Leaves & Branches

Last week I wrote about what I learned about Campbell Dudley’s death from the military pension application filed by his mother, Lettitia Dudley.   My primary objective in ordering the pension file was to learn more about Lettitia.   Most of what I knew about Lettitia and her husband Thomas I learned from the Dudley album I received from my great-uncle Clarence Dudley’s step-grandson a year and a half ago.   I have gleaned other information from the usual genealogical sources, mostly census records.   Iva Lettitia Tankersley was born January 18, 1811 in Virginia.   There is a Virginia marriage record that indicates that a Thomas Dudley married a “Malitia Tankesley” in Pittsylvania County, Virginia on November 17, 1830.   However, the Dudley album states that Thomas and Lettitia were married in 1829 and moved from Virginia to Ohio.   The Dudleys’ first child, Matilda, was born on October 11, 1830 and died June 24, 1831.   They then had ten more ch...

Several weeks ago, I was exploring footnote.com and discovered that my second great-grandmother, Lettitia Dudley, had filed a pension application after her son Campbell died in the Civil War.   I am desperate for information about Lettitia and her husband Thomas, so after a couple of days of debating with myself whether I wanted to spend $75.00 to order the pension file from the National Archives and Records Administration, I took the plunge and did it.   My purpose in ordering the file was to hopefully learn more about Lettitia and, in the process, find out more about Campbell’s military service and death while serving in the army. I have received the pension file and, yes, it provided a little illumination on Lettitia’s life.   I will cover what I learned about Lettitia and her application for a military pension in next week’s post.    The real surprise in the pension file was the story of Campbell Dudley’s death. Campbell Dudley was born March 25, 1837, the...

In honor of the members of my family who have died while serving in the United States military: William Wardlaw, born 1771, died August 4, 1812, either of disease or at the Battle of Brownstown, Michigan.  William was my fourth great grand uncle in my paternal grandmother's family. Samuel Kincaid, my fourth great grandfather in my paternal grandmother's family, died May 5, 1813 at the siege of Ft. Meigs, Ohio. Campbell Dudley, born 1837, died July 29, 1864 while serving with the 48th Ohio Infantry when he drowned in the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  He was my great grand uncle in my maternal grandmother's family. The following information is excerpted from The United States Department of Veterans Affairs website, which can be found at http://www1.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp : Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decora...