Helping Others Find Their History

I've been researching my family history for over 30 years now.  In the last 16 years I've helped countless people find their roots in Belmont County, Ohio and in neighboring West Virginia.  Recently I had the chance to help a young man find his roots deep in Kentucky slave country.

Dan is about 28 years old and bi-racial.  His dad's side is African American and his mom's side is "white".  He knew very little about his family and was particularly interested in any slave connection there might be.  Off I went on a journey of learning - for both Dan AND me.  

Though Dan's dad's family currently lives in the Toledo area his family has roots in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia and South Carolina.  His mom's family settled near me in Monroe County, Ohio.  Due to my living near Monroe County and to the abundance of information available on "white" families his mom's family proved fairly easy to research and before long I had a stack of info and records on my desk.  

The search for Dan's "black" family wasn't so easy.  In all my years of helping others with their family trees and teaching classes on it I'd only been asked once or twice for help by a black person who was researching their roots - and my help was limited to trying to point them in the right direction.  I found out just how hard and frustrating it is for people of color to find their families.  

I did manage to get Dan's lines back to the 1870 census - the first census where slaves were free and counted by name - in Kentucky and in Indiana, but it was a struggle.  It was also a wonderful learning experience for me and really tested my knowledge........and my patience.  

I did find one website that will be a real help in the near future - it's a new project being undertaken by the Virginia Historical Society called Unknown No Longer.  They are sifting through records looking for slave lists and are creating a database with all the slave names in it that will be searchable by name, location, record type, etc.  Not only will it list the slaves in Virginia, but if the owner lived in Virginia at any time and moved and took his slaves with him to another state - they'll also be in the database - so, eventually, I might be able to find out more info on Dan's African American families.

For now, I've got a huge pile of documents and records I need to organize and get in a binder.  It's time to introduce Dan to his family. :-)

Civil War Ancestor

     With all the upcoming Civil War anniversary celebrations I thought it would be nice to talk about one of my ancestors who participated in the war.
     My great great grandfather was John M. Stults.  He was the oldest of 5 children born to Samuel Stults and Margaret Failor.  The other children were Isaac, Timothy, Amos, and Harriet.  All were born in Stark County, Ohio.  Isaac, Timothy, and Amos also took part in the war.
     John M. was born 7 Nov 1838.  Though I don't know much about his early years, I do know that they were not easy ones as his father died in 1846 leaving Margaret to raise the children on her own......she never remarried.  John became a teacher and when the call came for soldiers for the Union cause, he enlisted in the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and worked his way up from Private to Lieut. by the end of the war.  The 107th saw a lot of action - the most impressive at Gettysburg where John and his brother Isaac were both wounded.
     Though I'm still going thru his papers from the archives I can tell you that he spent a lot of time in the hospitals in Virginia and in Florida for various ailments all attributed to the war - according to the pension papers.  I don't believe he saw a lot more battles going by the papers, but according to family lore he took part in some kind of secret missions as some of the secret notes are in the possession of a great-grandson.  Also in the possession of descendents are a battle flag, and various other things.  I have a star that was supposedly shot out of a flag during battle.
     After the war John went home to Ohio for a short time and then packed up and moved to Whitely County, Indiana where he met and married his wife, Nancy Jane Pence.  Together they had 6 children - 5 girls and a boy.  One of the girls and the boy died young.  The four girls left were Stella, Minnie Mae, Winifred and Nellie.
     The family moved to Markle, Huntington Co., Indiana and John started a lumber business there.

     After I finish going thru the papers I'll update the info on John and his Civil War service.

Where Has the Time Gone?

I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten all about my blog.  Wrong.  I've just been busy researching in my spare time.  I'm back now, I think, and will write more stories about my family.  I'm pondering who to write about next.......