Author: Becky

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, My Family Tree, Paternal Side

Week 45: Stormy Weather

Becky

For week 45 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, the theme is Stormy Weather, and I’m choosing to write about the the struggle my two paternal great-grandmothers, Bertha Childers and Margaret Dora Wise, endured when suddenly becoming widows.

Bertha Childers

When I think about rough time that my great-grandmother, Bertha Childers, must have faced when her husband, Andrew Jackson Blair, passed away on 16 November 1926.

As was written about here, my great-grandfather was killed instantly when a coal mine collapsed. But as horrible as his death was, I can only imagine what life must have been like for my great-grandmother, who was left a single mother of 4. Granted, Genevieve had just gotten married to Earl Vivian the week before Andrew passed, but Vada, Leroy, and Donald were still at home (Vada was 19, Genevieve 16, Leroy 14, and Donald 9).

I know from the 1930 census that Bertha was still a single mom of Donald, and the late 1920’s, early 1930’s was a tough time for a single mom (as it still is 90 years later).

Working for a Coal Company, more than likely Andrew and Bertha lived in a company home, he was paid with company money, where all purchases were from a company store, and when he died she probably lost everything.

I know in the late 1920’s my grandfather, Leroy, began working in the mines as well, but after having an accident in the same mine where his dad died, he found something else to do.

But I can’t imagine what life was like for my great-grandmother. Bertha had to have been devastated to lose the man she loved, her home, basically her life as she knew it. She did eventually re-marry William Chappell who was also a coal miner.

Bertha Childers and her dog Lulu Belle, 1943

Margaret Dora Wise

Life changed for my other great-grandmother on my dad’s side of the family when on 24 July 1917 Charles Jackson Morgart committed suicide leaving Margaret Dora Wise alone to care for 3-children ages 7, 6, and 3.

To my knowledge no one knows why Charles took his life. My mom had thought she had heard he was ill, but my dad heard that infidelity could have been involved (not on Charles’ part). But regardless of why, it had to be a huge shock to lose your husband, even if your situation wasn’t idyllic.

Unlike Bertha, Maggie Wise ended up getting married to Irie Earl Custer by 1920 (according to the 1920 Federal Census). Earl was a coal miner and she stayed married to him until he passed in 1949. They never had any children together.

Irie Earl Custer & Margaret Dora Wise 1939

Having younger children Maggie probably had to pick up the pieces more quickly in order to raise her kids. I know she ended up raising her children in the town of Saint Michael a stones throw from South Fork where coal mines were located (Saint Michael was built where the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club was located before the huge Johnstown Flood of 1889).

I feel Maggie had the better end of things when she married Earl Custer. My Grandma (Anna Maria Morgart) always spoke quite highly of her Step-Daddy as he basically raised her (she was 3 when her dad died), and chose Earl to be my Dad’s middle name.

Both of my great-grandmother’s survived the hardships they faced, but both of their husband’s died so unexpectedly. It’s never easy to loose someone you care about, but having my own mother die out of the blue, I know how hard it can be when you don’t have the closure of saying goodbye, and even I love you one last time.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Genealogy

Week 44: Voting

Becky

Being on a break from researching the past few weeks, when I finally looked to see what the theme for week 44 for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was I shouldn’t have been surprised it was voting (as it was election week).

And I’ll confess, I’ve never looked into finding my ancestor’s voting records, so this week’s post gave me the opportunity to do just that.

Rather than make life difficult I did what came naturally, I Googled it and the first link I clicked on was the FamilySearch Wiki and “United States Voting Records“.

I had an idea in mind which was to see if my great-great-grandmother, Mazie Warner, ever voted as she would have been a 40-year-old woman when women were given the right to vote in the state of Ohio in 1917.

However, it didn’t take me long to realize that FamilySearch did not have the voting records of Summit County. Or Pennsylvania. Or Massachusetts (all the main states where I know I have ancestors, as I quickly broadened my search when I wasn’t finding the records for Summit County).

Summit County Board of Elections

My next step was doing a search on Google for Summit County, Ohio voting records. This led me to the Summit County Board of Elections website and I began reading what their policy was on public records and voting as it appeared I could contact them for information (so much for this becoming a blog post I could do on the fly). My first question was how far back their records go, if they did not have the voting records of 100 years ago (I’m still focused on Mazie for this exercise) then they would not be able to help me.

After reading through their 14-page document I discovered it does not include how far back one can go to research the voting records. So I opted to inquire to them about what years they have. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long, I emailed them in the morning and by 5pm I had an answer – their records only go back to 2011.

So, I found myself starting over.

Family Tree Magazine

I tried to find other ways to find voter records in genealogical research. The first article I read was from Family Tree Magazine with “How to Trace Your Ancestors in Voter Records” by Diane Haddad where it explained that voter records were good resources to follow where your ancestor lived, the key was finding county lists of registered voters or discovering who paid poll taxes.

I lucked out as the author specifically highlighted Ohio, which listed years that I wasn’t needing right now, 1803-1911, but detailed that “Ohio counted men age 21 and older in various counties to determine voting districts” and can be located on Family History Library microfilm and in local genealogical society collections.

The Ancestor Hunt

The next website I checked out was new to me entitled The Ancestor Hunt, their article explained why it’s important to find your people in voter records: helps with the gaps between censuses, naturalization, middle names, you can find a spouse, nativity, physical characteristics, political party/affiliation, and migration (I just re-stated their headlines).

They also have a link for each state for free online voter records. So naturally I selected Ohio, not every county had their records online, and once again Summit County was missing.

Sigh.

Ancestry.com

Next came a link that led to an entire section of Ohio history research using Ancestry.com. But again, these records led to city directories, and oddly enough, files related to Florida (yes, that’s me you hear scratching my head).

Family History Daily

Next up was the Family History Daily website who had a blog entry “Voting Created Some Fascinating Genealogy Records! Here’s Where to Find Them“. This article title has me elated. It provided a nice synopsis of voting registers and how they are found alphabetically. It also noted that these records are often available after the mid-1800s, with better luck to be had in the 1900’s and these records are very limited, or not included due to many groups of people being excluded from voting.

But the most important tidbit this article offered was that these records cannot be found online for free. (This explains why I have never stumbled upon these records).

Thank you Family History Daily.

So now where can I search in Summit County to find my ancestors voting records (I am more or less curious to see which of my relatives took their civil duty seriously? I do my best to be a good citizen and get out and vote each year.

Where Are the Summit County Voter Registers?

Since I have not found anything online and have not had any luck at the Summit County Board of Elections, my next place to look is the Summit County Historical Society. Many of their documents are located at the Akron-Summit County Library in the Special Collections Division. So I will see if I can find anything there first.

By looking through the local history section of the Special Collections page, I found an Archival Collection page that has the collections of the Summit County Historical Society.

My first search I I used the keyword “vote” which gave me 46 results, most being articles on specific levies and whether they passed or failed and by how much.

One headline that made me smile was “Akron Public Library Booms During Depression: More Persons Registered for Books Than Are Eligible to Vote Here”.

Other headlines were for businesses and board votes and mergers between companies. But nothing for voter registrations.

An even bigger sigh.

I continued to look through records that were listed in pdf form that stated what files the library had on microfilm to see if voter registrations were there. Despite them having birth, estate, and other records, there were no voting records amongst the files.

I then turned to the Summit County, Ohio website to see if any files were there. If so I was looking in the wrong place. What gave me the idea was that the naturalization records are there with the Clerk of Courts section. I get that the voter registrations aren’t online, but I had hoped that one of these places would have it mentioned if they have these records within their facilities.

I will have to pick this up at another time. I may find the voter registrations by next November when this is the topic once again. I will continue to research this topic as I am very curious if any of my female relatives voted in the 1920 elections when they earned the right to vote with the 19th Amendment.

History

Veteran’s Day

Becky

Veteran’s Day is “a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good” (found at U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs).

History

Originally called Armistice Day, it was ratified into being on 13 May 1938 to commemorate the ending of World War I (otherwise known as the Great War). The date of 11 November was chosen for this holiday as all fighting ceased on 11 November 1918 at the 11th hour.

In 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially changed the name from Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day at the urging of several veteran organizations.

To all those who have served, I thank you for my freedom.

Find My Past

In honor of this national holiday, Find My Past is having military records free to research today, 11 November 2021 through 15 November 2021. Seize the opportunity to find these important documents about your military ancestor.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, My Family Tree, Paternal Side

Week 43: Shock

Becky

Have you ever found a shocking discovery while working on your family history? I have found a few with it literally being a shock when I discovered a distant cousin was electrocuted by the State of Ohio (see my tale of Ralph Reed here). I found out via DNA that the man listed on my grandmother’s birth certificate was not her dad (see that discovery here).

But I will never forget standing in the Bedford County Historical Society trying to obtain more information on my fifth-great-grandfather, Peter Morgart, who I discovered previously was at the Battle of Yorktown during the Revolutionary War, only to learn he was an antagonist of the Whiskey Rebellion and a reason President George Washington went to Bedford County, Pennsylvania to settle things within our very young country.

The Whiskey Rebellion

The Whiskey Rebellion was an “uprising of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania in protest of a whiskey tax that was enacted by the federal government“. In 1790 Alexander Hamilton pushed for the American government to take over all the debt each state sustained during the American Revolution. Though President Washington was against the tax in the beginning, after talking to local Virginians and Pennsylvanians, who seemed “enthusiastic”, he (Washington) took these positive declarations to Congress and the bill was passed in 1791.

Protests began immediately as the new tax was unfair to small producers. Where the larger distilleries paid a yearly tax at 6 cents per gallon, with even more tax breaks the more whiskey was produced, the smaller distillers paid 9 cents per gallon and had to pay with cash.

Initial protests were refusals to pay the tax, but then they began intimidating officials and violence broke out. For example, 11 September 1791 Robert Johnson from the excise office, went to collect the tax, he was surrounded by 11 men dressed as women where they stripped him naked, tar and feathered him, and stole his horse, leaving him alone in the forest. Mr. Johnson recognized 2 of the men and warrants were issued for their arrest. When John Connor went to take the arrest warrants to them, the same thing happened to him. They resigned after that.

In 1792 Washington tried to resolve things peacefully, but by 1794 actions began to get out of hand when a fire was set to the home of the regional tax collector, John Neville. President George Washington organized a militia and headed to western Pennsylvania. By the time he arrived the rebels had “dispursed” with 2 being found guilty of treason (they were both later pardoned by Washington).

Peter Morgart

My fifth-great-grandfather on my paternal grandmother’s side witnessed Cornwallis surrender his sword to George Washington at Yorktown. So that he was one of the many men refusing to pay the tax blew my mind. He paid his fine (to my relief) but it had me rather unsettled that my relative was one of the reasons my hero had to go to Bedford County.

I am not sure if Peter Morgart was a distiller himself but he did build the Morgart Tavern in the late 1700s. I’m sure being the owner of a tavern brought about it’s own sort of related payments to the whiskey tax.

The Tavern went on to be owned by my fourth-great-grandfather, Baltzer Morgart.

The Morgart Tavern and how it looked in July 2019

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Maternal Side, My Family Tree, Paternal Side

Week 42: Sports

Becky

To my knowledge, sports is not a huge part of my family’s life. We love to spectate as my cousin loves OSU football, and my mom and I were/are big fans of football and baseball, my mom being a huge fan of the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Indians while I prefer the New York Football Giants and the New York Yankees. My mom liked the Ohio State University Buckeyes football as well. My husband is a devout follower of the Alabama Crimson Tide College football team. But if you haven’t guessed, we are watchers, not players.

As I mention in a previous post, my parents met in a bowling alley and they were on bowling leagues off and on throughout their married life. My mom’s siblings did as well. My maternal grandmother, Alberta Lou Fleming, was a bowler as well, belonging to bowling leagues for women with high averages.

Found in the Akron Beacon Journal on 9 December 1974 on Newspapers.com. My grandmother is noted under the bolded paragraph Other High Finishers…

The other sport my family was involved in is golf. My maternal grandfather, Harold Fairhurst, made part of his living as a golf pro (he was also a Mason). My uncles both play golf, my mom’s youngest brother just took his nephew (my cousin) to a golf outing that was a fundraiser for Huntington’s Disease. This same uncle’s daughter passed away last year from complications of Huntington’s.

My grandfather did achieve a hole in one at the now defunct Valley View Golf Course. My Aunt remembers that my grandfather won a years supply of free Pepsi for his achievement.

From the 17 September 1964 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal, found on Newspapers.com

On my dad’s side hunting is the sport of choice. I remember going to my Uncle Don’s house where he had a huge deer and turkey on display. I recently learned from my dad that his dad, Leroy Blair, only shot animals for food. When he could afford to purchase food at the grocery store, he no longer hunted. That explained why I have never had eaten deer (granted when my dad went deer hunting with friends we threatened to call him a “Bambi killer” so he probably opted not too).

Fishing is another sport we do. My mom took a big interest in it before she passed away but I have fished off and on my entire life, as my Daddy taught me when I was little. It was always a fun activity when we went camping as where I fished all the nearby campers would come out and watch me and applaud me as I ran up the hill to our campsite so my dad could take the fish off my hook. He is who I still go to now when I catch a fish (well, assuming he has gone with us).

Cynthia Anne Fairhurst with the fish she caught. For a lady who wasn’t into fishing most of her life, the last 5 years or so she truly enjoyed it.

Lastly, I enjoy hiking. I am lucky to live in an area that has a park system in place that provides a wide variety of leisure activities for everyone. Hiking, archery, kayaking, ice skating (oh, my mom did this when she was little at the Gorge Metro Park), camping, mountain biking, sledding, you get the idea. Each year I participate in the Fall Hiking Spree. Between September 1 and November 30 you complete 8 different hikes and you earn a shield (though the first year you earn a shield and a hiking stick). It’s a great activity to get me exercising. Below are photos from the hike I did last week at the beforementioned Gorge Metro Park, I finally got started… 1 down, 7 to go, and this year I’ll be earning my 10th shield. I’m rather proud of myself.

There are all kinds of ways to enjoy sports – both in watching and taking part. It’s all about finding what you like and doing it (or watching if that is the case).

Sports was the prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks by Amy Johnson Crow. If you would like to participate in this writing challenge click here.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Genealogy

Week 41: Change

Becky

Having one-word prompts for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is proving to be quite challenging for me. I know in some ways it gives the writer a little more “scope for the imagination” but sometimes it’s too broad. So much so it takes me to the next week to figure out what to say. And I even went on a 2-mile hike and constantly mulled over what I could write about… and then it hit me, I have changed as a family historian.

When I began this journey 5 years ago, I was a “plop the name in the search box and see what information came up” type. I felt a little advanced from the get-go as I broadened my searches with initials, seldom using cities to find what I was looking for and using states instead, and using both maiden and married names when looking for my female ancestors. But now I know that’s just common sense.

It did not take me long to begin saving copies of the documents I found and setting up an online folder system that works for me and I know where everything is.

My very simple Genealogy folder on my OneDrive
Here is what the inside of my “daddy’s side” folder looks like, I have individual folders for each surname and then within each folder is my direct descendant and in each folder are their children.

Then I began taking classes, first at my local library over topics such as immigration, how to use Ancestry or Fold3, how to use historical newspapers, and how to identify photographs (just to name a few).

But then I went to my first Family History Day at my local Family History Center that my dad saw advertised in our local newspaper. An entire day of classes on various topics dealing with genealogy? I had no idea such bliss existed. And it was free!!!

My world changed that day. I discovered lecturers that I could listen to all day. They are the hands on type of speakers showing how to do case studies in a step by step manner. Or they give you an abundance of ways to search for records and where to search for records that you end up going home and discovering that you yourself are implementing what you have learned on a daily basis.

I then found myself joining my local, state and national genealogical societies to continue to learn. The Spring of 2019 I went to my first conference (and attended my second this past Spring as 2020 was cancelled due to Covid). With every class I learn a little more, and as Peggy Clemens Lauritzen said in her key note speech to open the 2021 Ohio Genealogical Society Conference, you are never the same family historian because each day you learn something that you carry over to the next day.

Now I’ve gone on a research trip to where a bulk of my paternal ancestors lived, 2 conferences, 3 Family History Days, on my 4th year of being a member of Family Tree Webinars all so I can hope to successfully continue finding my people. I also have become pretty good and looking up other online information that has been digitized using the Card Catalog on Ancestry, using image searches on FamilySearch and no one loves those gossip sections that give all sorts of details about your relatives than me in Newspapers.com.

The Potter Enterprise, 11 February 1904, found on Newspapers.com

So if you are just beginning your family research, or you have been doing it for decades, every day you change, so continue to bloom!

Book

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

Becky

They claim when doing your genealogy you should do your best to learn about the history of the area, and that was one of my primary reasons to read “The Johnstown Flood” by David McCullough, his very first book.

Mr. McCullough was able to provide a good amount of history of Cambria County as he began his book by giving background of the area, which fittingly for me was 1850. Andrew and Susanna Blair are living in Cambria County in the 1850 Census with their 2 oldest children (at least known anyhow) Sarah and William. Though they have moved to Bedford County and have most likely passed by the Johnstown Flood of 1889, I learned that the city where my Grandmother (Anna Maria Morgart) grew up, Saint Michael, is located where the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club once stood.

What I Learned

Cambria County in Pennsylvania was created from “Mother Bedford” in 1804 that was a simple trading center until the 1830’s when the canal came to be. By 1835, Johnstown had a “drugstore, newspaper, Presbyterian church, and a distillery”. By 1840 the population was 3,000. By 1850 the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Works had been established and “everything changed”.

According to the book –
“By the start of the 1880’s Johnstown and its neighboring boroughs had a total population of about 15,000. Within the next nine years the population doubled. On the afternoon of May 31, 1889, there were nearly 30,000 people living in the valley”.

The South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club

The South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club was a “resort” built near Lake Conemaugh (or the South Fork Dam) that had 50 extremely wealthy members (the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Philander C. Knox, and Andrew Mellon, to name a few). The Club was an escape for these men of industry, a place for them to get away and fish, hunt, sail (one of the chapters was called “Sailboats on the Mountain” because Lake Conemaugh, aka the South Fork Dam, was so big they could sail in it).

The Club was chartered on 15 November 1879 in the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County, with everyone ignoring the provision that the law stated that they needed to register in the county where business was to take place (which in this case is Cambria County).

The Flood

2,209 people lost their lives over something that could have been avoided. For years people wondered when South Fork Dam was going to break. It wasn’t an if, it was a when. And even just hours before the dam did overflow and “break” someone could have made it so that much less damage could have occurred.

But what if it didn’t overflow? Or break? That is why John Parke, Jr. did not cut a hole in another area of the spillway so the water could have flowed out more safely. It was too bold of a decision, because if the worst case scenario didn’t happen, it would have been the end of Lake Conemaugh, and it was just too risky to go ahead and do.

On 30 May 1889 unprecedented heavy rains began in the area around 11pm, coming from Kansas and Nebraska where they began two days before, washing out roads and flattening farms across the way as tornado-like winds killed several people. But it was an odd storm, where 5 inches rained down at the South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club, only 1.5 inches was recorded for the same period of time at Pittsburgh, just 65 miles away.

But the rain continued to come and despite warnings of what was happening, they were ignored or unable to go through and the worst case scenario happened: 20 million tons of water began hurling down upon the city of Johnstown when the dam failed.

Histed, E. W., photographer. (ca. 1889) View of the broken dam looking from bed of lake, Johnstown Flood, May 31st . Pennsylvania Johnstown, ca. 1889. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2008675504/.
Histed, E. W., photographer. (ca. 1889) Bed of lake looking from top of broken dam, Johnstown flood, May 31st. Pennsylvania Johnstown, ca. 1889. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/92509962/.

hello

(ca. 1889) The Johnstown flood, looking west on Main Street. , ca. 1889. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002707062/.

The Johnstown Flood was the first disaster for Clara Barton and the very new American Red Cross.

(1889) Clara Barton’s headquarters, Johnstown, Pa. flood. , 1889. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002707084/.

The book went into great detail about what happened. Mr. McCullough did his due diligence and did an incredible amount of research on the topic, interviewing many who had witnessed the horror of that day.

In the back of the book all 2,209 names of the people who are known to have perished in the flood are listed and where they are buried. Such a sad event that could have been so much less had people listened.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Genealogy

Week 40: Preservation

Becky

This quote exemplifies why I work on my family tree. I do my best to preserve each and every member of a family in order to have a correct family tree, but most importantly so that each person is remembered. Because for me, it is when a person is forgotten is when they no longer live.

This is my quest as the family historian. I try to find everyone, especially the babies who never had a chance to make much of an impact in the world. All of these people who make up my tree, without them I wouldn’t be here. In some way they all have impacted my life, whether it was someone I knew or someone I learned of doing research. All of them deserve to be remembered.

Preservation was the theme for this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a weekly writing challenge offered by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, My Family Tree

Week 39: Steps

Becky

Steps is this weeks theme for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Over the course of ones lifetime we take millions of steps that lead to significant places.

The most important step always seems to be the first one. I was lucky enough to have my dad at home when I took mine and he captured them in black and white film. (Pardon my photos, my mom placed them in a sticky back album and I took them with my phone as I have my dad’s scanner at my house).

I was able to witness my daughters as my dad had a doctors appointment and I watched her at work and she walked from a chair to me at my desk. So the Carriage House at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens will always hold a special place in my heart.

This is my personal photo of the Carriage House at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens. This was taken during the 2018 Deck the Hall! program. Just on the other side of the balcony was where my office/lobby was where my daughter took her first steps.

But think of all the places our feet take us too, our first day of school, our first day of college (I broke my foot that day), our first job, down the aisle to marry our sweetheart. And it’s not just our own journey that have contained so many steps… our ancestors probably took even more steps that we do as cars may not have been a part of their lives.

But in many ways the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” as we still have so many parallels with our ancestors. School. Marriage. Kids. It’s a circle of life that is beautiful and makes it all possible for us to be here.

But steps are vital to everything, between getting from Point A to Point B, to advancing from one stage to another (like school as we successfully pass each grade to go to the next). Sometimes it even gets you to see things in a different perspective.

My personal photo taken from atop the Marblehead Lighthouse on Lake Erie
Genealogy

It’s October!!!!

Becky

October is one of the greatest months of the year because it means we all have an excuse to work on our genealogy!

Not that we ever have to have a reason to continue to work on our family trees, but it is a month filled with educational webinar’s, podcasts, and articles that will further our knowledge to find our ancestors.

So I hope you are all able to enjoy the month and get the most out of all the opportunities that are out there. May you break down your brick wall and move on to new ones!