ALLEN SENIOR

Tracing Our Roots and Having Fun!

April 2010

Membership is open to everyone 50 years of age, or older, that is a member of the

Allen Senior Recreation Center. There are no dues to be an ASGC member.

Regular meetings at 1:00 p.m. on the 4th Monday of each month, except as noted. Members may come at 12:00 noon, have lunch in the dining room and visit. Call the above number before 9:30 a.m.

Tracy Luscombe, Genealogy Librarian at the McKinney Public Library, has created a weekly genealogy blog at http://mckinneylibrarygenealogy.blogspot.com, highlighting new or interesting items in the collection, search tips, and other information of interest to researchers. You may subscribe and receive your own email each week. This is one item from Tuesday, 16 Feb 2010:

We all know about searching the various Federal Censuses, vital events records, and may even have thought about state censuses. However, did you ever think about records of the Army Corps of Engineers? Or Almshouse Records? Or even Orphan Asylum Records? How about Apprenticeship Agreements? These are just a few of the sources discussed in the book Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places by Laura Szucs Pfeiffer (copyright 2000 by MyFamily.com). In this book you’ll find short explanations of each type of record that will help you determine whether a it might contain information you need. Clues are given as to the location of each type of record, and internet URLs are given for many record types so you can find out more information about them.

You’ll find this book at R Gen 929.1 PFE at our library. Take a look and see if you can find a type of source that might help you make more progress in your research.

Pennsylvania Historical Society is Putting Documents

and Photos on the Web

The Pennsylvania Historical Society has about 21 million items in its collection. Artifacts include photographs, personal diaries, war correspondence, maps, and geological surveys. However it has nowhere near enough resources to scan each one.

Due to the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in 2011, the Society has started hand-picking items that hint at the rest of the collection. Archivist Kathleen Miller recently went through the papers of Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, who not only was a major general in the Civil War, but also a geologist and fought in the Seminole Native American war.

The project is meant to encourage more people to use the collection. Administrators at the Historical Society say about half of their visitors are amateur genealogists looking up their family tree.

Richard Henry has suggested this new section for the newsletter. You may submit items for your famous (or infamous) ancestor. This will be an interesting addition!!

William I of England (c.1028 – 9 September 1087 ), known as William the Conqueror, was Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and King of England from 1066.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066 , leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings , and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest .

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages . In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law , a program of building and fortification, changes in the English language , and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

As Duke of Normandy, he is known as William II. He was also, particularly before the conquest, known as William the Bastard.

No authentic portrait of William has been found. Nonetheless, he was depicted as a man of fair stature with remarkably strong arms, "with which he could shoot a bow at full gallop". William showed a magnificent appearance, possessing a fierce countenance. He enjoyed excellent health until old age; nevertheless his noticeable corpulence in later life increased eventually so much that French King Philip I commented that William looked like a pregnant woman. Examination of his femur, the only bone to survive when the rest of his remains were destroyed, showed he was approximately 5' 10" tall which was around two inches taller than the average for the 11th century.

John Holcroft (1741‑1816) left England at age 12 and worked as a sea captain for several years. He lived in Long Island, NY, and Fairfield, Connecticut. He married Sarah Mesherool in Dutch Reformed Church, NY, NY at age 23. Ten children were born, the first seven at Long Island and the last 3 in Fairfield, Connecticut. George, born December 12, 1784 in Fairfield, CT, being the youngest was the line Robert is from. Elijah Hollcroft 1810‑1864, Flavius J. Sr. Hollcroft 1839‑1897, Flavius Jr. Hollcroft 1877-1954, Joseph Donald Hollcroft 1898‑1950, Robert Hollcroft 1934. We assume Sarah died and John took all the children to western PA except one. There he married Rachel Brown about 1785 and had ten more children.

The story that has been handed down through the generations is that in 1783 when he was in Long Island, that he drove his sheep off into the water and drowned them to prevent the British from confiscating them for their troops. It was reported that he was involved in Shays Rebellion 1786‑1787 which was another tax dispute, but it was after he had moved to Washington Co. PA, married and had more children so I found that unreliable. He was known to be a militia leader and he led a band of rebels in the Whiskey Rebellion. He was known as Tom the Tinker. The shooting up of stills was known as mending the still. A Tinker was an itinerant peddler who mended pots and pans so the term seemed appropriate. The Whiskey Rebellion was another tax dispute. The eastern part of PA had better roads to get their crops out while the western part was more mountainous and they used horses to pack their whiskey for barter. Transportation for grain was unavailable. Tax was 25% in western PA for the farmers while eastern PA was 5 to 10%. Tax was to be paid in money which they had little of. The Rebels tarred and feathered some of the revenuers and then George Washington sent his troops to stop the rebellion. They arrested some and marched them for a month to Philadelphia on foot through the snow arriving there on December 25, 1774. They turned all of them loose except two, one being John Holcroft, and charged them with treason. George Washington pardoned them July 19, 1795 after they agreed to pay the taxes.

He died at 75 and left a large estate to his children. Most of them had moved to Ohio and Indiana. Only four stayed in PA. He is buried in the Mingo Cemetery at Finleyville, PA.

A stumbling block to the correct interpretation of genealogical records is the fact that terms used to denote degrees of relationship sometimes had different meanings than they have today. This is a subject that Donald Lines Jacobus addressed in his writings over a period of years.

BROTHER The term "brother", in addition to its obvious meaning, could indicate any one of the following relationships by blood or marriage: (1) the husband of one's sister, (2) the brother of one's wife, (3) the husband of one's sister-in-law, (4) a half-brother or (5) a stepbrother. Sometimes the term "brother" did not indicate any relationship by blood or marriage but rather was used to refer to a brother in the church.

IN-LAWS The terms "father-in-law", "mother-in-law", "son-in-law" and "daughter-in-law" have always indicated a relationship by marriage rather than by blood. When you find these terms in early American records, they may have the same meanings we give them today, i.e., the father or mother of one's spouse and the husband and wife of one's child. But they may also have very different meanings. "Father-in-law" and "mother-in-law" may refer to a stepparent and "son-in-law" and "daughter-in-law" may refer to a stepchild. The terms "brother-in-law" and "sister-in-law" are more likely to have the same meanings we give them today. For instance, "brother-in-law" almost always indicates either a sister's husband or a wife's brother.

SENIOR/JUNIOR Prior to the nineteenth century it is not safe to assume that the use of the terms "Senior" and "Junior" refers to a father and son. The relationship could have been that of an uncle and nephew or of cousins. Before the use of middle names, it was not uncommon to have two or more men in a family with identical names. The older man was known as "Senior" and the younger as "Junior". A still younger person of the name might use "3d" following his name. It is important for the researcher to keep in mind that a man known in his younger years as John Jones, Jr., may have been known as John Jones, Sr. after the death of the older man.

COUSIN The term "cousin" was once used generally to indicate almost any degree of relationship by blood or marriage outside the immediate family. In early New England the term was sometimes used to refer to a nephew or niece.

NEPHEW The term "nephew" derives from the Latin "nepos", meaning grandson. Occasionally an early will refers to the testator's grandchildren, both males and females, as "nephews". However, for the most part the term was used as it is today to mean the son of a brother or sister and, occasionally, the daughter of a brother or sister.

'NATURAL" SON When the term "natural" son is used the researcher should not jump to the conclusion that it denotes an illegitimate relationship. What it always indicates is a relationship by blood as distinguished from a relationship by marriage or adoption. In seventeenth century English wills, it was more common to refer to an illegitimate child as "my base son" or "my bastard son.

'NOW" WIFE When this term is used in a will, it is often assumed that the testator had a former wife. This may be true but is not necessarily so unless he refers to children by a first wife and children by his "present" or "now" wife. When the term is used without reference to children, it more usually means the testator is indicating that the bequest is intended only for his present wife and should not go to any subsequent wife he may have. Jacobus wrote: "...it is to be doubted whether any other legal phrase has fooled so many of our most experienced genealogists."

"ALIAS" The use of two surnames, joined by the word "alias", in early American records usually indicates an illegitimate birth and that the person has joined the surname of his reputed father to that of his mother. However, there were other reasons for the adoption of surnames. Sometimes when children inherited through their mother, they used both the father’s and mother’s names. Sometimes the name of the natural father, who had died, was joined to that of a stepfather. In cases of adoption, the original name and the name of the adoptive parent were sometimes used together.

As Jacobus wrote: "Too much should not be built upon casual mention of relationship in early records.” Conclusions about the relationship between any two people must rest on a preponderance of all the of available evidence.

Initials after your ancestor's names may provide useful information that you'd not expected. The following list includes initials you may come across when reading old wills or other documents:

a.a.s. (anno aetitis suae)-died in the year of his/her age (75y/o or died in year 75 of his/her life)
d.s.p. (decessit sine prole legitima)-died without issue
d.s.p.l. (decessit sine prole mascula supesita)-died without legitimate issue
d.s.p.m.s. (decessit sine prole mascula supersita)-died without surviving male issue
d.s.p.s (decessit sine prole supersita)-died without surviving issue
d.unm -died unmarried
d.v.p. (decessit vita patris)-died in the lifetime of his father
d.v.m. (decessit vita matris)-died in the lifetime of his mother
Et al (et alia)-and others
fmc / fwc -free man of color / free woman of color
Inst (instans)-present month
Liber -book or volume
Nepos -grandson
Nunc -Nuncupative will, an oral will, written by a witness
Ob (obit)-he/she died
Relict (relicta/relictus)-widow or widower
Sic -so or thus, exact copy as written
Testes -witnesses
Ult (ultimo)-late
Ux (uxor)-wife
Viz (videlicet)-namely

Old time measurements often leave us baffled as we dig into the lives of our ancestors. Here are some bits that might help: