Emily Gloria Grey

Emily Gloria Grey was born born 19 June 1915 per her social security application.  [The names of her parent's are blacked out, however I am appealing that based on the fact that she is deceased as well as her husband, and I am a direct descendent.  All pertinent documentation was sent in along with the appeal.  It's been 30 days and nothing from them yet].

On her social security application  she states her birth place as Baltimore, Maryland.  Emily Grey married Weldon W. Tyson on 17 May 1935 in Anne Arundel, Annapolis, Maryland.  She states she was 20 at the time of marriage with no prior marriages.  

Emily Gray Tyson died 31 December 1994 at Peninsula Medical Center in Fruitland, Putnam, Florida.  Her birth date is given as 19 June 1915.  She was a widow.

Based on this information I took a trip to the Baltimore State Archives, in Annapolis, MD to look for Emily's birth record.  After spending 3 hours with a very nice archivist no birth record was found within a 5 year time span for an Emily Gloria Grey/Gray in Baltimore or Annapolis County.  Now I'm stuck.


You don't mention finding Emily as a child of anyone in the 1920 and 1930 census enumerations. That is where I would start looking while you wait for the SS-5 to appear. 


I would also look for a newspaper article about the marriage of Emily and Weldon and see what clues it provides. Might be in the Baltimore Sun since she was from Baltimore.


You might also look for a birth announcement in the Baltimore Sun.




I have very little faith in social security applications or even marriage certificates for that matter. My great-grandmother not only cheated at checkers, but she also managed to have two entirely different sets of parents between the SS-5, the church record of the marriage and the county record of the marriage.


Get back to me with what you find and we can take it from there.


As an aside, the archives in Annapolis is the Maryland State Archives. There is no Annapolis County, it is Anne Arundel. And Baltimore County is not the same thing as Baltimore City, they have been separate since 1859 (that is off the top of my head, I think it is right). So if you did not look at Baltimore City records, you should do that.


C.

He Died Mysteriously

My ancestor, Stamey Thomas Craver (1891-1918), died rather mysteriously and I'm trying to figure out his cause of death.  He lived his whole life in NC, and died in Forsyth County. His death certificate is on-line at Ancestry.com and in the NC Archives but there is no cause of death!  He died November 7, 1918.  Family lore is that he was struck by a train.  That's all anyone remembers. I even checked the original death certificate at the NC Archives - it's just like on Ancestry.com. The cause of death area is blank and there's nothing on the back or penciled in or on the next or previous page.

I searched the newspapers on GenealogyBank.com and I checked the Winston-Salem Journal on microfilm at the State Library in Raleigh and couldn't find any mention of accidents or Stamey just prior to or just after November 7. 

I emailed the NC Medical Examiner office, and their response is below -- they don't have any records that go that far back.

Any further ideas for how to solve this mystery?


The first thing that I do when I encounter a male death in the 1917 to 1919 timeframe is consult my database of known dead in World War One. There were five Cravers, but none from NC or named Thomas. Sometimes it pans out, mostly not.


I have a great uncle that was struck by a train. But there was a newspaper article and fortunately a piece of paper in his pocket with the name and address of his brother in Oklahoma. That was how the family learned of the death of Worton French Scott, hit by a train in California. Family lore has it that he rode a lot of trains.


Blank causes of death are not unheard of. Probably means that there was the expectation of a coroner's inquest. So you headed down the right path to find the coroner's report but probably went about it in the wrong way. A coroner would be responsible for providing his findings to the appropriate court. So in the absence of a report from the medical examiner I would look in Forsyth County court minutes. The county court, according to the "Guide to County Records in the North Caroline Archives" has court minutes from 1915 to 1931 on film. Can you figure out the name of the coroner at the time in the records. Try looking for him in newspaper articles. It could be that at the time of the death the person, because of the trauma of the accident could not be identified so the article is about an unidentified person being hit by a train.


Also in examining the possibilities for court records in the county there are two boxes of Railroad Records, 1870 - 1930. Can't imagine what they are, but they must be worth a look. I believe that you should also look for suit between the family and the railroad. Could it have been a wrongful death?


Looking at GenealogyBank.com is only one of the places to look. And the Winston-Salem Journal is a good place also, but again only one of the places to look. There might have been more than one paper in Forsyth County at the time. So that should be examined to see what other papers should be consulted. It is also possible that he was struck by a train in some other place than Forsyth County and came home to die. So the accident was in one jurisdiction and the death in another. Where did he live in the county in relation to the railroad? There is a good NC railroad map for 1900 online, just Google it. It looks like two different rail companies ran through the county in that timeframe.




There is of course the possibility that the train that he was hit by was a foundry train. It looks like he was an iron moulder the year before his death. You should look for the company records and see if his death was a result of being hit by something at work. My own great-grandfather was a moulder who was hit in the head by something while he was working at the Newport News Shipyard in the early 1900s. 


It looks like he might have been working for Briggs-Shaffner Company and they still exist today. Now the question for the other readers is how did I know that he was a iron moulder and worked for Briggs-Shaffner in 1917?


Hope this helps.


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C.

Private corporation pension records

In a nutshell, I have a question for you on historic pension records for genealogy research. Specifically corporate pension records.  By way of background, I'm a librarian not a genealogist.  However, I did work for a time at a private-sector financial services firm that handled company pensions.  (For instance, AT&T -- one of their clients -- has provided employee pensions longer than Social Security has existed.) 

My question specifically is do you know of any resources, websites, or sources about company pension plans for family history research? The public and military pensions are great resources. I assume the corporate ones would be as well, if the information became public.   I have done a bit of searching, but can't find any myself.  That is outside of a couple railroad archives and www.pbgc.gov. I suspect a big roadblock will be private nature of these records.  Any information or suggestions would be most welcome.

I have no experience in these records, but as you are aware these large corporations have librarians and archivists (quiet as they might be). That is where I would start. Your point about private is well taken, they probably are going to be inaccessible, but you won't know til you try.

A Soldier in 1840 in the census?

Where would I find a census record of a soldier supposedly stationed at Fort/Camp Jesup, Louisiana in 1840? I've searched for him on Ancestry.com reading line by line without success.

A fort would be a somewhat permanent structure, a camp is a more impermanent place. In the case of Fort Jesup it was built in 1822. It was a fort and would remain so until about 1846 when it was abandoned. There is a state park there today, so the park ranger might be a good person to contact to see if they have a card file or something of that ilk that deals with soldiers at the fort.

It is likely for this time period you will not find a census record for a soldier at Fort Jesup. Military people are ignored a lot when it comes to census enumerators.

It would be a good idea to determine what units were at the fort in 1840. Your soldier could be a part of the fort headquarters staff or part of an infantry, cavalry or artillery regiment stationed there.

If you do not know what unit the soldier was in you can start on Ancestry.com with the Register of Enlistments.

Regimental muster rolls are found on NARA microfilm for the years after 1821 when the Army reorganized into the alpha company - numbered regimental system.

So finding the soldier on the muster rolls would be like finding them on the census in that time period.

Henry Stone, Georgia Revolutionary War Soldier

Were there any applications for the 1832 Cherokee Land Lottery in Georgia?  If so, where are they located?

There were two lotteries in Georgia in 1832, one Land and one Gold. The land lottery was in the northern most part of the state and gave away the Cherokee Nation in 160 acre parcels. It was these two lotteries that caused the "Trail of Tears." 

The records that exist are found on Georgia State Archives microfilm and are divided into four sections each consisting of plats and grants.  The basic requirements for eligibility were that a person be a U.S. citizen for three years and a resident of Georgia for three years. Other qualifications allowed for additional draws. One of these was a Revolutionary War veteran who had not previously won was entitled to two draws.

The source that I use for untangling the confusion in my mind about the Georgia lotteries is Paul K. Graham's book, Georgia Land Lottery Research, available from the Georgia Genealogical Society. It is full of explanations about each lottery, research strategies, eligible participants and maps.






I'm trying to find out how Henry Stone qualified as an R.S. in the drawing.   In the index, he is listed as R.S. Sweat's Company in Ware County Georgia. This Company was Militia.

I have always thought that R.S. meant Revolutionary War Service. Still do, but several things bother me about Henry Stone. There is a Henry Stone in James A. Sweat's Company of Ware County, Georgia Militia. 

Now the problem. I find him in Sweat's Company in 1838. A little removed from the Revolutionary War.

It is unlikely that there is a Revolutionary War militia company from Ware County, as the county is not formed until 1824. It was created out of Appling County in 1818 and before that it was Creek Land. It was named Nicholas Ware who was born in 1769, not really old enough to name a county in 1776.

There is a muster roll in The South Georgia Historical and Genealogical Quarterly, v.1, #3, p. 12 that shows a Henry Stone in Captain James A. Sweat's Company, mustered in June 1838 and serving until August 1838 to repel the Indian invasion in Ware County.

There is a Henry Stone, with a Revolutionary War pension, but he comes out of Loudoun County, Virginia and into West Virginia. There is no indication that he made it to Georgia. There is also is a Henry Stone from Connecticut in the militia. The DAR Patriot Index, on page 2592 has three Henry Stone entries, these two and another public service Henry Stone. All are dead by 1833 and the Henry who is the last to die in 1833 is the one from Loudoun County, Virginia who dies in Monongalia County, [West] Virginia. So these are not candidates for Henry Stone of Ware County, Georgia in 1838. There is also no Henry Stone listed in the Census of Pensioners 1840. Of course because he is alive in 1838 does not mean that he is alive in 1840. I am unable to locate a Henry Stone in the 1840 census of Georgia, or in any other census prior to 1850 (a cursory look). There are two Henry Stones (one born in 1780) in Ware County in 1850 (a cursory look).

Georgia Revolutionary Soldiers & Sailors, Patriots & Pioneers, Volume 2, Laurens - Worth Counties does not include any Henry Stone entries. There are four patriots buried in Ware County.

My assumption is that this information comes from Knight's book, Georgia Roster of the Revolution which on page 325 begins a list of Revolutionary War Soldiers and the Widows of Revolutionary War
Soldiers listed in the Cherokee Land Lottery, 1838. Henry Stone is listed on page 330 as District 14, Section 2, Lot 12, Sweat's District, Ware County. This entry is the only Henry Stone in the book based on a full text search. District 14 is in the middle of Cherokee County a far piece from Ware County. It is also possible that it is from The Cherokee Land Lottery, but that book is not in my library, at the moment.

So here we have a source in isolation that says that Henry Stone of Ware County, in Sweat's District in 1838 is a Revolutionary War soldier. 

Was Henry Stone of Ware County a Revolutionary War Soldier?

I doubt it. 

It Just Doesn't Add Up, part 2

You have pointed out a possibility which seems likely - - -

1. The 1903 book's paragraph on "McDowell or McDole" (page 976) concludes with "In 1784 Thomas and William went on to Shirley Hill, Goffstown, where they parted, Thomas going to Vermont where he was never heard from after."   If this 1784 date is correct it seems a cinch that the three generations from original emigre to one of his sons to adulthood to marriage and family could NOT be sufficient to cover the years from "1630 or 1640" to "in 1784"!   

Yep.

2. Also, with some three hours of reading and checking I have located on page 315 of "The History of Bedford" the following - which I had read several times before but had not connected the conflicting aspects of the statement:  "John McLaughlin and Mary, his wife, came from Ireland about 1735;" - obviously not close enough in date to support the trail of events from the genealogy on page 976.    

A better way would be to have gone to Google and found the book. It is

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028812852

and download the text version (the PDFs don't seem to be searchable) and look for your names of interest.

3. Interestingly, I personally located the graves of William McDole "died 1784, at 65th year" therefore born 1719 and of Rosannah McDole "died 1791, 64th year" therefore born 1721.  A single 2" slab - wide enough to stretch across both graves - in Hillside Cemetery (Grasmere, NH).

Nice.

4. Do you ascribe to what I've been told: That those two-graves-wide headstones use the wife's name BEFORE marriage?  If so, "Rosannah McDole" on her stone verifies her prior marriage to William's elder brother, Thomas . . . when the two McDole's, the wife of one and children of two of them arrived in Bedford, Rosannah was then the wife of Thomas and mother of his several children.

To ascribe to it would mean that I considered such rule of thumb to always be true. I don't believe that anything is always true. This tombstone exists in isolation and given that the last names match it does not mean much. You will need to find other evidence to support the possibility of the prior marriage.. 

It Just does not add up

I would like to ask for your assistance in cracking a genealogical "brick wall" with which I have been struggling on and off for some 20 years. At age 97 I am starting to be concerned that I may not live long enough to see it broken.

I am not sure how best to proceed. Perhaps a brief description of what I have found and my understanding of the "brick wall" will suffice for now.

On page 975 of the "History of Bedford New Hampshire from 1737- published by the town - 1903" by the Rumford Printing Company of Concord, N.H. ... the page's heading reads "Genealogies - McDowell" and a sub-head of "McDowell or McDole".

The copy reads:

"This family comes from Scotch ancestry, which, like so many of our townspeople's ancestors, had settled in the north of Ireland (see McPherson.) A father and his two sons, whose names we have not learned, joined the Massachusetts Bay colony about 1630 or 1640. The father was killed in Boston in a singular manner, a tub of butter falling upon and crushing his chest. One son died soon after. The other son married and settled in Londonderry, where three children were born, Thomas, William, and Mary. Both parents died when the children were small, but they found a home with a Mr. McLaughlin."

The genealogy continues for another like number of lines, but the above is enough, I believe, for my query. I have searched Passenger Ship listings for years without locating one listing a father and two sons - under any name - sailing from any port to Boston or to other cities both north and south of

Boston - without locating a father and two sons.

I am anxious to confirm the story as told above - and thus either verify or find faulty the language quoted above.

______

So the time line as I see it is:

1630 or 1640 – Massachusetts Bay Colony, a father >30 lets say and two sons, >10 (old enough to travel)

Father dies, one son dies, remaining son marries at say age >20 or say 1650

1650 – 1660 Three children born of remaining son, Thomas, William, and Mary

1660 about parents die, children are small, live with McLaughlin.

Thomas and William serve in the Revolutionary War at the age of 110 or thereabouts.

So it is more likely that the 1630 to 1640 is a typo and that they arrived in 1730 to 1740 a full hundred years later and at a time much more consistent with Scots-Irish migration to the colonies.

So, I would say that the language is faulty and that going back from what you know and can prove about this family would be a better use of your time. The Bedford history can provide clues but it appears to have problems.