Sunday, February 21, 2010

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Ah-Ha! Moments

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has posed the following challenge:

1) Think of any number of genealogy events or moments that make you have a genealogy happy dance, an ah-ha moment, or a genea-gasm.

2) Tell us about them in a blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook.


Some of my Happy Dance moments were:

Finding a death certificate on line for my great-grandfather Harlston Perrin Moore that listed both of his parents; until that time I knew only that my maternal grandfather’s name was something like Perrin Moore.

Finding genealogy forum posts on Harlston Perrin Moore’s parents Spencer and Emily Moore that included where they had lived and the names of their other children.

Finding a message in an archived mailing list that mentioned that Bud Mathis Moore of Greenville County, SC had a brother named Spencer who “lived over in Anderson County and had a son named Commie” – that would have been Spencer’s son Commodore Worth Moore – so that I knew I had to search for Spencer’s family in Greenville.

Finding an index entry for the will of a Samuel Moore of Greenville, SC that listed his children Spencer (misspelled “Spencar”), Susannah, and Elizabeth. This listing of my great-great-grandfather Spencer Moores and his two sisters indicated to me that this Samuel Moore was my great-great-great grandfather.

Finding a Lewis family with a daughter Martha of the right age to be my great-grandmother Martha Lewis that met the following requirements: the parents were born in SC but lived in GA around the time that Martha was born (1848 – they were there on the 1850 census) but were back in Anderson Co., SC by the 1860 census so that she could meet and marry Harlston Perrin Moore. In Texas censuses from 1880 on Martha Lewis Moore’s state of birth was given as Georgia and that of her parents was given as South Carolina, therefore ….

An “Ah-Ha!” moment occurred when I finally had a trail for descendants of my great-great uncle David Floyd. My evidence indicated that David’s granddaughter Sada Crum had married a man named Robertson (one of their sons, Clyde, was shown living with her father Mason Crum on the 1920 census), but tracing the history of this family was difficult due to its disintegration and scattering. I found a “Josphes” and “Saddie” Robertson on the 1910 census as the parents of this Clyde Robertson, but in 1920 I could not find them … until I realized that the guy listed as “Seab” Robertson, when I looked at the census, was actually “Seaf” Robertson: Josephus > Seaf. Ah ha!

In a similar case, I realized that an MDL Lee on one census and a Fate Lee on the other census were the same guy: MDL = Marquis de Lafayette > Lafayette > Fayette > Fate. Ah ha!

2 comments:

  1. Spelling, indexing and nicknames aside, this research stuff is a snap, eh?? Great work!

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  2. Well, Carol, it was reading your SNGF post that reminded me of these ah-ha moments! Funny how much of research is realizing "Oh, that's what this is actually supposed to be!"

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