Reconstructing My Daddo's Life As a Doughboy (Part 1)

On page 9 of the Thursday, 8 August 1918 edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette Times, my grandfather Jacob Shapiro of "65 Roberts Street" is in a list of Army draftees from "City Board No. 2, Third Ward" who were being sent by train to Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, SC.

I still have tears in my eyes!

Is "Kasoinah" Really Gascoigne?

The mother of my fifth great-grandfather Abner Rea (1776-1825) is believed to have been Joannah (or Hannah) Kasoinah, wife of James Rea. She was possibly born in present-day Henry Co., VA. Some researchers believe she was Indian with fewer still claiming more particularly that the Kasoinah surname is somehow Cherokee. (Cherokee is almost a default setting for Southerners in reference to their putative Indian ancestries.) Other researchers point out that there is no real evidence for Joannah/Hannah's Indian origins.

Kasoinah is, as best I can tell, a name unique to Joannah/Hannah. Google shows no other person with that name. But could Kasoinah somehow be connected to the French surname Gascoigne? The "-nah" syllable in Kasoinah is not too dissimilar to the "-gne" part of Gascoigne, if pronounced Gallically. If you say these names aloud, and even in different ways, they do share some characteristics. But Kasoinah is just too unlikely a surname if it belongs to only one person, which appears to be the case. It is some sort of flawed transliteration or misremembering, but I can't tell.

Self-Verifying an Old Suspicion

I recently had cause to obtain for the first time a copy of my Daddy's death certificate. I knew instinctively not to even glance at it in the presence of others there at the BVS because inspecting it would be pretty tough for me literally on the eve of the 15th anniversary of his death. And when I did look at it ---as I say, for the first time--- lo and behold, but who was the informant? None other than "Toby Petzhold." I was floored.

My best guess as to why I have that claim for all eternity is that it was related to my visit to Jerry Foss in Valley Mills, Bosque Co., TX at the Foss Funeral Home there on HWY 6 in town (which subsequently burned down, I am very sorry to say). My Aunt Shirley (Petzold) Kleibrink and her husband, my Uncle Bruce E. Kleibrink, accompanied me. I was the one who had gone up there to make the burial arrangements and to select his suit, which was the light blue seersucker suit he wore to my eldest brother's wedding. At some point, I may have provided the information on the certificate (my address is given as the PO box I kept at University Station on campus at the University of Texas at Austin throughout my college years and a little beyond, which is something probably only I would've known to say) and it somehow got typed up and sent to the doctor who cared for my father to sign, but I sure don't recall. Maybe I became the informant somewhere else altogether. Maybe here in town? That night was insanity itself.

Anyway, the point of my anecdote (besides providing searchable text) is that if even I can't account for my own role as an informant on a death certificate, then how well can I know the information on any certificate? Was it, after all, my Grandma calling her father in law's mother "Louise Faulkner" on his death certificate ---or was it someone else? Or were there other members of the family chiming in at the hospital with bits and pieces and her name got put on it somehow? People who have just lost a loved one are not always too clear.

Besides the interesting spelling of my name, the other error I noticed is that Daddy's birthday is wrong.

The idea is to document it all and let the preponderance of agreement between documented facts be the truth.

Nancy Adaline (Thompson) Bolinger (1861-1939)

I was also fortunate to have the chance to scan in other photos at my cousin's place. Here's one of my great-great-grandmother Mary Jane (Thompson) McNeill's little sisters, Nancy Adaline Bolinger. I believe she was called "Nan." I am presently reconstructing her family from the record. I would love to hear from any of her descendants.

Nan's husband was Henry C. Bolinger (1858-1928). I found and photographed their graves this past weekend in Cisco, Eastland Co., TX at the Oakwood Cemetery. Their graves are located up on the north edge of the cemetery nearest the railroad tracks and just west of the maintenance buildings.

Henry was from Arkansas, apparently. His middle name may have been Clay, but was possibly Charles.

James Theodore Petzold at about Eight Years

Thanks to my cousin, with whom I spent most of this past Monday up in Erath Co., TX, I am happy to share a great picture of my Daddy at about the age of eight. He's a good-looking boy, which is common to mutts (as our new President might say), and obviously a real charmer. I don't recall seeing this particular photo before, so this is a fortunate fruit of my genealogical field-tripping. Enjoy!

Valley Mills is in Bosque Co., TX. It is an ancestral hometown for me and the place on Earth where my body will be buried.

65 Roberts Street

I found my great-grandfather Bernard Shapiro in several Pittsburgh city directories from 1907-1914. His identity may possibly be mixed up at one point with a Benjamin Shapiro, but it appears that he is correctly identified for the most part as being a teacher living at 65 Roberts Street. Pretty amazing. More amazing still is the piece of information (see image above) in the 1930 edition of the city directory. It is a wonderful bit of evidence speaking to my great-grandparents' presence in that town. The notation (wid Bernard) is a beautiful touch. As Bernard had died a decade before, I find it wonderful that Fannie would still be so identified (in what was basically the phone book of that day) as a widow.

At some point after the family left 65 Roberts Street, they moved into 534 Herron Avenue. I don't think my grandfather Jake Shapiro was still living with them, but Fannie was living there with my Aunt Rose and Uncle Philip. Rose was apparently not yet married to Jerome "Jerry" Cohen, but she was working as a bookkeeper. There is no occupation listed for Philip because, I believe, he was already very ill with tuberculosis and would not live much longer, dying in 1933.

(Thanks to Eve and Don Krieger of Pittsburgh, PA for their efforts in making these directories available online.)

Style Points

I'm still working on my style and formatting for this blog, so I apologize for the sometimes uneven work.

The important thing is to get the information and images out there and available through search engines.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions.

17 June 1880: Enumerating Sam and Mollie

In the 1880 Fed. Census of Williamson Co., TX (Precinct No. 4) are enumerated my maternal grandmother's maternal grandparents, Samuel Parker Jackson and Mary Frances "Mollie" (Chapman) Jackson. Listed with them is their one year-old daughter (my Great-Grandmother) "Lula L. Jackson" as well as a young girl named Virginia B. Green, an 11 year-old native Texan and an "orphan." I wish I knew who this little girl was and how my ggreat-grandparents came into the responsibility of caring for her. Maybe somewhere in a letter I have is the answer, but it isn't known to me now. No birthplace is given for either of her parents.

"Sam'l" and "Mary F." are listed as 24 and 18, respectively. He's a farmer and she "keeps house." They and Lula are native Texans. Both give their mothers' birthplace as Mississippi, but only Sam states Tennessee as his dad's birthplace. Mollie's dad is not given one, although we know that William M. Chapman was, in fact, a native Tennessean.

21 January 1920: Enumerating My Great-Grandparents Henry and Amilie Petzold

Apparent now in an image of the page on which my Great-Grandparents Henry and Amilie Augusta (RACKOW) PETZOLD were enumerated in the 1920 Fed. Census of Bosque Co., TX (Justice Precinct No. 5) is some significant information I have never noticed before: although the words are crossed out and maybe misspelled, this document indicates that both of Henry's parents were from "Mecklenburg, Germany" and that Amilie and her parents were from "Posen, Germany." This census also ridiculously gives Henry's birthplace as Texas, but that is beside the point; what matters here is the amazingly specific designations of Mecklenburg and Posen. This is independent confirmation of some very important facts.

Henry appears as "Petzolt, O.H." and Amilie as "Emilie." They are renters on a farm and their seven children ---all boys--- live with them: Otto, Fred (instead of Fritz!), Walter, William, Herbert, Theodore (not "Tado" to the census-taker!), and Edwin. Henry and Amilie are listed as 50 and 47, respectively, which is completely off. Amilie declares that she is a "naturalized" citizen, although it simply says "un" where the year of her immigration should be. And, again, because Henry claims to be a native Texan, no marks are made in those same categories where Amilie's are. Everybody in the family can read and write, it says, although we know that probably wasn't so. They did all speak English, though. Bill, Herbert, PaPa, and Sam had all attended school in the past year. Amilie's "native tongue" is given as "Germany" [sic], but that space is blank for Henry, the big fibber. Henry is a "general farmer" working on his "own account," but his eldest boys, Ott and Fritz, are "wage worker" farmers. Neither Amilie nor the younger boys are credited with any occupation.

The moral of the story is to always go back to the original documents (or reproductions) and really give them the once-over twice. Never trust transcriptions if you don't have to. To find such specificity in a census record may not be rare, but it is pretty amazing. Pay attention to what is crossed out and to the context. Great stuff.

19 February 1891: Bertie Canon to Lula Louvenia Jackson

Here's another page from my Great-Grandmother Lula Louvenia Jackson's autograph book. The inscription is from her teacher Bertie Canon (or is that Carson?), dated 19 Feb 1891 at Buffalo Gap, Taylor Co., TX.

Walling Bend School, 1916-17

This is a photograph of the Walling Bend School class of 1916-17.

Walling Bend was a community in Bosque Co., TX. The site of the school seen in this photograph is, as best I can tell, now somewhere under the waters of Lake Whitney.

The little blonde-haired boy holding the edge of the sign on your left is my paternal Grandfather, Thedore Gustav "Tado" Petzold, whom I knew as PaPa (Paw-Paw). He did not get much past the third grade, I've been told, and this is probably the only school he ever knew.

Over PaPa's right shoulder and behind the little fellow with his hands in his jacket is my Uncle Herbert Petzold. He's the rather German-looking blonde-haired boy with the overalls. And standing behind and above him to his left is our Uncle Bill Petzold.

These are some of the very earliest images I have of these men, and I thank my Aunt Shirley with all my heart for sharing them with me ---and all of you.

My Great-Grandmother as a Little Girl

This is a tintype of some kind of my Great-Grandmother Lula Louvenia Jackson. I believe she is probably about three years old here, putting the date at about 1882. It was almost certainly taken in or around Williamson Co., TX.

Lula was a very pretty lady and you can see that in her little girl's face. My Aunt Opal once described her own daddy (and Lula's) as having "china blue" eyes. I think that's what we have here, too.

Funeral Notice of Veltie H. Daugherty

This document is a funeral notice for a young man named Veltie H. Daugherty who died in 1913.

I do not know who he was, but he was almost certainly a friend or student to either my Great-Grandmother Lula Louvenia (Jackson) Sharp or one of her children. This is something of theirs I have had in my possession for many years now; I do not believe it could have come from my Daddy's people. I do not believe Veltie was kin, but maybe.

Veltie's been gone for almost a century now, and it is very probably so that there is no one alive today who has a conscious memory of him. He was, after all, 19 when he died and probably only known to a few hundred people. But he did live. And it is these sort of documents that prove a person's existence through History.

I assume that this funeral notice originates from West Texas. Maybe Mitchell or Taylor Cos., TX? Maybe even Reeves County where Balmorhea is.

This young man was someone to my ancestors and, so, tonight, I write his name again into the New Ether and thereby make his identity evident.

UPDATE: I just found Veltie in the 1910 Federal Census of Nolan Co., TX, which is adjacent to both Mitchell and Taylor Cos.

Aunt Bam's Bunch

I just found someone's online genealogy in which I have learned quite a few new things about some folks I already knew a little of ---but can't figure out whose work it is. Someone associated with Decklerbooks.com. I hope we can communicate sometime.

Anyway, I now know a little more about Aunt Bam's bunch. Mary Alabama Jackson was my Great-Great-Grandfather Samuel Parker Jackson's little sister. My Aunt Opal knew her as "Aunt Bam." I knew that Bam was married to a Mr. Ray Dean, but this new source I just came across says he was James Ray Dean from Missouri. Folks probably knew him as Ray.

Bam had a daughter named Mattie Dean, who apparently lived most of her life with my GGGreat-Grandmother Cornelia Gilbert (Coleman) Jackson. The new source says Mattie's middle name was Cornelia. Never heard of that before.

There was also apparently a brother to Mattie named George Henry Dean. I don't think Opal knew about him, or maybe I just don't recall her mentioning him.

18 July 1892: W.V. Love to Lula Louvenia Jackson

This is a page from my Great-Grandmother Lula's autograph book she kept as a girl.

Dated 18 Jul 1892 at Gabriel Mills, Williamson Co., TX, it is the autograph of her cousin, W. V. Love:

Miss Lula,

friendship is a Sacred Word/ engrave it on thy heart/ it Was in friendship that We/ met in friendship let us part.

Your Cousin, W. V. Love

This young man was very probably William Volney Love (b. 1868), who was the son of Louisa Jane (Coleman) Love, the sister of Lula's paternal grandmother, Cornelia Gilbert (Coleman) Jackson.

Setting Our Ahnentafel

In the interests of preserving the evidence of my family's past and of making its dissemination completely free, I've decided to begin a new blog devoted entirely to those purposes.

The word Ahnentafel is a German word meaning "ancestor-table." Ahnentafels are the most logical way I know to arrange the facts of one's family tree. I also choose the word itself for the title of this blog to reflect my own German ancestry. The rest of the title was chosen in my belief that genealogy is an inexhaustible and ongoing pursuit that necessarily involves the contributions of others. It is never finished, but it is what I am bringing to the table.

Although Ahnentafels are logically-organized, this blog will not be. It will probably read more like random pages from my notebooks and shoeboxes. But the idea here is to share what I have and to make it all searchable and useful to other researchers.

Setting Our Ahnentafel will develop its rules and criteria as we go along, but, for now, enjoy what I can provide and please feel free to write me back to let me know what you think.

Thanks.