Sunday Search: Connections Through Occupations

There is a wealth of information that can be found in the census. Some of those facts prove to be quite useful when trying to pull the pieces together in order to learn about a distant relative. And while there are a number of things that should be checked and double checked, there is one piece of information in particular that seems to be regularly reliable… occupation. While the spelling of names, use of nicknames, and inaccurate dates abound in these national reports, the occupation of the individual is something really hard to mess up unless the census taker is told the wrong information on purpose.

While most of my family can be found listed as farmers and homemakers, there are the occasional outliers that catch my attention. Not because they are of any extraordinary profession but because it is simply something different than the norm and it makes me think about what that job must have been like at the time. After all, while the basic functions and responsibilities associated with a particularly line of employment, the means by which the tasks are completed are vastly different from that of over 100 years ago. There are exceptions to that rule as well.

Of course, what is even more interesting to me is the interplay between the different lines of the family tree. Sometimes there are other common connection both in geography and occupation that makes you wonder if ancestors in question ever ran into one another. This is where the intrest is really piqued and when the imagination can sometimes wander in to the realm of possibility regardless of how improbable it may have been. Let’s just take the 1900 Census for example.

In 1900 and at the time of his death in 1902, my great great grandfather on my dad’s side, Samuel Ardis, was a clerk for the railroad most likely the Pennsylvania Railroad which, at the time, was headquartered in Philadelphia (my three times great grandfather was a messenger for the railroad as well). Who knows, maybe he ran into my great great grandfather on my mom’s side, William McKannan, who was a Railroad Night Caller in Trenton. While he may have lived and worked in Trenton, there was still a lot of family that remained in Philadelphia. It is interesting to think about the duties and responsibilities that they each had and whether there was a possible connection between the two families over 70 years before my parents got married.

Another interesting consideration is the fact that at the turn of the 20^th century another one of my great great grandfathers on my mom’s side, John Uttley, was a Philadelphia Police Officer in Ward 5 (Roxborough). For good reasons or bad, I wonder if he ever ran into some of the other members of my family years before the trees would merge. You simply never know if there was ever an introduction among the families before the actual connections were made years later.   

And this is just one year of the census, one family, and one geographic location. There are undoubtedly times when you will see different families within the same page or two of the census but it is fascinating to look back decades before the families would eventually merge to find the possible points of contact and connection that may or may not have existed at the time. In a dedicated passion that requires facts, sometimes it is nice to think about the possibilities despite the lack of evidence. I guess you could say that this is part of the process as well. After all, you never know what you might find.

Sunday Search: In Flight Questions

I am not someone who flies well. In fact, there have been many times when I have barely been able to open my eyes on the plane. It isn’t really the flying part that gets me it is the taking off and landing that doesn’t play well with my stomach. However, there have been moments from time to time when, for some reason, there hasn’t been even the slightest twinge of queasiness. Ever hopeful, I always have a project or two on hand when I fly with the hope that I will actually be able to remain productive during these unusual moments.

Today was kind of an in-between flight for me. While I was not in a position to start pulling out books and files or flip open my laptop, I was still able to think about some of the questions that still linger in the family tree. Keep in mind that these are topics that I keep on hand, jotted either on a post it note at my desk or, as was the case here, written as a note on my cell phone. Here are the questions that I keep coming back to hoping that I can think of a new angle or a new place to look:

• Why can’t I find any record of Marcellias Nicholas Love prior to his marriage to Laura Belle Redcross in 1889?
• Who was the third Jacob Teaford’s mother? Can this information be found in his service record from the War of 1812?
• Where is the marriage certificate of Paulus Redcross and Frances Beverly?
• When did the original William McKenna immigrate to the United States? Where did he enter?
• Where are the records for Alexander Fulton? Any relation to the Fulton family in Lancaster County?
• Why is there so little information on Mary Eppright? Is the family really tied to the Muhlenberg line?
• Who is John W. Ardis’ father? Was he in the Revolutionary War?
• Where can I find more information on the Yeagle and Corner families?
• Who was John Uttley’s father? What did he do (his son and grandson became Philadelphia Police Officers)?

These are the questions that I am most eager to answer at this point in my research. This is why I keep this list with me nearly everywhere I go. It is a simple reminder that I am sure most genealogists keep on hand not just for when we are sitting among the stacks or at our laptop at home. Sometimes we just need to step away from the inundation of information and just think about the possibilities of where we might find the answers as well as mull over the many theories that we all have regarding our family mysteries. In the end, there are times when these undistracted moments can be the most fruitful. But, for now, for me, they remain questions.

Sunday Search: Lost Children

One of the things that many people overlook about genealogy is the fact that it is not always about making the remarkable link to some historical figure or event. Sometimes it is about making sure that people are not forgotten. This doesn’t just apply to those names that may not be part of the usual family discussions, it is about the names that may not have even carried over to the next generation. I have written about many of the people that lived interesting lives, some that may have died too soon, and others whom I simply wanted to learn more about. To date, the list is rather extensive and includes the following leaves from my tree:

• Samuel Ardis
• Jacob Wirth
• John Uttley
• Charlotte Noblitt
• William Jacob McKannan
• Percy Davis Teaford
• Cecile Teaford
• John Lewis Hallman
• William Edgar Yeagle
• John Redcross

Those are just a few of the lives that I have tried to bring back to the forefront of my family history. Many of the details were already known to various family members but there have been a few that have come as a surprise (at least some of the details). These stories are fascinating to me and I will certainly be adding to that list in the near future but, for now, I wanted to take the time to share some of the names that can too easily be forgotten. Some lives are cut short while other lives never had a chance to get started.

When looking through the census records it can be a little startling to see the two numbers listed a few columns over from the mother’s name. These columns stick to the factual… number of children followed by number of surviving children. The census is a form full of facts and numbers and doesn’t provide any additional insights as to the discrepancy. Seeing these do, usually different, figures has become routine for many of us conducting research on our families. However, when we dig a little deeper, when we find a name, that column is no longer filled with simple numbers. Below are just a few of the names that I have been able to find…

• I knew about my great aunt Frances Reba Teaford from the time I initially became interested in the family history. A few of her siblings are still around and have shared stories about her with me and the short life that she lived. Frances was born in Eagle Rock, Virginia to Harry Gilmore Teaford and Nettie Love in 1926. She succumb to the ravages of Tuberculosis a few years after the family moved to Pennsylvania in 1943. However, I didn’t find out until later about a baby brother that was born in August 1930. Unfortunately, he passed away three months later still without having been given a name.
• Samuel Ardis and Sarah Myers had three children together including twins born on April 18, 1902. Thomas died in July 1902 (a month before his father) and Edna died in March 1903 (seven months after her father).
• My great great grandmother, Susan Laura Corner, was one of nine children born to Jacob Corner and Tamise Culp. However, by the time she turned five year old, she had already lost three of her siblings including her twin sister. Calvin was born two decades before my grandmother and never made it to his first birthday. Hannah was six when her baby twin sisters were born but only knew them for five years. Emma Flora, Susan’s twin, was just over two years old when she passed away.  
• William McKannan and Susan Corner had three children, two sons and a daughter. Their youngest son, Reuben (named after Susan’s brother), was born in July of 1893. He was laid to rest in what would become the family plot in May of 1897.
• By the end of 1919, William Jacob McKannan (Reuben’s brother) and Helen Fulton had four children, two boys and two girls. By the close of 1922, William was a widower caring for two sons. His two daughters, Marion (1916-1920) and Helen (1919-1922), both preceded their mother in death. Helen succumbed to a stroke on September 7, 1922.  
• Over the course of a single year from 1879-1880, John Uttley lost both his first wife Sallie, who passed away in January 1880, as well as their only child Charlotte who was born in February 1879 and died three months later.
• Jacob Wirth and Mary Eppright had four children. By August of 1864, Mary was a single mother of one. Their oldest daughter, Emma, didn’t even make it to her first birthday passing away at 10 months old in October 1858. The day following her father’s death aboard the USS Tecumseh at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Laura died just over a month shy of her second birthday on August 6, 1864 and Mary succumb to her illness (likely yellow fever) three days after her sister on August 9^th.

Genealogy is about ensuring that the family history is passed down to future generations. Sometimes those facts and events are obvious and quite well known, other times it takes some digging to ensure that we have as complete a picture as possible. As many of you know, it is usually about the tiny details. Sometimes, even just ensuring that the name of a lost child it remembered is the greatest thing that we can accomplish. This is why I continue to try to make the connections and put the pieces together to tell the larger story but take the time to make sure that these children are part of the story and not forgotten. After all, each life is part of the family.

Sunday Search: The Samuel Ardis Mystery

One of the first things I noticed when I initially began compiling my family tree was how many ancestors grew up not knowing either their mother or their father. One of the other examples that I have previously written about was that of Jacob Worth who remains interred with his fellow Union soldiers at the bottom of Mobile Bay having fallen victim to a Confederate torpedo while aboard the USS Tecumseh. This is a tragic tale but one which has the documents and facts by which we can determine exactly what happened. That isn’t always the case which is what I faced when looking at the life and death of my great great grandfather Samuel Warner Ardis.

The day following his early demise, on Monday, September 1, 1902, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed a story under the sensationalize headline “DEATH USED PHILADELPHIA AS A TARGET” with one of the many bulleted subheads stating “Element of Mystery in Case of Samuel W. Ardis Dispelled by Investigation”. Having been printed only a day following his death, the coroner’s inquest was still pending but the details suggested that heart disease played a factor. However, some of the details remained a bit fuzzy.   

To that point the investigation suggested that Samuel Ardis, who was employed as a clerk with the Reading Railway Company, was taken in by a stranger on his way home after falling ill shortly after his departure from work. Early the following morning, Sunday, the police were notified that Samuel Ardis had died suddenly at the house at some point during the night. When questioned later, my great great grandmother stated, according to the report that she was in “total ignorance of her husband’s movements since Saturday”.

While the autopsy later revealed, and was recorded on his death certificate, that the cause of death was pneumonia, we will never have a complete picture as to what transpired that night. The only facts that we know are that he died just over a month after his 3 month old son, Thomas J. Ardis, passed away and left his wife to care for their only remaining child, my great grandmother, Sarah Mabel Ardis, who turned three only four days after he baby brother died. In the span of just over a month, my great grandmother lost her father and her brother with her birthday falling in between. I can’t imagine what must have been going through her, or my great great grandmother’s, mind as all of this is happening.

We know a little but the mystery, and questions, still remain… Did he knock on a door or was he found and brought inside? Did he know the people / person who took him in? If so, how did they know one another? Did he know that he was sick? Did anyone notice at the office or was he seemingly ‘fine’? Why weren’t there any signs that this could happen? All these questions I want to have answers to but know that will probably never happen.