Notable July Fourth Events in Our Family History

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Today is Independence Day in the United States, the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by our founding fathers. On this day, Americans celebrate the birthday of our nation.

I thought it would be interesting to look through my RootsMagic family tree databases and see what significant events happened on July 4th in our family's history. I ran queries in my own database, my children's paternal lines database, and my grandchildren's paternal lines database.

There were many July 4th births, marriages, and deaths of individuals, mostly distant relatives. There were no July 4th burials, which makes sense. A burial is a sad occasion and Independence Day is for celebrations.

I won't list every July 4th birth, marriage, or death below, but I will list ones for direct ancestors or those which may have had an effect on a direct ancestor.

Births

Oddly enough, only one of the three July 4th ancestor births was on American soil.

My paternal great-great-grandfather, James W. Barber, was supposedly born on this date in 1841, somewhere in England. He is a brick wall ancestor, which means I know nothing about his family of origin: parents, siblings, etc. I also don't know where in England he was born or lived. The first record in which I can positively identify him is the 1871 Canada Census, although I did find an 1862 marriage record for a couple with somewhat wrong names in the correct location (that's a blog post for another day!).

Another July 4th birth belongs to John D. Concidine, my adoptive 3rd-great-grandfather, who was born to Dennis Concidine and Honora "Nora" Gilligan in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. John's granddaughter Nellie May Concidine and her husband Alfred Henry Holst adopted my paternal grandmother, Jane Marie York, who became Jeanne Marie Holst.

Polly Emeline Dennis, my grandchildren's paternal 3rd-great-grandmother, was born on July 4th in 1840 in Tennessee. It probably was in Overton County, where her father James Thaxton Dennis was found in the censuses from 1820 through 1840, before moving on to Dent Co., Missouri. 

Polly's mother was Lucinda Catherine Hunter, which I find interesting because my grandchildren's surname is Hunter; their father's direct paternal line. But Polly and her mother Lucinda are found in their paternal grandmother's line. This means my grandchildren have Hunters on both sides of their dad's family tree. These lines don't seem to be related: on their dad's paternal side, the Hunters can be traced into early New Jersey, while Lucinda's line is found in South Carolina. But Hunter, after all, is a common occupational surname.

Marriages

My children's paternal great-great-grandparents, George Rice Westaby III and Rena Lerfald, were married on this day in 1915 in Glendive, Dawson Co., Montana. I've been spending a lot of time lately researching the Westaby family and am in the middle of a series about George's youngest brother Lynn.

In my own family, the only ancestor who had a July 4th marriage was Filippus Willems Jonker. He married his first wife, Grietje Eisses, on this date in 1812 in Kloosterburen, Groningen, the Netherlands. His second wife, Catharina Klaassens van der Laan, was my ancestor. They married 4 April 1831 after Grietje's death, and were my 4th-great-grandparents.

Deaths

No July 4th ancestral deaths were located in any of the three family trees. However, on this date my great-great-grandparents Tjamme Wiegers "James" Valk and Berber Tjeerds "Barbara" de Jong tragically lost two children, two years apart, in Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Michigan.

In 1895, their youngest daughter Chaterina died at age 5 months, 9 nine days of "summer complaint." This was an old medical term describing severe diarrhea and dehydration, usually in infants, typically caused by spoiled milk. Remember that pasteurization was not common until the 1920s and people in the 1890s relied on ice boxes or cellars to keep their food cool, but it was not reliable. What's especially sad is that Chaterina was the third and last daughter James and Barbara had named for James's mother in an attempt to carry on her name in the family.

In 1897, little Tjamme died from measles at one year old. The family had just celebrated his first birthday four days earlier. His name was recorded as Thomas on the death record; another anglicization variation. Pneumonia and encephalitis complications are the most common causes of death from measles. It would have been horrible for Tjamme's parents to watch him burn up with a fever they couldn't bring down and watch him struggle to breathe. We are so fortunate to have a measle vaccine available for our children today.

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What July 4th significant events have you found in your family tree?

The Long March

When Lisa put forth the Summer Reading Challenge as a topic for the 7th Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture, I pondered what to submit. First I thought of my favorite Irish author, Maeve Binchy, whose novels make terrific summer reads (or good winter ones, wrapped up in an afghan with a hot drink nearby!). Trouble is, I've read all her books available in the U.S., and her latest won't be published over here until 2009. Besides, I wanted something a little more pertinent to a genealogy topic. I remembered my favorite quote by Irish poet William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire." (I can correlate that to the genealogy vs. family history issue.) But I'm not a big reader of Yeats, so that was no good, either.

Aha! My mind flew back to when I was a homeschooling mom, over nine years ago (was it really that long?!), and I had found some interesting recommended books while teaching a Social Studies unit on Native Americans to my then second-grade daughter. One in particular was given high praise no matter in what resource it was listed: The Long March: the Choctaw's Gift to Irish Famine Relief by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick (Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words Pub., 1998). It is a creative non-fiction work about a young Choctaw boy, Choona, who overhears his elders discuss taking up a collection to help the starving Irish during the potato famine. Choona knows, even though the adults do not speak of it, that his family endured hardship and suffering during the Trail of Tears and wonders how they can possibly want to aid white people, who live so far away.

This incredible true story was beautifully illustrated by the author using as models the family members of Gary Whitedeer, himself an award-winning artist and historic preservationist who has been featured on TBS's The Native Americans and National Geographic's When Ireland Starved. The impoverished Choctaw nation raised $170 (equivalent to $5,000 today) to aid the Irish cause. If you have children in your life--and even if you don't--you will want to obtain this book. It is an emotional experience, and I dare you to read it without shedding a tear or two!

The book was named "A Smithsonian Notable Book for Children" in 1998 and won the Children's Books of Ireland BISTO Book of the Year Merit Award, 1999. But there's more to all this. In 1992, eight native Irish citizens retraced the steps of the 500-mile Trail of Tears as repayment for the Choctaw's great gift, and to raise awareness of famine relief in Somalia. In 1995, the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, visited the Choctaw Nation to personally thank them. Two great nations, both knowing suffering and starvation, are bonded at a deeply emotional and spritual level. It is a heritage of which anyone would be proud.

Ancestry Hosts Free Online Ethnic Seminars

Do you have German, Irish, Polish, or Italian ancestry? Ancestry.com is offering free online ethnic seminars (called webinars) online on Tuesday evenings this month and July 1st (5 PM Pacific Daylight Time). You do not need to have an Ancestry subscription to participate. You can go to this page to get more information and register for these classes. Links will be immediately e-mailed to you so that you can access the webinars on the days of their showings. You should click on one of the links ahead of time to test your computer's audio and video capabilities.

I'm a little disappointed I didn't hear about this sooner, because I missed the English genealogy webinar that was broadcast June 3rd!

Hat Tip: Genealogy Guys

This and That

Reading through my e-mail this morning, I came across these little snippets of interesting items to share with my readers:

• *The Dowagiac [Michigan] Daily News has a fascinating article about Verge Hawkins, who is lecturing on African-American history at the Museum at Southwestern Michigan College's spring lecture series. He encourages families to study genealogy together "because if you have different generations, they can focus on some things and tell their story. When you tell your own story, you're a much stronger person."

• *"Today Michigan lawmakers will begin contemplating one of the most heated questions within the adoption community -- should upwards of 20,000 people be allowed to access family information that has been kept secret for decades? Bills in both chambers of the Legislature would allow people adopted between 1945 and 1980 to obtain their original birth certificate. It also would allow birth parents to tell the state whether they want to be contacted, and how. A hearing on the matter will be held today before the House Families and Children's Services subcommittee." My paternal grandmother was one of the "lucky" adoptees whose adoption was finalized in 1940 (when she was 16), so she was able to access her own birth certificate. Thousands of Michigan adoptees have never had that chance. Read more here.

• *From Cyndi's List Mailing List, a website where you can do an Irish placename search, Irish Ancestries.com. The placename finder is on this page.

• *Looking for Michigan newspapers that might carry obituaries online? This list appears to have current--not historical--papers, but some have archived obits, so check it out.

• *From the Oakland County Mailing List at RootsWeb came this terrific news: "Later this year the State Library will be putting digitized death certificates for Michigan on its website. The years covered will be 1900-1910. Granted its not as much as some states but for Michigan that's a major step!"

The 3rd Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture is Posted

Lisa at Small-leaved Shamrock has just posted the 3rd edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture. It's no coincidence that today is also St. Brigid's Day, who is second only to St. Patrick as one of the most revered saints in Ireland. In honor of St. Brigid's Day and all things Irish, nine participants have written 11 articles about their favorite real or fictional places in Ireland. My own post is about my ancestral home of Letterkenny, County Donegal, a place I'd love to visit someday. I hope you take an hour or so to enjoy your armchair travels to the Emerald Isle!

Lisa invites all of you to join her in the 4th edition of the Carnival, with the following details: "Whether you go traveling or not, plan to take a trip with us on the next Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture: the 4th edition.

"Here's the scoop:

March is Irish heritage month in many places, thanks to the feast day of St. Patrick, beloved saint of Ireland. Our topic for this month will be anything and everything about Irish heritage, genealogy and culture. Posts about St. Patrick will be appreciated, but posts related to any meaningful aspect of Ireland's heritage are welcomed. To borrow an idea from Bill West's genealogy parade, we'll have our very own virtual St. Patrick's Day parade!

"The deadline is March 14, 2008. Submit your parade entry here. Then come join us for the parade on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2008. On the feast of St. Patrick, everyone likes to be Irish, at least for one day. Hope to see you at the parade wearing your green!"

Locations of my (Scots) Irish Ancestors

I've been lucky enough to know the exact location where my SAYERS family originated in Ireland before they emigrated to Canada in the 1830s. Letterkenny is the largest town in County Donegal, in the province of Ulster, Ireland, and apparently was the home of many Ulster Scots. I've mentioned before that I really haven't done much Irish research on my family, mainly because they lived in Ireland during a period of time for which it is difficult to access records, if they still exist. Many of the records that were kept when the SAYERS lived in Letterkenny were later destroyed, or are only accessed onsite.

I enjoyed reading through Wikipedia's descriptions of the place names I mentioned above. I also did a Google image search for Letterkenny, Donegal and Ulster, and by clicking on these links, you should be able to see some beautiful images as well.

When the SAYERS family came to Canada in the mid-1830s (the family immigrated in several stages over the course of about five years), they settled in Prince Edward County (not to be confused with Prince Edward Island), Ontario, particularly Picton and Athol Township. Some of the siblings and cousins moved into Hungerford Township in Hastings County, while my direct line traveled further to Cavan Township in Durham County and Port Hope in Northumberland County. I'm still studying the rather complicated histories of the locations and residences in which this family lived, backtracking bit by bit over time. As more and more information is available online (I haven't been able to find many resources for these areas at my local library), I've been able to educate myself further. There's much more to learn, and I've been keeping myself occupied with researching these lines after they came to Michigan.

I'd love to have the opportunities to visit all these locations and see the places where my Irish immigrant ancestors lived, worked, and worshiped. Until then, I'll be satisfied in being an armchair traveler using the amazing technology of the Internet!

Resources for Irish Genealogical Research from a Beginner's Perspective

We don't have much Irish heritage, my children's father and I. Both of us have ancestral lines that resided in Ireland for a couple of generations. A closer look at these families indicates that all but one--which came from France--immigrated from Scotland: the typical Ulster Scots. After a few generations, the families moved on to North America; my children's father's to Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia, and mine to Ontario. His arrived during typical Scotch-Irish migration periods of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, while mine came over during the 1830s.

I also have an adoptive line from Ireland. My paternal grandmother's adoptive mother, Nellie May CONCIDINE, was a second-generation American, whose paternal grandfather arrived from Ireland in New York State sometime before 1849, perhaps residing first in New Jersey. I haven't yet been able to get them "over the ocean," so to speak, so I'm not sure from which county they hailed.

Am I ready to do Irish research? No. There are too many generations between us and our Irish-born ancestors for me to delve into this with any quality results. I've long ago learned the rule of genealogy to start with myself (or my children's father) and work backward through time, pausing to dig as deeply as I can to extract all possible clues before moving on to the previous generation.

However, I can educate myself along the way, so when I do feel prepared to tackle these challenges, I will be equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools. One way is to read everything I can get my hands on about Irish genealogy, research, and history. I should also look at Scottish resources, to help me better understand the history, culture and migration patterns of the Ulster Scots. The genealogy room of the Spokane Public Library's downtown branch is stocked and staffed by members of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, and its collection holds a wealth of publications, especially on Irish genealogy. That will be a great place to start. Also, this past year, I acquired three books that I believe will be helpful in my quest.

The first is General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns, Parishes and Baronies of Ireland Based on the Census of Ireland for the Year 1851 (1861; reprinted in 2000 by the Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland). It is a 968-page chart of all the towns and townlands in Ireland, showing the county, barony, parish, and Poor Law Union of 1857 that each comes under, as well as listing their acreage, the sheet number of the ordnance survey maps, and volume and page number of the 1851 census on which each can be found. So, for instance, I can look up my SAYERS' ancestral home of Letterkenny, County Donegal, and find out that in 1851 (two decades after they left for Canada), this townland of a little more than 410 acres was situated in the Barony of Kilmacrenan, and in Conwal Parish, with a Poor Law Union of the same name. It can be located on Sheet 53 of the Ordnance Survey Map, and its information can be found in Volume III, page 126 of Part I of the 1851 Townland Census. All this information will be useful for when I start looking for various records and need to know what government units covered the area.

Another interesting older reference work is Handbook on Irish Genealogy: How to Trace Your Ancestors and Relatives in Ireland by Donal F. Begley of the Irish Genealogical Office (1970; reprinted in 1984 by Heraldic Artists, Ltd., Dublin). This 165-page book consists of six chapters: "Tracing Ancestors and Relatives in Ireland," "Records and Record Repositories," "Irish County Maps" (from Samuel Lewis' 1837 A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland), "Irish Parish Registers," "Preliminary Research in Home Country," and "Emigrant Passenger Lists to America." It is followed by lists of record repositories, pedigrees in printed books, published family histories, common elements in placenames, and useful addresses, as well as a comprehensive index.

My last resource is (A Genealogist's Guide to) Discovering Your Irish Ancestors: How to find and record your unique heritage by Dwight A. Radford & Kyle J. Betit (2001, Betterway Books, Cincinnati, Ohio). This is one of those newer helpful genealogical guidebooks laid out with icons in the margins listing "tip," "important!" or "reminder," and has internet and bibliographic resources in every chapter.

I'll also read articles on Irish and Ulster Scots genealogy in the magazines I subscribe to, such as Internet Genealogy and Family Tree Magazine. Online resources I can use include Cyndi's List of genealogical links for Ireland and Northern Ireland and for Scotland, FamilySearch's Research Outlines for Ireland and Scotland, and searching Google Books for online Irish and Scottish publications. There are a number of researchers I know whose brains I can pick for more ideas, such as fellow members of my genealogical society and other genea-bloggers. One of my favorite new genealogy blogs is the Irish Roots Cafe blog by Michael O'Laughlin, who also hosts a website and podcasts, as well as publishes many books on Irish research.

When it comes time for me to really start digging up my Irish roots, I don't think I'll be hurting for good resources!

An Irish Family's Dark Secret, and the Legend of the Titanic

Three years ago, writer Martina Devlin stumbled across the fact that her grandmother's uncle was aboard the Titanic when it went down in the Northern Atlantic 95 years ago. Unbeknownst to her generation, her uncle's fiancée and unborn child also were on board--but survived.

Sometimes truth is stranger--and more imaginative--than fiction. Click here to read Martina's story in the Belfast Telegraph of how she was inspired to write a novel, and through her research, tracked down the descendants of her great-granduncle.

Hat Tip: Irish Roots Cafe blog

Meeting a SAYERS Cousin

A couple of weeks ago, I checked my old e-mail address at Juno. I had it for years, and when I switched to Gmail, decided against closing my Juno account, as I had done online genealogy for so many years using that e-mail address. Every few weeks or so, I'll check on it, delete the piles of spam that have accumulated, and find a few messages from people that were unaware of my address change.

One such person was my cousin, Beverly (STRACHAN) STRONG, a fifth cousin, once removed and fellow descendant of William SAYERS, Sr. (1758 - 1860) and his wife, who we believe had the maiden name of GILLESPIE. Scots-Irish they were, from Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland. We know they had at least five children: William, Jr. (Bev's ancestor); Catherine, who married Stephen MARTIN; Henry; Gillespie; and John (my ancestor). We know from a history of the Martin family that some of these Sayers children came from Ireland c. 1830 with a group to the Bay of Quinte and settled in what is now Prince Edward County (not to be confused with P.E. Island), Ontario, Canada. A year or so later, they sent for their widowed father along with wives and children they had left behind in Ireland. Imagine being around 80 years of age, leaving the only home you had known, and boarding a wooden ship in order traverse the stormy Atlantic! Perseverance and luck played out, and William, Senior lived to the ripe old age of 102 before passing away in 1860 in Hungerford Township, Hastings County, Ontario.

William's descendants multiplied, as descendants will do, and today they can be found not only in Ontario, but in Alberta and British Columbia. Some of them crossed the border from Western Canada and resided in Western Washington. My particular ancestors, children of William's son John, headed southwest from Prince Edward County and settled in Muskegon County, Michigan. I've done a great deal of research in Muskegon County vital and cemetery records and found all sorts of branches of the SAYERS and related families, piecing them together and adding them to the family tree that Bev had begun to build.

I connected to Bev years ago (I just checked my files and it was in 1997) through another SAYERS descendant, Marge (DAINARD) McARTHUR, who had seen my information online (probably on a message board) and had called me from B.C. to tell me there was a whole tribe of Sayerses out there! Bev and I, and Marge and I, began corresponding and sharing information in earnest, along with a few other Sayers descendants we picked up along the way. For a while, we had a Sayers Family Website at MyFamily.com that was fairly active, until it became a subscription site (no one wanted to pay the high cost of storing all the family photos on that site).

Bev (my dad's age and generation) and her husband, Ron, were for years directors of their local Family History Center in Alberta. While volunteering there, she went through roll after roll of microfilmed Ontario vital records and extracted names, dates, and places not only of the SAYERS family life events, but also those of other Bay of Quinte ancestors she was researching (DAINARD, WANNAMAKER, WESSELS, McCAMON). She and Marge and quite a few of the Sayers are descendants of many pioneers of this colony; I am not. Bev, out of the kindness of her heart, looked up my WILKINSON surname and extracted what little she could find out of those microfilms for me (William, Senior's granddaughter, Mahala Sayers, was my last Sayers ancestor, and she married John WILKINSON).

A few years ago, Ron and Bev applied to serve a mission for the LDS church, and fortune most certainly smiled upon them, for they were called to do a two-year mission at...the Family History Library in Salt Lake City!!! Now on leave, they are traveling around visiting family and friends, and it was Bev's message in my Juno inbox that I found not long ago, asking if it would be an imposition if they dropped by on Labor Day. Of course I jumped at the chance of finally meeting her after 10 years of correspondence, and I'm so glad we did! What fun we had visiting! Their descriptions of serving in the FHL were truly amazing! The logistics of coordinating thousands of volunteers for the Family History Library and Church history archives must be staggering; yet the FHL runs like a well-oiled machine. As we covered everything from genealogy to the latest matter concerning Ancestry.com, we ended up discussing a topic we had in common: working with the disabled. It seems that the LDS Church accepts their developmentally impaired members for missions as well. Paired up with a non-disabled person, these missionaries are able to contribute to their community and church and help further the cause of genealogy. According to Ron and Bev, the library is also well-equipped to handle disabled patrons, no matter what their needs may be.

After visiting for a few hours, the Strongs took us out to dinner. We had an enjoyable meal together, then wished them well, as they continued their journey. Such a sweet and pleasant couple, so interesting and entertaining...it was nice to make new friends that were also family!