Another Family Legend Meets DNA!

Hearty August Greetings!

Hope you are all enjoying at least some summer fun and staying virus-free!

Our household has been very fortunate during the pandemic. After about a month with none of his usual movie/TV/stage/trade-show work being available, Marty started to get jobs again, as the demand for live webcasts began to grow. Other opportunities have emerged, too, so Marty has stayed reasonably well-employed. His stagecraft union, I.A.T.S.E., is struggling, and it looks like we'll have to pay a lot more for health coverage for a while, but we consider ourselves very blessed to be neither ill nor broke!

Since the middle of March, most of my time has been spent at home redecorating our home office and puttering with other household needs, cooking a lot more, and of course working on my Genealogy projects. I was supposed to have visited the Midwest in the spring for field research and to meet with cousins and colleagues in Ohio and Kentucky, but that has been put off until at least mid-September.

Diggin' Down Into More DNA

Recent entries in this weblog have recounted my search for the mysterious "Tom Ford" who was supposed to be my 3rd great-grandfather. In that case, I was able to take our family's common knowledge about my illegitimate 2nd great-grandfather's disappearing Dad and attach some DNA evidence to his identity. This month, I encountered a scenario that took research the other direction.

It is a good idea to take periodic peeks into our DNA matches, in search of new developments. Recently I was doing just that, when I encountered a close match that mystified me. Most 2nd- and 3rd-cousin matches are easy for me to place in our tree, especially if the matching person has a few grandparents listed as a guide. That didn't work for this cousin. GH, as I will call him, did kindly leave a bit of family tree for me to peruse, but I puzzled with it for a few hours, until one of the names in his tree reminded me of a story Aunt Beverly, my father's sister, has told me. 

[Numbers in parentheses refer to source references at the end of this blog post.]

The (Sort-Of) Lost Uncle

My great-uncle William O'Brien (an elder brother of my paternal grandmother, Mary Jane O'Brien) had served about three years in the British Army during the Great War (WW1) and had been wounded a few times, when the day came that he decided to stop participating in the war. Uncle William acted upon that decision, deserted His Majesty's Army, and assumed the name Sidney Russell.

The family story has included speculation about whether Uncle William switched "dog tags" with a deceased comrade and assumed his name, but that part of the tale is probably apocryphal. 

All we know for sure is that Uncle William took this new name and ended up in the region of Buckinghamshire, England, where he had a relationship with a young lady named Beatrice Billingham. In 1919, the couple married in Buckinghamshire, and their daughter Margaret was born in Birmingham (1,2,3). 

   www.mirror.co.uk    

Post-War Exodus: UK to US

The family of my grandmother, Mary Jane "Jenny" O'Brien, was from Manchester, England. Grandma Jenny's parents, John and Mary Jane, and all but one of their nine children, had been gradually emigrating to the U.S., with her eldest brother John already living in Minneapolis by the time Jenny, her parents, and her two sisters arrived in the U.S. in 1920. Uncle John's home was their first American residence (4). 

Uncle William--now Sidney Russell--emigrated to the U.S. with his wife and daughter, as soon as Margaret was old enough to travel, in 1921 (4). Uncle William/Sidney went on to Minneapolis with his wife and daughter, following their arrival in Philadelphia. His father John O'Brien was already living in Minneapolis. On their ship's passenger list, Uncle William/Sidney named his Minneapolis contact as his father, John "Russell" (5). 

How much contact William/Sidney had with his parents in Minneapolis is not known, but it appears that he wanted to make sure his family knew where he was, and that he and his family were okay. Uncle William/Sidney and Aunt Beatrice stayed in Minneapolis long enough to have a son there in 1923, named Gerald William (6). In 1925, they were living in Illinois and had a third child, Barbara (7).

The Los Angeles Convergence

Early in the 1920s, the O'Brien family abandoned the frigid climate of Minneapolis and moved to Los Angeles. In 1924, Grandma Jenny married my grandfather, John Schaack, in Los Angeles (8). Before the decade was over, the Russell family made their way to L.A., as well.

In 1928, Great-Grandma Mary Jane O'Brien died of breast cancer at age 60. According to the death certificate, she died in her home, 938 East 111th Drive in Los Angeles (9). It is in this same house that her unmarried children Edward and Margaret are shown to be living, in the 1930 Census (10).

For the first couple of decades from the time they settled in the Los Angeles area, members of the O'Brien family lived only short distances from each other. By 1930, Sidney Russell's household was living in the same neighborhood. A perusal of the 1930 addresses of the O'Brien and Russell family members is easily accomplished using Google Maps, since the layout of most of the City of Los Angeles has changed little in the last 100 years. 

Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (315 E 110th)

and Edward and Margaret O'Brien (938 E 111th) in 1930.

The 1930 Federal Census has the family of Sidney Russell living at 315 E 110th Street in Los Angeles, a 1-mile drive from the home in which his mother had died two years before, and where his brother and sister were still living (11).

Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (315 E 110th)

and James O'Brien (9225 S Figueroa) in 1930.

Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (315 E 110th) 

and John and Mary Jane "Jenny" Schaack (914 E 88th) in 1930.

Sidney's home was a 1.9-mile drive from his brother James's place at 9225 South Figueroa, and a 2.5-mile drive from the home of his sister Jenny and her husband John at 914 East 88th Street, according to the 1930 Census (12,13).

Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (230 E 105th)

and Edward and Maude O'Brien (938 E 111th) in 1940.

Google Map showing the distance between the home of Sidney Russell (230 E 105th)

and John and Jenny Schaack (1024 E 107th) in 1940.

The 1940 Federal Census showed the households of Edward O'Brien, John Schaack, and Sidney Russell still residing very close to each other. Sidney's sister Jenny and her husband had moved and were now living less than a mile's drive from Sidney's new residence. Edward still lived in the same house on East 111th Drive, with his wife Maude (14,15,16). Other O'Brien siblings had moved away from the immediate neighborhood, although most of them would remain in California for the majority, if not the entirety, of their remaining lives.

Their father John O'Brien has not been located by me in the 1930 or 1940 census records, partly due to his common Irish name making it difficult to distinguish him from many other men. From the accounts of my father and his siblings, their grandfather was a frequent visitor to their Los Angeles home. The elder John O'Brien died in 1944, and his home address is given on the death certificate as 112-1/2 East 29th Street in Los Angeles (17).

It is apparent that Sidney Russell's children were aware that he had taken an alias, as evidenced by information given by his daughter Margaret C. on his death certificate. She claimed that his parents names were James O'Brien and Sarah; but she was a child when her grandmother Mary Jane passed away, and it is likely her contact with the O'Brien family was minimal, such that she would forget that her grandfather's first name was John, not James. On the certificate, his birth date is given as April 11, 1895, and he is shown to have died at his home at 445 South Western Avenue in Los Angeles on April 2, 1957 (18).

Sidney Russell's birth date on his Death Certificate matches the date of birth for William O'Brien in his baptismal record from Saint Matthew Parish in Ardwick, Manchester, England (19).

Bravery, Love, and Sacrifice

Grandma Jenny reported to her children that she would occasionally spot her brother William/Sidney around the neighborhood, but there was apparently a pact between the siblings that they would protect their brother's alias, and his wife and children, by denying their relationship. Aunt Beverly told me our uncle feared the British government would come after him as a military deserter.

Uncle William did honorable service for King and Country for many months, but he must have reached a point of desperation, in which he was willing to risk his life in order to save it. Had he been caught deserting the British Army, he would have been executed. Clearly, William/Sidney was motivated by love for his bride, his children, and the large family in which he was raised.

To Tie A Lost Connection

What does all this have to do with my mysterious cousin match, GH?

From Ancestry.com DNA Matches for Anne Brenneis.

GH showed up in my DNA Matches on Ancestry as a 2nd or 3rd cousin. The tree he provided revealed grandparents that should have easily led me to where he belonged in our tree, since our relationship is so close. After a few of hours trying to find in my tree the names in his tree, I stopped and wondered whether there was an adoption or illegitimacy issue. Finally, it occurred to me to look at our shared matches. It was foolish of me not to have done this sooner, because the shared matches provided the strongest clue!

From Ancestry.com DNA Shared Matches for Anne Brenneis and GH.

The presence of my sisters in our shared matches was expected, but when I noted that my father's siblings Howard and Beverly also matched GH, it hit me that the tree GH provided contained the surname Russell. Of course! Uncle William!

Below is a tree sketch showing how GH and I are 2nd cousins 1x removed, beginning with our most recent common ancestors (my great-grandparents, GH's 2x great-grandparents):

John O'Brien (1868-1944)    --    Mary Jane Pixton (1868-1928) 

Sidney Russell/William O'Brien (1895-1957) -- Beatrice Billingham (1894-1942)

Margaret Russell (1919-?) -- Earl C. (1917-1980)

CC (b 1945) -- RH (1941-1994)

GH

I will endeavor to share this blog post with Sidney Russell's descendants, because they deserve to know the story.

Stay well, everyone, and thanks for sticking with me for this rather long post!

--Annie

SOURCES:

(1) Birth record for Margaret Russell. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007," 1919, Q3-Jul-Aug-Sep, R, p 314; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 69 of 71.

(2) Marriage record for Sidney Russell to Billingham in Wycombe. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005," 1919, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec, R, p 146; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 78 of 81.

(3) Marriage record for Beatrice A Billingham to Russell in Wycombe. "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005," 1919, Q4-Oct-Nov-Dec, B, p 103; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 63 of 149.

(4) Listing for passengers John, Mary Jane (wife), Ellen, Mary Jane (daughter), and Margaret O'Brien, sailing from Liverpool June 1920 aboard SS Haverford, ultimate destination Minneapolis MN. "Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962," T840 - Philadelphia, 1883-1945, from NARA roll 136; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 477-479 of 683.

(5) Listing for passengers Sidney, Beatrice, and Margaret Russell, sailing from Liverpool 11 May 1921 aboard SS Haverford, ultimate destination Minneapolis MN. "Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962," T840 - Philadelphia, 1883-1945, from NARA roll 142; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 1037-1039 of 1124.

(6) Draft card of Gerald William Russell, naming birthplace of Minneapolis MN and father's name Sidney Russell. "U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947," California, Roshko-Saavedra, from NARA RG147, Box 1570; database with images, Ancestry.com; image 1893 of 2096.

(7) Birth record for Barbara Russell, 11 July 1925. "Cook County, Illinois Birth Index, 1916-1935," file number 6029017, Cook County Clerk; database on Ancestry.com.

(8) Marriage of John Schaack and Mary Jane O'Brien, 30 Aug 1924. "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952," Los Angeles County; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5698423, image 1421 of 2523.

(9) Death record for Mary J. O'Brien. "California County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994," Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death Certificates, 1928; California State Archives, Sacramento; database with images FamilySearch.org: FHL film 5597703, image 308 of 2497.

(10) Household of Edward and Margaret O'Brien. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 560; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339888, image 52 of 83.

(11) Household of Sidney Russell. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 570; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339889, image 42 of 51.

(12) Household of James O'Brien. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 554; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339888, image 21 of 43.

(13) Household of John Schaack. "1930 United States Federal Census," California, Los Angeles, District 535; database with images, Ancestry.com; FHL film number 2339889, image 35 of 65.

(14) Household of Sidney Russell. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Los Angeles City, Assembly District 60-1223; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456510, image 7 of 34.

(15) Household of Edward O'Brien. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Los Angeles City, Assembly District 60-1226; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456510, image 7 of 34.

(16) Household of John Schaack. "United States Census, 1940," California, Los Angeles Co, Inglewood, District 19-331; database with images, FamilySearch.org; FHL film number 5456301, image 25 of 72.

(17) Death record for Jack O'Brien. "California County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994," Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death Certificates, 1944; California State Archives, Sacramento; database with images FamilySearch.org: FHL film 5599879, image 2161 of 2827.

(18) Death certificate for Sidney Russell. “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co, Death certificates, 1957, no 1450-6650, certificate 6516; database with images, FamilySearch.org, FHL film 5597991, image 2863 of 3032; from California State Archives, Sacramento.

(19) Baptism of William O'Brien. “Manchester, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915,” Ardwick, St Matthew, 1890 Aug – 1905 Jul, page 94, image 51 of 154; database with images, Ancestry.com; from Anglican Parish Registers, Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives.

Further Ford Family Findings!

Greetings from Shelter-In-Place!

Hope you are all staying safe and well, and are not going too crazy at home!

At this time, I was supposed to be in Ohio and Kentucky conducting field research. With that trip delayed until after libraries reopen, there has been much to keep me busy at home. Marty's usual work is not happening, but he has found other avenues for utilizing his many talents. We are among the fortunate, in the midst of our current viral pandemic.

I have spent a good deal of time hammering at some walls that have plagued our family tree, with some success. Much of that work has been related to a previous post I made to this weblog nearly a year ago, A DNA Breakthrough and Conference News, in which I discussed the quest to uncover the identity of the man named "Tom Ford" that family members have claimed was the father of my 2nd great-grandfather, John Thomas Romans.

To recap, I was able to pinpoint a young man named Thomas Benton Ford who had grown up in the neighborhood of my 3rd great-grandmother, Angelina "Adeline" Romans, and was close to her age. Through further study of this Tom Ford's family, I was fortunate to find two DNA matches who are descendants of Tom's father, Harbin Hawkins Ford, through Tom's half-sister. I am currently writing an official genealogical proof for this research and will announce on this blog when it is published.

Originally, as stated in the previous blog post noted above, I doubted that Tom Ford's legitimate son, Edwin Elliott Ford (called Elliott), had had children, because he had been only briefly married to Henrietta Taylor before he died tragically of typhoid at age 24. Turns out, I was incorrect about this!

Thanks to newspapers available through MyHeritage.com, I found young Mr Ford's obituary, which provided not only the news that he had a daughter born December of 1910 (same as my Grandpa C.P., mentioned in previous blog entries), but also named the parents of Elliott's wife, Henrietta. Yay!

The Bourbon News, Paris KY, Volume XXX, Number 4, 13 Jan 1911.

My next task was to follow the movements of Henrietta Taylor Ford and hopefully learn the name of Baby Girl Ford. Further poking through The Bourbon News led me to more info about Henrietta, including the name of her daughter (Lelia Jane Ford, called Jane) and Henrietta's brief marriages to Joseph Gay Mitchell and then Forest Reuben Eyer, with whom she and her daughter were living in Lee IA on the 1920 Federal Census. 

Henrietta stayed married to Mr Eyer for some years and still resided with him in Kansas City MO on the 1930 Census, but Jane was no longer in their household, leading me to believe that she may have married. Henrietta's fourth husband appears to have been Charles Hunter Dishman, whose obituary from 1968 states that she was still his wife at the time of his death. At this time, I have no further vital information about Henrietta.

Jane Ford is found in the 1930 Census to be the wife of Bradford Preston Young and living in Pittsburgh PA. In the 1940 Census, the two were still married with a son. This marriage did not last, however. Mr Young remarried in 1961, lived his final years in Arizona, and is buried with his 2nd wife Norma, who died in 1982.

FindAGrave.com, memorial #157339425.

There are as yet no signs that Jane married again. I am still in search of further records for her. She lived into her 90s and is buried in Kansas, with her maiden name on the grave marker.

FindAGrave.com, memorial #75762562, photo by Jaunice Hess.

--Annie

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other."--Mother Teresa

A DNA Breakthrough and Conference News

Welcome back, Readers!

Summer has not yet arrived on the calendar, but the heat wave we are experiencing in the Bay Area has aided my transition into full Summer mode! With another Midwestern road trip slated for September, lots of on-site research planning is happening at my desk. This year, a perk has been added to my back-east wanderings: my sister Denise and her husband Frank have bought a house in Arkansas! I already miss their former mountain home-base in Bishop, California, but now I have a great place for extended pit-stops on journeys to Cincinnati and beyond, with the added bonus of spending time with my wonderful sister and brother-in-law!

Frank preparing to give Denise "bunny ears." 

They are wonderfully insane. Can't wait to see them again!

Dismantling Some Masonry
One of the proverbial "brick walls" with which I have been contending in recent years involves my 2nd great-grandfather, John Thomas "JT" Romans. According to family legend, in 1858 JT's mother Angelina Romans had a late-teenage tryst with a boy named Tom Ford and found herself to be with child. Soon after his roll in the hay with Angelina, Tom Ford left town, supposedly to visit Europe.

The Romans family had a farm in Owen County, Kentucky at the time, and they had a good many neighbors with the surname Ford, who appear to have been rather well-to-do for the area, based on documents and county histories I have found. Perusal of the Federal Census of 1850 for Owen County showed one person named Thomas Ford, the son of Harbin (misspelled "Harlin") and Anna (spelled "Ann") Ford. One of the Owen County histories mentioned that young Tom, his mother Anna, and his sister Laura moved to Frankfort soon after the 1853 death of Harbin Ford so that Tom could attend a private school there. 

There continued to be a heavy Ford-family presence in Owen County following the relocation of Harbin's household, and those family ties are the basis for my suspicion that the widow and children of Harbin Ford made a number of 20-mile trips back to Owen County in the years following their move to Frankfort. It is possible that one of those visits provided the opportunity for this Tom Ford to get together with Angelina.

Due diligence required that I search for another possible baby-daddy named Tom Ford, so I dissected 1850 and 1860 census records for Owen County looking for clues that could lead to another Tom Ford but found no one else by that name. A search of census records for surrounding counties yielded only our original suspect living in Frankfort with his mother and sister in 1860.

Other neighbors of the Romans clan included the Martin family. They had a son named Elisha who must have been a generous young man, because he married Angelina in 1860, less than a year following the birth of little JT. In the 1860 census, the household of Elisha and Angelina Martin included JT, with the assumed surname of Martin. It may have been Elisha's intent to adopt and help raise JT. I've noticed that distantly related genealogy hobbyists who have included our Romans family in their trees have assumed that Elisha Martin was JT's biological father, but those of us who are JT's direct descendants have not believed that to be the case. 

Thomas B. Ford, left (Register of the KY State Historical Society, vol. 41, p 11)

and John Thomas Romans, right (from a family photo dated 1909)

In 1863, with JT only four years old, Angelina died and Elisha Martin volunteered for the Confederate Army. JT was left in the care of his grandparents, Shelton and Malinda Romans, in whose household he appeared on the 1870 census. When Elisha Martin returned from the war, he married Angelina's younger sister Zilpha and had a number of children with her, including a daughter they named Adeline, which had been Angelina's nickname.

JT's Romans grandparents had passed away by 1880. JT does not appear in the households of either Elisha and Zilpha Martin or Tom Ford in the 1880 census. 
In 1882, JT married his first wife Corinthia in a neighboring county. Corinthia died in 1888 without any surviving children that I have located. In 1889 he married my 2nd great-grandmother, Amanda Petty. 

JT and Amanda remained in northern Kentucky and raised a large family, including my great-grandmother Daisy. Census records state he worked as a farm laborer then later as a carpenter. JT fell victim to a common scourge of his time, tuberculosis, and died in a TB asylum in Texas at age 62. The informant for his death certificate was either Mrs. or Miss Anna Romans (wife Amanda's name might have been mistakenly written as "Anna," and he had a daughter named Anna), who evidently gave the name "Tom" as his father's name, which was written on the certificate as "Tom Romans." His mother's name was given as "Adeline Romans," using Angelina's nickname.

Next, I embarked upon a deeper study of our suspected paternal Tom Ford, whose full name was Thomas Benton Ford. Mr. Ford continued to reside in Frankfort following his schooling and became an attorney. He was also a published author of poetry and prose, as was his sister Laura. Because he was a man of some notoriety, I was able to find an article about him and Laura in a 1943 issue of the Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, as well as mention of him and his family in a book entitled Owen County, Kentucky: History and Families. From these and a few other sources, I have been able to glean quite a bit of fascinating information about Thomas B. Ford, but no hints that he had left behind an illegitimate child in Owen County. 

The search for DNA evidence of paternity was my next step. Our Tom Ford did marry and by this wife had a son named Ellis, who died as a young adult without leaving any known children behind. Laura Ford married late in life and does not appear to have had any children, either. Tom and Laura were Harbin Ford's children by his second wife. Fortunately, Harbin's daughter Elizabeth by his first wife has had a long string of progeny, the lines of which I have traced down well into the 20th century. Ancestry DNA came to the rescue here, yielding two living cousin matches: One a half 5th cousin (male) and the other a half 4th cousin once removed (female), both descendants of Tom's half-sister Elizabeth!

These DNA matches constitute my first concrete piece of evidence that Thomas Benton Ford may be my 3rd great-grandfather. At the very least, it appears I have located the family of the mysterious Tom Ford. Research continues.

Recent L.A. Jamboree and upcoming Sacramento German Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I made one of my customary treks to the Los Angeles area to visit family and sneak in some research at the L.A. Central Library, one of my favorite haunts (see my article about it in the California Genealogical Society blog: The Genealogy Collection at Los Angeles Central Library). My time was limited, but I had to go check out the feted Genealogy Jamboree that was taking place in Burbank. I signed up for their free sessions on Friday morning, which were terrific, and had a chance to peruse the society and merchant booths.

Besides the free Friday sessions, Jamboree has a free mobile app that is very similar to the one that Roots Tech has. Like the Roots Tech app, you can use the Jamboree app to download all of the handouts from Jamboree sessions, whether or not you paid for or attended any of them! It's important to keep in mind that both Roots Tech and Jamboree make the handouts available for personal use only!

This coming weekend is especially exciting for many of us who do German genealogical research, because we will be enjoying the International German Genealogy Conference, which is being held in Sacramento, only a 2-hour drive from home! Of course, I will be writing about it on this very blog!

Annie

"Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei (Everything has an end, only the sausage has two)." -- German expression