Census! Census! Census!

Back in May I watched a genealogy lecture where the speaker encouraged the audience, including me, to research our ancestor’s neighborhood.  I’ve heard this many times and have written posts about the FAN club principle for this very blog.  In my genealogical research I’ve tried to learn more about John Washington Womble’s life in Tennessee and understand more as to why he left Hardeman County, moved to Nashville, and then returned to Hardeman about a year later.

I had studied before the 1870 and 1880 Hardeman County, TN census records for his household, in addition to the households of some of his children, and nephew in an effort to answer my questions.  However, I wasn’t able to learn much else that was new information.

After watching that genealogy lecture, I remembered a genealogy class assignment where I had to analyze the data of 100 people each in two different census years in an area where one of my ancestors lived.  I had really enjoyed the assignment, and decided to do something similar.  However, since John Washington Womble lived in different civil districts in 1870 and 1880, that evidence told me that he likely moved to a completely different area in the county than the one that he lived in when he left in 1873.  I felt that it would be a good idea to extract the census data from the civil district that he moved to in 1870 and 1880 in order to learn more about the neighborhood into which he moved to.

I then downloaded each of the census pages for the 11^th civil district for the census years 1870 and 1880 and created spreadsheets for each year.  Then, I began going through the pages and extracting the names, ages, race, and occupation, etc. for each resident of that district.  It was a pretty long process and not very exciting, but I felt that I discovered some clues as to why John Washington Womble moved back there when he left Nashville and perhaps even why he moved there in the first place after the Civil War.

As I extracted the data, I did come across some problems with my plan.  A few pages of the 1880 census that I was extracting data from had parts of the pages damaged.  So, I didn’t have complete information on all of the residents in that district.  I tried viewing the records using different census record providers to see if perhaps I could find undamaged records.  However I wasn’t fortunate, and decided to just leave out that information since it wasn’t available and continued extracting. 

I’m still in the process of crunching the census data for both years, but will post again if I make any new discoveries. 

Miniature PI office part 2

After finishing building the PI office, I began to work on making furniture for it.  I started out by making the occasional table and bookcase.  As I mentioned in the previous post about this project, the office had to be scaled down to fit the room box I was using.  Therefore, the furniture would need to be scaled down as well.  I made patterns for the various pieces of furniture using the measurements provided in the instructions to see what wouldn’t fit or would need to be scaled down a bit.

                                                                                                

No measurements were given for the bookcase, so I just came up with my own measurements and then wound up using instead measurements from a miniature bookcase that’s in one of my other houses to make the pattern.

The pattern for the occasional table turned out to be too large for the office and so was extensively cut down to a smaller size.  The file cabinet remained the same size, but the loveseat and desk that I planned to make was changed to a chair and much smaller desk due to space constraints.

Making the bookcase and occasional table was fairly simple after making the necessary changes to the sizes of the items.  I decided to not follow the article’s instructions and held off on painting the pieces until after construction was complete.  This worked out fine and I found it easier to paint an unfinished piece of furniture as opposed to tiny pieces of wood or thick cardboard.  I did find the choice of the paint color to be a bit odd and I’m still not sure if the article’s author intended for the pieces to have an olive greenish tint to them, but that’s the color I got when I mixed some black acrylic paint with the raw sienna and gel medium together.  It seemed to be an odd choice, but perhaps the author wanted a bit of contrast from the wood grain finish of the office walls.  To my eye it seems as though just another shade of brown would’ve been fine, but perhaps the author wanted something a bit more extreme and to give more of an impression of an aged appearance to the office.

Since I still wasn’t sure how small I wanted to make the desk and chair, I held off on constructing these and focused on making the file cabinet next.  I decided to paint the pieces and then glue them together first per the instructions, since I was a bit intimidated by making this piece.  The instructions and diagrams seemed pretty extensive at first glance, so it seemed important to follow them closely.  My first mistake was deciding to use metallic silver paint instead of just a regular gray spray paint or acrylic paint.  I found soon after that the paint was too bright and intense for a file cabinet and tried to remedy it by mixing black and a light gray paint together to get the desired shade.  This didn’t work out either and wound up looking a bit streaky in places, so I decided I needed to get some gray spray paint or at least a darker gray acrylic paint.  In the end, I never found any gray spray paint that met my specifications and settled for a darker gray acrylic paint.

The instructions for the file cabinet I found were less than desirable and sections of them seemed to have been edited out from the article.  I don’t feel this is the author’s fault and more that of whoever edited the author’s submitted article.  First the instructions give the measurements for the front, sides, bottom, top, and back of the file cabinet and then tell you to cut these out and paint them and then glue some of them together.  Then it talks about scoring lines in the front piece to indicate where the drawers are and then to cut through some of the layers of the board in the narrow areas between the cuts and peel off a couple of layers to form the recessed drawer spacers.

Since the front piece was already been painted along with the other pieces this narrow leaves white areas where the layers of board have been peeled away and no where else in the instructions does it say to paint over these areas.  I wound up painting the white areas because they looked pretty unsightly.  Then after gluing the front pieces to the partially constructed file cabinet it talks about cutting out pieces to make the open drawer of the cabinet.  It seemed strange to me to present cutting pieces for the drawer at this stage in the instructions, when they could’ve been included when giving the measurements for the other file cabinet pieces and been asked to set them aside once they’d been painted.  The instructions also never mention painting these pieces, but it seemed logical to me so I painted them.  Again, this isn’t the author’s fault, but seems to be something that should’ve been realized while editing the piece for publication.

After the drawer is glued together and painted, I slid it in the opening even though there was nothing mentioned about this in the instructions.  I saw no need to glue it in place, since it seemed to fit snugly. 

Next on the agenda for the file cabinet was making the drawer labels and the slots that they fit into.  The lettered labels are provided in the instructions, but all that said about creating the slots is to cut the tabs from silver cardstock for each drawer—no sizing information is given as to what the dimensions should be.  At first I found this daunting and wasn’t sure what I could do to “fix” my problem of trying to figure out how large to make them when it occurred to me to glue the drawer labels to the silver cardstock and then once the glue dried cut out the tabs with the labels centered on the silver cardstock.  The trick seemed to be to cut so that a silver edge was evenly around the labels.  Because again the instructions failed me, I used the picture in the article to glue the labels in what I believed to be the right place on the file drawers.

I used heavy duty staples to make the handles, per the instructions.  These had the legs trimmed and holes were poked into the drawer fronts 1/4” up from the drawer bottom and glued in place.

Since I’ve finished creating the bookcase, occasional table, and file cabinet, next on my list is to begin working on a desk for the office.

Research recap and where I’m headed part 2

At first in my research of the Hardeman County tax records, I thought that I could just view a small portion of them and get the information I wanted.  I found that this wasn’t possible because of the fact that it appeared that John Washington Womble never left Hardeman County because some version of his name always seemed to appear in the tax lists.

As I mentioned earlier, I looked at Hardeman County tax records from 1865-1880 that I ordered on microfilm from the Family History Library.  I made copies of the records that seemed pertinent to my research and then transferred that information into Excel spreadsheets.

Hardeman County Tax Records

According to the 1869 tax record book, the taxes collected were recorded on 30 May 1869.  The only explanation I can give for why John Washington Womble is not listed in the 1869 tax records is because he may not have owned land when the taxes were collected or perhaps he lacked sufficient income and so was considered to be exempt from paying taxes that year. 

 His oldest daughter, Ellen married Isham Bowling in that same county on 4 August 1869, so it seems likely that John Washington Womble and his family moved to Hardeman County probably in 1867 or even as late as winter 1868.

The J W Wamble listed in the 1870 tax list must be John Washington Womble.  The reason being is that the only item he’s taxed on is 83 acres of land. This property correlates to the 83 acres that is sold to P J Tranum in 1873.  I did find the record where John Washington Womble purchased 83 acres from Chalkley Grantham and his wife, Abby in a deed registered March 1872.  No other deeds were found for John W Womble in Hardeman  County before the deed recorded in 1872.

John W. Womble is listed in the 1870 U.S. census as living in Hardeman County, TN in the 12^th Civil District. 

•  A person with the same name appears in the 1871 tax list in District 12.

•  A J H Womble is listed in District 12 in the 1872 tax list.  The letter H is probably just a misspelling on the tax collector’s part.

•   J W Womble is listed in District 12 in the 1873 tax list.

John W Womble appears in the Nashville City Directory from 1874 to 1875.  The 1880 census does list a John Wash. Wamble the 11^th Civil District and the 1880 Agriculture census indicates that he is renting the land he’s farming.  This evidence suggests to me that John W. Womble left Hardman and when he moved back, moved to a different civil district. 

What I also found in looking at the census records, both population and agriculture schedules, was another Womble family living in Hardeman County.  This family is headed by a J J Womble who I believe to be John Jobes Womble.

John Jobes Womble

A J W Womble or an individual with similar name or initials appear in subsequent tax records after 1870 up until 1878 when I found a John Wamble listed living in district 11.

It’s my belief that John Jobes Womble is the son of John Washington Womble’s brother, Warren.  This belief is based on previous research that I’ve done on the Womble family line.  According to census records, John Jobes Womble had a son named John W Womble.  I haven’t been able to figure out if his middle name was also Washington; however, the name similarity creates the illusion that my ancestor never left Hardeman County, Tennessee.

                     

The only Womble/Wamble I found listed in the tax records from 1865 to 1869 was John Jobes Womble.  In 1870, there are three people with the Wamble surname, J J Wamble, A W Wamble, and J W Wamble.  The person named J W Wamble is paying tax on 83 acres of land.  Neither of the other two Wombles paid taxes on any land and all three are listed in District No. 12 just like the 1870 census.

According to the 1870 Tennessee constitution, Article II, section 28 that’s posted at http://www.tngenweb.org/law, all males between the age of 21 and 50 were taxed.  Because of this law, I believe that the J W Wamble listed on the tax lists after 1873 is John W. Womble, John Jobes Womble’s son.  In the 1870 census the John W listed in John Jobes’ household is said to be 16; therefore, by 1874, the son would have been about 21, so he must be the J W Wamble listed on the 1874 tax list and also those subsequent years.  John Jobes Womble is not listed in the tax records after 1878 so he must’ve aged out.  He’s is also listed in the 1880 U. S. census living in the 11^th Civil District and in the Agriculture census renting his farm.

Conclusion

It would seem that because tax records were found for people of the same name or similar variation of the name J W Womble between the years 1870 to 1881 that even though my ancestor sold land in 1873 that he somehow eked out an existence in Hardeman County during a period in this country’s economic history that prior to the Great Depression of the 1930’s was considered the greatest economic crisis that the United States had ever faced.

However, it’s doubtful that John Washington Womble stayed on in Hardeman County after selling his land to P J Tranum.  He was skilled as a tailor and likely believed that he could fall back on this by obtaining work in Nashville where he lived from 1874-1875.  This scheme of course didn’t work out and he must’ve sorely underestimated the economic impact of the financial crisis’ impact on his ability to hold onto a job.

At this date, it’s still unclear whether or not he received the remainder of the money owed Tranum owed him.  Nevertheless, he returned to Hardeman where his son, Adolphes, his daughter, Ellen and her husband, and his nephew John Jobes Womble were living and likely returned to farming, by renting land on which to farm.  Possibly, when he moved away he was unsure of the likelihood of his ability to stay employed, so saved part of the money obtained from the land sale to Tranum and used this to rent land.

Miniature PI office

I one of my other lives I worked in a toy store that also sold dollhouse supplies.  In an issue of Dollhouse Miniatures magazine there was an article where someone had made a PI office.  When I saw it, I immediately wanted to make it, but for some reason I didn’t.  However, the idea of making it never left the back of my mind.

Years later, I obtained a copy of the article through interlibrary loan.  The instructions called for making the office out of ½” thick foam core board.  I searched around where I live and could never find any, so I knew that I’d have to find an alternative. 

While working at the toy store, I had participated in a class where we were to make a garden inside a room box.  All of our supplies were provided for us to create the garden; however, I never finished mine and instead it sat on a shelf in a closet for about a decade waiting for me to do something with it.

 Contents of room box

 When I finally got around to working on my PI office project, I decided to use the room box from my garden project.  I pulled the box out of the closet and examined it to see what needed to be done before turning it into a detective office.

The box still had everything in it from the garden class.  I found that the brick walls had been glued to the walls and that there was a “grass” covered thick piece of Styrofoam.  I was able to remove everything except for the brick walls.  These I tried at first to remove by sticking an X-acto knife or something similar behind it and wedging it from the walls of the box.  This didn’t work, but I found that heating the brick walls with a hair drier heated up the glue that was holding in place enough for me to get a butter knife behind the walls and slowly peel them off. 

In the process of removing the brick walls

After this arduous process, I found there were still remains of the glue on the walls.  This I sanded off so that it wouldn’t interfere with my painting and papering of the walls.  My next step was to make a wood floor for the office, which I did by using individual floor boards that had come from a pack that I’d obtained from my days working at the toy store. 

The boards were a wonderful walnut color and I wasn’t sure if they would mesh well with my project.  Because my idea had been that I would stain the floor to co-ordinate with the walls of the office.  After cutting and gluing the boards to a piece of cardboard cut to fit the inside of the room box, I sanded it after the glue had dried.  Then I searched through my stain samples to see what stain would work best.  I chose Special Walnut as the color for the floor.  I stained the floor very lightly so that the floor wouldn’t be too overly dark.  After about 5-10 minutes I rubbed off the excess stain with a rag and then let it dry thoroughly overnight.  The next day, I sanded the floor and tried to create worn spots on the floor by excessively sanding patches.  I decided not to gloss the floor so as to maintain the impression of a very worn floor and was concerned that applying gloss would ruin this illusion.

I tested the fit of the floor in the box, and held off on gluing it in place because I wanted to add electricity.  My plan for electrifying the room was to have a light in the bathroom area, a desk lamp, table lamp in the left corner, and a light in the hall that would be behind the back wall.

My plan with the electricity also involved figuring out how to arrange it so that the lights could be controlled independently.  I tried to come up with different ways to do this, but nothing seemed to work mainly because I wanted to use tape wire.  The only way that I came up with how to control the lights was to install a switch for each light or as I eventually decided every couple of lights.  The bathroom and hall lights would be controlled by one switch each and then the desk and table lamps would be controlled with one switch.

Tape Wiring

Once the tape wire was installed along with the switches, I painted over any of the wiring that might show by painting over it with gesso.  Incidentally, I left out the wiring for the bathroom light on purpose.  It would be put in place later, after the back wall was installed. 

After painting the Raw Sienna Acrylic on the lower part of the walls

After the gesso had dried, I painted the lower 3 ¾” of the walls with a faux wood finish using a coat raw sienna acrylic.  This I let dry completely and then added another coat of a mixture of burnt umber acrylic paint and a gel staining medium.  By applying the stain in the same direction as the paint it created a faux wood look.  This staining method I duplicated on the back wall that was made out of mat board.

Next after the paint was dry I wallpapered the walls with miniature ceiling paper that had a stuccoed texture.  This wallpaper was to have a smoky, well used appearance.  To achieve this according to the article’s instructions, it needed to be covered with a light coat of raw sienna and gel medium mixture by brushing it on and then wiping it off.  This technique turned out to be more difficult than it was described.  I found it difficult to get the paint and gel medium mixture to spread evenly.  Wiping the mixture off seemed to really mean scrub off even though that wasn’t what the instructions stated.  However, the end product seemed to turn out well enough.  The walls looked a bit darker than I remember, but since I didn’t have a color picture of the finished project, and was only going by my memory of what the office walls looked like I feel as though perhaps it’s my memory that’s faulty and not my painting of the walls.

I glued the floor to the inside of the room box once the paint on the wallpaper had dried.  Then I began cutting and painting the wood strip that would be baseboards and trim for the windows, walls, and door.  This trim was then glued to the back wall around the windows, door, and along the bottom to form a baseboard.

After the trim on the back wall was installed, I began trying to make faux hinges, door knob, and mail slot.  At first, I wasn’t sure how I would accomplish making these things.  My idea at first had been to just buy the needed items, but as it turned out I didn’t want to spend the money, so I decided to try and create them myself from scratch.  I measured the hinges on my front door and scaled down the measurements to 1/12^th scale.  Then I measured a miniature doorknob that I had on one of my other miniature structures.  The mail slot was a little trickier because I didn’t have ready access to one.  I have one on my door at work, but had no interest in making a trip over to my office just to measure the mail slot.  Instead I just winged it and came up with measurements that I thought would be to scale with the room and door. 

Round toothpicks turned out to be the perfect diameter to use as hinges and were cut to the needed length.  The mail slot was cut out of a piece of cardboard as was the door plate for the door knob.  A small key hole or impression of a key hole was poked into the cardboard.  The end of a dowel was sanded into a rounded shape and then cut to the depth needed for a door knob.  Another narrower dowel was added so that the door knob wouldn’t be flush against the door plate.  All of the pieces for the doorknob including the doorplate were glued together and then the hinges, mail slot, and door knob were painted with gold metallic acrylic paint.  Once the paint was dried the door hardware was installed on the office door.

The instructions called for adhering a piece of glass to the back side of the inner wall and after adhering the letters on the door’s window applying several coats of frosted window paint to create a frosted appearance.  My idea was to instead adhere a piece of frosted acrylic plastic that I’d purchased for another project to the back of the inner wall and the lettering would be printed on a clear laser label which would be put over the door’s window opening.

This however didn’t work out.  The label wasn’t large enough to cover the entire window and so I wound up copying the lettering onto tracing paper that I glued to the area around the door’s window.  I glued an unlettered piece of tracing paper over the other windows so everything would match.  The only hitch was that the door lettering was exposed and could be smudged.  To prevent this, I glued another piece of acrylic over the tracing papered covered openings.

 

After the glue dried, I glued the wall in place along the long side of the floor about 2 inches from the back of the room box.  Once this was dried, I glued the partition wall in place to the right of the door.

I mitered the ends of the 1/2” square strip wood that would trim the top interior walls of the room box and then painted the pieces to match the other wood in the room.  I used clear tacky glue to glue each piece in place.  Then cut and painted the baseboard and wainscoting trim to match.  This was also glued in place using clear tacky glue.

I cut another piece of 1/2” square strip wood to fit under the top molding on the right side wall down to the floor and painted it as well.  This I glued in place to the right wall to be in line with the partition wall.  This would define the area where the bathroom sink and medicine cabinet will be.  The plan is for this area to be a washroom for the office.

The semi-finished office

Next on my to do list is to fill in any gaps in the top molding using a dark brown polymer clay, to add the third light switch to the back of the room box for the washroom light. Lastly, I’ll work on making furniture and accessories for the detective office.

Research recap and where I’m headed part 1

My last blog post was posted nearly towards the end of what had been an incredibly hot summer.  I had returned from the FGS conference in Ft. Wayne, IN where I had found what I believe to be the ‘missing’ Womble child that died during the Civil War and was buried in a cemetery in Nashville, TN. 

After finding this I wasn’t able to make any further headway with researching the family during the Civil War.  I wasn’t sure exactly how to obtain the court records for Robert Carter being accused of stealing a coat from H F Myers’ store.  I was curious as to what had happened with the land that the Womble family was living on in Hardin County, TN when the war started.  Since I found pretty good evidence that John brought his family with him to Nashville during the Civil War, I wondered if they had returned to that same land after the war ended.  While in Ft. Wayne I talked with people about what I had found out about the family’s experiences during the Civil War and asked how I could find out if they sold the land before leaving for Nashville or if it was more likely that they just never returned to Hardin after the war.

There is the possibility that the family did in fact return to Hardin after the war because the social security application of my great grandfather Albert Womble’s birth indicates that he was born there in 1866.  However, his personal papers seem to suggest that towards the end of his life he was trying to locate his birth record and that supposedly he had learned that it may have been on file in Nashville. 

It could also be that those notes I found of Albert trying to locate proof of when he was born are from when social security came into existence and he could’ve been concerned about trying to provide documentation of his birth so that he could begin receiving social security benefits.  I think it more likely that he wanted to obtain documentation because I found delayed birth certificates for his sister, Maude and brother, Ernest.

The information from Albert’s social security application about his birthplace and date is Albert’s own knowledge.  Even though, he was obviously present at his birth there’s no way he could’ve known the date or where he was.  Only his mother would’ve known that information and presumably Albert’s father was present at the birth.

So when I asked about how I could find out if the Womble family returned to Hardin after the war, it was suggested that I look at tax records.  I did a search on FamilySearch.org of available microfilms and then looked to see what was available at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Nothing appeared to be available to me for Hardin County and I’m not and wasn’t at the time able to travel to Hardin to search for the records in the county courthouse. My attempt to get a book via interlibrary loan about the Civil War and post war life in Hardin County titled, No Man's Land: the Civil War and reconstruction in Hardin County, by Tony Hays didn’t pan out because it’s considered a reference book and so not available for interlibrary loan, so that part of my research project ended.

Then I began to think about attempting to hammer down the details of the family’s life in Hardeman County, Tennessee.  I knew from census records both population schedules and agriculture and Nashville city directories that they lived in Hardeman for awhile moved back to Nashville and then a short time later returned to Hardman.  They lived there for about ten years before relocating back to Nashville and both John Washington Womble and his wife, Rhoda Caroline died there in the city where they had married at the end of the Civil War.

My thinking with trying to learn more about the family’s Hardeman years was that if I was able to pinpoint when they arrived there then I could better figure out when exactly did they leave Nashville and did they ever return to Hardin as Albert’s social security application states.

In September 2013, I read a great article in the latest issue of the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society’s Newsletter Westward into Nebraska. In it was an article about the Panic of 1873.  The article didn’t mention any Wombles or John Washington Womble, but it got me thinking about the land that he sold in December 1873.  The more I thought about that land the more I realized that I would have to transcribe the deed to figure out what was going on and what John W. Womble’s plans were.  In the meantime, I ordered tax records for Hardeman County from the Family History Library for the years 1876-1880.

While waiting for the microfilm to arrive, I transcribed the deed where John Washington Womble sells 83 acres of land to P J Tranum on 29 December 1873.  I had read through this deed many times and thought that I completely understood it; however, it wasn’t until I transcribed it that I saw what was really going on. 

J W Womble deed 83 acres to P J Tranum

The first page of the deed states that J W Womble is selling for $930 83 acres of land to P J Tranum.  $600 is paid to J W Womble upfront and 12 months credit is given to Tranum for the $330.  So presumably, P J Tranum needed to pay the remaining money to my ancestor either within or after one years time.

I had thought in the past that John W went off to Nashville to work while his family lived in Hardman to work the farm and when his employment prospects failed he returned home before moving with the whole family to Nashville about ten years later.  However, it seemed clearer that he was actually leaving Hardeman and his family would be going with him to Nashville.  The article in Westward into Nebraska about the Panic of 1873 gave me the idea that there was a bit more to John’s land transaction with P J and that was that by accepting part of the money upfront and allowing the balance to be paid after a year suggests to me that John W Womble wasn’t sure how easily he could find a job in Nashville or even once he found a job-if he could hold onto it.

The confusion of John W Womble’s moving to Hardeman to Nashville and back to Hardeman comes in when I begin looking at tax records and combine those findings with road orders.  If I took those records at face value, it would appear that John never left Hardeman County at all and never moved away to Nashville for a few years before returning to stay on in Hardeman for another ten years.

My suspicion was that I was dealing with multiple people with similar names that were listed in the tax records.  In order to make sure that’s what I was dealing with I wound up ordering and viewing tax records from 1865-1880.