Genealogy Newsletter- January 10, 2026

10 Jan Genealogy Newsletter- January 10, 2026

GENEALOGY- BREAKING NEWS- HEAR US!

You can now listen as well as read the Dancestors Genealogy Newsletter. The QR code links you to a podcast-style sharing of the newsletter to enrich your commute or listening material while puttering around the house.

 

 

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GENEALOGY- IKE ROGERS CAPTURE OF CHEROKEE BILL

While researching a client’s ancestor, Ike Rogers, I came across this story.

Ike (pictured) was born enslaved between 1847 and 1853 in the Cherokee Nation (now northeast Oklahoma). He and his mother, Martha May Richardson, were enslaved by Alzira Price May, a Cherokee by Blood, and her husband, Peter May, a white man. Alzira and her husband were Old Settlers, Cherokees who had removed voluntarily before the Trail of Tears. Many accounts have noted that he was tri-racial – Black, Cherokee, and white – which is true. On the other hand, many fail to name his parents or attribute his ancestry to the sexual assault of his maternal grandmother, Annie May Humphries, by Cherokee Chief John Rogers.

Ike enlisted to fight in the Civil War on August 10, 1862, in Mound City, Linn, Kansas, as part of the First Kansas, the first Black unit to be enlisted, see battle (Battle of Island Mound), and have casualties in the Civil War. The unit later became the United States Colored Troops 79th Regiment.

Ike completed his enlistment term of three years on October 1, 1865. He was mustered out at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as a private in Company E. He fought and survived several battles, such as the Battle of Cabin Creek, the Battle of Honey Springs, the Battle of Poison Springs, and the Battle of Timber Hill.

Ike Rogers then became a Black U.S. Deputy Marshal in Indian Territory who famously captured the notorious outlaw Crawford “Cherokee Bill” Goldsby, leading to Bill’s hanging in 1896; in revenge, Cherokee Bill’s brother, Clarence Goldsby, ambushed and murdered Ike Rogers in 1897 on a train platform in Fort Gibson, but was never brought to justice for the crime. Rogers was a respected lawman, a former slave, and a Civil War veteran, while Cherokee Bill was a ruthless gang leader.

Some details on the capture of Cherokee Bill- Ike Rogers had been dismissed from the deputy force for harboring wanted fugitives at his home. In some financial trouble, he had recently asked for a reappointment as a deputy marshal, and U.S. Marshal Crump assured Rogers that he would consider the request as long as Rogers cooperated in capturing Cherokee Bill.

Crump knew that Rogers was in an excellent position for assistance, as his cousin was Maggie Glass, the girl with whom Cherokee Bill was infatuated. On January 29, 1895, Maggie was celebrating her 17th birthday, and Rogers decided to invite both her and Bill to his home. Both were suspicious of this arrangement, but when Maggie asked Bill to leave, he refused. Throughout that afternoon and evening, Rogers tried to apprehend Cherokee Bill. Suggestions that the outlaw lay his weapon aside or drink some whiskey, which Rogers had secretly laced with morphine, were refused. Bill also slept lightly and was awakened anytime Rogers tried to get nearby.

It was not until the next morning, when it looked like Bill might escape, that Rogers met with success. While Bill was lighting a cigarette from the fire, Rogers hit him across the back of the head with an iron poker. This knocked the outlaw to his knees. Rogers and his neighbor, Clint Scales, fought with Bill and finally subdued him enough to put handcuffs on him. Cherokee Bill pleaded with them for freedom, promising them horses and money. Refusing the offer, Rogers and his neighbor bound Bill’s feet with baling wire and put him in a wagon to travel to Nowata.

En route, Cherokee Bill actually broke his handcuffs, and it was only with some fast thinking that Scales was able to leap off the wagon to avoid losing his pistol. Rogers, on horseback riding alongside the wagon, kept the outlaw covered with his double-barreled shotgun. At Nowata, Bill was chained and placed in an Arkansas Valley Railway cattle car. When the train stopped at Wagoner, Deputies Dick and Zeke Crittenden joined Smith and Lawson. A photographer was present and asked to take a picture. Bill threw his right arm around Dick Crittenden, reaching for the deputy’s revolver at the same time. The outlaw did not obtain the gun but said afterward that if he had, some of the officers “would have worn away wooden overcoats.” In the picture below, Bill is in the center, and Ike is to the far right.

The group eventually reached Fort Smith, and Bill was lodged in federal jail there. On February 8, 1895, Cherokee Bill was indicted for the murder of Ernest Melton. He pleaded not guilty at the arraignment before Judge Parker. The murder trial was to begin on February 26, 1895.

More in the next edition.

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GENEALOGY- FROM ADAM AND EVE TO THE BRITONS, TO THE ROMANS, TO THE DANISH KINGS

In the last edition, we worked our way from Adam and Eve to Constantine I, Emperor of the Roman Empire (below left), to his son Constantius II, also Emperor (below center). The line then goes to Constantius III, who is not recorded as II’s son, then to III’s son Valentinian III, Emperor (below right).

In the mid-440s, at age five, Valentinian’s daughter Eudocia was betrothed to the son of the Vandal king Gaiseric, Huneric, who was a hostage in Italy. This engagement improved relations between the Western court and the Vandal Kingdom in Africa. Their marriage did not take place at this time, however, because Eudocia was not yet of age.

Valentinian III was assassinated in 455, and his successor, Petronius Maximus, compelled Eudocia’s mother to marry him and Eudocia herself to marry his son, Palladius. In response, the Vandals (reportedly at the request of Eudocia’s mother) invaded Italy and captured Eudocia, her mother, and her younger sister, Placidia. After seven years, Eudocia’s mother and sister were sent to Constantinople, while Eudocia remained in Africa and married Huneric c. 460. They had a son, Hilderic, who reigned as king of the Vandals from 523 to 530.

At some point after Hilderic’s birth, Eudocia withdrew to Jerusalem due to religious differences with her Arian husband. She died there and was buried in the sepulcher of her grandmother, Aelia Eudocia.

According to later legend, Hilderic had a daughter, Hildis, who had a legendary son Halfdan the Old.

Ynglingasaga, authored by Snorri Sturluson, who we reported on in September 2024- Snorri c. 1230, relates that the Swedish king Ingjald, an Ill-Ruler, married his daughter Åsa to King Guðröðr of Scania. Åsa was her father’s daughter and made Guðröðr murder his own brother Halfdan, the father of Ivar Vidfamne (pictured to the right). It seems Ivar had to flee Scania after his father’s death. Later, she was the cause behind Guðröðr’s death as well and was forced to escape back to her father. People afterwards called her Åsa Ill-ruler, similar to her father Ingjald.

Now Ivar Vidfamne hastily returned to Scania. He mustered a large army and approached Ingjald and his daughter at a place in Svithiod called Ræning. Seeing themselves unable to fight the Scanians, the two committed suicide by burning themselves to death inside the hall. Ivar then subjugated large parts of the Baltic region.

From Ivar, the line goes to Roric and appears to come from just picking a name from among many legendary Danish kings.

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GENEALOGY- THE DREAMER AND THE DOCTOR

From a contributing Dancestors’ genealogist:

John Leiberg was a famous botanist in the Pacific Northwest during the mid-late 1800s. He surveyed much of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. He explored and named many of the plants in the area and still has collections at the University of Oregon and the Smithsonian.

Years ago, I was contacted on Ancestry by a stranger, an assistant to author Jack Nisbet. He was writing a book about John Leiberg, and he noticed that John was in my family tree. John married my 2x great-grand aunt, Carrie Leiberg. While researching the Leibergs, he saw that Carrie was just as impressive! After being born in Vermont and traveling across the United States as a child, she attended medical school in Germany. She became one of the first female doctors in the Pacific Northwest. She would travel by handcart to attend to women in labor and postpartum care for great distances. She was referred to as “the only woman railway surgeon in the world,” according to the Class Histories of the Woman’s Medical College of Chicago.

After learning this, the author decided to write a book about both of them called “The Dreamer and the Doctor”. Carrie would travel 10+ miles on a handcart at a moment’s notice to help pregnant women in their rural cabins. She often lived apart from her husband, who was working hard to explore the region and submit samples to the New York Botanical Garden. But their letters prove such affection and respect between the two. She recalls the difficulty women faced with pre-/post-natal care and how hard it was for her emotionally when there were losses. Later, Carrie ran for the Idaho State legislature and tried to advocate for a Maternity Hospital and Nurse Training school since there were none in all of Idaho or Eastern Washington in the late 1800s. She did all this while raising a son.

Carrie died in the 1930s, and the author asked if I happened to know anything about her from family stories or photographs. Lucky for him, my 100-year-old grandmother was still alive and had the memory of a steel trap. My grandmother grew up going to Carrie’s house in Oakland, CA, when Carrie was older. My grandmother recalled her large white home (now known as “Asa White House”), which is still standing. Among many things, she recalled Carrie would make furniture in her backyard as a hobby, make my grandmother donuts, and loved her pet parrot. She was quiet but kind, rarely smiling, no doubt from a life of survival and stress. The author could not believe there was someone still alive to tell stories of someone who died in the 1930s. We were able to help him write his book and enrich his understanding of Carrie’s character, something that genealogy records often cannot provide.

If the author’s assistant had not searched through public family trees and reached out to me, they would have missed a wealth of information. This information was only stored in the brain of a 100-year-old woman. What information about your family is hidden away in a distant cousin’s mind? What photos are thrown in a box of an attic from a distant relative that may be important to you? Have you reached out to people who share common ancestors on their public tree or DNA matches? You may be missing out on the details that make family history a story rather than just a list of dates and locations.

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GENEALOGY- KODAK AND WINNING WORLD WAR I

We visited the George Eastman Museum in Rochester (pictured below), where we learned that aerial photography dates back to 1858, when a French photographer named Gaspard-Felix Tournachon captured an image of Paris while riding in a hot-air balloon. The field developed further in the late 19th century with the use of kites.

But aerial photography, as we know it today, really advanced during World War I, thanks in part to the Eastman Kodak Company.

Both the Allied and Central Powers were engaging in aerial image capturing before the United States entered the war in 1917. Still, the Rochester-based firm nevertheless contributed to both the development of and instruction in the new technology.

Kodak not only created the Kodak A-2 aerial camera, which was widely used during the war, but it also instigated the establishment of the U.S. Aerial Photography School in Rochester.

In early 1918, the company offered the federal government two acres of floor space in its new Kodak Park building to serve as the school’s barracks, dark rooms, classrooms, and lecture halls.

The local YMCA and Knights of Columbus organizations jointly proposed constructing a recreation hall on campus, outfitted with a library, a billiards room, and a “Liberty Theatre” to meet the entertainment needs of the young recruits.

Mayor Edgerton, in turn, offered up the section of Genesee Valley Park known as Baker Field to house an airplane hangar.

The hangar would not host a flying school, nor would the airplanes’ camera operators attend the Kodak Park institution.

Aerial camera operators did not actually have a hand in developing and printing photographs. This work, done by “ground men,” was to be the focus of the Kodak Park school.

Announcing the establishment of the new institution in early 1918, the U.S. Signal Corps sent a bulletin to local draft boards indicating, “The camera is playing an essential part in the war of 1917, and the Signal Corps is organizing the largest and most up-to-date photographic division in the world. The corps is calling on amateurs and professionals to aid the reconnaissance and to help write the story of the war in pictures.”

The school’s Commandant, Captain Charles Betz, proclaimed: “This is an admirable opportunity for men with photographic experience to turn in and do their part. Rochester, the Kodak City, should do its share, and I am certain it will give us two hundred students.”

A considerable number of Rochesterians were among the thousands of amateur and professional photographers who applied to the school.

The first recruits arrived at the Kodak Park campus in March 1918 and were given instruction in military drills and trained at the soldiers’ school, well before they were schooled in aerial photography.

Students then underwent a highly intensive 4-week course specializing in photo developing and printing, as well as camera repair. Recruits learned how to develop film under time constraints and in varying climates and conditions to prepare them for the challenges of working with film in special vehicles close to enemy lines.

The armistice was announced just eight months after the Kodak school opened. When demobilization of the Aerial School began in December 1918, it was the last military unit left in the city.

Though the institution was short-lived, its impact on the war effort was nevertheless significant. By the time it officially closed on January 1st, 1919, the Kodak school had trained more than 2,500 people in the art of aerial photography.

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GENEALOGY- SPECIAL AGENT ALASKA

When visiting the Studebaker Museum, we learned about Alaska Packard Davidson, who was born in Warren, Ohio, in 1868, to Warren and Mary Elizabeth Doud Packard. Her two brothers, James Ward Packard and William Doud Packard, founded Packard, an automobile manufacturer later taken over by Studebaker. She grew up in one of the largest houses in Warren and was likely named after the U.S. Department of Alaska, which had recently been purchased.

In 1890, she was put in charge of the New York and Ohio Packard plant, which was unusual, as few women ran factories at the time. It later became the Ohio Lamp Division. Her management of the plant has been described as “quite an achievement.”

On October 11, 1922, at age 54, Davidson was hired by director William J. Burns to work at the Bureau of Investigation (the former name of the FBI) as a special investigator. She was the first female special agent. Trained in New York City, she was later assigned to the Washington, D.C., field office. Her starting salary was $7 a day plus $4 when traveling. She was said to be earning the equivalent of $102 a day in present-day value. In a 1927 letter, Harriet Taylor Upton stated that she encouraged Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to hire Davidson. She said that she was surprised that he appointed her to the BOI, under Burns, where she got a “$2300 a year salary”, in her words, driving “back and forth from her plantation” every day for her work.

The Bureau was interested in hiring female agents to work on cases related to the Mann Act, which aimed to combat interstate sex trafficking. However, since she was considered “very refined”, the order was given that she wasn’t to be put on “rough” cases. This, combined with her limited schooling, meant she was considered of little use in prosecuting such crimes. During her work at the Washington field office, she was also involved in a case against another agent who was selling classified Department of Justice information to criminals. She also informed the agency about the activities of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom at the organization’s Fourth International Congress in May 1924, under the name “A.P. Davidson”.

After J. Edgar Hoover became acting director of the Bureau in 1924 following the Teapot Dome scandal, he asked for Davidson’s resignation when the Special Agent in Charge at the Washington field office reported that he had “no particular work for a woman agent”. She resigned on June 10, 1924. Before her resignation, she testified before a select committee of the United States House of Representatives in October 1923 about her surveillance of the notorious Gaston B. Means, watching movement in and out of Means’ house, and again in March 1924.

Only three women became agents in the 1920s. With the resignations of Davidson and fellow agent Jessie B. Duckstein in 1924, and of Lenore Houston in 1928, the FBI had no female agents until 1972. While the FBI claims that Davidson and Duckstein resigned as “part of the Bureau’s reduction of force”, scholar Meredith Donovan writes that Hoover fired both women during a round of cuts at the agency in May 1924. The FBI also notes, on the agency’s official website, that in the 1920s, expectations for agents “changed to a patriarchal approach as to what positions were appropriate for women.”

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GENEALOGY- DO FUR HOUSES GET FLEAS?

Alden B. Dow (1904 – 1983), a Dow Chemical heir and an architect based in Midland, Michigan, was renowned for his contributions to the Michigan Modern style. Beginning in the 1930s, he designed more than 70 residences and dozens of churches, schools, civic and art centers, and commercial buildings during his 30+ year career. The Midland Center for the Arts, the 1950s Grace A. Dow Memorial Library (named in honor of his mother), his many contributions to Dow Gardens, and his former residence, the Alden Dow House and Studio, are among the numerous examples of his work located in his hometown of Midland, Michigan. He is the son of industrialist Herbert Dow, the founder of the Dow Chemical Company, and his wife, philanthropist Grace A. Dow, who in 1936 founded the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation in memory of her husband. Dow is known for his prolific and striking Modernist architectural designs. He served on the board of Dow Chemical Company for most of his adult life.

In 1941, Dow officially incorporated his business as Alden B. Dow, Inc. The following year, Dow was tasked with designing a company town in Texas for workers at his father’s Dow Chemical Company’s site near Freeport, Texas. With his brother Willard and Dow Chemical Company executive A.P. Beutel, Dow chose a site west of Freeport that had formerly been the Abner Jackson Plantation. Dow designed the town, which they named Lake Jackson, to hold 5,000 people. The residential layout was notable for its lack of straight streets; Dow felt that winding roads would provide “something of a surprise around each turn. “The streets were given whimsical names, including the intersecting ‘This Way’ and ‘That Way’ as well as ‘Circle Way,’ ‘Winding Way,’ and ‘Any Way.” Dow also provided the six designs used to build different house models in the newly created town. The first residents moved in at the end of 1943.

We visited the Alden Dow Museum in Freeport, and we learned about fur housing. See the story below.

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GENEALOGY- PRESERVE YOUR FAMILY HISTORY, TODAY

Reach out to Dancestors Genealogy. Our genealogists will research, discover, and preserve your family history. No one is getting any younger, and stories disappear from memory every year, eventually fading from our ability to find them.

Preserve your legacy and the heritage of your ancestors.

Paper gets thrown in the trash; books survive!

Ready to embark on your family history journey? Don’t hesitate. Call Dan Nelson and get your project started!