Rookie Genealogy

After a hiatus I am finally back to blogging. The holidays and starting a new job after being at home for 12 years has kept me very busy. I am adjusting my routine to fit in my blog writing. Bear with me as I get back on track.

In this post I will discuss surprising, somewhat soap opera like, scenarios you may encounter when doing research. We may all want to think our family trees will be drama free with cut and dry marriages, families, and lives. This is not always the case. Be prepared for unexpected revelations. I have often seen other researchers dismiss trails of facts because they believe it is not possible for certain events to happen. Just like us today, our ancestors were not perfect and pure.

George Bader Senior and Junior in Portland, Oregon.

Here is one such scenario in my family.

My 2nd great grandfather, George Bader, was born in 1859. In 1880 he married my 2nd great grandmother, Mary Kearns. Neither had been married before. Their first child and my great grandmother, Anna, was born in Indiana in 1881. The rest of their 8 children were born in Illinois. Sometime after August 1881 and before March of 1883 they moved just over the border to the south side of Chicago. Their last child together was born in Illinois in 1895.

This is where is gets interesting. On the 1900 census (five years after their last child was born) my 2nd great grandmother, Mary, is now living back in Indiana with all of her children. She is listed as married but George is not with her but her single sister is now living with her. She also eventually sends one child off to live with her brother and another child to live with another sister. Considering this, she seems to be struggling and needed help caring for the children.

Mary listed here in 1900 in Indiana without George Sr. Her sister, Hannah is living with her.

“Is George dead?”

Logical question to most people and the obvious belief. No, he is not deceased. He is still living in Illinois in 1900. Now you may think he is just working and living there to provide for his family back in Indiana. Again, no. The evidence does not support that.

George is living with a widowed woman named Elizabeth Johnson. He is listed in the 1900 census as a boarder of Elizabeth Johnson. His marital status is listed as being single (not divorced or widowed). The age/year of birth matches, place of birth, and general area where he lived with my 2nd great grandmother all match. It is him. This Elizabeth Johnson has a few kids living with her including a George Johnson born in 1897 in Illinois (a few months before Elizabeth Johnson’s husband dies).

George Sr. listed here as a boarder and single. George Jr. is listed as a Johnson/Johnston.

Skip ahead to the 1910 census. George is still living in Chicago with Elizabeth Johnson as a boarder. However, this time he is listed as married and the child, George Johnson, from the 1900 census is now listed as ‘George Bader’ son of George Bader Sr. Whoa! wait a minute. He goes from being Elizabeth Johnson’s son to the son of her boarder. Could just be an error on the census takers part, right? That is what I thought in the beginning. That is until I found the birth certificate for George Junior.

George Sr. still living with Elizabeth as a boarder but now George Jr. is a Bader and not a Johnson.

Birth record leads to more confusion…

After much digging for George Bader Jr.’s birth certificate and coming up empty I took a shot in the dark and looked for a birth certificate for George Johnson and to my amazement I found it. Same birth date and listed Elizabeth Johnson and her deceased husband as parents. So confused.

George Bader Jr. birth record. Correct birth date and same address on census record.

Still believing an error occurred on the 1910 census I went to the 1920 census. I could not find either George in Chicago so I expanded my search nationwide looking for George Bader and George Bader Jr. with what ages they should be. I finally found them–in Portland, Oregon. They were together living with one of Elizabeth Johnson’s daughters. On this census George Sr. is listed as ‘widowed’ which makes sense because he never divorced my great great grandmother and she died in 1912 from cancer.

George Sr. and Jr. now living in Portland with Elizabeth’s daughter, Mary (after she had married and been widowed).

I am awfully confused at this point. Was Elizabeth Johnson the mother of George Jr. like the birth record says? But then why would George Jr. go with Senior and leave Elizabeth behind in Chicago? Were George Sr. and Elizabeth Johnson having an affair and that is why my great great grandmother moved back to Indiana in 1898?

In the 1930 and 1940 census George Sr. continues to live with George Jr. and his family in the Portland area until his death in July of 1940.

Basically after my great great grandmother left him he appears to have never lived with her again or even see his children again. He lives with Elizabeth Johnson for around 12-15 years and then heads to Portland with George Jr. and one of Elizabeth’s daughters.

I had my suspicions that George Sr. had an affair with Elizabeth Johnson (while her husband was alive) and the birth record for George Jr. was just listed as Elizabeth and her husband’s. Then after her husband passed away it was easier to say the child was George Sr.’s. Simply listing George Sr. as a boarder with a son didn’t raise suspicion in an age where this was highly frowned upon.

Elizabeth Johnson in the middle with George Sr. on the left and George Jr. in the back left. Taken in Portland when Elizabeth visited.

I am not alone in my assumptions and research.

This all seems so out there I always doubted my findings. Then several years after my research began I came in contact with a distant Bader cousin. She had done her own research and had come to the same conclusion. However, growing up she always heard that Elizabeth Johnson had run a brothel in Chicago. She had also heard that family members believed George Bader Jr. was not Elizabeth’s child but rather her daughter’s child. This is controversial because Elizabeth’s daughter would have been only 14 at the time (and George Sr. would have been 39). My relative said Elizabeth’s daughter, Mary, and George Jr. were always extremely close and Mary was the one who moved out to Portland with George Senior and Junior.

When you put the pieces together it all seems to fit. A sad, soap opera like scenario but many of the facts are there. Will I ever know the 100% truth? Probably not. To this day I cannot be sure that Elizabeth Johnson is the mother of George Bader Jr. I truly do not think her husband was the father because right after he dies George Jr. takes on the Bader name.

The take away….

The take away here is that not everything is what it seems. As a genealogist we have to deal in facts. The facts in this case tell me that my great great grandparents split up but never divorced. They tell me that my great great grandfather had an illegitimate child. The facts also lead me to believe the birth record was a lie. George Junior was not the child of Elizabeth’s husband (and possibly not even Elizabeth). He was not born in a hospital but rather at home and it is a birth record…not a certificate. Elizabeth also, according to census records, had a total of 18 children but only less than half survived and she had her ‘Own Income’. Running a brothel could be a possibility.

I will keep searching, trying to find anything to support the theories. Key take away here is: Don’t assume your family was perfect or that just because something seems odd means it isn’t true. Just like people today, our ancestors had flaws too. Embrace it and accept it as just a part of your family history.

Surviving spouse was completely wrong on this death certificate

Making assumptions about your relatives based on limited information can actually hurt your genealogical research. If you have completed even a fraction of research you may have already noticed confusion, errors, or even lies.

Proper research is based on gaining several pieces of information to verify your findings. The following are cautions you should be aware of during the course of your research in order to gain the most truthful information.

1. Basing information on only a name

Have you realized families loved to use the same names generation after generation? This can cause confusion when trying to decipher who is who. Match birth, marriage, or death dates to confirm your findings. I have a relative, Solomon Higgins. He married Elizabeth Higgins. Yes, Higgins as well. They were 1st cousins. So the confusion became two fold. First, her last name was the same as Solomon’s. Secondly, Elizabeth’s cousin had a wife named Elizabeth Higgins as well AND they were the same age. Therefore, I had to constantly check the birth dates to make sure I had the correct Elizabeth Higgins. Making assumptions that there was only one Elizabeth Higgins that age in the county of my relatives would have made my information incorrect.

Two Elizabeth Higgins the same age. Since the first one listed married her cousin she stayed a Higgins after marrying shortly after this census.

2. Assuming your relatives stayed in one place

Yes, often families of immigrants stayed together in once place. However, do not dismiss the idea that a relative that matches name and birth 1,000 miles away from the rest of the family is not related. In doing my research often times it appears relatives moved to gain employment or acquire land.

3. Assuming records are 100% correct

I know. You want to take that death certificate and treat it like gold. You want to take it all as fact and enter it into your database and be done. Wrong! Use it as a tool and compare it to other sources you gather. In the picture at the top of this blog is a death certificate of my great great grandmother. It lists her surviving spouse as “John Meyer”. The death certificate is wrong. First, her husband died before her and therefore, was not ‘surviving’. Secondly, his name was Andrew Meyer. Now, maybe his middle name was John but I have yet to discover if that is the case. All other documents including marriage certificate and obituaries all confirm his name was Andrew and he died before her. Death certificate information is given by informants- someone close to the recently deceased. That person may not always know the facts.

Base facts on more than one document. Census records are notorious for errors. Information gathered for census records were taken at the word of whomever answered the door and written down as the census taker heard it. I have even found a relative that was listed in two different households in the same census year. Her mother listed her but she was living with her aunt and uncle so she was also listed as living with them. It happens and should be noted in your research.

My ‘Spychalski’ family listed on a census as ‘Spegalski’– don’t be rigid in your research…think outside the box with name variations.

4. Taking certain websites as fact

When looking at websites research how their information is gathered. Findagrave.com can be a great tool if used as just that—a tool. Anyone can make an account and add information or pictures. I added headstone pictures yesterday for my family after signing up for a free account. I also had to send a correction request because I noticed someone else had listed my grandmother as having passed away in Indiana. She is buried in Indiana but passed away in Colorado. Being her granddaughter, I knew this as fact.

Investigate how information is collected for certain websites. Again, until you have a compilation of documents, treat information only as possibilities.

5. Assuming your relatives are law abiding, ethical people

This assumption has come up in my family. I had the documents, the research. However, I had some relatives who thought I was way off base. They simply assumed it wouldn’t happen. Too crazy for our family.

Through years of research I discovered my great great grandfather left his wife (my great great grandmother) with 9 children. She moved her single sister in with her to help her and sent two of her children to live with other relatives. My great great grandfather lives with a woman and a child that was born about the time they separated. He then moves with that child out to Oregon and dies out there. He never lived with my great great grandmother again. This other woman also, according to family legend, ran a brothel in Chicago. It is a long complicated story but needless to say, my great great grandfather abandoned his family and all his kids except the one he had with this other woman. He never officially divorced my great great grandmother.

My great great grandfather who left his wife with 9 kids pictured here with his son from his mistress.

You may, at some point, discover unsavory things about your family. Denying it will not change it. If all the facts are there after exhaustive research then accept it and move on.

6. Using others research as fact without doing your own investigation

The last assumption I will discuss is a big one. Never ever assume someone else’s research is fact. You may see someone else’s family tree on Ancestry.com or another site and believe their research to be firm. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have come across false information on someone else’s tree. They may have the wrong relative entered in their database. I once came across someone who had a supposed relative entered in who wasn’t even born before their own children. It is common sense that if you were born in 1860 and your supposed children were born in the 1840’s that something is way off.

I have heard of some people believing that just because you get the little leaf hint next to a relative on Ancestry.com that it must be true to their relative. No. Just no. Do your own research, check facts, follow your gut and in the end your research will pay off.