Roots and all - A Genealogy Blog

The Genealogy Narrative

2009-10-07T15:18:00.002-04:00

One of my main goals in publishing this blog is to transform dry genealogy data into a more meaningful narrative story of my ancestors, their times and their journeys to America. This approach lacks the academic rigor of a drier, more straightforward cataloging of historical records, but is far more readable. I try to strike a balance between these two approaches by including direct links to as many original documents as possible. This allows the reader to see the basis for my stories and come to their own conclusions if they so choose.

I'm pleased to see others taking this narrative approach to genealogy in order to appeal to a wider audience. Today the New York times has published a very interesting story on the family of Michele Obama. The article focuses on the discovery of a white ancestor in Mrs. Obama's tree. However, the trail of records is sparse and lacking for detailed information, as was quite common for black families after the Civil War. To fill these gaps the author includes stories of those who knew Mrs. Obama's ancestors. The article also includes a multimedia presentation with an interactive family tree and images of all the original documents on which the story is based. Cheers to the Times for taking this narrative approach to a genealogy story and especially for publishing the original documents. Too often newspapers publish stories on famous genealogies that only cherry pick interesting and often misleading details from a serious genealogist's work (i.e., headlines like "Obama and Bush and Cheney are all Cousins -- imagine the family reuinions!"). To see genealogy presented in the press in this professional and moving way benefits both the reader and the view of genealogy in general.

Ellen Ruth Roberts, 1919-2009

2009-09-30T13:27:00.004-04:00

Ellen Ruth Taylor Roberts, wife of Roy Gilbert Roberts, daughter of William Daniel Taylor and Dona Westerfield, passed away on Monday, September 28, 2009. Ruth, as she was known, was among other talents a wonderful mother, grandmother, and storyteller. Her stories of her family inspired me to get back into genealogy research. I thought I would try and share a few of those stories with you to help celebrate her life. Apologies to her family if I do not quite remember every detail correctly.

Ruth was born in Arkansas on October 31, 1919. Her family moved between Oklahoma and Arkansas several times during her childhood. More than once she told the story of how her family traveled to Oklahoma in a covered wagon (yes, such events did happen in the 20th century, at least in Oklahoma). At one point she was afraid the wagon would fall into the river when they traveled over a particularly gap-filled wooden bridge, so she got out of the wagon and crawled across the bridge on her hands and knees.

When she was 14, she moved to Owensboro, KY to live with her older sister Rose, to whom she was very close throughout her life. She and her sister got jobs at the local GE factory. She told the story of how they stood in line with hundreds of people to apply for a job at the factory, and were somehow noticed by a manager at the factory who pulled them out of line and gave them jobs. I guess he thought they were pretty! Ruth was fiercely proud of her independent nature and worked hard to support herself. By the time she was 16, she had saved enough to buy a full bedroom set for herself (a set which, as a sensible child of the depression, she used to this day).

On August 24, 1940, Ruth married Roy Gilbert Roberts, son of Joseph Lawrence and Agnes Maude Roberts. Even after she was married, Ruth continued to work. She worked as a beautician for the most part, operating a shop out of the back of her home. She also held various other jobs, including for a time postmaster, general store proprietor for the town of Adair, Kentucky, a small town that was little more than a mail stop of the railroad on the way out of Owensboro. She told of how it was her job to put the mail on the mailhook for the train to pick up. When the Roberts family eventually moved back to Owensboro, the mail service in Adair stopped and the town ceased to exist.

Ruth and Roy had five children, and by saving and sacrificing, they were able to send all five to college. Roy died in 1987, but Ruth continued to live on her own until suffering a stroke in 2006. In her later years, Ruth was always full of love and advice and wisdom for her grandchildren. She was fond of proscribing home remedies, such as soaking a sore elbow in epsom salts or giving beer to a colicky baby.

Ruth Roberts' obituary can be found here. Her funeral service is 10am on Friday, October 2 at Sts Joseph & Paul Catholic Church in Owensboro, KY.

The Roberts Family

2009-09-01T09:08:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I attended the Roberts family reunion in Owensboro, Kentucky. This reunion brought together the descendants of Joseph Lawrence Roberts, my wife's great-grandfather. Joseph Lawrence had 11 children, 8 that lived to adulthood. All 8 of those children have now died, the last, Paul, passing in April of this year. However, the Roberts family is still very much thriving. We had dozens of Roberts cousins attend. Four spouses of the Roberts children are still alive and three of them attended the reunion. The oldest Roberts there was Catherine Roberts, age 93, widow of Manuel Roberts. She is in excellent health and I think she may even have driven herself to the reunion! Here are some pictures from the reunion.

At the reunion, Roy Roberts, son of Roy Gilbert Roberts and Ruth Taylor Roberts, presented each family with a book of the family's genealogy. Roy's book contains a lot of interesting stories about the family and paints a portrait of what life was like for a rural Kentucky family in the early 20th century. I contributed a bit to the book, mostly by referring Roy to other Roberts researchers who had far better and more detailed information than me. Since the Roberts family already has this detailed information on their family, I am merely going to post a summary of my findings on the Roberts family instead of my usual posting that includes source documents:

The earliest confirmed ancestor of the Roberts family is a John Roberts who died in 1724 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Family tradition is that this John Roberts was from Wales, but like most early Virginia settlers, it is impossible to tell where he was from as few colonial documents recorded this information.

John Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Trammell had at least five children. One son, John Jr., lived to be about 100 years old. We do not have exact dates for his life, but we know that he was born prior to 1703, and he is mentioned in an 1802 letter as being "one of the oldest residents in the county." He may have been over 100 when he died. He and his wife Elizabeth Russell had at least four children.

John Jr.'s son Benjamin was born in about 1741. He served as a Sergeant in the General George Rogers Clark's Illinois Regiment in the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1782. This was the group that headed west to defend settlers on the frontier from Indian allies of the British.

It appears that Sgt. Benjamin signed up with Gen. Clark with the intention to permanently move to Kentucky. Three days after enlisting, he sold his land in Culpeper county, Virginia, and his family likely followed the army west.

Once in Kentucky, Sgt. Benjamin was part of the expedition that established a fort at the Falls of the Ohio, which was the founding of the city of Louisville. Also present in the expedition were several of Sgt. Benjamin's cousins, including the confusingly similar Captain Benjamin Roberts, son of George Roberts. Many researchers (including myself) have mistaken these two, as they were about the same age, from the same county, and both married to women named Anne (hence the reason I refer to him as "Sgt. Benjamin").

The Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1912, before dams largely removed the falls as an obstacle to boat travel.

During his service, Sgt. Benjamin filed for a land grant for land in Jefferson County, Virginia that eventually became a part of Henry county, Kentucky. His wife, Anne Duncan, died shortly after arriving in Kentucky in 1780. Sgt. Benjamin remained on his land in Henry county for the rest of his life, and died after 1810. Sgt. Benjamin and Ann had 8 children.

Sgt. Benjamin's son James was born in 1766 in Culpeper county, Virginia. He moved to Henry county, Kentucky with his parents in 1780 and then on to Daviess county, Kentucky around the time his father died after 1810. James was married twice in Henry county. James and his first wife, whose name is unknown, had three sons, James, Merry, and Benjamin. His second wife, Elizabeth, had two sons, Willis and Henry. All five sons moved with their father to Daviess county to the village of Yelvington. James died there in 1822.

James's son Benjamin was born about 1793 in Henry county. Moved to Yelvington in Daviess county prior to 1820. In 1821, he married Rebecca Frazier, daughter of James and Nancy Frazier. The had seven children, and lived in Yelvington their entire lives.

Benjamin Roberts and Rebecca Fracier

One of Benjamin's sons, Marion Franklin, known as Frank, was a bricklayer in the Knottsville area in Hancock county, Kentucky, who helped build one of the first Catholic schools in that area. On May 9, 1917, at age 80, Frank converted to Catholocism. He died at age 88 in 1924 and is buried at St. Lawrence Catholic Cemetery in Maceo, Kentucky along with his wife, Arilia Ann (Relly Ann) Bowlds, daughter of William N. Bowlds and Sarah Pickerell. Frank and Relly Ann had six sons and five daughters. Their son Joseph Lawrence, born July 6, 1881, married Anges Maud Hartley on January 2, 1909. It is the descendants of their children that attended the Roberts family reunion. Most of their descendants still live in Daviess and Hancock counties, Kentucky.

Famous Fridays - Jesse and Frank James

2009-08-21T14:41:00.004-04:00

Jesse James and Frank James
American Outlaws
The James brothers, members of the infamous James-Younger Gang, are my 9th cousins 4 times removed on my father's side (via the Beasley family). It is possible that some of my Missouri relatives were knew the James brothers, perhaps from the other end of their guns. The James-Younger Gang was known for terrorizing the area of Missouri where my family lived.
My wife's family has a story that her great-grandfather, a very secretive man whose origins are unknown, was once a member of the James-Younger gang. If he was, it was under a completely different name, which I suppose is not that unlikely. Still, I doubt this story is true.

Likelihood of relationship: 50%

Ancestor Spotlight - Engle Backer (1806-1890)

2009-08-17T08:19:00.004-04:00

Johannes Engleberth Becker, called Engle, is my G-G-G-Great Grandfather on my father's side. He was born on January 27, 1806 in the village of Burbach in Germany. Engle was one of three brothers that emigrated to the United States in 1854 (though despite knowing the names of over 30 people who traveled together, I have yet to find a record of their ship). All three settled in Callaway county, Missouri. Engle and his brother Phillip, who owned adjoining farms, were both farmers. Their third brother, John Henry, lived in Fulton. Upon arrival, the family changed the spelling of their name from Becker to Backer (either spelling is supposed to be pronounced "Baker").

Engle was first married on Dec 30, 1830 to Katherine Sophie Sauer, at the Lutheran Church in Burbach, Germany. The couple had six children: Christian, Sohpia Landman, Katherine Frank, William, Leonard, and Henrich. In 1843, Engle's wife Katherine died in childbirth with Henrich, who also died. Engle then remarried Dec 24, 1843 to Juliann Hild in Burbach. Engle and Juliann had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood. Of these children four were born in Burbach: Henriette Charlotte Bury, Charlotte Hagebusch, Henry and Charles Backer. Two more were born in Missouri: Louis Backer and Matilda Brooks.

Engle lived in Callaway county, Missouri from 1854 until about 1877. During this time he and his family were members of the Presbyterian Church in Fulton. Between 1876 and 1880 Engle moved his family to Washington, Missouri, in Franklin county. His wife Juliann died in 1885. Engle remained in Washington until his death on Jan 27, 1890 of pneumonia. He died on his birthday and was exactly 84 years old. He was survived by 11 children.

Below is a copy of the Fulton Sun from Jan 28, 1890, recording the death of Engle Backer. Right click and select zoom in to read the text. His obituary is at the bottom of the middle column.

Engle Backer Obituary

Other resources:
Engle Backer 1860 Census
Engle Backer 1870 Census
Engle Backer 1880 Census (listed as Charles Becker)
List of all Backer descendants

Famous Fridays - Barack Obama

2009-08-12T15:17:00.009-04:00

Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
Barack Obama is my 12th Cousin on my father's side (via the Beasley family) and is my wife's 8th cousin on her father's side (via the Roberts family). My common ancestor is Robert Brasseur born in France, died about 1665 in Maryland. My wife's connection is a few generations closer, through Jacob Duvall, born 1715, died 1796 in Maryland.

Likelihood of relationship: 50% for me, 70% for my wife.

If you would like to learn more about our president's heritage, click here. That site contains a really great presentation on the genealogy of President Obama. My wife and I both connect to him through the Brasseur/Duvall line in his tree, which is shown on the far middle-left. The tree contains many interesting stories about his relatives and even contains a bit of genealogy for his Kenyan heritage. It also explains how President Obama is related to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Harry Truman, among others.

Jacob Frank, 1833-1909

2009-08-12T11:24:00.003-04:00

Today is the first in a series of obituary postings I plan to make. The county libraries in Fulton and St. Louis, Missouri have indexes for local obituaries going back to the late 19th century that make it very easy to find multiple obituaries for relatives. The St. Louis library has their obituary index online here. Both libraries charge only a nominal fee to locate and mail copies of the obituaries to you. If you have any relatives who lived in these areas (regardless of where they died) then you should check with these libraries as obituaries are one of the best pieces of genealogical evidence available.

My first profile is for my G-G-Great-Grandfather Jacob Frank. The Fulton library had two obituaries and a burial notice for Jacob Frank. These obituaries provided a great deal of information and I was happy to see most of my theories in my prior post on the Frank family were correct.

Jacob Frank was born in Hammelburg, Bavaria on April 19, 1833. He emigrated to the United States at age 17 and settled in Fulton, Missouri at age 19 (about 1852). In 1857 he married Katherine Backer, the daughter of a recent Prussian immigrant.

Jacob worked as a coal miner from 1852 until 1891, when he retired and became a gardener. He had a house on Market St. in Fulton with a small plot of land in the back with a garden from which he sold produce to other residents of the city. Oddly, neither obituary mentions his service in the civil war. He served for about three years in the Missouri 9th Calvary Regiment State Militia Volunteers. Perhaps this was omitted because much of his service during the war was dedicated to combatting Confederate sympathizers in the Fulton area.

Jacob was a member of the Fulton First Presbyterian Church. His obituary from the Fulton Journal describes him as a very holy and honorable man:

He was faithful in filling as his obligations to his fellow man and to his God. His one ambition in life was to deal justly and fairly with all men and in this he was remarkably successful. He was a man of generous heart and sought to be helpful to those about him. Mr. Frank was a consistent and faithful member of the Presbyterian Church and lived a truly Christian life in both his public and private affairs. It can be truly said of Mr. Frank that he was a faithful servant to his God, his country and his home. For none truer or more faithful and useful men have come and gone in this life than our departed friend and neighbor.

Jacob Frank died at his home in Fulton on Wednesday, May 12th, 1909 at 9:30 a.m. of a heart attack. He was preceded in death by one son, Albert Jacob Frank of Fulton (I will post his obituaries later) and one daughter, Lottie Kester, wife of August, also of Fulton. He was survived by his wife, Katherine, and seven children. He left three sons: Charles, Henry and William Frank, all of Fulton, and four daughters: Matilda Langenbach, wife of Herman, of Marion, Ill., Julia Egerer, wife of Adolph, of Mexico, Mo., Bertha Lockridge, wife of James, of Fulton, and Mary Fitzhugh, wife of George, also of Fulton.

Below are Jacob's obituaries from the Fulton Telegraph and Fulton Journal, and a burial notice. You can right click on the obituaries to zoom in if you would like to read the text better.

Jacob Frank Obituaries

Frank Family Reunion

2009-08-10T09:59:00.008-04:00

Late summer seems to be the choice time for a family reunion. I have three between now and October. This last weekend was the Frank family reunion in O'Fallon, Missouri. Next weekend is the Roberts family reunion in Owensboro, Kentucky. Then in early October is the Dickson family reunion in Tebbetts, Missouri. I have been busy preparing information to share at each reunion, and I hope to come back from all three with lots of new information.

The Frank reunion was a lot of fun. The Frank family is very small, and the reunion was just the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of my grandma and grandpa Frank. We used to all get together for Chirstmas and Thanksgiving, but now many of us live in other states and have conflicting schedules for which holidays are with which families. The summertime reunion is a great way for me to keep in touch with all my cousins.

Below are some pictures from the Frank Family reunion at my Aunt Zoe and Uncle Dave's house in O'Fallon, Missouri. This reunion also served as the 90th birthday for my grandpa, Forrest F. Frank Jr. His birthday isn't until the end of the month, but we celebrated early because that was when everyone could get together. We also used the reunion as a time to remember my grandma, who passed away last year. My mother brought all my grandma's jewelry to the party and the grandkids all went through picking out items. As you can see, there was a lot of jewelry. It was really fun to see all that jewelry spread across the table and to remember some of the huge earrings, bracelets and necklaces that she was so fond of.

Click on the photo slideshows to go directly to the albums and see more detailed descriptions.

While I was there, I also took some photos of old family photographs. These include photos of my 90-year-old grandpa as a young boy in a sailor suit, him as a young man going off to World War II, his mother and father, and a few very old and priceless photographs from the Dickson family.

Finally, on my way out of town I stopped by St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery to take photos of the grave of my mother's great-grandfather. I recently learned that the Archdiocese of St. Louis has records of all their cemeteries online. Most of my family was not Catholic, but I searched anyway, as a few of the cemeteries were popular with non-Catholics as well. I found a listing for my great-great grandfather, John Patrick Hickey, a native of Ireland. What's more, the Archdiocese website revealed there were five related graves in the same family plot: His wife and four children who never married. Stopped by the cemetary and easily found the graves. Below are some photos of the graves.

Back in Action

2009-08-06T13:54:00.005-04:00

For the last few months my genealogy research has taken a back seat while I finished my final semester of law school and studied for and took the Bar exam (and hopefully passed it!). Now I am finally free of school obligations. I am not completely free as I now have to go from excessive studying to be a lawyer to excessive working as a lawyer. Still, I hope to squeeze in the time for a post a week on this blog.

I have a large backlog of information that I have collected over the last few months that I need to process and organize into posts. Some of my finds have been quite exciting and I really hope to get the time to post about them soon. I have contacted other researchers who gave me a wealth of information on my wife's family. I also have received a large set of obituaries for the Frank family that I hope to post soon. There have also been numerous updates to other related families in my tree. I will spotlight some of the more interesting people in these less well known parts of my tree through regular "Spotlight" posts.

It will take me a while to get a lot of this information digitized and organized enough for publication. Until then, here is a status update on the various families of interest in my research:

Frank (my father's family): I have obtained numerous obituaries for my earliest Frank ancestors. These included the obituary of my earliest known Frank ancestor, Jacob Frank. His obituary (actually, several obituaries in various local papers) confirm many of my theories about him, including his town of origin and his occupations.

Sullivan (my mother's family): My mother has provided me her family photo album which contains a wonderful collection of old family photographs of ancestors going back to the Civil War. I am currently scanning these photographs when I have free time. Unfortunately, most all of the photographs are unlabled. I am trying to identify as many photographs as I can. I am hopeful this will help me identify some current Sullivan relations.

Dickson (my paternal grandmother's family): I have begun writing the story of this family for a blog post. I have one major missing link in this family that I am trying to resolve first. I was hopeful to answer some questions about this family when I took a recent trip to Raleigh, North Carolina for a wedding. Raleigh is home to the State Archives, which have the old court records for all NC counties. Unfortunately, the office was closed for an extended Memorial Day holiday while I was there. I will either write to them or contact other researchers that might have the information before I post.

Roberts (my wife's father's family): I have been in contact with a few researchers who have extensive information on this family. I am also going to a Roberts Family Reunion in Owensboro Kentucky next weekend. After this I will try and post my findings.

Ebelhar (my wife's mother's family): As I have previously mentioned, I found out a great deal of information on this family. My wife's mother's families have especially interesting stories to them, including murder and other shocking deaths. I simply have too much information to sort out right now, and will need to get that done before I write some posts.

I also have updated information on several related families in Missouri, Indiana and Kentucky, including the following surnames: Beasley, Gruenewald, Hickey, Kelley, Riney, Runge, Shelton, Shields and Weber. If you are a researcher interested in any of these surnames in these areas, please contact me!

Famous Fridays - Henry David Thoreau

2009-04-10T09:59:00.003-04:00

Henry David Thoreau
Author and Activist
Thoreau is my 5th Cousin 6 times removed on my mother's side. Our common ancestor is Elizabeth Warren, daughter of Mayflower Passenger Richard Warren. In high school and college I wrote at least three different papers on Thoreau's works, particularly his views on civil disobedience, which directly influenced Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Likelihood of relationship: 80%

A genealogy weekend

2009-04-01T12:17:00.004-04:00

This weekend I visited my wife's family in Owensboro, Kentucky. She was there for a cousin's wedding shower. While she was at the shower, I decided to use my free time to try and track down some of the dead ends I had run into in researching her family.

There were three main roadblocks I have encountered in researching her family. First is finding the maiden names of some of the women in her maternal grandfather's family. Her grandfather's family, the Ebelhars/Uebelhors, are German (Actually Alsacian French) Catholics who emigrated to southern Indiana. I know that Catholic churches in the area kept excellent records, and that I would have no problem locating this information if I was to go to the local churches and view the record books. That, however, is something I have yet to find time to do. Fortunately, I spoke with one of my mother-in-law's cousins who has already done much of that work. He offered to exchange information with me next time I am in town. He has a collection of record copies and old photographs that I hope to digitize. He also had quite a few interesting stories to share about his family, such as how his great grandfather was the owner of a rather rowdy saloon, and once shot a man in a barfight.

The second roadblock I addressed was my wife's maternal grandmother's family. Her great grandmother was a Mabel Kelley, born in 1895 in the Owensboro area. I had Mabel on the 1900 and 1910 censuses as a child, but was unable to determine the names of her parents. Mabel was raised by her aunt and uncle, Rose and William Tuck. Her parents either abandoned her to their relatives, or died before she was 5. I found the answer in old, handwritten notes my wife's grandmother's aunt, Sister Elizabeth Kelley. Sr. Elizabeth left 16 pages of meticulous handwritten notes on her family. She even made multiple handwritten copies to share with her family! These notes revealed the names of her parents and grandparents, opening up whole new branches of research for me to explore over the next few months. I took high resolution digital photos of Sr. Elizabeth's notes and will be sharing those along with my own research.

The final roadblock is the most challenging: My wife's paternal grandmother's father. My wife's grandmother was born in 1919 in Arkansas to William Daniel Taylor and Dona Westerfield. Her mother was 16 when she married William D. Taylor, who at the time was at least 50 years old, possibly as old as 55. Even in Arkansas in 1903, a 50 year old marrying a 16 year old girl was not common. Simply put, and without getting into details, William D. Taylor was not a good person. He was also very secretive, which led to much speculation and rumors in his family. We do not know if William D. Taylor is his real name, where he was from, or exactly when he was born.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find any significant information on William D. Taylor prior to his marriage in 1903. My trip only raised more questions about who this man might have been. What I do know about him remains limited. I know he was likely from Tennessee, though he wouldn't even give the census takers a square answer on this question. Other than that, I have only many, many rumors. He may have left Tennessee because he got a 15 year old girl pregnant and was run out of town. He may have served as a water boy for soldiers in the Civil War. He may have briefly been a member of the James-Younger Gang, and participated in a stagecoach heist near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. He may have had a twin brother whose identity he assumed. He may even have had a second family living in Oklahoma and Tennessee.

That is quite a lot to explore. I could spend years researching to discover which of these stories is true. For now, I am going to focus on finding him on an earlier census and hopefully determining the names of his parents and where he was from.

I'll post more on these families after I get some time to review the information I received this weekend. Unfortunately, my genealogy work might be rather limited for the next few months, as I am headed towards finals, and after that I must begin preparing for the bar exam in July. But I will at least try and post stories on the families I have already researched in the next few months.

May the luck of the 18.75% Irish Be With You

2009-03-17T09:19:00.010-04:00

In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, I decided to determine exactly how Irish I am. To figure this out, I looked at my great-great-grandparent's generation. At this generation, I have 16 ancestors, three of which were born in Ireland. This makes me a total of 18.75% Irish. Using the same method I calculated that I am 37.5% German, and 43.75% Colonial American (by which I mean families that have been in America for at least 300 years). It is likely that some of the colonial branches of my family have Irish origins, but I consider these to be too distant to be a real connection to Ireland.

The families I trace back to Ireland are all in my mother's family -- the Sullivans. Three surnames on this side trace back to Ireland -- Sullivan, Hickey, and either Gallagher or Shields (this last family is a bit of a brick wall). These three families arrived in the St. Louis, Missouri area from Ireland between 1855 and 1875. Despite the relatively small percentage of my ancestry that is from Ireland, it is a heritage with which I closely identify, mostly because the Irish families represent the most recent immigrants in my tree.

Socialists among us!

2009-03-09T13:33:00.011-04:00

I have not yet posted on my mother's family, the Sullivans, as I have been focused on catching up with posting all my research on my father's family first. However, I have not been neglecting this family. Just yesterday I made an interesting discovery while researching my g-g-grandmother Hannah Selby Sullivan's family.

Hannah Selby was born in 1848 in Rockville, Indiana. Her family is a very interesting one. I am descended from Mayflower Pilgrim Richard Warren on her mother's side. Richard Warren is the pilgrim who left the most living descendants. Consequently more Americans are descended from Richard Warren than any other pilgrim, so his families are well documented and have many interesting and prominent stories.

Hannah father's family had remained a mystery. I know from Hannah's death certificate that her father was Joseph Selby, born 1824 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Even though the death certificate was filled out 96 years after Joseph's birth, I had reason to trust it, as it was filled out by Hannah's older sister, Elizabeth, who was the person most likely to know where her father was born.
I had difficulty finding the family for Joseph Selby because he left Virginia prior to 1850, the first census that shows all members of a family. Based on other census data for Rockbridge co. I had hypothesized that his father was a John Selby, born 1786 in Maryland. But I did not have any information to confirm this. I also had no confirmation of what had happened to Hannah siblings.

Yesterday I got a response to a message board post on Ancestry.com which cleared up this mystery. The poster had a copy of a manuscript entitled "Mary Ann Selby: Her Ancestors and Descendants, Vol. 2" by Ruth Thayer Ravenscroft, 1948. This manuscript contained information given to the author by Fanny Selby Hindman, Hannah's sister. It confirmed that her father was the son of the same John Selby I had spotted on the census records in Rockbridge county. The manuscript also listed the names of his siblings, and his mother, Hannah Miller, daughter of Hugh Miller.

However, perhaps the most interesting nugget to be found in this manuscript was in the info on Hannah's siblings. One of them was John H Selby, who I had in my records born 1857 in St. Louis died 1893 in St. Louis. Strangely, his St. Louis death record said he was buried in Terre Haute, Indiana. I had no idea why. Fanny Hindman's records cleared this up: He had married a woman named Eugenie Debs, who was from Terre Haute. He was buried there with her family.

You may think Eugenie Debs sounds like a familiar name. I thought so too. A quick search of the census records confirmed my suspicion. Eugenie Debs was the sister of Eugene V. Debs, the famous Socialist candidate for President in the early 20th century. Eugene V. Debs is easily the most famous American Socialist. Debs started his career as a railroad union organizer. He gained fame after a strike in 1894 in Chicago led President Grover Cleveland to send in the Army to quell the strike. After the strike he was put on trial, where he was represented by the famous attorney Clarence Darrow. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which found Debs' arrest lawful.

While serving his time in jail, Debs discovered Socialism. After getting out of jail he helped to found the Socialist Democratic Party of America. Debs ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. The 1920 campaign was conducted entirely from federal prison where he was once against serving time for his union demonstrations. Despite being jailed for the entire campaign, he received over 6% of the popular vote in 1920, though he received no electoral votes. The next year, Debs' sentence was commuted by President Warren G. Harding. Debs died in 1926, shortly after having been committed to a sanitarium in Elmhurst, Illinois.

I will post more on the Sullivan family later, but I just thought I would share this odd connection to my family. It just goes to show that when searching for your roots, you never know what your digging might uncover!

Related Links:
Gravesite of Eugenie Debs Selby
Gravesite of Eugene V. Debs
Gravesite of John H Selby
Eugene V. Debs (Wikipedia)
Debs family, 1870 Census
John H. Selby Death Record
Hannah Selby Sullivan Death Certificate

Famous Fridays - Dolley Madison

2009-03-06T12:49:00.000-05:00

Dolley Payne Madison
First Lady of the United States

Dolley Madison is my 3rd Cousin 7 times removed. (via my paternal great-grandmother Charlotte Beasley)
Likelihood of Relationship: 80%

How I Research

2009-03-04T08:21:00.007-05:00

Every genealogist has a different research strategy. Some spend hours in libraries and write to record keepers in distant countries on a regular basis. Others simply click paste together every tree they can find on the internet and (hopefully) sort out the mess later. I prefer accuracy over speed, but I also know that many people can't afford the time and effort needed to build a tree based entirely on original documents. So I thought I would share my quick and cost effective research philosophy and methods.

I am soon to be an attorney, and am now very used to billing my time. So I tend to analyze different research avenues based on how much time it will take and how much it will cost me. If there is only a slim chance that I will discover useful information, then I give the research a low priority. For example, a trip to Virginia or North Carolina to view colonial records might produce a copy of a will of an ancestor or some other useful information, but the cost is not worth this discovery. Many people have already researched these colonial documents, and so it is much easier to simply rely on a summary of the document that can easily be found online. While it is not as solidly reliable as the original document, it is better than simply relying on unsourced family trees. I think this strategy provides a happy medium between costs and accuracy.

With that in mind, here is how a typical research session goes. I start on Ancestry.com, where I keep my online family trees. I have a US records subscription through Ancestry. They offer a World records subscription, but their international records are too paltry to make this a worthwhile investment.

Typically I start my searches by looking at census records. Census records back to 1850 are very useful, as they list each member of a family and their age, allowing you to connect children with parents going backwards, assuming the names are not too common. Census records after 1880 also include the relationship of the person to the head of house (i.e., "daughter"), as well as the birthplace of the person and their parents. The most useful census of all is probably the 1900 census, as it contains the birth moth and year of each person, the number of children they have had, the year they were married, and the year they immigrated if applicable. I use ancestry.com to search census records because I like the options in their advanced search tool, but they are not the only source for this data. FamilySearch.com's Pilot Record Search now has census records from 1850 through 1920, all for free.

I never rely solely on census records to prove a family connection. Keep in mind that some people are always missed by each census, so you should never assume that you have found your ancestor simply because only one person with that name shows up in the location where your ancestors lived. Instead, it is best to cross reference census data against other sources. What records to use depends on the location and time period of the ancestor in question. For modern (20th century) ancestors I look for birth, marriage and death records. Availability of these varies by state. I am mostly interested in families from Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana. Of these, Missouri has the best records available online. Missouri's Digital Heritage Project has scanned death records from 1910 through 1957 (1958 is being added now and they need your help! Email archref@sos.mo.gov for more info!). They also have some useful 19th century records, including naturalization records and civil war service records.

A death certificate is a great place to find information as most certificates include such useful bits of info as the exact birthday, birthplace, parents' names and sometime their birthplace, and spouse's name. If no marriage records are readily available, then death certificates are the best way to learn the maiden name of a mother. And don't forget to check for the death certificates of siblings in order to confirm info. Keep in mind that death certificates are not filled out by the person who died, so the survivors might not always know the correct information. Comparing a few siblings can help sort out such inconsistencies.

If the ancestor did not live into the 20th century, then the best source for information is usually legal records, including wills and deeds (land purchase records). Obviously wills usually name the children of the deceased. But wills are rare, and deeds are a good source if no will can be found. Deeds often record gifts of land made by someone to their children prior to their death, as a way to avoid probate, so often these records will also mention family relations. Even if they do not specifically spell out the relationship, they can be a strong indication that one exists.

Finding these records can be a challenge. The online availability of these records depends on the location. Often google searches for "will book" or "deed book" plus the name of the county will bring up at least partial results. Sometimes local county pages for the US Genweb project or the Genealogy Trails project will have these records transcribed online. Ancestry.com also has some counties (mostly in the former colonies) in their subscription database. If the records are not to be found online, try contacting your local Family History Center. These centers provide access to microfilm records collected by the LDS church. The catalog of records available from the FHC can be found here. Try searching by county and state name.

Finally, if you are completely stuck and cannot find any records online for an ancestor, try genealogy message boards. It is likely you will find someone at least researching the same family. E-mail them and beg for help. They may have copies of the records you need. It worked for me, and I'm always happy when I have a chance to return the favor and help people who e-mail me for help. If you are in need of research help, e-mail me. You can find my e-mail address by clicking on "view my complete profile."

Famous Fridays - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

2009-02-27T13:52:00.002-05:00

I'm starting a new ongoing post series today. Famous Fridays will spotlight famous relatives to whom I am somehow related. The idea for the title comes from a series of posts called Tombstone Tuesdays and Wordless Wednesdays, done on a number of genealogy blogs. Maybe Famous Fridays will catch on as well!

The concept is simple: Post a picture of a famous person, some information and your relationship to them. (i.e., George Washington, First President of the United States, 2nd Cousin 9 Times Removed).

First a disclaimer: A lot of these are to be taken with a grain of salt. The internet is full of "junk genealogy" posts that clog up otherwise good research. Eventually these errors on the internet get added to master databases such as Ancestry.com's World Family Tree.
Unfortunately, databases like the World Family Tree are the best way to find common ancestors with famous people. I try as best I can to check all the links to famous people for accuracy, but I can't guarantee that these are 100% correct. So for each person I will give a percentage estimate of how likely the relation is.

Starting things off is...

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
32nd President of the United States
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is my 9th Cousin 3 times removed. (via my paternal great-grandmother Charlotte Beasley)
Likelihood of relationship: 70%

The Harrison Family

2009-02-25T13:56:00.004-05:00

The Harrison family has its origins in England. Beyond that, the exact origins are unknown. At least three different genealogists have tried to uncover English records for this Harrison family. Best guesses are that the family is from either Cambridge or London. But neither of these theories is supported by solid evidence. What is clear is that our line NOT connected within America to the "famous" Harrison line, which includes two presidents and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Our story starts with Andrew Harrison Sr., who was born sometime between 1640 and 1660 in England. He immigrated to Virginia colony sometime before 1683. Records indicate that Andrew Sr. came to the colonies under a "headright" contract with a colony official named Cadwallader Jones.

The Headright system was established by the colonial government as a method of solving the colony's chronic shortage of laborers. Passage to the Americas was not cheap, and often those wealthy enough to afford passage did not wish to pay for a number of servants to accompany them. The headright system gave these future landowners a bonus of 50 acres per person they paid to bring over from England. Many wealthy landowners saw a business opportunity, and established headright contracts, where the landowners paid for the passage of an indentured servant, who then worked for a set amount of time afterwards until the cost of the passage and the cost of the land was paid to the landowner, at which point the servant was freed and received title to the 50 acres.

Location of Andrew Harrison's Plantation in Virginia

If this is how Andrew Sr. came to Virginia, then within a few years Andrew Sr. had made enough to free himself of the debt, because he is listed as a freeman in the mid-1680's. Further, in 1686, Andrew Sr. and some friends entered the lucrative headright business themselves. Andrew Sr. purchased several thousand acres on Golden Vale Creek in Essex Co, Virginia (Now Caroline Co). He lived on 130 acres of the land, and used the rest for headright contracts. At one point he owned 1800 acres as part of his plantation. All this land is now part of the Fort A.P. Hill military training center near the town of Bowling Green, Virginia.

Andrew Sr. was probably a wealthy man by colonial Virginia standards. He was a tobacco plantation owner, with several slaves and indentured servants, and he (and later his son Andrew Jr.) served in the office of Constable for his part of Essex Co. for a number of years. Holding an office in the colonial government speaks to the fact that Andrew Sr. was a man of wealth and privilege.

A Tobacco Plantation

Like most colonists, Andrew Sr.'s life revolved around tobacco. The rise and fall of tobacco prices governed not only the wealth of the planters, but also the stability of the government. At least twice during Andrew Sr.'s life rebellions occurred in Virginia colony directly related to tobacco laws imposed by the British. It is likely that Andrew Sr. or his son Andrew Jr. were involved in at least one of these rebellions, when in 1714 a group of planters burned British-controlled tobacco warehouses in Williamsburg, where Andrew Sr. took his tobacco to market. Andrew Sr. was one of a group of planters who sold their tobacco to private warehouses run by free black merchants, who offered better prices than the British government. When the British government tried to ban private wholesalers, the planters rebelled and burned the British-controlled warehouses. We have no record of Andrew Sr. or Jr. directly participating in any of these rebellions, but it is likely that they were somehow involved as they had a large stake in the matter.

One of Andrew Sr.'s closest friends was John Battaile, a fellow headright who became his neighbor in Virginia and had remained a close family friend of the Harrisons. John Battaile had connections to many of the elite members of Virginia colonial society, which both the Battailes and the Harrisons exploited. John had married into two very important families, the Taliaferros and the Smiths, who had received very large grants of land in the colonies and were prominent members of the aristocracy.

In 1708 John Battaile died, leaving his daughter Elizabeth in the care of the Harrisons. Andrew Sr. was made her guardian. Two years later, Elizabeth married Andrew Sr.'s son, Andrew Jr. The couple inherited several hundred acres of land along Golden Vale Creek when Andrew Sr. died in 1718.

Andrew Jr. was a tobacco plantation owner like his father. He also served as an Essex Co. constable, and later, as an officer in the Spotsylvania county militia and a road overseer for Spotsylvania county. The records that survive show that Andrew Jr. was well-connected and a savvy businessman. For example, in 1727, Andrew Jr. was arrested as part of a suit by a business partner, but Andrew used his connections in the colonial government to turn the tables on his opponent. The court record books of Essex Co. contain the following colorful entry:

"Andrew Harrison, being arrested at the suit of James Gillison, in debt, and he having rescued himself by a superior force out of the sheriff's custody, order is granted to the said plaintiff against the said defendant for what shall appear due at next Court unless the defendant then appear and answer the said suit."

The next year, Andrew Jr. began courting a group of wealthy landowners in the hopes of receiving a choice land patent. A patent is a grant of unclaimed land.

Sir William Gooch, Colonial Governor of Virginia, 1727-1749

In December 1728 Andrew Jr. sold 600 acres he had bought in Spotsylvania county to a group of wealthy colonists who included the Colonial Governor, William Gooch. In exchange, Andrew Jr. received a patent on 1000 acres along Harris Creek in Spotsylvania county, near Fredericksburg, Va. The land was adjacent to land owned by several prominent members of the colonial militia. Andrew started a new tobacco plantation on this land, which eventually grew to 1800 acres. The land became a part of Orange County when it was formed out of Spotsylvania. Andrew Jr. lived there for the rest of his life. In 1747, he deeded 200 acres of the Harris Creek land to his oldest son, Battaile Harrison.

Battaile lived for a time on the land granted to him by his father, but eventually decided to get into the land business for himself. Battaile used the land given to him by his father, as well as land given to him by his father-in-law in nearby Culpeper county to secure a large land grant in Amherst county, near Lynchburg. Battaile moved there, where he ran a plantation and also acted as road overseer for a nearby road. In addition, Battaile ran an inn along the road, a profession which was generally only undertaken by the aristocracy in colonial Virginia.

Battaile was also lieutenant in the Virginia militia. He died in November of 1776 at age 69, so it is unlikely he participated in the Revolutionary War, but likely did participate in skirmishes with local Indian tribes, which were being upset by rapid, illegal expansion by settlers in the Appalachian mountains to the west.

Battaile's eldest son was named Reuben (Sr.). Reuben Sr. did serve in the Revolutionary War as an Ensign with the Amherst County Virginia Militia. After the war, a family dispute over the inheritance of his father may have led Reuben to move west. He moved west twice, eventually settling in Barren County, Kentucky by 1811. His son, Reuben Jr., had gone with him to Kentucky. Like his father, Reuben Jr. was a military man. He served as a Major in the Kentucky Mounted Milita during the War of 1812. Late in life Reuben Jr. chose to move west again, settling in Miller County, Missouri in the early 1830's.

Reuben Jr. was the father of Samuel Toliver Harrison, who was the father of 20 children by two wives (16 with the first wife!). Samuel was a farmer in Miller county, near Eldon, Missouri. His 10th child was Robert Berry ("RB") Harrison, who married Phoebe Ellen Crisp, daughter of James Layette Crisp and Rebecca Waddell on February 22, 1883. RB and Phoebe Ellen moved to Callaway County, Missouri, to the north of Jefferson City. He was a melon farmer, and did well enough for himself that he managed to pay off his farm's mortgage after just the first year's harvest. RB lived in Callaway County until his retirement, when he went to live with his daughter Pearl in Kansas City. RB was the father of Lela Harrison, who married Forrest Frank Sr.

Below are links for more information on the Harrison family. I highly suggest reading Part II of Abner Harrison's manuscript "Andrew Harrison and Other Early Harrisons," which is the source for much of my information and provides a much more detailed look at the world in which Andrew Harrison lived.

Phoebe Ellen Harrison Death Certificate(PDF)
Robert Berry Harrison Death Certificate(PDF)
Ancestors of Lela Harrison(PDF)
R.B. Harrison 1930 Census
R.B. Harrison 1920 Census
R.B. Harrison 1900 Census
"Andrew Harrison and Other Early Harrisons," by Abner Harrison
A Chronological Listing of Events in the Life of Andrew Harrison
Harrisons of Miller County, Missouri

A few words from my Grandfather

2009-02-11T12:36:00.005-05:00

I recently found some notes I took last year during a conversation with my Grandfather Forrest Frank Jr., who was telling me his memories of his childhood and family. Here are my notes, in no particular order, told from his point of view:

My childhood home was 600 Grand Ave in Fulton.
My grandfather Frank went by Charley. He ran a "little red store" in Fulton. It was called either Frank & McClure or Frank & Market.
My grandmother Frank's name was Emma. I think her maiden name was Runge. I remember that she had a relative named Frank Runge that visited some.
My uncle Melvin also ran a grocery store on 9th St in Fulton. He was in business with my uncle Frank Backer, his brother-in-law.
My father Forrest Sr. drove a horse-drawn laundry truck in Fulton. Once a horse stepped on him, injuring his stomach. Later in life he got stomach cancer, and he always believed that it was caused by that horse stepping on him.
My father once ran for Fulton City Collector, but as a Republican! I was very embarrassed. After the war, I ran for City Collector and was elected, but as a Democrat.
My mother and father divorced when I was 13. My father then moved to Michigan City, Indiana, where he ran a Peptolene gas station on the corner of 10th and Franklin St. The gas station was owned by my uncle Poole Harrison, who was very rich and owned several gas stations in the Chicago area. My mother remarried to a man named Arthur Bergin and lived in Fulton.
The summer after my father moved to Michigan City, I went to visit him and worked at his gas station. We also went to the World's Fair in Chicago. (Note: This was 1933, grandpa was 14 -SPF)
All of my family is buried in Hillcrest Cemetary in Fulton.

My grandfather Harrison was named Robert Berry, but went by R.B. He moved from Cole County (Note: It was actually Miller Co, south of Jeff City - SPF) to Callaway County before I was born.
Grandfather Harrison owned a melon farm. He did pretty well for himself and was able to pay off his $13,000 mortgage in the first year.
My mother had four sisters and a brother.
My aunt Vesta was married when she was young to a man who turnd out to have a drug habit. It was very scandalous and she got a divorce. She then married a man named T. Page Rogers, who was very rich. I think he was in the oil business. They moved to Galveston, Texas, then later to Dallas.
After I enlisted in the Army, I stopped to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Dallas along with some Army buddies. Their driver picked us up from the bus station in a limo and drove us to their mansion! We all drank cold beers and ate steak that night. We lived the fancy life for a night. It was one of the best meals I've ever had.

The Backer Family

2009-01-30T08:19:00.010-05:00

In my previous post on the Frank Family, I noted how there are few living Frank descendants in America. But this does not mean we do not have many relatives. The Frank family has always been closely tied to the Backer family of Fulton, Callaway County, Missouri. Jacob Frank married into the larger Backer family, which came over from Burbach, Prussia in 1854.

Katherine came to Fulton with her father, two uncles - John Henry and Phillip Henry, their wives and their many children. At least 15 Backers immigrated together. The family was Lutheran, but after they immigrated, most of the family attended the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Fulton.

Location of Burbach in North Rhein-Westphalia, Germany

Burbach Coat of Arms

Katherine's father was born Johann Engelberth Becker (the name Backer is actually an Anglicization of the name Becker) in Burbach, Prussia, which is today in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhein Westphalia). At the time of their immigration, Burbach was part of the Prussian empire. Before that it was part of the Duchy of Nassau. I have been able to trace the Becker family back to Arnoldus Becker, born about 1690 in Burbach.

After moving their families to Fulton, the three Backer brothers started farms. Katherine lived on a farm with her father Engle, and her stepmother, Julianne (Katherine's mother died in childbirth in Germany), three brothers, a sister, and six step brothers and sisters. Though they started as farmers in Fulton, most of the family did not remain farmers. "Becker" means baker in German, which was in fact exactly what the Becker/Backer family did. Some of the Backer children went into business as bakers in the town of Fulton, a business which the Frank family eventually joined. The family has flourished in running businesses of all kinds, including blacksmiths, teamsters(truckers in the horse and buggy days), grocers, and tailors.

Today there are a number of Backers still in the Fulton area. In fact, at least one very prominent business bears the family name, the Backer Potato Chip Co. The Backer family also founded one of Fulton's chief tourist attractions, the Backer Auto World Museum, an impressive collection of antique automobiles displayed in a period setting.

Unfortunately I do not have extensive documentation for the Backer family in Germany. Most of my information is courtesy of the transcribed records found at Familysearch.org, a website with databases of church and civil records of baptisms, births and deaths in many European countries. Eventually I plan to order the microfilm of the original records and will post copies of the records once I get them. Until then, here are some other links regarding the Backers and Burbach that you might find interesting:

Ancestry Tree for Katharine Elizabeth Backer (PDF)

Descendants of Arnoldus Becker (PDF)

Burbach, North Rhein-Westphalia on Wikipedia

Burbach Homepage (Google Translation)

Obituary of Bill Backer, president of Backer Potato Chip Co. and founder of the Backer Auto World Museum, Fulton, Mo.

Backer Potato Chip Co.

Backer Auto World Museum

A Familiar Face

2009-01-27T09:03:00.008-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post on the Frank family, the family is very small. There are few living descendants with the last name Frank outside my immediate family. Here is one of the closest relatives I've found so far. The following obituary came to me courtesy of Phyllis Dixon of Fulton, Mo., who keeps a collection of Callaway County obituaries. This man, John Walker Frank, was a generation older than my grandfather. Yet looking at his picture, I would say they could be brothers.
John Walker Frank was a very well known member of the community in Fulton, serving as a deacon at his church, President of his lumber company, and on the board of directors of several associations. It is even possible that my grandfather knew him. My grandfather, Forrest Jr., served in elected office as the city collector in Fulton for a time, though I am not sure when. If he held this position before the war, then it is likely he knew John Walker Frank, as he was a city councilman at that time.
You can right click on the obituary to zoom in if you would like to read the text better. The second obituary is for his wife.

Frank Obituaries

Publish at Scribd or explore others: History eBooks

Accessing Ancestry.com

2009-01-26T16:48:00.005-05:00

On the left-hand side of this page you'll see links to my trees on Ancestry.com. This is where I do the bulk of my genealogy research. Ancestry.com can be annoying because it will constantly bug you to sign up when you go to view links. So I thought I would create a generic account for the family to use.

You can access any of the trees using the following account:

Login: Rootsandall
Pass: frankfamily

My family trees on Ancestry.com:
Frank/Dickson/Beasley/Harrison Family Tree

Sullivan/Hickey/Gruenewald Family Tree

Ebelhar Family Tree

The site can be a bit hard to navigate, so here are a few tips:

When you first click the link, you are taken to the Overview, which shows recently added photos and stores as well as other statistics. The best way to start is to pick a person and go to their specific page. In the upper right hand side of the page is a search box. Type a name in there (i.e., "Forrest Frank") and it will instantly give you search results. You can also just search by last name or part of a name. Select a person and it will take you to their personal details page. This lists all the events in their life as well as their relations.

There are two ways to navigate to other people from here. On the left are the person's parents and children. Clicking on one of them will take you to their page. There is also a small + below the parents that you can click to go directly to siblings.

You can also navigate by clicking on the 'Family Tree' tab just above the person's name. This will give you a visual of the tree going back 5 generations when possible, a useful way to see your own ancestors. Click on different people in the tree will move you up or down the tree. To get back to the personal details screen for a person, click on that person and then click the 'People' tab.

Finally, you will often see a little leaf icon notifying you that hints are available for the person you are viewing. You can only access these hints (as well as the results of searches) if you have a paid account. However, you can see the hints I've already attached to people. On the left hand side of the person's details page will be links to census forms and other data. You can click on these to read the details or see a scan of the original document when available.

I hope that is not too confusing. I can help anyone having problems using the website, just email me or leave me a comment and I will be happy to help.

The Frank Family

2009-01-23T08:57:00.035-05:00

I started my current genealogy research in the hope of finding clues as to the origin of my surname, a side of the family largely neglected in prior genealogy research. I started my research by talking to my grandfather, Forrest F. Frank Junior. Forrest was largely raised by his mother and stepfather, and did not keep in contact with much of the Frank family. He did however know his grandparents' names, and that was enough for me to start my research.

Grave of Jacob and Katherine Frank in Hillcrest Cemetary, Fulton, Mo.

The Frank family story starts with Jacob Frank, an immigrant from Hammelburg, Bavaria. Hammelburg is a small town in northern Bavaria on the Saale river, well known in Germany for its wineries and the nearby Rhön nature preserve. In America, Hammelburg is best known as the location of several POW camps during WWII. It is also the setting for the fictional POW camp in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes.

I do not have information about Jacob's parents or his life in Hammelburg. I know that in 1852 he emigrated to the United States, settling in Fulton, Callaway County, Missouri, where a small German community was formed the First Presbyterian Church in the early 1850's. Two years later, the Backers, a large Prussian family of merchants and bakers (Backer means Baker) moved to the area and began attending the same church. It was then that he met Katherine Backer, his future wife. The two were married on July 29, 1857 in Fulton. I will post more about the Backer family in later posts.

Jacob and Katherine started a family during tumultuous times. In the late 1850's tensions between the northern and southern states were rising. These tensions were felt especially in Callaway county. Missouri was a split state, with northern abolitionists settling parts of the state and slave owners from the south settling others. While Missouri was a slave state, it actually had few slave owners. Almost all the slave owners were concentrated in an area called "Little Dixie" along the Missouri River in central Missouri where a large number of families from Virginia and North Carolina had settled between 1820 and 1850. Callaway county lies at the heart of this area.

When war broke out in 1861 and the Missouri government voted to remain in the Union, Callaway county famously tried to secede from the state and proclaim itself the Kingdom of Callaway county. In response to the strong anti-Union sentiment in the area, the state set up several volunteer militia regiments to guard against attacks by Confederate sympathizers. On April 19, 1862, Jacob Frank enlisted with the 9th Calvary Regiment State Militia Volunteers. The Regiment remained for the most part in the central Missouri area, and saw action in a number of small skirmishes against guerrilla Confederate troops and sympathizers seeking to sabotage railroads and roads.

Jacob was one of the rare few soldiers in the Civil War who made it through the war without injury or illness. He was discharged on April 21, 1865 and returned home. However, a few months later he was again summoned to service. Although the war was over, gangs of Confederate sympathizers known as "Bushwackers" still plagued central Missouri. One of the gangs operating in the area eventually became known as the James-Younger gang (Jesse James' gang). Jacob re-enrolled under command of Lt. William H. Thomas in the Callaway County Volunteer Militia on July 5, 1865 and served off and on as needed to protect the countryside from Bushwackers.

After the war Jacob remained in Fulton. He worked for the next few decades in a local coal mine. Eventually as his health began to fail him, he took a less demanding job. On the 1900 census his job title was listed as "Market Gardener." He and Katherine lived on Market St., so it is possible that he worked as a caretaker at a nearby municipal park or garden.

Jacob and Katherine had nine children, 5 girls and 4 boys, all of whom lived to adulthood and married. For the most part their children married the children of other German immigrants, and stayed in Fulton. Their son Charles Henry "Charley" Frank is my g-g-grandfather.

Beulah, Charley, Forrest, Emma, Melvin and Effie Frank.

Charley Frank was born in 1865 in Fulton. He married Emma Weimeyer of Franklin county on 24 Sep 1890. Charley worked for the Backer family's grocery and bakery. He and Emma had four children, Effie, Melvin, Forrest, and Beulah. Effie married Poole Harrison from Mexico, Mo., and moved to the Chicago area, where the couple owned a chain of gas stations. The couple became quite rich but never had children. Melvin followed his father into the family business, eventually becoming co-owner of the Frank & Backer bakery. Melvin married Louise Humbrook, and they had one daughter, Marcella, who married Harry Johnson, and currently lives just north of Kingdom City. Beulah married a distant cousin, Frank Backer, who worked as a car salesman. They had two sons, Homer and Howard Backer. Howard lives in Los Angeles and Homer lives in Florida.

My great-grandfather, Forrest Sr. was born on October 27, 1896. He married Lela Harrison around 1918. They had one child, my grandfather, Forrest Jr. For the next few years, Forrest Sr. worked as a laundry truck driver in Fulton. He and Lela divorced around 1930, and Forrest Sr. moved to northern Indiana, where he managed a gas station owned by his brother-in-law Poole Harrison. Around 1945 he moved back to Fulton where he worked as a salesman at a department store. He died in 1953 at his son's house in St. Ann, Missouri. His death certificate lists the cause of death as stomach cancer.

The Frank family is a small family, with few living descendants today. Unlike the farmer families common on other branches of my family, who often had 10+ children, the Franks were city dwellers and often had two working spouses and little time for children. My research indicates that the only living descendants with the Frank last name are my grandfather and his family, of which only myself and my cousin James might still carry on the family name.

Below are documents related to the Frank family, including the military service record of Jacob Frank, census data sheets, and death certificates for my direct ancestors. I have also created a descendants chart that traces all the generations descended from Jacob Frank. It contains much more detailed information on the family.

Descendants of Jacob Frank -- A 'register report' style list of all the Frank relatives I have found so far.

Jacob & Katherine:

Jacob Frank & Family 1900 Census

Charley & Emma:

Forrest Sr.:

Digging for Roots

2009-01-21T15:41:00.002-05:00

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today.

-- Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.

Hello and Welcome!

The above quote pretty much sums up why I am interested in genealogy. The stories of our ancestors make us who we are today. Their life stories, both famous and obscure, rich and poor, remind us of the significance each life has on the rest of the world.

I have created this blog in order to keep my family updated on the findings of my genealogy research. Most of the posts will be updates on research into particular family lines. I will post updates and interesting stories I find on the families I am researching. Along the way I will also post on other subjects related to genealogy. I am especially interested in efforts to digitize ancient records and make them accessible to the public. I will post on these efforts as well as tips on the resources available on the internet that I have found most helpful in my searches.

Here are the main family names I will am researching:

My father's family:

Frank
Dickson
Beasley
Backer
Shelton

My father's family is from Callaway County, Missouri.

My mother's family:

Sullivan
Hickey
Gruenewald

My mother's family is from the St. Louis, Missouri area.

My wife's father's family:

Roberts
Westerfield

My wife's mother's family:

Ebelhar
Riney

My wife's family is from Daviess County, Kentucky.

You can keep up to date on my findings for all of these families by subscribing to this blog's rss feed. Thanks for visiting, and I wish you the best of luck in your own searches.