Category: Research

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: William Mays

Posted on by Kathleen

This is my first Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post! This is a prompt put forth by Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings. I thought this one would be particularly fun since a lot of my Mays relatives had a great many children.

  1. Determine who is one of the most prolific fathers in your genealogy database or in your ancestry. By prolific, I mean the one who fathered the most children.
  2. Tell us about him in your own blog post.

I didn’t need to go far to find one of the most prolific fathers in my tree. There may be one with more children, but they aren’t confirmed by me yet.

The children count for William’s children may be subject to change. I haven’t finished researching them all yet.

William Mays married Anna Click

born: About 1813, Kentucky

  1. James Mays; born Oct 1836, married Margaret Slusher; had 8 children.
  2. Frances Susan Mays; born May 1837, never married (not sure); had 5 illegitimate children.
  3. Nancy L Mays; born about 1839, married William Flannery; not sure of children yet.
  4. Rebecca Mays; born about 1841, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
  5. John Harmon Mays (my 2nd great grandfather); born Sep 1842, married Celia Slusher; had 4 children (1 was stillborn).
  6. William D Mays; born about 1843, married Lilly; had 4 children.
  7. Elizabeth J Mays; born about 1847, married ? Gray; not sure of children yet.
  8. Thomas Lindsey Mays; born about 1849, married Sarah Elizabeth Whitt; had 6 children.
  9. Anna Z Mays; born about 1852, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
  10. Arminda Mays; born about 1853, one illegitimate child. married James Shelton, had 2 children. married Joseph Slusher, had 3 children.
  11. Jane Mays, born May 1853, no known spouse or children. (Shoot, she could be Arminda for all I know right now. This family confuses me.)
  12. Jurena Mays, born Mar 1855, married ? Adkins. No known children.
  13. Green Mays, born Jun 1857, married Susannah Gillium; had 11 children.
  14. Sarah Mays, born Jun 1860, no known spouse or children.
  15. Nancy Ellen Mays, born about 1862, married Hansford Conn; had 5 children.

As I stated by Jane’s information this family confuses me too much on the census. The children’s information is always fluctuating. Rebecca has been known to jump around in age by 10 years. I really don’t like to base anything for the Mays’ on any census information if I don’t have to. As you can see they were VERY prolific. It wasn’t just William. His brother Nathan also had 16 or so children. I can’t be sure of Nathan’s though because he was taking care of grandchildren by time the 1880 census came along, so I got very confused about who were children and who were grandchildren. Eventually I’ll sort it all out. They really could have helped out by varying the names of their children but all the Mays’ rotated the same 20 names or so. With each one having children numbering in the teens, well you can see how it would get confusing!

William and Anna Mays household, 1860.

Surname Saturday: Moore

Posted on by Kathleen

My big spring/summer/winter cleaning of my family file and my website database is going very well. Once I made my last decision, it’s been smooth, tedious sailing. I love it. I ended up starting with my father’s side since I pretty much have it sourced correctly. It’s just making everything uniform in my file that is the tedious part. I’ve always changed my mind about how I wanted things on the website site too, but I think my problems came from importing the file over and over again. So now that I’m hand entering things, it’s looking very good!

I’ve now finished cleaning up my Moore sources, so I figured it was a good time to do a Surname Saturday post.

MOORE

The first known Moore in my family tree is William H Moore. I have his birthdate as Jul 1836. In all the censuses from 1870 through 1920, he lists his birthplace as Ireland. Based on census information , he immigrated to America sometime between 1858 and 1859. I’m unsure of where exactly in Ireland he came from or where he went to when he got here.

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Another Menzies Letter

Posted on by Kathleen

I’ve got another Menzies letter here. There was quite a bit of correspondance between the cousins/siblings in America and London. I’m certainly not complaining! I couldn’t quite make out the date of this letter, but if it is 1888 (I think it might be), I imagine Jennie Menzies-Love’s home life is starting to deteriorate. This would lead up to what happens in 1890. I’m going to get my hands on an article of that as soon as possible!

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Menzies Mysteries

Posted on by Kathleen

One of the many mysteries I’ve always had with my family tree is the Menzies family. Yes I’m pretty sure they came from Scotland, though some lived in England also. When I got my boxes of documents and photos, one of the many things in there were a whole bunch of miscellaneous articles about Menzies people. Nothing ever said how each person was linked. The closest I got was the Menu Tree.

Now that I’m getting better at researching, I think I may be starting to fill in some blanks, literally. The only clue I had to my Menzies connection to start with was Jennie Menzies’ mother, Jane Farris-Menzies, living with Jennie and her husband William W Love in 1880. That gave me a starting point. That’s what clued me in to how these random Menzies articles could be important. One was an Obituary for Alexander G Menzies. Another was an article about a ‘London Strangler’ who murdered a Lady Menzies and her daughter one night in February 1954. I still don’t know how those people are related but I am getting closer.

Yesterday I was searching for the Love family on Castle Garden. I was hoping to find William W Love in the time period that was indicated on the 1900 and 1910 census. Hopefully he would have been coming over with his mother and father so I could verify that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything that was definitely him. I then decided to take a walk on the wild side and plugged Menzies into the search, just for fun. I didn’t have an immigration date as my Jane/Jennie Menzies-Love died in 1890 (wait till I find the article chronicling that!). I did however know her mother’s name and estimated birth date. I found the above Menzies in my search. My next step was trying to locate this particular family to see if it met up with my Menzies family or if they were two separate families.

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Wordless Wedness: Moore Family Portrait

Posted on by Kathleen

Robert James Moore Sr | Marion S Moore | Robert James Moore Jr | William Lawrence Moore | Alice Moore

Wordless Wednesday is a daily blogging theme I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Wordless Wednesday simply create a post with the main focus being a photograph or image. Some people also include attribute information as to the source of the image (date, location, owner, etc.). Some have begun doing a “Not So Wordless Wednesday” with the main focus still being an image but there is a backstory to the image.

Sentimental Sunday: Full Circle

Posted on by Kathleen

I was taking pictures of something I’m going to share tomorrow when I found this gem. Since today is Sentimental Sunday, I thought it would be nice to share it today. After this discovery, there is no doubt in my mind that my Great Grandmother must have been a genealogist herself.

Here in the midst of another gem, was an unexpected prize.

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Treasure Chest Thursday: Cemetery Deeds

Posted on by Kathleen

If you told me 10 years ago that I would come to look at pieces of paper as treasure, I would have thought you were crazy! Sure I was curious about all this family tree stuff then, but not to the extent I am now. Reflecting on the great experience I had a few years ago, I decided I was going to do another Find a Grave photo request. However, I didn’t want to send someone into a Brooklyn cemetery blind. I knew I had the deed somewhere, which will give the plot number. It’s the least I could do, right?

In my quest for the Brooklyn Cemetery Deed, I found the one for Prospect Hill Cemtery in Caldwell, New Jersey.

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Tombstone Tuesday: Kindess

Posted on by Kathleen

This Tombstone Tuesday I’m going to share a tombstone picture and a story of kindness.

As I often complain about, I live in Maryland while many of my roots are in other states. Due to limited means, I can’t really travel. So getting to cemeteries where my relatives actually are is very difficult. That’s why I love the Find a Grave website so much. They have Photo Volunteers on there. I am now one of them, but I haven’t been fast enough to fulfill a request yet! Anyway, I sent out a photo request for some tombstones that I had been to before in my Dad’s hometown, but didn’t have a camera at the time. What I got in return for one photo request was an amazing experience.

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Oops!

Posted on by Kathleen

I had every intention of doing a Surname Saturday post on the Whitts of Kentucky. I’m still working on it, so maybe next Saturday. ^.^ It’s completely my own fault I didn’t finish it. I got distracted as I often do. The hard part of having so many people I can search on Ancestry, is that there is always something new to find. I just couldn’t wait until Monday to post about this one.

James Ellis Crabb, from U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938

Sorry for the scrunched image. If you click on it, you should be able to see it bigger. How many great facts can you get from this one record? I got a TON. 🙂