I was thinking about what I could write, and came up with a lot of ideas. Someone aged 12 years. Someone who was born or died in December. Someone who had 12 kids. #12 on an Ahnentafel list.
I decided to pick # 12 on my Ancestral Chart – my mother’s father’s father, Robert John McKenzie.
Robert John McKenzie
Robert was born in about 1875 in Victoria, Australia, probably in the Warrnambool area. His parents were Alexander McKenzie and Helen (or Ellen) Thompson. I still have not located a list of all his siblings yet.
In 1903, Robert married Eliza Jane Clements, daughter of John Clements and Sarah Sedgley. They had 4 children that I know of: –
Adeline Hope – born 1904
Gertrude Ivy – born 1905
Meredith Hector – born 1907
Gordon Cecil – born 1909
In 1916, his mother Helen passes away and his father Alexander follows her in 1925.
I found Robert in 18 Australian Electoral Rolls covering the years 1905-1931. His occupation is Farmer and his residence is in Woodford, Victoria, Australia at the family farm, Spring Valley.
1931 Electoral Roll
Robert passed away on 25 October 1931 in Woodford. He is buried in the Warrnambool Cemetery with his wife and 2 of his children, Hope and Hector, both of whom never married.
I am still looking for an obituary and headstone photo.
My 3rd great grandparents, William Absalom and Mary Ann Rose, have the largest family of all my relatives that I have found so far. They had a total of 16 children. I cannot imagine having that many mouths to feed!
William was born in England in about 1830, a son of Charles Absalom and Eliza Knight. He immigrated to Australia in 1849.
Mary Ann, a daughter of John Fuller Rose and Ann Newman, was born in about 1834 in England and immigrated to Australia with her parents and siblings in 1838.
Mary Ann Rose
William married Mary Ann in 1855 in Victoria, Australia. Their children are listed below with their spouses.
Eliza born in 1856 and died in 1935. She married William Edwards.
Charles born in 1857 and died in 1938. He married Catherine McKenna.
Annie born in 1858 and died in 1890. I believe she was unmarried.
Charlotte born in 1860 and died in 1870.
William was born in 1861 and died in 1916. He married Flora McDonald.
Sarah born in 1864 and died in 1936. She married Alfred Jolliffe.
Frances born in 1865 and died in 1938. She married William Smith.
James born in 1866 and died in 1932. He married Mary Anne Knight.
Mary Ann born in 1867 and died in 1938. She married Donald Robinson.
John born in 1869 and died in 1945. He married Mary Ann Green.
George born in 1871 and died in 1938. I believe he was unmarried.
Avy born in 1872 and died in 1920. She married William Greaney.
Henry born in 1873 and died in 1946. He married Nellie Keogh.
Edward born in 1875 and died in 1926. He married Emily Hill.
Letitia born in 1877 and died in 1923. She married John Ritchie.
Robert born in 1878 and died in 1880.
William died in 1882, aged 52 and Mary Ann in 1898, aged 64. When he died, she was left with 8 kids aged 16 and under.
These dates are just rough estimates as I haven’t researched into their lives much, and they will probably end up being part of future blog posts. My line is through James.
Feel free to send a message if you are related to anyone in these posts.
For Week 10 of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, I chose to write about my grand uncle, my maternal grandfather’s brother.
Hector Meredith McKenzie, or “Hec” as he was known, was born in 1907 to Robert McKenzie and Eliza Jane Clements of “Spring Valley”, Woodford, Victoria, Australia.
Hector as a child
I don’t remember much about him as he died when I was young but there are a few things I can recall.
He lived with his sister, Adeline Hope McKenzie, who also never married, in the house they were born in. They used to bicker alot and when I look back on them, if I didn’t know better I’d have thought they were married. LOL.
He used to go to Warrnambool to play bowls, possibly croquet or bocce ball. I’m not quite sure if it was either of these, but I remember there was a box of colored balls that he owned under the bedside table.
He used to go to “his secret men meetings”, as his sister Hope used to call them. I presume this to be the Freemasons Masonic Lodge.
But the one thing that I remember most, was when I used to stay at their house during the school holidays. We used to play card games, pick fruit from the trees in their yard and he let me play with my food.
One night we had meat and vegetables for dinner. Aunt Hope was sitting at the head of the table and uncle Hec and I were sitting next to each other at the long side of the table. My aunt Hope was a lovely lady and we also had some fun times but she didn’t appreciate playing at the dinner table.
My uncle leaned over towards my plate and said something like “this is probably going to get us in trouble”. He proceeded to show me how to pile up my mashed potatoes into a volcano shape and hide all my green peas within the sides of the “volcano”. He then poured tomato sauce, or what we call Ketchup in the U.S., all over the top so it looked like lava flowing out of the volcano.
My aunt was extremely mad at him over this, and if I remember right, I don’t think we got dessert that night. Fun times!
I have located Hector in all Australian Electoral Rolls right up to the year before he died (1931 thru 1980). His occupation is always listed as a Farmer.
Hec McKenzie 1980 Electoral Roll
He died 17 September 1981 and is buried in the Warrnambool Cemetery, Row 9, Grave 047, Presbyterian section.
There are many different ways to interpret this word, like the love between two people or something involving weddings, but I decided to write about my 6th great grandmother, [christian name unknown] Love.
I believe her maiden name is Love, although some people say it’s her christian name. I am hoping to find some documents to prove the answer to this question soon.
She was born in about 1728 and in 1749 married John Chislett. She was buried in about 1789 in Stoke Sub Hamdon, Somerset County, England. This information is from online trees and obviously not to be taken as gospel as I have nothing to back this up.
John and Love had at least 8 children that I know of:
James
Mary
William
Betty
Ann
Thomas
Robert (this is my line)
William
Was Love her first name or maiden name? Who were her parents and siblings? I obviously need to do alot of research on this line, and hopefully I will find some answers.
If you are connected to this line and have any documentation that could help answer these questions, please send me a message. Thanks!!
I have decided that my list is too long to pick just one person. There are so many people that have “dead ends” or “brick walls” right now. So many ancestors that leave me scratching my head trying to sort who they were.
So for this week’s post, my questions are for all those people!
Who were your parents? Since their names were conveniently left off death certificates and not listed in obituaries.
Who were your siblings? Maybe your parents names were mentioned in their obits instead. If they happened to have one I can find!
How many children did you have? Since you seemed to have them between census’ and then they would be gone before the next census arrived.
Why did you leave your home country to venture to a new one? What part of that country did you hail from?
What did you like to do for fun? What made you “you”? I’m sure you had some downtime between all those long days working in the fields, on farms, or in your businesses.
These are just a couple of the main questions I would like to ask. Maybe one day I will find the answers to some of them!
While looking at my tree for an unusual name, “Speas” stood out. I have seen it written as Speas, Speace, Spes, Spies and Spease.
A search on Google found that Speas is usually a surname. According to the website, HouseofNames.com, the name Speas is Norman in origin. (you can read more at the above link).
Since beginning my research I have found three Speas in my tree. Mother, daughter and granddaughter. I am not sure where the name comes from or how many others may have this name as I haven’t done a lot of research on this line.
My 6x great grandmother was Speas Margery _____ (maiden name unknown). I have no other information on her at this time other than she married George Virgin sometime before 1758 and they had at least 3 children, all girls.
One of their daughters, my 5x great grandmother, was Speas Virgin. She was born about 1758 in Axminster, England and died in about 1833, aged 75. She married Hugh Champ before 1781, and they had at least 7 children.
Baptism for Speas Champ – England, Devon Bishop’s Transcripts 1558-1887
Their daughter, my 4x great grandmother, was Speas Champ. She was born 24 December 1795 in Axminster, England and died 1882 in Weymouth, Dorset, England, aged 86. She married Luke Stagg sometime before 1822 and they had at least 5 children.
Their daughter Hope Stagg married George Chislett in 1851, and they were two of my immigrant ancestors into Australia in 1857.
This week I started a blog post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for the prompt – Challenge. I laid out all the research I had on Sarah Brinson Keetley (you can read her story here) and this week I will see what I have for her husband, Jesse Edward Keetley Sr and their children.
To give some clarity, by 1930, we know that Jesse Sr. had passed away and Jesse Jr. was living with his sister Lillie and her husband, Charles Sutler.
Starting with Jesse’s headstone in Wrens Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery, Charleston County, South Carolina, we can see that he lived about 13 years longer than his wife. He died 18 March 1928. I am not sure who placed the headstones for this family, or when, but I believe the dates on both Sarah and Jesse’s are wrong.
The following death certificate is the only one I have found in any county surrounding the Charleston County area that is even remotely similar in detail to be Jesse. The certificate is filled out by Sexton Guerry so I’m not sure how knowledgeable he was on Jesse’s life. The record is still for St James Santee but in different county seat. It says he was buried March 5 somewhere in Charleston County, and his date of death is 4 March 1928.
Jessie Ketty Death Certificate
There is no date of birth but it does say he was born in Georgetown County. It also says that he is married, although there is no evidence that he was at the time of his death. It says he was about 64 years of age (born @1864) and died of Heart Dropsy. His parents are listed as _____ Kettly and _____ Hartly. (not very helpful at all).
Alma Keetley death certificate
When looking for Jesse’s certificate I came across one for his daughter Alma/Essie. She was only 16 years old, dying on 11 November 1923. This places her birth date at about 1907. Her parents are listed as Jessie Keetley and Florence Brinson. (Jesse did not fill out the certificate so I think the informant was confused as to the mother’s name). She is also buried in Wren’s Chapel cemetery with her parents. The date of death is correct on her headstone, although it says her middle initial is A. It lists her birth date as 15 September 1906. Her parents names are Jesse E. and Sarah A. Keetley.
From here I decided to go back to the 1920 census to see what that could tell me. I found 2 census’ for this family taken 1 week apart. Both census’ were for St James Santee, Charleston County, South Carolina.
Jesse Keetley 1920 ED95 census #1
The first census was taken 24 January 1920. Jesse was head of household, aged 55 and widowed. His daughter Lilla aged 16, Elma aged 14, Jesse Jr aged 8. All born in South Carolina, as were both their parents. Jesse was a farmer and all 3 children were in school. He was renting the farm they lived on.
Jesse Keetley 1920 ED94 census #2
The second was taken 31 January 1920. Jesse was head of household, aged 55 and widowed. His daughter Lilla aged 14, Essie aged 13, Jesse Jr aged 9. All born in South Carolina, as were both their parents. Jesse was a laborer on a farm and all 3 children were in school. He was renting the property they lived on although it doesn’t say if it was a farm.
Well, again differing information. Jesse is 55 on both census’ placing his birth at about 1865 which is consistent with his death record. Although if you look at the 1910 from my last post, it says he was 35 which places his birth about 10 years later in 1875.
Lilla is aged 16 and 14, and in 1910 she was 5. This places her birth at about 1905. Essie or Elma, depending on the day I guess, was aged 14 and 13. She was 3 in 1910 so her birth is consistent with 1906-07. Jesse Jr. was 8 and 9, so his birth year is about 1911-12.
We already know Jesse was married to someone before he married Sarah (@1902) thanks to the 1910 census but when and who remains a mystery. What happened to his first wife? Did they have children?Were they together in 1900?
Going backwards in time, there are only 3 Keetley families that appear in 1900 in South Carolina and only one of those is for a “J”. He is listed as J. A. Keetley in James Island, Charleston County, South Carolina. He was living in the J.T. Cadden household and working as a farm laborer. He is single and born in 1876. I am not sure if this our Jesse.
I found Jesse in the 1898 Charleston Directory, but again it doesn’t tell me very much other than he was working in a Cotton Mill. There are other people with similar spellings on the page too, like Mrs Laura Keightley and Theodore Keathley. Could there be a connection?
1898 Charleston City Directory, South Carolina
Looking at the 1880 census there are 2 Keetly families living next door to each other, James aged 51 and Harrison aged 24. Both men have families and are living in St James Santee, Charleston County, South Carolina. There is also a Harrison in the following family. They may be the same person!
Sarah Keatly
F
45
South Carolina
William J Keatly
M
20
South Carolina
Harrison Keatly
M
18
South Carolina
Jessie Keatly
M
16
South Carolina
Rachel Keatly
F
13
South Carolina
Thomas Keatly
M
8
South Carolina
Orianna Keatly
F
4
South Carolina
In 1870 there is only 1 Keatly family that I found in South Carolina and they were living in Georgetown County. This Jessie would have been born @1854, a little older than I would expect but not out of the realm of possibilities!
Are any of these people related to Jesse? I may never know! Are you related to any of these people?
If anyone would like to adopt our Jesse and Sarah, and find all of their relatives I’m willing to send on all information I have, including my suspicions. Then I will gladly take them off your hands again!!!! 😀
When thinking about what to write, the only thing I couldn’t get out of my head was how much of a challenge it has been to try to break down a brick wall I’ve had since beginning the research into my husband’s paternal line.
His great grandparents were Jesse Edward Keetley and Sarah Alice Brunson, names I got from my Father-in-law’s baby book, which was put together by his mother, Helen Legare Keetley. (Helen also listed Sarah’s mother as Rebecca Davis). I asked my father-in-law Bill for any information about them, and he said he didn’t know very much as they died before he was born and his father didn’t talk about them. Bill said he’d been to their graves years ago and thought there were a couple of children buried with them. They lived in St James Santee (McClellanville), Charleston County, South Carolina and had at least 3 children that he knows of – Alma, Lillian and Jesse Jr.
Sarah A. Brinson Death Certificate
So, I did the only thing I could do, and that was to turn to the records. I decided to start with Sarah. NOTE: I have listed all names as I found them in the indexes, so there are several different spellings of the surnames Keetley and Brinson.
Using Sarah’s headstone, I found what I believe is her death certificate. Sarah Keirtey was born 5 January 1880, with parents listed as Ben and Ann Brinson. She died on 13 May 1915 at 5 p.m. of Puerperal Septicemia (or postpartum infection), due to Privation. There was no information on burial to help confirm this was the same Sarah. This also gives me possible information about the names of her parents and that there was another child I needed to find.
Lulu Kentley Death Certificate
Searching South Carolina Deaths, 1915-1965 at FamilySearch.org, I found a death certificate for Lulu Kentley. Her parents were Jesse Kentley and Sarah Brinson. She was born on 12 May 1915 and died 13 May 1915 at 5 a.m. (a mere 12 hours before her mother!) Cause of death was “Premature Birth, due to Privation”.
Lula Keiter Birth Certificate
A search at SCERA located a birth record for Lula Keiter, born 12 May 1915. Father’s name is illegible, aged 48 and mother is Sarah Brinson, aged 35. All these people are from St James Santee and the doctor listed is the same as on the 2 death records. The certificate says Sarah had 6 children, 3 still living.
I needed to start putting this family unit together, so I looked for census records next. I located the family in the 1910 Federal Census living in St James Santee, Charleston County, South Carolina.
1910 Federal Census for Jesse Keethley household
Jesse E. Keethley is the head of household and is aged 35 (born @1875). He has been married for 8 years and it is his 2nd marriage. He and his mother were born in South Carolina and his father in North Carolina. He was working as a Watchman at a Sawmill and was renting his house on McClellanville Road.
Next is Sarah A., his wife, age 31 (born @1879). She was born in South Carolina as were both of her parents. She has been married for 8 years as well (good so far!), and it is her first marriage. That places the marriage at about 1902. She is the mother of 4 children, 2 still living.
Two children are listed in the household: Lilla L. (this is Lillian) aged 5 and Essie E. (this is Alma) aged 3. So, I realize that there are 2 children missing from this family group. They must have been born and died, sometime between @1902 when this couple married and before the 1910 census. Since South Carolina didn’t start keeping official birth or death records until 1915, I have been unable to locate these 2 children.
So to recap, I have Jesse and Sarah as parents to Lillian, Alma and 2 unknown children. Jesse Jr. (my husband’s grandfather) was born in 1912 and little Lulu was born in 1915. That is all 6 of her children accounted for.
This census opens up a lot of new information, and after correlating other evidence, a lot of new questions and challenges. More on Jesse Sr. in Challenge part 2. (I’ll link it here when completed).
Things are going so well up to this point you are probably wondering where the challenge comes into this post. Well, it is here. This is the only information I have on Sarah that I can verify. I have not been able to locate a marriage record for this couple or any newspaper articles.
A search of the 1900 census would lead me to Sarah as a young single lady, probably with her parents and siblings. Unfortunately a search for Ben and Ann Brinson came up blank.
I searched at familysearch.org for Sarah B*n and that gave me 202 results. A lot of them weren’t in the right county or with surnames similar to Brinson. Then I searched for B*ns?n in Charleston County, SC. This way I could eliminate everyone that didn’t fit this search parameter. The ” * ” is for more than one character, and the ” ? ” is for exactly one character. The results returned 7 matches, 2 were males and 3 were too old for our Sarah. The remaining 2, born in 1877 and 1878 were possible matches.
Household
Role
Sex
Age
Birthplace
Rebecca Brunson
Head
F
51
North Carolina
Sarah Brunson
Daughter
F
22
South Carolina
Lilly Brunson
Daughter
F
14
South Carolina
Florence Brunson
Daughter
F
10
South Carolina
Alberry Brunson
Daughter
F
12
South Carolina
Benjamin H Brunson
Son
M
20
South Carolina
and …..
Household
Role
Sex
Age
Birthplace
M J Brunson
Head
F
64
South Carolina
Sarah W Brunson
Daughter
F
23
South Carolina
The first match seems the most likely for Sarah’s family but I am still not sure. Sarah’s daughter-in-law, Helen, did list a Rebecca as Sarah’s mother, but Sarah had died 25 years before Jesse Jr. and Helen married. This information can only be taken with a grain of salt until I can find something more substantial to prove it one way or the other.
I have researched this Brunson/Brinson family a little bit but I can find nothing that connects our Sarah to them definitively. They were also living in St James Santee, and were buried in the same cemetery as Sarah so it seems like a possibility. I also found no evidence of their Sarah other than in this 1900 census. Who were her parents? Siblings? Why can I find no mention of her anywhere?
Is Sarah a daughter of Rebecca Davis Brinson who married Benjamin H. Brinson? If you are connected to this family and have any information please contact me!!
As part of a plan to get myself more organized with my genealogy, I am hoping to start sharing more of it as a way to find more cousins to connect with. Hopefully someone out there has the answers to some of my brick walls or some ideas on where to go next.
This year I decided to “actually” take part in Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” Challenge. Every year I follow along, read other blogs, and tell my husband that I will post something “soon” to the blog he set up for me several years ago.
This weeks’ prompt is aptly titled “first”. My first attempt at writing. My first blog post. My first 52 Ancestor post. I decided to write about my first search on my husband’s side of the family. His uncles, Lester and Chester Rancour. Note: The boys were not twins.
When my mother-in-law discovered I loved genealogy she asked me if I could find her two baby brothers’ burial locations. I’m not sure if she was testing my research skills or genuinely wanted to find them, but I took on the mission. She had no clue as to where they could be, other than somewhere in Minnesota, probably close to where her other siblings were born. We knew they were both born sometime between February 1927, when parents Lawrence Rancour and Malinda Buescher married, and 1931 when their next child was born. Since both parents are deceased I needed to turn to the records.
Lawrence Rancour and Malinda Buescher Marriage Certificate
While adding information into the tree for this family I realized that the date of 1927, given to me by my mother-in-law for the marriage, was incorrect. The certificate actually says 1928.
We knew that the next 2 children born to Lawrence and Malinda were both born in or around Brainerd, Crow Wing County, Minnesota in 1931 and 1936 respectively. I looked for the family in the 1930 census, the last available census at the time. The search turned up nothing. Nothing for Brainerd, nothing for towns near Brainerd, nothing for the whole state of Minnesota. (In the time since this search was done several years ago, I have still not located a 1930 census for this family, even having searched page by page). I guess my research skills are lacking more than I thought!
After a phone conversation with their eldest child, Eldora, she told us she had copies of the boys’ death certificates that she could send to us. I was thinking that things couldn’t be this easy, could they? When I got the certificates they both listed “Brainerd, Minn.” as a burial location, no cemetery name.
Chester Rancour Death Certificate
Armed with the details from the death certificates I added more data into my tree. Lester, listed simply as “Infant of”, born and died Stillborn 8 May 1928 and Chester born 13 September 1929 and died 2 October 1930.
Lester Rancour Death Certificate
Wait! Did I read that right? Lester was born full term in May 1928 and his parents were married in February 1928. Uh Oh! I’m not going to be very popular when I reveal this one! Luckily it was taken lightly by everyone involved but I was told to be very careful not to find too many skeletons.
My husband and I talked about what to do next and he, a non-genealogist, came up with the craziest of plans. Look for the Rancour name in a Google search and see what comes up. This was back in the days when Find-A-Grave wasn’t around and I was still very new to using a computer for genealogy research. I wasn’t quite sure how that would work but I was willing to give it a try. After some “poking and hoping” searches and refining our search parameters, creating a list of places to contact as we went, we found a website for the Evergreen Cemetery in Brainerd, Minnesota.
I never did write down the name of the link we found, however I still have a copy of the letter I received back from the Crow Wing County Historical Society. They sent me a listing from the 1931-32 Brainerd City Directory, and two obituaries for Chester. They said they looked but couldn’t find one for Lester. They also sent me a copy of the Evergreen Cemetery Annual Burial Report.
Brainerd Tribune, Thursday, 9 October , 1930Brainerd Dispatch pg 8, Col 3, 10 October 1930Evergreen Cemetery Annual burial Report
Both babies are listed right there on the report, Baby Rancour and Chester Rancom, the spelling of which has since been corrected. Buried in Block 25 Lot 18. They had no headstones.
My husband called his mother and told her about what we had received in the mail. Within six months, a few phone calls to her siblings and a 3-way split of the bill, Eldora took a drive down to Brainerd from Hibbing, Minnesota and made sure that both babies had headstones placed on their graves.
