When Goals Get Messy

You know how family history research goes. Sometimes, we race ahead, finding ourselves still at the computer far past midnight, only because we can't bring ourselves to stop when we are finding so much great material. Other times...

This is one of those other times. True, I had delineated a solid, easily expressed research goal: find the birth locations for my third great-grandparents, William Riley and Cassandra Fincher. I knew they had come from North Carolina, according to their youngest daughter's 1915 death certificate. But attempting to cross reference that one assertion by finding corroborating evidence in the records of any of their other children proved fruitless.

Well, almost. There was this one son. William F. Riley, named after his dad with the one exception of that prominently-displayed middle initial—what did it stand for?—had married Eliza Jane Thompson in 1852 and soon after left their temporary Tennessee home for Indiana.

At least, I thought it was them. All to eventually retrieve a death certificate, I followed a Tennessee family with those details from Washington County to Greene County, before they—or some family which looked suspiciously like theirs—removed to Putnam County, Indiana, by 1870.

Following them from decade to decade, I watched their family grow up, marry, and have children of their own, all—with one notable exception—remaining in Indiana. And then, poof! No sign of William F. Riley and Eliza Jane in Indiana, but by 1906, someone by that very name—William F. Riley, including that specific middle initial—showed up, back in Tennessee. Was it the right Riley?

The document I found him in didn't help relieve any doubt. It was a ledger from the United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, in the "Mountain Branch" located in Johnson City, Tennessee, right where the saga of my third great-grandparents had left off. While the one-page entry in this ledger had the name emblazoned on the top of the ledger—William F. Riley—the various scribbles across the paper didn't add to my confidence.

For instance, the William F. Riley in this document had been born in North Carolina, same as my William F. Riley. He was listed as married. He was also listed as a carpenter, although that would be hard to ascertain, because some previous census records had listed him with another trade, or simply as a "laborer."

The root of my doubt traces back to some other entries on this same page. The record indicated that this William F. Riley died on February 16, 1906, while still at the Home. While the document indicated that William was, at the time, still married, it only noted that, at the time of his death, his "widow and daughter" were present, but never named them specifically. The record detailed his personal effects at the time of his death, and how they were disposed—"Sent to Mary M. Riley, Jonesboro, Tenn., by express"—and that a "Bettie Taylor, Jonesboro, Tenn., notified by letter" on the day of William's death.

Other than another entry on the same page, under the heading, "Name and Address of Nearest Relative," Bettie Taylor was an individual whose connection was never explained. If William were still married, why was this other woman—with a different surname—mentioned as "nearest relative" instead of Eliza Jane? This, especially considering the "wife and daughter" were present at the time of William's passing, is confusing.

More to the point than the confusion of seeing these other people named—but not linked—in the document, was the fact of the document's existence in the first place. According to the ledger, the only reason William was eligible to be residing at this veterans' home was on account of his service in the Mexican War.

Keep in mind, though, that William F. Riley consistently reported the year of his birth in every census enumeration before 1900 as being 1830. This man enlisted in his infantry company in Tennessee on February 10, 1846. Anyone born in 1830 would have been about sixteen years of age in 1846. Would that have been our William, enlisting that young? Or another Riley man with the same name and similar circumstances?

Perhaps easing the doubt is the fact that there was an entry for a William Riley in the 1900 census, living in Johnson City, Tennessee, the same location as the Mountain Branch Soldiers' Home. Believe me, I searched every detail in that census entry with high hopes. If that were our William, this would have been the only census in which he gave his year of birth as 1827 instead of his usual 1830—but perhaps, as have so many boys hoping to see some action in the military in times of war, he knew he had originally fudged on his age, and now had to bring current reports into alignment with past transgressions.

While that may be debatable—and who's there to ask at this point, anyhow?—what was reassuring to me was to flip the page from William's bottom line entry on that 1900 census and see the name of his wife. And yes, it was Eliza J. Added bonus, her year and place of birth agreed with previous reports, and the length given for her marriage was just right for a marriage license dated 1852.

Still, the possibility was too messy for my liking. Those other names—Mary M. Riley and Bettie Taylor—being obviously excluded from being the widow or daughter made me wonder why it was any business of theirs to be notified of this William F. Riley's passing. Would identifying these two women from Jonesboro clear things up? Or make them even messier?

Oh, believe me...I have yet to figure that out, myself.

Above: Heading from the one-page ledger entry for William F. Riley in the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Mountain Branch, in Johnson City, Tennessee; image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Remembering That Goal

It didn't seem quite right, while speed-researching that Riley family tree, to just move on ahead without any notice when encountering the sobering story of William F. Riley's unfortunate grandson, "Junkman Froggett," fallen at the hands of a hit and run driver in Illinois. And yet, despite stumbling down research rabbit holes, we are still left with a research goal that is patiently awaiting an answer. The main task at hand is to discover what happened to William F. Riley, himself, so that we can find the report on his death record noting what became of his parents.

It was William F. Riley's parents—the original William Riley and his wife, Cassandra Fincher—whose origins have had me stumped. True, I have a partial report on the junior William's sister's death certificate that they came from North Carolina, but that isn't enough to help me. After all, North Carolina is a sizeable state—and Riley is a common surname. A little more guidance would be appreciated.

Yet, the elder William Riley's namesake turned out to not provide much guidance with my brick wall research problem (though he did lead us to some curious newspaper articles). And so we sit, at the end of the research trail, with the younger William and his wife fading off into the distance at the last place where we saw them, in Putnam County, Indiana.

Considering the younger William was born about 1830, it's a sure thing that he left a death record somewhere—but where? While I could find nothing in Indiana—nor even in Decatur, that Illinois city where his unfortunate young grandson wandered—there was one tempting document left for me to consider. The drawback was that the William F. Riley this document belonged to died back home in Washington County, Tennessee—a place our William had not seen in decades. What were the chances?

Junkman Froggett

A timeline, based on newspaper snippets, of how one great-grandson of William and Cassie Riley—my own third great-grandparents—came to be known as "Junkman Froggett" of Decatur, Illinois:

March 3, 1930, down on his luck and taking a nighttime walk along the railroad tracks, Henry Froggett is not only held up at knife point for his money—which amounted to only $2 in change in his pocket—but the pants in which pockets the money was found.

January 3, 1935, charged with the theft of a garbage can, Henry is held at the city jail, where he explains he thought it had a hole and "was just a piece of junk." While police felt this was a lead that might link Froggett to other recent garbage can thefts, Henry hoped he could be released from jail before that Friday, when he was supposed to report for work at a new work-relief program.

January 4, 1935, "Junkman Froggett" is released from jail, as no formal complaint was filed against him when the owner of the missing garbage can came to retrieve his property.

May 4, 1937, two Decatur men—yes, including our Henry—are held in the county jail, charged with petit larceny for stealing fifteen chickens from a local woman's home.

November 26, 1940, two men—and Henry remains the only constant in this duo—plead guilty in county court for petit larceny of an inlet grating from the city, and are sentenced to six months at the state farm. Apparently, the strategy of switching from chickens back to scrap metal didn't work for Henry.

July 14, 1943, struck by a freight train at a railroad crossing at 10:00 p.m. the previous night, Henry Froggett was found the following noon by a passerby, and is now recuperating at the local hospital from injuries to his back and arm.

October 14, 1943, while walking uptown from his step-daughter's home at 8:30 p.m., Henry Froggett is struck by a passing automobile, an apparent hit-and-run incident. His body slumps in the darkness, and he sustains injuries to his shoulder and head. A local hospital confirms that he also received internal injuries.

October 16, 1943, Decatur police learn that the driver of a Model A Ford had swerved at the scene of the hit and run incident, realizing in the darkness that there was a body in the road. The driver had gotten out of his car and directed traffic around the slumped body so as to avoid any further injury before an ambulance could arrive.

October 16, 1943, funeral services are held at the Moran & Sons Chapel at 10:30 a.m. for Henry Froggett, with burial at Greenwood Cemetery.

November 12, 1943, the coroner's jury returns the verdict that Henry Froggett, aged 61, died as a result of injuries when struck by a hit-and-run driver. The driver has not yet been found.

Whether Henry Froggett—whom Decatur residents once knew as "Junkman Froggett"—was perpetually down on his luck, or just had a maddening knack for getting things wrong, is hard to tell from this brief litany of his appearances in the local news. Perhaps his was a life doomed from the beginning. Or perhaps we need to consider his shortened and struggling lifespan in parallel with history's own timeline of bad luck episodes in the 1930s and 1940s.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, finding these vignettes of his life's struggles evokes a pathos I couldn't escape. While citizens of one 1940s city in Illinois may have rolled their eyes in impatience at yet another of Henry Froggett's antics, I imagine it might have been hard to be the one living the life of Decatur's Junkman.  

 

 

Accused of Mooching

I'm not certain you can call "mooching" a legal term, but it was a term which could land a person in jail—at least in 1940s Decatur, Illinois. Discovering that the local newspaper applied that charge to a man who turned out to be my second cousin twice removed elicits two responses from me. One, of course, has to do with genealogy—you knew that; otherwise, why share it here?—and the other happens to have the potential to be a risky fascination on my part.

Delving into our roots can be risky in its own right. We start out, thinking well of our parents and assuming they came from worthy stock. We move from the generations we knew personally and step into the unknown of those who have gone before—and left us not a trace of information on their origins. Eventually, we step back from the family tree we have constructed and realize it has taken a shape vaguely reminiscent of that Norman Rockwell painting, "A Family Tree," which at its root included both a princess and a pirate.

After having discovered uplifting stories in my own family tree of people who managed to rise about their life's hardships to achieve notable accomplishments, I slammed right into a brick wall which, once chipped away, revealed a few tales I hadn't expected. That's when I realized I was staring at news reports which answered the risky questions I've always wanted to ask.

You see, in our decade of plenty—along with its paradox, the proliferation of the "homeless"—I have always had that inexplicable desire to approach one of these unfortunate people and have an "open" conversation with them. Something along the lines of asking, "How did you get to this point in your life?"

Whether the answer would be coming from a victim of post-traumatic stress following a tour of military duty, or coming from a young person plagued with mental illness (or simply under the influence of debilitating substances), it might end up being an answer delivered in a less safe manner than my unreasonable self might expect. So I have always kept a respectful distance and kept my mouth shut. But one always wonders....

Yet here, in the quiet of my own home, I've poked away at news records of a bygone era and run into a report of someone being jailed for "mooching." On December 28, 1942—right in the midst of the season proclaiming "peace on earth, good will toward men," an unidentified Decatur newspaper provided a small announcement under the headline, "Accused of Mooching."

Henry Froggett, 60, who police accused of "mooching" on the streets, was held in county jail today under a warrant charging vagrancy.

I never would have discovered this unfortunate turn of events for any man named Henry Froggett, if it weren't for the genealogical chase which led me, in search of my third great-grandparents' place of birth, to trace their grandchildren's life trajectories. From William and Cassandra Fincher Riley in North Carolina, I had wandered across the mountains to northeastern Tennessee, where they settled and saw at least two of their children marry in Washington County. From there, their son's family moved onward in Tennessee and eventually to Indiana, where their granddaughter Rachel Elizabeth Riley had married a man by the name of William Froggett.

The unfortunate Henry Froggett of the newspaper report was Rachel and William Froggett's youngest son, who had somehow stumbled his way from the family home in Putnam County, Indiana, to the city of Decatur in Illinois. And it wasn't simply that he was down on his luck that Christmas season of 1942; his, it turns out, was a story filled with instances of a hard luck life. This was just the kind of story which could obliterate my determination to stay the course and stick to my research goal. I had to take the detour.

Quarantine Numbers

As we slide into another murky quarantine week, things begin to look all the same. That nervous habit of returning, during a day's dull moments, to poke around on my pedigree charts has helped me wrack up the count on each family tree, but it strangely looks like all one gray blob. Life around here needs some color.

Still, those trees are growing. In the past two weeks, my mother's tree gained 278 new individuals, as quirky as those distant relatives may have been. Those names add to a patchwork of family history lore—at least, when I let myself take the time to chase strange news reports and other rabbit-hole-worthy endeavors—but they also increase the database size to 21,279 individuals.

Likewise, I've made some progress on my mother-in-law's tree: 189 additions to round up her tree to 18,557. On the flip side, not a single addition occurred to either my father-in-law's tree or my dad's tree; the count on those trees remains at 1713 and 713, respectively.

What is looming on my research horizon is a massive project which will not add anything to the bottom line of knowledge about more family members. It will serve a purpose, though.

Ever since Ancestry.com added their latest feature to the DNA tests, enabling us to link a DNA match to a specific location on our tree, I've been faced with a dilemma: each of my trees represents only one side of a two-sided family. I have a tree for my maternal side, and a separate tree for my mystery paternal side. Because I had to choose which tree to link with my own DNA test results, I had chosen my maternal tree, simply because it contained more extensive work. Now, though, it means I cannot link any matches from my father's side to this selected tree—unless I go through the grunt work of combining the two trees. Likewise for my husband's DNA match and his parents' two trees.

I predict that combining chore will cost me the ability to keep up my usual research pace in the next two weeks, but it is what it is. Sometimes, we just have to get some work done on the nitty gritty of the process. Look on the bright side: when the job is past me, perhaps then I'll find some great DNA matches to break through the barrier of silence that has kept our family from discovering my grandfather's past. Even in lockdown, it never hurts to keep a sunny outlook.

Odd Quirks, Unintended Consequences, and All Those Piano Lessons

There are some discoveries from the pursuit of family history which can only be classified as quirks in the record. I ran across some of those quirky surprises today. Truth be told, all that discovery did was make me come to realize I don't like my second cousin thrice removed. Not that I ever had any chance to meet him; it's just that he had this habit of re-inventing himself for the census enumerator.

I won't mention this cousin's name, simply in case that cousin bait would draw an unsuspecting closer relative to click through and read what this guy did, then suffer any embarrassment on his behalf. So don't expect any links to proof of his statements, or scholarly footnotes, or any other verification. Just come along for the story and take my word for the details.

So this guy—we'll just call him my distant cousin to avoid tangling with all those "times removed" labels—and his wife and obligatory two kids lived in a city which, at the time, was home to about sixty thousand people. Granted, any one of those other 59,999 people could have had the same name as this guy, but I don't think so. His name was not one of the most popular surnames, nor even given names, of that time period, so I'm pretty sure I was on the right track with this distant cousin.

I was reviewing this man's entry in the 1910 census, mainly to confirm I had the right family. However, in that quick glance, my eye happened to fall upon the column for place of birth of the subject's father. The answer had been overwritten, and I wanted to see what the original entry was.

The entry on the line—likely the original answer—was Holland. Above that entry another answer was squeezed in, having the explanation, "Dutch," likely to designate the native language spoken by that relative. I had my doubts about that alien status, but it was time to move on with the research process.

And so I did—to the next census where I could find this family. Again in the same city—but for some reason, not until the 1930 census—I found this distant cousin and his family. I couldn't help but take the time to note what his response was, this time, for location of his parents' birth.

I wasn't disappointed. There, for his father's place of origin, was again listed Holland. But this time, instead of answering with the expected home state of his residence as had been the case in previous census records, for his mother's place of birth, he reported France. Even more, his own place of birth now changed from his home state to Colorado—halfway across the country from the truth of the matter.

What was up with this? Keep in mind, as I exercise my regular research routine in building my family tree, I do what is now called "reverse genealogy," wherein I confirm all the descendants of a given ancestor. I happened upon this distant cousin while working my way forward from my Tison line, which originates with a man born in North Carolina in 1770. I assure you, none of his progeny ever had a descendant who moved from the United States to give birth in either the Netherlands or France. In fact, the only way I had arrived at this cousin in my tree work was to carefully proceed via documentation through the subsequent three generations in that Tison tree. In other words, I already knew where this guy's dad was born, and believe me, it wasn't on the other side of the ocean.

Seeing that multi-national report of family origins brought to mind that childhood taunt of "Heinz 57" when kids compared what nationalities their families claimed. Only, in this case, it wasn't true. But it was "documented."

Think of the confusion which would ensue, generations later, when one of this distant cousin's great-great-grandchildren got that school assignment to research their roots. "But the census said..." would be a laudable argument—but not entirely correct.

Of course, not many people think about what will become of a census record, decades after the fact. The government may have used it then, but it's mostly only genealogists and other historians who use it now, years later.

It calls to mind that lament of many parents when they whine, "Think of all those piano lessons I paid for!" Of course, in my case, my parents never paid for any of my piano lessons; my mother learned from my professional musician father, then turned around to teach me for free. From there, I eventually ended up in a music conservatory, where knowing how to play the piano, regardless of the instrument which qualified a student for admission, came in handy. But what do I do with that knowledge today? Perhaps the best I can come up with is that, thanks to knowing how to play the piano, I am a pretty speedy typist.

Not much of a consolation for parents whose sacrifices were supposed to end up benefiting their children. Perhaps—especially for those who see government as one gigantic "Nanny State"—that might be similar to the disappointment over how governmental investment in the betterment of society turns out. There are so many unintended consequences for programs which were designed by people who, surely, meant well. The beleaguered purpose of the decennial census has really become only one of those quirks. 

Finding "Clews" in Indiana

The one imperative, after staying the course to follow a research goal, is to avoid, at all costs, being lured down a rabbit hole. If you have known me for any length of time at all, you already know those bunny trails are my weakness. Therefore, I strengthen my resolve by reiterating my current research objective: to find a death certificate for a sibling of my second great-grandmother Rachel Riley Boothe. This, I needed to do for the sole purpose of confirming not only the names of her parents, but the location of their birth, as well. That detail had unfortunately been omitted from Rachel's own document.

Thus, after having come up with a blank for Rachel's sister Mary, our only recourse was to trace the line of Rachel's brother William F. Riley. The down side to that effort was my doubt regarding whether I had located the right William Riley in Washington County, Tennessee. Nevertheless, having found a marriage record for one man by that name in said county, I took the chance of following this William and his wife, Eliza Jane.

We've already followed them long enough to track them from Washington County to nearby Greene County in Tennessee. And then, suddenly and with no explanation that I can find, a family with the same exact details disappeared from any spot in Tennessee and were magically whisked to Putnam County, Indiana.

Well, almost exact. The three children's names were the same, and their ages exactly ten years older. Their places of birth matched previous records. The only difference was that Eliza Jane Riley had magically been transformed to Elizabeth Riley. Close enough, but still allowing for plenty of doubt.

Regardless, I decided to pursue this bird-in-hand. After all, what could go wrong? All I needed was to follow the chase, no matter where it led me, until I could locate a death certificate for William Riley.

Silly me. I lost my resolve when I clicked on child number one. William's oldest—a daughter he and his wife had named Mary, just like William's own oldest sister—had been born about 1854 in Tennessee, just as we had seen in previous census records. But when I went onto my account at Ancestry to build her profile, I was greeted by a multitude of those shaky-leaf announcements of hints about Mary's life. Somebody else had already been hard at work augmenting the hint collection.

Unlike the usual hints from the Ancestry service, Mary's hints were not the pedestrian census records or vital records we come to expect. Another subscriber to the service had decided to share the wealth from a linked newspaper archive and had posted several articles. One such article happened to include the name Mary Riley, with the title, "Riley vs. Bugg Paternity Suit."

I reminded myself that this was not part of my research plan.

If, realizing that I really am going to move away from that bait, you feel disappointed, you know exactly how I felt at leaving such a bombshell of a headline. But persevere, we must.

I moved on from Mary's life and list of confirming documents to the next of William's children. This brought me to the daughter he had likely named after his other sister, my second great-grandmother Rachel. William's daughter—her full name was Rachel Elizabeth—led a rather conventional life, it seemed. She married a man in Putnam County having the same given name as her own dad—William Froggett—and with this man, she raised five children, four of whom survived at least until the 1900 census was enumerated.

Perhaps the appearance of normalcy lulled me into taking a further look at this family constellation. After all, my habit is to chart all my ancestors' collateral lines, and the possibility of a DNA match from this line prompted me to start building out Rachel Elizabeth's own line. But there it was again: evidence of a zealous fellow Ancestry subscriber, wanting to share all the newspaper articles gleaned on the children of Rachel Elizabeth and William Froggett.

By the time I had gotten to Rachel's oldest son—also named William—I had already learned that he had been charged with larceny, horse thievery, and attempted murder. And not all at once.

Further, by 1900, this son had managed not one but two successful jail breaks. By the time of an undated newspaper clipping posted in the "hints" section, he had escaped with three other prisoners skillfully enough that officials were confessing to the media that after two weeks of searching, all they could manage to do was find "clews to the whereabouts" of only one or two of the four. Our William and one other turn out to have been "the most difficult of the four men to follow."

Unfortunately, the undated news clipping was from a service I don't subscribe to, so I tried to locate the article through the two services I do use—but with no results. I did, however, find other reports from across the state of Indiana on our recalcitrant William Froggett. He apparently had quite a reputation.

Pulling myself away from this pursuit—remember, it wasn't exactly my research goal—I moved down the list of children and away from research kamikazi. I moved on to another of the Froggett offspring. That didn't help. As it turned out, William Froggett's younger brother had a colorful past of his own. And yet, his was a story which was totally different than his big brother's tale. I may have had good intentions, but you know I can't just bypass this one without saying something...