Skipping Page Two

     Thanks Lewis, for living to an elderly age.  Not that you didn't accomplish a whole lot in your life, but I appreciate that you lived long enough to be enumerated on the 1840 census.  You provided me with an ancestor that utilized the "Revolutionary War Pension" and exact "age" column.   Of course, if I'd skipped page two, I never would have seen that little fact anyway.

     There's so much information that can be found on the 2nd page of many documents.  Unfortunately it's often not clear that there is a page two.

     You do your search and come up with a document.  You get your information, download a copy, attach it to your tree, etc, and move on.  But in reality, there was a gold mine of information on the second page that you missed.  Such as the fact that Lewis Stowers wasn't just age "70 and under 80;" he was 76.  And by the way, he has a Revolutionary War Pension that you need to go looking for.

     Here's a short list of documents that you should always flip to the next page on - and sometimes keep flipping.

• 1840 & 1830 Federal Census Records
• Census Non-Population Schedules
• Military Service Records
• Military Pension Records
• WWII Draft Cards
• Veterans Headstone Applications
• Ship Passenger Records
• Naturalization Records
• Estates & Deeds

     In general, it's always a good idea to check the page before and after the record that you've found. Even if the information doesn't pertain to your ancestor, you might find family, acquaintances or neighbors (FAN) that can help you.

     It can also help to learn more about the record collection that you're looking at.  Both Ancestry and FamilySearch will have a link to "more about this collection."  This will sometimes include a list of the enumerated information or questions asked, or even a blank form that is more legible than the actual document.  If you know what information should be there, you'll know to keep looking if you don't see it right away.

     So remember to check the 2nd page and just maybe you'll learn someone's exact age from the 1840 census too.

  

Who Were Mary Harris' Parents?

     Mary Harris married John Miller. The couple lived in Edgefield County, South Carolina and can be found there in the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses. I know Mary's maiden name from the death certificates of two of her daughters, Alice and Silvestra. I found a record for a marriage between John Miller and Mary Harris in Edgefield County, SC on 9 Oct 1845 in an index on Ancestry.com.

     And that it, that's all I can find on Mary Harris Miller. I haven't been able to find a death date, which also means that I haven't found an obituary or headstone. I haven't been able to find any records that would tell me who her parents were. And that's not good, because the Harris family is the line that I'm closest to matching with on a FamilyFinder DNA match. Both myself and the other researcher have Harris families in Edgefield County, SC during the mid 1800s. So I really wanted to find Mary's parents.

     Part of the problem is that Mary never appears in a census with her parents. There wasn't an easy answer. I decided to start with the 1840 census and look for Mary. Of course, Mary would not be recorded by name, but rather by a tick mark. Hoping that the family had not moved, I pulled up all the Harris families in Edgefield County, SC in 1840. There were 20 results. I then narrowed down the results by seeing which families had appropriately aged females in the household, which left me with three options: David, Joshua and Wesley Harris.  So which of these men, if any, was Mary's father?

     Knowing that Mary was living with her husband by 1850, my mom suggested looking at the 1850 census for each man and seeing if the female child was still living with them. Wesley was nowhere to be found, but this step eliminated David from the running. But what about Joshua?

     Looking at Joshua Harris' 1850 census, everything seemed to click. The children and their ages matched up, allowing that some of the girls had married and left home. But the kicker? Looking at a list of Mary's children compared to Joshua's family. Can you see it?

Joshua Harris, 1850	Mary Miller, 1860

     Mary named her first child Joshua and named one of her daughters Sylvesta. It would be very likely that she named her children for her father/brother and sister. 


     I started searching for Joshua Harris online and quickly came across a family tree that stated that he had a daughter named Mary who married a John Miller. This tree stated that Joshua was the son of George Harris, who also had a son named Craven Harris. Tada! My DNA connection on this family line has traced their family back to a Craven Harris. If this information is true, I've just made my first genealogy connection via DNA.


     Unfortunately, further searching turned up multiple variations of this family. There seem to be three versions that have been copied and pasted into about 50 different trees. None of them match my information. So, anyone still reading this: Do you think my research looks sound so far? Can you see any errors? 


     I'll continue to research Joshua and Mary and hope to find proof of the connection. I hope that this turns out to be correct and that I've made my first DNA genealogy connection.