Who ARE they?

Annabelle Cain

Genealogy is all about tracking down relatives, living and dead, though mostly dead. We all know that. But then there are the ones who perch out on the edges of our family tree --  clinging there by reason of a previous marriage, informal adoption, or some other situation. And while they may not be the main focus of our research, they ARE there … sometimes just pleading for recognition.  

A couple of my puzzles were not really on the margins, but did remain elusive for a long time. Franklin Lee Parkison, my grandmother’s cousin, was one of what I call the 
“lost boys,” single, with no fixed address. His widowed mother remarried and it appears they barely kept in touch.  I finally found him through a death certificate which had mispelled his surname.


Another was Albert Kelsey Thompson, also a cousin, also single and also on the move. I THINK I’ve found him, in the potter’s field section of a Sacramento, California, cemetery.


Then there are the youngsters taken in by families, for whatever reason. Often they are given their adopting/fostering family’s surname and their own biological past is virtually erased. While I am not so concerned about delving into that past, I am quite interested in learning what became of them in later life.

Recently I rediscovered a girl named Jessie in our Indiana Cain clan, one of at least three children who had been adopted, informally or otherwise, by Sarah Cain and her husband, Orlando Hamilton. Although obviously quite young in an 1886 family photo, she was identified as the wife of another adoptee in the same family.  Though my proof is not rock-solid, I now feel sure she not only  grew up in the same household as this fellow adoptee, but later did become his second wife. Of course I’ll keep checking for any new evidence that might prove (or disprove) the matter.

But now I’m turning my attention to another young woman, Annabelle, who was found in the 1900 census for Middlesex County, New Jersey, as part of the Albert Cain family. That record states she was an adopted daughter, born January 1886 in England. After that -- nothing.  Family members I queried long ago (all gone now) remember nothing more of her, but I can’t let it go.  Is she the Annabel, also spelled “Anna B.” who is shown as the wife of Jack/John Coffey in subsequent NJ census records? The birth year is close, the birthplace is England, the year of immigration close enough.  This Annabelle is buried in Groveville Cemetery, according to FindaGrave, with a stone that simply shows her years of birth and death.  Without a more specific date I cannot get a death certificate, and searches for obituaries have so far come up empty. No NJ marriage records online -- as far as I can tell, and no children’s birth records which might show the mother’s pre-marriage name.

Well, it is a work in progress. 

Who are you looking for these days?

Can't let them go

Any serious (or even casual) genealogist can tell you that there are always going to be tantalizing puzzles, nagging gaps, and teasing bits of information that beg to be dealt with. Often they are not even about direct ancestors or close cousins, but the presence of an unanswered question alternately attracts and exasperates, and simply cannot be left alone.

Here are a few of mine:

Lewis Hartwell Thompson, was born 1836 in Virginia, died 1913 in Fairfield, Solano County, California, and is buried in Corning, Tehama County.  My great-grandfather’s brother-in-law, he was said to have once been a member of the notorious Vigilantes at San Francisco’s  “Fort Gunnybags”  

I’d like to know something about his early life, and who his parents were.

Lewis's son, Albert Kelsey Thompson, was born 1868 in Oregon. The 1900 census for  Vallejo, also in Solano County, lists him as a single day laborer. His parents are in San Francisco, as is a brother. But he is not shown ten years later, unless he is the “A.F. Thompson, age 42, b U.S.” (wrong middle initial, right age) aboard the Steamship Catania, moored at San Franisco’s Powell Street Wharf. There is no mention of him in his father’s 1913 obituary, and he is not buried in the Corning family plot.

What became of Albert?

My great-great-grandmother, Jaley Grant, was born  about 1787 in Virginia, and married Frederick Howard 1817 in Bath County, Kentucky. She is in the 1860 census for Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana, with widowed daughter Maranda Kelsey (who later married the above-named Lewis Thompson), but by 1866 Maranda is out West and one can surmise that the aging Jaley has probably died.  But when? Where?

Oh the questions, the questions.

******

On a completely different subject:

Did you know there is an Icelandic app for kinship? Apparently most of the population shares descent from a group of ninth century Viking settlers, and an app has been ceated to access the online database which holds genealogical details of nearly all of them.  A recent Associated Press article said: “In Iceland, a country with a population of 320,000 where most everyone is distantly related, inadvertently kissing cousins is a real risk.”

“Bumping” smart phones with the app sounds an alert if the owners, contemplating intimacy, are closely related.

Oh.