I’m chugging along in my Mays family research. That is, if chugging along means I work on it about half an hour every few days? That’s all my brain can take of these nomads. I’ve lucked out recently though.

Last week I was playing around with search terms on Ancestry and I hit a goldmine.

By goldmine, I mean I didn’t have to look through the whole page to find what I was looking for. Jacob Crisp’s name was the first thing I saw on the page. Jacob is the son of Sarilda Mays, the Mays ancestor I’m currently trying to research for the website. Apparently Jacob’s family moved to Mansfield, Ohio. I know this because their family history is all over the Mansfield newspapers. I’m sure there’s more then what I found in the day I searched. That’s saying a lot because I saved seven different newspaper pages that day.

Among a lot of the results were hospital admittances and releases for Jacob’s wife. Eventually, she would pass away from a long illness. I would have known that even if the obituary didn’t tell me because she must have been in and out of the hospital a dozen times in a year.

Jacob’s obituary/article in the Mansfield News Journal; May 7, 1968:

Jacob Crisp, 79, of 673 Fairfax Ave died Monday morning in Mansfield General Hospital following a five month illness.

He was born June 7, 1888 in Elliott County, Ky., and lived here since 1937. Mr. Crisp was a retired farmer.

Survivors are six sons, Walter Crisp of Newark O., Vester Crisp of Plain City, O., Sanford Crisp of Chillicothe, Tennison Crisp of Ontario, Estel Crisp of Irwin, O., and Vernon Crisp with the U.S. Air Force in Wichita Falls, Kan.; five daughters, Mrs. Gladys Sydnor of Lima, Mrs. Nannie McFarland of Springfield, Mrs. Onae Caudill of Mansfield, Mrs. Louie Minzler of Orlando, Fla., Mrs Arzona Huff, with whom Mr. Crisp made his home, a number of grandchilden and great-grandchildren, and one sister, Mrs. Jennie Fultz of Mansfield.

The body is at the Wappner Funeral Home where services will be held Thursday at 3pm by Rev. Thomas Leatherwood of the Mansfield Baptist Temple. Burial will be in Mansfield Memorial Park. Friends may call at the funeral home starting Tuesday evening.

Jacob Crisp Death Certificate

The photo I was going to post today will have to wait. I was entering the Mays family into my family file yesterday. The Mays family is always a frustration for me because the sheer amount of them. They also loved to name their kids the same 10 names. It wasn’t uncommon to have 3 cousins, named William, and they were all born within a year of each other. That’s not what I’m writing about today though. My mystery is with Henry Mays.

He first shows up in 1900 with John and Celia Mays. He is listed as their son, with a birth date of 1885. This was always a little sketchy for my Mom because this puts him at 13 years younger then his nearest sibling. I did find another male child that was still born in 1875, so that pushes it to 10. Still, that is quite a leap. Mom always suspected that Henry might have been John and Celia’s grandson, born to their daughter Nancy. Nancy was 15  at the time of Henry’s birth. There is absolutely no evidence of this though so he’s John and Celia’s son in my mind.

John Mays household, 1900. Devils Fork, Elliott County, Kentucky.

All is well with the family through the 1910 census. It’s in 1920 that things get complicated. John and Celia moved to Clermont County, Ohio between 1910 and 1914, when Celia dies there. Their son William Harmon Mays, also moves to Clermont County with his young daughter after the death of his first wife. His second wife will give birth to my grandfather there in 1923. Nancy was a mystery for a while. She didn’t move to Ohio with her family. I eventually found a death record for her under the name Nancy Ann Sparks. This led me to her household in 1920. She was married to Andy J Sparks and lived in Rowan County until her death. (I’m still missing her in 1930 though, she died in 1938.) Henry disappears. There are two Henry Mays’ in 1920 living in Rowan County, Kentucky.

Henry Mays, 1920 Census search

Funny enough, both of these households have wives named Martha. They are definitely two different households. I checked to be sure. My next step was to check on FamilySearch to see if there was a marriage listing for Henry.

FamilySearch Kentucky Marriage Records search

The only thing I don’t like about this record is that it doesn’t give Celia’s maiden name but otherwise everything fits. I’m more than a little disturbed by a 31 year old marrying a 13 year old but maybe the age is wrong.

1910 Census. Farmers, Rowan County, Kentucky.

Oh, maybe the age wasn’t wrong. My next step was to sort out where the family was in 1920.  The problem is neither Henry Mays from above fits at all. So instead I looked for Cordie’s family to see if Henry and Cordie were living with them. It’s a logical move since most of Henry’s family moved to Ohio.

Donohew household, 1920.

Now I’m confused. Cordie is still living at home, her age is still aged 13 (should be 16 by this time), and she’s listed as widowed? So now I have no idea what happened to Henry Mays. Your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t been to find any death record for Henry anywhere. Even a check of Elliott County came up blank.

This is the tombstone of my mom’s brother. He passed away when he was just 2 years old. He left a big impact in the family. Until her dying day, my grandmother was still mourning for the little boy she lost so early in life. I always found it kind of surreal that both of my parents lost brothers so young.

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging topic from GeneaBloggers.

This is my first Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post! This is a prompt put forth by Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings. I thought this one would be particularly fun since a lot of my Mays relatives had a great many children.

1. Determine who is one of the most prolific fathers in your genealogy database or in your ancestry. By prolific, I mean the one who fathered the most children.
2. Tell us about him in your own blog post.

I didn’t need to go far to find one of the most prolific fathers in my tree. There may be one with more children, but they aren’t confirmed by me yet.

The children count for William’s children may be subject to change. I haven’t finished researching them all yet.

William Mays married Anna Click

born: About 1813, Kentucky

1. James Mays; born Oct 1836, married Margaret Slusher; had 8 children.
2. Frances Susan Mays; born May 1837, never married (not sure); had 5 illegitimate children.
3. Nancy L Mays; born about 1839, married William Flannery; not sure of children yet.
4. Rebecca Mays; born about 1841, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
5. John Harmon Mays (my 2nd great grandfather); born Sep 1842, married Celia Slusher; had 4 children (1 was stillborn).
6. William D Mays; born about 1843, married Lilly; had 4 children.
7. Elizabeth J Mays; born about 1847, married ? Gray; not sure of children yet.
8. Thomas Lindsey Mays; born about 1849, married Sarah Elizabeth Whitt; had 6 children.
9. Anna Z Mays; born about 1852, not married; had 1 illegitimate child.
10. Arminda Mays; born about 1853, one illegitimate child. married James Shelton, had 2 children. married Joseph Slusher, had 3 children.
11. Jane Mays, born May 1853, no known spouse or children. (Shoot, she could be Arminda for all I know right now. This family confuses me.)
12. Jurena Mays, born Mar 1855, married ? Adkins. No known children.
13. Green Mays, born Jun 1857, married Susannah Gillium; had 11 children.
14. Sarah Mays, born Jun 1860, no known spouse or children.
15. Nancy Ellen Mays, born about 1862, married Hansford Conn; had 5 children.

As I stated by Jane’s information this family confuses me too much on the census. The children’s information is always fluctuating. Rebecca has been known to jump around in age by 10 years. I really don’t like to base anything for the Mays’ on any census information if I don’t have to. As you can see they were VERY prolific. It wasn’t just William. His brother Nathan also had 16 or so children. I can’t be sure of Nathan’s though because he was taking care of grandchildren by time the 1880 census came along, so I got very confused about who were children and who were grandchildren. Eventually I’ll sort it all out. They really could have helped out by varying the names of their children but all the Mays’ rotated the same 20 names or so. With each one having children numbering in the teens, well you can see how it would get confusing!

William and Anna Mays household, 1860.

This is the 1880 census image I’ve been working on for quite a bit. Not that I don’t know who everyone is or where they go. I do indeed know all of them. It’s just that because I am re-verifying information, I sometimes come back to this page.

As many times as I’ve looked at this image, and seen all the Mays families next to each other, there is something I’ve always missed. Family number 115 there. Morgan Carter. He’s right there smack dab in the middle of a Mays family sandwich. That sandwich includes the Gillam family at the top by the way. It just so happens that family contains Random Relative #1189, Dorothy/Dorthula? Gillium. So that’s why I’m once again back to this image. However, now I’m distracted by Mr. Carter there.

What are the odds that he’s just a random neighbor sandwiched between all those Mays folks. Sure since Anna is the patriarch of the family and the others are offshoots of her family, it’s possible that when they moved off Anna’s farm, they bought land nearby or from her even. (Kentucky, I need a genealogy trip to you like a need an Eggo Blueberry Waffle).  I checked the 1870 and 1860 censuses. He’s not next door to Anna in 1870 but he is in 1860. Weird that it would work out that way but I guess it just depends on which direction the enumerator was going.

I watched a free webinar on Ancestry that I’ll talk about in an upcoming entry. It was talking about cluster genealogy. It wasn’t until I watched that video that I realized I practice it all the time. I didn’t put it into practice because of a brick wall or unending mystery. I put it into practice because of families like this. In my Kentucky and Ohio families, it’s more often then not that I find whole pages of ancestors in the census instead of just one family in a town. It’s such a contrast to my Dad’s family where I look for one family in Brooklyn and I’m lucky if I find them.

So I imagine I’ll end up back here at Morgan Carter eventually. Carter is a surname in my tree in relation to this area. I just haven’t traced it this far back yet, or in some cases this far forward. It’s a surprise to me that I ever get anywhere in my research with how often I change directions!

I’m headed to Ohio for the weekend, a wedding, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to update Monday. I have tons to update though. Once I get on a roll I can’t seem to stop. ^.^