It's Complicated

One of my goals, in traveling to northern Florida to research my maternal grandmother's roots, was to see if I could explain what I felt was a myth buster regarding a local story. This week was my chance to practice communicating that defense of my hypothesis: Mary Charles may have been shot, but she didn't die from the wounds allegedly inflicted upon her by native tribesmen when she bolted out the front door of her pioneer parents' home without the agreed-upon red scarf sign of protection.

You may recall the story of Mary Charles, the young woman who supposedly was killed by Indians as the result of a momentary blunder. Local Suwannee County historian Eric Musgrove had shared that story in the Suwannee Democrat years back, and I had subsequently found it online at the county's own website. This week was my chance to visit with him and interview him about the sources for this story.

Eric Musgrove prefers to dub this scenario a legend. It's just an oral history passed down for many decades, as he puts it. And yet, I had been able to trace the life of one local woman named Mary Charles, who seems likely to have been daughter of the same parents as the Mary Charles of the Suwannee County legend. This Mary certainly lived well beyond childhood, having married and claiming a daughter of her own. While I have yet to determine this Mary's date of death, I can assure you it was well after any threat of attack had been removed from the area—certainly long after the Charles family had ceased operating the ferry by Charles Springs which had been the site of local tensions between white settlers and Native American inhabitants of that area in northern Florida.

True, Ruben and Rebecca Charles, operators of the ferry and stage coach stop, could have had more than one daughter named Mary. The one I found might have been born after the first had been killed. That scenario has been repeated in many family histories, and I can't assume it would be any different in the facts underlying this "legend."

However, let's review the details I've found. First, I had stumbled upon the discrepancy while searching for something else: whom the parents of my second great grandmother, Emma Charles, might have been. I found Emma and her siblings in the 1860 census in the household of someone else: Melburn and Drucilla Odum and their daughter Mabel. Along with the Charles siblings and these unknown adults, there were two Hines girls. How did all of these people connect?

Looking for the Hines girls in the 1870 census, I found them in the home of Mary McLeran. Now I had another problem: who was Mary McLaren? And why did she have an Odum daughter and a Hines daughter in her household?

The search was now on for the identity of Mary McLaren—and for whatever became of Mabel Odum's parents. It took searching through some Suwannee County probate files—thankfully, just after the county was formed in December of 1859—to discover Mary's statement that she was wife of William T. McLaren. The search for Drucilla revealed Mary's statement in Drucilla's probate file that they were sisters, and a marriage record in Madison County indicated, at the occasion of her first marriage, that Drucilla's maiden name had been Charles.

Thus, that made her sister's maiden name also Charles. As in Mary Charles. Granted, there could have been other people in that area with the same name. Thankfully, an entry in the 1850 census tied Mary and Drucilla together in the same household—that of Rebecca Charles, widow of Ruben Charles, the family of the legend of Mary and the Red Scarf.

It did take a lot to put those connections together. Even though I was able to link the paper trail together into a neat—and fairly convincing—package, as Eric Musgrove observed in yesterday's visit, there is no way to tell for sure. No paper trail, no written documentation, no written testimony of eyewitnesses. Just the story, passed down through generations, leaving us with the impression that Ruben and Rebecca Charles' daughter Mary was the victim of a tragic slaying in her youth.

Searching through the records at the courthouse yesterday didn't reveal much more to strengthen the conclusion. But it did turn up a few leads, as did my visit to the genealogical society's library the previous day. Fortunately, as Charles was a significant name in the area for so many years, I didn't have to search for long to find other documents to help piece together the life of Mary Charles McLaren, even if she doesn't turn out to be the fabled Mary of the Legend of the Red Scarf.

The Definition of Kin

"We may be related," the woman just inside the door to the Suwannee Valley Genealogical Society library announced to me as I stepped in to wrap up my second day's research in the vicinity of my McClellan roots in northern Florida. "I think we are cousins."

A cousin I had never before met—let alone been aware of—was the stranger who had received my online query about the society's library holdings. (Frankly, I was quite jealous that a place as small as the vicinity surrounding Wellborn could boast not only their own library, but the building in which to house their collection, as well.)

In preparation for my visit, I had sent in my questions ahead of time, just in case there was any chance that the books I was seeking might be in their holdings. There have been a number of history books published on the county as well as the town of Wellborn, and though I am aware of them—and the tidbits they hold about my family's history—that doesn't make them any more easy to access. Most were privately published or done locally in a short run, with nary a copy still available for sale, new or used. Not even on Amazon.

Naturally, in my email preceding my visit, I mentioned the surnames I was seeking—not only McClellan, but McLaren, Tison, Townsend, and Charles. Especially Charles. The society had notebooks prepared by members on their research findings on a wide variety of surnames, including some of the ones of interest to me. Thus, before she ever met me, this society volunteer knew we'd be related. We both, as it turns out, descend from McClellans.

Just how, we didn't know, right away. It took some sketching out. A bit of double checking on two different genealogy database programs to make sure. After comparing notes on both our lines—it turns out her line, in my records, is a complete black hole after the patriarch of her McClellan line in early, territorial Florida—we decided on the verdict: fifth cousins.

Well, howdy. It's always nice to meet another cousin.

When I took the Advanced Southern Research course at SLIG last January, one of our instructors had explained the real definition of the term, "kin"—at least the way you'll find it used in the South. You may know the word as a synonym simply to explain that two people are related. Our SLIG instructors took it farther than that. According to our intrepid southern research experts, using the word "kin" means "yep, we're related, but we can't explain just how right now."

In other words, it's too complicated.

The entire South, according to these instructors, is so interrelated as to reduce the explanation of how anyone is connected to anyone else to one word: kin.

You from the South? Great. Me, too. We must be kin.

Dinner at George's Place

Monday may be the day everyone groans about at work, but my work this past Monday gave me great pleasure. It started out with a happy family reunion between two cousins, and culminated in a wonderful dinner with new friends in the house built by my third great-grandfather, George McClellan.

I can now, in addition to all that, say that I have been to the home of my Florida roots, thanks to the wonderful couple who has, over the past thirty six years, lovingly restored the old McClellan home in Wellborn, Florida. While they are not family per se, they have opened wide the doors to their home—the home which once was the residence of my own family.

Granted, that home was built well over one hundred years ago, and likely was not lived in for long by my third great-grandfather. With George dying in 1866, widowing his second wife of only five years, she had decided, at one point, to move the place from its location outside Wellborn right into the midst of the town. That feat required the house to be placed on logs and rolled for miles, pulled by the stubborn willpower of mules.

Such details certainly didn't please any of George's children from his first wife, the late Sidney Tison McClellan, whose demise in 1860 was followed almost immediately by George's marriage to Celestia Relief Holman. Perhaps you remember my mentioning the contention over George's will in some posts a while back. Add this to the reasons why his descendants are still complaining about that woman, even today.

Despite the house's history, my introduction to the misplaced residence turned into a lovely evening. The couple who have devoted their retirement years to the restoration of this two story farmhouse were kind to show us the many loving details for which they invested so much of their time and attention. Any details of the house—fireplace mantels, for instance—which could be restored to their former glory were painstakingly brought back to life, sometimes with small revisions to make the conversion work in modern times.

In the good old southern style, we couldn't just gawk, eat, and run, of course. The evening became a wonderful time to hear all the stories about the property and the people who once lived here—or thought they had a claim to the place. We had a chance to look over old history books about Suwannee County, as well as view the title history drawn up for the proud owners, an inch-thick folder tracing the property's history back to the original grantee, Louis Wellborn Dubois, the civil engineer who obtained the property from a sale of public lands of the State of Florida. It was he who  originally drew up the plat maps for the town which eventually bore his name (well, at least his middle name).

The day had started out with a grand tour of Wellborn—a task which took all of five minutes, it seemed—as my cousin explained all she had discovered about the town and its interrelated residents while we drove. We lingered at the McClellan cemetery, once part of the family's farm, but now deeded to the town. We walked amidst the graves of names now familiar to me after years of chasing their history on paper. Now I could see for myself what life was like in the town they once called home.

Researching by walking around—and talking...and talking...and talking—is a very different type of research journey than the usual paper chase at the archives. It's a time to let things unfold as people tell story after story. It's an experience in which you feel the history as much as you hear it, and though reading it may come into the picture, it isn't the featured event of the day. This is a town, as my hosts put it last night, where there are insiders, and then there are outsiders; though our hosts had spent the last thirty six years pouring their life efforts into restoring just one piece of Wellborn history, they just as likely could still be considered outsiders.

Today, we get to continue the conversation with some of the "insiders." This time, we'll meet a distant McClellan cousin who has been able to call Wellborn his home. Though we meet as strangers, hopefully we'll leave with a fuller sense of what it meant to be a McClellan growing up in—and still staying in—Wellborn. 

The Search for King

I assure you: it is infinitely easier to research the history of a man, once you know his name, than it is before you've learned his identity. Now that I have found a possible identity for the man of my family's story—the one who supposedly wrote his life story and gave a copy of the book to my grandmother's family—I can begin testing that name as my first hypothesis.

So, whether King Stockton becomes the man who, though enslaved on my third great-grandfather's property became somehow amicably connected to our family after the Civil War as well, I can't yet say. That will become the quest of our research adventure. And in order to learn whether that is a correct conjecture, in the process, we'll learn who King Stockton is, no matter whether he is the answer to my research quandary. Hopefully, at the end, we'll discover where his mysterious book may be found—if at all, so many years after his lifetime.

So, while I and my undaunted companion—remember, he's the one who carries the bags—drive up north to Suwannee County today, let's explore what can be found about the man once called King on the McClellan plantation near Wellborn, Florida.

When I first began perusing all the names of African American families in the neighborhood of my second great-grandfather in the 1870 census, I did remember seeing the name King—in fact, more than once. Going back now to double check my memory, there was, indeed, one man named King who had the surname Stockton. He was a man born in 1830, if his age given in the 1870 census was correct.

Along with King Stockton was his thirty-eight year old wife, Lovenia, and likely children Manda, King, Catherine, Ella, Robert and Sweeter. An earlier July 4, 1866, document verified their marriage in Suwannee County.

On the same page in that 1870 census could also be found the households of two other Stockton households: that of Albert and Francis. They likely were relatives.

The search was on for more information on this King Stockton. I'm still very far from verifying that King Stockton was the man of my family's legend. No matter; I still wanted to explore everything I could find about the man.

There wasn't much to find. A newspaper article in the local newspaper, the Suwannee Democrat, in the terminology of that era mentioned on September 17, 1909, that

Uncle King Stockton, age 80, an old time darkie, was in town Saturday. Uncle King works every day and makes a crop every year which is remarkable for one of his age.

While it sounded promising for my quest—the mystery man in my family's story would come into town to visit periodically—a visit every now and then wouldn't be that extraordinary for anyone who  had moved away from his hometown.

Thanks to Google Books, though, I did locate another indicator that I might be on the right track. King Stockton was mentioned by name in the proceedings of the 1878 Florida Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a "traveling deacon."

While I was able to find a few mentions of that name—thankfully, mentioned in connection with Wellborn and in relation to church activities, two clues consistent with the story I remembered from my childhood—that still wasn't enough to confirm this was the name which would lead me to the life story I was seeking.

Thankfully, I had a few more search options.


Above: The excerpt from the 1870 census courtesy Ancestry.com; letter certifying the marriage of King Stockton and Lovenia courtesy FamilySearch.org.

The Party is Still On !

I may be in Florida right now to research my McClellan roots, but for a while, I was beginning to wonder whether I'd be able to accomplish what I traveled here to do. You see, this is not the usual family history research trip, the type of visit to discern just what our ancestors were like by viewing a dim recording of their life, transcribed onto paperwork of the era. I was hoping to meet some real people—the kind who could tell real stories about my kin. Florida-style stories. But something at last minute—something out of my control—almost derailed those plans.

When a research trip is looming in the near future, it's time to make sure all the connections are arranged, the interview appointments are set, the finding aids are scoured for just the right source documents. If a researcher does all the prep work well, it almost seems as if all that is left to do is show up and pull the items from the right shelf in the right repository. And read.

There really is more to it than just that, of course. A researcher really doesn't know what will be found, buried deep within that to-do list. Many times, finding one document leads to the uncertainty of locating another one. Searches can turn up surprises. And the unexpected can lead to a pile of additional—though welcome—work. After all, we're here to make discoveries, and discoveries don't necessarily come with guarantees.

That, however, is the type of research trip dedicated to tracking the family history paper trail. In my case, part of my original hope for this week's research journey had been to receive a personal tour through some of the very properties and homes where my McClellan ancestors lived, starting back when Florida wasn't the name of a state, but the designation for a territory.

Being that the McClellan home was near a rather small town—Wellborn, even now, boasts a population of less than three thousand people—it isn't hard to imagine that it is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and may possibly also be related to everyone else. In fact, many of the names of the folks telling stories about Wellborn and Suwannee County history—the type of stories I've found online and in the local newspaper—are names I recall entering in my family tree database. I already know how they are related to me; I just don't know them, personally.

Enter a cousin who had already done the legwork of reconnecting with our roots in Wellborn. This cousin has visited the town, stayed in the old family home, talked with cousins too distant to even recall the reason they are called "kin."

For years now, she has wanted to take me up there, to show me around and introduce me to the town—especially to those residents who can still tell stories about times long gone when some of the McClellans and related families were alive, instead of just mere names on pieces of paper. That was what I was hoping for this week. That was the type of activity I foresaw filling up much of the research time on this limited first visit.

And then, winter happened. And my volunteer personal tour guide caught the usual wintertime illnesses. It looked like my maiden voyage to the place of my Florida roots was going to turn into a dry, paper-chase type of visit instead of what we had hoped. With that in mind, I drew up my backup plan, checked record locations and maps and possible research spots to contact ahead of time to check hours, research requirements, and all the protocol a researcher would do for archives visits.

It wasn't until I had been in Florida a few days that I got the message that this cousin has recovered and is able to make the trip up north to Wellborn to meet me there. I'm still glad to have that backup plan—after all, I will be in the neighborhood, so why not fold those plans into the schedule, too?—but knowing how people from my southern roots were so fond of just sitting and talking, I also know to set aside plenty of time for visiting and getting to know folks from the town where my third great-grandfather and his descendants once lived. Stories, after all, do take time to unfold. And Wellborn is a place for storytellers.

Welcome to February ! It's Black History Month

It's February. Before this brief month is out, I'm sure you will realize it is the month designated as Black History Month. But in case you might miss that announcement, I'm just the one to introduce it to you.

Actually, I couldn't help but start my journey on this designation early. I really wanted to start this project—the search for King Stockton—in February. But I just couldn't wait. I've known this story for far too long to make myself hold off on it for the past week. Even though it may reveal some distressing detail, this story has been a part of me for far too long to not run with it, once I got the chance.

The rest of this journey, I hope, will allow me to post what I find about at least one family's story that may add to another researcher's quest to find their roots, pre-Civil War. It's the least I can do.

As I start working my way into the past from the 1870 census with the find of this new name—King Stockton—I am realizing how intertwined all our family histories become. We have relatives, yes—but also friends, neighbors, business associates, and, in some cases, people who worked for our ancestors. Our ancestors shared in those people's stories just as much as those people shared in our own family history. Like trying to rebuild a smashed mosaic from antiquity, we find pieces to help with our research—but we may also unearth pieces that, if passed along, could help others find the answer to their family history mysteries.

We just need to find a way to connect.

Now more likely called African American History Month in the United States, this event is observed in February in the United States and in Canada, but it is commemorated internationally in Europe, as well—in October in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Ireland.

The month was first widely celebrated in 1976 as a way to remember the events and achievements of important people in the history of the African diaspora. However, just as critics point out that sequestering these commemorations into one month implies that they won't be acknowledged during the rest of the year—or that "Black History" should only be compartmentalized and not mainstreamed into the overall history of our country—my efforts to seek information on an "everyday" individual and his family are one small way to encourage others to glean the full story by the points of truth of many personal experiences collectively viewed.

Then again, it may seem strange that a person today, descended from Europeans, might want to research the story of the descendants from an African-American heritage. But if African American history is pertinent to all of us, and even stories of individual African Americans can be informative to our overall understanding of those times, then the story of King Stockton's life can add value, even though he might not have been famous, and certainly not of the same ethnic heritage as I.

While I hope discovering and discussing his story will be of help to someone else, I also hope taking this step will encourage others to take similar research pathways. We all can help by finding and sharing those tiny points of truth of lives once lived—even if they are not about our direct ancestors or even concerning people claiming the same ethnic heritage as we do.

Besides, I've always wanted to meet the man. Now that I know his name, though he lived more than one hundred years before me, in a way, I may get to meet him, after all. I'm certainly looking forward to getting to know him, whoever he was.

Not Tom, Not Frank

Not even Old John.

The name I was seeking, of the former slave who, after emancipation, wrote his life story—at least, according to what my family had told me—was not something I found through diligent searching through source documents tucked deep within the recesses of court records. Nothing as challenging as that. It was simply included in an email from a distant cousin I had met through DNA testing.

I had known right away, back when I had seen that cousin's name on my DNA results, that we were related. He had, after all, the same last name as my grandmother's Aunt Fannie, the family's fascinating storyteller. Somewhere along the line, while I had been working on the exasperating story of Celestia, second wife of the widower George McClellan, this cousin filled me in on some perspective about that episode in our family history. It occurred to me that perhaps my newfound family contact might have known this other story, as well—the story of the once-enslaved man who later wrote his life story.

I couldn't believe I had already had the email with the name of this former slave. So much for needless searching. Perhaps it did my soul some good. Like adversity is good for us.

Last week, I had gone back to my email history to dig up the last message this cousin and I had exchanged. I just wanted to send him a note that we were headed to Florida, and could he spare some time to meet over a cup of coffee?

I never did send that email request. By the time I read his last note, I was off on a cyberized wild goose chase—but this time, armed with a specific name.

In the email, this cousin had given me the briefest of explanations:

[This man] grew up a slave on the McClellan Plantation and then continued to live in and around Wellborn, a storyteller and preacher apparently respected by both black and white.

My cousin, of course, mentioned that one other detail: a name. The man I should look for might be the one known in Wellborn, back then after manumission, as King Stockton.