Michael Talley's Posts - Genealogy Wise2024-03-28T18:30:42ZMichael Talleyhttp://www.genealogywise.com/profile/MichaelTalleyhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2207022518?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.genealogywise.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=3mlbpywud22a5&xn_auth=noSettling an Old Argument (Final)tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-08-12:3463583:BlogPost:591652009-08-12T06:00:00.000ZMichael Talleyhttp://www.genealogywise.com/profile/MichaelTalley
Finding a microfilm copy of a US census is not hard, unless of course it is from the year 1890 which was somehow mostly destroyed by fire. The library at the local community college from which I obtained a degree in computer science has two whole floors dedicated to family history research. Finding the names you are looking for on the other hand can be really hard, especially if the indexes are incomplete or missing. You can spend hours turning a wheel on a machine trying to decipher the…
Finding a microfilm copy of a US census is not hard, unless of course it is from the year 1890 which was somehow mostly destroyed by fire. The library at the local community college from which I obtained a degree in computer science has two whole floors dedicated to family history research. Finding the names you are looking for on the other hand can be really hard, especially if the indexes are incomplete or missing. You can spend hours turning a wheel on a machine trying to decipher the handwriting on pages of microfilmed census. That is why patience is considered a virtue. Fortunately, I had enough of it to get through by. The 1920 Census of Franklin County, Alabama contained the foster parents of my grandma. There she was as well, listed as a nine year old girl. The census was taken on the 12th of January well before her tenth birthday. She must have been born in 1910 after all. But wait, this was her foster parents, surely they were mistaken. Not only that, everyone knows that the ages of people listed in the census often vary by a significant amount from one census to the next. To be sure we must see 1910. That was a bad year. I didn’t have access to an index. I had to check every roll of microfilm for Jefferson County, Alabama by hand. The search paid off. The Census was taken on the 20th of April so there could be no doubt, if she was listed then she had to be born in 1909, if not, it was because she wasn’t born yet. After a long time search I found Will Mehlhorn born in Tennessee with his name still spelled the way it was spelled in his homeland. Underneath was my great-grandma Maggie whom we know so little about. Then came William’s daughter Aldie who was 10 and a seven year old son that my grandmother apparently did not even know about as he was not listed in her family bible. There was only one more line for this household, but no it was the mother of William’s first wife. There was no one named Lena Bell! “MAMAHERG” WAS NOT BORN UNTIL JULY 5,1910! Finally the argument is settled… that is if I said it loud and forceful enough.Settling an Old Argument (Part 4)tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-08-05:3463583:BlogPost:591732009-08-05T06:00:00.000ZMichael Talleyhttp://www.genealogywise.com/profile/MichaelTalley
The letter in my last post indicated that my grandma had moved back in with her dad at the age of 18 in June of 1927. On October 10 of that year she was married to the son of a Baptist Preacher who lived next door to her foster parents. His name was Richard Lemmy Meherg. I was able to find them in Fayette County, Alabama in the 1930 US Census. Finding anything in the census is a lot of work. There are usually indexes, but they often have spelling mistakes due to the poor quality of the…
The letter in my last post indicated that my grandma had moved back in with her dad at the age of 18 in June of 1927. On October 10 of that year she was married to the son of a Baptist Preacher who lived next door to her foster parents. His name was Richard Lemmy Meherg. I was able to find them in Fayette County, Alabama in the 1930 US Census. Finding anything in the census is a lot of work. There are usually indexes, but they often have spelling mistakes due to the poor quality of the microfilm, the handwriting of the census taker, or their spelling ability. Often those who were being counted could not read or write. In other cases they were not home and the information was provided by a neighbor who had little or no knowledge about the facts. Keeping that in mind the 1930 Census confirmed that grandma or someone else had given the census takers information confirming that she was born in 1909. Now I had two documents which disproved the idea that grandma had “always” thought she was a year younger up until she had applied for Social Security benefits. If she did indeed think she was younger she must have had a reason. Could it be that at the age of seventeen, she needed her father’s blessing in order to get married. As a son of a German immigrant and a minister of the Lutheran Church he could never give it, could he. Was it possible that she wrote her aunt Mattie because she needed a witness to claim she was eighteen so that she could get married? Her father likely knew when she was born, indeed years later she claimed that he had told her it was 1910. She had just spent her first birthday with him in years. How could she not know the truth? There were still two more years of the census to be checked. One was 1920 in the home of her foster parents when she would have been too young to have an influence on the number given. The other was 1910 with her mother and father. I will tell what I found and settle this once and for all in the next and final post.Settling an Old Argument (Part 3)tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-29:3463583:BlogPost:590712009-07-29T06:00:00.000ZMichael Talleyhttp://www.genealogywise.com/profile/MichaelTalley
I was able to obtain a copy of the original application which my grandmother filled out when applying for Social Security. As I expected, It confirmed which date was accepted by the SS administration, but was of little other value. Did it contain the truth? That was what I needed to know. And if it was a lie, when was the lie first told? This brings me to another document that was supplied by one of my aunts. Apparently, what was found in the old bible was a letter that my grandmother herself…
I was able to obtain a copy of the original application which my grandmother filled out when applying for Social Security. As I expected, It confirmed which date was accepted by the SS administration, but was of little other value. Did it contain the truth? That was what I needed to know. And if it was a lie, when was the lie first told? This brings me to another document that was supplied by one of my aunts. Apparently, what was found in the old bible was a letter that my grandmother herself had written to one of her aunts on July 24, 1927. I give the letter in the same form as it was given to me. I will interpret it in a later post.<br />
<br />
<br />
Townly Alabama<br />
<br />
July 24, 1927<br />
<br />
Dear Aunt Mattie<br />
1<br />
I will answer your sweet letter was so glad to hear from you. I have<br />
often longed to see my people but as you say I knew nothing about them.<br />
I have been living out on a farm near Haleyville ALA about 9 or 10<br />
years. I came to Townley the 11th day of June to live with Dad.<br />
2<br />
The people whom I did live with were Stanfords, I am 18 years old ever<br />
one says I'm just like Mother.<br />
My little Baby Brother Elbert is dead been dead a long time.<br />
Minnie and Alta are both married. I saw Minnie the 4th of July. She<br />
came up here she lives in Dora Ala.<br />
I haven't seen Alta in about 11 years. I am the only single child living.<br />
2 are married.<br />
3<br />
Dear I'd be so glad to come to see you but I don't see how I can come<br />
now. It take money and clothes to travel you know and of course I'll<br />
have to wait until I can get them. Don't know when that will be for work<br />
is so bad here. But I will try to come to see you some day. I wish you<br />
would come to see me.<br />
4<br />
Sister,(looked like listeu,) send me your picture also your children and<br />
husband For I don't have any of my relatives pictures scarcely,<br />
(scarcey,) I'll have some made as soon as I can and send you one of mine<br />
if you want it.<br />
I will close don't guess you can read this.<br />
<br />
Your Loving Niece<br />
<br />
Lena MelhornSettling an Old Argument (Part 2)tag:www.genealogywise.com,2009-07-22:3463583:BlogPost:590312009-07-22T06:00:00.000ZMichael Talleyhttp://www.genealogywise.com/profile/MichaelTalley
“Mamaherg” was raised by foster parents. Her mother died of tuberculosis in 1913. She had some older sisters by her father’s first wife and a baby brother. Apparently one of the older sisters was holding the baby while standing too close to the fire and the blanket caught on fire. This convinced her father, William Melhorn, that he could not work all day in the coal mines and take care of the babies at the same time. Somehow foster parents were found to raise my grandmother, who at that time…
“Mamaherg” was raised by foster parents. Her mother died of tuberculosis in 1913. She had some older sisters by her father’s first wife and a baby brother. Apparently one of the older sisters was holding the baby while standing too close to the fire and the blanket caught on fire. This convinced her father, William Melhorn, that he could not work all day in the coal mines and take care of the babies at the same time. Somehow foster parents were found to raise my grandmother, who at that time was known as Lena Bell Melhorn. I do not know whether or not a birth certificate was ever issued for her. For certain, none went with her to her new home. Her birthday was the 5th of July, but what year. Was it 1910 making her two and a half when her mother died, or was she a year older. The best arguments I heard as a kid leaned toward the older date. It was said that after her husband died, leaving her to raise seven children on her own, that she applied for social security. She had always believed that she was born in 1910, but a relative, perhaps one of the older sisters produced a family bible with a different date making her one year older. That was good enough for the Social Security Administration, so it should be good enough for us. However, she remembered being told by her father that she was born in 1910. The other argument was that she remembered helping her mother wash out her brothers diapers. Certainly a two year old could not have remembered that, she must have been three! But I wasn’t satisfied, I wanted the truth, and not influenced by a desire to obtain social security or anything else. I will write more on that next time.