Dead men do tell tales (if you look at their graves)

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Dead men do tell tales (if you look at their graves)

On 31 July 2011 I received an e-mail from a man in Colorado.  He  requested a copy of the book ”Descendants of Solomon Gee of Lyme Connecticut”  He said he was descended from Mary Gee.  This is what he wrote:

"My Gee connection is with a very elusive great great grand mother named Mary W. Gee.  She was born is Virginia 25 April 1826 and died in Panola County, Texas 18 November 1877.  She married Lewis Midyett 19 December 1843 in Williamson County, Tennessee.  Lewis was born in Tyrrell County, NC 1819.  I think he died in Texas but not sure.  Soon after the marriage, the entire clan of Midyetts moved to Panola County, Texas.

I have never been able to connect Mary Gee with any other Gees and hope that those in the book might shed some light on travels to Tennessee.

A daughter of Lewis and Mary was Jessie P Midyett. She was  born 15 Feb 1855 in Panola County, Texas and died there 18 April 1877. She married Henry B. Matthews (29 Oct 1846 = 18 May 1878)

Son of Jessie and Henry was Henry Pinkney Matthews (5 July 1874 - 2 Nov 1925). He married Mittie Virginia Oden (24 Jan 1879 -20 Jan 1930)  The Oden clan also came to Panola County Texas from Williamson County, Tennessee about the same time as the Midyetts.

Son of Mittie and Henry was Frank A Matthews, my father."

Since this letter was in a stack of papers on my desk, I decided to see if Mary was in Family Tree. To my delight she was.  Mary’s PIN was K2XN-G2V.  She was there with her husband.  I looked on Find a Grave and there she was at URL http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=midyett&GSfn=mary+&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=9330477&df=all&

From this information, I was able to make some changes in her record. There are eight in all.  I found a duplicate record for Mary and merged the two.

I found a son ( Lewis H. Midyett) that Noel did not list in his correspondence and added him to the record.

Also in Find A Grave there was no grave marker for Lewis Midyett, but the following information was posted on the website:

Birth: unknown Tyrrell County North Carolina, USA Death: unknown Panola County Texas, USA Born about 1819 in Tyrrell Co., North Carolina and died about 1887 in Panola County, Texas. A Find A Grave Photo Volunteer reports: There may have been a headstone at one time, but there is no longer one there. His wife and children are right there but he is not. The Caretaker said that he is buried there but he also saw no stone. Family links: Spouse: Mary W. Gee Midyett (1836 - 1877) Children: Lewis H. Midyett (1851 - 1876)* Emma Midyett Brumble (1862 - 1904)*

I posted this information in the Discussions on Lewis’s record in Family Tree. I also added the URL as a source on his record.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=76609082

Checking for duplicates, I found one, but it was a duplicate for his father, which I merged. 

There was also a link to the following record:

Birth:	Nov. 7, 1862
Death:	May 22, 1904
Emma was a daughter of Lewis and Nancy Midyett. Emma married Klebe Brumble. To this union came these children; Harmon Lewis Brumble(1885-1948) Ruby Brumble (1887-1959) Henry Grady Brumble (1892-1894) George Earl Brumble (1899-1939) Family links:  Parents:   Lewis Midyett  Spouse:   Kleber Brumble (1855 - 1898)  Children:   Harmon L Brumble (1885 - 1948)*   Ruby Brumble Oden (1887 - 1959)*   George Earl Brumble (1889 - 1939)*   Henry Grady Brumble (1892 - 1894)*

This may well have been a daughter of Lewis and Mary because the dates fit, even though the mother has a different name here.  We will leave this to another time. 

There was a duplicate for Jessie, which I combined.

She too had a record in Find a Grave at:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=matthews&GSfn=jessie&GSby=1855&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=88286739&df=all&

I added this as a source.

Then I wrote an e-mail to Noel.

"Dear Noel,

I was reviewing you e-mail of July 31, 2011 and found the following information. There is a website Find A Grave.  I found the following links to your ancestors. You probably have them already, but here they are:

Mary Gee ( Click on the Link)

Also in Find A Grave there was no grave marker for Lewis Midyett, but the following information was posted on the website:

Birth: unknown Tyrrell County North Carolina, USA Death: unknown Panola County Texas, USA Born about 1819 in Tyrrell Co., North Carolina and died about 1887 in Panola County, Texas. A Find A Grave Photo Volunteer reports: There may have been a headstone at one time, but there is no longer one there. His wife and children are right there but he is not. The Caretaker said that he is buried there but he also saw no stone. Family links: Spouse: Mary W. Gee Midyett (1836 - 1877) Children: Lewis H. Midyett (1851 - 1876)* Emma Midyett Brumble (1862 - 1904)*

Lewis H. Midyett ( Click on the LInk)

And also for

Jessie (Click on the Link)

I hope you are well.  If I can be of assistance, let me know.

Sincerely,"

If I have information, or can find it easily, I add it to the record.

The shift from Gee to McGee

More Tiptoeing

I was cleaning up some files on my desk and ran into an old e-mail from Kelly Erickson. In it there was documentation of the change from Gee to McGee.  I decided to look on Family Tree to see if the information was in there.

Solomon Everett McGee KHXC-G7Y was the son of Solomon Gee KLJJ-MCQ and Fanny Adams Wellman KLJN-B3B. 

I found these individuals. The data was entered correctly and ordinances had been performed.

I did the following work on these individuals.  I found a duplicate record for Solomon Everett and merged it.  I found a duplicate record for his wife Adelia Elizabeth O’Herring and merged it as well.

I put in additional information, which I obtained from Kelly into the discussions on Solomon Everett and Adelia and put in the sources, the information found on Find a Grave.

I also added the information that I had obtained from Kelly on the children Charles Everett, Clarence John, and Fred Solomon McGee.

I also reserved ordinances as follows:

Alta E. Downing LHQC-G48			30 March 2013	BCIE	LaurenceGee1 Reassign	Unreserve
	Alta E. Downing LHQC-G48		Clarence John McGee	30 March 2013	SS	LaurenceGee1 Reassign	Unreserve
	Clarence John McGee M667-SV2		Alta E. Downing	30 March 2013	SS

There is some more work to do on the individual records.  There is more information on Find a Grave to add to sources.  This I will have to put on my list to do.

Looking for Duplicates

Here is a little Scenario that I worked up for my Adventures series, that I wanted to share here.

Click Here for the Link

Help from the Watch feature

Adventures in Family Tree

Help from the Watch feature.

I received an e-mail from Family Search outlining the changes to the records in Family Tree that I had put a watch on. Someone by the name of mflood had made a change on the death information on:

Lenore Gee

KVPR-M4X

23 July 1891 – 5 September 1927

I looked at the record. And did not see anything amiss until I saw that she had two sets of parents.  Someone had listed her as a child of Erasmus Gee and Mary Jane Rogers.  This has cropped up a number of times.

I wrote to mflood and said:

“Dear Patron,

I saw that you had added some changes to the Lenore Gee KVPR-M4X record.  I also noted that she had two sets of parents.  Erastus Rowe and Geneva as one and Erasmus and Mary Jane Rogers as the other set.  As you probably know Erasmus Lysander was Erastus Rowe’s older brother. 

To day I am going to delete the relationship to Erasmus and Mary Jane  that is incorrect. If you have any questions, please let me know.  I do have some history on Erasmus.

Laurence Gee, M.D,

263 Edgemont Drive

North Salt Lake, Utah

84054

(801) 936-0803

Sent from Windows Mail”

Unfortunately I did not include a subject line, because I just got a new computer running Windows 8 and they have a mail program that I am not familiar with. I will try to figure that one out later,

I did go back to the record and deleted Lenore as a child of that marriage.  As a reason for the action, I put the following in the box that comes up.

There has been some confusion between the two brothers Erasmus and Erastus.  Their full names were Erastus Lysander and Erastus Rowe. Lenore was the daughter of Erastus.  Thus I am deleting this relationship

I made and error that I will correct.  I did what some people had already done, I unthinkingly typed Erastus Lysander instead of Erasmus Lysander.  I had already hit the delete button before I recognized my error.

This is a good exercise, because you can restore changes made, if you made a mistake.  I call this the repentance feature of Family Tree. ( You also have to confess and write a reason why you changed the record back to restore.)

Now if you look on Lenore’s record you will see in a box on the right of the screen the change that have been made to the record.  You will note the change made by mflood and directly above it three change made by me.  I corrected the reason for deleting the relationship to read as follows:

There has been some confusion between the two brothers Erasmus and Erastus.  Their full names were Erasmus Lysander and Erastus Rowe. Lenore was the daughter of Erastus.  Thus I am deleting this relationship.

The watch feature can help you in some unexpected ways.  I would not have looked at Lenore’s record and corrected the error without this being brought to my attention.  In reviewing the changes, I found why Erasmus was added as a father. Father, Erasmus Gee was added 26 June 2012 by FamilySearch.

More on Orson Rawlins

More on Orson Rawlins

Yesterday (March 18, 2013) I went to the Family History Library and looked in the Special Collections at film # 0184068.

I found the following record:

Orson Whetman (Rawlins)

Date of Birth 7 April 1883

Place of Birth Draper, Salt Lake, Utah

Parents George Whetman and Charlotte Dangerfield.

So now we have a primary source indicating that Orson was not a child of Joseph Sharp and Mary Ellen Rawlins. 

George married Charlotte Housley on 7 August 1884 and Hannah Cox on 3 April 1922 three years before his death 26 May 1926 in Salt Lake City.

We know that Orson was living in the home of Joseph and Mary Rawlins in 1900 according to the census.  Apparently he was impressed with the Rawlins, because he took the name of Rawlins and all his children went by that surname appellation.

As long as I was looking at the Whetman’s I did some combining of records and added death certificates as sources to George Sr, George Jr. and Zina.  I will get back to those records at some period, but since they are not my direct line, I will forgo.

 

Further Adventures in the Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins saga

Adventures in Family Tree

Further Adventures in the Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins saga

Chapter 1

In our last episode we ended with the statement; We now await the response from the people at support. They usually are pretty quick about responding, but we have now corrected the records and have done everything that we can do with this case.

They responded with the following;

Note
3/7/13
3:28 PM:

Problem: Patron had merged three individuals. When all was said and done, the result showed his ancestor needed temple ordinances, which had been completed. The individuals he merged all had the same vital information and name. PID's of those merged are LZFB-8RG KVGX-VKQ L8SH-ZW5 He would like the completed ordinance dates and locations restore to his ancestor Mary Ellen Frost LZFB-8RG.

Email
3/7/13
3:22 PM:

Dear Brother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding your ancestor Mary Ellen Frost. We have forwarded your request to restore the temple ordinances to this person. You will receive an email with the disposition of this case. Your case number is 2992528.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services
support@familysearch.org

Email
3/8/13
1:10 PM:

Dear Laurence Gee:
RE Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins LZFB-8CX
Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support. The ordinances for Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins now show on FamilySearch . Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Best wishes to you as you continue your quest for your ancestors.

Yours sincerely,
Family Search Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2992528)
----------------------

They are really pretty good about responding quickly and resolving the issue so I looked at the record and found to my dismay that they had undone all the work and the record was back to Mary Evaline Frost with two husbands.  I wrote them the following response;

Email
3/8/13
2:31 PM:

Subject: Re: Missing ordinances

You just undid everything that it took me two hours to accomplish. Please
read the following document.

Click Here for the
Link. (They do not allow links to documents or attachments in e-mails as a security issue, but I sent it to them anyway.)

Read especially pages 8-20.

Mary Evaline Frost was not he wife of Joseph Sharp Rawlins. She is
listed as having the same ordinance dates as Mary Ellen Frost who was
married to Joseph Sharp Rawlins. I doubt that they are the same, but I will
not argue the fact because I am not familiar with Mary Evaline Frost and
her genealogy.

In the children of the marriage on Family Tree of Mary Evaline Frost and
Joseph Sharp Rawlins there are 8 children listed. These were not the
children of this marriage since it never occurred in the first place.
There were only three children of the marriage of Joseph Sharp Rawlins and
Mary Ellen Frost.

Perhaps it might be well for you to call me to go through this process.

My cell phone number is 801-631-9868. I am always available except on
Sunday from 10:30 to 2:30 and on Wednesday from 9:00 to 4:30 when I am in
the temple.

They responded;

Email
3/12/13
11:54 AM:

Dear Laurence Gee:

There are a number of ways we take care of records in order to accomplish what you desired in that you wanted the ordinances to show for Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins. We certainly did not mean to undo what you had accomplished in Family Tree. While both new FamilySearch and Family Tree are running, there will be issues such as this occurring.

The record for Joseph Sharp Rawlins no longer lists Mary Evaline Frost as a spouse. If there are children associated to Joseph Sharp Rawlins and Mary Ellen Frost, you may correct that issue in Family Tree.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration
----------------------
(CaseID:2992528)

I did go to the record and found the record incorrect in that the name was Mary Evaline Frost, which I changed to Mary Ellen Frost.  The rest of the data was intact.  There were, however, children that did not belong.

For the child Orson Rawlins, I deleted the relationship.

For the child J.R. Rawlins, I wrote the following in the discussions on his record:

From the history of Mary Frost Rawlins: Description From the history of the mother Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins we read: Mary Ellen and Joseph Rawlins were the parents of three children; Their oldest daughter, Nancy Jane, was very helpful to her parents. She was married in 1859 to Robert Marion Kerr, and moved to Cache Valley where they became the parents of nine children. She died September 18, 1928, at the age of 83. Helen, who was a baby when her parents left to come west with the pioneers died at the age of thirteen, while her mother was visiting Nancy Jane at the birth of her first child. In the Mormon overland Trail record she is listed as Mary Ellen Rawlins. Further research will be done to document this child, but it is my contention that this child was never born to these parents. The inaccurate dates and places of birth would substantiate that assumption as well as the late sealing dates.

For the Child Julia Rawlins, I wrote:

Description From the history of the mother Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins we read: Mary Ellen and Joseph Rawlins were the parents of three children; Their oldest daughter, Nancy Jane, was very helpful to her parents. She was married in 1859 to Robert Marion Kerr, and moved to Cache Valley where they became the parents of nine children. She died September 18, 1928, at the age of 83. Helen, who was a baby when her parents left to come west with the pioneers died at the age of thirteen, while her mother was visiting Nancy Jane at the birth of her first child. In the Mormon overland Trail record she is listed as Mary Ellen Rawlins. Further research will be done to document this record, but for the meantime we will stick with the name that is found in a contemporary record. There are probably other contemporary records, which will document her name to be Mary Ellen rather than Helen. This history does not document this child as a member of the family, The fact that the sealing to parents was done in 1993 further mitigates against the assumption that she was a child of these parents.

Thus we find the record almost correct.  I think that I will leave this as such until I find out to whom Julia and J.R. belong.

Nancy Jane and Mary Ellen Frost

In looking at the record of Joseph Sharp Rawlins my third great grandfather it was noticed that he had six wives listed. Two of the six were duplications, which we will have to deal with at a later time.  One of the wives was Nancy Jane Frost.  In reality Joseph was only married to two wives.  Where did the others come from?  Mary Ellen Frost was combined with Mary Evaline Frost which caused massive confusion.

The answer to this question will take us through another Adventure in Family Tree.

To view the odyssey, you can click here to view the 20 page document. 

It is involved and has yet to be completely resolved, but I think that this is worth posting.  An update will be posted in the future.

 

Orson W Rawlins

My cousin Loni put a discussion on Family Tree about a child (Orson) that was listed in addition to the three known children of Joseph Sharp Rawlins and Mary Ellen Frost Rawlins.  All the histories that we had in the family listed only three children of this marriage.  Yet suddenly there were more.  I got rid of one by straightening up the record for Mary Ellen Frost.  The information on this will be on another blog.  I posted the information that I found on my Family Search website.

You may see it on the link:
https://sites.google.com/site/eagleridgenfs/adventures-in-family-tree

More on this to come.