52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 18: Close-up of the Jones & Johnston Family in Comanche Co, Texas

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

When we first find our ancestors in a census record, we tend to just focus on that one family on the page. We carefully record the head of household, his wife, and children into our genealogy program or into a word processing document. There might be others in the household such as one of the parents or in-laws, or perhaps a sibling or servant.

It is a good practice to at least look at the census entries before and after the targeted family. I try to look a page or two before and after the family and record the head of household’s first and last names. At first glance, we may not know whether any of these people are kin, especially if they are not of the same surname.

I have a family on a page in Comanche County, Texas, where nearly everyone on the page were kin.[1] But I didn’t know this at first glance because I was focused on my family, listed as M. Reubin Johnston. Next door was J. Marian Johnston, a likely brother and in his household, Elizabeth Johnston, their likely mother.


However, above Marion was Henry Wright and Mary Wright, his wife. 


And above him was George Knox and Bettie Knox, his wife. In his household were several Joneses: Amanda Jones, his mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law, Laura and Mattie Jones. 



And above George was Thomas W. Jones.



Below Reubin was James McDonald and Sarah McDonald, his wife.


  
What was common with all of the wives of these men was their birthplace of Mississippi. Every woman except Sarah were sisters. They were the daughters of Amanda Jones and the sister to Thomas W. Jones. Sarah was the sister of Reuben and Marion Johnston.

In this close proximity were seven families living next door to each other who were interrelated. The common thread was the family of Reuben's wife, Olivia: her mother, Amanda Jones and her siblings.This is a real close-up of a tight knit family.



[1] 1880 U.S. census, Comanche Co, Texas, ED 30, p 95a, fam 173, M. Reubin Johnston, digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com), citing NARA T9, roll 1297.

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments on this blog will be previewed by the author to prevent spammers and unkind visitors to the site. The blog is open to other-than-just family members particularly those interested in family history and genealogy.

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Blogiversary & Happy 100th Blog Post!

Image
Today is a big milestone. This is the 100th blog post I have written and the 6th anniversary of the beginning of this blog. I began the blog on January 15, 2011, through a blog writing class I took at California Genealogical Society, taught by Craig Siulinski. It was something I wanted to do but wasn’t really sure what I would focus on. I finally settled on writing about my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster’s family and this was my first post . In the beginning it was hard to get started. I learned from the Geneabloggers website, that there were blogging memes I could use and I have done that off and on, especially at the beginning. But I finally learned that what worked best was to write about my discoveries as I researched my grandmother’s family. So what have I written in six years? I discovered I have only written four posts specifically about my grandmother: “Mam-ma was a Tomboy” “Fearless Females – Day 12” “Mam-ma 1913-2013” “My Grandpar...
Read more

John Coor of Copiah County Made an Agreement with Joel Hoggatt

Image
This week at RootsTech 2024, FamilySearch announced a new feature that an every-word search was available for U.S. deeds and probates. It is still in the trial mode and can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ . This is the search screen. It clearly states it is for US land and probate records and Mexico notary records. You can do a keyword search or if you click on the “more options” you can add a name. My Find I immediately gave it a try and searched first for records of the COOR family using the keyword search. Up first came deeds from Wayne County, North Carolina.  At the top, you can filter using record year, record type, record place, and collection. For the past few days, I have mainly filtered by record place. I filtered down to Mississippi. You can even filter to the county. The first entry was a document I had not seen before. It was an 1826 agreement between John Coor and Joel Hoggatt to build a set of grist and sawmills. John Coor is my 4x-great-grand...
Read more

Using the Attendees at Lela Ann (Loveless) Lancaster’s Funeral to Discover Residences

Image
Lela Ann Lancaster, my maternal great-grandmother, died on 17 May 1951. [1] She had died in Wichita Falls, Texas, at the state hospital. The doctor’s handwriting is nearly illegible so the cause of death is difficult to determine. She was conflicted with Parkinson’s Disease which probably contributed to her death. Her funeral was three days later. [2] Lela Ann (left) with Warren, daughter Pansy, granddaughter Lela Nell, and son Wayne, c. 1935 Obituary Tells Story of Life Two obituaries were published on the same day in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune on two different pages. One gave information about her life and the funeral, and the other was about who attended her funeral. The transcription of the first is here: "Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster"    Funeral services for Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster, 55, who died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at a Wichita Falls Hospital, were at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Baptist Church with the Rev. Felix Gresham and the Rev. Ernest Rippetoe officiating...
Read more