The Hive Mind: Eliminating 1880 as Possible Birth Year of Harold Blaine White

In a comment on my last post, yesterday, Janice M. Sellers suggested that the possible birth year of 1880 might be eliminated from consideration by assuming that Harold White's second wife, Cora Diamond, did not know of his previous marriage to Blanch Stockmyer.  Janice's suggestion works out mathematically, too.  Assuming Cora did not know about Harold's first marriage, we take his age of 43 on the 1930 census and subtract 25, his age at first marriage; the result shows he and Cora had been married 18 years.  1930 minus 18 comes out to 1912, the probable year of their marriage.  This is consistent with his age of 25 at first marriage being in support of an assumption on Cora's part that his marriage to her was his first.  Using Cora's age at first marriage as 18 works out mathematically to the same conclusion: 36, her stated age on the 1930 census, minus her age at first marriage, 18, works out to 18 years of marriage, and again that comes out to 1912.  A marriage date of 1912 is inferred from the fact that their first child was born in 1912.  The baby might have been a little "early."  I now need to seek support for 1912 being their year of marriage in documents such as their marriage license applications (and again, I bless Indiana for taking such thorough information on those documents!) and either a divorce record for Harold and Blanche Stockmyer, or her death certificate.

The enumeration date on the sheet of the 1930 census on which Harold White was counted was 19 April, before his birthday.  Subtracting 25 from 1912 (on Cora's assumption that their marriage was his first) yields 1887 as Harold's year of birth; the same year results from subtracting his age of 43 on that census from the census year of 1930.  But as he was enumerated before his birthday, that makes his age 44 on that birthday in 1930, putting his birth year at 1886.  Now we have three documents that lend some support to 1886 as being Harold's year of birth: the 1930 census (assuming Cora did think his marriage to her was his first), the 1930 census (a simple subtraction of 44 from 1930), and their daughter Maxine's birth certificate.  This still leaves 1885 as the most probable year of his birth, just by the greater number of documents supporting 1885 over the other years.

This also greatly lessens the probability of 1880 being his birth year.  We may even eliminate 1880 from consideration based on the mathematical proof of 1886 being his birth year,  referring to the 1930 census.  However, mathematical proof is not genealogical proof, so 1880 can remain marginally possible, but improbable.

The Hive Mind works!  Thank you, Janice!

 The Many Birth Years of Harold White (1885?-1960)

Harold Blaine White, my maternal grandmother's third husband, though not my grandfather, was born in Indiana.   The intrigue has been in trying to determine in what year he was born.  Sources range from 1880 to 1887.   

I first found Harold White in this investigation in the 1900 census, enumerated at age 15 in his father's household, a farm in Kosciusko County, Indiana.[1]  His birth month and year are given as April 1885.  The enumeration day was 18 June 1900, so his birthday had already passed.  This information is internally consistent. 

Next time Harold White shows up is with a stated age of 21 on 24 November 1905, when he took out a marriage license with 18-year-old Blanch Stockmyer in Kosciusko County. [2]  He gives his birth date as 26 April 1884.  In Indiana at that time, the age for a male to marry without parental consent was 21.  The age for a female to marry without consent was 18.  If Harold White was actually born in 1885 rather than 1884, he would have been 20 years old rather than 21, and would have had to obtain his father's consent.  It is likely that he did not want to, or could not, obtain such consent, so he lied about his age. 

On 13 May 1912, Harold and Cora White (his second wife), were presented with a new son, Eugene, by the noble stork.[3]  Harold's age appears as 25, making his birth year 1887.  The informant is not named on the birth certificate, but it is likely that the informant was the mother, whose age is listed as 18.  She may have been unclear as to her husband's actual age or his birth year.  The reporting of Harold's age on this child's birth certificate in 1912 is in direct conflict with his marriage license application in 1905, on which he gave his birth year as 1884, probably so he could present himself as being 21, of legal age to marry without parental consent.  It also conflicts with the 1930 census, detailed below, on which he is recorded with an age at first marriage of 25, a figure which is at odds with the 1905 marriage information. [See further discussion below, at 1930 census.]

A daughter, Violet, was born to Harold and Cora 13 December 1913.[4]  Harold's age is shown to be 27, which would yield a birth year of 1886.  Cora's age is given as 20.  Again, the mother was probably the informant on this information.

Maxine, the third child of the Whites was born 18 April 1916.[5]  On this registration, Harold's age is 30 and Cora's is 23.  The birth took place before Harold's birthday that year, making him 31 on that birthday, so his birth year comes out to 1885.  Cora may have been the informant.

Harold White did his patriotic duty on 12 September 1918, and registered for the draft.[6]  He gave his age as 33, and his birth date as 26 April 1885.  He would have been asked by the draft board member to answer the questions on the registration, so the information here came from Harold himself.  There is no conflict between the date of the event and Harold's birth year as stated.

Harold White has not yet been found in the 1910 or 1920 censuses.

The information in the 1930 census on Harold White's age and the age given for his first marriage, 25, provides an internal inconsistency, and a conflict with other records, most notably his 1905 marriage license application.[7]  In the 1930 census, Harold's age is given as 43.  The enumeration date was 9 April, before Harold's birthday, so at that birthday, he would have been 44.  This leaves us with 1886 as his birth year.  This is one of only two documents among those so far found that suggest 1886 as his birth year, though neither of them specifically state that it was.  The other document leading to 1886 as Harold's birth year, though not stating it outright, is the birth certificate of the couple's daughter Violet.  This might indicate an informant other than Harold himself.  Likewise, the calculation of his age at first marriage being 25, subtracted from his marriage year of 1905, draw us to 1880 as his birth year.  Compared to all the other documents so far found, this year is an outlier, way out of line with the rest of the information at present known.  This, too, seems to indicate that the informant on this census was someone other than Harold White.

For the 1940 census, enumerators were instructed to place an "X" in a circle next to the name of the informant for a household, if a member of the household was the informant for a particular household or family (as a household could include more than one family).  The enumerator for the section of the census in which Harold White was enumerated in 1940 did not place that mark on any of the households he enumerated.  It would be a stretch to imagine that, for pages and pages of census information, all the informants had been other than household or family members.  Thus, the information recorded by this particular enumerator is no more reliable than that on any other census in any other year.

 Harold's age is recorded on the 1940 census as 54.[8]  The enumeration day was 9 April, before Harold's birthday that year, so he was 55 on that birthday, 26 April.  That would point to 1885 as his birth year.  

On 27 April 1942, Harold White registered for the World War II draft.[9]  This registration date was one day after his birthday, 26 April, and he gave his age as 55.  The resulting calculation yields a birth year of 1887.  

Harold White married my twice-widowed grandmother, Ruth [Nave] Reed Pennington, in  August of 1932.[10]  On the marriage license, he gives his birth date as 26 April 1885.

On the 1950 census, the enumerator failed to record the enumeration date.[11]  However, moving back through the census sheets taken by this enumerator, Nellie Reed, shows her beginning her enumerations on 23 May.  Harold White's age is stated as 65, and as the census was taken on him after his birthday, his birth year comes out to 1885.

Finally, there is his death certificate.[12] Harold died 25 December 1960, in an institutional setting.  No informant is named on his death certificate.  Only his birth year is given: 1885.  He was 75 years old.  

So, in what year was Harold White born?

1880 - Only one document leads by inference to this outlying year.  The 1930 census states his age at first marriage as 25.  Subtracting 25 years from the year of first marriage, 1905, yields 1880.  However, his first marriage took place on 24 November 1905, and he reported his age at that time as 21, though this may have been a falsification to avoid having to ask for his father's permission to marry.  By its direct conflict with the 1905 marriage license and the fact that it is out of the range of the other possible birth years, 1880 does not appear to be a good candidate for Harold's birth year.

1884 - Harold's stated birth date on the 1905 marriage license application is 26 April 1884.  Nowhere else is the year 1884 stated or implied to be his birth year.  This single appearance of that possible birth year and the likelihood that Harold lied about his age in 1905 to get around needing parental permission to marry make it unlikely that Harold was born in 1884.

1885 -  If we go by the old standard of "preponderance of evidence," 1885 wins hands down as Harold's birth year.  This birth year is supported by the 1900 census, the birth certificate of his daughter Maxine, Harold's World War I draft registration, the 1940 census, his application to marry Ruth Pennington, the 1950 census, and his death certificate, though this last document is of highly questionable reliability.  Seven documents out of the twelve so far discovered favor 1885, but that does not yet put the lock on it because the other contenders for Harold's birth year cannot be completely disproven.

1886 - Support for this possible birth year is found in Harold's daughter  Maxine's birth certificate, and the 1930 census.  That is only two of the twelve documents surveyed.  1886 is less likely to be Harold's birth year than is 1885.

1887 - The year 1887 shows up or can be inferred from Harold's son Eugene's birth certificate, and the World War II draft.  1887 is also less likely than 1885 to be Harold's birth year.

So we are left with no more than the strong possibility that Harold was born in 1885 rather than any of the other suggested birth years.  The search continues for more documents, and it is possible that the best we can hope for is to be able to say with a modicum of qualified assurance that Harold White was born in 1885.

There is one consistent element in this whole confusion:  Those documents that make definite birth date statements all agree on one thing:  Harold was born on 26 April of whatever year the documents may mention or suggest.

NOTES:

[1] Census Place: Troy, Whitley, Indiana; Roll: 414; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0114; FHL microfilm: 1240414.  Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, ED 114, Sheet 8, Dwelling 172, Family 174.

[2]  "Indiana Marriages, 1811-2019," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GPXX-938Z?cc=1410397&wc=Q8SH-5TM%3A962985201%2C963051301 : 5 February 2016), Kosciusko > 1905-1906 Volume N > image 86 of 223; Indiana Commission on Public Records, Indianapolis.  (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[3]  Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, Indiana; Birth; Year: 1912; Roll: 002. Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60871/images/40474_358007-01488?pId=155049355.  (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[4] Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, Indiana; Birth; Year: 1913; Roll: 002.  Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60871/images/40474_357402-02175?pId=2058418. (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[5] Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, Indiana; Births; Year: 1916; Roll: 003.  Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60871/images/40474_357898-00914?pId=3178908. (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[6]  "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7H1X-W9T2 : 29 December 2021), Harold Blaine White, 1917-1918.

[7]  Ancestry.com, Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2002.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, ED 9-14, sheet 11B, Dwelling 304, Family 333.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6224/images/4584674_00740?pId=117850519. (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[8]   Ancestry.com, Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, Sheet 4A, Household #78. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/M-T0627-01030-00378?pId=55811125 (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[9] U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942. The National Archives At St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147. Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1002/images/2wwii_2371837-4488?pId=8813559.  (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[10]   Newspapers.com - The South Bend Tribune - 14 Aug 1942 - Page 29.  Notice of marriage license application, Harold White and Ruth Pennington.  https://www.newspapers.com/clip/118136363/marriage-of-white-pennln/?xid=637 .  (accessed 15 November 2023).  [Actual marriage record not located yet.]

[11]  Ancestry.com.  United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: Tippecanoe, Kosciusko.  ED 43-24, Sheet 49 (corrected from 121),  Dwelling # 581, Family 156.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62308/images/43290879-Indiana-230908-0051?pId=131170156.  (accessed 15 November 2023.)

[12]  Ancestry.com. Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011, Indiana Archives and Records Administration; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Death Certificates; Year: 1960; Roll: 15.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60716/images/44494_350865-00496?pId=1728451. (accessed 15 November 2023.)

No calculators were harmed in the creation of this blog.  However, one did get a bit testy after the 753rd calculation.

 Ten years ago, I sang Those 1940 Census Blues.  Talk about history -- or genealogy -- repeating itself.  Now I'm singing the blues again.

The 1950 Census Blues

Early this morning of April First,

Excited and happy, about to burst,

Up and online before the sun:

It's the 1950 census, gonna have some fun!

Oh, I'm so blue.  I'm walkin' the floor.

The 1950 census blues walked right in that door.

I've reached an age where I'd appear

In that census of that mid-way year.

Lookin' for that thrill of seeing myself there.

But I can't find my family anywhere!

Oh, I'm so blue.  I'm walkin' the floor.

The 1950 census blues walked right in that door.

I even had an address out there in old L.A.

Where my parents should have been, if only they had stayed.

But when I found the address on that census sheet,

The people who were there we never did meet.

Oh, I'm so blue.  I'm walkin' the floor.

The 1950 census blues walked right in that door.

Can't find ma and pa, maybe my grandma and aunt.

Clear away on the other side of this big continent.

Oh!  My heart breaks when those dismal words were shown:

As the census paper tells me there ain't no one at home!

Oh, I'm so blue.  I'm walkin' the floor.

The 1950 census blues walked right in that door.

Looks to me like I have only one sad destiny.

If ever I survive to 85, I know what I will see.

I'll walk the floor enough to wear away my shoes,

'Cause I know I'll be wailin' 1960 census blues!

#thebookofme What Do You Collect?

I know, it's March already, but I'm going to catch up on The Book of Me by posting my response to the last two of the February prompts today.  I've been really busy!

So -- What do I collect?

Dust.  Not much of a joke.  We have a lot of dust in our house.  I keep telling my husband it's his powder, a necessity in this humid climate, but he insists it isn't.  I keep thinking I oughta spend some money and take a sample to a lab for analysis.

Frogs.  Ever since I was a little girl, I have collected frogs.  Only then, in my childhood, I collected real frogs!  I would gather tadpoles (which actually turned out to be toads, not frogs) in a nearby stream and watch them turn into frogs.  It was fascinating.  That is one of the things that has sparked my lifelong lay person's interest in science.  Once the tadpoles metamorphosed, I would liberate them in the back yard, where they were happy in the damp patches in the lawn.  After I grew up, I collected ceramic frogs and wooden frogs and plushy frogs.  I have quite a collection now.  My grandson has inventoried them.  He even made frogs for me in art camp.  Here is one of them.  You can tell that the art camp was at a museum of modern art!

Books.  Well, I would not really call myself a book collector.  I don't collect first editions or rare books or anything like that.  I can't afford that indulgence.  I collect books in the sense of having a houseful!  I have had to classify them by the Dewey Decimal System!  My studies as a historian has prompted me to build quite a library of books on Spain and Spanish colonial Florida. 

At one time, I had quite a collection of Star Trek memorabilia, but I have had to pare that down.  My three categories of collecting are "Necessary, Nice, and Nuts."  When I divested myself of many of my Star Trek items, my priority became the "Nuts" items.  They're just such fun.

State Universities (of Florida).  I joke that I am collecting state universities, having attended three different institutions in the state university system of Florida.  In the 1960s, I attended Florida State University, earning a bachelor's degree in Government and a master's in library science.  I worked as a librarian for a while, and enjoyed it.  That dried up in the recesion of the early 1970s.  After a lifetime of doing this and that while concentrating on raising a family, I finally went back to college at the age of 60, at the University of North Florida.  After that, I went for another master's degree at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.  Not sure if I'm going to be adding to this collection.

And, of course, as a genealogist, I collect dead relatives!  Only, these days, as I study the families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the second period of Spanish possession, I'm collecting a whale of a lot of other people's relatives, while neglecting my own.  Kinda like the shoemaker whose kids go without shoes.

A True Vocation

All my life, I have heard and read of people who had a true vocation, a calling to this or that field whether it be medicine or the priesthood or public service, among other fields.  I have rattled around in life looking for mine.  I was not ready when I went to Florida State University in 1965, after graduating from high school.  I have always been an academic overachiever, but I went to university without a clear plan or a clear calling.

I have been a librarian, a nurse, a member of the armed forces.  That latter was for a number of years the closest I have come to feeling that I had a calling  I enjoyed the Coast Guard, and felt like I was part of something that made a difference.  But after that was done, after arthritis took me out of active participation, I felt once again like I did not have a calling.

Another reason I was not ready out of high school to find my vocation was that I had been raised in a traditional family in the 1950s.  Girls were not "supposed" to aspire to more than either being at home or being a secretary, a teacher, or a nurse.  I broke one of those taboos many years into my adulthood by enlisting in the Coast Guard, and I also shattered my family's notion of the character of women in military service.  However, what I had really been discouraged from pursuing was my desire to be a journalist.  Girls just did not do that (never mind Nellie Bly or Margaret Bourke-White or Adela Rogers St. John).  It was a long, long time before I was able to revive that dream.

My first attempt at actually being a writer was in fiction, since I had lost the dream of being a journalist.  I was a member of a local writing group and an online writing group.  I tried various genres and methods, having some short stories published in little magazines, but just not finding a fiction voice.  Then I turned to non-fiction.  After my first book, a history and critical review of a television series, I floundered for subjects, and then I found genealogy.  After getting a genealogical education through the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I then found a subject: a guide to sources for Florida's colonial, territorial, and state censuses.  That book was published last year. 

Work on that book led me to the University of North Florida, first to brush up on my high school Spanish from forty some-odd years before, and then one thing led to another, and I found myself on a path to a second bachelor's degree with a double major in history and Spanish.  Now I am about to finish that up.  I will graduate at the end of the 2012 spring term.  And as I have blogged previously, I will be starting work on a master's degree in history in the fall.

This path has been something strange and wonderful. Associations, opportunities, nearly all my class work has in one way or another led me to study the history and families of St. Augustine, Florida, during the second Spanish period (1784-1821), or has contributed in some way to my investigation.  I have become enchanted with the place and the people -- though some of them at times behaved in less-than-enchanting ways.  But even rascals should have their stories told.  All my education, including the genealogical education, seems to have led up to this area of study.  I feel like I have been taken up by an inexorable current, and cannot escape from it.  Nor do I want to.

I have found my vocation.
.

Today is Change a Light Day

According to Thomas MacEntee's Geneabloggers calendar, today is Change a Light Day.  In honor of that day, and because I need to get back to studying for a midterm exam tomorrow in Latin American cultures, I am reprising my posting titled:

HOW MANY GENEALOGISTS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHTBULB?

Thirteen.

One to screw it in.

One to create the original document describing the event and all the participants in it, tracing the lineage of each one back seven generations.

One to write the source citation for the document, in accordance with Evidence Explained.

One to transcribe the document.

One to abstract the document.

One to index the document.

One to place the document in an archive.

One to write it up in a peer-reviewed journal.

One to write a subsequent article in the same journal, disputing the findings of the first author.

One to digitize the document and upload it to Ancestry.com, Footnote [now Fold3], and FamilySearch.org.

One to blog about the document, the event it describes, its creator, and the participants.

One to write a source guide to the document and all similar documents which describe this event or similar events, or which contain information about the participants in the event, and their families.

One to give a presentation about the event, the original source document, its creator, and the participants and their family lines at the Federation of Genealogy Societies conference.
 .

How many genealogists . . .

My husband and I get into some silly discussions sometimes, letting our minds run free and make all sorts of associations and come up with all sorts of stuff.  On the trip back from Tampa on Saturday, after my presentation for the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa, I came up with this bit of silliness:

HOW MANY GENEALOGISTS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHTBULB?

Thirteen.

One to screw it in.

One to create the original document describing the event and all the participants in it, tracing the lineage of each one back seven generations.

One to write the source citation for the document, in accordance with Evidence Explained.

One to transcribe the document.

One to abstract the document.

One to index the document.

One to place the document in an archive.

One to write it up in a peer-reviewed journal.

One to write a subsequent article in the same journal, disputing the findings of the first author.

One to digitize the document and upload it to Ancestry.com, Footnote, and FamilySearch.org.

One to blog about the document, the event it describes, its creator, and the participants.

One to write a source guide to the document and all similar documents which describe this event or similar events, or which contain information about the participants in the event, and their families.

One to give a presentation about the event, the original source document, its creator, and the participants and their family lines at the Federation of Genealogy Societies conference.
.

Genealogical Health Warning

The Professional Descendant (I do LOVE that blog title! Is that just not the greatest?) blogged about the effect of genealogy on one's emotional health. She asked if maybe genealogy should carry a health warning.

So here is my suggested Surgeon General's Warning for Genealogy: Genealogy is indicated for symptoms of curiosity, and for the exercise of the inquiring mind. It may not be appropriate for everyone. Side effects may include increased pulse rate, flushing of the face, spasms of the feet (known as "happy dance"), and discovery of heretofore unknown cousins.

To your health!

BlackSheep Sunday: The Mystery of Nelson Reed McKee

In an essay she wrote in 1943, shortly before her death, my great-grandmother Florence Elizabeth (McKee) Reed stated that when she was seventeen, "stark tragedy overtook the family and my whole prospect of life was changed." She did not elaborate. Since my father died when I had just turned seven, I assumed the same had happened to hers, my great-great-grandfather Nelson Reed McKee. But I knew nothing, really, and the mystery remained. Seeking information about my McKee family, I put a notice on the McKee Family Genealogy Forum. It wasn’t until a year or two after that I got a solid nibble, but with a weird and astonishing twist: the woman who contacted me, who lives in Wisconsin, said she was a descendant of Nelson Reed McKee – and his second wife! The names certainly matched, and she had Nelson Reed McKee’s proper birth date and other information. She did some research, traveling to Indiana, and came up with an astonishing story. In the Monticello Herald (Monticello, White County, Indiana) for Thursday, 5 June 1879, the front page headline read:

N. R. McKEE MISSING

His sudden and unaccountable disappearance last Saturday night

The article described how Great-great-grandpa McKee had come home on that Saturday evening from his watchmaker's shop, accompanied by his fourteen-year-old son Frank, who worked in the shop with him. Great-great-grandpa took off his coat and boots, preparing for bed, but apparently changed his mind, dressed, and went out. Before leaving the house, he gave his wife some money and told her to keep it safe. Later that night, Great-great-grandma woke up and found her husband gone. She searched the house and grounds, going out to a nearby bluff, calling his name. She awoke a neighbor, who woke the town.

The search continued that night, to no avail. The next day, there was information about a possibly forged deed and mortgage in Nelson McKee's name. There was an endorsement to the instrument bearing the name of a local Justice of the Peace, who denied ever having seen the document. The date on the endorsement was 26 May 1879 -- the day before the alleged deed and mortgage were shown to have been executed. Nelson McKee was confronted with the papers, and according to the newspaper account, "gave no satisfactory explanation, but seemed confused and annoyed. He is reported to have been low-spirited all day Saturday, and was very uncommunicative even to his family upon the subject of his trouble."

The newspaper account further states that up until that time, he "had maintained an unblemished character, and even now public sentiment is loth to charge him with any evil intentions." He suffered what the newspaper, with the delicacy of the day, referred to as "financial embarrassment." In these days of "let it all hang out," there is no real stigma attached to being up against it, but in those days a man not being able to support his family -- for whatever reason -- was subject to shame and ridicule. When he left, he took only what belonged to him. An audit of his shop conducted by his brother Charles, who was also a jeweler and who came from his home in Sidney, Ohio, to settle accounts, showed no discrepancy.

The newspaper advanced three theories as to the reason for Nelson McKee's disappearance: "1st. That he was deranged and wandered off without any definite aim. 2nd. That he absconded under fear of prosecution for forgery. 3rd. Suicide." I think the first unlikely. Nelson McKee left his store "in perfect order," with customers' goods securely locked in the safe. He had also given his wife Sarah a fair amount of money for those days, and had paid the rent on his store a few months in advance. The second is quite likely, judging from his reaction to having been questioned about the apparently forged deed. The third is not true.

In the Weekly Herald, Clinton, Wisconsin, October through December 1880, about a year and a half after Nelson Reed McKee’s disappearance from Monticello, Indiana, ran this ad: "All kinds of clocks, watches, jewelery and spectacles repaired and warranted, by N. McCuren, at Woodward's Drug Store." The woman from Wisconsin who contacted me states that when Nelson R. McKee first got to Wisconsin, he had changed his name (though probably not legally) to Nels McCuren. There he took up once again his trade as a jeweler and watch repairman. Later ads, around 1883 and after, indicate that he had gone back to his real name, N. R. McKee. The ads are practically word-for-word as the ads he ran in the paper back in Indiana.

Nelson married Ida Josephine Colby in Beloit, Wisconsin, 1 August 1880. The problem was that he was still married to his first wife, Sarah Ann Sunderland. My Wisconsin cousin sent me a copy of a handwritten legal notice, probably prepared for publication in the newspaper. It is a standard form, with blanks to be filled in, to institute divorce proceedings, causing publication of the notice in a newspaper of general circulation, a common legal requirement. The first publication was made 22 April 1882 and the last on 13 May 1882. This last one is the final notice, giving legal recognition of the fact that Nelson Reed McKee failed to respond to the previous notices. The date of Nelson Reed McKee’s second marriage and the dates mentioned in the legal notice form indicate that it wasn’t until nearly two years after Nelson married Ida Colby that Sarah Ann (Sunderland) McKee, his first wife, finally filed for a divorce.

The Monticello Herald, Monticello, Indiana, November 16, 1882, published on page 1 col. 2: "Mrs. Sarah A. McKee has been granted a divorce from her husband, N. R. McKee, on the ground of desertion, and she has been awarded the custody of the children." It appears that the publication of the notice of Sarah filing for divorce was in Indiana only, and only in White County. One would think that this announcement would not have gotten to Nelson’s notice in Wisconsin. However, factor in the fact that Sarah’s sister Mary was married to Nelson’s brother William. Did William know where Nelson had gone, what had happened to him? Did Mary know her sister had sought a divorce, and had she told her husband William? Had William been in contact with Nelson and told him of the divorce proceeding? Was Sarah’s filing for divorce not only an act to free her to marry again if she so chose, but also to release Nelson from a threat of prosecution for bigamy? Sarah did remarry, becoming the wife of Luke Rogers 29 October 1884, in Monticello, White County, Indiana.

Nelson Reed McKee may have been guilty of forgery and bigamy. I do not think this was through intent, but rather the act of a man caught up in circumstances he was ill equipped to handle, who felt shame and could not face his family with what he had done. I picture him arriving in Wisconsin nearly broke, friendless, alone, and feeling miserable. I picture Ida Colby as a good woman who loved him and brought him back to self-respect. It's a human drama, and part of my family history. And frankly, I'm grateful to him for having spiced up the genealogy a bit!

Maps to Follow Your Civil War Ancestors' Travels and Travails

I said in my introductory post last night that I plan to be "all over the map -- sometimes literally" in this blog. Today I am all over the map -- or the maps!

This afternoon my husband and I made the trip out to the Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island, east of the city of Jacksonville (though it's all Jacksonville, really) to hear Dr. Aaron Sheehan-Dean, associate professor of history at the University of North Florida, speak about his new book, Concise Historical Atlas of the U.S. Civil War.

First, a disclaimer. I am a History and Spanish major at the University of North Florida, and I have taken two courses from Dr. Sheehan-Dean. One was Craft of the Historian, an excellent course required of all history majors, in which we learn how history is done and why we do it that way, according to current standards of methodology. The other was Civil War and Reconstruction, in which Dr. Sheehan-Dean used many of the maps he developed for the book.

Enough prelim. What about the book, and what value does it have for family historians?

When we think about books of Civil War maps, we think of depictions of this or that campaign or battle, of where the troops were moving, of who was advancing and who retreating. Dr. Sheehan-Dean has a goodly assortment of those in this book, of course. However, he also has -- along with one-page explications which offer insight into what it is the map shows us -- maps of the territorial expansion of the U.S. from the original 13 colonies to 1853, agricultural production, distribution of industrial capability, movements of refugees, and patterns of dissent both north and south, and a great deal more.

The battle maps are clear and well-drawn. Dr. Sheehan-Dean did these maps himself, basing them on some of the original cartography done for the war and now available in the compilation of official records generally termed The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies put together by the U.S. War Department after the war and published in a huge multi-volume set. He used a geographical imaging software which allowed him to strip away "layers" of the maps (topography, roads and railroads, rivers, etc.) and thereby clarify what these often-cluttered old maps had to offer. He then used Adobe Illustrator to produce the final products. Many of the social-data maps, such as the agricultural production map or the map showing the distribution of industry, are so fine that individual counties within states can be easily discerned.

The descriptive material that accompanies each map is, in keeping with the book's title, concise, packing a lot of information into one page. But don't stop with what Dr. Sheehan-Dean says about the maps. He himself would ask that you think of ways to interpret their data and meaning which provide the best use to you. He calls these maps "open texts," that can be interpreted in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes.

We family historians can use the maps and interpret them in light of our own family experience. For instance, Dr. Sheehan-Dean's map number 30 shows dissent in both the north and the south. He discusses, among other factors, such events as northern draft riots and southern resistance to conscription, which many thought had a class bias as they saw wealthy planters either avoiding it altogether or being allowed to pay for substitutes.

To illustrate the value of this map to a family historian, application to my own family is relevant. Dr. Sheehan-Dean mentions strong Unionist feeling in eastern Tennessee in relation to this map. My mother's people, the Nave family, were mainly Union sympathizers in that part of Tennessee. Like most families in the area and many families across the land, they were divided on the subject. As I think of the family and look at this map, I wonder what lines of inquiry would bear fruit for me in finding out more about the Nave family and putting them in their proper context of time and space. Newspaper accounts, local histories, and other published accounts such as diaries might provide information. The Official Records Dr. Sheehan-Dean mentioned, and other government documents, might also have some background about Union sentiment in the area.

Did any of my Nave forbears serve in the Union forces? For them, I might want to research to see if there is a pension file or service record at the National Archives. Did any of them serve in the Confederate forces? For them, I might check with Tennessee's state archive, and possibly in other southern states nearby, as well.

All of this brainstorming represents what can be spurred by just looking at the map and reading the brief narrative, and thinking of other ways in which the map might be informative. Especially useful in limning our ancestors' lives is the fact that we can pinpoint in many of these maps the very county where the ancestor's family lived. That allows us to get an idea of the impact a particular factor may have had in our ancestor's life and that of his (or her) family.

Visualizing where our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers may have been, and what social, economic, and political forces would have been acting on them, can be of great value to our family history. I recommend that family historians take a look at where Dr. Sheehan-Dean's maps might take them.

Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. Concise Historical Atlas of the U.S. Civil War. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). $21.95

Introduction

Oh, no!

Not another genealogy blog!

And who is this person, anyway?

My name is Karen LeSueur Packard Rhodes. That's the whole megilla. And I call this blog Karen About Genealogy because I love puns. Get used to it.

"Okay, so who the heck are you?" I hear you thinking that.

I'm one of these people who has had the ability, talent, necessity, whatever it is, to reinvent myself about every five to ten years, as circumstances have dictated. I have been a librarian (Master's degree from Florida State University, 1970), done secretarial work, been a registered nurse, served as enlisted and officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, and now I'm a genealogist. At one time, to help my husband support the family, I even said, "You want fries with that?" One does what one must do.

So, genealogically speaking, I'm pretty interesting! Let's hope my blog will be, too.

"Okay," you say -- "but what are your genealogical credentials?"

I completed the non-degree program of study devised by the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, which is in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The courses are administered by the Professional Learning Centre, Faculty for Information Studies, University of Toronto. I live in Florida, so that was one heckuva commute!

Sorry. I'm pulling your leg. The courses are all online. I completed this course of study "with distinction," meaning I maintained an A average.

I am a member of the Southern Genealogist's Exchange Society in Jacksonville, Florida, for which I serve as historian. One area in which I seem to be headed as a genealogist is as a speaker. I have spoken at SGES meetings, at a seminar sponsored by the Jacksonville Public Library, at a meeting of the Amelia Island Genealogical Society, and this July I will be speaking at the Genealogical Seminar at the national meeting of the Sons of the American Revolution.

I am also a writer. I've been working on a book concerning the colonial, territorial, and state censuses of Florida. The manuscript is in the hands of my editor at McFarland & Company of Jefferson, North Carolina, a publisher specializing in reference books.

In these blogs, I will be all over the map -- literally, sometimes -- about genealogy. Sometimes I'll be talking about genealogy in general, about recent developments. Sometimes I'll talk about my own family history, usually to illustrate a point. I'll be talking about black sheep and brick walls and quirks of the censuses and whatever comes to mind that I hope will interest readers.

And if I bore you, say so! I'll try to pick up the pace.

That's the introduction. I hope you'll stick around for the meat of the matter.