52 Ancestors - Week 8: I Can Identify

I Can Identify this little girl...

Mary Eliza "Maimie" David  (1877-1971)
Photo by A. D. Lytle Studio, Baton Rouge, La.

     The 1880 U.S. Census lists my Great Grandparents, Samuel Walker Booksh and Arabella Maria Tisdale Booksh, living with Sam's parents, Charles Booksh and Eliza Leonard Booksh, in the 9th Ward of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.

     Also living with them are four grandchildren, identified as Elisa Mary age 22, Charles C. Booksh age 19, Mary Eliza Booksh age 3, and S. B. David age 4. Elisa Mary (Mary Eliza in church records) and Charles C. (Charles Everitt in church records) were the children of Sam's oldest brother, Charles Edouard Booksh (1838-1911).

     Several people have assumed that 3 year old Mary Eliza was the daughter of Sam and Belle because the census taker omitted her surname and put a ditto mark behind her name. We know from the family bible and church records that Sam and Belle had only four children, Samuel Walker Jr., Charles Leonard, Wilton Tisdale and Arabella Guinevere. We have puzzled over who this Mary Eliza was for years, but the mystery has finally been solved.

     By making a list of every Mary Eliza and Eliza Mary connected to the family it was clear that the Mary Eliza listed in the 1880 census was Mary Eliza "Maimie" David. She and her brother Seth Booksh David were the children of Sam's sister, Eliza Elizabeth "Lizzie" Booksh and her husband, Joseph Johnson David (pronounced Dah VEED).

     Lizzie Booksh was born 11 April 1855 and married Joseph David on 11 May 1875. Their son Seth Booksh David was born 19 February 1876 and Belle and Sam were his godparents. Daughter Mary Eliza David was born 30 June 1877. Lizzie died young at age 22 on 31 March 1878 and is buried in the David plot in Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge. Joseph David had remarried by the time of the 1880 census and is listed in the 4thWard of West Baton Rouge Parish with his new wife, Amelia, age 21. 

52 Ancestors Week 6 - Social Media

Wilton Tisdale Booksh Sr. 1886-1985
with sons Wilton Jr. and William in 1915

 

       I am writing this on February 7, 2023, my Grandfather Booksh's birthday.  He was born in 1886, 137 years ago today, in Grosse Tete, Louisiana, to Arabella Maria Tisdale and Samuel Walker Booksh.  In 1893 when he was 7 years old the family moved to New Orleans.

      The 1900 U. S. Census lists the family at 1365 Constance Street under the name transcribed as Bevoksh, making them very hard to find. They are listed as Sam and Bell with children Sam 19, Lenard 17, Wilton 13 and Vera 10. Listed next door is Eliza Tisdale, Widow. Her husband, Benjamin Franklin Tisdale died in 1876. Living with Great Grandmother Eliza Pratt Tisdale are son Harry, daughter Lee and grand daughters Ma[y] Pierce and Ruth, daughters of  Mary Bernice Tisdale and William Talbot Pierce. Belle's sister, Mary Bernice, died in 1886.

       In the 1910 U.S. Census the family is listed at 1311 St. Mary Street. The family consists of Sam and Belle Booksh and their four children, Samuel Walker Jr., Charles Leonard, Wilton Tisdale, and Arabella Guinevere "Vera."

       Sometime between 1910 and 1912 Wilton met Emma Francis. (See last week's 52 Ancestors blog post for more on that subject.) On 16 July 1912 Wilton and Emma were married. 

       Amy Johnson Crow mentioned that yesterday's newspaper society columns were comparable to today's Social Media. Thanks to a newspaper article found on GenealogyBank.com we know a lot more about their wedding than the usual Marriage Certificate facts.

       The article on page 17 of the Times-Picayune on Sunday, July 21, 1912, although partly illegible because of the binding of the pages, says:

       The marriage of Miss Emma Collins Francis, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Francis, to Mr. Wilton T. Booksh of this city, was quietly celebrated on Tuesday, July 16, at 4 o'clock, at St. George's Church, in the presence of the families and a few intimate friends. After the solemn and beautiful wedding service, which was performed by Rev. Byron Holley, the bridal [party re-]ceived the congratulations [of those] present. Later a dinner [illegible] the bridal pair and family [?was held at An]toine's restaurant, the [illegible] bride, her young sister, Miss [Ernestine] Francis, and brother, Mr. [John Fran-]cis, and her brotheriin-law [and sis-]ter Mr. and Mrs. Gus Terry [hav-]ing come over from their [sum-]mer home at Biloxi, Miss. [for] the marriage. In a few [illegible] and Mrs. Booksh will [illegible] home, which will be in [? Illegible].

       In the 1920 census Wilton and Emma Booksch with children Wilton, William and Ernestine are listed at 111 Brandie Avenue in Biloxi Mississippi. Wilton worked as a Sugar Chemist at sugar mills in Louisiana, Florida, and "in the Tropics," as he used to say. There are several passport applications for him and his family to Guatemala and Honduras

       On 8 February 1925 Emma Francis Booksh died the day after the birth of their daughter Emma. Wilton later married Agnes Lincoln on 3 November 1926 and had two more sons, Charles Leonard and John Richard.

       Another "Social Media" type newspaper article in the April 26, 1933 Baton Rouge Advocate describes a Booksh Family Reunion:

   Quite an enjoyable event was the Booksh family reunion which was held at the home of G. W. Booksh, Jr., the former residence of G. W. Booksh Sr., in Grosse Tete. After attending services at the Rosedale church, the group assembled at the appointed place, coffee was served and later a sumptuous dinner on the grounds was enjoyed. Those attending this affair were: [There follows a long list of Booksh family members...a treasure trove for genealogists to come!]

       I remember attending another Booksh reunion many years later and meeting some of the people mentioned. I have many wonderful memories of my Grandpa Booksh and his sister Vera Booksh Ventress who passed on many family stories. He lived a long life, dying at age 99 on 9 June 1985. 

       Happy Birthday, Grandpa Booksh, and Aunt "Susie" Emma Booksh Sarradet.

       

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Week 1 and 2

2023 Week 1  I'd Like to Meet

          Week 2  Favorite Photo

I am running late with Week 1 so I have decided to combine Week 1 with Week 2.

      I would like to meet my paternal Grandmother, Emma Collins Francis Booksh. She is the only one of my grandparents that I mever met. I know a lot about her, but I'd like to have known her personally.

     One of my favorite photos of her is this one of Grandma Emma with her first born, my father Wilton Tisdale Booksh Jr., and her mother, Anna Belle Collins Francis, and grandmother, Emma Louise Chalfant Collins, taken by my grandfather, Wilton Tisdale Booksh Sr., on the day of my father's baptism on 21 October 1913 in New Orleans.

     Emma was born on 11 August 1888 at China Grove Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. She was the oldest daughter of Charles Alfred Francis and Anna Belle Collins. Emma and her two sisters and her brother were all born at China Grove Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish. One of the questions I'd like to ask her is why her mother traveled up river from their home in New Orleans to give birth in Pointe Coupee.

     Her mother, Anna Belle Collins, was born on 10 March 1866 in Collin County, Texas, but on the 1870 census she is listed at age 4 living with her father and mother, Foster Collins and Emma Collins, and two siblings in the household of her uncle Charles Chalfant in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Great Grandmother Anna Belle's mother, Great Great Grandmother Emma Louise Chalfant, was born in Pointe Coupee Parish circa 1846. In the 1880 census she is listed at age 30 in Pointe Coupee with her husband J. F. Collins. Emma Louise's father, Nathaniel Chalfant, is listed as a Planter in Pointe Coupee Parish in 1860 and her mother, Drucilla Burrows Chalfant, died in Pointe Coupee. These are the only connections I have been able to find in the family to Pointe Coupee.

     I am assuming the China Grove Plantation in Pointe Coupee was the home of Emma Louise's parents, Nathaniel Chalfant (1795-1869) and Drucilla Caroline Burrows (1813-1865). That's what I'm assuming, but if I could meet Grandma Emma I could ask her.

     And I would also like to ask her if these two unidentified Daguerreotypes from my Great Grandma Belle Tisdale's photo collection are of Nathaniel Chalfant and Drucilla Burrows.

REVISITING MY DNA RESULTS

	I recently had occasion to revisit my DNA results and update the information I included 

in my book Mama Said: The Mostly True Story of the Begue Family of Louisiana and 

Mississippi which was published in 2012.

	My husband and I and my brother did our first tests through the National Geographic 
Genographic Project  which is no longer available. This was before the explosion of autosomal 
DNA testing. There were two tests available, mtDNA for women and Y-DNA for men. Results 
would give you insight into your distant ancestors not your recent family tree. As an 
anthropology major I found this population genetics interesting. 

mtDNA Results

	The mtDNA test looks at just two small areas of the whole mitochondrial DNA called the 

Hypervariable Region 1 and the Hypervariable Region 2. They are more likely to have changes 
although the rate of change is very slow. They show our deep ancestry measured in tens of 
thousands of years. HVR1 changes happen about every 20,180 years and HVR2 changes happen 
about every 5,138 years. This is not too helpful in filling out a family tree, but interesting to 

anthropologists who are studying human migration patterns. People who have the same changes 
are descended from the same ancient female ancestor and are in the same haplogroup.

	The HVR1 changes are the ones that Dr. Brian Sykes wrote about in his book The Seven 

Daughters of Eve. He wrote about the seven most common haplogroups in Europe known at 
that time. There are now ten mtDNA Haplogroups identified in Europe among 36 identified 
throughout the world.

	When I got my test results back I discovered that my haplogroup is HV*, which you 
could say was the maternal ancestor of both haplogroups H and V, the two most common 
haplogroups in Europe. If you follow out the last line on my mother's ancestor chart, the 
maternal line, the earliest female ancestor identified is Mary Elizabeth Obermayer, born 
about 1800 in Hanover, now part of Germany. Our mitochondrial DNA came from her. It 
was passed down to Bernardina Harmeyer who passed it down to Anna Hattaway who passed 
it down to Sarah Gonzales. Sarah Gonzales married John Louis Begue and all of her children 

and all of her female-line grandchildren will be in mtDNA Haplogroup HV*. 

	Mitochondrial results are expressed in differences from CRS,  the Cambridge Reseach 
Sequence. CRS was the first sample tested at Cambridge University and all later tests are 
described as to how they differ from this first DNA sequence to be analyzed. Our sequence 
is identical to CRS in the HVR1 region and has only one difference at marker 263G in the 
HVR2 region. Haplogroup HV* is a west Eurasian haplogroup found throughout the Near 
East, including Anatolia, the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, and the republic of 
Georgia. It predates the beginning of farming in Europe.

	About 30,000 years ago, some members of HV* moved north across the Caucasus 
Mountains, west across Anatolia and into Europe with the Cro-Magnon people. Their arrival 
marked the appearance of the Aurignacian culture. This culture was distinguished by 
significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools.

	Colder temperatures and a drier global climate about 20,000 years ago drove early 
Europeans south to warmer climates of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the Balkans where 
they waited out the 5,000 year long cold spell. Population sizes and genetic diversity were 
drastically reduced. When the ice sheets began to retreat about 15,000 years ago, HV* split
 into two main subgroups, H and V, and recolonized Europe. Today these three haplogroups 
make up almost 75% of all European lineages.

Y-DNA Results

	The Y-DNA test looks at changes or mutations made in copying DNA, called Single 
Nucleotide Polymorphisms, SNPs. These changes happen about every 500 generations. 
Y-DNA tests also look at sequences of genes along the DNA strand. They are called Short 
Tandem Repeats or STRs. As DNA is copied, changes or mutations occur in these STRs .
These changes happen about every 200 years or about every six generations. This makes 
them a little more useful in a genealogical time frame. 

	I asked my male Begue cousin to take the Genographic Project Y-DNA test. His 
Y-DNA came from his father, Gonzales Begue, who got it from his father, John Louis Begue, 
who got it from John Blaise Bégué who got it from Jean Baptiste Bégué. So it will tell us 
about the paternal line, the top line on our ancestor chart. The results show that our Bégué 
line is Haplogroup I1a.(That is Capitol Letter I not Roman Numeral I.) Members of this 

haplogroup carry the following Y chromosome markers: M168>M89>M170>M253. 

This Haplogroup is now known as I-M253.

	When geneticists identify a marker, they try to figure out when it first occurred and 
in what geographic region of the world. The first of our Bégué markers, M168, mutated 
about 50,000 years ago in northeast Africa. The man who gave rise to this marker was one 
of a group of people that migrated into the Middle East. His descendants became the only 
lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African 
man living today.

	The next marker, M89, arose from a man in the M168 group about 45,000 years ago 
and is found in 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans. This man traveled with a group that 
followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East and beyond. 
Some of his descendants remained in the Middle East and others continued, some east into 
the Central Asian steppes and some north into Anatolia and the Balkans. This is where our 
Bégué ancestors split from my father's Booksh ancestors and my husband's Zimmerman 
ancestors. The Bégué ancestor with marker M89 went north to the Balkans and the 
Zimmerman and Booksh ancestor with marker M9 went east into the Central Asian steppes. 
Booksh is Haplogroup R1a (M17), which is most common in Eastern Europe and 
Zimmerman is R1b (M343), the most common Haplogroup in Western Europe.

	The third mutation at Marker M170 characterizes our haplogroup I. It  emerged 
about 20,000 years ago in southeastern Europe at the height of the Ice Age. These people 
had migrated into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. The ancestor who 
gave rise to this marker, was probably born in one of the refuge areas that people occupied 
during the last of the Ice Age.

	Marker M253 emerged about 15,000 years ago as populations moved north from 
the ice free regions. As the ice melted, the group carrying this marker migrated north 
and began to repopulate northern parts of Europe including Scandinavia. They carried 
with them this unique genetic marker that defines our Haplogroup as I-M253. Today 
this marker is found in highest frequencies in Scandinavian populations in Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It is found in low frequency in the rest of Europe.

	Our original Bégué ancestor may have been a Visigoth who settled in southern 
Gaul around AD418. The Visigoths established their own kingdom with its capital at 
Toulouse, not far from where our Jean Baptiste Bégué was born.  Or he may have been 
a Viking raider along the Atlantic Coast of France. He may have been one of the 
Norsemen who settled in the area of France that came to be called Normandy. He may 
have been a Breton with Viking genes who settled in Brittany. However he got there, 
eventually some of his descendants migrated into the Pyrénées Mountains of Southern 
France. For more information on our Begue Y-DNA Haplogroup see the  Wikipedia 
entry for Haplogroup I-M253. 

	We eventually transferred our results to the Family Tree DNA website and did further 

testing there. See http:www.familytreedna.com/  They do mtDNA, Y-DNA  

and autosomal testing. 

In the Census

Week #5
[Don't believe everything you see] In the Census

Through the years I have noticed several online family trees have given my great  grandparents, Belle Tisdale and Samuel Booksh, an extra child. I know from church records, from other family members and from the family bible that she and Great Grandfather Sam had only four children: Samuel Walker Jr., Charles Leonard, Wilton Tisdale, and Arabella or Belle, also known as Vera. But other trees insist on adding Mary Eliza, born about 1877. I finally figured out why.

The 1880 U. S. Census lists the Booksh family in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, as:
Booksh, Charles, age 72
              Elisa Elizabeth, age 60
              Elisa Mary, age 22, Grand Daughter
              Sam'l W., age 26, Son
              Bell M., age 25, Daughter-in-Law
              Chas. E., age 19, Grand Son
              Mary Eliza, age 3, Grand Daughter
 David, S. B., age 4, Grand Son

Charles and Elisa Elizabeth are my great great grandparents. Elisa Mary is the daughter of their oldest son, Charles Edouard Booksh. Samuel and Belle are my great grandparents who were married 23 April 1878. Charles E. is Charles Everett, son of Charles Edouard Booksh and brother of Elisa Mary. Mary Eliza, always called Maimie, age 3, is the daughter of Charles and Elisa's daughter, Mary Eliza Booksh and her husband Joseph J. David. The census taker made a mistake and did not enter her last name.The S. B. David that follows is her brother and Mary Eliza and Joseph's son, Seth Booksh David. Mary Eliza died 31 March 1878 and her children are living with their grandparents.

Evidently some researchers assumed Mary Eliza was the daughter of Sam and Belle and incorrect trees are being replicated. Let this be a warning. Don't accept online trees as fact. Verify the information with real research in historic records before you include it in your family tree.

 For more about the Tisdale-Booksh family please see my other blog, Belle's Letters, which is a   compilation of papers, letters and photos passed down in the family.

Booksh or Tisdale Photo

Booksh or Tisdale family group, circa 1895

This is my Photo for the second week of the 52 Ancestors Challenge.

Who are these people? The only one I can identify is Samuel Walker Booksh, the man in the first row with the handlebar mustache, fourth from the left.

Judging from the women's clothes and hats and the two military uniforms the gathering occurred in the late 1890s. It could be Booksh family members in New Orleans or Grosse Tete, Louisiana or Tisdale family members in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Mobile, Alabama. The large photo is 8" x 14" and was pasted to a dark cardboard backing. When I copied the photo it was in the possession of my aunt Emma Frances Booksh Sarradet in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is now probably in the possession of her son Steve Sarradet, Jr.

Great Grandpa Samuel Walker Booksh would have been about 45 years old in 1898. His wife Belle Tisdale Booksh, maybe the woman to his right, would have been about 43 years old. Next to her may be oldest son Sam Jr., about 17. Sons Leonard and Wilton and daughter Belle do not seem to be in the photo.

I have shown the photo to many members of the Booksh and Tisdale extended families but no one had ever seen a copy of the photo or knew which family it was. Does anyone out there recognize it?

52 Ancestors Challenge

I started this blog to use for postings in Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. It's a series of weekly prompts to get you to think about an ancestor and share something about them.

The prompts for January are:
     Week 1: Start
     Week 2: Favorite Photo
     Week 3: Longevity
     Week 4: Invite to Dinner
     Week 5: In the Census

So let's get started...

This story starts in April 1988 when the National Genealogical Society had their annual conference in Biloxi, Mississippi. My mother, Vera Begue Booksh, lived in Long Beach, Mississippi then and I drove up from Florida to take her to the conference.

Vera Begue Booksh stands by the second largest Live Oak in Mississippi in Long Beach.

She and my Aunt Marie had been doing genealogy for about 20 years and I offered to put their information on the computer. I never intended to get into it myself, just put their research into a genealogy program and print it out for the family.


Finally we sat down with all the family group sheets, pedigree charts, papers, and photocopies that she had accumulated. I turned on the tape recorder, and we started climbing into our family tree. I picked up one of the photocopies and asked, "Now where did you find this information?"

Mama said, "Oh, that was from the New Orleans Library. We did a lot of research there...

"OK," I said, "Do you remember what book you got this information from?"

"It was a big red book."

"I need to put down the name of the book as the source of the information."

"I don't know the name of the book!" Mama was indignant. "What? You don't believe me!"

I could see this was not going to be as easy as I had thought.  I could put all Mama's data into the computer, but I was going to have to go out onto some shaky limbs to document the sources. Soon I was hooked and I've been doing genealogy ever since.

Fast forward to 2009 when I finished the first draft of a book on the Begue family. Mama and Aunt Marie were both still alive and able to read the draft and offer corrections and additions. Other relatives also added information and at last we were ready to publish. In 2012 I got my first copies of  "Mama Said:The Mostly True Story of the Begue Family of Louisiana and Mississippi." (It's available at Amazon.com.)

As I say in my introduction, If Mama's family had a motto, it would have been, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Her family had a lot of good stories. There were stories of lost fortunes and disinheritance, stories of larcenous lawyers and disreputable relatives, stories of mysterious apparitions and ghostly happenings. They were passed down from mother to daughter like treasured pieces of needlework. I remember hearing many of these stories told and retold, as we sat on Grandma's porch on summer evenings.

But putting those stories into a book was not the end of the story. I had started in on doing more research on my father's Booksh side of the family. There was so much information that it would require more than one book. One particular ancestor called out to me. Great Grandma Belle Tisdale had left a trunk full of letters and photos of her family. I decided to start a blog as a way of organizing the transcriptions of letters and my research on the letter writers and people mentioned in the letters as well as a little history of what was happening in the Louisiana area at the time. I'm up to 1875 if you would like to take a look at belletisdale.blogspot.com

Now fast forward again to just a few days ago when I got a phone call from a man named Begue who lives here in Central Florida. His son had a genealogy project for school and he wanted to get a copy of my book. He turns out to be my third cousin once removed. So this story has come full circle to a new start for a new genealogist.