Tuesday night, I decided to see if I could possibly find any further data about my 3gg grandmother's sister, Betsey Millet Simmons, and her family. I had tried before, and they all seemed to disappear after 1863, when their son Watson married Mariette J. Brown in Branch Co., Missouri. With a little searching, I found them on the 1870 census in Monroe Co., Missouri. And a bonus find--Hiram Millet, whom I believe to be my 3gg grandfather's brother. Finding him with a child of Betsey adds one more little chink of proof that I am right as I attempt to put this family together.
What I found was a household headed up by "Mary J. Simmons," and which included two Simmon's children (Glen age 3 & Horace age 1), an older Brown couple, Melville Simmons (brother-in-law to "Mary J.", and Hiram Millett (age 74). What a mixed household, and I'd certainly be interested in knowing just how they all drifted from "up north" to Missouri.
Since this was the latest time frame for anyone in this particular family, I decided to do a little more exploring. Going to the 1880 census, they were no longer in Monroe County. I could not find a Millett or a Simmons of the right ages in Missouri, but when I took the birth date parameter out of the search engine, I turned up the two Simmons boys in neighboring Shelby County, with step-dad William T. Carothers and their mother "Etta J." Carothers. Ancestry.com has Missouri marriages at their web site, so it wasn't difficult to find an 1871 marriage between the two, and a copy now resides on my computer. No Melville, although I did find him in Nebraska in 1880. No Hiram Millett, but given that he would be about 84, I would have been more surprised if I had found him.
More sleuthing between Ancestry.com, the Missouri Digital Archives site with their death records online, and the USGenWeb site for Shelby County, allowed me to put most of the pieces of this family together. A Shelby County history on this USGenWeb site confirmed that the two Brown's (Henry & Sarah) were indeed Mariette/Mary J./Etta's parents, and that her first husband was indeed Watson Simmons. Found wives and children for the two Simmons boys, death and burial records for them as well.
Would I have found them without the Internet? I doubt that I would have lived long enough to have found them without the Internet, nor been lucky enough to come across any current-day relatives to share information with.
The saga will continue..............
Showing posts with label Serendipity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serendipity. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Serendipity in Oklahoma
This is the ideal place to share this event. I realize I haven't written here in several months, but this looks like a good story to share, since it relates to family history.
I recently received a request to look for an obituary for someone, from an unknown lady in an unknown place. After I located the obituary for her and typed it up and emailed it, she thanked me and said, "If there's anything you need in Oklahoma, just let me know."
Well, people have said similar things to me before, and I usually just thank them and say I will contact them if I have a need for. And I never do, for most of the time they live in areas where none of my family ever lived. This time was different.
I remembered that some of my grandparents' relatives lived in a small town in Oklahoma called "Lookeba." I recently submitted names for temple work for some of them. My great grandmother Johnson's sister (nee Belden) had married a Chambers, and I remembered that later on they had gone to Lookeba, but I forgotten that my grandmother's brother also lived there. In fact, he was the husband of one of the people I had submitted for temple ordinances. Something just told me to mention this town, even though I figured the chances of her being anywhere near it were remote.
Imagine my surprise when she replied and said that her mother had been born there, was still alive (and age 89), as was an older sister, and she goes there every year to put flowers on the graves of her family who are buried there. She asked for the names of my family, so I had to do a little digging to get them all straight, but I sent them on to her yesterday.
Tonight she replied, saying she had met one of my grandmother's nephews, still living and still living in Lookeba, this past spring. And her mother remembered many of the people I had mentioned to this lady.
Talk about a small world! You just never know who you will meet online!
We will continue to correspond, I'm sure. She has promised pictures of tombstones when she goes to the cemetery next Memorial day. I hope for an opportunity to correpond with my mother's cousin Charles (the one she met), it will be great to "get together" with a branch of the family who went south 100 years ago, while my branch came west. And I can't wait to tell my cousin Mike about this latest contact!
I recently received a request to look for an obituary for someone, from an unknown lady in an unknown place. After I located the obituary for her and typed it up and emailed it, she thanked me and said, "If there's anything you need in Oklahoma, just let me know."
Well, people have said similar things to me before, and I usually just thank them and say I will contact them if I have a need for. And I never do, for most of the time they live in areas where none of my family ever lived. This time was different.
I remembered that some of my grandparents' relatives lived in a small town in Oklahoma called "Lookeba." I recently submitted names for temple work for some of them. My great grandmother Johnson's sister (nee Belden) had married a Chambers, and I remembered that later on they had gone to Lookeba, but I forgotten that my grandmother's brother also lived there. In fact, he was the husband of one of the people I had submitted for temple ordinances. Something just told me to mention this town, even though I figured the chances of her being anywhere near it were remote.
Imagine my surprise when she replied and said that her mother had been born there, was still alive (and age 89), as was an older sister, and she goes there every year to put flowers on the graves of her family who are buried there. She asked for the names of my family, so I had to do a little digging to get them all straight, but I sent them on to her yesterday.
Tonight she replied, saying she had met one of my grandmother's nephews, still living and still living in Lookeba, this past spring. And her mother remembered many of the people I had mentioned to this lady.
Talk about a small world! You just never know who you will meet online!
We will continue to correspond, I'm sure. She has promised pictures of tombstones when she goes to the cemetery next Memorial day. I hope for an opportunity to correpond with my mother's cousin Charles (the one she met), it will be great to "get together" with a branch of the family who went south 100 years ago, while my branch came west. And I can't wait to tell my cousin Mike about this latest contact!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
You Never Know Who You'll Run Into Online
Tonight I got an email from a "shirt-tail" relative of mine in Arizona, forwarding a request for information on one of my family lines.
Let me first give you some background on "Ray." I first met Ray on the Prodigy Message Boards some 12 years ago, when I first got my computer and decided to use the Internet (such as it was back then) to do a little Family History Research (aka Genealogy). Ray is probably related to everyone who ever lived in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, which is where my great grandfather was born, in 1848. Ray has a picture of one of my relatives, an Alexander Millet, who was an early settler of Jo Daviess County. Ray also has "The Gold Rush Letters." They were saved and passed down through his family until Ray ended up with them. The letters were written by his gg (unsure of how many "gg's it is) grandparents when "grandpa" went off to the California Gold Rush and left wife and kiddies back home in Illinois. In the letters, my gg grandmother, "the Widow Millet" is reported to have married Adonijah Bixby. He also mentions seeing "A Millet" in his travels. Well, we're pretty sure that "A Millet" is the Alexander Millet that Ray has a picture of. We're not sure yet if this Alexander is my gg grandfather's brother or Uncle, but we know there's a relationship there somewhere.
Ray is also responsible for "The Jo Daviess Family Circle." This group is made up of a bunch of descendants of early Jo Daviess County Illinois settlers. Most of us are related to one another somehow. My main interests are the Johnson and Millet families, with a side interest in some others, like Lyon, Tyrell, Partridge, and so forth.
Now that you know a little bit about Ray and our "circle," you'll perhaps appreciate the events that took place tonight.
I got an email tonight from Ray. Haven't heard from him in a while. It was a forward from someone who was researching our Johnson line. He had sent it to those of us who were from the Johnson's of Jo Daviess County. I began reading the email, and got to the part that said, "my grandfather was Milton Melvin Johnson." Well, that's my grandfather too! Who is this person who is a grandson of my grandpa, and carries the name "Johnson." My grandparents only had one son! His name hadn't registered with me when I first began reading, so I went back to the beginning and read the name.
OMIGOSH! This must be my 1st cousin, whom I haven't seen in anywhere from 20 to 38 years, depending on whether he was at my mother's funeral in 1981, my aunt's funeral in 1987, or my grandmother's 85th birthday in 1969. Thinking back, I remember being at his house when I was a kid--probably a teen-ager as he is only 8 years older than me. But he was married with a couple of small children at that time. Eight years is a big difference when you're young.
My mother was married for 10 years before she had me. There was a war in there, which was convenient in some ways, because I'd probably be somewhat older if it weren't for the war. My cousin David was born several year before the war. He had an older brother as well, and a little sister who was 2 years older than me. There was an older sister to my mother and David's father, whose children were also a lot older than me. In fact, I was nearly grown up when I realized that their kids were only "once removed" cousins, and that our full cousins were their parents. So that is one reason I suspect, why we lost track of each other.
Anyway, cousin David may still live in Portland. "Cousin Ray" lives in Arizona. Only on the Internet can you be re-introduced to your first cousin who lives probably half an hour away, by someone who is a 2-3 hour plane ride away. I'll report back if I hear back from David, and if we get together for lunch or dinner or something.
Let me first give you some background on "Ray." I first met Ray on the Prodigy Message Boards some 12 years ago, when I first got my computer and decided to use the Internet (such as it was back then) to do a little Family History Research (aka Genealogy). Ray is probably related to everyone who ever lived in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, which is where my great grandfather was born, in 1848. Ray has a picture of one of my relatives, an Alexander Millet, who was an early settler of Jo Daviess County. Ray also has "The Gold Rush Letters." They were saved and passed down through his family until Ray ended up with them. The letters were written by his gg (unsure of how many "gg's it is) grandparents when "grandpa" went off to the California Gold Rush and left wife and kiddies back home in Illinois. In the letters, my gg grandmother, "the Widow Millet" is reported to have married Adonijah Bixby. He also mentions seeing "A Millet" in his travels. Well, we're pretty sure that "A Millet" is the Alexander Millet that Ray has a picture of. We're not sure yet if this Alexander is my gg grandfather's brother or Uncle, but we know there's a relationship there somewhere.
Ray is also responsible for "The Jo Daviess Family Circle." This group is made up of a bunch of descendants of early Jo Daviess County Illinois settlers. Most of us are related to one another somehow. My main interests are the Johnson and Millet families, with a side interest in some others, like Lyon, Tyrell, Partridge, and so forth.
Now that you know a little bit about Ray and our "circle," you'll perhaps appreciate the events that took place tonight.
I got an email tonight from Ray. Haven't heard from him in a while. It was a forward from someone who was researching our Johnson line. He had sent it to those of us who were from the Johnson's of Jo Daviess County. I began reading the email, and got to the part that said, "my grandfather was Milton Melvin Johnson." Well, that's my grandfather too! Who is this person who is a grandson of my grandpa, and carries the name "Johnson." My grandparents only had one son! His name hadn't registered with me when I first began reading, so I went back to the beginning and read the name.
OMIGOSH! This must be my 1st cousin, whom I haven't seen in anywhere from 20 to 38 years, depending on whether he was at my mother's funeral in 1981, my aunt's funeral in 1987, or my grandmother's 85th birthday in 1969. Thinking back, I remember being at his house when I was a kid--probably a teen-ager as he is only 8 years older than me. But he was married with a couple of small children at that time. Eight years is a big difference when you're young.
My mother was married for 10 years before she had me. There was a war in there, which was convenient in some ways, because I'd probably be somewhat older if it weren't for the war. My cousin David was born several year before the war. He had an older brother as well, and a little sister who was 2 years older than me. There was an older sister to my mother and David's father, whose children were also a lot older than me. In fact, I was nearly grown up when I realized that their kids were only "once removed" cousins, and that our full cousins were their parents. So that is one reason I suspect, why we lost track of each other.
Anyway, cousin David may still live in Portland. "Cousin Ray" lives in Arizona. Only on the Internet can you be re-introduced to your first cousin who lives probably half an hour away, by someone who is a 2-3 hour plane ride away. I'll report back if I hear back from David, and if we get together for lunch or dinner or something.
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