Piecing Together Their Lives part 2

 
Receiving an email from Karen, indicating that we had a connection, was a great start to my day!  It reminded me of the childhood game “Old Maid” —I  was holding a hand full of ancestor cards and finally someone had given me a match!

Of course I immediately responded to Karen and that began an exchange that would not only lead me to learn about Margaret, but also about her descendants.

Karen shared her remarkable story.  She  had been researching her paternal great grandmother,  Margaret Blackmon.  One day as she searched through indexed marriage records, she came across a record for a Margaret Sams that had married James Blackmon.  Of course having a Margaret married to a James Blackmon peaked her interest and so she then researched the Sams family of the Fayette County area.  However,  try as she might, Karen could not find a Margaret Sams in any of the families . After a great deal of effort and frustration, she turned to forums in hopes of finding someone else with information about Margaret Sams, but did not have any luck. She did, however, find find me searching for a Margaret, but I was searching for a Margaret Ganus, not Sams.
Karen then shared with me:

Something just wouldn't leave me alone about it as I went to bed one night. Then, I woke up in the wee hours (as I often did when an epiphany would hit me in my sleep that I could not see during the daylight hours), and I realized that I needed to see the actual marriage record to compare the last names.

She also told me that the thought that came to her with great force in the middle of the night was that Margaret was a Ganus, not a Sams.  Genealogy is full of such stories----some call it serendipity and some call it inspiration.  They seem to come most often when we least expect it and when we begin to feel we are at the end of our rope.  When Karen got up the next morning, she returned to the forums, found my email address and shot me an email.

Knowing where I live, Karen asked that I look up the marriage record for Margaret “Sams” at the Family History Library and so I drove down to the library and pulled the film. Yep---there was no doubt in my mind, looking at the actual marriage record I could see that the record was for James Blackmon and Margaret Ganus, not Margaret Sams, but I sent a copy to Karen who also examined it and confirmed that she too believed Margaret was definitely a Ganus. The G had been incorrectly transcribed as an S and the way the n and u ran together it apparently had been read as the single letter “m”.   This experience is another testament to the fact that as wonderful as indexes can be, it is important to go to the original source and view it ourselves.

Once we knew that “our” Margaret married a Blackmon, we were able to see that she was listed RIGHT NEXT  to her parents on the1860 census. The census enumerator had used initials rather than first names, which made it difficult to make that connection without knowing Margaret’s married name, but armed with that information, it was easy to see.

Karen had been working for some time with her cousin, Leelan Blackmon.  He had been researching the family for years and had a wealth of information about the Blackmon family and had graciously shared what he knew.  Piece by piece, with each of us adding what we had, we were beginning to uncover Margaret’s life.  I will share her story in the coming post.   

Continue onto Piecing Together Their Lives, Part 3 

Copyright © Michelle G. Taggart 2013


Photo from Wikipedia Commons and in Public Domain

Piecing Together Their Lives - Part 1

We all have them.  Those individuals in our family tree that seemingly disappear into thin air. I have many such souls in my tree and each and every unwritten story troubles me.  Among my “missing” was Margaret. 

Margaret Ganus was born in 1832 and grew up in the Fayette County area of Georgia.  She was a younger sister to my second great grandfather, John Monroe Ganus, and the third child of James Gurganus and Elizabeth McCluskey in a family of ten children. 

On the 1850 census,eighteen year old Margaret was shown living with her parents and the eight siblings still living at home.  By the 1860 census, however, she was no longer shown living at home.  I realized that in all likelihood, if she had lived until 1860, she was most likely married, but I could not find a marriage record for her.  Margaret’s three sisters, Mary, Martha and Rebecca, all had recorded marriage records which of course helped me to follow them as they established their homes and had their children. But no marriage record could be found for Margaret.  Some speculated that Margaret had died young, but I could find nothing conclusive.

I imagined Margaret to be much like any little girl growing up in mid 19th century Georgia.  I could almost see her running and playing alongside her brothers and sisters in the warm Georgia sun. Growing up on a small family farm, she would have had her share of chores,  helping with everything from the household duties of preparing food and washing clothes to milking cows and feeding the chickens. The day likely began early each morning and the the work would have stretched on until the sun dropped beneath the rolling hills and dense trees that define that region.  At night Margaret likely climbed into a bed shared with several of her sisters.  

Knowing that southern families were tight knit and often lived in close proximity for much of their lives,  I looked for Margaret in Fayette County as well as in neighboring counties, but could find nothing.  For years, her unfinished story was part of my growing pile of genealogical mysteries and just one more frustration. 

I mentioned in a previous post, the value of collaborating with others along the way.  So often other individuals hold critical pieces of information not found in any publicly held document. In this case, posting a query made all the difference. 

On the 17th of October 2002, I received an email from Karen, whom I did not know.  My heart jumped as I opened her email that began with, “I am almost 100% sure that we click.”  I will share what I learned from Karen in my upcoming post.  

Note: Picture The Old Quilt by Walter Langley found on Wikipedia Commons and in Public Domain.

           Continue onto Part 2 of Piecing Together their Lives

          Copyright © Michelle G. Taggart 2013

Clouds That Forebode the Greatest Evil

Wikipedia Commons
Public Domain

As a child, I loved the movie The Wizard of Oz.  While the movie fueled our young, active imaginations, it also generated a whole new set of fears.

My brother and I 

In parts of California, springtime often brings large fields of beautiful orange poppies.   I  remember being horrified when my mom wanted to take pictures of us out in the poppy fields.  Did she remember what happened to Dorothy while in a field of poppies?

Additionally, the movie also taught me to fear tornadoes, witches, and of course the thing that all children of that era feared…..flying monkeys!!

While my Georgia kin had little to fear from poppies, witches or flying monkeys, they did, however, live with the very real fear of tornadoes, or cyclones as they were sometimes called.

The University of Oklahoma maintains a great online digital book collection that includes the book,  “Tornado” written by John Park Finley.  Finley was an American meteorologist who was among the first to study tornadoes in depth.  Finley's book, published in 1887, educated people about the dangers of tornadoes as well as how people could anticipate and protect themselves during a tornado.¹

Illustration from Finley’s Tornadoes²

Describing the eerie cloud formations that often precede tornadoes, Finley stated that  “the dark clouds at times present a deep, greenish hue, which forebodes the greatest evil and leaves one to imagine quite freely of dire possibilities.” ³

Illustration from Finley’s Tornadoes⁵

Finley also indicated,  “Another and invariable sign of the tornado’s approach is a heavy, roaring noise, which augments in intensity as the tornado-cloud advances.  This roaring is compared to the passage of a heavily loaded freight train moving over a bridge or through a deep pass or tunnel.” ⁴  I enjoyed reading through this book to see what was believed and known about tornadoes at that time, as I had ancestors that lived in many of the states considered part of “tornado alley.” 

The Friday, June 10, 1887 edition of the Carroll Free Press,  which was published the same year as Finley's book, carried an article about which citizens of the Carroll County community had received the most damage during a tornado and hail storm that hit there. ⁶   The article also mentioned a “Citizens’ Meeting” held to discuss measures to provide aid to the victims.  A resolution was adopted to collect funds and distribute them to those who had received the most damage. Included in the list of citizens needing relief were P.H. Chandler, B.W. Cook and G. P. Chandler, all people in my family tree.

Picture of home following a tornado that
hit the Atlanta area
Late 1800’s or early 1900’s. ⁷

B.W. Cook  was Burton W. Cook,  who married Mary Ganus, daughter of my third great grandparents, James and Elizabeth Ganus  and sister to John Monroe Ganus.   G.P. Chandler  was George P. Chandler, son of Philo H. Chandler and Nicie Jane Reid (the same P.H. Chandler named in the article).  George P. Chandler  married Mary Cook, daughter of Burton W. Cook and Mary Ganus, thereby making her a grand-daughter to James and Elizabeth Ganus.

The article also indicated who had donated money, how much they donated and who received the financial aid and how much they received.  A committee had distributed the donated funds to those that were in the most need and had not already received help from others of the community.
 
As I scanned the list of citizens who had received financial help, I found that B.W. Cook, G.P. Chandler and P. H. Chandler were not included.  Did that indicate then that they were among those who had received help from others?   Living in Carroll county at that time were Mary’s siblings, Martha Ganus Brock, Rebecca Ganus Lee and Addison Ganus and their spouses and children.  Living in neighboring Haralson County were Mary’s other siblings, John M. Ganus, as well as Margaret Ganus Blackmon  and James W. Ganus and their spouses and children. True to typical southern culture, the siblings had remained in close proximity to each other.

Did the Ganus siblings help repair damage sustained to Mary and Burton’s home?  Did they help fix barns and outbuildings, locate scattered livestock, and replant crops if needed?  Did they bring in meals and share of what they had?   I would like to think that  Burton and Mary did not need aid from the community because they received help from their family. I would like to think they were living close to one another not only for the social advantage but also so that they could provide help and support through good times and bad.  

Given the history of tornadoes in the south, I am sure that this was not the only time that the Ganus family was impacted by the wrath of a storm.  I am confident that each member of that family faced many storms during their lifetime, both physical and emotional in nature and hopefully each time they found their greatest source of support and strength in their family.    



1.  Finley, John P., Tornadoes. New York:  The Insurance Monitor, 1887. Digital Images.  History of Science Collections, The University of Oklahoma Libraries. http://ouhos.org/2010/06/19/digitized-books/

2.  Ibid. at p. 40

3. Ibid at p. 29

4.  Ibid at p. 30

5. Ibid at p. 44

6.  USGenWeb Archives,  Carroll County Georgia, Newspapers, Carroll Free Press, Issue of Friday, June 10, 1887.  File was contributed by Judy Campbell.
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/carroll/newspapers/ju87.txt

7.  Photograph of home of Oct(via) Kite blown away by tornado, Fulton County, Georgia, ca. 1897-1903, Georgia Division of Archives and History, Vanishing Georgia. http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/vanga/query:gk%3A+%28octa+kite+tornado%29


Copyright © Michelle G. Taggart 2013