What I Was Thinking Right After I Died

Now that I think about it, the thoughts my title refers to would have had to have been, oh, maybe a day or so after I died. Right after is sort of misleading. After all, the obituary that was published announcing my death would have required many more moments in time than right after implies. So the title of this post could have been constructed much more better. Big Woop!  Sue me.

Here's how it started.  I was reading the obits in this morning's paper like I always do. Sunday's newspaper always has the most prolific obituary notices. That's probably not the nicest way to say it either. What's with my inability to phrase things correctly today?!?  Abundant. That's the word. Sunday's newspaper always has the most abundant obits. Today being Sunday was no exception. The outtake below is just a portion of a page of this morning's obituary notices.

And there I was in the far left hand column, with my nickname, Jim, in bold letters with six little lines underneath. And, of course, when I recovered from my initial shock of seeing the notice of my death in print I began to understand that this Jim was not actually me but someone with the same nickname and surname only. The middle initial, the suffix name, the age and the survivor listed made it clear that I was not dead after all. And I mean no disrespect for those who have passed on before us. My condolences are extended to the surviving families and friends of those listed on the obituary extract pictured here, including Mr. King. 

There were two things that struck me when I saw this notice. The first, of course, was seeing my name. But while I was recovering from the surprise of observing my name in the obituaries and was processing from a "what the...?" stage to a "Oh, that's not me" stage I was feeling some disappointment for the fact my notice was so short and concise. Abbreviated. Condensed. Like there were never any eventful things in my life worth mentioning like my neighbors' in the adjacent columns.  But that's probably because as an amateur genealogist I tend to look at obituaries as a source of information. The more, the better. Yeah, I want data for piecing together all those bits of information any historian needs to reconstruct the timeline and heritage of some one's life. God, have I really become that detached that death notices are just another note, just another entry in the log, just another clue to use as source information for genealogical files?  I hope not.

When you stop to think about it, obituaries are for the living.  Why else would I look at them every day? Yes, I'm sure aging has a lot to do with it as we all get closer to feeling our mortality.  But I'm not sure how many of us stop to take the time to write our own obituary for publication after our death.  I haven't.  Maybe some of us do, and that's fine, but I think most of us leave it for our families to put together. Otherwise, it would be like bragging, wouldn't it? "Oh, yes, I did this and I did that, and then I accomplished this, and then I went there where, as everybody knows,  I was famous for being the best this or that....etc."  Nope, I don't think so.  I think the best ones are prepared by those still living. Some pretty overboard but others clear, concise, and to the point. He or she will be sadly missed is for us, not for the departed. And perhaps, in my humble opinion, that's the way it should be. Whatever we can afford and whatever we can think of to include should be enough in every case.

I read somewhere that an old Chinese proverb describes the best life as an uneventful life.  I'm not sure what that means but when you think about it, most of us live uneventful lives. There are peaks and valleys of excitement and mundane living to be sure, but most of us are not going to have biographies written or films made to record for history our action-packed, fun-filled, glory-saturated, earth-shattering eventful lives. So maybe the six line obituary notice for my namesake in the Sunday obituaries says it best.  He lived. He died. He is survived by family. Enough said.

One Little Indian

Charles King, Indian warrior, abt 1913

The cute kid dressed like an Indian on his horse pictured here is my father, Charles King.  Or at least I'm pretty sure it's him because the back of the photograph is noted with his name.  He appears to me to be around eight years old when this photo was taken which, if correct, would mean the year was around 1913. Long time ago, right?  Right. Unless you're interested in genealogy like I am. Then 1913 is, instead of "a long time ago" more accurately described as "less than 100 years ago!" To a genealogist (even an amateur one like me) one hundred years ago can seem like yesterday. There are tons of records and documents available to anyone who has an interest in studying their ancestors' lives...census records, military draft records, agricultural records, deeds, and passenger manifests, just to name a few.  Throw in a few photographs (especially those identifying the subjects and date taken), a couple of letters, some newspaper articles and obituaries, and memoirs to enrich the official stuff and you've got the makings for a pretty healthy family history portfolio. That's what I'm talkin' about!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  My father's birthday was March 11, 1905. That's one hundred and six years ago today. I wonder if the Indian get-up was for a birthday celebration? He looks pretty happy to me, proud even. Like a proud warrior on his war pony. With a brand new Indian bonnet with feathers!  I'm pretty sure the photo was taken in Bloomfield, Florida where he grew up. Wonder if anybody told him he looked like a Seminole Indian? Not that he did look like one but I'll bet it would have been exciting for an eight year old Florida boy to imagine himself that way. Especially since the last Seminole War had ended in Florida about fifty years previous!  The fact that the Seminoles were not a horse oriented society shouldn't have been an obstacle for an eight year old kid's imagination I'm thinking.

I guess it's just my own imagination at work here. My father told me a few stories of what his life was like growing up in Florida.  The only one I remember clearly was one he told about his seeing an alligator on the road where he walked to school each day.  That was pretty impressive to me when I was eight years old because my boring life growing up in Massachusetts couldn't compare in excitement to a story like that! He also told me he was born and raised in Okahumpka Florida which is a town near Bloomfield but I think he just said that because he knew an Indian derived town name would be a whole lot more impressive to me than one that sounded like a flower! If that's what he was thinking he was right.

I wish I'd paid closer attention to any of the things he told me about his life growing up in Florida. I should have taken some notes!  I don't remember much of anything he told me about his parents. Both had passed away before I was born. I never even saw photos of them until a few years ago when I started researching family history in earnest. But cud-a shud-a wud-a doesn't get you far in genealogy research. It's just a form of imagining things.  Like one little Indian.

Making Census Sense - Or Not!

Have been working on building our genealogy files on my wife's fraternal side of the family, the Costello's. Henry Costello (abt 1862 - 1933) arrived in the United States from Ireland in 1878, 1879, or 1880. Take your pick. Year of immigration was recorded on Federal Censuses recorded in 1900, 1910, and 1920 and, of course, Henry's immigration year was recorded differently on each one. And just to make research more challenging than it should be, the enumerator for 1910 recorded Henry and his entire family with the surname, CASTELLO instead of Costello. Took me a while to figure that one out.  Henry's wife, Annie (Butler) Costello (1865 - 1934) also immigrated from Ireland in either 1879 or 1880, the conflicting years for the same reason. As valuable as Federal Census records are to genealogical research, and they are very valuable, they're not perfect. They're only as good as the enumerator that recorded them. All hand written entries, some are prepared with beautiful penmanship while others are hardly legible. Some have been microfilmed so clearly that you'd swear it was just freshly written and prepared.  Others, well not very clear at all. I do have a certified copy of the marriage certificate showing marriage for Henry and Annie on October 10, 1886. That's an irrefutable source document so starting to reconstruct their family history is off to a great start. Unfortunately, most 1890 Federal Census Records were destroyed in a fire in Washington, DC so I've only been able to use the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 Census records to research their family. There are possibly other sources to clear up the history of Henry and Annie between 1886 and 1890 but so far I have not found anything.

Henry & Annie bottom entries on 1900 Census



Top of next page lists 6 Costello kids in 1900
















I've just included the two pages above to show what we're dealing with here. It's actually quite gratifying to find the people you're researching and building a historical profile of where they were, their childrens' names and ages, marital status, etc, etc. It's even more gratifying when you can link two or more census records to show the progression of the family in ten year intervals. In the 1900 records, Henry and Annie had six kids ranging in age from 11 months (that was my wife's grandmother) to 13 years old. In 1910 there were eight children listed, the oldest on the 1900 record not listed and three more added, two of which were born after 1900 and one whose age listing indicated he should have been on the 1900 record as 11 years old but was not. The 1920 Census record shows part of the family still intact, listing the parents with five children ages 13 to 27 still residing at home. But comparison of 1920 with the 1900 & 1910 records raises more questions than answers. So I drew up a chart to try to see the big picture.



The "Big Picture" of the Costello family

 This amateur chart of my own design helps clear things up for me, a little at least. Starting with the entry for a child named Mary on the 1900 Census. That year the record called for month and year of birth as well as age at time of Census (dated 4 Jun1900). The calculation on Mary is off...if she was 13 years old in 1900 she should have been born in 1887 but the record lists April 1888.  And her brother Henry, listed below her would have been unlikely to have been born in the same year (1888) and just three months later! And only be 11 years old. Somebody's math is not working. More likely, the enumerator's record keeping was not working is my guess. Bartholomew J Lynch prepared a fairly neatly handwritten record of citizens in my opinion. So neat that my guess is he used a worksheet to record data and then transposed it onto the official Census record. When there is more than one step involved in producing a record there is more apt to be opportunity for mistakes.  That's my take on it, anyway. Who knows what Bart's (Bartholomew's) situation was when he was recording for posterity the census data for Holyoke city? He obviously was under pressure to use every line of the census form (50 lines per page) as evidenced by two pages required to list the Costello family. So if he was transposing data from his work sheets who's to say he wasn't distracted by Mrs Lynch showing a little too much ankle or something and when he resumed working on his enumerator duties he added, omitted, edited, or couldn't read his own writing on his notes so, giving him benefit of the doubt to try and complete the record as accurately as possible, he made a mistake. Long story short, I haven't seen anything yet to corroborate the existence of a Mary Costello daughter of Henry and Annie. Same with George on the bottom of the 1910 Census column of my "Big Picture." Something is goofy with that one too, but I can't blame it on Bart. The 1910 enumerator didn't have as good penmanship as my buddy Bart so can't quite determine his or her name but looks like Narcisse ? Provost or something like that. This is the one who categorized the family as CAstello instead of COstello so who knows where they got George from. It looks to me like there are some erasures on the official record so there probably was some confusion as to who George really was.  All of the other children are listed in descending chronological order by age but George is stuck on the bottom, standing out at 21 years old. The place of birth entries for him and the parents is just a repeat of all the younger children above him but, again, looks to me like erasures and corrected entries were posted.



The George Costello conspiracy on line 36 of the 1910 Federal Census.
I wouldn't be surprised if George was a boarder with the Costello's.  Taking in boarders was a common practice in the early 1900's and I've seen on many census records.  It would be normal to list family members first and boarders last on the record. So perhaps Narcisse was fantasizing about Mrs Lynch's ankles like his or her predecessor Bart and got confused on line 36?  Who knows?

Now it's always possible I'm misreading the age of George and perhaps he's an infant who didn't survive childhood to the next Census (1920).  One source of information I'm weak on is cemetery records. I need to get more pictures of the cemetery where the Costellos are buried to see if there's any record of George and Mary that could possibly help clear up their existance.  In the meantime, I'm discounting Mary and George as children of Henry and Annie Costello, for now at least, and until some other evidence comes along to verify they existed. There are other discrepancies in the names of a few of the children, Katherine in 1910 followed by Catherine in 1920 are a pretty safe bet to be one and the same. Annie in 1900 compared to Anna in 1910 and 1920 aren't much of a stretch in credulity. The one that really stands out is Bertha (1910) vs "Mabal" (1920) but I'm confident the daughter born around 1906 or 1907 is one and the same child. I have some more work to do on each of them to try to fill in as much recorded history as I can, but for now I'm proceeding with the educated guess that Henry and Annie Costello had seven children starting with son Henry born around 1900 and ending with Mabel born around 1907.  On my "Big Picture" chart there are dots (.) to the right of seven names listed in the 1910 column. Those dots reflect the names my wife remembers from her childhood memories of her grandmother's siblings. She knew them as aunts and uncles. Officially they would have been her Great Aunts and Uncles. And she remembers "Aunt Mabel" too so that pretty much puts "Bertha" into Narcisse's 1910 fantasy category.

Trying to make sense of it all is a good part of what I enjoy about genealogy research. And in the interest of trying to make at least a little bit of sense of it all, my search goes on.

Certificates of Confusion

I've been given access recently to some documents and historical materials connected to my wife's ancestry. Some of the documents are certificates transposed from town and city records recording the births, marriages, and deaths of a number of her ancestors. They are like GOLD! as sources for my files on Ancestry.com.  But as valuable as they are and as grateful as I am to update my genealogy files, they are not a guarantee of 100% accuracy. I think for the most part the dates of certain events are pretty accurate. But where the verifiable information can start to fade is on some of the other information. For instance, most documents call for names of mother and father. If you can find a bride's mother's maiden name you have struck pay dirt, no question about it. But you'd better think twice about going to the bank on the spelling of some names. That's also a concern about the completeness of some information. Here's a case in point. My wife's great grandmother, Mary Ellen Counter. We've got a hat trick of certificates for her:

Mary Ellen was born March 6, 1863. Her father is listed on the birth record as Ezehue Counter.  Mary Ellen was married (her first marriage) on November 28, 1882 but on this record her father's name is Isaac. On the final document certifying Mary Ellen's death on January 29, 1939 her father's name has changed again, this time recorded as Ezekiel Counter.  Which one is right?  Well, my experience has taught me that when it comes to parental information it's normally the death records that are the least reliable. I guess that makes sense because unless it's the deceased party's sibling providing the information for the death record, there may not be an authoritative source of that kind of information.  However, in this particular case that guideline is out the window...From other sources I have pretty much corroborated the fact that Ezekiel is indeed the correct name of Mary Ellen's daddy.  The death certificate has actually turned out to be a rather fortunate record to have (Not so much for Mary Ellen, may she rest in peace, but for my research) because it gave me her mother's maiden name.

I'm very happy to have access to documents like these. Some people like jig-saw puzzles and some people like Sudoku. But me?  I like genealogy and sorting through all the mazes,  navigating all the twists and turns, and finding answers to questions that sometimes turn around  to surprise me with more questions. No matter how much success I have in my research and despite how many dead ends I run into, there are always mysteries left to explore.  Pending the invention of a time machine it's MY way of going back in time to rub elbows a little bit with the folks whose lives blessed me with life.  I feel like I owe them something. Not just something but I owe them the chance to tell their story. To recreate and publish their histories, good and bad, rich and poor, fortune and folly.  Even if nobody else reads it but me my research brings me a great deal of satisfaction.  It brings my ancestors back to life. And I enjoy their company immensely. That's why my search goes on.

By The Numbers

I've been working on our family budget now for about a week. Chompin' at the bit the whole time because for one thing, I hate doing it and for another, it keeps me from working on what I really want to be doing and that, of course, is genealogy.  My wife's sister recently loaned us some documents pertaining to their ancestors from the Prophet and Creran families that I'm eager to start working into our family tree. The file includes birth records, death records, marriage records, military records, and memoirs all resting inside a folder just waiting for me to devour.  It's like a cookie jar sitting on the counter filled with warm fresh chocolate chip cookies calling out my name but I have "homework" to complete before I can give in to the temptation.  I hate accounting.  I hate budgeting. We exceeded our 2010 budget by about 10 %.  I know that's not much compared to the Federal Deficit but it's still not good. So I'm going to get it done, set the goals, and see if we can bring it back in line with our limited income.

What's this got to do with My Search Goes On?  Not much I suppose but it gives me a chance to get away from crunching the numbers. And although this may be a stretch I've got a ledger that my great great grandfather, John Currier of Langdon, New Hampshire used to maintain and you want to talk about an accounting overload? Check out the photo above...  Page 24 of over 400 pages all filled with accounting transactions of one type or another.  John Currier kept some mean records, I wanna' tell 'ya!  There's even a few receipts I found mixed in between some of the pages. Looks like he bought some nursery items for his farm. Anyway, I digress because I'm just avoiding my own obligations. I'll try to follow John Currier's suit and get back to the budget. And when I'm done with that my search goes on.

Going Forward

Going forward is the only thing I can do with my genealogy blog, "My Search Goes On" because I wiped out all the previous postings yesterday.  I was doing some editing to my blog site and didn't pay close attention to what I was doing. In the instant it took to click on Enter, my previous entries were history. Lost history. But that's not really true. I just lost my postings describing what I was working on from time to time in my haphazard efforts to build records in my family tree. The tree is what counts and all the sources to document information I've incorporated into the tree. That I've done on Ancestry.com's website. Now as long as my pea-brain doesn't come up with a way to sabotage the website I should be able to continue my research. And in that effort, my search goes on.