A Hunting I Will Go

Thompson's Civil War unit

There is one ancestor that is hiding so far behind a brick wall that the brick wall has a wall. Thompson Hightower is my three times great-grandfather on my dad's side of family tree. I have created a solid, documented trail from myself to him, but his ancestry remains elusive. There are numerous family trees on ancestry.com that indicate his father is George Hightower, Jr. and his mother, Frances Ann Hall. The problem is that none of the trees has one piece of evidence to back up that connection. I can place both Thompson and George in Cambell County Kentucky at the same time, but that is it. George's family is extremely well-documented back to the early 1700s in Virginia. If I can ever prove the relationship between Thompson and George, I will have quite a robust tree. Not to mention the ability to become a member of the DAR as well as numerous other prestigious associations.

The problem is that Thompson had the audacity to be born around 1815, long before Kentucky kept birth records. He compounded the problem by dying in 1866 before death records were recorded in Kentucky. He was of age when he married in 1838, so no parent's names are listed on the marriage license, and he left no will. George also died intestate, and research in Adams County, Ilinois where he died offered no clues regarding his children.

A week at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, despite the assistance of the highly qualified staff there, yielded no new information on Thompson. So my Hail Mary is a trip to Alexandria, Kentucky this week. When Thompson was born the area was all Campbell County, so records before 1840 are in the courthouse in Alexandria. Or they might be in a second county seat in Newport. In 1840 the area where Thompson lived became Kenton County, so records after that date are located in the courthouse in Covington. Or are they in a second county seat in Independence? It is all very confusing, and I have my work cut out for me.

My game plan is to first start at the Campbell County Historical and Genealogical Society, conveniently located in the old courthouse in Alexandria. They have limited hours, so I need to be there when they open at 10:00 on Thursday. In addition to looking at their collection, I feel like they will be able to direct me on what records are held at the various courthouses so I'm not wasting time at the wrong place.

Thursday and Friday I'll do research in the area, and will be staying at an AirBNB in Melbourne, Kentucky. I'll need to take a selfie with the sign since I was just in Melbourne, Australia in May. The cottage where I am staying is located on 20 acres. Apparently mountain lions have been spotted on the property! Maybe I can get a picture of one without being eaten.

Betty, Margie & me

Friday afternoon I will head north to Cincinnati to spend the weekend with my cousins. My mom's sister turns 95 on Friday, and she doesn't know that I am coming over. I'll also see her sister, who turned 90 last month. I can't wait to see them - they're the best! The picture on the left is of the three of us two years ago. I always have a great time in the city where I was born, and hopefully I'll have a genealogy find to celebrate in addition to a milestone birthday.

Finding New Leaves on the Family Tree

Things have really been moving on my genealogy trip to Germany this fall. Family Tree Tour reps Kathy and Matthias have found people in both Germany and Switzerland who are willing to do some research on my family and also meet with me when I arrive. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the volunteer in Insheim is looking for my Metz family records. He will also accompany me to Steinweiler where my fourth great-grandmother was from, though she married my fourth great-grandfather Andreas Mez in Insheim in 1777. The volunteer sent an email with a document about this couple, which lists 10 additional children that my cousins and I did not know about! It was in German, so I ran it through a translating program in Gmail. I got a chuckle out of the fact that the program translated Apolonia Schwein to Apolonia Pig. Somehow, I don't think she would have appreciated that!

Meanwhile down in Switzerland, volunteer Rolf has been a busy bee! He has taken photos of over 400 documents to share with me. Wow! But perhaps even more exciting is the fact that he has contacted 25 members of the Kubler family in the area, and they want to have a family meeting with me. This is so above and beyond anything I could have imagined! We are still working out the logistics, but I believe I will leave my tour group in Boppard, Germany and take a train to Busserach on a Thursday. I have no concept of how long that will take by train, but it looks like it is about four hours by car. Then on Friday Rolf and I will go to the research center together and look at records, and Saturday will be the family gathering where we will talk about what we have found. At this point I am not sure if I will take the train to Speyer, Germany to meet up with my group on Saturday night, or if I can stay until Sunday. Currently I am scheduled to go to Insheim on Sunday to meet with the volunteer there, but Matthias is checking to see if we could do it on Monday instead.

Near Busserach is an inn called Gastof zum Kreuz where I hope to stay. My ancestor in 1854 sold his house and his land to finance his voyage to the United States. He left Switzerland after February 1854 with four children. We are uncertain at this time what happened to his wife. But how amazing would it be to stay at an inn that is part of my ancestor's history?

Yesterday I attended a workshop on writing your family history. While I have written other books, writing about family is another animal altogether. Trying to take dry statistics and turn them into something others will want to read is a challenge indeed. But I have a feeling that after my trip this September I will be able to find a way to make two of the branches come to life.

John J. Murdock Update

Civil War reenactment

As mentioned in the previous post, my neighbor volunteered to look up John Murdock on the Fold 3 website. After a careful search by her, she located an Amnesty Oath for John Murdock in the state of Mississippi dated 6 September 1865. I know from city directories that my John Murdock (and he is mine now) was in St. Louis at that time period, so that is not him. She also found a John T. Murdock in the county of Platt (sic), Missouri on a document which states that he was 61 years old when it was signed in 1864. That means he was born in 1803, and my John wasn't born until 1814. A third and final paper was found on a D.H. Murdock who was a First Lieutenant in Charleston, South Carolina so he is not the correct Murdock either.

Armed with this new information, I am confident that my John Murdock did not serve in the Civil War. At this point I can cross military research off my list and focus on other resources to learn about the man and the land that formed Shrewsbury, Missouri.

New Ezine Article Published

My latest article "Deeds-Using Deeds to Research Your House History" has been published by Ezine articles. Go to http://ezinearticles.com/?Deeds---Using-Deeds-to-Research-Your-
House-History&id=1359432 to view it. Being named an "Expert Author" by Ezine was really exciting for me, and I want to keep up with new submissions to the site.