Leaves & Branches

From the November 28, 1875 Cincinnati Daily Enquirer : HAPPY SYLVESTER SHAW, of Russellville, Brown County, Ohio! On Tuesday he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in company with his twenty-one children. After dinner he took them out to the mud road in front of the house, and the old man left them all in a scrub race of a hundred yards. The ole man then showed his wondering offspring what boys could do when he was young. He jumped a nine-rail fence without touching his hands, climbed a branch of the apple tree nineteen times, climbed to the top of the well-pole hand over hand, threw a bull calf over the house, and ripped the back seam of his pants in the effort, and told the old woman "if she didn't fix 'em afore mornin' he'd knock the socks off of her!" Hale old SYLVESTER SHAW! Long live the oldest inhabitant! What a man!  This incredible specimen of manhood was my fourth great-grandfather.  Sylvester Shaw was born November 19, 1800 in Rensellaer Count...

I’ll always remember the day I stood in the Wardlow Cemetery, looking at my great-grandfather Hite Ballein’s grave and telling my parents that if I would ever do any family history research, I would like to research the Ballein family.   At that time, I was most interested in the Ballein family for a couple of reasons.   First, I bear a resemblance to my grandmother, Jennie Esther Ballein, who died when I was a toddler and whom I don’t remember.   Second, I was intrigued with the unusual Ballein surname, as well as the name Hite.   Of course, I did begin researching my family history, starting with my paternal grandmother’s branch of the family, which includes the Balleins.   I then branched out to the other side of my dad’s family and later to my mom’s family also.   Along the way I have met a lot of distant relatives with whom I have shared information and am always excited when I meet a “new” relative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success ...

My recent posts have been a little depressing with tales of hardship and tragic death.    T his week, I would like to take on a lighter subject – the interesting names of some of the people in my family tree.   Now, I realize that some of these names weren’t too unusual in the era in which they were bestowed upon my family members, but they sound a little strange now. ·          ELIHU EMBREE                                   Elihu Embree was the grandson of my fifth great-grandfather Moses Embree and nephew of my fourth great-grandmother Rebekah Embree Hockett (Rebekah – Prudence Hockett Lamb – Nathan Lamb – Mary Lamb Donaldson – Eddie Earl Donaldson – my mom – me).   Elihu was born into the Quaker Embree family on November 8, 1782, the son of Thomas and Esther Couls...

I have to admit that it wasn’t easy for me to become excited about researching the Donaldson family, my maternal grandfather’s family.   Maybe it was because until my grandfather, Eddie Earl Donaldson, moved here in the 1910s, none of my direct Donaldson ancestors lived in southwestern Ohio.   So, information on the Donaldson family wasn’t as easy for me to come by as it was for other branches of my family. For quite a while, I wasn’t able to trace any further back than my fourth great-grandfather, Ebenezer Donaldson and his wife, Rebecca Hillis Donaldson.   Then one day I came across A History of the Donaldson Family and Its Connections by Alexander Donaldson on Google Books.   The story told in this book of Ebenezer’s parents and grandparents, if accurate, is quite incredible.  Personally, I am a bit of a skeptic about some of this story, since much of it was passed on through family tradition.   I have found additional information from other sources, ...

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...

Robert Hamilton was my fifth great-grandfather (Robert Hamilton – Elizabeth Hamilton Dunn – Robert Dunn – Lulu Dunn Wardlow – Dora Elma Wardlow Ballein – Jennie Esther Ballein Davis – Russell Lee Davis – me).   He was born in Ireland on May 16, 1760, but came to America as a teenager and soon thereafter joined the Pennsylvania Line of the Continental Army.   Robert first married Susannah Kean, my ancestor, on April 30, 1781.   They had three children, Elizabeth, Robert Jr., and Joseph.   After Susannah died, Robert married Ann Hays on February 23, 1792.   Robert and Ann had one child, William Hays Hamilton.   The Hamiltons moved from Pennsylvania, ultimately settling near Lebanon in Warren County, Ohio.   Robert worked as a blacksmith. Robert Hamilton As I am writing this, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Civil War pension file from the National Archives on an ancestor on my maternal grandmother’s branch of the family.   Military pe...