What do you do when you want to find families named Miller?

My mother was a Miller, not the kind that ground grain, although there were a few members of at least one line who did own a mill in Virginia, USA in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. Miller is one of those very common names, probably originated from the occupation, that seem to be prevalent everywhere.

I wrote about the Miller family history in North America back in 2016 (Moving 7 – The Miller Family Goes West).

We in North America are descended from a man named John Conrad Miller, as discovered by my aunt in the 1970s. In her family history summary she said:

John Conrad Miller is the first American of this line we have found.  There were many German settlements, both in Ohio and Indiana, with numerous Millers among them.  But whether John came to the United States with his parents or came on his own cannot be answered.

Since John was a blacksmith, it is easy to conclude that he met Hannah Mayfield through her brother John, also a smithy.  The marriage of John and Hannah probably was performed in Jefferson County, Indiana, but the exact date is not known. It was not unusual in those days for a Justice of the Peace, living in a community, to perform a marriage then fail to record it when he made a trip to the county seat.  This may have been the case in this instance.

After their marriage, John and Hannah remained in Jefferson County for about a year. Their first child, Matilda Ann, was born there in September 1839.  In 1840, they were in Cincinnati, Ohio.

From the time Cincinnati was founded, through many decades that followed, the city was frequently devastated with Bubonic Plague. [Note: I think my aunt might have meant Cholera as I cannot find any mention of the plague as she described.]  This is cause to wonder if he took his family north to Mason in Warren County where their third child, Isaac M., was born, although the family was back in Cincinnati before the end of that year, 1843.  According to all reports available, John Conrad Miller died in Cincinnati in 1846 at a young age.

In 2010 I did finally find a marriage license for John and Hannah, issued in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, USA. John was a resident of Tippecanoe while Hannah lived in Jefferson County at the time. Now these two places are 150 miles apart and it is difficult to envision how John and Hannah came to meet considering people may not have travelled all that far in those times. My aunt might be right in her supposition that they were introduced by her brother. But then how did those two gentlemen meet?

The frequency of the Miller name is currently actually higher in North America (4,544 per million) than in Germany (241 per million) where my family line apparently originated - according to search information from the publicprofiler website. And John is the most frequent forename.

 

World statistics for the surname Miller from the publicprofiler worldnames website

We have only one reference to John Conrad’s birthplace, that on the 1880 US census for my great-grandfather, Isaac Mayfield Miller, one of John Conrad’s sons. It says his father and mother were born in Wertenberg [sic]. We know his mother’s birthplace is wrong – she was born in Maryland, USA – but the place name for his father is certainly interesting. We believe John Conrad was born in 1815 but that has not been confirmed either. His forenames could also have been Johann or Johannes and Konrad; his surname could just as well have originally been Mueller.

We cannot know if Wurttemberg is the right place as it was recorded on the census 34 years after John Conrad’s death, but it is a start. FamilySearch.org has a number of people of that name in its library, but none of them ever left Germany.

There is no Miller or Shepheard research going on with the Guild of One-Name Studies. There is a Miller DNA project though whose participants might prove useful one day.

Before his death I persuaded my cousin, a direct male descendant of John Conrad Miller, to take a Y-DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA. I wrote about that in a blog post, DNA Matches, earlier this year. There have been some matches but no one with whom we can definitively connect our roots. I live in hope!

Common names like Miller have their difficulties in separating families and finding roots, especially when migration occurred before passenger lists were saved. And without specific documents that indicate where individuals came from, it can be most disappointing.

Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes 8: Volcanoes

When I gave a presentation on natural phenomena and family history last year, I was asked about whether and when we might experience a major volcanic eruption in Yellowstone. I said I did not expect such a thing for thousands of years yet and that we should not worry too much about it.

Coincidentally, shortly afterward National Geographic magazine featured the region in its May 2016 issue. The magazine had previously reported on the volcanic eruptions there in August 2009 (When Yellowstone Explodes). In that issue was a map showing what areas had been impacted by major eruptions during the last 18 million years. Great outpourings of lava have occurred at intervals of about 2.2 million years. The deposits are spread along a line extending 430 miles from northern Nevada to northwest Wyoming which resulted as the North American plate moved across a hot spot in the Earth’s mantle. The last eruption occurred about 640 thousand years ago suggesting it will be a very long time before we have to worry about another event.

 

Map of volcanic fields resulting from major eruptions of the Yellowstone supervolcano over the past 18 million years published by National Geographic in August 2009

Eruptions of this supervolcano have never affected human populations but the fear remains. Occasionally articles will appear in magazines and scientific reports about the NEXT BIG ONE and whether it will happen much sooner that what the timing of previous episodes may indicate. A story appeared on the National Geographic website last week by Victoria Jaggard titled Yellowstone Supervolcano May Rumble to Life Faster Than Thought.

I remain convinced that we do not have to be concerned about being wiped out by a Yellowstone eruption, at least within the next several hundred generations. But eventually it will happen.

With our lifetimes we have witnessed the effects of volcanoes spreading death and destruction in many part of the world. The most affected regions are those on the edges of tectonic plates such as the Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean.

Historically there are many examples of ash and lava spreading over areas inhabited by humans. Most resulted in the deaths of scores of people and, for that reason, are worth reviewing in any family history study. Researchers may find that some of their ancestors were affected by the spread of volcanic ash and gas: sickness of themselves or their livestock; damage to environment and its impact on agriculture; and even death.

The devastation in Pompeii certainly would have ended many family lines when the mountain exploded in AD 79. We know communities nearby volcanoes can be quickly buried by lava and ash and their residents killed or forced to evacuate. Deleterious effects of ash and poisonous gases thrown into the atmosphere can be measured around the globe for many years after a major eruption.

Among the many that resulted in major death tolls are:

Year	Volcano	Location	Death Toll
1815	Mount Tambora	Indonesia	100,000
1883	Krakatau	Indonesia	36,000
1902	Mount Pelée	Martinique	30,000
1985	Nevado del Ruiz	Columbia	23,000
1600	Huaynaputina	Peru	15,000
1792	Mount Unzen	Japan	15,000
1783	Laki	Iceland	10,000

Laki, Iceland

A major eruption in Iceland in June of 1783 resulted in millions of tons of ash and gas being ejected into the lower troposphere. Over several months it spread across Europe and into the Middle East. It has been estimated that over 23,000 people perished as a result of the toxic plume.

Tambora

The last major eruption in Tambora in April 1815, its early explosions heard over 800 miles away. More than 90,000 people died in Indonesia alone. Over 24 cubic miles of gas and particulate were pushed into the stratosphere which then, within weeks, spread around the world. The Earth was blanketed by a shadowy, poisonous veil which caused havoc with climatic conditions: sunlight was reflected back into space; temperatures at the surface were cooled, and weather patterns were completely disrupted. The year following the Tambora eruption has been called the Year Without Summer because in most parts of the world in 1815, conditions were wet, cold and just plain miserable!

Krakatau

The paroxysmal eruption of Krakatau in Indonesia in August 1883 also spread dust and gas around the world. The initial blast was heard more than 2,000 miles away in Australia. A tsunami, almost 150 feet in places rolled over coastlines around the Pacific Ocean. Similar climatic disruption occurred as was caused by the Tambora event. In this case, reports were transmitted around the world almost simultaneously due to the improvements in broadcast technologies. Due to its proximity in time to today, this event has been more studied than any other volcanic event and provides a significant example of what can – and probably did – happen when such natural phenomena occur.

 

Lithograph: The eruption of Krakatoa, and subsequent phenomena. Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society (London, Trubner & Co., 1888)

Mount Pelée

More recently the top of Mount Pelée was blasted apart in May 1902. A resulting pyroclastic avalanche rolled down over the city of Saint Pierre killing virtually everyone in its path. Residents failed to heed the warnings of the eruption which began three weeks before the major event, assuming that only lava would be produced as had been the case previously. Many even stayed to observe the beginnings of the eruption, much as they do around other volcanoes around the world such as in Hawaii. In the end people failed to take seriously the power of a volcano and paid with their lives.

In terms of family history studies, volcanic events may have played an important role in changing the lives of many families in the past, in ways similar to that of the four outlined here. Such life-altering effects may have resulted from eruptions which occurred on the other side of world; a knowledge of natural history might be useful.

Canadian Thanksgiving

For those of you reading this who do not live in Canada, this past Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada. To my Canadian readers, Happy Thanksgiving!

Our holiday lands on the second Monday of October each year, in contrast to that in the United States which is the fourth Thursday in November. Like the one in the US, it is a celebration of the end of harvest and a time when families get together. In some areas there may be parades.

It has been a national holiday here since 1879 when the Canadian Parliament designated the celebration with legislation. The date was not fixed at the time, though. The current date of the second Monday was established only in 1957. It has been marked by Canadians wherever they may have been around the world for a century and a half.

 

Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force celebrate Thanksgiving in the bombed out Cambrai Cathedral in France in October 1918

Our traditional menu is similar to that in the US, other than in localities where different produce may be grown. Normally there is roast turkey (we had ham this year) with stuffing and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy (ours was cheesy potatoes for a change), sweet potatoes (my favourite) and autumn vegetables (there were carrots and peas on our table). Dessert, brought by our nephew’s wife was apple pie (a traditional fall fruit) and ice cream (good anytime).

It was the United Empire Loyalists, coming from the US after the American Revolution who brought us delights like the turkey and often consumed pumpkin pie. And probably those great sweet potatoes as well! Thank you!

Historically, apparently the first celebration in our part of the world (North America) was by Sir Martin Frobisher in 1578 during his search for the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Islands. In later centuries French and English settlers organized feasts of thanks in the early autumn, sometimes sharing them with their indigenous neighbours. Surviving Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth Colony, in what is now Massachusetts, held their first harvest feast in October 1621.

The event in both Canada and the US now feature football games although we do not think that any of the original participants of the festivals played the North American variety. Children may well have played with balls, perhaps even kicked one around as their parents and ancestors had done for centuries before.

Thanksgiving is for families. Whether they are small or large, include several generations of just immediate family members, it is a day set aside to celebrate just being together.

I hope yours was a Happy Thanksgiving, too, this year...or will be in a few weeks.