A Walk Through the Neighborhood

In our race to find as many ancestors as possible—"How far back have you gone?" is a typical question I hear when people learn of my fascination with family history—we sometimes forget to slow down and wander through all the data we've discovered on our ancestors.

Keeping that in mind—slow down and open your eyes—I took that advice to heart while puzzling over the origins of my second great-grandfather, William Alexander Boothe. I had learned from a reliable fellow researcher that it was likely that "Alexander" was born in Nansemond County, Virginia, and I did locate an entry for his young family there in the 1840 census.

So I heeded that advice and took a look around the ninety one pages of that county's census enumeration for 1840 to see how many other Boothe families might have also lived in the neighborhood. The search proved productive. Of course, Boothe—or its more oft-used spelling, Booth—is a common surname, so the discovery may not provide any helpful information. But the exercise is an important one to check off any researcher's to-do list, when faced with puzzles such as mine.

Among the other Boothe entries I found in the 1840 Nansemond County enumeration was an enigmatic listing of one man's name as "Edmond of Boothe." Other than that, though, the others were fairly straightforward. There was one Boothe family—under the head of household named Andrew Boothe—on the page following the entry I mentioned yesterday for Nathaniel Boothe.

Then came the long haul of several pages of census records without any further sign of the surname I was seeking. And then, someone named Kinchen Boothe. A little bit further and I found two more hits, right next to each other, for Robert and Henry Boothe.

And that was all. Six Boothe households, besides mine, out of nearly eleven thousand people resident in the county. What were the chances that any of these other households represented actual relatives of my William Alexander Boothe?

Since I was sifting through the neighborhood's records, the next question on my mind was: just what neighborhood was this? Were there any names identifying the precincts? Going back to the original page where I found Alexander Boothe, I looked to the header to see what, if anything, identified the area, and found this handwritten entry:

 
At first, it looked like the handwriting had specified "Cedar Hill," but when I looked closely at the same wording on several pages, it became clear that the line was saying "division allotted to Kedar Hill."

That didn't stop me from looking, at first, for any place names in the now-extinct Nansemond County called Cedar Hill, and what should I find but a cemetery with that same name, located in the current county designation as Suffolk. And, happy bonus that it was, the cemetery actually contained some Boothe surnames, including that of Joseph Boothe, who might have been the young son listed in Nathaniel Boothe's 1840 census listing.

Cedar Hill, being an oft-used place name, might have just been a coincidence—not to mention, a mis-reading of what actually had been written on the 1840 census. And so, back to the drawing board it was, in developing my search strategy further. As it happened, though, I didn't have to look long, thanks to Google Books, which brought up one gem showing that there was indeed someone back then with the name Kedar Hill—a man who, not much later, was appointed Postmaster of the Suffolk post office in Nansemond County by 1847.

While I learned that Kedar Hill was a person and not a place name, it still didn't help me figure out the relationship between the several Boothe men in the county. A question like this is beginning to look like a quest to research what may turn out to be someone else's family tree, but it is still worth the effort. After all, once I locate any other records for this now non-existent county, it may turn out that at least one of these Boothe men was indeed connected to my family.

Taking the chance of barking up the wrong family tree is worth it, because at least confirming a negative report can point me away from a wrong direction. And, from looking at all the other trees on this man that I've run across online, there are a lot of guesses out there. They can't all be right! 

A Boothe Nearby

A good lesson to keep in mind, when researching Southern lines, is the possibility that nearby families sporting the same surname may indeed be related. Recalling this lesson from my Southern Research class at SLIG last year may actually reveal over-reaching hopefulness on my part, but I thought I'd give it a try in this current research challenge. After all, I know nothing about who the parents of William Alexander Boothe might have been. All I know is that my second great-grandfather came from Nansemond County, Virginia.

Finding Alexander in the 1840 census in Nansemond County was an encouraging start. Even more so, when I flipped the page from his entry and discovered, four lines later, an entry for another Boothe family. This one was for the household of a man named Nathaniel Boothe, who was somewhere between the ages of forty and fifty. If closer to fifty, for my William Alexander Boothe, born in 1812, that could place his neighbor at precisely the perfect age to be—possibly—his father. Not only that, but father of an oldest son.

There were other people in this household of Nathaniel Boothe, of course. Youngest was a possible son between the ages of five and nine. Then, too, there was the expected female in this family, as well—a woman under the age of fifty, like Nathaniel, himself. Even more interesting was that there was a second woman in the household, aged about twenty years older than both Nathaniel and his assumed wife.

Whether these were the right people to represent William Alexander Boothe's parents is hard to say, just from this one census record. After all, just because the two entries are separated by only four lines on the document doesn't necessarily mean that the two Boothe households lived close to each other. It is impossible now to determine the route the enumerator might have taken in completing his duties in 1840.

It would be a good idea to search through the 1840 census for this county to see if there were any other families by the same surname—which I will have no problem doing, since the population of that now-extinct county was under eleven thousand in 1840 and the census entries were one line per head of household. Not exactly an easy task, but not daunting, either.

In addition to slogging through the 1840 census for Nansemond County, though, I've taken a look through other available resources. It turns out that there are a number of other places where a few things can be found about the various Boothe families of the area. Virginia may have suffered fires and wars, but there apparently are some other records available, after all.

"Oh, I Heard That One, Too"

Vanquishing those persistent family legends may become one of my goals as I work my way through my many family lines leading back to Virginia. The Booth surname, in particular, presents a family story which not only refuses to die, but has become so widespread that it may never be snuffed out.

Just thinking of the surname Booth may prompt you to recall one southern sympathizer of infamy who possessed that very name: John Wilkes Booth. Yes, the man at the center of the biggest man-hunt to date in 1865 Washington, D.C., may have been reported shot and killed, but the story still lives that the man who died at the hands of a Union sharpshooter may not have been John Wilkes Booth, after all. And in that bait and switch, in the conflagration of the moment, the real John Wilkes Booth supposedly escaped to the South and lived out his days at a horse ranch in Texas.

That horse ranch, supposedly, was none other than the property of Quinton Boothe, eldest son of William Alexander Boothe, my second great-grandfather. While it is true that Quinton Boothe moved to Texas after the Civil War, and while he did end up with a fair amount of property there, when I first heard that story as a child, I chalked it up to my maternal grandfather telling one of his fabulous, unbelievable stories. One could never be sure, with him, whether he was pulling the leg of his listeners for fun, or actually detailing a factual—though incredible—report.

Fast-forward to the age of the Internet and the birth of a new kind of family history research: online genealogy forums. I'd run into people on these forums who also were researching the Boothe/Booth line and, eventually, someone I never met would recount that very story of the incredible escape of John Wilkes Booth. We'd get into a group conversation about the tale, and the typical response would be, "Oh, I heard that one, too."

But...everyone hearing it? That's quite the persistent family legend for people so distantly related to have all heard the same thing.

The messiest part of the story, however, was one added detail: that the reason the assassin escaped to that particular location was that William Alexander Boothe's family was related to him.

Try as I might, I have not been able to find documentation demonstrating any such connection. Of course, you might already have assumed that outcome, and I wouldn't blame you—but you can't fault me for trying to demonstrate by evidence whether the vote is yay or nay about that claim. After all, the story is so persistent that I even got a phone call, a few years ago, from someone who was considering attempting legal procedures to exhume the supposed burial location for purposes of DNA testing.

That attempt has been tried before—even the nameless author of the blurb attached to John Wilkes Booth's Find A Grave memorial noted that "modern day legal efforts to exhume the remains for DNA testing and identification were eventually rejected."

Whether that question will ever be tested and put to rest is beyond the scope of my own family history—despite having actually found someone who contorted William Alexander Boothe's family tree on one online service to place him as brother of John Wilkes Booth and son of Junius Brutus Booth. What I can move towards, though, is to encourage male descendants of my William Alexander Boothe to participate in Y-DNA testing, especially joining the Booth DNA project at Family Tree DNA.

Though I don't yet know who my Alexander's father might have been, it turns out that, despite the loss of many early records in his native Nansemond County, Virginia, the very 1840 census enumeration in which I found his record puts his name only a few entries away from another man of the same surname. It is quite possible that, tracing a descendancy chart for the other Boothe families in Nansemond County, we could put together a project to test descendants of the various Boothe lines in that county to see which ones, if any, belong to the same line.

The big "if" in that case all depends on who that other Boothe man in Nansemond was—and if he had any sons...who had sons...who had sons...

Pursuing a Family Secret

Has your genealogical research ever been complicated by a family legend? I know mine has—and, as it turns out, the legend which complicates the quest to find my Boothe family's origin is a story spread far and wide among my distant cousins. People I don't even know have told me, "Oh, I heard that story, too."

Since I'm in a research mode to focus on my roots leading back to Virginia—after all, in five weeks, I'll be taking a course in colonial Virginia research at SLIG—I figured I may as well face the facts now and see if I can sort them into a logical stack of notes. So, this week, I'll start that process with my Boothe line.

William Alexander Boothe—"Alexander"—my great-great grandfather, is easily discoverable in east Tennessee, where my maternal grandfather grew up. From the time Alexander married my second great-grandmother, Rachel T. Riley, on September 12, 1854, he spent the remainder of his days in Washington County. Like clockwork, I could find his large family's entry in each subsequent census, up until the time of his death in 1895.

But that first census record after Alexander and Rachel were married gives a clue to a life before this marriage. The oldest child in the Boothe household in the 1860 census—David—shows an age pre-dating the marriage joining the two adults in the family. Sure enough, checking the previous census record for Alexander and David, a household of three males shows us a father and two (likely) sons: David and an older brother named Quinton.

Furthermore, both census records show us that William Alexander Boothe was born in Virginia, not Tennessee. But where?

That is the point at which I—and several other distant cousins researching the same line—lose the paper trail. Thankfully, over the years, I've had the privilege of connecting with these distant cousins about our mutual research problem, and we've shared our notes regarding this puzzle. One avid researcher, decades ago, told me he couldn't find much documentation, but he had traveled from Tennessee to Virginia to follow the paper trail at the very earliest times of online genealogical resources.

His conclusion: William Alexander Boothe originated in a county in Virginia called Nansemond. More tantalizing, this researcher divulged his discoveries about just why Alexander might have left home in Virginia to move his two young sons to Tennessee: after the death of his wife, he might have gotten himself into some financial trouble, and the best way to resolve his money woes might have been to skip town.

Of course, that isn't the only family legend tied to this Boothe surname, but taken by itself, it was a lead that might easily be followed up on. Sure enough, there was an Alexander Boothe at the very bottom of one page of the 1840 census for Nansemond County. Even better, his household included a young son of about the same age as our Alexander's oldest son, Quinton, who was born about 1838. It would just be a matter of going through property and tax records of that decade to see what might have prompted our Alex to make a hasty departure across the state line.

Simple enough, right? Only problem: there is no such place as Nansemond County in Virginia—not any more, that is. It is an extinct county. Though the records were shifted to the independent city courthouse in Suffolk, even finding them there would not solve my research dilemma, as the earliest records date back to the 1850s for births, marriages and deaths—and the late 1860s for land and probate records.

Besides that, you know the story for many of those southern jurisdictions: what was there to help with research inevitably was destroyed in a fire, some time in the county's past history. Sure enough, that was indeed what happened to older records such as the 1810 census, which might have shown us Alexander's possible father's household just before his 1812 birth; Nansemond was among eighteen Virginia counties for which such a loss occurred.

Still, it is worth the time to take a look at what can be discovered about any possible Boothe family members living in the former Nansemond County. As it turns out, there are several resources which can be accessed, online—and there is no time like the present to start up my to-do list for locating books and microfilm to consult, once I get to Salt Lake City for that week-long training session next January. After all, I have another family legend to vanquish while I'm in the neighborhood.

Above: Entry of Alexander Boothe's name in the 1840 census for Nansemond County, Virginia, found courtesy of Ancestry.com.   

The Imperative of Sharing Family Stories

A family story—even a family legend—is a wisp of a trail pointing back to the stuff we are made of. That, of course, signals just who we are. Our genes carry powerful messages from generation to generation, and we, recipients of that DNA, express the messages sent us by our ancestors in so many ways.

It's not just a matter of nature. We have nurture to thank for much of our heritage, as well. But the two, intertwined—nature and nurture—make a package deal out of the inheritance we've received from our elders.

Even though we might—as have so many others in our situation—bemoan the fact that we never stopped to think about asking grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles about their ancestors, we can be fairly sure that what we think, how we feel, how we express ourselves or tackle our day-to-day problems is our forebears writ large in our everyday existence.

Yet, much like the adoptee searching for his roots, when we don't have literal stories to couple with those natural impulses, we feel that detached sense of being unhinged from our past. It is when we have the stories to grab onto, to handle, that we can better see ourselves as part of a continuum of generations, rather than that detached individual.

Research has, of course, found a way to document such psychological underpinnings. I knew that stuff already, of course—ever since Bruce Feiler's column broached the subject in The New York Times in 2013—but thanks to a recent post in blogger John D. Reid's Anglo-Celtic Connections, I now have a new article to share concerning the same point, spun off of another article which came complete with links to all those research papers I had already read.

The take-home from all this is simple: when we share our family's stories—better yet, pass them down through the ages—we help build resilience and a sense of connectedness in our younger generations. But what I love about the article John Reid found is that it puts a new spin on the task of "interviewing" our elders: instead of serving as chatty talk-show host fronting a commercially-laced interview process, Tara Calishain heads to current tech resources such as YouTube and Spotify with an eye to finding conversation starters as sure-fire prompts for reminiscing. An excellent idea, resource, and way to switch the routine up from "tell us about when you weren't so old" to using events, media and music from before their time to say to our relatives, "You were too young for this, but tell me what it was like for you."

There is something so valuable, so irreplaceable about sharing our family's stories. Whether we tell those tales while sitting around the dinner table, or after opening gifts during the holidays, or on a long drive to a family vacation destination—not to mention, in a blog post which will remain findable online for years afterwards—it doesn't matter: we are giving a gift which can resonate in the lives of descendants (as well as distant cousins) we've yet to meet.

Now Indexing: More NYC Immigration Records

It's time to add a little confetti to my holiday calendar—and take care of a monthly giving-back goal before that holiday calendar gets too hectic. (Yes, for those who complete an indexing project at FamilySearch.org, the website showers electronic confetti from top to bottom of your computer screen.)

I like to do my tiny bit, in thanks for all the help that's come my way over the years, by indexing a couple sets of records every month at FamilySearch.org. Indexing—the process of turning digitized pictures of historical documents into searchable records—does not take long, once you've read up on a few tips and instructions, and it gives the satisfaction of being of help to others. After all, we all enjoy the comparative exponential search speed, post-Internet compared to pre-Internet. The indexing process makes it possible for more records to be directly searched (versus browsed) by people looking to verify their ancestors' stories.

Since my family came to North America through the port of New York City—and likely completed some of the same forms I'm indexing today—I like to work on that record set when I do my volunteer work for FamilySearch.org. I love seeing the wide variety of situations, smashed into bureaucratic constriction, and can only imagine the stories those forms preserved.

This time, I spotted an immigrant from Finland who somehow found true love with an immigrant from Italy—about as far apart on the continent, and as varied in physical surroundings, as one can get. I also noticed an Irish immigrant who gave, for her place of birth, a tongue-twisting name of a town which surely will be a gift to any of her descendants, if they come seeking traces of her path.

If only those future researchers could share their stories of finding these documents online. What fun it would be to see the expressions on the faces of those who have, at long last, followed the paper trail back one step farther than they ever had, before. 

Time to Get to Work

Today may be the springboard into another weekend—another weekend leading up to the holidays, no less—but that doesn't signal any excuses to kick back and forsake those research goals. This coming Sunday leaves only five weeks until I fly to the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. It's time to get all my Virginian ancestors organized for a great research opportunity. After all, my SLIG treat is to attend what may be Barbara Vines Little's last class on Virginia research there.

It would be so much easier if I could say I have one ancestral line to trace through to colonial Virginia. That, of course, turns out to be a far simpler task than I'd hoped. It turns out I have quite a few roots leading back to The Old Dominion—some of those ancestors taking the back roads, and not being particularly helpful in leaving clues as to the trail they took.

In planning out my own research journey (metaphorically speaking, of course; I'm not about to take any road trips before Christmas), I'll be taking the next week to scope out the lay of the land for several ancestral lines, as well as take time to introduce and review each family's migratory situation. I know, for instance, where these families came from, and where they eventually ended up—it's just their time while staying in Virginia that defies documentation.

In order to know where we're going with our research, it helps to know what we already have in hand—an inventory, of sorts, of the scattered bits and pieces already gathered about each of several ancestral families. From that inventory, hopefully, we can launch out into fresh research directions and lay out where else we can obtain records on the missing data for each generation.

Besides helping to orient this researcher in preparation for class at SLIG, there's another reason for organizing this inventory. After all, I will be spending a week a mere block away from one of the largest genealogical libraries in the continent. I may not be able to find what I'm seeking on these Virginia families online, but I may be able to identify resources in Salt Lake City which will help answer some research questions. In a library that size, it's always better to gather that go-to resource list before arriving in town. I may have a week ahead of me, but I don't have a moment to lose!