The Trouble With First Families Programs

 

The trouble with First Families programs is that they don't specify any required minimum amount of time to be spent as resident of the program's location. In our county's First Families program, the certificates designate recognition based on settlement in three time periods: before 1860, between 1860 and 1880, and before the moving century mark—in other words, by 1924 for this year's program.

The presumption, of course, is that once a family settled in our county, they would stay in our county—and not until our modern times do we suppose descendants might finally leave the county for other locations. That, however, is not always the case. Last week, for instance, as we explored the Hutchins and Nevin families in San Joaquin County, examining the two name twins—Nathan Nevin and Nathan D. Nevin—revealed that one of the two cousins, after nearly thirty years, had moved to another county.

Perhaps that man's legacy in our county may have been lost to some descendants who, had they known the full story, might otherwise have been able to point to resources to add to their family's saga. Yet over such a time span of that length, it is certain that some documents would eventually be discovered, despite the move.

But what about people who came to this county and stayed for only a few years? Squeezing a stay in a location between two census enumerations, for instance, might make that fact invisible to the ancestor's researchers, unless the name was recorded in land records or an annual city directory. Do those people count? Would they qualify for recognition in a First Families program?

That's the unanswered question—at least for our county's First Families program. And I just realized I have already researched one woman's path that led her to our county, if only for a span of far less than five years.

Unless you have been a longtime follower of A Family Tapestry, you may not recognize the name of Harriet Isabel Beeman Blain Johnson, but after I share her story tomorrow, perhaps you'll realize, as I have, that a county's story is not only made up of the well-known and well-connected, but of the hundreds of nearly-nameless faces who add their touch to our neighborhoods, if only for a brief while.