Who says you can't pick your family?

In my genealogical research, I've found that sometimes the most interesting families are the ones who I have no blood ties to. My great grandfather, Albert Womble's, wife died in 1909. In 1916, he married his housekeeper, Lou Brennen. Supposedly the marriage was just one of convenience.

The family story is that Albert was being pressured by his family to divide his four living children, who at the time of his wife's death ranged in age from 9 to just over 1 year old among his relatives. Apparently, he didn't want to do this, so he and his housekeeper got married as a way to keep the family together.

In 2007, I sent away for Albert and Lou's marriage certificate from the Massac County, IL courthouse. To my surprise, the marriage certificate revealed that Lou Brennen had been married before and that she had her maiden name restored. Now, I have no idea what that means, but it seems to suggest that she wasn't a widow. Another interesting find on the certificate was that she's referred to as Mrs. instead of Miss. I feel that this is a clue to something, but don't know what. Maybe just a sign of the times!

According to her marriage certificate, Lou was born in Johnson County, IL, but her death certificate says she was born in Massac County, IL, which is also where her parents were married in 1877. Lou was born on 25 Oct. 1878 according to her death certificate.

I haven't done much extensive research on this line mainly because I don't see the real point, and yet I'm strangely drawn to them. I grew up hearing so very little about my grandmother, Virginia's life. She was Albert Womble's only living daughter. I had heard that my grandmother was ashamed that her father had married a servant. However, I later found that odd because I found a letter that Virginia wrote to her stepmother and it sounded very affectionate. I have no idea what to believe about their relationship, but the letter seems more truthful than what someone else tells me about Virginia's feelings towards her stepmother. From other relatives, I've heard that one of Virginia's brothers found Miss Lou, as Albert's children called her, to be very kind to him.

The little research I've done has revealed that the Brennen family lived mainly in Massac County, IL. Lou had a couple of brothers and five sisters. According to Ancestry.com, one of her sister's died in 1919. Lou and three of her sisters had their picture taken together. I would estimate that it was taken sometime before 1919 and probably before 1910 based on their clothing styles in the picture. According to the 1900 and 1910 census records, Lou and her sisters worked as servants even at the tender age of 11.

I would love to learn more about this family, but I worry about loosing my focus on the Wombles. Yet, I'm interested to learn more about someone who was around my grandmother and possibly influenced her life choices, whether she was aware of it or not.

More Wombling

 A few days ago I returned to the Family History Center in Annandale to make better copies of the deeds I found the previous Saturday. I also made a copy of the deed where Warren Womble sells the land he inherited from his father's estate that I had missed last time.

Friday night, I reviewed previous genealogical findings that I had found back in about 2005 at the Library of Congress. I had been trying to decide what my next step should be in my Womble research. I thought about getting more land records, but I really wanted to find out more about what was going on in the lives of Catharine and her children before they left Edgecombe County, NC. I had already found out some information about their lives, but I really felt that I had only scratched the surface.

The only way that I see being able to find out more about these people's lives around the time when they left North Carolina, which was in 1836, is to search for more records that were created around that same time period.

For many years I had been interested in this petition of Catharine Womble's telling the court or whoever in Edgecombe County, NC that her husband had died and that she wanted her dower. I had found it in a book of abstracted records from Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Since I had found the dower record in the land records I had ordered, I learned that Catharine had received her dower in November of 1835. According to the petition abstract I had found she had petitioned the court in 1835.

I've never completely understood wills and probate records, but my rudimentary understanding is that if a person died without a will someone had to petition the court to settle the person's estate. I had done some minute research on Catharine's husband, John Womble where I had obtained his Revolutionary War pension records.

These records definitely showed a man who did not have a lot of wealth. My impression from reading his petition to the government was that he had risked his life fighting for this country. Probably, if he had had been more financially solvent, he wouldn't have applied to the government for financial assistance. I doubted that John Womble had even left a will when he died circa 1821 after reading his pension records.

Now after seeing Catharine receiving her dower from the Edgecombe County court, I believe that there's the possibility that the settling of John Womble's estate may have been done through the courts because he died intestate.

I checked out the records available at the Family History Library via FamilySearch.org. I considered searching court records from around 1835, but decided instead to look at the Estate Records index and Estate records from 1748-1917. Hopefully, there might be something in these microfilm rolls that will provide me with more information about this petition of Catharine Womble's.

Upon closer inspection of the abstract that I had found, I discovered that I had made copies of the title page of the book Records of Estates Edgecombe County, North Carolina 1761-1825 Volume I by David B. Gammon and the forward of this book as well. In the forward, it states "this volume contains abstracts of the loose estates papers for Edgecombe County which are currently held at the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh. The careful researcher will note that, although the title of this volume is similar to several compiled and published by Joseph W. Watson, it contains additional information not found in the Account Books and Court Minutes which are the primary source for Mr. Watson's works. The original records consulted for this volume consist primarily of petitions, divisions and summons, many of which were never copied into the Account Books at all. However, there are records in the Account Books which are not included in the loose papers."

This makes me feel strongly that I'll most likely find Catharine's petition in Edgecombe County's estate records. I only hope that I'm right, but I realize that, as with life and genealogical research you never will know for sure about something unless you try.