My maternal third great-grandmother Nancy Woolf married my 3xGGrandpa William James on March 11, 1841, in Cole County, Missouri. See the original record showing their marriage as written in the top upper right-hand corner. 

          Cousin/researcher Barbara Holst Maltby in her book "Follow in His Footsteps: The Adventures of My Father" (about John H. Holst) writes that her Great-Grandfather William James "was a Union man" during the Civil War. The James family was allegedly the only Union family in that neck of the woods. That would be in what is today Morgan County, Missouri. They farmed in the Osage Township. (You Coffee fans will recall that Versailles is also in Morgan County. And no, our family did not pronounce it "Ver-sigh.") 

          While William and two of his sons were away serving in the Union Army, his wife Nancy was left with the younger children. Alone on the farm. Once when Union soldiers were passing through en route to St. Louis, Barbara Holst Maltby writes:  

 "...the Gravois River suddenly reached flood stage and the army was unable to cross for three days. The eight thousand men camped on the James farm for that period. General Davis requisitioned all the cattle, all the wheat and corn and other commodities for the Union Army."  

Maltby adds that soon after their supplies were taken, Nancy's family came down with smallpox. A horrible illness that spread throughout the county. Of their ten known children, I don't find that any died during the War. They survived smallpox. However, there are two daughters, Hanna and Letitia, whose death dates are unknown. Perhaps they were casualties of the outbreak?

William and Nancy's seventh child was named after Nancy. She later married a Coffee. But that's for another post.

You asked if I had photos of your 2xGGrandmother Henrietta Flaiz. I have passport photos of Francis and Bessie--separate and together, but none of Henrietta.

I know you've seen the group photo below of Francis Detamore's family with step-mom/aunt Bessie. But passports and marriage documents? Here's what I have in my gedcom on your recent ancestors. Why? Well, I knew Fordyce and "Grammy" having seen them several times as a kid. So I added their families to my tree. How I wish I remembered more of what my Aunt Gwen told about her "grands" and their travels! 

In the bottom left corner see Charles and Jennie's marriage license. Click once to enlarge, click once again to return to this page:

Travel documents are terrific for researchers in that they help confirm questions of birth locations, full legal names, and dates. Exact dates! Love those dates. See Jennie and Charles Flaiz' data at the top of both these two pages:

And now for Francis Detamore and Henrietta Flaiz:

And, here's a couple of items regarding Bessie Flaiz. Please read the paragraph entitled "Wedding Bells."

More passports:

100+ years ago your ancestors really saw the world! 

          My maternal 2nd Great Uncle Ivor McCormick met with the Chaves County draft board on September 12, 1918 in New Mexico. He was 39 years old and a resident of nearby Hagerman. 

         And he got on the wrong side of Mr. M. H. Long's high horse:

          On the backside of Ivor's draft card is a record of Mr. Long's disgust with Dr. McCormick's reply:

                                          "Refused to give middle name. Needs military training" 

          And I say, GO  IVOR!

          I had a globe when I was a kid. Lost it in a move. I really should look at maps more (she says, red-faced with embarrassment).

          And for the man who read this over my shoulder a few minutes ago, questioning parts of it, Wikipedia says:

1536 – Kingdom of England and Wales. A bill enacted by King Henry VIII which effectively made England and Wales the same country, governed by the same laws.

1707 – Kingdom of Great Britain. The Kingdom of England (which includes Wales) joined with the Kingdom of Scotland to form The Kingdom of Britain.

1801 – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland joins the union, and once again the name changes.

1922 – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland (Eire, or ‘Southern Ireland’) withdraws from the union, leaving just the northern counties of Ireland. This is the UK that remains to this day.

--- Thanks to Elizabeth Hunt for sharing this image to a genealogy Facebook group!

I love wills. They tell so much about a family.

Here's a probate file on my paternal fifth GGrandfather, Jacob Babbitt. His part in this probate book begins near the bottom of the left-hand side and continues to the second page. Click once on the image to enlarge, and click once again to return to this page:

Source Citation  Will Records 1803-1931; Will Index 1804-1895; Author: Warren County (Ohio). Probate Court; Probate Place: Warren, Ohio.  Ancestry.com. Ohio, Wills and Probate Records, 1786-1998 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Jacob was born March 12, 1769 in Mendham, Morris County, New Jersey when it was British America. His death date is August 5, 1823 in Warren County, Ohio where he was living with other family members who had joined a group of Shakers.

Yes, Shakers. The first I have found in my family tree.  Go ahead, google it to learn of this religion. I don't believe Shakers exist any more.

Jacob and (most likely) his wife Alice Sarah Craft Babbitt had joined the Shakers along with eight of their ten children in the year 1817. I say maybe because I've no proof Alice was with Jacob when he left their Pennsylvania home to join an Ohio Shakers group. I don't know Alice's death date either. Just that she was born about 1765 in Pennsylvania. Do you?

Are you to related to this Babbitt family? Well, thankfully one of their children didn't become a Shaker or we wouldn't be reading this. Why? The Shakers did not believe in having children. 

                          http://www.midpointedigitalarchives.org/digital/collection/p16488coll13/id/594/

What a lifestyle change! Can't help but wonder what the Ohio Shakers thought upon meeting Jacob and Alice Babbitt and learning they had ten children. Then again, they may have also come from large families. 

If you know more of the Babbitt family's Shaker experience, please forward to me.

Glad you stopped by!

          100 years ago young American males were required to register with their local draft boards. President Wilson was sending "Yanks" to Europe to aid the British and French in their fight against the Germans. A middle-aged Harry Houdini answered the call, and appeared at a New York City office. 

          Check out his middle name:

          Source:  The New York Public Library's tweet two hours ago, woot! 

Did you catch this story trending today from Science magazine? Researchers have been studying millions of family trees in online databases. (You didn't think your ancestry was private, did you?) 

Scientists culled data from a whopping 5.3 million family trees "spanning 13 million individuals who lived between 1650 and 2000." Two fav highlights of mine:

• From 1650 to the start of the 19th century, the average married couple in Europe and North America were fourth cousins.
  
• According to the study's results, genetics contributes just 16 percent of what is necessary to see old age, as opposed to the 25 percent found in other studies.

Ancestry updated their 1940 U.S. Federal Census database this week. With what, I don't know. They occasionally update census records but don't detail what's new. However I will still enjoy running my family's names through to see new additions--if any. Send me your relatives' names/locations too and I'll share their census pages (privately). 

My Wiser family once lived in Liberty County, Texas. The Liberty Vindicator newspaper has been digitized and made available online. 

This took only a couple of mugs of coffee to locate in the search engine. Plenty of cousins named: Weiser, Wiser, Barrow, Abshier, Harmon, Faulk, Reavis, Bond and Carr.