52W Mark III – Week 15: School Days

I typically consider myself as a descendant of many, many farmers. However, I am always surprised to remember that I am also descended from many individuals for whom education was important. There are also several educators in my extended family, including a high school principal. One of my sisters was a school teacher before becoming a medical doctor. As well, my maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, originally intended to become a school teacher until a nun steered her in another direction.

In particular, several of my direct ancestors were school board trustees. The earliest were my Gx3 grandfathers, William Burgess (1822-1904) and Preston Thomas (1814-1877). They served together on the first school board for the Lehi, Utah school district. The school district was created by the city of Lehi by resolution dated February 17, 1854. An election was held three days later, on February 20, 1854. Three school trustees were elected: William, Preston, and Daniel Collett.

My Grandpa Burgess also had several other school trustees on his maternal line, the Nelson family. According to the 1880 US Census, his great grandfather (another of my Gx3 grandfathers), Robert Nelson (1818-1902) was a school trustee in Smithfield, Utah. Twenty-seven years later Robert’s son, John Alexander Nelson (my Gx2 grandfather) held the same office in Woolford, Alberta. John was one of the founders of the Woolford school board and was one of its first board members.

John’s son (my grandfather’s uncle), Seth Henry Nelson Q.C. (1891-1975), also served as a school board trustee in Cardston, Alberta. Seth was a school trustee for 15 years, from 1924 to 1939. Seth served as the Board’s Secretary for the last 10 years of his time in office. Following his last term as a school trustee, Seth made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the Alberta provincial legislature during the 1940 general election. Seth ran as an independent against the incumbent Social Credit candidate, Nathan Tanner. Tanner was a former Speaker of the legislature who was appointed to Cabinet in 1937. Despite running as an independent, it was a close race. Tanner defeated Seth in a two-way race, 2,160 votes to 1,808 (54.4% of the vote).

Education was also a facet of my wife’s side of the family, one of whom also served as a school trustee. Frank Eden (1839-1907), our children’s Gx3 grandfather, was a prominent Halifax, Nova Scotia merchant whose primary business was shoe manufacturing and sales. Frank served two non-consecutive terms as an alderman on the Halifax city council (1892-1893 and 1895-1896). Concurrent with both terms of office on city council, Frank served on the Halifax Board of School Commissioners.

In 1902, there was an attempt to persuade Frank, who was still in the shoe industry, to run for Mayor of Halifax. As stated on page nine of the Halifax Herald, on January 1, 1902: “There is a movement on foot…to get ex-Alderman Frank Eden to consent to run for mayor.” As far as I’m concerned, all puns are intended.

52W Mark II – Week 8: I Can Identify

Can we identify James Turner’s parents?

Heck, are we even related to James Turner?

There are branches of my family tree in which I am keenly interested, and others that just haven’t caught my fancy. Maybe it is because I identify with some branches more than others. I suspect many genealogists might be like that. However, in recent years I now have someone to prompt me about those ignored or forgotten family lines.

Like me, my eldest son developed an interest in genealogy when he was about eight years old – without any prompting by me, I’d like to add. He has been invaluable to my own research, as he often asks very good questions that set me off on a new line of inquiry. In addition, there are times he’ll look through our pedigree on my database and ask about ancestors who I literally haven’t looked at in thirty years. It always results in the two of us working together to learn more about that individual and their branch of the family. Perhaps the one he has been most interested in was his great x8 grandfather on his mother’s side of the family, Francis Lecain. He is fascinated with the fact he has an ancestor from the Bailiwick of Jersey.

One branch that my son asked about very recently, who I haven’t thought much about since my early days of research, is that of my great x4 grandmother, Nancy Ann Morehead. She is the mother of Preston Thomas, someone who I actually have spent quite a bit of time researching. However, I have little more on Nancy other than her date of birth (April 18, 1779, in Virginia) and date of marriage (December 3, 1795, in Richmond County, North Carolina, to Daniel Thomas). Pretty much the only “research” I’ve done in relation to Nancy was through Ancestral File (am I dating myself?) in 1995 and 1997. Needless to say, that was well before the development of the Genealogical Proof Standard. Other than that, my research notes show that I looked her up on FamilySearch in 2014, almost 10 years ago.

Looking at Nancy’s paternal line, I see that the last time I touched it was when I transitioned from using Cumberland Family Tree to RootsMagic in 2008. That information also probably dates back to 1995 and Ancestral File.

However, I have taken occasional passing interest in Nancy’s maternal line, although not too seriously and without any real research into it in decades. What has caught my eye about that branch was the surname of the person said to be Nancy’s great grandmother, Martha Taliaferro, who was also from Virginia. Martha was the mother of James Turner, Nancy’s maternal grandfather. I think what piqued my interest was that “Taliaferro” looks Italian to me. In later years, I learned that the Virginia Taliaferros were of British origin, although they most likely came to England from Venice centuries before. I also learned, either through Who Do You Think You Are or Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was that the name is actually pronounced “tolliver”.

About two weeks ago my son asked if we could do some genealogy together. The request usually results in him going through our pedigree and choosing someone who catches his eye. That day it was Martha Taliaferro. If I recall correctly, we ended up trying to find better information about her parentage. However, as I often do, I remind him that we need to ensure that the links between our generation and that of the person we’re researching are sufficiently proven. That’s when the loose threads began to unravel.

Looking at the information I had and the information we found, it seemed that Martha and her husband Thomas Turner could not be James’s parents. First of all, the most likely date of their marriage is inconsistent with the likely date of Jame’s birth.

Most of the sources linking James to this couple are centuries old compendiums with little or no notation of the sources. More recent research I found indicates that this connection is likely incorrect. Among other things, Thomas Turner’s will makes no mention of a son named James, nor do there appear to be other records, such as deeds, suggesting any connection. As one person posted on an Ancestry message board, “It is unfortunate so many people continue to ‘input’ this erroneous family relationship into their ‘databases’. All they have to do is a little bit of actual research to discover this simple fact.“

While it remains to be confirmed with more certainty, James’s parents might be Edward Turner Sr. and Sarah Meredith, or Edward Turner and Sarah Palmer.

I haven’t done any further or significant research into this conundrum. Before doing so, I first want to prove the lineage I have from Nancy to James. I would then dig into James’s parentage. I have created a research log for this problem, complete with some of the possible sources I have identified. However, I have only rated it as being of middling urgency. Until then, the mystery remains.

52 Weeks – Week 37: High and Low

Highs and lows bring to mind the Guinness Book of World Records. So for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I thought I’d consider some of the superlatives in my family tree. Bear in mind that this is for entertainment purposes only, because some of these superlatives have not been sufficiently researched or verified such that they can be taken as fact.

Here’s a high: Mount Baker, Washington

I cannot verify with certainty the longevity of the few centenarians in my database. According to my database, my longest-lived ancestor died at age 110. I don’t believe that for a second, so I won’t even name them. The person for whom I have at least a scintilla of information regarding their longevity is Joseph Metz, my first cousin three times removed. According to his headstone, as seen on Find a Grave, Joseph lived to be about 102 or 103. The longest-lived person in my database with the most reliable information regarding their lifespan is my fourth cousin three times removed, Fern Renner. She was better known to the world as Fern Welk, as she was married to the well-known band leader, Lawrence Welk.

My relative who was the oldest on their wedding day was my great great great uncle, Samuel Nelson, who married for the fourth time when he was 77. The bride, Cecilie Anderson, was 62. Samuel lived to be 93, making him one of my longer lived relatives.

The newlyweds, Hazel Nelson and Albert Beaves, about July 5, 1967.

My great grandmother, Hazel Nelson, married for a second time at age 67, not quite two months before she passed away. Her husband, Albert Beaves, was also a widower marrying for the second time. Albert was 85 years old at the time. He lived another nine years after Hazel’s death. Albert died when he was 94.

While Samuel Nelson had been married four times, the record for most marriages is my 7x great uncle, Archelaus Kenney, who apparently married five times. Not even any of the Mormon polygamists in my tree married that many times. However, I have not verified any of Archelaus’s marriages.

Otherwise, Samuel’s record was tied by his younger brother, my great great grandfather, John Alexander Nelson. However, while it appears that Samuel had been widowed each time he remarried, John was a polygamist. Another ancestor, my great x3 grandfather, Henry Lyman Cook, was also a polygamist who married four times. Other polygamist ancestors, including my great x3 grandfathers William Burgess, Jr. and Preston Thomas, only married three times.

^{A bunch of polygamists: John A. Nelson, Henry L. Cook, William Burgess Jr., Preston Thomas.}

It probably comes as no surprise that the women in my family tree have had fewer multiple marriages than the men. I can find few examples of women who married more than twice. One of the exceptions is my great x4 grandmother, Louisa Thomas, who married three times. Her first husband, Lazarus Beakley, died a year or two after they married, when Louisa was around 24 or 25 years old. Louisa’s second husband, my great x4 grandfather Conrad Liggett, died 18 months after they married, when Louisa was 26. Louisa married again at age 29, to Aaron Cook. Unfortunately, that was another short-lived marriage, as Louisa died when she was 35.

Of course, with marriage there are often children. Of course, the person with the most children in my tree is a father. My great great grandfather, Horace Burgess, had nineteen children. He had nine children with his first wife, my great great grandmother Sarah Cook. Their eight child and youngest son was Milton Leo Burgess, my great grandfather. After Sarah died, Horace remarried, to Julia Josephine Lundquist, with whom he had ten children.

The woman in my family tree who appears to have had the most children is Horace’s paternal grandmother, Violate Stockwell. Violate and my great x 4 grandfather, William Burgess Sr., had 12 children, including my great x 3 grandfather William Jr, who had 12 children with three different wives.

Delving far from what I’ve established through the genealogical proof standard, the earliest occurrence of a surname in my direct lineage is de Fleg, which dates back to the 10^th century, through my 9x great grandfather Thomas Flegg. My connection to Thomas is through Henry Lyman Cook. While I have done a pretty good job at demonstrating my connection to Henry, I have not really done much work on his ancestry beyond the basics.

Here’s a low: standing a meter below sea level in Waarland, Netherlands

I realize that in this examination of superlatives, I have only considered the highs. Of course, considering the people in my tree who are at the opposite end of most of the categories I have discussed are in the multiples. The one category that might lend itself to reasonable consideration of the low end is the surname that might be the opposite end of earliest occurrence. In other words, the surnames I have traced the least far back in time. I’ve identified all 32 of my great x3 grandparents. It is the next generation where I face my first brick walls. I am missing nine of my 64 great x4 grandparents, all on my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. They are all Germans from Russia, who are particularly difficult to research. These lines trace back to settlements in what is now Ukraine, when it was part of the Russian Empire.

Genealogy: all the highs and lows are fascinating!