All My Ancestors

Here is the information I’ve extracted on Ball and Green families living in Baltimore according to the Baltimore City Directories I’ve been able to locate online.

It’s not telling me much that guides me to the “right” Green family yet. But it’s a start. My approach to solving this problem is to acquaint myself with the area–and this tells me how many Green families there were living in Baltimore around the time that Ann Pamela Green and William Ball married in 1797. For such a common name, this is not an overwhelming amount of persons.

I don’t know if any of these Ball men listed in 1796 are related. I do know that each of these names–William and John and Samuel–appear in later generations of Balls. But they are common names. I don’t think the William is “my” William–this “gold and silversmith” William appears in lots of records before and after this 1796 entry and I’m fairly certain “my” William moves right after his 1797 marriage to New York City.

Another task for finding the “right” Green family is to locate a map from this time period for the area.

And another note of information here–in my earlier years of genealogical work, I’m pretty sure I would have recorded the 1796 Robert Green as a lawyer rather than a sawyer. Here’s the way the entry looks in the original:

During this period of typography, note that an uppercase “S” looks more like a lowercase “L” through our 21st century eyes. You can look at the lowercase “S”, in “Fell’s Point” for example, when it comes at the end of the word, and it looks like we expect an “s” to look. But when it is the first letter in “St.” the abbreviation for Street, it looks like a lower case “F” or “L.”

Too tedious a lesson? Maybe, but when I’m working during this time period, in an urban setting, knowing a person’s occupations is sometimes the way to distinguish one person from another when their names are the same. Good ol’ William Ball the Shipbuilder, for example. So knowing a lawyer from a sawyer becomes an important distinction.

Now, what’s the deal with listing the Widow Green only as a widow? No first name, no occupation, just a last name and an address. ack! I’ve seen widows listed as “wid of [husband's name]” which is way more useful, despite it making women extensions of their husbands. But this particular year she’s just listed as widow with only her address as the distinguishing characteristic.