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From: Dora Smith <>
Subject: [THC] want trade Texas research for NARA military records research
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 14:51:00 -0700 (PDT)
I am looking for someone who needs some Texas
research done and lives near a NARA center to
trade some research with me.
I live in Austin, Texas, have access to the
government records here and to the census, BMD
and land records for teh entire state that are at
the state library genealogical department.
Austin is in the Hill Country, and in Travis
County.
What I don't have access to are a NARA research
center. I think that the only one in Texas is in
northern Texas near Dallas.
I need to find the possible military records for
my great grandfather. I have his date of birth,
where he lived once an adult, date of and who
married, children who lived, and date and place
of death. I don't have anything at all on his
family or where he was born, except consistently
listed as Pennsylvania. There is some kind of
flag inscription on his grave that suggests that
he might have had a military record. This record
could yield tons of critically important info on
his background, family and apparently checkered
career.
Charles L. Moore was born in JUly or August 1859,
have exact date from death certificate with
corroboration from 1900 census record, and also
the different year which is on his grave. He
allegedly was born in Pennsyvania, to Thomas
Moore as nearly as I can make out teh name
scrawled on the death certificate, and Thomas was
born in Pennsylvania and his mother probably in
Maryland, though sometimes that is listed as
Pennsylvania. He was a roller turner, which is a
type of steelworker, on the 1900 and 1910 census
and on his death certificate, which says he was a
"Self employed roller turner". A roller turner
operates a very large piece of machinery that
processes rolls of steel and makes very large
steel parts. He married Carrie B. Dehart, teh
daughter of a prosperous member of a prosperous
Pennsylvania Dutch family who owned extensive
land and investments in Reading, Berks County,
PA, and worked in a beer factory where they were
currently living in Highspire, Dauphin County,
PA, near Harrisburg. There was a prospering
steel industry nearby. In 1880 census, "Carrie
B. Moore", barely 18 years old, is found
"visiting" in the household of her parents and
Charles Moore could not be found, though I had no
index to use and did not search Harrisburg. I
searched the three townships where I know my
people lived, and the adjacent townships.
Charles Moore would have been 20 years old.
Conceivably, he was in the army at this time.
I do not, however, know that they married in
Dauphin County, or that they lived there.
Charles and Carrie had Bessie Mae Moore, in May
1884, family records have "Dauphin County" but no
corroboration, and Nellie Moore, b January 1886,
her death notice said in Reading, her death
certificate said Pennsylvania, and her husband's
death notice said HE was born in Reading, too,
and he was born in New Jersey. Now, there is
some shadow on this family history. Charles Moore
may possibly have had manic depression. Looks
like two thirds of his descendants inherited it
and the other lines carried nothing as serious.
The Dehart relatives big time didn't like the
Moores, and the ones who survive refuse to tell
either my father or me "the whole story of how
they CAME to Drexil Hill!". The one garbled story
I got mostly just sounded sleazy. In
PHiladelphia, the head of house was listed in the
city directory as teh younger of the two girls
who both still lived at home. My father was ever
told nothing about Charles Moore and only heard
the man called Charles Moore, by his mother and
grandmother who often stayed with my father's
parents for years at a time, and by his mother's
cousin who was the only one to tell him any
family history, and who told her own daughter
only things she wanted her to know. Charles and
family seem to have done an odd amount of moving
around for a steelworker in a prosperous area.
It is possible taht Carrie sometimes stayed with
her parents for reasons that had nothing to do
with Charles away in the army, or he could have
been away in the army, or he could have been
living in Reading in 1886. The Moore family
lived in Wilmington, Delaware, for some
undetermined amount of time before 1908, and are
found there in the 1900 census. They reportedly
had relatives in or near Wilmington, or elsewhere
in New CAstle County, Delaware, who certainly
were Moore relatives or Charles' mother's people,
since every one of CArrie's Pennsylvania Dutch
relatives lived in Berks and Dauphin Counties.
According to my father, Charles probably had a
sister named Libby. At some point, some of these
relatives lived near enough to Charles' family,
while Nellie was a teenager, to be sending "her
out in clothes that her mother had".
In 1908, Charles Moore and family turn up in the
Philadelphia city directory, at 5222 Webster Ave
in Philadelphia - or rather, Nelly turns up there
listed as a dressmaker.
Nelly later married a man from New Jersey who was
unusually prosperous for an accountant with a
plumbing firm; they had a big house in the
richest section of Drexil Hill from 1928 until
their deaths. Also appears Nellie was a
skinflint; she gave the minister who handled her
husband's funeral $2.00! They had no children,
and my father's brother, who was close to them,
and his son, are long since dead, and I can't
find anyone of the husband's rare name in the
towns in New Jersey he was from and where a
nephew was listed on Nellie's death on the
funeral home records, who claims to be related to
him. Ha, ha, ha. It doesn't help that most of
them are dead, too. But I found a widow with the
family history her husband put together, very
nice woman, wrote me a nice letter, her husband's
work contained no mention of any of these people.
The entire family is listed at 5222 Webster St on
the 1910 census, and the census states that they
owned the house free and clear with no mortgage.
Bessie Mae, my grandmother, who was working as a
secretary or clerk both in 1910 and when she
married, married in 1911, and she listed 5222
Webster on her application. Now, I wonder if
that is on account of Carrie, since her family
had money and no reason to think Charles had any,
also when she was old it appeared to my father
that she had some money. Not an outrageious
amount by that time; I think what was left of it
may have helped put my father through seminary!
Philadelphia did, it seems from an extensive
discussion on the PHILLY-ROOTS list, have an
extensive heavy industry that would have employed
a roller turner, and according to the 1910 census
Charles Moore ahd been employed continuously as a
roller turner for teh past year. I don't know if
Wilmington can make a similar claim. The 1900
census does not show anyone obviously related to
Charles Moore living immediately near him; no
Moore's, and no Libby. They occupied a single
street number by themselves. Type of residence;
nonfarm (big help). But I still wonder why on
his death certificate n 1920, he died of surgical
shock maybe with bowel obstruction or something,
Charles Moore is listed as a "roller turner",
"self employed". I had expected to find the man
barely worked a day in his life. His widow, who
is listed as the informant on the death
certificate, must have been out of her mind; his
death certificate and the 1900 census give one
date of birth for him - and his grave has a
different date of birth on it. Different year;
I'm not sure any specific date is there. (I have
it someplace) She bought a whole bunch of grave
plots at the time when Charles Moore died, and
her ghost still owns them (according to cemetery
records). I also have the date Charles L. Moore
died in 1920.
I have no clue if he or his wife collected any
military pension. Also no idea what branch of
the service. His grave is so thrown together, he
shares a single marker with his wife, Nellie and
her husband, someone couldn't even get his
birthdate right, that it is odd indeed that a
flag would have been engraved, specifically on
his grave, unless as teh person who viewed it for
me suggests, it does mean he had a military
record. He is apparently the first to use that
marker, though I do not know that it was put
there when he died. Could have been put there by
Nellie, who was the last of the four of them to
die.
I live nowhere near a NARA center, I am short of
cash, and I understand that military records are
hard to locate, which in my experence makes using
LDS's films impractical and a dreadful waste of
time, he may have been in the army, the navy, or
the marines, though I think the army used the
most recruits.
I want to find any relatives through this family
before my father dies, which event is expected
three months from now. I do get the idea that
searching these records is not a brief lookup. A
genealogist would charge me about $100 for the
project.
I want to see if possibly anyone who needs some
research done in Texas and lives near a NARA
center would trade work with me.
Yours,
Dora Smith
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