Smiths

Why there are a lot of them...

In my direct ancestral line alone, there is

Anderson Smith; 15 children

his son, Vincent T.; 17

his son, George Washington; 14

his son, Elbert Columbus; 5

his son (my grandpa), Odie McBride; 6

And then there are all those great-aunts and uncles of mine, for example, Vincent's brother, John, also had 11 children. How many more SMITHS in that single generation?! It boggles the mind.

It's a fun family to research though, because they have all the best names, Andrew Jackson Smith, Narcissa Rachel, Priscilla Aquilla, Elbert Columbus, George Washington, Solomon, Serilda, Columbus Cornelius, Marcus De le fe, Luticia Oregon, and on and on. They tended toward grand names and to use colorful nicknames. I suppose when you have that many children, you have to get creative about naming them.

Normans

I can't stop learning. Even when I'm not particularly interested, there's always another bit of information thrust on me. The Normans, for example.

If I ever remotely thought about it, I suppose I imagined the Normans were of a genetically Frankish/Gaulish origin, "Norman" due to their "northern" location on the French map. Wrong.

North Men, it turns out, were from a place real north, not a French 'burb. They were Vikings who stayed and married the local, rich girls. From Wiki; "The Viking contingents who raided, and ultimately settled Normandy and some parts of the Atlantic coast, included Danes, Hiberno-Norse, Orkney Vikings, as well as Anglo-Danes from the English Danelaw, under Viking control." And William the Conqueror was a grandson of Rollo, who successfully besieged Paris with Sigfred. Rollo's Wiki article has this cultural gem, "Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right." According to the articles, the raiders learned French quickly, but it appears they never fully embraced the continental lifestyle, not if this passage is an indication,

"Eleventh century Benedictine monk and historian, Geoffrey Malaterra characterised the Normans thus:

Specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness, that is, perhaps uniting, as they certainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war."^[1]

It's good to know the truth, actually, because Norman conquests were the exception to that old saying, "Well, at least we can always defeat the French." Rather, Normans further proved the point.

Robert Orson Ryan

Genealogy research sometimes produces revelations. Like today. A little groggy with morning, I opened an email file from a distant Ryan cousin and suddenly my great-great-grandfather was looking right at me from out of the computer screen. It's the first time I've ever seen his face, never dreamed I even would see him and now he's here in my life; Robert Orson Ryan.
According to my information, he was born in February of 1846 in Illinois. He married a woman named Nancy, and they had eight children, one of them my great-grandmother.

Of Ships and Quakers

I took a break from following the Sparling line of my lineage in order to rest my brain and allow some time for my internet queries to possibly yield some information. In the meanwhile, my dad fed me a tidbit about his Tripp ancestors. He told me that his mother had said that five Tripps had taken passage to America from Europe together. Well, that was something I might be able to discover!

I haven't found any record of just that tale, but I did find something as interesting and might be the origin of the family story of five Tripps. Except for the commonality of ships, I'm not sure why the story set me in mind of this folk song, The Sloop John B.

The Sloop John B.
Lee Hays/Carl Sandburg

We come on the sloop John B, my grandfather and me.
Around Nassau town we did roam.
Drinkin' all night. Got into a fight.
Well, I feel so break up, I want to go home.
(I want to go home. So now,)

Hoist up the John B's sails.
See how the main sails set.
Call for the captain ashore, let me go home.
(Let me go home.)
Let me go home.
(I want to go home.)
I want to go home.
(Why don't you let me go home?)
Well, I feel so broke up, I want to go home.
(I want to go home.)

Well the First mate, he got drunk.
Broke up the Captain's trunk.
The Constable had to come and take him away.
Sheriff John Stone (Sheriff John Stone),
why don't you leave me alone?
Yeah, Yeah (Why don't you leave me alone?)
Well, I feel so break up, I want to go home.
(I want to go home. So, now)

Well, the poor cook he caught the fits.
Threw away all of my grits.
Then he took and he ate up all of my corn.
Let me go home.
(I want to go home.)
I want to go home.
(Why don't you let me go home?)

This is the worst trip since I've been born.
(Since I have been born. So, now)

Hoist up the John B's sails. (John B. sails)
See how the main sails set. (Main sails set.)
Call for the captain ashore, let me go home.
(Let me go home.)
Let me go home.
(I want to go home.)
I want to go home.
(Why don't you let me go home?)
Well, I feel so break up, I want to go home.
(I want to go home.)

When my ancestor, John Tripp, immigrated to America he was on a ship of colonists, many of whom eventually became related by marriage. It was a kind of Founder's Ship. John Tripp, my ancestor, has been called "The Founder" by some, because so many individuals can now trace their lineage back to him. Below is a letter originally written in the hand of my ancestor, an immigrant from England. It begins with a paraphrase by Holly Tamer, and credit for interpretation of the hand-written document goes to Carl Boyer. The "persacuted people" John writes about refers to the persecution of the Quakers.

By his own hand, he wrote that he had 11 brothers and sisters, "and much kindred...was put an apprentice to a ship carpenter of Thoresby 3 miles from Alford in Lincolnshire where I served 7 years...and after that I bound myself to Frances East for 4 pounds a year for 4 yeares who...after I had served him for about a year and a half sold me to Robert Jafra then living in Boston...and boston church members persacuting som to the ofending of others my master came to Rhod Island with the said parsacuted people and I with him and his wife being sickly and they could not git their maid to Rhode Island with them because Boston members cried out against Rhod Island people whom the said members had expelled from them therefore my master was forced to se.. me to Randal Houlding of portsmouth on Rhode Island and I served a while and after bought out the rest of time of him and after a whil I married a wife hose madon name was mary paine I being about thirty or twenty eight years old or there abouts and the Lord hath given us Eleven Children of which one is ded the eldest is 29 yeares old and upward this 17th the Second month 1670 prased be the our Rock who hath been help and unto us at all times given what thou please it is marcy from thee to receive anything for the Earth."

Expectation of the Dawn

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake...by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." -Walden, Thoreau

Does there ever come a point in life when this requirement is no longer relevant? I don't believe so, because I feel that each life is a continuation of the lives that came before, our parents, and a legacy to those that come after, our children. We must live to anticipate each dawn in honor of the past and as a promise to our future, which does not cease at death.

Of the Stones of the Place

I farm a pasture where the boulders lie
As touching as a basketful of eggs,
And though they're nothing anybody begs,
I wonder if it wouldn't signify

For me to send you one out where you live
In wind-soil to a depth of thirty feet,
And every acre good enough to eat,
As fine as flour put through a baker's sieve.

I'd ship a smooth one you could slap and chafe,
And set up like a statue in your yard,
An eolith palladium to guard
The West and keep the old tradition safe.

Carve nothing on it. You can simply say
In self-defense to quizzical inquiry:
"The portrait of the soul of my Gransir Ira.
It came from where he came from anyway."

-Robert Frost


You poetry readers are all familiar with that sensation that a poem was written just for or about you. This one is mine. I'm the "you" in this poem who works in "wind-soil to a depth of thirty feet, and every acre good enough to eat," and I had a "Gransir Ira" who farmed "a pasture where the boulders lie." As for the shipping of an "eolith palladium to guard The West and keep the old tradition safe," Frost did that for us with this poem.

Memorial Stones

A son is best, even if he is born late,
when the father is dead;
seldom do memorial stones stand by the wayside,
unless one kinsman raises them for another.

Havamol 72

This Remembering Business

My dad was president of his senior class, 1947. Below is his "Message to Seniors", published in the "Red and Black," which I assume was a school publication.

Message to Seniors

Grandpa used to tell me about Ernie Hensen. He said that Ernie was the grandest fellow that ever put two feet on this earth. Ernie was a Swede (his folks brought him over when he was just a little tot) with an accent as merry and twinkling as sleigh bells on a winter night. Grandpa said that he and Ernie were always doing something for each other. Ernie would help Gramp into town with a load of chickens or give him some well-water when Grandpa's well went dry in the summer. Or maybe in the fall Grandpa would go over to Ernie's place and help with the butchering or clear a few more trees off the back end of the west pasture. As the years passed, they became great friends. Theirs was not just a passing acquaintance: it was warm, permanent friendship--maybe you could say love.

It was the summer when I was fifteen that Grandpa took me over to Ernie's place and showed me the evergreen (it was a rare species) that he gave as a memorial to Ernie's son who was killed in action in World War II. They had it planted in the front yard, and summer or winter this tree was always fresh and green--a living memorial. Ernie and his family treasured it and took good care of it, too.

Last winter when I heard that Grandpa had died, I thought of that evergreen tree. I thought to myself that here is a tree which is not only a memorial to a war hero but a symbol, a living object which represents a friendship between two old farmers. For this gift between them is like the bond of friendship which tied them together. Like the evergreen, their friendship was something that they both held dear to their hearts, something which was always fresh and growing, which never changed with the season, something that can never fade or fail no matter what may come--even death.

Seniors, we're going out into the world. We're scattering in all directions. We don't have anything like an evergreen to plant that will serve our memory. We have only the memory. Let's plant that in our hearts and never forget the wonderful friends we've had in school and the swell times we've had together. Write to your old friends; send them Christmas cards and wedding announcements, or in any way keep in touch with them. Don't let friends slip off with a casual wave of your hand! This remembering business is one of the finest parts of living.
-President of the Senior Class

"This remembering business in one of the finest parts of living." My dad wrote that almost 62 years ago, yet it's as much a part of his life today as then--probably more so--and he transmitted that respect for memory to me. I don't know how I learned it, except in knowing him. There were a lot of fine things I learned simply by knowing him.

Family Pictures

Autobiography of Rev. J. M. Ragan

I was born in Morgantown, Tennessee, December 17, 1832. My father was a Methodist class leader, and my mother was a Cumberland Presbyterian, having been converted under the preaching of Revs. Aston and Lansden, the first Cumberlands that preached in Monroe County. I was baptized at the age of six weeks, and in after years was well instructed in the design of that ordinance. August, 1847, at the age of fifteen, I was converted at a camp-meeting at Old Concord in Knox County. I had been so well taught the doctrines and polity of both churches that by the time I was twelve years old, I made my choice. After my conversion, it was my father’s wish that I join with my mother. I was pleased to have his approval.

When only nineteen years old, I had impressions to preach. Like many others, from Moses down to the present time, I began to make excuses, but the Lord followed me up, and the impressions grew stronger until I felt I would be responsible for lost souls. Now after sixty years in the ministry, I thank God that I did yield, and my good “sword” shall never be sheathed until called to lay it down to receive the victor’s palm. In 1852, my father having moved to Missouri, I was received as a candidate for the ministry by Platte Presbytery. My circumstances were such that I could not attend Presbytery regularly, so was not licensed until September, 1855.

I made my first effort to preach in April, 1853. Then I was often sent by the old preachers to fill appointments and visit vacant congregations. After I was licensed, I took regular work. I was ordained by the Chillicothe Presbytery over my protest in October, 1863. Have never been without regular work until the last three years, and then only through the winter—not able to go out through the cold weather, being eighty-one years old December 1913. But through the summer I preach almost every Sabbath.

The Lord has done great things for me in leading hundreds of souls to the Savior. And when at last I come to lay at His feet my gathered sheaves, I know there will be much chaff, brambles and bitter weeds, and “though the full ripe ears be sadly few, He will accept not what I did, but what I tried to do.”

Of course, when I started out this was all pioneer country, and the people believed in a free gospel—and that was what they got if they got any—I had a great many severe trials and risks of my life to get to my appointments, or my family, in crossing swollen streams, sometimes swimming my horse. But trusting in the “Rock of my salvation,” I did not falter or grow weary of my Master’s service and to Him be all the glory.

When the Union question came up in the Presbytery, the basis was money and popularity. My conscientious convictions led me to oppose it. All the preachers in Chillicothe Presbytery went except myself. Thank the Lord he does not depend on big crowds to accomplish His work.—“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.” “A tent or a cottage, oh! Why should I care? They’re building a palace for me over there; Tho exiled from home yet still I may sing, All glory to God I’m a child of a King.”

Source: Our Senior Soldiers: The Biographies and Autobiographies of Eighty Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers. 1915 [To make it more readable, corrections and paragraphs added by moi.]

J.M. Ragan is James M. Ragan, my mom’s great- uncle, if you can imagine that. His brother, Elbert, was also a Presbyterian Minister. One of their sisters married the man who was to be my great-great-grandfather. What fascinates me is the thin, precious thread that connects me to J.M. Ragan, that is, my mother’s fading memory of her grandfather, who everyone knew as “Lum.”

Lum was the nephew, you see, of James M. Ragan. As such, when J.M. Ragan speaks of “many severe trials and risks of my life to get to…my family,” it’s to his wife or mother or sister he travels, maybe even among these, his nephew, Lum, whom my mother knew and remembers. Along this thin filament I travel to J.M. Ragan. Once having reached him, he then serves to lead me to his father and mother and their parents before them. Before you know it, I’m in England or Ireland, Holland or Denmark, even to Zurich of Switzerland, where Adam Glattfelder and Verona Segi had a son, Johannes, in 1571, my very great-grandfather.

Although I now present this relatively coherent, family picture, before I found the above autobiography, I possessed only fragments, which I was laboriously piecing together. 1) I had my mother’s memory (fading). 2) I had census records of a Ragan family, which appeared to have originated in Tennessee and migrated to Missouri. 3) I had the maiden name of Lum’s mother, Ragan. With hope and glue, I had put the fragments together, but without any real proof. Yesterday, I found the autobiography and the obituary of my great-great-grandmother (in which the names of her parents, husband and children were all provided), which painted the picture in whole and supported all my conjectures. It was a triumphant day.

Lineage

Ever since I woke from my drug-induced hibernation, I've been working frantically, feverishly, furiously and some other emPHatic, Freaking "F" words on my Family tree. That's about 2--3?--weeks now--I keep track of time only randomly. The best I can say this morning is that it's Autumn.

Those who've done heritage research already know it's dangerously compelling. For those who haven't, let me tell you to clear massive amounts of time for this addictive activity if making the attempt. Like most things, I'm trying to do it on the cheap. I started with a free 14-day trial at Ancestry.com. I think I'm now into the $30 for the first month. I don't have "tree-maker" software other than nimble fingers at the keyboard transmitting to my word processing program.

I look around at my desk(s)--arranged in a functional L-fashion--and realize the research has taken over my studio. There are piles of print outs, scribbled notes with lists of siblings, dates of birth, a county map of Missouri, my calculator to figure ages quickly, my old (and pathetic) family tree book laid out. Among these is a stack of books, Sagas of the Icelanders, Njal's Saga, The Poetic Edda, and I realize I'm the descendant, the inheritor of the spirit of the folk in those books. I know now, most intimately, that I'm not just begat from the northern regions where they lived, but I care about the same thing they cared about, that is, family.

At the beginning of every Norse saga, there's always a genealogy, and usually more throughout the book as the author uses these family trees to define the characters. The sagas, unique as a literary form, shun dramatic exposition. They are about action, physical description, poetry and terse judgements like "All of his sons were accomplished men," and "...he defended himself so valiantly that he did not give way under their attack at all." But...the people of that time, familiar with heroes of these sagas could picture the character of a person if given their family tree.

To the modern reader, these genealogies seem dry. However, I'm familiar with worse from reading medieval literature, and as I became more knowledgable with saga figures, I began to appreciate these litanies of ancestral lines. In fact, I now eagerly search them for familiar names, piecing together the people in this saga with those from another.

From Bolli Bollason's Tale (trans. Keneva Kunz), here's an example of this style of introducing the relationships (characters) in a story.

"At the same time as Bolli Bollason lived at Tunga, as was spoken of earlier, a man called Arnor Crone's-nose, the son of Bjarni Thordarson of Hofdi, lived on the farm Miklabaer in Skagafjord.

Another man, named Thord, lived with his wife Gudrun at Marbaeli. They were fine, upstanding farmers with wealth in plenty. Their son Olaf was still a boy at the time and a most promising young man. Gudrun, Thord's wife, was a near relative of Bolli Bollason, as her mother was his aunt. Gudrun's son Olaf was named after Olaf Peacock of Hjardarholt.

At Hof in Hjaltadal lived Thord and Thorvald Hjaltason, two prominent leaders.

A man called Thorolf Stuck-up lived at Thufur. He had an unfriendly nature and was often uncontrollable when angry. He owned a very aggressive grey bull. Thord of Marbaeli had sailed on merchant voyages with Arnor. Thorolf Stuck-up was married to a kinswoman of Arnor's and was one of the thingmen of the Hjaltasons. He was on hostile terms with his neighbours and was used to making trouble, of which the people of Marbaeli bore the brunt...."

Notice the phrase "as was spoken of earlier." There is no earlier in this saga; those are the first four paragraphs. The author is, therefore, referring to another story when "Bolli Bollason lived at Tunga," thus reminding his listeners/readers of the events and people in a previous tale.

Now, what I was saying...I realize, though over a millenium separates me by birth, I AM these people. Not only do I care to know these ancient lineages in order to understand the story, I'm just as fascinated by my modern family relationships. And I'm not the only one, but one of a kindred, and my "folk" have not, in over that millenium and more, not much changed their style of sharing the information. Compare this letter written by a relative of mine (a family treasure, by the way) to the saga example above.

"Then next came Wesley and all I know about him (don't remember ever seeing him) is that my dad said he and Grandpa D. (Henry) never got along too well; they both had "Ditzenberger tempers" and often had regular fist fights, so when he got old enough he left home and eventually settled in Oklahoma and there he married a part-Indian girl by the name of Captolia and they had one daughter named Myrtle, who used to visit Grandpa and Grandma Ditzenberger every few years--she was a pretty blonde with real curly hair, so she must have taken after Uncle John, my grandfather, and Uncle Bert as far as her curly hair was concerned but she was wild as an Indian and Grandma couldn't handle her and I think she sent her home to her mother one time after a short stay. As I recall what Dad said, Uncle Wesley had died and her mother, Captolia, didn't have much control over her...."

That was written by a woman with the surname of Stonebreaker more than twenty years ago. Lineage, action, physical description, these were her stock in trade, same as the saga writers. The pretty blonde, daughter of a part-Indian girl and the son of a German immigrant named Ditzenberger, the girl no one could handle, was my grandmother (Granner), who died in 1992. From her I inherited my height and my cheekbones. Maybe I inherited other things as well, but I'll leave the character traits to the judgement of others.