Wordless Wednesday ~ Summertime, c. 1919

Anna Pereksta, seated in center with a bite missing from her watermelon.

We are deep into a record setting winter in the United States. Time for a taste of summer.

My grandmother, Anna Pereksta, spent several months in Saranac Lake (NY) recovering from influenza. Her care there was paid for by Endicott Johnson, her employer. Most of the patients were being treated for tuberculosis, but she always said she had had the flu. 

Whatever the disease, those months recovering were a cherished time in a life that was far more work than play. 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Janos or Ivan Sedor (b. 1818)

I knew nothing about my baba's grandparents when I started researching my father's family. Not even their names. Baba, my grandmother, was born in Prislop a small mountain village in what is now Slovakia. Her mother, Olena Sedor, was born a few miles away in Starina. Both were then part of Hungary. Not easy to research. I hit pay dirt in 2010 when FamilySearch put old Hungarian Empire church records online. 

I found my great-grandmother's 1860 baptism recorded. Naming her parents. My great-great grandparents. Szidor Joan and Komiszar Maria. Or Romisszar. Her name is negotiable. In fact, much about these names is negotiable. Baba's family were ethnic Rusyns. They did not speak Hungarian. So while the records are in Hungarian or Latin or Church Slavonic, the names they used amongst themselves were different. Her mother was Olena, rather than Helena. Her father was Ivan, not Janos or Joannes. I suspect her grandfathers were also Ivan. And, of course, their descendants changed names all over the place when they settled in America.

I digress. Ultimately I found my great-great grandparents marriage record and baptismal registries for six children.

From FamilySearch.org

Janos or Ivan Sedor  was born in 1818 in Sztarina, Zemplén, Hungary. At this point I have no idea who his parents were. Sedor is a common name. There is one clue. His granddaughter referred to her mother as Olena Sedor Hocko. Hocko is probably an alias name used to help distinguish one Sedor line from another. Further research is needed here.

On 1 February 1848 Ivan married Maria Komisar, who was born in 1825, also in Sztarina. According to the marriage record he was a widower. They had at least six children, though one son died as a child.

Their son, Mihaly Sedor was baptized on 20 Aug 1849 in Sztarina.

Basilus or Wasyl Sedor was born and baptized in 1853 in Sztarina. His record is in Cyrillic script. I could not make out the month.

Joannes or Ivan Sedor was born on 26 Jan 1859 in Sztarina and died before 1866 when a second son with the same name was born.

Helena or Olena Sedor was born on 27 Sep 1860 in Sztarina, Zemplén, Hungary and was baptized on 6 Oct 1860. She died on 3 Jan 1936 in Príslop, Czechoslovakia at age 75. She is buried in Príslop, which now in Slovakia. Olena is my great-grandmother.

Anna Sedor was born on 2 Jan 1863 and was baptized on 18 Jan 1963 in Sztarina, Zemplén, Hungary.

A second Joannes or Ivan Sedor was born on 28 Aug 1866 in Sztarina and baptized on 4 Sep 1866.

His name appears frequently as a sponsor or witness in the church records, but with such a common name I don't know which, if any, of these men were my great great-grandfather. At least not without much more work examining the records. Komissar is a much less common name and worth investigation.

That is all I know about Ivan Sedor. He was most likely an illiterate peasant farmer. The land he lived and died on is now beneath the Starina Resevoir. 




Written for Amy Johnson Crow's blogger challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Sources

• Stefan Popp, "Popp-Pereksta Family Record" (Private, recorded in diary c. 1940).
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, Szidor-Komiszar marriage, record 3, image 163 of 192; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 15 Mar 2010).
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, "Image 14/189," Mihaly Szidor record; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 Mar 2010).
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, "Image 24/189, Record 13," Basilus Szidor Baptismal Record; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 17 Mar 2010); Record is in Cyrillac alphabet.
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, Joannes Szidor Birth 1859, image 33 of 189; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 15 Mar 2010).
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, Olena Szidor birth record, image 59 of 189; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 15 Mar 2010); Names her parents as Joannes Szidor and Maria Komiszar of Sztarina.
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, "Image 36/189, Record 24," Janos Perekszta Baptismal record; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 18 Mar 2010); The record is in Cyrillac letters. It lists his parents and their residence, Prisxlop Household #2.
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, Anna Szidor Birth, 1863. Image 68 of 189; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 15 Mar 2010).
• Greek Catholic Church of Sztarina (Starina, Hummene, Slovakia), Baptisms, marriages, deaths (krsty, manzelstva, umrtia) Inv. c 1156 1845-1868, Joannes Szidor birth 1866, record 30, image 153 of 192; digital images, Family Search (www.familysearch.org : accessed 26 Jan 2014).

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Sally Killian Sawyer (1812-1881)

Sally Killian Sawyer is one of my favorite ancestors. Perhaps it's because I knew so little about her when I started researching 30 years ago. For someone who was known as a story teller, my great-grandfather Gee Sawyer said very little about his parents, Archie and Sally Sawyer. I started with their names and birthplaces. Nothing more.

Over the years I have learned more about them both. I have learned that spelling really doesn't count. Even my own hasn't been consistent. She has shown up as Sallie or Sally or Sarah. As Killian or Killion. As Sawyer or Sawyers or Sanger or Sayers. And as a tick mark in the 1820, 1830, and 1840 censuses.

Sally was born in Lincoln County, NC in September of 1812 to David and Barbary Fulbright Killian. A marriage bond for Sarah Killian and David Huffman was recorded on 18 October 1832 in Lincoln County. Sally's daughter Linnie Huffman Howlett Evans named her father as William Huffman in her Civil War Widow's pension application, so the name of Sally's first husband is open for discussion. Whatever his name, their daughter Linnie was born 13 May 1833 in Lincoln County, NC. Mr. Huffman disappears from the scene soon after.

By 1836 the Killians, Sally and Linnie Huffman have moved to Cocke County, TN. Sally has married Archie Sawyer, at least 10 years her senior with a child or children of his own. Their eldest son Andrew was born 15 December 1836, just before Sally's father was putting up part of the bond for Archie after Scintha Ren had named him has the father of her illegitimate child. Magnanimous soul.

State of Tennessee, Cocke County.

We Archibald Sawyers, David Killian and Lewis Williams acknowledge our selfs (sic) indebted to the state of Tennessee as follows;  Archibald Sawyers as principal in the sum of two hundred dollars and fifty;  David Killian and Lewis Williams as his securities in the sum of seventy five dollars each to be bound of sums goods and chattles lands and tenements respectively for the use of the state to be void on condition that the above bound Archibald Sawyers do make his personal appearance at the circuit court at the court house in Newport on the second Monday in January to answer the state on a charge of bastardy by Scintha Ren and not depart the court without leave.     

Archibald Sawyers (his mark);  David Killian (his mark)  Lewis Williams (his mark)

Acknowledged before me Jos. Williams and acting Justice of the Peace for Cocke County this 6 day of January 1837;
Jos. Williams Esq. CC                            Fd’d Jany 9 1837 in circuit court clerk office

Sally and Archie had six more surviving children - Barbary, (1838), William (1840), Elizabeth (1843), Crofford (1847), Jake (1849), and my great-grandfather Jehu Stokely "Gee" (1855). Archie appears in census data as a farmer, though there is no indication of any wealth. They moved frequently in the years surrounding the Civil War, living in Sevier County in 1860, in Jefferson County in 1865 and back in Cocke County in 1870. By 1880 Sally was an invalid widow living with her son William in Greene County. According to her gravemarker she died 2 January 1881. Her grave lies in Joseph's Chapel, just down the road from Sawyer Hollow.

Census information indicated she was illiterate. Her daughter Linnie's pension application has provided me with the greatest bit of information. Sally was midwife for her daughter, delivering all but one of her children. She apparently acted as midwife in the area. Her 1869 deposition stated

"she ... acted as chief Physician and that she was the Osetrician in the section, at the time, and where these children were born and is yet..." 

I have wandered the roads in Cocke, Greene and Sevier counties where Sally lived but it wasn't until I read this deposition that I had a sense of who she may have been.


Written for Amy Johnson Crow's blogger challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Sources

• Alta Sawyer Palmer, The Sawyer Family, Third Edition (Morristown, Tennessee: Privately published, 1986).
• Cocke, Tennessee, Supreme Court Cases, East Division, State vs. Archibald Sawyer, 1837; Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.
• Jefferson County Court Clerk.Nicholson, James M. Voter Registration Receipt for Archibald Sawyers. 19 Jul 1865. Privately held by Susan Popp Clark, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] St. Louis, MO. 1996.  
• North Carolina Division of Archives and History, "North Carolina Marriage Bonds, 1741-1868," database, Ancestry.com (accessed 18 Jan 2014), entry for for Sarah Killian and David Huffman; citing marriage bond 000073458.  
• Sawyers, Sarah Depostion, Howlett, William M. Civil War Widows Pension Application 141.238, 1867; privately held by Susan Popp Clark, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] St. Louis, MO. 2005. Digital image of pension application file.  
• 1820 U.S. census population schedule, North Carolina, Lincoln, East of the South Fork of the Catawba River, p. 406, David Killion; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M33, roll 83.  
• 1840 U.S. census, Tennessee, Cocke,, p. 262, Archabald Sawyers and David Killion; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M704, roll 518.  
• 1850 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Cocke, District 11, p. 423A, dwelling 1142, family 1142, Sarah Sangers or Sawyer; digital images, Ancestry.com ( accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 874.  
• 1860 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Sevier, District 3, p. 399, dwelling 272, family 272, Sarah Sayers; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M653, roll 1270.  
• 1870 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Cocke, District 11, p. 468B, dwelling 12, family 12, Sarah Sawyers; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M593, roll 1519.  
• 1880 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Greene, District 4, enumeration district (ED) 046., p. 65C, dwelling 162, family 162, Sarah Sawyers; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T9, roll 1258.  

DNA or Dear Neighborly Ancestors

I am in the midst of full blown genea-mania after many months of down time. With luck I will return to sanity in time to pay bills before the utilities are shut off.

I blame FamilyTreeDNA. Their new reporting of X chromosome matches dragged me back into the DNA analysis quagmire. Autosomal testing is an appealing concept to those of us without Y chromosomes. Take a sample of our DNA and compare it to thousands of others. When there is a statistically significant match you can assume a genetic connection within measurable history. Not a shared haplogroup where the common ancestor was dead long before Moses gathered animals into the ark. A connection within a few centuries. A connection that can, in theory, be found.

Autosomal chromosomes can also be mapped. Again, in theory. Imagine being able to see a match and being able to identify the shared lineage because you have already identified that section as coming from great-grandma so and so. More than intriguing to me. And seemingly so straightforward.

Until I started analyzing the results. And heard that lovely GPS voice in my head - rerouting, rerouting, rerouting. Here's what I've learned from the profiles I manage.

• Some folks spent too much time together over the last thousand years. If you have Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry ( ✓ ) you are going to match more people than you can imagine. I loved having genetic confirmation of our family tradition of Jewish ancestry. But the genetic noise makes matching people where I have a shot at identifying a common ancestor difficult. My new strategy is to focus on matches that are not shared with my cousins of Ashkenazi descent. That will either highlight the Slavic matches or suggest Ashkenazi ancestry on multiple lines. 
• Acadian ancestry ( ✓ ) dominates results just as much as Ashkenazi ancestry. Lovely people. Lovely culture. But not what I am trying to investigate. My relatives need to be more considerate about their ancestors. 
• As for those matches that do seem straightforward - think again. My mother's entrenched southern roots  ( ✓ ) mean that we may share multiple ancestral lines. (Back to the folks spending too much time together.) It's glaringly obvious if I examine the data rather than focus on paper trails.
• Cousin A and I match. I match her father. We have an easily documented shared Williams/Pugh line out of southwest Virginia. But she and I share more DNA than her father and I do. Enough to make it clear that she and I are also related through her mother. No clue what that connection is. While I can make some assumptions that the matches I share with her father are the Pugh/Williams lines, I wish I knew what the others were. 
• Cousin B and I also match and are confirmed Pugh/Williams cousins. But (and this is a big one) we are also X chromosome matches. My known Pugh/Williams line is not an X chromosome match. Not at all. So where does that X match come from? We are clearly related more than once. 

That lovely chromosome map I dream of is a long way off due to all this ancestral fraternization. But, as challenging as using DNA for genealogical research is, I am loving the exercise.

Photograph from Flickr by Duncan Hull  Some rights reserved.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Sarah or Sally James Williams (1821-1864)

Last week I wrote about a great-grandmother who, while not alive when I was born, remained vividly alive to her children and grandchildren throughout their lives. I have photographs and stories to augment the documents outlining her life. She is as real to me as if I had been rocked on her knee.

This week's ancestor is a cipher. Sarah or Sally (or Sallie) James is my great-great grandmother. She was born, according to information passed down in the family, on 21 March 1821 in Wythe County, Virginia to John James and his wife, Nancy Smith. She married Granville Williams on 30 January 1841 in Smyth County and bore 11 children before dying on 18 August 1864 when her youngest child was two and a half years old. I suspect she died in childbirth. Or of exhaustion.

She appears in the 1850 and the 1860 census. There is an appropriately aged female in John James' household in 1830 and 1840. That's it. I have no pictures. No stories. My great-grandfather Reese Jackson Williams was the youngest, a toddler when his mother died. He grew up well-mothered by his father's second wife, Serilda Jane Wells Pugh. That he was well-mothered is the only hint of personality or temperament I have about Sarah. She and Serilda were first cousins.

Reese's wife, my great-grandmother, was a family historian, as was his daughter, my grandmother. I have reason to trust the dates they passed down to me, but no family bible or gravestone to support their family record.

So why does Sally James hit my radar this week? Because she is one of my X chromosome ancestors.

X chromosome ancestors include Reese Jackson Williams, his mother Sally James, her parents John James and Nancy Smith, and his mother Nancy.

I have several genetic matches that I had thought matched her husband's paternal ancestors. We are, in fact, cousins through those lines. But these genetic matches turn out to match on our X chromosomes. Which, since I am descended through his son Reese, rules out Granville's lines completely. Reese only inherited one X chromosome. From his mother. Sally James. One of my cipher ancestors.

Now these genetic connections may be through completely different lines. From one of my Tennessee lines. But since we can each place ancestors in SW Virginia at the same time and since there IS a relationship through Reese's paternal lines I am starting with his mother. Sally James.

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's blogger challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Sources

Iva Williams Sawyer, "Williams Family Record"; 1969; original held by Susan Popp Clark.

1830 U.S. census, Virginia, Wythe, , p. 336, line 24, John James; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M19, roll 200.

1840 U.S. census, Virginia, Smyth, , p. 396, line 26, John James; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M704, roll 578.

1850 U.S. census, population schedule, Virginia, Smyth, District 60, p. 215A, dwelling 792, family 799, Sarah Williams; digital images, Ancestry.com (www. Ancestry.com : accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 976.

1860 U.S. census, population schedule, Virginia, Smyth, , p. 1004, dwelling 930, family 933, Sarah Williams; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.Ancestry.com : accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M653, roll 1377.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Catherine Conway Sawyer

Amy Johnson Crow has issued a challenge to genealogy bloggers to write about an ancestor a week during 2014 on her blog No Story Too Small. We'll see how close I get to hitting her number!

I am starting with my great-grandmother Catherine Conway Sawyer - the Nolichuckiest of my Nolichucky Roots. Catherine Pearlina was born 3 February 1865 to Porter and Eleanor Holt Conway at Conway's Ferry on a bend of the Nolichucky River in Cocke County, Tennessee. She was, you will notice, born near the end of the Civil War leading me to believe her children's assertion that her father did not fight during the War. Another post, but not so!

As a girl she ran the ferry from her father's farm across the river to Warrensburg in Greene County. Somewhere on one of those trips she must have met Jehu Stokely  "Gee" Sawyer. They were married two days before Christmas in 1886 and settled into the house he built in Warrensburg along the Nolichucky River.

Gee and Catherine had 10 surviving children from 1887 to 1909. The household was full of life, laughter and probably more than a few pillows flying through the air. Catherine's children and grandchildren describe a mother rarely flustered, rarely still, and often laughing. She had plenty to laugh at. Merely traveling by the house put one at risk from projectiles flying from one of the trees, roof or windows. She was a legendary cook, quilter and seamstress. Her youngest daughter's first memories were of being leashed to her mother's sewing machine while the older children frolicked. Frolicking was a favored pastime. I've often wondered if Catherine was trying to protect her toddler daughter from her older brothers, keep her from wandering off, or was too absent minded to keep track of her while sewing. Or all of the above.

I have no photographs of Catherine from the time of her marriage until her daughters got their first camera around the time of World War I. Even then photos are scarce. One reason might be she never stood still long enough to get a shot. Here's what I found when I looked through the photo albums.

And finally, this with her daughter and granddaughter in 1929.

Catherine was widowed in 1940 and died 2 March 1943 in Warrensburg. She lived her entire life within yards of the Nolichucky. She is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Greeneville, TN. I never heard anyone mention her name or tell any story about her without a huge grin on their face. She brings a smile to mine every time I think of her. 

Sources

1870 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Cocke, District 4, p. 378A, dwelling 64, family 64, Perlina Conaway; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M593, roll 1519.  

Cocke, Tennessee, Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, December 1886: 376, Sawyer-Conway; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 5 Jan 2014).  

Greene, Tennessee, Tennessee Death Records, 1908-1958, 1943: Katherine Conway Sawyer; digital image, Ancestry.com (5 Jan 2014).  

Photographs
Gee Sawyer Family Photo Albums; digital images, privately held by Susan Clark . 1996.  

A Snowy Day

We are having a true winter in St. Louis this year. Indeed, much of the United States and Canada is preparing for record cold temperatures over the next two days. Today's snow sent me back to my photo albums hunting for wintery days. I found a few, though none of my uncles or male cousins. Either they were behind the cameras or looking outside at their snow crazed sisters.

Chicago, near the stockyards, c. 1928. Anna, Mary, and Helen Hricak. 

Warrensburg, TN c. 1932. Mary Kathryn Sawyer.