65th Anniversary Update: Well THAT Was a Mistake

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People

Tags

Family history, Genealogy, genealogy mistake, Johns Hopkins, wedding, Wedding anniversary

Celia and Bill at their second wedding on June 16, 1954 and gathered at Bill’s graduation from Johns Hopkins University on June 14, 1955 with (l-r) Aunt Marjorie (Miller) Willbern, Bill’s mother, Jane (Miller) (Stephenson) Hare, Bill, Bill’s step-father, Bob Hare, Celia, and in front is cousin David Willbern.

Today I got a reminder of how easy it is to unwittingly make stuff up in genealogy. Earlier this week I wrote an affectionate little post about my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary. This morning I got a call from my mother, who said, “You’re not going to like this.” And she straightened me right out.

First of all, I had the year wrong. Celia Oliver and Bill Hare (born Stephenson) were married in Wellesley, Massachusetts on June 16, 1954 (not 1955), which was four days after Mum’s college graduation and a year before my Dad’s. Secondly, my aunt and uncle were in fact married in 1955, a year, not a few weeks, after my parents. Thirdly, I left out the part where Mum and Daddy were secretly married in Baltimore a year before their official wedding in Massachusetts.

So what, you say? Well, facts matter. And this story is actually different when it’s correct. And, since I’ve never located a marriage certificate for either the Maryland or Massachusetts marriages, I should have double checked with Mum instead of going on my memory of what I thought she’d told me long ago. And yes, this is the downfall of many a sloppy genealogist!

It was the 1950s. My parents were still in school and they quietly got married in 1953 in Baltimore. They were 19 and 20 years old and they never told their parents. Not ever. According to Mum, “Bill was afraid that because I was a year older I’d take off, and if we got married I wouldn’t.” So they got a marriage license, and one afternoon they rounded up two friends–Vince, a fraternity brother of my Dad’s, and Callie, a classmate of Mum’s–and went to the home of a Justice of the Peace. When it was over, Vince and Callie drove off in one car and Celia and Bill drove off in the other.

Because Mum was a year older than my Dad, they decided to get married when she graduated. They could get an apartment together (it was the ’50s) while she worked through his senior year at Johns Hopkins.

This morning Mum explained that my aunt and uncle traveled from Boston to Baltimore to visit them, the newlyweds, during the year before their own wedding in June 1955, again confirming that my dates were mixed up. So it’s actually my aunt and uncle whose 65th anniversary is this month…

And this solves my burning question as to why Mum would wear a suit to my Dad’s graduation a few days before marrying him in the same suit. What bride would do that?! The answer is that she’d worn the suit at her wedding first, the year before. I’m relieved.

So happy 66th (and 67th) anniversary and double check your facts! xxoo

This post is a participant in the Genealogy Blog Party.

Discovered While Hunkered Down at Home: Nellie Miller

13 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, Uncategorized

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Coffeyville, Kansas, Keith, Marshfield, Miller, Missouri, Owen, Willbern

*Nellie M. Miller (1908-1916), about age 6.*

Isn’t she precious?

Like many of us this housebound spring, I’ve been finding it hard to concentrate well enough to blog or even read much. But rummaging through old pictures is a perfect distraction.

My pictures are horribly unorganized (I know! A perfect quarantine project…) but I thought I knew what I had. To my delight, yesterday’s finds included three envelopes of pictures (1915-1980s) given to me years ago by my Aunt Marjorie (Miller) Willbern, my grandmother’s sister and my godmother. And out popped this picture of their sister Nellie M. Miller, which I don’t remember having seen before.

I don’t know much about Aunt Nell. She was the third child of Frank and Stella (Owen) Miller, born in 1908 after her family moved from Marshfield, Missouri to Coffeyville, Kansas and she died in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1916.

*Stella (Owen) Miller with daughters (l-r) Marjorie, Nell, and Thelma. Taken about 1908.*

I’ve always loved this picture of Stella with her first three daughters, and the one below, taken when Nellie was two and looking very solemn. Nellie was six when my grandmother, Esther Jane Miller was born in 1914, and sadly, she died at age eight a week before Grandma turned two. Finding the sweet image of her in hat, coat, and boots pleases me so much–she is not forgotten.

*Nellie at age 2 at a large gathering of Miller cousins in 1910*.

According to Nellie’s obituary in The Marshfield (Missouri ) Mail, she died of diphtheria on January 2, 1916. The article is effusive about Nell’s talents as a violinist who was “much sought after,” her charm, and her beauty.

Postscript: My great grandmother Stella gave birth to five daughters between 1901 and 1923. Martha Lee Miller, her fifth daughter, was born on August 11, 1923, but sadly died two days later.

Family History Magic from Augusta, Kansas

25 Saturday Jan 2020

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Augusta, Family history, genealogical research, Genealogy, Kansas, Serendipity, Stephenson

Maybe it’s because the internet didn’t become part of my life until I was well into adulthood, but I still believe it’s magical. And that’s been proven again and again in my family history research. Sometimes the magic is random, and sometimes it’s been the result of methodical research, but either way, the information and contacts that have come to light feel like gifts that have fallen from the sky.

My grandfather, William Edward Stephenson (1910-2004), was born and raised in Augusta, Kansas. His dad, Richard W. Stephenson (1874-1960), started a men’s clothing store in town around the 1910s, and Bill’s older brother Paul Noble Stephenson (1902-1972) and his wife Dorothy continued the business until about the 1960s. I wrote a post about Grandpa Bill and his younger brother, Clark (1911-1994), and their high school and college yearbooks here.

On a whim this week, I did a search on WordPress for Augusta, Kansas. No particular reason. And what popped up was a bunch of blog posts by crittersandcats/Dave, who shares stories for his kids and grandchildren about growing up in Augusta in the ’40s and ’50s.

As if it wasn’t enough for me to get some local flavor for a place I’d only visited a couple of times, Dave answered my comment by sharing that he’d known my family and had written a story including Uncle Paul, Aunt Do, and their son, my dad’s cousin Dick!

Back in the 1950’s, we had a men’s clothing store in Augusta, Kansas. It was owned and operated by Paul Stephenson as Stephenson’s Men’s Clothing. The store was located on the east side of the 500 block of State Street, nestled up against the Prairie State Bank, on its north and Mamie Hall’s book store on the south. Paul and his wife (only 60 years and I’ve forgotten her name) were in the store every day, well dressed and professional but friendly in demeanor. Their son, Dick, was a classmate of mine. Dick and I graduated in 1954 and I went to work and I think Dick headed for the University of Kansas. The following year, I was going to attend a wedding and needed a new suit. I went down to Stephenson’s and Paul fitted me with a new outfit and his wife set me up with a lay-away plan to pay for it. Those were the last dealings I had with the Stephenson family.
crittersandcats, https://crittersandcats.com/2017/08/24/small-speck-small-world-big-ocean/

Dave goes on to write about an unplanned landing in Guam in 1959, where he bumped into Dick, who was by then an ensign in the Navy. Small world!

Richard (Dick) I. Stephenson (1937-2009) Yearbook, University of Kansas, 1958

The moral of the story is: Methodical research is all well and good, but don’t forget that serendipity also plays a part. Indulge yourself in the obscure Google search. See if somebody has written a blog post about your grandfather’s small home town, or the tiny school your great grandmother attended, or the newspaper your great great grandfather published. Surprise connections sometimes fall from the sky. There IS magic. (And thank you, Dave!)

P.S. Dick had won my heart as a five year old (just a few years after Dave’s story) when he came to visit, looking quite dashing in his Navy uniform. He pulled out a guitar and sang to me. “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night” has been a favorite folk song of mine ever since…

Colliding Worlds: My Family and My Step-In-Laws Knew Each Other? Four Generations Ago?

31 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Baltimore, Baltimore Cathedral, Bolling, Cocke, Hambleton, Hill, Mills, New Cathedral Cemetery, Obituary, Symington, Washington

When Ancestry alerted me of the anniversary of my great great grandmother Mary (Cocke) Hill’s death, I pulled up her obituary from the Baltimore Sun of October 31, 1903. I’d read it before, but imagine my surprise to read down to the list of honorary pallbearers. Out jumped a name I hadn’t noticed before–Major W. Stuart Symington–none other than (bear with me here) my husband’s step-father’s grandfather. OK, so Mary Hill’s husband, Nicholas S. Hill, also served in the Confederate Army, and both were from Baltimore. Not shocking, but fun to find.

Baltimore Sun, 31 October, 1903, Saturday, page 6

I chuckled, texted a couple of family members, and went back to read it again. And noticed that Frank H. Hambleton, my step-father-in-law Fife Symington’s other grandfather, was also listed as an honorary usher! For real.

Mary Hill was taken ill while entertaining guests at the Washington, D.C. home of her daughter Irene Bolling. And bless the Baltimore Sun’s fuzzy little heart, they even gave Irene’s street address and mentioned that Mary was entertaining in the drawing room when she was stricken. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Zillow and similar real estate websites are fantastic resources for getting a look at family places.

Here is Aunt Irene’s home at 1808 Riggs Place in the Dupont Circle section of Washington:

1808 Riggs Place NW, Washington, DC
Home of Irene (Johnson) and George Melville Bolling from approximately 1903 to 1906
Image from Zillow.com

City directories list Professor George M. Bolling at this address only from 1904 until 1906, with many other Washington addresses in the years preceding and following, so they must have been renting. Bolling taught Greek and Sanskrit at Catholic University during these years.

Thanks to the magic of Zillow, (oh, how I do love the internet!) I was even able to find interior photographs of this lovely, well-preserved house. This may have been the drawing room mentioned in Mary’s obituary:

Interior of 1808 Riggs Place, NW, Washington, DC
Image from Zillow.com

A follow-up article appeared the next day, 1 November, 1903, describing the funeral held at the Baltimore Cathedral, where many other Hill family occasions occurred, and the procession to Bonnie Brae Cemetery. I recently visited the Cathedral and the cemetery (now New Cathedral Cemetery), where both my great grandparents are buried, and was touched to find their son-in-law, my great grandfather, James J. Mills with them.

What an unimaginable thing it would have been for the Hills and Symingtons and Hambletons to think of the connection of their respective offspring so many generations later!

Relationships:

Mary Watkins Cocke (Johnson) (1834-1903) and Nicholas Snowden Hill (1839-1912) – 2nd great grandparents (Irene (Johnson) Bolling (1862-1946) was the daughter from Mary’s first marriage.)
Mary Carroll Hill (1876-1937) and James J. Mills (1863-1925) great grandparents
Elsie Mills (1899-1993) grandmother
My mum
Me

The Brick Wall: Oliver or Oliphant?

07 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Australia, Bower, Brick Wall, Caithness, Hamilton, Henderson, Latheron, New South Wales, Oliphant, Oliver, Sandison, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, Ship Vocalist, Sutherland, Thurso, Wick

For years now I’ve been trying to sort out a line of Olivers from Caithness in the Highlands of Scotland. Oliver is my mother’s maiden name, and this is the branch of my family to which I have the strongest ties.

The mystery includes:

A great great grandfather, David Oliver, who appears to have been born out of wedlock;
Tales of a teenage shepherd from the south fathering a baby and vanishing;
A child raised by his grandparents while his mother started a new family;
And now a DNA connection to a line of Oliphants who moved from Caithness to Australia.

David Oliver, the son

My 2nd great grandfather, David Oliver, was born in Latheron, Caithness between 1844 and 1848 and died in 1923 in Edinburgh. Although I haven’t found a birth or baptismal certificate for him, his marriage certificate to Esther Henderson (30 Dec 1864, Thurso) listed David’s father as George Oliver, police officer, and his mother as Elizabeth Oliver, maiden surname Sutherland. David’s 1923 death certificate lists his parents as George Oliver (Shepherd) and Betsy Oliver, afterwards Hamilton nee Sutherland.

David Oliver married Esther Henderson, 30 December 1864 in Thurso, listing his father as George Oliver, Police Officer, and his mother as Elizabeth Oliver, maiden surname Sutherland

David’s death certificate refers to his father, George Oliver, as a shepherd, and again names his mother as Betsy Oliver, afterwards Hamilton, maiden surname Sutherland

But…family lore is that George and Elizabeth were never married, that George may have been a young shepherd from the south. There were Olivers who moved to the Highlands from the border counties in the south of Scotland and worked as shepherds. Some may have stayed in the area, while others moved away in a generation or two.

Elizabeth Sutherland, the mother

After giving birth to David about 1848, Elizabeth Sutherland married a James Hamilton in September, 1849, and had eight more children, living in Bower, 20 miles from her parents’ home in Latheron. The 1851 census lists her son, 4 year old David Oliver, living with Elizabeth’s parents (his grandparents), George and Margaret (Sandison) Sutherland in Latheron.

George Oliver, the father?

Meanwhile, the father. There is a George Oliver who fits the general profile. He was born in the south about 1833, and was living in Thurso by 1841. There’s no documented connection I’ve found between this George Oliver and Elizabeth Sutherland other than David’s marriage and death certificates. George married a Johan McKenzie in Thurso in 1853, five to seven years after my David Oliver was born, and four years after Elizabeth married James Hamilton.

Ship Vocalist Approaching the River Mersey, Liverpool, after 1856
George and Johan Oliver arrived in New South Wales on this ship on 10 October 1856.

George and Johan sailed on the Ship Vocalist to New South Wales, Australia, with their first two children in 1856. I’ve found plenty of information about George in Australia (many children, another marriage), and he could be my guy, but nothing confirms that, and then there are the Oliphants…

Oliphants and DNA

I’ve had quite a few DNA matches who are descendants of an Essie Oliphant, born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1879, daughter of a George Oliphant, born in Wick, Caithness in 1848, son of a William Oliphant, also from Wick, born 1821. I can’t find a George Oliphant the right age, and I can’t figure out any connection beyond the DNA.

If it weren’t for the DNA matches, I’d be fairly comfortable with the assumptions I’ve made about George Oliver, but the Oliphant DNA…

The Brick Wall

The key pieces I’m trying to answer are:

Who was David Oliver’s father?
If it wasn’t George Oliver born 1833, was it an Oliphant?
Which Oliphant? (I’ve been making an Oliphant tree, but just can’t connect it to my people).
And why does David’s 1864 marriage certificate list his mother as Elizabeth Oliver when she’d been married to James Hamilton for over 10 years by then?

I would eagerly welcome any advice or information!

Relationships:

George Sutherland (1791-1873) and Margaret Sandison (1794-1882) – 4th great grandparents
Elizabeth Sutherland (1822-1908) – 3rd great grandmother and George Oliver (abt. 1833-1920) – 3rd great grandfather??
David Oliver (abt. 1848-1923) and Esther Henderson (1833-1906) – 2nd great grandparents
Daniel Oliver (1870-1953) great grandfather
Kenneth Oliver (1898-1975) grandfather
My mum
Me

A Magpie During Family History Month–So Much to Do!

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy, People, Places, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Ackworth School, Family dogs, Family History Month, Leon Kroll, Mills, Oliver, Organization, Sheely

Where to start in Family History Month? Maria (Sheely) Andrews (1843-1937)? Elsie (Mills) Oliver’s (1899-1993) portrait of Marie, Leon Kroll’s cook? Jeff, my Great Dane? Ackworth School, Yorkshire c. 1870s?

Oh, my! Family History Month is here, and I need to send my intentions out into the universe. I have eleven–count ’em–unfinished drafts of blog posts and lots of other family history projects in mid-stream. I’ve taken several research trips and have information to organize. Lots to do!

I’ve just commited to Janine Adams’s 30 x 30 challenge to spend 30 minutes on genealogy research every day this month. That should help, but I need to focus! I have to confess that I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to family history projects. Oh, look! A shiny thing! Let me play with Ackworth School, Yorkshire records for awhile. Wait–there’s an Ozarks Genealogical Society?! Or maybe I should do a post about my 3rd great aunt and the Hawaiian Mission in the 19th century. This might be a good time to join the Caithness Family History Society and explore those Oliver family roots. Or maybe I’ll look at family paintings. A blog post about all the dogs in our family would be fun, too!

So how do you stay focused in your family research? And what will you do to celebrate Family History month? So many stories to find; so many stories to share!

This post is a participant in The Genealogy Blog Party: Celebrating Family History Month.

Happy 100!

22 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Genealogy, People, Places

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

100th birthday, Bar Harbor, Family history, Family photos, fashion show, Genealogy, Mount Desert Isand, Munson

My lovely mother-in-law, Natalie (Munson) Brengle, would have been 100 years old today. Here she is as an 18 or 19 year old in a fashion show in Bar Harbor, Maine in 1937 or 1938. She only became more poised and elegant as the years passed. We miss her and raise a glass in her memory today!

Image

Wordless Wednesday: Esther Jane

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

Tags

Coffeyville, Family photos, Genealogy, Kansas, Miller, Wordless Wednesday

Esther Jane Miller (1914-1975)
Grandma
Probably Coffeyville, Kansas, ca. 1920

Posted by Generations of Nomads | Filed under Genealogy, People

≈ 2 Comments

Back to School

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by Generations of Nomads in Family history, Genealogy

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

1930s, Dad, Family history, Family photos, First day of school, Genealogy, Hare, Kansas, Stephenson

I don’t know any details about this adorable picture, but my dad, (Billy in those days) is the little guy with the polka dot tie. Too cute! Seems appropriate on the first day of school. Probably taken in Kansas about 1937.

Relationship: