SNGF: The Homes I've Lived In

Randy's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun mission is to blog about the homes we've lived in. I thought that might be a fun little trip down memory lane.

My first home was a trailer located in Bahnsen Trailer Park at 2000 Center St. in Vinton, Louisiana. I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but it's not scanned. I can remember a pic of me as a toddler sitting on the steps outside on an old rotary dial phone (it might have been one of those play phones that all kids from the 1980s had). Here is a pic of my parents in September 1985 in the living room with the kitchen in the background.

In May 1987, just after I finished kindergarten, we moved to the house where my parents still live. It is also in Vinton.

During my senior year of college in 2002, I moved into my first apartment at the Park Villa Apartments after living in the dorms at Centenary College for three years. I shared it with my friend, Emily. We had a 2 bedroom apartment on the second floor. The apartments are located at 1215 Captain Shreve Dr. in Shreveport, Louisiana, and still look the same today. I was so excited to have my first apartment.

Source: Google Maps

After I graduated, I moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to be closer to my family. I moved into a three bedroom apartment in Chateau Lafitte Apartments at 4202 Lake Street with my sister and a college friend of her's from McNeese State University. It was very spacious and was located along the Contraband Bayou. We even had a balcony overlooking the bayou. I paid more rent since I was working full-time, and I got the very spacious master bedroom with its own master bath. I remember our apartment manager being very "hot."

Source: Google Maps

For some reason, we only lived here for 6 months. I think it was because our roommate wanted to move out, and we never could find a good third roommate for the third bedroom. We moved to downtown Lake Charles into a 2-bedroom four-plex located at 731 Kirby Lane. It was in a really cute older neighborhood. The owner was crazy. He lived in the apartment next to our's. We were in the far left apartment on the first floor.

Source: Google Maps

We only lasted here 6 months as well. We got tired of living downtown because it was so far away from everything in south Lake Charles. And the owner was kind of crazy. So we moved to a 2-bedroom townhouse at 912 Shady Lane, which was also located on Contraband Bayou. Our townhouse was the one of the far left. My bedroom was where that big window is on the second floor.

Source: Google Maps

I only stayed here about another 6 months because I decided to go off to graduate school at the University of Texas in Austin. Lucky I did because this apartment was completely flooded during Hurricane Rita. My sister and a roommate lived in it at the time. In Austin, I moved to The Breakers on the Lake Apartments. They were located at 1500 E. Riverside, just a few miles from campus. I initially had a studio, and then after Hurricane Rita, my boyfriend (now husband) moved in, and we got a 2-bedroom in the same complex.They were nice apartments located on Town Lake with a pool that overlooked the lake. The bad thing was that we had mice in our 2-bedroom apartment.

Source: Google Maps

After graduate school, I got a big girl accounting job in Houston. I was so excited because my apartment was brand new. It was called Ravello at Tuscan Lakes and was located at 1750 E. League City Pkwy. in League City (about 20 minutes outside Houston). It was very fancy and had a resort style pool. We even got engaged at this apartment, so I always think very fondly of it.

Source: Google Maps

The only problem with Ravello and Houston was that my fiance (now husband) was going to graduate school 4 hours away in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Again, I only lasted about 6 months because I missed him so much. I ended up moving to Baton Rouge and living with him at the Embassy Apartments at 3928 Gourrier Ave. across from LSU. They were far from my fancy apartment in Houston, but I did not care because I was now reunited with my fiance.

Source: Google Maps

We actually stayed here about 1 1/2 years. Then when he graduated, we moved into the Evergreen Apartments (now called Coursey Place) at 13675 Coursey Blvd in Baton Rouge. We were tired of not having a washer and dryer. These came with washers and dryers. We got a 2-bedroom with a screened in porch that overlooked the pond. This is where I found my cat, Boo.

Source: Google Maps

We lived here for two years until I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. The company I worked for was moving their company headquarters and offered me a job there. I moved into the Ashley Park Apartments at Brier Creek. It was just a few miles from my new job, located in the Research Triangle Park. (My apartment was not one of the fancy ones with a garage). It was a very spacious one-bedroom and had a balcony that overlooked a wooded area.

Source: google maps

I lived in North Carolina for about 6 months before we decided to finally get married. The problem was that he was still in Baton Rouge. Another 6 months passed, we got married, and I moved back to Louisiana. In Louisiana, we got a 2-bedroom apartment at the Bristol Apartments located at 5960 Siegen Lane. I would put a picture, but Google Maps does not have a good one, since they are located so far back from the street. They have a long palm-tree lined entrance.

We stayed at the Bristol for 2 years until we finally decided to buy a house. This is a picture of our current house (not far from our old apartment on Coursey Blvd.). We love it here and hope to stay for many more years.

SNGF: The Day Your Grandfather Was Born

The Saturday Night Genealogy Fun mission tonight is to blog about the day your grandfather was born. Randy's challenge is as follows:

1)  What day of the week was your Grandfather born (either one)? Tell us how you found out.

My paternal grandfather was Benford Maurice Trahan. He born on March 1, 1935. According to OnThisDay.com, he was born on a Friday.

2) What has happened in recorded history on your Grandfather's birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events.

**In 1790, the first United States Census was authorized.
**In 1867, Nebraska became the 37th U.S. state.
**In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park.
 **In 1935, the Territory of the Saar Basin was formally returned to Germany. It had been held by France and England due to a League of Nations mandate in the Treaty of Versailles.
**In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps.

I found all of this out from Wikipedia. 

3)  What famous people have been born on your Grandfather's birth date?  Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

**In 1810, Frederic Chopin, Polish pianist and composer
**In 1914, Ralph Ellison, American novelist and literary critic
**In 1922, Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli general and politician, Nobel Prize laureate
**In 1927, Harry Belafonte, American singer-songwriter and actor
**In 1947, Alan Thicke, Canadian-American actor and composer
**In 1954, Ron Howard, American actor, director, and producer
**In 1974, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, American actor (Zack in Saved by the Bell)
**In 1987, Kesha, American singer-songwriter and actress
**In 1994, Justin Bieber, Canadian singer-songwriter

I found all of this out from the same Wikipedia page as above.

It's been fun getting back into the groove of genealogy blogging! Can't wait until next Saturday! 
 

SNGF: How Many Children/Grandchildren in Your Birth Surname Line?

Randy over at GeneaMusings has given us another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge.

1)  Consider your Birth Surname families - the ones from your father back through his father all the way back to the first of that surname in your family group sheets or genealogy database.  List the father's name, and lifespan years.

2)  Use your paper charts or genealogy software program to create a Descendants chart (dropline or graphical) that provide the children and their children (i.e., up to the grandchildren of each father in the surname list).

3)  Count how many children they had (with all spouses), and the children of those children in your records and/or database.  Add those numbers to the list.  See my example below!  [Note: Do not count the spouses of the children]

4)  What does this list of children and grandchildren tell you about these persons in your birth surname line?  Does this task indicate areas that you need to do more research to fill out families and find potential cousins?

5)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, or in a comment to this post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+.

1) My TRAHAN surname line is:

• Michael David Trahan (1955- ) has 3 children and 2 grandchildren.
• Benford Maurice Trahan (1935-2009) had 4 children and 7 grandchildren.
• Bienvenue Trahan (1908-2006) had 1 child and 4 grandchildren.
• Oscar Trahan (1889-1962) had 1 child and 1 grandchild. 
• Theoville Trahan (1852-1915) had 22 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Delphin Stainville Trahan (1826-1865) had 10 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Michel Trahan (1785-????) had 13 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Athanese Trahan (1753-1835) had 11 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Michel Trahan (1728-1784) had 4 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Rene Trahan (1693-1733) had 7 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Jean Charles Trahan (1668-1727) had 12 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Guillaume Trahan (1611-1682) had 7 children and ??? grandchildren.
• Nicolas Trahan (1570-1669) had 8 children and ??? grandchildren. 

 2) See my Descendant List below for Nicolas Trahan. I created it using RootsMagic 6. You can see that I do have some grandchildren for Nicolas listed, but I did not include grandchildren in my counts in the list above beyond those of my gr-gr-grandfather. This is because I have not fully completed research on the extended branches of my TRAHAN ancestors.

3)  See counts of children/grandchildren in list above.
4) The person with the most children is my 3x gr-grandfather, Theoville. He had 2 wives and one mistress. The list really shows me that I have a lot of research to do on the siblings of my direct line TRAHAN ancestors. I do not know all the grandchildren of many of my direct line ancestors. They did not seem to start slowing down with the number of children until the early 1900s with my gr-gr-grandfather, Oscar, who only had one child, who only had one child. I believe that my 7x great-grandfather, Michel, probably had more than 4 children, but the Acadian deportation makes it hard to follow family lines during this time period.

SNGF: Semi-Random Research

It's time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun! This works out well for me, as my husband is with his best friend and goddaughter at the LSU vs. Kent State game across town. I'm hanging out here at the house catching up on genealogy research. Randy Seaver's mission over at Genea-Musings is to do semi-random research. His instructions are as follows:

1)  We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...what is your first name? [This is the easy part!] My first name is Jennifer.

2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the first person in your alphabetical name index is with a surname starting with the first two letters of your first name (e.g., my first name is RAndall, so I'm looking for the first person with a surname starting with RA).  [If there are no surnames with those first two letters, take the surname after that letter combination.] The first person in my alphabetical name index who has a surname starting with the first two letters of my first name is August JEAN.

3)  What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged! All I know about August JEAN is that he was the father of Leo Ralph JEAN and husband of Mary RALPH and that he was possibly born in Canada.

4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree? I am not related to August JEAN. He was the father of Leo Ralph JEAN, who was the second husband of my second cousin 3x removed, Alberta A. BASNEY. Alberta was the daughter of Burton Eugene BASNEY and Essie Anna PHELPS. Essie was the daughter of Joseph Putnam PHELPS and Agnes Emma PEMBERTON. Agnes was the younger sister of my 3x great-grandfather, John PEMBERTON.

Although August is a VERY collateral relative, I will do a little semi-random research at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch to see what I can find on him. First, though, I need to evaluate what I already know about him and his associates. His son Leo's marriage record lists Leo's parents as August JEAN and Mary RALPH. The 1920 and 1930 census records list Leo's father's birthplace as Canada. The 1930 census specifically lists his birthplace as Canada French. The 1920 census listed his father's native tongue as English. Leo's mother's birthplace is listed as Michigan in 1920 and Canada French in 1930.

 

Leo's entries in the "Michigan Death Index, 1971-1996" database at Ancestry.com and the SSDI state that he was born 21 Nov 1897. His WWI draft registration states that he was born 21 Nov 1898. His marriage record states that he was born c. 1897 in New York. The 1920-1940 census records all give him an estimated birth date between 1897 and 1898 and a birthplace of New York. All in all, his birth is stated pretty consistently throughout all of his records. He married Alberta A. BASNEY on 25 Oct 1919 in Detroit. They are found in city directories through 1921 in Detroit. In 1930 and 1940, they are found in the northern suburbs of Detroit in Macomb County. Leo died 20 Feb 1971 in Pontiac, Oakland, Michigan. His residence in the death index was listed as Walled Lake, Oakland, Michigan.

 

Since Leo was born likely born in 1897 in New York, I decided to start looking for August and Mary in the 1900 census.  BINGO! There was an August and Mary A. JEAN living at 268 Lafayette Ave. in Buffalo, New York, in 1900. August was a 43-year-old lake captain who was born Oct 1856 in Canada French. I'm presuming "lake" captain must mean a boat captain on Lake Erie. Mary was listed as age 37 and born April 1863 in Canada English. There were 5 children enumerated: Mary Ethel, age 13, b. Jul 1886; Marie Elvia, age 10, b. May 1890; Augustin E., age 8, b. Jan 1892; Elizabeth A., age 4, b. Mar 1896; and Leo Ralph, age 2, b. Nov 1897. The three oldest children were born in Michigan, while the three youngest were born in New York. There was also a 25-year-old servant in the household named Sophia G. Izemburg. The family rented the home.

In the "Suggested Records" column of the 1900 census page, I clicked on a link for Capt. August Jean at Find A Grave. I discovered that Captain August Jean is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Lackawanna, Erie, New York. A picture of his tombstone shows that he was born 28 Oct 1856 and died 14 Jan 1905. His wife is buried with him. Her name is listed as Mary A. RALPH on the tombstone. She was born 29 Apr 1863 and died 31 Oct 1900. This means she died just four months after the 1900 census was taken. Leo would have been barely 3 years old when his mother died and 7 years old when his father died.

I checked the Buffalo city directories at Ancestry.com and found that August moved to 31 Greenwood Place beginning in 1902. He is listed here in all city directories until 1905, when his widow is listed as Mrs. August Jean. In 1906, she is listed at 31 Greenwood Place as Mrs. Mary E. Jean, widow of August. This tells me that August must have remarried sometime between his wife's death in 1900 and his death in 1905. It looks like he married another Mary! How confusing, but at least she has a different middle initial. 

I then remembered that I had been in contact with the spouse of one of Leo and Alberta's descendants about her tree on Ancestry.com. I visited her public member tree and found several photos of Leo and one photo of his father, August. One of her photos of Leo stated that he was 3 years old and it was taken at a convent where his stepmother sent him to live. Well, that certainly makes the story more interesting. 

At FamilySearch, I found that August JEAN and Mary A. RALPH were married 26 Mar 1883 in West Bay City, Bay, Michigan. I find it interesting that they went from Canada to Michigan to New York. I guess that was the life of a boat captain. Somehow Leo ended back up in Michigan as an adult.

The probate records for Erie County, New York, are available to browse at FamilySearch. In the index, I found that Mary Jean's probate was filed 12 Nov 1900 and her case number is 35604. August Jean's probate was filed 20 Jan 1905 and his case number is 35606. Unfortunately, the full estate case files for August and Mary were not available online, but I did find the letters of administration dated 14 Nov 1900 for Mary's estate appointing August as administrator.

I also found August mentioned in some Bay City newspapers in the 1880s and 1890s at Genealogy Bank. There was a church social held at his home; his cook stole $140 from him; he sold/bought property; he visited friends in Oscoda; and his boat was listed as having an accident near Buffalo in 1905. Oddly enough, it was several months after his death, but the article did not mention that he was dead. It just said the boat was owned by August Jean of this city. Maybe no one was notified that he had died in Buffalo. Or perhaps the boat belonged to his son, Augustin E. Jean.

Well, since August is a collateral, I think I will take a break now from researching him. It's always fun to take a new path, though!

SNGF: Fun with Mertena

My Saturday Night Genealogy Fun involved my Mertena line. This is the paternal line of my paternal grandmother. I've been working on FINALLY getting all of my sources for the Mertena family into my RootsMagic (RM) database. In fact, I've also been putting in a lot of the members of the Mertena family, since my RM database is my cleaned up database and hardly anyone is in there without any sources. In the last two weeks, I've input both of my great-grandparents' death certificates and obituaries; their marriage record; several of their city directory entries from Ponca City, Oklahoma, and Lake Charles, Louisiana; my great-grandfather's delayed birth certificate; my great-uncle Bill's death certificate, obituary, divorce certificate, marriage announcement, and a few city directory entries for him; my great-uncle Tony's obituary and photo his tombstone; and my great-aunt's marriage license. I've also added several to-do items to my great-grandparents and great aunt and uncles to-do lists.

Tonight I decided to start working on the sources for my great-great-grandparents, John Henry Mertena and Blanche Welden. So far, I've found their marriage record at FamilySearch.

I have several census records, death records, and obituaries to input for them as well. I believe I've even found Blanche's birth record from 1883 at Ancestry.com. Anyhow, I'd better get back to researching! Happy Hunting!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Mother's Mother's Patrilineal Line

It's time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy over at GeneaMusings.

1) What was your mother's mother's name?  

My mother's mother was Violet Mae Currie. She was born 24 Oct 1930 in Flynn Township, Sanilac, Michigan.

2) What is your mother's mother's patrilineal line? That is, her father's father's father's ... back to the most distant male ancestor in that line?  

Violet's patrilineal line is as follows:

·         Archie Currie (1889-1963) m. Jennie Grace Christina Plaine (1903-1937)

·         Alexander Currie (ca 1837-1909) m. Mary Raymond (1852-1920)

·         James Currie (ca 1816-aft 1881) m. Margaret McGill (ca 1816-1880)

3) Can you identify male sibling(s) of your mother's mother, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.  

Violet did not have any siblings that survived to adulthood. She had one brother, Howard Archibald Currie, but he died as a young child. Her father, Archie, had three known brothers: Alexander, William, and Ervin. Alexander had one son named Theodore Donald Currie, but he had no known children. Not much is known about what happened to William. Violet always said that he was a "hobo" that followed the trains. He left a trunk of stuff at her dad's house that he never returned to get (how I wish I had that trunk now!). Ervin had two sons, Robert J. Currie and Donald Eugene Currie. I have not tried to track down their descendants. I need to check the obituary index online at the Saginaw Public Library. I obtained Ervin's obit from there, and I think his son's obits are probably there as well.

SNGF: Female Ancestors And Religion

Time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun! From Randy over at GeneaMusings:

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 

1)  Read Lisa Alzo's blog post Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist.

2)  Choose one of her daily blog prompts from the list (this is March 9th, do that one if you don't want to choose another), and write about it.

3)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.

I am going to skip ahead one day to the blogging prompt for March 10:

What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?

I suppose I'm attracted to this one because I just returned from Mass. Or, it could be that I've always enjoyed studying religion and would have been a religious studies major if I wasn't so practical. I just find it fascinating. I was raised Catholic, which is the religion of my father's paternal side. However, when I was about 12 years old, I started going regularly to a Baptist church with a friend. By the time I was 14 years old, I started going to a Methodist church with my paternal grandmother. I went to a Methodist college and was very involved in religious life on campus. Then I came full circle in my early twenties and became a confirmed Catholic. I ended up marrying a Catholic too. 

Since this is about female ancestors, I'll start with my mother. She was not raised in any particular Christian denomination. My parents married in the First Church of the Nazarene in Port Huron, Michigan, in 1977. Three of her sisters also married in this church in 1970, 1975, and 1978. When I asked her if that's where she went to church as a child, she said no. She said that it was the church of her paternal uncle, Frank Pemberton, but that he switched churches frequently. The only time she and her siblings went to church as a child was with Uncle Frank and they went to several different churches with him over the years. After my mom married my dad and they moved to Louisiana, she converted to Catholicism.

My paternal grandmother was raised in the Methodist church. Her maternal grandfather, William Harmon Proffitt, was a Methodist preacher in Oklahoma from c. 1900 until his death in 1944. During my grandmother's childhood, it was called the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was baptized at the age of two by her grandfather in 1937. Interestingly, she said her father always tended toward agnosticism, but I think he went to church to please her mother, at least in the early years of their marriage. When my grandma got married to a Catholic, she agreed to raise my dad and his brothers Catholic. She considered converting to Catholicism, but it was the 1950s, and the priest she talked to told her that she would have to be re-baptized. She refused because her grandfather had baptized her and that was special to her. She dabbled in the Methodist church after marriage, but pretty much more or less got out of the habit of practicing her faith until I was a teenager and told her that I was interested in going with her. We became very involved at Welsh Memorial United Methodist Church in Vinton, Louisiana, for several years from about 1995-2003. My grandma became very active in the United Methodist Women chapter at the church. I miss that church very much. Although I've embraced the Catholic faith, I will never forget my Methodist roots. In fact, if anyone out there reading this is in the Vinton area and looking for a non-Catholic church, I highly recommend this one. Anyhow, I digress. About six years ago, after I was confirmed Catholic, my grandma decided to convert as well. I'm sure her deceased mother-in-law, my great-grandma, was rolling over in her grave (she was never too happy that her son married a non-Catholic who refused to convert). 

My maternal grandmother, Violet Mae Currie, said that before her mother, Jennie Grace Christina (Plaine) Currie, died in 1937 (she was 7 years old when her mom died), the family attended a Presbyterian church on a regular basis. In my great-grandmother's obituary, it states that she was a member of the Presbyterian Church where A.G. Howat was minister, and her funeral services were held at Elk Presbyterian Church in Elk, Sanilac, Michigan, but I'm not 100% sure if they are the same two Presbyterian churches. They probably are, but I hate to assume. I need to do some more research on the Elk church and A.G. Howat. After her mother died, my grandma said she and her father went to Omard Methodist Church, but not on a regular basis. She married my grandfather, John Peter Pemberton, on 9 Sep 1949 at First Methodist Church in Port Huron, Michigan. However, as stated earlier, they did not raise their children Methodist (or any other particular denomination). Prior to the mid-to-late 1990s, I do not remember my maternal grandmother going to church regularly. She started going to the Methodist church with my paternal grandmother and me in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Those years are still very special to me because I felt so honored to attend church with both of my grandmothers every Sunday. She ended up being a member of the church until she died in 2008. She baked the bread for Communion, held the first Sunday of every month, in the years before her death.

As stated earlier, my paternal grandmother's mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, Beatrice Marie (Boneaux) Trahan, was a STAUNCH Catholic. Of all my great-grandparents, I probably knew her the best. She died when I was 12 years old. She went to Mass everyday and wore her head covering up until the time she died in 1993 (well past the rule changes of Vatican II in 1960s). She was an old fashioned Cajun French Catholic, very common in South Louisiana. She wanted so bad for my grandpa to become a priest. She even sent him to an all-boys seminary for his high school years. She was very disappointed when he married a non-Cajun Methodist girl from Oklahoma. My grandma and her mother (the daughter of the Methodist preacher) were very angry at my great-grandmother when my dad was born. My great-grandmother, Beatrice, wanted to have him baptized right away because he was premature and she was so concerned about his soul if he should die before being baptized. My grandma said her mother got so mad about it because it was upsetting my grandma at the thought that her firstborn child may die. I guess she was already concerned about it, and Beatrice was making it worse. Nevertheless, he did get baptized two days after birth by a priest at the hospital. I think Beatrice played an instrumental part in my mother's conversion to Catholicism. I guess she figured if she couldn't get the daughter-in-law to convert, why not get the granddaughter-in-law?

Like my mother, my maternal grandpa's mother, Mabel Ellen (Crysler) Pemberton Beedon, seemed to belong to no particular denomination. However, I'm not certain because I grew up in Louisiana, she lived in Michigan, and she died when I was only 8 years old. I only met her a handful of times. I need to ask more questions of my great-aunts and uncles who are still alive. The following is what I know from various marriage records and obituaries of Mabel and her children. Mabel married John "Jack" Vital Pemberton on 7 Aug 1927 in Port Huron, St. Clair, Michigan. They were married by F.W. Jewell, who according to city directories, was pastor at Pentecostal Convention Tabernacle at 1624 Stone St. in Port Huron. In 1932, the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Port Huron officiated at their son's funeral. Her two oldest children, my grandfather, John Peter Pemberton, and her daughter, Eva Mae Pemberton, were both married in 1949 and 1947, respectively, at First Methodist Church in Port Huron. In 1948, Mabel's daughter's funeral was held at the Free Methodist Church in Port Huron. Between 1958 and 1964, three more children, including Uncle Frank, were married by the minister at Free Methodist Church. In 1954, Mabel was married to her second husband, Daniel Robert Beedon, by J. Alton Cressman, the minister at First Presbyterian Church in Port Huron. Another daughter was also married by this pastor in 1969. Maybe it was a coincidence, but both Mabel's second husband and her daughter were divorced. Was the Presbyterian minister one of the few in town who would marry a divorced person? The pastor of Griswold Street Baptist Church in Port Huron officiated at her daughter Maggie's funeral in 1969. At her own funeral in 1989, the pastor of Bethesda Bible Church officiated.

Apparently, Mabel's mother-in-law, my great-great-grandma, Alvina Lesperance, was a Catholic of French Canadian descent. She and Lovell Hugh Pemberton married at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Anchorville, St. Clair, Michigan, on 10 Nov 1902. This may explain why my grandfather, according to his military records, went to St. Stephen's Catholic School in Port Huron. When I first saw this, I was baffled. I didn't know my mom's family had any Catholic roots. Then my grandma mentioned that Grandma Beedon (who was my grandma's mother-in-law) didn't like her mother-in-law (Alvina) and her mother-in-law didn't like her because she was not Catholic. Seems like a recurring theme here. So although my great-grandfather was married by a Pentecostal minister and did not raise my grandfather Catholic (other than sending him to a Catholic school), all of Alvina's other children married in one Catholic church or another and appear to have raised their children Catholic. 

So, that is all I know about the religion of my female ancestors. Now that I've written it down, it makes me want to dig deeper into some of the beliefs and church records of the various churches in Port Huron and surrounding areas where my ancestors had connections. I would also like to find out all the churches where my great-great-grandfather served as a Methodist Episcopal minister in Oklahoma. For others with Methodist ancestors, particularly ministers, here is a link to Researching Your United Methodist Ancestors.

SNGF: Semi-Random Research

Randy from Genea-Musings has sent us on a mission again. Since I haven't participated in quite awhile in Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, and my goal is to blog more, I figured I would get back into the swing of participating.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...

2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the very last person on your list of names is.

3)  What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!

4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?

5)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blogp ost, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

The very last person in my RootsMagic database is Alice Zimmerman. Alice was the wife of my second cousin 3x removed, George L. Avers. George was the son of Albert S. Avers and Elizabeth M. Phelps. Elizabeth was the daughter of Joseph Putnam Phelps and Agnes Emma Pemberton. Agnes was the sister of my 3x great-grandfather, John Pemberton. 

Alice Zimmerman was born 27 Jan 1898 and died 3 Apr 1982 in Port Huron, St. Clair, Michigan. George and Alice married in 1967. They married late in life, and no children are mentioned in George's obituary. My source for Alice's birth and death date/place is the "Michigan Deaths, 1971-1996" at Ancestry.com. My source for the marriage date is George's obituary. Looks like I need to further research in death and marriage records to find more info. 

The very last person in my old Family Tree Maker database is William Young. William was supposedly my 6th great-uncle. My notes say he was born abt 1731 and died abt Dec 1811. Do you really want to know my source? You guessed it....unsourced family trees on the Internet. Do you see why I've abandoned this database? He was supposedly the son of Peter Young and Anna Eve Fox. William's brother, Peter Warren Young, is supposedly my 6th great-grandfather. Peter Warren Young supposedly married Anna Margaret Serviss, and they had a daughter named Elizabeth Young. Elizabeth supposedly married my 5x great-grandfather, Jacob Crysler. Obviously, I don't have much faith in this tree. The only thing I know for sure on this line is that my great-grandmother was Mabel Ellen Crysler, her father was Ernest George Crysler, and his father was George Calvin Crysler. From there, more research needs to be done.

SNGF: 16 Great-Grands and Heritage Pie

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has come up with another great challenge for this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

Your mission tonight, should you decide to accept it, is to:
1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents with their birth, death and marriage data (dates and places). [Hint - you might use an Ancestral Name List from your software for this.]
2) Determine the countries (or states) that these ancestors lived in at their birth and at their death.
3) For extra credit, go make a “Heritage Pie” chart for the country of origin (birth place) for these 16 ancestors. [Hint: you could use the chart generator from Kid Zone for this.] [Note: Thank you to Sheri Fenley for the "Heritage Pie" chart idea.]
4. Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a post on Facebook or google+.

 

16. Oscar TRAHAN: born 17 Oct 1889 in Rayne, Acadia, Louisiana; married 18 Jan 1908 in Scott, Lafayette, Louisiana; died 5 Aug 1962 in Lake Charles, Calcasieu, Louisiana.

17. Virginia PREJEAN: born 12 Jul 1889 in Carencro, Lafayette, Louisiana; died 3 Mar 1977 in Crowley, Acadia, Louisiana.

18. Maurice BONEAUX: born 13 Aug 1883 in Scott, Lafayette, Louisiana; married 10 Sep 1908 in Carencro, Lafayette, Louisiana; died 5 Sep 1934 in Scott, Lafayette, Louisiana.

19. Marie Alice SONNIER: born 7 Sep 1891 in Carencro, Lafayette, Louisiana; died 7 May 1970 in Vinton, Calcasieu, Louisiana.

20. John Henry MERTENA: born 11 Mar 1884 in , Franklin, Illinois; married 25 Dec 1907 in Mulhall, Logan, Oklahoma; died 28 Jan 1956 in Sulphur, Calcasieu, Louisiana.

21. Blanche WELDEN: born 31 Aug 1883 in Coffeysburg, Daviess, Missouri; died 5 Feb 1970 in Sulphur, Calcasieu, Louisiana.

22. William Harmon PROFFITT: born 12 Jul 1871 in , Jefferson, Tennessee; married 17 Dec 1896 in Chestnut Hill, Jefferson, Tennessee; died 3 Jul 1944 in Alva, Woods, Oklahoma.

23. Emmer Link BAKER: born 20 Sep 1875 in , , North Carolina; died 5 Jul 1949 in Waynoka, Woods, Oklahoma.

24. Lovell Hugh PEMBERTON: born 14 Jan 1878 in Almont, Lapeer, Michigan; married 10 Nov 1902 in Anchorville, St. Clair, Michigan; died 23 Mar 1952 in Lexington, Sanilac, Michigan.

25. Alvina Mary LESPERANCE: born 27 Nov 1881 in Anchorville, St. Clair, Michigan; died 16 Jun 1961 in Lexington, Sanilac, Michigan.

26. Ernest George CRYSLER: born 21 Oct 1877 in Forest, Lambton, Ontario, Canada; married 18 Nov 1904 in Sandusky, Sanilac, Michigan; died 8 May 1942 in Port Huron, St. Clair, Michigan.

27. Nellie May REYNOLDS: born 21 Oct 1890 in Elk, Sanilac, Michigan; died 9 May 1917 in Yale, St. Clair, Michigan.

28. Alexander CURRIE: born Nov 1837 in , Middlesex, Ontario, Canada; died 1909 in Sanilac Co, Michigan.

29. Mary RAYMOND: born Sep 1852 in , , Ontario, Canada; died 1920 in Sanilac Co., Michigan.

30. Robert PLAINE: born 20 Feb 1870 in Caradoc, Middlesex, Ontario, Canada; married abt 1891 in Euphemia, Lambton, Ontario, Canada; died 1936 in Euphemia, Lambton, Ontario, Canada.

31. Florence Minnie HILLMAN: born 23 Jul 1867 in Alvinston, Lambton, Ontario, Canada; died 9 Mar 1933 in Euphemia, Lambton, Ontario, Canada.

Here is my heritage pie with my great-great-grandpaents' birthplaces:

The pink section that represents 1/4 of the chart is my paternal grandfather's family - mostly tried and true Cajuns from Louisiana with a little French (non-Cajun), German, and Spanish mixed in.

The four sections that each represent 6.25% of the chart is my paternal grandmother's family. These were German, English, and Scottish immigrants that originally settled in Pennsylvania and Virginia and made their way further south and west over the years, eventually ending up in Oklahoma.

The other half of the chart is my maternal side of the family, representing Canada and Michigan. I didn't realize that over half of my great-great-grands on that side were born in Canada. Some of these were Scottish and English immigrants to Canada in the early to mid-1800s, and others were German and Dutch Loyalists from New York who fled to Canada around the time of the American Revolution. My Michigan folks were part French-Canadian and part English Loyalists from New York who also fled to Canada.

SNGF: The Night You Were Born

It's time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun again. Our mission from Randy at GeneaMusings is as follows:

1) What day of the week were you born? Tell us how you found out.

I was born on a Saturday. I found this out when I was a kid because my mom had a poster that she had ordered telling me about the day I was born and all the events that had happened on that day in the past, as well as famous people who shared my birthday.

2) What has happened in recorded history on your birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events (I'm going to list more).

I was born 25 Apr 1981.

a) On the day I was born, President Reagan's daughter, Maureen, married her third husband, Dennis Revell. He was only 28, but she was 40 years old.

b) Ironically, Boris Yeltsin was elected on my birthday in 1993, and later had his funeral on my birthday in 2007.

c) In 1979, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt went into effect, and in 1982, Israel completed it's Sinai withdrawal according to Camp David Accords.

d) In 1976, there were elections in Vietnam for a National Assembly to reunite the country. Also in 1976, Portugal adopted its constitution and still celebrates April 25 as Freedom Day.

e) The Guillotine was first used on my birthday in 1792. Yikes!

f) The St. Lawrence Seaway opened linking the Atlantic and the Great Lakes in 1959.

g) In 1898, the Spanish-American War was declared over Cuba.

h) In 1944, the United Negro College Fund was incorporated.

i) In 1933, the U.S. and Canada dropped the Gold Standard.

j) In 1956, Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" hit #1.

I found all of this out from a combination of brainyhistory.com and Wikipedia.

3) What famous people have been born on your birth date? Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

a) Renee Zellwegger b. 25 Apr 1969 in Katy, TX

b) Jason Lee (Earl from My Name Is Earl TV series) b. 25 Apr 1970 in Orange, CA

c) Hank Azaria (voice of Moe on The Simpsons) b. 25 Apr 1964 in Forest Hills, NY

d) Ella Fitzgerald b. 25 Apr 1917 in Newport News, VA

e) Al Pacino b. 25 Apr 1940 in East Harlem, NY

I also found out about these from Wikipedia and brainyhistory.com.