Using Amazon a Different Way

I just realized there's another way to use Amazon as a perennially cash-strapped researcher.  I can compile a bibliography of books I want to read and then borrow them through inter-library loan.  In addition, if the authors are still alive, I am also able to contact them to ask for suggestions on resources. 

It is not easy trying to research ancestors when I live hundreds of miles from here they did.  There is no web site that has all the information you could ever need from any area.  Research is even more difficult when your ancestors were sociopolitical minorities in the area. 

I've been trying to find where my great-great-grandfather Albert Galatine Gatton came from for years.  He was born about 1819 in Ohio and Native American.  He died of pneumonia in Corinth, MS, while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, so there is no death certificate.  His marriage record to my great-great-grandmother lists no parents.  I was able to find a record for his first marriage to Hannah Wyckoff on 15 March 1838 in Muskingum County, Ohio, still with no parental information.  It still doesn't mean he was born there, either. 

James Gatton and his wife Rosannah Canner lived in the area with their family.  Tantalizingly one of their sons was named Galen.  I don't know if they were related or not. Even if they were, I would still have a Native American ancestor to find.  I think it's most likely it was a Native wife. 

Fortunately in this time period there weren't that many people in Ohio to research.  There is one core Gatton family. It has a son named Greenberry Gatton whose history goes unrecorded.  I don't know if that's because he died young or if the family lost touch after he became an adult.  The only way I can think of proceeding is to read about the early histories of Native Americans and Europeans in Ohio.  I think it's possible that Albert's father was trading with Native people and met his Native wife that way.  With any luck there might be an early record with Greenberry's name on it.

I have another mystery ancestry in the same area, Solomon Hise.  He is my mother's ancestor.  He was Native American.  He belonged to the United Brethren church.  That sect was the only one that Native people in Ohio trusted.  I don't believe the parents that people have documented for him because it shows no Native ancestry.  I really haven't worked on his background very much yet.  I hope to.

New DAR Member

Friday after work I was absolutely amazed to find I'd been sent in the mail a certificate of membership to the Daughters of the American Revolution, with my member number.  I had given up hope completely that I would be able to get my Mohican-Wappinger-German ancestor Eliakim Winchell recognized as a patriot soldier during the American Revolution.  I thought the facts that the town records burned, he didn't go to church, didn't need to pay taxes and was illiterate were ones that the DAR couldn't accept.  I was wrong.  I was given no explanation, though.

I think I am still a little too radical for the DAR.  My main goal was to have Eliakim recognized.  I'll have to wait and see.  I may want to apply under a maternal ancestor in memory of my mother, though.  It would only be fair.

Maternal American  Revolutionary War Ancestors

Berryman Brown

Richard Brown

Samuel Brown

Noah Hayden

William Hayden

Edward Houchins

Christopher Peavler

Cornelius Vanderveer

Richard Wells

Sampson Wickersham

Nathaniel Wilson

It's possible a Daniel ancestor served, too.  I have my choice, don't I?  I think it should be under Nathaniel Wilson or Cornelius Vanderveer.  It's difficult to document Wilson's service because he signed so many applications as a judge for other men! 

New Thatcher Information

For years I've been stuck on the parents of my great-grandfather Alexander M. Thatcher. It appears he was born in 1818 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. I've been researching for 24 years. Today I've finally found something useful on Ancestry. It's a census of Chester County in 1779 listing all the Thatcher men. It also has wills of Thatcher men in Pennsylvania. I'm sure not all the men had wills. I can use this information to research these men to see what sons they may have had in the county later on, who would be potential fathers or grandfathers of Alexander Thatcher. I wonder what I will find.

Still Here

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written.  I was concentrating on my mother's side of the family.  A while ago I created Wabash Valley Families for her side of the family.

On 4 March 2017 my elderly mother broke her lower right leg in two places.  She was sent to a very poor rehabilitation center where first she was neglected and then she contracted the antibacteria-resistant gastrointestinal infection clostridium difficile that took her life a year and a month later. She also contracted a skin infection that the staff completely ignored. Even before breaking her leg, Mom was experiencing serious side effects from the cholesterol and high blood pressure medicines she was taking. I tried to get her out of the nursing home, but I couldn't.  The only way my mother got out of the center was through a septic episode that sent her to the hospital.  She didn't go back.  The second place was so much better it was like night and day, but it was already too late.

My mother wanted me to continue with my research and publish the books I intended to.  I'm hoping sometime soon I'll have the energy and desire to do so.  I hadn't realized how stressed out and tired I'd become, as the only adult child.

Juanita Wilson Winchell
1932-2018

Juanita M. Winchell, 85, lost her long battle against the antibiotic-resistant gastrointestinal bacteria clostridium difficile on 4 April 2018. at Timberlyn East Nursing Home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Juanita was a long-time resident of Columbia County, residing in Philmont and Hudson, N.Y. She most recently resided at Bethany Village in West Coxsackie, NY. She worked in several sewing mills in Columbia County. She retired from Sunoco Crellin Plastics in Chatham, N.Y. where she was a press attendant, head trainer, and member of the initial McDonald's product team, receiving an award at corporate headquarters for process improvement in 1998. She was a Girl Scout troop leader and participated in bowling teams in Hudson and in the Columbia Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. Juanita also obtained training in reflexology, Reiki and furniture refurnishing. Decades ahead of business trends, Juanita attempted to establish a business sewing and selling reusable fabric shopping bags. After retirement, she earned her real estate license and worked for Barns and Farms Realty in its Germantown and Hudson offices. She adopted several cats from the Columbia-Greene Humane Society. She greatly appreciated her British Isles, colonial Dutch, and Native American ancestry.

Juanita was born in Torrington, Conn., the daughter of Frederick E. Wilson and Mary M. Vandivier. She is predeceased by her parents; brothers Harvey, Sidney, Richard, Everett, Donald, Raymond Wilson; sisters Mildred Alstrup, Florence Davis, Dorothy Baccei, Nina Joyce Carrozzo; and her former husband Avery Winchell. Survivors include daughter Debra, sister Edna Westmoreland and many nieces and nephews.

There will be a private funeral service at Gleeson-Ryan Funeral Home in Torrington, Conn. Internment will be in Hillside Cemetery, Torrington, Conn. next to family members. Contributions in Juanita's memory to the Peggy Lillis Foundation, 266 12^th Street #6, Brooklyn, NY 11215 would be appreciated to help prevent further clostridium difficile deaths.