Genealogy

Murphy Family

Hosemann Family

DAR

Research Tips

I am not a professional genealogist. Until a few years ago, I did not know such persons existed. It is, however, fascinating work if you can get it :).

What I have in these pages are my two primary family lines (paternal: Murphy; maternal: Hosemann) and a number of ancillary lines (i.e. the female ancestors who's names I know and have traced). I've tried to keep the information concise, but what fascinates me the most about this is the story. Actually, several stories, and how they fit into history.

I got to visit with some Hosemann cousins in Germany several years ago and have since learned much more about how German speakers were treated between the great wars, and after WWII. They lived it. I learned that my great-grandfather left the Austro-Hungarian Empire not just because he was an orphan (he was living with his paternal grandparents in what is now Frydlant, Czech Republic), but because mandatory military service started at age 16, and he didn't care to participate. He came to America with no money and worked to make a living in the lumber mills of the north.

I've learned that I have numerous family members who came to these shores as soon as there were boats: English, Irish, Dutch, and German migrants who were in the Americas as early as the 1600s. They protected their farms and cities from the natives and the enemies of their home country, they fought on both sides of the American Revolution, some had indentured servants and slaves, others did not. Most of them headed west as soon as the way opened, becoming early settlers in Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Several were in the gold fields of California, or wildcatted oil in Oklahoma.

My families are the story of this country. They are the ties I have to what has gone before. They are a reminder that we can survive whatever comes to us.

This is my dad's family. The associated family names I've found so far are Higgins, Avery, Barnes, Twogood, Tyner, Teasely, Hunt, Rackley, Wyche, Reddebaugh, Sears, Kerns, Riblin, Conrad, Billings, Rowland, Boden, Weller, Michel, Berry, Booth, Campbell, Snyder, Cromwell, Gebhart, Copsey, Dorsey, and Murray. I haven't worked out all the associated lines yet - that's the fun part :)

Here is the pdf of the ahnentafel report.

This is the information on my mother's family. The associated lines with it are Ohlschmidt, McElligott, O'Connor, Little, Lavins, Finnegan, Steinhauser, and Urban. I obviously don't have these lines traced that far back, and most of them were late (early 1800s) arrivals in the US.

Here is the pdf of the ahnentafel report.

I was accepted to join the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2011. My only current patriot ancestor is John Teasley (ancestor number A113217). The supplementals I will be sending in when the review backlog is a little less are Joshua Tyner (A117751), Richard Tyner (A060464), and Stephen Cromwell (A027992). I should have a few others, but they are works in progress.

I am currently the Chapter Registrar for the Zachariah Davies Chapter of the Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (you can see why we use a lot of acronyms...). The Chapter Registrar for Zachariah Davies traditionally helps research new or supplemental ancestors for members who aren't familiar with genealogy, and tracks membership changes with the state and national organizations. I am enjoying it quite a bit. I love working through the puzzle of deciphering historical records, getting to go to archives and small town libraries and meet librarians and probate clerks and historians. I love putting names and sometimes faces with history.

To get into DAR you have to show a bloodline to someone who fought in the Revolutionary War, on the winning side :). This has to be proved with official records, bible records, or other trustworthy documentation. DAR's motto is "God, Home, and Country". We promote good citizenship, scholarship, historical preservation, historical marking, and veterans services, among others. The ladies I've met, especially among the Tennessee Daughters, have been wonderfully inclusive and dedicated to helping others...and collecting pins. The pins let you show everything from the projects you support within the DAR to how many patriot ancestors you have to what offices you held at the local, state, and national levels. The pins are fun. The work is real, and so is the dedication. This is a very talented and determined group of people I'm proud to be a part of.

To do good genealogy research you need two things: good data, and a way to keep track of what you've found. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Many data sources are questionable, because well-meaning people made assumptions without checking them and went off on complete tangents, or relied on family lore, which comes with its own pitfalls. You can collect hundreds of pages of information on just a few ancestors, and keeping up with that one odd bit of information that lets you make the leap to a new line can be rough.

I use Family Tree Maker software for my work, but there are several good databases out there. Some folks use programs like OneNote that let you create notebooks of your file collections. Use whatever works for you, but understand that you will do a lot less repetition of research if you can easily sort through what you already have.

As for data, prime sources are always preferred. These are letters, diaries, governmental and church records, land deeds and wills, probate data and civil court proceedings from the time in which your ancestor lived. Everyone then knew who was the child of whom, and why someone wasn't in the will but got the property anyway. They may not have written it down because everyone knew. Now, not so much :). You have to put together pieces of information, create a clear trail of your ancestor's life from birth to death, linking each generation to the ones before and after.

Records

I love using Ancestry.com. It is a fantastic resource. It has a number of digitized data sets (including the indexed census records, various state marriage lists, war department and veterans information, and the Sons of the American Revolution applications) that are wonderful primary sources. The family trees are not primary resources. You can use them to get an idea of linkages, and many of the people there will post photos, which is a priceless find, but you have to find the primary sources that prove their links. I had one ancestor that everyone who had ever done work on knew was the son of a certain man. This was listed often. This listing invariably had no primary source - that amounts to "so-and-so said it was". I finally found the source by driving to Marion, Williamson County, Illinois, and working with the lovely folks at the county historical society to locate a transcript of the family bible (a deerskin covered wonder that moved with them from Georgia to Tennessee to Illinois in 1816) that contained the list of children, their birth dates and marriages. THAT is a primary source. On the frontier, that may be the ONLY source.

Check out historical societies and county clerks in places where your ancestor lived (the US GenWeb Project is a great source for these and other local sources) and library history rooms (the one at our Huntsville Madison County Library is outstanding). The librarians can be a lot of help (they do this every day) and they might be able to do an interlibrary loan for books you need, or let you know if there are special records available at state archives you can visit. The Tennessee State Archives was a bibliophile's dream and I have yet to meet anyone at such a place who wasn't incredibly helpful. Google Books also has a huge searchable digitized library of old books, many of which are hard to find.

Don't assume all the records (even census and government records) are completely right. Birthdates were sometimes guesses or approximations. Spelling could be matter of interpretation, and the census records were originally indexed by hand - so someone had to look at the record and try to read it to index it. If you are looking for someone you know should be in Giles County Tennessee in the 1850 census, go to the original census record and start reading. It can be tedious, but you'll find a lot more that way.
Family

Look for family members. Families tended to live and move together, so even if the parents stayed in the old town, a brother and sister may have taken their families to new land a state or two over. A census that missed one will probably catch the other. If both parents died, children may have been split among several family members, so knowing that an aunt or uncle lived nearby could point to the kids.

Names tend to go in families. Look for unusual names or name combinations for clues to relatives.

Keep in mind that many people married several times, usually on the death of a spouse. Someone in the 1800s who married in their late twenties was probably married at least once before. Children attributed to one wife may actually have been with a previous wife who died. Children with a different last name from the male head of house may be from a wife's previous marriage.
Daughters

Daughters were often listed by their married names, or referenced only by their husbands, in their parents' wills.

Girls inherited just as often as boys. Don't overlook the dowry or inheritance a girl had as a link to her parents.

Many famillies gave their sons the mother's maiden name as their middle name. This can be a clue for her family.

Sons-in-law often were well-acquainted with the fathers of their brides before they married. Check for witnesses to deeds or other legal proceedings for names of family friends who might eventually have married into a family.