Little Clues, Big Insights

Like any other genealogist, I would like to see how far back I can trace my lineage, but a name on a page only holds so much interest for me. It doesn't tell me anything about the person or what their life was like. That is when things begin to get truly interesting and family history comes alive.

Naturally, we would all love to find a journal, a trove of letters or a biography in a book about every single person in our tree to tell us what was important to them or why they made certain choices in their lives. Unfortunately, the chance of winning millions in the lottery is higher.

In the meantime, we are forced to make due with what we have. The good news is that sometimes the smallest of clues can help you make a break-through or at least give you insight into your ancestor's character. This is why it is important to look at your documents multiple times over the years or read every newspaper account of a particular incident. Understanding the time period also helps to put your relatives' lives in context.

One example that I recently found in the Kalamazoo Telegraph relates to Henry Harrigan's little brother, George Harrigan. Nearly two years before he was committed to the Kalamazoo Insane Asylum (more on that in the future), at the tender age of seventeen, George umpired a baseball game for the high school team. At first, this entry didn't mean much to me. It was only a few hours later that the possible significance of this hit me. I should explain that George was only three when he was found asleep in bed covered in his father's blood. John Harrigan's death was ruled a suicide (by slitting his throat). For more about this, see my blog post (Suicide or Murder?). Without a father around it would be understandable for little George to look up to his elder brother, Henry (nearly 14 years his senior). George being an umpire for a baseball game may seem unimportant, but Henry was a very good catcher for the Kalamazoo Monitors for a number of years. This note indicates to me that George probably watched his brother play ball at the least. If I really want to speculate it could mean that George looked up to Henry, possibly even as a father figure, and was likely influenced by his older brother's bad example. Whether I am correct or not, this notice in the paper made me think about George and what it must have been like for him without a father around, in a way that I hadn't before.

Another example, again from the Telegraph, told me another little thing about Henry Harrigan. I found yet another article about Henry's run-in in New York City when he struck a fatal blow to a man's head with his silver-headed cane (for more on this story see Digging for Dirt in Newspapers ). The Telegraph said that when Kalamazooans first heard of the incident they wondered if it was their hometown boy. The Telegraph reported that information coming in “stated that the arrested man was a San Francisco sport and Hank always passed as a high roller from California on his eastern trips.” The light bulb went off for me at this. Here, I had been looking for references to Henry in San Francisco newspapers and city directories. Silly me, he was probably never there at all. In Henry's mind he probably felt that no one would take him seriously if he came from a little one-horse town like Kalamazoo. So Henry tried to pass himself off as a sporting man (a gambler who makes his money wagering on sporting events) from the west. San Francisco was probably still a little exotic in 1889 and the added bonus was that there probably weren't many people who could call Henry's bluff. This should have occurred to me, knowing what I do about Henry, but now I know.

I've presented two small examples of how new information can affect how you think about your ancestors. I believe that it's these things all added together that make people come alive. The good news is that you don't really need articles from the newspaper or diaries to make this happen, though it certainly helps. Simply draw up a timeline with family events (deaths of parents or siblings, marriages, divorces, moves, etc.) and historical events (wars, natural disasters, etc.) and see what you can learn. To see how little things can add up see my post on the power of timelines.

Understanding Ancestors Using Timelines

Like many genealogists, I love the thrill of finding a new piece of information to aid me in my family history research, but what I find really interesting are the stories of our ancestors' lives. Family stories, letters and newspaper accounts can be incredibly informative, but what can be done when these resources are unavailable? Timelines can be a powerful tool to get a good feeling for the forces that shaped someone's life and affected their decisions. Even if you don't do this type of analysis for all of the people in your family tree I suspect you'll start paying closer attention to dates in the rest of your family history research.

In putting together a timeline, I start with the basics: deaths, marriages, divorces and births in the immediate family. Then I add in other things like moves, wars, natural disasters and frankly anything I can think of that would have impacted the person in question. Some family tree programs now offer a timeline feature (Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic do) which can make this process easier. This is a good place to start, but can be limited by what you have typed into the appropriate spot in your genealogy software.

Once I have my timeline I try to imagine how I would feel if that series of events happened to me. A parent may have died within a few years of a grandparent or sibling. Maybe there was a divorce, re-marriage or the family moved. Put it all together and it can change how you perceive that person and their life choices. As an example I'll use my grandmother's sister, Mildred. Perhaps the most notable feature of her short life was her dramatic death. Mildred was shot through the window in the wee hours of Christmas morning while preparing gifts for her children. This is what I was thinking about when I began to write about her, but I realized that there was much more to her life than her tragic end.

Mildred's life started out pretty well. Unfortunately, everything changed with her father's death when she was only ten. Her mother then moved from Ohio to Kalamazoo taking Mildred and her four siblings away from the only family they had really known. Now they watched their grandmother die six months after their father had. Meanwhile their mother struggled to put food on the table. Mildred became sick with tuberculosis and was treated in the Kalamazoo tuberculosis sanitorium. She recovered, married, had children and separated during the same time her mother remarried (twice) and the rest of her siblings went their separate ways. As if that weren't enough, this all transpired during the height of the Depression. This fateful period was apparently when Mildred met her new boyfriend, a boxer and petty criminal who ultimately murdered her in cold blood on Christmas. In the end, Joseph Salpatrick freely walked the streets of Kalamazoo for close to thirty years after Mildred's death (but that's another story).  Read Christmas Morning Murderer Gets Off Easy for more and Christmas Morning Murderer Pt. 2 Pt. 2 to read how Salpatrick got off.

From the moment Mildred's father died until her own untimely demise not twenty years later Mildred's life was unsettled at best. The remainder of Mildred's childhood would have been difficult. Her early twenties would have been no better. While in the sanitorium she would have been physically separated from her family. Once she got out, life in her mother's household was likely chaotic between her marriage and children, her mother's love life and her siblings marrying and moving out. Considering the many changes in her immediate family I would not be surprised if her support network was at least a bit tattered (and no one had cell phones to easily keep in touch). Given her dead father and failed marriage Mildred may have been a little desperate for male attention. All of this likely made her more vulnerable to the apparently charismatic Salpatrick.

Until I laid out all of the pieces and put them together I never really understood how difficult Mildred's life was, even before the events that led to her murder on Christmas. Keep in mind that I had no journals or family stories to put this together. My synopsis comes from census and vital records, city directories and just a few tidbits from a couple of other sources. I hope this provides you with a good example of why I believe building timelines can be very beneficial for gaining a better understanding of our ancestors. I encourage you to start with a person you have always wondered about. This relatively simple task may teach you something new.

Clues in City Directories

I'm sure all genealogists have used city directories to trace families from year to year. While the federal census comes around but once a decade, directories were often published every year or two, depending on the city and time period. The information provided in the directory is therefore potentially very valuable. For those ancestors who only briefly lived somewhere in between census years, the city directory may be your only opportunity to tie them to a particular location. I have also used them to help confirm family relationships and even to confirm a suspected death.

One of my people is census-shy, at least after marrying into my family. The only place I have found him after marriage is in the St. Louis city directory. While I found a man of the appropriate age in the 1880 census I couldn't be sure it was my John H. Hubler. By following John backward through city directories I tied him to the suspected father from the 1880 census when I found them living at the same address just before John appeared on his own. While that was a happy moment I would rather have found John in the 1900 census (my only chance to find the family together before John's wife died in 1903).

The city directory has been helpful in tracing the Hubler family in another instance. I had managed to find a birth record for one of John and Emma's children, Mildred (Emma's obituary in the Kalamazoo Gazette stated there were three children). Mildred Hubler turned up in the St. Louis city directory in 1913 (at about age 17), but not alone. An Alice and Donald Hubler were in the same household and they stayed together through 1916. I suspect they may be Mildred's siblings, but as they seem to be just as census-shy as their father, I may never know for certain.

I have also used city directories to confirm a death. I had a possible death record for a Charles McGinnis, but I wasn't sure he was my Bridget's husband, Charles. By looking in city directories, I was able to find Charles up until the year of suspected death at which point Bridget appeared, listed as the widow of Charles. I later confirmed this with information from Charles' Civil War pension application file.

One final example involves the 1883 Kalamazoo census. I found a William Flynn (a blacksmith) living with my relative Lawrence Flynn. I had always wondered who he was as I never found him in any other Kalamazoo records. I later determined through newspapers, death and census records that William and Lawrence were cousins.

I hope you have similar luck in tracking down some of your elusive ancestors using clues from city directories.

To begin looking for your family in Kalamazoo city directories start at www.kalamazoogenealogy.org.

For more ideas on what else you can find about your ancestors (and community in general in city directories) read my post More Than Just Names.  I also list repositories for Kalamazoo city directories and some from neighboring counties.

Casting a Wide Net in Newspaper Searches

As you are searching for information about your family it is easy to forget to search beyond your hometown paper. Once you have exhausted every reference in your local paper, if there are particular people who wandered around or did something particularly noteworthy or notorious, I encourage you to cast a wider net. Occasionally, you will get lucky. Even if you think all of the details of a story were in the hometown paper, it is worth looking further afield. You may find tidbits of information that weren't published locally. While we can never be certain that all of the details in any newspaper account are completely accurate, each new kernel may lead you to another source to examine. Another thing to consider is that some details may not have made the morning local paper. A neighboring paper may not possess any scruples about publishing all of the dirty laundry.

Another instance in which searching broadly pays off is exemplified by the case of John Flynn. I had previously found a death record for him in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At that time, a few years ago, I contacted the Ann Arbor District Library to ask them to search for a death notice for him. They were unable to find anything. When I subscribed to Genealogy Bank for a month, I decided to search for him throughout Michigan. I knew from the death record that he died after falling from a tall building so I believed I might find something. The nearby Jackson paper had what I was looking for. Poor Mr. Flynn was a mason and fell off a ladder while carrying a hod (a pointy trowel used for placing mortar). The hod pierced his side and he bled to death hours later. Armed with this information, I again contacted the Ann Arbor Library and they were quickly able to procure the notice in the paper.

In several other instances, a Kalamazoo story made other Michigan papers and even out-of-state papers. One example was the Harrigan girl whose fiance was practically dragged from her home by the other young woman vying for his affections. Marriage license in hand, she took him across town and married him that day. Why this story made the Chicago papers, I'll never know, but it did. Murder stories tend to make it further afield. When Henry Harrigan whacked a man over the head with his cane in 1889 I found the story in numerous papers, including in Salt Lake City. The Christmas morning murder of my grandmother's sister appeared in newspapers as far away as New Orleans.

To read about what else you can find in newspapers see:  Digging For Dirt in Newspapers,  Beyond Obituaries, Searching For Context, and Search Tips & Tricks.

Digging for Dirt -- Beyond Obituaries

Obituaries can be very useful, as we all know, but there is a lot more to uncover in newspapers than that. You may also find marriage notices, anniversaries, birth announcements or divorce cases on the court docket. But, if your ancestors lived outside of a large metropolitan area you are likely to find much more.

I signed up for a one-month trial of Genealogy Bank and found much more than I could have imagined. In the spring of 2011, they added a run of the Kalamazoo Gazette starting in 1837 and running through the end of 1922. Some of the things I found included: descriptions of weddings, notices of sickness, birthday parties, arrests, involvement in baseball teams, winning categories at the county fair, visits from out-of-town kin and more.

And then we get to the interesting things, like the young woman whose fiance was paying a call at her house when the other woman vying for his affection appeared. She took him with her across town, marriage license in hand, to get married. The original fiance and her mother reportedly fainted. There was also the case of the young man who was arrested in Canada after running away with his underage girlfriend and leaving her with no means to get home. No other mention of the case was found, except for a notice of application for a marriage license a week or two later.

Other family secrets included my great-grandmother's sister, Nettie Allion, who was arrested for theft. When the police searched her room they found “half a bushel of handkerchiefs, stockings, towels, a belt, a pair of black glass goggles, a pair of shoes, hair pins and other trinkets” she had stolen. I hadn't expected that, but the item that really shocked me was the revelation that the brother of a different great-grandmother had been arrested, tried and imprisoned for rape in 1890.

Some entries may only be a few lines, but can speak volumes about your ancestor. For example, I found this notice: “LOST-- Two white and black hounds. Kindly turn these dogs loose, as there is no reward on them.” That sure seemed pretty cold to me. Twelve years later this same man cheated on his wife leaving her with five young kids to raise after their divorce.

 

Although each entry may be small, every little line adds a bit more information that will flesh out the lives of our ancestors. If your ancestors lived in Kalamazoo between 1837 and 1922 you can add tremendously to your knowledge by an investigation of the Kalamazoo Gazette. Now that the Kalamazoo Public Library has released the digitized Kalamazoo Telegraph we have twice as many opportunities to find out more about our people.

To read more about what newspapers can teach you about your ancestors see:  Digging For Dirt, Adding Context, Casting a Wide Net and Search Tips & Tricks.

Digging for Dirt in Newspapers

I find it interesting that in marketing their website GenealogyBank.com focuses on what we'll find in obituaries and leaves it there. While it is true that you can find quite a bit of information in an obituary, if you are lucky, I think they could expand their efforts to let people know that there is so much more to find.

My first real foray into newspapers began with a bang. It all started with a clue I found in the Ross Coller files, about one of my distant relations at the WMU Archives, Henry Harrigan. Henry had been arrested in New York City for whacking a man on the head with his cane, a blow that proved fatal. Needless to say, I wanted to learn more. My first stop was the online New York Times Archive. I knew the incident occurred in 1889 and was able to narrow my search accordingly.

I found several articles describing the incident. In a nutshell, Henry left a saloon in the wee hours of the morning when he was accosted by Patrick Reedy, who Henry claims was a stranger. Another account suggested that they were already acquainted and had argued. Either way, a scuffle ensued, Henry struck Reedy over the head with his silver-headed cane. A nearby policeman apparently heard the altercation and took both men to the police station, with Reedy resisting arrest. Reedy died days later after refusing a trepanning procedure to relieve the pressure on his swelling brain. Henry was called before a coroner's jury and claimed that Reedy tried to rob him. The attractive, athletic, dapper Henry was readily acquitted.

Another interesting tidbit that came out of the newspaper account was that Henry had “dropped $6000” on a horse race between the time of the assault and Reedy's death. In 1889, $6000 was equivalent to between approximately $730,000 (based on the amount of work by an unskilled laborer required to reach that amount) to $1.2 million (based on economy's average output per person and closely related to average income) in 2010 currency, depending on which calculator is used at Measuring Worth.

Although these newspaper accounts showed me but one slice of Henry Harrigan's life, it gave me much more than that. First, it gave me a physical description of the man. I also learned that he was interested in horse racing and gambling. Other minutia included his silver-headed cane, his friendships with a known sprinter and a baseball umpire and that he had been making a tour of New York (apparently attending other horse races). The newspapers also gave his current address in the city and mentioned that he was from San Francisco, a place I have yet to place him in any records. Clearly, the man got around. If you want to read more about Henry's run-ins with the law (as discovered in newspapers) read No Stranger to the Law.  And for a clue that led me to believe Henry probably never lived in San Francisco see Little Clues, Big Insights.

The big question I had from all of this was: where did he acquire all of that money? I have a better idea now and it required more digging in newspapers. But that is a story for another day.

For more information on what you may find in newspapers see: Beyond Obituaries,  Adding Context, Casting a Wide Net and Search Tips & Tricks.