Genealogy Jottings

Earlier this month the Colorado Genealogical Society and Denver Public Library hosted their annual genealogy seminar with Rev. David MacDonald speaking on various topics. As usual, the seminar provided both inspiration and some new information. I especially enjoyed MacDonald’s wonderful summary of the evolution of Protestantism in the United States. He cleared up some of my puzzling family changes in denomination between Congregationalists and Presbyterians. I came away with new research ideas after an enjoyable day at DPL and a nice lunch catered by Udi’s.

Last week I mentioned a mysterious boy in the Reed household in 1855. I remarked that Thomas B. Reed would have been the right age for this boy, but family records show that Thomas had died before 1855. Interestingly, family records show a birth and death date discrepancy for this child. According to Michael Hayden’s book The Reeds of Ashmore, Thomas was born 1850, died 11 April 1851, and was buried in the Reed cemetery. The appendix to the book, however, includes a photocopy of the family pages from the Bible that belonged to Thomas’ parents, Caleb and Jane Reed. The pages list Thomas B. b. 19 May 1853, d. 12 April 1854, three years after the dates listed by Hayden. Which set of dates is correct? Hayden does not state the source for his information. On the Bible page, the first three deaths span a 10-year period and are written in the same hand. From a photocopy, I cannot analyze the ink to determine whether the entries were made the same day. If the birth and death were recorded 10 years after the fact, a mistake is not unlikely. How can I resolve this? I wonder whether Thomas has a cemetery marker or if his death was listed in a local newspaper. I will add these research tasks to my “To Do” list.

Recently I located my Reed family on the 1855 Illinois State Census. To my bewilderment, an extra boy resided in the household that year. Unfortunately, the census gives the name only of the head of household, and everyone else appears as a hash mark in an age column. The extra boy is under 10 years old. This family did have a son, Thomas B. Reed, who would have been that age in 1855, but family records show that he died before then. So is our death date for Thomas incorrect, or was someone else living with the Reeds that year? I have eliminated the other possibility of a previously unknown child. Why? Because the mother reported in 1900 that she had borne 11 children, and all are accounted for.

Lately, genealogy work has been on hold for me because of an age-related health emergency with a relative. I find myself paying close attention to each diagnosis. As parents or grandparents grow older and increasingly frail, their health problems give me a glimpse of what my own health might be like in later years. Beyond the immediate family, death certificates for more distant ancestors or collateral relatives can reveal patterns of illness that run in my family. Heart disease, diabetes, dementia, osteoporosis–these and more have a hereditary component. Knowing the conditions that might affect me enables me to work towards lowering the risk of some conditions and seeking early treatment for others. Knowledge truly is power when it comes to one’s health.

As a child, I loved reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s famous Little House series. Now I have discovered that my own family had some of the same experiences hers did. Wilder’s book Little House On the Prairie is set in southeastern Kansas, and Laura’s younger sister Carrie Wilder was born near Independence in 1870. I have learned from the census that my Reed family resided not far away from them near Erie, Kansas at the same time. My great-aunt Anna Reed McDavitt was born there, also in 1870. The Reeds left the area soon after, as did the Ingalls family. Perhaps these moves had something to do with uncertain titles to the land. The Osage tribe had just ceded much of the territory and were relocating to Oklahoma. Settlers were pouring in and staking tenuous preemptive claims. I now need to take a look at the Kansas land records to see if the Reed family appears there.

Norway did not require family surnames until the 1920’s. Before that, most Norwegians used a patronymic system where each person went by his own name and his father’s first name plus the suffix sen for men and datter for women. Women did not take their husband’s name when they married. Hence, my great-grandmother was always Sofie Marie Sivertsdatter in Norway. Norwegian immigrants to America had to choose a surname when they came here. Often they used the father’s patronymic for everyone. Many also chose the name of their farm in Norway. In Tony’s family, they began with the patronymic Jorgensen but later switched to the farm name Hjelmstad. In my family, all went by the Bentsen or Bentzen name. I have not yet found a reason for this because in Norway my male ancestors lived on the Bervik farm and were known as Ole Lorentsen and Lorents Andersen. I have not yet located anyone named Bent in our family tree. It is a small mystery I would like to solve.

Over the years, many states took a census in mid-decade. These often contain different information than the federal census does, and I have looked at those for Nebraska and North Dakota in the past to flesh out a family. This week it finally dawned on me to look for that rascal Samuel Reed on the 1885 Kansas census which is available on Ancestry. I knew my great-aunt was born in Harper County in 1884, but the family moved on to Missouri some time after that. I got lucky! They were in Edwards County, KS in 1885! This census is wonderful because it includes birthplace (not just the state but also town/county) and information on Civil War service. The only problem with the data for Sam Reed is that his war service information conflicts with what is reported on the 1890 Missouri schedule of surviving veterans. The Kansas census says he served on pontoons in Illinois; the 1890 schedule states he served in the Kansas infantry. He is not on the Kansas roster, however, so now I can follow up on this Illinois pontoon clue. A state census can really move research along if one remembers to look there.

My great-grandfather Samuel H. Reed eludes me because he had a fairly common name, married more than once, and moved around a lot. I still do not have a complete census survey for him. I came one step closer recently when I finally found his record on the 1870 U.S. census. I knew that the prior year he had married Nancy Dudley in Illinois, and the first child, Anna, was born in Kansas in August 1870. Yet for years I could not locate Samuel and his bride in 1870 in Illinois, Kansas, or anywhere else. Finally, using some creative search techniques on Ancestry, I found them in Neosho County, Kansas. The script for their surname was a little hard to make out, and it had been indexed as “Beed”, not “Reed”. With modern technology, I could search for Samuel with just a first name and a birth year, bypassing the mis-indexed surname. Gotcha, Sam!

Last year I spent my research time on my Norwegian family. At the end of the year, I had enough information to do a nice biographical sketch of my great-grandparents, Sofie and Ole Bentsen. I have done similar sketches of other great-grandparents in previous years, including Laura Riddle and Anna Petronellia Sherman. Among those I still need to do is my paternal great-grandfather, Samuel Harvey Reed. He had what the cousins call “that Reed wanderlust”, and he traveled around a lot. I have many gaps in his timeline, and his Civil War service remains undocumented. Even his name is a puzzle because he was the oldest son yet not named for any family member that I can identify. Yet both he and a cousin were named “Samuel Harvey”, so who was the original Samuel Harvey? This year I plan to focus my research efforts on my Samuel and the Reed line. This guy will be tough!

This Christmas I received one of the best gifts a genealogist could get–a membership to Ancestry.com for a year. Thank you, Tony! In the past, I have saved my Ancestry research questions for occasional trips to the public library with the laptop to use their subscription. Because I had no printer for the laptop, I had to save all the images I wanted and then take time later to retrieve and print them at home. A cumbersome procedure at best. Now I can do all at once without leaving my office! The only downside I can see is that I will spend too much time next year on research  and not enough on updating the database or writing articles. Still, I do love the research side of genealogy the most, so maybe  it would not be so bad to give in to the temptation for 2011.