Platting Orientation Using the Census and a Timeline

My progress with creating John Washington Womble’s neighborhood has been slow of late.  This weekend I took a break from visiting my local family history center to research so that I could spend more time on this project.

Earlier in the week I came up with the idea of creating a timeline of events that happened in the Civil District where John Washington Womble lived.  My idea was that perhaps the various land sales would develop into a better grasp of where the various plats were supposed to be. 

A few months ago, I’d listened to a webinar about neighborhood recreation. The lecturer mentioned that one will never completely be able to locate every single tract of land and be able to place it with 100% accuracy in a particular area.  This bit of information was a wonderful boost and needed realism for me.

In creating my timeline I learned a few things, Ellen Womble Bowling and her husband sold their land within a few of her father, John Washington Womble.  Also Womble’s neighbor, Samuel Faught sold his land the exact same day.  Of further interest, John J Womble, nephew to John Washington bought a presumed neighboring tract two years later.  I had always thought mistakenly that at least for a short time the men had been neighbors.  But not so, according to my timeline.

Unfortunately, listing out the various land transactions became less numerous or easy for me.  I’d platted a number of tracts in DeedMapper and began trying to arrange them in a logical manner according to their Census enumeration.  This is slow work because the trying to follow the plats and their placement in the Census doesn’t always seem to follow a logical sequence.

Perhaps something to keep in mind is that the enumerator was likely on horseback and likely wasn’t walking.  The Census for the 12^th Civil District of Hardeman County isn’t too helpful because it only provides the month on some of the pages as an indication as to when the enumeration was done.  So I have no idea if it took the enumerator the entire month to complete where he spent a couple of hours each day traveling around in that Civil District, or if he was able to complete his task within a day.

From prior research I know that there is a bridge that goes across the Hatchie River that was owned by a man named Simpson.  A road known back in that time as the Bolivar Simpson road likely ran from the Hatchie River to Bolivar.  My thought is that likely the enumerator may have traveled along that road and then made his way in a circuitous route off the road and onto whatever lanes, paths, or pastures may have existed to reach the various people living in that Civil District.

Review of Progress Made in Implementing My 2016 Systems

My list of 2016 systems for myself included the usual ideas, such as eating better and exercising more frequently.  Among those ideas were some serious commitments that I needed to make towards taking control of my genealogical research by documenting the sources I find and have found in the past.  Stopping the process of finding documents and not bothering to examine and analyze them until much later or ever.  Also, becoming more diligent about filing away the information I’ve collected after examining and analyzing it.

In looking back at 2016 and these systems that I created for myself to follow, some of these ideas did bear some small fruit and others just simply didn’t pan out for a myriad of reasons.  The documenting my sources did work out because I made a conscious effort to create citations or at least note down pertinent information about a particular source while I had in front of me and spent time over a period of months creating citations for items I’d found in the past.  After completing my research at a repository I wrote citations for the items viewed while still on site or immediately after leaving having that information still fresh in my mind.  Instead of writing these source citations sometimes weeks, months, or years later when I was trying to analyze the source later and write about.

In order to document, examine, and analyze these newly found bits of information, I came up with the process of after returning from a repository of entering the item into my research log which included the source citation, then entering the source into Evidentia and using that program to examine and analyze the source.

I tried using Evernote when researching online as a way to help me get into the habit of creating source citations when I found a piece of information or didn’t.  What I found was that it was easier for me to just not use Evernote when downloading a digital image of a document found online and instead save the image file to the pertinent research folder on my computer and record the search and findings along with a source citation in my research log.

Research update for August 7, 2016 (yes, I realize it’s November)

After finishing with the Sarah Daniel petition file, I thought that I would take a short break from transcribing and start work on another file the next day.  However after looking through the various files in that day’s collection I thought I would just transcribe a bit of one of the files.  I picked one of the longer files, Easter Johnson because it was so long and went into it thinking that I would stop after a page or so of transcribing.

The strange thing was that I’d been preparing myself for what I thought would be a very “dry” file, filled with all sorts of boilerplate and annoying legalese.  However, it started out with Lazarus Johnston’s will, which goes on for a page and a half and brought up various events that happened after his death.  I became so caught up in what must have happened to his children and grandchildren as a result of those events that I kept transcribing for about seven more pages.

I worked a bit more on the Easter Johnson file tonight, 10 August 2016.  And will have to force myself to walk away from it a bit, because again I find myself getting swept up into the lives of these people that I’m transcribing.  My suspicion is that even though I’m feel that the petition case is fraught with drama that the reality is that it’s just the language being used and that it’s was just “business as usual” for these family members and the legal personages involved. 

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this case and if I make more interesting discoveries when I work my way through the other petition files.  I’m making a lot of use of the Black’s Law Dictionary that David gave me several years ago and am also learning a bit of the meanings of the legalese that I’m encountering in this particular petition.

John Washington Womble Neighborhood Project Part 5

Last Saturday, I again braved the intense heat and went to my local Family History Center to finish scanning the remaining petition files on the microfilm I ordered.  A couple of days ago I finished transcribing Mahala Grantham’s file and began on Sarah Daniel, widow of Ethelred Daniel’s file.  Today, I finished transcribing her file, afterwards took a break--watching some of the men’s gymnastics qualifying rounds--and will start on another petition file.

Since on the first go around with these files, I only made scans of about 5 files there isn’t much hanging over me for that day’s set of scans.  Last week, I’d been able to finish with my scanning and have about seven or so files to transcribe from that batch.

My plan once I finish transcribing the files is to then enter the metes and bounds descriptions into DeedMapper and hopefully place it logically in place with my other plats.  Then I’ll begin the process again by ordering another roll of microfilm of petitions from my list of missing land owners.

Evernote use

In a previous post I mentioned that I’d begun using Evernote and was trying out how it would work with my genealogy research.  I joined a couple of Evernote groups with the idea that I could troubleshoot any issues that might crop up.  I’ve experimented with using it in my research and have to say that there’s a steep learning curve at least for me in using it. 

Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that I don’t have enough space on my tablet to install it and so am not able to test out how the sync feature works.  The online help I haven’t found to be helpful in answering my questions.  The tutorials only seem to spark ideas, and are lacking in step-by-step details of how a particular feature works.

I learned in using the program that if an image is copied and pasted into a new note that text can’t be added above or below as far as I can tell.  When I first installed Evernote I tried out the web clipping tool and was disappointed in how it worked.  Anything I searched online, either in the groups I’ve joined, Evernote’s help files, or tutorials never seemed to fully explain how it worked.  So I spent a lot of time flailing around clipping things.   The clippings, I would find later were a lousy image of what I’d clipped and this was disappointing. 

Eventually, I was able to use the clipping tool effectively, but it’s taken a lot of work and just playing around.  I get that help files with any software are the last things to get written.  But what doesn’t make sense to me is this program has been around seemingly forever, so long that there are people who have outgrown it and are moving on to something else, so why aren’t the tutorials better in explaining how features work?

As a work around to figuring out how features work with Evernote, I’ve taken to posing my questions to Google and abandoning Evernote’s help files, tutorials, and the groups I joined.  This is the only thing that’s provided answers even if they’re negative answers.

I’m still mystified as to why many people in the genealogy community find this program helpful.  Maybe they like the organizational capabilities and that I can understand, especially if you add tags to your notes.  One aspect that I like about it is that it’s helped me become more disciplined in citing my sources when I find them--instead of trying to write a citation six months or years down the road when I’ve forgotten where it was when I found such and such information or image and various other important particulars.  However that hasn’t caused me to use Evernote more.  But it’s helped me get into the habit of recording where I found X document and to note down a citation for it, which keeps me disciplined in sticking with my system that I’ve strived to maintain for my genealogical research.

Update of John Washington Womble Neighborhood Project

I braved the 90°+ heat to resume my research on my John Washington Womble neighborhood project.  The microfilm I looked at contained petition files that were mainly settling estates for those who died intestate.  What I found interesting about these files were that they were cataloged with the land records and not with probate records in the FHL online catalog as is the case with Edgecombe County, North Carolina.  So basically, if you weren’t going through the FHL online catalog with a fine toothed comb you might miss these records.

I’d gone there with the mindset of obtaining copies of only two petition files.  One for Mahala Grantham and the other for Lazarus Johnson; even though, in the back of my mind was the plan to look through the whole roll of film and make note of other petitions that might pertain to my project.  It was a good plan to keep on the lookout for other petitions as I found other familiar names and noted down to make copies of those files.

The petitions varied in length from only being under 10 images or to over 50 or more in length.  Because I was carefully looking through the entire roll of microfilm and noting down which files interested me, my time was limited at my local FHC.  When it came time to make copies of the petitions on my list I pared down the number I would copy that day to 5 out of the 12 that seemed to pertain to my project.  I’ll make copies of the remainder at a later date.

Upon returning home, I began transcribing the file for Mahala Grantham in order to better understand what was happening.  Also while the index indicated that the petition was for Mahala Grantham, she wasn’t the initial person making the petition to settle an estate and divide land.  The main petitioner was a Sarah Grantham, and whose name I hadn’t encountered until looking at the name on the file.

Mahala is mentioned in the petition file as being a widow, but as to who she was married to it’s unclear in the file.  Perhaps, when I complete the transcription all of this will become clear.  If not I’ll have to research Mahala and those mentioned in order to make sense of the petition and those involved.

It’s not clear to me how this Grantham line connects with that of John Washington Womble’s neighbor, Chalkley Grantham.  Obviously, they’re likely related and somewhere in my records I had located an old copy of a Grantham family newsletter that seemed to give an overview of the familial connections.

My plan after transcribing the Mahala Grantham petition is to then transcribe all the rest of the petitions that I copied on Saturday.  Hopefully, they’ll contain land descriptions that can be added to my plats, essentially adding more pieces to the “jigsaw puzzle.”

Continuing Adventures of Neighborhood Land Search Part 2

I’ve finished reading through vol. N online, but haven’t platted more deeds since then.  Instead, I looked through what deeds I’ve found including those from my visit to my local Family History Center and looked through what tracts I’m missing by using the spreadsheet I’ve created of people enumerated in the 1870 Hardeman County, TN census.

Since some of the acreage amounts don’t match deeds and tax records I’ve found, I decided to go with the theory that those amounts are for multiple tracts of land and then build on that theory with the idea that these multiple tracts of land are next to each other—unless it’s explicitly mentioned in the documents that they’re not.  This may be a bad theory to make, but I feel that it’s logical since that seems the only reasonable explanation for the tax records I’ve found to agree with the deeds.  Also, my theory seemed to work when I was able to “tie” 3 deeds together for one land owner when their cumulative acreage matched exactly to the acreage they were taxed on in the tax records.

Raiford Bizzell listed in 1870 tax list.

Raiford Bizzle's platted deeds in DeedMapper.

Raiford Bizzell compiled taxed acreage and plats listed in spreadsheet.

 As I compared the records I’ve found with the spreadsheet, I found tracts that were possible matches for what I was missing and indicated this on the spreadsheet.  I still haven’t found deeds for all of the land owners listed on my spreadsheet, but still feel that I’m making progress on this project—albeit slowly.

Once I finished reading through vol. N, I began on vol. M, Sept. 1853-July 1855.  In this vol. I found some interesting deeds that may help me in placing some of the other plats I’ve found.  One of these is the deed for 189 acres that Wm. Fulgham sells to Pitser Miller.  This mentions a 2000 acre tract belonging Thomas Claiborne that seems to stand out in some of the land records I’ve viewed and also shares a boundary with one of my ancestor’s deeds.

Another deed I found was Stephen Childress’ 127 acres that he sold to Robert H Goad.  Goad later sells part of this land to Henry Bizzle.  In the deed to Henry, it mentions a road that runs from Bolivar to Simpson’s Ferry and states that it was once part of Childress’ entry.

I don’t know if I’ll find the time to plat out the deeds that seem pertinent to recreating my ancestor’s neighborhood.  But my plan is to definitely review more closely those deeds I’ve found to see if they will fit into the puzzle and help create an accurate depiction of the neighborhood.

Continuing Adventures of Neighborhood Land Search

I’ve finished reading through Hardeman County, Tennessee’s deed book vol. Q, August 1859-November 1860 that’s available digitally via FamilySearch.org.  Since volumes O-P, 1857-1859 have yet to be digitized, I ordered it and while waiting for it to arrive at my local Family History Center I began reading through vol. N, July 1855-February 1857.  In reading through the digitized deed books online I’ve added Rachel Dunn’s land and some tracts to the neighborhood.

Today, I braved an extremely rare and unexpected April snow storm in the DC metro area to venture out to my local family history center to view the microfilm.  I began by reading through vol. P, May 1858-August 1859 while armed with my list of needed land owners.  There was a glimmer of hope when I saw a record for a J Ferguson, the record made no mention of land, but I continued on through the book.  I found deeds for the 3 Bizzell people in John Washington Womble’s 1870 neighborhood.

When I returned home I began adding the plats to DeedMapper and indicating on my spreadsheet of land owners that their land had been platted.  In working with placing the plats in DeedMapper, I’ve found the topographical map to be more helpful, because it contains so much more details of the area, than the previous background map I was using.

My schedule for tomorrow and possibly the rest of the coming week is to continue platting the tracts I found today and also to finish reading through vol. N online and then plat those findings.

Snippet of Absolom Lane to Lewis Glenn deed

Neighborhood Land Search Update

After viewing the tax records, I ordered the next deed books that I felt I needed to read through in order to find the remaining neighbors’ land.  Last Saturday, I went to my local Family History Center to view them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find any of the neighbors I’m still looking for.  There were deeds of interest to me in them for the particular area, but just didn’t happen to be for my ancestor’s neighbors.

I looked through all of vol. R and began reading through vol. Q.  Since the microfilm scanner was being used by another patron, I put off scanning what documents I found and resolved to scan them at a later date.

Once I returned home, I decided since I was almost finished reading through vol. Q that I would order another roll of microfilm and that’s when I made an amazing discovery.  Apparently, FamilySearch.org has digitized some of the deed books I’m interested in reading through available online.  Still many of these records haven’t yet been digitized, but because many that I’m interested in reading through are, I won’t have to order them and can view them from the comfort of my living room.

Since vols. Q and R were available digitally, I was able to download the images I had noted down while at my local Family History Center.  Then I took up where I left off in vol. Q and downloaded what images pertained to the area I’m researching.

Portion of digitized deed book

The schedule for this coming Saturday is to look through the rest of vol. Q and download any that are pertinent to my research.  Then if I have time, enter them into DeedMapper.

I searched through more of FamilySearch’s land records holdings for Hardeman County, Tennessee and found that survey books, one roll of petition records, and an early roll of tax records have all been digitized so they’re available online.

What helped me was the fact that the deed index for Hardeman County, Tennessee has been digitized.  Yes, just because it’s an index I know that it’s not inclusive of every deed or document that was ever recorded in Hardeman County.  But still, it’s a place to start in locating the remaining neighbors’ deeds or review to see if I missed something.

After noticing this interesting bit, I looked through the 1860 census and noted on my neighbor list those who had been enumerated in Civil District 12.  This information should help me determine when someone may have purchased their land in my ancestor’s neighborhood.  The only obstacle with the land records in Hardeman County is that tax records and deeds during the years around the Civil War are not extant.  So there is the possibility that if some of John Washington Womble’s neighbors bought land during that time period that the document may not have survived the war.  There’s also the possibility that the deed could’ve been recorded much later.

The search continues…

The Further Adventures of the Womble Neighborhood Land Search

I was able to resume my search for John Washington Womble’s neighbors earlier this year.  The microfilm that I’d requested last fall and resulted in a minor snafu with the FHL was resolved in February.  I was able to make copies of the tax records for Civil District 12 for the years 1869-1872 and took note of the amount of acreage the neighbors owned.

I then used this information when imputing the information into the spreadsheet I created about John Washington Womble’s neighbors.  The spreadsheet lists out the individual land plots that the neighbors owned and whether or not it’s been platted out.  Then I listed out what plots of land I’m still missing.  The list also contained the land acreage based on the findings from the tax records I viewed.

After I’d viewed the tax records, I ordered the next deed books that I felt I needed to read through in order to find the remaining neighbors’ land. While waiting for the microfilm to arrive, I checked out topographical maps on the U.S. Geological Survey's website at http://www.usgs.gov/. Maps can be searched for and downloaded for free from their site. I've wanted a more detailed map and one that I knew the scale or a least could determine the scale better that I could place my plats on.
I selected the section of Hardeman County, Tennessee that I'm interested in and then began downloading. I selected 4 maps and then needed to find a way to piece them together. Once they were downloaded, I used a graphic editing program to clip away the white borders surrounding each of the map images. Then pieced the images together and created a larger image or map which was then imported into DeedMapper.
Hopefully this new background map will help me more when placing the plats.

Part of Hardeman County, Tennessee topographical map

Hardeman County, Tennessee Tax Records

In my review of the roll of Tax Records for Hardeman County, Tennessee, I discovered something I’d missed on my earlier viewings of this roll—a section titled, Additional Tax Reported. These lists cover only the years 1870-1872 and lists out what I’ve theorized only as people that were missed on the previous lists or perhaps they’re delinquent tax payers. I somehow doubt the latter and more believe the earlier theory.

The people are listed in non-alphabetical order, so are basically randomly listed. The civil district they lived in was noted by their name and then the other usual information was given as on the other tax lists. These lists are categorized by year, but that’s really the only organization to them.

Excerpt from Additional Tax Reported section.

Platting Through My Summer Vacation

I wrote back in April that I’d finished looking through Deed books W and X.  With summer vacation having ended here in the DC metro area since school started, I’m offering readers a look at how I spent my summer vacation.

In May, I purchased DeedMapper 4.2 from Direct Line Software.  I had no problems installing it and have found it to be helpful with what’s evolved into a mass platting project.  The software has made creating the plats so much faster and easier than using graph paper and a protractor and put an end to the Geometry class flashbacks/nightmares.

I’ve spent nearly every Saturday afternoon at my local Family History Center this summer reading through deed books page by page and scanning records that I believe to be relevant to my platting project.  My vacation was even spent there reading through a deed book.

At first with DeedMapper, I was putting the plats where I believed they were supposed to be on the map I’m using to place the tracts.  This became too problematic when other plats didn’t appear to jive with tracts that I felt surer of their probable location.  This was resolved by moving the questionably placed tracts out of the area until I had more information to suggest where they were located.

So the end all is that I concentrated on plats that mentioned creeks, rivers, and roads that I could readily identify on the map I’m using.  As I worked I felt a sense of accomplishment when in reading some deeds more closely that specifically mentioned relationships between the parties involved where an ancestor was parsing out pieces of their land to their grandchild or child.  Unfortunately, these records don’t completely apply to the line I’m researching, but I felt it was good to see.  One record was helpful as it concerned the son-in-law of my ancestor John Washington Womble and coupled with some other records I’ve found on the son-in-law it added more pieces to the jigsaw as why my ancestor moved to Hardeman County, Tennessee in the first place.

The deed books that I’ve read through at this writing are:

Vol. W January 1870-October 1871

Vol. X October 1871-November 1872

Vol. Y November 1872-February 1874

Vol. Z February 1874-January 1876

Vol. V September 1, 1868-January 29, 1870

Vol. U April 1867-September 11, 1868

Currently, I’m reading through Vol. T Oct. 30, 1866-April 29, 1867.

Another event in my research was reading a book on Reconstruction.  At first I checked out a book titled, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 by Eric Foner.  The copy they had at my local library was published in 1988.  As my due date for returning the book got closer, I tried to renew it, but couldn’t.  I wound up purchasing an updated version kindle edition that was written by the same author and published in 2014.  This is a fantastic book in my opinion and gave me more insight into the time period that John Washington Womble lived in while he was in Nashville during the Civil War and why he and his family relocated to Hardeman County.

Unfortunately, it didn’t give me insight as to why they left briefly returning to live in Nashville for about a year or so and then returning to Hardeman County, but I likely need to read about the Panic of 1873 or do more research on the family as to their motivations.

After reading the book it sort of made me wonder why that point in history wasn’t covered in much detail in my American History class in high school.

I feel that in my research I’m reaching the end of what’s available deed wise just after the Civil War.  There appears to be a gap with either what the LDS church filmed of the deed books during the Civil War years or the recording of the records was interrupted because of the war.  My thought was to order the vols. AA-BB 1876-1879 next and then to move on to the older records before making a trip out to the Bolivar Courthouse to see what I’m missing.

It was interesting reading the Reconstruction book while reading through the deed books from the same era because I found items recorded that showed many people having financial problems as a result of the end of their way of life prior to the Civil War.  An interesting sight, were records recorded about events that happened before the war and the parties involved were now attempting to resolve their issues now that the fighting had ended.  One record was about a woman who purchased slaves before the war as part of an estate sale.  She had apparently purchased the people on credit and hadn’t paid what was owed on the slaves.  No mention was made in the record that the slaves were now free--only that she was past due on her debts.

Attempting to Take Control of my Genealogical Research

Earlier this year I considered making a list of New Year’s resolutions; however, I decided not to do this.  The reason being is that they’re essentially goals that you set for yourself.  My husband had recently read a book by Scott Adams and in the book Scott said that “goals are for losers and systems are for winners.”  This outlook of Scott Adams changed my viewpoint on goals and resolutions so I decided to try to go about planning and organizing my life or at least one aspect of my life differently.

So instead of creating actual resolutions for myself I made a list of Genealogy Goals for 2015.  Yes, I know, goals are for losers; however, I did include an item about how I can try to take control of my research.  Basically, I want to have a system for how I deal with the stuff that I find when I’m researching.

The taking control of my research idea is from the January 2015 issue of the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society’s newsletter, Westward Into Nebraska.  They had an article by Lisa Alzo that was taken from her blog.  I read the article and was inspired to “take control of my research!” This is what got me thinking of how to create a system for how I process the information I find after searching for it. 

It did take me some time because it’s now March and I haven’t really implemented my new found system.  I’ve taken some steps to organize it and manage it, such as I came up with the idea to add a source citation column to my research log.  Another column I created was one for Source Analysis.  These are two of the steps I took to get control of it, because Lisa’s article got me thinking about what bad habits I have in regards to my research.  As I sat and thought about it, I realized that my bad genealogy habits are not writing down the source citations right away for the things I find.  I do put the information almost immediately into my research log, and will mention where I found the stuff.  But after I’ve finished that task, no formal citation is ever written for the source of the information I’ve perhaps spent weeks, months, or years thinking about how to find, searching for it, and then perhaps finding a small piece to the puzzle.  The other bad habit I have with my research is never stopping to analyze the source and writing about my research findings formally, instead of just writing about some of the happenings in this blog.

Once I realized what these bad habits were, I needed to come up with a way to deal with them and stop my bad habits.  Yes, I’ve included source citations in my genealogy software program for the different life events of my ancestors, and some of these sources are duplicated on my WeRelate page.  However, I didn’t have anything written down in one central place for all of my sources.  So that’s what led me to create columns for citations and analysis in my research log, so that everything would be in one place and that I wouldn’t be able to walk away once I’d entered in finding a particular piece of information or having visited a website and coming up empty.  The fact that I needed to cite the source would be staring me at in the face, so I would likely feel compelled to write a citation for the information or lack thereof.

While I was at the RootsTech/FGS conference I overheard some people near my booth talking about the Evidentia program.  It’s for managing the sources that you’ve accumulated.  I was intrigued by it, but as it was extremely busy in the exhibit hall I didn’t have much time to go in search of their booth and find out more. 

However, soon after hearing about the software, the guy from the company stopped by my booth early one morning before the hall opened to ask me a question about something in regards to the conference.  I saw that he was with the Evidentia company and asked him about the program.  He gave me some information and later when one of my colleagues watched the booth, I went over to learn more.  I did buy the software and have begun using it, but still want to finish my project of sourcing everything that’s in my research log.  I’ll write more about what progress I’m making with citing my sources, how my system is working out for me, and perhaps how the Evidentia program is working out for me.

Census Research Update

Back in August I wrote about extracting census data in an effort to learn more about my great, great grandfather, John Washington Womble.  As a correction to the previous post, the Civil Districts I extracted the census data from were the 12th and 13th from the 1870 census and then the 11th Civil District from the 1880 census.  I’m curious to learn where exactly in Hardeman County, Tennessee he lived and anything else this information can tell me about his life there.

This has been a long process and I’m not finished yet, and probably haven’t even reached the tip of the iceberg.  I spent the fall going through deed indices; yes some may say that wasn’t truly a great starting point because indices don’t always contain a thorough listing of everyone in a particular book.  However, I needed a place to start and knew going in that I would need to consult the deed books themselves to truly cover all of my bases.

I even ordered a roll of microfilm of surveys for Hardeman and made several copies of surveys that were located either entirely or partially in Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.  This was the limit I set for what I would search in an effort to learn where his land was located, and yes I know I’m leaving out the 13th Civil District—I will cover that.

After collecting this information, which I knew wasn’t enough, I began to plat out the surveys I’d copied.  I tried using a free online program and considered purchasing an expensive program to help me plat all of these surveys.  Instead, I took the hard road and platted them by hand using graph paper, ruler, pencil, and at times a protractor when necessary.

This was time consuming, but interesting because I became drawn into what I believe may be the terrain of his neighborhood.  My thought is that John Washington Womble likely lived in the vicinity of the Hatchie River.  I could be wrong; as I haven’t finished platting all of the surveys I collected and haven’t finished my search of the properties that surrounded his.

I tried comparing my plats to the present day Hardeman County, Tennessee on Googlemaps, but still could never completely connect them enough to tie the plats with the images I found online.

While creating the plats, I found mention of a property that always seemed to be referred to in similar with sometimes varying terms:  Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others.  I first noticed this description in a land transfer from Aby Grantham to John J Womble.

The last name Claiborne is significant because it may be connected to John Washington Womble’s 2nd wife Rhoda Caroline Richardson.  Additionally, some of the property description of the land purchased by John J Womble seemed to mirror a neighboring property that coincidentally was owned by John Washington Womble, who I believe, was John J. Womble’s uncle.

I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah this past February when I worked the NGS booth at the RootsTech/FGS conference.  There I did a page by page search through deed book W looking for land transactions that were in the area I’d cordoned off in my mind-Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.  Again I saw mentioned in various deeds the infamous, Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others and made copies of those.  Hopefully, I can use that plat as an anchor in which to join all the other “puzzle pieces” of plats that I’ve already created or will create and be able to fit John Washington Womble’s plat in amongst them.

Upon returning to Virginia, I’ve ordered microfilm from the FHL of deed books W and X and once it arrives plan to continue my page by page search for properties within Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.

My plan is that once I’ve gathered together those plats for the Civil District 12 that I’ll then work on locating plats for the 13th Civil District and then be able to put John Washington Womble’s 1870’s neighborhood together.

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. 

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.

Womble, Wamble, and Wormble?!

So, if you’re a regular reader of my blog you may know that I’ve been trying to learn more about the Womble family’s Civil War experience.  The family story is that John Washington Womble spent the Civil War working in Nashville, Tennessee as a tailor and left his children to fend for themselves in Hardin County, Tennessee.  I’ve already reported about finding an interment record for who may possibly be his first wife, Mary Jane in the Nashville City Cemetery.  I also located what I believe to be interments for two of his three children that were listed in the 1860 Hardin County, TN census, but no records seem to exist for them afterwards, until I found the cemetery information. 

1860 U.S. Census, Hardin County, Tennessee, John W. Womble household

While working at a genealogy conference last week in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I took the opportunity to visit the Allen County Public Library and do some work on this family story.  Whenever I’m researching the Womble family I keep in mind to be on the lookout for varying spellings of the family’s name.  One of the spelling variations I’ve come across is Wamble. 

At the Allen County Public Library I discovered another variation—Wormble—yes that’s right—Wormble.  I was looking through a book that was an index of interments in the Nashville City Cemetery.  I didn’t expect to find anything new, but I came across a Wormble, Frank.  The other two Womble children I found listed in a Nashville City Cemetery interment database were just listed as infant Wamble.  No ages were given for them except for the notation son and child of J. W. Wamble.

This notation gave me the impression that those listings were for the youngest two of the three “missing” Womble kids from the 1860 census.  So my thought was where is the oldest of the three youngest kids, Franklin?  I wondered if perhaps he died before John W. and Mary Jane relocated to Nashville.  However, based on my finding it appears that Franklin died that same summer of 1861 along with his two youngest brothers.

I can’t believe that the family would’ve taken only the youngest children with them to Nashville when the war started.  It was a different time back then and kids did grow up and take on adult responsibilities even when they were teenagers or pre-teens.  However, leaving even teenagers to essentially fend for themselves in an uncertain era and a potentially dangerous environment coupled with the fact that I’ve found evidence suggesting that John W.’s wife and some of their children were in the city with him makes me think that the story isn’t true. 

More research will have to be done on this to see if I can find anything else that may disprove my theory and prove the validity of the story.

FamilySearch’s Online Microfilm Ordering—A Review

Recently, I decided to test out FamilySearch’s new online microfilm ordering system.  I’d noticed and made good use of their recent document scanning binge and while that’s not a perfect system, it seemed to be a good time to look into ordering microfilm of their non-scanned records.

Before the current online system was available, one had to trek to their local Family History Center to place an order for microfilm and payment could only be done with either a check or cash.  Then once the order was placed, you had to keep calling the FHC in order to find out if your microfilm had come in or not. 

I created a login and profile on the FamilySearch website, and chose a Family History Center in my area to be my ‘neighborhood FHC’ and then basically went shopping for microfilm.  It was a fairly easy process to navigate, almost as if I was buying something off of Amazon.com.  I was still nervous going through the process for the first time, because you never know if something unexpected will happen during an online shopping process. 

As like the old system, there was still the lengthy wait for the microfilm, but that’s just the nature of the beast of doing genealogical research.  I did keep checking up on my order because in the process of placing the order it wasn’t quite clear whether or not I would receive an email that my order was waiting for me at my local FHC.  I did try looking around on their website to find out if I would be notified and since it wasn’t clear, I went ahead and emailed them to ask.  The response I received was very kind and assured me that the status of my order would change from pending, in process, and then received.  Also, I was told that I would receive an email telling me that each roll I’d ordered was at my local FHC.

I waited for about two to three weeks and did finally receive an email letting me know that my order was waiting for me at my FHC.  Then I went in and was able to view it, just I’d done in the past.  Anyone who hasn’t tried this new system should definitely use it, because it’s a heck of a lot more convenient than the old one.  Patrons don’t have to keep calling up their FHC and bugging the volunteer there about their order.

More on My Rhoda Caroline Richardson Research

When I last posted about my research on Rhoda Caroline, I had sent an e-mail to the Tennessee Conferences Archives, History Depository and hadn’t received a response.  I was considering sending an e-mail directly to the archivist inquiring about records for the Elm Street Methodist Church.  Also, I had ordered the Elm Street Methodist Church records on microfilm from the TSLA.

Shortly after sending in my order to the TSLA, I received a phone call and e-mail from them telling me that those records actually covered 3 reels of microfilm.  They asked if I wanted to send in more money to order the other 2 reels, since I had only sent in a check to cover the cost of one reel.  There was nothing on the TSLA’s microfilm ordering page indicating the number of reels for a particular record group.  I wrote back saying that I was interested in the membership records for the Elm Street Methodist Church and if they were on one reel than I’d like to purchase that.  The staff found that those records were on one reel of microfilm and so they sent that reel to me.

In the meantime, I sent another e-mail to the archivist’s personal e-mail address of the Tennessee Conferences Archives, History Depository and received a reply.  I told them the name of the family I was looking for.  Since the records that were available were from the mid-1880’s, I thought it best not to ask if there were records for Richardson and ask about records for people with the last name of Womble.

I received a response which contained a decent about of information about the Womble line I’m researching.  I asked about the possibility of purchasing copies of the information that had been found and sent a check to them.

I haven’t received the copies yet, but I imagine that they’ll appear after the holidays.  Last week, I received the microfilm reel I had purchased from the TSLA.  I went to my local library to look at the records on the reel.  I found some of the records that the archivist at the Tennessee Conferences Archives had found for me.  While I looked through the membership records for the name Womble, I also searched for Richardson and Mijers, which is the name of a person who co-signed the marriage bond with John Washington Womble.  I didn’t see anyone with the last name of  Richardson or Mijers.

While looking at the records I noticed that Rhoda Caroline or Callie as she’s listed in the Elm Street Methodist Church membership records was received in 1885.  Her daughter, Maud was also received later that same year.  John Washington Womble was received in 1886 and it’s noted that it was done via vows.  I’m not sure what the significance of that is.  I’ve heard that when someone joins another church as a baptized adult that they’re received.  If they’ve never been baptized then they might be baptized when they join a  church; however, if John W. Womble hadn’t been baptized then I would think he would’ve been when he was received.  So again, I’m not sure if it’s significant that when he was received it was with vows.  Could he not join in person and so conveyed his intention to join the church via vows?

Since both Rhoda Caroline and her daughter were received without any vows or baptism, it seems likely that they had already been baptized when they joined this church.  Maybe this is a question to ask the archivist when I receive my copies?  I also should ask about other Methodist churches in Nashville that may have records available dating back to around the Civil War or at least ask what happened to the early membership records for this church.

Based on what I’ve read about using church records in genealogical research, it seems that the records are sometimes only really great if the person recording the information was extremely thorough in their record keeping.  My extremely limited knowledge of Methodist church records is that that particular denomination was not big on keeping records as a general rule.  So perhaps what I found is as good as it’s gonna get for me.

I’m happy that I sought out this information since church records are still uncharted waters in my genealogical skills.  I have a bit of experience in obtaining them, but this is the deepest that I’ve ever dove into the religious records pool of genealogical documents.  Still after having found this tidbit of information, I’m left with a “what’s next” feeling.  I’d really like to milk these records for every once of information, but I’m not sure that it’s really possible.

I do think that it would be a good idea to see if I can dredge up other church records for this family.  Since I found them belonging to a Methodist church, then there’s a good chance that I may be able to find them belonging to another Methodist church in another locale.  Hopefully, the more information I can find about John Washington Womble the more information I will locate about his wife, Rhoda Caroline Richardson.