Thank you Ancestry.com we never knew (update 1)

[Omaha Steve]

My paternal grandmother's side (great great grandfather) Garret A Rose registered for the North in the Civil War. He lived in Kentucky at the time. Can some Civil War Buffs point us in the right direction for records?

Also Richard Breeden is on the payroll for the Revolutionary War!


Update #1: Marta just found another Revolutionary War combatant from Virginia. More on this soon. Some family myths have been shattered in just a couple hours time.

[LiberalArkie]

1. I tracked mine back to one of my kin folks in Scotland back in 300 or so had his head chopped off

by the king himself during battle.

On Edit, I don't know if he came back to life as a Highlander,

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. LOL ...

If he had his head chopped off, he wouldn't come back ... there can only be one!

[HereSince1628]

24. Wow! What is that, 60 generations or so?

To even have a record of that is amazing!

[LiberalArkie]

27. Well if you can ever make it back to the UK and are lucky enough to have a nobleman

somewhere, it becomes easy. My moms side did good once they got to Jamestown, but there was nothing before then. I wasn't really serious about all the details, I just wanted to see how far back I could go. What messed me up for awhile was the habit of a father naming his son a different name entirely like a James Johnston son might be Geoffrey Lambert. I still haven't figured that out. I hope to get back into it this winter.

[DFW]

2. You're lucky you can find your folks that far back

I know my mom's dad came from a group of deadbeat Mississippi Riverboat gamblers that fled to New York to escape their debts. My dad's father was a poor Jewish kid born in South Carolina who worked his way through Harvard as a janitor. His mom was the daughter of a hotshot NYC lawyer who got fired as Fiorello LaGuardia's labor relations officer for being too close to Labor, and then got involved with the Minnesota FDL Democrats supporting Hubert Humphrey's first bid for the US Senate.

My wife, on the other hand, has a family genealogy that is a thick book that starts in the year 1473 (welcome to Central Europe) and has her on the next-to-last page. I just hope our children are never asked to fill in a "brief family background" on a one page form.

[polly7]

3. LOL.

I've done the genealogy for my family on all sides, I haven't printed it all out but it would be thousands of pages. My little nephew needed his family history for school, so I gave him a CD with it for our side to use. My sister called and said he picked out about 10 sentences I'd highlighted near the start - of course they were just the more interesting things - relatives burned alive in the Irish rebellion, a gr. gr. gr. something Aunt that was the nurse for the doctor who took care of the 'Elephant Man' in England, a couple of murderers - soldiers, etc ............ then, his and his parents name. That was it. I'm sure the teacher had fun reading all of them.

[LiberalArkie]

6. I can't leave the US on my moms side although they were Jamestown folks. But my dads went way far

back into Scotland, Domangart Eugene Vi King of Scotland born in 630. It got really confusing with all the name changing going on and people killing each other.

[REP]

13. Jamestown here too

First Supply.

[LiberalArkie]

15. I never looked that I can remember, that would have been a Byrd or Bird back then I think. It has

been a while since I looked at moms side.

[REP]

18. We still have the same name.

[LiberalArkie]

21. But I did find out how the Johnsons and Johnstons got so prolific from my dads side

Back about 5 maybe 6 generations I had a man that had I guess killed 2 wives with 18 children (mostly boys) and the third wife did him in after 12 kids, mostly boys. Now each of the boys were very prolific breeders also.

[REP]

34. I have a complicated one

I have several Revolutionary ancestors, in the Continental Army and Minutemen. My CA ancestor's great grandson married my Minutemen ancestor's granddaughter. The Conitinental Army Gen and the Minuteman were brothers, so I guess that makes my great great great great grandparents double cousins or something.

[Gloria]

5. My family on both sides skipped the wars

and just took a boat and became the source of derision as Italian immigrants, esp in the Dutch/Anglo town in NJ near NY!

[handmade34]

7. Fold3 is sometimes helpful

(although it is a offshoot of Ancestry.com)…

earliest I can figure is a relative that fought in the Revolutionary War as a Hessian Soldier and then stuck around afterwards

[Freddie]

8. I have at least one Hessian soldier ancestor too

Supposedly a lot of them stayed and settled in Reading PA which was very German at one time.

[handmade34]

26. same locale

must be we are cousins

[Mendocino]

39. I had a Hessian ancestor

captured at Valley Forge, switched sides (mercenaries weren't too particular), fought for the colonies for the duration. Have earlier ancestors in the SE PA area, best that I can figure came here about 1720 from Germany. Before that I traced them back to about 1430. My surnames people came from Switzerland about 1816. Maternal grandparents came from Germany in the 1920's.

[libodem]

9. Very cool

Indeed!

[Punkingal]

10. My great-grandfather, Caleb W Short also served in a KY regiment...

Here are some sources where his records were:

US Civil War Pension Index - National Archives and Records Administration

US Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, Report of the Adjutant General of Kentucky

Funny twist...my great-grandmother was a Confederate. Her family was highly miffed that she married a Yankee. Never accepted him at all. They were happy with each other, though...had 6 children, one was my sweet grandpa who died when i was 4 years old, but I remember him.

[Omaha Steve]

17. Kentucky was a neutral state

The union asked for help and dividing lines of sympathy split up brothers, neighbors, etc.

OS

A House Divided
CIVIL WAR KENTUCKY

http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-magazine/spring-2010/civil-war-kentucky.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/


Kentucky Cat Fight. "Governor Magoffin's [Kentucky governor] neutrality means holding the cock of the walk (Uncle Sam) while the Confederate cat (Jeff Davis) kills off his chickens." - Harper's Weekly, 1861 (Library of Congress)


BY GARRY ADELMAN WITH MARY BAYS WOODSIDE; HALLOWED GROUND MAGAZINE, SPRING 2010

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free." - Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Situated between three slave states and three free; connected by railroad arteries into Tennessee and Ohio; and bounded by rivers accessing the Deep South and the East Coast, Kentucky was where North and South converged — where, as historian Bruce Catton said, they “touched one another most intimately.” But when those two philosophies collided over slavery in 1860, the impact shook Kentucky to its core.

The presidential election of 1860 deepened a growing chasm between divided Kentuckians. Southern Democrat and Kentucky son John C. Breckinridge won 36 percent of the state’s vote with a pro-slavery platform and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, champion of popular sovereignty, received 18 percent, while Constitutional Unionist John Bell, who stood simply for preserving the Union, carried the state with 45 percent. Abraham Lincoln, promoting Republican opposition to slavery’s expansion swayed less than one percent of Kentucky voters. But when Lincoln’s victory brought secession and war, the state was too divided to rally behind either side. Torn geographically, ideologically, economically, politically and militarily between North and South, Kentucky was the physical embodiment of the Civil War era’s “brother against brother” strife.

MORE at link.

[shanti]

23. Another DU'er with a KY ancestor here

My paternal line had my ggg grandfather living in Trimble Co., Ky in the 1800's. This particular family line were Confederates, with everything that entails. He was a steamboat captain, store owner, and even a state senator. After the war, his oldest son, my gg gf, left KY for Idaho, leaving no property, so it's safe to assume they lost it all. Any family there now is very distant. This is the most southerly of any of my family, both sides. Everyone else were Union or immigrants, although I do have several Revolutionary War ancestors too.

You should check out the DU Ancestry/Genealogy board, lots of info!

[hifiguy]

11. I still have my paternal great-grandfather's

discharge order from the Union Army. He fought with the 25th Indiana infantry. Pretty cool.

[REP]

12. Soldiers and Sailors Database

http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm

Closest match:

Rose , Garrett

BATTLE UNIT NAME:143rd Regiment, New York Infantry
SIDE:Union
COMPANY:H
SOLDIER'S RANK IN: Private
SOLDIER'S RANK OUT: Private
ALTERNATE NAME:
FILM NUMBER:M551 ROLL 120
PLAQUE NUMBER:
NOTES: none

[Omaha Steve]

19. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Until today my dad's side of the family has been a mystery.

Bigamy & bootlegging we knew about.

OS

[shanti]

25. here's his grave

but the middle initial is different:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=rose&GSfn=garret&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=67537419&df=all&

[Omaha Steve]

28. Looks like it is the wrong person

Date of death is wrong too. 1880. So far we only know he signed up for the draft for the North for sure.

[shanti]

29. ok

i was going off the info that someone else had posted in this thread about him, but was wrong....sorry!

[Omaha Steve]

30. Nothing to be sorry for

It helps when our friends help us. (RULE of life #107)

[REP]

33. Different dude; the one I found was in a different company (H)

[jwirr]

14. National Archives. They have papers that you fill out with

what you know and they will send you information but you will have to pay for some of it. Good luck.

[REP]

20. .... Or you can just look it up online.

So much easier.

[jwirr]

22. Maybe you can get the name rank etc. that way but I actually

have the daily records of one of my ancestors. Also all the disability records etc. Are those available on line as well?

[REP]

32. Yes

[csziggy]

35. Fold3.com has scans of the daily records, pensions and disability records

For most American military, though they are not complete.

The worst problem is finding them - a lot of the indexing and transcriptions are poorly done or exactly as in the originals. For instance, one of my father's ancestors was denied a pension in the 1820s and my grandmother was denied listing him as a DAR patriot under his surname "Hewitt" - but I found him listed in the New York records with the surname "Huet."

If my grandmother (or sister who was serious about DAR) were still alive I'd be able to supply them those records for DAR. Since my sister at death was registered with 17 patriots in her ancestry (including two women) I see no reason to bother with yet another one.

[jwirr]

37. Thank you for the info which is new to me.

[csziggy]

38. I've downloaded the logs of the submarine my Dad served on in WWII

The USS Spot. They include some information about the incident for which Dad was awarded the Navy and Marine Medal. There is also the report in which the captain recommended that the entire boarding party receive the same medal. It's nice to add those to Dad's recollection of that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Spot_%28SS-413%29 - the first war patrol, last incident was the one that got him his medal. They found intelligence which gave the locations of mines in the Sea of Japan.

I also download the revolutionary records for any ancestors I find. And for my Mother's side, I've got their Confederate Citizens records - the information the Union gathered about activities during the Civil War to support the Confederacy.

For one of the Southern ancestors, I also have his petition for restoration of rights in which he claims to have fought in the War of 1812, that he never supported succession, and that he was supporting fourteen grandchildren. In 1812 he would have been 14-16 years old so the 1812 claim is possible - but I haven't found good proof of it. He was a large slave holder, and four of his sons and three of his sons in law enlisted in the Confederate Army. In 1870 he did have a passel of grandchildren living with him along with one son, two widowed daughters and at least one widowed daughter in law.

That one is also the only ancestor I have who has links to three major US wars - he was a character witness for a man applying for a Revolutionary War pension in the 1820s and said he remembered the man from South Carolina before they both moved to Alabama. Not a lot of people have records for being linked to the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War (even if he was on the wrong side for the last one, LOL).

All of those records are from Fold3.com.

[FLPanhandle]

16. My Ancestors came here in chains after a failed Scottish rebellion

Then they ended up fighting for the South in the Civil War.

Dad fought in Vietnam.

I learned we aren't very good at picking the winning side in wars.

[dorkzilla]

31. The more you dig, the more you'll find!

It becomes a life all it's own! After about 20 years I hit paydirt when I hit the Neville link in the family back in England...from there it was an easy and thrilling journey into the history I've been obsessively reading since childhood...back to Edward III (the last royal in my tree..his son and my progenitor Thomas of Woodstock was 7th in line) and back to Wiliam the Conqueror then back to a Viking called Rollo.

I will tell you it took that long because of a mistake on a great great great great grandmother's maiden name in Rhode Island-I'd been searching for a Gilson when it should have been Gilman! Once I realized the error, tracing back to the Revolution (granpapy fought at Lexington Concord) And back to the Mayflower. The slightest error on a census form or the bad handwriting of a Justice of the Peace sometimes equates to the people who've recorded these names in the vast database recording it incorrectly, so if you have access to the primary source if you hit a dead-end try and check it out yourself.

I love reading about other people's discoveries too, so please keep us updated!

[Omaha Steve]

36. Parts of my family that haven't talked in 50+ years are in communication tonight

Kind of like the N/S Korean situation. In fact the Korean War is part of the family fight.

OS

[Omaha Steve]

40. 325 second through 4th cousins from DNA matches

WOW.