Monday Madness: Family Myths

Jennie Cole Kint Purdy Phelps

Many years ago, my grandfather told me two very interesting things about his grandmother Jennie. One, she could remember the day that President Lincoln was assassinated and two, she lost her father very young when he died in a Confederate Prison Camp. As usual, these family stories don't quite hold up.

Jennie was born on April 14, 1864, exactly one year before Abraham Lincoln was shot. Remember? I doubt it.

As far as her father, the story goes that when Jennie was only six weeks old, he was working on the roof and was conscripted into the Union Army when the troops passed by their house. Allegedly, he died in a Confederate prison camp shortly after that. While still very young, Jennie was sent to live with her maternal grandparents Asa and Mary (Eastman) Cole because her mother's new husband didn't like having her around.

When I first started researching my family, this was one of the first things that I tackled: Who was Jennie's dad?

Unfortunately, I found more questions than answers. For one thing, why was Jennie's surname her mother's maiden name? Why didn't she seem to have any contact with her father's family? Where is her mother's "first" marriage record? Why was her mother listed as "Amanda Cole" on her "second" marriage record? Why is there no record of a pension application for herself or her mother? Jennie lived a very long time (1950) and had six children, so why didn't anyone seem to have the slightest idea what her father's name was?

For most of you, I think the answer is pretty clear.  Jennie was, in all likelihood, illegitimate and that "romantic" story was made up to protect her and/or her mother and family. Who knows, Jennie, herself, may have even believed it.

Nevertheless, she still had to have a father, right?

I have a nice big empty hole in my family tree that I would very much like to fill in. However, I don't have much to go on. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Jennie's mother Amanda Cole was living in Peninsula, Grand Traverse, Michigan working as a domestic for an Avery family. She was about 19 years old then. Jennie could have been fathered by someone in that household, but that is more than three years before her conception. It is difficult, if not downright impossible, to determine if she was living/working there for that long.

On May 8, 1866, Amanda married John Ira Grandy in Kane County, Illinois. I have never been able to find Jennie's birth record (of course!), but she was said to have been born in Illinois, so Amanda may have been there by 1864. Jennie was just two when her mother married Mr. Grandy, so, at least, the story of her being sent to live with her grandparents makes sense. As further confirmation of this part of the story, she is found living with the Asa and Mary Cole in the 1870 Federal Census in Wisconsin.

Almost ten years have passed and I am no closer to finding out who Jennie's father was, however, I have learned to be skeptical of family stories. As a researcher, it is very important to realize that many of these stories are nothing more than folklore and fables. If we are lucky, they just might have a gleaming kernel of truth that can lead us to the answers we are seeking. Then again, I have discovered that, sometimes, only our DNA will whisper the secrets of our ancestors.

**Read more about Jennie here.

Monday Madness: Samuel Lampkin Moore Proctor wouldn't let me sleep until I got it right!

I have been studying my family history for about eight years now and have worked extensively on all branches of my tree, focusing intensely on many individuals in that time. I have previously never had any of the serendipitous or intuitive experiences that Hank Jones describes in his Psychic Roots books. However, several months ago, I was going through a letter that my late Great Aunt Cleo wrote about our family history and transcribing the details into my online family tree (which is set as viewable to the public). I entered many detailed stories about various relatives on her side of the family (Proctor, Travis, Hewitt, Campbell). As a side note, she mentioned that her great uncle, Samuel Lampkin Moore Proctor, had served as a Chaplain and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Somewhere in the middle of entering LOTS of information on other relatives, I entered a one line comment on his profile along these lines, and continued on without much thought. (Samuel is not in my direct line and since he appears on many family trees I assumed he had been thoroughly researched, so I didn't pay that much attention to him.)
Late that night, I finally closed down the computer and went to bed. All night long, over and over, I was awakened with, "SAMUEL LAMPKIN MOORE PROCTOR" screaming in my head. Not one time did any other relative that I had worked on that night enter my head. Just repeatedly and urgently, Mr. S.L.M. Proctor! I thought maybe it was that his middle names could solve the mystery of his mother Mary's parentage. [At the time we knew her maiden name was Moore, but not her parentage. I have since solved this puzzle.] So, I finally gave up on sleeping. Exhausted and delirious, I got up and started searching on the names "Lampkin," "Moore" and 'Proctor."  Immediately, a new record popped up on Ancestry that I had never seen before and none of the other Samuel L.M. Proctor researchers had on their trees (none even had a date of death). It was "Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans" (emphasis mine) with his date of death. I immediately changed the notation on his profile to indicate that he fought for the Union, not the Confederacy! I imagine any soldier who fought for the Union would be HORRIFIED to be remembered as a Confederate! He must have been so incensed by what I had written on a publicly viewable forum, that he kept after me until I changed it, lest ANYONE think he was a Confederate! 
Since I was up, I continued to do genealogy research, intending to work on my great great grandfather (his brother, Ephraim). Unexpectedly, that entire day and night, all kinds of records popped up about Samuel all over the Internet! On Findagrave.com, someone had just taken a picture of his burial marker two weeks earlier (he died in 1892)! On early Illinois history sites, I found his name over and over again in the places that my direct relatives were living. Ephraim, my great great grandfather, wasn't even mentioned once even though I know he ran a business, raised a family and lived in the area for many years. Somewhat coincidentally, I did find Samuel working with other unrelated direct relatives of mine on roads, school boards and such. Throughout the long day, I ended up documenting much of Samuel's life with random little tidbits, including his children's details and information on his grandchildren. The person who had made the initial memorial for him on Findagrave even transferred it to me immediately and I wrote a detailed bio about him, emphasizing the fact that he fought on the UNION side of the Civil War. 

That night after I finally shut down the computer, I slept very soundly with NO interruptions!
 

I know that many would say this is all just a coincidence, but to me it is quite clear what happened. One might ask, why would I be the one he "harassed" when he has so many direct descendants interested in him? I think the answer is the misinformation I had posted. So, maybe that's the way to get the attention of the ones we seek! :-)