All My Ancestors

I haven’t been posting much lately, but one of the good things about having a blog out there is you can still hear from readers and sometimes make connections to family members.

One comment today took me back to a posting I made a little over a year ago when I found the listing of the inhabitants of the St. Louis Insane Asylum on the 1900 census.  In response, a reader wrote to ask about a great-uncle’s wife who was perhaps an inmate and died in 1881.  I told him I had no info other than what I found on the census, and that he might check the 1880 listing for the institution.

Then it occurred to me that I should perhaps check to see if indeed there was a listing.   Always a good idea, don’t you think?  :-)

So I fired up my Ancestry.com subscription and limited the search to the 1880 census.  But how to search for an institution when I didn’t know anyone’s name?  So I decided to try just putting “St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA” into the “Lived In” box and entered “insane asylum” (without the quotes) in the keyword box.  What I got was a listing for another agency in St. Louis–one for orphans with asylum in the title.  So I tried just typing in insane, and again, I got listings for persons who were classified as insane.  You may remember that this particular census year, enumerators were instructed to note persons who were “blind, deaf and dumb, crippled, maimed, idiotic, insane, bedridden, or otherwise disabled.”  Typing in only the word asylum seemed to work the best.  Or perhaps I just made the best pick from the list this time.  In any event, it requires some trial and error.

The listings for the residents of the St. Louis Insane Asylum begin on page 1 (penned), 479 (stamped) in ED 438 for St. Louis County, St. Louis City.  The enumerator also notes that this is the 237th Election Precinct of the 27th Ward.   There are about 11 pages of inmates and workers listed.  It is important to note that the census taker did not write the name of the institution at the top of the page but only along the left edge.  In this same section, beginning on page 20 (penned), 484A (stamped) are the residents of the City Poor House–again, only noted along the left margin.

I think I remember that the Soundex system had a separate index for institutions.  Finding the listings for these institutions without a persons name using the databases is a little trickier.  Anyone know of a better method of finding institutions in census databases?  I also found some schools, convents, and other hospitals in this quest, by the way–all enumerations of use to researchers but accessing them without a specific person’s name takes some patience.

Again, if you want more information about these institutions in St. Louis, I refer you to David A. Lossos’ page on Early St. Louis Hospitals, Homes and Asylums.

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Hubbo had a conference to attend in Rogers, Arkansas over Fall Break.  Knowing that I can always use an opportunity to prowl around ancestral remains in Benton and Washington Counties, I tagged along.

On Thursday, we drove out to Butler Creek Cemetery in Sulphur Springs, AR.  To get there, we had to go through Missouri.  Actually, as our pal at the hotel said, “Why would you do that?”  We evidently didn’t have to go that way, but it’s what all our various mapping programs said.  And it was scenic.

There was this barn, that I initially thought was built of logs, but upon closer inspection, appears to be just roughly hewn wood.

We stopped and ate at a cafe in Noel, Missouri and also admired the view from the gas station.

We chose to try to ignore the conversation in the next booth about the website showing how many people had been killed by a former president.  And also the person sitting in the back smoking.  Can you still smoke in restaurants?

The church and the cemetery could have been anywhere–what I imagine New England looking like in the fall.  I felt like a certified leaf-peeper.

The land for the church and cemetery had been donated by a John C. Givens (1806-1885).  There were cattle in the field back behind the trees and they evidently were trying to persuade us to come feed them based on their mooing.

We had a good time despite it being a cold, misty day.  That might even have added to the day.  The cemetery is old.  The 3rd great-aunt I have buried there died in 1898.  I actually had just found out that she was buried here–I blogged about her in an earlier post and another descendant wrote to tell me where she and some of her family were buried.

I think it’s fairly safe to assume this marker was placed long after her death in 1898.  There is an old crumbling concrete footing around her grave, but the stone looks much newer.  There are no dates on the stone nor are any other names included.  She was Mary Esta Ball and married to John W. Shelman.  Another interesting thing to notice is that the surnames on the four stones from these family members are spelled two different ways–sometimes with two “ls” and sometimes with only one.

Two of Mary’s six sons are buried nearby:  William John Nelson (1864-1943), according to my California correspondent, and George Washington (1873-1923).

You can barely note that the surnames are spelled differently–William’s is Shelman and George’s is Shellman.

Also buried nearby is a young man who is probably the son of one of these men, but I don’t know the story yet.  Perhaps another contact with Diana will help me know more about John William Shelman.

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Since I’ve gone to work at a place where I look up other people’s relatives in the census on a daily basis, I’ve been amazed at the institutions that are enumerated, and the information found within. I learn something new every time I find one of these. I’ve posted previously about the prison population posted in the 1900 census for Detroit, Michigan.

The most recent find is the 1900 enumeration of the “St. Louis Insane Asylum” in, where else, St. Louis, Missouri. There are 15 pages of records–the first page and half or so are employees and the rest are listed as inmates. Hugo M. Vollmer, census taker, appears to have done a very thorough job. I wonder how he did his work–did he go through records, did he interview staff, did he interview inmates, how did he gather all this information? A check on him reveals that he is a 26 year old clerk employed at the Asylum, born in Missouri to Germany-born parents. That makes me believe that he probably did his work from the records at his disposal.  1900 is the census year that gives the month and year of birth, the year of immigration and citizenship, plus the place of birth and that of the entry’s parents. Most of the places of birth for parents is entered as “unknown” for the inmates. But, a profession listed for each person, including Alice McCormack, Irish-born 28-year-old prostitute. There’s 68-year-old female physician Sarah L. Jones–what is her story? I kept coming across “nihil” listed in the profession column. It took me a while to realize this meant “none,”–as in “nil,” I suppose.

It would be interesting to compare the demographics of this population with those of St. Louis at large–for example, many of the inmates appear to have been foreign-born. I was somewhat surprised to find a few more males than females listed.

There’s more information about the Asylum at Early St. Louis Hospitals, Homes, and Asylums.

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So many topics floating through my head.

I’ll pick two–more info about the Missouri Blair line and research in Oklahoma.

I found the burial site of the governor’s father–he’s in the same cemetery in Jefferson City as the governor. As is the governor’s brother Sam C. Blair, US Attorney, and a third brother, William Clark Blair. I haven’t dug about long enough for William C. yet, but all three of these men served in World War II, one a colonel, one a major and one a lt. (jg) in the Navy.

Then there’s Dr. Anna Lou Blair, whom I found as well. She is the sister of James T., Sr. and distinguished enough in her own right. She taught 49 years at Missouri State University in Springfield, served as the chair of the Modern Languages department, and has a building named for her. I found her on the 1930 census studying at Yale and in 1940, she’s returning from a trip to Chile. She sounds like no slouch.

That’s just one of the topics I want to explore. (Not to mention that I keep thinking I should be able to find an obituary for James T., Sr. So far, I have not been successful in any of my subscription databases.)

Then there’s the article in one of the recent genealogy magazines that lists online sites for each state. There’s one lonely entry for Oklahoma, and it’s the Access Genealogy site that has the index to the final rolls of the Dawes Commission. It’s listed as a site that charges, which I’ve not found to be so, and the site also has in caps and bold letters the most ignored statement in Native American genealogical research:

IF YOUR ANCESTOR WAS NOT LIVING IN INDIAN TERRITORY DURING 1898-1914 THEY WILL NOT BE LISTED ON DAWES!!

But the point is that there are some other Oklahoma sites that are pretty terrific. One of the best, in my opinion, is the database of the Indian Pioneer interviews done in the 1930s–another one of those great WPA projects. These interviews were done with “89ers” (those who came to Oklahoma for the 1889 land run, or a subsequent run) or their descendants AND with Native Americans who already lived here, or their descendants and covers a time period of about 1860-late 1930s. With almost 80,000 entries, it is a rich, rich resource, and the University of Oklahoma Western History Collections has all the interviews mounted for access by name, place or subject.

The Research Center at the Oklahoma Historical Society has some good information up as well. The index to the 1890 Territorial Census is available at here. This census is particularly important since most of the 1890 census for the rest of the country was destroyed. Because Oklahoma was not yet a state, this census was not with the federal census and thus survives. It covers a portion of the Unassigned Lands (Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Kingfisher, and Payne Counties) in the center of the state and Beaver County in the panhandle.

Photos from early Oklahoma are also available online at the Oklahoma Historical Society’s site. Use the Archives link in the online catalog and type in a subject. If you see “file available” in the lower right corner, click on that link and see the photo. This database is no where near complete, but it’s fun to browse–type in the name of an Indian tribe or an old Oklahoma town and see what comes up.

Another online source, though not tied to any agency or company, is the work done by the late Mary Turner Kinard. She indexed many of the pre-statehood marriages from Indian Territory and that index is available online here. The documents themselves are in various repositories, but the site tells the searcher where to obtain copies.

We shouldn’t forget the Oklahoma portion of the USGenWeb project–I still find myself using it on an almost daily basis when I’m at work. It’s well maintained and has some very good information for anyone researching in Oklahoma.

I’ll stop.

Those are just two of the topics floating through my mind, and they aren’t even related except that they both address genealogical quests. Granted the Oklahoma resources aren’t all that straightforward, but they are there and they are free for now. And what’s the use of having a blog if not to use to clear my head?

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After I wrote about cousin John Wright Osborne earlier in the week, I decided to look again at his family.

Finding his Civil War questionnaire was accomplished early in my genealogical endeavors. In going back through his file, for example, I found that he’d been in Camp Douglas, the prisoner of war camp for Confederates. I knew I had other family members who died there but I’d forgotten that John W. had been there.

After the death of his mother, Mary Jane Wright, his father Thomas Osborne remarried, to Eveline Matlock, and had several more children. The first child of that second marriage was Louisa M. Osborne, with the M. probably standing for Matlock. Louisa married a physician, Dr. Samuel Tate Blair. I believe her sister married Dr. S.T.’s brother, but there were lots of Blairs in that area, so maybe a cousin.

On a lark, I entered the good doctor’s name into Google and found one of those fabulous Goodspeed write-ups for him. (I actually think I was looking for information about the college John Wright refers to–Ewing and Jeff, which turns out to be a Cumberland Presbyterian college with the official title of Ewing and Jefferson College.) To my surprise, he’d moved to Missouri. I always say I’m one of the few people I know who doesn’t have family in Missouri or Kentucky. That just changed.

So I started looking for records on this family in Missouri, and, again, surprise, surprise, I found that at least one of Samuel and Louisa’s sons and grandsons distinguished themselves by being the Supreme Court Justice, and in the case of the grandson, serving as first the lieutenant governor and then the governor of the state. The father served in the state legislature as well.

Part of what allowed me to get to this information was accessing Missouri’s online death certificates–I found one for both Dr. Samuel and wife Louisa. Each was signed by James T. Blair, I believe one by the father and one by the son. That lead me to searching for more information via the census records and newspapers.

I was sorry to read about the untimely death of James, Jr. and his wife Emilie. What a freak accident. So I get to add these to my other (2) relatives listed as “famous“at the Political Graveyard site. Now, of course, since that site notes that his burial site is unknown, one of the things I have to know is where James, Sr. is buried.

There’s a 1930 census entry for a James T. Blair, b. about 1868 in Tennessee that matches the James Sr. who was in Missouri, but is this the same man? He’s managing a hotel in Palo Pinto County, Texas. (I don’t know if he knows it or not, but he has other relatives in the area at that time.) Maybe it is him–who knows? Maybe he needed something completely different to do. Maybe he went to Mineral Wells for the “waters.” Places of birth and dates match, but more work will need to be done.

At any rate, this was an interesting find. I look forward to more like this–after you’ve done genealogy for so long, these sorts of finds are few and far between. I like it!

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