First Word #17: Haiti Got Me Thinking

Have you ever found yourself up against a brick wall? I don’t mean in your car, I’m talking about in your research. If you haven’t then you haven’t been doing this very long and believe me, you’ll know what I’m talking about when you find one. It is that dead-end that you can’t seem to get past in your research. I’m at a brick wall in one of my lines. Well, several, but one in particular that I’m working on in earnest. I’ve written about my Mitchell ancestors before. I had a fun time trying to locate their tombstone in the Wellsville, Missouri cemetery. Now, I’m trying to locate the marriage of Thomas Carroll Mitchell and Angeline Higdon.

I know where they “should” be. They “should” be in Barren County, Kentucky sometime before 1850. I found them in the 1850 census married with no kids, in their early 20s. The box that says “Married within the year” was not checked. So I am guessing they were married approximately 1847-1849. The records for Barren County, Kentucky exist for that time frame. I looked at them the last time I was in Salt Lake City, in 2005 and did not locate my ancestors. And to top it all off, I have found very little indication as to who either of their parents are!

Well, that is a bummer to say the least. Don’t you just hate it when your research does not go according to plan? Sometimes we jokingly say that our ancestors were brought here on the “Mother Ship” rather on a sailing ship across the ocean. It would seem at times that our ancestors just “showed up” suddenly in the records and where they came from or who they descended from is a complete mystery!

The January 2010 earthquake in Haiti got me thinking about some of the possibilities for these unexplained or difficult-to-find answers. I’ve watched news stories regarding the orphans in Haiti. It was estimated in one NPR article I read that more than 20,000 children lost their parents in the disaster. In many cases relatives or neighbors are caring for the children. In other cases, they are fending for themselves. One group of boys formed a group and live together in a park. They do odd jobs to earn a little money and they wash out their clothes every night. They share what little food they have to survive. The article went on to say that slowly social workers are making their way through the crowds to document who’s living where and to offer services to children such as these boys. There is much concern over how to keep track of all of these children as well as to try to stop such unsavory things as child trafficking, kidnapping and unlawful adoptions.

What if something like this terrible disaster (or even a small disaster) happened to our ancestor? Fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, hurricane, illness–the possibilities are numerous. If our ancestors’ parents were killed in some terrible way, who took them in? And were there any records to indicate where that child came from? If suddenly there’s another child in a family and the age doesn’t necessarily line up with previous information, this may be a possibility. Records may indicate “adopted” but more likely, the child(ren) were just absorbed into the family, especially if they were taken in by relatives. It is quite possible that no records were created that document times such as these. Also, the children could have taken on their adopted family’s name. This alone could bring you up against a brick wall in your research.

As I watched numerous news stories about these Haitian orphans and thought about how the chaos would affect genealogical research in years to come, it caused me to reflect on how similar situations would affect our ancestors. I am going to keep this in mind in the future. One thing you can do is read newspapers for the area and time your ancestors lived and note any disasters that may have occurred. This may break down some of those walls.