Genealogy Burnout: A COVID Side-Effect

Whenever I begin a blog post, it usually takes several days of research, drafting, and editing before the final product is published. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to study research methods for two semesters during both undergrad and graduate school, so the research and source documentation process is so engrained in me that I have to take the time to do it right. But this post is going to be different in that it will be more candid, not heavily researched, and not about an ancestor. So with that said: let's talk genealogy burnout.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year and half, you know that we are in the midst of the first global pandemic in over a century. Our entire lives were turned upside down overnight, and what we thought would be temporary changes lasting for a month or so at most have been our "new normal" for the past 19 months. And while physical health has been at the forefront of our thoughts during this time, the affects of our mental health as a result of Living in a prolonged state of uncertainty and fear need to be addressed.

If you were anything like me during the first few weeks of quarantine you might have, in your heart of hearts, been secretly glad for the break in life's grueling pace. Sure, staying home all the time, adjusting to working from home, not seeing friends and family in person, and wearing a mask on those preciously rare trips out in public to the grocery store was a pain, to say the very least. But on the other hand, for many of us, this quarantine was the first time that we truly had the time and energy to explore activities that we actually enjoy doing. During those early weeks I took up drawing and painting again, I practiced the flute pieces that had been on my "to play" list for years, and of course I did a lot of genealogy research and wrote several blog posts.

However, as weeks turned into months, the gravity of the situation started to weigh on me. In the beginning COVID was something vague and far-away, something that happened to "other people" and "other people's families." But as time went on and people that I knew people contracted the disease (and unfortunately some of those people did pass away as a result), I started to slip into a depression and to lose interest in the activities that I had thrown myself into a couple months before. 

This depression got even worse when I went back to working in-person after five months of working from home. At the beginning of the pandemic I was a middle school choir director, but due to staff reduction at my school I was transferred into an itinerant elementary general music position. The country entered into quarantine while my district was on Spring break, so what we all thought was going to be a week-long vacation turned into me never getting to say goodbye to my beloved choir students, and my students never getting to perform the musical and Spring concert that they had worked so hard on. During this time I prepared my lessons at home, and only went into the school once per week to prepare take-home packets for students without internet access. I had just begun to get over this sense of loss when we went back to school in September. For over a month my entire district was on eLearning, so I sat in an empty classroom recording and editing lessons all day. (Teaching to a camera is hard, by the way. 0/10, do not recommend.) When we finally did resume in-person school, it was so drastically different that it really just made me more depressed than happy to be back with students. Not only was I adjusting to teaching music in a different way - I was also adjusting to teaching a very wide age range, from PreK - 5th grade. I had no dedicated space for teaching music because I had to travel classroom-to-classroom (to reduce traffic in the hallways), and I was not allowed to sing or use instruments with students during the first few months. We did a lot of body percussion, a lot of music history, a lot of iPad apps. The kids and I were both sick and tired of this after just a few weeks. I was also recording and posting lessons for eLearning kids in addition to teaching in-person kids, so I was feeling incredibly stressed and overwhelmed most of the time.

By the time 2021 rolled around, I was incredibly burnt out with everything. Almost all of my energy was consumed by my job, and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was lay in bed and watch Netflix. I didn't want to research or write genealogy blog posts, I didn't want to practice, or paint, or any of the things I had enjoyed during quarantine. I jotted down several ideas for posts, but for the past several months the mere thought of sitting down to focus on researching and writing a post seemed like such a grueling and daunting task.

Three weeks ago the thing that I had dreaded and dodged for a year and a half finally happened: I contracted COVID, as did my father. Thankfully, my mother did not contract it. Neither of us had to be hospitalized, but I was sicker than I had been in a very long time. It felt like having a very bad case of the flu and bad allergies at the same time. I lost my senses of taste and smell, I had runny nose and watery eyes that about drove me crazy, my fever would spike at seemingly random intervals, and I had fatigue like I had never felt in my life. A round of steroids helped, but even with them it was absolutely miserable. (So let this be a lesson to you: wear your mask, wash your hands, AND GET YOUR VACCINE!) Needless to say, getting COVID definitely didn't help the funk that I was in. But now that I am finally able to come home from work and NOT sleep for several hours (most days), I am trying to pull myself out of it by engaging in the things that I enjoy - and of course, genealogy is at the top of that list.

I'm trying to get myself motivated to do this by getting some of these thoughts down and sharing them with other genealogists. Have you experienced genealogy burnout? Has your mental health been affected by the pandemic? Or were you able to focus and get a lot accomplished during this time?

Also, please let me know if there are any certain topics you would like to read about! I have a few in mind at the moment, including one that I am currently researching that is kind of genealogy-adjacent. Expect that post soon! (No seriously: hold me to that, lol.)

I hope that this post finds you all well, and that you are finding ways to keep yourself sane during this crazy time. Happy ancestor hunting!

Ten Tips and Tricks for Breaking Down Brick Walls

Hello again, everyone! For our first post of 2021, I decided to reach out to the Genealogy! Just Ask! community on Facebook and ask what topics they would like to see covered. One of the most requested topics was "tips for solving brick walls," and to be honest I was a little hesitant to take it on. It's been covered in other blogs, and by some that are much more experienced than me. But then I remembered the reasoning behind one of my tips: sometimes, all you need is a fresh set of eyes! I hope that this list will help someone send a wrecking ball right through their brick wall.

01. Reevaluate what you already have.

This might seem self-explanatory, but don't underestimate the power of taking another look at the records that you already have. In a previous blog post, I wrote about how I made the mistake of taking another researcher's work as fact; but when I took another look at the records, I found that I had the wrong parents attached to my great-great-grandmother. Sometimes a fresh perspective can help you find the details that you might have missed before. 

02. Check for related spellings of both first and last names.

If you have had little success using databases to find records pertaining to a specific ancestor, try searching for a different spelling. For instance, it took me a long time to find a death record for my great-great-grandfather because his last name was listed as "Kissinger" instead of "Kessinger." If you're not sure which spelling might have been used, most databases have an option to search for an "exact match" or to search for "exact and related" matches. 

03. Look for people with the same last name located in the same area in census records.

Even today, families tend to stay in the same general geographic areas. Searching census records for people of the same last name in the same location can give you a clue as to who possible relatives might be. I used this trick to find the parents of my 5th-great-grandmother, and was able to confirm my findings with genetic genealogy research (you can read about it at this post). My favorite site for this kind of search is Family Search, as you can search by name, location, and relation to another person.

04. Look for clues in the names of your ancestor's children.

Naming children after family members is a practice that many still use today, but a century ago it was very much the norm. For instance: if your brick wall ancestor has a child with an unusual name - particularly one that sounds more like a surname - there is a good chance that it is the maiden name of a mother or grandmother. For instance, my ancestors, Joseph Chew and Ruth Larkin, had a son named Larkin Chew.

People of Scotch-Irish descent had a specific pattern for naming their children that followed their family trees. The usual path of this pattern was:

The first son was named after the father’s father.

The second son after the mother’s father.

The third son after the father.

The first daughter after the mother’s mother.

The second daughter after the father’s mother.

The third daughter after the mother.

There are many examples of this pattern being followed in my own family tree. It is a good place to start when searching for the parents of a Scotch-Irish brick wall ancestor.

05. Use the triangulation method.

Sometimes you may not find a document that comes out and says "the parents of John Doe are James and Jane Doe," but you might be able to find pieces of information on several documents that make a compelling case for James and Jane being John Doe's parents. 

Here is an example from my own tree (more detailed information at this Find a Grave profile):

01.  In the 1850 Federal Census Josiah Moore, age 26, and his family are shown living next door to Joseph Moore, age 55, and his family. Joseph Moore's spouse, referred to as "H. Moore," lists her birthplace as Vermont.

02. In the 1900 Federal Census Josiah Moore is found living in Kanawha Co., WV with his second wife, Rebecca, and their children; he lists his mother's birthplace as "Vermont."

03.  In the book Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, West Virginia by William Thomas Price, published in 1901, the author states that "Joseph Moore was a soldier in the war of 1812. During his service he met and married Hannah Cady ....Their family consisted of five daughters and three sons: Hannah, Sarah, Matilda, Margaret, Abigail, Daniel, Joseph, and Henry Harrison."

From these three sources, we can deduce that (1) Joseph Moore and Hannah Cady had a son that Historical Sketches lists as "Joseph," which is no doubt meant to be "Josiah"; (2) Josiah Moore at one time lived next door to Joseph and "H." Moore, who was from Vermont; (3) Josiah Moore stated in a later census record that his mother's birthplace was Vermont. Although none of these documents (nor any others, unfortunately) actually come out and say that Joseph and Hannah are Josiah's parents, the other information provided on these records proves beyond reasonable doubt that Josiah was their son.

06. Pension records can be a wealth of information.

For veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil wars especially, pension records can provide a wealth of information that might otherwise not have been recorded. Birth, marriage, and death records prior to 1900 were spotty to say the least, and were often the victims of floods and fires. 

The following is an excerpt from a previous blog post that I wrote regarding this topic:

"On several occasions between 1776 and 1867, Congress enacted legislation that allowed veterans, their widows, and their orphaned children to apply for government pensions in exchange for their (or their relative's) service during the Revolutionary War. Each act after 1776 expanded on the benefits received by the veterans and their families.

In order to establish that the people applying for the pensions truly were entitled to the pension benefits, they had to appear in court and give testimony about such details as when and where they served in the continental army, which company they were in, and who commanded it. Widows and children of the veterans had to provide additional information, such as the date and location of their marriage, the date and location of their spouse's death, and the date and location of their own births. Occasionally they would be required to bring witnesses to attest to these facts, and to provide additional evidence that they were who they said they were."

The Revolutionary War pension record of my 4th-great-grandfather, John Wright, told us in which company he served, his marriage date, the maiden name of his wife, his wife's father's name, the places of residence for John and his wife at the time of their marriage, John's date of death, his wife's date of death, the fact that his wife had a sister who married a Humphries, the fact that they had a son who died in the War of 1812, and the names and places of residence for all of their surviving children and their spouses. This kind of information would ordinarily take dozens of records to compile, if it even existed at all; but because John was entitled to a pension, it was all compiled into one place.

07. Branch out to people associated with your brick wall ancestor.

As mentioned above in the section on the triangulation method, you might not always find a record that comes out and says that "John Doe is the son of James and Jane Doe." However, you might know from a census record or an obituary that John Doe had a sister named Janet Doe, and Janet Doe might have a death record that lists the names of her parents. Branching out to people that you know were associated with your brick wall ancestor might just provide you with the wrecking ball you've been looking for.

08. Reach out to other researchers.

Sometimes a fresh set of eyes is all that is needed to bust through a brick wall. I searched for the parents of my 3rd-great-grandmother for many years with no luck, and at one point even came up with a crazy theory about why I could never find her family. I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I would never know for sure, when a fellow researcher happened across the crazy theory blog post when searching for information about someone connected to my 3rd-great-grandmother. She had some knowledge about and experience with the geographical area that my ancestor was from, and because of that was able to have the mystery solved within an hour or so. I had tears in my eyes as I wrote a follow-up post explaining the fellow researcher's findings, and how every other pieces of information I had about my ancestor then fell seamlessly into place.

09. Get off the internet.

The databases and family trees of fellow researchers that can be found online are an amazing resource, but you can't always find everything that you're looking for on the internet. For every record collection that has been uploaded an indexed, there are a dozen record collections that still only exist in print in the archive room of a tiny little county courthouse somewhere. Go out and search these courthouse archives, genealogy societies, and cemeteries in person, and you might very well find a land deed or a transcript of a court case that gives you the information that you are looking for.

10. DNA doesn't lie.

If all paper records have failed you, DNA might not. If you know the last name of your brick wall and they are within 5-6 generations, there is a good chance that you can use the family trees of your DNA matches to at least point you in the right direction. For example: if your brick wall's name is John Doe and he is your 3rd-great-grandfather, search your match's trees for the last name of "Doe." If you come up with a dozen matches that all descend from various children of Jacob Doe, who is the correct age and in the correct location to be John Doe's father, there is a good chance that Jacob is John's father. You may even be able to find a will or another document that lists John Doe as a son of Jacob. 

I have notes from a presentation that I gave a couple years ago that goes into a little bit more detail about this process, which you can view at this post.

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This concludes my list of ten tips and tricks for breaking down brick walls! Please let me know if any of these tips work for you, and please feel free to let me know about any other trips or tricks that you have found to be effective.

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Find Rooted Heritage on Facebook at the Rooted Heritage Genealogy page, or on Instagram @RootedHeritage.

Master Post: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2020

I attempted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks last year, but I only got 9 of the 52 posts made. One major reason for this was that there were so many themes that I would struggle to find an ancestor to fit, and I would get frustrated and give up. This year, I'm able to be a little bit more prepared because all of the themes for the year were released at the beginning.

Like last year, this post will be my "master post," where I link all of the posts for the year together in one place. So far I have been able to assign ancestors to the first 16 themes, as well as a few that have been scattered throughout the rest of the year. That will give me plenty of time to come up with ancestors for the rest of the themes.

I will do my best to keep up with this year's challenge. I like to be thorough when writing my blog posts, so each one takes several hours of research, writing, and editing. But I do believe that it is an important undertaking, which will go a long way toward helping to preserve the stories of those who came before.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020 Edition

Week 1 (Jan. 1-7): Fresh Start - Patrick Quinn
Week 2 (Jan. 8-14): Favorite Photo - Madaline Moore and her Best Friends
Week 3 (Jan. 15-21): Long Line - the Leftwich Family
Week 4 (Jan. 22-28): Close to Home - Harold and Edna Kessinger, Phyllis and Charles Holmes, Zack and Madge Hunt
Week 5 (Jan. 29-Feb. 4): So Far Away - George Schofield and Mary Dotson

Week 6 (Feb. 5-11): Same Name - Allie Violet Kessinger
Week 7 (Feb. 12-18): Favorite Discovery - William Hudson and Elizabeth Cheek
Week 8 (Feb. 19-25): Prosperity - John Blackleech and Elizabeth Bacon
Week 9 (Feb. 26-Mar. 3): Disaster - Herndon Shawver

Week 10 (Mar. 4-10): Strong Woman - Rebecca Margarette Kinser
Week 11 (Mar. 11-17): Luck - Samuel McClung
Week 12 (Mar. 18-24): Popular - Clark Kessinger
Week 13 (Mar. 25-31): Nearly Forgotten - John Field

Week 14 (Apr. 1-7): Water - Jaquetta of Luxembourg
Week 15 (Apr. 8-14): Fire - Joseph P. Hudson Jr.
Week 16 (Apr. 15-21): Air
Week 17 (Apr. 22-28): Land

Week 18 (April 29-May 5): Where There’s a Will
Week 19 (May 6-12): Service - Andrew Shawver
Week 20 (May 13-19): Travel - Harold Kessinger's time in the Philippines.
Week 21 (May 20-26): Tombstone
Week 22 (May 27-June 2): Uncertain - John Dudley, Roger Dudley

Week 23 (June 3-9): Wedding
Week 24 (June 10-16): Handed Down
Week 25 (June 17-23): Unexpected
Week 26 (June 24-30): Middle

Week 27 (July 1-7): Solo - Musicians in my tree
Week 28 (July 8-14): Multiple
Week 29 (July 15-21): Newsworthy - Clifton Kessinger
Week 30 (July 22-28): The Old Country

Week 31 (July 29-Aug. 4): Large
Week 32 (Aug. 5-11): Small
Week 33 (Aug. 12-18): Black Sheep
Week 34 (Aug. 19-25): Chosen Family - Friends that I also share ancestors with
Week 35 (Aug. 26-Sept. 1): Unforgettable

Week 36 (Sept. 2-8): Labor
Week 37 (Sept. 9-15): Back to School - John Harmon Moore
Week 38 (Sept. 16-22): On the Map
Week 39 (Sept. 23-29): Should Be a Movie - Harold Kessinger and family

Week 40 (Sept. 30-Oct. 6): Oldest
Week 41 (Oct. 7-13): Newest
Week 42 (Oct. 14-20): Proud
Week 43 (Oct. 21-27): Quite the Character
Week 44 (Oct. 28-Nov. 3): Scary Stuff - Cora Hunt

Week 45 (Nov. 4-10): Bearded - Wilson Kessinger and Canallis Kessinger
Week 46 (Nov. 11-17): Different Language
Week 47 (Nov. 18-24): Good Deeds
Week 48 (Nov. 25-Dec. 1): Gratitude

Week 49 (Dec. 2-8): Oops
Week 50 (Dec. 9-15): Witness to History - Thomas Ballard and Anne Thomas
Week 51 (Dec. 16-22): Winter
Week 52 (Dec. 23-31): Resolution

The Campbell's Hollow Slave Cemetery

For nearly all of my 30 years I have lived in the third house on the right on Campbell's Hollow Road in Charleston, WV (not to be confused with Campbell's Creek - two very different places). My father grew up in the house next door to ours, and my grandparents lived there for many years before he was born. My grandfather lived just up the hill on Oak Ridge Drive as a boy, before moving to Campbell's Hollow. And although my family has lived here for the better part of 80 years at least, they were not the first family to live on this little road.

The Campbell family moved to the place that would later come to be known as Campbell's Hollow in 1915. They claimed to be the first family to set up permanent residence in the hollow, although some evidence that has come to light recently would seem to debunk that claim. It was the oldest surviving member of this family, Mr. Danny Campbell, that casually told my father about something while he was out walking the dog one afternoon that would instantly pique the interest of any genealogist - he said that only about 100 feet off the road, up behind what is now a small paddock for a horse, there was an old slave cemetery. He and his siblings had found it after hearing about it from some older folks when they were children, but he hadn't been there in decades.

Once I heard about this, I of course had to know more. Where was the precise location of this cemetery? Had the people buried there really been slaves, or were they free African-Americans? And if they really had been slaves, whose slaves had they been?

In search of answers, I went down to the records room of the Kanawha County courthouse to see if I could figure out who had owned the property in the mid-1800s. If I could find the answer to that question, I might be able to figure out a little bit more about who might be buried there. I traced the deed records for the closest house to the location of the cemetery, and found that almost all of the land in this area had once been owned by the Quarrier family, who was a founding family of Charleston. The Quarriers were certainly very wealthy, and census records, wills, and slave schedules show that they did own many slaves. The will of the progenitor of this family, Col. Alexander Quarrier, names "Judy, Julia, and her six children," and gives specific instructions for them and their descendants not to be sold out of the family. Although only eight are mentioned here, Alexander died in 1827 and had 16 children, all of whom where also wealthy. They undoubtedly obtained many more slaves between them.

I had now established that the family who owned the land in the mid-1800s had indeed owned slaves, but I still wanted to know more. My father remembered someone telling a friend of his who used to live in the neighborhood that there had once been many African-American people who lived on Campbell's Hollow before it was ever named that; the road was only a set of tracks, the land was not yet filled in so it was damp and swampy, and the people lived in houses that were really just shacks. They also said that before the Campbell family settled here there was an illness that went through this little community, and everyone who lived there died. No one was entirely certain when the African-American people had lived here; only that it was before the Campbell family. Assuming that it was after 1863, these people were probably freed slaves who had previously been owned by the Quarrier family.

Now that we had more confirmation that people who were likely freed slaves had lived here and that the land had been owned by a slave-owning family, I wanted to find the cemetery itself. My father and I set off up the road, and soon came to the horse's paddock. We walked along the border of the paddock and up the side of the hill, following the directions that Danny had given us. And sure enough, about 100 yards from the road on the side of the hill, we found a place that someone had attempted to make more level, and found several large stones that had clearly been set into the ground. Large stones like these do not usually occur naturally on the sides of hills, particularly in an area that tend to be dense in foliage. 

 

There were maybe 15 stones of various sizes altogether, all of them in the flattened-out area, and all of them set in fairly regular intervals. It was a solemn experience to walk through this little cemetery whose existence was barely remembered, and whose inhabitants were likely not remembered by name by anyone alive. I decided then that I had to write this post about the cemetery, in order to preserve its location and as much information as I was able to gather about it for posterity.

My great-great-aunt's ethnicity estimate showed that about 3% of her DNA contained markers that originated in Africa, likely meaning that within about 6-8 generations of her birth, we had an ancestor of African descent who was likely enslaved. I hate to think about how my own ancestors' names have been long forgotten, their places of burial long forgotten, and even how exactly I am descended from them long forgotten. I am closing in on finding my African ancestor through DNA testing and research, and I hope that one day I might be able to find at least an approximate location of their burial, so that I can go and pay my respects. It is my fervent hope that someone who is descended from the people buried in this little cemetery will one day be able to find their connection to their ancestors, and be able to visit their final resting place.

 

    

    

  

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 44: "Scary Stuff" - Cora Mae Hunt and Lutecia Gillespie Hunt

I have been excited to write this post ever since I first saw the topic for week 44! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I love all things spooky and mysterious. The two stories I will write about here have fascinated me ever since I was a child, but they always left me with more questions rather than that satisfying, just-heard-a-great-story feeling. 

My great-great-grandfather, Andrew J. Hunt, was by all accounts a good man, but he was also by all accounts a strange man surrounded by strange people. Grandpa Hunt had a first cousin named Cora Hunt that he was fairly close to. They grew up near each other on Witcher Creek in Belle, and as their fathers were brothers and they were close in age, it was only natural that they would be good friends as well as first cousins. 

Cora was also undoubtedly considered strange by many of her contemporaries. She never married, yet she had several children - something almost unheard of at the time. She also had what many of the older folks called "strange ways," although I could never get them to elaborate on what these "strange ways" entailed. Many whispered that Cora was a witch, but I suspect that no one was ever seriously afraid of her. I also suspect that these whispers had something to do with where her home was, as Witcher Creek had a long-standing tradition of being home to witches. My great-grandfather Zack said that when he was a boy they always knew a day or so in advance when Cora was coming to visit, because the horses would be restless in their stable and the other animals would act very strangely. His father, Grandpa Hunt, would chuckle and say "Cora must be coming to visit tomorrow;" and sure enough, she would show up the next day. My great-grandfather's sister, Margaret, told me recently that all of the children were faintly in awe of her, and always gave her a wide berth whenever she was around. 

Despite the strange behavior of the animals, I suspect that Cora was no witch at all, but merely a woman who was a little eccentric and didn't play by society's rules. Many a woman before her had been called a witch for less. I've often thought that she actually had a lot in common with some of the accused women of Salem. At any rate, the rumors did not keep her from having a Christian burial; her funeral was held at the Witcher Creek Baptist Church, and she was subsequently laid to rest in the Witcher Creek community cemetery.

As strange as Cora was, she was not the only witch association tied to my Grandpa Hunt. Grandpa's first wife, Lutecia, was 30 years his senior and was also said to have these mysterious "strange ways." More than 20 years after Lutecia's death, Grandpa Hunt came to his daughter-in-law, my great-grandma Madge, with a box of old books. He said that the books had belonged to Lutecia, and that they were "full of evil and witchcraft." He told Mamaw to burn them, and she did so without question. 

I remember hearing that tale of the mysterious books "full of evil and witchcraft" as a young child, and asking anyone I thought would know anything about it for more details. Mamaw told me much later that she had never looked to see what was in them, what their titles were, or even whether they were printed books or hand-written ones. She had simply done as Grandpa Hunt had asked, and burned them. If it had been me, I don't think I could have kept my curiosity in check. I am adamantly against burning any kind of book on sheer principle; but even if I would have ultimately done as he asked, I don't think I could have helped but take a peak at them first. 

I would give much to know more about these books and their origins. Were they printed or hand-written? What were the titles and subject matter? Where did Lutecia get them? Why did Grandpa keep them for so long before deciding to get rid of them? Did Lutecia actually believe or practice anything contained with them, or did she merely keep them because she found them strange or interesting? 

Everyone who might have ever had the answers to these questions is now long gone, and all that remains is a family mystery often told around Halloween. Two strange stories, featuring two strange women with "strange ways," and the strange man who connected them.

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My connection to Cora Mae Hunt is as follows:

Cora Mae Hunt 1889-1946
1st cousin 4x removed

Sylvanus Hunt 1846-
Father of Cora Mae Hunt

Samuel Hunt 1808-1866
Father of Sylvanus Hunt

Andrew Jackson Hunt 1848-1920
Son of Samuel Hunt

Andrew Jackson Hunt 1882-1968
Son of Andrew Jackson Hunt

Earnest Zacharias Hunt 1921-2008
Son of Andrew Jackson Hunt

Phyllis Carolyn Hunt
Daughter of Earnest Zacharias Hunt

Lora Quinn
Daughter of Phyllis Carolyn

Allison Quinn Kessinger
You are the daughter of Lora Quinn

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 19: "Service" - Andrew C. Shawver

This post requires a bit of a preface. When I committed to doing the #52Ancestors challenge for 2020 at the end of 2019, I looked at the list of themes for the whole year, and then went through and penciled in which ancestors I wanted to write about for each week. So it was still 2019 when I chose to write about this particular ancestor, and about this particular topic - well before the racially-charged events of 2020 even happened. I also want to make a few things perfectly clear from the start: I am an adamant supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, I am completely against racism of any kind, and I am in no way glorifying the ideologies of the Confederacy.

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When I saw that Week 19's theme was "service," I decided to not only write about my ancestor who served in an elite military brigade, but to write about how this part of my family's past affects me today. I usually try to keep my personal feelings out of these posts, but I feel like this topic ties into an extremely relevant national discussion that, in my opinion, is long overdue.

Military Gravestone of 
Lieut. Andrew Shawver

Andrew C. Shawver was born on January 9, 1838 in what was then Greenbrier County, Virginia, to Robert Shawver and Jane Callison. 25 years later Greenbrier County became a part of the new State of West Virginia, which has the honor of being not only the only state to be formed during the Civil War, but to be the only state to succeed from the Confederacy and (re)join the Union. Unfortunately, many of the residents of West Virginia's southern counties did not support West Virginia's succession, and many enlisted in the Confederate army.

Andrew Shawver was one such resident. He was from what would today be considered a middle class family: they owned property and were educated, but they were not wealthy. His family did not own slaves. It would be difficult to say what his motivations were for enlisting in the Confederate army instead of the Union army; but whatever his motivations, he enlisted in the 27th Infantry of the Confederate army at the age of 23. This company was one of the 5 companies that were joined together to form the Stonewall Brigade, an elite military unit that was hand-picked and trained by General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. By the end of the war, Andrew had risen to the rank of 1st lieutenant. According to military records he was described as 5'11'' tall, with light colored hair, a sallow complexion, and grey eyes.

Ladies Relief Hospital, Lynchburg, VA

Despite (or perhaps, because of) his high rank, Andrew did not have an easy time of it in the war. He was either sick or wounded in late August of 1862, and spent 8 days in the Ladies Relief Hospital in Lynchburg, Virginia (which was not only one of the best hospitals with one of the highest survival rates, but had the most interesting start of any Civil War hospital, and was operated entirely by women). He was captured on May 10, 1864 and became a prisoner of war. I believe that Andrew was captured during the Battle of Chester Station; it was fought on the same day that Andrew was captured, and General A. H. Terry of the Union army reported that there were "some 50 [Confederate] prisoners remaining in the hands of the Federals" after the battle. Andrew was undoubtedly one of these 50. He spent over a year as a prisoner of war, and was released on June 16, 1865, after taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States and receiving a pardon from President Andrew Johnson. 

An article about the group of Confederate soldiers who took the oath on June 16th was published the next day in Harper's Weekly, and featured an artist's depiction of the group taking their oath. I hope that the artist captured this scene accurately, and that one of the men shown in the illustration is a faithful likeness of Andrew. Perhaps he was the man in front, just to the right of the center of the image: this man seems to be tall with light hair, and he seems to be wearing an officer's uniform.

"Rebel Soldiers Taking the Oath of Allegiance," Harper's Weekly, June 17, 1865.

After the war Andrew went back to his family, and lived a quiet life until his death on April 27, 1894. He married Amanda Frances McClung (daughter of Allen McClung and Frances Remley) a few months after his release, on October 16, 1865. They had seven children together: Hurndon, Francis, Buren, Annie, Earnest, Hubert, and Mamie.

***

I have often spoken about Andrew Shawver when I see the phrase "heritage not hate" used as a defense of displaying the Confederate flag and Confederate monuments. It is true that I am proud of my 4th-great-grandfather - I am proud of his history of military excellence, his bravery in the face of being a prisoner of war for a year, the recanting for his actions during the war and swearing an oath to the US, and the strength it must have taken to move on with his life when the war was over. But I do not consider the Confederacy to be a part of my heritage, because a heritage is something that is cherished and passed down from generation to generation. That was not the case in my family; I never knew that I had an ancestor who fought for the Confederacy until I found him through my genealogy research. I was always taught that racism of any kind was wrong, and that Confederate soldiers were fighting to preserve a system that was totally built upon the concept that some human beings were inferior to other human beings because of something that they had no control over. As I got older, I realized that a lot of the "southern values" that so many people praise still have subtile undertones of the ideals of this system, and so I rejected those ideals. 

I don't believe that being proud of my 4th-great-grandfather for his military accomplishments in and of themselves is a bad thing, because as I mentioned above, Andrew himself rejected the ideals of the Confederacy when he took his oath to the Union. I don't know whether Andrew believed in slavery enough to fight for it, or if he was simply a young man who was excited at the prospect of having a leadership role in the military. I hope it was the latter; but more importantly, I hope that spending a year as a prisoner of war taught him that no human being should ever be in bondage, and that every single person deserves to be treated with kindness and respect.

***

My descent from Andrew C. Shawver is as follows:

Andrew Shawver 1838-1894

4th great-grandfather

Hurndon Lindsay Shawver 1865-1912

Son of Andrew Shawver

Nora Maggie Shawver 1904-1971

Daughter of Hurndon Lindsay Shawver

Madaline Eva Moore 1923-2017

Daughter of Nora Maggie Shawver

Phyllis Carolyn Hunt

Daughter of Madaline Eva Moore

Lora Quinn

Daughter of Phyllis Carolyn Hunt

Allison Quinn Kessinger

You are the daughter of Lora Quinn

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15: "Fire" - Joseph P. Hudson Jr.

The Hudson Family,
circa 1921.

Everyone's family trees are full of stories about devastating fires, and many childhood memories feature the iconic scene of telling stories around a campfire. The story that I'm going to share here could have potentially been quite devastating; but fortunately, crisis was averted by the quick actions of my great-grandfather, Joseph P. Hudson Jr. This is definitely one of those "we'll laugh about it with the grandkids" moments, and Joseph's grandkids still chuckle whenever this story is told.

Christmas trees were first made popular in England in the mid 1800s by Prince Albert, the German-born husband of Queen Victoria, and made their way into the typical American Christmas scene soon thereafter. The good thing about these trees was that there were no aggravating strings of electric lights with a single blown bulb that immediately caused the whole string to short out, as electricity had not yet been harnessed for power. However, a Christmas tree is just not a Christmas tree without a light source, so the Victorians decided that the best way to achieve this effect was to put actual burning candles on their nice, dry, flammable Christmas trees inside their nice, dry, flammable homes.

While electricity in homes had been present in some parts of the US for over forty years by the 1920s, many poorer families did not have it in their homes, and relied on candles or gas lighting. The Hudsons were just such a family, living in the Louden Heights area of Charleston, West Virginia. Like many families during that time, they made the selection and decoration of the Christmas tree a big event. Presents were few, but they could have a good time selecting the perfect tree and trimming it with home-made decorations.

A typical Victorian
Christmas tree.

My Mamaw Edna, Joseph's youngest daughter, told a story about one such Christmas that could have gone very, very wrong. Like most families during that time, they included actual burning candles in their Christmas tree trimmings. And like most families of their socio-economic status, their house was made of wood. One night the Christmas tree caught fire from one of the candles, and quickly started to spread. In a matter of moments, the entire home could have been up in flames, and the family would have lost everything. But fortunately, Grandpa Hudson acted quickly. And fortunately, it had snowed that night.

I never thought to ask whether the tree was a large tree that stood on the floor, or a smaller tree that sat on a table. Either way, as the flames started to spread, Grandpa Hudson picked up the entire tree and threw it out the front door, right into the several inches of fresh snow in the front yard. The fire was quickly quenched, and the Hudson homeplace was saved. 

I'm sure it was a very frightening thing to witness at the time, but everyone who heard that story could not help but laugh at the image of someone picking up an entire Christmas tree and throwing it out the front door. And thankfully we have much safer ways of trimming our trees today.

~ ~ ~

My descent from Joseph P. Hudson Jr. is as follows:

Joseph P. Hudson 1881-1954

great-grandfather

Edna Josephine Hudson 1921-2011

Daughter of Joseph P. Hudson

Joseph Wayne Kessinger 1958-

Son of Edna Josephine Hudson

Allison Quinn Kessinger

You are the daughter of Joseph Wayne Kessinger