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Archiver > ONTARIO > 2000-07 > 0964724314


From: "jeanpayton" <>
Subject: Re: Fw: [ONT] info
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 14:58:34 -0400


Well I guess I can relate to that problem. My great grandmother on my
mothers side was named Dora A. Knox. So when I started my research I asked
my mother where Dora was born Well! she said she ws of the KNOX Family of
where else but Knoxville, Tennessee. You shouldn't have to ask me that my
mother stated! everyone knows that!. Well my husband and I were travelling
through Tennessee on our way back north and decided to stop in Nashville at
their State Library. We are in a motorhome so my husband let me out and he
would try to find a parking spot. Well 6 hours later and my husband driving
around the State Capitol all of that itme I came out and said she isn't
there anywhere. NOne of my reseaarch turned her up. We get back to Detroit
and I called my mother in Florida and aked her where her grandmother died.
She says well she died in Detroit. So I was off to downtown Detroit to get
her death record. Got it and boy was I chewing nail. According to her
death record she was not of the Knoxes of Knoxville, Tennessee but was of
the Knox family who came here from Ireland landed in Pennslyvania, made a
few year stop over in Bourbon County, Kentucky and then her parents and
grandparents ended up in Warsaw, Hancock Co., IL. None of them had ever
been to Tennsessee! But then she goes on to tell me that my great
grandfather, Dora's Husband when he was born she gave me the correct
birthdate and stated he had a twin brother. Well for five years I searched
for him and a twin brother. How hard could that search be? Got a twin born
in New York somewhere had his parents names, just not the brother who was
his twin. Well after turning up nothing I decided I would go through each
county of New York (68 of them I believe) in the 1855 Census. Now I know
his mothers name was Delia and supposedly the fathers name was Harry. Well
the last county I looked in I found the family. The fathers name was
Perry R. Spencer., the twin? Well the brother was a twin but not to my
great grandfather. The twin had a twin sister. I find them for twenty
years and they disappear again. Well since I found the great gradnmother
and I knew her father had been killed in atrain/milkwagon accident in Iowa I
looked there first for the Marriage license whcih gave me no info at that
time. So we returned the following year and I looked up the marriage
license again and I noticed that it was not the same one that I had looked
the year before. There were two of them. So I did find the parents and the
twins in another part of Iowa along with the children and grandchildren of
the Twins. Also found that my great grandfather ws married twice. Mother
didn't know that!

So you see even though our parents tell us one thing we really need to look
it over thoroughly or you will be looking in the wrong place for people who
didn't exist there at all. Genealogy is just like a huge picture puzzle that
has to be put together piece by piec until the whole picture appears.

I have driven a lot of miles looking in the wrong place for info and then
started looking around me an in one instance I was told my grandfather was a
chef at the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona but that he and my
grandmother and father lived in Douglas Arizona and fort five miles was
along way to travel to go to work each day in the 1910 era. Found out he
didn't work there but right in Doughlas at the Whitehouse Cafe.
Jean Payton


----- Original Message -----
From: "Leslie Gourlin" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2000 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: [ONT] info


> Hi All,
>
> I have really been enjoying this thread....I'm happy to note that I'm not
> the only one with relatives who are hard to deal with. Even the most
helpful
> ones can send you on months of "wild goose chases". I was told by my
mother
> that my grandmother's father was Edgar Smith, s/o Jacob Smith, s/o David
> Smith of Barrington, NS. When I put this line on the NS news group I made
> contact with people who provided me with my family history, documented,
back
> into England to the 1400's. What I needed to complete the line was Edgar
> Smith's birth records. I searched for nearly a year, with no luck, even
> thourgh I knew where he was born. Then a lady. who as a young child had
> known the family, informed me that Edgar's name was really Joseph Edgar.
> With in a week I had BMD information on him all documented. When I told
my
> mother this she said "Oh I knew that, but no one ever called him Joseph."
I
> also found out that her sister was "Mildred" Marguerite (went by
Marguerite,
> but called Lami), her brother was "Edgar" Richard (went by Richard) and on
> and on. These were all new additions to names that I had never heard. So
> when you are asking for family names make sure you ask if this is their
> legal name or just what they went by.....I can save a lot of work.
>
> Leslie in BC
>
>
> ==============================
> Ancestry.com now has more than 200,000 subscribers! To celebrate,
> access to ALL of Ancestry.com will be free from July 18 to July 31!
> http://www.ancestry.com/subscribe/freepromo.asp?sourcecode=A11AM
>
>

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