Starting over with a new focus...

Back again...ready to start over; to refocus.  Since my last post in 2016, a lot has happened. The most important as far as this blog is that I have begun to really look at, read and analyze my grandfather's papers that were entrusted to me so long ago. 

When my aunt Eadie Pearl (nee McLauchlin) Higginbotham took me out to the barn behind her house (in 1976) to show me the trunk she kept there, I never expected more than a restoration project of an old family trunk.  When we opened it up & I asked her about the papers inside, she told me they belonged to her parents, Daniel James and Lula Mylinda (nee Sullivan) McLauchlin.  Knowing from my many questions that I was interested in the family history, she asked me if I wanted the papers also.  I jumped at the offer! 

The trunk was eventually restored by a professional furniture restorer, and the papers (saved into sheet protectors and binders) sat on shelves in my home for the last 40 years.  I occasionally took out a notebook & flipped through, and gleaned a few genealogical tidbits from those brief forays, but did not take on the project of cataloging, transcribing, scanning and putting them in archival boxes (ready to donate?) until I retired in January of 2012. Since then, I have been doing all those things daily whenever I was at home in Houston. I estimate that I'm only half way through.  Far enough, however, to begin to share some of the more interesting finds among these 75-100+ years old papers.

In 2018, I will begin to publish some of these papers on this blog. This first letter is from my mother, Dorothy Louise Mueller, to my grandmother, Lula, shortly after my birth. The "baby" mentioned in the letter is me! The comment about gaining weight on page 2 has proven to be prophetic as I have struggled with my weight my entire life!

North Carolina Research @ the Library of Congress website

I started with the Maps & Geography section, as maps have been a focus of my research for the past year.  In searching for "Rennert," there were NO results.  When I searched "Robeson County" (with the quotes), I got 149 results.  Scrolling through the images, I clicked on this old house at Pembroke Farms, North Carolina, published in 1939.  Looking at it, I imagined that it might be the size and shape of a house that Dougald McLauchlin might have built for his family (without the automobile parked outside that is). Pembroke is in the southern part of the county; Rennert in the north central, but the house struck me as somewhat representative.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?fsaall:6:./temp/~ammem_O7NH::displayType=1:m856sd=fsa:m856sf=8c36888:@@@

When I searched "McLauchlin family" in the LOC catalog, I got no results on that spelling.  However, searching "McLaughlin family" turned up 17 items.  These are the ones I plan to investigate (1st stop is to check if these are available at Clayton here in Houston):

1 -- A memorial history of the Campbells or Melfort, Argyllshire. published in London: Simmons & Botten, 1882. From my research, I have learned that at least one branch of the McLauchlins were part of the Campbell clan, so this may prove fruitful, if only for background.

2 -- McLaughlin-McGonegle / McGonigle: the four Irish immigrants: their origins, history, and descendants by Anita Helen Dolan, published in Des Moines, Iowa: A. H. Dolan, 1981. The more I research, the more I have come to believe that the spelling of our surname with a "g" is the Irish spelling. My paternal grandmother, Lula Mylinda Sullivan, was Irish. Perhaps she taught my dad to spell his last name the Irish way; just a theory, but no way to prove it now. Still, it might be worthwhile to learn more about the McLaughlins of Ireland. JennieV was never able to trace our immigrant ancestor, Dugal, to a specific locale in Scotland. Perhaps he made a detour through Ireland, or Jamaica (a common first port for Scots emigrants of that time).

3 -- Memorial history of the family of Campbell-Maclachlan by Archibald Neil Campbell, 1819-1891, published in London: S. Goldbourn, 1883. This seems a more promising lead. If there is no mention of Dugal, then it will make good background information on his branch.

4 -- The McLaughlin family history by Arthur Lee McLaughlin. Owensboro, KY: McDowell Publications, 1980. A history of the family in the U.S.

5 -- A history of the very early colonials -- The McLaughlins by Gerald William McLaughlin. Albuquerque, N.M.: G. W. McLaughlin. 1995. After JennieV's research, this may have something of value...worth checking at any rate.

6 -- The McLaughlins by Steven K. McLaughlin & Evelyn Z. McCann. Dallas, TX: S.K. McLaughlin. 1988. Published the same year that JennieV published The McLauchlins: Fortis et Fidus, and not far from JennieV, I wonder if there is a connection? Certainly worth checking.

7 -- The McLaughlin genealogy: descendants of James and Mary McLaughlin of Muff (now Eglinton), County Londonderry, Ireland: related families, Brown, Johnston, Lossee, Morford, Parker, Speir, Woods by Steven K. McLaughlin. Dallas, TX: S.K. McLaughlin, 1990. A second title published in Dallas. 

I searched all seven of these in the Houston Public Library (Clayton) catalog.  It has none of these in its collections. So, I will have to wait until my next visit to the LOC to investigate these books.
I think I feel a trip coming on.

First excursion today on the Library of Congress (LOC) website.  I started in the Researchers' section:  http://www.loc.gov/rr

From that anchor page, I selected the Local History & Genealogy Reading Room, specifically the "Before You Begin" section which is 13 tips for preparing to do research at the LOC.  A couple of the tips that stand out are that you must have a Reader's card to access the reading rooms.  I have one that probably needs to be renewed, but I recall that I had to get it in the Madison Building.  It was when I learned about the tunnels connecting the LOC's three main buildings.  There is a link to instructions for obtaining a Reader's card on the page. 

Another tip is that the staff does not do research, nor accept research requests, but (another tip) if you know the exact book and page numbers, you can request photocopies ($12 charge for setup, plus charge for the photocopies). 

Finally, there was a link to the "Search Tips for Locating Genealogical Resources in the LOC online catalog." Good information here that I would recommend printing, if you plan to do a lot of searching on the catalog, or at least keep open in a separate tab (I did) to which you can refer as you search. In the next post, I'll discuss the results of my search of the LOC catalog.

Library of Congress Webinar

On November 15 (Thursday), I participated in an online webinar that was an orientation to the collections of the Library of Congress. It was an hour long and incredibly informative.  Some of the highlights:

The LOC acquires items by copyright deposit, by gift or by purchase.  If one submits something for copyright, one copy is deposited with the LOC. There is an astounding number of items in the library's collections:
151.7 million (M) items; 31.4 M primary source files; 22.7 M cataloged books; 66.6 M manuscripts; 5.4 M maps; 13.3 M photos, 6.4 M sheet music files; 3.4 M audio files; 1.3 M moving pictures

Many of these items are available to view and/or download from the library's web page.  For help with exploring these materials, there is a button on the home page to the "Ask a Librarian" anchor page which has links to ask for help by a list of categories.  The links take you to just the right person to help with your specific query.

One useful page is Read.gov which contains literacy resources for librarians.

The Researchers page has an overview of the collections (general, specific format or international collections), a link to the LOC collection policies (with downloadable pdf files), links to collection resources, and links to off-site resources, to name just a few. From this page, one can access the State Memory Projects, which have links to resources at the state level.

From the Digital Collections & Services: In addition to the 9 featured items on the LOC's home page, the anchor page has a complete list of all the digitized collections.  The most helpful to the genealogist are:
American Memory collection: highlights from American history, linking to primary documents, photos, exhibits and more.
Chronicling America features selected historic newspapers which are browsable and downloadable from the library's collection.
Most interesting is the Map collections of the library, with maps from 1500-2004.  From the anchor page, select the category of interest to locate maps to add to and enhance your family history.

For the next week (at least), I will be exploring the LOC's collections, with an emphasis on the North Carolina records of Robeson County, the home of our immigrant ancestor, Dougal McLauchlin.
I will share what I find on this blog, especially anything that adds to the information originally included in JennieV Wier's book, McLauchlins.

Spelling...a rose by any other name?

"You know that your family spells our last name incorrectly, don't you?" my first cousin said to me.  I paused as I considered that he was just getting started as a genealogist.  But, he had asked for my advice. 

In my research, I have, as many serious genealogists have, found my name spelled many different ways.  The most common four spellings are McLachlan, McLaghlin, McLauchlin and McLaughlin. Both of the last two spellings can be found in my grandfather's papers, as well as an "X" for his signature. Therein lies at least part of the problem -- many of my forebears could not (or could barely) read or write. Their names were spelled as those they encountered who could read or write heard them.  The other explanation seems to be that our ancestors, through at least the early 20th century, did not care nearly as much about spelling as we have come to.  This certainly applies to my father, who only had a 5th grade education.  He did not have much use for writing or paper records until much later in his life, long after all his children had adopted the infamous "g" that seems to disturb many of our cousins. JennieV, my genealogy role model, spelled her name with the "c" (third spelling above).  It seems to be the most popular spelling in our line for the name.

Speaking of my cousins, how did I respond to my first cousin, new genealogist, and 10 years my elder? As gently as I could, I told him that I knew, though our fathers were brothers, that we did spell our names differently. I wish I could have told him why, but it was a question I had never asked my father, who was the source of the change, as far as I can tell from my research.  He didn't seem to be too happy with that response, but I think he might come around as he looks at the old documents. In my immediate family, it's too late to change the spelling of our name.  The cousins aren't changing theirs, either.  That's the proof that we are related - a streak of stubbornness that we all share.

Climbing the Tree...one branch up - two brick walls back

I began my genealogy hobby around 1970, after a family reunion (of my maternal relatives) that included a mystery -- was the Texas line an illegitimate offspring of a husband who deserted his Pennsylvania family for a western adventure, or were we not related at all?  But that's another story (and another line).  Suffice it to say that my passion for genealogy began there. As a college student, though, I had the enthusiasm, but not the time, discipline or organizational skills to do more than haphazardly pursue this dream I had to find "all my relatives." Obviously, I was also very naive about the extent of the work ahead.

In the ensuing 30 years, I gathered much information, made a few (exciting!) research trips, and compiled a mountain of information.  My research was extensive; my documentation was not.  That's one thing I have worked to correct in the last 10 years.  I encourage you to keep up with it as you go. It makes the task much easier and your information more reliable and useful to those who follow you.

As a single parent, I found it difficult to find moments to conduct meaningful research, so I often set the family history aside for long periods of time. I was in such a downturn in my research, living a very day-to-day, moment-to-moment life, when JennieV contacted me for help with her research, shortly after my divorce. I had also just moved to a new town and a new job, and all my research was packed away. So, I put her request aside with the best intentions of responding to her request when I unpacked.  Then life, as it does, intervened. About this time my mother began the first of several bouts of cancer, and my home was robbed as I was with her in the hospital.  Add that to the everyday demands of raising my young son, and being the best I could be for my students.  It was a full life, one with little time for a hobby that I loved, but that demanded too much of my limited time. 

All that to say that JennieV's request for help was lost, and eventually forgotten altogether.  It is one of those examples, so familiar to genealogists, of an opportunity lost.  How much richer my own experiences would have been, how much more I could have learned from working with her, I can only guess. And that is most definitely my loss.

For those of you who have read her manuscript, you know that her voice rings out loud and clear throughout the pages. What I would give to be able to ask her all those questions I did not have time for when she was asking for my help.

Fortunately, others heeded her call and my neglect did not prevent JennieV from completing her work. One of my sisters eventually made contact with her, and purchased several copies of her book.  She reported that JennieV was a delightful and gracious lady.  Sadly, I never had the privilege of meeting her myself -- another lost opportunity. 

I have the usual genealogists' regrets -- why didn't I find time to finish labeling (with her) all the pictures that my mother eventually left me? Why didn't I ask my great-aunt and great-uncle the right questions? Etc. Etc.  They (and others) all had knowledge that could have added volumes to my search.  But JennieV was a kindred spirit; she felt the thrill of finding a dusty record in a courthouse, of finding a picture of a long-lost relative. So that precious and lost opportunity will weigh heavily on my heart for the rest of my life.

And those of you who are reading this, please learn from my example and try to miss fewer of these opportunities.