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.
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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! 
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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.] 

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The Darling Family Story Project

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Don Taylor

By Don Taylor

Photo of Don Taylor with cat Nasi.I have been working on a “Darling Family Story” for the past several months and more intensely the past few weeks. I know it has been a while since I’ve done any serious blogging, but this project has been a massive undertaking. I’ve done several hundred hours of work to put together information. All because of the “Aunties.” My mother-in-law comes from a somewhat dysfunctional family. Her father had at least seven children with four different mothers, some of whom he married and a couple more wives with whom he didn’t have children. Most of his children never communicated with the children of his other wives/girlfriends. That is until recently. One of my mother-in-law’s half sisters is visiting her next month. They haven’t seen each other since 1943 or so. Another sister is also visiting, but they’ve been in contact much more frequently. They last saw each other about 12 years ago or so. There is another half-sister that my mother-in-law hasn’t seen since the half-sister was a babe-in-arms. In addition, nobody knows anything about a fourth half-sister. The family only has a first name, not a last name.

So, why all this background information? Well, none of these sisters learned much about their father’s family. He ignored them while they were growing up, and their mothers didn’t speak of him either. Although his life has many interesting events, I thought it would be great to investigate his ancestors, something of which the Aunties know virtually nothing about. I’ve been doing that research for the past several months. I’ve come up with much interesting information, photos, and stories that the Aunties and my mother-in-law will know nothing about.

I’ve printed out 25 photos and am mounting them in a “Life Book,” similar to what Louis Gates does in the “Finding Your Roots” TV Show, for each of them. I’ve written about 15 pages of prose about each of the ancestors, going back to one of their eighth Great-Grandfathers. I’ve tried to make the writing come to life with bits of history tied to the time and place of the individual. To find the information I have, I’ve done many Internet searches. I’ve ordered books on Interlibrary loan, and I’ve read history books about the area they lived to glean a tiny bit of information, hopefully. I even found a museum with an interpretive display of one of the businesses owned by the Auntie’s great-grandfather. I’ve had reference libraries copy references to the family from their books and ordered documents from England. Overall, it has been daunting, but I have enjoyed it and honed my genealogical skills through the activities. I’ve become an armchair historian for a place I’ve never been (Kalamazoo, Michigan). I have learned much about the early colonial days that I was not taught in school – some very ugly history. I’ve found the passport photo of a great-grandfather and connected with a second cousin, once removed of my wife.

Indeed, the way has had its brick walls. These Darlings came from near Rome, New York, about 1840. I can’t figure out which of several families were their ancestors. On the other hand, when I discovered one of the ancestors was a DAR-registered patriot, a new set of ancestry information opened itself up. However, that requires me to do a lot more research to confirm all the information I have found independently. Anyway, the hard work is done for now. I only need to put together a CD of the source documents I’ve used to put together the story and paste the photos into albums for each. I expect I’ll add many of my findings to this blog after I present it to the Aunties and my mother-in-law, but we’ll see. I hope my research will trigger memories for these women that I should be able to capture for future work. Maybe they have a memory that hasn’t been remembered in decades that can add to the story.

I am excited about their visit. I have little doubt that they will appreciate my work, and I’m sure their grandchildren will appreciate the work in the future.

 [This article had it’s Categories and Tags updated and was gently edited on 3 August 2022]

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Perseus Hopper – Richmond Times Dispatch 1860-1865

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Don Taylor

Sometimes you come across fantastic sites for research while doing something entirely different. I went to the Perseus site at Tufts University to research some Greek Mythology. I was amazed. Besides the Primary and secondary sources for studying ancient Greece and Rome, they have Issues of the Richmond Times Dispatch from Nov 1, 1860, through Dec 30, 1865. It is searchable in several different ways, including by name. Of course, those issues of the Richmond Times Dispatch include many articles regarding the Civil War. Taking a few moments away from my Greek mythology research, I dropped in my wife’s paternal great grandfather’s name. Poof, it came back with a hit. He was credited with capturing one of the Union’s regimental flags at the “The Crater” during the Siege of Petersburg.

Wikipedia indicates that “The Crater” was a particularly horrific battle. The article indicates,

“The prisoners taken will reach at least eleven hundred, including the wounded at the Poplar Lawn Hospital and being well cared for. The Yankee loss, all told, cannot fall short of five thousand men. Their officers, under flag of truce yesterday, acknowledged that they had about three thousand wounded in their hospitals. This, with eleven hundred prisoners and the seven hundred dead of the army, will very nearly approximate five thousand.”

Of course, as is often the case of war correspondence, the numbers appear bloated. Wikipedia indicates that Grant wrote,

“Union casualties were 3,798 (504 killed, 1,881 wounded, 1,413 missing or captured), Confederate casualties were approximately 1,500 (200 killed, 900 wounded, 400 missing or captured).  [See Wikipedia: The Seige of Petersburh.]

The Richmond Times Dispatch through the Perseus Hopper added to my knowledge of the family history in just a few minutes.

The Perseus Digital Library is definitely a site to add to your Civil War and Virginia searches. Check it out at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/search 

 [The categories and tags for this article were updated and the article was gently edited on 3 August 2022.]

Posted in Howell-Hobbs, Civil War | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments