Swinging along with the breeze

For a Sepia Saturday post, I looked through my pictures of my grandchildren playing on a playground.  You'd think I would have more of these.

Several years ago, my son from Connecticut and his family visited my other son who lives in Florida and his family.  And a playground was among the joys of the visit.

It's great for me to look at these pictures, realizing how changed the kids are in just a few years.  I do love that they're having a good time with swings and being barefoot, at all ages.

So come see other children playing around in different ways for this week's Sepia Saturday!

A credit card fiasco

Yep, skip reading this if you aren't interested in my rant of the day.

I finally took my little old car to get new shoes (er tires for those literal-minded people).  That's not the same as being liberal-minded, at all!

Got the job done in plenty of time, gave the man my credit/debit card, asked for him to swipe it as credit.  He says, hummm, and gives me a stub of a receipt saying it has no charge, try again...and there's $ 00.00 total.  So he wads up the receipt, throws it to trash can, and tries again.  Then again.  Still receipts say no money, and he tries it again.  After 4 tries, I say, try it as a debit.  And I enter my pin number.  No that doesn't work either.  So I urge him to call, and try one more time.  A 6th try doesn't work any better.  NONE of these tries says it's denied.  (I know I had plenty of money in the account, or I wouldn't have handed the guy the card.)

So he calls the credit card place that has a phone number on the back of my card.  He punches in lots of numbers...when he finally gets someone he tells them about this situation, and then I say, just let me write a check.  So I do.  And then he hangs up, never having found out what's happening.  (I had assumed he would check with the merchant's end of things, rather than my credit card company).

I then go home and go on line to verify for myself the amount of money that was in my account yesterday.  There are FOUR pending charges against my account, leaving $45 in it.  Obviously no more could go against it.

SO I get in the car and drive over to my local branch of my bank.  Kelly is nice, and says there's no way to back out those "PENDING" charges, which have eaten up all my account balance basically for TWO to THREE days.
WHAT?

They weren't even charges...I saw the "$ 00.00" amount on those receipts before he threw them away.  She suggests I go back and get the receipts, so I call the guy and say I am coming back for them (and then do so).

I ask Kelly what will happen when the check is presented and I don't have enough money in my account?  She says she'll make sure it doesn't bounce.  (There are small favors).  But I just lost all my money to a system...and just have enough to get gas, which was all I was going to buy today.  Tomorrow however, I was going to pay the water bill.  

Suddenly I have spent 2 hours with an event that wasn't quite as bad as identity theft.  But why did it happen in the first place?  They guy at the tire place didn't have a clue.  Neither did Kelly at the bank.  Nobody could fix it for me either.  My $660 is now tied up in a non-purchase apparently, out in a limbo of "pending transactions" that never happened.

And what has all this taught a slightly anxious woman who is very careful with her Social Security income?  Avoid plastic, never let them swipe the card more than once, and maybe go back to cash under the mattress.  
 

    

Second great grandfather

Well, that's what they say.  He's 7 generations back from mine.
I'm not sure what "second great grandfather" means.  If I just counted the number of greats that I add to the grandfather status, he'd have four greats.  My father's mother's great-great grandfather (of all fathers.)  (I know many grandmothers names, but not as far back usually)

I wish to celebrate another ancestor born in May.

Jerathmel Bowers Swasey 

Birth 10 May 1752 in Somerset, Bristol, MA 

Death 4 Feb 1826 in Somerset, Bristol, MA

married to: Sarah Hellon born: 1752

Sarah Hellon - I wish this was legible, is it even in English?

I don't know that much about Jerathmel.  But Somerset MA became a town in 1790, during his lifetime.  It had been settled as early as 1677 on Shawomet lands.  It is on a river, and was a major seaport.

The Swasey's did have a nautical connection, with his son Alexander G. Swasey "a wood carver by trade but engaged for many years in command of ship to the coast of China."  There are others (probably my relatives) who compiled a publication about the Swasey family.  

"Geneology of the Swasey Family" 1910 by Benjamin Swasey, an ebook that is available on line.

The booklet gives more information on Jerathmel's father which is also of interest.

Joseph Swasey, shipwright, Bapt(ized) in Boston, Mass. Aug. 12, 1714; died in Somerset, Mass; bef. 1801; married,daughter of Jonathan & Ann Sylvester Bowers, of Swansea, Mass. She was of Spanish descent.   Joseph, removed with his family to Salem, where he lived until 1749.  He followed there the trade of hatter.  In that year he bought (in) Swansea of John Palmer, 10 acres of land on Taunton River for which he paid ~1300 O.T.

He put up a set of buildings, including a hat shop, built a wharf & engaged in shipbuilding, floating his craft down to Fall River.  The dwelling house occupied by the family for 3 generations was taken down several years ago.  The old cellar & the broad stone step still remain to mark the site.  The "Swasey burying ground" occupied about an acre of the original lot, upon which are many tombstones that mark the resting place of his descendants.

In 1758-9, he was a private in his Majesty's service from the Province of Massachusetts, in Capt. Stephen Whipple's Co;  Col. Jonathan Bagley's Regt; for the reduction of Canada.  In 1801, his estate was divided among his heirs which included the widow, sons Jerathmel & Joseph heirs of his son Samuel, & daughter Hannah.

 

323 Main St, Somerset, MA, (not sure the connection to the Swaseys, but this picture was included with ebook)

 

  

Happy Mother's Day

In honor of my mother, Mataley Mozelle Webb (Munhall) Rogers, 1917-2003.

I figure we all want to be remembered with the choice of being young and at our "prettiest." 

There are plenty of pictures of my mother after she had us kids, when she worked most of her life to put us both in a private school that she believed was the best available, or when she again was a homemaker for the last part of her life.  Of course the entire time she worked, she also kept house and was the primary disciplinarian of my sister and myself.  (I think my father was the source of muscle when we needed to be spanked, with hairbrush, or maybe once with a belt, but I'm pretty sure he was being directed by my mother.)

I've given a brief biography and more pictures of her  HERE when she had her birth anniversary in March.

But to be honest, I must say my mother and I didn't get along.  Most of our lives we talked superficially usually about children, recipes, and homes,   She believed that children are closer to their grandparents than their own parents, as she was.  I don't think she got along well with her mother at all.  Since we'd moved far away from my grandparents, I really didn't get to test her theory out after I was 8.  She was closer with my younger sister than me, and especially with her granddaughter.  Again, geography and the influence of the 60s and 70s, meant that my sons weren't particularly close to her either.  I'm afraid I didn't urge them to have any positive relationship either.

My mother (and father) were of a certain religion which meant they were intolerant of some of my own views.  They were politically opposite of me in a time when young people were demonstrating against a lot of things, (the war in Viet Nam, Civil Rights, American Indian rights, issues about the environment etc) and I was living in many of the ways that they didn't approve. 

I found her very judgmental during my adult life, and not accepting of myself or my children.  Our life-long correspondence was often stilted, and she wrote in a kind of shorthand that was sometimes difficult to decipher.  She would offer me different amounts of funds in CD's with her as co-signer, but then would dis-own me and remove me from those sources of money.  This left me greatly in debt when I'd been counting on those funds to help.  I don't actually remember why she disowned me, but it was done many times throughout our bitter disagreements. 

But she was my mother.  I suddenly realized today that half of what I am is from my father, and half from my mother, at least originally.  I guess I've taken that beginning person and changed myself a lot.  I owe her my life, my birth, and the nurturing of me for the first couple of decades of my life. 

She was a very strong woman.  She had been raised by women who were also strong, who definitely were active for women's voting rights, who made their way in a world where their talents were limited to certain areas.  I'd say I first learned to believe in women's rights from my mother.

Since I've studied goddesses in the last 20 years, I've found a great ritual that some circles of women hold.  We will say our names, then say "the daughter of _____ who was the daughter of ____ who was the daughter of_______."  We go back as many generations of mothers and daughters as we know.  Some of us say we're the sister of another woman also, or even the mother of our female children.  It's a inspiring ritual, as well as an attempt to honor the line of mitochondrial DNA, which is how it can actually be traced genetically.  It is also subverts the ancient rites of our patriarchal society whereby women change to their husband's names, where genealogical trees follow the male ancestors, and where a child takes the father's name. 

I'm glad that my sister returned to her grandmother's maiden name when she decided to change her name.  I'm glad that I returned to my own maiden name later in my life after having been divorced.  We are more of our own persons, for whatever reason that might have motivated us.

I salute my mother, this year especially on Mother's Day. 

I was wrong

...and ignorant.  Mainly I published here (this is public, therefore, printing something here is publishing)...something about my ancestors which I have since learned was a mistake.

Probably nobody really cares, who is alive today.  But the reason I'm putting these dates and names into digital realism is that those who come after me may sometime wonder about these elders who have gone before.

Otherwise I wouldn't bother.

Tree of Life

What I found out yesterday was that my grandfather's mother lived into her 60's.  I had posted that he and his sister were raised by their guardians when their father died when my grandfather was 2.  Not so apparently. 

The census of _______ shows that their mother, the widow, had a household with both children living in it.

I will now check the census of the guardians through the years and see when (and if) the children lived there.

I did find that the mother in question lived with her married daughter, until her death in 1924.

I also found out that my father was no longer living with his parents prior to his marriage to my mother.  At least according to the census.

Lots of information.  The most fun is all the mispellings.  But when the birth dates and places are considered, if it sounds like Ada, but was spelled Eda, it's still the same person. One census report spells Rogers as Regus.  But that reporter had awful handwriting.  You really couldn't tell where he/she wrote Texas if it was anything like that word.

It is great that the Federal Census Bureau actually has made available up till 1940, the actual sheets of the census from everywhere (at least everywhere I looked).  Genealogist heaven.  Now I can see who moved where, and most important, who lived with them, within a decade at least.  Of course this only covers a few hundred years that the US has had Census reports.  But those are a few thousand of my relatives!  No kidding, by the time I go back 5 generations and my "kin" had 11 children who mostly all married and had maybe not so many children, there's a possible hundred cousins of some level of remove.

And then there are their children, wives with their parents and siblings, and their children, husbands, etc.  You didn't know you were a relative of mine, did you!  I am related to Gibbs, Wilson, Booth, Webb, Cannon, Phillips, Swasey, Ross, Bass, Pulsifer, Granger, Whitty, McElhaney, Powell...and so on.

Ancestor birthday, Micajah Rogers

Micajah Clack Rogers was born on May 17,1795 in Sevier County, TN, (d. 2.15.1873 Huntsville, TX.) according to the Rogers Family Bible.

He owned over a thousand acres and the Mercantile Store in Sevier County as well as being a partner of the Sweedish Iron Works.  In the economic crash of mid 1800's he lost most of his holdings, and then moved with his family to Huntsville, TX, (some of the family relocated to Bienville, LA.

He married on Feb.4, 1819 in Sevier County, TN to Cyntha Cannon Rogers  (b. 24 AUG 1800 Sevier County, TN d. 11.24.1855 Huntsville, TX.)


They had 11 children, the oldest of whom was George Washington Rogers  (b. 2.7.1820 Sevierville, TN,) my great great grandfather.  Five of their children died in childhood.

Markers for Cyntha and Micajah Rogers in Oakwood Cemetary, Huntsville Texas

 Markers for Micajah and Cyntha Rogers in Huntsville, TX

One of my cousins has a certificate, showing Micajah Rogers was one of the founding fathers of Walker County, Texas (where Huntsville is located.)  Since I don't have her permission to publish it with her name, I'll just say it exists.

The Rogers were also founding members of the First Baptist Church in Huntsville (as shown today).

I wonder if this is legible in person, because the stone definitely has too much colored spots to read in the photo. I wish I knew what the bottom lines said.

Possible Time Line:  When I lived in Knoxville in the early 1990s, I looked through many microfiches at historic records with Rogers names on them.  I took notes. (Knoxville is 25 miles from Sevierville, TN)  Now most things are available on Ancestry.com, but not all that I read.

Sevier County, TN 1840 Census has MC Rogers having a household of 7 white members and 5 free Black members.  Elijah Rogers, his father, is also listed on the same Census in Sevier County, TN. (It is interesting that someone transcribed the actual Census document incorrectly, changing the "free Negro persons" designation into a designation as "slaves."  I am glad that Ancestry.com allows you to read the actual hand written documents now.)

There is some connection with Union District, SC, from where the Gibbs family moved about the same time as the Rogers...perhaps just as pioneers going west.  But 2 young members of each family married 2 of the other family.

The Rogers Family Bible was published in 1848, and begins with going back to Sevier County records of Rogers and Clack families. Micajah Rogers is listed as Col. and it covers his 11 children, but not his siblings.  It kept good track of the Rogers and Gibbs births, marriages and deaths from 1848 onwards and was eventually kept in the Gibbs family.

On Sept 14 1848, his son George Washington Rogers married Lucinda Gibbs, in Bienville, LA.  All the George W. and Lucinda Rogers children were born in Bienville, LA.  (But Lucinda at some time came to Huntsville where she died in 1884)

In reading the original document of The 1850 Postmaster's Appointments listing for Walker County Texas: Elijah S. Rodgers was listed  as of July 15, 1850; (Elijah in this case was probably Micajah's son, Elijah Lafayette, who died in Nov. 1850)  and then Micajah was listed on the same line as Postmaster on 12 Dec, 1850.  (Here again, transcribing from written letters might have been misread as Elijah's initial being L or S.  And everyone knows that spelling of Rodgers and Rogers was up to the choice of who held the pen)

Micajah is listed in the Census of 1850 of Huntsville, TX, as a merchant, 55 years old with 3 in his household.  Cyntha is 50 years old, and Lafayette is 21 and listed as the Postmaster, and he unfortunately died that year. All of the family is indicated as coming from TN.

In 1860, in the Huntsville Census, Micajah (the widower) is listed as living with the Yoakums, and working as a F. Agent at the Texas Penitentiary.  (Cyntha had died in 1855)

There were at least 2, maybe 3 wars that took place involving east Texas.  First the Texans gained independence from Mexico, and ran it's own Republic from 1836-1845.  Then the US  established Texas as a state and fought against Mexico which still claimed it (Mexican American War 1846-48.  Then the Civil War took place.

Micajah lived through all of this.

I have copies of correspondence between my grandfather and his cousin written in the 1940s and 50s.  A letter is included from Sevierville, talking about Micajah's family, so I'll include it here.

If these typed and photocopied, and now scanned and reduced documents are too hard to read, let me just say that the man who wrote them to my grandfather was J. A. Sharp.  He has also written some historical documents about our "ancestors in common," namely Elijah Rogers and Micajah Rogers.  So we are some kind of cousins.  He said he had other documents about them, and I think those were the ones in the microfiches that I copied by hand.

I think this is long enough for now.  I'll type some of the information about Micajah's life through the eyes of J. A. Sharp elsewhere.

May ancestor's birthday: Isaac Booth

Good news, another descendent of this ancestor has started emailing me more information.  She is a half third cousin once removed (that's what she says!)

I celebrate Isaac Booth's birthday on May 16, 1795.
I think he would be my 4 times great grandfather.  (Do you start the count when you start saying great grandfather, or when you would just say grandfather?  Never knew that for sure.)

Generational listing (starting with myself as number 1)

1.) Barbara Booth Rogers, daughter of
2.) Mataley Mozelle Webb Rogers, daughter of

3.) Mozelle Booth Miller Webb, daughter of
4.) Eugenia Almetta Booth Miller, daughter of  

5.) Eugenia Almetta Whitty Booth, wife of
5.) Judge William Lewis Booth  b. 2.17.1818, d. 2.24.1894, Colonel, brother to 6 siblings and son of

6.) Isaac Booth b. 5.16.1795, Connecticut, USA, d.- 8.17.1836, Green Creek, Sandusky County\ Ohio, USA, buried in McPherson Cemetery, Clyde, Sandusky County Ohio, USA (see pic of gravestone which says name,and death date and "in his 42nd yr")
buried 20 Aug 1836.

Note before continuing, there is a published (Ancestry.com) family tree which has Isaac as the son of  Robert Booth and Elizabeth Wilson. who were married in Ireland six years after Isaac was born and most of their many children were born there, and they have no child by the name of Isaac, SO I surmise this is not an accurate link on the tree.  Unfortunately that leaves me without any of Isaac's true ancestors at this time.  But his wife does have her ancestors substantiated by their grave records.

NOTE AGAIN: As of May 2, 2013, I have found a new family tree on Ancestry.com which makes much more sense.  So I will check all the records which are given and see if it has verification.  There are lots of census and birth and death records, so I think this may be true.  Whoopee for continuing the search when it seems unlikely the way someone else printed it up!

Well, I'm stymied with the Ancestry.com directions. I found a complete family tree with Isaac on it, but can't get it merged into my tree.  The source is HERE and goes back another 10 or so generations.  As far as I can see, instead of a copy and paste technique, they want me to copy each person, then all the relationships, then all the verifying citations, and create the whole thing over again.  Sorry, I don't think I'll live long enough to do that.  I am glad to find that Isaac's parents are part of this other tree, called The Booth Family Pathways.

McPherson Cemetery, Clyde, Sandusky County Ohio USA

"Isaac Booth Died 17 August, 1836, in his 42nd yr" (buried 20 Aug 1836)

Isaac Booth 
married 6.12.1817
6.) Jane McElhaney (McElhany) Booth, b. 10.30.1794, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, USA, d. Oct. 3, 1833 (more on her life will be coming soon!)

(*) Info on West Hanover Township, Dauphin, Pennsylvania (part of present day Harrisburg):

Originally a part of the County of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Paxton Township, West Hanover Township was formed by action of the court of Lancaster in 1785.  On March 4, 1842 East and West Hanover Townships of Dauphin County were finally designated as separate governmental precincts.

Historical sources list the earliest settlements in the area of West Hanover as prior to 1735.  Many of these settlers, were of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian origin that came in large numbers with English Presbyterian and Protestant refugees to Penn’s Woods.

Census records from 1800 list 1,862 inhabitants and thirteen (13) slaves.  For the year 1820 there were 2,618 inhabitants.

Isaac and Jane Booth had the following children:

• William Lewis Booth 1818 – 1894
• Charles Marcallus Booth 1820 – 1897
• Lucinda Booth 1823 – 1906
• Daniel Matthew Booth I 1825 – 1826
• Daniel Matthew Booth II 1827 – 1892
• Legrand Booth 1831 – 1832
• Jane Brintha Booth 1833 – 1834

I was curious if the Booth seniors might have been in a town where one of their children lived, since they were buried in Ohio, rather than any of the towns they had lived in before their deaths.  And it looks as if Jane McElhaney Booth's death might have been affected by her last daughter's childbirth in July, when she died in Oct. of the same year.  The baby only outlived her mother by 3 months.

But I just turned off Ancestry.com because my family tree has been switched so my grandmother is now listed as the wife of my great grandmother, as my grandmother's husband.  Something is sure screwy with it today.  It wasn't like that yesterday.  And my tree is listed as "private" too!

However, I had a cup of something warm to drink and went back to fix the family tree problem, so my grandmother is back in the right place.  

And now I return to pondering the reason that Isaac and Jane were buried in Ohio.  Her one-year-older brother, Matthew McElhaney, also apparently died in Ohio about 10 years after she did, so maybe he made arrangements for their burials.  

And I just found this note added by another genealogical searcher who is somehow related to us Booths.

"Matthew (McElhaney) was obviously the caregiver of the family.  He never married. He had his mother, Elizabeth and brother Robert living with him on 1820 census;  his mother Elizabeth with him on 1830 census;  his mother,  and his sister Jane’s children,  Charles,  Lucinda and Daniel Booth on 1840 census.  Upon his death, in 1845, he willed a portion of his property to Isaac and Jane Booth’s children and his brother Robert and his mother, Elizabeth.  He named his brother Robert as the administrator of his estate." 

A note about Jane's younger children being in Uncle Matthew's household in 1840; that was after Jane died in 1833 and Isaac in 1836.  The children were orphaned but ages 13, 17 and 20.  My 3 times-Great-grandfather William Lewis had married in 1838, so was out of the household by then.

I know I spend hours doing this kind of search (not really research, though it is new to me) so I can piece together a person's actual life.  For instance, another posting on Ancestry.com just told me that Isaac Booth had been a Tanner & Shoemaker (cobbler.)   What an important profession! Thanks Cheryl, for all the time you've spent on the Booth portion of our families.