Saturday
Night Genealogy Fun - Do Some Semi-Random Research
It's Saturday Night -
time for more Genealogy Fun!
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 B names is. Or the last person on your list of D names. Or H names. Or any other name you need to research. Your choice!
3) What do you know (or not know) about this person based on your research? It's OK to do more research 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 blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.
Here's mine:
1)
Okay, sounds like random fun!
2)
I’m using myHeritage Family Tree Builder for
this, as I’m more familiar with it than either Legacy or RootsMagic. My last “B” name was William Evelyn Byrd, but
he died in 1704 and came from England, for which I don’t have many readily
available resources at the moment. So I
moved up one, and chose Washington Byrd, my 1st cousin three times
removed.
3)
I don’t know much about him, just that he was
born circa 1850 in Indiana. Since my
ancestry is all from the Crawford County area in southern Indiana, I’ve a hunch
he was also from that area. Washington
was the son of Bryant Cole Bird and Mary (Straughan) Byrd. I don’t even have a source cited for this
little information! I have my work cut
out for me.
a.
Washington Byrd shows up in the 1860 US Census
for Indiana, right where I expected to find him in Sterling Township, Crawford
County, Indiana. And now I have my first
citation for Washington!
b.
I found another MyHeritage Family Tree that
claims his name is George Washington Byrd.
That’s not unreasonable, to name a child after our founding fathers. I will wait until I have better documentation
to make a change, as the 1860 census did not show that name.
c.
I found several newspaper entries about
Washington Byrd, a Democrat from Virginia in the mid-1950’s. Obviously not my Washington Byrd.
d.
I found a MyHeritage Family Tree using the BIRD
spelling, but otherwise the same family.
It is similarly sparse on details for Washington.
e.
As part of my research, I found that Washington’s
father Bryant ole Bird had an erroneous death date of 1843 – before Washington’s
birth by several years! I was able to
locate US Census records showing Bryant lived until after 1880, and some
MyHeritage Family Trees that show Bryant’s death in 1886 in Grantsburg,
Crawford County, Indiana.
f.
I was unable to find any further US Census
records for Washington Byrd. Did he die
before 1870? 1880? Time to search some other records.
g.
Find-A-Grave came up empty.
h.
I found an undocumented Ancestral File on
FamilySearch that claims a birthdate of 1849 and a marriage on 15 Nov 1878 to
Fetina J McMahel in Crawford County, Indiana. This file uses the BIRD spelling,
but has the correct parents. I also
found the 1860 US Census entry on FamilySearch, but found no other records for
Washington.
i.
MyTrees.com returned two hits for Washington
Byrd, but kept throwing up errors and not letting me see the entries. This was from within Legacy 8.
4)
As mentioned, Washington Byrd was my 1st
cousin, three times removed. (Doesn’t
three removes equal one fire?)
5) Here’s my
results! Did you play along? What did you find?
My Thanks to Randy Seaver of GeaneaMusings for the weekly prompt. This one I enjoyed rather a lot!
This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman
