walking in your ancestors footsteps....well, sort of....more like driving over them..............

So here I sat this morning, at the computer, of course, going through my email, reading about someone who had decided it would be a good project for them to go through all of their known ancestors on the Find a Grave website to make sure that they had 'ownership' of the memorials listed there. Hmmmmmmmm........

Happened to look at a picture of my Dad and thought, "I wonder if I have ownership of his memorial" and off to Find A Grave I went. Made sure I had ownership of his memorial and then decided to check all of my known relatives buried in Forest City. As it happens, the only person I had listed for that cemetery was my Aunt Sharon! Bad Lisa!! 

Like with any project, job, hobby, etc there can be times when the pendulum swings to the tedious side, but the tedious jobs are usually the ones that save you grunches of time later on [and can lead to wonderful discoveries!]. So as much as I really didn't want to tackle this job this morning, I knew it was the right thing to do.......

I knew my cousin Ellie and her husband, Walter, were buried there so I added them to my list first. I also knew that my grandfather, John Tingley, and his parents, Watson and Annis Tingley, were buried there, and to make an easy list, I searched just the Tingley surname knowing they would come up in a nice neat list that would be easy to add to my master list..........wait a minute........



Who the heck is Mattie E. Hooper Tingley??? Never heard of her, didn't know she was buried in Forest City.  I clicked on her name so I could read her memorial and come to find out she was married to a Walter S. Tingley. Never heard of him either. Here is where the fun part begins............

I usually go to ancestry.com to do a 'first look-up' on a person, [pause here for a 2 mile walk !!], but for some reason today I just googled Walter S. Tingley and bunches of stuff appeared 'just like magic'! [For Harry Potter fans, yes, this is a reference to Gilderoy Lockhart!].

Clicked on one of the links and discovered that his father's name was Agreen. Well I have a great great grandfather named Agreen, let's go check. Yup, same Agreen, so Walter is my great grand uncle.

I then proceed to back out of all the the umpteen million links I have open and go to my ancestry.com account. Turns out I have Walter listed in my tree, I just haven't researched him yet. He's got 12, count 'em TWELVE, hints attached to him [those shakey leaves you hear about]. I get excited when I have 2 hints attached to a person, 12 makes my tail wag!

I'm only 3 hints into my research as I write this and I just learned that my sister, Michelle, used to drive over our relatives "footsteps" every work day, twice a day, as the spot where Walter Tingley and his family lived in 1910 was 195 Franklin Street, which is pretty much the middle of the road these days....

I hope these photos are clear. I ended up having to do a screen shot with my phone.

Anyway, I was also able to find a photo of the house at 195 Franklin Street. It is from 1924, but I doubt it had changed much from 1910. 





I know the photo is labeled Anderson Lane, but Anderson Lane ran along the right side of the house.

According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, dated April 26, 2009, this house, along with hundreds of others, were demolished in the 70's due to Urban Renewal. The powers that be considered all of these houses on the east end as slums and wouldn't it be nice to raze them and build a nice new arterial road to make it easier for cars to get to downtown. 

I'm sure my sister found the Franklin Street arterial a very convenient way to get to work, but I bet she would rather be able to drive to the house of some of her ancestors rather than drive over it!

On a happier note, Walter and family had moved to 53 Boyd St by 1920. Here is a photo of the place in 1924. It was considered at tenement. Interestingly enough, the owner of the house in 1924 was a Florence Hooper. Recognize that last name? Yup, same name as Mattie! Definitely need to check this out!!



And here is 53 Boyd Street today........



No sure if it's the same building or not, maybe my brother, Gar, could weigh in?? Or Warren??

Okay, off to find out what the other 9 hints have to offer!! And I need to see if somewhere along the way Walter married his landlady's daughter!!

I knew there was a reason that I liked Sam Adams beer!

Must be that fact that after spending just about all day yesterday working on my tree I discovered that I am a 4th cousin 9x removed of John Adams [yup, the President John Adams]

 and Sam Adams [yup, Sons of Liberty Sam Adams]!

I just sat there for the longest time time thinking 'how cool is that'!?!?

Here's how it started.................

I received a hint on a Henry Adams for my tree at Ancestry.com. Curious as to who this Henry Adams might be, I started to investigate.

This particular Henry Adams had been born in England in 1531 and was my 13th great grandfather!! Talk about a hint! Sheesh! 

I started researching him and the first thing that pops up is a FindAGrave.com reference, so I click on the link............

Not very interesting until I read the source material at the bottom which reads "Source: Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England and Braintree, Mass., compiled by J. Gardner Bartlett for Edward Dean Adams, 1927

Being a history buff I honed in on Braintree right away. Anyone knowing a bit of history knows that President John Adams came from Braintree [now Quincy] Massachusetts. That's when the spark ignited and this little tiny voice in my head said 'just maybe!!!'

So, a million pieces of paper later...............

this is what I came up with:

Henry Adams was my 13th great grandfather, he had a son,

Richard Adams, my 12th great grandfather, he had a son,

Robert Adams, my 11th great grandfather, he had a son,

Robert Adams, my 10th great grandfather, he had a daughter,

Elizabeth Adams Phelps, my 9th great grandmother, she had a daughter,

Eleanor Phelps Chandler, my 8th great grandmother, she had a son,

William Moses Chandler, Jr, my 7th great grandfather, he had a daughter, 

Lydia Chandler Crosby, my 6th great grandmother, she had a son,

Ezra Crosby, my 5th great grandfather, he had a daughter,

Sybil Crosby Wheeler, my 4th great grandmother, she had a daughter,

Martha Wheeler Bryant, my 3rd great grandmother, she had a son,

Walter Roland Bryant, my 2nd great grandfather, he had a daughter,

Martha Ada Bryant White, my great grandmother, who had a daughter,

Mildred Ada White Tingley Van Keuren, who had a daughter,

June Carole Tingley Roth, who had a daughter............

ME!!

You should be asking now - so where does John Adams come in?

Well, Richard, mentioned above had a bunch of sons, we descend through his son, Robert, and John Adams descends through his son, Henry.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Sam Adams also descends through Henry, so I am also a 4th cousin 9x removed from him also!

Whew!!

Family Historian shoes are being worn today by...............

Cousin Kenny!

The above picture was taken yesterday, June 28, 2014, at Greenfield Cemetery #2, Greenfield, ME, where Kenny's grandparents, Kenneth and Esther White are buried. To the right of Kenny is my mother, June and my grandmother, Millie, is sitting in her walker. Kenneth was Millie's older brother. We were happy to see that someone had left a hanging geranium by the stone and Kenny's wife, Diane, and I quickly picked off all of the spent blooms and dead leaves!

There is also a small stone in the plot with only the word 'White' upon it. Kenny said that his grandfather told him that Franklin [Kenneth's brother] and a stillborn baby were both buried there. Franklin also died very young. I knew this, but I hadn't been able to find out where he was buried. Grammie [Martha White] doesn't mention the stillbirth in her autobiography, but I knew of it from my genealogical research. I also hadn't been able to find out if the child had been buried. So TWO family mysteries solved thanks to Kenny!

Next stop was Number One Cemetery. Kenny said that he was there often as a child and they would picnic at the cemetery. We are related to just about everyone buried in this cemetery.

My nephew, Joshua, hanging out with relatives!

Kenny was also able to take us to the house where he says his grandfather told him my grandmother, Millie, was born. My grandmother doesn't remember the house as she was 3 when they moved away, but Kenny said he remembered it was the house by the well that is out front. We turned off of Greenfield Road and went about 5.5 miles and the house was on the left.

I thought I had gotten some better pictures of my grandmother by the house, but apparently not. The present owner has done quite a bit of work to it, but says the original stone foundation is intact. He said that his father bought the property in 1968 from the Hall family.  I have a map of Greenfield in 1860, but it is at home in Minnesota. Now that I have physically been to this house, it will be interesting to take that map and try to figure out who lived where.


Needed a water break and in between the cemetery and my grandmother's birthplace, on Crocker Turn Rd. Kenny remembered that there was a camp with a water pump. He said that he and his grandfather would stop here often. The kids had a great time and 3 yr old Joshua even took a turn.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and after a small adventure on a typical Maine backwoods dirt road, we found our way to the building that was the local schoolhouse. We all wondered how in the world they got to this building about 100 years ago, since it was a good 6 mile drive from my grandmother's birthplace and figured they must have walked, but they way I walk I'd get there just in time to turn around and walk back home!

Good times were had by all. I hope we have many more............

Days just fly by, don't they?

Can't believe it's been so many days since I posted! My mother is visiting from Maine and the days are going quickly. We've been talking about the neat family facts and stories I've found out over the past year, but  I don't seem to be getting much actual genealogy done!

I did get some frustrating news yesterday. I received a 'no record found' notice in the mail from the State of Pennsylvania on my great grandfather, Arthur Lawless. I'm about 99% positive that he died in Pennsylvania so this is not the news I was expecting. He was living in Milford, PA when he passed and his social security checks were going to Milford. Hmmmm, guess I will have to try to get a copy of his social security application. I'll also check New Jersey since Milford was right on the border, but it doesn't seem likely as the nearest big town to Milford is Scranton, PA, which is to the west of Milford. Oh well, guess I have more digging to do!

I know I promised to talk about our visit with Drew's Aunt Suzie, but haven't gotten my notes organized yet!!

ttfn

Suzie who?

Yes, it's an obvious pun on the CCR song Suzue Q, but I couldn't resist!

Short and sweet today. Picking my mother up at the airport today and it's a 4 hour drive. Had a wonderful time visiting with Drew's Aunt Suzie yesterday. Got quite a bit of information that I didn't know. If I know myself though it will be Monday before I get to writing about it. If I really really organized I'd take my laptop and write something this evening from the hotel. Yup, not that organized!

Later!

PS: Aunt Suzie's given name is Helen and I now know why she's called Suzie!!

You want WHO to come to dinner?

I've often been asked the question 'if you could have dinner with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would that be?'

Over the years my answer has changed little except for the fact that it keeps getting longer!
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great and a few others, all incredibly smart, strong women who persevered in a man's world. I'd like to add my 3rd great grandmother to this list, Martha D Wheeler Bryant.

She was born in 1825 in Hampden, Maine, which is just south of Bangor. Hampden had only been Hampden for about 30 years. Before that it was known as Wheelersborough, after Benjamin Wheeler, who I believe was Martha's great grandfather [still researching this].  I can't even imagine what it would be like living in Maine in 1825. I thought Maine was isolated and out of touch in the 1980's!

She married John F. Bryant, a cooper, in 1847 and they promptly moved to Castine, ME, where her first son, Horatio, was born in 1850. They must have moved to Fairfield, ME soon after that because Horatio died in January of 1853, not quite two and a half years old. Then, to top that off, she had her second son, Lewellyn in August 1853.

I lose them for a bit after that, but I know that her next child Roland Walter [or Walter Roland depending on what document you are reading] was born in 1855 and then her last child, Ada, was born in 1857.

Then comes the Civil War and off John goes on June 24, 1861. They were living in Bethel at the time. John gets killed in action in Maryland in 1862, so she was left with 3 children under 10 years of age.  That's hard enough in today's world, just ask my sister! I can't even imagine the hardship doing it 150 years ago all by yourself! But she did it.

Then, along comes Jonas Flye and her strength and courage are put to the test. You see, she had been getting a widow's pension for her and the children, but somewhere along the way he and/or she decided their lives would be better off if they merged. So, on March 19, 1867 Martha and Jonas married. Only problem was that Jonas was already married!! Yup, ALREADY MARRIED!

Interesting, huh? Yeah, I thought so, too! So, more searching, searching, searching and without going through all the boring stuff, I've pieced together what happened as best I can.

She must have been furious when she found out, as she went right to a lawyer, who must have been a pretty progressive lawyer because back in the 1860's women didn't have many rights. Hubby held all the cards. She went after him with a vengence. She tracked down his first wife [real wife?] and then got the wife to swear to the courts that Jonas had abandoned her. So, fine, marriage is annulled and all is right with the world, right? WRONG!

When she married Jonas she automatically lost her widow's pension, On top of that, she had made Jonas guardian of her minor children. So she had her annulment, but now she had to get guardianship of her children back and THEN she had prove to the US government that she deserved to have her widow's pension re-instated. Yeah, right. Might as well grow wings. Most widow's pension applications are between 5 and 8 pages long. Martha's was 72!!

She never gave up. I can just picture her marching into her attorney's office and telling him in no uncertain terms that they were going to keep on until she got justice. And she did it. She got her children back [not that they physically left her, but you know what I mean] and she got her pension re-instated.

She then went on to outlive all of her children......Ada was 17 when she passed in 1874 and then Walter Roland, who is my direct descendant, passed in 1899.

All have markers in Maplewood Cemetery in Fairfield, ME. Whether they are all actually buried there is a story for another day!

Now you know why I'd want to invite this incredible woman to dinner!!

Thank goodness for my mother-in-law !

My MIL, may she rest in peace, kept a lot of stuff that we didn't know about until we were sorting through her things after she passed.  What a goldmine of genealogical information! So I've been scanning my little butt off this weekend. Figured I'd better get to it before we get some nice weather. It's a bit of a pain that I have to import the scans to my laptop, edit them there, put them on a flashdrive and then import them onto my desktop. I have Photoshop on my desktop, but I've never really taken the time to figure it all out. Much easier for me right now to just use the windows program on my laptop. Lazy, I know, but it does the trick for now. As soon as I get them all gussied up I'll share!

Short and sweet today, I'm pooped!

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