On the road to my Great-Grandfather
by Sylvia F. Wilkins
We've all been there.... you have a surname or a given name and you
think that because you have "Jones" or "Smith" or
"John" that this is going to be a piece of cake. WRONG!!!!!
You soon discover all the things that you have read over the years is
absolutely true about how names as plain as these can be butchered. None
intentionally but because of handwriting, phonetic spelling or abbreviations,
someone trying to be helpful in an index file or something posted on the web,
it is just down right wrong information. I have found mistakes in indexes on
the web of well-known sites, CDs, etc. where members of the same family cannot
be found because an "every name index" was posted and the head of
household has the correct spelling of the surname but then the handwriting of
the census enumerator got sloppy (their hand was probably very tired after
doing sixty families that day and didn't realize that it was OK to just list
the surname for the head of household) and the wife and children end up with a
completely different name. It says.... "wife," "daughter,"
"son." How much more simple could it get?
We all could go on and on about this, so I will get to my point.
What I knew, was that my paternal Great Grandmother's maiden name was
"Rippins" and the state and year that my Grandmother was born. What I
didn't know was that you could get at least twelve different spellings for
something that had one vowel and four consonants!
I do my Soundex thingy, get my code to start my search and go for it.
SURPRISE! I don't find anyone. Of course, I started my search in the
state of Missouri where my father was born because it made sense at the
time, that my Grandmother had to have
lived there at some point with her parents. When this yielded nothing, I
thought, where the heck is everyone?
So... now I know this is not going to be simple and I need to be very
methodical about how to find my family.
I decided the best way was to work my way backwards and find folks I
knew.
The most likely person was to start with my Dad.
There was no doubt in my mind that I knew his exact date and place of
birth and who his parents were, so I went for it.
I go to the 1910 Census to look for my grandparents and my father, in
St. Louis, Missouri, fully expecting to see everyone enumerated just like the
rest of the state.
NO SUCH LUCK!
Now, I'm really confused. Every document that I ever saw relating to my
father stated the same date and place of birth. I knew I had the correct information
on my grandparents because I was always told that I "looked like my
grandmother" and my name was derived "from both of your grandmother's
middle names" and your Dad was "born in St. Louis," etc. . . .
I knew that my grandfather's family was very distinguished and he, in
his own right.
His father was in the third graduating class at Meharry Medical College
(TN) in 1880, his brother in 1887 and two of his sons, in 1902 and 1915. On
August 25, 1886, he and his brother along with twelve others organized the
"Lone Star State Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Association."1
This was the second organization for African-American medical professionals in
the nation. I have also found a notation in "300 Years In Victoria
County."2
My grandfather was listed in Who's Who In Colored America 3
in 1928-1929, 1933-1937 and Cincinnati's Colored Citizens 4 in 1926,
along with a picture of my father and grandmother. My grandfather had a
distinguished career in the United States Army, during World War II with
several honors and newspaper articles.
So, you're thinking to yourself, why can't you find these folks?
Seems very simple with this paper trail.
Well, what I found was the paper doesn't always lead to the same
trashcan.
I racked my brain with "where are these folks?"
I decided that I should find a marriage certificate for my grandparents
so I send the necessary documents to the "Marriage Place"5
and they tell me they have no record.
Now what the heck should I do? Every piece of information that I know
to be true has not panned out and this is not a good thing.
This means to me I have to do some digging and I'm up for the
challenge. My mother was very good about record keeping, so I decided to start
there. Beware, it is very spooky when you start digging and you find stuff like
cards, drawings, etc., from your parent's coworkers from the day you were born!
We won't go into how long ago that was!!!!!
My mother kept a "folder" on all of us, so I opened the one
for my father. I paged through things and the first thing I came across was a
US Census Bureau document stating the information on the 1920 Census showing my
father, grandfather and grandmother.
No big deal. RIGHT!
The next thing I find is a letter to my father from his first cousin in
St. Louis, MO stating that he had sent for a copy of my Dad's birth
certificate. He says, "I think I remember your father's name as
.........."
HOLD THE PHONE!!!!!
The name he listed is not the name that I knew all my life. The man who
lived to be 96 years old and wrote to me all the time. The man who traveled
with my grandmother to see us in Pennsylvania and we spent hours in the car to
go visit in Ohio!
What the heck was this!
I immediately got on the phone to St. Louis, to speak with another of
my Dad's first cousins. He was 88 years old at the time and I told him that I
found this document that says that my father's father was someone completely
different from whom I knew as my grandfather. His statement was "well,
John always looked like his mother." What was that supposed to mean???????
This was not working out!
I called my siblings to tell them what I discovered and that we are not
who we think we are and...... they are just too calm about this, so I hang up
and plan my next course of action.
Since the name listed by my father's first cousin was a
"Whitfield" surname and a given name he wasn't sure was correct, I
Soundex the surname and go back to the 1910 Census 6 to see what I
can find. I COME UP EMPTY AGAIN!
So logically, you say to yourself, "well, go to the 1900
Census."
Looking through the "head of household" index, I again find
nothing. You begin to think, "what the heck am I doing, I must be
crazy."
At this point you know the 1890 Census has for all intent and purpose
been completely destroyed, your only hope is to plow through the 1900 Census
and see what you can find.
Not knowing anything about the person you are looking for other than he
is not the "head of household," you have to search the entire state
by Soundex. Given name, A through Z.
You start and as you breeze past the "E"'s, knowing that is
what his given name is supposed to start with, you begin to say, "please
God, don't let the head of household be Zachariah."
Soon, I discovered a "Step Son" with the given name and surname
and I go to the Census record.
There are three surnames listed in this one household.
"Whitfield", the one I need and two I have never heard of in my life,
so I rule them out as having no connection to my family and run with what I
have.
Armed with the "Whitfield" head of household on the 1900
Census, I go back to the "Miracode" for the 1910 Census (what a joke
this is because it certainly doesn't "mirror" most of the information
contained on the 1910 Census) to find my people. EUREKA!
Not only do I find my "widower" Whitfield head of household
from the 1900 Census but I also find my Grandmother and my 6-month-old father
with the same surname. I was ecstatic, until I continued to read the
information of my 21-year-old "W-I-D-O-W" grandmother!
Now I'm thinking, "this can't keep happening to me." Why
can't I have this "I found 20 generations of my family and I've traced my
line back to Charlemagne" kind of story?
Curiosity is the only thing that is keeping me going at this point
because I have spent a lot of money on genealogy software, birth, marriage and
death certificates for a line that is not genetically mine and I don't want to
dwell on that issue.
Immediately, I send for a copy of the death certificate7 of
the "Step Son" and four weeks later I get a response that no document
existed in the "City" and I should try the "County"8
vital statistics office. I write. No record.
I contacted St. Peter's Cemetery (MO) 9 where 90% of my grandmother's
family are buried, to see if he was buried there. No record.
Analyzing all the information I had compiled and the months of back and
forth, I still had a big fat zero. I cannot understand how there is no
documentation of these events since everything that happened with my
grandmother's family happened in the City of St. Louis.
Fortunately for me, I've never known how to "just give it
up," "toss in the towel" or "say uncle."
It is now time to use what I really know and that is the exact date of
my father's birth. I figured I had that hands down and getting his birth
certificate should be a piece of cake. I never sent for it before because I had
seen the date written a thousand times, had celebrated it all the years of my
life, had a sibling born on the same day, so why did I ever need an official
document? Besides, thirty years earlier my father had tried to no avail.
But, this was now important. I had to know who we were because I had
started this "project" so that my immediate family would have this
information for future generations and I was eager to get on with it.
I prepared the paperwork with everything I knew as a fact. My
grandmother's given and maiden name, my father's full name, date and place of
birth. Then I wait............
I'm very calm because I know this "certified" copy is going
to come back and have all the information that I have given PLUS my
"real" grandfather's name. So it was just a matter of being patient
with the processing time frame.
The mail finally arrives and I can hardly control myself while opening
the envelope. When I read what was inside, I could barely contain myself. There
was no record of his birth!
Right then and there I decided to take matters into my own hands and
doing this "stuff" long distance was killing me! I didn't know the
competency of the folks who were looking for the information, whether they were
actually "looking" or just generating income but I had to control
this as much as I could.
I began searching the Web for where I could find microfilm of the birth
registers so that I could borrow it through an interlibrary loan (that's a
whole other story that I will not go into now). Once I found the film I needed,
I began trying to get it to my local library but was told that the film was not
available for an interlibrary loan but I could purchase a copy. Roll number,
information and check in hand, I send for it. Of course, it was weeks later
when it arrived and I rushed out to view the film. Loaded it up, ready to solve
this mystery, I discover they sent me the wrong film. I won't go into detail
about the telephone calls back and forth but the short version is that their
website listed the incorrect film number and no one checked that the film in
the box was for the years mentioned before sending it. Needless to say, they
"rushed," yeah right, the correct film to me.
I load the "correct" film, go to the year, month and day of
my father's birth and there he is, "Whitfield" with no first name
listed. I know it is my father because my grandmother's given name is listed
but the "father's name" lists the same given name as my father, so
now I really don't know what is happening. At this point it didn't matter to me
how it was listed. I made a copy of the page and sent it along with another
request for a "certified" copy of his birth. I was elated that I
could albeit too late for him to see, have a record of his birth.
So my quest continued for the name of my "real" grandfather
on an official document somewhere.
My initial attempt to find my grandparent's marriage license didn't
work because there would never be a record of her with my "fake"
grandfather, as I have come to refer to him when describing this situation to
others.
Beginning with where my grandmother started and lived her life was not working
for me, so my thoughts were to change up and dig where she ended her life.
I write to the County Court House, in the state in which they lived,
for a copy of their marriage application and license. I decided it was best
that I use her "Whitfield" name instead of her maiden name since she
was listed on the Census with it. Not having much hope that this would lead
anywhere, again, I wait.
"The envelope, please........"
As I open the envelope fully expecting to see "try your luck
somewhere else cookie" there it is, in black and white, the real thing.
Hallelujah. I had finally proven this woman was married at least once!
This thing was loaded with information. Not only did it document my
"fake" grandfather and grandmother's parents given names (including
maiden names), places of birth, where they lived, their ages and that they had
both been previously married but that my father was nine years old when this
happened, so he knew this man was not his father and now I knew.
I was getting crazier by the day.
I had passed every detail onto my siblings, who were still very calm
about this entire situation. I thought they would be upset with all this
because they were the ones with the children, not me!
OK, now I have to get to the bottom of this "name" thing
because somewhere along the way my father's name had been changed and my
"fake" grandfather had raised him as his own. I decided to call the
Probate Court 10 in the same county looking for an adoption record.
I called and spoke to the clerk explaining that my grandmother's second
husband must have adopted my father and I was trying to get a copy of the
record. She informed me that "those records are sealed in this state"
and there would be no way I could get those records.
I took a deep breath and said to her "what is the point of that,
everyone involved is dead?" She thought about it for a moment and said,
"OK, send me a copy of your grandmother and grandfather's death
certificates, a copy of your parents marriage certificate, a copy of your father's
death certificate, your birth certificate and a photo ID."
Things were looking up. Not only had she consented to releasing the
documents but I had all the "paperwork" she wanted in my possession
and it was in the mail that afternoon.
This was interesting since my Dad didn't use this name but the middle name of his step/adopted father. It began with the same initial, so I surmised that over the years either the legal document was misplaced and forgotten or that if he used the "Whitfield" middle name, it would always raise questions about how he got it.
Now, I have a court document that shows that at some point in time my grandmother
was married to a "Whitfield."
I can send for this marriage record and prove my lineage as a
"Whitfield" and not a "Wilkins." I send to St. Louis City
for the license and they again tell me there is no record.
This is unbelievable!
If it didn't happen in the City of St. Louis then where? I called my
father's only surviving first cousin who was 84 years old and asked if she knew
where folks would get married if not in the city. Since she had married in the
city, she didn't know. I called her children and polled them for ideas and soon
discovered that the "East St. Louis" that I had been hearing about
was not a section of town but was actually a city in Illinois. Everyone kept
saying it is "just across the river."
I think I need to know more about this place!
I go online and get a county map of the state of Missouri and one of
Illinois. I trim them and paste them together so that they are seamless. I can
now see that the "City" of St. Louis actually borders three Illinois
counties "just across the river."
I go back online and find out what the requirements are for obtaining a
marriage license in these three counties and pick the one that is one day, no
blood test and off goes the paperwork to St. Clair County (IL). 11
Preparing for the worst, I also filled out the documents for the other two
counties, anticipating the "no record" response that I was so used to
getting.
For once I was not disappointed!!!!! It arrived and had more
information than I could have hoped for.
My nightmare wasn't over yet because although the "father's"
name was validated by this document the census record voided it.
So how do you prove the "Head" is the Step Father and the
"Wife" is the mother, when the places of birth listed for the
"Father" and "Mother" of the Step Son don't add up on the
1900 Census?
To make a long story shorter, you don't go into the specifics but you
do state that you sent for the marriage license of the "Head" and
"Wife" in the same state where you found the "Step Son's"
and you find all the same juicy information on it, that proved who your
grandfather's parents were.
It shows that this was the "Head's" 2nd marriage and that his
residence at the time of this marriage was the same state of the "Step
Son's" birth.
If you are still not satisfied, you send to that state's County Court
House and get the marriage license of the 1st marriage, which then matches
exactly what the 1900 Census shows as the places of birth for the "Step
Son's" parents. You want to get his birth record as well but discover that
not only were they not recorded at the County level but that the State didn't
officially start recording vital statistics until 1912.
And now, after all this time and effort we know that the
"Wife" was actually the "Step Mother" and she was answering
the questions of the Enumerator and that is how the "Step" got added
to the record.
We still have the issue of the death certificate.
I had tried to locate it in St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St.
Clair County, Illinois with no luck. I had tried the other counties because
they were so close and his occupation may have taken him there and he may have
died while working.
I was still convinced that it occurred in St. Louis City and was just
waiting for a new lead.
Let's recap what I knew.....
I knew that my "real" grandfather and great-grandfather were
listed on the 1900 MO Census.
I knew that my grandparents were married in 1907.
I knew that my grandmother was a "widow" on the 1910 Census.
I knew that my father was six months old on the 1910 Census.
I knew that it takes nine months to make a baby.
I knew that this man had to have been alive sometime between January
1908 and January 1909.
I got a lucky break when I was told that the St. Louis Genealogical
Society had just released a new CD-ROM 12 with burials in St. Louis.
I went to their website and looked at the cemeteries listed on the CD-ROM and
the one my family had used was on there. I immediately sent for the CD-ROM.
When the CD-ROM arrived, I loaded it up, did a search for my surname
with the first name initial and there he was, as big as day. He died December
1908. His name wasn't butchered, his age was correct and although his date of
death was not listed his burial date and cemetery were. IT WAS THE SAME ONE
THAT I HAD ORIGINALLY CONTACTED!!
She comes back and says that he is definitely buried there but he is in
the "baby section" and didn't know why and there was no other data in
their files.
I then decided to call the Recorder of Deeds office where I had
attempted to get a Death Certificate and give my newfound news. I was told that
she had thoroughly looked before but she would check again and call me back.
When she called and identified herself I was ready for the "no
record" song and dance but she said, "I found it." I was so
stunned that I wasn't sure what she said and I said. "You have it?"
She then stated that this was at the time when they were switching from one
recording system to another and this was actually a book, where the pages were
stuck together at the end and no one had noticed it before. She apologized profusely but I didn't care,
I was so happy that she found it. She said a copy would be in the mail that day
and I couldn't wait to get it.
I had found my "natural" grandfather, who died of pneumonia,
nine months and nineteen days before my father was born, as well as, my
great-grandfather.
Although this was very satisfying, I felt quite fortunate and proud to
have known the man who raised my father and loved us madly.
So, the moral to this story is before you spend one red cent on copies
of vital record documents, census records, microfilm, CD-ROMs, military
records, etc., make sure you are, who you think you are!
Happy hunting!
sfw1717@aol.com
Notes
1 The
Hand Book of Texas Online
-http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/LL/sal1.html
2 300
Years In Victoria County, Edited by Roy Grimes, Drawings by Tom Jones,
Second Edition, published by Nortex Press, a Division of Eakin Press, Austin,
Texas. LCCN 68058110.
3 Who’s
Who In Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of
African Descent in America, Edited by Joseph J. Boris, published by Who’s
Who In Colored America Corp, 1133 Broadway, New York, NY
4 Cincinnati’s
Colored Citizens: Historical, Sociological and Biographical, by
Wendell P. Dabney, published by The Dabney Publishing Company, 412 McAllister
St., Cincinnati, Ohio.
5 Vital
Records/Recorder of Deeds, City Hall Room 127, 1200 Market Street, Saint Louis,
Missouri 63103.
6 National
Archives and Records Administration, Mid-Atlantic Region 900 Market Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107-4292.
7 Vital
Records/Recorder of Deeds, City Hall Room 126, 1200 Market Street, Saint Louis,
Missouri 63103.
8 Vital
Records, 111 South Meramec Avenue, 1st Floor Clayton, MO 63105_1711.
9 St.
Peter's Cemetery, Lucas & Hunt Rd. St. Louis, MO.
10Hamilton
County Probate Court, William Howard Taft Center, 230 E. Ninth Street, 10th
Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45202-1202
11St.
Clair County Clerk, 10 Public Square, Belleville, IL 62220.
12 St.
Louis Burials, Vol.2 (St. Louis Genealogical Society, 2003. Cemetery Series
CD102,
Ver. 1.0 ISBN 0-9715129-4-9).