Capturing Conversations

 

With the holidays fast approaching—and some gatherings already accomplished among those family members with too many invitations to honor in too few days—thoughts of possible conversations to capture come to mind. In my case, I've already had the opportunity to visit with my oldest remaining cousin, who will soon turn ninety two. Whenever he mentioned a family detail I wanted to remember—but was sure to forget!—my husband came up with a way to guarantee we didn't lose it.

Years ago, we might have pulled out a tape recorder to preserve the words of an older relative—until we realized there is no faster way to put the brakes on a conversation than to stick a microphone in someone's face. Something about that technology seemed to freeze up the flow of conversation. People became too self-conscious of what they were saying. Coming to a visit armed with pens and notebooks likewise seemed to introduce a disruptor to the otherwise easy give and take of a natural conversation. So we'd just rely on our memories to reconstruct the narrative after the visit was over.

That was when we had memories that could hold on to details for hours on end. This is not then. For this visit, when my cousin mentioned a detail we really wanted to remember—the name of the author of a book he really appreciated, for instance—my husband simply pulled out his phone to make a note. Because my husband uses voice activated dictation ("Thumbs are too fat," he'd claim) he'd simply open his "notes" app, talk into his phone in an easy conversational manner, then pull in my cousin with a question—"What was the name of that author?" for instance—and transform what otherwise would have been a monologue into a three-way conversation, all captured on his phone, a device we all are so familiar with using.

Introducing the phone's note app into the conversation as an unobtrusive tool the group is using together seemed so much more natural than what so many of us used to try in years long past. It had more of the feel of a team working jointly on a project than an audience riveted on the words of one unprepared speaker.

Thankfully, the days of the cassette tape recorder and its far too obvious microphone are long past. While I'm glad for my relatives who did manage to coax reluctant elders to spill their guts for the requested monologue of their life's story, I've always wondered what those relatives would really have sounded like, rather than the nervous, uptight, hemming-and-hawing amateur performers that they came across as. The conversational give-and-take of teamwork, where the interviewee is actually a working part of the group, rather than the target of its focus, certainly yields a far more natural-sounding impression.

While we may be interested in what our older relatives have to tell us—and they may be just as interested to let us know those important details—approaching the project jointly may be a more satisfying effort for all of us.

Turning Points

 

Here in the northern hemisphere, we just passed the shortest day of the year. Looking ahead, the days will get imperceptibly longer—and noticeably colder. Sometimes, those turning points can be rather obvious. Other times, the change has to overtake us before we even begin to realize what happened.

The new year is one of the more obvious turning points. Some people plan for the "new you" they will become with the flip of that special page on the calendar. I've never been one for New Year's resolutions, but this year I'm already gearing up for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025. I've given it quite a bit of thought, ever since I realized I hadn't planned for this year's technology advances which could favorably impact my research progress. Less than one month spent on my father's ancestry this past fall and I woke up to how much more can be accomplished when newly digitized record sets become available online. The game changer is increased access.

While my numbers today for my biweekly count hardly show any turning point despite that game changer—I only added seventy nine more documented family members to my parents' tree—the steady plodding through available digitized records over the years has resulted in a tree which now totals 38,752 relatives. Besides this month's focus on First Families candidates, I also managed to work on my in-laws' tree as a follow-up to discovery of a DNA match. Seventeen new names in that tree puts the total count for my husband's lines at 37,044.

Before long, it will be decision time for a new year of research. This time, I'll know better than to slack when I think lack of records access would hold me back. Between new—or new-to-me—websites in the countries of my family's origin and AI-assisted developments like FamilySearch labs' full text search and reading capabilities, I'm looking forward to selecting the most frustrating—yet now promising—family lines for my research focus in 2025. 

Only four more days and I'll begin selections for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025. I'm ready to reach some turning points in that constant quest to break through ancestral brick walls in the upcoming year.

In a Blink

 

This month, I've been keeping a close eye on the calendar. With so much on the schedule, the month is flying by. In a blink, it will be Christmas and I am hardly ready for that big event. After all, I just spent ten days—despite the pressure of impending holidays—on a special trip to Florida, where I got to visit with family and celebrate some special events. Times like that make a pleasant detour from the requirements of holiday preparations, yet create more pressure with every passing day not on task.

Traveling always gets me thinking, especially as I expand that ever-growing family tree. How many people in the airport do I pass who might be my third or fourth cousins? They are just a blip on the radar of the many faces of strangers I see in the passing crowds, and just as fleeting an entry among the many collateral relatives who fill my family tree.

Among the family members we visited on this journey was my ninety one year old—and oldest—cousin. I can't help but recall memories of him in his younger years. It was he who first introduced me to the tongue-in-cheek label of "outlaws" as a way to explain the connection between in-laws of in-laws. He was one of several cousins and siblings who had chased for years after that family mystery of my paternal origins—Polish, not Irish as my grandfather's story had always portrayed it. If it weren't for this cousin sharing old photographs, I would never have known what my paternal grandparents looked like, for they died before I was even born. This is a cousin who treasures his family history.

Ninety one years of a full life may be a remarkable achievement, not to mention a blessing of good health and fortune. But even notable situations like that may be gone in a blink, making such moments as this all the more a treasure. I often hear people complain about "having" to visit family over the holidays; perhaps, on the contrary, it is an unrecognized blessing to be able to spend time with relatives. Sometimes, we don't recognize it until—blink—we can't do so any more. 

Known by the Road They Lived On

 

In sorting out the various pioneer families named Ashley in our county—each of whom claimed the same surname—it was interesting to discover that local people differentiated those men by the road they lived on. There was, for instance, George H. Ashley of the Woodbridge Road, and George W. Ashley "on the Cherokee Lane road." Fortunately for me, since I've been tracing the history of the latter Ashley and know the roads in this area, these designations helped. It is, after all, my goal to determine who might have been the specific person from the right Ashley family whose name subsequently was carried on a street sign near my home.

However, the 1930 census revealed that the naming of the street, which I had supposed to be named after George W. Ashley, was already accomplished. There, residing on Ashley Lane, was the subject of my hypothesis, along with his wife Clara and daughter Lorett. 

The 1930 census gave me some guidance on where the Ashley property might originally have been. As census records of the 1900s provided, the first vertical column contained entries for the street names as the enumerators made their rounds through each neighborhood. Just above the listing of families on Ashley Lane were the names of families living on Foppiano Road. A quick check of a street map shows the corner where the two streets intersect, now the domain of a local fire station near the Calaveras River in California's San Joaquin County. 

Searching through local newspaper collections for both the city to the south—Stockton—and the city to the north named Lodi, I found additional guidance concerning the property. George W. Ashley was apparently a vineyardist who eventually believed that smaller parcels would better suit the needs of those who specialized in wine grapes. That, in fact, was what he decided to do with half of his 350 acres in 1922, according to one article in The Lodi Sentinel, subdividing the land into ten and fifteen acre parcels and selling them.

That, however, couldn't be the end of the story, for the census previous to that 1922 newspaper article's announcement also revealed the name of the street where George lived, at that time listed as Ashley Road.

This George W. Ashley had an interesting life, judging from the many mentions I found of his name in local newspapers. He ran for state office and was elected, for instance, as a representative to the California state assembly from 1916 through 1920, as well as being active in many local organizations. The presumption could be that someone with a life story like that might logically have been the one to see his name appended to a street sign or other honorary remembrance. But the honor might have gone to someone else in this case of the lane called Ashley.

A brief mention in the obituary of George W. Ashley's mother might shed some light—though I'm still far from accomplishing any goal of finding documentation of the source of that designation. When Algeline Jackson Ashley died in 1903, a long obituary featured her history in the Stockton Daily Record on September 14. Among the notes concerning the widow of William D. Ashley—"one of the oldest and best known women in the county"—Mrs. Ashley's obituary mentioned her connection to a prominent son in Stockton: Arthur H. Ashley, a former District Attorney, and brother to George W. Ashley. As for George's own mention in his mother's obituary, it was noted that he "conducts the Ashley farm."

Was George the son who inherited the family farm? Was it George's father to whom the honor of the namesake street sign was owed? Unlike the story of the Hildreth family, whose descendants knew well for whom that street was named, I have yet to run into any mention of the Ashley family history reflected in the obituaries of William Ashley's descendants. But I'm still far from done reviewing all the descendants of William and Algeline Ashley. Perhaps another son's descendants will echo that story in subsequent generations.  

Finding the Right Family

 

There is yet another particular street in my county which I knew was named after a pioneer settler—but which one, I forgot. Since I knew this settler would certainly be eligible for recognition as a First Families designee for our local genealogical society's program, I wanted to get that detail correct. However, there were several unrelated families possessing that same surname who all arrived in the earliest years of our county's history. As it turns out, finding the right family name will be a challenge.

The street is named Ashley Lane. Despite the mental image which might be conjured by the designation of this road as a "lane," the street winds its way for several miles across both residential areas and stretches of farmland to connect two different state highways. For that reason, it was hard to pinpoint just whose original parcel might have been the one lending the adjacent road its owner's name.

Since a good number of the several families named Ashley arrived during the early years of California statehood—some, as we've already noted, who came here following news of the gold rush—I began searching, one family at a time, to see whether descendants might have mentioned awareness of a heritage including having a road named after an ancestor. After all, we had already witnessed that with the Hildreth family we reviewed yesterday.

In the case of finding which Ashley family was honored by the street name, the answer is "not yet." So we'll spend a few days searching for more details. After all, each of the families I've reviewed so far are First Families eligible, so the study will be helpful on that one account.

Take, for instance, my original guess as to the correct subject: Jireh Perry Ashley from Massachusetts. Following the lines of his four sons in San Joaquin County, I soon realized none of them had any children who could claim the honor of becoming the namesake for that street.

However, among the members of the Pioneer Society at Stockton mentioned in the 1890 Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, California was a settler named William D. Ashley. In fact, when the California State Library assembled their "Pioneer and Immigrant Files" stretching from 1790 to 1950, there was a three-page entry for William Ashley. Not much was said in that 1890 book, other than that he was born in 1819 in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and came across the plains to reach California in 1850. But by 1852, the book noted, William D. Ashley had purchased land in San Joaquin County.

Whether that parcel of land, eight miles from the city of Stockton, became the inspiration for naming the street we now know, I can't say. But I did find a few details about this family which merit a closer look. We'll continue that chase tomorrow.

Knowing the Family's Story

 

Much has been said for the power of knowing one's own family history, and the resilience it can bestow upon members of subsequent generations. In the case of one local settler eligible for recognition in our county's First Families program, those descendants apparently knew that story well, judging from its repeat appearance in family lore in later generations.

That family represented the descendants of Elias Hildreth, born in Gardiner, Maine, in 1823. A romanticized version of his story appeared in a local history book from 1890, An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, California. The story of his arrival in California in 1849, according to that biographical sketch, makes it seem as if he had made the six month journey around the Horn by himself. Checking the 1850 census, however, shows a different story: that he, his wife Miranda, and three year old son were then living in Providence, Rhode Island.

An 1867 entry in California's Great Register does show Elias as a registered voter in California, living in O'Neal Township in San Joaquin County at the time, and a brief announcement of the birth of his second son in November of 1865 in the Sacramento Bee confirms his family's residence near that outback territory along the Calaveras River.

No matter how, exactly, the story unfolded, it is clear from tracing the family's line of descent that they knew the history of how their ancestors arrived during the earliest years of San Joaquin County. From a clipping of the obituary of Myrna Hildreth, preserved by reference librarians at the downtown Stockton library, we can read the words her family wanted to share after her 1989 passing at the age of ninety three.

She was born in 1896 at the family home on Hildreth Lane. Her Grandfather came around the Horn on a Sailing Ship to San Francisco in 1849 and settled in the Stockton area in 1852.

Again, another descendant's obituary shared the family story through a transcription of a more recent obituary from 2013, posted at Ancestry.com:

His great-grandfather, Elias Hildreth, for whom Hildreth Lane is named, came to this area in the mid 1850s from Rhode Island.

Indeed, Hildreth Lane could have marked one border of Elias Hildreth's original farm of 354 acres—and if not, possibly the ranch he bought subsequently, containing another 240 acres five miles to the northeast of Stockton. Whether the residents of the tree-shaded street now know anything about the man for whom the road was named, I can't tell—but I certainly wanted to know more about the person the street was meant to acknowledge. As I've come to find out, there are several other streets here which owe their name to someone whom we can recognize as First Families of our county.  

On the Streets Where we Live

 

Perhaps the reason First Families programs seem so interesting to me is that I've realized how history surrounds us. In all the sights around us are tokens of our location's past. Consider, for example, street signs. Those street names may well be bearing witness to the people who once lived in the very place they are marking.

I've taken an old plat map for our county—San Joaquin County in northern California—and stared at the names listed on the labeled boxes representing farmland ownership. The map is not very old—drawn up in 1895—but it is certainly old enough to be long before my time. Yet I recognize the names of former property owners in my neighborhood, thanks to those very street signs. These are names which can easily be catalogued in our register of First Families. Talk about local roots: if nothing else, that is a project which could help our neighbors recognize their county's heritage.

Take, for instance, the name of rancher Elias Hildreth. This was an immigrant to California from Rhode Island, but he was originally from Gardiner in Kennebec County, Maine. Like many young men in 1849, news of a gold rush launched him on a six month journey around the Horn, arriving in San Francisco on September 9 that same year. Like many, he found that augmenting his mining efforts—which he abandoned by 1851 to work his own trade as a blacksmith—proved to be more profitable in the long run, bringing him eventually to San Joaquin County, where his name can be found on the county's plat map—and on a street sign in the vicinity.

A similar story goes for another surname found on a county street sign: Ashley. Though there are several by this surname in our county, one such family by that name owes its residence in our county to another frantic chase after the gold in the California hills. Whether Jireh Perry Ashley from Massachusetts or any of his descendants were part of the family for which this California street was named, I can't yet tell, but I do see that name featured among those in the 1895 plat map for my county.

Likewise for another California gold rush arrival: a man by the name of L. U. Shippee. Arriving toward the end of the gold rush era in this state, L. U. Shippee found the prospects not as bright as anticipated, and returned to his launching off place in Stockton. There, he met up with a former acquaintance and began the first of several business ventures from which—at least according to one flowery biographical sketch—he eventually experienced a good measure of success. His name, too, appeared among those identified in the county's plat map, and his surname is still commemorated on a street sign as well.

These are just three early settlers in our county whose personal history could use augmentation with some family history, for those descendants who may be seeking more information on their local roots. We'll spend some additional time this week exploring those connections.

Map above: Portion of 1895 plat map of San Joaquin County, California, courtesy of the U. S. Library of Congress.