Week 17 - Document (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 I've been waiting for this week to get here so that I could talk about one of my favorite ancestor's connection to a historical story that was brought to light by a letter. 

This ancestor is my 3rd great grandfather, John Border Amos.  He was born on Apr 13, 1833 in Bedford county Pennsylvania, the son of  John Amos and Rebecca Border.  John was a farmer and in 1855 he married Sarah Mower.  By the start of the Civil War, John and Sarah have three children with one more on the way.  John, along with so many others, enlisted in the Army on Oct 12, 1861. His Regiment was the 55th Pa Infantry Company D.  Shortly thereafter, his Company leaves for training at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg. In November, the regiment reported to Fort Monroe, Virginia for further training before departing by ship for duty in Port Royal, South Carolina in December.  The voyage took 4 days and upon arrival the regiment was assigned to guard duty of the small islands in the area.  It wasn't until February 1862 when they were transferred to Edisto Island, that the regiment had it's first skirmish. John was sick in his quarters for March and April with probably one of the ailments common among the troops at that time.  In May 1862, John was promoted to Corporal. On June 21, 1862, the 55th  participated in the minor Battle of Simmon's Bluff.  

It was this trip up the river to Simmon's Bluff that placed John firmly in connection to a historical figure who is still remembered today.  I mentioned  a letter. This letter is one that was shared with me by another descendant of John. The letter was written by John and sent to his wife Sarah. The date on the letter, June 22, 1862, was the day after the Battle of Simmon's Bluff.  In the letter, John mentions the names of the two ships which carried the troops upriver.  They were the "Planter" and the "Crusader".  Not only had he named the ships but also detailed his experiences during the battle.  How incredibly fortunate to still have access to this letter! 

Thank you Jonathan Zane, my 3rd cousin 1 x removed, for this letter

Not knowing what I would be able to find out, I immediately searched for a photo of the ships.  I found images of both and also the story of the "Planter" which is where the connection to the historical figure showed itself.  It turns out that the USS Planter, a sidewheel steamer, was originally used by the Confederates.   On May 13, 1862, the Planter's pilot, a slave, who was hired out,  named Robert Smalls, took advantage of the ship Captain's absence and executed a plan which not only gave him his escape but 15 other slaves including his family as well.  He steered the ship past Confederate defenses and surrendered it to the Union Navy.  He was later named the Captain of the Planter becoming the first black man to command a US Navy ship.  After the war, he returned to Beaufort, SC and was a successful businessman and elected to the State House of Representatives and later to the US House. 

    Robert Smalls in 1862

                                        The ships Planter & Crusader

Here in Pittsburgh, where I live, I found that in 1863 when some small forts were being built along the rivers for defensive purposes, one of them was was built by free blacks and named Fort Robert Smalls. It survived until the 1940's.  Robert Smalls is still remembered and celebrated in the Charleston, SC area today.  

Oh my gosh, you just never know what you will find.  

The rest of John Amos' story shows that after his reenlistment and promotion to Sergeant in 1864, his regiment was given a furlough which John used to visit home.  His Regiment transferred north to Virginia where they encountered many more battles.  In May 1864, John was wounded at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff when a piece of iron struck him in his hip and knocked him into a ditch. He recovered enough to be with the regiment at the Battle of Cold Harbor.  On the third day of this battle, June 3, 1864, John was wounded once again. This time a gunshot wound to his jaw and an injured wrist. By June 8th , John was in a Regimental Hospital away from the fighting.  Here is where it gets a little confusing.  His records show him in the hospital in July and August but by Sept 8, 1864 he is shown as a prisoner in the Old Capital Prison in Wash DC being held "for suspicion of being implicated with counterfeiters of US Treasury Notes". It is my understanding that the Secret Service held some people with no charges ever being pressed.  I have no information regarding how  long he was held exactly or why and what the official outcome was. But he was not back with his Regiment until after the end of the war(April 1865) when on June 8, 1865 he was promoted to 2nd Leuit. and being commissioned as a 1st Leuit. 4 days later.  He was finally mustered out on Aug 30, 1865 in Petersburg, Virginia. With that kind of promotion, I can only assume that he was innocent of all charges.  John returned home and he and Sarah would have 7 more children.  He returned to farming and then in 1876, he applied for the first time for a Veteran's Pension.  It would take 2 years to be approved. He was awarded $4 a month.  By the time John died on Feb 20, 1901, he was collecting $17 a month. His wife, as a widow, also received a pension, but only $8 a month.  She would pass away in 1905.  

John Border Amos was the first ancestor in our family tree that I was able to positively identify as a Civil War soldier.  I was able to do a lot of research on him just by knowing that and then also when I ordered and received his military service records and pension file from the National Archives.  In piecing it all together, I learned so much history. Once, I knew of John's service, I wondered if there were any photos of him out there somewhere.  I always hoped and then one day a fellow descendent of John's found my tree and shared some family photos. One was of John and Sarah. John was in his uniform.  Finally, a face to the name.  Then a few years later, another descendant shared a wonderful group photo of John's family, his wife, and all but two of their children and even a granddaughter who lived with them at the time.  Then the letters came along from yet another descendant.  All three of these descendants were from a different child of John and I was from a fourth.   All of these offered with such generosity and received with much gratitude. In 2005, I finished what I thought at the time was John's story, at least as much as I could find.  Then the photos and letter came to me adding so much more to it.  

John Border Amos and wife Sarah Mowry

Thank you Rachel Shultzaberger, my 4th cousin, for this photo

John Border Amos and family 

Thank you Joyce Snell, wife of my 2nd cousin 2 x removed, for this photo

And one last thing happened.  A few years ago, I was contacted by a man who was compiling a book of every known Civil War soldier of Bedford county Pennsylvania.  He had found my tree and wondered if he could use the photos of John in his book.   I was delighted, but first I wanted to let the owners of the photos know. He was able to use the one of John & Sarah and gave credit to the owner.  But when I received my copy of the book last fall, of course I ordered one, I found that he had included yet another photo of John as a soldier.  So now I had copies of 3 photos of John and copies of a handwritten letter by him.  

Photo from the book "Civil War Soldiers of Bedford County Pennsylvania" by Kevin Mearkle

Thank you Kevin Mearkle  &  Barbara Sponsler Miller at the Bloody Run Historical Society for this photo

His story feels complete now, except for that counterfeiting thing..... I'll be needing more documents. 

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 16 - Negatives (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 As a positive thinking person, when I see the word negative in regards to genealogy, it should go to  negative search results or a negative story about an individual, but coming from a family of photo takers, my mind immediately goes to photo negatives. So photography made the most sense for this week's post. 

 I have been known as a packrat, or archivist the title that I prefer, and I have never thrown away a negative from any photo that my husband or I have taken since we are married.   We have adult grandchildren now, so you can imagine the number of them. I have also been fortunate enough to have found a couple of older negatives from our parent's homes mixed in with the old photos.  It seems no one else kept many negatives once they had their prints made. So I scooped them up to examine. In looking at them, I realized that I had never seen a copy of the prints from a few of them.  Back when I found them, you could still easily find a place to get prints made from them.  So I did and the best surprise came when a few turned out to be baby pictures of my husband that neither of us had ever seen.  

When I think about photography's history, it's interesting that we have no negatives for photos that we take today with our digital cameras and phones.  The downside of that is that if the photo is lost it is lost forever.  When my mom had her first digital camera, she would take pictures then go to a camera shop to have prints made from them. That works until she came home and did not save them to her computer and deleted them from her camera!  With no negatives, we are back to having only one print and no way to share.   When there are no negatives from older family photos, how can the only copy of a photo be shared?  Well, here's what we did. Before computer scanners were common in everyone's home, it could mean finding a local camera store who might be able to make a copy or a negative of the old photo.  I did do that for a few but it could get expensive quickly if you had a lot that you wanted to reproduce.  The next idea that I had was to take my own photos of the photos and the bonus was that you ended up with a decent print and a NEGATIVE! Since my husband had the skill and the good camera to do this, we would borrow family albums and photos to do this with.  It worked pretty well.  But the photos were still only shareable by taking the negative out to have prints made from it.  But a step in the right direction.  Then we had our first scanner. Now we could scan the prints and have digital "negatives". It was somewhat time consuming in the beginning but got the job done.  After scanning ALL of our photos over the years, I felt that I had actually saved the memories forever and made them easily shareable.  Now today, I have a nice phone that makes it even easier to take a photo of a photo and they are instantly shareable by skipping the step of getting them onto a computer in order to share.  So does this make negatives obsolete?  Maybe not, because if you find that your color snapshots are beginning to fade or discolor, and you have the negative, well  it would still be possible to have a new print made or scan the negative itself. All of this makes sharing and preservation pretty darn easy, but I still like looking thru a physical photo album and holding an old photo in my hand.  

Negatives came in many different sizes and shapes depending on the type of camera used. 

Here are some that I have. 

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 15 - How Do You Spell That? (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 Spelling... I'm a stickler for that.  One of my pet peeves.  So it can really bother me when I find names spelled differently.  But in the case of names, there are alot of understandable reasons why they can be spelled, not exactly wrong, just differently.  

In my great grandfather's case, I have come to the conclusion that it was a language barrier.  He was an Italian immigrant who came to America in 1899 and he could not read or write.  He worked hard to have his wife and daughter come over a few years later and start their new life here.  Everyone has heard or has in their family the story that an ancestor's name was changed at Ellis Island.  The truth is that Ellis Island officials got the names from the passenger lists made as the immigrants boarded their ship and that list came along on the trip.  My great grandfather is actually proof of that, as his name is spelled correctly on his passenger list and he came thru Ellis Island as well.  The misspellings of his name mostly appear on CENSUS lists which are notoriously famous for poor handwriting and poor spelling.  In the five census that I have for him, there are four different spellings of his last name.  Buonaddio, Bonady, Bonadio, back to Bonady and Bonidy. I believe that Bonady is how the census taker heard it pronounced with Pasquale's thick Italian accent and wrote what he thought he heard. His correct name is Pasquale Bonadio. I picture the two of them sitting there with a puzzled look on the census taker's face and Pasquale repeating the name to him over and over.  There is a story in my family that it was my grandfather who discovered the correct spelling and all of Pasquale's children adopted that spelling.  Apparently Pasquale's brother had a similar problem but they chose to stick with Bonady.  Even Pasquale's probate record is spelled Bonady but not his death certificate which has Bonadio. Also his driver's license and World War 2 Draft Registration card are spelled Bonady. His World War 1 registration card spells it Bonidia. And the oddest one was Paschal Bonadea on a handwritten house payment record. I never did know HOW my grandfather figured it out, but I do have a theory. My theory is that after Pasquale's death, they found his naturalization papers with the Bonadio spelling on them and that was that. Correct name found. And , oh yes, it was spelled correctly on his wife's passenger list as well. I know this because of the daughter who was on the list as Maria Bonadio. His wife, being a traditional Italian woman, used her maiden name, Rosa Dicello. And on the last place his name went, a gravestone, it was spelled Pasquali Bonadio. Every record with his first name spelled it Pasquale unless he used his nickname of Patsy.  A spelling mistake in stone after getting the correct last name!

But wait... I have a second name.  In my husband's family, his 3rd great grandmother is named Elvira Rosengrants.  Then I find her grandfather as Rosenkrantz. Fortunately, this spelling stays consistent until his 21st great grandfather, Erick Iverson. He was said to be the originator of the name Rosenkrantz and his children have that surname.  You might wonder then why I use this name in this story.  Well, in all of my searching in this family, I have come across 13 different spellings ! All of the individuals in my tree of these 13 spellings do descend from Erick Iverson. Here is the list of spellings.

Rosencrans

Rosecrants

Rosencrance

Rosencrans

Rosencranse

Rosencrants

Rosncrantz

Rosenerance

Rosengrant

Rosengrants

Rosenkrance

Rosenkrans

Rosenkrantz

Except for Rosenerance, who knows how that one came about, when you say them out loud, they all sound the same. Which just goes to show how little spelling mattered in the distant past. 

A family group of the name Rosengrant will be back in Week 28 this summer. Just as crazy a story as all of the name variations. 

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved. 

Week 14 - Check It Out (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

 I had two ideas for this week's topic and since the long awaited 1950 Census was released a few days ago, that made my choice an easy one. I have a few short census stories to share.

Years ago, I got to wondering who lived in the houses that my husband and I grew up in and when they first appeared in the census. So I thought I would check out the census and see if I could find out.

The house that my husband lived in was half of a double house, which helped alot in finding it in each census year. Working backwards in the census, I found the address was the same house number and street back to 1920 in the borough of Mechanicsville. For 1910, due to Mechanicsville becoming it's own borough sometime between 1910 and 1920,  the location of the house was now listed in a different borough, Port Carbon, and in all of the census prior to 1920. There were no house numbers listed in 1910 but the street was the same. But because the same Thornburg families lived in the doubles, I still found them living next to each other or in the immediate vicinity back.  1900 and 1880 did not even list a street, but again the Thornburg's were there.  That led me to believe that the house could be that old.  However, in checking real estate sites, they state it was built in 1900.  About 1958 or so, my husband's family bought their half of the double with one of the Thornburg family members living in the other half as I had found in all of the census.  Real estate sites tell me that the Thornburg half was last sold in 1998.  My husband's half was sold in 2006 after the death of his father and then again in 2008.  Now looking forward to the 1960 census to see his whole family listed there! And a Thornburg next door. 

The house that I grew up in was actually quite close to my husband's on the next hill over, but in yet a different borough, Pottsville.  This house has a bit shorter history and was probably built about 1913.  The 1920 resident was from Ireland and worked as an auto supply manager and rented the house.  In 1930, a new family was listed as from Lithuania and the head of household was a miner. This family owned the house.  This would be the family that my Dad bought our house from in 1960. Our house was sold a few years after my parents moved to assisted living in 2018 to a teacher. It will be interesting to see if we owned the house in the 1960 census or not.

UPDATE:  The house was found for sale again in 2022 with many updates done to the interior.

Next I thought I'd check out our grandparent's homes.  My husband's grandparent's, Oscar & Ruth married in 1920 and their home was built in 1922, another double home.  They bought it in 1923 from a local real estate developer who built the entire row of homes that it was located among. Oscar passed away in 1967 but Ruth stayed in the home until she moved to a nursing home, I think in the late 1980's. 

My great grandfather, Ralph, was a carpenter and it's my understanding that he built the house that my grandmother eventually lived in for most of her 90 years. Ralph and family were living there in 1920.  Ralph's daughter  and my grandmother, Elizabeth, married in 1928 and moved into the house sometime between 1930 and 1940. Ralph and family were in it for the 1930 census. Then Elizabeth and family in 1940 and 1950. The house was theirs until her death in 1996 when it was sold.  It was sold again a few years later and most recently in 2018. 

It didn't change much over the years

Another great grandfather of mine, Pasquale, an Italian immigrant who came to America in 1905, bought a home for $754.54 in 1916.  In the 1920 census it shows that he had a mortgage on the house. It was paid in full in 1929.  By the 1930 census his investment had grown to a value of $3000.  He lived there until his death in 1952, after which his daughter and family moved into the house and lived there until the 1990's.  

I think my other grandparent, Charles, has the most surprising story.  Sometime after 1942 when his wife died, he bought a double house. He and his two children lived in the downstairs half and he rented out the upstairs half.  Previous to this, I believe the entire double house was rented out.  When I checked out the 1940 census for his address, I found a surprising resident renting there.  William T. Piper. Now if you are familiar with aviation, you might have heard of him.  He was the founder of the Piper Aircraft company that was based in Lock Haven, PA where my grandfather lived.  Piper was actually living there with his son and wife as he had been widowed a few years prior.  William Piper was a pioneer in the light plane industry. His most well known model was probably the Piper Cub among other more modern models.  Having many aviation enthusiasts in both of our families, this little tidbit of information was very pleasing.  I often wonder if my grandfather knew this. In 1940 , he lived right around the corner from his future home and several of his relatives worked for the Piper company. And he owned the home until about 1973, when he moved in with my mom and dad.  

You just never know what you will find until you Check It Out.

Please give credit and post a link to my blog if you intend to use any of the information written here. My blog posts are © Ann M Sinton 2022. All rights reserved.