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Biographies@HarrisonCountyKy.US
Today when
one considers what the natural subject of a published biography may be, one's
own very humble ancestors do not often come to mind, and one typically thinks of
texts written about the great feats and noble minds of the men and women who
made America (Although, nowadays, many biographies are written by and about
people who are known more for having had their foot in their mouth than anything
great or noble!). Sometimes a halfway decently written obituary is all that any
local or family historian can hope for when it comes to locating any kind of
narrative about his research subject. Yet many biographies in fact have been
written about people that neither you nor I would have ever thought would have
been the subject of one before taking up a genealogical quest.
A majority of
these biographical sketches, at least those found and transcribed for the new
site at HarrisonCountyKy.US, were originally published after the Civil War,
beginning around the time of the nation's Centennial. Some of these compendiums
of submitted biographies have been derisively referred to as “mug books,”
published by “vanity presses” who were prepaid to include the profiles of their
“subscribers.” As the editors and publishers were paid to include the
biographical content, little review may have been done to check for accuracy.
Many thousands of Americans had done their part in writing the chapters of a
uniquely American history and now they had the opportunity to have their own
part in it recorded for posterity, and so they did.
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Writing the “1-Hour Autobiography”
Many
people take up genealogy and family history research for various
reasons, usually from the point of having just started a family to
having recently retired and taking up family research as a new hobby.
No
matter where you come from, almost any genealogy or family history that
you will research will have one person in common . . . You! Every
family history has a beginning, and why not begin your research with
that which is most familiar to you, your own life story.
Decades were spent in getting the technology of film development down to
one hour or less, and now no one needs it, everything is digital. While
the length of the life that is the subject of an autobiography may vary
from twenty to a hundred years, the brief time hour it takes to write it
a “1-Hour Autobiography” may last a hundred or more, and so the effort
will definitely be well spent, and the only technology needed is as
simple the old pen or pencil and a piece of paper.
One
good way to begin your research efforts is to write a “1-Hour
Autobiography” using the following set of questions or framework of
suggestions regarding elements of your life. The project can usually be
completed within an hour (Unless you are a modern-day Benjamin Franklin
or Leonardo DeVinci!!!).
Begin
with your name. Simply write “My name is . . .” Tell how you got your
name, what it means, your nicknames, etc. If you were named for your
father, mother, aunt or uncle be sure to make note of it.
Now
write everything you know about where you were born: the name of the
hospital or the address of the house or the location of the farm. Add
details about the weather, the time of day, and the day of the week.
Also, when and where were you baptized/christened, if such was the
case?
List
the names, birthplaces, and birthdates of your parents and brothers &
sisters, and make note of where any of them were born, married or
perhaps died.
Name
the schools (pre-, kindergarten, grade, high, private, public, military,
or religious) that you attended, including colleges or universities, and
when you attended and/or graduated.
List
the organizations you joined as a youth--Cub Scouts, Brownies, Boy
Scouts, Girls Scouts, 4-H. Did you take part in high school athletics
or play for the marching band? What about after-school clubs and
activities?
List
the date, location, and other significant details of how and when you
met your children’s Mom/Dad and/or of your marriage(s). Then list your
children and their birth dates. Mention important changes in your
family--a child’s marriage, deaths, divorces, moves, and jobs.
Remember, keep to the bare bones of your life story. You only have one
hour, so stick to the facts (You can leave the skeletons in the closet .
. . for now!).
Try
to write in a brief narrative paragraph or paragraphs of how you have
spent your adult life, at work, as a homemaker, or in volunteer efforts.
Any military experiences?
And
that’s all there is to do!
After
completing this little exercise not only will you have a nice
introduction to any genealogy or family history research project that
you may complete, but you will also have discovered that what you
consider important to your own life story is much the same as what you
will be looking for in order to fill out the life stories which make up
any genealogy or family history that you research.
You
no doubt would be able to prove each one of the biographical elements of
your story by documentation such as birth certificates, marriage
certificates, diplomas and the like. However, to locate these
documents, all you probably have to do is go a desk drawer, safety
deposit box, or closet. In researching the lives of others you will
have to use other resources, both private (family) and public (libraries
& courthouses), which is what learning about family history research is
all about! |
Signs of
Their Times - Viewed with a jaundiced eye of the 21st century citizen it
might seem that most of the biographical sketches published in the 19th and
early 20th centuries were about well-off, well-bred, white guys. Many subjects
were, indeed, wealthy, educated, in a profession or trade, or at least a
landowning farmer. They were of European descent, mostly from England or
Scotland, some from Germany or France, and likely to be descended from a
Revolutionary War patriot, a Mayflower passenger, or perhaps even an early
pioneer or settler. All seem to have been red-blooded heterosexual males; if
they were gay, it wasn't told, and if it was, only the old-fashioned sense of
the word was intended. If the subject was a woman, then she was probably only
referenced by her relation to her husband, even a dead one, or perhaps by her
relation to a successful son or father, yet many women came to a marriage with
an established pedigree of their own, which often was considered well worth
mentioning . . . even if only her paternal line! After the Civil War African
Americans may have applied themselves equally as hard at earning a living as any
of their contemporaries and achieved similar successes, but apparently need not
have applied to have a sketch published, for, so far, the collection of Harrison
County profiles doesn't include a biography for any African American subject.
Despite the
failures of these texts, at least as far as 21st century American sensibilities
are concerned, the facts contained in them can be a treasure trove of historical
and genealogical information, some of which may not be readily available
anywhere else. For example, the research of a female line of descent can stall
completely with the inability to find a marriage record for her, but the
biographical sketch for any married male almost inevitably provides this
information about her family name and lineage. While African Americans are not
the subjects of sketches themselves, information about a slave-owning family's
background can provide clues to more fully develop an African American pedigree.
Truth Be
Told? - A good dose of skepticism should be applied before accepting any
account as entirely authentic. Many texts follow a particular formula or format
and the actual author of each sketch is unidentified. We cannot determine today
who supplied the information then, whether it was the subject himself or close
family members or acquaintances, or determine just how reliable the informant's
own information, research, or memory, was known to be.
A majority of
sketches are relatively brief, but packed with names, relationships, and dates,
which may or may not be entirely accurate, and such information about the
individual's family may not be all-inclusive. For instance, details about the
subject's wife and children may be recorded, but the fact that the subject may
have been married more than once, and/or had children by other spouses, may not
be mentioned.
Also, be
aware that while you may be able to confirm many details mentioned . . . and you
should try to . . . there may be several facts which can never be confirmed.
This does not necessarily mean they are not true, it could just be that the
biography is the only evidence left of the event itself to fall into the hands
of the modern researcher. Try not to infer too much about the individual by what
may be missing from a profile; for example, if the first wife or their children
that you discovered through other records weren’t mentioned, it does not mean
that a slight was intended or that a rift in the family existed just because
their existence wasn’t acknowledged.
A majority of
sketches were published contemporarily with the lives of their subjects, but in
many cases the information about parents and other ancestors postdates the
deaths of those earlier generations, and so should be used cautiously.
If you can
find a biographical sketch for your ancestor, you should consider yourself
fortunate, but you shouldn't consider your research to be over. If you are like
many, by the time you find a biographical sketch for your research subject, you
probably already have collected a basic set of primary resource materials,
records which were contemporary with the lives of those you are researching,
such as U.S. Census records, marriage records, maybe even a few birth and death
records. Whether early in your research or late in the game, your work may have
just begun. At best, the biography will confirm everything you have found so
far, and add even more details about their lives which you never would have
thought to look for or which may never have been recorded anywhere else. With
time and research, the facts presented may be confirmed in their entirety, or at
least pass as plausible and authentic.
From my own
experience, many of the biographical sketches which touch on the personages of
my family tree have been found to be entirely accurate or "almost there." For
example, so far no fault has been found with the sketch published in 1882 about
my 3rd-great-grandfather, George Cummins, except for the spelling of his name in
the sketch (Cummings). The spelling of the family name alternates between
Cummins and Cummings in contemporary county records, but Cummins is considered
the correct version. The profile of his brother, John Cummins, published in an
Illinois county history, helps to confirm the spelling of the family name, along
with additional details, and provides a very welcome bonus, an image of John
Cummins, which is the only known image of any of the thirteen children of their
parents, Joseph and Lydia (Fleming) Cummins.
In
researching my 2nd-great-grandmother, Corilla (Langley) Elmore it was discovered
that two of her brothers had profiles or sketches published during their
lifetimes, in 1882 and 1901, both full of details, yet with some were
contradictions (Ironically, the shorter bio was more fully accurate, yet the
longer one contained details found nowhere else). Both sketches agreed that the
brother’s grandfather was Isaac Langley, but one text recorded that he had
drowned in Kentucky's Dix River, while the other said Isaac had died of the
cholera. While the causes of death were details not to be found anywhere else,
his probate records were later to be discovered on file in Mercer County, Ky.,
which is bordered by the Dix River, thus confirming the one account. Both
brothers' sketches reported that they were each one of the twelve children of
Abraham Langley, one bio even named all twelve, but the list didn't include the
name of my own ancestor, who was the sister of the subject of the sketch! The
upside of the sketch was that it listed siblings whose names did not appear in
any other local record, but which were confirmed by a Bible record discovered
some years later. And then one wonders about the details left out. Neither
mentioned that the widow of Isaac Langley, their grandmother, had remarried, or
that their oldest brother what was born "out of wedlock."
Sources – A
majority of the nearly 600 biographical sketches which fill out the content of
these pages were found in Kentucky resources, i.e. local and family histories
devoted to Kentucky, its counties, cities, communities, and people. W.H.
Perrin's 1882 History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties,
Kentucky was an obvious resource with which to begin, and it supplied 271 of
the sketches (They were already part of the texts available online at
www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/1882-history). Chronicles of Cynthiana by
Lucinda Boyd was also a useful resource for locating local bios. The five
volumes of Kerr’s 1922 History of Kentucky supplied the second largest supply of
biographies of "persons of interest" to the Harrison County researcher.
Gresham's 1896 Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
was also consulted, as well as several histories of Kentucky counties. In
addition, profiles of prominent men were found in random issues of two late 19th
and early 20th century Harrison County newspapers, the Cynthiana Democrat
and the Log Cabin, in addition to the 1896 and 1905 special commemorative
editions of each.
You Can Help
- More texts which touched on the lives of those originally from Harrison County
were found in volumes devoted to the histories of Arizona, California, Colorado,
Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio,
Oregon, and Texas, or some smaller political divisions thereof. No doubt people
from Harrison County settled in parts of the other thirty-five states as well,
it is just that their biographies have yet to be brought to my attention . . .
and this is where you can help. Do you know of a biographical sketch of a person
who had ties to Harrison County, whether they were born or died in the county,
whether they married a native or who had in-laws from Harrison County? Maybe the
subject of the sketch was descended from a native or resident of the county?
Maybe their education or career brought them to the county for just a short
time, perhaps working the land to earn the money to move further west,
ministering to the faithful, attending a local school, or apprenticing in a
local law firm or medical practice in the county? Please let me know of any
texts you may have discovered so that they may be added to the site and shared
with others.
More
Biographies on the Web – HarrisonCountyKy.US is by no means contains
comprehensive supply of biographies relating to Harrison County research. To
view a list of biographies for anyone whose biographical sketch includes a
reference to Harrison County and which are not included at HarrisonCountyKy.US,
you should visit the home page of the Kentucky Biographies Project (www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/search.html),
a site originally established to collect and transcribe historical biographies
published in histories of Kentucky. The site features a search form. Leave the
first name and surname boxes empty, and use the scroll box to bring up the name
of Harrison County. Click on the “submit” button and nearly 450 entries will be
listed for you, of which 300 focus on Harrisonians.
Ancestry.com
offers a searchable database of the contents of Perrin’s 1882 History of
Bourbon, Scott, Harrison, & Nicholas Counties, Kentucky, however, it may
require a subscription to access it. Ancestry also offers searchable databases
for many other histories which contain biographies, and so does
HeritageQuest.com.
Perrin’s
texts have also been posted online at
www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/1882-history, and one can simply browse the pages to
see the biographies in their original context.
Hardcopies
- You can get your own hardcover reprint of Perrin’s 1882 history (Southern
Historical Press (1999)) which includes an every name index of approximately
eight thousand names, for only $55 plus $5.00 shipping and handling from William
A. Penn (pennwma@aol.com).
To order contact him directly by e-mail or at the Historic Midway Museum Store,
124 East Railroad Street, Midway, Ky. 40347 (Phone: (859) 846-4214).
The texts of
Chronicles of Cynthiana by Lucinda Boyd are available at
www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/chronicles-of-cynthiana, or a hardcover reprint of
the original can be purchased from the Harrison County Historical Society. Just
visit the society’s website and click on “Publications” for details or look for
the most recent list of publications in the Harrison Heritage News. Chronicles
of Cynthiana and the 1896 and 1905 commemorative editions of the Democrat and
Log Cabin are also available at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum.
For originals
of any other texts you may discover, one can always search at
Alibris.com,
Biblio.com, or
Abebooks.com,
but be ready to see some prices which may cost you more dearly that you might
expect.
Only the
Nose Knows – No doubt, some white lies or tall tales have made their way
into the text of biographical sketches, some intentionally, while others are
there by accident, but they won't necessarily be as plain as the nose on
Pinocchio's face. Only the genealogist's eye for detail and own nose for
uncovering the truth will determine the reliability of information provided by
any sketch. Through solid research you may be able to locate even more about the
family than was ever told, or that you ever knew possible.
~
"What is
research but a blind date with knowledge?"
Will Henry
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