MM06 – Elmer Stevens Mapes (1898-1974)

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Don Taylor

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 89



Elmer Stephens Mapes

1920 – Kanakadea
Via Ancestry.com

Elmer Stephens Mapes was born in New York on 24 Aug 1898. He was the third of four children born to James and Myrtle (Myrtie) E Mapes.

The 1900 Census finds little Elmer living with his parents and siblings and his paternal grandfather, Martin Mapes. Martin was 82 year, born in New York, a widower, and farmer who owned his farm without a mortgage. His father was also a farmer and his mother had four children, only three of whom were still living at the time.[i]
By 1905, Martin and family were living on North Church Street in Burns, Allegany County, New York. His father was a produce dealer.[ii]
The 1910 Census indicates the Mapes family still in Burns, but now on Mill Street. Elmer is attending school. The 1910 Census indicates that his mother had four children, all of whom were alive. [iii]This conflicts with the 1900 census, which indicated that one child of Myrtie, had died.
In 1915, the Mapes family is still in Burns, but now on Bennett Street. His father was postmaster and Elmer attended school. [iv]
  
Advertising Photo of the Alfred Cafe from the 1921 Kanakadea yearbook.
The Alfred Cafe – A sure Alfred College hangout.
Note: They have electric lights!
Advertisement in the 1921 Kanakadea – Via Ancestry.com
In 1918, Elmer headed off to attend Alfred College, sixteen miles away, in Alfred, New York. Elmer enlisted in the Army and served two months in the Alfred training company[v][vi]. He was a member of many groups.
The 1920 Census indicates that he was living on West Main in Burns. His older sister, Rena, was a high school teacher.[vii] Elmer was continuing in college, where he was the Assistant Business Manager for “Fiat Lux,” the school yearbook. His future wife, Marion Roos was the editor-in-chief of the “Fiat Lux” that same year. It is my suspicion that they met there. In any event, Elmer and Marion married in 1923.[viii]
By 1930, Elmer had moved to Bristol, Rhode Island, where he was the superintendent of schools.[ix] He must have been really good as a superintendent because, in 1933, the governor appointed Superintendent Mapes to a select committee.[x] Elmer was involved in civic organizations including the Rotary.[xi]

In 1935, Elmer, Marion, and their two daughters lived in Bristol, at 997 Hope.[xii]  

Photo of the devastation on Hope Street, Bristol, Rhode Island from the 1938 Hurricane.
Hurricane of 1938 aftermath in Bristol, RI

Photo: Hope Street, abt 10 blocks from Mapes home. 
On 21 September 1938, a hurricane & tidal wave hit Bristol, RI. Elmer S. Mapes stated that the schools would resume Monday (Sept 26th) contingent on the water service being restored by that time. According to a newspaper article, “Mr. Mapes took a leading part in the rehabilitation work.”[xiii]
Between 1940 and 1942, the Mapes family moved to 16 Union, still in Bristol.[xiv]
Elmer S. Mapes
PhotoL 1946 Reflector (Weymouth HS)
via Ancestry.com
About 1946, Mr. Mapes took a position as the superintendent of schools in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The school dedicated their yearbook to him that year.
Elmer S. Mapes showed his continuing leadership when he was elected as 2nd Vice President for the Massachusetts School Superintendents Association in 1958.[xv] In 1963, he was a panelist at a P-TA conference[xvi] and in 1965, tentatively supported school busing to correct racial imbalances in education.[xvii]
Elmer Mapes died on 17 Nov 1974 in Weymouth, Mass. [xviii]

[i] 1900 U.S. Census, Ancestry.com, Year: 1900; Census Place: Burns, Allegany, New York; Roll: T623_1008; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 11; FHL microfilm: 1241008.
[ii] New York, State Census, 1905, “New York, State Census, 1905,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MVBC-W4F : accessed 28 Aug 2012), Elmer Mapes, Burns, Canaseraga Village, E.D. 01, Allegany, New York.
[iii] 1910 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com, Year: 1910; Census Place: Burns, Allegany, New York; Roll: T624_923; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 0018; Image: 916; FHL microfilm: 1374936.
[iv] New York, State Census, 1915, Ancestry.com.
[v] New York, Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, Ancestry.com, Elmer S Mapes.
[vi] U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010, Ancestry.com, Elmer Mapes.
[vii] 1920 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com, Year: 1920; Census Place: Burns, Allegany, New York; Roll: T625_1084; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 19; Image: 864.
[viii] U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012, Ancestry.com, Alfred University – 1920 – Kanakadea, Page 74.
[ix] 1930 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com, 1930; Census Place: Bristol, Bristol, Rhode Island; Roll: 2168; Page: 17A; Enumeration District: 4; Image: 144.0; FHL microfilm: 2341902.
[x] 1933-11-17 – Newport Mercury – Page 6 – ]Governor Names Unemployed Teachers’ Fund Group (Elmer Mapes)., Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island (newspapers.com).
[xi] 1935-09-27 – Page 5 – Rotarians Swarm to District Convention (E.S. Mapes)., Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island (newspapers.com).
[xii] Rhode Island, State Census, 1935, Family Search, Elmer S Mapes, Bristol, Rhode Island, United States; State Archives, Providence; FHL microfilm 1,753,866. (Accessed 1 September 2015),. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPRS-K6W.
[xiii] Richard V. Simpson, “The Great Hurricane and Tidal Wave of 1938:   Scenes of the Disaster in Rhode Island’s East Bay”.  Roger Williams University. (Year 2012); online archives, Roger Williams University (https://docs.rwu.edu/), Chapter 1, The Tidal Surge and its Aftermath as Reported by The Scribe | Paragraph:  Schools May Open. https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=hurricane_1938.
[xiv] U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta), Ancestry.com.
[xv] 1958-04-23 – Page 12 – Malden Man to Head School Superintendents. ., The North Adams Transcript, North Adams, Massachusetts (Newspapers.com).
[xvi] 1963-01-30 – Fitchburg Sentinel · Page 15 – State P-TA Conference Attended (Elmer S Mapes)., Fitchburg Sentinel, Fitchburg, Massachusetts (newspapers.com).
[xvii] 1965-04-16 – Bennington Banner – Page 2 – Racial Imbalance Report Draws Fire, High Praise (Elmer SMapes)., Bennington Banner, Bennington, Vermont (newspapers.com).
[xviii] Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003, Ancestry.com
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newspapers.com newspapers.com 
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Scarborough Historical Society September 2015 Meeting – Yearbooks

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Don Taylor

I attended the Scarborough Historical Society, where I am a member, meeting the other night. It was really interesting. They had taken Scarborough High School yearbooks over the decades and had individuals from many of those years speak about the advertising and advertisers that bought displays in the yearbooks. Initially, one person talked about the development of school yearbooks from the “Profiles of Part of Class Graduated at Yale College” published in 1806, through the addition of photos into yearbooks because of the letterpress process and halftone printing in the 1880s, to the first few years of yearbooks of Scarborough Maine in the nineteen teens. He spoke about those first advertisers and what happened to the businesses over the hundred years since.

Then, individuals that graduated in 1939, 1945, the mid-1950s, and the 1960s each spoke about their respective yearbook advertisers and what happened to many of the businesses and/or their locations. It was a fascinating talk that gave me pause to think….

Milking machine advertisingThe Kanakadea (1921)
Alfred College, Alfred, NY
Source: Ancestry.Com
I recently found an online yearbook for an ancestor in my Mowbray-Mapes Project. (I’ll be blogging about that find shortly.) I extracted information about the ancestor, photos of him, and clubs he belonged to, but I never considered looking at the advertisers in his yearbook. Who was marketing what to the graduating class? I looked at that yearbook and will definitely will at yearbook advertisers in the future. The advertisers provide an amazing perspective to the life and times.  I’ll consider if the ads intended to sell the company as a place for the graduates to work or did the ads intend to sell to the students and/or their family? Understanding the advertisers in a yearbook understanding the community and the businesses that the young people of the day found important.

Lessons Learned:  

Analyzing the advertising in yearbooks and incorporate into individual’s history as appropriate.

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Start Looking
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Is it enough? (To not use the names of living individuals)

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Don Taylor

Is it enough?

(To not use the names of living individuals)

The stepson of a grand uncle of mine recently contacted me. I had written about his mother and stepfather a few years ago and he found my blog posting to be fascinating. His mother married my grand-uncle when he was about two and a half. In my posting, I mentioned that his mother had a child when he was four-years-old. The child, a boy, was a half-sibling; he and the baby had a common mother but different fathers. What he found so fascinating was that neither he nor his other half-siblings had any knowledge of the child who was born and died about seven weeks later.
My wife commented about the encounter, “What if the mother didn’t want anyone to know?” Was I right in telling the story? It is a tough moral question. I rested my hat upon the following facts:

Both mother and father had passed.
The child had passed (as an infant).
I didn’t name any living individuals in my story.
Last, but not least, I had the sources that told the factual story.

Nevertheless, my wife’s comments made me think. What should be the criteria about when not to tell a story? I try to be careful about never telling the names of living people, is that enough?

Please leave any thoughts or comments below.
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mtDNA & Minerva Tolliver Mannin

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Don Taylor

A cousin recently asked about Minerva Tolliver Mannin(g)’s Native American background. She wondered “if [I] have any evidence that Enoch and Minerva Mannin were Cherokee?” I told her that I no such evidence and I don’t believe she did (because of my X-Chromosome analysis). I then pointed her to my blog article “DNA, the X Chromosome & Minerva Tolliver Manning.”  Then, I thought about the issue a bit more.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is quite simple. You receive your mtDNA from your mother. I received mine from my mother, but my son received his from his mother and none from me. Also, mtDNA doesn’t change much over time. That means my mtDNA is the same as my mother’s, which is the same as her mother’s (Madonna Montran), which is the same as her mother’s (Ida Barber), which is the same as her mother (Sarah Blackhurst), and the same as her mother (Fanny Taylor).
The same process is true for Minerva Tolliver Mannin(g)’s descendants. All of her children have her mtDNA, however, only her daughters carry that DNA on to their children. To prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Minerva was Native American, if we find a descendant of her daughter’s daughter’s daughter and that person is tested, the haplogroup that descendant is in would prove the descendant was Native American.
Haplogroup Migration Map
Courtesy of Edgarcayce.org.
Native Americans have mtDNA haplogroups A, B, C, D, and sometimes X. My mtDNA haplogroup is T2b, which clearly identifies my maternal ancestry to be from Europe. If the female descendants of Minerva are A, B, C, or D, we can be certain that Minerva was Native American. I Minerva’s female descendants are I, J, K or T, U, V, or W, we can be fairly certain that Minerva’s female ancestry was from Europe.
The key in using mtDNA for genealogy, or any DNA for that matter, is to determine who should be tested in order to prove a particular question. In this case, the proof comes from finding a child of the female line of Minerva and have that individual tested.
I’ll admit, my research into descendants of Minerva is not complete. I welcome anyone who has information regarding her descendants, particularly female descendants, to help me fill in the many blanks and gaps that I have. That said, this is what I think I know.
Minerva Tolliver Mannin(g) had five daughters, Nancy Ann, Sarah Jane, Mary Ermaline, Gresella, and Prudence.
Nancy Ann married Jessie Monroe Barnett. They had four daughters
·      Flora Belle, Sarah A. Sadie, and Nettie. I have no further information regarding Sarah, Sadie, or Nettie.
·      Flora Belle married George Wesley Horn. They had two or three girls, two of whom died as children. One child, Helen Elvira Horn, married Harold Anderson and lived until 1968. I have no records regarding her children.
Sarah Jane married Joseph Hatfield Bryant. They had five daughters.
·      Nancy Ellen Bryant married John M Horn. They had one girl that I know of, Mary A. Horn. I have no marriage information or children information regarding her.
·      Adella Mamie Bryant married Elmer Boaz Knowles. They had five daughters. One died as a child, leaving four to consider.
·      Elsie Lillian Knowles married Vernon Smalley. I have not information about any children of theirs.
·      Clara Lavina Knowles married Luther Elbert Parker. I know of one child of theirs Elsie Joan Parker.
·      Lorraine Grace Knowles married Richard Markham Taylor. They had three daughters, two of whom may still be living. I also have information regarding several of those children’s children, so this line may be my best area of further inquiry and contacts.
·      Bessie Katherine Knowles married Albert Dickerman. They had one daughter that I know of, Lillian Katherine Dickerman.
Mary Ermaline married Thomas N Jones. I know of no children of them.
Gresella (or Greselle) is a mystery to me. I have no marriage or child information regarding her.
Finally, there is Prudence. I believe she was married twice. Once to Frank P. Bare and again to someone surnamed McDonald. I don’t know of any children that she had.

Actions:

If you are descended from any of these individuals, I would really like to hear from you. I would like to fill in Minerva’s descendants as well as I can. Please contact me either through commenting on this blog posting, directly via my email address (dontaylor50 (at) me.com), or though Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dontaylor50/).
I will also try to contact any of the descendants that I do know of, particularly in the Knowles, Taylor line and see if any of them would be interested in doing a mtDNA test to prove conclusively if Minerva was Native American or not.
I plan to continue working on my own and fill in whatever descendants that I can.

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Ancestry DNA, Cousin Bonnie, & Rachael Fugate Manning

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Don Taylor

I recently connected with a third cousin I hadn’t known of through Ancestry DNA. We knew we were a match, but my cousin’s tree was private. After contacting her, she shared her tree with me and we quickly determined our common ancestors are our 2nd great grandparents, John William and Eliza Jane Fannin Manning. I am descended from their daughter Mary and cousin Bonnie is descended from their other daughter Phoebe. Now that I saw her tree information, the question arose in my mind, what do I do with this new information?

Twenty years ago, I probably would have accepted what Bonnie had in her tree, incorporated it into my tree (duplicating much information), and felt that I had a breakthrough finding lots of new information. Today things are a little different. Instead of accepting her work, I reviewed her sources and citations. Did she have sources I didn’t have? Of course, I expected her to have many things regarding her ancestors before our common ancestor and she did. So, I dutifully made notes of those sources and citations so that I may go through them personally and glean what facts I might.

1870 Mortality Schedule entry for Rachael Mannin
Via Ancestry.com
I also reviewed her sources and citations for individuals that we had in common. The vast majority of them were the same as I already had. For example, we both cited the same census records. She did have a couple sources that I didn’t have. One was a US Census Mortality Schedule showing the death of Rachael Fugate Mannin (John William Manning’s grandmother). It provided a cause of death that I didn’t have before. I had the dates for her death from a family bible, but finding collaborating evidence in a census schedule is great. I should have looked for a record in the Mortality Schedule but hadn’t. There were a couple other little things I noticed, for example, she cited John William Manning in the 1850 Census. I hadn’t. I had his father, Enoch, in the census, but hadn’t made an entry in 4-year-old John’s record showing he was living with his mother and father in Bath county, Kentucky and that I had accounted for him in the 1850 census. It is a little thing, but I like to be thorough.
Then, I used my genealogy software to find another ancestor who died during the year preceding the 1870 census. I had one, 3rd great grandfather Stephen Blackhurst. He was in the mortality schedule, which shows he died of dropsy of the bowels (ascites) a new fact regarding another ancestor.I am very happy for the DNA Match with cousin Bonnie and the new facts that sharing information can bring. Thank you Bonnie!

Lessons:

If a person died in the year preceding the 1870 Census, be sure to check for that individual in the mortality schedules.

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