HE WASN'T SHOT IN THE WAR, BUT SUFFERED FOR 23 YEARS My wife’s three-times great-grandfather, Joseph Craig Needham, came to America at age 19 in 1841 or ‘42. At the age of 40, he left his wife and their four children, aged 14 to 3 months, at home, and enlisted for three...
THE FIRST LADIES AND ALL OF THE OTHER LADIES One of the questions that people ask when we’re building books is “What about grandma?” Where’s her page? The reality is, until the invention of family planning and birth control, most of our female ancestors were busy raising a herd of children,...
GENEALOGIST- NOT YOUR GRANDPA'S MARCHING BAND My wife’s grandfather was a drummer in the Straughn, KS, Concert Band, standing to the left of the drum in the colorized picture below. My wife inherited the legacy and was in marching band in high school and college. Later in life, she joined the local...
ANCESTORS-GRANDPA AND THE GREAT CHAIN My wife’s 4th Great-Grandfather, Haynes Bartlett, was born in Newburgh, Ulster County, New York, on March 4, 1757, when the village was mostly comprised of rail fences. He learned the blacksmith trade in his early days in Newburg. He lived in Cornwall, Orange County, NY, when...
ANCESTRY- FROM EXTORTION TO WASHINGTON'S APPOINTMENT My 5th Great Grandfather, Joseph Greenway, was baptized on August 4, 1756. He was taxed as a cooper in 1774. He was commissioned as an Ensign on January 20, 1776, for the 1st Pennsylvania battalion, Continental Line. Later that August, he was commissioned as a...
ANCESTRY- ANOTHER COLEMAN'S BROKEN HEART In the last edition, we covered the death of millionaire industrialist Robert and Coleman and future president James Buchanan’s fiancé Ann Caroline Coleman Ann Coleman It turns out Coleman had another daughter, Sarah, who is also believed to have committed suicide. Around 1824, William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796-1877)...
HOUSTONS PAY THEIR DEBTS In several past editions, I wrote about my three times great-grandfather, William Harper Smither. His father, John Smither (pictured), was born on May 27, 1779, in Richmond County, Virginia. He moved to Culpeper County, Virginia, and married Mary Polly Greenway in Chesterfield County, Virginia, on July 18, 1808....
GENEALOGY- MORE ON THE SMITHERS My Great-Great Grandfather Gabriel Neil Smither served in the Confederate Army. He enlisted at age 17 on March 10, 1862, at Oxford, Mississippi for one year. Less than a month later he reenlisted for three years or the duration of the war. He served with the...
GENEALOGIST- MORE ON THE SMITHERS OF HUNTSVILLE In the last edition, I shared my Smither ancestor’s store accounts book, John Smither, which showed Sam Houston’s debts, and that our client, who is Houston’s second cousin five times removed, paid off Sam’s debt. As a genealogist, I received a copy of the Smither...
GENEALOGY- HEARTBREAK FOR A FUTURE PRESIDENT We visited the Cornwall Furnace National Monument in central Pennsylvania. There was a personal interest as my wife and my son-in-law’s (they’re tenth cousins) many times Great Uncle Peter Grubb (c.1702—1754), founded the Grubb Family Iron Dynasty in 1737, developed Cornwall Iron Mines and established...
Call/Text Dan: 214-914-3598