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Along Those Lines...
Brisco is Found!
by George G. Morgan
I'm just like any other genealogist. When one of my brick walls is toppled, I yell and scream, and sometimes I get very emotional. Finding an ancestor or family member whose location has stymied me for a long time is a magical feeling that sometimes brings tears to my eyes.
Regular readers of this column have often read about my HOLDER family in Georgia -- Greenberry and Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder -- and my research efforts to learn more about them. In my book, How to Do Everything with Your Genealogy, I included a case study of how, after more than twenty years, I broke through a brick wall to find my great-grandmother's family. On 18 November, my column titled "Tracing Uncle Dutch" detailed the process of successfully tracking my great-uncle Charles Warner "Dutch" Holder's migration to California.
There was, however, a much more challenging great-uncle for whom I also have been searching for a very long time. His name was Brisco (or Briscoe) Holder. In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, I want to share the joy of how I broke down this brick wall and how Ancestry.com's databases made all the difference.
Twelve Children
My great-grandparents were married on 27 Dec 1866 in Floyd County, Georgia. They produced twelve children between 1868 and 1885 -- six sons and six daughters. The youngest daughter was my maternal grandmother.
I am a firm believer in fleshing out an entire family group. I want to know the dates and locations of birth, marriage, divorce (if any), and death. I want to know about the spouses and children, and as many details as I can discover. This really does bring them back to life for me and helps me better understand the people and the family dynamics.
Over the years, I have worked with family stories, censuses and Soundex, vital records, wills and probate packets, church membership records, family Bibles, letters and postcards, and anything else that could help me build my knowledge of this Holder family unit.
The Story of the Missing Great-Uncle
I have been able to trace the lives of eleven of the Greenberry and Penelope's twelve children. However, one of them has been elusive in the extreme. All I knew was that the eighth son was my great-uncle Brisco(e) W. Holder, born around 1878. I knew that he lived with his family and worked with or for his father until 1906. I even have a great family photograph taken on the porch of the still-standing family home at 808 S. Broad Street in Rome, Georgia, in the summer of 1905. There he is in the front row.
Here is where the family stories come in. Supposedly Brisco(e) was expelled from the home in 1906 after "mistreating his mother." The details of that have been lost or hushed up. However, it is known that he left town and never returned. He did keep in sporadic touch with his next youngest sister over the years. The story passed on by her to the rest of the family was that he died sometime in the mid-1920s in "Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago --- one of those 'C' towns." The sister did not have the funds to pay to bring his body home for burial. Instead, she sent as much money as she could to have him buried wherever it was he had died. That's it! Nothing more!
I spent years trying to determine where this man went and where he died and was buried. Census records for 1910 and 1920 provided me with nothing. This man had disappeared. State and county death indexes in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama have been accessed and studied for each year from 1920 through 1930. Nothing!
At long last, I began to consider military service. My first thought was that, since he was born in what I believed was 1878, he would have had to have registered for the draft in World War I. However, I had been searching the World War I Draft Registration Card database at Ancestry.com since that project began several years ago but without any success. I decided to try the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, to determine if there was a service record. Eight weeks later I received the response that no such person had ever served in World War I. I was finally convinced that my only recourse was to wait patiently for Ancestry.com to complete the World War I Draft Registration Card digitization and indexing project because Brisco(e) would have been required to have registered during the third registration.
Success At Last!
On Friday, 11 November 2005, Ancestry.com announced the completion of the World War I records project. I was traveling on business, but as soon as I saw the announcement in the Ancestry Daily News, I was searching the database.
You will have noted already that I wasn't even sure if the forename was Brisco or Briscoe, and I didn't have a middle name, only the initial W. from the 1880 U.S. federal census. I also didn't know his exact date of birth. However, since his name was pretty unique, I began searching and in almost no time I had the digitized image for a Brisco Washington Holder on the screen in front of me. I knew I had the correct person because the next of kin listed was "E. E. Holder (brother)" in Rome, Ga. His date of birth is listed as "March 26, 1877" and not 1878 as I had surmised. The date of the registration card was "Sept. 12, 1918" and he listed his age as 41. He is physically described as tall and slender and with grey eyes and brown hair. Yes, that's him in the family picture in 1905.
I had found my great-uncle Brisco Washington Holder at last! However, he was not in "one of those "C" towns" after all. The family story had been all wrong. Brisco listed his address as 328 N. Monroe, Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. IOWA? Yes indeed, and he listed his employer's name and location, and his occupation as "Separator tender." I still have to determine if this is a grain industry-related job and what it entailed.
Checking Further
I now have a friend in Des Moines checking for a death certificate for me, and she will be in the Mason City area just before Christmas and will check city directories and other materials in the library and courthouse there. And while I still don't know Brisco's date of death and place of burial, I have managed to trace him to Iowa and to permanent employment. This is a major brick wall demolished and I'm floating on air!
Look Again!
Juliana Smith's article, "Navigating the WWI Draft Registration Cards," from 14 November 2005 in the Ancestry Daily News does a great job describing the World War I Draft Registration process and schedule, and links to images of the registration cards used in each of the three registration calls. She and I have talked many times about Brisco Holder over the years as we have commiserated over our brick walls. She and I are now doing the "Genealogy Happy Dance" together over Brisco.
This is just one example of why it is important to look again at records and databases and websites you may think you have exhausted before. New content is added, indexing is enhanced and improved, and you just may locate something new to help you find your missing person.
Thanksgiving this year was spent with my first cousins descended from the Holder family, and we celebrated finding Brisco with a standing toast. Family IS important, even those who are not our direct ancestors!
Happy Hunting!
George
George is president and a proud member of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors. Visit the ISFHWE website at www.rootsweb.com/~cgc/. Visit George's website at http://ahaseminars.com/atl for information about speaking engagements. Upcoming events in 2006 include:
- January 28, 2006
Pinellas County Genealogical Society Conference, Largo, FL
- February 11, 2006
Palm Beach County Genealogical Society, Palm Beach, FL
- February 22, 2006
Englewood Genealogical Society, Englewood, FL
- March 1, 2006
Volusia County Genealogical Society, Daytona Beach, FL
- March 14, 2006
Citrus County Genealogical Society, Lecanto, FL
- March 21, 2005
South Bay Genealogical Society, Sun City Center/Ruskin, FL
- March 31, 2006
Writers' Workshop, Muskogee, OK
- April 1, 2006
Muskogee County Genealogical Society Conference, Muskogee, OK
- April 11, 2006
Brandon Area Historical and Genealogical Society, Brandon, FL
- April 22, 2006
Virginia Beach Genealogical Society, Virginia Beach, VA
- April 27, 2006
The Villages Genealogical Society, The Villages, FL
- April 28-29, 2006
Ohio Genealogical Society, Toledo, OH
- May 26-28, 2006
Ontario Genealogical Society, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
- June 7-10, 2006
National Genealogical Society Conference, Chicago/Rosemont, IL
Copyright 2005, MyFamily.com.
All rights reserved.
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