Ancestors & Genealogy Newsletter – March 23, 2024

23 Mar Ancestors & Genealogy Newsletter – March 23, 2024

THE 14TH AMENDMENT, THE SOUTHERN CLAIMS COMMISSION, AND GENEALOGY

We’ve heard much lately about the 14th amendment and the barring of insurrection officers from serving in the government. It made me take another look at my southern ancestors whose attempts to rejoin the United States as citizens in good standing were well-documented by the Southern Claims Commission.

The Southern Claims Commission (SCC) was an organization of the executive branch of the United States government from 1871 to 1880, created under President Ulysses S. Grant. Its purpose was to allow Union sympathizers who had lived in the Southern states during the American Civil War, 1861–1865, to apply for reimbursements for property losses due to U.S. Army confiscations during the war.

Southern Loyalists (those who were Union sympathizers) made 22,298 claims. Only 32 percent of the claims (7,092) were approved for payment. The claimants used the testimony of their neighbors as evidence of their U.S. loyalty and property losses. The applications of claimants (successful or not), testimony, and the SCC papers provide excellent historical background information about Southern life during the Civil War.

From my genealogy endeavors I know that my 3rd Great-Grandfather, Joseph Pendergrass was an Alabama farmer, not a slaveholder, and in the 1860 census, he was worth $6743. After the war, in the 1870 census, he was worth $3875. He filed claims in 1874 with the Southern Claims Commission for the supplies that were foraged off his land by the 5th Iowa Cavalry and the 10th Infantry during the Civil War. He made claims for $321 worth of corn, corn fodder, beef, and pork that he had receipts for from the Union officers. The claim is 72 pages long and gives a lot of interesting detail.

He claims that even though four of his sons (Caleb, Philip, Nathan, Moses) served in the Confederate States Army (CSA), he was against them doing so and never provided support to the CSA or was a supporter of the Confederate government, and voted against secession, voted for Stephen Douglas (the Northern Democratic candidate), and felt the war was for the benefit of the slaveholder. His only acts of support were to travel to Atlanta to retrieve his wounded son Nathan, who died shortly after that. He did send the four boys boots when they had written home that they were barefoot. His claims were denied.

Genealogy also tells me that another 3rd Great-Grandfather, William Harper Smither (pictured above), was a plantation owner, enslaver, judge, and leading citizen of Oxford, MS. As of 1860, he was worth $98,000. Three of his sons, including my 2nd Great-Grandfather, served in the CSA. During the last 18 months of the Civil War, William served as the Confederate Tax Collector. After the war, he petitioned President Johnson for a pardon and to continue as a tax collector.

Only those with taxable property worth less than $20,000 could ask for a pardon. In his pardon application, he swore allegiance to the Union, said he was a Douglas Democrat, was against secession, and said most of his possessions were destroyed by the Federal Army. In the letter, he cited his father’s political support of President Andrew Johnson when he lived in Tennessee. He was pardoned on November 13, 1865. As of 1870, he was worth $12,000.

Joseph’s daughter Louisa married a widowed, non-slaveholding dirt poor Confederate veteran, William B. Stevenson. Their son married William Harper Smither’s granddaughter.

Besides my two Confederate ancestors, I had three Union Ancestors, including one who lost his eye in the Vicksburg campaign. One of the Union soldiers was a Graybeard and was court-martialed but prevailed (a future story). There were also several Great Uncles who died fighting for the Union.

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IS IT ENDOGAMY OR WORSE? GENEALOGY HELPS US DETERMINE

A recent article in Atlantic Magazine that is linked below tells how the widespread collection of genetic data via consumer ancestry products has revealed an unsettling reality—far more individuals are born of familial relations than previously believed.

Atlantic magazine story

When we do forensic genealogy work, we run into cases where the paternal and maternal lines are closely related. The immoral cause would be Incest, and the moral cause would be Endogamy.

Endogamy is the cultural practice of mating within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. Its opposite, exogamy, describes the social norm of marriage outside of the group. Many religions had rules against this, but in practice folks looked the other way.

As Americans spread across the country, genealogy shows us that families often moved together, not groups of strangers. Mine and my wife’s Quaker ancestors would marry cousins and second cousins, not because they were immoral, but because they had to marry a fellow church member who lived within a few hours’ horse ride between church and home. Those who were marriage-eligible may have only been relatives. The same thing happened in small villages throughout the world.

My dad poked fun at my mom, who had the same ancestors three times on distant southern Quaker lines. That all stopped when I found through genealogy that he had northern Presbyterian ancestors who were his Great Great (many times) Grandparents four times. My sister-in-law’s parents never imagined that they were sixth cousins until I worked on their ancestry, but she has the same Strickland ancestors (one of the Strickland ancestors is pictured above in an 1856 photograph) who appears six times in her tangled tree.

A 75-year-old lady from Minnesota (not Arkansas or West Virginia) called about a year ago, asking if we would take her case. She said Ancestry.com would not take her case as they said it was “taboo”. She went on to explain that she believed her biological father was one of her mother’s four uncles who, as she was told, had been in an incestuous relationship with her mother. Her mother was 18 when she was conceived.

Her mother had children by several different men. She wanted to know which uncle (would be her great uncle). I said that we could only determine that if all of the uncles had children with other women and those children themselves or their descendants had taken DNA tests. Surprisingly, she said they did.

So, one of my forensic researchers went to work on the case. As she was close to finishing, she sent me a note that it was not one of her uncles but one of her mother’s cousins. I felt that would be good news for my client, as while the client had no involvement in her creation, she likely would have less of a stigma about her origins being with her cousin than her uncle. As I read the report, I saw that she was conceived around the Christmas holidays, when cousins would be around.

When you think of an uncle impregnating his 18-year-old niece, you can’t help but feel she was being taken advantage of, as the older uncle was more knowledgeable of the immorality of the act.

So, imagine my shock when I read that the male cousin was 12 years old at the time. The mother quickly moves from the victim to the victimizer column. So we gave the news to the client, and one additional twist was that her father, who was also her first cousin once removed, was still alive at 87. I asked her later if she would make contact, and she was undecided. In my last contact with her, she had had a stroke, so I’m not sure how the bizarre story turned out.

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THE MOTHER STATE OF VICE PRESIDENTS

Genealogy tells us that Virginia and Ohio are the birthplaces of many U.S. presidents, with over one-third of presidents originating from these states. This is due to the western states not existing during much of the nation’s early history, limiting the birthplaces of presidents to 21 states.

In the previous edition, an article discussed the 38-year gap without a vice president, prompting curiosity about a similar scenario regarding vice presidents.

New York holds the title of “mother state” for vice presidents, having produced eight. Noteworthy is that some New York-born vice presidents later ascended to the presidency, including Van Buren, Fillmore, and Teddy Roosevelt, while others like Franklin Roosevelt and Trump also hailed from New York.

Kentucky, known for Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, contributed four vice presidents: Adlai E. Stevenson, Alben W. Barkley, John C. Breckinridge, and Richard M. Johnson.

Despite not producing a president, Indiana has had three vice presidents: Thomas Marshall, Dan Quayle, and Mike Pence.

Eastern states like Alabama, Delaware (excluding Biden’s birth in Scranton, PA), Florida and Rhode Island have yet to produce either a president or a vice president.

If you have any desire to be a Vice President then be born on August 27th, as three vice presidents—Hannibal Hamlin, Charles G. Dawes, and Lyndon B. Johnson—were born on August 27 (in 1809, 1865, and 1908 respectively). This is the only day of the year having the birthday of multiple vice presidents.

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SILICON VALLEY, GENEALOGY AND POLITICS

Nicole Shanahan recently made the news as being the person who gave $4 million to fund a Super Bowl ad in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running for president as an independent candidate.

Shanahan is an American entrepreneur, attorney, and San Francisco Bay Area political donor. It caught my eye that she had previously been married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Brin’s first wife was Anne E. Wojcicki, an American entrepreneur who co-founded and is CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe. Brin is pictured with Anne on the left and Nicole on the right.

23andMe is, of course, best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva sample that is laboratory analyzed to generate reports relating to the customer’s ancestry and genetic predispositions to health-related topics. The company’s name is derived from the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a diploid human cell. Its saliva-based direct-to-consumer genetic testing business was named “Invention of the Year” by Time in 2008. Genealogy.

23andMe became a publicly traded company in 2021 and soon had a market capitalization of $6 billion. By 2024, its valuation had fallen to 2% of that peak.

According to Wikipedia, In October 2023, a huge data breach occurred, and the sensitive information of 23AndMe users was stolen. Hackers stole 7 million people’s data, about half of 23andMe’s customers. Stolen information was sold online, including people’s names, addresses, and genetic data.

The company claimed it was a credential stuffing incident rather than a breach of their systems. The hackers targeted Ashkenazi Jews and users of Chinese descent and are attempting to sell the stolen information. The affected accounts enabled the platform’s “DNA Relatives” feature, which helps users find genetic relatives and connect. Genealogy.

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CONGRESSIONAL PRODUCTIVITY

As an update to our post of over a year ago (see link below) about Congressional Productivity, according to the chart above it isn’t getting any better.

https://gem.godaddy.com/s/319f751

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BUM FARTO AND GENEALOGY

The story of the disappearance of Key West fire chief Joseph “Bum” Farto is as thrilling as true crime gets in Key West. In the ’70s, Farto was the island’s equivalent of Jimmy Hoffa.

While awaiting sentencing on drug trafficking charges in 1976 (the man was selling cocaine out of a Key West fire station), Farto fell off the face of the Earth, and theories on his mysterious disappearance abound.

Some believe he escaped to Central America, while others are convinced he was kidnapped and killed by members of a drug cartel. Even Jimmy Buffett sang about his disappearance.

At this point, Farto, born in 1919, would be over 100 years old, so chances are slim that he’s still alive. But his desk and uniforms (and maybe even his ghost) are all on display at the Key West Firehouse Museum, which we visited earlier this month.

You can see the granddaughter taking calls on the hot line on the whereabouts of Bum Farto. Genealogy.

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WHAT ABOUT YOUR ANCESTORS?

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 and eventually from our potential ability to find them.

Preserve your legacy, and the heritage of your ancestors.

Paper gets thrown in the trash; books survive!

So please do not hesitate and call me @ 214-914-3598 and get your project started!

Genealogy.