Maybe Sometimes I Should Make an Assumption

 I've been doing a little work on my latest mystery:  the existence of Sunderlands on both sides of my family, and efforts to discover if there is a relationship between these maternal and paternal Sunderlands.

Convinced that it would be wisest to pursue my maternal Sunderlands, I reviewed my documented information on them, going back about four generations.  I had only two little tidbits about N. S. Sunderland, and thought it a safe assumption that it would be futile to look him up anywhere.  But tonight, I thought, "Oh, why not?  Let me see if I can find anything on N. S. Sunderland, the one mentioned on my father's side."  N. S.  Sunderland is mentioned in passing in a letter my great-great-granduncle Major Wellman Packard wrote to his friend and legal colleague Abraham Lincoln early in 1860.  Wellman Packard mentioned that his brother-in-law, Sunderland, had been in Ohio, and recently returned to Illinois, and heard in Ohio some enthusiasm for the idea that Lincoln should run for President.

So I had some location information for N. S. Sunderland -- Ohio and Illinois.  Wellman Packard, and several of his siblings, lived in Bloomington, Illinois.  So I started there, in McLean County, where Bloomington is, with the 1860 census.  And there he was, not in Bloomington, but in Towanda, which is not very far from Bloomington.  I did a general search on Ancestry, and found quite a list of possible sources: a Civil War draft registration record, a marriage record between N. S. and Rachel Harris.  More census records; several of 'em.  An extensive and very informative obituary.  Land purchase records.  With maps.  

N. S. was born in Ohio; I now have the place and the date.  I'm pretty sure this is the N. S. Sunderland mentioned in Wellman Packard's letter.  He is the only N. S. Sunderland in McLean County in 1860.   He had a farm in Towanda, 375 highly productive acres.  He had four horses, four donkeys, 3 milch cows (cows giving milk), 3 other cattle (type unspecified), and 18 swine.  His livestock was valued at $1,200, which in 2023 dollars, would be $21,837.89.  His farm, exclusive of livestock or crops, was valued at $11,000, or $200,180.65 in 2023 dollars.  Not bad!

According to the 1860 census agricultural schedule, N. S. grew wheat (1700 bushels in 1860), Indian corn (1000 bushels), Irish potatoes (50 bushels), barley (200 bushels), and 30 tons of hay.  Unfortunately, there is no valuation of these crops.  He was prosperous.

I have the information, and have made notes on legal pad or on forms I use to gather preliminary information on people who may or may not be related.  Now to determine how N. S. Sunderland was Wellman Packard's brother-in-law.  I haven't yet found a sister of Wellman's married to anyone named Sunderland.  I'm going to have to look at Rachel Harris's siblings, providing I find her verifiable in census records.  And I need to bone up on middle-19th-Century notions of what constituted a "brother-in-law.  Was that term used as loosely as "cousin" has been in some regions?  Then to investigate whether there actually is any kinship between N. S. Sunderland's family and my mother's Sunderlands.  My mother's people were from Indiana, so the possibility is there.  And maybe I should make a wild assumption now and then.  Never know what I might find.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 19 - Preserve

 This week's prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 is Preserve.  What do I preserve?  I preserve paper.  I am from the 20th Century; I spent the first 53 years of my life in the 20th Century.  I believe in paper.  Paper is solid, paper exists, paper can be preserved with archival materials and methods, which I learned in my scrapbooking hobby.  Paper doesn't get evaporated in a computer crash.  Yes, it can be damaged by fire, or water, or insects.  But properly preserved and protected, it can last for decades.

I do have a lot of my paper documents digitized; I am really quite belt-and-suspenders.  But when someone suggests that I digitize everything and toss the paper away, I cringe, my skin crawls, and I stand up and say, "No!"

My dilemma is that my photos for the past couple decades are digital.  I have, from time to time, sent some of my digital photos to Shutterfly to be printed.  I did that a lot when I was scrapbooking, something I hope someday to get back to.  I want at least to finish the ones I had to box away when other matters had to take precedence.  But paper uber alles!

Some preservation I have done has been in storytelling, especially to our grandson who is now 19 and in college.  He has enjoyed tales my husband and I have told him of our experiences in the Coast Guard.  He has enjoyed stories of ancestors' antics.  I should record some of these stories. 

Right now, I am engaged in digitizing a whale of a lot of photos and other documents from my husband's family, a request made by our nephew Paul, who visited recently.  He lives in Australia, and was returning there with some items he retrieved from storage after he left his last U.S. dwelling.  However, he had second thoughts about shipping the photos to Australia in a box with the other items.  He has left them here for me to scan.  On a future visit, he will claim his paper photos.  But I will have my own copy of this digital trove of my husband's family photos and documents to add to my genealogical information on his family.  And I can send some of my digital copies of these to Shutterfly, too.

Finally, a significant part of my ways of preservation involve photos and paper documents and storytelling.  These all find their way into the scrapbooks I have made and those I am hoping to complete when things settle down for us.  In these scrapbooks, preservation is the chief goal, and paper is king.

A to Z Challenge 2024 - All Wrapped Up

 This year I got farther into blogging in the A to Z Challenge than I have ever got before.  Maybe next year, life will have simmered down and I might complete the whole program.  This year,  our daughter's illness has overshadowed everything.  

I wish to thank everyone who read my blog and who commented.  The poor thing has been somewhat neglected in the past several years, and the A to Z Challenge was a great way to rejuvenate it.  All of you helped me in that effort, and you have my gratitude.  What seems funny is that my participation in this challenge has been in the last three presidential-election years!  I won't wait four years before doing it again!

I am also participating in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, created and curated by Amy Johnson Crow.  I got into it late, again due to the stressful events mentioned above.  I'll do my best to keep up with it! 

Delving into my ancestors' occupations and professions was an interesting journey, especially the discovery of a female journalist of the early 20th Century in the family.  

So many times, our findings about our ancestors may puzzle us in some of their practices, beliefs, and opinions, and the ways they conducted their lives.  It is wise to remember, as we historians do, that "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."  (L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953))

Thank you again!

A New Detective Story to Track Down

 I have yet another intriguing bit of family history to explore, and to find that, though it may pertain just as equally to other parts of the country, as we say here in the south, "I'm so southern, I'm related to myself."

My maternal great-grandmother Florence Elizabeth McKee's parents were Nelson Reed McKee (1838-1908) and Sarah Ann Sunderland (1848-1922).  Sarah Ann Sunderland's parents were Benjamin Sunderland (1813-1890) and Margaret Emeline Weller (1814-1910).  Her siblings were John Wesley Sunderland (1835-1914), Mary Elizabeth Sunderland (1838-1926), Joseph Robbins Sunderland (1840-1911), Peter Sunderland (1844-1904), and Margaret Emeline Sunderland (1856-1921).

The mystery?  The above is in my mother's line.

The mystery is that a Sunderland shows up also in my father's line.  A great-great-granduncle, Major Wellman Packard (1820-1903), mentions his brother-in-law N. S. Sunderland in a letter to another correspondent.  Major (his first name, not a military rank) Wellman Packard had 12 siblings, including my great-great grandfather, Mathew Hale Packard (1822-1881).  Among those siblings were several who remained in Canada, where they had all been born  A goodly portion of them, with spouses and children, had gone to the United States and ended up in Bloomington, Illinois after the Civil War.  I have not found a Sunderland among them yet, but according to M. W. Packard, there was at least one. 

So far, there is little indication of where the Sunderland connection lies in my father's line.  It is a good bet N. S. Suncerland will be found in the United States rather than among the siblings who stayed in Canada.  Wellman Packard mentions that N. S. had "just returned from Ohio," presumably to Illinois, where Wellman Packard and his correspondent both lived.  I'm chasing my Sunderlands among my mother's ancestors, both collateral and direct.  That's going to take a while, because those Sunderlands were prolific. This could all be a wild-goose chase with no resulting connection between Mom's Sunderlands and the one in Dad's line.  But I'll at least get some more progress on my maternal Sunderlands, if nothing else.  

Sounds like a win to me.