Moving

We are getting ready to move soon, downsizing again, after our children have been long gone and priorities in life or health challenges change. We are not going very far, just across town, but it is still a major project: to pack things we need or want to keep; sell or toss the stuff we no longer use. The latter, of course does not include the many items of memorabilia and boxes of personal documents and family records of all types that no self-respecting genealogist could ever part with. It’s going to be another challenge to find a place for all of it.

Anyway, it reminded me again of how many of my ancestors also picked up and left their old lives to begin new adventures, often with young families and with destinations thousands of miles from their homes and relatives. Many of my posts about family members over the past two years have mentioned or been centred on moving activities and/or new homes – sometimes just across a parish in England, many across the ocean to Canada and the United States.

Once in North America, many did not stop in one location for long but continued the search for that perfect piece of land or opportunity. Or, if the primary migrants stayed near where they landed, their children and grandchildren did not.

I have several family lines who, over a few generations, migrated to and then across the United States. Just writing the names of the places they lived in does not really show the distances and hardships they must have endured during those moves. Reviewing maps that show the trails they followed, in the time periods in which they migrated, greatly illustrates where and how they might have travelled.

One route family members followed west from the eastern seaboard of the US, in the decades long before there were railroads, involved the Wilderness Trail or Road. It was the principal route settlers took through the Cumberland Gap in the southern Appalachian Mountains to reach Kentucky and, on further branches, elsewhere to Ohio and Indiana. Some families stopped along the way in western Virginia where they established farms and raised children. For others the Cumberland Gap was just a gateway to lands opening up in the interior. The Wilderness Road began itself as a branch off the Great Wagon Road, traversing from Philadelphia south to the Carolinas, near Big Lick, Virginia, later to become Roanoke.

 

Map showing the location of the major routes taken from New England to other colonies and to western regions opening up during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries (map has been used in numerous websites, this version downloaded 11 July 2015 from The Lowrys family website)

Among the early pioneers opening up the trail west from Virginia, was Daniel Boone who in 1775, with a party of men working for the Transylvania Company, cut a trail through the dense forest to facilitate the movement of settlers to the company’s licensed lands in Kentucky. The trail, usable only by men on foot or horseback at first, was widened to permit wagon traffic by the end of the century and became known as the Wilderness Road. The route served as the primary path of migration until a new road opened in the north, running from Maryland to Illinois – the National or Cumberland Road.

 

Drawing of travel on the Wilderness Road, source Library of Congress (downloaded 12 July 2015 from Wikimedia Commons)

Members of my maternal grandmother’s family migrated from Maryland to Washington County in western Virginia. William and Elizabeth (Gentle) McDaniel, my 2^nd great-grandparents, were married in Maryland in 1801. We have not yet traced their European origins or when the first family member landed in Maryland or the New England colonies. The surname suggests they arrived from Scotland. I believe both William and Elizabeth were born in Maryland as well, although confirming records have not yet been found. They had their first child in that state in 1803. Their other eleven children were all born in Washington County, Virginia between 1806 and 1831, including my Great-Grandfather Asa, in 1827. They would have travelled both the Great Wagon Road to Big Lick and then on the Wilderness Road to a new farm near Abingdon, about 350 miles of rough going.

Asa married Margaret DeBusk in Washington County in 1851. For several years they farmed with Asa’s parents in that area. In 1860, he loaded his family and belongings on to a covered wagon and moved west to Lee County, a distance of about 85 miles but still a difficult trek. It was there my Grandmother Martha (Mattie) was born in 1875. Many of Asa’s children moved west, settling in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1894, Asa, along with daughters Mattie and Sarah, left Virginia for Missouri, probably following the old Wilderness Road, now much improved, through Lexington and Louisville.

 

Map showing the major events and residence locations of members of the McDaniel family along with the route taken during moves to new locations.

Other family lines also travelled the Great Wagon and Wilderness Roads on their way to new homes in the west. I’ll recount their journeys in subsequent posts here.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Naming Patterns for Children

Recently statistics relating to many aspects of Canadian life were published, in advance of Canada Day – this year the country’s 148^th birthday. They were broken down by province and included such diverse categories as: average salaries, notable top trending Google searches, number of accidental deaths, litres of beer consumed per capita, home prices and total number of Kraft Dinner boxes sold. The sources were equally varied: Statistics Canada, Google (of course), major retailer groups, real estate association and provincial vital statistics.

One that caught my eye, as it might many genealogists, was top baby names. Anyone who has transcribed parish and census records from centuries past is aware of certain trends in the naming of children. The top two names in Canada for 2014, as shown on the website, Today’s Parent, with data from all provincial vital statistics departments, were Liam, for boys, and Olivia, for girls. In the United States, according to the website, babycentre, it was Jackson and Sophia, with Liam and Olivia both in the top three. It may seem unusual that such old-fashioned names were at the top of the list but there is historical precedent.

In centuries past, at least in the primarily English-speaking countries, there was always a propensity to name children after their ancestors. Most family historians are familiar with the English and Scottish Naming Patterns, with the first children named after grandparents and subsequent children named after parents, aunts and uncles. The conventions are both helpful, in the search for ancestors, and maddening, as so many cousins in one village might have the same name.

Traditions still exist in the naming of children with at least one name being given in remembrance of past generations. I share a first name with many past relatives, including my father. My brother was named for both of his grandfathers. There has been a John and/or a James Shepheard in almost every past generation I have found in our family back to the early 1600s. During the mid-18^th century in England, middle names began to come into common use, as described in a May 2014 post on The Pharos Blog. Some were in recognition of their mother’s surname; some were used to differentiate those cousins living in the same area; some recognized friends or influential people in the community.

In more recent times, parents have attempted to give more names to their children from outside the family, as if to identify and emphasize them as being unique, but still many names come from within the family. My oldest grandson was to be named William Alexander until his mother realized that was the full name of her grandfather. His name was then established as Ian Alexander which combined names of both his father and paternal grandfather. Alec’s brother was given the name of Malcom Macgregor, the first name from that same paternal grandfather. His second name, from Scottish origins, means “Son of Shepherd”, which seemed appropriate.

My granddaughter received the name of Calista which in Greek means “most beautiful”. My son thought that was apt. Her second name is James because my daughter-in-law likes girls with traditionally “male” names. While they both sought out unique names for Calista’s brother, they ended up with Ethan as a first name. His mother says it “was chosen under duress in the hospital so that I could fill out the birth record.” She loved the name Ethan but still hated that is was so popular – third on the list of boys’ names in 2006. He also got the name Charles as a second name. While perhaps not intentional, it happens to be the name of his 2^nd and 4^th great-grandfathers as well as many cousins throughout our family tree. It was also given to him as his second name so that no one would be tempted to call him “Chuck”.

Anyway, when looking through the lists of popular names, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that many of the most popular names in recent years were also common in past generations. The pattern has been dubbed the 100-Year Rule. Names associated with grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations regain their popularity. It may not be conscious thing on behalf of parents although I suspect that people who have fond recollections of their grandparents may retain such memories in the names of their children. Thus, as great-grandparents pass away, they may be remembered in the names of their great-grandchildren.

While children’s names may not be associated with very closely-connected ancestors, as they were hundreds of years ago, many still manage to have a link to their family’s past in their names. That trend has certainly continued in my family through my children.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

The Scourge of Phthisis (Tuberculosis)

Neither my wife nor I have to go back very far in our family trees to find direct ancestors who died of Phthisis, more commonly known as tuberculosis: Mary Elizabeth (Pearson) Shepheard, my great-grandmother, died in 1891; and Elizabeth (Walker) Cooper, my wife’s grandmother, in 1922. The dates are far removed and the origins of the disease are quite disparate. Both left young children behind, though, as well as husbands who I believe had difficulty coping with the care of those children in addition to the loss of their partners.

Tuberculosis is one of those diseases that have been around the world for a very long time. There is probably not a family that has not had someone afflicted and/or died because of it. One can find a great deal of information on tuberculosis on the Internet, starting with Wikipedia, which notes that it has gone by names, consumption, phthisis, scrofula, Pott's disease and the White Plague at various times in history. The disease appears to go back thousands of years, to the Neolithic period. It was certainly around in Greece in the 5^th century, apparently one of the most common causes of death there. It was present in India in 1500 BC, Egypt in 2000 BC and possibly in China in 4500 BC. Europe was plagued by the disease for hundreds of years. It was present there during the Middle Ages and as widespread epidemics (the Great White Plague) into the 19^th century. Some researchers have estimated that tuberculosis in all of its forms have killed over a billion people around the globe over the last two hundred years. In 2013, according to the World Health Organization, 9 million people fell ill with it and 1.5 million died.

The first record in Cornwood parish, Devon, (which parish I look after as on Online Parish Clerk) burial records was in 1770. That was a period when the then vicar made an effort to record causes of death. Not all ministers did so in the past so the record is incomplete. In that year and the two following there were also many deaths from small pox. Adjacent parishes do not have this kind of detail however statistics show there was a substantial increase in the number of burials during this time period; so there must also have had many residents die of consumption as well. The disease hit all ages and all socio-economic groups.

I do not know how My Great-grandmother contracted TB. It was certainly easily spread by contact with others who had it, primarily through the air. She was probably already in the early stages when my grandfather was born, seven months prior to her death. She may have caught it in a medical ward, a crowded tramcar or even at church. We won’t likely ever know.

The manner in which my wife’s grandmother was affected is a bit clearer. She was admitted to an asylum just a couple of years after the birth of her last child. At the time she was suffering from what was described as “a state of wild maniacal excitement” and “hallucinations of hearing” (possibly schizophrenia?). Asylums in Scotland through the early 20^th century were also places where people sick with tuberculosis were confined. In the less-than-hygienic conditions, highly contagious diseases like tuberculosis spread rapidly. Many patients, originally hospitalized for mental illness actually died of other causes such as phthisis.

Phthisis is a particularly nasty sickness, originally defined by Aelius Galenus, a prominent Greek physician, as the "ulceration of the lungs, thorax or throat, accompanied by a cough, fever, and consumption of the body by pus."

Effective treatment of consumption was virtually unavailable well into the 20^th century, until the discovery of Streptomycin which came into use in the 1940s and isoniazid in the early 1950s. The antibiotic drugs offered hope that the disease could be eradicated. That did begin to happen within a few decades – cases in Britain dropped from around 117,000 in 1913 to about 5,000 in 1987. With the emergence of other diseases which impaired the immune system, the appearance of more drug-resistant strains and the reduction in public health services, the number of reported cases rose again. In the undeveloped world, the contagion is still widespread.

There may have been many more family members who became sick with and even died of tuberculosis. The lack of records prevents us knowing for sure. We might be able to track outbreaks of the disease in certain areas and see if any deaths in the family corresponded with times of outbreaks. That might tell us whether tuberculosis might have been a cause.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated