Brickwalls!!

Ah...those damned brickwall relatives! Didn't these people know that I'd be looking for them sooner or later? How come each and every one of them didn't leave me a complete autobiography so that I wouldn't be pounding my head against some of these brickwalls that I keep running into? The nerve....

(Of course, I plan to leave nothing behind...challenging my decendants to find me! ~grin~)

Anyway...I thought I'd take this space to share some of my brickwalls...maybe someone out there can say, "Gee Charlee...I thought you were smarter than that...here's the information you were looking for!"

PETTIS:

Ah...this one is perplexing! The tombstones above are those of Andrew Patrick Henry Pettis and his wife Sarah McCartney Pettis. They're located at the Metier Cemetery in Decatur County, Iowa.

According to a biography written about Andrew, his parents were David Pettis and Eunice Corey. We also know from this bio that Andrew was born in Indiana, and that he was bonded out at the age of 10 (in 1829) "as was the custom of the time". From that, I ASSUME that Andy's (as I like to think of him) father died about that time, if not both parents. There are lots of bits and pieces of knowledge about Andy...but the ONLY thing we (my sister and I) can find about his parents, David and Eunice, is that they were married in Meigs County, Ohio in 1818. (records are kept in Athens, Ohio). That's it. No matter how much poking around I do, I can't seem to find anything more about David and Eunice. Can't find any mention of siblings for Andy.... it's really almost as if the man materialized out of nowhere, and then simply made up names and a marriage record for parents! From the dates, one would also ASSUME that Andy is the oldest child, perhaps the only child. There just don't seem to be any definate records for this couple after their marriage and son Andrew's biography. (Found the marriage record...NO information on it!)

Sarah's family is less "hidden" and yet I just haven't gathered much information about them...perhaps for lack of trying so far! I suspect that her father was Samuel McCartney, and her mother, Mary. I should maybe spend some time on this family!

BARBER/BARBOUR/HUNTER

The bane of my existence! ACK! This family has been one of my most difficult to date. I've spent hours and hours puzzling over this one.

Pleasant B Barber/Barbour (then aged 30) and Judith Hunter (then aged 33) were married April 3, 1832, in Morgan County, Illinois. Son James Coladon Barber was born Dec 28, 1832, reportedly in Sangamon County, Illinois. (Tells ya that our boy James was either a month premature, or he was an "engagement baby".) Now...here's what I know. Pleasant Barber was born about 1802 in Virginia, got that much from census reports. Also know that he said his parents were from England (father) and Pennsylvania (mother).

There's a 1840 census that I believe is our little family, in Greene County, Illinois. The son matches our James. However...there's a little girl of a like age also in the household. Hmmmmm....this little girl didn't move to California with the family that I've heard of. She's not on the 1850 census with them...which, by the way, I found under the name of BARKER! I searched for this family for AGES in 1850, before I finally learned to use every CLOSE spelling of the name that I could think of to find them! There they were...in Macon, Illinois....all four of the "known for sure" family! (Pleasant, Judith, James, and John). Old Pleasant at that time was "45"...making his birthyear 1805...and Judith was "51", making her birthyear correct. James and John have close enough birthyears too. Sometime during the next decade, the family moved to California. Problem is, I can't find them on the 1860 census! They were in California by then, because I've found a couple of land patents on the BLM website that shows Pleasant was in California in 1860. One of these land records includes the name "Charles Bourgette". I have no idea who Charles is, or his "relationship" to Pleasant. Because this particular land record is marked "February 11, 1847: ScripWarrant Act of 1847 (9 Stat. 123)" I went looking for Charles on Ancestry.com. I found a military record for a Charles Bourgette. It's entirely possible that Pleasant was not in the military, and was partnered with Charles simply because he was.

Who knows? At any rate....I've been able to find out very little about this man, other than census reports that I've found, some land records and his marriage record.

His wife? Judith Hunter? Yet another "ACK"! Judith Hunter is another that appeared from nowhere....she died in Chico, CA, and is buried at the Pine Creek Cemetery there. Her stone reads, "Judith Hunter w/o Pleasant Barbour, A Native of Kentucky, and gives a death date in 1871, along with her age in years, months, days. (I'd give specifics, but they're at home, and I'm at work!)

Now I've looked for Judith before her marriage to Pleasant. I do find a Judith Hunter on the 1830 census, and she was of an age at the time of her marriage to have been a head of household. I think that lady in Illinois might very well have been my girl. Ok....all fine...the 1830 census doesn't tell you anything anyway. Of more interest to me are the names of her two boys...my gg grandfather, James COLADON Barber, and John ANDERSON Barber. Hmmmmm...

So I went poking around. And I find, on the 1850 census, Coladon HUNTER living with his son, Edward HUNTER. HMMMMMM!! Except..."Colledin Hunter" on the 1850 census for Morgan County, Illinois is only 10 years older than my Judith. The transcript listing for the Jacksonville Cemetery East shows "HUNTER, Colladon ? 18 Dec 1824 35y 2m 7d" Now wait...TWO "Colladon Hunter"s? One that lived to be recorded on the 1850 and another of the exact same age that died in 1824? I'm sure that this man is related...I just have to figure out this puzzle!

I'll leave it at that for now, but rest assured that I have TONS more brickwalls to scale...if you have any ideas for me, let me know!

So Many Relatives, So Little Time!

Why, oh why didn't I start working on genealogy 30 years ago, when I had all sorts of relatives to share stories with me?

A few years ago, I got a photo from my sister. It was a woman's photo, and was marked "Mary Ann Aitken", with the explanation that she had been our grandfather's grandmother.

I'm a scrapbooker. I'm one of those scrapbookers that feels a need to tell SOME kind of story about each photo that I choose to put in my albums. Every photo has a story...to scrap a photo without so much as the name of the person in the photo is just wrong in my book! I mean, how many times have you seen a mother look at a baby picture and say, "This is little Johnny....oh! No! Wait! That's not Johnny...it's Davy! No...can't be Davy...it MUST be Sammy!" My advice...mark every photo with a pencil on the back...and when you scrapbook them, make sure that there's a who, what, where, when, and why somewhere on the page.

I digress. I had to scrap the photo of the beautiful woman that I had never known, but was my great great grandmother. So I went to Google. I typed in her name and was sent to a website that had her lineage! I was thrilled beyond thrilled! I still don't know a lot about her, but I at least knew when she lived, where she was born, who her parents were.

That led to a hunger for more. I needed to find as much as I could about not just Mary Ann (aka "Annie") Aitken MacKenzie...I needed to know about everyone in my history. I've been hooked ever since! My sister often gets calls now..."I'm SO excited!! Guess what I found out????!!!" She just laughs and gets out her notepad so she can record the information that I'm about to share with her.

I started this blog so that I can share with whomever might be interested in the names in my research. I'm still trying to decide how to share what I've found...but I'm thinking the best way is to start the tree from the bottom up. My next post will be about my parents and grandparents.