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Help – Month 8 of 12 Ancestors in 12 Months
Preserving the Past
Who are these people? Where are they? When did they get together?
We were recently in Billings, Montana to visit Gary’s family. It was the first time in many, many years that all of Gary’s siblings were together. We’re scattered around the country with vastly different schedules so someone is usually missing. This time Gary’s mom, Georgene, spent time with me going through family photos and identifying the people in the few photos that we have of her family. It is so important to label these people now so that we can pass this information on to future generations. I am digitizing these photographs, keeping one copy as is, and making another copy with names and whatever other information that I can.
My mother was very interested in her family history. She and first cousin once removed (who were about the same age) began to send family photographs back and forth to identify the people in them. She asked me to create a book of her family history with family photos. She also wanted help in determining if her grandmother gave birth to twins. There were rumors to that effect but her mother (who was the youngest, born in 1905) really had no idea if the rumors were true. Using only the free version of Ancestry and Family Search, I began to do some research and discovered that yes, my great grandmother Anthony gave birth to twins on October 13, 1897. Sadly, Christina died in 1989 and Otillia died in 1899.
My mother died on February 26, 2021. After her death, we discovered a CD that my Uncle Will created for her. My mother did not have a computer, only a tablet, so she did not know what was on it. I took it home with me and discovered a treasure trove of family pictures, most of which my mother did not have. In addition, when my uncle saved the photo he saved it with the names of the people in the photo as well as dates when he knew them.
This is one of the photos that he included which contains both of my mother’s grandmothers. It’s a special picture because there are very few of Sarah McLeod, my paternal great grandmother.
Using the information that Uncle Will included, I added the names directly on the photo for easy identification in the future.
Gary’s family has been good about sharing Coble family photos and someone labeled many of them which is helpful. This is a fun one of Gary’s grandfather.
I am thankful for the help of relatives who have helped me identify ancestors. I wish that I had been able to have deeper conversations with relatives about the past when I was younger. I hope that through the information I have and the research that I continue to do that I am able to help younger relatives learn about our ancestors.
The stories are so important. Through the stories of our ancestors we learn about their struggles and successes. We learn about the often harsh circumstances of their lives and learn the stories behind their survival. We are often in awe of what they went through and appreciate their perseverance and their triumphs.
I have been amazed at some of the stories that I have discovered through my research. Shortly after we retired, we moved to a 55+ community in North Las Vegas. I was one of the first members of newly established Genealogy Club. It was a wonderful mix of newbies and very experienced genealogists (a couple of members had been working on their research for 20 or 30 years). One member, Dave, inspired me with stories of his ancestors. He assured me that I would find the stories of my family when I started researching. This group was extremely helpful in providing some worksheets that aided me in focusing my research as well as organizing it. At this time I decided to get a paid subscription to Ancestry.com and MyHeritage so that I had more access to records. However, I still did not have a tree and had not done my DNA. Soon after, I came across Generations Cafe and 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.
When COVID-19 hit and we were all staying home, I took advantage of all the help that I’ve received and turned my genealogy research into a full-fledged serious hobby. In 2021 I completed the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge and created a blog for my stories. This year, I am doing the 12 Ancestors in 12 months challenge (though I sometimes write an additional story). I also got my DNA done and have started a tree for my family and recently one for Gary’s family. I discovered a family member through MyHeritage who lives close by and has been very generous with sharing his discoveries of our Anthony family. He has been very helpful in my journey.
What I have discovered is that the more I do, the more there is to do and learn. My next challenge is to try to find out if the Coble family legend of a Hessian deserter is true.
Wordless Wednesday 8/3/22
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Wordless Wednesday 7/27/22
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Extended Family – Generations Cafe Ancestry Challenge
So He’s That Brother
The wind was howling and the seas were treacherous when a horrendous wave struck and a calamity was barely averted. John Howland was swept overboard. William Bradford recorded this momentous event, stating, “In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce and the seas so high, as they could not bear a know of sail, but were forced to hull for divers days together. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull in a mighty storm, a lusty young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasion above the gratings was, with a seele of the ship, thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards which hung overboard and ran out at length. Yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with boat hook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved. And though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after and became a profitable member both in church and commonwealth (Descendants of Henry Howland).”
And so, John Howland, became famous for falling off the Mayflower. In fact, you can read about this tragedy in the picture book, The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, or John Howland’s Good Fortune by P. J. Lynch. Most likely John was actually in his late teens or early 20’s when this calamity occurred.
John Howland was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact which established “laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices for the good of the colony (History.com).”
John Howland was the more famous brother of my 9th great grandfather, Henry Howland. Henry and another brother, Arthur, followed John to Plymouth Colony. While John was a Pilgrim, both Henry and Arthur were Quakers. (Brothers Humphry and George stayed in England.)
Henry and his wife, Mary, were the 2nd great grandparents of Timothy Smith who I wrote about in my blog dated June 3, 2022 titled What’s a Pacifist to Do? (Coble). Timothy was also a Quaker.
(On the topic of Extended Family, my 9th great grandfather, Henry Howland, is supposedly a direct ancestor of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.)
Sources
Coble, Jacquelyn. “Conflict – Month 6 of 12 Ancestors in 12 Months.” Journeying with Jacque, 3 June 2022, https://journeyingwithjacque.com/conflict-month-6-of-12-ancestors-in-12-months/.
Descendants of Henry Howland, https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~smason/genealogy/howland5/aqwn02.htm.
FamilySearch.org, https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/MTDG-2WT/henry-howland-1600-1670.
“Henry Howland II (1604-1671) – Find a Grave…” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231207249/henry-howland?_gl=1%2Ad1acib%2A_ga%2AMjEzNDcwNTQxOS4xNjQ1MjA1MjE0%2A_ga_4QT8FMEX30%2AMTY1NzkxNzI1MC40MC4xLjE2NTc5MTgyMTAuMA..
History.com Editors. “Mayflower Compact.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/mayflower-compact.
“Howland.” MayflowerHistory.com, http://mayflowerhistory.com/howland.
“John Howland (1591-1672) – Find a Grave Memorial.” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6613808/john-howland.
Posted in Genealogy, Watkins
Tagged Henry Howland, John Howland
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Identity – Month 7 of 12 Ancestors in 12 Months
What’s in a Name?
In the play, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare has Juliet say, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Of course, life is a bit more complicated than that. The truth is, our names are tied to our identities. In fact, “A name is your identity. It’s what people call you, it’s what you respond to, it’s what you understand about yourself (Scanlon).” So what happens if you dislike your name and feel that it does not reflect the “real you”? Unfortunately, this can cause problems in life. “They tend to not be as well adjusted (Hedrick).” In the article, 7 Things You Can Do if You Hate Your Name we are reminded that “Our parents choose a name without knowing the person we’ll turn into (Alison.)” If you decide that your name does not reflect your identity you may want to: “consider why you hate it; shorten it; use your middle name or nickname; go for a variation; look for an inspirational namesake; change the spelling; or choose a new name (Alison).“
My paternal grandmother did not seem to be enamored with her name at least as she got older. As she made some monumental changes in her life, she decided to change her name. Her parents named her Fannie (or Fanny) Vandyke. She was born in Strickler, Arkansas on May 8, 1910 to Marshall Vandyke and Elvira Estep. Marshall had been a Union soldier with the 57th Regiment in the Indiana Infantry during the American Civil War. He enlisted on October 21, 1861 and was discharged on November 23, 1864 because he was “wounded June 23, 1864 at the Battle of Kennesaw Mt., Georgia. His right eye was shot out.”
Marshall was 33 years older than Elvira. (He had been married before to Eliza Carilton and they had four children.) Marshall and Elvira were married in 1896 in Arkansas; Fannie was the fifth of their six children. Marshall died in 1922. Both he and Fannie’s brother Elliott Cecil were buried in the Bugscuffle cemetery, four miles from Strickler.
Sometime after Marshall died, Elvira married Robert A. Turner and the family moved to Hoffman, Oklahoma. It was here that Fannie met and married my grandfather, Donald Watkins. According to their marriage license, Fannie claimed to be 18. She was actually 15, about a month before her 16th birthday.
My dad, Billy Dean Watkins, was born April 1, 1930 to Fannie and Donald.
Shortly after my dad was born, Fannie made a momentous decision to leave her baby, her toddler, and her husband to follow her family to California and shortly thereafter began to call herself Delores Frances instead of Fannie. Anyone looking for Fannie Vandyke Watkins after my dad’s birth and the 1930 census will not find any record of her except for her mother’s obituary in 1936 where my grandmother is listed as “Fanny Watson”.
As I wrote in my blog post of January 22, 2021, ” Oklahoma was a challenging place to live in 1930. The stock market crashed in 1929 and Oklahoma was in the throes of the Great Depression made worse by falling oil prices (Donald was a laborer in the oil fields in 1930). In addition, Oklahoma was in a long-term drought leading later to the Dust Bowl. Unemployment was high and survival was difficult. Many people headed to California where they thought jobs were plentiful and life would be better (often found not to be true). Fanny’s mother, Elvira, had remarried after the death of her husband, Marshall Vandyke. In 1930, Elvira and her husband Robert Turner, along with her son Arthur Raymond (Ray), moved west to Turlock, California. In addition, another brother of Fanny’s, Claud, also moved to Turlock in 1930 after he left Panama where he was a soldier stationed at Fort Davis.”
After Delores Frances moved west, she met Elmer Clare Russell and they had a daughter, Wanda Louise, born in 1934 in Arizona. Delores and Elmer married on March 20, 1948. The application for the wedding license shows that Delores “Fannie” and Donald were divorced in 1932.
Recently, I discovered that Fannie/Delores applied for a Delayed Birth Certificate under the name Delores Frances Vandyke and witnessed by her sister, Virginia. Delores applied for this birth certificate in 1952. Since the Vandyke family lived in rural Arkansas, it is most likely that Elvira gave birth at home and no birth certificates were issued. (I also found Delayed Birth Certificates for one of Fannie’s sisters and one of her brothers.)
I met my grandmother, step-grandfather, half-aunt, and cousin once when they came to visit us. My mother corresponded some throughout the years with my dad’s mother.
“Sometimes we try to live up to our names. Sometimes we try to run away from them. But either way – and for all the options in between – your name is a crucial factor in developing your sense of self, and thus helps propel you forward on various paths of life and career. (Hedrick)”
Sources
Alison. “7 Things You Can Do If You Hate Your Name …” All Women’s Talk, https://lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com/things-you-can-do-if-you-hate-your-name/.
Hedrick, Michael. “How Our Names Shape Our Identity.” The Week, The Week, 8 Jan. 2015, https://theweek.com/articles/460056/how-names-shape-identity.
Scanlon, Kyla. “A Rose by Any Other Name: The Importance of Our Names in Shaping Identity.” Medium, The Startup, 21 Jan. 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/a-rose-by-any-other-name-the-importance-of-our-names-in-shaping-identity-3fed42b116b1.
Posted in Genealogy, Vandyke
Tagged Delores Frances Russsell, Delores Frances Vandyke, Frannie Vandyke, Frannie Watkins
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Wordless Wednesday 6/29/22
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Wordless Wednesday 6/15/22
Posted in Bernal, Foister, Vaughters, Wordless Wednesday
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