WWI Our Boys Join

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WWI Our Boys Join

The Hames brothers Winter's Baker, Thomas Lafayette, William Edward, John Freeman and Leo Bates all got their draft notice from Uncle Sam. Winters Baker, Thomas Lafayette and John Freeman all joined the Army and served overseas in France.  The other two brothers did not actively serve, but were involved on the home front. 

This war, grew to such a proportion, it caused world wide attention and loss.  So many countries got involved in small and large ways. Europe, which was already hurting, was even more decimated in the fighting.  When Germany tried to get Mexico involved in a pact, the United States of America got involved.  It was this call for service that drew the Hames family into the fray.

John Freeman, my grandfather, told story after story of his adventures.  I realize now that he tempered every story to be fit for little girls to hear.  He told stories of his service to his Colonel. He drove the motorcycle with the side car transporting the Colonel back and forth to the battlefields and temporary headquarters.  He did not tell us the details about the battles he saw, the lives lost and the men he knew who perished.  The only way we know of his loss was the sadness in his eyes when he told of those boys lost in battle.

Were they proud of their service?  Did they regret going? I never heard either Thomas [Uncle Tom to us] or John Freeman [Pop to us] say anything other than their pride in being able to serve their country.  Uncle Winters Baker died before I got to know him.  He did leave photos and memories of his service for his family to peruse.

We their descendants are proud of their sacrifices.  The willingness to put others first, to step up to the needs of a nation and be willing to give all. How can we be anything else but honored to have them in our family.

 

The England-to-America Harrison Mix-ups

We have one of those England to America Harrison families.  They seem to name their children the same also. You know those John, Thomas, Isaiah, Samuel kind of names.

My line immigrated to the Virginia colonies in 1636-1640 time frame.  We find him in the Ancestry U.S. and Canada Passenger and Immigration lists index.  His children were there and later my line migrated to North Carolina then Mississippi, Arkansas and Florida.

There is also another Harrison line who migrated at the same time. They came to New England and made an oath of allegiance in New Haven, Connecticut in 1644. The son that keeps getting mixed up with my line is a Thomas Harrison born in Chester, England about 1630 and died in Banford, Connecticut in 1704.  His line stayed there for several generations.
Ancestry  link to the "Five Generations to the Connecticut Harrisons".

My line is:

• Thomas Harrison born 1619 in Chester, Cheshire, England
• Migrated to America 1636-1640 to the Virginia colonies 
• He is a Reverend who was in Jamestown, Virginia about 1640. 
• He was a minister of Elizabeth River parish. 
• He served as chaplain of the early Jamestown Colony during the first part of Governor Berkeley's first term (1645-1652).
• He was at first anti Puritan Calvinist, then turned Pilgrim himself.
• He had some issues with the whole way of ministering, so in 1648, abandoned his ministry and the church and moved from Virginia to New England.
• He married first wife Dorothy Symonds 1648-49.
• In 1649 he and his family returned to England to pastor  a non-conformist church in London.
• He ended up in Ireland and ministered there.
• After his first wife died, he married 2nd, Katherine Bradshaw.
• He died there in 1682.
• Our line is from his son Isaiah Harrison born about 1666 in Chester, England.
• Isaiah migrated to America just before 1687, as he is recorded in the Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, book "B" ancient town book. 
• (Hood, Dellman, The Tunis Hood Family; pp 453-455)
• (Harrison, J. Houston, Settlers by the Long Grey Trail; Chapter VIII, p. 120)

The two Harrison families seem to get mixed up often on Ancestry due to the names.

It took a while to search out the true path of our line.  When I saw trees saying Rev. Thomas Harrison died in Ireland, I was sure that could not be so.  After reading the text mentioned above with the explanations, it made sense.  I had forgotten that genealogy is a tree with many twisted branches.

For my own documentation, I am satisfied for now with the explanations and the careful research both Dellman Hood and J. Houston Harrison have done. When more information is discovered, this may very well change.

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We're Related App Findings Part 1

John Thomas Hames (right) with two cousins, circa 1880

Ancestry's We're Related App 

Is it a game to draw new genealogy hunters, 

or can it really answer some of those blocked walls?

We're Related App

Ancestry.com

It works on your cell phone or tablet only.  You can download for any device.  It is free.

You do have to have a family tree of some type uploaded to Ancestry.com for it to work, but you can also upload a tree for free too.  If you don't have a genealogy database program on your computer, like Family Tree Maker, Legacy, Herodis or other type, you can still make a tree for free from Ancestry's online database.

I have an extensive tree with over 40,000 individuals so figured I would at least find one match!  I also have one of the biggest requirements for the most hits, deep roots in New England and Virginia.  Because so many of our founding fathers lived in those two areas in the 1600-1700's, a lot of them intermarried.  Three of my main lines were in New England and Virginia in the 1600's.  The other main line came in the late 1700's.  This is why I have had so many connections to so many of the "famous" people found in the app.

So far I am related to the following people:

George Herbert Walker Bush--1/2 9th cousins We are from the first husband, he the second. Barker Line

Kurt Cobain-8th cousin 2x removed-Turner Line

Benedict Cumberbach-9th cousin 1 removed-Kneeland Line

Dakota Fanning-8th cousin 2x removed-Webb Line

Walt Disney-1/2 2nd cousin 2x removed-Whitney Line

Thomas Edison-1/2 7th cousin 2x removed-Freeman Line

Benjamin Franklin-2nd cousin 9x removed-Gibbs Line

Bill Gates-8th cousin 1x removed-Billings Line

Helen Keller-7th cousin 1x removed-Faunce Line

John Kerry-9th cousin-Cushman Line

Demi Lovato-8th cousin 1x removed-Frizzell Line

Abraham Lincoln-3rd cousin 5x removed-Harrison Line

Willie Nelson-7th cousin 1x removed-Mosely Line

Sarah Palin-8th cousin 1x removed-Gilbert Line

Elvis Presley-6th cousin 1x removed-Harrison Line

Zachary Taylor-5th cousin 5x removed-Allerton Line and Brewster Line (Pilgrims)

Henry David Thoreau-6th cousin 5x removed-Warren Line

William Rockafeller-7th cousin 3x removed-Harrison Line

Lucy Ware Webb Hayes-4th cousin 5x removed-Sanford Line

As you can see, highlighted in red, three of these people come from the same line.  Isaiah Harrison, Virginia in the colonial times.

By really digging into all sorts of data, books, vital records and also checking out family trees, Wickipedia and other historical websites, I am satisfied with the data.  I did not just say, "How cool, I am related to...!"  I actually took the time to research the app's files against my own many years of work, and then started checking out other sources.  Though these may not all be totally correct, they are close enough to satisfy me for now.  I am revisiting some of the data as new information arises just like I would do for any type or research.

So, the question was, is it just a game or gambit to draw new people to the world of genealogy?  Only if you just take everything as truth without research it could look that way.  I have found it to be a new doorway to other sources, names and places I have never seen even though my own work started in the mid-1980's.  It has opened some real blocked family lines, allowed me to connect with three genealogy buddies as cousins (I did not include their names here) and has made me dig deeper for more clues to the puzzle of our ancestors.