Time is short

Sometimes when you are researching family history you come across something that is of a more current time.

My father's first cousin was Orrie Rebecca Green. She died in 1982 in Sarasota, Florida but I really don't remember meeting her. I probably did but since I never lived near her it would have only been at a funeral or possibly in passing on a visit to the area. Other members of my immediate family knew her and her children much better because they lived close by.

When I heard that her daughter Joanne had died this year I decided to look up her brother, Adrian. I didn't know anything about him other than his name and age. Unfortunately by checking public records, I quickly found that he died last year in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

His obituary is below:
Adrian Lee Hart, 69, of Chattanooga, passed away Friday, April 24, 2009, in a local hospital.

Mr. Hart was a truck driver, a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces during the Korean Conflict, and was preceded in death by his wife, Deborah Ann Hart in July 2008.

Survivors include his son, Michael (Kimberly) Hart; daughter, Taleisa (Lucas) Dooley; grandchildren, Gabriel Dooley and Liam Hart; sister-in-law, Leisa (Grady) Massingill; brothers-in-law, Terry and Jim Farmer; mother-in-law and father-in-law, Lois and Wes Farmer; nieces, Ashley and Amber Farmer; beloved dog, Scooby.

Private services and interment will be held at the Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Dropping the bomb

This term is sometimes used when giving bad news. Men have used it when they were told they were a father, or about to be one, usually from a relationship other than marriage.

I was contacted recently by a woman who said she was the daughter of my wife's uncle, Reginald Eugene Glenn. The fact that she was 63 years old and the uncle had been dead for 50 years qualified the news as dropping a bomb. She found me via a Google search that turned up a story I did about the uncle.

We didn't know where to start with the information. Neither my wife or I had ever met the uncle much less this woman and no other family members had ever heard about her or her mother.

As I looked into it I found her mother had died in 2009 in Washington state. The woman sent me a copy of her April 5, 1947 birth certificate from Blanchard, Washington and sure enough, there was the uncle's name and identification, listed as the father.

This brought more questions on why no one ever knew about her or why she had never known anything about her father or his family. She sent other personal information and I sent her the one photo I had of the uncle.

My wife obtained a box of old photos and letters from the uncle to his mother, from 1944 to 1949. I also wrote to the National Archives and obtained a copy of his Navy service record. The letters and service record showed he was stationed in San Diego, Vallejo and San Francisco California during his years in the Navy. It also showed the names of the ships he was on. The faithful letters he sent to his mother over those years talked about where the ship was located. He was on the USS Pennsylvania during WWII and moved from Island to Island.

After the war the letters showed he came back to California but they also indicated the Pennsylvania was sent to mothballs in Washington State. In fact there are letters either postmarked or mentioning his being in Washington both in the spring and fall of 1946.

To be the father, according to my math would mean he was in Washington 9 months before the birth or July 1946.

This is where the bomb comes in. In the letters was one dated July 1, 1946 (64 years ago today) that I have scanned and attached. It says he was part of Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll in the pacific. The US government started dropping atomic bombs on the small island to see what would happen, as if the two in Japan didn't tell them enough.

The first one was on July 1, 1946 and they dropped a second one on July 25th.

He was aboard the USS George Clymer, twenty miles from the island when the bomb hit. A subsequent letter talked about watching the second bomb. Since he was about five thousand miles from Blanchard, Washington I think it is safe to say he is not the father. Based on the personal information about him on the birth certificate I think he knew the mother and maybe she thought he was the father, but the math is off.

Fulford house

I was researching some distant Fulford relatives in New Bern, NC this year and came across a listing for Fulford House as a boarding house in the late 1800s.

I decided to google the name, just to see what it would turn up. I was surprised to find two listings for Fulford House, not in New Bern but in Wilmington, NC.

The Westbrook-Ardmore Historic District of Wilmington has a document online that lists the historic structures in the district. It shows two houses called Fulford House. Neither were connected to the Fulfords in New Bern, but actually were the homes of the younger brother of my great grandfather Capt. Billy Fulford.

Samuel Harker Fulford was born in Carteret County in 1875. He moved to Cortez, Florida with his brothers and sisters in the early 1900s, He fished in Cortez for a while but soon moved back to North Carolina. He ended up in Wilmington and became a policeman for the City of Wilmington.

He married twice but never had any children. As it turns out he must have either had good taste in homes or if he built them himself, good carpentry skill. Several in his family line were boat builders so he may have inherited the skill. Two of his former houses are now included in the historic district.

One house is located at 1504 Orange Street and was built in 1918. The other is just around the corner at 209 South 15th Street and was built in 1929. He was living in the latter one when he died in 1962.

Cousins

I wrote an article several years ago about trying to figure out if I was related to Don Miller from Georgia. For almost 10 years now I've corresponded with him about it. We have run down any number of leads without any success.

This was also researched by several genealogists who are now deceased, over twenty years ago. They couldn't figure it out either.

My great great grandfather had Don's grandfather living with him when the 1880 census was taken and reported that the young boy was his nephew. Several of his siblings were raised by my family members and a photo of one of his sisters as an adult was even found in the 120 year old Green family bible.

We explored many ways his grandfather could have been related, looking at different families going back to the late 1700s. We couldn't find anything to document a connection.

Now finally we have some proof!

I did a dna test at http://www.23andme.com/ about a year ago and Don did one last month. The results are in and show that we share a common section of Chromosome which means we share a common ancestor. We still don't know who that ancestor was but we are closer. There are three other people in the 23andme database who match us in the same place so we have some real leads which may finally give us the answer.

Still looking...

Several months ago I wrote about having to start over in a search for the family of Thomas Jefferson Longacre. He was the brother of my wife's great grandfather.

I have since corresponded with a family member of Thomas Jefferson Clark several times and he also sent me some papers and photos of Thomas Jefferson Clark. The question; is Thomas Jefferson Clark the same person as Thomas Jefferson Longacre?

I know Thomas Jefferson Longacre was born and died in Texas. I have proof of both his birth and death and information that he worked as a police officer in Texas in the 1920-30s.

I even found this newspaper story that he tried to shoot the San Angelo Texas Police Chief in 1937!

The question is did he move away for 15-20 years, change his name or use an alias and then move back. The descendant of Thomas Jefferson Clark sent me some papers and photos of his grandfather. One document, a job application dated December 13, 1918 has his signature and he answered questions about his parents and place of birth. So far, I don't have any photos of Thomas Jefferson Longacre.

Thomas Clark says on this form that his mother was Lou Caraway Longacre McDermott. She was the mother of Thomas Jefferson Longacare, so that is pretty strong evidence although the date of birth does not match TJ Longacare's and is 3 years after the death of his father, John Longacre.

Lou Caraway did remarry after John Longacre died and she had other children but the descendant of T J Clark has done a Y Chromosome dna test and he matches other Longacares!

I wrote to the Social Security Administration and obtained a copy of his Social Security application, dated July 19, 1937. I knew it would have the same questions and answers.

What do you think, is is the same handwriting?

Don't trust the government

The census and death records that many folks use for family history research are indexes or transcripts that were done by government WPA workers during the depression.

It used to be the only alternative was looking thru microfilm records at the library so the census indexes that were published in books or online could save time. Although they are helpful they are only as good as the person who did them.

Consider the death record of Denard Roberts Fulford. It shows he was born in the Dakota Territories. I've seen this fact copied into a number of online family trees.

But when I looked at this and the other members of his family, it just didn't make any sense. His father and mother were born in North Carolina as were all his siblings.

How did his folks travel all the way to the Dakotas for his birth and then back to North Carolina for the others? Every census record I found for him and his father was in North Carolina.

When I finally got an opportunity to see the original, instead of the Dakota Territories, what I found was DK or "don't know."

Social Security Card

For anyone who has lost their wallet, getting ID cards replaced is a lot of trouble. I had mine stolen from my car a couple years ago and my daughter lost her wallet on a trolley car in San Francisco last year.

One of the worst things to replace is the Social Security card. There is no way to do it without going to the Social Security office in person and standing in line. It can be an all day process.

I was surprised to find the Social Security Administration was so efficient in sending copies of original Social Security applications. Most of us can't even remember filing such an application because we did it in grade school or our parents did it for us.

For my Grandparent's generation, it was done when they were adults. This is the application from my Grandpa Green. He filled it out seventy three years ago today, June 1, 1938.

These applications, completed by adults, do have some interesting information about their life.

I never knew he worked at a Billiards Parlor, but there it is! He was 58 years old at the time.