Kin and Konnections: A Family History Blog

Discovering Family in Local Newspapers I have added some free newspaper resources in Quebec, Illinois, and Vermont to my Favorite Websites, in addition to updating other links.  My New Year's resolution for 2023 was to be more disciplined with my genealogy research so I could finish projects and share them with my living family!  The Quebec newspapers website is a bit challenging to navigate but so worth it after finding about 20 plus articles of my father's family in my grandmother's hometown newspaper in the 1950s.  The articles are mostly about the family visiting each other.  There was a picture of Dad as a teenager in the paper when he earned a scholarship.  Currently I am working on clipping the articles into a Word document, then typing them up in French and using Word's tools to help translate into English since my high school French is a bit rusty.

A note I wrote on 29 October 2002 for my ancestor John Henry Bryant in my family tree: The biography from the Portrait and Biographical Album of McLean County is one of my favorite finds.  I was in the Los Angeles Public Library on a weekend in September 2000.  I thought I had just about tapped out all of the resources the library had to offer for my genealogical research.  Boy, was I wrong.  When I pulled the old crumbling book from the shelf, I looked up the family names from McLean County: Bryant, Champion, Burwell, Ingersoll.  I was elated to find good old John H. Bryant.  I realized I had seen the biography earlier that year when I first started my research but had dismissed it because I didn't recognize the family connection.  This linked our Illinois Bryants back to Massachusetts and to the ancestor, Abraham Bryant, that came from England to America.

Many years ago, my family and friends gathered together in a private online community called, "Our Family Site." It was hosted by MyFamily.com, Inc.  We shared family news; wished happy birthdays and anniversaries; and celebrated babies being born, graduations, and weddings. This community lasted for about a decade, until everyone started migrating to other social media sites.  Before shutting it down, I backed up what I could, including several pieces I wrote about discovering our family history. I will be posting some of my family history stories from Our Family Site. They were written from 2000 through 2004. I hope that you will enjoy them and maybe you will discover something new. ~Michele Paplanus

Researching my family tree is an all consuming hobby.  Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day to devote to genealogy when there is also work, family and friends, obligations, and all the good and bad that goes with living life.  I first embarked on this journey 20 years ago, when my mother and I bought a PC and connected to the Internet for the first time.  Anyone remember dial up?  I used to come home from my long commute, start dialing up to CompuServe, have dinner, and wait to connect to the Internet.  It usually took 30 minutes.  Fast forward to now, when I lose patience if I get disconnected for a few seconds...

Researching my family history has changed so much since I started in 2000.  Then, I had a frustratingly slow dial-up connection.  I mostly surfed and posted on message boards.  I spent my lunch breaks in the bowels of the Los Angeles Central Library.  I remember stumbling upon my Burwell ancestors in the DAR lineage books.  I was excited when I found the biography of John H. Bryant, linking my Illinois Bryants to Massachusetts, and eventually, my immigrant ancestor, Abraham Bryant of Reading.  Even more rewarding, was piecing together the clues from city directories to my long-lost uncle and reconnecting the family after over 50 years. Many of those same resources I used back then are now available online.  Increasingly, you can access them for free. Today, I started with a short article on the remarriage of Moses T. Burwell, Jr. to Ada (Smith) Burwell on December 10, 1904, in Kansas City, Missouri.  [The article was published in the Col...

Bloomington, Illinois was home to the Bryant and Ingersoll families for more than fifty years.   The city of Bloomington is located in central Illinois and serves as the county seat of McLean County.    Its claim to fame is that AbrahamLincoln represented clients in several cases here in the circuit court as a young lawyer.   Here is a timeline of some historical and family events: 1820s              The first white settlers arrive and call the area Blooming Grove. 1831                 The city of Bloomington is founded. 1837                 The Bryant family, Eben and Martha and sons Eben Francis and John Henry, move from Massachusetts to Illinois, settling in Pike County.    Eben buys 160 acres and runs a farm.   The parents remai...

Today, I am googling my 5 th great grandfather Moore Goodfellow (ancestor of my great-grandmother Alice Burwell) from Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, progenitor of the Goodfellow line from Clark County, Ohio.      So here goes… Will of John Nicholson, father-in-law of Moore Goodfellow http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohclark/Probate/John_Nicholson.txt An 1839 marriage announcement for the widow of Moore Goodfellow and daughter of John Beggs in Ballygawley.   Could they be Moore’s parents? http://www.cotyroneireland.com/marriages/aughnacloy.html   1840 U.S. Census for Harmony Township, Clark County, Ohio http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohclark/1840Census/Clark67.htm A biographical sketch of Roy A Goodfellow whose great-grandfather was Moore Goodfellow. http://archive.org/stream/astandardhistor00socigoog#page/n300/mode/2up Moore Goodfellow’s headstone at Wraggs Cemetery, Clark County, Ohio   ...

In genealogical terms, getting married means adding whole new branches to the family tree.   Of course, I was excited when my new husband told me what he knew about his family and I began researching new family lines.   Unfortunately, sometimes the thrill of the chase gets in the way of sound research practices.   Boy, did I learn my lesson! It all started innocently enough.   I typed his grandmother’s first name and maiden name into Ancestry.com’s search engine.    Her last name is a bit unusual in the U.S.   When I found someone who had the exact same name and was about the same age living in California in the 1930 U.S. Census, I assumed I had found the right person. Instead of confirming with my husband’s family whether or not the information was correct, I kept going, hot on a trail.   Perhaps, it was because I found this family so interesting.   The census record included four generations of women, revealing three surnames to research. ...

ESTABLISHING THE FACTS After finding the articles about Agnes Tinkler, I wanted to know if this person was indeed family.   A search of the Illinois Statewide Death Index, Pre-1916 database  on the Illinois Secretary of State website revealed the death of only one person named Tinkler in 1913 in Macon County: Alice Tinkler.   I obtained the death certificate from the state archives which confirmed that Alice was the daughter of my great-great grandparents, John Tinkler and Lizzie Wright and therefore, Agnes’s sister.   So,  the previously unknown family tragedy was true! Alice worked as a chambermaid in a hotel.   She was barely eighteen when she took her own life by taking carbolic acid on the evening of 13 May 1913.   The place of death was at the corner of Main and Prairie Streets, at or near the district known as the Wabash Shops in Decatur.   As for Charles, I don’t believe that he ever existed.   The newspaper must have misident...

Yesterday’s article raised several questions.   Is this Agnes Tinkler my relative or a member of one of the other Tinkler families living in Decatur at the time?   Who was Charles Tinkler?   Agnes’s only brother was Clancy and he was very much alive in 1913.   Another brother, Christopher, died in infancy before she was born.   Half-brother?   Her parents’ marriage record identifies their marriage as their first.   No half-siblings are known to exist.   From the Decatur Review, Saturday Evening, 17 May 1913, page 8 (Decatur, Illinois): NO MORE SHORTCAKE FOR AGNES TINKLER "Agnes Tinkler, the girl sent to jail for refusing to answer questions before the grand jury, had strawberry short cake and cream for dinner Saturday.   Her relatives brought the dainties to the jail and the girl had eaten before Sheriff Nicholson knew about it. Judge Johns told the sheriff not to make the girl's stay in jail any too pleasant, but the sheriff ...

I n the last few years more and more images from newspaper archives have become available online.   Generally, most of these can be accessed through various genealogy databases such as Ancestry.com, Genealogybank.com, or NewspaperArchive.com either on a pay as you go basis or via a subscription.   Some sites are free like Chronicling America from the Library of Congress. Often, family members appear in the news in relation to social events – a birth, a wedding, an anniversary, or a death.   Sometimes they are visiting relatives in another town and recovering from an illness.   Other times their names are included in legal notices regarding a parent’s estate or a lawsuit.   I have encountered a few instances where my relations are involved in something out of the ordinary.   Such is the tale of my great-grandfather’s teenage sisters, Alice, age 18, and Mary Agnes, age 14, in May 1913 in Decatur, Illinois.   From the Decatur Review, Friday Evening, 16 Ma...

A few years ago, I obtained from the  National Archives and Records Administration  the civil war pension file for my ancestor, Christopher Tinkler (1834-1899)*, the first in this family line to be born in America.  In a family tree prepared by my great uncle Leslie Tinkler, Christopher's wife's name is given as Julia Carey.  Her name in the marriage record was Julia Ellen Carey.  It took some time to uncover her maiden name.  It can be challenging to find details about female ancestors.  Often the details of their lives are hidden in the records of their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers.   Below is a transcription of an affidavit filed by Julia's brother, George Washington Kline, and sister, Lydia Ann (Kline) Nicholson, in support of Julia's widow's pension:   No. 707102   General Affidavit   Case of Julia A. Tinkler, Widow of Christopher Tinkler, Co. D 107 Ohio Infantry   ...

I promised to feature stories about ancestors, in-laws, and out-laws.  Here is the story about the adventures of a Tinkler cousin, Charles Castley Tinkler (1868-1949), and his young bride, Tillie Meier, that appeared in several Ohio newspapers in 1888: MRS. TINKLER'S RETURN. Completely Discouraged By Her Adventures With the Young Forger. CINCINNATI, Dec. 13.-A. H. Meier, of Mt. Lookout, who went to England after his sister Tillie, who eloped with Charles C. Tinkler, the young bank forger, has arrived home with the newly-made Mrs. Tinkler. It will be remembered that Tinkler and Tillie were married in Brooklyn by Justice Courtney, October 17, just before embarking for England. The young forger and his bride were caught in London by means of an intercepted letter that Tinkler wrote to William Hopkins, a friend in this city, and a son of the ex-cashier of the Fidelity bank, now at Columbus. Mrs. Tinkler seems very much worried and worn by her adventures, which rivals those of the ...

Remember the days of gathering memories through photographs, newspaper clippings, greeting cards, and autograph albums?  What happens to those keepsakes when we are long gone?  Fortunately for me, my great-grandmother's first cousin Helen Burwell Gale (1910-1994) saved her family treasures and donated them to the University of Missouri Library at Kansas City. For a description of the holdings at the University*, go to: Burwell/Tate Family Papers (KC0233) Bernice Tate Burwell (1883-1960) Collection (KC0234) I will be posting stories from the Burwell/Tate Family Papers. Helen was a dancer in the 1920s and 1930s in Kansas City.  Photographs of Helen by Baron Siroon Missakian are online as part of the Baron Missakian Collection at the University of Missouri Library Systems Digital Library.  Go to: Photographs of Helen Burwell . * The personal papers are now part of the Kansas City Manuscript Collections at the State Historical Society of Missouri, located  at...