Family History - Part 54

From Finicy to Phenice

December 7, 2016 Van 6 comments

Circa 1935 – Harry Clifton Phenice, Myrtle Phenice Cozad, Samuel Charles Phenice, Bernard Orville Phenice, May Phenice Taylor, and Emma Phenice Quillen.

This is one of the photos that I rediscovered the other day. It shows three generations of my Phenice family in it. I believe the young man in the middle is Orville Phenice, my grandmother’s brother. Their father is Harry Clifton Phenice, who is shown on the left. His father is the old man in the middle of the photo – Samuel Charles Phenice, a Civil War veteran and witness to the Lincoln assassination. The other three women are Harry’s sisters Myrtle, May, and Emma. The topic of this week’s post concerns the three generations prior to these three.

My grandmother and her siblings were born in southern Louisiana, but the generations before her were born in Pennsylvania. Her father H. C. moved to Louisiana in the 1898. His father Samuel was born in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, moved around a bit and ended up in Nebraska. Samuel’s father Daniel was also born in Mercer County. The father of Daniel was unknown and there have been many family members who have done research trying to find out who he was. The further you go back, the more different the name is spelled. Nowadays we spell the name “Phenice,” but the earliest spelling I found for the family name is “Finicy.” Previous researchers uncovered some good information, but they were unable to identify the parentage of Daniel Phenice. That was before DNA testing.

In 2013 I had a DNA test for myself and my parents at 23andMe. I only found one Phenice connection on that site. But at AncestryDNA it was a different story. I tested my aunt Loris Woolley there last December. I started finding Phenice connections right away. There were four 2nd cousins through the Phenice line and two 3rd cousins (to my mom’s generation). It was helpful that they shared a good amount of common DNA with my mom, aunt Loris, uncle Austin, and their 1st cousin Julie.

In addition to all of those matches, there were several more who had ancestors with the surname “Phenicie” in their trees. Those ancestors were all from Pennsylvania and some of them were from Mercer County. I had seen some of the ancestors previously because they had names similar to names in our tree. They have a Daniel Phenicie born around the same time (1808) as ours and a Samuel Phenicie who also fought in the Civil War. I wasn’t sure how all of these other DNA matches connected, but the common DNA was pointing in the same direction.

I let the matches add up for most of 2016, but by October I had enough to inspire me to go looking for a connection. So I made a spreadsheet of all of the names and started comparing DNA and family trees. I looked through old research that had been done (thanks to Orville’s daughters Marilyn, Kathleen, Linda and Carol, plus some others) and found a common theme of a John Phenice born around 1765. So I sketched out a provisional family tree.

I put John Phenicie as the father of our ancestor Daniel Phenice (b. 1809). Since I had a few DNA matches who were descendants of Joseph Phenicie (b. 1762) and because they were born close to the same time, I put John and Joseph as brothers with an unnamed father born around 1730. I had many more DNA matches who were descendants of Samuel Phenicie (b. 1795), so I also put him as a son of John Phenice. Additionally, there were a few descendants of an Eliza Fennesy that were DNA matches, but the parents were unknown. From there I had to try to find some source documents to back this up.

I pored through the old census records from the late 1700s and early 1800s in areas that I knew the family had lived. Daniel and Samuel were known to have lived in Mercer and Somerset counties in Pennsylvania, and Joseph and his descendants lived in Bedford and Franklin counties. I had already found Daniel in the Springfield, Mercer, PA censuses of 1850 and 1860. His name was spelled Finnesy and Finnessy in those documents. I knew I was going to have to be flexible in the spelling of the name. I went to the 1840 census in Springfield and looked through every page of it. I finally came across a Daniel with the alternate spelling of “Finecy.” (Transcribed as “Ferney” by Ancestry.) I was glad to finally find him in 1840, but was even more excited when I saw the name directly below his – John Finecy. And he was the right age to be Daniel’s father. Families lived close to each other more often back then, so this looked very promising.

I continued my search for these two in the Springfield of 1830. I didn’t find Daniel or John there, but I did find Samuel. I checked all of Mercer county for Daniel, but I couldn’t find him. Since Daniel married Susan Jackson in Somerset County in 1831, I decided to look in Somerset County. I didn’t find Daniel, but I did find John. He was listed on the census as “John Finicy, Sr.” (Transcribed as “Finiag” by Ancestry.) There was a John Finicy, Jr. a few pages before, so I would think that he was another son of John Phenicie. There were no other names close to Finecy/Phenice and the like. I found “John Finasee” in 1820 in Somerset County and “John Finnessee” in 1810 in Allegheny County. I think the borders were moving back then more than the people. They weren’t changing as much as the spelling of the name, though!

In the meantime I had been corresponding with a descendant of Eliza Finnesy. I explored her family tree, but was unable to find out how she was connected to our Phenicies. I was directed to the 1850 census of Eliza after she had married a Wingard. In that census, there was a woman in the household named “Margaret Finnesy” (same spelling as my Daniel – actually the same census taker). The relationship was not identified in the census. There was also a death certificate that showed Eliza’s maiden name as being Finnesy, so Margaret was most likely her mother.

Then I found a really good source. It was a record of a marriage between a John Phinnecy and a Margaret Maurer on May 29, 1792. This tied together everything that I had found and supposed up to that point. From information in the 1850 census Margaret would have been born around 1774, so that would put them at the right age to have been parents to Samuel, Daniel, and John Jr. In addition to these children, I found some more DNA matches who had a Mary Finnessee born in 1798 in their trees. In one of them they had the birth location as Allegheny County, which corresponded to what I had found for John Phenice in 1810. I believe she is another child of John and Margaret.

All of this information makes me feel pretty certain that John and Margaret were indeed the parents of those individuals. In addition to the paper sources, the DNA backs it all up. And the members of our extended family were the only people with that last name in those counties. I searched through those census pages till I was cross-eyed!

There is another record that I found, but I’m less sure of it. It is for a “John Archibald Finnacy” born in 1765 in Maryland. I don’t know why I am unsure of this as being “our” John Phenicie. There were references in census records that showed Joseph and other family members as being born in Maryland. The name and the date correspond as well. There is a similar record for a Joseph Finnacy born in the same location. The birth date is shown as 1768 which is different than all other records of Joseph Phenicie which show him as being born in 1762. In any case, it gives the parents of these two as Stephen (b. 1730) and Ann. That date would match my supposition and other clues. Stephen is also a common name in both family lines.

So the data all seems to support the suppositions I made to start off. I found the name of John Phenice’s wife – also known as my great great great great grandmother Margaret Maurer. Since everything else lined up so well, I also added the parents of John as being Stephen Finnacy and Ann. I’m happy with the results, though I haven’t been able to find out when the family immigrated or where they are from. I get new matches frequently and there are also a few unconnected DNA matches who have the Finecy name in their trees. There’s always something else to explore.

May 11, 2017 Update – I obtained a new photo from the same day as this photo was taken. Better yet, the names of everyone was labeled on the photo! So I edited this post with those names and here is the photo.

The Samuel Charles Phenice family in 1935.

Harry Clifton Phenice, Lola “Myrtle” Phenice Cozad, Samuel Charles Phenice, Anna “May” Phenice Taylor, and Emma Orra Phenice Quillen. A father and four of his children circa 1935.

DNA
Phenice

The Patureau Sisters of Plaquemine

November 30, 2016 Van Leave a comment

I’ve always known that my Mee Maw had sisters, but when I was a kid I didn’t really give that much thought. She was born Germaine Erie Patureau on Aug. 6, 1895, in Crescent, Louisiana (Plaquemine area). Of the children that survived to adulthood, she was the 4th of 9 children. She was the 2nd daughter of seven. She had one sister named Marie Therese who got married, had two children, and died a day after her second daughter was born. I don’t have a photo of the sisters with Marie Therese included. There may be one out there. (hint, hint)

The Patureau Sisters of Plaquemine – (back) Lorena, Emma, Erie, Lydwin, (front) Sylvie and Zita

This is a photo of the Patureau sisters some time around the late 1950s. It was taken in Duson, Louisiana, at one of the sisters’ home. I’ll name them starting on the back row. On the far left is Lorena. She is the only one that I have any memories of. I remember going to her house (in Opelousas) when she was an older lady. I remember her having a pulley or ring above her bed to assist her in getting in and out of it. She also gave my sister her sewing machine. I also remember her funeral in 1972. When we were riding to the cemetery I was really hungry and my stomach started churning. By the time we got to the graveyard, I ended up having the dry heaves. And my wonderful grandmother who was grieving over the loss of her sister came over and helped me out. (With the assistance of my equally wonderful godmother.) She took out some smelling salts and had me smell it and it settled my stomach immediately. It was like magic! I’ve never had the dry heaves since, but if I ever do, I’ll know the solution.

The next sister is Emma. She was the one that lived in Duson. I’ve posted a photo that includes her before (The Man in Black), but she is more famously known as the mother of Tez. (The Uninvited Guest) I know that she was also a writer. I remember reading through a collection of her poetry and prose when I was younger. Sometimes Tez would recite from it.

Of course the next one is the best one of all! That’s my Mee Maw – the woman we have all grown to love and cherish. (I am not being partial and no descension is allowed!) She looks happy to be with her sisters. I’ve posted another photo of her and her sisters before, but that was before my Throwback Thursday series, which began just over a year ago. I found this photo in my dad’s collection. There is another one from the same day, but I haven’t cleaned it up yet.

The sister on the far right in the blue dress is Lydwin. She is what was ungraciously called an “old maid.” And she probably got that moniker before the age of 30. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be negative. Right? At any rate she did not get married and lived her life in the Plaquemine area.

Her sister Sylvie also lived in Plaquemine. She is the lady in the front with the blue dress. But she was far from being an old maid. She and her husband Walter Marionneaux had eight children. My dad liked to visit his cousins in Plaquemine. They both had large families, so I’m sure it was a lively house when they visited. Both families have continued to grow through the years, making it hard to keep track of them all.

The last one in this group is Zita. She did not give birth to any children of her own, but she was a mother nonetheless. When their sister Marie Therese died, Zita ended up marrying her widower and rearing the children. A very sweet story, I think.

So there you go. The Patureau sisters of Plaquemine. You would be hard pressed to find a finer group of women.

Patureau

The Age of Camelot

November 23, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Yesterday was the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I saw a few posts where people talked about what they were doing that day. When something that big happens in your lifetime, you tend to remember little details about it. What you were doing. Where you were. What you felt. How you reacted. And people have talked about the assassination as being the end of an era. They likened the years of Kennedy’s presidency with the Age of Camelot. There was even a musical at the time about the original Camelot – the age of King Arthur when truth, goodness, and beauty reigned. The memories of those times have been idealized through the years. The same could be said for my memory of 1963.

The Landry family on July 5, 1963

As you can see, I was just a child. This was a few months before the assassination of Kennedy, but it shows what our family looked like in that era. I was only two and a half, but I have lots of memories from that time. Riding the tricycle on the ‘sidewalk.’ Swinging on the front porch swing. Catching fireflies at night. Playing cowboys and indians.

Of course most of this was done with my brothers and sisters. They were my whole world. That world also included my parents and grandparents and uncles and cousins. It was an idyllic time for me. I didn’t have to go to school. I had no cares in the world. So when that shot rang out from the grassy knoll … Wait, this is not the time to discuss conspiracy theories, sorry about that. So when that shot rang out from the rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald, my life as I knew it ended.

No, not really. Even though I can remember chasing bees, picking figs, and peeking into the old barn, I don’t remember that infamous day in November of that year. I was three by then, so I thought I was growing up. But I was still a kid who wore shorts to church. (I remember wanting to wear long pants like the men did.) So I was probably just too busy playing with my siblings and wondering what I was going to be getting for Christmas. You know, the usual things little boys think about.

Nov. 27, 2016 – Followup to Throwback Thursday.

I’ve posted a few more photos from the Camelot era of my Bucklin cousins.

Woolley family in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 5, 1963.

Ernest & Loris Woolley with Keith, Glen, and Brent.

Pilcher family in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 5, 1963.

Larry, Sylvia, Kevin, Toni, Lynn, and Paul Pilcher

Seal family in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 5, 1963

Chuck Seal with wife Alma Bucklin Seal and daughter Rhonda Seal.

Bucklin cousins in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 5, 1963

Bucklin cousins in Jennings on July 5, 1963

I thought they probably had copies of those prints, but from the feedback, I don’t think they did. They are some really good photos. Then I posted a poor quality photo of a group shot that was taken on the same day. All I have is a scan that I’ve had for a long time. Hopefully someone has a good print of the photo and they will scan it or take a photo of it and share it with us.

Bucklin cousins in Jennings on July 5, 1963.

Then I started dusting and came across a small framed print I have of those cousins on the same day. I noticed that Rhonda was not cut out of that one, so I thought I’d scan it so I’d have everyone in the photo. I brought the print to my computer and scanned it. Then when I compared it to the digital copy I already had on the computer – Surprise! – it’s actually a different photo than the other one I had. For all this time I thought the photo on my computer and the framed print were of the same photo.

I was starting to think that it might be better to actually scan the negative of the photo. I had photographed those old Polaroids with color film back when I got my first SLR camera in high school. So I went searching for those old negatives of the old photos. I went through everything I could think of and couldn’t find them. I’m not too disappointed, though, because I’m sure I have them somewhere.

But even better than that reassurance was the fact that I found something even better! In addition to taking color photos of those old Polaroids, I evidently took some black and white photos of even older photos! I say evidently, because I don’t remember taking the photos and some of the photos do not look familiar to me at all. But I can recognize some faces and some of them are identified on the back. That’s why you identify people in photos. So other people will know who they are and for later when you’re an old fart and can’t even remember taking the photos in the first place!!!

I’ve been thinking about doing another story about my great great grandfather who was in the Civil War and was a witness to the Lincoln assassination, and I was thinking about using a photo that I had used before. I only had one photo of him to start out with, then I got a second one when I contacted a DNA match along the Phenice line. I found two more photos of him! And I’ve had them all along. I also found a few photos of Daisy Keys and a picture of Grandma as a young child. These photos were probably Grandma’s that I borrowed so I could take photos of them.

Thank you young Van from the bottom of my heart!

Landry

Loops-a-Daisy

November 17, 2016 Van Leave a comment

1950ish-daisy-keys-phenice-with-1st-perm-ever-done-by-betty-lou-heal

Daisy Keys Phenice circa 1950

I’ve been thinking of this photo for a little bit. I got it from a family photo album a couple of weeks ago when I went to visit my parents. I don’t really remember it from when I was younger, but I should. I was the one who put that photo album together! When I was in high school I decided to make a family album that included old photos that I found from my mom’s and dad’s collection. It included photos of their grandparents and parents and old school photos of them and all of us kids. But for some reason, this photo was forgotten by me.

It will be forgotten no more. I suppose that photo album was a precursor to what I do now. I wanted to bring the photos together and make them available for people to easily view. I do remember specifically NOT putting photos of my parents’ great grandparents in that album. They were just too old and from too long ago! Now I can’t get enough of those old photos.

And I think this one is really sweet. This is Daisy Keys Phenice (my mom’s mom’s mom – aka the source of my mitochondrial DNA). She came from England in 1887 with her mom and siblings when she was just 11 years old. I call this post “Loops-a-Daisy” because the original phrase ‘oops-a-daisy’ originated in England a few years before she was born (at least as seen in print – or so the internet search informed me). The “Loops” part of the title is because of the reason for this photo. Young Betty Lou Bucklin must have thought that her grandmother’s hair was too plain and straight for the times. So she went about giving her grandmother her first hair permanent. And then she took a photo of her achievement for all of us to witness.

I see a sweet old lady that humored her grandchild by letting her give her a new hairdo. There is a hint of a smile and she let my mom take her photo, so she must have been pleased with the outcome. I like that you can see her socks as she sits on the porch. She’s sitting off center of the photo and it is a bit skewed as well. I think the cat is another point of focus. Altogether it makes for an interesting photo to share. I just wish there were a bit more loops to see in that hairdo.

Keys

Grandparents

November 10, 2016 Van Leave a comment

A post from a friend of mine today made me think about the topic of grandparents. She had a grandmother that reminded me of my Mee Maw. She liked to cook for her grandchildren, taught them card games and such, and was well loved by everybody. The grandmother who every grandchild hoped to be (and felt like) the favorite of. Many people have fond stories about their grandparents. It reminded me that my dad didn’t have very many memories of his grandparents.

1930-celeste-leveque-landry-robert-joseph-landry-jr-and-vincent-maximilian-patureau-heal

Bobbie Landry with his grandparents circa 1930.

Though the subjects in this photo may be questionable, the facts I tell about it are as accurate as I can get. I believe this is my father in 1930. He was born in January of 1929 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This kid looks about a year or so old and it looks like my dad from other photos that I’ve seen from around that time. If you think he looks like a little girl in this photo, you should see some of the other photos of him! Those curls of his were there from the beginning. The other two people in the photo are his surviving grandparents when the photo was taken.

My dad’s paternal grandmother was Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. She was married to Simon Alcide Joseph Landry who died in 1917. On the other side was his maternal grandfather Vincent Maximilian Patureau, who was always fondly spoken of as “Grampa Max.” His wife was Marie Therese Landry and she died in 1909. These two were not a couple, but they were related. (All of his grandparents were related!) They were half 2nd cousins. The photo was not labeled, but I have identified them because I recognize them from other photos that I’ve been looking through. And who else would it be? It makes sense that he would be in a photo with his grandparents.

It’s the only photo of him with his grandparents. Not only because people back then did not take 1/1000ths of the number of photos that people take nowadays, but also because his grandparents didn’t live much longer. His grandmother died in 1934 and his grandfather followed suit the next year. So shortly after his 6th birthday, little Bobbie did not have any grandparents left. That’s kind of sad. I have many fond memories of my grandparents. I had 24 years worth of memories. I had more years than he did, but not as many as I would have liked.

So now all I can do is cherish the memories of my grandparents. I know many of you do, too. For some of you that still have grandparents, make the most of it. For those with grandchildren, you make the most of it, too. Be funny; be cantankerous; give them something; take something away from them; share your truths with them; tell a few white lies. I don’t have to tell you to love them. I think that comes naturally to most people. Leave them with something to cherish.

1919 – A Family Outing

November 3, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Sometimes I wonder if people are unsure of what I’m talking about. I jump around from one side of the family to the next so I don’t leave anybody out. I guess if someone is interested enough about the connections, they will ask. Sometimes people just want to look at the pictures and move on to the next post. Well, stop that! I want you to read everything I write. Now that you know what I want, you will always do the right thing.

So to keep things from getting confused this week, I’ll start with me. My name is Van Landry and I was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr. and Betty Lou Bucklin Landry. My dad was born in 1929 in Lake Charles and my mom was born in 1933 in Raymond, Lousiana. Her father was Fred D. Bucklin, who was born in Roanoke, Louisiana, in 1907. This information sets you up for the photo this week.

Hine/Bucklin/Stanbrough family group in 1919

The photo was taken in 1919 somewhere around the Hathaway/China area. It was a Hine family get together. There are several photos taken that day with all of the family in different groups. This is a small group. The young girl in the photo (on the far right) is my grandfather Fred’s oldest sister Mary Bucklin, who was born in 1900. She would be 19 years old in this photo. Five years later she would marry Sylvan Phenice, the brother of Fred’s future wife Myrtle. (Sylvan and Mary were married in 1926. Fred and Myrtle were married in 1930.) Sylvan and Mary were together for 56 years until Sylvan’s death in 1982. They did not have any children. Mary died in 1987.

The woman in the middle of the photo is the mother of Fred and Mary (and ten other children) and was named Addie Mae Hine at birth. She was born in 1876 in Noblesville, Indiana, and moved with her family (mother and father and five younger brothers) to Louisiana in 1894. Four years later she married Louis Charles Bucklin and started her large family soon after. Louis did not show up in too many photos. They were married for 29 years at the time of Louis’s death in 1927 at the young age of 54. Addie lived until just 25 days after I was born. I do not have any memories of my great grandmother.

Addie’s mother and father are the other two individuals in this photo. Her mother was born Susan G. Stanbrough in Westfield, Indiana, in 1851. She was the sixth child of twelve children born to a family with strong Quaker roots. In 1873, at the age of 22, she was married to George Henry Hine who was five years her senior. He was born in 1846 in Hamilton County also. (Westfield and Noblesville are in Hamilton County.)

This is one of the last photos of George Hine. He died May 3, 1919. I don’t know how the photo setup came about. I’m thinking it must have been Mary’s idea. She wanted a photo of her with her parents and grandparents. She was probably a bit peeved with her dad for not wanting to be in the photo. His parents had already died, so they couldn’t be in the photo. So she settled for this photo with her mom and her mom’s parents. I like it. That’s my great grandmother and my great great grandparents.

Questions?

The Week of Bob and Betty

October 27, 2016 Van Leave a comment

This week my focus has been on my mom and dad. They were both in the hospital with different medical problems. Mama fell and broke her left hip and shoulder. She had surgery to repair these problems and then my dad fell and scratched his arm. It wasn’t really his arm that was the main problem, it was the underlying medical conditions. The blood thinners he was on for his heart started to be counterproductive because of undiagnosed conditions. Add to that some internal bleeding and anemia and he was admitted to the hospital, too. Little to no energy makes for a slow recovery, but we are hoping for the best. There have been some signs of returning energy levels.

1952-03-28-Bob Landry and Betty Bucklin in the Merry Widow

Bob Landry with Betty Lou Bucklin on Mar. 28, 1952.

But this post is not about their individual problems. Or their individual health. This post is about their relationship. Mainly about the start of their relationship. I’ve been wanting to post this picture since I found it a few months ago. This photo was taken on March 28, 1952. I know the date because mom is dressed in a costumer for an operetta at McNeese called “The Merry Widow.” She also saved the program for the event and wrote the information on the back of the photo. They were both in the production, but that is not where they met.

They actually met almost two years earlier at LSU. She was there for a state solo and ensemble competition and he was a student helper who just happened to be the one helping the sweet, cute girl from the country. It was a short encounter, but when my mom went to McNeese in the fall of 1951, my dad recognized her name and made sure to meet up with her again.

So this photo is from the first year of their courtship. Such a sweet and intimate photo. And who could have known the long history the two would share? They were married on November 1 later that year and started their married life on an Air Force base in California. That means that this coming Tuesday will be their 64th anniversary. It’s another reason that I wanted to post this photo now. Happy anniversary to the best parents I could have ever hoped for.

At Their Best

October 19, 2016 Van Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I erroneously stated that I had posted photos of all of my great grandparents. I was wrong about that. There was someone that I had left out. I’ve mentioned her in other posts, but no photo was shown. She was the first of them to die in 1909, so there aren’t as many photos of her. Still, I hope you will forgive this oversight. And curiously no one pointed out this error to me. I thought everyone was reading these posts and keeping track of all of the information in them. I’m going to have to start giving tests!

So if you haven’t gone back through all of my posts and figured it out yet, I will give you a minute to take the time to do so. In the meantime I will write this sentence. There. Now you’ve had time to find it if you want to. If you haven’t figured it out, I will let you in on this morsel of information.

The person that I’ve left out was Marie Therese Landry Patureau. She was born Sept. 25, 1868, in Plaquemine, Louisiana. She was the oldest child of Trasimond Landry and Marie Amalie “Belite” Bujol Landry. She had two younger sisters and two younger brothers before her father died in 1879. Her mother remarried and gave her two younger half sisters. A few years later she met the man of her dreams. (He also happened to be her 2nd cousin.)

Oct. 10, 1888 - Vincent Maximilian Patureau married Marie Therese Landry

A Landry-Patureau wedding in 1888.

This photo is of the marriage between Marie Therese Landry and Vincent Maximilian Patureau on Oct. 10, 1888. It is a beautiful photo of these two people. I first remember seeing it in the home of Patricia Marionneaux Nelson last year after her funeral. I was on the lookout for it until it somehow popped up in my cousin Tricia’s house while she was cleaning. (Thank you, Tricia.) She brought it to the latest reunion and I took a few photos of it.

The only thing I knew about the wedding before I saw the photo was a description that was allegedly in some newspaper. It stated, “The lovely bride, arrayed in her snowy wedding robes, looked even more charming than usual, while the manly groom, proud in the consciousness of the conquest he had made, appeared to the best advantage.” When I read that, it made me want to see what they were talking about. It’s so much better to have the photo of the event. They certainly do appear to be at their best.

I found the “alleged” newspaper article I mentioned in my post.

Feb. 5, 2020 Update

Feb. 7, 2021 Update continued – I was looking at the newspaper article and noticed the names of the bridesmaids and groomsmen. I had never bothered to look them up in my tree to see if they were there. Sure enough, many of them were. That’s because they were related to the couple getting married. The bridesmaids were all relatives. Kate Landry was Marie Therese’s younger sister who was 18 at the time. The youngest sister Manette was only 12 years old and was not mentioned. She was probably too young to be a bridesmaid. Olive and Della Bergeron were two other bridesmaids and they were first cousins to Marie Therese. Their mother (Marie Adele Bujol Bergeron) was the sister of Marie Therese’s mother (Marie Amelie “Belite” Bujol Landry). Anoise (Marie Constance Anaise) Doiron was a first cousin to the others. Her mother Marianne Celile Bujol Doiron was a sister of Belite and Marie Adele.

Louis Aillet was the first groomsman listed. I’m assuming he was the best man and Kate was the maid of honor. Louis Aillet was the first cousin of Max Patureau. Max’s mother was Emma Landry Patureau and Louis’s mother was Emma’s sister Henriette Zulma Landry Aillet. I couldn’t find a connection between the other groomsmen. They were probably friends and/or business associates of Grampa Max. N. C. Roth is one of the groomsmen and I did find a Nicolas Celestin Roth who was about the same age as Max and lived in Plaquemine. Though he is not related, in a few years he would marry Pauline LeBlanc who was related to both the bride and the groom through the Landry family line.

Old Photos

October 12, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Old family photo from some time around 1880s.

This past summer I went to Hathaway to visit cousins – my mom’s first cousin Louise and her son (my 2nd cousin) Joseph. They have been into genealogy and old photos for a lot longer time than I have. They’ve been collecting old Bucklin and Hine photos for over ten years. So we share photos with each other. (I am usually on the receiving end of this!) When we were in Hathaway, they pulled out a small, tattered looking book-like object. It was an old photo album from well over 100 years ago. It was so amazing to see all of these small, yet sharp photos of people who have been long gone.

This photo of a pensive looking woman was one of those photos. The sad thing about this (beside the obvious one being that she is no longer alive) is that we don’t know who she is. There are a few hints. The photo was taken some time around the 1880s or so. Some of the photos around it have IDs that show they were taken in Iowa. The Bucklin family had lived in Iowa during that time, so it’s probable that the photo is of a Bucklin relative. Or a friend. Or a neighbor. Or who knows? The point is that we don’t know and probably will never know. I could do some revisionist history project and give her a name and tell a story about her and post it all over the internet. If it shows up enough times, it must be true! Right?

My mom was always good about writing people’s names on the back of photos and I picked up that habit myself. She said that she remembered seeing old photos when she was a young girl and nobody knew who the people were. It was probably these same old photos that her cousin was showing to me. Of course, back when these photos were taken, nobody ever had that problem before. Photography was new and there weren’t any unidentified photos lying around. Taking a photo was a luxury and you probably only had photos of people you knew. They didn’t think about the photos lasting for over a hundred years and someone posting it on the internet for everyone to see.

But now we know. So make sure to identify the people in your photos. Especially the old ones. And if any of you cousins of mine want to share any of those old photos with me, send them my way! (A good scan will do nicely.) I’ll edit them as best I can to make them look like new. I may even be able to identify a few of the people for you. It could become the subject of a good story. I’d definitely try to preserve them for generations to come.

PS – If any of you happen to know the identity of the woman in this photo, I would appreciate the information. (And I won’t let anybody know that you’re an immortal!)

Bucklin
Hine

…to the Country

October 5, 2016 Van Leave a comment

Last week I talked about how one family left England to head for the New World. Of course, in 1887 you really couldn’t call it new anymore. People had been immigrating from Europe to North America for over two hundred years. But in some ways it still was very new. Especially when comparing it to England, Ireland, and France, which is where most of my ancestors came from. I showed you the one photo I have of my ancestors’ home in Europe. Most of the other ancestors immigrated before the invention of the camera. My next most recent ancestors were the McGraths who came from Ireland around the middle of the 1840s. And just before them the Patureaus came to Louisiana in 1840.

Patureau Lane circa 1900

This photo is a photo of where those Patureaus settled after returning to Louisiana after the Civil War. This is Patureau Lane in Plaquemine. As you can see, it was definitely a new town. And this was about 30 years after they moved to the area! Just a dirt road with a few chickens scratching around, a ditch with a few boards spanning them to cross over to your house, some fences, and a few houses are all you see.

But if you think this looks bad, think about the Keys family that I talked about last week. They left a brick home with venetian blinds, no less. When they got to southern Louisiana and decided to do a little homesteading, they didn’t have a house. But their friendly neighbors (the MacVeys) were more than accommodating. They had a roomy chicken house that they were willing to put them up in. It wasn’t any ordinary chicken house, so you couldn’t call it a coop. This chicken house had a window. Pretty snazzy, right? I seriously doubt that it had venetian blinds, though. How is that for civilized?

All I can say is that we take a lot for granted – running water, a sewerage system, electricity, roads with fancy automobiles to drive around in – to name a few. Those people had to have vision and fortitude to make such huge steps into the unknown. So here’s to our ancestors – those crazy, driven, brave, believing in themselves survivors.

June 11, 2017 Update

I’ve recently discovered information about the MacVey (not to be confused with the more Irish McVey surname) family that helped out my Keys family back in 1887. The family consisted of Thomas Lord MacVey his wife Rebecca Noble MacVey, and their two sons William Lee and Frank Lincoln. One important thing I discovered was that the family had just recently started homesteading in the area and their chicken house was brand new. That’s somewhat of a relief, isn’t it? For more information about their connection to my family, read the post The Bucklin/Keys/Ausman/MacVey Connections.

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