Who Is Family Sleuther?

Interested in learning more about the blogger behind Family Sleuther (ahem... me)?

I recently stepped out from behind the curtain and did an interview with Michelle Ganus Taggart about my genealogy background and how that spilled into blogging.

The full interview is a part of the Geneabloggers May I Introduce to You series, which takes a closer look at the bloggers who make up the Geneabloggers community.

Read the full interview here.

Then be sure to come back and check out the blog. I want to hear what you think.

Oral History Videos: A How To Guide

Oral histories are compelling storytelling that breathe fresh life into genealogy.

Not convinced? Check out initiatives like StoryCorps, which bring everyday people together to remember and share ordinary experiences that shaped their lives. What seem like unremarkable events on the surface are made into moving emotional explorations of what make a person tick. Seriously, listen to one of those interviews and tell me you don't have a tear in your eye (because I don't! It's just an eyelash! Quit looking at me!).

Who wouldn't want a parent or grandparent recorded for posterity's sake?

Oral histories infuse substance into family history and restore life to the dash between the birth and death years. I believe they're an essential part of the genealogist's toolkit, and, when combined with photos, are great additions to family history blogs.

The Technical Barrier Has Fallen
We're really quite fortunate that we live in a day and age where technology is both portable and ubiquitous. According to recent Pew Research Center polling, over 70% of American adults report owning a smart phone. That number climbs to nearly 90% when additional respondents acknowledge that they "use the internet at least occasionally." Most Americans have the technology to incorporate storytelling into their genealogy and they carry it with them everyday.

A couple years ago, I recorded a phone conversation with my maternal grandmother. The purpose was to log all of her stories and memories that I planned to research further. However, after her unexpected passing later that year, I had on my hands a real treasure that was made more meaningful when converted into an oral history video.

That convinced me to start recording conversations with my family and to create videos of those remembrances to supplement my family history storytelling (see The Family's Poetic Missives and A Kansas Prairie Cemetery). Here's how you can do it, too.

A How To Guide in 3 Simple Steps
The following three step process is a breezy thumbnail sketch overview. Each step may require additional detailed guidance depending on your familiarity with the technology or software you're using and your general technical savvy.

1. First, you need to identify who you are going to interview and the questions you will ask. I advocate for interviewing everyone. You may be surprised by how different family members - aunts, uncles, cousins - remember an ancestor. 

If you're stumped on what to ask, there are dozens of starter questions online (check out these 20 questions from Family Tree Magazine). I recommend that these serve as guides only. In my experience, I have seen greater substance flow from real back-and-forth conversations. 

That requires that you listen to what the interviewee is saying instead of waiting for them to finish responding so you can move on to the next question. Be sure to ask follow up questions. The rabbit holes are where the gems are.

2. Second, you need to record the conversation. If you're in the same room as your subject, you can use your smartphone. Simply use the device's audio recording function.

However, if you live hundreds of miles away from your family (like me), you can record phone calls with your computer. I do this using Skype, which allows me to make calls from my computer to another Skype user, or even cell phones and landlines. Recording software like Evaer pairs with Skype to record the entire conversation and creates a file that will save to your computer after the call ends.

3. Third, you're ready to create your video. I use Windows Movie Maker because it was a freebie already on my laptop. Regardless of the product that you use, upload your audio file. 

Next, add photos to the film. Position and time them so that they align with what the interviewee is talking about (you may need to Google instructions specific to the software that you're using to finesse this effort). 

After you've created the video, upload it to an online platform like YouTube. This will allow you to share the video with family or embed the file in your blog. When I add a video to a blog, I try to remain mindful of people's attention spans and keep the length to about two minutes. 

Lights, Camera, Action!
Remember, these don't have to be highly polished, sophisticated films. The purpose is not to create Citizen Kane, but to simply start recording and sharing your family's story.

An amateur product is better than a missed opportunity and silence.

What's In A Name: DNA & Naming Customs

Who was Thomas Kirk's father? A burned county courthouse, destroyed census enumerations, and lost family lore have complicated the question. Understandably, all research options are on the table as I try to uncover my fifth great-grandfather's ancestral origins.

Born in 1778 in - most likely - Virginia, Thomas settled in Licking County, Ohio where he died in 1846. Most genealogies conclude that Thomas married Sarah Louise Bonar in about 1804. Together they had at least twelve children of whom ten survived to adulthood. The eldest child was their son Vachel (my fourth great-grandfather) who was born in approximately 1805.

What can Vachel Kirk tell me about his paternal grandfather?

Traditional Naming Customs
If the Kirk family followed traditional Scottish or even Irish naming patterns, the first son was named after the father's father. Was Thomas a man of tradition? Did he name his son Vachel after his own father?

A clue to Thomas' inclinations can be found by using his eldest daughter Jane Kirk as an example. Naming customs typically stipulated that the eldest daughter be named after the mother's mother. We know that Sarah (Bonar) Kirk's mother's name was Jane (McCulloch) Bonar. It seems - at least in the case of his daughter - Thomas did stick to tradition.

Vachel certainly was an unusual name. How many could be out there? Surely I could locate them all and quickly discern whether there was any family connection to my Thomas.

Broad name research is complicated in the early 19th century census records. Only heads of household were enumerated before 1850, eliminating any Vachels who were still living with their parents. Also, many states' census records were lost, including Virginia's 1790 enumeration (this is of particular concern since some of Thomas' children indicated on later censuses that he was born in Virginia).

Ultimately, I found two other Vachel Kirks, both in Ohio, who were near contemporaries of my Thomas Kirk, although not old enough to be his father. Given the shared unusual name and location, they required further scrutiny.

Vachel Kirk from Fayette Co, PA buys
land in Knox Co, OH in November 1809.

Will Vachel Kirk Please Stand Up
Vachel Kirk #1 was born in June 1783 in Pennsylvania and died April 6, 1836 in Butler County, Ohio. His death and approximate birth dates come from his headstone. His birth location was reported by his daughter Nancy on the 1880 census.

This Vachel Kirk would have been five years younger than my Thomas Kirk. Obviously this wasn't a father son relationship. However, it's possible that they were siblings or cousins.

A Vachel Kirk was enumerated in Fayette County, Pennsylvania in the 1810 census. The eldest male enumerated in that census was between the ages of 26 and 44. If Vachel was born in 1783 he would have been 27 in 1810 and would have fit this broad age range.

In November 1809, a Vachel Kirk from Fayette County, Pennsylvania bought land in Knox County, Ohio for $100. Knox County borders Licking County to the south. This land purchase put Vachel Kirk #1 within proximity of my Thomas Kirk.

Vachel Kirk #2 is a murkier fellow. He was perhaps born in the late 1790s or early 1800s in Virginia or Ohio. There were minor discrepancies between the census records. The one common fact that helped pinpoint him was his spouse, Susanna Allstaff, and children.

This Vachel Kirk married Susanna Allstaff on December 1, 1825 in Belmont County, Ohio. To-date, his last documented appearance that I've uncovered was in the 1870 census. He was living with his wife and daughter Sarah in Clay Township, Hendricks County, Indiana. I haven't discovered a grave or other evidence of when or where he died.

Following the Genetic Code
When the paper trail doesn't cooperate, I advocate turning to the genetic code. Underscoring the value of investigating people of shared unusual family names, I've just identified a genetic link between descendants of Thomas Kirk and both of the above-mentioned Vachel Kirks. However, I still haven't determined our shared common ancestor.

I mapped out a direct male descendant of Vachel Kirk #1. He agreed to take a Y-DNA test. The results - at 37 markers - came back as a match with a genetic distance of two. Family Tree DNA estimates that, at this level, there's more than an 88% chance that we share a common ancestor within the past eight generations.

If Vachel #1 was a sibling to my Thomas Kirk, that means the common ancestor - their father - would be eight generations ago. I'm hopeful we can upgrade this Y-DNA test to include more markers and yield more refined estimates.

Meanwhile, from a different lab, a first cousin twice removed on my Kirk line recently had a new 5th to 8th cousin match appear on Ancestry. This matching cousin is a descendant of (drum roll please...) Vachel Kirk #2.

This match estimate suggests that their shared ancestor was in the range of a 4th to 7th great-grandparent. In their case, the fourth great-grandparent level begins with Thomas Kirk's parents.

It seems highly unlikely that Thomas Kirk's parents would have named two sons Vachel Kirk who both lived to adulthood, so I currently hypothesize - based largely on birth year - that one of them was a sibling to Thomas (Vachel #1) and the other was a cousin or nephew (Vachel #2). Of course, there's much more research required to confirm these theories.

I'm excited to identify new Kirk family members who were contemporaries to my Thomas Kirk. It creates new research avenues to pursue. If the records are snuffed out on Thomas' line, perhaps results for the two Vachel Kirks will help shed light on our shared paternal ancestral origins.

A Birthday of Genealogy Serendipity

The Author's Maternal Grandmother

This was a week of milestones. Sunday was the two year anniversary of my maternal grandmother's passing. Thursday was my birthday.

While I'm not one to usually look for signs from above, it seemed like more than just a coincidence when the bill for my birthday breakfast came back matching the last two digits of each of our birth years: hers the dollars and mine the cents.

The chance pairing of those numbers stuck in my head and set the tone for the rest of my birthday.

A DNA Research Project
Readers of this blog know that I am researching my 5th great-grandfather Thomas Kirk. He represents a brick wall for my paternal line. I want to learn the identities of his parents and their ancestral origins. Given the spotty 18th century paper trail, I've turned to genetic genealogy.

Thomas had a large family with at least twelve children. Seven of his children were sons who lived to adulthood and had sons of their own. To accurately recreate Thomas' Y-DNA, I've been searching for male descendants of each of his seven sons.

After months of research and outreach, four men - descendants of four of his seven sons - agreed to participate in the Y-DNA initiative and tested. However, I still wanted to find male testers descending from the remaining three sons. I had feelers out to several men.

Genealogy Serendipity
Stopping by the mailbox on my birthday, I saw there was a letter from a gentleman who was a descendant of one of those three remaining sons. He's not online and doesn't have an email address, so we've been corresponding about our shared Kirk ancestry through letters.

I ripped open the envelope and pulled out his note: "Yes I would be willing to do a DNA test."

I was ecstatic! Testing another descendant of one of Thomas' sons was a fantastic birthday present. I quickly loaded up the DNA website and ordered his kit. Five sons tested only two sons to go.

When I logged into my own account, I saw that I had a new Y-DNA match. The match's surname was Kirk. I quickly recognized that the first name belonged to a gentleman I spoke with this past winter about testing. Months of radio silence later, here I was staring at another genetic match and, best of all, the descendant of one of the two remaining sons.

Chart of Y-DNA-tested descendants of Thomas Kirk's sons. 

What were the odds that two more men - much sought-after descendants of two of Thomas' sons - would both contribute to the Y-DNA research project on the same day? And my birthday to boot! It felt rather serendipitous. As a genealogist, I couldn't ask for a better gift, and I can't help but wonder if my grandmother had a hand in it.

My focus is now on Thomas' last remaining son. William Kirk, you're next!

The Family's Poetic Missives

Among the pieces of family history ephemera that I found after my grandmother passed away was a small pocket-sized autograph book that belonged to my second great-grandfather Ernest Benedick.

Ernest likely received it as a Christmas gift in 1899 when he was eleven years old. The inside cover page has a date lightly inscribed in the upper right-hand corner: Dec 23 '99.

The book's pages include witty notes and forget-me-nots from friends and cousins. The inscriptions are dated between January and June 1900 with a couple sporadic additions in 1901 and 1905. Over two decades of silence followed.

The cover page to Ernest Benedick's autograph book.

The contributions suddenly picked up again on June 2, 1928 with a short, witty verse from his wife of 18 years - Bessie (Bair) Benedick.

Bessie, my second great-grandmother, wrote:

Dear Ernest

I've turned these pages ore and ore,

To see what others have wrote before,

But in this lonely spot,

I'll write these words Forget-me-not.

Yours Bessie

Bessie (Bair) Benedick

Following her mother's example, another page included a poetic missive from my great-grandmother Nevella (Benedick) Lumpkins. At eleven years old (the same age Ernest was when he received the autograph book), Nevella wrote her father a verse on their family's physical characteristics.

Nevella, my great-grandmother, wrote:

Dear daddy! -
Mama's hair is wavy;
Della's is nicely curled
Mine is strait as a twine string;
And this is the only world.
-Your daughter
Nevella Benedick

Nevella (Benedick) Lumpkins

I remember my great-grandmother Nevella as a bit of a poet. She would string lines together for witty notes in birthday cards and had a reputation for using rhyming verse to convey her sense of humor.

In a brief oral history interview, my Aunt Diane remembered her poetic habits just in time for National Poetry Day.

Home Is Where The Family History Is

I remember visiting my great-grandparents at their farmhouse in Plainville, Kansas every summer growing up. The white framed home was situated off a dusty country road (rural route 1) and surrounded by open farmland.

All rooms opened onto a large great hall where my great-grandparents held court with their rocking chairs, like thrones, positioned beside each other facing the open length of the space. They were the center of attention and fawned over their courtiers.

The home was always the epicenter of family functions and bursting with people - aunts, uncles, and cousins. While the kids would climb trees and run around outside, the adults would cook large meals, catch up on family gossip, and play cards or watch baseball. It was a thriving hive of activity.

For modern amusements, there was a television set (one of those enormous wooden boxed contraptions that was a piece of furniture unto itself) nestled against the wall and a pipe organ at the far end by the porch door.

Although my great-grandparents sold the property two decades ago, the home remains synonymous with my family history. After all, the house was the backdrop for several generations of my ancestors' lives.

A Family's History
In a brief timeline sketch of his life, my great-grandfather Marion Lumpkins characteristically noted with simple brevity the year his young family moved into the home: "19-47 we moved to Plainville."

Great-grandparents: Nevella (Benedick) and Marion Lumpkins.

Marion's eldest daughter, my grandmother Marilyn, was just ten years old. In a March 2014 oral history interview, she explained that the property was rooted in family history: "We moved to Plainville to the former home of my great-grandparents Michael and Mary Jane Bair."

I had no idea that her great-grandparents (my third great-grandparents) were the home's original occupants. She helped me realize that, at one point or another, the house was home to four generations of my direct ancestors. My grandmother's photo collection included black and white gems that illustrated the property in its early years.

Michael Bair and his sons on the porch.

Michael and Mary Jane Bair with daughters.

Two generations on the front porch Christmas 1922:
2nd great-grandmother Bessie (Bair) Benedick with
her daughter, my great-grandmother Nevella, lower left.

Prior to becoming her home in 1947, my grandmother Marilyn had only vague memories of her Grandma Mary Jane Bair in the house. 

"She was an invalid. I don't remember when she could be up and about. I can remember when she would be lying in her bed there in Plainville, and they had her in a hospital bed but they weren't metal. It was a wooden bed and it was adjustable. They didn't have the modern conveniences of the metal beds. She had a dinner bell, and she could ring it in her room when she needed attention. I remember her being bedfast in there in that little bedroom...on that hospital bed that was painted white and made out of wood."

Mary Jane lived in the home until she passed away in 1945. She was the first of four generations of my maternal ancestors who called the house home for the better part of the 20th century.

Four generations, left to right: Bessie (Bair) Benedick,
Nevella (Benedick) Lumpkins, Mary Jane (Andrus) Bair and
Marilyn Lumpkins (at center).

Changing Face Through Time

In the early 1990's, my great-grandparents sold the property and moved to an assisted living facility. For the first time in generations, the home wasn't owned by family. The new owners eventually made structural updates and painted the house brown. 

This past Memorial Day, I drove by the home to see whether I would recognize it. Sure enough, the root of the structure was the same despite some cosmetic alterations.

But each new family has always made the home their own. My grandmother remembered how her parents had torn down a partition between the dining and living rooms to create their beloved great hall. They also replaced the wooden porch and columns with a sturdier concrete slab and wrought iron lattice posts. 

That slab and those metal posts remain the house's street-facing view - a friendly reminder that this home is where my family history is still today.