2025 Week 8

23 Sunday Feb 2025

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Mary Frances Arnold has been found! I did not locate her in the Pike County Newspaper, but I did find her in her sister Bertha’s obituary before locating her own obituary in the April 30, 1938 edition of the Princeton Daily Clarion (shown here). Mary Frances married Marcellus Chew and they had two children. Other researchers trees with Mary Frances in them make my head hurt. One such tree has documents with three different sets of parents. How does that even make sense?

The Chews are providing me with plenty of material this week. A second interesting puzzle was found in the 1940 census for Clarence and Audi Fowler Chew. Clarence was the son of Mary and Marcellus. In 1940, Clarence and Audi were in their early 50s. There was, presumably, a 7 month old girl named Carolyn Sue listed as their daughter. While not completely impossible, the probability of Carolyn Sue being the biological daughter of this couple is not very high. Checking the birth records for Pike County in late 1939, a birth certificate for Carolyn Sue Roberts born in Jefferson Township in September was found. Checking FindAGrave, Carolyn’s birth parents Floyd and Jewel lived long lives and Carolyn’s memorial was attached to theirs. Still not convinced Carolyn was a Chew, I flipped a couple pages back and found Floyd and Jewel at the bottom of Sheet 10A. Clarence and Audi were at the bottom of Sheet 10B. Carolyn was listed at the top of 11A. I then compared the household numbers…BINGO! The pages were recorded out of order! What a mess!

Tip of the Week: Leverage those FAN Clubs!

This week’s take away…check those FAN Clubs! You would be amazed how many questions can be answered by checking out those Friends/Family, Associates and Neighbors.

Sadly, I have discovered several individuals who died at a relatively young age for various reasons. One was an apparent suicide, one an overdose, and two were casualties of war. Sgt James Herschel Arnold (1916-1945) served in the US Army 152nd Infantry during World War II. His younger cousin, Pfc. Charles Ajay Arnold (1924-1945), was a member of the 132nd Infantry and fatally wounded assisting a wounded teammate to safety during battle. Both men lost their lives in the Philippines. We will be forever grateful for the sacrifice they made for our country.

I added two new DNA matches on my mother’s side of the family tree. One was fairly easy to add as his daughters are already tagged as matches in my tree. The other only required a small number of updates to add.

With the new updates Ancestry has added to their site, they now give trees a score. Mine is 9.4. They then give you hints to bring that score up. I was given three tasks to do.

  • One was for a floater which I decided to delete.
  • The second was for a distant cousin who did not have any dates associated with her. I found her marriage record which listed her approximate birth year to clear that one.
  • The last one had a census record dated before her assumed date of birth. Considering she was born around 1870, there was no official record of her birth. The birth year on her death certificate likely was a guess and her age was actually underestimated. I made an executive decision that she was born in 1869 not 1872.

We’ll see what my new score is tomorrow.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
217 years ago – Birth of Gesina Brake Sievers (4th ggm)
217 years ago – Birth of Eva Korz Keller (4 ggm)
196 years ago – Marriage of Isaac Lowe (5th ggf) and his second wife Sarah Beckner
186 years ago – Marriage of Suzanne Board (4th ggm) and Isaac Catt (4th ggf)
185 years ago – Birth of Amanda Newcomb Butler (3rd ggm)
161 years ago – Death of Sarah Ireland Reeve (4th ggm)
152 years ago – Death of Zeresh Puckett Coppock (3rd ggm)
115 years ago – Death of Joseph E. Cardinal (3rd ggf)
113 years ago – Death of Michael Kaiser (2nd ggf)
107 years ago – Birth of Samuel T. DeMoss Sr (gf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,220 people
End of Week: 27,340 people
Change = +120 people – goal MET!!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people and continue researching the Isaac and Rebecca Arnold descendants. Barring any rabbit holes, it could take into early or mid April to complete.

2025 Week 7

16 Sunday Feb 2025

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I feel like I have made some progress this week, closing out the family of Martha Cassidy Rhodes on Monday. She has quite the extensive family that was and still seems to be mostly concentrated in Central Illinois and in Central California.

Moving on to Martha’s sibling Sarah, I cannot find any information on her after the 1850 Census. She was born about 1849 most likely in Perry County, Indiana. After that it would seem she has vaporized. I can only speculate at this time that she died as a young child between 1850 and 1860 in either Perry County or Pike County, Indiana…or somewhere inbetween. Her mother died in 1855 in Pike County and the remaining family was still there in 1860. Maybe something useful will surface as I flesh out her other siblings. There is at least one researcher on Ancestry who has attributed some facts to her that belong to her sister Rebecca Jane who is now the focus of my research. I’m fairly confident that they were two different persons as they were both listed in the 1850 Census.

Rebecca Jane married Isaac Arnold in Pike County, Indiana. I’m a bit remiss in that I don’t know a whole lot about this county which borders the one I grew up in. On initial review, it would seem the Arnolds, for the most part, remained in the Pike County area. As best as I can tell Rebecca and Isaac had seven children. Their oldest, Mary F, is already giving me heartburn.

There seems to be no trace of Mary after 1880, and other researchers seemingly are confusing her with her younger sister Martha. I usually try not to fall head first down rabbit holes, but I really want to try and find something about Mary Arnold. The Pike County Democrat is available on the Hoosier State Chronicles website and the pages are transcribed using OCR technology. The newspaper is a weekly publication and issues up to 1900 are available for viewing. Local community information is included on page 3 of the paper and I’m up to 1886 at the moment looking for any trace of the Arnolds. Hopefully I can find something about Mary.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
311 years ago – Marriage of Jeanne Duguay (7th ggm) and Jacques J. Cardinal (7th ggf)
273 years ago – Birth of James C Butler (6th ggf)
244 years ago – Death of Abraham Short Jr (7th ggf)
199 years ago – Marriage of Sarah Carroll (4th ggm) and Joshua Frost (4th ggf)
197 years ago – Death of Sybilla Braun (5th ggm)
187 years ago – Marriage of Francoise Courtright (4th ggm) and James D. Cardinal (4th ggf)
130 years ago – Birth of Magdelena Kaiser Keller (ggm)
107 years ago – Death of Mary Sievers Gravel (3rd ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,182 people
End of Week: 27,220 people
Change = +38 people – goal not met.
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people and continue researching the Isaac Arnold descendants.

2025 Week 6

09 Sunday Feb 2025

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This week was a busy non-genealogy week, and I’m surprised I was able to find much time to work on the family tree. While I met my people goal, I was not as successful with the completion of the Jarboe family. I still have two of Sara Rhodes Jarboe’s children left to research. I’m confident that I can finish that task in the coming week. This will also wrap up the Rhodes family as well. Sara was the youngest daughter of Sylvester and Martha. I can then move on to the fourth known daughter of Luke and Martha Cox Cassidy…yet another Sarah.

For the most part it was a fairly unremarkable genealogy week. No DNA matches added to the tree. No murders, tragic accidents, or unusual deaths. Just very large farm families who made their roots in Central Illinois. Maybe the coming week will be more exciting!

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
292 years ago – Death of Susanna Whitehead Bunnell (10th ggm)
257 years ago – Marriage of Hannah Sanderson (6th ggm) and William Johnson (6th ggf)
255 years ago – Birth of John Coppock (4th ggf)
214 years ago – Birth of Sarah Ireland Reeve (4th ggm)
200 years ago – Death of Margaretha Nikolaus (5th ggm)
191 years ago – Marriage of Eva Korz (4th ggm) and Michael Keller (4th ggf)
185 years ago – Birth of Apollonia Braun Keller (3rd ggm)
171 years ago – Death of Nicolaus Sievers (4th ggf)
152 years ago – Death of Francis W Gravel (4th ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,112 people
End of Week: 27,182 people
Change = +70 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people and finish up Sara Rhodes Jarboe’s family.

2025 Week 5

02 Sunday Feb 2025

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I was a little overly optimistic thinking I could finish up Martha Cassidy Rhodes family this week. Her youngest daughter Sara Rachel Rhodes Jarboe had eight children. I’m not quite half way complete on fleshing out her descendants.

The Jarboes originally remained in Perry County, Indiana, but then moved to east central Illinois in the late 1910s. The family initially settled in Piatt County, but as the children started families of their own, they were mostly concentrated in Champaign County, with farming as the main means of support. Up to this point, very few from the younger generations have moved away from the area.

My place name clean up was focused on Champaign County this week. In addition to the county in Illinois, there were several locations in Champaign County, Ohio that were standardized as well. As a result of my efforts, nearly 40 place records were removed. The changes impacted facts for more than 100 people so it wasn’t for naught.

I also had a new DNA match that I documented in my tree. She is a third cousin on my mother’s side of the family. There wasn’t much to add since I had her parents in my tree already.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
375 years ago – Birth of Daniel Quincy (9th ggf)
359 years ago – Death of Charles Garnier (10th ggf)
225 years ago – Birth of Rebecca Pea Catt (5th ggm)
199 years ago – Death of Lydia Smith Ireland (6th ggm)
199 years ago – Birth of Mary Sievers Gravel (3rd ggm)
181 years ago – Birth of Josephine Lankford Winkler (3rd ggm)
172 years ago – Death of Mary Westerfield Vanderipe (5th ggm)
169 years ago – Birth of Magdalena Keller Kaiser (2nd ggm)
155 years ago – Marriage of Caroline Nagley (3rd ggm) and Joseph Nagele (3rd ggf)
149 years ago – Death of Sarah A Catt Cardinal (3rd ggm)
132 years ago – Death of Mary Caywood Cox (3rd ggm)
126 years ago – Birth of Zeda Mattox Fielden (ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,037 people
End of Week: 27,112 people
Change = +75 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people and finish up Sara Rhodes Jarboe’s family.

2025 Week 4

26 Sunday Jan 2025

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One more Rhodes line and I can move on to the next Cassidy!

I came across an interesting find this week in my research. One of my distant cousins married a man who was born in Hawaii. What made this interesting was that it was well before Hawaii became the 50th state. Included in the documents I found for this gentleman was the US Census from 1910. For the most part, the form looked just like that used for the states currently in the Union. However, the header for the Hawaiian census was just a little different as it included a field for the island where the residents were enumerated. Hawaii only has four counties; some counties consist of multiple islands. This was something Phil and I discovered on our vacation last year.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
319 years ago – the birth of Reverend William Smith (7th ggf)
164 years ago – the death of Elihu Puckett (4th ggf)
163 years ago – the death of Rebecca Wilks (4th ggm)
158 years ago – the marriage of Isaac DeMoss (3rd ggf) and his 2nd wife Laura
– the death of Rebecca Pea (5th ggm)
140 years ago – the marriage of Frank Cox (2nd ggf) and his 2nd wife Emma
138 years ago – the death of Joseph Reeve (4th ggf)
127 years ago – the birth of Frank Fielden (ggf)
118 years ago – the marriage of Frank Cox (2nd ggf) and his 4th wife Mary
113 years ago – the death of Benjamin Coppock (3rd ggf)
86 years ago – the death of John F Thompson (2nd ggf)

Beginning of Week: 26,954 people
End of Week: 27,037 people
Change = +83 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people

2025 Week 3

19 Sunday Jan 2025

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Making headway in the Rhodes branch of the Cox family this week. YAY! Time was spent building out the family of Anna Rhodes Meehan. The migration of this family was somewhat interesting and seems to be driven by Anna’s husband, Walter. Walter had been married twice before Anna, and she was a bit older than most first time brides at 34. Walter was originally from Iowa and had lived for a time in Gallatin County, Montana. I’m not exactly sure how he became connected with Anna who had lived her entire life in Perry County, Indiana. I do not see anything obvious in my tree where Walter would have crossed paths with a Rhodes or Cox family member in either Iowa or Montana. There could have been a friend of a friend who put them in contact with each other. Or Anna could have been a mail order bride. According to newspaper announcements of their marriage, he was highly respected by his pastor. This would support the first theory. It is an interesting question to pose, but not one I have the time to explore fully. After returning to Iowa for a few years, the Meehans moved to South Dakota until the late 1930s when they relocated to Merced County, California.

A mail-order bride was a woman whose introduction to her husband came through the mail, and one who made plans to marry him before meeting in person. -National Postal Museum

Just two Rhodes children to finish researching. I should be able to complete this task by month end.

Beginning of Week: 26,878 people
End of Week: 26,954 people
Change = +76 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people

2025 Week 2

12 Sunday Jan 2025

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It was a rather uneventful research week for me.

On the DNA front, no new matches that I could easily insert into my tree were produced. There were tons of new matches with little to no helpful information. What strikes me funny is there were a couple people who tagged themselves “willing to help”. These individuals did not have a linked tree associated with their results. You know what would be helpful? BUILD. YOUR. TREE.

I did some place name clean up. It will take forever and a day to clean up my place name list in Family Tree Maker. Some time ago I tried to do a clean up. It was a rather discouraging task and I hardly made a dent. I focused this week on places in Perry County, Indiana since that is where the family I am working on is located. I think it is important to have a system established for place names and try to adhere to it for clarity. It can be quite confusing if the place is listed as “Perry, Indiana”. Is this Perry County or a Perry Township? How many counties in Indiana have a Perry Township? It could be as many as ninety-two!

Perry County, Indiana 1876
Indiana Historical Society

I’m continuing with my build out of the descendants of Gabriel and Nancy Cox through their granddaughter Martha Cassidy Rhodes. The thing that captured my attention this week is that a couple of the women in this line, sisters in fact, married late in their thirties and tried to have children. Unfortunately, the babies only lived a couple days. The cause of death for one of the infants was Bandl’s Ring. Not familiar with this term, I looked it up.

Bandl’s ring occurs when the uterus retracts during contractions, but the cervix doesn’t dilate quickly enough. The ring forms around the baby’s neck or shoulders, obstructing labor. 
–Google AI

How tragic! Family history research is definitely filled with learning opportunities on many different topics, including geography and medicine.

I still have three of Rhodes children to finish up before moving on. Hopefully, I can do that by the end of January.

Beginning of Week: 26,821 people
End of Week: 26,878 people
Change = +57 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people

2025 Week 1

05 Sunday Jan 2025

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I do this every year. Resolve to blog regularly and then it falls to the wayside. Let’s see how long I stick with it this year. I’ll start with a summary of what I accomplished last year and move on from there.

I’m continuing to work on the ancestry of my paternal grandfather, Samuel Thomas DeMoss, Sr. I moved on from the DeMoss line to the Cox line in 2024. With the release of the Full Text Search functionality on FamilySearch last year, I have found some interesting details about the family of my 4th great grandparents William J. DeMoss and Elizabeth Lowe DeMoss. Divorce records and land deed records cleared up several details that were still out there for me. Their son Isaac (my 3rd great grandfather) has a ton of land deed transactions on the books in both Knox and Daviess Counties. Every month or so I will do a quick follow up search to see if anything new and exciting pops up.

I put the DeMoss line on pause with my 4th great grandparents. The documentation currently available for Fleming County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s doesn’t amount to much for William and Polly DeMoss. It doesn’t appear that he was too involved in local politics or was at odds with the law, but it’s not clear exactly who he descends from or where he was prior to Fleming County. At this time, the only thing that might solve this riddle is if we had Y DNA results from my male cousin or his male descendants.

I’m about a year into my research on the Cox line. I am cleaning up what I already had and filling in the branches downward. My 2nd great grandfather Frank Cox lived quite the life and I continue to find more documents on him every time I search. He’s now up to four (4) wives! I’m still looking for definitive proof that John S Cox (my 3rd great grandfather) is the son of Gabriel and Nancy Cox. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that needs to be sorted through before I can feel confident in this parental assignment.

I am currently building out the descendants of Martha Ann Cox who married Luke Cassidy. I have six confirmed DNA matches through Martha. Luke and Martha had six known children and resided in Perry County, Indiana. Some of their descendants still live in the general area in south central Indiana, while others have migrated to the Pacific Northwest. This week I am specifically working on the family of Martha Henrietta Cassidy Rhodes and discovering my “5th cousins”. She and Sylvester had six children that I am aware of. I’m currently working on daughter #2. I expect the Rhodes family will take me a month to complete, depending on how much basic information I can find.

There were two individuals that stood out to me this week. These are usually younger individuals that catch my attention. The first was a 30 year old male in the late 1940s who died of a stabbing to his femoral artery. According to the man who ultimately was convicted of manslaughter, the victim had tried to rob him and he was merely acting in self-defense. The other was a 23 year old woman who was driving to work at a hospital in Evansville. Apparently the roads were slick and she was trying to pass another vehicle on or near a bridge. She lost control and died instantly from her injuries.

Unrelated to my Cox research, I had one new DNA match that I was able to place in my tree down my Roderick branch.

Progress: Tree contains 26,821 people
Goal: Add 50 new people this week

Leave no stone unturned

11 Wednesday Sep 2024

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Currently I am working to build out the Cox line of my family tree. I hate to leave a branch completely unresearched. I try to find a minimal amount of information on everyone that I might share DNA with just in case it becomes useful to someone someday. Even if that person is not me.

Today I was fleshing out a fifth cousin, Nell. Granted, she will not make it into the family history I am assembling, but my genealogy OCD is alive and well and I felt obligated to learn what I could about my cousin. Nell was listed in both her parents’ obituaries in 1989 and 1991 with a married name. When I was sorting through her hints on Ancestry, it gave me a marriage record, but the name did not match what I had for 1989. A divorce record was located prior to 1989 so the next logical step was to search the newspapers for a second marriage announcement. Her surname in 1989 did not appear to be overly common so I went with that.

A marriage announcement for Nell in the four year window in California did not populate using the new surname, however, there were a few articles with a byline for the night city editor with the Los Angeles Times. What were the chances? Could this guy be Nell’s husband? I clicked on one. It started out “I did not want to go: I didn’t believe in doctors.” The writer proceeds to describe how he’s been getting in shape in the past few years and this doctor’s visit. Unfortunately, the EKG was abnormal and the doctors thought he was in the middle of a heart attack! He then mentions his wife’s name, Nell. BINGO! I found the second husband…and several genealogical details about Nell.

I almost skipped over the article by Nell’s husband…but I didn’t. Something made me read it. It’s important to turn over all those stones, even if they are the size of pea gravel. You never know what is hidden underneath.

UPDATE: Cox and McCullough

25 Sunday Feb 2024

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I’ve set aside my DeMoss research and am moving on to my Cox ancestors. I don’t know why but my Cox ancestors are some of my favorites. Maybe it is because of the snippets about great-grandma Blanche I’ve been told by my aunt over the years…how she stepped in on behalf of my uncle during my grandmother’s difficult second marriage. Maybe because Blanche’s grandfather died in the Civil War. Maybe because of the well-documented stories that already exist about the Cox family members who came before. If nothing else, this is not a boring bunch of skeletons in my closet!

So, I’m working on the Cox line and the first family unit to clean up for the manuscript is that of my 2nd-great grandfather Frank Cox. I’ve written about Frank before, exposing some details that other researchers in the family hadn’t yet discovered. The one detail that really bugged me that I didn’t have was the date that Frank married Jennie Hollingsworth. I had searched the Knox County marriage records forward and backward with no luck. This time, I decided to try the newspaper. I simply love the fact that the Knox County library has digitized so many of the old papers and I can access them from 2000 miles away! I plugged in my search criteria and voila! They were married on July 4, 1876 in LAWRENCEVILLE! That would explain why I could not find them in the Knox County marriage database. For those of you that don’t know, back in the day, Lawrence Co, IL was Knox County’s very own Gretna Green. Yay! Now I have another source to confirm they did get married and now we have a date.

Of course, I don’t work on just a single person at one time. I’m also unraveling the generation before and after at the same time. This was especially true today with Frank Cox’s family. In building the timeline for this family, it seems they kept moving back and forth between Cape Girardeau County, Missouri and Knox County, Indiana…and so did the McCullough family. I wrote about Arabelle’s parents, Oliver and Rachel, way back in 2014. I basically lost track of them after the 1880 census. Re-examining Arabelle’s marriage license from Cape Girardeau, she was under 18 and it has a notation that her father OP McCullough gave written permission for her to marry. This means Oliver was alive in 1888. Then, as I was scouring the land and court records for Frank down there, I came across a land transaction listing Rachel McCullough and Francis M Cox as grantors in 1891. Since Frank was listed on the transaction instead of Oliver, either Oliver and Rachel had divorced or Oliver was deceased. At this point in time, I’m leaning toward deceased. I haven’t found any additional information on Rachel.

So, to sum up my new findings…

  • Frank married Jennie Hollingsworth in Lawrenceville, IL on July 4, 1876
  • Oliver McCullough likely died sometime between 1888 and 1891, in either Missouri or Indiana
  • Rachel McCullough died sometime after 1891, probably in Missouri