Have you ever hit a brickwall in your family history research that seemed insurmountable? Howard Murray joined us from Colorado to trace his elusive two times great-grandmother Francis/Frances. She vanished from records between 1880 and 1900. Our HTB with Kathleen conversation offers strategies that you may use to leap over similar hurdles.
Surprise: Family ties emerge as Howard and Kathleen uncover their shared DNA connection from Saline County, Missouri and Pratt County, KS ancestors.
Our chat with Howard is an episode you won't want to miss. Join us and possibly find the missing piece in your family legacy!
Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Thanks to MyHeritage for their generous support to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen! Follow us on social media and subscribe to HTB with Kathleen in order to enter your name in our monthly MyHeritage Complete Package giveaway starting Jan 2024!
Have you ever hit a brickwall in your family history research that seemed insurmountable? Howard Murray joined us from Colorado to trace his elusive two times great-grandmother Francis/Frances. She vanished from records between 1880 and 1900. Our HTB with Kathleen conversation offers strategies that you may use to leap over similar hurdles.
Surprise: Family ties emerge as Howard and Kathleen uncover their shared DNA connection from Saline County, Missouri and Pratt County, KS ancestors.
Our chat with Howard is an episode you won't want to miss. Join us and possibly find the missing piece in your family legacy!
Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Thanks to MyHeritage for their generous support to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen! Follow us on social media and subscribe to HTB with Kathleen in order to enter your name in our monthly MyHeritage Complete Package giveaway starting Jan 2024!
Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, home of the Super Bowl champs, kansas City Chiefs, for the second year in a row, welcome to Hitting the Bricks with Kathleen, the Do it Yourself genealogy podcast that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and on this episode we'll be talking to Howard Murray from the Centennial State, colorado, so let's start Hitting the Bricks. Okay, so we're here with Howard Murray and, of course, kathleen the Brickheader. I am going to ask a couple questions. First, because I want to know, howard, where are you? I'm in Aurora, colorado, aurora, colorado. Howard, how'd you pass the time before you became a full-time genealogist?
Speaker 2:I work with non-profit that provided services for developmentally disabled individuals, and I ran a therapeutic recreation program for that organization.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic In Colorado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to give him a plug Developmental Disabilities Resource.
Speaker 1:Center. Okay, so there we go, some really good work being done for lots of nice people. So I'm assuming, kathleen, you and Howard, you all are family.
Speaker 3:We are DNA matches and I thought this is the first time we've met. We've talked on the phone a couple weeks ago, but this is the first time we've actually seen each other, and Howard's family is from Selene County. John, you've been there. Yes, it's the book that we have, the Colored Marriage of Selene County from 1865 to 1870, that I compiled. You actually took all the images for me, so that is Howard's family's in there, as is mine, and I thought up to now that's how we were related, but I think we're only related through Pratt, even though we all know the same people.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're saying not Selene County but Pratt County?
Speaker 3:No, we were all in Selene County. We were all in Selene County as formerly enslaved persons In the mid 1800s. Yes, and then all of our family from Selene County, on both of our sizes, seems like moved to Pratt.
Speaker 1:Kansas. Okay, so hang on. A second Selene County is in Missouri, missouri.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, for everybody listening, when you're on an airplane flying over the Midwest on your way to some other place, to Colorado, to California, washington it's the little spot right in about the middle, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Okay, so Howard John is from Virginia, so I get a lot of Midwestern jokes, okay, but as good folks are from the Pratt County, kansas, and our ancestors are from Selene County, missouri. But in the meantime it does seem that Howard and I are related and I'm going to talk to Howard a little further about that. But let's get to his genealogical question.
Speaker 1:Yes, do you have a question?
Speaker 2:I do my two times great-grandmother seemed to disappear between 1880 and 1900. So that's the brick wall that I'm up against.
Speaker 1:Isn't there a weird gap with census and all that kind of information during that time period? Yes, right.
Speaker 3:We don't have the 1890 census and you did a chewy moment or a podcast you and I did on just census record. So Howard does have a real brick wall and the reason, of course, is because of your timeframe and that a lot of people were buried locally on farms not marked. It was before Missouri required registrations of death, so before 1910. I have a couple of questions for you, if that's okay. So your ancestor was Temple Murray, married to a Francis Tanner, and you've traced them back to Virginia. That's great, yes, but what happened to her? After I see her in the 1870 and the 1880 census, I went to your MyHeritage site and MyHeritage you have a tree up there and it has a lot of data that I didn't see. So I want to know where you got this data. Okay, and the main one I want to know about is Delva, who supposedly was born in 1891, and Harry, who was supposedly born in 1889.
Speaker 2:I got off of some census that I found, and it was oral history also. Those two people seem to pop in and out of different information. They're here and then they're gone and I'm not sure if they're really true individuals or not.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it's possible that they could be a child of an older sister. We don't know on that, yes, yes, or another sibling. So let's hold those two names off. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm saying that the last known person who was born in the 1880s was Frank. Frank was born in 1881. We have his military record. Do you have any child for sure? That says that their parents are Temple and Francis.
Speaker 2:I can go back and look and a lot of his children. If I go by their death certificate, francis and Temple are listed as their parents.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I do see that. I see all of them except the Delva and Harry. Right, and that was my question. Is there anyone between Frank, born 1881, and Harry, who was supposedly born in 1889?
Speaker 2:No, I don't believe so. Everybody else was prior to that.
Speaker 3:So we're going to have to start with Frank, and that's just going to narrow your picture a little more, instead of saying you don't see her between 1880 and 1900, you really don't see her between 1881 and 1900 because she gave birth.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And in this case we're taking every clue we can get.
Speaker 1:So that sounds like a real baby step. You've just trimmed 12 months off, thanks very much, but you got another nine year gap that you're working with right.
Speaker 3:Exactly Well, I was hoping that he actually has something for Delva or Harry this is what a brick wall looks like.
Speaker 1:You're trimming timeframes by months, not years.
Speaker 3:That is correct Whenever. That's the level of a brick wall he has. So I still have a nine year gap of what happened to Francis. So what I did? I made a lot of phone calls and, howard, you know these people, so I'm going to mention who I called. One was Marvin Wilhite. Marvin called me. He and I had a nice little chat and the reason is because he's one of the many people there that took you as a visitor to the site. Can you tell us how that happened?
Speaker 2:Sure Marshall Democrat, which is the newspaper, did a story about Temple and for some reason I happened to see it online and there was some information that wasn't correct. So I wrote to the editor to let him know that some of the information that was put forth wasn't correct and he got me in contact with Marvin and also I had a volunteer that lived in Marshall that was doing a lot of research for me and she kind of connected with Marvin also and I mentioned to Marvin that I had a family Bible that had some genealogical information in the Bible and that really piqued his interest.
Speaker 3:So I Well, that's piquing my interest too.
Speaker 2:So I said that I would like to come to Marshall to visit and to gather more information. So that's what my wife and I did and met Marvin and the lady that, velma Bacon yes, the lady who owned the land, who is Velma Bacon, and Velma Bacon is to see.
Speaker 3:She died in 2015. That particular land is owned now by a trust and I'm going to send you this information and I'm going to tell you why. One of the people I talked to was one of my cemetery experts out of Iowa, chris and Dennis Allen, and they do a lot of cemetery work and I know them quite well, and my question is what was possible to find out how many people are buried in that area? Marvin informed me that there were rocks on quite a few, but there's no markings on any of the rocks, true, and so we don't even know how many people are buried on the Temple Murray Farm Cemetery. John Temple's buried all his family. It appeared right on his farm. Up to a point, we don't even know who's in a grave. But there are things I do know. I know that the family use pine boxes. I know the funeral home Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that there's a database in Missouri that has funeral information. Yes, I went there and some of the individuals that passed away were listed and saying how much the casket cost and those kinds of things. So I kind of have an idea of not necessarily how many are buried there, but I think I know there's at least three or four.
Speaker 3:Yes, unfortunately that was the Paris Walker Funeral Home. It's at the State Historical Society in Missouri, which is located in Columbia, and the problem with that is the gap there. Paris didn't start putting his records there until 1898. And he continued to 1934. Now if I were a betting person I would say, because he doesn't have the rest of those Murray families there, they died before 1898. I am going to assume, because all the records say that he is actually whittled, that she's deceased. So between now we're 18, I'm sorry 1881 to 1898. And that's based on the Paris Walker Funeral Home that you mentioned. And those are the funeral home records in that collection, and there are only three. There's the two Temps, temple, murray's and then there's Douglas Murray, who's there.
Speaker 1:And are you? Is that the kind of information that you can kind of bank on? Are you thinking because it was a question how many? And so now you're saying that there's definitely a record of three, does that mean there's three or does that mean we know of three?
Speaker 3:We know of three that were buried after 1898.
Speaker 1:After 1898. Ok.
Speaker 3:So there could be more prior to 1898.
Speaker 3:There still can be a lot more. So we don't know how many are actually buried there, and that's what I'm saying. You might want to have someone scan the grass and count the pine boxes, because we know that they're buried based on those records in pine boxes. We also know that they belonged to the Free Will Baptist Church. I don't know much about that. Have you done any research on the Free Will Baptist Church? No, I haven't.
Speaker 3:I would do as much research on that also, both locally and statewide. There's a couple reasons. We know who the ministers are at the Free Will Baptist Church. If you don't have that, I know Marshall Missouri does, and it's also in the book I compiled for Celine County. You'll want to search by the minister. Ministers had their own records that were not always recorded with the state. What we're hoping for is that the minister died with this book of records somewhere in his house and somewhere someone cleaned out the house and said let's donate this book. That happens a lot, and so I find them at the state libraries. I find them at local libraries. It is not at the Marshall Public Library, because I spoke to Vicki Johnson, who is the librarian at the local history and genealogical part of the Marshall Public Library. They have a great section just for history and local genealogy. That has grown since you or I have been there, I think.
Speaker 1:Let me throw back to. We talked a couple of weeks ago about genealogical societies, the smaller societies. Is this tapping into any of that?
Speaker 3:This is literally part of the library.
Speaker 1:The larger entity.
Speaker 3:And this is why we need it. You're correct, we need these small repositories to survive. Matter of fact, the reason I found my original family moving from Saline County to Pratt Kansas was I was working with a person named Andrea Hatfield, part of the Hatfield McCoy's, and Andrea has done quite a bit of work and she's the one who got me in touch with Marvin Wilhite and Vicki Johnson and so I could talk to them and Vicki and Andrea put their hands together and they went through all of the records and they have some great stuff. So, john, back to your question. Yes, we have to have the locals, because they have stuff we can't get online Right.
Speaker 3:One of the things that Vicki has is a section for African-Americans. Now, of course, they have Virginia, houston and it might be Houston's collection of Pennetownal bits. You want to go through that whole folder. Actually, there's two folders on that now, because even if your family didn't go to that church that's there in Pennetown, they had so many activities for the African-Americans that it was a community base, so you're looking for names in that. There's a second set of folders that she has meaning Vicki Johnson at the library and that is the Miami Missouri area. Miami Missouri was close to where your family farmed, the Murrays. So again, there's a lot of obits and clippings in that and that one is, I think, again two folders.
Speaker 3:They also have the surname files, clippings, and you probably have seen some of those, but they have the surnames of Jackson, green, murray and Williams. I can tell you all four of those families are the ones that move to Pratt, because I'm related to all of them. But the Murrays I do not know how I'm related to you, right, I'm also related to just as a side note, to the Wells, and I noticed today that you're related to the Wells. I don't know what that has to do with any of this, but I'm assuming they didn't come from Celine County, did they? How are you related to a Wells? Would you spell the name?
Speaker 2:W-E-L-L-S. Oh yes, yes, that is, that's my mother's side.
Speaker 3:It is also on my side and so I was always thinking that you're related to us through the Greens, through Pratt. But you mentioned that you know a fellow by the name of Morris Porter. Yes, morris Porter's grandmother was a Nola Wells. She had four kids and I don't know if I have all of those kids and their descendants. I just know Morris Porter as a cousin. So again, I'm sorry, john, that's your connection. That's your connection.
Speaker 2:I don't know my mother's mother was. Her children are Martins. That's it. My mother's mother is Bessie Martin.
Speaker 3:OK so. And they are married well, you are telling me that you are also a Martin. Yes, both my grandparents are Martins. Oh OK, all of the Martins in Pratt are related to me and you, martin is related to me from Tennessee originally, correct, and there were two huge families that came in that area. And Bessie Martin is also on my family tree.
Speaker 1:And these names are familiar to you.
Speaker 2:Howard, oh, yes, ok.
Speaker 1:So I guess we're doing Howard and a plus one to the next family reunion.
Speaker 3:Actually, yes, because, howard, what you don't know is Morris Porter also was a Martin, yes, and related to Bessie. He is also your cousin. That way, did you know that he was your?
Speaker 2:cousin. I didn't know that until a few years ago. I didn't know who my grandmother's Bessie's maiden name was, until I got her death certificate and it named her father. Did you know Morris Porter? Oh yes, my mother and Morris Porter's second wife went to school to get but did you know you were cousins to Morris. Oh, no, no, no no, we didn't know.
Speaker 3:Well, this is how we are related. So, john, thanks for having us on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like to thank you both for Because now I have a whole new exactly.
Speaker 3:So yes, this has nothing to do with what we started off with.
Speaker 1:Okay, never mind the brick wall. We just were family, now we are now family.
Speaker 3:So that is a whole other line than what we're talking about with the Murrays. But when he said he was also a Martin, I knew that we were related through the Martins of Pratt and, like I said, both my grandparents are Martins.
Speaker 1:And of course that's one of the fun things about genealogy is the sudden left hand turn that you end up. You think you're looking doing some brick wall work, thinking there's a connection somewhere down the line, and then find out that connection's a lot closer.
Speaker 3:So what I'm going to do is get back on the track.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:We were talking about your Murrays. Yes, kathleen, we were talking about what was at the library, at the genealogical library, with Vicki Johnson. She did mention that she has these four photos that I do want you to look at, and or you can ask them to do it. I don't know their whole process but I will send it, and it is the Jackson's, the Green's, the Murray's and the Williams which I know you're related to also, and there is also a new file that Vicki has been collecting called the Black History file, and it has about 40 or 50 also clippings. So they have been actively adding on to these clippings. About six months ago they also joined newspaperscom, so a lot of this has been already digitized. And I did also mention that the Paris Funeral Home Records are giving us a little bit more than what we had bargained for. But the time is limited as far as the funeral home records are and we're looking for the minister's actual record. We also know that Free Will Baptist can be your clue If we can find those records. I have not been able to find them yet, but you have to do a whole statewide and research that particular minister.
Speaker 3:Now to add to the last part, that is quite depressing is there are two epidemics during that time frame. One was LaGrip and the other one Diphtheria. Both of those cause quite a few deaths about that time frame. We're talking about between your 1881 and your 1898. We also know that the paper was constantly writing about the African American deaths until 1897. There is not a lot of deaths recorded in the newspaper between 1897 and 1904 due to some political things. So the fact that she's not in there is not necessarily shocking if it happens somewhere in that time frame. If you can prove that Delva and Harry are really people that were children of temple, then you've narrowed it even further, because Delva was born in 1891. Right okay.
Speaker 3:So at this point you're wanting to narrow your time frame, but I could not find anything on either of those two. You might have something in that family Bible you referred to.
Speaker 2:The family Bible. The information in it was very basic. It was basically temple Francis and Douglas and Inman, so it was more related to my grandmother's putting it in. So it was, you know. It was more related to the information that she did.
Speaker 3:One of the thing that I am going to mention is your DNA.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily going to promote it very much as far as how are you related to any other Murray's, but keep an eye on that.
Speaker 3:If you find more information on Delva and Harry to see what level of a shared chromosomes you have, is it more of maybe a generation off where they might be children of one of the girls or one of the boys who continued to use the Murray name? One of the things I did is I ran a MyHeritage cluster tool. That's one of my favorite tools of MyHeritage and I have to say that MyHeritage is one of my favorite DNA groups and that's where, of course, we met originally with my brother, todd, and what I want to note on that is that for some reason, your DNA is not included in the cluster tools, is purposely not included, and it's noted there for me. I will send that to you also, but I do want you to see how this cluster tool works, because it's not only fascinating, it gives you your groups that I can't do your group, but I'm going to extend you the instructions so that you can do your different groups.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar? I'm familiar with a woman in Marshall and I don't have her name, but she contacted me about six months ago and she was doing cemetery research and she wanted. She went out to the property where Temple owned and spoke with the person that lives there now, I guess, and that person was familiar with the burial there but didn't know where it was.
Speaker 3:So there is a person who's doing some research because she's trying to work with locating all the African-American families and their businesses. Her name is Teresa and I do have the information. I will definitely send that to you. And the person who put all of the find a grave contributor stuff online is Cynthia Farmer Knowled, so I don't know which one you might have talked to, I think that's who I spoke to, I think.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that would be Cynthia Farmer Knowled. I will send you her information also, and again, the key people here that we're going to work with is that local genealogist, so that at this point is Vicki Johnson. Okay, oh, by the way, marvin Wilheitseck, feel free to call him. He still has your whole folder and all the information that he has, so feel free to contact him if you have questions.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll definitely do that. Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like some work with some local people and some a fishing expedition with somebody with some ground penetrating radar to see if we can turn up some other family members other than you, kathleen.
Speaker 3:So one of the things I have to mention is John, when he's going out to that cemetery. We know at least three people in there.
Speaker 1:Hopefully everybody in the cemetery is.
Speaker 3:Thank you, john. Everybody in the cemetery is dead. We just don't know how many. Again, he can't identify the bodies, we still won't know who. But it broadens his perspective. Oh, there are eight people here, so it's possible Francis is in there again. I don't think Francis is living based on the widow status on not only temples, but Douglas was also recording it that way and often the children, especially an educated child like Douglas, would have said divorced.
Speaker 2:Okay, definitely go down those lines.
Speaker 1:That's great, well, well, your family now. So I guess we'll let you update us at the next reunion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you actually as family. He can call me anytime, especially if it's on those lines.
Speaker 1:You get the inside track. So just call with a family issue and you can slip on the Murray side when, whenever you can right Okay, that sounds good. Well, fam, look, I think we're coming to a close here, aren't we? Yes, I would really appreciate. This has been. This has been a lot of fun and a lot of turns on this one that was. That was really really very interesting. Thanks so much for bringing that to to hitting the bricks and letting her take a swipe at it, and hopefully you'll have good success going forward.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you guys. I've enjoyed it and I know where to go now and hopefully I can find out more Great.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, let me know how it goes, howard.
Speaker 2:Okay, I will see you in time. Thank you, howard.
Speaker 1:Nice one, okay, so let me close this down and we'll see if we got any of this or if we have to redo it all. I will just die. Well, congratulations, you've made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to my heritage and legacy family tree webinars. Thanks to Chewie Chewbacca brand, our part-time tosher, and full-time old Tom Naughty for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hitting the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisnuckle and the Mouans Watch for their next appearance at the Big Son of Mercury. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and, of course, buzzsprout. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast, so stop by our Facebook page at Hitting the Bricks with Kathleen. And how about those chiefs?