Shakin' the Family Tree

Exporting the GEDCOM to whatever online service you use.

I do this a couple of times a week.

Okay, some weekends, a couple of times a day.

Because once you start shakin' the family tree, it's real hard to stop.

---

These days, you'll find me in the garden on all but the coldest and rainiest of days.

---

I am taking the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, albeit starting a few months late.

You cannot explore your family history without encountering it. Death is part of the cycle, and family history is a marvel of cycles.

Still, there are stories that just tear at your heart.

This entry is re-published from the original entry on 6 Nov 2010, entitled Sometimes I don't know how they did it...

---

Sometimes I don't know how they did it.

The ancestors, that is.

No air conditioning or indoor plumbing.

Chamber pots under the bed at night.

Dinner was running around out in the backyard until you took a hatchet to it. Or went out in the woods with a shotgun. If you weren't faster than your prey, there probably was greens and cornbread. Again.

And you were thankful for it.

Wardrobe choices were easier, I guess.

And all those kids. Sometimes as I am adding them one after another to the database, I have to smile...there were only three of us and my parents would get confused.

Dee - I mean Vicki - I mean Lorraine...I mean, whoever it is, CUT THAT OUT!

And then, there are somber moments that accompany all those names and dates. Moments when I feel, even for just a split second when the horrible details come together, like I've been sucker punched.

Meet Charles Hardin Patterson...

---

The year before he married Polly Ann Wharton (my second cousin, 3X removed), Charles had what was probably the worst year of his life.

He married Sarah Ann Cowan in the fall of 1877 in Johnson County, Arkansas. The leaves were probably turning fiery reds and glittery golds when they got hitched. Johnson County is gorgeous that time of year.

They made a farm and babies, including fraternal twins Nancy Ellen and her brother, Jesse Washington, in June 1886. Sarah Ann was 28 when the twins were born, her fifth and sixth children.

Ida Bell was born in October 1888, and William, the eighth and final child borne by Sarah Ann, arrived on 11 Jun 1890.

Something must have gone horribly wrong.

Charles Hardin Patterson became a widower five days later, alone with a newborn son and a toddler daughter, both of whom shortly would become very ill. He was 32 years old.

On 5 Aug 1890, baby William died. His sister Ida followed him to a tiny grave in Buckhorn Cemetery on 23 Aug 1890. In the space of just over two months, Charles Patterson lost his partner in life and two youngest children. His oldest child was 11 years old.

I cannot begin to imagine his pain.

Sometimes it's hard to see the path through the tears.

But the journey is good.

Namaste.

I am taking the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, albeit starting a few months late.

I never heard of the American Protective League, a group of private citizens who worked with federal law enforcement during World War I.

Only according to this article in Slate's The Vault, sometimes they got a tad over zealous.

Busting citizens they considered to be food hoarders.

And other stuff.

Geez...

This is a photo I estimate to be circa 1868-1875 of the millinery shop owned and operated by my great-great grandmother, Mary Emily (Conner) Meek in Grenada Co., MS. (Click here to read more about her.)



From comparing the only known photo I have of her to this one, I think grandmama was the lady seated to the right of the post.

But I can't be sure.

This is a Sepia Saturday post. Head over there for more wonderful photos.

He found me through my Find a Grave entries.

We've been corresponding for the past few days, and made an interesting discovery.

One of my Burris cousins was his first grade teacher in a little one room schoolhouse at Gumlog in Pope Co., AR.

I love it when this happens.

I've been working with a friend on his family tree over the last week or so, and found out something I did not know about Arkansas in the Civil War.

We had secret societies of what could be characterized as the first conscientious objectors. Apparently, they were more prolific in north central and northern Arkansas.

The CSA began early in the war in Arkansas to "investigate" and arrest people it considered traitors to the Southern cause.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, the Arkansas Peace Society was "occasionally referred to as the Home Protection Society, Home Guard, and various other names at the time."

And so I ran and looked.

Yep, we had a few members of the Pope County Home Guard in my family.

---

My friend is researching the surname Turney.

At least one of the members of his family who were members of the Arkansas Peace Society was forced into the CSA after being led away in an infamous "chain gang," the brainchild of Colonel Samuel Leslie, commandant of Searcy County’s militia. In December 1861, he marched 78 men in chains to Little Rock, a trip that took six days.

One of the descendants of one of those men commented on a blog called The Civil War Daily Gazette:
Interesting article! My great-great grandfather Franklin Wortman was one of the seventy-seven men chained and marched away. My grandmother, Grace Wortman Cox (1906-2002) said that her father John Lemuel Wortman told her that he would never forget the sight of his father being marched away in chains.

---

The members of the Arkansas Peace Society are listed on a page of the Edward G. Gerdes Civil War Home Page, and were (his relatives in bold):
Adams, Green Berry - Adams, Joseph - Adams, Spencer - Addison, Mayfield - Arter, Carroll -
Arter, Joseph L.

Bailey, J. F. - Baker, B. A. - Baker, David C. - Baker, James A. - Ball, Gehuger
Ball, James W. - Barnes, James Jackson - Barnes, W. F. - Barnett, David - Bartlet, William
Bishop, Lindsay - Black, Simeon B. - Blasingame, Anderson - Bradshaw, Henry - Bradshaw, John H. - Bradshaw, William - Brantley, B. F. - Branum, Solomon - Bratton, William Milican - Brewer, Aaron V. B. - Brewer, Jonas - Brewer, Lewis S. - Brown, John - Brown, George - Brown, John - Brown, Solomon I. - Brown, William - Broyles, James F.

Carithers, John M. - Cash, Levi C. - Castleberry, John R. - Castleberry, Washington Cahal - Cates, William A. J. - Chambers, Jeff - Chambers, W. R. - Christy, James F. Homer - Christy, John - Christy, Joseph C. - Clark, Lewis - Conley, Beverly L. - Cook, Henry - Copeland, Alexander N. - Copeland, James B. - Copeland, William - Cummins, Joseph - Curl, John W. - Curl, Samuel M. - Curry, Anderson - Curry, David - Curry, James E.

Davis, H. M. - Davis, William - Denton, Chris - Dickerson, E. - Downey, Patrick L. - Duck, Timothy Arthur - Dugger, Jasper- Dugger, Thomas M. - Dugger, William M.

Ezell, Isiah - Ezell, John

Faught, Thomas J. - Faught, William C. - Fisher, William Thomas - Forehand, Jonathan - Forehand, Thomas - Foster, James B.

Gadberry, Wm. - Garner, Sr. Parrish - Garrison, _____ - Gary, B. H. - Gerner, Parish - Gilbreth, John - Grinder, Robert - Grinder, Samuel - Guthrey, Thomas

Harley, John - Harness, John W. - Harness, John - Harness, W. H. - Harris, John - Harris, Thomas - Harris, Wm. - Hatley, J. R. - Hatley, J. W. - Haynes, Wm. - Hays, George M. - Hays, Wm. - Hensley, F. H. - Hensley, P.M. - Henson, F. H. - Hoffs, John - Holly, Absolem - Holley, Alex - Holley, Reuben C. - Hollis, James M. - Holmes, John - Hooten, George

Jamison, D. - Jeffery, Wm. - Jenkins, John H. - Johnson,Robert - Jones, Stephen

Kamey, Thomas - Kesner, W. A. - Kilburn Carroll - Kirkham, John W. - Kuykendall, Francis

Ladamon, R. C. - Laive, Jo - Lee, Robert - Long, George - Love, A. J. - Luttrell, James - Lynn, W. G.

Maness, Claiborne - Marshall, William H. - McBee, Alexander - McBee, James H. - McDaniel, John W. - McDaniel, William F. - McEntire, John A. - McInturn, Thomas W. - McLane, S. Allan - McMillan, E. L. - McNair, James Claiborn - Melton, Thomas - Moody, Jonathan - Morris, John Wortman - Morris, John, Jr. - Morris, John, Sr. - Morris, William

Null, John R.

Osborn, Eli L.

Packet, W. J. - Palmer, Benjamin F. - Parks, Daniel J. - Parks, Theophilus (Dink) - Parsley, A. A.- Parsley, Abraham J. - Parsley, J. B. - Passmore, Benjamin J. - Passmore, Joel Henry - Pearce, William - Phillips, Luther P. - Pierce, Austin - Potter, William F. - Price, Charles William - Price, Lindsay - Price, William

Ramsey, Smith - Reeves, Asa - Reeves, Jarrett - Reeves, Joshua - Reeves, Peter - Richardson, James C. - Richardson, Joshua - Ridings, James C. - Rose, M. - Ruff, David Crocket

Sanders, John L. - Satterfield, A. J. - Satterfield, John R. - Satterfield, Nathaniel - Satterfield, P. M. - Scott, William Franklin - Seaton, Nicholas - Shipman, Matthew - Shirley, Wm. - Singleferry, Wm. C. - Slay, Benjamin F. - Slay, Thomas J. - Smith, Abner H. - Smith, Claiborn - Smith, G. W. - Smith, Gilmore - Smith, John - Snellgrove, Gasaway - Stobaugh, Ananias - Stobaugh, Edmond - Strickland, John Anderson - Strickland, Paris - Strickland, Samuel Smith - Strother, Wm. - Sutterfield, Ananias J. - Sutterfield, Nathanial - Sutterfield, Peter Moore - Sutton, Logan

Tackett, W. J. - Taylor, Benjamin Franklin - Taylor, Hezikiah - Terry, Morgan M. - Thompson, James Patrick - Thompson, Samuel - Thompson, Thomas - Thompson, William J. - Tilley, James -

Tinkle, Mike - Tinkle, Robert - Treadwell, John S. - Treat, James William - Treat, John B. -

Treep, James - Treese, Benjamin - Treese, Daniel - Treese, William - Tucker, John Allen - Tucker, John Middleton - Turney, Bowman - Turney, Pleasant B. R. - Turney, Presley - Turney, Si (Josiah S.) - Tyler, Peter A.

Wallace, J. W. - Wallis, James - Ware, J. J. - Watts, Asa - Watts, Benjamin G. - Watts, Samuel
Webb, John - Wells, Wm. C. - Whitmire, Henry J. - Whitmire, J. J. - Wiley, Wallis - William Jasper - Wilson, John - Winn, Wm. M. - Woodrum, Vinsom M. - Woodworth, Nathan F. - Wortman, Christopher M. - Wortman, Franklin - Wortman, John - Wren, Shadrich J.

Yeary, Wm. H. - Younger, Alexander - Younger, Thomas

Getting that contact from my Chapin cousin rekindled my fascination with one of our bad boys, Charles E Chapin, whom James McGrath Morris dubbed The Rose Man of Sing Sing, in his biography of the same name.

The book was published in 2003, and in 2004, it was selected by the Washington Post as one of the best non-fiction books of 2004.


Since I have a holiday season staycation coming up soon, I checked it out of my library to read.

Only I'm peeking.

A lot.

Because it's good.

.

.
.
My newly found, who-knows-how-many-times-removed Chapin cousin is hunting for information about her great great grandfather.

She has quite a bit of information already. She wants to find his grave, which she suspects is unmarked. She recently has been to Evergreen Cemetery twice on that quest.

And she shared a photo.


Lucius Milo Chapin and wife, Viola M Bayle

Information about interments at Evergreen Cemetery in Union City, Erie Co., PA show the graves of Lucius, Viola and Paul (one of their sons) in Section 6, Lot 53. A caretaker told my cousin that the graves are in Lot 38 instead.

I hope she finds markers buried in sod.

I wonder if Lucius would have a Union Army marker. If he doesn't have one, she can get one from the VA for him.

For free.

---

According to existing documents, Lucius Milo Chapin enlisted at Venango Township, Erie County, PA on 21 Aug 1861 as a Private in Company K of the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers.

He was wounded at the second Battle of Bull Run on 30 Aug 1862, and discharged 28 Jan 1863, for wounds received.

His thumb and forefinger were shot off in the battle. Look at the photo above.

According to my cousin, when Lucius posed for photos afterward, he kept something in his left hand to hide the amputations.

And it must have been incredibly hard for him to return to farming afterward.

He applied for a Civil War pension as an invalid on 27 Oct 1863.

I hope he got it.

---

Lucius married Viola Bayle on 1 Oct 1866. She was the daughter of Samuel K and Theresa L Bayle.

They had five children. The 1870 census in Erie Co., PA shows their first child, a 3 year-old son named Otis.

And that's the last time I saw Otis in the census. The 1900 census says Viola was the mother of 5 children, 4 of whom were living at the time of the census.

I can't find a record of little Otis in cemetery records on Find a Grave for Erie County.

Other children born to Lucius and Viola were Adda, Nora, Paul and Samuel.

Lucius Milo Chapin died on 13 Jun 1928.

---

And eureka!

As I have been typing this post, my cousin has filled me in on more of the descendants down to her.

We are 10th cousins.

Well, not really, I'd just like to have the free time they do.

Like this chick on FAG who has the time to count the number of someone else's memorials that are listed as "burial unknown."

On the bright side, I bet she has all her holiday presents bought and wrapped, and can tell you which of her neighbors are woefully inadequate in that regard...

Geez...

Find a Grave volunteer Larry Hart went back to Union Cemetery in Panola Co., MS, and got the rest of the gravestone photos in what must have been the Conner family plot.

He emailed me to let me know, so I could create memorials for them.

Then he posted his photos.

William Henry Conner, 1808-1858, my 3rd great grandfather.

Elizabeth Curtis Conner, my 3rd great grandmother.

Henry Conner, 1874-1874, and Claudius Conner, 1876-1876, baby sons of James Alfred Conner, one of William and Elizabeth's sons.

---

And then he sent me the photos he took by email.

You just don't very often run across people like Mr. Hart.

When you do, you've found a real gem.