Moving Day?

For reasons too convoluted to share, Ol' Br'er is moving future activity to a new site on Substack.

Just like here, he ain't looking to make any money or pay any attention to who might be following his inane antics. 

But! Should anyone care to read more as time goes by, look here for the new missives:

Br'er Graveyard Rabbit | Brer GYRabbit | Substack

Lost, Found, And Lost (Maybe) Again

"I've a whale of a tale to tell you, lads ." - Ned Land 

Ok, Ol' Br'er won't leave you hanging on that quote. A body has to be both older and have a penchant for foolish trivia to know that one. Or curious enough to research it.

Tell you what. Br'er will pause writing here to allow you to try finding the quote source before continuing.

Pause over. Did you find it? No? Ned Land is a character in Disney's 1954 film, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, played by Kirk Douglas. The line was part of a song - Yes! Kirk Douglas sang in the role! - Ned sings to his shipmates.

Anyways, back to the story.

Ol' Br'er has been silent for a long time for good reasons. Mainly, his body tried to kill him. Ok, his body betrayed him making life hell and typing extremely painful and virtually impossible. Walking was beyond difficult, and dangerous as he was prone to falling with every step. And, he did fall several times over the past few months. Fortunately, the only real injuries from those falls were to his pride. Walking across the room was difficult and risky. Galivanting in graveyards was utterly and absolutely out of the question. He is a couple of months past corrective surgery and doing much better, though has a long road to recovery ahead of him.

That is all just to explain the long silence to anyone who may be following his antics.

Well, he is back!

Recently, feeling up to spending some time behind the keyboard, he did a bit of virtual cemetery creeping whilst researching a distant branch of the family tree. 

Many people have researched Ol' Br'er's family, and they have published their work. Being the distrustful curmudgeon he is, Ol' Be'er never trusts anyone else's work, instead insisting on verifying everything himself. 

One 2nd Great-Granduncle's line showed him having at least 12 children with two wives, the surnames of whom no one knew. So Ol' Br'er set about seeing if he could, using modern tools and resources, suss out those names.

Things soon took an unexpected turn!

Some of the resources that popped up were for someone not appearing in Br'er's own prior research nor in anything anyone else has ever shared. Intriguing!

Ok. Let's name some players and set the stage so that the story can be followed and make some semblance of sense.

JDG (1828 - 1910)- Br'er's 2nd GGU and our starting point.
NL? (1834 - ca. 1864-5)- JDG's first wife
E? (1835 -  aft. 1910) - JDG's second wife

Ok. E?'s maiden name was fairly easy to find. There is a marriage record for JDG and EM in 1866. So E? is EM. And, NL? had to have died (or there have been a divorce) before that marriage in 1866. But what was NL?'s maiden name?

During Ol' Br'er's research, a new person with the same surname as JDG, MBG (b. 1864), showed up. MBG has never appeared in any family tree for JDG. But his birth, and location, mean that he could be related to JDG in some way. More research was clearly called for!

Since MBG did not readily fit anywhere in Ol' Br'er's tree, the only thing to do was build a separate tree starting with MBG and see where it lead. So that is what Ol' Br'er did.

It was not possible to start researching MBG as a child because he never showed up in any census in a family with the same surname! The earliest records immediately available had him living in the household of WC. Odd. Tracking forward and back through the years, MBG lived almost exclusively in WC's household. Even after marrying and having children of his own, MBG and his family remained living with WC. Eventually, MBG could be found in the 1870 census, age 6, in the household of NC, a widow. WC is in that same household and NC appears to be his mother given their ages.

But why is MBG in the C family household?

Ol' Br'er was getting frustrated, but not daunted! He set off building a tree for NC and her son, WC, to see where that might lead and what it might reveal. That was the key to unlocking the mystery!

See, WC never married or had children of his own, but he left a detailed will. He left his entire estate to his sister, PC, for the remainder of her life. After her death, the estate was to be divided equally among a litany of great-nieces and great-nephews, all with the same surname as MBG, and, lastly with his nephew, MBG! Well, damn! That answers multiple questions, not the least of which was: What is NL?'s surname? C! NL? was NLC before marrying JDG!

But that would mean MBG is NLC's and JDG's son, born about the same time she died. That narrows her death down to between mid-1864 when MBG was born, and mid-1866 when JDG married EM.

While that addressed the missing surnames, and how MBG was related to WC, it did not answer the burning question as to why MBG never once appeared in his father's household. That mystery seemed destined to go unanswered.

Ol' Br'er, being the imaginative type he is, envisioned two possible stories. One, NLC died in or shortly after giving birth to MBG. JDG, heartbroken and grieving, could not bear to look upon the child and sent it to live with his mother's family. The second, more bleak, that EM, the new bride, would not abide the infant of the woman whose place she just took, and forced her new husband to ship the child off.

It seemed that the story was to end there. Except that Ol' Br'er has tree-tracing, grave-galivanting compatriots who love a good story as much or more as he does. And he could not resist the opportunity to do a little bragging about how he had sussed out the wives' surnames and MBG's place in the family tree.

This was his undoing.

After he related the whole saga to them, one asked a question and posed a third possible alternative to MBG's story: Did JDG serve in the war? It might well be that JDG was not MBG's father!

SON OF A BITCH!

Ol' Br'er turned back to his records for JDG. Sure enough, he served in the Confederacy. He was one of the many who surrendered at Vicksburg on 4 July 1863. He was also wounded at Atlanta in August of 1864. And, lastly, he mustered out in August of 1865 in North Carolina. Hmm. MBG was born in late July 1864. That meant he had to have been conceived sometime around November of 1863. 

All this means that for JDG to be MBG's father, he had to have made his way from Vicksburg, Mississippi to Walton County, Georgia starting no sooner than 3 July 1863 (during a war, and with no real support), spent enough time with NLC to conceive MBG. That would be no small feat under the circumstances!

Now, if that was not feasible (and it would be on the low end of that scale!), then there is a third possibility: JDG came home after the war to find a 'son' that he could not possibly have conceived. Perhaps NLC was alive when he returned in 1865, perhaps not. There is no way to know. Perhaps she died in or shortly after childbirth in 1864. Perhaps she took her own life, unable to face the disgrace of her affair (or rape?) and illegitimate child. Perhaps JDG came home and killed her in a rage over her infidelity. Whatever the truth of his conception, it is entirely possible that MBG was not the biological son of JDG, even though he used that surname his entire life.

And this third possibility would more than align with MBG never living in JDG's household. As well as his effectively being adopted by NLC's brother.

Talk about ignominy! Not MBG possibly being the result of an affair, no. The ignominy was Ol' Br'er's in utterly and absolutely missing this probability. His research buddies took no small degree of delight in being the ones to catch his grievous error. 

Roadside Attractions

Rural America has a time-honored tradition of having low-end roadside attractions, but this is taking things to extremes! 

And with the name McIntyre, we can forgo any thoughts about Roman heritage (though the Legions did get to the border of Scotland...). If you have forgotten your Roman trivia, it was common practice to place tombs by the side of the road.

Ok. I will explain what the hell I am talking about.

Someone recently posted photos of an old family cemetery not too far from Ol' Brer's warren. His knee-jerk response to these photos is to check them against Find A Grave. Seriously. Ol' Br'er's reaction is damned near Pavlovian. He has to know where the cemetery is, how many graves, etc.

Well, damn! Most of the graves are not recorded! Why the person who took the photos did not add them is a mystery for the ages. But added they must be. Since it is bad form to use someone else's photos for anything, Ol' Br'er will have to fire up the jalopy and make the trip to take his own photos. Based on the published photos, it is clear that there are a number of graves with some kind of marker (there is a stone that is obviously cut - it has flat sides and right angles - but the photos do not show any detail (if there is any). 

First, Br'er's research brain developed another itch that had to be scratched. Off to Ancestry to try and identify the unnamed graves and anyone related to those in marked graves. Could they be children? Other spouses? Parents? Siblings? Many hours later, Br'er had managed to confidently state who three of the graves belong to and reasonably state who another two probably are. Identifying five unmarked graves dating from the 1800s in the rural south ain't exactly bad. 

Fortunately, aside from the Spring Pollen Storm, the weather is PERFECT for an outing, so it was time to head out, see the place with his own eyes, and take his own photos.

On the way there, Ol' Br'er passed a church cemetery that piqued his interest, but more on that later.

Arriving on site, Br'er found the cemetery to sit about 40 feet from the road and consisted of 14 obvious graves, 6 with marked headstones and 8 with blank cut stone markers. Only 3 of the marked graves were recorded in Find A Grave. Again, the question that will never be answered is "Why?"

A couple of the monuments are the tall modified obelisk style so popular a century or so ago. One had to have toppled at some point and proved too much for someone to repair. One section - the one with the name and dates - remains on the ground while the original top sections were replaced on the plinth. If Ol' Br'er had the tools and training (and some extra manual labor!), he would properly reassemble the whole thing.

You can see just how close the graves are to the road.

Two other markers were for infants.

Returning with D/2 and spending a day cleaning everything may prove to be a Moral Imperative. Getting photos of the stones without a century-plus of accumulated dirt and lichen would be nice. And, with the limited number of markers involved (even with some being rather large), it would not take a massive amount of D/2 to do the job. The larger issue is always water. Cleaning requires a LOT of water, and there is never a convenient source nearby, so everything has to be carted in in jugs.

Thirty minutes each way to spend 10 minutes on location. (Sigh)

Before heading back to the barn, stopping in on that church cemetery was another moral imperative. Rather than spending hours on location checking each grave against Find A Grave, Ol' Br'er reverted to simply photographing everything and then doing the audit when he is back in The Warren (seated comfortably and with a lovely adult beverage). Even then, it took about an hour just to take all the photos. 

As expected, there were clearly a score or more unmarked graves. Perhaps the church has complete records, perhaps not. Were Ol' Br'er a wagering bunny, he would bet on their not having them. And he would give odds on that bet!

133 memorials in Find A Grave when he started. 134 when he finished. Surprisingly, he found one unrecorded grave. And it dates from the 1800s!! 

Whether one considers it a productive day or not, it got Ol' Br'er out of The Warren and exposed to fresh (if pollen laden) air and sunshine, and made him get a little exercise. So that was a positive. 

And You Thought Your Life Is Hard

When Ol' Br'er was just a little cub, the common expression for having a hard time was, "Has a tough row to hoe." These days, youngsters have the expression "First-World Problems," usually reserved for times when someone is lamenting about some minor inconvenience that is been blown way out of proportion. Both came to Br'er's mind recently as he went down the research rabbit hole.

I have shared before Br'er's obsession with linking infants' Find A Grave memorials to their parents. When he comes across an infant effectively orphaned in the records, he drives himself (further) insane trying to find the parents and link them all together.

So, when someone clued him in on an unmarked infant's grave in an abandoned family cemetery in a wooded rural area, he was off and running. Or hopping. Or scampering. 

The grave is only recorded because the cemetery is named on the infant's death certificate, and someone researching the family found it and created a Find A Grave memorial for the child.

In a quirk, the father was linked. But no mother. At least her name is on the child's death certificate, perhaps she could be found. As it turned out, she could. Just not easily or directly. And the whole story left Ol' Br'er a little stunned, awed, and more than a little depressed.

To roll back to the beginning: The infant was born in January 1936. She lived a mere three months to the day, dying in March from, basically, influenza. Her father followed her to the grave just short of two years later, in November of 1937. That alone was tragic enough.

Pulling together the rest of the family information revealed that she had a younger sister, born in late March 1937. 

But what about the mother? 

Well, it took a bit more sleuthing to find her. She had already married again by 1940, though no marriage record showed in searches. Her new surname only came up because she was living with her parents in 1950. Knowing the name allowed her to be found back in the 1940 Census living with her new husband. That meant that she had to have married him less than two years after the death of her first husband.

At that point, her story came into stark focus. And Ol' Br'er was reminded of having a tough row to how.

This woman was born in 1917. She was married by the time she was 18 years old (maybe 17 years old). And before she was 19, she had given birth to and lost a child. Before she was 21 years old, she had given birth to a second daughter (who survived and lived a long life!) and had been widowed.

Imagine for a moment being a widowed mother of an 8-month-old child in the rural south at the height of the Great Depression. Talk about a tough situation! A person could be forgiven for questioning her motives for marrying her second husband. It would not be unimaginable for someone in her situation to marry simply for some measure of security. Ol' Br'er wants to think it was a marriage of mutual affection rather than convenience. And, considering that it produced several children, it probably was. Or at least it became one over time.

Yes, she definitely had a tough row to hoe. Her life in comparison to most of ours definitely makes our complaints look like first-world problems.

Ol' Br'er is left wondering why she never had her first child's grave marked, even in later years. She was not the first to leave a child's grave unmarked, nor will she be the last. And, if she somehow forgot that child or where it was laid to rest, well, she would not be the first parent to do that either, whether it be due to trauma, time, or failing memory. 

More's the pity. 

The Unicorn Might Have a Name!

Some time back, Ol' Br'er was clued in on a lone headstone that no one had ever recorded or researched before. It was his second Cemetery Unicorn - a cemetery that is not listed on Find A Grave. And anyone who has spent any amount of time researching genealogy, graveyards, and cemeteries can tell you how rare it is to find such a thing.

Much as he tried, Ol' Br'er could not find anything more than what he could read on the headstone: Mr. and Mrs. Knox and Child. He searched the Knox family in the area, but all the names he could find had marked graves elsewhere. It was a real stumper!

Well, the thought of this lone marker haunted Ol' Br'er. He recently dusted off his research hat and restarted his attempts to find the names of this family.

This time the results were . . . mixed.

Initially, he found the same lack of results from his original efforts. The only Knoxes appearing in Census records could be quickly and easily dismissed as not being the correct person. They either appeared in the 1850 Census or later or could be identified as buried elsewhere. Or were too old to have a child in the late 1840s.

It was while he researched one of these dead-ends - one John A P Knox - that a possible, even probable, break came up. John A P Knox died in 1833 (possibly 1832). At least he will was probated in 1833. 

Now, at first, Ol' Br'er thought that the mysterious grave might be that of John A P Knox, his wife, Elizabeth Denham, and their child. Birth years for the couple remain a mystery. But, as they married on 18 July 1816, it is entirely possible that they had a child in the mid-1840s and died shortly thereafter. Neither immediately appeared in later Census records. 

Only that proved to be impossible when John A P Knox's will turned up. The notes on the estate paperwork folder cite that he died in 1833. It also has a notation as a question that one of the heirs at law (that was a new term for Ol' Br'er!), John D Reed, married Knox's widow. Looking forward to the 1850 through 1870 Censuses, there is an Elizabeth/Eliza Reed with a William (A or A P) Reed in the correct county. Further, her birth year calculates out to be about 1800, so all the dates are plausible. Digging more, Eliza Knox married John L Reed (Reid) in 1839. William A P Reed was born in 1841. And, if there needed to be a bow wrapping up this portion of the puzzle, there is a Cornelia Knox living with Eliza and William in the 1870 Census. More on Cornelia later.

Back to John A P Knox's will, there are what appear to be children noted: Frances (Knox) Swift, Ephraim M Knox, and Andrew Knox. Obviously, our mystery family cannot be Frances since she married a man named Swift. That leaves us with two possibilities: Ephraim and Andrew. Another important fact to note is that Andrew is specifically stated to be a minor, that his bequeathment be held until he comes of age. So it is reasonable to speculate that Andrew is younger than 16 or 17. Probably younger than that, say around the age of 10, give or take. So he had to be born somewhere around 1820-1827.

Following the trail for Ephraim rapidly finds that he married Mary Allen in 1841 before moving to Alabama, back to Georgia, then ultimately to Texas, where he died in 1880. Clearly not our mystery Knox man! But! The story his records began to tell pulled Ol' Br'er further down the rabbit hole. 

First off, he and his wife, Mary, had two daughters: Mary L (b 1846) and Cornelia A (b 1854). Yup. The same Cornelia who was living with her paternal grandmother back in Georgia on the 1870 Census. By the 1880 Census, Mary L had married James Constantine. The couple a least five children and were living in Louisiana. And who should be living with them? Why sister Cornelia, of course. 

Cornelia herself married, in her late 20s, Elisha Wimbeck Lacy (now there is a name!). The couple had at least two children. This seems to have curtailed Cornelia's wanderlust as she remained in Louisiana until her death in 1921.

Sadly, Ephraim was made a widower before 1860. Mary died (Br'er could find nothing on where, when, or why). Following his mother's example, Ephraim married a second time. This time in 1865, to Sarah Elizabeth (Fewell) Jacobs, herself the widow of Claiborn Jacobs and mother of his two children James B and Mary A E. Both of these children appear in Ephraim's household on the 1870 Census, so that confirms the relationship.

James B Jacobs revealed a pattern, a mystery, and possibly a scandal! 

Born in 1857, James married Josephine King in 1877, and the two "got busy," as the kids say these days. The couple had at least nine children between 1878 and 1896. Josephine died in 1903. James married again in 1907, this time to Viola.

Viola fascinated Ol' Br'er. She was born in Mississippi in 1857 to O W and Roxy Wiley. She married John Thomas Partin in 1887, with that union producing only one known child, a daughter, Bertie, born in 1889. John Thomas Partin died in 1904. And as we already know, Viola married widower James B Jacobs in 1907. 

However! That may not be Viola's whole story. There is an 1881 marriage record back in Mississippi between Hiram Trevilion and - you guessed it! - Viola Miley! Could it be that Viola married a third time (or first time!) and kept it secret for some reason? Was she widowed? Or worse, divorced? 

So Ol' Br'er started digging for Hiram. Assuming a birth year of 1860± ten years came up with nothing. So Br'er tried with a birth year of 1850± ten years. Only one Hiram Trevilion came up. And Ol' Br'er could not decide if he wanted the story he found to be true or not.

Hiram appears in the 1850 age zero (born less than a year before the census was enumerated), 1860, 1880, and 1900 Census records. Starting with the 1880 Census, he appears with a wife, Alice, and children (Houston, Jennie, and Clara in 1880). According to the 1900 Census, Alice gave birth to four children with three living. And most interestingly, Hiram, a reverend, and Alice have been married for 28 years. This means they were married in 1872. 

1872. Yet there is a marriage record to Viola Wiley dated 1881. A marriage that, based on later records, never happened.

What? The? . . . 

Now, Ol' Br'er cannot say for certain what the true story is. But! A story that fits the available documentation is this. Hiram Trevilion marries a young woman, Alice, in 1872, and the two grow a family over the ensuing years. After nine years of marriage, Hiram has a wandering eye (and a fixed lust) and illegally marries another young woman, Viola Wiley, in 1881. He is a bigamist! The truth comes out, and this second marriage is either annulled or deemed to have never happened. Viola gets shipped out to Texas to be away from the scandal. It is there that she marries John Thomas Partin as "Miss" in 1887.

Was Viola duped? Was Hiram a bigamist? It damned sure looks that way! Lord knows that he would not be the first preacher to commit adultery and bigamy. SCANDAL!

Back to Andrew, though, and the original target of Ol' Br'er's research. There are property tax records for Andrew P Knox in the correct county in 1842, 1844, and 1845. Recalling that Andrew could not receive his inheritance until he "came of age" and using 18 as a nominal age of adulthood, that would make him born about 1824. Possibly later if he inherited sooner. Factoring in that the Knox in question died in 1847 with a wife and child, and the nominal minimum marriage age in most places of 18-21, we again get a birth year in the mid-1820s. And recall that the household of John L Reed/Reid - the second husband of his apparent mother - has an extra male age 15-19 on the 1840 Census not accounted for by a corresponding male in John Reed's household in the 1830 Census. Finally, include the facts that no Andrew Knox appears in the 1850 or later Censuses nor are there property tax records for him after 1845, and a compelling case can be made that Ol' Br'er's unicorn grave is:

• Andrew P Knox, son of John A P Knox and Elizabeth (Denham) Knox
• Andrew was born c. 1824/5
• Andrew married an unknown woman c. 1845/6
• Andrew fathered at least one child (probably only one child)
• Andrew passed away along with his wife and child due to an unknown cause sometime in 1847

Can Ol' Br'er claim he has proven anything? No. At least not to any standard acceptable to serious genealogists.

Is there a snowball's chance in Hell that Br'er's theory can ever be proven? Hell, no!

Is the evidence clear and compelling enough for Ol' Br'er to deem his itch scratched? Oh, yes! 

Re-learning A Lesson

Despite all indications to the contrary, Ol' Br'er ain't dead. At least not yet. It is just that The Universe had other plans for him. Not that that's changed any. But recent experiences goaded him into sharing them.

You never know where something will lead you. Recently Pappa Br'er returned to one of the family mysteries. He recounted how, when he was young, his own father would sometimes go off to "Visit Uncle John." He never accompanied his father on one of these visits. Nor did his father ever give any other details about where he was going and who he was visiting. Grandpa Br'er passed away when Pappa Br'er was in his early 20s (and before ol' Br'er hisself was even born. So any chance of learning more from Grandpa Br'er ended many, many years ago.

Well, the whole "Visiting Uncle John" story arose again recently (as happens with older folk who often repeat stories). This set Br'er off on a hunt - again - trying to identify "Uncle John" - not for the first time. But this effort received more focus than previous attempts.

First thing, Br'er laid out the search parameters. These allow any given potential candidate to be excluded from the list of possibilities if they do not meet any one of them.

• Male
• Has a given name (first or middle) of John, Johnathan, Johnny, Jon, or any variation that could be construed as a John, or has a J initial 
• Alive between 1943 (Pappa Br'er would not recall much before this date) and 1963 (Grandpa Br'er died that year)
• Was a blood relative of, or married a female blood relative of, Grandpa Br'er or Grandma Br'er 
• Was an uncle, great-uncle, etc. of Pappa Br'er (this allows for the possibility that Grandpa Br'er was describing the relationship between Pappa Br'er and John instead of Grandpa Br'er and John)
• Lived within "visiting distance" of Grandpa Br'er (visiting distance being about 100 miles maximum - far less in all reality - from Grandpa Br'er at the time as that would be the absolutely greatest distance he could travel to and from in a single day at the time due to roads and speed limits, and still have time to visit with anyone)

Initially, Br'er included the possibility that what Grandpa Br'er was actually doing was visiting someone's grave. But Pappa Br'er was insistent that this was not the case, that his father was visiting a living relative. So he took that criteria out.

A body might be forgiven for thinking this would be a simple effort. But it wasn't. There are dozens of branches on the tree to research! And more than a couple of Johns!

Died before Pappa Br'er was born? Not the right Uncle John. Lived in another state? Not the right Uncle John.

This was the point when Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS) kicked in. Certainly, anyone can appreciate SOS. It is when a body is focused on finding one thing, but something else comes up and diverts their attention. The next thing they know, they have spent hours off task, looking at the Shiny Object.

Ol' Br'er is as subject to SOS any anyone. Moreso than most.

It seems that one of Grandpa Br'er's aunts - Maude - married a man named John. That would seem to make him the ideal candidate for "Uncle John." Br'er did not have any detail on him in the family tree, so had to do the research. 

Cue the Shiny Object.

It seemed from Census records that John and Maude had moved from Georgia to South Carolina in the 1940s, but that was not something Br'er could confirm right off. He needed more details to be certain. Yet, death certificates and other documentation are not available online. Maude and John were born in the 1880s, so it is entirely possible they were still alive in the 1940s through the 1960s, or later. Finding where they died and were buried would help determine if this could be the Uncle John of the stories or not.

To figure this all out, Br'er extended the tree with this couple and their children and continued looking for any and all documentation for anyone in their family. Piecing this together was clearly going to be a challenge! Try as he did, Br'er could not find any death or burial record for either John or Maude in the usual places, so he sought more information on their children in hopes this would lead to details on their parents.

Looking at the various Census records, he found clear evidence of the couple losing children at a young age. They have a 2-year-old son, Roy D, on the 1910 Census, but Roy does not appear on the 1920 Census. In these years, the family lived in Athens, Georgia. Find A Grave lists a memorial for a Roy Dell born 1908 and died 1913 in a major cemetery in Athens. The grave marker not only notes that Roy is the son of J.W. and M.E., but also give the names and years for two more siblings! James Dillard (1911-1911) and John Clifford (1910-1911). 

The John and Maude Br'er is researching have middle names starting with W and E respectively, so all this seems to fit. 

Further, the couple had a daughter, Alice, born in 1926 (along with a couple more sons). These children appear with the couple on the 1940 Census living in South Carolina.

Damn! This cannot be the Uncle John Br'er is searching for! But SOS has kicked in, and he is fixated on finishing this branch of the tree! You see, he found a death certificate for Alice. She was struck by lightning and killed in 1945. More interesting, she was returned to Georgia and interred in the same cemetery as her three brothers, who all died as children.

This set Br'er to wondering if perhaps John and Maude were returned home to Georgia, too, to rest with their children. There were no records in Find  A Grave for them, but that could be for any number of reasons.

As it happens, many of the original records for the cemetery where Alice and the boys rest are available online. They are not linked through to Ancestry, so they will not show there as hints or be returned in search results. But, as Ol' Br'er has many kinfolks there and has done a good bit of research on the cemetery in the past, he knew about these records and set about checking them.

Knowing the names and death dates for four of the family and using their names to filter the records, Br'er was able to triangulate in and find they are all in the same Section and Plot. This led to the record of the original plot purchase!

John bought the low 6 June 1911. His son, John Clifford, would die a mere 20 days later, on 26 June. 

It does not take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that John Clifford had to be gravely ill by early June 1911. Ill enough that his father purchased a burial plot in anticipation that his son was unlikely to long survive. 

What a heartbreaking time for John and Maude. The year would only grow more tragic for them. Maude, who was almost certainly pregnant when she buried her second-born child in June, would deliver her third child, James Dillard November of that year, only to lose him a month later. 

Two children lost in one year. Then to lose her firstborn, Roy Dell, two years later.

The plot record not only shows John Clifford, James Dillard, and Roy Dell buried in the plot but their sister, Alice, as well as an unnamed infant. That infant, burial 68, dates to March 1914. Four children lost in four years. Then a fifth lost some years later. John and Maude must have thought themselves cursed. 

John and Maude did have two sons and a daughter who survived into their adulthood, and the sons, at least, had children of their own (Br'er cannot find if the daughter had any children). So perhaps some solace came from these surviving children and grandchildren.

The records also show that JW and Mrs. JW were ultimately laid to rest with their children in this family plot. The detailed cemetery burial records (burials 687, 945, and 1111) show that the individuals lived in South Carolina at the time of their passing, so there is no doubt that this is John and Maude.

Br'er took all this documentation and created Find A Grave memorials for the unnamed infant, John, and Maude. And linked all the children's memorials to their parents, so the family is together again in a way.

So, the tale is shared here so perhaps someone, sometime, might read it and be reminded that some things require a different approach to find and prove. Ol' Br'er had to re-learn that lesson. Maybe this will help others learn and re-learn it, too.

Now! Back to finding Uncle John!

Never Tell Me the Odds - H. Solo

Recently Ol' Br'er found hisself (Yes. Hisself. Learn proper southern vernacular!) with the better part of a day to kill out in the hinterlands. Ever prepared, he already had a list of cemeteries worthy of a visit. Not that these were for genealogy research on Br'er's kin themselves. No, just interesting because they are old, perhaps not fully cataloged and recorded, have open Find A Grave photo requests, and such. And none of them looked to be overgrown or hard to access. That is always a welcome bonus!

First up was a revisit to a place Br'er had been to before, Bogart Baptist Church, where lay a few distant kinfolks. This was not family, though. Well, not strictly speaking.

A while back, Br'er told a long saga about going down the rabbit hole researching the family of a woman from whom he indirectly inherited a desk. Recall that that effort also found Br'er researching her husband's family and learning he was one of some 19 children his father sired with two wives. Well, as it turned out, the photo request was for one of that fellow's half-sisters. What are the odds?

More amusing, she had twice married (the second marriage as a widow). Guess she took after her father, eh? Anyhoo, both her husbands are buried in this cemetery, only about 50 or 60 feet from each other. And, seemingly to reinforce the pattern, her second husband also married twice, the second marriage after he became a widower. 

Sadly, there was no marker to photograph. There is an unmarked space next to each of her husbands where she might be interred, but without church records detailing her exact grave site, there is no way to know where she lies.

From there, Br'er hopped over to another family cemetery where one distant cousin and his wife are buried. The odd thing is, Br'er did not readily find a link between his cousin and the two families for whom the cemetery is named. A bit more digging into the wife's line revealed that her mother was from one of the two families whose name the cemetery carries. 

That explained that. Br'er's cousin ended up surrounded by his wife's family. Exactly what the eventual future seems to hold for Ol' Br'er hisself. What are the odds?

The next planned stop was delayed. You see, Br'er took a wrong turn somewhere. But never one to allow an opportunity to go to waste, when he realized that he was passing his great-grandparents' graves AND had recently uncovered a photo of their graves from when they were recently buried, he felt a moral imperative to pause and recreate the photo 82 years later.

The amazing part of that section of this tale is that 1) There was a funeral and burial happening (this being a very small country church), and 2) Br'er did not interject hisself into the proceedings and ask who the deceased was. After all, there is a decent possibility it is a relation of some ilk. Much as he wanted to ask about any cemetery records the church has and the focus of the current proceedings, he managed to exercise just enough self-restraint to not do so.

He also spotted his first blue hearse. 

What are the odds?

Finally, Br'er scampered off to the last destination for the day. This was not a family cemetery nor anything needed for his own genealogy work. No, it was merely one that interested him in general.

The challenge turned out to be finding the damned thing! The GPS location on record in Find A Grave turned out to be at least a tenth of a mile off! This little difference had Ol' Br'er driving slowly and repeatedly in the vicinity. Ordinarily, this would not be an issue at all. 

This was not an ordinary day.

You see, a father was out walking with his two VERY young daughters. And this is a remote road with little traffic on the best of days. And this family lives in the only house for a mile in each direction. So there are two legitimate reasons for a stranger to be there: Visiting the family or visiting the cemetery. 

Clearly, Br'er was not there to visit the family. And they could not know he was looking for the cemetery.

Imagine how sketchy Br'er had to appear to that father! At least no one called the police on him. This time.

Eventually, and after a few false starts, Br'er found the location. In a pleasant surprise, someone is clearly attempting to maintain the site. Yes, some of the stones are fallen and/or damaged, but that is far from unusual when the stones are close to 200 years old and in a small, remote family cemetery in a wooded area. That said, the grass is mown, and brush removed (with the exception of a small area needing attention), leaves raked, and all the things needed to protect the site and keep the cemetery accessible.

Br'er spent a couple of hours wandering about and comparing the graves to the Find A Grave memorials. The last recorded burial with a marker dated from 1984, but there are two more listed in 2015 with no marker Br'er could find in the time he had. 

So, imagine his surprise when Br'er found two marked graves never recorded. One dated 1862, the other 1930. How could these have been missed in all this time?! What at the odds?

The 1862 headstone piqued Ol' Br'er's curiosity because it contained a great deal of data. Specifically, it gave his Confederate unit, stating that he died in Richmond, Va, with his age in years, months, and days. 

Could this be a cenotaph? Dating from 1862? Research is required!

Casting about at the older stones, Br'er spied something he had never before encountered.

This was the first time Ol' Br'er had seen headstones with iron hooks jutting through the stone. The only explanation he could imagine is that these were designed to hold a wreath left by someone visiting the grave. It is an interesting idea and one perhaps worthy of consideration (well, an updated version) when Br'er designs his own marker one day.

Alas, Br'er had to leave a good portion (Mostly the area still overgrown with briars. He may have been born and bred in the briar patch, but Br'er has no fond memories of those days and is not eager to relive them) unexplored. But he was due elsewhere, so had to leave.

Returning to the home warren, Br'er set out to find what he could about the life, family, and death of the soldier whose stone stated he died in Richmond, Va. This proved both frustrating and fruitful.

To explain.

Precious little documentation has survived. He appeared on the 1850 and 1860 Census by name. That confirmed his parents, both of whom are in the same cemetery, though not linked to him in Find A Grave. (NB: That update and others have been submitted to the memorial manager.) And his enlistment in a Georgia regiment. And sadly, his death at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond. His fate was shared with one of Br'er's ancestors.

A side note on Br'er's ancestor at Chimborazo; Mamma Br'er succeeded in getting his grave marked by the VA. But, there was some miscommunication, so his marker has his rank as Colonel instead of Corporal. That is one helluva posthumous promotion! Too bad there wasn't any back pay to go with it. Then again, it would be Confederate money, so worthless except to collectors.

Back to the subject at hand. Nothing in the surviving documentation records his being buried in Virginia. There are extensive Chimborazo death and burial records. There is even an entry for this individual's exact name. But that individual was born in New York and served in a Virginia Regiment. Clearly, not this person. Shipping remains home for burial was just beginning to be 'a thing' at that time, made possible by the concurrent rise of embalming in the country. There were even special coffins at the time that allowed the remains to be packed in ice for shipment home. So, while Richmond was a great distance from this cemetery, and the nearest railroad stop was miles away over rough dirt roads, it is entirely possible he was shipped home for burial. Barring any documentation to the contrary, Br'er believes this is an actual grave, not a cenotaph. 

Br'er, having a vivid imagination, pictured a grieving father driving the farm wagon, making the long, slow trek to the railroad depot along dusty roads of baked Georgia Red Clay, retrieving his son's coffin, then making the same long, slow trek back to the family farm in the sweltering summer heat and humidity. He saw the family gathered for the funeral. And he wondered. He wondered if the father and/or brothers dug the grave themselves or was that duty assigned to slaves. He wondered if the body was, indeed, embalmed. And he wondered if the family chose to view the body. At least one person probably did, if only to ensure the correct remains had been sent back.

How many hundreds of thousands of parents had to endure that ordeal in the centuries since the Revolution? 

Yes, Ol' Br'er can be rather maudlin sometimes.

Never able to leave well enough alone, Br'er kept digging and building out a family tree for him. Siblings, parents, and grandparents, all had to be identified. Br'er noticed that one of his sisters married a man with a surname he recognized from some distant kin in-laws. Hmmm. More digging!

It turned out that this sister was the second wife. Would you believe it? His first wife was one of Br'er's kinfolk! And! His father's middle name is an alternate spelling of Br'er's family surname! More digging!

Yup. Not only is the man's first wife Br'er's kin, but he is too! What are the odds?