Family Notes

  I have about 8700 names in my family tree, which seems like a lot until you notice how many trees on Ancestry have 100,000 and more. As a general rule I don’t seek out every possible distant cousin to add to the tree. I try to be as complete as I can be on the direct ancestors, and beyond that look for people who seem interesting to me.  That “seems interesting” gives me a pretty broad leeway. I read somewhere about the man credited with being the first homesteader to take advantage of the 1862 Homestead Act. His name was Daniel Freeman and his homestead was in Beatrice, Nebraska. Now Freeman is a pretty frequent surname in my wife’s ancestry, so I looked into Daniel’s bloodline and sure enough discovered that he was her 7th cousin (4x removed). Note: since Laurie and I are actually related (17th cousins) that means Daniel is my relation as well, but far more distantly. Anyway, what really made me want to add him to the family tree was his picture. You can read about Daniel’...

 Oviel was born to George W. and Sarah Greenlee in 1894. He grew up in the little farming community of Kurtz, Indiana. He is my first cousin, twice removed, his aunt Lucinda being my great grandmother (on my mother's side). Oviel registered for the draft in June of 1917. He was an unmarried 24 year old who had been working with a railroad gang, laying track for the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad. A side note: what I found most interesting about this registration was the tab in the bottom left corner. See that? "If person is of African descent, tear off this corner." Note also that on line 12 ("Do you claim exemption from draft (specify grounds)?"), is written the words "physical disability." I wonder what that was? In any case, the exemption was not accepted as valid and Oviel was scooped up by Uncle Sam. He was initially assigned to the 251st Infantry, drilled in Kentucky at Camp Taylor. Sent to France in June of 1918, he was immediatel...

 This is the 4th and last post focusing on my great grandparents and where they were in 1900. The three previous posts are: James Cornelius Spencer (1866-1928) and Mary Addie Winfrey (1870-1944) Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) and Ella May Biddle (1872-1965) James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) The final pair of great grandparents is Clark Pittman (1851-1931) and and Lucinda Greenlee (1864-1900). The Pittmans were a prolific and also long-lived bunch. The earliest in America was Richard Pitman, who was a Quaker settler in New Jersey in the late 1600s. He lived to be 89 and died at Pennsauken Creek, near present-day Camden. The inventory of his estate was valued at $145 and included "9 old books." It was his grandson, another Richard, who would move the family to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border. This was not a single-family exodus, but many families, all moving around the same time. By now the Pittmans are not Quakers b...

 This is the third installment of my series of posts on my great grandparents. In this one we're looking at James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) of Spencer County, Indiana. In the 1900 census James and Midia (spelled Mida in this census) are renting a farm in Huff Township, Spencer County, Indiana. Their first daughter, Cora, is 3 years old. James and Midia have been 3 years married at this point. By 1910 they are back in Hammond, Indiana, where James' parents live, and they are again renting a farm. In the 1920 census they are in Vanderburgh, Indiana, and James is a laborer in a flour mill. And somewhere between then and the next census they move to Columbus, in Bartholomew County, where daughter Emma Grace, my grandmother, will meet and marry James Franklin Spencer. The 1930 census-taker put down James as a farm laborer who did not, by the way, own a radio! James was the son of Joseph McDaniel and Margaret Price. In the 1900 census these two a...

 This is the 2nd post in a series looking at my great grandparents, focusing particularly on the 1900 census. In this case we'll be looking at Enoch Franklin Morris and Ella May Biddle. They were my great grandparents on my mother's side. Their daughter, Ethel, was my grandmother. Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) was born in Jennings County, Indiana, as was his wife, Ella May Biddle (1872-1965). This is rural southern Indiana. The biggest city in Jennings County is North Vernon, which in 2020 had a population of 6608. In the 1900 census, the 23 year old Enoch Franklin Morris lived in Columbia Township (population today is still under 1000), in the northeast corner of the county. Enoch and Ella May got married in 1898. In the 1900 census Enoch is listed as a farmer. He can both read and write (not always a given). The same is true of Ella May. Their first child, daughter Lanora, is only nine months old at the time of the census. Enoch was a farmer and later also a trustee of th...

  The father is William Wellington Spencer (1862-1925), my great grand-uncle (the brother of my great grandfather, James Cornelius Spencer-- see previous post ). The wife and mother is Maggie Hoskins (1862-1925). The family lived in Pellville and then Hawesville, Hancock County, Kentucky. William was a farmer and then a miller who owned his own mill, and toward the end of his life a grocer (according to his death certificate). The picture was taken, I suppose, circa 1892. The eldest, standing in back, is son Alois (b. 1884), then in front of him the next eldest, daughter Viva (b. 1886), and sitting on her father's knee is Ethel (b. 1889), and then the baby on her mother's lap is daughter Farrie D. (b. 1891).

My great grandparents were, on my father's side: James Cornelius Spencer (1866-1928) and Mary Addie Winfrey (1870-1944) James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) And on my mother's side: Clark E. Pittman (1851-1931) and Lucinda Greenlee (1864-1900) Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) and Ella Mae Biddle (1872-1965) In the next few posts I intend to look at each of them in term, answering the simple question, where were they at the time of the 1900 census? In this post I am going to look at James and Mary Addie Spencer. James and his family were temporarily split up in 1900. James (who seems to have gone by his middle name, Cornelius, or Nealey for short) was at the time of the census a patient in the Western Kentucky Asylum for the Insane. Evidence from his 1928 death certificate would suggest that he might have been suffering from the ravages of venereal disease. Where were his wife and children at this time? Well, 4 of the 5 children were living with...