It's Saturday Night -
Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to:
A) Genea-Blogger Linda Stufflebean noted that December 8th is "Pretend You Are a Time Traveler Day." Today's challenge is: Where would you go? Would you choose a person, place or event in the past or travel into the future? Would you remain an observer or would you actively participate?" Linda suggested this challenge.
Here’s mine:
We all have unknown ancestors or unknown dates of events.
Right now, I’m working on the Samuel Johnston family.[1] He and his wife, Elizabeth were born in South Carolina, had a bunch of children in Alabama before arriving in Yalobusha County, Mississippi where I found them in the 1850 census only because I browsed page by page looking for someone named Samuel.[2] His name was miss-indexed “Dehnson” and that is what it looks like on the census page. But his children line up except I had no idea about a daughter named Isabella.
In the 1860 census, she is next door to the Johnston family with her husband Paris C Broadstreet.[3]
I would go back in time to that date in 1850 when the census taker came to their door. I would ask where in South Carolina they were from, where in Alabama they moved to, and what the names of their parents and siblings were. It is my understanding that Elizabeth’s name was McCormick.
Another time to go back to would be the day in 1895 before the Titus County, Texas courthouse burned and do what I could to prevent its destruction.[4] The lack of records in the county where the Johnstons moved to in 1860/61 has been difficult.
One other thing I would do is take good notes of the social and physical feel of the two counties in the time period in which they lived. This would add some context to their lives. I might also meet their friends and neighbors to help with FAN club research.
That’s a good start on this question. I agree with Randy, that it would be good to revisit this theme in the future and I’d tackle those Irish ancestors of mine.
[1] He’s
the paternal great-grandfather of my maternal grandfather, Tom J Johnston.
[2] 1850
U.S. census, Yalobusha Co, Mississippi, pop. sched., North of the Yalobusha River,
p. 287b (stamped), dwel/fam 161, Samuel Johnson; NARA M432, roll 382.
[3] 1860
U.S. census, Yalobusha Co, Mississippi, pop. sched, Oakland, p. 917, dwel 1182,
fam 1276, Samuel Johnson; NARA M653, roll 594.
[4] “Titus
County, Texas Genealogy,” FamilySearch Wiki (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Titus_County,_Texas_Genealogy).
Those are excellent goals for your time travel! I never thought about trying to prevent a courthouse fire. Oh, if we only really could!
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