Now that I’ve come to the top of my Mays Family information, I’ve run into a dilemma. Except it’s not really a dilemma. I’m determined not to clutter up my new family file with sourceless information. The only problem is I don’t think most of my Mays family information is sourced. I’m starting to believe what I have is second hand information. So the dilemma is what to do about all those Mays children that I’m unsure of.

The obvious choice is don’t put any of them in. It’s the right thing to do. The problem is, there’s a lot of people I’d be leaving out.

OLD Family File

As you can see from the graphic above, in my old file there were seven children for William and Frances Mays. In my new file, there are only two. Hopefully I can find documentation for the others. Part of the problem is that I have census and vital records for a lot of them, but they don’t lead back to William and Frances currently. So I have to find a way to link them back before I add them.

West Liberty, Morgan County, Kentucky. 1860 Census.

I just wish they didn’t make it so tempting! Look at all them just sitting there! How much more obvious can you get. The Mays family was always right next door to each other.

Today is a beautiful day, and it’s making me feel very productive. I’m sitting in the living room on my laptop and talking with Grandpa Moore. He’s already cleared up some Thorward things for me that I was unclear on. Today is devoted to the Mays family though. I’ve got to keep moving forward towards my summer goal.

I’m up to Millard Mays in my family file. I know he married Nora Barker. I was looking in the Kentucky Birth Index on Ancestry.com to verify some of her children on the census. I ended up having to go to some more extreme measures to find one of the children, because they just weren’t showing up for some reason. When I did that, I might have found out what happened to Millard’s sister Barbara.

It just so happens there was a Barbara Mays who was giving birth to Barker children. Knowing the Mays family like I do, this isn’t at all surprising for me. To be honest I’m finding that I look for these connections more then not. It’s just the marriage pattern of the family.

I was mainly looking for the younger children, but there are some things I really like about this 1930 census record. Barbara has a son named Millard! Lorene from the Birth Index is there, but Robert, the youngest is not. A quick check of the Kentucky Death Records gave me a big idea of what Robert and Barbara Barker went through with their children. They had three stillborn children and Kline who died at one month of meningitis.

Unfortunately, nothing I found actually gives me clues on whether this is my actual Barbara Mays. I haven’t fleshed out enough of the Mays family to know how many other Barbaras there might be. I’m going to add this family into my FTM file, without identification numbers but with sources. That way when I find out where this Barbara fits, it’ll be an easy merge.

The next task I might work on is linking Nora Barker, Robert Barker and Lela Barker (wife of Luther Mays).

I’m pretty sure my ancestors hate me. This may be going out on a limb, but I really think that the Mays family did everything they could think of to be very deceptive about who they were and what they were doing. I’m not going to feel guilty about all the attention I was giving my Dad’s side of the family now. I’ll probably annoy you with the amount of rants I’ll end up posting here while trying to figure out the Mays line of my family tree. In fact, I’m debating setting up an Elliott/Rowan County genealogy file. I’m tempted to just go through all the available records and map out the major surnames. They’re all in my tree somewhere so it may even help me later down the line. It’s just so confusing trying to find the right people when they were all named the same thing at the same time. Last night, I had a first for me though.

That’s two death certificates for the same person. Here’s where things go squirrelly. The death certificates give different birth dates. I actually had recorded the May 28th date into my database as the preferred date because that’s the date that Walker gave on his WWI Draft Card. I’m confused that there are completely different causes of death on each certificate. If that wasn’t enough, there are even different dates of death. I’m wondering why his hometown would have a death certificate done when he most likely died at the hospital in Boyd County.

So here’s yet another reason why I am beyond frustrated trying to sort out the Mays family.

Thanks for your opinions on my dilemma yesterday! Both on twitter and in the comments. I decided to have a little fun today before I got started on work and last minute wrapping for Christmas.

I’ve been catching up on The Generations Project. I’ve been recording it on my DVR for the last few weeks and I’ve finally found some time to catch up. While I was watching, I realized I’d like to see if there were previous episodes available to view online (there is!). While I was there, I decided to do some of the fun activities they have on their site. I usually skip by those things but for some reason I decided to do them this time. As a website designer I really want to make more of an effort to view bells and whistles on other websites so I can learn more!

Make Your Own Family Pedigree

The first activity was to make your own family photo tree! This was really fun for me. The only thing I wanted was one more generation because I actually have photos that far back! Very fun, In fact, I might even try printing this out at some point and framing it for my wall! Why not, right?

Make your Family Crest.

The second activity was to make your own family crest. I chose the cell phone and book as our symbols because that’s what we usually talk about. Books and gadgets! The rest were picked as personal preferences by me.

There was also a lookalike activity that I did not do. I have phobias about people looking at my picture and judging it. You should try it if you don’t have that phobia though! The activities were definitely fun to play with though! Try it yourself at The Generations Project on byu.tv.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with BYU or The Generations Project. I was just wanting to play with stuff and their stuff was there for the taking. I don’t own any of the images except my own personal family photos.

Mays Family Tombstone. Bethel, Ohio.

There are a few reasons that I chose to highlight this tombstone. In all my hijinks into my family history, I have stumbled onto learning how to do certain things. One of the first things I realized is that even official records can be wrong. I’ve also learned that spelling doesn’t matter in the early and late 1800s.

An important thing to remember about tombstones is that they aren’t always accurate. Take the example above. The names are mostly right, spelling mistakes aside. I also need to state that the death years are all correct (hard to get that wrong, right?)

1. Ralph (1924-1952): Everything here is correct.
2. John (1853-1927):  His death certificate states his birth year as 1842. Since John is living in the 1850 census and listed as age 5, either date could be wrong but 1853 is more wrong then 1842.
3. Cecilia (1842-1914):  I’ve only seen her referred to as Celia or Cela. That could be a shortened nickname but I might never know unless I find her birth record. Her death record also lists her birth date differently. I have 1840 and her age in censuses always matches that.
4. Harmon (1872-1952): Everything here is correct too!
5. Ivah (1897-1949): Iva’s name has been spelled a million different ways and that’s not including her maiden name (Moyer/Meyer/Myers). Once again I have her death certificate and her birth date is listed as 1894 and not 1897. The 1900 census actually gives her birth date as Sep 1894 too, which is spot on with her death certificate!

So basically what I’m saying is don’t always trust the tombstone. You never know who was giving the information at the time of your ancestor’s burial. In fact, it’s usually the same person giving the information for the death certificate. That’s why I’m so surprised the death certificates and tombstone varies so much here.

Florence Redford-Moore's tombstone. July 2010

In fact, even newer tombstones can be a bit wrong. This is my grandmother’s tombstone inscription. Everything is spot on except the fact that she was actually born on April 13 and not April 15. Oops! Be sure your family knows that they can come to you for correct dates!

Tombstone Tuesday is a blogging theme used by many GeneaBloggers.