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?

52 Weeks of Online American Digital Archives and Databases: Missouri

This is the 26th post in a weekly series of Online American Digital Archives and Databases found for free at state, county, municipal, college and university history, library, and archive websites, as well as public and private library and museum sites, and historical and genealogical society sites.

3DFlags.com

Missouri Digital Heritage - http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ - if this one site was the only link in this post, it would be treasure enough! They don't call Missouri the "Show Me" state for nothing, and here's what Missouri has got to show you: birth, marriage, death, church and cemetery records and family papers; maps; newspapers; military records and resources; postcards, photographs; county and municipal records; Native American, African American, immigrant groups; agriculture; transportation; city directories; books and diaries; government and political records, and much, much more!

Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center - http://www.mohistory.org/lrc-home/ - genealogy name, place, and address index; digital collections include Photographs and Prints; Library; Maps; Manuscripts and Archives; Richard A. Gephart Collection; Richard A. Gephart Video Collection; MHM Press Publications; Museum Collections; and the Civil War

State Historical Society of Missouri - http://shs.umsystem.edu/index.shtml - archived issues of Missouri Historical Review, Civil War in Missouri collection (letters, diaries, newspaper articles), Civil War Books, One-Room Schoolhouse and other oral history projects, newspaper index, Famous Missourians, Messages and Proclamations of Missouri Governors

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Missouri State University Digital Collections - http://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/ - highlights include two Frisco collections of railroad ephemera and images, several African-American collections, the Copenhaver Collection (milling industry in Springfield), Greene County Aerial Photography, and a War Memorial Album (photographs and biographies of 93 students and alumni who lost their lives in World Wars I and II and the Korean Conflict).

Saint Louis University Libraries Digital Collections and Exhibits - http://libraries.slu.edu/archives/digcoll/digitalcoll.html - St. Louis Civil War Digitization Project, WEW Radio Collection (first radio station west of the Mississippi River), Spiritual Journeys (early Jesuitica exhibit), and the Ravenna Mosaics Company

Southeast Missouri State University Special Collections and Archives - http://library.semo.edu/archives/index.htm - Online Exhibits include Women's Literary and Social Clubs of Cape Girardeau and Woman Authors of Southeast Missouri. It appears they will eventually have digital collections at this site as well.

Truman State University - Pickler Memorial Library - Special Collections and Archives - http://library.truman.edu/scpublications/publications.asp - University Archives contain finding aids and indexes, biographies, history and tradtions, alumni and student rosters, and veterans memorials. Electronic Collections contain the Chariton Collector, "a semi-annual journal of northeast Missouri history and folklore published by the Local History Classes of Kirksville High School in the 1980s."

University of Missouri Archives - Digital Collections - http://muarchives.missouri.edu/digcoll.html - yearbooks; university-related magazines; histories of various U of M departments, schools, and colleges; lists of graduate school degrees conferred; plat books; Sanborn Fire Insurance maps; and more. These collections can also be accessed through the University of Missouri Special Collections portal here: http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/digital.htm

University of Missouri Digital Library - http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/ - includes 20 text collections and 23 image collections from 15 libraries around the state; of note are Civil War collections, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, yearbooks, postcards, photographs, platbooks, sheet music, and historic newspapers

University of Missouri Kansas City - LaBudde Special Collections - Digital Projects - http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col-digital-projects - images documenting railroads, jazz and other musicians, political personalities, Native Americans, and Victorian studio portraits; also  presidential speeches, sheet music, radio, diaries, Civil War and other letters, newspapers, maps

Washington University Libraries Department of Special Collections - Digital Exhibitions and Images - http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/exhibits/ - highlights include photography collections, 17th Century cartographic printing from the Netherlands, Women Artists, a ribbons map of the Mississippi River from 1866, and various medieval collections of art and literature

Washington University Libraries Department of Special Collections - Film and Media Archive - Digital Resources - http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/filmandmedia/digital.html - Eyes on the Prize interviews: "a 14-part series which was originally released in two parts in 1985 and 1988. This series, which debuted on PBS stations, is considered to be the definitive documentary on the Civil Rights Movement." Highlight includes an interview with Rosa Parks.

William Jewell College Digitization Projects - http://campus.jewell.edu/academics/curry/library/digital/default.html - memoirs of the college's first female graduate (1920), cookbook, yearbooks, alumni magazines, histories of the college

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Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City - http://www.blackarchives.org/collections - the photo collections are categorized as so: 18th and Vine, Arts and Culture, Civil Rights, Education, Children, Events, Franklin Collection, Military, Places, Politics and Government, Religion, Sports, and Women

Cape Girardeau County Archive Center - Cape Girardeau County Archive Center - http://www.capecounty.us/ArchiveCenter/Archive%20Center.aspx - lists of county cemeteries (but no transcriptions); lists of military personal from the county; 1803 census; helpful links

Carnegie Public Library - Genealogy - http://carnegie.lib.mo.us/index.php/genealogy - cemetery transcriptions, Gentry County images (links to their Flickr account), 1877 Gentry County Atlas, Gentry County Funeral Cards

Cass County Historical Society - http://www.casscountyhistoricalsociety.org/ - obituaries, veterans

City of St. Louis - Gatewood Gardens Cemetery Database - http://stlouis.missouri.org/development/realestate/cemetery/

Concordia Historical Institute - Archives and Manuscripts Collections Searchable Database - http://chi.lcms.org/collections/search.asp - "...one of the world's largest repositories of information on Lutheranism in North America. With over 1,400 individual collections and more than 2.6 million documents, the archives and manuscript holdings document American Lutheran history from the 19th century 'Old Lutheran' immigration movements to the present."

Greene County Archives - Index to Coroner's Record Books, 1875-1972 - http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/records/cortoc.htm

Greene County Recorder Marriage Record Search - http://www.greenecountymo.org/recorder/marrsearch.php

Harry S. Truman Library and Museum - http://www.trumanlibrary.org/library.htm - photo database, sound recordings, finding aids for papers, oral histories, Truman's 1947 diary, Truman genealogy, Truman's calendar, cartoon collection, trivia, and much more

Jackson County Marriage Records Search - http://records.jacksongov.org/search.asp?cabinet=marriage

Jackson County Probate Records Search - http://www.16thcircuit.org/Depts/PRB/prb_inquiry.asp

Jefferson County Library - Genealogy - http://www.jeffersoncountylibrary.org/genealogy-services - newspaper index, browsable or searchable

Kansas City Public Library - Missouri Valley Special Collections Digital Gallery - http://www.kchistory.org/ - collections include Advertising Cards, Aerial Views, Askren Photograph collection (buildings, parks, streets, events, etc.), Assorted Images (ecletic collection of people and places), Autochromes, Biographies, Building Profiles, Business Buildings, Churches, Coon-Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra, Education, Eldridge Slides of Kansas City, Family Collections, Guadalupe Center Photographs (settlement house for Mexican immigrants), Guerrillas and Outlaws, Hargrave Photo Collection (accident sites), Journal-Post Photographs, Landmarks Commission, Maps, Music-Dance-Theater, Native American and Western Photograph Collection, Nelly Don (clothing designer), 1951 KC Flood, Nineteenth-Century Kansas City, Photographs (General Collection), Postcards, Sanborn Maps, South Central Business Association, Transportation, Willis Castle Memorial Photographs (Superintendent of Markets and Broadway Bridge, 1974-1977), and the Local History Index

McDonald County Library Genealogy and History - http://www.librarymail.org/genehist/index.html - obituary index, listing of cemeteries, downloadable county history, Jesse James Movie Digital Archive Project, county history digitization project (could not get latter item to load at this time)

Mid-Continent Public Library - Midwest Genealogy Center - http://www.mymcpl.org/genealogy - lists of area libraries, researchers, and societies; topical guides; free charts and forms

St. Charles City-County Library District Local History and Genealogy - http://www.win.org/library/services/lhgen/cinmenu.htm - from this page one can choose Digital Resources (historical images and county biography) or Local Databases (postcards, cemetery, news clippings, county assessor's property database, local maps,  and newspaper index)

St. Charles County Historical Society - http://www.scchs.org/index.html - historical photos; searchable indexes (includes plat maps; obits; circuit court records; wills; marriage records and WWII marriages; burials/removal permits; naturalizations; probate records; church memberships, baptisms, and records; guardian books; 1876 state census index; stillbirth records; land and property records; and more)

St. Louis County Library Special Collections Department - http://www.slcl.org/branches/hq/sc/ - links to multiple online genealogical and historical indexes and databases (books, newspapers, vital records, cemeteries, obituaries, church records, naturalization, military), the St. Louis Genealogical Society, extremely informative and useful research guides and finding aids, and "The St. Louis City & County Split of 1876 & How It Affects Research in St. Louis." Very effective and easy-to-use site.

St. Louis Genealogical Society - Resources - St. Louis Records - http://www.stlgs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36&Itemid=45 - indexes include ethnic communities, maps, neighborhoods, societies, local censuses, court records, fire and police records, immigration, land and property, military, pot offices, probate, taxation, hospitals, orphanages, schools, births and baptisms, burials, deaths, family Bibles, marriages, medical, obituaries, directories, newspapers, photo collections, surname collections, and various religious records from several faiths and denominations

St. Louis Public Library Premier Library Sources - http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/library.htm - Indexes, lists, and biographies to materials in the following subjects: African-American resources; Louisiana Purchase Expo of 1904; women; magazines and newspapers; obituaries; government; military; and St. Louis biography, virtual exhibits, history, neighborhood, suburbs, and streets, and photograph collections.

Springfield-Greene County Library District - Local History - http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/ - Check out the local history articles in the main column on this webpage. Then visit Collections in the left-hand menu for links to  the Civil War, newspaper indexes, Greene County histories, and historical periodicals, as well as more links to collections off site. Back at the home page, click on Genealogy or Missouri and Ozarks in the right-hand menu for links to digitized collections on the site and links to other helpful resources at other sites. Digitized collections include Greene County Records (abstracts and indexes of a number of court and other records), photos, Black Families of the Ozarks, a gazetteer, historical postcards, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway collection, historical markers, ethnic life stories, and much more.

Vernon County Historical Society Bushwacker Museum - Probate Search - http://www.bushwhacker.org/probatesearch1/bushwhackertable1_list.php

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Check out my Missouri Online Historical Directories and my Missouri Online Historical Newspapers pages.

Some Civil War Soldiers Buried in Spokane, Washington

As I mentioned before, I photographed a few Civil War veterans' graves in Greenwood Memorial Terrace here in Spokane on Sunday. Here's a list of the veterans, with links to their memorial pages and grave photos on Find A Grave:

C. R. Bardwell - Company C, 6th Minnesota Infantry

His wife, Mary E. Bardwell.

Eugene S. P. Bolton - Company A, 1st Vermont Heavy Artillery

F. W. Fiske - Company C, 8th Minnesota Infantry

Martin Holston - Company B, 1st Illinois Cavalry - UPDATE 23 Sep 2007: Read his biography here.

Pvt. Albert B. Hurd - Company H, 6th Minnesota Infantry (He already had a memorial page and photo, unbeknownst to me, but I added the photo I took.)

Hiram O. Johnson - Company H, 9th Indiana Infantry

Pvt. Joseph Litterneau - Company F, 12th Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry

William W. Mason - 39th Massachusetts Infantry

John W. Proctor - "U. S. Soldier"

Corp. Christian Sanders - Company F, 6th Wisconsin Infantry

His probable wife, Elizabeth Sanders.

Sgt. Walter Scott - Company K, U.S. Colored Troops Infantry (I'd love to find out more of his story! African-Americans have always been a definite minority in this community, especially at the time this man would have lived here.) - UPDATE: Craig Manson, at GeneaBlogie, has created a "brief study" of Sgt. Walter Scott's life here.

John C. Squires - Company I, 2nd New York Heavy Artillery

Henry S. Walker - Company L, 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry

James B. Warren - Company D, 18th Missouri Infantry

Musician Charles F. Wightman - Company C, 26th Illinois Infantry

I used the Sons of Union Veterans National Graves Registration Database to try to find more detailed information on these men. There wasn't much, but I did get some full names where I only found initials, a couple of dates (most of the stones did not list birth/death dates), and some explanations for some of the abbreviations.

These are but a handful of the 393 known Civil War veterans buried in this cemetery and the 803 total buried in this county. I want to know more about these men, and perhaps this summer I can do some research on them, or find their obituaries in the microfilmed newspapers in the downtown library.

18th Carnival of Genealogy is Posted

I tried to blog this earlier, and ran into a hiccup...so here goes again! Jasia, over at Creative Gene, has posted the 18th Carnival of Genealogy. The topic is "5 Best Tips for Specific Research Areas." Nine bloggers share their tips for researching in specific locations including Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Northeast Indiana, Detroit (Polish ancestors), San Diego (CA), Texas, and Upstate New York. There also a blog on five generic tips that can be used for any kind of research. So take a look and check it out. Even if none of these research areas apply to you, you may get an idea or two of how to do research in your ancestral locations.

The topic for the 19th Carnival of Genealogy is "Shelter from the Storm: Stories of Home and Hearth." I encourage you to take a try at blogging on a specific topic...it's a lot of fun!