Genealogy and Family History Blog

Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

New marriage record mug design

Sometime before Christmas, my cousin asked me to add her grandparent’s (my great aunt and uncle) marriage record to a mug. I hadn’t had one designed for a record like this, so I took it up as a challenge! The result is now in my shop for anybody to order.

These mugs are a bit more unique than the census mugs, as not every marriage record is the same, so because of that, I’ve come up with a couple of different layout options that depend on the dimensions of the original record.

Using my grandparent’s license, I created a side-by-side layout that uses the mug's entire width. This layout would suit US records where they appear on ledger style books often bound in portrait orientation.

I wanted to accommodate UK style registers, so I’ve finally opened my shop for UK shipping. UK registers are usually bound in a landscape orientation and appear longer than they are taller. In this case, I’ve come up with another layout where the records fit comfortably across the mug's width.

Obviously, this is not an exclusive sample. Marriage records come in all shapes and sizes, so as with my census mugs, I will always send over a proof of the design before sending off to printing to be sure you’re happy the design and layout.

The mugs come in two different sizes, and I’ve also introduced a few different colour options.

If you’re interested in these mug designs, you will have to provide me with the marriage record, but if you’re unsure how to find it yourself, I offer an additional search service to help you. If you have a record you will need to provide me with a high-resolution scan, no less than 300 dpi and preferably black and white or greyscale. Or if you have a link to a record with an image from either Ancestry, FindMyPast, or FamilySearch, you can send me that. Please note that the image may not be available depending on the database, or you may have actually found an index record rather than a record with a full image. If you’re not sure what you’ve found, please get in touch, and I’ll let you know if it is suitable or if more research is needed.

If you have any other ideas for records or products you’d like to see, please get in touch! I have several different ideas in the backlog for my shop, but I was more than happy to accommodate my cousin on this mug design. I had a lot of fun doing it too!

Customized Marriage Record Mug
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Customized Marriage Record Mug
from $19.00

Prices are indicated if you supply me the marriage record. If you do not have a record and would like me to search for one, please order a record search before ordering a mug.

Mugs ship from the US or the UK. Please allow an additional week for design and fulfilment.

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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

Simple record searching

One of the more popular requests I’ve had from clients in the past is to search for individual records. Usually, it’s something like a birth record or an immigration record. Typically I start with the online databases, but then I branch out into other resources when I am not able to locate things online.

 
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These types of services can be challenging to cost up, especially for US resources, where there isn’t one place to go for birth, marriage, or death records that aren’t online. That’s why I decided to add a new service to my website that covers the cost of searching for the record itself. This includes the record if it is available online, or a report with next steps if the record might be available elsewhere. I’ve also made it so you can purchase this service directly from my site.

One benefit of hiring a genealogist, even when searching for online records, is that we subscribe to all of the things, so you don’t have to. A couple of months ago, for example, I managed to find that some of my husband’s family had parish records online on FindMyPast, they also had electoral rolls that Ancestry didn’t seem to have for that area.

Another benefit is I don’t just stop at online resources; I do the extra legwork to determine if the record is even available at all or find the best cost on getting the record. I do find it frustrating when one department or agency is charging ridiculous fees for a record when I’ve also discovered that a local or state archives also has the same record for no cost. While it’s not possible to visit archives in the US myself (though I have some flexibility to in the UK, travel restrictions aside), I have actually hired local genealogists to retrieve records for me at a cost cheaper than if I had ordered the same record through a vital records office in the same state.

Unfortunately, not everything is available at all, which is something I know all too well with my Kentucky ancestors. Kentucky is one of those states that both started and stopped registering individuals, and even when it was required, not all counties complied. Of course, it can make your research more difficult. Still, it is beneficial to understand the ins and outs of birth, marriage, or death registration of a particular area of research, which is why I always dig into when these registration dates start and stop, and what other sources might be available where a specific individual record is not. The search fee is non-refundable in these instances, but it’s also why I wanted to keep this low cost to you.

If you’re interested in locating a record for a family member, or if you’re curious why you can’t find something, this service could be a great place to start.

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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

Personalized 1940 US Census Mug, launching my gift shop!

I’m really excited to launch my new genealogy gift shop, starting with my first product, my personalized 1940 US Census Mug. There’s only one product to start but more to come over time.

I started this little side project over the last year. My main business is as a UX Design contractor, it’s a great job, and I get to work with design teams on all sorts of different projects, but it also gives me the flexibility to learn and improve my skills, mostly as a designer. This last year has also given me some time to be more creative and apply those skills to my side businesses and hobbies. I thought that this was a great opportunity to combine the two things I love to do, family history research and design!

Why the 1940 US Census?

The 1940 US Census is the latest census record we have access to at the moment. If you’re starting in family history research, it’s one of the first documents you’ll discover that will begin to open up more avenues for research on your family tree. Depending on your age, you may find your parents, grandparents, and almost certainly your great grandparents in these records. Only one set of my grandparents were born in the US. Still, both my grandmother and grandfather on my father’s side are represented in this census, and both were born just before 1940, they are also the youngest in their respective families so I can get the full picture of their families at the time, from parents down to all of their siblings! Another benefit of the 1940 US Census is that it is the only census that asks where the family were residing five years prior (1935), so if your family moved during the decade between 1930 and 1940, you could use this migration as a starting point for your search of the 1930 Census. You also get the birth states (or countries) of the family members, which is useful for tracking your great-grandparents back even further.

How do you locate the 1940 US Census?

The best place to start is with an Ancestry search, and the good news is the 1940 Census recordset is free on Ancestry (at the time of writing), so you don’t need a paid account to view these images. You will still need a free Ancestry account though.

The quickest way to get the record is to enter the details that you may know about your ancestor born before 1940. In the example shown here I know my grandfather was born and lived in Toledo, so I entered his name in first and last name box with and in the Any Event box I entered 1940 with Toledo, Lucas, Ohio as the keywords.

Searching the US Federal Census Collection on Ancestry.

Searching the US Federal Census Collection on Ancestry.

Of course, I can add in more detail like date of birth or name of any additional relatives, but I like to start broad with my search strategies and modify them as I need to. In this case, I already know that my grandfather was born in Toledo in 1934, so this is a good start. Using the Any Event field and entering 1940 will prioritize me the 1940 census years in my results of this collection.

Ancestry brings up my grandfather as the first result.

Ancestry brings up my grandfather as the first result.

I got my intended results here with my grandfather at the top, so no need to adjust my search. Also, I can see my great-uncle and great-grandfather from the same family in these results (due to their middle initial, ‘H’, it looks like). We then get into the more unrelated results after this. I can also go straight to the image, which is what we’re looking for.

Just a note, you can search up to this point without having an Ancestry account, but to view or download the image you will need to create or sign in to your account from here.

After logging into your Ancestry account you are able to view or download the full census image.

After logging into your Ancestry account you are able to view or download the full census image.

From here you can view your record which will include the entire household plus their neighbors. You can also flip to other pages in the census, or access the tools to download the image for your records. Top tip, when using census records it is always good practice to look at the full record and the neighbors because you never know if you’ll find other family members living close by!

If you’re using the record for your census mug, you can send me the link to this page or record with the family name, and I can get the record to edit from here.

Of course, you don’t have to use Ancestry for this search, or even to start your family tree. Once you get past a few recordsets, you will need to start paying for an Ancestry account to view images. FamilySearch, however, lets you view and download most things for free, including census records (some records might require physical access to a Family History Center to view, but they are still free). The biggest difference between FamilySearch and Ancestry though is that FamilySearch trees are completely collaborative, so anybody can add to your family tree (think of it like one massive family tree that anybody can add to or edit with source documentation). This sort of collaboration can be a blessing and a curse. My standard practice is to use both sites, but if you want the ability to search records for free, I recommend FamilySearch, and if you want to have more control over your family trees, I recommend Ancestry.

What about these mugs?

I use the original census image to design the mug to highlight the family or household you would like to feature. I personalize each record by hand by clearing up some of the dust, scratches, or smudges that appear, without changing or editing the original document details. I then ensure that as much of the important details feature on the mug as I can. Each record is different, so each mug will be different! I have chosen a high-quality printer that can ship directly to you, but before I put any final details to print, I will make sure you see a mockup version, so you know what you’re getting.

The mugs come in two sizes, 11 oz, or 15 oz, and they are microwave and dishwasher safe.

To start, I’m only shipping to the US, but I hope to add a UK specific mug and supplier soon! If you have any ideas of things you would like designed or printed, feel free to contact me through my site to see what I can do for you.

Customized 1940 US Census Mug
from $19.00

Mugs ship from the US. Please allow an additional week for design and fulfilment.

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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

Working around a paywall, an example with military records

If you’re familiar with Ancestry’s suite of products in the United States, you might be aware that most of their military records are locked away behind a website called fold3. We can get useful documents like draft registration cards in our Ancestry searches and hints. Still, some of the more specific military records are often indexed or shown exclusively on this additional paid site. Well, that is what I thought anyway, it turns out there are some records you can still get from Ancestry if you know to look for them there!

A bit of disclosure here, I do pay for my Ancestry membership, so if you don’t pay for Ancestry, you’ll struggle to see most images on their site. I don’t have a lot of fascinating military history in my family, that I’m aware of, so I never saw much use for a fold3 account, previously. This is also not a discouragement to pay for additional sites like fold3 where it would be helpful to you. I do pay the extra amount for Newspapers.com, another of Ancestry’s products because it is the most comprehensive access I have to newspapers in the US and I use it frequently. Though not being somebody that does do a lot of military searches, when I discovered this little workaround, specifically for World War I transport records from my great-grandfather, I was pretty excited. 

My great-grandfather was drafted into World War I, and for the longest time, I had another record for him from a source of Ohio Soldiers in WWI. I never really dug into his military history until recently, so this source just sort of sat on my tree. 

 
Entry for Henry Blanton from Ohio Soldiers in WWI, 1917-1918 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005).

Entry for Henry Blanton from Ohio Soldiers in WWI, 1917-1918 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005).

 

I did do a little browse on fold3 for his name, I had never used the site before, but I do find their interface for browsing really good, and it’s nice to see that I can access this without paying for full access. I started by typing in his name, I selected World War I from the left side. Right away I can tell there’s little relevance to the Henry Blanton that I’m searching for. Also, draft registration cards are already available to me on Ancestry, but I was almost immediately drawn to the place options on the side of the screen.

Searching for entries on Henry Blanton for World War I, fold3.com

Searching for entries on Henry Blanton for World War I, fold3.com

If I selected ‘See All’, I could see more of the options on the screen and drill down to them, which I found useful. I clicked on that and of course ‘Toledo, OH’ immediately stood out to me, and it only had three records here.  

 
Filter by place, fold3.com

Filter by place, fold3.com

 

I clicked on that to see the three results, and bingo, this is the correct Henry Blanton. One was his draft registration card, which I already had, but I could see there were two army transport records available, which I didn’t have.  

Searching for Henry Blanton in World War I by place, Toledo, Ohio, fold3.com 

Searching for Henry Blanton in World War I by place, Toledo, Ohio, fold3.com

Just a note about this search technique, it’s not exactly foolproof, and I think I did get a bit lucky because Henry’s next of kin was his brother, George, who was living in Toledo on both of his journeys. However, when I looked into George’s records, his transport would have come up under Louisville, where his sister was listed as next of kin. But what digging around in a different database did get me was a bit more evidence that I hadn’t found by just using Ancestry searches alone.

At this point, I have evidence that more records might be available, but I’m stuck to view them unless I sign up and pay for fold3. But then I got thinking, so many of these databases now (and most of them I do pay for), have an overlap of records, maybe I’m able to view the images elsewhere instead. I did a little Google search for the image set, and behold, Ancestry already has them!

 
Searching for the US Army Transport Service Passenger Lists in Google verified that Ancestry also had these images.

Searching for the US Army Transport Service Passenger Lists in Google verified that Ancestry also had these images.

 

I have to say they’re being a little cheeky here with some of their databases, only allowing some of them to be indexed with easy search tools, but the ones they want you to pay more to access they make you work to find on their own main website. But this is the business model I’ve grown accustomed to with Ancestry.


I went at the search knowing he probably had two records in this database, so bearing that in mind, I think this is also an excellent example of how to not stop at one technique, because my initial search actually only brought up one of those records. I thought the quickest way to locate it would be to use his service number, which I had on his Ohio Soldiers entry, so I got that number and then marked it down into the search box for service number (easy peasy). 

 
paywall_006.jpeg

Searching the US Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists by service number

Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

Ok, one record came up, but why not two? Also, one of these is clearly my great-grandfather, one of these is clearly not.

 
Results from searching by service number brings up one correct record and one incorrect one, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

Results from searching by service number brings up one correct record and one incorrect one, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

 

I decided next to go with a similar search strategy to my fold3 one to find the second record, which was his name and include the keyword ‘Toledo’. I could now see that this was coming up because his brother in Toledo was listed as next of kin. 

 
Searching by name, Henry Blanton, and keyword, Toledo, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

Searching by name, Henry Blanton, and keyword, Toledo, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

 

I got the result I needed this time, and from here, I could easily see why his service number was not coming up on the previous search.

 
Locating his incoming transport record revealed that his service number was literally transcribed with commas, preventing it from showing in my previous search, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

Locating his incoming transport record revealed that his service number was literally transcribed with commas, preventing it from showing in my previous search, Ancestry.com, U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.

 

The actual record on his return journey has the service numbers listed with commas separating the parts of it. The person who indexed this record did an exact transcription, so typing in this number on its own resulted in this one being excluded from my search with only the service number. It’s always good practice to document your searches so you can recreate them again at a later date.

I could have typed in his name and eventually found him in the list, with a less common name like his that does work fine, but keywords can help you narrow down if you know how to use them. Also, while my great-grandfather went by Henry, his full name was William Henry. If your ancestor has nicknames or name variations, a name search alone might bring up unexpected results.

The discovery of his transport records, especially his outgoing one, unlocked a few more findings of my great-grandfather’s travel to France. The most exciting was a discovery that the George Washington, the transport ship that took him to France, had its own daily newsletter. I was able to locate every issue of that newsletter from my great-grandfather’s journey and read the same words he was reading on board the ship over 100 years ago. Sometimes it is worth digging a little deeper!


My suggestion though is if you think there’s a source locked behind a paywall, try searching another site you might have access to, or doing a Google search on the title to see if it’s been scanned at an archive or library and available for free online. A lot of records are freely available on FamilySearch, for example, so even if your preference for family trees is Ancestry like mine is, you may find you can view the images of those same records using a free FamilySearch account. I wouldn’t go as far as posting those images back on Ancestry, I’m not aware of them actively discouraging people from posting them back to your trees, but I expect they could do to protect the access rights they give you to those same images. Also, I find that they clutter up my searches to see a lot of these popping up from other users in my search results. If you’re using them for your own research, you’re better off organising them locally so you can refer to them later.

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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

The complexities of DNA ethnicity estimations

Why is it that ethnicity results can vary between different DNA testing companies?

Every month there’s been a helpful column in Family Tree magazine about using DNA to help discover more about your Ancestors. This month’s DNA Workshop has a great case study explaining how the various testing companies calculate ethnicity differently. I have thought that it is unfortunate that the DNA test’s most significant selling point is ethnicity because there are a variety of reasons why they could be inaccurate or vary from company to company. A company’s ethnicity result is only going to be as accurate as their panels. Ancestry, for example, skews more toward US and UK customers, so their source data will follow migration patterns relevant to their base customers. Also, it’s not uncommon to see your ethnicity results change over time as a testing company updates their science. Over on MyHeritage, you can see more of a European mix of DNA matches, and I do happen to know that their customers can skew more broadly into other countries because the resources they have available are more useful to those customers.

The March issue of Family Tree Magazine has some useful content for people interested in using DNA for their family history research.

The March issue of Family Tree Magazine has some useful content for people interested in using DNA for their family history research.

Looking at my results on Ancestry, I don’t find them all that surprising. My mom’s side is still a bit of an unknown to me, but as she does come from Germany herself, it’s not a surprise that Europe features highly on my results. My dad’s side is 50% Kentucky (Colonial US), 37.5% Germany/Prussia (probably Eastern European skewed), and 12.5% Canadian (possibly via Scotland). So again, the United Kingdom (English) for the Kentucky side and Scotland via Canada migrations make sense to me here. Also, I have been able to trace a Kentucky line to Norway as well, so the Scandinavian connection also matches my research. France and Baltic estimations are where this might deviate the most from other services, but I don’t find them completely surprising. I haven’t found any evidence of these in my family, though, and the low numbers make me think they could be outliers. From this, I certainly wouldn’t go out and declare that I’m French in origin because I don’t know, or I wouldn’t entirely trust the data.

 
My DNA estimation as it appears in Ancestry.com on March 2020

My DNA estimation as it appears in Ancestry.com on March 2020

Comparing that to the MyHeritage results, they’re similar, but not the same. First of all, the Nigerian result is a bit of a surprise, but the size is so small, I would be willing to treat that as an outlier anyway. One of the more practical differences between testing companies is, of course, that DNA doesn’t know borders, and also borders as we know them today change over time. Because of this, it’s interesting to see how each company treats the exercise of labelling regions. Also, where those regions intersect as borders change over time is difficult to plot in a meaningful way to a customer (Ancestry does get credit for trying, but this can’t possibly be an exact science). What I do find particularly interesting about the MyHeritage results compared to the Ancestry ones is that MyHeritage specifically calls out English ancestry. Still, not Scottish, which I do know exists, so they’ve differentiated these places as separate regions, where I expect the borders to be more fluid. Then looking at Ancestry’s numbers again, they split “Germanic Europe” away from “East European”, but many of my “Germanic” ancestors were from the area that Ancestry has labelled “East European”.

 
My DNA estimation as it appears on MyHeritage.com as of March 2020

My DNA estimation as it appears on MyHeritage.com as of March 2020

An excellent example of border and culture fluidity would be with my Prussian ancestors. Geographically, some would have been in what is known as Germany today, and others would be in what is Poland, however, all of them were German-speaking. These border changes are why researching your early German ancestors can be difficult, not exclusively because the availability of documentation today varies based on where they were born. Still, also culturally, I would never think of the ones that came from what is now Poland to be Polish because the culture they handed down to me through my ancestors was very much German. Even on census records in the US, these particular Eastern European ancestors would have either self-labelled as Prussian or German during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

 
 
Ancestry defines this region as Eastern Europe and Russia with the origins primarily located in: Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine; howe…

Ancestry defines this region as Eastern Europe and Russia with the origins primarily located in: Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine; however all of my relatives from this region were probably German speaking.

 
 

I take these results with a pinch of salt. My research with DNA almost always focuses on my DNA matches, but the ethnicity results are not entirely useless in focused genealogical research. Where they have been useful for me is how migrations compare specifically with my match list. From these comparisons, I might be able to pick up clues to help me pinpoint a possible link to unknown matches, especially if those matches do not have trees attached to their match profiles. I would, however, say that if your only reason for getting a DNA test is to find out if you have Viking heritage, then your money might be better spent elsewhere. I just logged on to Ancestry ethnicity results for the first time in a while, and they had yet another update to their results with new science. Just because you tested with Viking heritage when you initially joined, doesn’t always mean you’ll still be a Viking the next time you log in! This science is frequently changing, though, and the accuracy will get better over time. However, for right now for it to be of use to mostly genealogical research, we still have to use it as a reasonable assumption rather than hard science.

 
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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

The story of Marie and Thomas

A journey through the tragic history of my second great-grandmother, Marie, living in Port Huron, Michigan.

Marie and Thomas are my second-great grandparents on my father’s maternal side of the family.

I’ve been doing family history research for a long time, and I think most family historians will tell you that the real stories of our ancestors rarely emerge. The internet has made it easier to dig up the tidbits though with more and more newspaper archives going online. Before accessing these articles online, researchers would have to flip through endless reels of microfilm at the local library, trying to locate any information we can about the people we might be related to.

I had been researching my Kentucky relatives since I had started in on my Ancestry account. The Kentucky side is my father’s paternal side. One of my cousins had started some research and gave my grandfather a book of information, and that’s when I initially began my genealogy journey. I signed up to an Ancestry account right away and have been doing this for 12-13 years now. The Kentucky ancestors didn’t give up many secrets though, and it wasn’t until a few years ago, with a message from one of my cousins on Ancestry, did I start digging into the wild world on the other side of my dad’s family. Little did I know that my father’s maternal side not only had secrets, but a lot of them were so much out in the open, it has been a difficult task keeping track of everything.

The story of Marie and Thomas is not happy. Their story is also one that’s still unfolding for me, so I can’t even tell all of it here now. But using a long series of newspaper articles that my cousin gave to me, and a few other records, I have been able to piece together a timeline for these two.

My second great-grandmother married Thomas after she arrived in the United States from Germany. She came to live with her brother, Otto, in Port Huron, Michigan. She was pregnant with her first child, Freda, on the ship over from Hamburg. Though this story doesn’t begin with Marie, it starts with Thomas, born in St. Catherine’s, Canada in 1863 and brought to Port Huron, Michigan by his parents when he was probably about 4 or 5, along with some of his other siblings.

 

Map of Port Huron, Michigan - Port Huron is on the bottom of the 'thumb' in Michigan and over the border from Canada.


Life of crime

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 1 Jun 1877. p 4.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 1 Jun 1877. p 4.

Thomas begins his life of crime

Age 14 - 1 Jun 1877

Thomas, also known as ‘Tosh’ in many of the accounts of him, was first mentioned in the Port Huron newspapers in 1877, starting his life of crime the age of 14.

He was selling obscene literature in Sarnia, Canada, just over the river from Port Huron, and caught by local authorities there.

Because of his age, or maybe because this was his first offence, he was “set at liberty by the Goaler about five p. m.” and let go “evidently ignorant of the grave position in which he was placed.” There were no warrants against him, at least none in the town of Sarnia, but Thomas becomes a well-known figure from this point forward in Port Huron.

Thomas arrested, his father is convicted

Age 20 - 11 Jan 1884

The paper reports Thomas’ arrest for robbery in 1884. This news article is the first and only time that his father, Richard, covers for Thomas and takes any blame for his son’s misdoings.

It’s not completely clear why Richard takes the blame for his son. However, a clue might be in a military record found for Thomas around the same time, plus the information only briefly mentioned in the last paragraph of this article. “The son was afterward re-arrested on a charge of being a deserter from a Western military post, and will be delivered to the authorities at Fort Wayne by Constable Cox.”

The military record both confirms his desertion as well as his discharge from Fort Wayne.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 11 Jan 1884. p. 2

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 11 Jan 1884. p. 2

Thomas’ military record is challenging to read, but his official enlistment date is 18 September 1883. He is noted both as a sailor but also what looks like the ‘Mounted Service’. I know his father was a sailmaker, and military was probably an expectation for Thomas at this time. Though his military record also states that he deserted on 25 September 1883, only a few days after enlistment. Then he’s back again on 10 January 1884, which corresponds to the information in the article, published a day after.

Thomas Lenthall; Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M233, 81 rolls); Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Thomas’ military career was incredibly short-lived after this, he was discharged only a few months later, probably around the time that his father was finishing his 90-day jail sentence (the handwriting looks like March 1884). I think there might be the possibility of a plea bargain here, maybe Richard went to jail in order to get his son back into the military. Though with such a short-lived military career, it does make me wonder how he was discharged so quickly.

While Thomas did not carry the military tradition through, both of his brothers did. I do have additional colourful accounts of both brothers from their station in Cleveland. One brother even landing himself a stay in Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Rest assured there are stories to be found in the entire family here.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 24 Nov 1888. p 4.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 24 Nov 1888. p 4.

Thomas on trial and sent back to jail

Age 25 - 24 Nov 1888

Thomas charged again with breaking and entering. The jury here seems unsure on whether to convict him. I like that instead of releasing him, they send him “back to jail until the next term of court, when he will be tried again.”

It’s interesting to me, after going through all of these articles, that there is even one sympathetic member of this jury towards him. But this is still early days for Thomas.

Thomas arrested for the 27th time

Age 27 - 1 Dec 1890

The tone of the articles starts to change around 1890. During these years you get the sense that The Times Herald, and even Thomas himself, begins to embrace his minor celebrity around Port Huron. This fact though is one of the sad tragedies of Marie’s eventual fate. By the time the two of them met, she was already doomed to a lifetime of public exposure, putting the lowest parts of her life out in the open for the entire community to witness.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 1 Dec 1890. p 5.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 1 Dec 1890. p 5.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 20 Jun 1891. p 5.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 20 Jun 1891. p 5.

Thomas and others arrested for burglarising Murray’s saloon

Age 28 - 20 Jun 1891

This article is two for the price of one. It seems in one paragraph Thomas is arrested for burglary with a few others, while in the next he’s being accused directly by the paper that he was a thief in a different robbery.

I have a lot of feelings going through these articles, but one of them is the questionable indifference that The Times Herald has to journalistic integrity during this time. So many of these news snippets are the most mundane thing you’ve ever read, stuff like “Mrs Petigrew is visiting her sister from Chicago this weekend.” (yawn). But when they latch onto something else in another snippet, they go for it.

I’m not saying that Thomas has zero guilt, but I do wonder if being egged on by the newspaper in some of these situations created what he eventually became. I do get the sense that Thomas liked seeing his name in the papers, even if it was for the most despicable reasons.

Thomas borrows money for the Chicago Exhibition

Age 29 - 6 Mar 1893

Known as the Columbian Exhibition, the world’s fair in Chicago celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to “The New World”.1 Thomas has petitioned the poor master’s office for a loan to travel to the fair and work as a janitor. They did grant the money with the condition he pays it back.

In context, it’s difficult not to feel from this that Thomas is taking everybody for a ride again, though he does pay back the money. There’s no follow up to this though. There’s nothing that says he did go to Chicago (maybe he got lucky with gambling before anybody knew wiser). But I like the slight optimism in this article. You do get the feeling that perhaps he has turned a corner and is on the up. And it could be for a short time he had. We don’t hear much from him until he marries Marie, at least nothing that found reported in the papers during the next few years.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 6 Mar 1893. p 5.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 6 Mar 1893. p 5.

Lenthal says he is doing well and expects to become a millionaire during the fair.
— The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan)

Thomas meets Marie

Marie was born in 1877 in Danzig, then known to be a part of Prussia, but now is considered Poland. She is one of three ancestors on my dad’s side of the family that came to the United States from Prussia, all of them German-speaking. The other two settled in Toledo, Ohio, and my great grandmother, Marie’s second daughter, Clara, would eventually marry their son.

Marie travelled from Hamburg, Germany and arrived in New York in April 1899; her passage possibly paid for by her brother, Otto, established already in Port Huron. I know from records that Marie travelled on her own. I also know from records that she had a daughter, Freda, born shortly after her arrival, I believe around September 1899, which would mean that Marie was likely pregnant as she made the journey. I don’t know anything more about the circumstances in which she left, or what happened with Freda’s father, but just imagining this experience on her own while carrying a child seems remarkable to me today, especially two weeks across the Atlantic by ship.

Thomas and Marie marry

Thomas is 36 and Marie is 22 - 9 Feb 1900

There was quite a buzz around this event. It’s probably evident by now that Thomas doesn’t do much quietly.

Thomas borrows money for his marriage license

6 Feb 1900

It turns out Thomas didn’t make his millions after all from the Chicago Exhibition, because before he could marry, he was in the county clerk’s office trying to bargain a marriage license off of them. He eventually finds the funds and the two were married three days later.

The article states that they only met on Sunday night, which was two days before the article’s publication. So in less than a week, the two had met and were married.

There’s a bit of insight in this article that he was afraid if he didn’t act, then she would back out of the marriage. It would be interesting to know what Marie was thinking during this time, having arrived in the country the year before and with a baby at home.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 6 Feb 1900. p 6

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 6 Feb 1900. p 6

As he was leaving the clerk’s office, he volunteered the information [that] he was in an awful hurry for fear she would go back on him.
— The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan)
Kalamazoo Gazette (Kalamazoo, Michigan). 11 Feb 1900.

Kalamazoo Gazette (Kalamazoo, Michigan). 11 Feb 1900.

Thomas calls in an interpreter

11 Feb 1900

A bit of additional insight comes from the Kalamazoo Gazette. It turns out that the marriage license was in German and Thomas had to call in an interpreter. I’ve only recently been in contact with the church where Marie was a member, but the name of the clergyman on the register does not match the sitting reverend at the time according to church history. It is not impossible, though, and I could still get something back from the church in Port Huron demonstrating their actual marriage. Thomas and his family did not seem all that religious, so I initially did assume this wasn’t a church wedding, but Marie’s family undoubtedly was.


Tragedy strikes Marie

Baby Freda passes away

Age between 9 and 11 months - 8 Aug 1900

Only six months into her marriage, her baby is now dead. Freda was just under a year when she passes away from cholera. The cousin who initially contacted me is a great-granddaughter of Otto, and she told me that they buried the baby near them, her mother probably also nearby. My cousin also remarked that her grandmother recalled the funeral of Freda and how sad it was to see the tiny coffin.

I don’t have Freda’s birth record; I don’t think it was ever registered in the state of Michigan (it’s possible that Marie didn’t know she needed to do this). However I’m hopeful that their church in Port Huron will have her baptism. The 1900 Census, which was taken two months before Freda’s death has her age at eight months, so assumes she was born September 1899. This record says that Freda was nine months old, so that would put her birthdate in November 1899.

While the father listed here is Thomas, there’s no possible way he could be her biological father. Marie was the informant, so she may have only put Thomas as the father because they were married at this time.

Freda J. Lentha (6 Aug 1900). Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan; Death Records

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 13 Aug 1900. p 1.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 13 Aug 1900. p 1.

Marie tries to commit suicide

Age 23 - 13 Aug 1900

Things don’t get better for Marie, and I think this article has always brought me so much sadness and anger, for so many reasons. I guess again I’m critical of The Times Herald for making my second great-grandmother’s depression front-page news. I should also point out that this is the first time that the paper had Thomas’ name published on the front page, and it won’t be the last concerning Marie either.

I can’t imagine Marie’s sadness at this point. It must have been awful for her, and then to have her grief plastered on the local news though I am also grateful to Dr Patrick for saving her life. I think it was this article that started to make me realise that our near misses in life often happen before we are even born.

Marie suffers injuries from a fall

Age 23 - 27 Aug 1900

Marie dodges fate again when she fell from a streetcar no more than two weeks after her suicide attempt. A Dr Cote saved her this time, and the article mentioned she was “injured internally”.

Again plastered on the front page, Mrs Thomas Lenthal “lies at the point of death.” They claim that “her condition was delicate before the fall and she is now in a precarious state.”

I have a lot of opinions about how the paper presents this story, and I always feel that Marie was a bystander in this exposure. I have wondered though if people reading this article would have been sympathetic to Marie, or would they only be interested because of the man she married?

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 27 Aug 1900. p 1.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 27 Aug 1900. p 1.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 30 Aug 1900. p 6.

The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan). 30 Aug 1900. p 6.

Marie leaves Thomas

Marie is 23, and Thomas is 37 - 30 Aug 1900

I like to think that this is the point that Marie decides to take back control of her life. This point is also where I believe Thomas’ true despicable nature shines through. Only a few days after his wife’s second near-death experience, and weeks after she lost her baby, he is in the newspaper office crying to them about how he feels like he’s the victim in all of this.

“He told The Times that since his recent marriage his life had not been as pleasant as he had anticipated. His baby died for want of care, his wife once attempted suicide and on Sunday last had fallen from a street car. To cap the climax she had deserted him.”

Good for you, Marie.

Lenthal for 29 years has been a vagabond and has a police record a yard long. Most any self-respecting woman would commit suicide rather than live with him.
— The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan)

There’s much more to this story, as my great-grandmother isn’t even born yet. But this is a good place for a cliff-hanger.

To be continued…

References

  1. “World’s Columbian Exposition.” Wikipedia, 25 Feb. 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition

 
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Heidi Blanton Heidi Blanton

A House Through Time

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I just recently finished the second series of A House Through Time on BBC iPlayer, a fascinating program that chronicles the history of one house from the moment it was built up until present day. I watched the first season sometime last year and was immediately captivated with the idea. As genealogists we tend to follow the lives of families as they move from house to house or place to place, but the to look at all of the lives that lived in one house through time adds a whole new dimension onto the history of a place and the families that had once lived there.

This series they're in Newcastle on Ravensworth Terrace. The stories through the house's history do not disappoint. The second series is still available on iPlayer and I do recommend all four episodes. The previous series is not available at the moment, but I'm sure it will come back around in the future, so I would keep a lookout for that one too.

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