Thursday, May 31, 2012

I have really neglected the blog lately! Getting my Crousores sorted and recorded has been a daunting task. Another 2-3 weeks should do it. I also have road trips planned for the Crousore ancestral stomping grounds in  Ohio and Indiana this month.

I hope to have some updates for the September Prall Reunion in the next week or so.

The Utah Genealogical Society has announced that registration for the 2013 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy [Jan. 14-18] will begin on June 2. There are some new options for lunch in '13. For courses, general info and registration, go to: http://ugagenealogy.org/cpage.php?pt=210 I'll be attending for the 13th straight year. I need to check my pedigree chart for a candidate for the Problem Solving track. I highly recommend the SLIG. It is well organized, informative, fun and you get to visit the Family History Library!

Monday, May 21, 2012

What a shame! NBC has canned "Who Do You Think You Are?" after 4 seasons. You just can't allow educational, informative and historical programming on NBC for very long. Hopefully, CBS, ABC or another network will pick it up for 2013.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Update on the E.Q. Prall photo from yesterday's post. An Elmus Q. Prall died in Oklahoma in 1960. If I have traced his ancestry correctly, it is as follows:  Elmus Q., Charles C., Asa, Thomas, George, Peter, Peter, Peter, Arent Jansen, Jan Arentsen. This would be part of the Clark Co., IN - Iowa Pralls. Census and grave records have Elmus' birth between 1871-1873. The photo was found in an attic in Drumright, OK and turned over to the Historical Society. Let me know if you are an Elmus Q. descendant!!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Genealogy is like baseball, stick around long enough and you see something that you haven't seen before. Today I came across an 1880 census entry for occupation "laid up, spinal issues & heart issues." That's a new one!

If any of you Pralls out there have an ancestor E.Q. Prall, born Oct. 31, 1870, let me know. I received an e-mail about a picture from when he was four.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Genealogy is a wonderful adventure! Hours of research lead to conflicting pieces of evidence that don't fit with the facts that you already have. Pouring through resources online or in a research facility only to find that there's no information on the person/family you are tracking. Then there's the flip-side... Hours of research lead to that elusive piece of evidence that you have been after for years. Pouring through resources online or in a research facility only to find unusually well documented information on a gap in the pedigree chart. Enjoy the ride!

Weekend #2 for Hendricks Civic Theatre's production of A Nice Family Gathering. Show times are 7:30 tonight and tomorrow, 2:30 on Sunday.

The Genealogical Society of Marion County meets at the Crown Hill Cemetery Waiting Station at 1:00 tomorrow. The May presentation covers a discussion of a variety of Genealogy software programs [FTM, Legacy, RootsMagic, etc.] and a general Q&A sessions about genealogy in general. Attendance is free!

Getting back to the opening paragraph: My Crousore-Haught research is maddening! A petition for the appraisal of the value of the estate of Nicholas Crousore, dec'd , from 1815 names his children and the eight children of his late daughter Magdalena [Jacob] Haught, Jacob then married Magdalena's sister Mary.
Census records strongly suggest that Magdalena and Jacob had another son, George, who should be on the list. I can't find any other sources that put his birth late enough to be Mary's son. Then there are two daughters named Magdalena that some researchers have being alive in 1810. That seems doubtful.

The real fun has been determining when Magdalena died and Mary married. 1803 is the estimated birth year for the youngest of the grandchildren named in the 1815 petition. The next "surviving" child was born about 1809. There are three females born 1801-1810 unaccounted for in the 1810 census. So, Mary and Jacob must have married about 1805. Was this Mary's first marriage? Maybe. She would have been about 25 in 1805.

Dealing with people in the pre-1850 census era is the big stumbling block with this line. Many of them died before 1850, so identifying children and spouses is a serious challege!

Just one more thing..... Where's Columbo when you need him?

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Prall Query: Those of you doing Prall research, here's a sort of fill-in-the-blank research problem. Judy Snyder is trying to fill in a gap in her lineage. If any visitors can help out, drop me a line.

Here's Judy's line starting with generation 3:
Pieter Prall [1672-1748] & Maria Christopher;
Isaac Prall [1710-1774] & Maria DuBois,
Isaac Prall [1753-1789] & Charity Dissoway
(missing generation)
Isaac W. Prall Sr. [1817 NJ - 1875 Logan Co., OH] & Catherine (possibly Hutchings) [1819 PA-1883]
Isaac W. Prall Jr. [1853-1934] & Laura "Jennie" Walker
Harry W. Prall [1891-1973] & Ferol Edna "Bess" Tudor
Isaac Edward Prall [1915-1970] & Margaret Musgrave
they had Edward & Judy

Initial thoughts were that the missing generation was Lewis Prall [1784-aft1853] & Esther Marsh, but research is not supporting that theory.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

We had a good audience at A Nice Family Gathering last night [size and reaction]. Still six shows to go [May 11-13, 18-20]. If you are close to Hendricks Co., IN, come and see it! [Web info on earlier post.]

One of my pet peeves with genealogy is the amount of misinformation posted on family trees and websites! Honest mistakes, typos, etc. are to be expected, but it seems that people need to double-check data and be wary of assumptions made by others.

I'm back to working on my Crousores with a collateral link to Haught. It seems that one branch of that family has parents born in the 1780s or 1790s with children born in the same two decades!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Good opening night for A Nice Family Gathering! Seats available for tonight and the next two weekends.

Sometimes genealogy research turns up some peculiar situations! One such situation came up with my Simmons research. I was digging into records for Sylvanus Simmons, younger brother of my James Morris Simmons, and found him in the census from 1860 through 1880. In 1860 the family consisted of Sylvanus, wife Henrietta and daughters Henrietta [14] and Ada [11].  Henrietta was indexed as Harriet and H.P. in the other two enumerations.

Sylvanus' mother, Dolly had written a letter to one of her sisters in November 1860 and mentioned several of her children, including Sylvanus, with whom she was living at the time. Dolly mentioned the girls [14 & 12], but not by name.

Sylvanus turned up in various northern Kentucky and Cincinnati directories through the early 1900s. Then came  three finds that led to mass confusion!

(1) Henrietta's obituary appeared in the Covington, KY Daily Commonwealth [17 Mar 1881]: "The funeral of Mrs. Henrietta P. Simmons, late wife of Mr. S. Simmons, took place this afternoon from the residence of her son-in-law, ex-councilman Bateman, on Bakewell St., where she died last Tuesday."

(2) The marriage of Ada J. Simmons to Edward Bateman on 3 Mar 1864 in Cass Co., IN

(3) The death certificate of Ada Bateman dated 27 Aug 1930 in Cincinnati, OH. Husband: Edward Bateman; Father: S. Simmons; Mother: Kate Van Loo.

Whoa! Kate Van Loo?! Mama was supposed to be Henrietta P. ________. What's going on? Husband and father matched with the obituary details, why was the mother different?

I had not been able to find Sylvanus, Henrietta and the girls in 1850. They should have been married about 1845 in Ohio or Kentucky.

A search of Ohio marriages turned up one for 16 Sept 1845 between Sylvanus Simmons and CATHERINE VAN LIEU. The 1850 census recorded S.S. Simmons [26], Catherine [23], Sarah A. [4] and Margaret J. [2]. Ages fit all concerned, but Henrietta was Sarah and Ada was Margaret! What was going on?

Based on the 1930 death certificate of Ada Bateman and other records, I had the right family. For some reason the females underwent name changes between 1850 and 1860. The informant on Ada's death certificate did give the "actual" name of her mother. The BIG question - WHY?

I'm still looking for explanations! I ran into a similar situation with one of my German Catholic families. I wrote the discrepancy off  as the possible use of baptismal given names in 1850 and preferred middle names thereafter. This Simmons family has me baffled!

Friday, May 4, 2012

First off, I need to correct a relationship error from the Earp/Crockett post. Robert W. Cunningham, who died at the Alamo, was the grandson of Lucinda Morris Cunningham Simmons, not her son. Robert was the son of Anna Jennison and David Cunningham. Anna was the sister of my 4th great-grandmother, Dolly Jennison, wife of John W. Simmons. That makes Robert my 1st cousin 5x removed.

The Genealogical Society of Marion County will be holding its May 12th meeting at the Crown Hill Waiting Station [34th & Boulevard Place] from 1:00-3:00. We will be examining several leading genealogy software programs such as RootsMagic, Legacy, Family Tree Maker and a couple of others. Those researchers in the area who haven't selected a software program or may be thinking about switching to a new one, are invited to attend.We will also have a general research Q&A session afterward. It's fee! For details and directions: http://genealogyindy.org/index.php

A Nice Family Gathering opens at HCT's Longstreet Theatre tonight! Seats are available!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

I've neglected the blog the past few days getting ready for the opening of Hendricks Civic Theatre's production of A Nice Family Gathering on Friday. If you are a theatre-goer in the Indianapolis-Hendricks County area stop by. Show info at  http://www.hendrickscivic.com/?p=1718.

Genealogy has been on the back burner, but the Crousore research is still #1 right now. If anyone who stops by to read the blog has ties to Nicholas Kraushaar/Croushore/Crousore of Fayette Co., PA, let me know.

Prall Reunion mini-update: I've heard from a couple of hotel chains with no positive results. Will keep all posted.