Breaking Through Brick Walls

by Sharon Eller

1   Create a biography of your family.

2   Look at collateral family lines in addition to your direct family line.

3   Look at cluster genealogy.

4   Look at other possible marriages that may have changed names.

5   Look at possible documents that you have collected and not used.

6   Go to local historical societies where your families lived.

7   Review your notes for ideas.

8   Rethink your question that you are researching, have you gotten away from the research       question?

9   Look at the family line again, is it correct?

10  Start over, do a genealogy "do over." https://genealogydoover.com/

11  Go to 0n line Blogs for help /network .

12  Create a timeline for your brickwall person.

13  Is the name spelled correctly and have you looked at spelling variations?

14  Use Congregationalist/Quaker records or alternative records.

15  Review Cyndi's List for genealogy options.

16  Look at court records such as depositions for family information.

17  Watch U tube videos on how to do genealogy or genealogy tips.

      [Good place to start: https://www.thefhguide.com/ The Family History Guide]

18  Make an educated guess.

NARA photos

Here is the information provided by Sharon Eller on  obtaining photos of military personnel
from NARA:

It's really nice to obtain a photographic image of someone you are researching. 

For pre-1960 military personnel, try the National Archives, Still Picture Branch. 

The more information you have, the better. Name, Branch of Service, Military Grade (even if only officer or enlisted), Dates of Service (even if only by year), Military Organization (ie, 29th Infantry, USS Baltimore).

They can be contacted at: stillpix@nara.gov, phone 301-837-0561 or by mail at:

National Archives and Records Administration

Special Media Archives Services Division (RDSS) 

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

It takes about three weeks to get a response. If they have something, they send you a photocopy of the image, including the caption naming the individual(s). 

If you want an actual photo, you have to contract with a commercial provider who reproduces it and ships it to you. Total cost around $20. to $25.

My experience has shown that only around one in fifty names are found. Don't bother if the name is John Johnson.

Notes on Jamestown Rediscovery site

Jamestown Rediscovery:

Visitors Center has over 1,000 artifacts of the nearly 2 million discovered since the 1930s

World renowned Archaerium has over 4,000 artifacts on exhibit.

Jamestown Rediscovery website

https://historicjamestowne.org/archaeology/

Website has information on the Jamestown Biographies Project

has information on more than 1500 settlers available for download for $4.95/each. Free sample on Jeffrey Abbott.

Also mentioned are some useful books for documented lineages:

John Frederick Dorman – Adventurers of Purse and Person, 1607-1624, 3 volumes

Martha McCartney – Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, A Biographical Dictionary,1607-1635

Both are available at the Cocoa Library Genealogy Department.

Archaeologist William Kelso's book Jamestown: The Buried Truth

Intro – p. 4 - Kelso's first look at Jamestown in 1963

Chapter 1 – Review of documentary evidence

                     6 first person accounts and 2 maps, 1 Spanish & 1 Dutch

                        p.9 Quote by George Percy Lt. Gov. 1609

                        p. 10 paintings of Percy and John Smith

Chapter 2 – Rediscovery of James Fort 1994-2005

Chapter 3 – Discovery of Burials

Chapter 4 – Examination of Artifacts

Chapter 5 – Examination of places where representative government began

Book 2 by Kelso – Jamestown: The Truth Revealed

                               Out in paperback in April 2019

Also in a April 2019 – Opening of new exhibits at Jamestown in the 1906 church

Covers 5 burials found in the church:

Ferdanando Weyman d 1610 age 34, uncle of Gov Sir Thomas West

Capt. William West d 1610 killed by indians

Capt. Gabriel Archer, d 1609, age 34 Starving Time

Rev. Robert Hunt, d 1608 age c39

Most recently – Sir George Yeardley – died 1627, age 40

Deputy Governor of Virginia in 1616

Governor of Virginia in 1618

formed the first General Assembly which met in July 1619

Archaeology and genealogy came together in identification

DNA from descendants used

The church will be the site of new exhibits for

the American Evolution Commemoration

designed to describe the events of 1619 and

the beginning of representational government in the United States.

Also see:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/new-archaeological-research-jamestown-reveals-identities

Thinking about Aunt Teenie

Francis Bougere and Marie Ernestine Booksh, Spring 1944

Vera Begue Booksh with daughter Vera Booksh, Wilton Booksh Jr.
and his sister, Marie Ernestine Booksh, Spring 1944

I always think about Aunt Teenie (Marie Ernestine Booksh) on June 6. She and Uncle Bou were married on New Years Eve, 31 December 1943, and they only had a few months together before he left for England. She was only 24 years old when she died on 5 June 1944, the day before D-Day.

The family sent a telegram to her husband, but it wasn't delivered until after the invasion. Uncle Bou was a radioman in the Army Air Corps and they didn't want to distract him from his work on that important day. I was just 3 years old at the time, but I remember it well. It was my first experience of death and I missed her so much. I remember standing at the back door that night and seeing a shooting star. Mama said that meant someone's soul was going to heaven and I was sure it was Aunt Teenie. She was a dear, sweet loving person.

The Old Homestead

A Visit to Magee Farm

On a hot June morning in 2010 we pulled the camper off of U.S. Highway 45 just north of Mobile and drove up the tree-lined drive to visit Magee Farm. The two-story Gulf Coast Cottage was built in 1848 for Jacob Magee (1811-1883) and his wife Mary Eliza Tisdale (1810-1882), older sister of Benjamin Franklin Tisdale.

The brochure said “...At the Magee farm it's always 1865!” and it certainly felt that way.  

Billed as “The Last Appomattox,” the house in Kushla, Alabama, was where Union Major General Edward Canby and Confederate Lieutenant General Richard Taylor met on April 29, 1865 to negotiate a cease fire and the surrender of the last Confederate forces east of the Mississippi. The actual surrender took place several days later on May 4 at nearby Citronelle, Alabama. (For more details see my earlier blog post on belletisdale.blogspot.com 4/19/2015)

On the front porch we met our guide, Ken McGhee, a Civil War re-enactor and no relation to Jacob Magee. While we waited for a group from the local library to join the tour, Ken took us to the family cemetery where B. F. Tisdale was buried. Surrounded by a low brick wall the cemetery was on land owned in 2010 by Robert Eddington.

“That was a surprise!” I wrote in my journal that night. I had visited Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1998 and photographed B. F. Tisdale's name on the monument there along with his wife Eliza Pratt Tisdale and other family members. (See my blog post of January 31, 2018.) We knew from the obituary that he had died at the home of Dr. Grace in Whistler, now part of Mobile, but the story of where he was buried had not come down in our branch of the family.

By the time we got back to the house the rest of the tour group had arrived and our guide showed us through the house. Photos of Jacob and Mary were on the mantel in the parlor where the two generals met. The dining room table was set for the luncheon the generals shared after their discussions. There was even a photo of Belle's youngest brother Charles Harry Tisdale in the small one room museum.

General Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor wrote in his autobiography, Destruction and Reconstruction:

...A bountiful luncheon was spread, of which we partook, with joyous poppings of champagne corks for accompaniment, the first agreeable explosive sounds I had heard in years. The air of “Hail Columbia,” which the band in attendance struck up, was instantly changed by Canby's order to that of “Dixie,” but I insisted on the first, and expressed a hope that Columbia would be again a happy land, a sentiment honored by many libations.” [http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/mageefarm.html]

The Tisdale family has another connection to the Magee Farm in addition to Aunt Mary Tisdale Magee. In 1898 the property was bought by Alfred Henry Sturdevant and his wife Harriet Morse of Illinois. They had six children, among them daughter Helen Morse Sturtevant who was 21 years old at the time. At a dance in Mobile Helen met a young man named Marion Eugene Tisdale, Belle's brother. She brought him home to meet her family and as the wagon pulled up the road to the house he exclaimed, “This is my Aunt's house!”

On August 15, 1903 Marion Eugene Tisdale and Helen Sturtevant were married at Magee Farm, linking the house once again to the Tisdale family. Unfortunately the wedding was marred by tragedy. Helen's younger brother Bradford drowned in Chickasabougue Creek the week before the wedding on August 9, 1903.

Marion Eugene Tisdale, Jr. writes, “After the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom along with Alfred Henry and Harriet Sturtevant and the groom's mother Eliza Pratt Tisdale went out to the family cemetery where the bride placed the flowers she had carried on the newly made grave of her brother Bradford, near the grave of Benjamin Franklin Tisdale, Eliza's late husband...”

“...Marion Eugene Tisdale evidently had an early stage brain cancer and was destined to live less than 11 years after the wedding...”

Helen and Marion had four children, Dorothy Hope, Margaret Helen, Bradford, and Harry Lee. Harry Lee was born just four and a half months after his father died and his name was changed to Marion Eugene shortly thereafter. His son Marion E. Tisdale Jr. is the author of the manuscript “Some Memories of the Magee Farmhouse”quoted above. It was on line but has now disappeared.

The Magee Farm was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and opened as a museum in 2004. In 2010 it was named a Place in Peril, one of Alabama's most endangered places, by the Alabama Historical Commission. It ceased operation soon afterward. I'm glad we discovered it when we did.
For photos see  Belle's Letters at belletisdale.blogspot.com
belletisdale.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-visit-to-magee-farm.html

Favorite Name

Arabella Guinevere Booksh, c1910

        Arabella Guinevere Booksh was the name listed in the family bible. I was named for her, my Great Aunt Vera, and her sister-in-law, Armelle Dufilho Booksh. I loved them both like grandmothers and I knew them as Noo and Nan. When I started doing genealogy research, I discovered that Noo had many more names than I realized.  Arabella Guinevere Booksh was just the first.

She was born 13 August 1889 in Grosse Tete, Louisiana, the last of four children. She was named for her mother, Arabella Maria Tisdale. Her father, Samuel Walker Booksh, my Great Grandpa Sam, was raised Catholic and Noo was baptized Arabella Genevieve Booksh. Genevieve was a saints name, necessary for Catholic baptism, and we all know Guinevere was no saint.

In the 1900 census she is listed as Vera "Bevoksh," age 10. The surname appears to have been written as "Bwoksh" by the enumerator and was extremely difficult to find. The family includes Sam, Bell, their children, Sam Jr., Leonard, Wilton and Vera. They are living at 142 Constance Street in New Orleans with Vera's mother Eliza Pratt Tisdale, listed as Liza Tisdale and her son Harry and daughter Lee and grand children May and Ruth Pierce. May and Ruth were the children of Belle's sister, Mary Bernice Tisdale Pierce, who died in 1886.

In the 1910 census she is listed as Vera B. Booksh age 19. The Samuel W. Booksh family is living at 1311 St. Mary Street in New Orleans. The family name is spelled correctly and the household consists of Samuel, Belle, Samuel Jr., Charles L., Wilton and Vera B.

In 1920 she and her husband John P. Ventress are living with her parents, Samuel W. Booksh and Bella Booksh along with her brother Charles L. Booksh and his wife Armelle Booksh and Lea Tisdale at 1831 Bayou Road in New Orleans. All four Booksh siblings, Sam Jr., Leonard, Wilton, and Vera, were married in the same year, 1912.

In 1930 she is listed as Vera Ventress and she and husband Posey, as he was called, are living with Sam and Belle "Brooksh" at 1831 Bayou Road. Living with the family are Charles Leonard and Armelle, Wilton and his children, Wilton, William and Susie.

By 1940 Vera Ventress is Head of Household, living at 3003 Ponce de Leon Street with brother Wilton, his daughter Emma, and sister-in-law Armelle. That is where I remember them as a child.

Besides being known as Vera and Belle she was also called Roonie by her brother Wilton and Noo by his children and grand children. Arabella Guinevere / Vera / Belle / Roonie / Noo died  at age 89 on 10 March 1977.

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.