and his name is Luther H. Pinkham of N. Derne. (sic for New Durham) He told me if I would pay for a ticket, and give it to him and give his name to the Captain, he would get me through for half price."

My take 170 years later:  Luther convinced a free black man named Gooding of South Berwick, Maine, to pretend to be his slave in order to go on the boat for half price.  This way each would save a portion on their fares.  The ship was going to Portsmouth, N.H.  I'm wondering if this short of chicanery was used often.  In any case, what an unusual story to find out about one's great-great-great-grandfather.