Mom crewed on the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper.

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Don Taylor

Matrilineal Monday
Maritime Monday
By Don Taylor

Photo of Don Taylor with cat Nasi.I was recently reading one of my favorite blogs, Marian’s Roots and Rambles. Her article was about “Any Sailors in the Family.”  I was a sailor and did 10 years of active duty in the US Navy, but more interesting, I learned recently that my mother was a sailor as well.  She mentioned that somewhere or another she had gotten “seaman’s papers.” (I’ll have to look and see if I can figure out how to get a copy of them.)  She worked on a ferry boat on the Great Lakes.  In the early 1950’s she cooked aboard the SS Milwaukee Clipper. The ‘Clipper was an auto/train car (and passenger) ferry that ran between Muskegon, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She cooked and baked in the bread department and lived shipboard a season.  Of course, I was astonished and amazed.  It provided her with a place to stay (albeit cramped), meals, and money to send back to her mother to support me.  I had no idea.

S. S. Milwaukee Clipper passing sand dunes at entrance to the harbor, Muskegon, Michigan.
By Boston Public Library [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

I went on to find out that the S. S. Milwaukee Clipper is still in existence. The ‘Clipper is a National Historic Landmark and dockside in Muskegon, Michigan. Their website explains a lot about the ship and its history. Built in 1904 as the Junita she was sold and completely overhauled in 1940, where a new steel superstructure was installed, she was fireproofed, had AC installed to the staterooms, and other comforts were added. I am sure that the crew quarters were tight.

Anyway, it was a fascinating side trip into a bit of my mother’s history that I had no idea about.

 

Posted in Brown-Montran | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Mom’s Memories

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Don Taylor

Sometimes talking with elderly family members can yield lots of information that is confusing and difficult to figure out.  There are nuggets of really interesting information that can make the family history interesting; but, the places or times aren’t quite right.

I was talking with my mother some time ago, and she mentioned that back in the early 50’s she worked at “Kreskee’s” at 5th and Marquette in Minneapolis. After a little bit of searching and some memory work of my own, I figured out she worked at S. S. Kresge’s which was at 6th, and Nicollet (2 blocks away).  Kresge’s was known for it’s “donut counter” which is where my mother worked. At the time I was an infant staying with my grandmother up at Little Rock Lake. My mother would hitchhike to the city about 80 miles away. Work in the city during the week and then return on the weekends.

I can’t tell if it is the same building with a total facelift or if it is a new building.  I suspect it is the same building with a major facelift. I found it really interesting to learn that S.S. Kresge was the predecessor of K-Mart. Some of the Kresge stores became “Jupiter Discount Stores” and others converted to K-Mart. I guess I had thought Kresge had just vanished.
She also worked at Woolworths in St. Cloud (which apparently no longer exists). I need to do some more research on it.
She mentioned working at a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. She remembered that it was a long and deep restaurant next door on the right of the movie theater. She said she couldn’t remember the name of either the theater or the restaurant.  In follow-up discussions with her, she recalled that the theater was on the left as you headed towards the river, was at about 4th and Hennepin.  A bit of research and I figured that it must have been the Palace Theater. I found a photo of the Palace Theater but can’t quite make out the name of the restaurant. It appears that the theater and the restaurant were torn down about 1953, “to make way for a parking lot.”
Surprisingly the Brass Rail is still there, and the parking lot is there today.
Beyond it, you can see the “Gay 90s.”  I mentioned it as potentially being the restaurant she worked at, but she indicated that wasn’t it.
She didn’t work at Kresge’s or that restaurant long, but she did work to earn money to support me, even if it meant being absent for a while. I am really proud of her and the efforts she took.
Posted in Brown-Montran, My History | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Life and Travels of Peter Howell by Himself

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Don Taylor

This week I began research on the Howell Family Tree (my wife’s).  I had very little on her grandfather, a bit more on his father (who was in the Civil War) and very little about his father Peter Howell.

Peter M. Howell abt 1849
Source: The Life and Travels of Peter Howell

Unfortunately, or fortunately, as it turned out, her grandfather, went by his initials most of the time. I knew he was a Baptist preacher in North Carolina. So I started searching Baptist records in North Carolina just searching for “Howell” and not his first name, nor his initials, just “Howell.”  Suddenly a WOW!  Up popped a book, “The Life and Travels of Peter Howell”.  My wife’s great and her 2nd great grandfathers were both named Peter Howell.  Could this be the same Peter Howell?  Found the book at a library in the Raleigh reference section.  I then searched around for the title elsewhere and found it at archive.org, which is a must-site for your searches.  I downloaded the files and began to read.  It was the right one, born in 1805, married to Caroline Pankey, and lived in Virginia…. it was the right Peter Howell.

The first page was a bit of a disappointment, he mentions his birthdate (which we didn’t have before) but not his parents’ names.  He spent his adult life as an itinerant preacher. He traveled from town to town preaching in people’s homes, at court houses, at Methodist and Baptist churches, and even on occasion at quaker meeting halls, masonic temples, and a Catholic Church. He walked almost everywhere putting on over two thousand miles walking in one year preaching at hundreds of places.  He describes towns, and buildings, such as the Virginia and North Carolina State Houses, as well as places like Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.  He mentions churches,  and most importantly people throughout his travels. Sadly, he mentions very little about his personal life or his family, but the book does provide a wonderful insight into the life of a itinerate preacher of the 1840s.

He seldom ever mentions his two daughters.  He does correct one name Lousianna (I had Laurana previously) but never mentions the name of his second son or his second daughter. He confirmed the name of his first son and, in the book, corrects the name I had for his youngest child.  More importantly, he provides county information for his parents, marriage information for a sister and the names and living locations of a couple of brothers that I had no information about.

It took many hours to go through the book, determine genealogically interesting information, and incorporate them and the source references into my tree.

Of course one of the greatest finds in the book was a drawing of the author, Peter Howell (b. 1805).

Check it out, The Life and Travels of Peter Howell.

Posted in Howell-Hobbs | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Y-DNA – Post2: The Test, Results, & Roberts Connection

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Don Taylor
I was excited to get the test. I did the cheek swabs and sent it back the
following day.  Then the long wait – It seemed like months. but was probably only a few weeks.  I don’t recall when I sent the swab in, but
in November 2008, I receive the results. They determined I am haplogroup R1b – who Ancestry calls “The Artisans”.  Basically, they are the folks from what is now the British Isles, France, and the Iberian Peninsula.  No surprise there, I always figured I was of Northern European descent as my skin is quite light, I was blond as a kid, and had a lot of red in my beard as a young man. (It is grey now.)
Then click to see matches.  My closest match was a person with whom I shared a common ancestor ten generations ago. His last name was “Roberts.”  Assuming there weren’t any sideways name changes (like mine), it might be that I was fathered by someone with the surname of Roberts.
Now, I could tie my ancestry to a possible name.  Of course, in my excitement of finding a possible connection, I didn’t realize that over ten generations there were likely thousands of male offspring.  Although he
had 11 generations of male ancestors in his tree, if I started at that tenth
generation ancestor and each generation had two boys, then there would be over2000 potential father candidates, assuming I could follow each of the
lines.  I became dejected,  but I hoped to persevere in the long run.  I
connected with Mr. Roberts and exchanged trees with him to this day.  Ancestry has updated their database, and he now shows as sharing a common ancestor with me 14 generations ago.
Another two men with the surname Roberts have shown up as sharing a common ancestor within ten generations.  I haven’t contacted them yet but probably will do so in the near future.
Then the most amazing thing occurred.  A person popped into the DNA matches with whom our MRCA (most recent common ancestor) is only 3 generations away.  Wow!  He too is a Roberts.  Finally, someone whosedejec tree I can work with to determine a possible father.  I contacted him, and he agreed to share trees with me. Of course, Ancestry’s MRCA determination isn’t quite as clean as you might think.  It is really complicated, but basically, there is a 50% chance that this person and I share a common ancestor within 3 generations.  I looked at his tree closely, but nothing jumped out at me, no one lived in the right city at the right time.  More importantly, none of his three ancestor generations could be candidates nor any of their offspring.  So, based upon his known tree, I’ve begun a Roberts Notional tree wherein I’m going back to his fourth, fifth, and sixth ancestral generations then following each of the male offspring looking for someone who might be the right Roberts at the right place and time.  I’m afraid I might need to wait another ten years until the 1950 census comes out to find out the answer.  Certainly, the family tree can wait for a few
more years.
UPDATE: Thanks to a combination of Y-DNA and atDNA tests I determined my biological father in 2016. I have five new half-siblings! 

Posted in DNA & Genetic Genealogy, Roberts-Barnes | Tagged | 1 Comment

I’m Back – Vacation was Great.

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Don Taylor

After a couple of weeks vacation, I am back home. The break was terrific. My highlight was a presentation to the “Aunties” about the Darling Family. I’ve been working on their tree for quite some time and developed a “life book,” ala Henry Louis Gates’s “Finding your Roots.”  It went over exceptionally well. They have the life book and a biography of each of their ancestors on their Father’s side that I could find as well as a CD containing copies of the images of all the documents used to do the book. I also did a slide show of key highlights of their family tree.

Also, while there, I took photos of many photos, letters, and documents that I hadn’t seen before, as well as recorded conversations with many of the Aunties. I will have hours and hours of work to incorporate the information into my records, but it will be fun.

We did some shopping at Reny’s – A Maine Adventure. Usually, I’m not too fond of shopping, but Reny’s t is always a pleasure. They carry a lot of “manly stuff,” Carhartt, Pendleton, and Woolrich — In sizes that fit me. I picked up a new fedora and suspenders. I love Reny’s.

My wife and I then attended the wedding of her niece, SH. It was a beautiful event on Casco Bay (Portland, ME). Another event for my records with photos.

My wife then visited with her best friend since the 8th grade, EB. It was great to see her again. We laughed long enough and hard enough to cause my side to hurt. We were able to turn on EB and her husband to TED Talks. There is one we call “Amy the Unicorn” that my wife and I find amazing. Fun to watch, entertaining, engaging, and even enlightening. It has nothing to do with genealogy but is well worth watching. See it on TED.

We followed my wife’s passion and went stalking the wild tourmaline, appetite, and other stones at various quarries in Maine through Poland Mining Camps. The food was excellent, the beds comfortable, and my wife was thrilled with the rocks she collected.

I’ve still got a lot of follow-ups to do after the vacation, catch up on email, incorporate photos into iPhoto and categorize them. Soon I will be back to my everyday life and be able to support the Smyrna Historical and Genealogical Society, work on my genealogy, and blog here.

[This post was gently edited and the categories and tags were updated  on 5 August 2022.] 

Posted in Darling-Huber | Tagged | Leave a comment