52 Ancestors Weeks Week 2 My Dad

Week 2 of Amy Johnson Crow;s challenge to write a story once a week about an ancestor. Her blog is No Story Too Small you can read about her challenge there.   

I have blogged about different aspects of my dad’s life. One was about his propensity for achieving and not giving up. http://branchingoutthroughtheyears.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-example-of-never-give-up.html  His pride in being a World War II veteran.

I have not however, blogged about his role as a father.  My dad, Lester Langley born 28 Aug 1915 in Hughes County, Oklahoma, was a remarkable dad.  He was not perfect, none of us are, but he was a good dad.  I was an only child, by his choice.  He was in attendance when I was born.  I was born breech, my arm came out first.  He liked to say it was because I was shielding my eyes from this world.  (One way to look at it.) My mom had a terrible time recovering. The labor had been long, and the doctor had to push my arm back up inside and turn me so I could come on out. I can imagine it would have been a traumatic thing to my dad who liked to be in control.
When I was little I went everywhere I could with him, and he let me. 

As he was recovering from having lost his leg, I was always there to help him. He would laugh and say I was his leg during that time. The picture below was taken were we lived in Iowa while he was working as an artificial limb technician. Which brings me to the fact, he never missed any of my birthdays, being poor there weren't parties, but it was always a special occasion.

A picture of my dad and me in Des Moines, Iowa when I turned 4

  Any activity I was in, piano recitals, plays, band performances on the football field, parades, and concerts, he was always there. When it was time for me to learn to drive, he was there.  He had an old pickup that had what he called a compound drive.  We go out to the pasture where he would get out and say, "drive".  It moved slower than I could walk. (giggling greatly here) I still took Driver's Ed at school because my dad felt it was best. Wonder why. 

When I married, he had been disabled because of an accident that caused his artificial limb to rip his hip bone apart.  It did not stop him from continuing to do things; he just could not hold up to the demands of working at the College.  That left him free.  If one of my children had an illness, or I had a problem, he was the one who came and helped me.  I am not knocking my mom who was still teaching.  He loved playing with my children, and eventually he moved down next to us.  He taught us about farming the small amount of land that we had, having a cow, how to milk her, goats (that’s a story), chickens, chickens and gardening.

Got help?

My love of people came from watching him interact with others. He never met a stranger, and watching him taught me to be able to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. He encouraged me to consider possibilities, and to make choices for myself and not be a follower.  

He was my dad. He behaved as a dad, and gave an enduring example for the future. 

 Thanks Dad, I miss you.

This picture was taken when I was 15. My dad was the being the poster boy for the Handicap can overcome series of newspaper articles

Sentimental Sunday and 52 Ancestors Week 1

Combining two posts into one.  On Facebook Amy Johnson Crow shared her resolution and a new blog challenge. Her blog is No Story Too Small you can read about her challenge there.  I have decided to give it the college try.

As I was driving from church today, my thoughts went, as they often do, to my research.  I was thinking of how we start where we know and branch out from there.  My thoughts then went to my own descendants.  How cool is it that I have 23 desendants and one on the way!  Helps to have 6 children, number 6 hasn't started yet. I digress.  When my first grandchildren were little I wore a "Mother's birthstone children necklace". They loved to sit in my lap and play with the necklace and ask who the individual "children" were and loved finding how their parent fit in the family.  My # 18 grandchild accidentally broke it, and I am just getting around to fixing it.  My point is the grands learned who their aunts and uncles were.  Which brings me to my wonderful mother-in-law. She had the same type of necklace, but rarely wore it and there wasn't a lot of lap sitting around her house as she was always in the kitchen. 

 When she died, we were all dealing with the pain losing her. I know 93 years is a long time, but I was ready for 100.  My youngest son declined to go to the funeral or viewing. Since his dad died, he stays away from family gatherings.  He declines to talk about it.  Back to my point.  When the youngest son was sent the will as part of being his father's heir, he sat down and read the whole thing. Now that is awesome, but the awesome fun thing was when he came running into my room and said ... "I didn't know dad had two sisters".  Well blow me away.  Maybe mom should have worn her necklace more and held her grandson on her lap more.  Just sayin'... 

I inherited the Hero's mom's necklace at the top.

Basically she was not raised in a warm loving environment.  Her parents, were divorced when she was little, and she was sent to live with her grandparents who were quite elderly compared to a 3 year old.  They were stern, and they loved her, but there just wasn't any cuddling.  

Henry Reynolds, Mildred Vance, Martha Wells Reynolds

Her mom wasn't demonstrative, and her dad had a problem with drinking.  When I met her, it was a struggle for both of us, because I am a hugger, and she was a polite cheek pecker.  As the years passed, we became good friends, and she accepted my hugs.  I am so glad I was able to spend many hours staying with her when she had illnesses or surgeries, because I was able to capture many stories about it to share with my children.  A funny one she told when we were talking about disciplining children, was that, once she had been rude and unruly and ran from her grandmother.  Being elderly and slow, her grandmother wasn't able to catch her and she thought she had a triumph.  Later, she took a nap, and when she woke up she discovered, grandmother had tied her to the bed.  She was advised she would not behave like that again.  She said, she never did.  I guess that is a case of "I know where you sleep".  

I could write about her for hours, but I will leave more stories for another time. 

Love you mom... Miss you.

My DNA Journey ... Bringing Together the atDNA and the mtDNA

I have written about my frustration trying to figure out DNA test results, but not the full story.  This is how my journey has been going.

We had my cousin do her mtDNA through Ancestry.com.  She was our best hope to go through the mtDNA to reach our objective as it was my dad’s sister. Even his YDNA, if he was alive would not have helped.   I, being inexperienced, was clueless what to do with it when it came back.  The only thing I found on Ancestry was a sparse Origin evaluation and matches somewhat based on the origins and somewhat on our family trees.  It did confirm several times a connection with our David Burleson and Ursula Weatherford ancestor line.  Which was the one with the family lore of Native American that appears to be based on a cousin who was ½ Creek, but not the same mothers or related mothers. It was HIS mother who was Creek. 

I talked with a few friends that done DNA testing and they suggested I do the Family Tree DNA autosomal test.  It would me by having a spectrum of my DNA from both the paternal and maternal sides.  It was a long wait to get the results. First there was human error in the lab, the results were thrown out and I had to redo it again, resulting in a 5 month wait.  I will praise Family Tree though, they gave me the test free since it was their fault and the wait was so long, and I love their tools.

When my results came back, once again, I had the 95.33% Western Europe (basically the British Isles) and 4.6% Middle East. both with a disclaimer of +/- 1.38%  and no Native American shown.  The Middle East included populations in Palestine, Bedouin, Iran, and Jewish and Mazobite areas that matched my DNA... Now that I have done the full sequence mtDNA also, that looks like my mom's side which matches Sephardic, Ashkenazim, German, Mizrachi in Vienna, and Armenian populations among others.

I reached out to Heather our Board Member at Montgomery County Historical Commission and Genealogy and Local History Librarian at Montgomery County Memorial Library System.  She also has a blog, The Geneabrarian Reference Desk.  She suggested that I try utilizing Gedmatch.com and try their admix utilities, as well as others.  Her husband’s DNA had not shown Native American on FTDNA, but she found it on there.  I was game.  Gedmatch, I said, “Here I come!” 

I downloaded the raw data for both my cousin and myself.  Then uploaded to Gedmatch.  I was able to compare her DNA and mine. The results were Largest segment = 55.7 cM Total of segments > 3 cM = 796.6 cM Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 2.1… That was good, we are definitely cousins. J  Now, I needed to figure out which admix to use, and how.

I began looking closer at Roberta Jestes blog DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy.  I found her autosomal series and began there.  Part 7 – “The Autosomal Me – Start, Stop, Go – Identifying Native Chromosomal Segments” had some great helps.  I tried the same chromosome 2 she had.  On the comparison she used, my cousin and I had Native American segments at the same place, 10M and 160M.  It appears we match as cousins for Native American which would be for my dad’s side.  Now, I have to find the family connection on paper and with others to prove it.

Admixture Eurogenes EUtest V2 K15 - Compare a single chromosome

The light lavender is American Indian. They are layered because I could not get the whole thing together. The top is myself, second my cousin, and so forth. 

I also did the oracle for both.

Our major Ethnicity is North Atlantic, but we both have a trace amount of Native American.  Janice’s is a little larger than mine but it is to be expected since we were looking down the maternal line which we did for her and mine test is autosomal just picking up part of my dad’s DNA.  Surprising how much came through.

admixture Eurogenes K13

I am not as knowledgeable nor am I a skilled as Roberta at creating examples, but I hope you can see what I am trying to show.  I will share with you any successes I experience, as well any failures too.  

Post Christmas Whew... Finally Some DNA Responses.

This year was another hard one.  You would think after 5 years it would be easier at Christmas not having the Hero with me. I guess not, because I really wasn't motivated to put up the tree. On the other hand I had fun Christmas Eve putting the tree up and decorating it when my son came over.  I have to wonder how my grandmothers felt each year after the death of their spouses. Especially my mom's mom who still had 6 children to raise at home and had a need to make holidays as normal as possible.

                                                                                                                                         

Mattie Roberts Whitson 1930

Lenorah Gildon Langley 1958

There were a couple of unexpected Christmas presents.  Two responses to my DNA tests.  
One was from Gedmatch.com that still has me wondering.  "I notice on Gedmatch that your DNA matches my three kits (F#, F#, and F#) on Chromosome 14 between about 69 and 80.  The segment is of particular interest to me because the admixture tool Dodecad World9 shows that it contains Native American ethnicity."  I can not find the person on Gedmatch myself, nor any information about this statement.
This has been a hope of mine to prove Native American ancestry or disprove it. This is my William B and Mary Burleson Self line.  Mary's father is Moses Burleson and his mother's line Weatherford are supposed to of Native American ancestry.  Some debate going on here.  Then there is William B Self''s mother who is said to be of Native American Indian ancestry... No proofs found here, that I can see.  Wish a gene Fairy would come along with real source.  Sigh.
The second response was much clearer. A solid match for William Hatcher b 1680 in Virginia .
Both are on my dad's side.  Hmmm looks like DNA maybe heavier on the dad's side... or just no one doing my mom's side; time will tell.
Learning about the searches, and different areas of DNA research is a Big learning curve.
Let you know if anything comes forth.

Blog Caroling -- "While Shepherd Watch Their Flocks"

This year I am learning.  I have picked a hymn to share in a version I had not heard before.  I just learned my Gildon family came from the Yorkshire area of England.  In my search for a hymn about the Shepherds, I remembered a hymn often sung at our LDS ward meetings at Christmas time, and discovered it has a 300 year history of being sung in Yorkshire... 'While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks'.  The words are attributed to words attributed to Irish hymnist, lyricist and England's Poet Laureate, Nahum Tate (1652-1715). The Music is an Yorkshire carol (ca. 1800).

It has been set to numerous other tunes, but I have chose the YouTube English version from Yorkshire.
"While Shepherds Watched - The Yorkshire Version by Stamford Bridge Singers"
They make it an exciting time. The Wikipedia has more information if you would like to read.

This is a meme that Footnote Maven does every year.  She has been a wonderful example of hope, and joy in the midst of her own challenges this year. I can't say enough to praise for her magazine, "Shaded of the Departed" and her personal outlook on life. Thanks Footnote Maven for being the kind of person you are.
If you want to participate hurry on over to her blog for the instructions. http://www.footnotemaven.com/2013/12/fms-tradition-of-blog-caroling.html

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Christmas Trees

 One year, our story was not so much about the decorating of the tree it was more about the change it made in what kind of tree we would get in future years.

We had obtained a pine tree from the local store this time.  The kids had had wonderful time with the Hero decorating and playing while decorating.  It was a beautiful tree. 

It had been a cool year and we had the fireplace going.  When it was time to take the tree down, the Hero decided to be efficient and burn the limbs in the fireplace. Sounded good.

When he put the first branch in the fireplace (it was a large stone fireplace), there was a loud roar, and the whole house shook. We all came running to see what had happened.  The Hero looked pale, but it was not because of the house shaking, it was because he had thought of where the tree had been sitting.  The first words out of his mouth were “It was sitting under the girls’ bedroom.  If it had caught fire, we would not have been able to save them, if this is what one branch will do.”  He disposed of the rest of the tree outside.

In the coming years, we had an artificial tree that was flame retardant, underlined by the fact that we moved to a house we heated with a wood stove. 

The new artificial tree.

We missed the smell of the fresh cut trees, but it was worth the sacrifice to have a tree we felt would keep our children safe. 

Private Harry O. Whitson, Company B 38th Infantry Battalion, Philippines War

This is my journey of discovering my Grandfather Harry O Whitson’s military years. 

It started with finding his pension in the Civil War Files.  He served in the Philippines War in 1899, but they have their pension indexes mixed in with the Civil War indexes.  This discovery was on Fold3. I now knew that he was in Company B of the 38^th Infantry Battalion.  I also had his muster in and muster out dates, as well as his death date. My mom said he died when she was 2 months old and so he did.

On Ancestry.com, I found him and his 2 brothers, Robert C Whitson, and Oscar Whitson on the 1900 US Federal Census at Battalion at Batangas, Philippine Islands, Military and Naval Forces in the same battalion. 

The next process was to go to GenealogyBank.com and search the newspapers of that time to see what was being said.  Sad to say, the press was very negative about this war and coverage wasn't great, but the political cartoons were rampant.  The worse was to see about a battalion being charged with atrocities. I breathed a sigh of relief that my grandfather was not in that battalion.  His service summary card said service Honest and Faithful.  A description I would not mind to have. Finally I found an article that told of the end of the volunteer army. It described when they would come home, and the transports that would be involved. 

A Google search using the names of the transports gave me the dates and places that they arrived in. I also found the book AnnualReport of the Secretary of War, Volume 1, Part 3 US Gov. 1901.  In there was the chart that gave the exact ship ‘Thyna’ that his battalion came home on, the date in port and the date they were discharged on which matched his pension card.  Someone (there wasn't a name) had transcribed 2 Oregonian Daily articles that included the arrival of the ship.

THE MORNING OREGONIAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1901.

Thyna And KINTUCK.

Two Big Transports Will Return to Portland From Manila.

“The United States transports Thyra and  Kintuck will both return to Portland

from Manila, and the former has already sailed for Portland with a company of

volunteers, which will be mustered out in San Francisco. The Thyra was turned over

to the Government in this city, and It is supposed that she Is coming back to Port,

land to be returned to her owners. Otherwise, she would probably go direct to

San Francisco with the troops. Just why the troops should not be mustered out In

Portland is a matter which is not easily explained, except that the San Francisco

pull is heavier than that of Portland. The Kintuck will probably bring a few

soldiers when she returns. She had excellent luck with her outward cargo of

horses and mules from Portland, losing but four animals on the voyage.”

THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JUNE 30, 1901.

ASTORIA:  June 29. Arrived at 8:50 A.M. and left up at 12:30 P. M.

 Norwegian steamer Thyra, from Manila. From San Francisco.

“The Norwegian steamship Thyra, which has been In the Government transport

service for several months, arrived at Astoria yesterday morning, and after a

short stay at quarantine, proceeded up the river. She brings 237 passengers,

nearly all, of them returning volunteer Infantrymen. The officers on board were

Captain D. F. Allen, Captain Ross A. Nichols, First Lieutenant A. J. Brown,

Second Lieutenant A. C. Davis, First Lieutenant S. Friedman and Captain W.

G. Fleischhauer. The present trip of the Thyra will be her last

 in the Government service, and she will probably drift back

into the merchant service.”

From this, I was able to see they had a long hard trip aboard a steamer.  They had to wait another

month before they were discharged to go home.  It was amazing to see they were transported to the upper North West of the United States to be able to get back to their homes.  The newspaper article said they still had to wait for their last 5 days of pay because of not being mustered out until 5 days after the expiration of the time the congress had set for the volunteer army.  

I hope they got it.

These men did not get a ticker tape parade or a pat on the back.  I know from my great uncle, and what my mother said that my grandfather volunteered because he wanted to serve his country. During WWI, he couldn’t volunteer to go serve as a soldier, so he went and volunteered to drive a taxi at Fort Sill, Oklahoma to help the soldiers.  He apparently kept hitting his knee on the door. When his knee hurt enough, he went in to the doctors and they discovered he had cancer in his knee.  His service days were over. According to his Pension Index card, it was the 19^th of June 1920 that they deemed him to be sufficiently handicapped to receive his military pension.  My grandmother, continued to receive, thankfully, as a widow, since they lost everything because of medical bills.

I close saying that I am grateful my grandfather was a man who stood for his country and desired to serve to help other’s be free.  He was a good man.  I made a scrapbook page to depict his military journey, from where he lived when he volunteered to where he returned to the United States.  

Created by Fran Ellsworth