TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

There Are Ways Around Brick Walls

ADVERTISEMENT

By SHARON TATE MOODY, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 14, 2007

A tired expression to describe a genealogical puzzle we can't solve is to say, 'We've hit the brick wall.'

Many a budding family historian packs up a project when confronted with such an obstacle. When it seems impossible to find what we need, some of us just stop researching a particular branch of the family tree and begin working on another.

But the brick wall can send an important message: Keep looking for alternatives for finding the needed proof to verify events in an ancestor's life.

We often aren't going to find specific and direct records to prove a date of birth, marriage or death. So we have to learn how to dig into what appear to be unrelated records.

For example, today we can go to a vital records repository to purchase a death certificate and get official proof of when and how a person died and where he was buried. Such was not true in 1864, when my third great-grandfather Asa James died in Cherokee County, N.C. Death certificates didn't exist in that state until 1913.

To get around the problem, I began to research the social and political history of the region where he lived. The result was learning much about his way of life, immediate family, descendants and friends - more than if I'd found a death certificate.

Grandpa Asa had been resting in peace for 72 years under a fieldstone marker on his farm until 1936, when the Tennessee Valley Authority relocated him to a cemetery in downtown Murphy, N.C. The government was about to dam the Hiawassee River and flood his burial site along with his farm.

There were nine old graves on the James family farm, each marked only with fieldstones, none with engraved tombstones. So rather than having a single-page death certificate for my ancestor, I have a thick file in which relatives still living in 1936 identified the occupants of the nine graves. The file relates how the remains were disinterred, moved and reinterred. I now have a plat the agency prepared showing where they reinterred him at the Murphy Old Methodist Church Cemetery.

I also have a rich understanding and appreciation for how building dams to provide electricity for the masses affected families that lost their lands and some of their history to this progress.

Another example: For years, I lamented about not finding records to prove my theory that my second great-grandfather Isaac Tate had been married twice and that his first wife, not his second, was the mother of my great-grandfather Joseph. I couldn't find a marriage record for Isaac and Cynthia Tate, who lay in the grave beside his. I suspected she was his second wife only because she was significantly younger than he was, according to the dates on the tombstones.

I had viewed the missing marriage record as a brick wall and gave up.

My defeatist attitude kept me from undertaking the required hard work to find another source. I later learned it was in Isaac's military record.

Isaac had served for about 30 days in a state militia unit that in 1838 worked to round up Cherokee Indians in North Georgia and herd them off to Oklahoma Territory on the Trail of Tears. I was ashamed that a relative had participated in this. My own closed mind and shortsightedness led me to believe this wasn't 'real' military service.

Sure enough, when I decided to open my mind, I checked the pension requirements for these 'Indians Wars.' His brief service with a state militia was indeed classified as federal service. After his death, his wife qualified for a pension. In his pension file were the affidavits proving that Cynthia was his second wife and my Joseph was the son of the first wife.

There may not be a way around every brick wall, but if you work hard you just might find the knowledge you think is hiding from you.

'America's GenealogyBank'

The Florida Genealogical Society will hold its monthly meeting at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the John F. Germany Library auditorium, 900 N. Ashley Drive, Tampa.

Kim Harrison, a representative of NewsBank, will present a program titled 'America's GenealogyBank: Introduction to a New Resource.'

The Hillsborough Public Library Cooperative recently added this new resource to its collection of genealogy databases.

Harrison will present the database and demonstrate how to use it for research. Admission is free.

Sharon Tate Moody is president of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Send your genealogy questions and event announcements to her in care of BayLife, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606 or wmoody3@tampabay.rr.com. She is unable

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT