Wordless Wednesday

2016 Black Family History Day

This is the sixth year that the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California and the Oakland FamilySearch Library are partnering to to offer a Black Family History Day in honor of Black History Month, with this year's event taking place on Sunday, February 20, 2016.

The family history day is scheduled for 1:00–5:00 p.m. at the Oakland FamilySearch Library, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, Oakland, California.  There is no charge to participate, but we encourage you to preregister, so that we will have a better idea of how many attendees to expect.

A short introductory workshop will be the first stop for new researchers, who will then receive help in creating their initial family tree information.  After that they will enjoy one-on-one assistance in learning how to do research and and look for documents about their family members.  More experienced researchers will have the option of going through the workshop or heading directly to the one-on-one research stage.  It's a good idea for all attendees to bring copies (please leave your originals safely at home!) of any documents you already have with you, so they can be used as references during your searches.

I will be one of the AAGSNC volunteers helping people with one-on-one research.  I'm looking forward to assisting attendees in doing research and hope we make some wonderful discoveries.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Emma Petit's Divorce Lawyer

We have previously read that Emma (Schafer) Petit divorced her husband, Emile Petit.  This week's very short document in Emma's ongoing story is the receipt for her payment for legal services in conjunction with her divorce suit against Emile.  It is handwritten in beautiful penmanship with pencil on a piece of 10" x 8" lined paper.  The paper was folded into quarters.  The reverse is blank.

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

                   Vallejo, Cal. Mar. 14/07

Received from Mrs. E. Petit
Fifty Dollars <$50.00> in full
for legal services in divorce
action of Petit vs. Petit

                        John T. Ryan.

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

It appears that Emma was still living in Vallejo when she divorced Emile.  I have to admit, I wonder how $50 ranked in 1907 for the services of a divorce lawyer.  Was that low end, middle of the road, or top notch?  How did California's rates compare to the rest of the country?

Emma apparently paid for the divorce, and she also paid Emile $500 to write himself out of her life.  She must have had money of her own, but so far nothing has specifically been said about her having a job.

At some point in the future I will probably want to try to obtain a copy of the complete divorce file.  I hope Solano County hasn't done what New Haven County, Connecticut, and San Francisco did:  dump all of their old divorce files (without microfilming them!) because they had space problems and decided the files just weren't important and no one would ever want them.  Even with that, at least San Francisco kept the registers of actions.  New Haven has nothing left.

Wordless Wednesday

We Don't Have Those Records. . . . Oh, Wait, Yes, We Do.

I'm sure that most researchers have at least heard of the nonpopulation census schedules that were completed during many census years:  mortality, defective/dependent/delinquent (DDD), farming, manufacturing/industry, supplemental, and social statistics.  The one I've seen most people focus on is the mortality schedules, which list those people who died in the year immediately preceding the official census date.  They were part of the census in 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1885 (for a few states)  Part of the reason for them being used more than the others is probably their accessibility, as they are available in their entirety on Ancestry.com.  A second schedule that receives a lot of attention is the DDD schedule, done only in 1880 and also available on Ancestry.

After attending a class at RootsTech 2015 on these nonpopulation schedules, I became interested in trying to find my father's New Jersey family in the agricultural schedules, as they were farmers for generations.  These schedules were part of the census in the same years as the mortality schedules.  Unfortunately, the schedules for New Jersey are not on Ancestry.com, and I wasn't planning any trips that would take me near the National Archives in Washington, D.C., so I put that research on the back burner.

While I was at SLIG earlier this month and doing some of my own research, I was reminded that my great-great-grandfather was a wheelwright, as he was consistently listed as such in the birth records I found for my great-grandfather and his siblings.  Somehow that triggered a desire to look him up in the manufacturing schedules.  These were apparently done in 1810, 1820, 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880.  I figured the Family History Library would have them, because it has everything, right?  Nope, not there.  They have very few.  So I started searching online for more information.

After refining my search terms on a few Google searches, I found a page at the National Archives with details about New Jersey nonpopulation census schedules.  I was surprised to read that NARA doesn't hold any of the 1850–1880 agricultural or manufacturing schedules for New Jersey, but the page does say that the New Jersey State Library has the schedules.

So, next stop was the New Jersey State Library catalog search.  I tried several searches with different terms — nonpopulation census schedule, agricultural census schedule, manufacturing census, U.S. census agricultural — and found nothing relevant.  After a few minutes of this frustration, I tried to go to the "Ask a Librarian" page, which at that time had a broken link that gave a 404 message (but is working now).  Somewhere on the site I found an e-mail address for the reference desk and sent a message asking if the library actually did have the agricultural and manufacturing census schedules for 1850–1880.  Unfortunately, the person who responded (no job title in his signature) apparently did not read my request thoroughly and pointed me to a book titled Agriculture of the United States in 1860, the description of which says that it was compiled from the returns of the census, not even close to what I was asking for.

I suspected that the person who answered my message just grabbed at the first thing he could find and was hoping to get rid of me that way.  I'm a little more persistent than that, however.  I waited a couple of hours so that I wouldn't be snarky in my message and then sent a second message, explaining politely that the book referenced was not what I was looking for and giving more details about the nonpopulation schedules and the pointer from the NARA page.  I even asked if perhaps there was some way to determine if the schedules had been there in the past and had been removed from the library's holdings.

This time the response was from the U.S. Documents Librarian, who had taken the time to look a little further.  The microfilms are indeed at the library, in the genealogy collection!  The library has the agricultural and manufacturing schedules for 1850–1880, the mortality schedules for 1870 and 1880, and even the social statistics schedules for 1850 and 1860.  She sent me the complete list and said that the microfilms would be properly catalogued (they're not there yet), which means future nonlocal researchers won't need to do what I did to find out the films are there.

The only piece of bad news was that the library does not permit the films to circulate through interlibrary loan, which really wasn't a surprise.  It just means I'll need to talk my sister into going to Trenton again to help with the family research!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Two Degrees of Separation

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is one of those where I tend to come up on the short end because of limited information about my family on one side and short lifespans on the other.

1)  Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that second ancestor born?

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a status line on Facebook or a stream post on Google+.

1.  Similar to one of Randy's connections, I have been told that I met my maternal great-grandmother, Sarah Libby (Brainin) Gordon, but I don't remember it.  My mother told me she flew with me from California to Florida shortly after I was born in 1962, when I was just a babe in arms, so that her grandmother could see me; my father remembers that it happened.  Unfortunately, my mother's father, who took photographs of everything else in the family, somehow didn't commemorate the four generations of women.  My great-grandmother was born about 1885 in the Russian Empire.  She was the daughter of Mendel Herz Brainin and Ruchel Dwojre Jaffe.  Based on the naming patterns in her family, it's likely that she knew at least one and probably most of her grandparents — Solomon and Yetta Brainin, and Joseph and Anna Jaffe — who would have been born at the latest about 1840 in the Russian Empire and possibly as early as the 1820's.

2.  I met my paternal grandmother, Anna (Gauntt) Stradling, more than once, while she was living in Florida (I think in Jacksonville?).  She was born in 1893, as I recently discovered, the daughter of Thomas Kirkland Gauntt and Jane Dunstan.  Because her family members lived close together in Burlington County, New Jersey, she almost definitely knew her paternal grandmother, Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt, who was born about 1831 and died in 1908.

3  I knew my paternal grandfather, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr., born in 1903, the son of Laura May Armstrong and Cornelius Elmer Sellers (if my grandfather was actually a Sellers, but that's still research in process).  He may have known his maternal grandfather, Joel Armstrong, who was born about 1849 and seems to have died about 1921 or so in Burlington County.  Grampa also probably knew his paternal grandmother, Catharine Fox (Owen) Sellers Moore, who was also born in 1849 and died in 1923.

So with two degrees of separation, I can reliably get back to a great-great-grandmother born about 1831.  That's 50 years shy of Randy.  Even accounting for the fact that Randy is 20 years older than I am, I feel kind of deficient.

SLIG Wrap-up and More Research

It's taken me a while to reacclimate myself to my normal schedule after the week in Salt Lake City.  My class at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy had me getting up every morning in time for sessions that started at 8:00 a.m. (8:30 the first day), not even close to what I normally do.  (I used to be a morning person, but that was years ago.)

During Thursday and Friday in my class ("Swing through the South"), the outstanding session was one by Dr. Deborah Abbott.  The main title, "Follow a Case with Land", was not as informative as the subtitle, "Identifying Slaves, Slave Owners through Land Deeds and Other Records."  In addition to demonstrating how land records over several decades showed who the slave owners were, when slaves were manumitted (prior to the Civil War), and the close family relationships between the individuals in the example she discussed (including a slave owner acknowledging his children when he freed them), she also made an excellent point about something to keep in mind before you begin this type of research.  She emphasized that you shouldn't go into it being angry and ready to blame someone; you need to be impartial.  That's the only way you'll be able to interpret the records accurately when you find them.

Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, was the speaker for the Friday evening banquet.  Her talk, "Suffer the Little Children", was about making sure that we don't forget to tell the stories about the children in our families, particularly those who died young.  Just because a child didn't grow to be an adult and have a family doesn't mean his story is less important.  It often takes more effort to find information about children who died young, but we need to do so to ensure that those stories are not lost forever.

I'm very appreciative of the scholarship I won to be able to attend SLIG this year.  It was a great educational opportunity.

I closed out my trip with a full day of research at the Family History Library on Saturday.  In addition to some client research, I reserved time to look for records for my own family.  The big success that day was finding the birth registration for my great-grandfather Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (father of the grandmother whose birth record I found on Monday), even though it was indexed incorrectly as Garrett.  I almost didn't look at it, but something kept pulling me back to that entry.  I'm so happy I followed my instincts!

May 23, 1870, Thomas K., male, (parents) James & Amelia Gauntt, (father's occupation) wheelwright

All during the week old snow had been on the sidewalks and rooftops, slowly melting and receding.  On Friday we had a new dusting, just enough to land and not melt in some places.  As I left the library Saturday and walked to the Trax station to go to the airport, a good amount of snow landed on my hair and didn't melt right away.  I figured that was enough winter for me!  I'm glad I live in an area where snow is not a regular event.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Emile and Emma Petit Separate

Last week's document regarding Emma (Schafer) Petit was an insurance policy dated May 2, 1901.  The third document I have jumps ahead five and a half years to November 1906.  Technically, this could be considered a document about Emile Petit, her husband, but she is mentioned in it, and it seems to be more relevant to her.  The document is on a legal-sized (8 1/2" x 14") piece of lightweight watermarked bond paper.  It does not have a title.  An embossed notary seal is at the bottom of the page.

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

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS:

That I, Emil Petit of the City of Vallejo, Solano County California, for and in consideration of the sum of Five Hundred ( $500 ) Dollars, lawful money of the United States of America, to me in hand paid this 19 day of November, 1906, by my Wife, Emma Petit of Vallejo, California, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, do hereby covenant and agree with my said wife, that I will from now, henceforth and forever hold her free from any and all obligations to me, either pecuniary or otherwise, and that I will depart from the said City of Vallejo and take up a permanent residence apart from her, my said wife, and will never again intrude upon her presence, and that I will not incur any debts or obligations that can in any manner be chargeable to her account, and I do hereby absolve her from any all liability for any debts or obligations which may hereafter be incurred by me from this date henceforth.

Emile Petit

---:---

State of California.
                                 )-ss
  County of Solano.

On this 19 day of November in the year one thousand nine hundred and six, before me, W. T. KELLEY, a Notary Public in and for the County of Solano, personally appeared Emil Petit known to me to be the person whose name is subscribed to the within instrument, and he duly acknowledged to me that he executed the same.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my Official Seal at my office in the County of Solano, the day and year in this certificate first above written.

                                                                                   W. T. Kelley

                                                                                                            NOTARY PUBLIC

                                                                                                        In and for the County of Solano, State of California

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

We already knew from Emma's handwritten narrative that she had divorced Emile Petit, so this official statement that they are separating their financial responsibilities is not surprising in and of itself.  I have seen similar items in newspapers, where one half of a married couple announces publicly that he (or she) is no longer responsible for the debts and obligations of another.  This is the first time I've seen a stand-alone document that accomplishes the same, and this one is even notarized.  (I'm sure there's a name for this type of document, but I don't know what it is.  If you do, please post a comment!)  Emma was serious about getting her deadbeat alcholic husband out of her life, even being willing to pay $500 to accomplish it.

The way it's phrased in the next to last paragraph, it sounds as though Emile signed the document not in the presence of the notary, even though all the handwritten parts (except for Emile's signature) seem to be in the same handwriting as the notary's signature (keeping mind, of course, that I am most decidedly not qualified as a document examiner, although I do know one).  Maybe it's a standard phrasing that was used at that time?  Nowadays, I'm accustomed to the notary's section saying that the document was signed in the presence of the notary.

I'm used to seeing different spellings of names, but I noticed here that Emile's name is spelled in the document without the final "e" both times, even though Emile signed with the e.  At least he knew how to spell his name.

Emma wrote in her narrative that Emile liked to gamble and drink when he had money.  How long did it take him to go through this $500?

If Emile had visitation rights to see the children, I guess a third party had to help, as Emile said he wasn't going to see Emma anymore.

When Emma took out her insurance policy she was living in Vallejo.  She was still living there in 1906 when this document was signed.

Wordless Wednesday