I had some amazing progress yesterday on my Mays ancestors. It all started on Tuesday, when I shared a bunch of old photos on my Facebook. I like to do that for my Aunts, Uncle, and other relations because it helps jog their memories of things. It was a wonderful day full of pictures and stories, and none of us were in the same place. Gotta love technology when you are far apart!
When I woke up on Wednesday morning I was refreshed and excited. After running the morning errands, cleaning, relaxing for a bit, and then cooking dinner, I really should have just watched a movie and went to bed. It must have been that boost from the day before though, because I just had to get onto FamilySearch and research more.
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.
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.
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
James Mays; born Oct 1836, married Margaret Slusher; had 8 children.
Frances Susan Mays; born May 1837, never married (not sure); had 5 illegitimate children.
Nancy L Mays; born about 1839, married William Flannery; not sure of children yet.
Rebecca Mays; born about 1841, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
John Harmon Mays (my 2nd great grandfather); born Sep 1842, married Celia Slusher; had 4 children (1 was stillborn).
William D Mays; born about 1843, married Lilly; had 4 children.
Elizabeth J Mays; born about 1847, married ? Gray; not sure of children yet.
Thomas Lindsey Mays; born about 1849, married Sarah Elizabeth Whitt; had 6 children.
Anna Z Mays; born about 1852, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
Arminda Mays; born about 1853, one illegitimate child. married James Shelton, had 2 children. married Joseph Slusher, had 3 children.
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.)
Jurena Mays, born Mar 1855, married ? Adkins. No known children.
Green Mays, born Jun 1857, married Susannah Gillium; had 11 children.
Sarah Mays, born Jun 1860, no known spouse or children.
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!
Yesterday I shared with you my forays into researching Hulda Adkins, #0034 from my Random Relative Project ™ (Category coming soon, I’m addicted to categories). Late last night, I was just kind of playing around on my laptop before bed. I had already turned off my desktop and wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing. For the purposes of recreation though, I’m taking a more direct route to my discovery.
Don’t ask me why I was researching Hulda’s father in the middle of the night. In fact I didn’t even have my “official” family files. Only a back up from my thumb drive. So I’m surprised how accurate the file was. I must have been clicking around on the tree in Family Tree Maker doing random “leaf” searches.
It certainly makes all the sense in the world now that I look at it. Why else would someone move or otherwise disappear between 1860 and 1870. Just because I haven’t found anything having much to do with the Civil War doesn’t mean I never will. I just haven’t been looking for it is the problem. I should probably look more into that.
Oh…
Now that would make even more sense of why they would pick up and move until Harrison had passed away.
I had an idea! Why not share my progress on my “random people” with you! First up is Hulda Adkins. In my Original file I don’t have much on her yet. I have her 1870 listing, which was when she was just 9 years old.
Hulda Adkins born: about 1861, Kentucky Parents: Harrison Adkins, Rebecca Click
Hulda’s family in 1870 (Blue Lick Springs, Nicholas Co, KY)
After this point, in order to research Hulda, I’m going to have to research the rest of her family. I don’t have to fully research them, but I do have to figure out where the family is in later years.
I did find a Huldy Adkins living with this family in 1880. She is listed as a niece of the family. Since this Huldy isn’t living with anyone I have in my family file, I’m going to have to search out the rest of Hulda’s family in 1880 and see where they are. I’m going to have to make sure she isn’t living with them. Then I’m going to have to search out the Barnett family’s origins to see if they are in fact relatives of this Adkins family.
I did find Hulda’s mother, brother and two sisters living in Devils Fork, Elliott County, Kentucky in 1880. Her mother and sister Eliza Jane living with her brother McFarlan, and her sister Melvina living next door with her family. Still no Hulda though. It would make sense for her to be living with relatives in Nicholas County though. Her family originated from Morgan County until they for some reason moved to Nicholas County (where they were counted in 1870). Then the family once again packed their bags and went to Elliott County, which isn’t random, because Elliott County was formed in 1869 from parts of Morgan, Lawrence, and Carter counties. So they most likely moved back to the area their family originated. I’m going to guess it was after the death of Rebecca’s husband Harrison. I haven’t found a death record for him yet though, so I can’t be sure of the timing.
As of 3:54 today, I haven’t found any other location that Hulda could be in. True I haven’t scoured every resource, but I don’t want to get too frustrated. I’ll just move onto the next random number, just to change it up a bit.
