When we start out with our genealogy research, we are just name collectors. We find our ancestors listed in census records, vital records, and in cemetery databases. These people have names, dates of birth, marriage, and death, and name of their children. But in this early state, we really know nothing about them as people.
As we become more experienced and begin to research in more advanced records such as deeds, probates, wills, court, and military records, we learn a bit more about our person. We learn how they interacted with the local government, with their neighbors, and with their family. Newspapers also reveal something about their activities, some good and some bad.
Some Examples
I remember being proud of my
great-grandmother, Anna Marie Gleeson, who applied for homestead land in Dakota
Territory. She ended up purchasing the 160 acres. However, sometime after her
marriage to John H. Sullivan, the land was sold by the sheriff for failure of
paying the taxes.
A newspaper article about my great-grandfather, Vincent Sievert, reported on the suit case where he was accused of assaulting a niece and was later found guilty.
It was a shock when I discovered my great-grandfather, John Hork committed suicide. Newspapers of the time were not delicate when telling the “facts.” The method he used (drinking carbolic acid) reached papers across the west, even the San Francisco newspapers.
The first time I discovered some of my maternal southern ancestors owned slaves. I remember thinking my ancestors were too poor to own any, and then when I found it was only one or two, and not a whole plantation full, I felt relieved.
What Changed My Thinking?
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| Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay |
Had Anna and her husband mismanaged their finances, suffered poor weather conditions, or some other occurrence? It is something I need to investigate. I have searched newspapers for their names, but now I need to read for financial or weather issues, or even something else.
Did Vincent have some kind of mental illness? Or was he just plain mean? Here, it will be more difficult to discover why hit his niece. Likely it created estrangement between the families.
My grandfather was an
alcoholic, so it is very likely his father was, too. By early 1900s, John was
having troubles with keeping a job. He was supposedly a good tailor, but the drinking
could interfere with the quality of his work. He seemed to have left the
family, as the paper reported the sheriff looking for him for abandoning his
family. According to the newspaper account, he wanted a free drink and was
refused. Mental illness runs in the family. Two of his sons spent time at the
Montana state hospital, dying there. My grandfather lived his final years at a
veteran’s hospital.
It was the ownership of enslaved people that really changed my thinking. However much we try not to judge people by our 21st Century thinking, it is difficult. How could they think owning another person was okay? We can easily dismiss it saying it was just those times, but not everyone thought it was okay. So, what I do now, is remember those enslaved people who worked the fields or in the house of my ancestors. I acknowledge that they owned enslaved people. If I know their names, I use them. The work these people did was a reason the enslaver’s family was successful. I make a point of saying just that in my presentation about farming ancestors. Ignoring this part of history is wrong. It is not honest. The enslaved lives are important, too.
#52Ancestors:
Week 10 – Changed My Thinking
This is my ninth year working
on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/)
at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs,
either Mam-ma’s
Southern Family or My
Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors
in new and exciting ways.
Copyright © 2011-2026 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.
These are the kind of discoveries that challenge us to change our thinking and come at each situation from the perspective of that time and place. Sometimes it's a struggle to get into that mindset because we know so much about the family and what happened before and after each situation.
ReplyDeleteExactly. It is a struggle.
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