I think all family historians dream of stumbling across letters, diaries and journals that, at the very least, have a mention of one of their ancestors.
I have had a little luck in this area. A couple of journals have confirmed family relationships or events such as marriages or deaths for some of my ancestors. A letter published in a genealogy confirmed a parent-child relationship.
Surveyor George Washington mentioned stopping at an ancestor's inn on a couple of occasions!
Physical descriptions of ancestors have been a rarity. My Mom and uncle told me about their Uncle Jack, who tipped the scales at 400+ pounds. A couple of NYC histories mentioned "Wall Street John" Simmons, a tavern-keeper, who was reported to have been the "most corpulent man" in New York.
Now comes Thomas Treadway, an innkeeper, who was described by Dr. Alexander Hamilton as "a fat, pursy man who had large bubbies like a woman." Yikes! Talk about a physical description! Dr. Hamilton, on a later stop over, referred to the inn-keeper as his "old friend Treadway." It also seems that Thomas was in ill health.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Cunningham - Treadway families II
I continue to work on my "new" Cunningham and Treadway data. One of the toughest parts is assigning plausible birth years to folks that don't have them recorded.
Case in point: The five Cunningham brothers [or is it six?] Their grandfather, Thomas Treadway, names five Cunningham grandsons - Crispin, Thomas, George, James and Daniel. [No evidence that they are in birth order.] There are several online trees at Ancestry.com that deal with this family. Several add a 6th son, William. Births range from the mid-1740s to the early 1760s. I have located births for two of the brothers, Crispin [1761]and Daniel [1763]. That leaves three open to conjecture, Thomas, George and James. And of course, there's no marriage date for their parents.
I have relied on marriage dates and a scattering of tax records to determine reasonable births for the trio. That's assuming they married between the ages of 18 and 23, fairly common for that time period.
For Thomas, I have yet to locate a marriage, so he's totally guesswork. George married in 1779, so a 1756-1761 range makes sense. He was over 18 in 1778, that puts his birth pre-1760. James married in 1773 and was over 18 in 1778. I give him a birth range of 1750-1755.
I settled on the following: James born c. 1752 [married at 21], Thomas born c. 1755 and George born c. 1757 [married at 22]. These dates are fairly disagreeable with those on the Ancestry.com trees. If parents Clotworthy Cunningham and Mary Ann Treadway were married about 1744 as suggested on the trees, then my estimates are off considerably. Then there's William. If there was a 6th son, his death pre-dated that of his grandfather.
What is needed, besides birth records for all of the boys, is a marriage date for the parents!
Case in point: The five Cunningham brothers [or is it six?] Their grandfather, Thomas Treadway, names five Cunningham grandsons - Crispin, Thomas, George, James and Daniel. [No evidence that they are in birth order.] There are several online trees at Ancestry.com that deal with this family. Several add a 6th son, William. Births range from the mid-1740s to the early 1760s. I have located births for two of the brothers, Crispin [1761]and Daniel [1763]. That leaves three open to conjecture, Thomas, George and James. And of course, there's no marriage date for their parents.
I have relied on marriage dates and a scattering of tax records to determine reasonable births for the trio. That's assuming they married between the ages of 18 and 23, fairly common for that time period.
For Thomas, I have yet to locate a marriage, so he's totally guesswork. George married in 1779, so a 1756-1761 range makes sense. He was over 18 in 1778, that puts his birth pre-1760. James married in 1773 and was over 18 in 1778. I give him a birth range of 1750-1755.
I settled on the following: James born c. 1752 [married at 21], Thomas born c. 1755 and George born c. 1757 [married at 22]. These dates are fairly disagreeable with those on the Ancestry.com trees. If parents Clotworthy Cunningham and Mary Ann Treadway were married about 1744 as suggested on the trees, then my estimates are off considerably. Then there's William. If there was a 6th son, his death pre-dated that of his grandfather.
What is needed, besides birth records for all of the boys, is a marriage date for the parents!
Monday, February 16, 2015
Cunningham - Treadway Family
My search for the parents of Pathiah Cunningham did lead to "new" data on her husband's clan - the Cunninghams.
Retooling notes is an adventure! I had a "family story" on the Cunninghams authored by Isaac Prall, the brother of my gggf Hugh M. Prall. Isaac's memory was a bit fuzzy! He mixed up details in the lives of James Cunningham Junior and Senior. As new details surface, the bios of father and son change considerably.
Isaac made errors in the rest his story as well, but at least he left an account of the family to be sorted out!
Retooling notes is an adventure! I had a "family story" on the Cunninghams authored by Isaac Prall, the brother of my gggf Hugh M. Prall. Isaac's memory was a bit fuzzy! He mixed up details in the lives of James Cunningham Junior and Senior. As new details surface, the bios of father and son change considerably.
Isaac made errors in the rest his story as well, but at least he left an account of the family to be sorted out!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Upon further review......
SIGH! There's nothing like having your bubble burst! I was just about convinced that I had the parents of Pathiah Standiford identified until I examined the date of birth [1735] and compared it with the marriage date [1773]. Pathiah would have been 38 when she married James Cunningham and about 53 when her last of six children was born - say, 1786. Those numbers just don't work!
Pathiah would probably have been between 18 and 23 when she married in 1773 [b. 1750-1755]. That means another generation of Standifords now sneaks into the picture, or at least a younger sibling of Samuel [the possible father, or so I thought!]
When you think you have a line figured out, double-check your available sources - strong, weak, or otherwise, to make sure.
As for me?
Back to the drawing board!
Pathiah would probably have been between 18 and 23 when she married in 1773 [b. 1750-1755]. That means another generation of Standifords now sneaks into the picture, or at least a younger sibling of Samuel [the possible father, or so I thought!]
When you think you have a line figured out, double-check your available sources - strong, weak, or otherwise, to make sure.
As for me?
Back to the drawing board!
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Cunningham and Standiford
It's amazing how suddenly the flood waters break through the levee. I'd say brick wall, but sometimes a new find throws up another level of bricks!
Last week I was searching for my Cunningham ancestors and came across an assortment of trees, some with attached records, that take my Cunninghams back at least another generation. Today, I continued my search on the Standiford side of the family and came across a handful of possible lineages and enough evidence to convince me that I had the Standiford ancestry screwed up, which I suspected anyway.
As a result, I can add a generation to the Cunninghams and a new family [Treadway]. On the Standiford side, a couple of new families and the fun of sorting out which lineage - if any - is the correct one for the family.
It appears that the Cunninghams were from Scotland, not much of a reach. As for the Standifords, the Scottish Lowlands or northern England appear to be origin options.
Once I get everything sorted out to my satisfaction, then I can go back and update those family timelines!
Last week I was searching for my Cunningham ancestors and came across an assortment of trees, some with attached records, that take my Cunninghams back at least another generation. Today, I continued my search on the Standiford side of the family and came across a handful of possible lineages and enough evidence to convince me that I had the Standiford ancestry screwed up, which I suspected anyway.
As a result, I can add a generation to the Cunninghams and a new family [Treadway]. On the Standiford side, a couple of new families and the fun of sorting out which lineage - if any - is the correct one for the family.
It appears that the Cunninghams were from Scotland, not much of a reach. As for the Standifords, the Scottish Lowlands or northern England appear to be origin options.
Once I get everything sorted out to my satisfaction, then I can go back and update those family timelines!
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Salt Lake Institute 2016 Information
The 2016 Salt Lake Institute will be held January 11-16. Registration will begin June 20, 2015.
The 2015 institute was held at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center for the first time. I t will be there again in 2016. I encourage anyone interested in any of the topics listed below to register. Also - I will continue to promote the Problem Solving track, it's a great "brick wall-busting opportunity."
UGA-SLIG url: http://infouga.org/cpage.php?pt=375
The track offerings are as follows [course coordinators are in parentheses]:
The 2015 institute was held at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center for the first time. I t will be there again in 2016. I encourage anyone interested in any of the topics listed below to register. Also - I will continue to promote the Problem Solving track, it's a great "brick wall-busting opportunity."
UGA-SLIG url: http://infouga.org/cpage.php?pt=375
The track offerings are as follows [course coordinators are in parentheses]:
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Monday, February 9, 2015
A New Find and Genealogy Block
I think I am about recovered from a serious bout of 'Genealogy Block.' I just haven't found the time or motivation to post blogs over the last couple of months. Research efforts have been a bit lax as well.
My annual trip to the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy didn't provide the necessary motivation either. I took the class on "Digging Deeper into New England Research" with Josh Taylor. Since this was a "classroom experience," library time was limited. The course was extremely interesting and beneficial, as I have numerous New England ancestors [Massachusetts, Connecticut & Rhode Island.]
I'm used to spending my SLIG week with the Problem Solving track. Having two hours of classroom time and the rest of the day researching grows on you. Fortunately, SLIG is bringing back Problem Solving next year. Hooray! It will be nice to get back into the "normal routine."
I will post the 2016 SLIG tracks later this week.
Getting over my genealogy block came with a chance "find." I was searching to see if the WWW held any data on my Simmons, Jennison or Twiss families. I came across a link on Find a Grave to John William and Dolly [Jennison] Simmons. Lo and behold, I was looking at a photo of John W. and Dolly from the mid-1850s! Photos for either side of my family pre-dating 1900 are few and far between, this is a terrific find. [photo courtesy of Douglas Bean - 10/10/2014] Thanks for posting the photo Doug!
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=137050901
My annual trip to the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy didn't provide the necessary motivation either. I took the class on "Digging Deeper into New England Research" with Josh Taylor. Since this was a "classroom experience," library time was limited. The course was extremely interesting and beneficial, as I have numerous New England ancestors [Massachusetts, Connecticut & Rhode Island.]
I'm used to spending my SLIG week with the Problem Solving track. Having two hours of classroom time and the rest of the day researching grows on you. Fortunately, SLIG is bringing back Problem Solving next year. Hooray! It will be nice to get back into the "normal routine."
I will post the 2016 SLIG tracks later this week.
Getting over my genealogy block came with a chance "find." I was searching to see if the WWW held any data on my Simmons, Jennison or Twiss families. I came across a link on Find a Grave to John William and Dolly [Jennison] Simmons. Lo and behold, I was looking at a photo of John W. and Dolly from the mid-1850s! Photos for either side of my family pre-dating 1900 are few and far between, this is a terrific find. [photo courtesy of Douglas Bean - 10/10/2014] Thanks for posting the photo Doug!
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=137050901
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