Category Archives: Surnames

Family history organized into surname family groups

Surname Saturday: Preparing for the Family History Writing Challenge

Posted on by
Reply

Your ancestor sits amid the details, seemingly solitary, independent, like a mushroom poking through tangled blades. 

Upon further investigation, you discover others by his side: parents, aunts and uncles, children, cousins, neighbors, bosses, friends, enemies – a figurative forest of ‘srooms.

A forest of 'shrooms

The simple family history narrative that the Family History Writing Challenge beckoned you to write has become a convoluted mess of story lines and mysteries and brick walls.  This predicament is exactly what thwarted my previous attempts to compose the story of Ira Sayles, my paternal great-great-grandfather.  But this year is going to be different.  This year I have committed to writing 500 words a day about this perplexing gentleman.  As Lynn Palermo prompts in her Family History Writing Challenge, these syllables don’t have to be great prose, and the 14,000 words don’t have to produce a finished book.  I just have to remain committed to writing 500 words a day. By the end of February, I will have a start on the reconstruction of Ira Sayles, if nothing else, and I will have a habit of writing, which is infinitely more important than any resolution.

Today’s Surname Saturday prompt from Geneabloggers will be a preparation step for this February project.  Instead of being thwarted by the forest of relations, I WILL be inspired.

AHEM.

Ira Sayles was born to two long-time residents of Glocester, Providence County, Rhode Island in 1817.  In fact, the families of Christopher Sayles and Sarah King had been in the northwestern corner of Glocester – Burrillville – for generations. In 1825, Christopher and Sarah took their young family and went to Tioga County, Pennsylvania.  They left behind Christopher’s dad, Christopher Sayles, who died shortly thereafter; his mom, Martha Brown Sayles had died in 1813.

Tioga County, situated along the north central Pennsylvania-New York border, was a land of fertile soil, hard wood forests and plentiful water.  It was also a land of Sarah King’s family.  Her parents, James IV and Merrobe (Rhobe) Howland King, had emigrated from Rhode Island to the Westfield area in about 1815.  Those two souls had joined Rhobe’s Quaker parents, John and Lois Eddy Howland, who had pioneered the Cowanesque River Valley in 1803-04 with their son, Dr. Eddy Howland and family.

By the time Christopher and Sarah brought young Ira to be a “codenizen with bears, wolves and panthers”¹, there was an extensive network of extended family – like filamentous fungi connecting brilliant ‘srhooms.

Sayles, Kings, Howlands.  As I begin his story, I gaze on all the colorful characters in his life, and happily imagine what remains hidden underneath my genealogical meadow of facts.

Fall color in Amanita muscaria

¹ Sayles, Ira. Letter to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1880. Archived in Houghton Library, Harvard University.Copy received 5 April 2010.

I Accept! the Family History Writing Challenge

Posted on by
2

You are a family historian; a collector of family lore, data bytes, census records, photographs, and old papers that mean nothing to nobody but you.  At some point, the names become people, and then the people become folks you really want to meet, which is a problem when all that is left is their memory.

Thus starts your journey; an impulsion carries you into a room with a blank screen or an empty page, and you sit and stare. And stare. And stare.  Because when it comes right down to it, as much as you know this person, there is twice as much left to uncover.  The story goes untold a bit longer.

PROCRASTINATION IS THE ASSASSINATION OF MOTIVATION

Those words have been ringing in my ears, almost as loudly as the high pitched hum of my tinnitus  and they are almost as annoying.  But, as the universe is prone to provide, a reading came my way, a blog post by Lynn Palermo of The Armchair Genealogist in which she offered community, companionship, advice, and encouragement to write that family story I have felt too overwhelmed to attempt.  Now I am counting down the days until I confront the blank page and reconstruct the life of my perplexing, aggravating, inspiring great-great-grandfather, Ira Sayles, during the Family History Writing Challenge.

I commit to writing 500 words a day, each day during the month of February.  

I can’t wait to start!  Check out Lynn’s page, and seriously consider if it is not time to confront your blank page.  Eighteen days and counting!!  See you there!

Sunday’s Obituary: Amaziah (Amzi) Bradford

Posted on by
Reply

Through the generosity of fellow family historian, Doug Kreis, I have the following obituary for my great-great-grandfather, the fiddle-playing man of my grandmother’s youth. Amaziah Bradford was the son of John R. and Hannah Geyer Bradford of Highland Township, Muskingum County, Ohio.  This life synopsis originally appeared in The Adamsville Register, Adamsville, Ohio.

A. G. Bradford Called By Death Last Thursday

Amaziah Bradford, aged 81, died at his home in West Lafayette, Ohio, Thursday 18 October (1928) of heart trouble and infirmities.  He had been in poor health for some time.  Several years ago Mr. Bradford had conducted a confectionery store in West Lafayette and was later employed in the enameling plant in that village.  Mr. Bradford had been a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge in West Lafayette for several years.  He was a member of the M E Church.  He had been a resident of West Lafayette for 30 years.  He formerly lived near Bloomfield.  The deceased was united in marriage with Miss Julia McCall 53 years ago who together with one son and two daughters survive; Charles of Coshocton, Mrs. Samuel Bell of Cincinnati and Mrs. E. A. Robinson of Walhounding.  The funeral was held Saturday afternoon at the M E Church in West Lafayette and burial was made in the cemetery at that place.  The following nephews and nieces attended the funeral :  Mr and Mrs. J. A. Bradford, Harry Bradford, John Kay, Ray Bradford, Isaac Bradford, W. R. Bradford and Mrs. W. D. Brannon of Adamsville and daughter Mrs. Myrville Truax of Zanesville.

Surname Saturday: Minor Details

Posted on by
1

This is the year, I thought, of the De-Clutter Project, as I surveyed each room’s crammed shelves and drawers.  Impose a fifteen minute limit and voluntarily suffer a daily dose of sorting, storing and recycling, and by year’s end I will have managed 5,475 minutes of life simplification.  Resolutely, I reached for that first stack of books, envisioning an clean and orderly home in just ninety-one 2013 hours.

If today is any indication, the 3.8 days I committed to de-cluttering will only get me to the bottom of one pile.

I started the resolution with a photograph album; more journal than photo-document, this book chronicles an eleven day visit south of the Mason-Dixon line.  I didn’t make it past the second page before deciding that I couldn’t give this to my daughter, or store it in an safe place.  I had to reread it, and keep it within arm’s length for future reference and rumination. In other words, there was not one jot of de-cluttering in today’s 15 minutes of suffering.

Blue skiesIn my mind I’m going to Carolina… March 22-April 2, 1989

Aw, I thought, I was such a sweet young mom, wanting to record my first mother-daughter trip. I kept reading, not sorting. The second page opened with an entry in my grandmother’s hand:

“She has grown so much. And she is talking- hurrah. Caitlin calls me GG for Great Grandmother. I love the name.” 

What followed her note was a forgotten Story Moment, in which some minor details of my grandmother’s family were recorded.

Kerma Pauline was born to Charles Ross and Katherine Roahrig Bradford in 1905.  In 1989 Kerma sat in my mother’s home, watching my toddler play, and recalled:

Grandpa John Roahrig (1849-1919)

One day, my grandmother recounted, she sat in the dining room playing paper dolls with her sister Thelma, her Grandpa Roahrig asleep in a nearby chair.  Thelma talked incessantly and presently Grandpa, always a stern man, spoke up and said, “Thelma, your mouth moves as fast as a goose’s ass!”

The two girls decided to leave the fireside and play in the next room.

Grandpa Amaziah Bradford (1847-1928)

Kerma recalled that her Grandpa Bradford played the fiddle and clogged and played horse with his grandchildren.  His son, Charles Ross, must have inherited his gifts, since Kerma recalled that her dad could play any stringed instrument–guitar, banjo and fiddle.

De-clutter to Discover

I may not have accomplished much in the way of de-cluttering, but I DID discover a treasure, hidden within the minor details of an old photo album, a side benefit of my daily fifteen which is sure to be repeated often in 2013.

The Passing of Sarah Sayles: Sunday’s Obituary

Posted on by
Reply

I want to thank Nick at the  Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society in Janesville, Wisconsin, for his help in retrieving the following obituary in the Sabbath Recorder, volume 22: issue 18, p. 71.

DIED

In Wellsville, N.Y.; February 24th, 1866, Mrs. SARAH SAYLES, wife of Christopher Sayles, in the 72nd year of her age.   She was a member of the Protestant Methodist Church, and adorned her profession by a godly life.  Her end was one of triumph over the terrors of death and the grave.  She leaves eight children, and twelve brothers and sisters, being the first to die out of her father’s family of children, the youngest of whom is fifty-three.

A quick read of this paragraph reveals my great-great-great-grandmother Sayles to have been a  godly woman; a wife, a mother and sister.  The second read through tickles my curiosity. With its choice of the word “wife”, the author communicates that Sarah was survived by her husband Christopher Sayles, with whom she had had eight children. The author also states that Sarah died in Wellsville.  I know from other family records that the couple had lived much of their adult lives in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.  What, then, was Sarah doing living across the New York state border, in Allegany County?

START WITH THE FACTS AND CHASE THE TALE

1865 New York State Census - Wellsville, Allegany County

1865 New York State Census – Wellsville, Allegany County

The 1865 New York State census marked the trail head to this mystery path:  Sarah and Christopher were sharing a home with their daughter, Rhobe Sayles Crandall.

This discovery pushed me to flush out Sarah’s other seven children and her twelve brothers and sisters. Family historian and cousin, Sharon B,  fed me data crumbs which aided my search, and I reread a transcribed The History of Tioga County (Pennsylvania) on Joyce Tice’s site, Tri-Counties Genealogy and History.  Now my trail was well blazed.

THE FAMILY TREE OF SARAH KING SAYLES

Sarah and Christopher were born and  married in Burrillville, Rhode Island, and they moved to Tioga County, Pennsylvania in 1825. Here they raised eight children to adulthood: Ira (my great-great-grandfather), Rhobe (Crandall), Priscilla (died at age 2), James King, Christopher Loren, Martha (Pickett), Philander, Keziah King (Batcheller), and Adriel King. 

Many of Sarah’s siblings were among the residents of Tioga County, as her parents had also migrated from Rhode Island to Tioga County in 1825.  James and Merrobe (Roby) Howland King had thirteen children: Prince, Allen, Eddy, Ozial, Sarah (Sayles), John, James, Keziah (Crandall), William H, Hannah, Roby, Adriel, and Almon, who being the youngest, was just 53 at Sarah’s death.

Newspaper notices capture the facts of a life.

Sarah King Sayles passed from this earth on a Saturday, the 24th of February 1866.  That fact, and the reference to all those who shed tears upon learning the news, is easily transmitted in newsprint.

But who was Sarah, really?  I am left with as many questions as Sarah had siblings.   How did Christopher and Sarah contribute to their children’s household?  Where did her siblings reside?  How much time passed before they knew of her death?  Her obituary states that she adorned her profession with a godly life.  How did Sarah practice her faith?  Did any of her children serve in the Civil War? How did that affect her?  As she triumphed over the terrors of death, did she suffer a lingering illness?

Just who was Sarah King Sayles?