Perinchief Chapels of Mount Holly, New Jersey

It was in 2005 that I visited my sister in New Jersey and put 700 miles on her car in five days.  I did that by driving in every borough of New York City and the two additional counties on Long Island while I met about 25 cousins on my mother's side of the family.  I also drove around Mount Holly, New Jersey researching my father's family.  In addition to finding the house where his mother (my grandmother) was born, I visited the Brotherhood Cemetery three different times looking for the grave of my great-grandfather Cornelius Elmer Sellers.

You see, I had been talking with my grandaunt Betty, my grandfather's youngest sister, who at that time was the only surviving sibling.  I told her I was planning a trip to New Jersey and New York, and she asked if I could find out whether her father had a tombstone over his grave.  If he didn't, she wanted to purchase one and have it placed.  I adored Aunt Betty, so of course I told her I would try.

I knew which cemetery Elmer was buried in because I had his death certificate.  I had also spoken with the cemetery sexton, a Mr. Szelc, who had confirmed the burial and had found records indicating that a few young children were buried in the same plot.  I knew from my research that my great-grandparents had several children who did not live to adulthood, and I wasn't surprised that they were buried together.

The first time I visited the cemetery I walked up and down every row and path I could identify, looking for Elmer.  I thought I had done a pretty thorough job, but I was not successful.  I knew from my previous conversations with Mr. Szelc that he wasn't available during the day, so it wasn't going to do me any good to call him and ask where Elmer might be.

The only other option I could think of was calling Perinchief Chapels.  That was the funeral home that had handled Elmer's burial in 1918, and it was still in operation.  In fact, I learned that it was (at that time) the second-oldest family-owned funeral home in New Jersey.  (They might be the oldest one now.)  I was thinking that maybe they had a map of the cemetery, because they did burials there, and just maybe they could find Elmer on the map.

So I called and explained my request.  Well, no, they didn't have a map.  But the David Perinchief who answered the phone said that he would come out to the cemetery and help me look!  What a wonderful thing to do!  And a short time later, he arrived with his son, Patrick.  And the three of us tromped up and down the paths in the cemetery, again thinking we were doing a thorough job of looking at every tombstone, and yet we still didn't find Elmer.  I thanked them both very much, and they returned to work.

I decided to write about this today because it's National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day, and I want to recognize the Perinchiefs for taking time out of their work day to help me look for my great-grandfather, even if we weren't successful.  I'm not sure that every funeral home owner would have done the same.

Now, because we hadn't found Elmer, I called Mr. Szelc that evening and told him about my adventures during the day.  He told me he knew exactly where Elmer was.  He would put an orange flag next to Elmer's stone the next morning, and I should go back to the cemetery and look for it.

I did exactly that.  I walked up and down those same paths and missed the flag the first time I passed it because it was very small.  But I eventually saw it and discovered why the Perinchiefs and I had not found Elmer's tombstone the previous day.  Not only was it small, it was made of marble, which had heavily eroded during the ensuing 87 years.  It was very worn, and even with Mr. Szelc's flag to point me to it, I still had trouble reading Elmer's name on it.  But I found him!

When I returned home, I told Aunt Betty about my search and that her father did indeed have a stone.  Because it was so worn, she wanted to order a new one.  And then came a strange wrinkle to the story:  Mr. Szelc's primary occupation was making tombstones.  But when I called him to order a new stone for Elmer, he didn't call me back.  I tried several times and never received a response from him again.  So Elmer still doesn't have a new stone, and I'm sure the current one has eroded even more over the past 20 years.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Be a Time Traveler

I think Randy Seaver has previously posted a challenge similar to that of today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it's an idea that deserves to be revisited multiple times.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  We all wish that we knew more about our most elusive ancestors — the ones we might not know the surname for, or the one who was probably adopted, changed his name for some reason, or lived through war or a natural disaster.

2.  Be a time traveler.  Where would you go, whom would you speak with, what would you ask them?

3.  Share your time traveler adventure on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

Randy didn't state this was only one trip, but that's how he wrote his response, so I'll stick with that.

Since I'm time traveling only one time, I have to choose to be there when my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers was adopted.  This probably took place in Cumberland County, New Jersey, with a small chance of it having been in Burlington County, New Jersey instead.  Raymond was born September 23, 1945 and apparently was surrendered for adoption by my Aunt Dottie soon after that, possibly before the end of October 1945.  So those are my estimated time and place.

As for whom I would speak with, I'll try to cover the bases.  I want to talk with the adoptive parents and anyone else who participated in any steps of the adoption.  If it was a documented adoption through the court system (the second version of events that I was told), that would include a presiding judge and any administrative personnel who observed the process or handled paperwork, either in the court system or at the adoption agency.  If it was an informal adoption to friends or extended family (the original version I heard), then probably the only other individuals would have been additional family members or friends who were there.

The one question that I would be asking is the name given to Raymond after adoption.  Without that piece of information, my research has been stalled for the almost 10 years that I have been trying to find him.  New Jersey still keeps its adoption records sealed since 1941.  My aunt registered with New Jersey as being willing to speak with Raymond if he ever contacted the state to try to find his birth parents.  Not only have we never received any communication from New Jersey, Dottie died in 2021.  I have not checked with the state to find out what alternatives might be available for contact given that fact, because I'm not optimistic that there are any, but I still need to do so just in case.

If I can learn Raymond's new name, I can try to trace him through his life.  I can look for school records, marriage records, birth records (of possible children), and death records.  I might find out he died young as a child.  But I also might discover that he married and had several children and grandchildren.  I concede that I consider the latter unlikely, as I have not been alerted to any DNA matches, and I have all of the databases covered with close and fairly close relatives who should match Raymond or his next generations if they test.  So either no one among Raymond and his possible progeny have tested, or it was only him, and he either has not tested or died without testing.

But even if the answer were that he died young and had no children, no one to connect with, I would finally have an answer and could tell his siblings, particularly my cousin Pattie, who since Dottie passed away has been the primary standard bearer hoping for a resolution to the search.  I'm sure that, even posthumously, Dottie would appreciate that we knew what had happened to the son she gave up.

My Father and Two of His Sisters

April 10 is Siblings Day in the United States.  The general idea is celebrating the bond and special relationship between siblings.  Last year was the first time I posted about it on my blog, which I did for a Wordless Wednesday.  That was a photo from my brother's wedding, with my brother and all of his siblings and my sister-in-law with her siblings.  I think I have enough photos of different generations of siblings in my family that I can keep this going for a few years.

This year's photo is of my father and his two older half-sisters from my grandfather's first marriage.  I'm glad my cousin recognized her mother and her aunt in the photo, because I had never seen photos of them this young.

Dorothy Mae Sellers, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr., and Mildred Sellers

As best my cousin and I can estimate, the photograph was probably taken about 1937, maybe in summer or fall.  My father was born in December 1935.  He looks like he can't quite really stand on his own, as the girls are propping him up, but he seems to be contributing some of the effort, and he definitely looks too big to be less than a year old.  Dottie was born in 1925, and Mildred was born in 1928.  (As is common, a photograph with no identification of the people in it!  Make sure you get yours identified as soon as possible!)

Since the estimate is 1937, it was likely taken in New Jersey.  According to the list of residences my grandfather wrote down, in 1937 the family was living on Grand Avenue in Englewood, New Jersey.  My father was born nearby in Englewood Cliffs.

It was probably my grandfather who took the photo.  He seems to have taken many of the photographs in the photo bonanza I received from my sister, which is where this photo came from.

Tuberculosis Is Still with Us

I was reading the Wikipedia page about World Tuberculosis Day, which falls today, March 24.  I had not realized that in the 1880's TB was the cause of death for one in seven people worldwide.  That's roughly 14%.  Current numbers that I found by searching online suggest that the world's current population is around 8.2 billion and that about 1.25 million people die annually from TB, for a percentage of about .0002.  Many more people, but a significantly smaller percentage of them overall.  So even though it is still with us, we seem to have improved a little in keeping people healthy.

March 24 was inaugurated as World Tuberculosis Day in 1982 because it was the 100th anniversary of when Dr. Robert Koch announced in 1882 that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis:  Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  The purpose of World Tuberculosis Day is to draw attention to the fact that it still kills far too many people even now, in pretty much every country, including the United States.

Many well known people historically have suffered from tuberculosis.  There's even a page devoted to them on Wikipedia!  Just a few names I noted are Aubrey Beardsley, Sarah Bernhardt, Anne and Emily Bronte, Anton Chekhov, Frederic Chopin, Edward VI of England, W. C. Fields, Robert Heinlein, Vivien Leigh, Christy Mathewson, Amedeo Modigliani, Moliere, Edvard Munch, Florence Nightingale, George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), Junipero Serra, Igor Stravinsky, and Henry David Thoreau.

I wrote about World Tuberculosis Day in 2016 and had only one relative at that time whom I knew had died of TB.  In searching through my family tree program, I now have found three more cousins who died of tuberculosis.  I as yet have not found an ancestor who died of TB, although I have a note that one of my Hananiah Gaunt grandfathers supposedly did.  I'm still looking for documentation of that.

Henry H. Gauntt, son of Hananiah Selah Gaunt and Margaret S. Scott, died October 16, 1916 in Lumberton, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He was 42 years old and is my 1st cousin 3x removed.

Robert Francis Gauntt, son of John Benjamin Gaunt and Sarah Virginia Woolston, died July 17, 1917 in Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  He was only 28 years old and is my 1st cousin 2x removed.

Ridgway Eacritt Zelley, son of Joseph Ridgway Zelley and Sarah R. Eacritt, died September 10, 1928 in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas.  He was 50 years old and is my 3rd cousin 2x removed.

Although the primary affliction we hear about spreading through World War I boot camps is influenza, tuberculosis also was a problem.  What's interesting about Robert Francis Gauntt is that his draft registration, dated June 5, 1917 — only six weeks before he died — indicates that he was having lung problems then.  If he was already sick, he probably wouldn't have made it through induction, so he appears to have acquired tuberculosis without being drafted and going to boot camp.

Wordless Wednesday

 

One Catholic School Alum in the Family

Today is the beginning of National Catholic Schools Week for 2025.  And Catholic schools actually played a role in my family, notwithstanding that none of my ancestors (at least as far as I know) was Catholic per se.

When my father was born, my grandmother was almost 43 years old (although she thought she was almost 42), which in 1935 was a relatively advanced age to be having a child, especially since her last children (twins) had been born 20 years previously.  She probably was not planning or expecting to become pregnant.

But pregnant she was, and she thought the sun rose and set on my father (which, I have been told, rather annoyed her first child, my father's half-sister who was 21 years older than he).  She wanted the best of everything for him, including an education.  In rural New Jersey in the 1940's, the best education you could find was at Catholic school.  And if you went to Catholic school in the 1940's, that meant you were going through catechism and essentially growing up Catholic.

So my father grew up Catholic.  He told me about the religion lessons and the nuns rapping his knuckles with rulers.  He went through confirmation (his confirmation name was Joseph).

Did he actually get the good education my grandmother wanted?  I haven't seen his school records from New Jersey, so I don't really know.  But if what my mother said about how he did in public high school in Florida was similar to his performance in Catholic school in New Jersey, maybe not.

My mother told me that my father had to take American history three times to graduate.  It wasn't that he didn't understand it, she said (and I know my father was very intelligent), but that he just didn't want to be bothered with it, and so he didn't pass the first two times.  After it was made clear to him that he had to pass the class to get the diploma, he finally did.

And here's the proof:

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2024 Christmas Genea-Gifts

Since it's the Saturday right after Christmas, it's kind of natural to expect Randy Seaver to ask us to talk about our genealogy Christmas presents for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year?

2.  Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Well, I didn't get the one thing I asked Santa for, but I know it's going to be really difficult, so I didn't expect it so soon anyway.  But I did get something very cool!

A new (to me) cousin found me through my blog, and she has been sharing photographs like crazy!

She's a cousin on my Armstrong line, which I don't know as much about.  I've only been in contact with one person who is also researching my family.  So this was a total surprise.

My great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong had a brother and a sister.  The previous researcher is researching the sister, Rachel Anna Armstrong.  This person is researching the brother, Stacy Biddle Armstrong:  all-new information!

Along with lots of photos and great information about Stacy and his family, my newfound cousin even has photos of some relatives I know.

For example, here's a school photo of my Aunt Carol, from the 1st or 2nd grade (which Carol isn't sure she has a copy of):

And here's a photo of my grandfather from 1970 that's new to me:

The baby in the photo is the cousin who contacted me.

Apparently my grandfather used to visit this cousin and her family up in New Jersey kind of regularly.  Even though my family was living near him during some of this time, he never mentioned he was visiting relatives (fink!).

Here's a photo of my great-granduncle Stacy Armstrong and his wife Lydia:

So many photographs!  We're playing the matching game with a lot of them, recognizing a person in one photo and then in another.  Only a few of the photos are labeled (of course!), so we're focusing on those names and faces and piecing things together.

Thanks for the great Christmas present, Genea-Santa!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2024 "Dear Genea-Santa" Letter

It's almost Christmas, so it must be time to write to Santa for Randy Seaver's Satuday Night Genealogy Fun!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.  Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list:

1.  Write your 2024 Genea-Santa letter.  Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy?  What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list?  They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest.

2.  Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

As usual, I've been a pretty good genealogy girl:  still doing lots of volunteer work, writing more this year than I have for the previous two years (combined!), trying to stay in touch with most of the relatives I've connected with over the years and share information with them, reaching out to more relatives when I have the opportunity.

After looking over the past several Dear Genea-Santa letters I've written, I noticed I've kind of been stuck in a rut, but it's an important rut, and so I think I'll make the same request I've made since 2018:  I want to find my Aunt Dottie's son whom she gave up for adoption.

To recap:

• My aunt Dorothy ("Dottie") Mae Sellers had a son who was born September 23, 1945.  She named him Raymond Lawrence Sellers and surrendered him for adoption soon after he was born.  I don't know what name he was given or anything else that happened to him after adoption.

• Dottie's DNA is on Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, and GEDMatch.  I couldn't get her on Ancestry or 23andMe because those are spit tests, Dottie couldn't manufacture enough for the tests, and neither allows you to transfer your raw data from another site.

• Raymond's siblings, and I, are represented on Ancestry and 23andMe. So we have the DNA bases covered.

• I did what I could with state research, but Raymond was born and adopted in New Jersey, which sealed adoption records from 1941 on.  A search through birth indices did not point anywhere helpful.

• Dottie registered with New Jersey as being willing to accept contact if Raymond chose to look for her.

Dottie passed away in 2021.  I still don't know what would happen if Raymond did try to contact her through the New Jersey state office now, as I have not contacted that office to find out.  I need to learn if an alternative contact person (such as my cousin, who is Dottie's daughter and Raymond's sister) can be named or if the parent is the only person the state will accept (I'm pretty sure the latter is what they will say, because they're just not a friendly state to work with).  Raymond's siblings would very much like to find him and connect with him, especially now that Dottie is gone.

That really leaves only the DNA databases as a way to find Raymond.  But if he died young or if he and any children he might have had have never tested, we won't be able to find him.

As I mentioned, Dottie's DNA is in three databases.  I have found it interesting that I have only ever found a grand total of one person who matches her, who is definitely not Raymond.  If I were paranoid, I might think of that as a deliberate obstruction someone has thrown in my path to dissuade me.  But I'm not that paranoid, and I'm just thinking that Raymond either didn't survive to adulthood or is totally uninterested in DNA testing.  Even though Dottie had long, long roots in New Jersey through her mother, and she really should be matching probably several people, not just one.  But nope, I'm not being paranoid.

One wrinkle that occurred in 2023 is that a little bird whispered in my ear that someone STRONGLY resembled one of Dottie's children and knew he was adopted, and maybe that man could have been Raymond Lawrence Sellers (all this past tense because the man in question is deceased).  But the man was older by a few years than Raymond was supposed to be, and a couple of other pieces didn't quite fit.  While I would love to make the facts that we know about Raymond fit this other man, that's not the right way to solve questions.  I'm now inclined to believe that this mysterious adopted man was related to Dottie's other child through that child's paternal side.  I should be able to find photos of people in that family to compare.  Resolving this question likely will not help get us any closer to finding Raymond Lawrence Sellers, but it probably will eliminate this man from consideration.

Well, hope springs eternal.  C'mon, Genea-Santa.  Throw me a bone.

Tombstone Thursday: Cornelius Elmer Sellers

Cornelius Elmer Sellers
Born November 7, 1874, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Died September 14, 1918, Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey
Buried September 17, 1918, Brotherhood Cemetery, Haines Township, Burlington County, New Jersey

My great-grandfather was born 150 years ago today.  It was an adventure finding his tombstone in 2005.  It took three visits to the cemetery to accomplish!  I wrote about it in 2017.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: An Ancestor Who Experienced or Did Something Unique or Memorable

What's memorable to one person (I won't even get into the actual definition of "unique") may not be to others, making it difficult for me to decide what to write about for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1.  Choose an ancestor who experienced or did something unique or memorable (such as an event, family life, trip, etc.).

2.  Share about your ancestor and his/her unique experience and how it may have affected their life in your own blog post or on your Facebook page.  Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

Hmm hmm hmm.  What to write about?  After all, every person's life is unique.

Well, one of my favorite ancestors to write about is my 6th great-grandmother Ann (Ridgway) Gaunt.  She was Quaker, as most of the ancestral lines on my paternal grandmother's side of the family were.  She was born October 10, 1710 and died February 6, 1794, both events likely taking place in what is now New Jersey.  I don't know if she was unique, but she apparently was memorable, because people took the time to write about her.

From Peter Gaunt, 1610–1680, and Some of His Descendants (Woodbury, New Jersey:  Gloucester County Historical Society, 1989) by David L. Gauntt:

"Ann Ridgway was a well known Quaker minister of Little Egg Harbor, N.J.  She began preaching when she was a very young girl and traveled extensively on preaching excursions from that time until a very advanced age.  She was a minister for over 60 years . . . .  When very old, she could not stand to preach, but would kneel while preaching for an hour or more."

Memorable and admirable!

I also think my paternal grandfather was memorable.  He overcame a disability that would be a problem even for many people today and had a busy, productive life.

Bertram Lynn Sellers was born April 6, 1903 to Laura May Armstrong, an unwed mother.  She married Cornelius Elmer Sellers on November 7, 1903.  Elmer accepted my grandfather and raised him as his own.  Neither my grandfather nor his siblings ever knew that Elmer was not his biological father.

On January 22, 1916, when he was not yet 13 years old, my grandfather and three friends were playing in an unreinforced tunnel carved out of a dirt mound, and the tunnel collapsed.  Grandpa suffered a serious leg injury that soon led to his right leg being amputated just below the knee.

A poor family in a relatively small town probably would not have had many resources available to provide lots of physical therapy or a state-of-the-art prosthesis (whatever that might have looked like in 1916).  It would be easy to imagine that the future of a child in this situation might not have gone well.

But Grandpa married his first wife, Elizabeth Leatherberry Sundermier, on December 18, 1923.  They had three children together, born in 1924, 1925, and 1928.

It doesn't reflect well on him that he apparently abandoned his wife and children for some time, because in a list he created of all the residences he had had during his life, he wrote, "1928-1929 Traveling thru west no perm. Add."  That doesn't sound like an adventure where you have brought your family, so I've always presumed that he didn't, and neither of my aunts ever mentioned it.

He must have returned to New Jersey by the time of the 1930 census enumeration, because he was listed in the household with his mother in Mount Holly, New Jersey.  Maybe he came back after the beginning of the Great Depression?  His occupation was working in the silk mill in town.

My best guess is that that is where he met my grandmother, because in 1930 she was also in Mount Holly and also working at the silk mill.  I know that they had to have gotten together by about March 1935 at the latest, because my father was born December 4, 1935, and I can count back nine months.  This was without benefit of marriage, because Grandpa was still married to Elizabeth at that time.

At some point after that, probably not too long, Grandpa's daughters from his marriage came to live with them.  My aunt Dottie told me that they called my grandmother Mother Ann.  After thinking about this recently, I have been considering that this was at the instigation of my grandmother.

Before my father was born, however, in 1933, my grandfather started working for the government in the Civil Service, originally as a carpenter and plumber and later as a mechanical engineer.  He list of addresses includes a lot of moving around, which my father remembered, between New Jersey and New York.  They weren't enumerated in the 1940 census at all, probably because they lived in three different locations that year and were either just ahead of or just behind enumerators.

In 1941 Grandpa started working at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which is where he met his second wife, Anita Clarice Loveman.  Unlike my grandmother, she wasn't willing to fool around with a married man, so (as she told me) she made him prove he wasn't married.  I guess that's what prompted his divorce from Elizabeth in 1953 and his abandonment of my father and grandmother.  And later in 1953 (at least I hope it was later) he married Anita in Okaloosa County, Florida.  They had one daughter in 1954.

Grandpa was not an easy man to live with from what I have heard, and in 1961 Anita divorced him.  But he found someone else quickly, and a month later he married Adelle Cordelia Taylor.  She was his third wife, for those who are counting, and he managed this before I was even born.

He continued to work for the Civil Service for many, many years.  He was a Shriner.  He was well known and respected in the city of Niceville, where he settled.   He drove a stick shift.  He only started to slow down a little when he turned 80.

I consider him pretty memorable also.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Did Any of Your Ancestors Suffer the Loss of a Parent at a Young Age?

I have a feeling it would be difficult to find someone who did not fall into the category of tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Do you have ancestors who suffered the loss of one or both parents early in their lives?  Did the surviving parent remarry soon after one parent died?  Was a guardian appointed for your ancestor to protect physical or legal interests?

2.  Tell us about one or two of your "orphaned" ancestors and how this affected their lives.

3.  Share a link to your blog post, or your Facebook Status post, on this post.

I can immediately think of a few ancestors who had a parent die when they were young.  My great-grandmother Jane Dunstan was just shy of 2 1/2 years old when her father died (she was the youngest child).  My great-grandfather Joyne Gorodetsky was about 16 when his mother died (he was the oldest child).  And my paternal grandfather, Bertram Lynn Sellers, was only 15 when his father died.

I think I'll focus on my grandfather, because some parts of that story are particularly interesting.

Let's start at the beginning.  My great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong gave birth to my grandfather on April 6, 1903 without the benefit of a husband.  Even if she had been inclined to name the father (and I suspect she wouldn't have), the registration form actually had instructions that if the birth was out of wedlock, that was what was supposed to be indicated on the line asking for the father's name.  So the socially disapproving "OW" is all that appears there.

Notwithstanding that she brought a 7-month-old son to the relationship, Laura was able to find a husband, and she and Cornelius Elmer Sellers were married on November 7, 1903.  I showed with Y-DNA testing that Elmer was not the biological father of my grandfather, but he was the only father Grandpa ever knew.

On January 22, 1916, a little shy of being 13 years old, my grandfather and three other boys were playing in a dirt mound in town.  They had dug out a cave in the mound and, of course, had not reinforced it, because they didn't know better.  On that January day, the cave collapsed on them.  Two of the boys did not survive.  My grandfather did but severely broke his right ankle, which soon after necessitated the amputation of his leg at the knee.

The family had already had its share of sadness.  Elmer and Laura had nine children together, three of whom are confirmed to have died young.  Cornelius Howard Sellers was born about October 1904 and died September 3, 1906.  Harry J. Sellers was born January 9, 1913 and died June 6, 1913.  Birdsall Sellers was born April 16, 1916 and died May 26, 1916, right after my grandfather's accident.  For three more children — Amelia, born after 1904; Elmer F., born January 2, 1912; and Herman J., born June 2, 1915 — I have not found death dates, but I haven't yet found them living after 1915.

And on September 14, 1918, Elmer died of endocarditis.  The family had never had much money (in fact, Elmer's mother was the person who paid his funeral expenses), so this must have put a horrible financial strain on everyone.  There was no estate that needed to be guarded for the children's sakes.

In 1920, Laura and her four surviving children, which included my grandfather, were enumerated in the census as living with her granduncle and grandaunt, Amos and Rebecca Lippincott.  Neither Laura nor any of the children had an occupation listed, and Amos was working as a laborer.  They could not have been doing well financially.

Laura did not remarry at that time.  She did, however, give birth to another child.  Yes, less than three years after her husband had died, on March 6, 1921, my great-grandmother had a daughter, Bertolet Grace Sellers.  And did not state the name of the father for the birth certificate (thanks, Laura!).  We'll probably never know who Bertolet's father was, because she died January 11, 1927, and Laura did not provide the father's name for the death certificate either.

Laura eventually did remarry.  On August 31, 1929, she and John Stephen Ireland were married, and he is enumerated with her in the 1930 census.  The story I heard is that someone told Laura that she really should find a husband to support her, and that's why she married John.  The rest of the story was that soon after having married him she figured out that he wasn't worth the effort and got rid of him.  Apparently they didn't divorce, because when John died in 1949, she was listed as his widow in the obituary.  On the other hand, I don't know who write the obituary.

Before Laura's second marriage, however, my grandfather had moved out.  He married Elizabeth Leatherberry Sundermier on December 18, 1923.  They had three children, but after the Great Depression began, Grandpa had moved back in with his mother, and the four family members (the first child died as an infant) were enumerated in four different places in the 1930 census.

I don't know how his father dying so young affected my grandfather, as he never talked about it.  I learned a little about his life during the Depression because I interviewed him for a high school civics class, but he didn't volunteer other information.  I didn't learn details about Elmer until after my grandfather had died.

I do know that losing a leg at age 12 didn't slow Grandpa down.  He fathered five children with three different women, only two of whom he was married to (he and my grandmother were never married), and he was married to his third wife before I was born.  He drove a stick shift and worked through the Civil Service for the Army and Air Force as a mechanical and civil engineer.  He worked hard his entire life.

My grandfather was certainly an interesting character.  I suspect he got that from his mother.

Nanny Ireland and her adult children
Back row:  George Moore (Dickie) Sellers, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr.
Front row:  Catherine Marie Sellers, Laura May (Armstrong) Sellers Ireland, Nellie Elizabeth (Betty) Sellers

Wordless Wednesday

 

National Bowling Day

Even though I lived in California and my brother lived in Maryland, I used to be guaranteed I would see him at least once every three years, because he would travel to Reno, Nevada for the big amateur bowling tournament that took place in the National Bowling Stadium that was constructed for that very purpose.  I would reserve my timeshare in Reno so he would have a place to stay, and I got to see my brother.  Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Now that he's married and has kids, I guess he doesn't have the same amount of time for bowling.  On the other hand, I don't live in California anymore, nor do I have the timeshare.  But I looked forward to seeing him and watching him bowl.

So to celebrate National Bowling Day, here's a photo of him bowling.  I don't know what year it's from, unfortunately (maybe he does).  He bowled left-handed, just like Earl Anthony.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Genealogy "Rabbit Hole" Did You Go Down Recently?

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver is a favorite of genealogical researchers everywhere.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  What genealogy "rabbit hole" did you go down recently?  Did you have genealogy fun?  How did it help your genealogy research?

2.  Share your response on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

What?  Genealogists falling down rabbit holes?  Who would have thought such a thing could happen?

The most recent rabbit hole I went down was totally the fault of Reclaim the Records, that scrappy little nonprofit that's filing lawsuits all over the country when records jurisdictions don't follow Freedom of Information rules, even their own, and then sharing all the records they acquire freely and publicly through the Internet Archive.  I love them!  (And I remember when Brooke Schreier Ganz started the whole thing!)

I don't remember when the various New Jersey indices were posted, and RtR doesn't put dates on a lot of its posts, but a couple of months ago I started poking around.  They have New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901–2016; New Jersey Death Index, 1904–2017; New Jersey Birth, Marriage, and Death Indices, 1901–1903 and 1901–1914; and New Jersey Geographic Birth Index and Delayed Birth Index, 1901–1929.

I have a lot of New Jersey relatives.  For many of them I did not have specific birth, marriage, or death dates.  My father and both of his parents were born in New Jersey, and I had their information, but between multiple relationships on both sides and half-siblings all over the place, I didn't have documentation for everybody else.  So I decided one evening to start looking.

I think it started innocently enough.  All I wanted originally was to find the birth dates of three of my grandfather's siblings, for whom I had only "about" and a year.  And then I figured while I was looking, I should find all of the siblings in the birth index, just to verify that I had the correct dates.  Oh, and maybe I should look up all their marriages.  Oh wait, some of those siblings didn't live to adulthood, so I should look for them in the death index.

Several hours later . . . .

I had lots of fun, but I still don't have everyone!  I found one of the birth dates, but two are still missing.  The birth index showed a different date for one of the siblings for whom I already had a date.  I can't find death dates for three children.  And three marriage dates are still hiding from me also (although it's possible one or more of those might not have taken place in New Jersey; lots of people in Jersey went to good old Elkton, Maryland, as my aunt did).  Or maybe some of those couples didn't actually get married.

One amusing discovery was finding the original index entry for my grandfather and then a handwritten one based on his amended birth certificate.

I wrote several years ago about my frustrating and fruitless search for my grandfather's birth certificate and how it took my sister going in person to the New Jersey State Archives to discover that he had been recorded as a girl on his birth record, explaining why I had been unsuccessful in three attempts at finding a birth certificate for a boy.  The lovely archivists had also unearthed an amendment to the original birth certificate, filed by my great-grandmother 37 years later, changing Grampa from a girl to a boy.

Well, both of those records are reflected in the state birth index.

Birth index showing Gertrude Armstrong (bottom), born April 6, 1903, page 7173
(edited image)

Birth index showing Bertram L. Sellers (bottom), born April 6, 1903, page 7173
(edited image)

And in a very strange coincidence, the handwriting for the entry for the amended birth certificate strongly resembles my grandfather's handiwriting.

Seeking Assistance with a Hyena, a Shipwreck, Woodbine, and Route 66

This year National Volunteer Week runs from April 21 through 27.  The week, observed in Canada and the United States, is designed to honor volunteers and the contributions they make.  I use it to highlight the work that volunteers do within the family history world and projects that can currently use their assistance.  And I know about a few projects right now that would like your help, if you have the information they're looking for.

Judith A. Yates is a criminologist who is writing an all-encompassing book on Irma Grese, the "Hyena of Auschwitz."  She is seeking people to interview who came into contact with Grese, who was employed at:

• Ravensbruck, July 1942 to March 1943
• Auschwitz, March 1943 to January 1945 (mostly at Bergen-Belsen)
• Belsen, March 1945

Yates would also like to interview:

• people who attended the Belsen trials
• people who know about Grese's home town, Wrechen (Neubrandenburg County), North Germany
• people who can discuss the general life of female guards at either camp (behavior, where they lived, how they lived, etc.)
• people who did not have personal dealings with Grese but knew "of" her personally
• family members of survivors
• anyone who can provide information, including photos and documents

You may contact Yates at truecrimebook@yahoo.com.  Her site is http://www.judithayates.com/.

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Descendants of victims from an Australian shipwreck are being sought to share their stories.

The SS Nemesis disappeared in 1904 on its way from Newcastle, New South Wales to Melbourne, Victoria.  Thirty-two crew members were on board the ship, and they left behind more than 40 children.

The ship's wreckage was found in 2022 and confirmed to be the Nemesis this year.  After the first call for descendants, twenty grandchildren and great-grandchildren, from almost every Australian state, came forward, including relatives of the ship's captain.  Heritage NSW is asking more relatives to share their stories so they can be saved and archived.

An article about this story has more details and includes contact information for Heritage NSW.

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Do you remember Route 66?  (I don't, I'm too young!)  Have any great stories?  The National Trust for Historic Preservation wants you to share those stories so they won't be forgotten!

Leading up to Route 66's centennial in 2026, the National Trust is hoping to receive (at least) 2,026 stories to celebrate the famous highway, and it's asking community members, travelers, historians, and everyone else to contribute.  More details and a link to the submission form can be found here, along with many stories and photos that have already been shared.

[I just discovered by reading the Wikipedia page about Route 66 that it was established on November 11, 1926.  Although this was commemorated as Armistice Day, it was not yet a holiday (that didn't happen until 1938).  And November 11 is a special day in my family because it was my mother's birthday.]

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. of New York City is in the planning stages to film a documentary about the Jewish Agricultural Colony of Woodbine, New Jersey.  The filming is likely to happen this summer, but the exact scope and content are still under discussion.  He is looking for descendants and others from the extended Woodbine family who have anecdotal information or memorabilia related to the colony to share that information and/or to participate in the documentary.  You may contact him at diamondesllc@gmail.com.