Should I join a Lineage Society?

 What is a lineage society?  It's a group that has specific requirements in order to join them.  There are many out there.  The one I'm looking at is DAR or Daughters of the American Revolution.  

I have known a few people that have applied and been accepted into the DAR but I haven't taken the time to do so myself.  I have good intentions but I lack follow-through.  My one son in high school has expressed an interest in being involved with the Sons of the American Revolution.  His interest had me seeking more information and realizing that there is a National Society of the Children of the American Revolution youth organization.  As I was going through the requirements to join each group I realized they were virtually the same.  I would need to connect us to our Revolutionary War Soldier.  Since I have completed a lot of research on my family tree, mind as well use it to join a group.  

So I guess my answer is yes, I should join a lineage society.  I better get to researching more and getting my documentation together.  

Motivation for Sharing Family History

 Wow. I have taken quite a hiatus from this blog. 

 I've been doing genealogy research all along but have been reluctant to share it.  A while ago I had a cousin attack me online regarding our shared family history.  While this cousin was quite angry and called me a liar and claimed that I had fabricated information; they also refused to tell me what I had fabricated.  I was honest and told them I would happily change anything that I was mistaken about.  All I needed was for them to show proof of where I was wrong.  They would never answer me other than to call me a liar.  That experience was painful and I became reluctant to share it here.  This cousin questioned my motives for sharing information here.  This gave me pause.  

What is my motive for sharing my family history?  Is it for my own benefit?  Am I looking for fame?

I pondered this question for a long while.  

I concluded.

I am sharing the information I find because I think that being truthful with history is essential.  I'm sharing these ancestors and relatives because their lives mattered.  They were full-fledged human beings with complicated lives and deserve to be celebrated and known.  I want to share information for other researchers to find.  I want distant cousins to reach out and let me know their side of the family's stories. 

Do I sometimes give the blog post a fun headline?  Yes, because I want people to read and learn about them.  I do not however embellish or lie about the facts that I have gathered. 

I am excited to pick this back up and share my journey in celebrating my family history.  I hope you enjoy learning about my relatives and maybe yours.  I plan on sharing my research notes and more on how I research and how I reach the conclusions that I do.  

I will state the following.  I am not an expert.  I will make mistakes.  I will always try to cite my sources and be open to hearing ideas and thoughts from others.  

Now let's start searching for our roots!

Pardon me...wrong Robert Wuerz

It happens to all of us eventually.  We think we have the right person and we set off researching and detailing their life, searching back further and further until...you realize you are not searching the right person after all.  It's easy to do with common named ancestors and when there are cousins and uncles and even brothers with similar or same names. 

I recently realized that I was chasing the wrong Robert Wuerz on my husband's family tree. The Robert Wuerz I was chasing was an interesting fella with some newspaper articles of the illegal variety and came from a wealthy family.  Turns out this guy is not our guy.  The Robert Wuerz I'm looking for is my husband's 2nd Great Grandfather.  

So here is what I do know about our Robert Wuerz.  

Robert Wuerz was born sometime between 1873 and 1876 in Chicago, Illinois.   He married Annie Lawless 16 May 1898 in Alton, Madison County, Illinois.

I ordered their marriage record from Madison County.  From this document, I see that his name is Robert Wuerz, lives in Granite City, his occupation is Bookkeeper, his age at his next birthday is 25 years and he is white.  Born in Chicago, Illinois.  Fathers name Robert Wuerz and mother's name May Law? *name is so hard to read.  This is his first marriage. 

For Annie we see her name is Annie Lawless, lives in Alton, age at next birthday is 19 and she is white. Born in Jerseyville, the father is William Lawless and her mother's maiden name appears to be Ritter (but it Minard, so I'm not sure why this is incorrect).  This is her first marriage.  

They were married by the Justice of the Peace.  I cannot read the Justice's name.  I do know that Annie's family was Catholic however they were not married in the Church, at least not in the records available for the Church her family went to, St. Peter and Paul, Alton, Illinois.

 

1899 City Directory for Alton, Illinois.  He is listed as Robert W. Wuerz (wf Annie) lab, r 618 Summit.  

Now I have a middle initial.  W.  It doesn't seem to help in my search though.  

29 June 1900  Their son Conrad Francis Wuerz is born.  I do not have a birth record for Conrad but I do have his baptism and it lists his father as Robert Wuerz. While digging through the Church records for St. Peter and Paul I came across the baptism of another child of Robert and Annie!  I do not know what happened to this other son.  

Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield Sacramental Records, 1853-1975 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018.
Original data: Accessed 16 Dec 2020

Joseph Shaffer Wuerz born on 12 May 1902 and baptized on 21 May 1902.  

Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield Sacramental Records, 1853-1975 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018.
Original data:  Accessed 16 Dec 2020

The odd thing is that Annie marries James Frasier on 20 Aug 1902 in Alton.  Three months after this baby, Joseph was born and Baptised!  

Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1800-1940 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

Original data: Marriage Records. Illinois Marriages. Various Illinois County collections.
Accessed 16 Dec 2020

The only other record I have located with Robert Wuerz in it was the 1901 City Directory where he is listed the same as in 1899. 

What happened to Robert Wuerz?  Did he die?  Did Annie and he get divorced?  And now, what about this baby Joseph?  There has been NO indication of this child at all!  Did he also pass?  


So I am still at a loss with what happened to Robert Wuerz.  Grandma Marion only provided me the following  information, "My Dad was born a Wuerz but raised a Frasier."  I have found evidence of her father, Conrad actually using the Fraiser last name until he had to use Wuerz legally when he got married.  She never knew or she never told me what happened to Robert and definitely nothing about this baby Joseph.  

As usual, more questions than answers. Y'all got any ideas?

Found note: A Widow's Sorrow

My husband's grandmother, Marion Inez Widger Schaal, passed away at the age of 91 on 11 January 2020.  My inlaw's had been cleaning out her house because she had been moved into a nursing facility prior to her death.  My mother-in-law picked up photos and anything that might be family history related for me.  Among the things she brought to me was a tiny little notebook with birth and death dates written in.  I don't know who it belonged to as it pre-dates Grandma Marion. 

I should add that the house Grandma Marion lived in has been in the Schaal family as far back as 1860!

Here is a photo of the front of the notebook.

There are several pages filled with writing.  I will be going through the pages and making posts with information for each page that I can document.

Some of the most interesting things in the notebook are 3 pages written by a grieving wife.  They are dated 1923-1924.  Below are the photos and transcriptions of each page.

2-1-23
Belleville IL

My Dear One-
All day my thoughts have been of you but oh I feel so sad, would love to live one week of the time when we were both cheerful & glad.  But those days may never be again.

2-12-23
At the house alone with my thoughts. Oh why should our lives be so shattered why couldn't you always be near.  So we could love forever, oh why should anyone interfere.  One who knows.




12.23.23
Time brings changes.
The time goes by like a dream, Dear, yet the thoughts of you always stay, but oh I get so discouraged & heartsick. It seems like I never can pray.

Your own
  True wife.

To my Loved One.
The days what once were joyful and glad ar enow dreary, lonely, and sad.

Mar 28.24

Oh I am so blue I don't know what to do. I only wish I was far away or resting in the silent clay.


I do not know who wrote these words.  I surmise that she lost her husband prior to 1923.  In looking at the family tree, I see that George Schaal, SR my husband's great-great-grandfather died of influenza in 1920.  He lived in the house that Grandma Marion lived in.  Could this be his wife, Elizabeth?  It's possible. 

Brickwall is Still Standing Strong but might be getting a crack or two...Louella Ledbetter.

It has been YEARS of searching and submitting DNA and we are still stumped on the true and exact parentage of Louella Ledbetter Bussey.

Awhile back my cousin got into contact with another cousin that had popped up on Ancestry.com as a DNA match.  We were able to verify that she was indeed a cousin and she too descends from Louella Ledbetter.  From a conversation with this newly found old cousin, she revealed that she had done a family tree project back in her school days and actually got some information straight from Louella's mouth!

The information garnered from the memory of our cousin included that Louella's mother's name was Alice Lee Lawrence.  That she was married to John Ledbetter and that she died, leaving Ella and Eugene.  Now it gets a little hazy as stories tend to do.  Alice died of pneumonia by a well. (?)  Now either John remarried and the stepmother was less than nice to Louella OR John just couldn't care for the children and they went to live with relatives.  This story would fit with the 1880 Census where Louella and Eugene were both living with Elizabeth Lawrence and if Alice's maiden name was Lawrence then Elizabeth would be Louella's grandmother.

Also revealed was the name Horace Saddlewhite as being Louella's grandfather or great grandfather's name.  My cousin and I took off with that name and started researching.  We couldn't find anything on Saddlewhite, however, we kept digging and indeed found a Dr. Horace B. Satterwhite in North Carolina.  After an extensive search, guess who we found living with Dr. Satterwhite and his daughter in 1850 in North Carolina?  None other than a 21-year-old Elizabeth Lawrence!  That cannot be a coincidence, right?  If our cousin got the name from Louella herself and we found Elizabeth living with this man then there has to be some truth to the story.  The thing is...Elizabeth Lawrence is not his daughter.  We've looked high and low and there are only 3 documented children of Dr. Satterwhite.  Two sons and the daughter Anna Maria.  Speaking of Anne Marie (I'm not sure which is correct as I've seen it both ways) married a Philo Bronson/Brownson and we find Elizabeth Lawrence and her daughters Mary Ella, Alice, Florence and Iola living with them in 1860 in Rabun County, GA!  So there is some kind of relationship there but not one I can prove.

So where does this leave us?

1). Elizabeth Lawrence has either 7 or 8 children (there is some question regarding the ages and names of some of the girls) and is always listed as widowed when it comes to the census that asks, but we have found no actual records indicating a husband's name.  There are two instances where we have seen a name for her husband.  In the city directory, she is listed as Lizzie or Elizabeth widow of George.  The other time I've seen the name George is from a descendant of one of Elizabeth's daughters that told me his name as was given to him by an aunt.  I have not found a marriage record at all for Elizabeth.  Where was this George?

2). What is the relationship between Elizabeth Lawrence and the Satterwhite family?  I've tried to connect her with being a possible niece, but nothing is showing up.

3).  What happened to Alice Lawrence Ledbetter?  We cannot find a death record or news of her death or anything regarding her other than the 1860 Census.

4). What about John Ledbetter?  Where was he?  Again, no marriage record has been located between John Ledbetter and Alice Lawrence.

5). We seem to always end up with more questions than answers.

If you have any insight, PLEASE let us know!

Refusing to say I failed...

I had the goal of doing the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge in 2015.  I did really well for many weeks but managed to only complete 39 Ancestors.  I refuse to say that I failed the challenge.  I may not have completed the challenge in the time allotted, I certainly learned a lot about the 39 or so ancestors I was able to profile.

I will continue to work on profiling and fleshing out my ancestors in the future.  I think blogging as I research actually helps me to see the gaps in records that I may be forgetting.  When I can click on my blog and see the timeline of census records and the information included I'm able to see where I've looked and where I need to go next.

I'm happy to have started the journey for 52 Ancestors and I will not be sad that I did not get to finish it.  I'm going to leave it as is. My goal for this year, 2016, is to work on genealogy one day a week (at least through mid June while I'm still taking classes and interning).  During my one day a week I hope to blog here about my research.  I want to be more organized with my research and have goals and do things that make more sense.  As always, I am also hoping to get somewhere with my brick walls.  Genealogy is my hobby and I LOVE it!

#39 of 52...John J. Stapler

Another one of my 2nd Great grandfathers is John Jackson. Stapler.  

John J. Stapler was born 27 July 1878 in Georgia.  His parents were Andrew Stapler and Sarah.  Andrew and Sarah had the following known children:

1). Parks B. Stapler (1874-1954)

2). General G Stapler (1879-1953) 

3). John Jackson Stapler  (July 1881-1956)

4). unknown

1900 US Federal Census, Haralson County, Georgia 15 June 1900.  John J. Stapler is found with his parents.  

Andrew Stapler (June 1835) age 64, married for 37 years, born in Georgia as well as his parents. Andrew is a Farmer. 

Sarah D. Stapler, wife,  (July 1845) age 54, married for 37 years, mother of 6 children, 4 living. She was born in Georgia, her father in South Carolina and her mother in Georgia.

General G Stapler, son,  (Mar 1878) age 22, born in Georgia, Farm hand

Johnny J. Stapler, son,  (July 1880) age 19, born in Georgia

Mary E.  Stapler, grand daughter, (Oct 1891) age 8, born in Alabama

Interestingly next door is a Parks Stapler and family. Parks is the right age to be Andrew and Sarah's son.  I will investigate further to verify this relationship. 

Also on the same census page is William Akin and family.  This family includes a daughter Allis age 13.  This may be the Allis Akins that John J grows up to marry.   

16 April 1905--J.J. Stapler and Miss Alis Akin were married in Haralson County, Georgia by S.R. Goldin M.G.  They obtained the Marriage License the day before. 

James and Alace (I've seen her named spelled multiple ways) had the following children. 

1). William Jack Stapler (1906-1974)
2). Tishie Stapler (1909-1974)
3). Sarah Stapler (1913-1996)
4). Murdock Okers Stapler (1916-1973)
5). Ollin Stapler (1923-1979)
6). Robert H. Stapler (1926-1987)
7). A. G. Stapler (1933-2002)
8). Essie May Stapler (1920-2003)
9). Florance Stapler (1930-2003)

1910 US Federal Census, Cleburne County, Alabama.  The family is now in Alabama.  John J. is a farmer renting his farm.  He is age 27 and has been married for 5 years.  It indicates that he and his wife both cannot read or write.  Alace is now 22 years old and she is the mother of 3 children with 2 living.

Jackson, son, is age 3 and born in Georgia.  Tishie is age 5/12 months and born in Alabama.  

1918 Sept 12--US WWI Draft Registration Card.  John Jackson Stapler, home address R.H. Bowdon, Georgia. Age in years 38. DOB July 27, 1878. White, Native born, Farming. He signed with and x (he was unable to read or write).  Height-Medium; Build-Medium; eyes-Blue; Hair-Black.  This registration was done in Cleburne County, Alabama.

1920 US Federal Census, I've not been able to locate the family in the 1920 census.  It is likely that they have been mislabeled.  I will continue to search for them. 

1930 US Federal Census, Carroll County, Georgia.  They are back in Georgia now.  John J. Stapler is renting his home, living on a farm.  He is age 49, married and was 23 years old at his first marriage. He is a farmer working on his own account.

Allice, wife, age 42 years. 

Jack, son, age 23

Sarra, daughter, age 16

Murdoc, son, age 14

May, daughter, age 9

Olen, son, age 6

Robert son age 3 years 8/12 months (it appears to say).

1940 US Federal Census, Carroll County, Georgia.  Same location as in 1930.  John Stapler age 58.  It indicates that he did not attend any school, ever.  He is still a farmer. 

Allis, wife, age 57 years. attended 1st grade

Olin, son, age 15, attended to 3rd grade

Robert, son, age 12, attended to 3rd grade

Florince, daughter, age 9, attended to 2nd grade

Amos, age 6, not attended school. 

John J. Stapler passed away on 1 January 1956 in Carroll County, Georgia.  He was 75 years old.