So Many Marriage Records Online

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.

Oral Family History Can Be Lost In Three Generations

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.”

A Town Where My Family Once Lived


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Ditch Directory, Please?

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.


Joe Sillivent

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.



Ahh, this a poor photo, I know. I had only a few kilobytes from which to resize into this grainy picture. Do YOU have any photos of young Joe and Helen? Would love to see some.

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.


From Santa Fe, New Mexico in November of 1942, Joe enlisted and served over three years during World War II. He served stateside as a radio mechanic in Massachusetts and Washington. Helen and her younger brother (Joe's buddy) John Coffee also relocated with him to Massachusetts where he was stationed. 

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.


John James Marries Rachael Bray - 1812

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;"

At this point it is not known whether Mary complied with the court order to surrender her children to be bound out or whether she continued to defy said order. What's a mother to do? 

Skipping ahead to May 1812, John and Rachael did indeed marry. Seven of their children were born in Kentucky, and the remaining FIVE were born in Missouri.

Land records of 1831 and 1835 show John and Rachael had moved to High Point, Missouri (formerly Osage tribal land) and were among the first settlers of what is now Moniteau County. A homestead record exists from January 1840 from President Martin Van Buren for "Section 17" near the village of High Point to this same James family.

I descend from their third son, William James. 


Thanks again for popping in. I welcome your comments.

#TheyHadNames

Roscoe Conkling McCormick

Roscoe is my Mom's "Grand Uncle" (and also third cousin twice removed!) and was the second son of Union Army veteran, William McCormick, and his wife, Elizabeth Van Doren, of LaSalle County, Illinois. He was the fifth of their seven children, born in late 1877. Roscoe married Margaret Kerby in Van Wyck, Idaho in 1904, and they had three children: Francis William, Doris Marie and Marjorie Margaret McCormick. (Note to Californian kin: His two daughters once lived in Sonoma County, and died there in 1994 and 1996) 

Roscoe studied and received his first degree in Natural Science from the University of Illinois in 1901. I found him teaching science that year in Jackson County, Illinois. He then pursued his medical degree at the College of Physicians & Surgeons from 1903-1908. Dr. McCormick was employed as a medical inspector for the city of Chicago Health Department from 1908 to 1910. Can you say Upton Sinclair? Sinclair chilled his thousands of readers with an expose of Chicago's meatpacking industry in his book The Jungle. Have you read it? I've started it several times but can't finish it. Chicagoans too were horrified. Public outrage led to the 1906 Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts. So our Roscoe certainly came on board at the Health Department during a challenging time in Chicago's history. What stories he might have told!

The Pure Food and Drug Act also generated attempts to regulate Chicago's milk supply. In 1909, Chicago became the first city in the United States to pass an ordinance requiring compulsory milk pasteurization. This law did not guarantee the city's residents access to safe, pure, and cheap milk, however, in part because of discrepancies between Illinois statutes and Chicago ordinances. The city passed stricter regulations than the state and had a larger inspecting staff. But Chicago still faced great difficulty enforcing its rules, because it could not command uniform standards from 12,000 dairies in four different states that supplied residents with milk. Nor was it able to exercise regulatory control over an interest group with power at the state level.

 After what was most likely not a soiree at the Health Department, Dr. McCormick went into private practice in Wauconda, Illinois. The 1930 Federal Census finds him working in Logan County, Colorado. He died in Colorado Springs in 1953, and is buried in Denver.

And before computers, there were card files at the American Medical Association:

Source:  U.S. Deceased Physician File (AMA), 1864-1968 via familysearch.org 


I got a kick out of reading the curriculum for the Murphysboro Township High School that Roscoe taught at in 1901:

Thanks for stopping by. A pumpkin pie goes to anyone who can come up with a photo of Roscoe. I'm eating a piece now from Village Inn--the best pie hole in town.