This morning we woke to the news that Shirley Temple had died in her sleep. Peacefully, I hope. She was 85. The inter-tubes were clogged for a bit as social media buzzed with the story. This particular tweet cracked me up:
"In 1938 a witness told the House Committee on Un-American Activities that Shirley Temple was a Communist sympathizer."
She was ten years old at the time.
My day job involves scouring records. My favorite hobby also has me searching and occasionally finding records. I especially like finding a new database of marriage records.
http://familysearch.org/ is uploading thousands of records each week with the help of volunteers who both scan, upload and occasionally transcribe to prepare indexes. Best of all, Familysearch is a FREE site. It recently partnered with Ancestry.com (an awesome but NOT free site) on some projects.
Index = One of my favorite words. Without an index one must pore through page after page looking for a keyword. FamilySearch doesn't always have indexes (yet) for their many databases. Luckily there is an index for California County Marriages - 1850 to 1952, which is where I've spent the last 90 minutes.
Here are a few copies of marriage licenses of my "kin" that I was thrilled to find.
I have several relatives whose dates of death are long forgotten. Burial locations and stories about why they died young? That information has been lost. Except for census, land or military records, an outside researcher would question their existence. Good research demands proof. Because some of my living relatives once spoke to older family who had either known the missing kin or recalled stories told them by parents, I can assume The Missing Kin did actually exist. (An assumption also made because they are my great-greats.)
When a mother of eight children loses her husband, she may only rarely discuss his death. When a marriage is not approved by parents, the orphaned child of the young couple may later find the subject of his dad a closed one. My paternal grandfather was the youngest of nine. He knew little about his father who had died before he was born. Do you know?
Aaron Holt, archives technician at the National Archives Fort Worth:
For example, if a parent died three generations ago, the person to most accurately pass on the correct information about the death would be the surviving parent, who would tell the children. If the children are young when their parent died, they will not have accurate information unless the living parent repeatedly and accurately tells the children the story until it is engrained in them.
When they become adults, they must do the same thing for their children. If none of this is ever written down, it is increasingly difficult to get the story right through the generations.”
Holt said that in generations past, people did not talk about death and that makes it more difficult for a genealogist to sort out fact from fiction today.
“Until not too long ago, people didn’t talk about death, especially to their children,” Holt said. “There was a superstition that if you talked about it, you were calling it, and no one wanted to do that.”
Remember this? It cost $7.50 in 1975.
Hmmm, I've been to this beach. Have you?
I was once new to genealogy groups and asked poor questions. This is an example of one I read today on Facebook. It gives no info from which to work. The writer assumes we are psychic. And the ditch comment? I laughed myself silly reading it:
I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YEARS FOR MY GRANDADDY IN OKC WITH NO LUCK. I KNOW THEY DIDN'T JUST ROLL HIM INTO A DITCH SOMEWHERE... ANYONE THAT KNEW IS DEAD, BUT I WILL CONTINUE MY SEARCH.
SOURCE: photographer Clyde Butcher
My maternal Great-Aunt Helen told my husband and I once that all she ever knew growing up was that she wanted to get the hell out of Hagerman, New Mexico. She said Hagerman was pleasant enough, but times were hard in the 1930s. She was BORED. It had very little to offer a young woman. And girls just want to have fun, so the song goes. Every chance she could take, she went to the nearby metropolis of Roswell, where there was an air force base full of young men. Helen soon met a guy who worked at a filling station (is what they called gas stations back in the day). Joe was easy on the eyes and full of personality. They soon married.
Joe Dempsie Sillivent married Helen Evelyn Coffee in Fort Sumner, DeBaca County, New Mexico in October 1940. My cousin Connie shared their marriage certificate with us. Remember to click on photos in this blog to enlarge.
Jack Dempsey was THE boxing star of the 1920s. I've wondered if Joe's parents were fans and gave their youngest son his middle name Dempsie as a nod to the Champ? After serving in the military during World War II, Joe and Helen followed her family's move to central California. They divorced in 1949. Helen remarried. As did Joe--two more times, to Pauline and then Gertrude. He later reconnected with Helen, his first wife, who was recently widowed. He was by her side when she died in 2004.
Joe died shortly before Christmas in 2009. When I last spoke to him,
it was about his beloved dog, "Red," who had been such a good
companion to him.
Joe's obit reads:
JOE D. SILLIVENT, age 89, passed away Thursday, December 17, 2009 in Hemet, California, where he was a resident for 21 years. Joe was born on June 26th, 1920 in Shallow-Water, Texas to Lewis Warren and Flora Sillivent. Joe loved electronics which led to his career as an Electrical Engineer for ITT for 38 years. He served in the United States Air Force during World War II. Joe is survived by his son, Martin Sillivent of Maui, Hawaii; son-in-law, Paul Jones of Maui, Hawaii; step-son, Richard and Lonna Owen of San Bernardino, California; niece, Debra Taylor of Riverbank, CA; a large extended family of grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins in both Texas and California. Funeral Service will be at Bellevue Memorial Park in Ontario, CA at 11:00 am, Tuesday, December 29, 2009.
We miss you and Helen still, Uncle Joe.
On May 19, 1812 in Barren County in the new state of Kentucky, formerly Virginia, Edward Bray (husband to Nancy Ann Dowdy Bray) wrote his permission for his 18-year old daughter, Rachael Anne, to marry John Abraham James (my maternal 4th G-Grandfather). Source: Kentucky Marriages, 1802-1850.
"This is to certify that John James has my consent" - John was 22 years old.
But first, let me back up to 1800 when our John was age ten. His father had died, leaving his mother Mary with five children. I have the text copy of his Will.
In October of that year the court ordered three men to appraise Mr. James' estate "and slaves, if any, of James James, Deceased and make report thereof to the Court."
On March 13, 1801 appraisal of the estate was reported "worth of 100 pounds 7 shillings 6 pence."
Two years later, "During April court of 1803," it was:
ORDERED that the Clerk of this Court do bind out to James
H. Rice, John James, orphan and son of James James, Dec'd,
to learn the trade, art and business of farming according
to law; and also, Polly James, orphan and daughter of James
James, Dec'd, to the said James H. Rice according to law.
NOTE: James H. Rice was an attorney for the Commonwealth of Barren County, Kentucky.
Yikes, indentured servitude? Our John, son of James James, was but 13 years old! His sister, Mary Anne "Polly" James, born in 1799, was only four years old.
But read more from the same court:
"ORDERED that attachment be issued against Mary James Belcher and Moses Belcher to appear at next Court to show cause why they should not be fined for contempt of the Court for not binding their children. (NOTE: Mary James, John's mother, had since married Mr. Moses Belcher.)
And this in 1803 from "The November County Court:"
ORDERED that _____ be issued to summons Mary James (alias) Mary Speakman, (alias) Mary Belcher to appear at next Court to show cause, if any she can, why she shall not give county security or deliver up the Estate of James James, her late husband, into the hands of her security for his indemnity;"
