Wordless Wednesday - Yates County farms

US-Mexican War Announcement

 I just got this announcement through the National Genealogical Society's newsletter UpFront with NGS:


From our friends at FGS and the National Park Service …

August 8, 2016 – Austin, TX. and Brownsville, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the National Park Service’s Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park announce a partnership to develop a searchable database of more than 130,000 soldiers of the U.S.-Mexican War.

The database will allow descendants of U.S. soldiers to connect to their personal history and help Palo Alto commemorate and tell the stories of these soldiers. After the database is developed, unit histories, digitized documents, and information on U.S.-Mexican War soldiers will be added. Efforts will also be made to include names and information about Mexican soldiers in this war.

"FGS is thrilled to partner with the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park for this important preservation project,” said FGS President D. Joshua Taylor. “We look forward to working with our member societies and volunteers to provide new access to records for those researching the Mexican War."

Palo Alto Battlefield is also pleased with the partnership. “National Parks tell the stories of America,” said Superintendent Mark Spier. “Palo Alto Battlefield is excited to have the opportunity to work with the Federation of Genealogical Societies to tell the stories of the thousands of soldiers who served in the U.S.-Mexican War.”

To help bring these soldiers’ stories to life and to be a part of this momentous preservation project, indexing volunteers should contact Project Coordinator Patricia Rand, The Villages, FL, at projects@fgs.org.

The Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Park Service previously partnered together in 1999 for the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System database project where FGS volunteers completed data entry for more than five million names. The efforts of the CWSS project can now be experienced on the NPS Civil War website.

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The US-Mexican War was fought between 1846 and 1848 for those that don't remember that part of American History class. It is not the border skirmishes that occurred in 1916 during the Mexican Revolution where we were trying to capture Poncho Villa who was making raids into the United States. This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the announcement especially when it mentioned Brownsville, Texas. I obviously didn't pay strict attention to military battles in class either.

Saturday Challenge- Oldest and Youngest Living Men Relatives

From Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Review your Pedigree Chart (either on paper or in your genealogy management software program) and determine the age at death of your Male ancestors back at least five generations (and more if you want to).

2)  Tell us the lifespan years for each of these ancestors.  Which of your male ancestors in this group lived the longest?  Which lived the shortest?  

Father

2 Gordon John Ward. (2 February 1919-10 December 1998) age 79.

Grandfathers

4 William J Ward. ( 27 November 1887-30 May 1962) age 74.

6 Marion James Wooster. (14 June 1896-1 April 1976) age 79.

Great-Grandfathers

8 John S Ward. (13 November 1854-26 January 1932) age 77.

10 Charles Joseph Ingalls. (3 April 1864-January 1939) age 74.

12 Verner Robert Wooster. (26 March 1867-30 May 1947) age 80.

14 William Jennings. (1849-13 November 1917) age 68.

2 Great Grandfathers

16 William Ward. (1 February 1830-31 August 1902) age 72.

18 Samuel H Titus. (13 October 1825-10 March 1874) age 48.

20 Joseph D Ingalls. (19 December 1834-21 August 1894) age 59.

22 John Robert Brown. (18 November 1835-24 October 1917) age 81.

24 Barclay Wooster. (29 August 1819-3 March 1895) age 75.

26 James Duff. (26 March 1836-26 February 1926) age 89.

28 Richard J Jennings. unknown dates

30 James “John” Damery. (1812-1896) age 84.

3 Great Grandfathers

32 Thomas Ward. (1804-16 February 1883) age 79.

34 Henry Winterburn. unknown dates

36 Daniel D Titus. (1796-5 March 1849) age 53.

38 John Tobias. (about 1802-??)

40 Samuel Ingalls. (26 July 1802-17 October 1873) age 71.

42 Ezekiel Edson Fay. (23 September 1802-17 January 1888) age 85.

44 Quartis Brown. (1795-24 November 1878) age 83.

46 Samuel Wright. (9 October 1802-1 April 1885) age 82.

48 Leverett Lyman Wooster. (1786-1855 and 1869) he was about 69.

50 Reuben Tifft. (bet 1791 and 1800-1855- 1859) he was about 64.

52 James Duff. (28 December 1809-6 February 1872) age 62.

54 William Homer Johnson. (February 1812-1892) age 79.

56 George Jennings.  unknown dates

60 John Damery. (1764-1844) age 80.

62 Richard Wolfe. (1787-15 April 1862) age 75.

The oldest living of my male ancestors would be James Duff at age 89. The youngest would go to Samuel H. Titus at age 48. There are a few unknowns that might change this, but I’ve yet to uncover their birth and death dates. I’m also not sure why Samuel died so young. I know his father, Daniel Titus died fairly young as well. That was an accident where either his horse was spooked by a train and ran in front of it or else he was racing to get across the tracks before the train arrived and lost. From the articles I’ve found about the accident, I doubt they ever knew for sure.

Irish as in Church of Ireland Records Online!

For anybody that has listened to me talk about Irish records very much, you know that I have just one complaint about them. It is the fact that every time some new records become available and everybody is excited about them, there is another group off to the side that are not so excited. These people are like, "That's nice, but you forgot about us again." Contrary to what some people would like you to believe, not all Irish can be found in the Catholic parish records. There might not have been vast numbers, but still a small but significant group of Irish were and still are Protestant.

For those people, I have very exciting news! There is a new website, still in beta, but it is out there-- of Church of Ireland Records! It lists what is available and where. This list is published by the Church archives. For those that aren't familiar with the term "Church of Ireland", this is the Anglican church. In the United States the Anglican church is commonly known as the Episcopal church. There are a few differences between them, but in general it is a good equivalent for understanding. Here is a sample from it.



In this the green highlight for Whitechurch in County Cork has baptisms for 1824-1874, marriages 1807-1845, and burials for 1821-1873. The green indicates that records were lost in the fire of 1922, but that these are reconstructed records that are available. The yellow is for lost records and the non-highlight is records that are still available at the local churches. There is more information about finding these records in the text of the information.

A quick scan tells me that there are no records left pre-1922 at Whitechurch for my family, but there are other churches nearby that have possibilities for various members of the family. This is a wonderful start and I am crossing my fingers that more and more records like this become available for us to research at a distance!

For those that missed it above, the link to all this is available by clicking on the phrase "new website still in beta" or at: https://beta.ireland.anglican.org/news/6518/a-colourcoded-resource-of-what