Great Great Grandfather

[Ivan the Butcher]

In the 1896 to 1961 sub forum, there is a thread about a 1905 a man inherited and plans to leave his grandkids. Someone ask the general question; "How much do any of know about our GGGF's?" I didn't want to disturb A very good gun thread!

Each of us has 8 Great Great Grandfathers. I am aware of 3 of them. The first is on my dad's side and he is an "Ohio Pioneer", that means he was in Ohio in 1820 or before. He crossed the Ohio River in 1818, the first thing he worked at was to plant corn and build a still! He had at least 2 sons, and he is buried in Cambridge, Ohio.

The second GGGF is someone I know very little about. He left Alabama after the Civil War and Moved to NOLA. He was a hardworking man and put together a nice home and small business. His son in my bloodline was in politics, and never had a "Job" in his life, but he stuffed a lot of ballot boxes! We can trace this family line back to Normandy, France to around 1400.

The third was also an Ohio Pioneer, he crossed the Ohio River in 1816 with 2 horses, 3 cattle, a pregnant wife and 2 small children. He had purchased a few thousand acres in Mifflin Township of Franklin County. All of his land is part of the East side of Columbus now. When he arrived on his property, every bit of it was under 6 inches to 3 feet of water, except for bout 400 square feet, and that is where their first cabin was built. I also know he and his wife got along pretty well as they have 12 kids. In Columbus, Hudson Street used to be called Mock Road, It ran from the families "Big House" front door to High Street. The current Mock Road was originally a farm lane inside the farm. That part of Columbus is a ghetto now, but large farms and very nice churches were established by my ancestors and their neighbors.

That's 3 of my GGGF's, I'm sure there are some of yours out there that were Heros or scoundrels, or even both, over the course of their lives. Please fill some of the everyday history of our Great Nation!

Ivan

 

[Muddyboot]

Do you know where these men are buried?

 

[Onomea]

I am only aware of two great grandfathers, and no great greats.

My maternal great grandfather emigrated from Switzerland at the age of 19, and made his way to Kansas where he homesteaded and built his home. In time, his four sons, with his help, built their homes there, too.

My paternal great grandfather was a Methodist preacher. Don't know much more about him. There is a picture of him somewhere holding his shotgun and a coupla rabbits. (His son, my grandfather was also a Methodist minister, and a chaplain in WWI, though for a career he was president of a couple of universities. I guess he must have preached, too, because there was a box of his sermons in the attic when I was a kid.)

 

[arjay]

I know who 6 of my gg grandfathers were and where they lived.Gavin was a gentleman farmer,Jakob was a teacher who made several trips to the US,John was a sea captain,but I haven't been able to verify that other than the family lore of my grandmother sailing from Glasgow to Canada with him a few times as a child.Half of them lived in Switzerland and half lived in Scotland







Edit: Jakob was a carpenter,his son Heinrich was a teacher



I don't have any pics of mygreat great grands ,but this is Gavin's son also named Gavin with Elizabeth and one of their 8 kids.Taken in the 1880s

And their son Morton,my grandfather,prior to WWI who took over the farm (pictured) on his return

I get a kick out of this one

She is a great grandmother (Adeline Müller) from my fathers family

She had nine children with my great grandfather before he died at 30. She had five more with her 2nd husband and had 10 stepchildren to boot

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Do you know where these men are buried?

The one in NOLA is there somewhere.

The one here in Columbus, was buried at the McKenry Methodist church on Cleavland Ave. But in the 1960 the parking lot was expanded and the church he helped found paved over him without relocating him or his wife or 5 of his kids!

Sore subject!

Ivan

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Hit a snag in VA.
My GG was born there circa 1782.
But they were on the move after that and I have been unsuccessful in hooking up in VA.
So my GGG could have been born there or in England.

 

[DWalt]

I know a little something about all of my GGFs and GGGFs, but don't have much detail on the lives of most of them. The one I have found out most about came from Hesse in Germany as a child during the mid 1800s, and became a fairly prominent citizen of Chillicothe, Ohio. He ran a hotel and saloon there, was in the roofing business, and had lots of kids. The building that housed his hotel and saloon is still there.

With one exception (who was British), all of them were Germans on both sides.

On my mother's side, I have been able to trace back the family history to the 15th century, but with very little detail. Things get confusing quickly when one attempts to go back earlier than the 19th century. I have at least one, and very possibly two, ancestors who I have documented to have fought in the Revolutionary War.

 

[Faulkner]

Not long after my grandmother died in 1992 my aunt, which is my father's youngest sister, was going through some of my grandmother's things, including an old cedar trunk that was always at the foot of my grandmother's bed. Inside that trunk my aunt found the diaries of my grandmother's grandfather, James Wood. Dating from 1877 to 1908 he wrote an entry every day for 35 years.

My aunt carefully took the stack of dairies and spent the next several months transcribing them to a Microsoft WORD file. She transcribed them exactly as they were written, including the occasional misspellings or unfamiliar words she didn't understand because they are no longer used in modern lexicon. After she finished the transcribing, she and other family members took the file to a local publisher/book binder and had 75 copies printed and bound to be distributed to immediate family.

I have read my copy several times. I find it to be more of a journal than a diary. A diary usually includes thoughts and opinions and even feelings, whereas a journal is more of a summary of the days happenings without any editorial by the writer. I found it very interesting reading about 35 years of family and community events in mostly Union County, Mississippi.

James Wood returned from the War in 1865 after serving in an infantry company from Mississippi. Shortly afterwards, at 28 years old, he married 18 year old Mollie. He was a farmer who eventually owned considerable acreage of bottom land, and was a devout church going man. In one series of passages he tells of he and the family traveling on a multiple day wagon trip to the county seat where he had been summoned to sit as a jurist in a murder trial. They camped in the wagon yard within walking distance of the courthouse along with other families during the trial. Some weeks later there are additional passages of a return trip to witness the hanging.

Several times when first reading through it I had to stop and call my dad and ask about particular words, phrases, or activity that I did not recognize or understand. My dad grew up on a non-mechanized farm that probably wasn't much different from the late 1800s, so he generally had an explanation. One thing I noted was that whenever it rained, the next day they seemed to always go hunting. After seeing this referenced many times I called my dad to ask why, and he laughed and said "because it was too wet to work in the fields." The one key take away I gained from reading the diary is that our culture has changed a lot in the past 125 years.

In the picture below are my maternal grandfather's S&W revolver and my paternal grandfather's pocket watch. I'll be handing these down to my sons.

 

[Shark Bait]

I have done quite a bit on ancestry research, especially during this covid fiasco. I have information and even photos of most of my GG grandparents and eve some GGG grandparents. My father's side settled in Kentucky in the early 1800s. My mother's maiden name was Stewart. That name goes back to John Stewart (my GGG grandfather) who emigrated from Perthshire Scotland to Prince Edward Island Canada in 1808. Another GG grandfather emigrated to Kentucky from Lengede Germany in 1854 and became a banker in Elizabethtown. His picture is below and his signature is on the bank note as president.





A GGG grandparents' home was recently destroyed by the tornado in Kentucky.

 

[arjay]

I have done quite a bit on ancestry research, especially during this covid fiasco. I have information and even photos of most of my GG grandparents and eve some GGG grandparents. My father's side settled in Kentucky in the early 1800s. My mother's maiden name was Stewart. That name goes back to John Stewart (my GGG grandfather) who emigrated from Perthshire Scotland to Prince Edward Island Canada in 1808. Another GG grandfather emigrated to Kentucky from Lengede Germany in 1854 and became a banker in Elizabethtown. His picture is below and his signature is on the bank note as president.





A GGG grandparents' home was recently destroyed by the tornado in Kentucky.

I was doing the same thing. It's really interesting learning where they were and what they were doing. My tree has turned into a bush with over 4000 people on it

 

[Truckman]

One of my great-greats from my Mom's side was William Bean, a long hunter, who settled in Tennessee while traveling west with Daniel Boone and Richard Callaway...Details of that are found in Wikipedia...Boone moved into Kentucky, while Bean settled permanently in Tennessee...He and his wife raised the first white child born in what became the state of Tennessee, Russell Bean...

William was the type who made do with what was around him, and subsequently needing more guns, he made his own from the raw materials found where he settled...He also made his own powder and ball...His guns were so prized for their accuracy and reliability he made a good living as a gunmaker...

His son, Russell, was the second generation of what became four successive generations of Bean gunmakers...Russell made a name for himself on another level by managing to get himself arrested by a local magistrate named Andrew Jackson before Jackson took his political ambitions even higher...It seems Russell was known to be a mean and frequent drunk, and in a fit of rage, bit off the ear of a screaming baby who would not be quiet...He then barricaded himself in his cabin with a number of his firearms...The only man who would face him was the same judge who issued the arrest warrant, Jackson, who entered the cabin, disarmed Bean and led him off to court...

Nevertheless, William Bean's rifles were so highly prized that the most successful snipers in the Revolutionary War were known to use them...Russell was a later acquaintance of Congressman David Crockett who acquired a number of Bean rifles for his own use...He is thought to have carried at least two to his death in a small mission in Texas (the only state to have been victorious in war against an entire nation)...

Some of his rifles exist today although I have never been privileged to see one...The next two generations were also notable in building very accurate rifles, some of which saw action in the subsequent War of Northern Aggression...

All this information is documented in a book written in the 50's by another of my relatives, Vera Beene Looney, titled "The Bean (Beene) & Wynne (Wynn) History & Genealogy"...Mine is the last generation named in the book which was completed in June 1965...Perhaps someday an interested descendant will find my copy along with the books I published about my family, and write a more extensive history......Ben

 

[VaTom]

Great postings. Thanks to my maternal grandfather who passed the year I was born (1953) I have family history on that side of the family going back to 1700's in Virginia. My great-great grandfather (grandfather of my grandfather) was born in Virginia in 1833. Raised by his grandparents and married a gal across the border in NC. I knew he was a Confederate soldier but that was about all. Through my research I was able to find that my great-great grandmother filled an application with State of Va. for a Confederate Widows pension in 1903. I obtained a copy from the State Library of Va. and it had yje information I needed to obtain his Civil War muster records.

He enlisted in the 45 NC Infantry, Company H early in the Civil War. Was at battle of Gettysburg (Euell's Corps), Wilderness and wounded in the hand at Spotsyvania Courthouse. After recovery his regiment / brigade went up the Shenandoah Valley with General Early's Corps to the outskirts of DC. During the battle of Fisher's Hill (September 21, 1864) in the Valley, Early's troops were outflanked by Union Forces until Phil Sheridan and over 1,000 confederates were capture. My GGGF was one of them. They were shipped to the Union POW camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. He spent nine months there and was released in June 1865 after signing Oath of Allegiance (I was able to obtain a copy of the roster of those POWs who signed from the National Archives.)

He returned to Appomattox County, Va. where his family lived and was joined by his wife. His two brothers also were Confederate Veterans and survived the war. He ran a general store at Appomattox Station until his death in 1903. Ironically he lived his life after the war not more than 5 miles from where Lee surrendered to Grant. He is buried in Spout Spring, Va.

Picture of my GGGF and GGGM taken in May 1863.

 

[Shark Bait]

Great info. Another one of my GG grandfathers was a Lieutenant in the union army. He caught a piece of shrapnel through his leg at Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg. He later became a lawyer, then a judge and got into politics briefly.

 

[quikdraw67]

One GGF was a conductor for the Erie Railroad on the Wyoming Division between Lackawaxen and Avoca PA.

The other GGF was a coal miner in Scranton.

 

[lawandorder]

It is very easy to get lost in the web of ancestors, thank goodness for

Old Al's internet because it sure has helped with research. Thankfully I have IDed all 8 GG Grandfathers. Know a lot about some, not so much on others.

Farmers, Preachers, Millers, Merchants,Teachers, lots of Confederate Veterans, one Cousin from a branch on my Father's side who took detours to South Carolina and Mississippi made it to Brigader General with a successful service and was on fast track to MG when he jumped his horse over the breastworks at the Mule Shoe at Spotsvannia. He forgot to duck and took 7 mini balls. He rests at Fredericksburg.

Seems most of the crowd all have come east, many from Virginia, also Alabama, Tennessee, SC, Mississippi, all sons of the south, all Americans.


In the whole cotton picking bunch only found one badge Toter, a Great Uncle who did about 37 years in NE Ark. He was shot in the face but survived.

As we all do, I wish I had cared more about my Ancestors when some were still alive to share stories and information about the ones who have gone before.
Merry Christmas to all! And a blessed new year!

 

[DWalt]

My wife's genealogy is more interesting and complete than mine. Most of her family settled in Alabama during the 18th and 19th centuries, and she has a considerable amount of documented information about them, especially their Civil War experiences. I have an 1853 Enfield and an 1849 Colt that one of them used during that conflict. Several spent much of the war confined in Union prison camps. She also has one ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War. One of her GGMs managed to go through six husbands. But the final one outlived her.

 

[Skeet 028]

I know of my mothers side of the family as there is some family records written clear back to the 1660s when they came to this country. Before that no real records that we know of . They were northern England/southern Scotland. They were English Catholics after Henry the 8th started the church of England. Not a good thing to be in the 1600s. Within a generation the family were no longer Catholic as there were no catholic churches in the area they settled...and people back then were church goers. The area I grew up in was one where the gene pool was shallow and I am related to approx 40% of the older families on the Eastern shore of Md/Del/Virginia. On Tangier Island and Smith Island out in the chesapeake some of the older people still speak olde English language...when they don't want people to know what they said. I still remember one GGF and his wife lived to just past 100. She ruled the roost as they used to say. She was 15 years younger than GGF. He died at 90 in 1957. And yes I had forebearers that fought in the revolution. Ill have to get my sister to look up names and dates in the old bible records. muxh info is badly faded

 

[wood714]

I only thing I know about my great great grand dad on my mom's side of the family, is about his brother. My GGGD was Ben Allen and his brother was Elisha James "Richard" Allen. Everyone called him Dick Allen. He killed Deputy Sheriff Tucker in August 1886.

Did some searching a few years ago about him and found these interviews.


From interviews conducted with Casey County residents by Lisa Nixon:
"Mosie (Stafford told me Dick Allen killed Deputy Sheriff Tucker and was never caught and stole his brother Ben's horse and went to Missouri. Years later his children came back here and tried to pay for the horse. She had a picture of Ben and Dick together."


"Viney Caudill told me this: She was born in 1913. Dick Allen killed Deputy Sheriff Charley Tucker. Ben Allen went and got Dick out of jail and he told Ben his sire horse would bring a lot of money in Missouri. Ben told him to take it and sell it and he told him to never returned. He stabbed Tucker."

When my grand mother died, she wanted me to have this picture of them. Ben on the left and Elisha "Dick" on the right.

The frame is 25" tall and the glass is curved. Thought about taking the picture out to see if there's a date on it.

 

[lawandorder]

Wood if you go to the Officer Down Memorial Page website you will find some information about the case of Mr. Allen's murder of Deputy Sheriff Charley Tucker.

 

[Justin T]

I am only aware of one GGF on my dad's side, and another only vaguely.

The one I know better was a ranch manager who died in 1934. The ranch he managed was famous at the time for its horses, and still exists today.