Month: June 2016

And that’s why I talk to dead people…

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Yesterday, I was contacted via my Ancestry account by someone who believed we were related because of her DNA results. I have to admit, I was ecstatic. This was the first time someone had reached out to me. I forgot everything I had planned on doing or was supposed to be working on and got right down to business. I wanted to give this lady all the information I could- in the hopes that I would also be gaining a new branch on my tree.I even skipped breakfast!!! Okay, I might have been a bit overly eager and a little to willing to please, but it was a BSO and I had to chase it. I had to.

Anyway, after I had gathered the requested information and composed it in a nice and tidy Ancestry message, along with some well placed questions of my own, I sat back and began to look for this lady and her tree to try and get a head start on the awesomeness I was sure she would be providing me. I quickly became irritated because she did NOT have a tree! After searching Ancestry repeatedly and coming up with nothing- not even that pesky message displayed when people have private trees. (I subsequently learned that members with private trees now have the option to keep their tree entirely hidden- boo,hiss,boo- but that did nothing to quell my agitation.)

I expected that this lady would respond to my return message almost immediately, just like I did with her. Yeah, that didn’t really happen either. So, now I was really annoyed. Of course I had to get consolation from one of the genie groups I belong to on Facebook; which of course kept me engaged and further distracted from whatever it was I was supposed to be doing…

Finally, my ‘diligent’ waiting was rewarded with a response of sorts… Whoever said “good things come to those who wait” has obviously never been a genealogist. When I was finally able to decipher this seemingly encrypted message, I had a not so excellent taste in my mouth. Admittedly, I have not taken the DNA test, so I am completely naive to how it works. All I knew was this lady’s DNA results told her she was related to this person in my tree. Here is where I began to feel not so confident in what she was telling me. First, the connection in question is LONG dead. Like she was born in the mid 1800s, so to my ignorant to DNA self, I want to know how you are coming up with this supposed link.

More waiting for another response.

This one was a bit easier to decode. She began to tell me information about the people in her tree, whom she believed to be the same people in my tree. Her Lucinda was born in the early 1800’s (around the same time my Lucinda’s mother was born)… She was also a slave in Tennessee, on the plantation of someone having the same sir name as Lucinda… It was clear to me that they were not the same people, as my Lucinda and her family came from Maryland and to date, have not been found to have been a slave. The only thing this lady had going for her, was the name Lucinda and her father and brother’s name and of course the sir name…

But, she as still trying to convince me that we are some how, some way connected because DNA said so. She finally admitted that she had found me through a cousin’s tree and that was why she had contacted me and that those names and apparently generation is where the DNA said there should be a match.

I couldn’t tell her that my cousin was adopted and that quite possibly there was a match with him because of that, because that of course is not my place to discuss…

You may be wondering why I titled this entry the way I did, as I have done nothing but talk about a conversation with a living, breathing person. Well, you see, my tree is public. Anyone can view it. Anyone can see all of my dead and gone. Even as I am in the midst of separating my father’s side from my mother’s side into two separate trees, it is still public. And ALL OF THE INFORMATION I gave to her, she could have gotten herself. There was no need to contact me and throw me this bone that I spent the better part of the day chasing. (Okay, I could have done other things whilst awaiting her replies, but seriously, can you walk away that easily from your tree opened in front of you, with the possibility of new information coming to you? Yeah, I think not. So, don’t judge me.) I wasted my whole day chasing this BSO… and it turned out to be fool’s gold.

At least when the dead people talk to me, they lead me to an interesting something or another- even if I have to go around the mulberry bush three times, through the woods and to the bottom of the sea to find it.

In the future, I hope people will contact me again. After all, that is why my tree is public. Let’s just agree to not force the square beg into this triangle piece- okay?

Thanks for reading this entry! I would love to hear about the first time you were contacted by someone claiming to be connected to you. How was that experience for you? Or have you ever willingly allowed yourself to be distracted with your genealogy work and it turned out to be a bust? Tell me about it in the comments. And as always, don’t forget to like and share!

 

Come Out, come out wherever you are!

Posted on by dvn ms kmz time travel

Jackson Harbert JrWe have all shouted those words at some point. They usually come when you are playing a rousing game of hide and seek and you are ‘it’ and you have given up your search of hiders… Or maybe, you’ve said them as a parent looking for your all to quiet children. I can recall saying these words in both situations. However. I never thought I would be saying them to a dead soldier.

That’s right. After weeks and weeks (sixteen, to be exact) of life keeping me to busy to talk with the dead or hear them when they were speaking or even check in on them and see how they were doing, I found myself uttering these words to a not so long dead relative….

His name is Jackson Harbert, Jr. Born 23 January 1914. Died 29 December 1989.

But before I get into this any further, I guess you need some back story information, right? Well, listen up kiddos because here it is. When I was twelve and many moons before I would become addicted to this drug called ‘genealogy’, a.k.a ‘family history’, my dad died. In 2005 and still before the moon would rise on my addiction, his father (my grandfather) died. And finally, a mere four months before my ‘awakening’ his ONLY sister would join them. His mother- my grandmother, still enjoys life on this side, however she has absolutely no interest in aiding and abetting me in this endeavor and I am told there may be two aunts (one from each side of his family) still walking and talking among us. But I have never met them and they wouldn’t know me if we stood right next to each other in the street. The point is, researching anything on my dad’s side of the family is hard on normal days and virtually impossible on nearly every other day.

So, last week, I finally managed to grab a few minutes and someone in my dad’s line had started whispering to me. And so it began. I started looking over the Johnson tree and its all to few branches. After some minutes or maybe even sixty of them passed, it finally jumped off the page and into my lap. Jackson Harbert, my 2x great-uncle, was a SENIOR. That means he had to have a son! By this time, the faint whispers had become a bit more audible and even more pressing. I was being encouraged to keep looking and to not stop. So, of course, I kept at it. I did finally find my 1st cousin, 2x removed in a Find A Grave record.

That was the ONLY thing I found. But, I learned a lot… For example, He was a WWII veteran. He died in 1989 and he was buried in Charlottesville, Virginia.Now, this is about the time my cousin decided to hide and when I started whispering, “come out, come out wherever you are”.

When I first sat down to take my few precious moments to do some investigating, it was approximately 9:3-pm. A quick glance at the clock told me it was going on 4am. My cousin was still playing this ridiculous game of hide and seek. By now, I was half begging and half screaming those infamous words, “come out, come out wherever you are”. He did not come out and I had to face a full day without any sleep and without the satisfaction of finding the hider…

I thought I had struck gold when one of my friends and non-genealogy enthusiast actually VOLUNTEERED to go to the cemetery and do some sleuthing for me. She agreed to go to the office and ‘badger’ them for the requested information. I just knew I was going to end the day victor of this hide and seek game… Do I even need to tell you that that’s not what happened? Must I tell you that there was no office or office person or anything/anyone of which answers could be extracted from?

My cousin, who had started this game, was mocking me. And he continued to taunt me, whispering in the dark of night, “come and find me. If you can.” I really wanted to wring his neck. I eventually took my frustrations to Facebook, where wonder of wonders, I was thrown a bone. Someone found his wife. I’m not sure how and wasn’t given a clear answer when I asked, so I was very leery of the information I had been given… A quick run to Ancestry proved fruitless, which is unsurprising, because according to this new ‘source’, she is quite possibly NOT pushing up daisies. I was even given a possible address to contact her. As of right now, I haven’t taken the plunge to contact  But her… But, I will.

It would be great if I could say this is where this thrilling game of hide and seek came to an end, but no. It appears that Jackson Harbert, Jr. has invited someone else to play… Carrie Oliphant has decided to play. I have no idea who Carrie is or how she fits into this tree or if she even is a part of this tree- all I know, is that she died and Jackson was the executive of her estate. (January 17, 1943. Waxahachie Daily Light from Waxahachie, Texas · Page 4)

So, here I go again… come out, come out wherever you are…

 

Big thanks to my Genealogy Chit Chat Family and all of my ‘sources’ within the group. And an especially big thank you to Sj- a super detective. Thank you to all of you who will read this and jump right in to help me solve this mystery- let me know if you need more info 🙂