Tag Archives: Grandfather

Wild Bill Obama

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May 27th was Wild Bill Hickok’s day – I wrote about how easy it is to find newspaper articles about him in GenealogyBank.

Wild Bill Hickok is in the news again – when Barack Obama mentioned his family tradition that he was a distant cousin to Wild Bill – James Butler Hickok (1837-1876).

(Photo: Texas Observer Blog 27 Feb 2007)

Don’t you love it when politicians talk about their genealogy!

The New England Historic Genealogical Society does and issued a statement yesterday verifying Obama’s family tradition:

Obama and Hickok are sixth cousins, six-times removed. Their common ancestor is Thomas Blossom, who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1629 from Leiden, Holland. Obama’s 4th great-grandfather, Jacob Dunham, was 6th cousins with Wild Bill. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann, is also a Dunham.

“The ancestry of Wild Bill Hickok was published by NEHGS some years back, which showed he descended from the Blossom family of Cape Cod, an early family written up in one of our scholarly publications,” said Child. He added, “Since we had also recently done the ancestry of Senator Obama, finding this connection was a little easier.”

Click here to see the Obama – Hickok family tree – Wild Bill is related to Obama through his mother Polly Butler.

This just in – Viewer Mail

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Hi Tom,
I really do need to share with you GenealogyBank‘s latest contribution to my family history research!

I really do love GenealogyBank. Without it, I would not know about the accident that caused the death of my grandmother’s youngest brother. Nor would I have known when it occurred. Nor would I have found out the exact date of death of my gr-grandfather’s youngest sister. Nor would I have found so much anecdotal information about my Dad’s family as he grew up. But the greatest find of all from GenealogyBank solved the problem of where did William go.

William was the older brother of my Dad’s father. He married a girl from Pond Creek, and they started on a large family. But William and his family moved around a lot, from Wilkes-Barre to Plains, both in Pennsylvania, to Jersey City, in New Jersey, to Brooklyn, in New York, to East Orange, in New Jersey, and back to Plains by 1950. In 1950, his youngest brother died, leaving William the last of my grandfather’s siblings still alive.

But, he wasn’t buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Wilkes-Barre, like his three brothers were. So, he must have moved again from Plains, it seemed. But, in 1950, William was 76 years old, so it didn’t seem likely he was going to do much more moving around.

Then I started finding newspaper clippings on GenealogyBank about William’s family many years ago. On at least three occasions during a 20 year period of time, a young child had died – and, according to the newspaper article, was brought to White Haven for burial.

Since I knew his wife had been from White Haven, I suspected her family might have had a family burial plot in a cemetery in White Haven. It took a lot of searching, since White Haven is a cute little, charming little, community, but it does have two cemeteries, neither of which has an office or anyone in attendance during the day. But I did find the family burial plot of William’s wife’s family – and next to them is a stone with the name KROPP on it.

I was able to find who had the cemetery records, and she verified for me that, among the 12 people buried in the KROPP plot is my elusive and peripatetic William! I even got the date of his death! I still have a lot of work to do on this, but it is so much easier starting with a date of death than with an “uh, I don’t know.”

Yes I do love GenealogyBank, and I owe it to you to let you know how much help excitement it has contributed to my genealogy research. I am thrilled for the newspapers there, covering Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Now, I can’t wait for newspaper coverage of Crawford County (Steelville) Missouri so I can get going on my mother’s genealogy!

Thank you so much for GenealogyBank!

Donna
Peachtree City, GA

Tracking down Family Bibles ….

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Family Bibles have been treasured by families for generations, but finding them today can be difficult.

It was common for families to have a family Bible – a large bound book that was prominently displayed in the family parlor – “…a large octavo volume, with a more or less ornate binding, with blank pages inserted on which to record births, marriages and deaths, and sometimes the near-slaying of Isaac, Moses in the bulrushes, the infernal regions and other interesting dramatic and historic incidents narrated in the [Bible]“. (Boston Journal 13 May 1908).
(Image from Antique Holy Bible Item #330235937204 – Ebay.com)
I spotted quite a few newspaper articles that cited the old family Bibles and who their current owners were.

For example – Henry Peters of Trenton, NJ used his family Bible to prove that he was “sixteen years old and two months older than that” so that he could get in to the show at the Trent theater. (Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram. Nov 4, 1909).
An article in the Columbus (GA) Enquirer (2 Sep 1898) tells us that “Mrs. Billard, the daughter of the late Rev. Edward Oldrin, who lives on Bank Street [Stamford, CT]” … and that she got it “by inheritance from her father. … The book is in the original binding and well preserved, the Old Testament part having been printed in 1597 and the New Testament in 1596. The covers are of wood.”

This is an important point. Always check the dates that each of the Testaments was printed. Printers often printed them separately and then joined them together when they published the Bible. This is a way to date a family Bible.

“Inscribed on the yellow fly-leat are the words: Edward Oulldron owns this book and after his death to his son Edward Oulldron, given by his grandfather – 1651.” Elsewhere it states “Edward Oldrin’s [note the change in spelling] book, given by his father on is deathbed in the 1827, July 28, to be kept in the family.”

Mrs. Jennie Fairbanks Milligan of Springfield, Ohio brought the family Bible when she was called to testify in a case trying to break the will of the late Delavan Smith of Lake Forest, IL. (Dallas Morning News. 1 October 1921).

John M. Butler of Ocean Grove, NJ found out by double checking his family Bible that he was 101 and not 100 years old when he went to celebrate his birthday. He said it was a “pretty tough job trying to keep track of so many birthdays.” He said with a smile … “I must have lived two years in Brooklyn [NY, the] one year that I was there. That’s the only way I can account for the discrepancy.” (Evening Times – Pawtucket, RI – 17 jan 1901).

But you won’t find the Belin family Bible. It seems that in November 1908, Joseph Belin of Wilkes-Barre, PA “came home intoxicated and threatened [his mother] and then burned the family Bible.” There were 7 prisoners in court that day for “being drunk”. Six of them were fined $1.00 but Joseph Belin was fined $5.00. (Wilkes-Barre (PA) Times Leader – 18 Nov 1908).

Historical newspapers are packed with family history information. Research more than 3,400 newspapers and document your heritage on GenealogyBank.
Give it a try right now.

Newspapers are terrific!

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Newspapers are terrific! They give us the real details of our ancestor’s lives.

This week I found an article about the estate sale for my first cousin, Thomas Huse (1742/43-1816).

It was published in the Newburyport (MA) Herald, 16 July 1816.

Everything was being sold – his household effects; a covered sleigh; ox cart, an ox wagon; an eight day clock, a share certificate in the Merrimack Bridge, a grindstone and various tools.

It would be great to have these items as family heirlooms.

Was that “eight day clock” a Grandfather clock? Apparently most “eight day clocks” in that day were Grandfather or banjo clocks.

My Grandfather Huse made a banjo clock that still hangs in my uncle’s home in New Hampshire. Who knows, maybe Thomas Huse made the clock that was sold in his estate sale.

Thomas Huse owned a share of the Merrimack Bridge – that was one of the first suspension bridges built in America. The original was built in 1792 and it was replaced in 1810 with a wrought iron suspension bridge designed by Judge James Finley.

Thomas didn’t live long enough to see it, but eleven years after his death, February 6, 1827, the bridge collapsed under the weight of six oxen and two horses that were pulling a cart “loaded with wood” across the bridge.
The animals, wood and the two drivers all went into the water. Only the two drivers and horses survived. Who knew that oxen were so heavily used in early Newburyport.
See: Essex (MA) Register 8 Feb 1827. There are also articles describing the collapse of the bridge and the bridge that was built to replace it.

I think of my family and ancestors as “regular” people and I don’t expect to find them mentioned in newspapers but now that I’ve found hundreds of articles about them, I see how “local” papers used to be.

These old newspapers show us clearly who they were and how they lived their lives. You just can’t find this level of detail in any other source – newspapers are a terrific tool for genealogists.

GenealogyBank has over 2,400 historical newspapers from the 1600s to today. Give GenealogyBank a try (click here) right now.

Be sure to take advantage of GenealogyBank’s special price: only $69.95 for an annual subscription – but hurry, this special ends soon.
It’s a great day for genealogy!