April 21, 2012

Tracking Gran… with her help!

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I’ve had lots of long conversations with my Gran and Great Aunt about our families but I have this growing list of questions inspired by research done for these posts and new finds. As an example, I spent hours this week flipping through census pages for Grand Rapids, MI trying to track them down in 1940. I had started with my latest directory locations for the family—which placed them living with my 2nd Great Aunt Pearl in 1937. When I couldn’t find any relatives there I called Gran and she told me they lived on Quimby.  I used Morse and Weintraub’s One Step Enumeration District finder from (http://stevemorse.org) which narrowed the list down to 3 EDs. Then Gran called back and said… maybe it was Union St. Either way she wasn’t sure of the number. So, I entered Union in the finder and it narrowed it down to 30 districts. Needless to say, I found them at 306 Union Street… eventually.

In 1940 Great Grandma Cora was the head of household including my Gran and her siblings and Cora’s youngest sibling Grace (Packer) Elliott and her family—including her husband, Harold, and six of their children. Cora was working at a paper box factory and Harold at an auto plant. I was so thrilled that I posted to Twitter as soon as I found Gran, and almost immediately got a phone call from my mother and Gran because Gran wanted to know what I’d found. It all just leads to more interesting questions: about Cora’s job (which I can’t quite decipher), the moving, all the family they lived with at different times, and really just how Cora managed as a widow with 3 young children.

I think it’s past time for a lunch date with Mom, Gran, and my Aunts!

Happy hunting!

Jess

 

April 18, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

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For Mom…. She knows why!

Happy Hunting,

Jess

 

April 17, 2012

First findings from the 1940 Census

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So I haven’t had nearly enough time to work through the Census but I’ve found a few fun bits. I started off searching Bradley County, Arkansas from my Trotter and related families. Palestine township is E. D. 6-7 and 9 pages in I found Papa Monk (Harrison Trotter) and his family and was thrilled to find not only Grandma Rodie on one of the extra question lines confirming she had born 15 children but her daughter, my aunt Irene, on the other one. Harrison and Rhoda are actually listed as what looks like “Hysom” and “Rose” but from then on it’s my Grandpa and his siblings—definitely the right family.  I have so much family in Bradley Co. That I’ve barely begun, but I wanted to find them first. I suspect without indexing finding Gran will take longer—I believe she was living with family in town by 1940. But I’m hoping to have time to go searching for her soon.

On the other side of the family, I’ve now gone through a good chunk of the 4 townships surrounding Rockford for and I’m now working on Rockford proper (I also have to do Plainfield still). I have located my (Great) Grandpa Bailey as the head of my grandpa’s household in Rockford. But I haven’t yet found my biological Great Grandfather Robert or his family. I don’t know where to start from Gran yet but I think I can get a street address and narrow down the search in Grand Rapids. I just haven’t put any time into it yet.

But I’ve got so much to do still… just need to grab more time for research!

Happy Hunting,

Jessica

 

April 11, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

Posted by JessLibrarian under Character Studies, Family Almanac, Photographs | Tags: , |
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Another miss in my sequin haze… Saturday marked the 185 Anniversary of my 3rd Great Grandfather Joseph Packer’s birth. I introduced a bit of his story on the occasion of his wife, Harriett Vaughan’s birthday back in January. To give you a little more on Joseph, he was born on April 7, 1827 in Rainham, Kent, England. He was the son of Thomas Swissenton Packer and Hannah Ross. He and Harriett married 1847. In the 1851 Census he was listed as a brickmaker in the Village of Gillingham at Kent. The family lived at Malcomb Place in Sittingbourne during the 1861 Census. By 1871 they were settled in Ontario, Canada. Around 1891 the family came to Michigan. Joseph died February 19, 1911 in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the United States.

Happy hunting!

Jess

P.s. Denise, If you see this before I get my act together! I fully intend on writing back. But until then: Yes, I’m still happily tracking our Packers and Masseys!

 

April 9, 2012

Happy Birthday Squire Lapham!

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My only excuse is that sequins are taking a toll on my blog. But I’ve largely finished my sewing project and I’m only a day late in celebrating the 208th birthday of my 5th Great Grandfather.

Smith Lapham was born in Rhode Island, April 8, 1804 the son of Job and Ada (Smith) Lapham. As I’ve mentioned before, Squire Lapham was one of the settlers of Rockford (originally called Laphamville) in Kent County, Michigan, in 1845. He built a mill on the Rogue River in 1844 and ran it for 20 years, served as Village Council President, Township Supervisor, Postmaster, and Justice of the Peace. His son Embree, noted that he met with the gathering “Under the Oaks” at which the Michigan Republican Party was formed in 1854, and he went on to serve Kent County as a State Representative (1855-56) and State Senator (1857-58). Smith lived to celebrate 58 years of marriage to Katherine Gilbert and the couple raised 9 children. He was an entrepreneur, a leader, and a poet.

This image is scanned from From Sawmill to City: The Long Years Passing – a Story of Rockford, Michigan by Homer L. Burch. I am not sure of the location of the original. It may be at the Rockford Branch. I am more aware of a copy on display at Rockford Historical Museum.

Happy belated birthday, Grandfather!

And happy hunting to you all!

Jess

 

April 4, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

Posted by JessLibrarian under Photographs | Tags: , , , |
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Projects from my other time consuming pursuit (as well as work) have grabbed the majority of my time, but I did take time off from both to visit the Michigan Antiquarian Book and Paper Show on Sunday. And I couldn’t resist purchasing a few postcards. This is notany of them. However, this was a fun find at a previous show.

        

This is a postcard from Daisy Bowers Rector to her mother Mrs. Benjamin Bowers—Dora Brainard Morningstar, the adopted child of my 5th Great Grandfather Henry Morningstar. I believe the photograph on the front is of Daisy’s husband Ernest and their adopted son Clifton Rector.

Happy Hunting!

Jess

 

March 28, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

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Today is the 12oth Anniversary of the birth of my Great Grandmother Cora Packer Shea.

Happy Hunting,

Jess

 

March 21, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

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I’m counting down to the Michigan Antiquarian Book and Paper Show on April 1st at the Lansing Center. Here’s a previous purchase.

This is Main Street in Rockford, Michigan and the message is written by Mrs. Judson M. Spore (nee Clara Dutton) to Mrs. A. Foster in Harleyburg, Ontario (according to the other side). Mrs. Spore’s husband was the Postmaster and she neatly points out the Post Office on the photo. I am not related to either woman (to the best of my knowledge) but the photo is such a great shot of a city my family has lived in for generations. I used to walk by these buildings almost daily when I lived in town.

Happy hunting,

Jessica

 

March 14, 2012

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

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In honor of St. Pat’s, here is a view of the resort town and Galway suburb of Salthill in Co. Galway and the edge of Galway Bay taken during a study abroad trip in 1997. It was a beautiful day and an all around lovely trip… but I have no family from there that I’m aware of.

Salthill and Galway Bay from a Ferris Wheel, Summer 1997.

My known Irish ancestors include the Massy family from Rathronan in County Limerick, and the Byrne, Cunningham and Dowdall families who reported themselves from Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. I haven’t yet figured out where my Shea line originally hailed from in Ireland.

Ideally, I’d love to take a trip to research these lines.

Happy hunting & Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Jess

 

March 9, 2012

Tragedy strikes twice

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This is an example of why everyone should live life to the fullest and not take anything for granted. On occasion the world can be very strange and unfair.

March 9th marks the 50th Anniversary of a family tragedy. It is the day my Great-great-uncle Richard Shea died crossing Division in Wyoming, Michigan just two months shy of his 60th Birthday. Richard was the youngest of my Great Grandfathers brothers and a World War II veteran.

But to add to the chord to this untimely death, three years later his widow, Beatrice Clark Shea, was also killed in a car crash—likely while sitting at home and watching TV during the Christmas holidays—when a teenage driver sped directly into her home, never trying to stop.

This article was a strange, sad find.

Happy hunting,

Jess

 

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