Seeing 2020

 

While there may be some of you who will be more than happy to see 2020 to the door tonight, we need to pause and consider, in this twilight of a difficult year, what the year may have brought to us.

To say that this would be an easy exercise would not be quite inclusive of the difficulties such a year presented for some of us, not the least of which are those families who have lost loved ones to a most unexpected disease. And yet, though we may not be ready to consider it, this strange and unwieldy year has presented us with some hidden benefits, as well. We just need to don spectacles to enable us to see twenty-twenty about this year we're about to bid adieu.

I've learned that developing an attitude of gratitude can help lift up our outlook, so even in this dreary disappointment of a year, I'm choosing to see benefits. It took a year like this, for instance, for me to look forward to an expanded vegetable garden—just in case—and then realize how much more healthy our meals were becoming when we couldn't eat out as much, or had to go back to basics in the kitchen because of supply chain problems emptying our grocery store shelves. Our inventiveness certainly got a workout—but at least we had those creative juices to fuel our inspiration.

Our lawn, as another example, experienced an unexpected revival, after post-drought ravages, because a family friend's lovely plans for a sunset wedding on the beach in San Diego got canceled. We offered, as the only consolation we could think to provide, our humble front lawn for a private garden wedding where extended family could gather safely outdoors. Surprise! The family took us up on what was a far cry from the natural beauty of the Pacific coast, and we all—after hustling to replant our dead lawn—had the opportunity to re-discover how fun it is to just get together, without all the professional trappings of a turn-key event, and enjoy each others' company while celebrating a special day. Added bonus: we again have a green, not dead and brown, lawn for a front yard.

All that to say: difficulties have a way of prompting us to delve inwardly deeper to find the resilience that keeps humankind going. I'm afraid, in our case, our inner resilience had been getting lazy and needed that workout. Even though I wish we could hang out with friends at a favorite restaurant, or travel to places we'd love to visit—just like you do—I've found that, if we have the will to overcome, there will be a way. We will overcome this year's difficulties. And we will be stronger for having faced the challenge.

Looking deep into the stories of our ancestors has provided inspiration, as well. Revisiting the stories of our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations shows us how their contemporaries dealt with the ravages of the 1918 flu pandemic, or with the decimation of modern warfare developments during the Great War, and provide us inspiration to face our own challenges.

As my family history research reaches deeper into the past, I discover buried stories in documents of generations who came long before our great-grandparents. One such record I'll be adding to my "Twelve Most Wanted" research goals for the new year will be the information gleaned from the will of my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, Mathias Ambrose of colonial Pennsylvania, whose daughter Elizabeth was born right in the midst of that turbulent year of 1776.

Elizabeth's father, as it turned out, chose to share in the struggle that enabled a nascent movement to emerge as a new nation. He will become my Ancestor Number Six for this year's Twelve Most Wanted, and from that focus, hopefully, I'll gain a clearer understanding of what at least one family faced during turbulent times of their own. 

Above: Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851 oil on canvas by German-American artist Emanuel Leutze; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Pink Picket Fence

 

Was it in a dream in the hazy dawn hour this morning when I thought I saw a pink picket fence? Perhaps in such an early waking moment, the vision stuck with me in an altered light, but there it was: a picture quaint, but not quite right. That serves well to describe Ancestor Number Five in this new Twelve Most Wanted for 2021: a woman whose story was nearly obliterated with the early end of her life.

Her name was Sarah Howard Ijams, and she was born to a family likely to yield my husband's sisters more than one claim to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her unfortunate early death in 1829—possibly due to complications of childbirth—yielded very few records. Most important of those records would be that of her marriage to John Jay Jackson, which somehow was supposed to have occurred at a United States outpost in territory near the current city of Saint Louis, Missouri. How others could use the Jackson line for lineage qualification is not clear to me, given the lack of currently-existing records for that marriage. Perhaps, like the pink picket fence in my dream, the picture must have been shaded by a twilight zone of documentation in those earlier days of DAR.

Still, it is not surprising to find that one near relative of a Revolutionary Patriot could have intermarried with others of the same heritage, and that is indeed the case for this same Sarah Howard Ijams—which is why, this year, I want to approach the puzzle from her own family's side, rather than her husband's Jackson lineage. Even if I never find actual documentation for her marriage to John Jay Jackson, Sarah herself can lead my mother-in-law's descendants to DAR membership qualification. It's just a matter of piecing together some solid documentation and submitting the application—sans pink picket fence—a great goal for my fifth family history focus for the coming year.

 

Above: Winter Scene on a Canal, oil on panel by Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

 

Trying This One Again

 

Who says you can't go back and repeat a goal from a previous year? 

It may have been ambitious to lay out a year-long research plan last year, outlining my focal point for each of twelve months with one apiece of what I dubbed my "Twelve Most Wanted." True, I got caught up with some projects and they ended up stretching out longer than their allotted month in the research sunshine. But even though I decided to apply my "Twelve Most Wanted" project for a second year, that doesn't mean that I can't go back for a do-over.

The idea, both for 2020 and for 2021, was to devote three months apiece to the four family branches I've consistently researched for our family's history. I started with three months—one ancestor apiece for each of those months—dedicated to my mother's family tree. Then I turned to devote three months to my mother-in-law's tree. Following that, I kicked off the second half of the year with three months' work on my father-in-law's Irish roots. The wrap-up quarter tackled my own father's well-disguised ancestry. I needed the whole year to muster that running start for the final challenge.

I'll follow that same pattern for the new year, as you've perceptively noticed for the first three ancestors I've targeted for 2021—all connected to my mother. For today's selection—first of three for my mother-in-law—I want to go back and pick up on the task I laid out for myself last year, but never managed to address. Hopefully, next year's protocol will include better time management for research projects.

With that, I'll revisit that goal from 2020: to discover more about the parents of one of my mother-in-law's third great-grandparents, Mary Carroll. Although I already know Mary Carroll's father's name—Anthony Carroll—that is about all I have dug up from documentation concerning him and his wife. Besides, there may be some discrepancies regarding her mother's name. Thus, in the research slot for Ancestor Number Four for 2021, I'll be looking for Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Carroll, residents of Morgantown in what was then the colony of Virginia.

Don't think this will be an easy project. The time period involved stretches from about 1725 to the early 1800s—an era of history and a location for which records kept may have been sparse. If nothing else, this research project will give me a workout, as well as a refresher course for the training I received last year at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy on Virginia. Hopefully, the result this year for Ancestor Number Four will be more productive than the blank drawn in last year's sequence.

Above: Nineteenth century German lithograph "Der Christmarkt" (The Christmas Market); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Finding Delaney's Family Through D N A

 

The more we discover about our family history through DNA testing, the more willing we are to believe that we can find other details using that same process. In planning my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research for 2021, my third selection on my mother's side will be one of my third great-grandmothers, Delaney Rosella Townsend, wife of Andrew Jackson Charles.

I've written about the Charles family of Florida before—the family of pioneer traders Reuben and Rebecca Charles, namesake of Charles Spring in the northern part of the state. Their history reaches back far before the place became part of the United States. What I haven't delved into, during that exploration, was where son Andrew found his wife, Delaney.

Born about 1816, supposedly in South Carolina, Delaney was in Florida territory by the early 1840s, when she married Andrew Jackson Charles on March 8, 1841. The only document in which I can find her—albeit with her given name altered to Lania—is the 1850 census. By 1860, ominously, all I could find of her family was her three children listed in her sister-in-law's household. Both Andrew and Delaney had disappeared.

Researching a surname like Townsend is not an easy proposition. It is a fairly common name, one which could easily lead a researcher down the wrong track. And yet, in my thousand-plus DNA matches at each of four of the five companies at which I've tested, I keep getting messages that I connect with others descended from that same Townsend line. Evidently, someone else has found the secret sauce that recomposes that Townsend family.

If I've learned anything from my experience piecing together my father's Polish lines through the sheer power of DNA guidance alone, it is that such clues are possible. From such leads, I can go back and reconstruct the paper trail, not from my present generation working backwards in time, but from that ancestral line reaching forward.

For that third of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, this will be Delaney Townsend Charles' moment to have her roots untangled, and to hopefully work my way back at least one more generation. Sometimes, such breakthroughs lead to more than we expect, but I feel positive that, with the guidance of DNA matches, I'll at least be able to reach that level of fourth great-grandparents in the Townsend line.

 

Above: Christmas postcard illustrated by American artist Frances Brundage, circa 1910; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

 

A Second Attempt

 

Who says goal setting demands successful completion? It's important to set goals, alright, but we can't let the risk of falling short keep us from setting our sights high. When I began selecting my "Twelve Most Wanted" ancestors to pursue in 2020, of course I had no idea what the future would hold. The important point was to set the course and follow the research plan as closely as possible. Though I often missed the mark, I still accomplished so much more in my family history research than I would have done without setting those monthly goals.

For my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, I'll likely see that same dynamic come into play—but I'll also benefit from the opportunity to revisit some family history targets for which I fell short in previous years, and pick up where I left off.

My goal selection for February will be a perfect example of that mechanism, for the person I will be researching is one I've attempted pursuing in the past—nearly seven years ago, in fact. Now is the time to retrace that very research trail and see what progress can be made in bringing me closer to that goal of one very special person's story.

Just like my goal for this upcoming month of January, my February "Most Wanted" is not exactly a blood relative, but one who was close enough to members of my family to allow me to draw on my own memories of her. She was my godmother, a close family friend from my mother's early career years. I knew her as Genia Melnitchenko, but most everyone else knew her by her stage name, for she was a ballet dancer.

I've written about her in a brief series which began with this post back in 2014, and continued for the following week. By the time I had finished sharing her story, I realized I wanted to build a family tree for her—I remembered her parents from my childhood visits to their apartment in New York City—but seven years ago, I couldn't quite gain the traction to finish that project. For this February, I will make sure to set aside the time to post a tree online for what I can find on her family.

Don't think, though, that that will be an easy project. It will be a challenge for several reasons, first of which is the necessity of researching an ethnicity for which I know next to nothing. I do recall my mother saying Genia's roots were Russian, but I've since seen indications that a surname like hers would more likely be Ukrainian than Russian—hinting also of some rugged stretches of international history in that region her folks once called home. Then, too, there will be the challenge of a language barrier for this researcher—what? You thought I read Russian?—and the steep learning curve of trying to discover online resources for records from a region buried in two hundred years of disputed history.

Like I said, though, goals are statements of what we intend to attempt to accomplish. That is the beauty of selecting one research goal for each month: I'll spend a month working on this project. I'll give it my best, but when the month is over, I'll carefully mark my spot in the research log so I can pick up this project again in the future, and move on to the next month's challenge. After all, a genealogist's research is never really done; another pass through this project at a future time may yield even more information than what is available now in this pandemic season of our lives.

Above: Image of a tiny Christmas greeting card sent by Genia Melnitchenko; card held in author's private collection.

  

12 For '21

 

It may be the day after Christmas, but that doesn't mean I stop celebrating. In fact, I've a longstanding romance with the quiet week between Christmas and New Year's Day, so why stop with that? I've learned to expand that celebration period to match up with the traditional twelve days of Christmas.

Being always in pursuit of my family's history, I couple that introspective twelve days with some time to reflect on the twelve ancestors for which I'd most like to learn more. Last year, I dubbed that effort the pursuit of my "Twelve Most Wanted." Because goals help clarify not only what we are seeking, but help us evaluate how far we've come and what is yet to accomplish, it's a worthwhile program to repeat for a new year. So today, I'll begin the process with hopes for a successful research year in 2021.

January is always my month to travel to Salt Lake City and attend the Institute held there, so the class I attend at SLIG determines which ancestor my research will pursue. This year, of course, SLIG will be a virtual experience—alas, minus those glorious hours spent at the Family History Library—but the course I've selected will once again point me in the right research direction.

The course I will be taking next month is In-Depth African-American Genealogy, with lead course instructor LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson. There are several reasons behind my course selection—not the least of which is that I often have beginning genealogy students researching that very topic—but high among those reasons is a personal purpose for attending that course. 

If you remember from years past, I had been seeking some answers to a childhood story passed along by relatives in my mother's family—the story of a man whose name I eventually discovered was King Stockton. Hopefully, my week attending SLIG this January will introduce me to additional resources for finding biographical material on King Stockton. After all, my first breakthrough came when I found his name in a footnote to a historical society journal article. Information is often out there: we just need to learn how to find it.

With that, how can I not kick off the new year with King Stockton as my first "ancestor" to research? Although he is not specifically in my direct line, a few of his descendants are included in my DNA matches—all the more reason to learn more about this remarkable man from the Civil War era.

 

Above: 1907 Christmas postcard by prolific postcard and greeting card illustrator Ellen Clapsaddle; courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society via Wikipedia; in the public domain.

A Different Year, a Different Christmas

 

Who would have thought last Christmas, perched just shy of a new year, would have ushered in a year as unexpected as this year has been? And who, at the tail end of this same year, hasn't wished that at least Christmas could have been immune from the ravages of this microscopic monster which has commandeered so many of our life choices.

For at least one day in the midst of this reality, I wish you a respite, a peaceful holiday to devote to the very things which bring you an encouraging calm. Though next year is, again, an unknown, I hope that momentary respite is the gift that Christmas can bring to you this year.

 

Above: "Adoration of the Shepherds," oil painting circa 1622 by Dutch Golden Age artist Gerard van Honthorst; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.