Ancestry Saturday: Being Lured In

A cousin who lives nearby sent me this photo of my fourth great grandmother's house. I've written before about discovering that Great Grandma Phebe's house was still around.

The photo is luring me in. I really want to go see this house!






Side by side with the sketch of the house from the 1880 History of Ross and Highland Counties book, it is easy to see the match and how little the place has changed.

Yep, road trip!

Sunday Review: Ohio Ancestors 2014 Year in Review

A full 11 days into 2015, I'm still looking back at 2014 to help set the stage for my family history research going forward in 2015.  There's a lot more to get done.

I now list 35 Revolutionary War patriots in my kids' bloodline.  That's a growth of eight in 2014.  I don't expect a 20% growth in that list for 2015 though.  Confirming a few more might be nice.

I attended the wedding of my third cousin in December and met some living family members, including a convergence story that's borderline creepy.  Who would think that my third cousin from New York would marry someone who once lived just two doors away from where we live now in Ohio?

I count finding my fourth great grandmother Phebe's house a great find of 2014.  It will be made greater if I can schmooze an invite to see the inside in 2015.

We'll make a point to visit the Catholic church in Somerset, Ohio again in 2015 where my fourth great grand uncle was a priest more than a century and a half ago.  Richard Pius Miles would later become the first bishop of the Diocese of Nashville.  If a family trip takes us near Nashville, we'll even visit his burial location in the basement of the church. 

Whatever our 2015 Summer Vacation destination turns out to be, it will certainly include some family history stopovers.

2014 would have been a less-productive family history research year but for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania releasing their death certificates archive to Ancestry.com.  That lifted Pennsylvania way up on the list of states where family history research is friendly.  These death certificates helped solve some family mysteries and confirm some others.  My sister-in-law and Aunt, by marriage, are two families with Ohio and Pennsylvania roots that have been made easier to research thanks to this action.  Showing them my findings are on my list in 2015.

Not everything was merely electronic in 2014.  I visited the clothing store my great great grandfather owned in Meadville, PA.  It's now a coffee shop and bakery.

There are some regrets. 

I still haven't seen or gotten a copy of the marriage certificate for Andrew Alfred Baker and Beatrice Merz my Aunt mentioned in an email a year ago.  That information sparked a breakthrough that helped me complete my five-generation family tree.  I may have to send her a digital camera with a return envelope to get a copy.  Would that be too direct?

Figuring out once and for all whether the George Platt on the Brig Niagara at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 is the same George F. Platt, my third great grandfather, who served at Lake Erie with the Pennsylvania Militia is a still-unfulfilled quest.  I just recently obtained the National Archives military file for George F. Platt and there's no mention of his service to the Navy in the file.  I'm still searching though.

 

I'm still waiting for some more photos from cousins.  The Bernard Family Reunion yielded one great find, but the promise of more is on my list to get fulfilled in 2015.  I'm really hoping my Cleveland second cousin once removed finds that missing box of photos with my great great grandmother's photo(s) in it too.

 

With my five-generation family tree now complete, the never-ending quest is to go deeper into the family tree.  With less records, less headstones, and less photographs from that sixth generation and backward, that's going to be tougher to accomplish.  That's 2015 in a nutshell.

Ancestry Saturday: My Kids' Revolutionary War Patriots Bloodline Update

The plague on the south wall of the Highland County Courthouse in Hillsboro, Ohio has the names of two of my ancestors who were Revolutionary War patriots.  This is a source of pride, but those two are just a sampling of the full list.  With each passing generation of my family, the list will grow and grow.

My research, as of December 2013, showed 27 patriots in the direct blood line of my kids.  The list is now at 35 as of January 1, 2015.

Here's the updated list.

The 22 patriots from their Dad's side:

William Altman
Thomas Fleming Bernard
Charles Beaven Blandford
Elijah Charles
Joseph Conway
George Daubenspeck
John Jacob Daubenspeck
John Downing
Garrett Fiscus
William Fleming
Henry Guthrie
James Gutridge
Robert Jameson
Adam Crain Jones
John Foster Leaverton
John Jacob Muhleisen
Michael Reitenauer
Jeremiah Shontz
Daniel Smith
James Ebenezer Smith
Samuel Woodmansee
James Wygant


The 13 patriots from their Mom's side:

Thomas Adkins
Charles Booth
Zadock Bosworth
Ebenezer Cole, Jr.
Ebenezer Cole, Sr.
Samuel Ferguson
Ebenezer Gage
Charles Gatliff
James Felix McGuire
John Nay
Joshua Quance
Moses Searle
Daniel Walton

I've given my kids a head start.  I bet they can find more some day.

Ancestry Saturday: Is That Great Grandma Phebe's House?

I was attending a family reunion on Sunday in the same area where many of my maternal ancestors lived over the past 200+ years.

Frankly, Clinton and Highland Counties' rural areas have changed very little over the decades.  I'd driven through there before, but a farmhouse off in the distance in a field caught my attention for the first time.  I pulled over and snapped a photo.

The photo, on left, is a house of Antioch Road in the Northwest corner of Fairfield Township in Highland County, Ohio.  It's about a mile from the Village of Highland.

The photo, on right, is a sketch of the home of my fourth great grandmother, Phebe (Woodmansee) Conway Driskill.  The illustration appeared in the book History of Ross and Highland Counties that was published in 1880.

The book didn't give an address, except to say it was located on the western side of Fairfield Township.

Are these the same houses?

I'm on the hunt.

I can see the differences--wooden gables now versus brick ones before and chimneys in different locations.  I see the similarities too though--same period of architecture and same window count.

The County Auditor's online map put me with someone who knew the history three owners back. Indeed, the neighbor's house was first built by a relative of Phebe's on her maiden Woodmansee family.  The County Auditor's site says the house was built in 1901.  I'm skeptical of that age estimate.

I have seen the 1871 and 1887 Atlas' for Highland County.  There are Woodmansee and Driskill names in this area, but none specifically places Phebe Driskill.

I've posted the photo on a Facebook group about Highland County.

We'll see what turns up.

-----------------
UPDATE on Saturday, October 10, 2014.

It turns out, the houses are not a match.

There's good news though. I found it further west in Fairfield a Township. It still is there.




This house at 6500 block of McVey Road in Fairfield Township, Highland County, Ohio and in a Bing Maps image matches the sketch of the home of Phebe Ann (Woodmansee) Driskill in 1880 edition of the History of Ross and Highland Counties. The 1871 Atlas of Highland County places a residence for PA & CC Driskill at this same location. Here's the zoom in of the map.

Solved!

Ancestry Saturday: When The Indirect Approach Just Won't Work

I've tried to be indirect.  Post it online with facts and assume the search engines will bring a change to correct the record.  That's the theory.

Theory and reality haven't met.

I wrote in November 2013 that I had discovered the death date for Phebe Ann Woodmansee to be 27 Jul 1883.  That piece was intended to convince some of the people with websites and Ancestry.com family trees to change their death dates.  There are at least 56 public trees on Ancestry.com and not one has changed yet. 

I pleaded in a piece in January this year for my fellow researchers to take the Worthington out of Thomas W. Sanders in their family trees.  Only one of 14 Ancestry.com has dropped back to a W.

Even worse, in September 2013 I presented a preponderance of evidence that his parent's were John and Emily (Jones) Sanders, not Thomas and Sarah (Ham) Sanders.  Yet, 10 of the 14 Ancestry.com trees still have Thomas and Sarah.  The other four have no parents listed.

It's time to set the record straight.

I made direct contact with many of the Ancestry.com fellow researchers.  Now, the changes are slowing coming about.

Ancestry Saturday: The Elusive Death Date of Phebe Ann Woodmansee

 

My fourth great grandmother, born Phebe Ann Woodmansee, was elusive in her death.

One county history book had her death calculated as the year 1887.  Another researcher had her passing in May 1883.  

 

Because there was no headstone found for her burial and Ohio didn't require death certificates before 1908, the actual date of her death was unknown.

Piecing the puzzle together helped narrow things down, though, and a obituary was found to settle the mystery in my mind.

One piece said that she was dropped from the rolls of the Friends church to which she belonged in August 1883.  That was a sign, but not enough.

A Highland County Probate Court journal entry was the next thing found that indicated she was gone before October 1883.

Then the Library of Congress newspaper archive, despite a last name misspelling, gave up the date.  She died July 27, 1883.

Now, the tough job is to get all those records of genealogical researchers updated to reflect the correct date.