Stray Genealogy Bits and Pieces

I have two boxes of pictures and decades-old printouts and notes on assorted people in my tree. I’ve been working on my lines for over 50 years and some of this stuff dates from the early days of my research which has been either confirmed or thrown out the window by subsequent research that’s properly sourced. Many of the pictures are duplicates of things I’ve already scanned, filed, and added to my tree. Others aren’t but they’re of people I barely know – and if I don’t know them, I know my brother won’t have a clue who they are. And we’re the only ones left.

I find myself wondering why I’m bothering to review all this stuff again. If the boxes disappeared, no one would know what went with them. I’m not sure I would know after all this time. And I’m not sure that anyone would care. You have to know what they are and whether they fill missing holes to care. I’m the only one who knows what they are and even I don’t care about most of it.

So why am I doing this? Really, why? Is it not enough that I have better images already scanned and sorted? I understand the value of all the scraps of paper that have given me genealogy treasures in the past. And it’s not THAT big a project to go through them all, search online, check files, etc. to see if I already have these pieces in a digital form.

But I just don’t want to do it, which is why they’re still sitting in their folders and acid-free boxes waiting for me to look at them again. I took the first step and moved everything out into the living room, but I still don’t want to do it. Maybe tomorrow.

Researching DVTs

There’s nothing like having either symptoms or a diagnosis to send me to the web to do some research. I know how to evaluate websites and usually start with WebMD.com to get a general overview, then move on to the Mayo Clinic, and from there, visit specialized sites until I understand whatever it is I’m searching. Sometimes a straight natural language search in Google will get me cool stuff, too. I particularly like charts and diagrams and not big medical words, at least until I get grounded.

Naturally I’ve been checking on DVT’s, since they just found one in my foot last week. I’m now on Xarelto and there’s a good chance I’ll be on it or something similar for the rest of my life. I had Lovenox injections in my stomach for 9 weeks after surgery but no one suggested anything after that, saying that I was walking enough that I should be fine. But my right foot and leg have been swollen since about 10 days after my surgery 11 months ago today, getting worse in the last 4-5 weeks. I have no idea how long the clot has been there but suspect it’s been at least a few weeks if not months.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m in a Facebook group for spinal cord injury rehab and have gotten great ideas, answers, inspiration, and support from others in the same boat or with worse injuries than I have. I asked there about DVT’s and got responses from many people who have been diagnosed and/or have been on blood thinners since their injury/surgery. Being in a wheelchair, or even walking some but still being mostly sedentary, increases the chance of getting clots and of having them recur. Given that, I’m more than a little annoyed that no one thought to put me on blood thinners. I’ll be talking to my cardiologist about how this gets managed going forward and what symptoms to be watching out for, since my leg is already so swollen. Would really like to see that change.

Although I’m not currently in physical therapy, I talk to my PT via text and asked her what to do about resuming exercise. Originally my doctor prescribed ultrasound for my sprained ankle, but using that could move the clot which would be Bad. My PT didn’t want me walking or doing the NuStep either, until at least 48 hours passed on the new blood thinner, so my weekend was quite boring except for watching “Steel Magnolias” on Sunday evening.

Yesterday I used the walker to go around the apartment as a place to start with walking, and only felt a slight twinge of ankle pain which is good. Unlike most people recovering from a sprained ankle, I’m already walking around in compression socks and a rigid brace that wraps the ankle, leg, and foot and offers protection. I felt stable but could tell that it had been two weeks since I walked last. Today’s plan is to do the NuStep for 20 minutes, which will feel good to get back to doing, and tomorrow I’ll put the AFO’s on again and start walking in the hall – not as much as the last time, but still. I’ll start small and build back up.

2019 Research Project Progress Report

That certainly sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But the short answer is, there is no progress because I haven’t been working on it. At all.

My big plan for 2018, which I completed, was to produce a bound book of Ancestors of My Brother from my FamilyTreeMaker data and give it to him for Christmas. Done, in 6 copies – one for him one for each of his children, and one for me. It’s gorgeous.

The plan for 2019 was to make research binder pages with full-page images to be printed and added to binders by some undetermined division of surnames. Each person/section would be supplemented by original documents and photos in acid-free page protectors, all properly identified. Sounded good. Didn’t happen.

What I have is a FTM database of just under 2,000 names with data collected over almost 50 years of research, which was massively cleaned up last year in preparation for the 2018 project. Time well-spent. I also have acid-free boxes divided by great-grandparent surname with original documents or copies such as death certificates, cemetery deeds, wills, letters, and military records. And photos – tho the tiny photos are being handled in another way. Yeah, lots of options. There’s also lots of correspondence, some of it dating back to the early 1970’s, from long-deceased relatives with seeds of information, and from cemeteries and churches with information covering multiple family members.

Also in the boxes are lots of random things, mostly outdated or replaced in digital form such as handwritten transcriptions of census records or abstracted land-deeds, and ancient family group sheets full of mis- or incomplete information. Some serious weeding of all of this was needed.

This week I started going through some of those boxes, weeding and sorting as I went, putting things in lovely clear acid-free sheet protectors and then putting THEM in a binder. I got through material for the Heginbothams, McCormicks, Cookes, Morrisons, and Flanders, which are all maternal lines. Next up are the boxes for my paternal lines, which have way more stuff to look at. But this is important.

What’s also important is coming to the realization that I do NOT want to make research binders with text, group sheets, original documents, etc. It’s a lot of work and I just don’t want to do it. What I want to do instead is make more printed & bound books with full-size photos and documents now in FamilyTreeMaker (which includes census, vital records, newspaper articles, city directory images, etc.). I’m thinking one book of ancestors for each of my grandparents, and one book of descendants for each set of grandparents.

All of these original documents that I’m carefully putting in acid-free storage can still go into binders by surname. I might organize them differently – not by individual person but by category of document, since several people in the same family appear on one page. Everything must be labeled, identified, and dated – because I’m the only one right now who knows what all that stuff is.

The goal is to make sure that all of the research I’ve done and all the material I’ve collected gets organized in a format that will be useful to me and to other family members who might refer to it when I’m not around to explain it.

So that’s the plan.

Where Did You Come From, William Myers?

My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all named William Myers. Beyond that, though, the line goes dead in terms of anything I can prove. It’s very frustrating since it’s my name!

In doing genealogical research, we start with the most recent information we can find and work backwards. My grandfather William Myers doesn’t appear in any contemporaneous records with his parents because birth certificates weren’t required in 1906 when he was born in Perquimans County, North Carolina. His mother Josephine Emma Goodwin died in March 1909, followed by her husband William Myers in October 1909. There are no death certificates for either one, depriving us of another source of information, but family lore says they died of the flu. No wills, orphans records, or burial records have been found.  My great-grandmother’s sister Lurinda Goodwin Curtis took in orphaned William, Percy and Nellie Myers, who grew up with her family. They are listed together in the 1910 census.

So let’s see what else we can find by going back to the 1900 Census.  William Myres (38), his wife Josephine (26), and son Percy (3) were living in Bethel, Perquimans County, North Carolina. William and Josephine had been married for 6 years; she had born two children, only one was still living.  All of them were born in North Carolina of parents also born in North Carolina. William was a farmer on rented land. His birthdate is listed as January 1862 and hers, December 1873.

No North Carolina marriage records were found, but my grandmother remembered that her husband’s parents were married in Virginia and not North Carolina. Why she remembered this is a mystery; her husband was only 3 years old when his parents died in 1909, so he barely knew them and she never met them. But remember she did, and it opened possibilities.

William Myers and Joseph [sic] Emma Goodwin were married on 27 Dec 1893 in Suffolk, Virginia, about 55 miles from their 1900 home in Bethel, North Carolina. The marriage record shows that William, age 26, was born in 1867; his parents were listed as David and Margaret Myers. Joseph, or Josephine, age 20, was born in 1873 to parents Lemuel S. and Mary J. Goodwin.

Already we have a discrepancy. The marriage record gives William’s birth information as 1867 while the 1900 census, taken 7 years after the marriage, gives the date as January 1862. Josephine’s information is consistent across the two records. Her parents, Lemuel Goodwin and Mary Jane Thach, grew up in Perquimans County but had moved to Suffolk, Virginia, sometime before December 1893. The Myers were more elusive. In fact, they’re missing.

One of the benefits of online rearch is the ability to do “sounds like” searches, which is handy when there are many ways to spell a name. And there are many ways to spell Myers, among them Meyers, Meyer, Myer, Mayer, Meirs, Mears, Maiers. Unfortunately for me, I found no marriage record for a David Myers (of any spelling) and anyone named Margaret in North Carolina or Virginia. I also found no William Myers (of any spelling) born in 1867 in North Carolina or Virginia.

One promising William Myers (born to David Giles Myers) was born in 1861 in Davidson County, North Carolina, but follow-up research showed he lived and died in Davidson County and married someone else completely.  There is, though, a David Myers born about 1837 in Chowan County, right next to Perquimans County. He appears in the 1850 census at age 13 in the home of Thomas Myers, his wife Minnie, with siblings Alexander (21) and Harriet (15), living in the District Below Edenton.  In 1860, the only David Myers in the county appears in Edenton, where he was age 24 and working and living as a bookkeeper in a hotel.

David Myers enlisted in as a private in Company M, North Carolina 1st Infantry Regiment on 29 April 1861 and mustered out on 12 Nov 1861. His name on the Roll of Honor appears as N.D. Myers. And then he disappeared from Eastern North Carolina.

One Nathan David Myers died on 18 January 1917 in Kinston, Lenoir County, North Carolina. According to the obituary in The Kinston Free Press on 20 January 1917, he was a native of Edenton and had served in the Confederate Army. Sound familiar? He has a widower who died childless; his wife Eveline Dunn Myers died in 1894. I believe that this man was the David Myers who we found in the 1850 and 1860 census records in Chowan.

Meanwhile, back in Perquimans County in 1870, Alexander Myers lived with his wife Harriet and children William (10) and Margaret (9). There was only one Alexander in Chowan and Perquimans County; he is presumed to be the son of Thomas and Minnie Myers, parents of N. David Myers already discussed. William is also living with Alexander in the 1880 census as well. His birth year of 1860 or 1861 is consistent with the birth year of William Myers found in the 1900 census but not consistent with the birth year of William Myers on the 1893 marriage record.

Do we have an explanation? No. One possibility, however, is that Willliam was actually the son of David Myers who was raised by his brother Alexander. I have no proof of that at all and it may be far-fetched. DNA evidence does connect my father William Myers with a known descendant of Alexander Myers and another descendant of Whitaker Myers, who was related to Alexander’s father. It proves nothing but it certainly is interesting!

Poppa & Sade: William Jesse Keel & Sarah Annis Peal

Sarah & Bill Keel, 1942, on their 50th wedding anniversary

My dad grew up living with his mother’s parents in rural Martin County, North Carolina. He called them Poppa and Sade.

Poppa was William Jesse “Bill” Keel, born 22 August 1872 in Bear Grass, Martin County, to James L. Keel and Elizabeth (Betsy) Bowen, the second of their ten children. Bill was raised and worked on his father’s farm with his brothers and had a fifth grade education.  He was a strong man who loved to hunt and fish as well as farm, and had a big laugh.

Sade was Sarah Annis Peal, born 7 September 1874 in Cross Roads Township, a small community next to Bear Grass. She was the second of seven daughters born to William Ashley Peal and Jane Elizabeth Stalls and was named for her paternal grandmother, Annis Gurganus.  Sarah was a farmer’s daughter who was well educated for the time, going to high school for three years. She was a tiny woman with fine bones and a sweet smile.

Sarah Peal and Bill Keel married on 6 January 1892 in Cross Roads, probably at her home; she was 19 and he was 21. Their families knew each other; both of their fathers were general farmers in the county and both attended the Bear Grass Primitive Baptist Church, which Sarah and Bill attended for many years after their marriage.

They had eleven children but only four survived infancy: Mary Magdalene (Maglene), Susie Lanier, Edgar Durand, and Rachel Aldine. The first ten babies were born between 1895 (James Willie) and 1912 (Sarah Naomi). Daughter Rachel, born in 1921, was a “bonus” baby and only seven years older than my father, who was her nephew. The babies who didn’t survive were buried in a private family plot behind the “old home place” farm. Their graves now are covered by leaves and their names mostly forgotten. But Sarah recorded them in the family Bible so we have them:

When their daughter Susie Lanier Keel (my grandmother) married in July 1927, what she remembered most about her wedding was that her parents didn’t attend. Since she was probably pregnant at the time, it is possible that they disapproved of either the marriage or her husband. The newly-wed Myers were living on the Keel farm seven months later when their first child (my father) was born. Both generations lived together in the same house for the next twenty five years, first with Bill Keel as head of household and later, Bill Myers as head with his in-laws in the home. Poppa Keel farmed and did road construction work until they moved to Williamston in 1925.

My dad remembered that his grandmother did almost all the cooking for the combined household while his mother worked as a seamstress to bring in extra money. Poppa Bill Keel took Daddy fishing and also hunted to provide more food for the family; their farm cousins kept them well supplied with produce but protein was expensive. Bill Keel was the man in charge of barbeque whenever a hog was butchered; those were always social occasions with many family and friends to share the food and the occasion. They were poor and lived simply.

Sarah Keel died at home in Williamston on 28 June 1948. She was 73 years old. Her beloved husband Bill Keel died almost exactly four years later on 26 June 1952. He was seventy nine years old and had been in ill health for five years. They are buried together in Williamston’s Woodlawn Cemetery next to their daughter Susie Keel Myers.