Can what your 3 X grandparents did predict what you do?  That was the question asked by Rebel Hand several weeks ago. Because the majority of my 2X great grandparents were born into slavery, and I do not know anything about their parents except that they were enslaved,  I used my 2 X great grandparents for this exercise.

My mother's side.

Eliza Allen

Dock Allen

Dock Allen was born in Georgia about 1839 and ended up in the Montgomery, Alabama area when he was freed.  He was a carpenter. His wife, Eliza Williams Allen, born in Alabama in 1839, was a seamstress.  They were freed in the 1860s, before the end of the Civil War. In 1870, they had real estate worth $500.  Living in the household with the couple were 6 children and Eliza's mother. By 1900, they owned their home, free of mortgage.  In the home with them were 3 of their grown daughters and 4 grandchildren. Another daughter and her family lived next door.  Everybody except Dock and Eliza was literate. All children old enough to attend school were attending.

Joe Turner was born in Alabama about 1841.  His wife, Emma Jones Turner was born in 1842 in South Carolina. They were freed at the end of the Civil War.  In 1870 they were farming in Lowndes County. They owned no real estate but had personal property worth $300.  Their 5 young children shared the home.  Neither Joe or Emma were literate.

In 1900 they owned their farm, with a mortgage. The children were all grown and living on their own or had died.  There were 2 grandchildren with them. Joe was still illiterate. Emma could read and write.  Emma died later that year.  The next year Joe married Luella Freeman and they had 9 children before he died in 1919.

I do not have much information about my Graham and Jackson 2X great grandparents.  I am not sure which families they are yet.  As I prepared to write this post, I realized how I had short changed my research for this branch and started off on research.  I had to draw back in order to get this written in a semi-timely fashion.  I do know the Jacksons were from Autauga County (later Elmore) Alabama and that they were farmers.  I do not know more because I know my great grandmother's name was Mary Jackson and there were 2 Mary Jackson's about the same age and in the same area and I don't know which family she belongs to. 

I haven't even found William Graham with his family yet and I'm not sure if he was from the same county or one of the surrounding ones. My great grandparents disappear after 1880 and so far their family continues to remain a mystery.

My Father's Side

Frank Cleage was born into slavery in North Carolina about 1816.  His wife Judi Cleage was born into slavery in Tennessee about 1814. They were freed by the Civil War. In 1870 they were living in Athens.  He was a laborer and she kept house.  They had 5 children at home. They owned no real estate and had $300 worth of personal property.  No one in the household could read or write.  I have not yet found them after 1870.

Celia Rice's parents are not known at this time beyond that her father was a member of the slave owning family and her mother was a slave.  I'm hoping that when her death certificate arrives I will be able to fill that in a bit more.

John Averitt was white, born free in Washington County, Tennessee in 1810. His wife, Elizabeth Marshall Tucker Averitt, was born in 1814 in the same county.  They were farmers.  In 1840 they owned 1 slave, a girl under 10. I don't find them in any later slave censuses.   

In 1870 the Averitt's were farming with land worth $14,75 and personal property worth $4,110.  There are 6 children living at home. Several have their own personal property worth $700 to $300.  The 4 children ages 20 to 12 were attending school.  An 82 year old infirm relative of Elizabeth was living there.  He owned $8,000 worth of real estate and $2,000 worth of personal property.  All of the above were literate.  There were also 3 black children, ages 8, 10 and 13 and 1 black man, age 30, living on the farm.  None were literate and none were in school.  The 10 and 30 year old work on the farm, the 13 year old girl is listed as a servant and the 8 year old has no work listed.

Clara Hoskins Green (b. 1829 in Kentucky) had no work listed in 1870.  Her husband, James Green (b. 1824 in Virginia) was a carpenter.  I'm assuming they were enslaved before the Civil War because I cannot find them anywhere before 1870.  They owned no real estate and had no personal property. Also living in the house was their 10 year old son and 5 year old granddaughter.  They were both illiterate.  In 1880 they were in similar circumstances. Their daughter and her children were living next door. All of them were illiterate.  I cannot find Clara or James after 1880.

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So, how does all this reflect my life?  I have worked at a sewing factory for a year after college.  Later I made and sold dolls for some years. For 8 years I lived with my husband and children on 5 acres in Mississippi, milking goats and raising a large garden.  Later, I continued the large garden when we lived in rural Michigan. I raised 6 children and they have often shared often shared our home since they grew up.  Off and on, different ones this year and that.  Other family members have sometimes lived with us too.  Since 1976 we have owned our homes, with and without a mortgage. 

Education for myself and my children has always been important to me, as it was to many of my ancestors who didn't have the opportunity to learn to read and write themselves.  I have done paid work in the clerical/secretarial field and as a teacher and sewing.  I have never had a paying job I couldn't leave without looking back.  Being in charge of my life has always been important to me.  It has been more important than having things or money.  I have been able to live on little and make it work. Maybe that's something that comes down to me from my ancestors.

Thoughts On 2014 and Where I'm Going In 2015

At my desk - new location, same house, new view.

I noticed that I only did 4 posts here last year. This year I have committed to 6, every other month, and plan to get those done.

Looking back over 2014 to see what I've accomplished and what I want to do this year

I participated in The Book of Me, Written by You, continued my 4th year of Sepia Saturday and did my second A to Z Challenge.  How did these challenges help my research and blogging in general?

When I can't think of anything, or have nothing ready, to blog about, Sepia Saturday's prompts very often push me to find a photograph in my collection and learn more about it or to dig deep and write about my own life.  I believe I learned the most from doing these posts about Marion Lucy Pettiford, Charles Watkins and Clifton Graham's V mail from WW2.

The Book of Me, Written by You prompts also gave me the incentive to go deeper into events in my own life and a couple of them made me look into how my ancestors lives compared to my own.  Generations of Family Signatures and Everyday Things Then and Now were the two of these.

The April A - Z Challenge works well for me. This year I used letters from my paternal grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr and posted parts of them with historical information to go along for the whole month.  By looking closely at the letters to see what related to the letter in question, I found information I hadn't noticed or had skimmed over on first reading the letters over a decade ago.

What new information did I find this year?  I found Wills for two owners of my enslaved ancestors - Alexander Cleage and Elijah Hurst - which mentioned my people by name and confirmed family connections.  Along with other slave era documents, these enabled me to build more complete timelines for Frank and Juda Cleage and their children. 

I found an Agricultural Census for my paternal great grandfather Louis Cleage and learned that he was a share cropper and what crops and how many animals he tended.  Most of my ancestors lived in the city or town but for the two that farmed, I've found the Agricultural Census helps round out the picture of their lives.

I found and was able to trace another sister of my great grandfather, Louis Cleage, through several generations.  This information is waiting to be written up for a blog post.  Perhaps some cousins from that line will get in touch.

Several more cousins from my paternal grandmother's side of the family found me through my blog Finding Eliza this year.  They were from the Hugh Reed branch that moved to California around 1920 and passed for white.  I am thinking about writing about how passing worked, based on several ancestors and extended family members that chose that route in the past.

Last year I started to do the 52 Ancestor Challenge, but never did. This year I am going to do it with a different twist. I'm going to  write up 52 of the slaves mentioned in various documents from the Cleage plantations in McMinn County Tennessee. I find myself researching them to find if there are any links with my elusive extended Cleage family members who disappear after the 1870 census.  I will trace them through the documents and then through other records after they gained their freedom in 1865. 

My Cleage Family's Disappearing Ydna

Frank and Juda had 5 sons. I do not know if those other than my great grandfather, Lewis Cleage, had any children as I cannot find them after 1870.  My grandfather had 1 daughter and 4 sons.  Three of those sons had sons.  None of them had sons.  Unfortunately, I was not able to collect any DNA from them so I don't know what the YDna was.  I would have liked to know if the YDna went back to Angola because I have read that Samuel Cleage prefered slaves from Angola.

My grandfather and his siblings. Front left my grandfather, Albert B. Cleage Sr. Behind him is Henry, in the middle is their sister Josie. Front right is Edward.  Behind him is Jacob.

Cousins - Children of the Cleage brothers + spouse.

My grandparents and their 7 children. 1930.

L>R Hugh, Albert Jr, Albert Sr, Henry, Louis Cleage.   Of the 4 sons, only my father had children, both girls.

My sister, my father and me.  1953.

Thoughts in the Midst of the A - Z Challenge

I am so bogged down in the A - Z Challenge this month, that I decided to write some of my current thoughts. For the A - Z Challenge this year I've been publishing postcards and letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother before they were married. They cover 1907 to 1912. I'm finding it frustrating to have to put them up out of chronological order in order to fulfill the A - Z part of the challenge.

One of the postcards I didn't use for "E"

 Even though I was able to do a bit of organizing before the challenge began, I find that I don't have time to do the research I usually do for posts.  In fact, I scrapped some of my original ideas and looked for simpler cards to post that would require less research. 

The visiting of other blogs in the challenge is a big hoopla part of the challenge, although for me the main reason for participating in the challenge is posting everyday and looking for interesting bits in my research I might not have noticed.  With over 2,000 blogs participating, I've found it difficult to find blogs that grab me. Maybe I'm just tuckered out! I'm all caught up so I think today I will take some time to interact with the living family members.

Motherhood Of My Maternal Ancestors (Kristin Cleage)

Today I decided to do one of the prompts from Lisa Alzo's  Fearless Females.  "Make a list of your direct line maternal ancestors beginning with your mother. So you will list your mom, her mom, her mom's mom and so on, back as far as you can. Now figure out how many children each female ancestor had. Did the females in your direct maternal line tend to have the same numbers of children each generation? Did they have more? Less? Were they prolific or are there few children born to each woman? Is there a pattern emerging?"

Doris & Kristin 1947

My mother, Doris Graham Cleage, was born in Detroit Michigan in 1923. She gave birth two daughters. The oldest (me) was born when she was 23 in 1946. My sister was born in 1948 when my mother was 26. I had 6 children and my sister had 1.

Fannie & Doris 1924

My maternal grandmother, Fannie Mae Turner Graham, was born in Lowndes County, AL in 1888.  She gave birth to 4 children, all in Detroit. The first, a daughter, was born in 1920. The second, a son, was born in 1921. The third, my mother, was born in 1924. The  forth, a boy, was born in 1928 when she was 40.  Both boys died in childhood. Fannie's oldest daughter (my aunt) had 3 children and my mother had 2.

Jennie, Daisy, Fannie

 My maternal great grandmother, Jennie Virginia Allen Turner, was born in 1866 in Montgomery, AL. She gave birth to three daughters. The first two were born in Lowndes County. My grandmother was the oldest, born in 1888 when Jennie was 22.  Daisy was born in 1890. In 1892 Jennie's husband died. She remarried and her youngest daughter was born in Montgomery, AL in 1908 when she was 42. Of her 3 daughters, only my grandmother had children.

Eliza

My maternal 2X great grandmother,  Eliza Williams Allen was born about 1839 in Alabama. She gave birth to 13 children. I know of 8 who survived to adulthood.  All were born in Alabama. The oldest daughter was born while she was enslaved in 1856. She was about 17. The rest were born free in Montgomery, AL.  The youngest was born in 1879 when Eliza was 40. Of Eliza's 6 daughters only the oldest, Mary had more than 3 children. Mary had 6.

My 3X maternal line great grandmother, Annie Williams, was born a slave about 1820 in Virginia. I only know of one child, Eliza above, who was born in Alabama in 1839 when Annie was about 19. Annie died before the 1900 census so did not answer the question "How many children did you give birth to?" There is no oral history of Eliza having siblings.

Is there a pattern here? The women who were slaves had their first child earlier than their free descendents did.   Several women had their last child in their early 40s.  Eliza had the most children. I feel like I should make some sort of chart for the information here.

Kris & oldest daughter, 1971

I could not help adding this to the list. I was born in 1946. My oldest daughter was born in Detroit in 1970 when I was 23 years old. I birthed 4 more children, the youngest born in 1982 when I was 35. We adopted our youngest son when I was 41.

I have 4 daughters.  The oldest has 3 children. Her oldest was born in 1998 when my daughter was 28.  The youngest was born when she was 32.  My 2nd daughter has twins that were born in 2003 when she was 27.  My 4th daughter has 1 child born in 1999 when she was 20.

My sister had 1 daughter born in 1975. Her daughter has 4.5 children. The first was born in 2002 when she was 27.  The youngest will be born this summer when she will be 39

Three Finds and Getting Organized

Several people have been writing about how they are getting organized, or are already organized, this month. Apparently, I need to take this to heart. I completely forgot that the 10th of the month was my day to post on this blog. I just realized it yesterday. My first step toward being organized will be putting a big "10" on the bulletin board in front of this computer. 

Albert B. Cleage, Sr. about 1909

Since February 14, I have received 3 genealogical gifts. My cousin, Jan, emailed me to let me know she had located the letters my Grandfather Cleage wrote to my Grandmother when they were courting. This collection includes over 100 letters and postcards dating from 1907 to 1912. I read these letters over 15 years ago, before I had a scanner so maybe even earlier than that. 

She emailed them all to me over the weekend and I printed them out.  My plan is to read through the letters, this time with the knowledge of who the people and events mentioned in the letters are.  There are hints in the letters about life beyond my Grandfather complaining that he wants more letters and he's lonely. I look forward to going through them with a fine tooth comb.

The second thing that happened was that I received a comment on my blog for the post She was owned before the war by the late Colonel Edmund Harrison of this county. In the comment, he said that he was a descendent of Edmund Harrison's brother and that he would be happy to help me find information about my ancestors, if he could. He said Edmund's father had left a will naming some slaves and had given his son's both money and slaves before his death. I was looking forward to being able to take my 2 X great grandmother, Eliza back another generation or two. Unfortunately, after we exchanged a bit more information we realized that we were talking about two different Edmund Harrisons.  He did give me a name for my Harrison's father, which I didn't have. I will have to look into that and if it is indeed his father, perhaps I'll find a Will in that direction eventually.

Third, I got an message from a cousin through Ancestry DNA.  I just realized that although he wishes to remain a mystery at this time, he can do that and still help me by giving me his Ydna results!  I will be writing him back and asking him to share.

My record organization consists of putting things into folders within folders on my computer, in my genealogy program (Reunion) and on my Ancestry.com trees. Finally, I keep hard copies of some important documents in binders so that I can work with them off of the computer. 

Update: Went to Ancestry.com intending to ask my cousin about sharing his ydna with me only to discover that ancestry.com does not include mtdna or ydna with the autosomal test! I am so disgusted.

Kristin Cleage, Writing From Atlanta, Georgia

Me at my desk.

I am looking forward to participating in this international genealogy blog, although I am not completely sure I know what we are going to do with it.

My name is Kristin Cleage.  I live in Atlanta, Georgia, Southern United States. Our weather here right now is about 45F/7C and it's drizzling outside. I grew up in Detroit (Now in a deep freeze) where both sides of my extended family lived. 

After my maternal grandparents died in 1974 and my second daughter was born, I became interested in family history. I started by gathering names and stories from relatives. 

My husband, 6 children and I, lived in rural areas for many years, far from big libraries and archives. Family information and a large collection of photographs, was all I had until we went online in the 1990s and I joined Ancestry.com in 2002 and was thrilled to begin finding records to document the oral history and other information that took me back further. 

My husband retired in 2007 and we moved from the North Woods of Michigan to Atlanta, GA, where 5 or our 6 children live with 6 of our 7 grandchildren. In May of 2010 I attended a local African American Genealogy Society meeting and the topic was starting a blog.  I thought that sounded interesting and went home to start  my blog Finding Eliza.  I loved doing it and have been at it ever since.

Because my ancestors were enslaved until the 1860s, the only records I can find before emancipation in 1866 are records kept by the slave holders. That means I have to identify that owner and find his records.  Last week I was very excited, and also depressed, to find my paternal line - the Cleages mentioned in the will of Alexander Cleage on FamilySearch.Org (a free site).  Since then I have found more mentions in another will that I found by starting a tree on Ancestry.com for the slave holding Cleage family. It seems that daughters of well to do families were often given several slaves as a dowry and the father or husband would mention this in his will. 

I found documentation for a different line, my mother's maternal line, in a newspaper article on GenealogyBank.com about one of my cousins that mentioned his mother was a slave before the war on Colonel Harrison's plantation in Montgomery, AL. 

All of my lines have been taken back as far as I can go post slavery. I see my research this year being taking them back into slave times. This will be harder for other lines because I have no oral history of what plantation they came off of, just an idea based on where they lived in 1870 and their names.

I don't belong to any offline genealogy groups right now but I'm active in The African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research (AAGSAR). I'm also doing Julie's "The Book Of Me, Written By You", The African American Genealogy Blogging Circle and Sepia Saturday.