RAGAN-ROOTS-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Getting to the Source
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:44:22 EDT

Hello again RAGAN Rooters!

This is another article I found and thought could be of some help to many of
you. I think this lady has some interesting methods for doing her research.

And I have permission of this author to send it to the RAGAN-ROOTS group (my
family). If you have any questions for Marigail you can contact her at:


Michael W. RAGAN
==============
RAGAN-ROOTS
List Owner
==============
"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something
else anyway."
-- Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane
==============

====> Getting to the Source article <====

Feature: Genealogical Successes
Getting to the Source

The primitives had a belief that to let another know their "real" name gave
the other person power and control over them (so they had more than one name
and were very reluctant to share their "real" names). Perhaps knowing our
ancestors' names also gives us "communication" with them. I'm too old and have
seen too much to discount anything. I do sometimes feel like I'm straying into
the worlds of flying saucers though.
A benefit of Genealogical Research: I have a great love of history. BUT for
most of my life, only ancient and European history. American history rather
bored me. More like stale news than real history. Unlike the Pharaohs of
Egypt, that I fell in love with at the ripe old age of 7 when I found some
thirty-year-old National Geographics of the opening of King Tut's tomb
abandoned in the window seat of a house my parents were renting, or the
romantic Myceneans with their neat hair-dos and strange bull culture, and even
the Gorgeous Greeks and Noble Romans, American history (except for the Aztecs,
Incas, and Mayas) bored me! I ended up with a degree in art history because
-that- made history come alive for me - but still not particularly American
history / art.

But then one day, as I was reading the History of Randolph Co., VA/WV, at the
St Louis, MO, Public Library, I came across the entry for the last Indian raid
in Virginia, with it's mention of the death of a Frank RIFFLE and later a Mrs.
WARD (Margaret SWISICK WARD RIFFLE WINTERMOTE) rescuing children. It just
kinda rolled over me, like a Tsunami wave. These people were my kin and they
had actually LIVED in that boring world of American History. They were a part
of that. And for the first time in my life, American History became REAL and
the Romance of earlier periods lost some of its charm to the feeling of being
a part of a great and awesome taming of a continent. So the other benefit of
Genealogical Research is that it gives one a feeling for history that
transcends mere academic love.

I have a copy of William R. MILLER's estate settlement papers which I made
while in the Darke Co., OH, Court House (by the way, one of WRM's descendants
was later involved in its construction). William didn't arrive in Darke Co.,
OH, until the late 1830's (he spent several years in Montgomery Co., OH, on
his way to Darke Co.). William R. [Sr.] was born in PA, maybe Franklin Co.
(that's where his children were born). With a name like John Smith (or William
MILLER) one needs to get every smidgen of data about them before one moves
back in time to filter out the hundreds of similarly-named people who aren't
the right person.
One of my husband's favorite stories about me is about the day, almost 10
years ago, that I was standing in the little storage room in the Darke Co.
Court House (the one that had a wonderful antique stand up desk in it),
peering down this cylinder of rolled up documents that had been glued along
the edge of the outer page to hold them in a roll. The clerk had tracked the
estate papers of William MILLER as per the index to a garage down the alley
from the Court House, where she retrieved them, and brought them back to the
little room for me to check.

Anyway, there I was, not wanting to disturb their bundling method if the
documents were of no use, trying to get the inadequate light (the room is
windowless) down in the half dozen or so cylinders to read the top pages.
Finally, I pick a roll where the inside paper has a list of disbursements with
the list of heirs and the names of my grandparents Samuel and Charlotte
KERSHNER quite visible.

My hubby insists, although I was too excited to remember clearly, that I
started dancing around almost shouting: "This is MY(!) William Miller; this is
MY(!) William Miller; this is MY(!) William Miller ! ! !" I did not have his
name when I started doing my family research. I only knew back as far as his
daughter Charlotte MILLER SCHLECHTY REIGLE KERSHNER. By 1850 (the first
meaningful census) she was married to George REIGLE (H # 2) and there was
nothing to tie her to a father in the census.

Being an analyst by trade, I started playing with the data. I made a working
assumption that since her first marriage was in 1842 the family might be in
Darke Co. for the 1840 census, and went through and listed all 1840 MILLERs
with daughters the correct age - to my amazement, that weeded out over 2/3 of
the MILLERs right there!

I then went forward to the 1850 census, made another working set of
assumptions
1.that he was still alive,
2.that since Charlotte had been born in PA, he too was from PA,   and
3.that, with a daughter of Charlotte's age, his birth year was within a
certain range.

Miraculously, this winnowed the list to a mere 3 names, one of which, William
MILLER, was living next to a SCHLECHTY. Guess who got my vote? But it was all
assumption, and I needed proof. The estate settlement papers gave me that.
There was no will, and William died after the dates of Anita Short's published
Darke Co., OH, records, so I had to go to the source for the information ...
the Court House.
by Marigail Brackeen -
Fayetteville, GA

This thread:

• Getting to the Source by <>