This week’s prompt is ‘Bachelor Uncle.’

Both of my parents grew up as only children.  Since neither had a sibling, I will need to talk about my Great Uncle, Edward Peter Schumacher, my paternal grandmother’s older brother. 

Edward Peter Schumacher was born on 14 Mar 1891 in Reynolds, Grand Forks County, North Dakota.  His parents were Mathias Schumacher and Mary Timlin.  After Mary died in 1903, Edward, along with all of his sisters but one, we living as servants to other families in 1910.

By the time WWI broke out, Edward Peter Schumacher was living in Pend Oreille County, Washington.

After he was released from the military, he was working as a farmhand in Enchanted Prairie, Coos County, Oregon in 1920.

By 1930, he was working in the mills of El Dorado County, California and lived there until his death on 24 Nov 1970.

 

 

This week’s prompt is ‘At The Courthouse.’

There were many before me who claimed that James Burk was my 7th great grandfather.  The daughter’s name is in question, but it is believed by many that Honora Burk married William Brookshire.  Honora and William would have been my 6th great grandparents.

Courthouse records for James Burk list William Brookshire as receiving a bequest in his will that states William Brookshire was in fact his son-in-law.

 

This week’s prompt is ‘Family Picture.’

I only have one picture of my Mom and her parents together. 

My grandfather, Edward Thornwell Beauchamp on the left.  My mom Vera Faye Beauchamp to his right.  My grandmother Bennie Elsie Nerren to her right and Mable Munroe, 1/2 sister to my grandfather.

This weeks prompt is ‘Love.’

I had no idea what to write about, so I thought about looking at names.

Roxie Viola Lovelady was the mother-in-law to my 1st cousin 1x removed cousin Lena Lucy Nerren.

Jo Rachal Love married my 4th cousin 3x removed, Frank Bowles Upchurch.

Grace Elizabeth Love married my 1st cousin 3x removed, William M Beauchamp.

Mayme Elizabeth Lovelace married my 5th cousin 2x removed, Wallace Collins Wathen.

Mikey Don Lovelace married my 4th cousin, Kimberly Carolyn Selman.

Ada Lovett married my 1st cousin 3x removed, Virgil James Nerren.

Ivy Timothy Lovett married my 2nd cousin 2x removed, Faye Ethel York.

There is some ‘Love’ in the family as long as you know where to look.

This week’s prompt in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is ‘Surprise.’  The timing couldn’t be more perfect.

My mom’s maternal family has lived in Angelina County, Texas since the mid 1850’s and many still do to this day.  They were not rich but acquired farmland over the years and worked their fields.  Benjamin Franklin Nerren was my grandmother’s grandfather.  He was one of those farmers in Angelina County.

Benjamin, over time, divided up his farmland to each of his 7 children.  The exact size of each parcel is unknown at this time.  My grandmother’s father was Benjamin Holt Nerren.  He was murdered in 1929 leaving a wife and 5 daughters.  Benjamin Franklin Nerren gave Holt’s wife his inheritance of a parcel of land with the stipulation she remain a widow.  Since the widow did marry, the inheritance was taken away and divided between the daughters instead.

Last week, we were contacted by a gentleman from Angelina County, Texas who was hired to establish heirship of the property in question.   It appears the original farmland has been subdivided over time, and it is unknown if we still have legal claim of inheritance.  This was certainly a ‘surprise’ to us.   He stated that BP has interest in extracting natural gas from the property and needs to find all of the legal owners.

We also learned my grandmother’s eldest sister sold her interest in the property.  Another sister willed her interest to her 3 living sisters at the time of her death.  The remaining sister willed her interest in the land to her husband.  My grandmother didn’t have a will and we are not even sure if she was aware of the property in question.

This story will be updated as new information becomes available.

 

Every weekend, shortly after breakfast, our dad would say, ‘ I’ll be in the library’ if you need in, better go now.  He’d have a copy of the morning newspaper in hand and stay in there at least a half hour.  Our family of four lived in a 3 bedroom house with only one bathroom.  Whenever I hear ‘library’, it conjures up those memories.   Our dad is long gone.  He passed away in 1985, but the ‘library’ is still in use today.  My brother will head off to the ‘library’ when he is visiting, with his cellphone in hand, to ponder world events or post stupid memes on Facebook.

Now for me, when I say, “I’ll be at the library” it usually means I am searching the websites of the many library collections online.  I found several family history books for my ancestors.  I’ve clipped too many to count newspaper articles of interest.  This process works best for me since I live 1000+ miles from where my ancestors lived.

While searching my paternal grandmother’s mother, I found that the Archives in Ontario, Canada have records of interest to me.  They are not available online, however, they do inter-library loans.  I contacted my local library to see if they had a film viewer and accepted loans.  The answer was yes to both.  So I will be ‘at the library’ to fill out all of the necessary forms to see what I will find in those records.

This post will continue as warranted

 

Last years Week 6 Prompt was ‘Favorite Name.’  I wrote about my 3rd Great Grandfather,   Lorenzo Dow Nerren

How am I going to top that one?  After a few moments, I remembered the name of one of Lorenzo Dow Nerren’s Granddaughters.

It has been documented by many about the birth of  Seawillow Margaret Ann Pipkin.  She was born on 22 Oct 1855 in Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas.  This is her story:

“The day Seawillow was born there was a disastrous flood on the Neches River in Beaumont, TX. The Rev. John F. Pipkin and his pregnant 2nd wife, Amelia Rabb and some of the family slaves were swept along on a raft. Just before the birth of his daughter, a human chain was formed by the slaves to fasten the raft to a Willow tree. The Rev. looked up through the branches of the Willow tree and gave thanks to God for the safe delivery of his daughter in the midst of the flood water. Thus the name Seawillow.
Seawillow grew up in Beaumont and became a school teacher in Luling and Lockhart. She married Littleberry Walker Wells and moved to a farm not far from his parents on Plum Creek. The farming community grew to have a small population with a general store and a church with an arbor. In 1899 when a post office was needed, the city was named Seawillow, Caldwell Co. TX. in her honor.She named one of her daughters Seawillow Lemon, and many of the Wells, Pipkin and family friends have named their daughters Seawillow.”

So how does her story fit into my family?  The granddaughter of Lorenzo Dow Nerren was named Berta Seawillow Nerren,  She was born on 24 Feb 1885 in Angelina County, Texas.  I have no proof, but I suspect the middle name Seawillow was in honor of an unknown person to them with a heartwarming story.

 

My genealogical journey started in 2007.  I had retired a couple years earlier and was in search of a new hobby.  There were only so many quilts I could sew.

I signed up with MyHeritage to start with.  The ‘CHALLENGE‘, this weeks prompt in the #52Ancestors in 52 Weeks, where do I start?

Building trees became very easy if you used the trees others built.  I quickly had a tree of over 5000 people on my mother’s side.  I was so proud of myself.  Then there were those pesky record matches that didn’t make sense.  That’s not the family I have in my tree.  Where did those come from?

I deleted that whole tree.  The ‘CHALLENGE‘ was, how do I start over?

It became obvious that I should start with what I know.  I knew when and where I was born.  Who my parents were.  I added my younger brother into my tree as well.  Then I worked on my mother’s family since she is still alive, and turning 87 this coming May.

I found her birth certificate from 1932.  I found her and her parents in the 1940 Census.  I realized this is the ‘CHALLENGE.’  Finding documentation.

My mother’s brick wall didn’t go back very far.  I was in search of her paternal grandfather, William Henry Beauchamp.

W H Beauchamp married my mother’s grandmother, Artie Rether Freeland in Rusk County, Texas in 1909.  My mother’s father was born on 31 Mar 1910.  The only time this family was together was in the 1910 Census.

In 1920, Rether was living with her parents and her 3 children being listed as a widow.  When did William Henry Beauchamp die?  Where was he buried?  This was another ‘CHALLENGE.’

Then I found this in the courts records in Angelina County, Texas.

William Henry Beauchamp was alive and well in 1919.  The ‘CHALLENGE‘ here is, he was claiming adultery against Rether, all the while he was living with someone else and had 2 children.   Here is the 1920 Census record.

I questioned if this was the William Henry Beauchamp I was looking for.  My ‘CHALLENGE‘ was to find out.

Ancestry DNA gave me my answer.  My mom has 6 DNA matches to the daughter, Ruby Jewel Beauchamp’s grandchildren,  proving he was who I was looking for.

William Henry Beauchamp died in 1943.

Find A Grave Memorial

 

I completely failed last year in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Week challenge.  Started out gung ho and then life got in the way.  So I’m going to try it again this year.

The prompt for Week 1 in 2019 is ‘FIRST.’

Didn’t take me long to figure out what ‘FIRST’ I would write about.  It’s my new found FIRST cousin.  Okay, maybe he is only a half FIRST cousin, but I will focus on the FIRST part.

My younger brother and I were born to wonderful parents who happened to both be only children.  That meant we had no aunts or uncles.  No first cousins.  We grew up with what I call the ‘old people.’  Those ‘old people’ were our maternal and paternal grandmothers.  Our maternal grandfather died a couple years after I was born in 1957.  My paternal grandfather was unknown.

My father was born in Los Angeles in 1931 to an unwed mother.  The birth certificate we had a copy of didn’t list the name of the father, and my father was given his mother’s name, Schumacher, with a slight spelling change of Shumaker.

When my father and paternal grandmother were alive, it never occured to me to ask about our family history.  It never came up in conversation.   Oh how I wish I had asked.

One day, my mother and I were watching TV back in 2015 and there was a commercial by Ancestry and their DNA test.  I ordered 3 test.  One for me, my younger brother and our mother.  The results came back and were less than robust for our paternal side of the family.  I sighed and went about my maternal tree.  That proved to be very beneficial in validating my research.

Mid 2017 I started seeing DNA matches that me and my brother shared that didn’t match our 3 known family lines.  I build mirror trees up the wazoo.  I finally realized that those 50 or so DNA matches should be in one tree and not 50 different ones.  So I bought Family Tree Maker to help with my research and combining the trees.

I found that our unknown paternal grandfather’s last name was Hutson, and the family was from Perry County, Missouri.  But who was our grandfather?

In most of the DNA Groups on Facebook, people kept saying to spread your DNA into the most ponds.  So I uploaded all 3 tests to GEDMATCH, FTDNA and MyHeritage.

I had previously used MyHeritage as my family search website.  Their search features and database offer records that Ancestry doesn’t.  It became apparent to me that I should just bite the bullet and renew my membership with MyHeritage for a year and see if there was any benefit.  What’s a couple hundred dollars in the grand scheme of things?

My Ancestry tree was uploaded to MyHeritage as a gedcom and I waited.  One day there was a record match to my father as if his last name was HUTSON!!! I thought, are you kidding me?

Off I went to get a copy of my father’s original birth certificate.  Who was this Hutson guy?  How did they know the name Hutson?

My father’s OBC came in the mail.  His father was listed as Clarence Roy Hutson.  Clarence was in my tree, but I never suspected him to be the birth father.  He was born in 1910 and my grandmother in 1894.  My grandmother was a ‘Cougar’ long before it became a part of the contemporary vernacular.

Clarence Roy Hutson was married at least 3 times that I could find.  He only had one other child I could find.  That was a daughter born to his 1st wife.  She ended up being my father’s only half sibling and her son was named Robert, just like my father.

I talked to my 1/2 ‘FIRST’ cousin on the phone last year.  He seemed nice but very detached to his mother’s family.   But I do have a 1/2 ‘FIRST’ cousin, even if he isn’t interested in building a relationship.