Do a quick family search

[Bitwit1234]

give me the name of a great great something - just so they were born before 1930 with the state they are from, and I'll do a quick ancestor search for you....Might take a day or two...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Here's one of my toughies

Minnie Elizabeth (Palmer) Lane b. 19 Apr 1875 in Jasper Co IL.

She was born several years before her parents of record (William and Mary Ellen Nelson Lane)were married. On the 1880 Effingham Co IL census she and her older brother Wiley are listed as children of the William Lane, but the surname is listed as Palmer, then crossed out! Mary Ellen was not married previously.

Minnie m. James Arthur in 1893 in Logan Co IL. After his death in a coal mining accident, she married a Charles Ball, but I have no information on him.

Thanks for anything you can find on my great-great grandmother.

[Bitwit1234]

2. Just found this will check it out but

you can't always go by a lot of the birthdates. People get them completly wrong from years to years...check it out and get back.

[Bitwit1234]

4. I have to add something about the surname

I found my grandfather by accident. I put in his first name and date of birth then checked him out. They had him listed under his wife's surname and his middle name. So it was chance I found him.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Do you know if Mary Ellen Nelson's parents were from Tennessee?

There's a 1900 census record for a William and Mary Lane in East Lincoln, IL (Logan County) and they are the same ages and b. same states as your William and Mary in the 1880 record. They are shown as married 28 years, which would contradict your record of their marriage after Minnie was born. Mary is listed as mother of 11, 7 living. 5 children and one grandson are also in the household.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. that's them

but I have their marriage license, so I know for sure the date of their marriage.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Do you know what happen to Wiley?

Did he retain the name Lane as an adult?

What's interesting is that you have no evidence that Mary was married previously. The years married on census being incorrect doesn't surprise me, because we all know that census data has some issues with recall and recording errors, and sometimes it's self censorship. 28 years means that no further explanation is necessary for those two older children.

If Minnie and Wiley were born to Mary when she was unmarried, it's unlikely they would have had a surname other than Nelson but sometimes it did happen. If both assumed the name Lane after she was married that's a stronger suggestion that she wasn't married to a Palmer when they were born,but not by much.

I've seen several informal namings for out of wedlock kids on one of my branches and census is usually the place where I pick up on it. I also had one instance where I found an orphan boy, child within marriage of John and Mary(Smith)Jones living with his maternal aunt and uncle but listed as Joshua Smith not Joshua Jones. Someone outside of the family probably told the census taker the boy's name, someone who knew the aunt was from the Smith family and that was her sister's kid -- at least that's the only plausible explanation I can come up with.

Hey, if it weren't for the brick walls, what sort of challenge would there be?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. I was told by cousins

that Wiley died ca 1912 but as an adult went by the name Wiley NELSON. Another indication that Mary Ellen was the mother. They said there had "been some talk" in the family about Wiley and Minne, but they never were able to find out more. Unfortunately, they got hold of me with this information the day before I moved from Illinois and went to live far away (and get married). Since that time, I've not had a chance (or the funds) to find out more. And, of course, I lost their contact information in the move.

I'm hoping when I retire and don't have as many expenses I can get someone in Macon Co IL to search this information for me.

I have a similar problem with my husband's family. His maternal grandmother was orphaned at an early age. She was born just after the 1900 census was taken, and I can't find her in any other census until 1930! No marriage license, even though her husband's obit gives a date and place of marriage. Her death certificate listed her father's name, but no mother's name--and the father's name was Joseph Smith!

[Bitwit1234]

16. You know what have you tried the LDS go to their site and see

what files they have. Then you can request - if you find something - that the file be sent to the nearest LDS near you. Back in the 90's it was only 2.00 I am sure since it is LDS it hasn't gone up much. And the used to keep it 30 days so you could go back and back and check.

www.familysearch.org

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. Yes, I know about the LDS records

I've been doing research since 1978, and back then it was LDS or go to local courthouses or travel to the big libraries (I've been to Allen County Library a couple of times).

[Bitwit1234]

27. I had an aunt that was a "housekeeper"

for a man for 20 years she had 6 children who were at first listed under her maiden name. Then they got married and suddenly all the children had his name. And guess what his father had done for a living. he was a horse whisperer...I had never heard of that til I saw it made into a movie. But what these men were, were trainers. They were taught a training technique that used gentleness on the horse's instead of strength.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Jacob Nelson

and his father were from Tennessee. Mary Ellen's grandfather "cut the first stick" in Jackson Twp, according to the county history.

[Bitwit1234]

3. Remember not verified

1850 census
William Lane born 1848 works in saw mill born Ohio parents Ohio
Mary Lane born 1855 born Ohio parents also
Wiley Palmer born 1873..Ill
Minnie E. Palmer born 1875 born Ill

YOU SAID married
James Arthur born Oct 1858 born Ill works in saw mill
1 -Minnie Arthur children...

2 - Ralph Arthur born Sept 1894
married Ruby Katchein Weaver born 15 Mar 1895
died 30 Dec 1968
3 - Evan Wayne Arthur married Frances Blome
3 - Norma Arthur married Edgar Morgan

2 - Lawrence Arthur born Jan 1896 married Bessie Weaver
3 - Harold V. Arthur
3 - Phyllis D. Arthur

2 - Homer Arthur born Feb 1900

I did find Minnie E. Palmer's grandparents were Jacob Peter Nelson and
Luvesta Miller

I do not have the means to check out the marriages etc. this is verified but it will give you and idea.

I am going to go back and see if I can find Jacob Nelson and Luvesta Miller in Ohio... if William Lane and Mary Lane are correct in listing them from Ohio. And I found a Minnie Elizabeth Palmer listed in the Rogers Park, Ill 1890 directory listed as an artist.. no way of knowing if it was her but since her first child was not born til 1894 could be.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. You won't find Jacob in Ohio

I did extensive research on this line back in the '80s, and went to Effingham and looked at the court records. Jacob was b. 3 Dec 1827 in Warren Co TN, this according to the Effingham county history and his death certificate. Luvesta was b. ca 1828 in TN, town unknown. This from marriage license, death certificate, and obit. Jacob was crippled when he fell out of a tree as a boy, and was mainly in the grocery business.

The Arthur information you got was correct, and I have marriage licenses, obits, etc. Minnie Elizabeth was married to James in 1893 in Logan County IL-so the artist could be her. My grandfather told me his brother Homer was an artist--and a captain in the Salvation Army.

Interesting that in your list are two individuals who are still alive, one being my mother. When I posted my findings online, I took care not to list any individuals who were still living. Wonder who did? Would you mind sharing the source for the information?

Thanks for doing this checking for me.

[Bitwit1234]

12. Check the person who did and get back. You know if they

posted the name there is probably a connection. Maybe a relative of yours.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. I know they are not

This is a sore point with me, and I don't mean to offend if you are LDS. But an LDS researcher posted my family tree online with names and dates of living people--and they had all been "sealed" in the LDS Church, which means they were baptised as if they were deceased. My mother found out about this and was very upset, as she is very much alive. I tried getting in touch with the poster, but she never returned emails; a letter to the LDS Church yielded a reply that they had nothing to do with it.

[Bitwit1234]

20. You find that a lot at LDS most researchers have a book they

give to relatives but if they post they don't put the living's names.
The list them as

Living Doe....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

22. That is the proper way of doing things

I was really upset when this one LDS researcher posted information on living people online. And more upset when she wouldn't respond to emails I sent. I figured she just didn't realize that my relatives were still living, and expected the courtesy of an answer. When rootsweb first started up, you saw a lot of it, as people didn't realize the privacy issues then, and emails between researchers sorted things out.

[Bitwit1234]

28. Most people don't post living ones on the net anywhere.

this family tree should have listed them as "Living Doe" or whatever there last name was.

[CBHagman]

11. Once we get to great-greats, mine are foreign-born, but...

...if you've got any further info on the following family, I'd appreciate it.

Here's the scoop:

Great-grandma was born Bridget Agnes Duggan in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in April 1869. She went by her middle name, Agnes.

Her parents: Henry Duggan, born in 1828 in Ireland, emigrated to the U.S. in 1864; Anna Devitt, born in May 1838 (?) in Ireland.

Her siblings: Katherine, Marie, Sarah, Henry (Henry Bernard or Bernard Henry, possibly), and Nettie.

Agnes Duggan married Charles Francis Beckett on April 27, 1887, in Scranton, PA. I've only found her listed on two censuses, in 1880 and 1900, and it is believed she died young, though she was still alive in 1905. I think she had left Scranton for Philadelphia by that time.

Here's the thing: I don't know exactly when she died, only that it's between 1905 and 1936. Any clues, hints, gory details are much appreciated.

[Bitwit1234]

13. Get back in a couple of days my printer cartridge out of ink darn.

I need to print out my four generations of genealogy to send along with my free DNA test.

[Bitwit1234]

14. Did you guys also know that rootsweb has family files from

lots of people under their world conntect.

www.rootsweb.com when you get there click on to the world connect link. Then you can type in the name of the person you are looking for. If someone (or more than one) has them in their data base it shows up. Some time too many so you have to wittle it down with parents, spouse or maybe even date of birth (range 1 to 10 or more years).

And the person posting the file usually has their email address. If you find a relative you can contact them. Worth a try.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

19. Yes, I have my trees listed there

I broke mine into two parts, so as not to post information about living relatives. It is a wonderful resource. Also at rootsweb are query boards by surname and by location. I've found a lot of help from people at those boards.

Also http://www.usgenweb.net can be helpful. It is a collection of independently written and maintained county websites for just about every county in the US. Sadly, many of the county coordinators have "burned out" and much information that used to be online is not there now. But they are still worth a look, especially for query boards. I've found cousins tracing the same lines via those boards (plus the ones who have contacted me via World Connect at rootsweb)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. Have you checked obits?

They were more common for just about everyone at that time. Also another place to look would be church records. Do you know where she is buried? This would give a clue as to which church to search for records.

[Bitwit1234]

21. At rootsweb I found

a world connect file from a Chandler Campbell researcher. They have a small bit on Henry Duggan

[e-mail]

I also found that Henry Duggan born about 1832 came from Ireland to the United States arrival date 3 June 1846. On the ship Schign from Liverpool

Family members were
Margaret Duggan....probably mother 30
Henry 14
Nancy 12
Barney 10
Mary 7
Malby (this is what I made it to be ) 3

and there was also a Henry Duggan in the Union Army 71 Pa regiment. Don't know if he was yours or not.

Will check out more on Agnes

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

23. A caveat about World Connect

The research submitted there is not screened, and anyone can post anything. When you can, look for submissions with cited sources.

[CBHagman]

25. More on my great-great-grandfather.

I appreciate your offer of assistance in this matter. The tricky part here, though, is that Henry Duggan (also listed under variants such as Dugan) was a common enough name in 19th century Ireland and the U.S.

I've been through city directories and gotten assistance from the regional genealogical society, so I can verify a few details about Henry's life. His naturalization papers indicate that he got to the U.S. in January 1864, and there is indeed a Henry Dugan disembarking from the Neptune on January 8th, 1864, at the port of New York.

And his obituary, listed under the name Henry Duggan, appears in the Scranton Times on July 4, 1900. Here's a transcription:

Henry Duggan died at his late home on Railroad avenue yesterday afternoon. The deceased had been a resident of this city for the past thirty-six years and was highly respected. He is survived by a widow and the following children: Bernard, of Philadelphia; Mrs. Agnes Beckett; Mrs. John F. Nolan, Katie and Nettie, all of this city, and one sister, Mrs. Katherine Burke, of Dunmore. Funeral Thursday morning.

"Mrs. John F. Nolan" is Sarah Duggan, and obviously Marie Duggan, listed in the 1880 census, died before 1900. Katherine lived until 1957 and Nettie until 1966, which I why I knew the latter and not the former.

And this may be the first and last time in recorded history that anyone in my family was identified as "highly respected."
;-)

[Bitwit1234]

26. You'all are lucky you have some record of the arrival because

My earliest ancestor in American came from overseas...where??? what was his name???? The first record was 1763 when he married. He listed himself as an orphan. Records suggest his parents were drowned in a shipwreck and he was raised by a family that gave him the name Sealock. Extensive research has been done, in England and Ireland and Scotland. There is no Sealocks anywhere in the world other than here. Some immigrants from Batavia changed their name to Sealock when they arrived because it was easy to spell but we are not descended from them. We want a male Sealock to take the DNA test and then have some of the DNA groups compare it with anyone from England to see if we get a hit. So far we can't find on. We have a genealogy list with rootsweb, with the surname but no one has volunteered.

There was a town in Scotland named Sealock in the early 1700's. It was at the head of the river called Grangemouth. So the town changed it's name to that. I even contacted the mayor and he said according to the town's records there was never anyone living there with the surname Sealock. We can't find why he took that name. Catherine Coulter, the Romance Mystery writer has a connection to the Sealock family, she set the location of one of her books in England near a town called Sealock. One thing we do know...if there is a person in this United States of America named Sealock they are related by blood or marriage. We can say that with certainty which you couldn't do with a lot of other surnames.

Then I have my maternal couple of greatgrandfather back to the 1780's and can find of record of him. The problem is, a lot of Virginia records were burned by the redcoats right before the Rev. War and a lot of precious information was lost.

I can do a search on Ancestry and see what it turns up for your Henry Duggan. And yes, I try different spellings. My maiden name Sealock has been spelled..Selock/Seelock/Selix/Celix and one time even Sealook/Sealuck

[CBHagman]

29. Wow! What a story!

It must be great to have such a distinctive name, but frustrating to run into all those brick walls. I hope you find our more about the Sealocks as time marches on.

Thanks for the help with my Duggan family. The "right" Henry Duggan is listed at OneWorldTree, I believe, but I don't have access to the records, and I think whoever wrote it up was missing key data. With city directories, naturalization records, wills, my great-grandparents' marriage record, and the like, I've been able to get quite a bit on on the family but don't have a few crucial details.

Katherine Duggan Burke outlived her brother Henry, and I have what I believe is her death certificate (she lived, luckily for me, into the era of more detailed death certificates). However, that certificate doesn't contain her exact birthplace in Ireland. FamilySearch.org says she was from Ballycastle, County Mayo, but you're no doubt well aware that information on FamilySearch is not always reliable (due to transcription errors, etc.).

I understand that many Irish immigrants from County Mayo did settle in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and I've posted queries on the Duggans on County Mayo websites. There have been no bites so far, however, and as I said, Henry Duggan/Dugan is a common enough name.

Anyway, I still don't know the fates of Agnes Duggan Beckett and her sister Marie, the latter having been reduced to a single reference in a single census. I've been to what I think are all identifiable Beckett and Duggan graves in Scranton, PA, and neither sister is listed in the cemetery records. It's possible Agnes died in Philadelphia. Her husband, Charles, died in Scranton in 1936 and is buried in Cathedral Cemetery.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

30. Did he fight in the Civil War?

A lot of immigrants coming to this country at that time either enlisted or were drafted into the Union army. If this is so, and you don't mind shelling out a chunk of change, you can get their military and pension records. The latter is a gold mine of information, as they had to state when and where they were married, the names of their children, and the places where they lived. Also there is often a story of why they were applying for the pension. In my case, the pension papers are the only record I have of a marriage (they were married in Chicago, and the Fire destroyed the records in the courthouse). In another case, I found that an ancestor had been captured and sent to Andersonville Prison after being mistreated in another prison!

[Bitwit1234]

32. No he was born 1730's. But some of his sons and my line

fought in the Revoluntary War...the main researcher has the record where one of the sons of Thomas Sealock was fined 10 cents for being late for roll call. It wasn't much but it was just a connection. I do have a story that is interesting.

My great great grandfather Elijah Riley, who lived in Virginia, enlisted in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He, like a lot of the farmers, would desert in the fall take in their crops and then come back. But my Grandfather Elijah didn't come back, he went over to the Union side. He wasn't getting paid in the Confederate side so he wanted to be paid. Luckily he was sent further North to Pennsylvania, and wasn't involved in fighting against his other brothers. But he got a pension which since he was disabled in later life came in handy. He also got extra allowance for his daughter and wife because the government considered them caregivers.

[Bitwit1234]

24. Reference Minnie Palmer

Here's the name of the three who posted this info on world connect. Remember I don't know how old it is and sometimes I send emails and they don't answer or the email is no longer valid. But here they are..

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]


Did you guys know that if you want to check census free check with your local library. If they subscribe to Heritage Quest what you do is get a library card, and then you can access the census on line. I used to do that and still do when I can't find what I want on Ancestry.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

31. I'll check out two of these

the third is me :)