Surname LIst

1. Bradford  - my Paternal line through my father and Paternal grandfather - pretty much a dead end now.

Foster - my Paternal grandfather's Maternal line (Clara Mae Foster married Glen James Bradford)

Long - my Paternal grandfather's Maternal grandfather's line - from Germany (Martha Long married J M Foster)

James - (Caroline James married Meriweather Foster and were grandparents to J M Foster)

3. Graham - my Paternal grandmother's Paternal line - my great great grandfather was raised by his step-father looking for info on his birth father - first name unknown surname Graham.

Rice - my Patneral grandmother's Maternal line (Emma Irene Rice married Harper Harlis Graham)

Blankenbeckler - (Electa Virgina Blankenbeckler married William Jackson Rice - parents of Emma I Rice)

4. McKinsey - my Maternal line through my mother and Maternal grandfather - Who is Charles William McKinsey / MacKenzie / Mckenzie 's parents?

Carney - Paternal line of my Paternal granfather's mother (Mary (Carney) McKinsey)

Dunlap - (Althea Winnie Dunlap married John L McKinsey.) Winnie was in a mental hospital according to my mother and her mother(Winnie's granddaughter-in-law) as was Winnie's son Lemmie and Winnie's mother Susan. Knowing why would be why or anything that would lead to the answers I seek.

5. Culepper - my Maternal line through my mother and my Maternal grandmother

Heath - (Erma Lee Heath married John Hudson Culpepper)

Mayo - (Sarah "Sallie" Mayo married Lee Heath - grandparents of Erma L Heath)

I would like to know more about the German Long family like where in Germany they were from.

I would like to know who Lee Heath's parents were (I do have a led but a peek at his death certificate would help confirm or rule it out).

Mostly I'd like to find more on McKinsey family for myself and for my mother. The family story my great uncle told me last year was that his grandfather John L McKinsey who my great uncle said he'd only met once. John had told his grandson that the McKinsey family had come to American from Ireland on a potato boat. As John is dead and the McKinsey (and Culpepper) family does not share information as freely as the Graham and Bradford families do I do not know when or if I will get more information from my still living relatives on this matter. I have considered asking for DNA samples but they are bit expensive at this time for me and I doubt the part of the family samples would be most useful from would like to help out much.

I was lucky that the Culpeppers are recorded on a website which informed me that my Culpeppers are only Culpeppers because a step-son took his step-father's surname due to being raised by him from infancy/very young age.

It never ends.

There are many more surnames I could add to this list as I have over a thousand people in my tree but these surnames are the most important and soem related ones of some interest to me.

If you have these surnames and want to know if we're related leave a comment.

Surnames - FOSTER decendants of James Lafayette Foster and the James family who were sure they were Choctaw

Here is another of the Surnames I'm researching:

I was told that my great great great grandfather James Lafayette Foster ran away from home at age 14 because he didn't get along with his stepfather. This story is published in a certain book about the history of Missouri also with a picture of James' mother who I was told was 'Rose' Prewett and maybe half or full Indian of tribe unknown.

I have found out parts of this story are true and parts are untrue.

James Lafayette Foster was the son of Meriweather Foster and Caroline (James) Foster and while James seems to have left his home in Tennessee at gone to Missouri it was not at age 14 or because of a disliked step-father. James's father was still alive when James was said to have left home in 1863. Mel Foster didn't die until 1868. Caroline did not remarry until 1881 at which time James L Foster had long since moved to Missouri married and had kids.

I can't say why James L. Foster moved to Missouri though I can say he was older than 14, older than 18 even and likely had moved for the same reasons many young men did at the time. His older brother was a farmer and taking care of their mother and younger siblings so it is possible that James felt he didn't have to stay in Tennessee while big brother was taking care of things after their father's passing.

I can't say if James liked his step-father Duncan James Davis or not, nor do I know if they ever met each other. I also haven't found the news article about James that his mother was said to have seen while living in Oklahoma(when James was in Missouri) and let to a mother and estranged son reuniting.

Sure if things had happened that way it would make a better story, but the facts don't match the story.

Then again the facts don't tell all the details either.

What is know is that

Meriweather Lafayette "Mel" Foster married Mary Caroline James
29 December 1847 in Dekalb County Tennessee.

They had 9 children together:

1. Lloyd Price Foster b. about 1849

2. James Lafayette Foster b. 1 September 1853

3. Mary Caroline Foster b. about 1854

4. Andrew Jackson Foster b. about 1856

5. Louisa Tennessee "Doc" (Foster) Burk b. about 1859

6. California Belle "Callie" (Foster) Morrow b. 1861

7. David Edward Foster b. 1864

8. Meriweather Shields Foster b. 1866

9. Elevey Puritimey "Tema" Foster b. about 1869
(It seems that Caroline was pregnant when her husband Mel died.)

Caroline was thought to be named Rose which was not true and at one point was mixed up with another woman with the maiden name of PREWETT (who is also a relative of mine).

Caroline's maiden name JAMES was given on the death certificate of her son James L. Foster, as was the first name of his father though the father's name was very hard to read.

Nothing suggests that Caroline (James) Foster was Native American/Indian nor did she claim to be full blooded or half Indian. Though she, along with her brother Enoch and two of her daughters(Callie and Tema) and some of Enoch's kids, did all try to apply for recognition as Choctaw in 1900. As they had been told that their(Caroline and Enoch's) grandfather Daniel James was half Choctaw though Enoch and Caroline did not agree how much Choctaw Daniel was, or how he was related to them, or how much Choctaw it would make them.

Caroline claimed to be 1/4 Choctaw through Daniel. Enoch her younger brother(they shared the same parents and grandparents) claimed to be 1/16 through Daniel and of the two he had slightly more 'proof'. Well neither had any solid proof of their claims. The best they had was a very old aunt who testified that her father looked Indian as did her older half brothers, all having black hair, and that her father used to hunt with the Indians. None of the James family had any documentation to back up their story in 1900 nor had they heard of any of the laws or treaties between the tribes and the U.S. They had been told that Daniel James and his sons were in the Dawes rolls but had never looked to confirm it.

I looked to the best I could and did not find one person with the surname James in the rolls. However Caroline and her parents all appear Indian looking to my white (and partly German) eyes. I am not dismissing the idea that there could be some Native American ancestor in that part of the family, but I doubt they had the last name James or that such a relation could be proven at this late date.

If I am mistaken the their is a James family in the Dawes rolls I would not mind being corrected on this matter.

*(I have since found a few people in the rolls with the surname JAMES but still can't find a connection to the my JAMES family.)

Surnames - BRADFORD, the decendants of Samuel Bradford of Snowhill Maryland

BRADFORD (of the Bradford Descendants book Bradfords) this is my paternal line through my father and his father. I have a lot on this line already but if anyone can break the brick wall of who Samuel Bradford aka Sam Braford's parents were or which of the three Fitzgerald girls he first married it would be very nice to know. So far it seems from DNA testing that the Bradford line I am a part of is of Scots-Irish origin and not English as was long believed to be the case nor as we related to William Bradford of the Mayflower.
What is known is that Sam Braford was living in Snowhill Maryland with his family before 1776 (his second son Adam was two when Paul Revere made his famous ride).

Sam's sons Peter and Adam left Maryland and went west, stopping in Kentucky where Peter or maybe both together gave their name to Bradfordville on account of the lumber mill that they build there upon which the town later grew from. Peter and Adam parted with the elder later dying in Pennsylvania and the younger, Adam taking his family to Missouri where he also breathed his last. Adam's son Isaac Neely Bradford was likely born in Bradfordville but was raised in Missouri. There Isaac had a large house which still stands to this day.

It is not clear how many slaves Adam owned and sources differ on if his father Sam owned slaves or not, but it is a very clear that Isaac owned thirteen slaves if not more.

According to one of Isaac's former slaves, a man he had owned since infancy, it was said by this old man that his former masters were good people. Now one could say that the man was biased which would be true, and one could say that he knew no other life than slavery for so long that he might not be correct in saying his former masters were good people. This may be, but there are many accounts of former slaves saying good about their former masters and many where they even if born into slavery have said terrible things about their position in live and those that owned them.

What is clear to me is that there were people that owned other people as slaves and treated them well for the times they lived in and those that treated them badly. What little that has been said about Isaac Neely Bradford on this topic is that he was by at least one of his former slaves counted as one of the good sort of people that had owned slaves.

I am not proud that my great great great grandfather and those before him owned slaves nor am I ashamed of it.

I [i]am[/i] proud of Isaac N Bradford for building a very nice school (long since burned down) and importing teachers from the east so that his children and his neighbor's children would have a good school to attend.

Wake up! What the older generation doesn't tell the younger generation wont be passed on to the next generation

A large part of my paternal line was research by my distant cousins years before I was ever born and some fair chunk of my maternal line was researched to a lesser degree by an older cousin as well so I had a lot less work to do over all when I go around to researching my family tree. Then my paternal grandmother showed me stuff a distand cousin of hers had sent about part of the family (sadly that stuff is mostly lost now but I found an online copy of the book said cousin had photo copied from this last year so that was a great relief).

(Edit: I was given my uncle's copy but I still have no idea what became of my grandmother's copy.)

However some things weren't researched for me and much of my family's history wasn't passed down for whatever reason. Now my paternal grandmother was the one that told me stories about her childhood in Oklahoma and about my dad's childhood here in California and bits about her parents and her in-laws.
I did not think to ask my paternal grandfather about his family because I could just ask my grandmother. I regret not asking more now that both are passed away. I only have one grandparent left and she's from the side of the family (maternal side) that seems to have a bad habit of not asking questions or telling stories about past relations. Lots of brick walls on that side I tell you.

Most of my lines I have done work on or have worked on from others don't go back to other countries except in two or three cases. In one case the famous Hostetlers who descended from Swiss immigrants though I don't know where in Switzerland they were from and likely never will know as it was so long ago.

Edit: know where in Austria the Hostetler's were from.

Then there are the Blankenbecklers from my Paternal grandmother's side who if you go far enough back probably came from Germany long before it was Germany and almost before the USA was the USA.

Edit: Know know the place down to the very farm that still shares the Blankenbeckler name(though it's not spelled or likely pronounced as Blankenbeckler).

The most recent immigrants in the family (not counting my sister's mother-in-law) are the Long family.


Now happily for me (John Fredrick) "Dutch" Long's photo hung in my paternal grandparent's family room since before 1984 and I was familiar with the photo growing up and spending nearly every day across the street at Grandma Helen and Grandpa's house. Now by the time I got around to asking questions I should have asked much sooner I think my grandfather had half forgotten who the man in the photo was as when I did ask he said he was 'Oddball Long'. Much research and agonizing over it for years later I know much more about the man.

He I am told, was called Dutch by some and spoken no English aside from some four letter words. (census says he spoke English so that's wrong). His given name was Johan Friederich Long and he, his wife Mary and their first five two children were all born in Germany.

I've piece together from census records and death certificates a few things about the German Longs:

John Freiderich went by Fred more than not.

He was born in 1824 in somewhere which is now Germany(maybe). He gave Germany as his birthplace from 1880 onward on the census though I don't know where in Germany he was from.

His wife was Cathrine Mary Shultz and she went by Mary.

They had five children before they immigrated and infant mortality was high in their family.

Here are the five born in Germany:

Dates are estimated when not known

1. Friederich Long
b. Germany 1860s
d. Germany 1860s

2.  Mary (Long) Gada(unsure of spelling for her married name)
b. Germany 14 August 1865

3.  Augest Long
b. Germany 1860s
d. Germany 1860s

4. Unknown daughter
b. Germany 1860s
d. Germany 1860s

5. Armina "Minnie" (Long) Graham
b. Germany 20 September 1871

Fred and Mary Long immigrated from Germany to Missouri, USA with daughters Mary and Armina in 1873. An alternate date for their immigration is 1885, but Armina was listed with her parents in 1880 making it impossible for her to have immigrated in 1885 when she was already living in Missouri at the time.

Children born after they settled in Misouri:

6. Emma (Long) Hollow
b. 7 November 1874 Missouri
d. 25 May 1906 Missouri

7. John Henry Long
b. 30 July 1877 Missouri
d. 19 April 1957 Missouri

8. Martha Rose (Long) Foster
b. December 1878 Missouri
d. 20 March 1935 Missouri

9. Charles William Long
b. 1883? Missouri
d. 1883? Missouri

It is said that Charles William Long died shortly after he was born and that his mother Mary died around the same time.

It is not known if this is true, but Mary Long did die after 1880 and before 1900. She only appears in one census with the family and every other census records John Friederich Long as a widower who never remarried.

I have a copy of Fred Long's death certificate but like is too often the case it had 'don't know' in the blanks where his parents names would go. Thankfully a death certificate of his daughter Martha Rose doesn't have blanks for her parents as that is the only place so far I've found that gives a maiden name for Fred's wife Mary.

Sadly the death records online for Missouri do not before back before 1910 so I can't look up Mary (Shultz) Long's death certificate very easily or her daughter Emma (Long) Holloway died 1906.

I found John Henry Long's death certificate today. His wife was the informant it seems and she gave Elizabeth Gaiety as the name of her husband's mother. John's brother-in-law James Monroe Foster had given Mary Shultz as his wife Martha's mother on her death certificate.

Martha (Long) Foster was younger than her brother John Henry Long and in 1880 their parents are given as Fred and Mary Long when John was about 3 years old. His parents immiraged in 1873 and thus do not show up in the 1870 census and Mary Long died about 1883 or before 1900 and does not show up with the family in the later censuses. In none of the censuses from 1900 - 1920 is John's father Fred ever listed with another wife or as married. It find it hard to believe that John is not Mary (Shultz) Long's son. It is likely that the name Elizabeth Gaiety was a mistake on the part of John's wife. It is possible that John's father remarried between 1920 and his death in 1926 but nothing has been found to suggest that this was so.

Stories and Facts are not the same even when they match

I had been told by Grandma Helen (my father's mother) that Everett Foster died by choking on a piece of corn when he was five years old. I always thought the story was a bit silly and strange. 'How do you choke on a piece of corn?' But I never doubted the story's truthfulness.

According to my grandmother, her mother-in-law's brother Everett died choking on a piece of corn.

The story as I recall being told it:

'The kids were shucking corn for dinner and I guess he (Everett) was eating it. I guess he got a piece in his mouth and he must of been chewing on it and it slipped down his throat and he started choking. His mother grabbed him and ran with him outside and carried him to where her husband and the men were working but by the time she got to him (her husband) he (the child) was already dead.'

Everett was the second son of James Monroe Foster and his wife Martha Rose (Long) Foster.

The corn choking event happened November 4, 1912  in Missouri.
I always imagined it as Summer when it happened because I associated corn with Summer time. The date above makes it clear that it was not Summer time.

The thing about Missouri, unlike Oklahoma and Arkansas, is that Missouri has a good chunk of death certificates freely searchable and find-able online. So I was able to find many death certificates for many relatives that lived in Missouri (my paternal grandfather was born there and most of his male line lived there at one time or another since the 1800s). I will share more on that in a later post, for now I'll try to focus on Everett.

Now Everett Foster is much like Glen Curtis Graham another boy who died at age 5 in the last few past generations of my family. Curtis was my paternal grandmother's older brother and I have roughly ten different photos of him which were duplicated many times over and one was made into a calendar even.

Everett has no photos aside from one from a book that when I tried to copy it it came out all smudged and unidentifiable.

Everett was the second son of James and Martha Foster, Clara my great grandmother was their first born and about 9 when her little brother Everett died. Everett's death at age 5 as well as Curtis's at the same age have been repeated over and over to me by my late grandmother, the main difference between the two is that I know how Everett died, but not how Curtis died.

A few days ago I found a copy of Everett's death Certificate and reading it made the story I'd been told so often sound far worse than it had before. I suppose Asphyxiation from a corn kernel lodged in the trachea sounds worse to read then hearing 'he choked on a piece of corn' from your sweet old grandma.

So here are the facts of Everett's short life:

Everett Monroe Foster was born 18th day of October in the year of 1907 in Waynesville, Pulaski County, Missouri, USA.

He was the third child and second son of James Monroe Foster and wife Martha Rose (Long) Foster.

In addition to his parents Everett was welcomed into the world by big sister Clara Mae age 5 and big brother Fredrick Lafayette age 2. And by grandparents  J. L. and  Mattie Foster and grandfather Fred Long(a German immigrant). Along with many uncles, aunts and cousins.

In 1909 Everett became a big brother when Flood Floyd Edward Foster was born.

From his death certificate:

Everett Monroe Foster

Male, White, Single,

Age: 5 years 0 months 17 days

Born 18 October 1907

Last seen alive 4 November 1912

Died 4 November 1912 at 3:00 PM

 Cause of death:  asphyxiation caused by grain of corn lodging in the trachea.

Duration: about 10 minutes

Place of burial:  Friendship Cemetery
in Bloodland, Pulaski County, Missouri

Date of burial: Nov. 5 1912

Father: Jas. Monroe Foster

Mother: Martha Rosa Long

Informant J. M. Foster

It's odd that I know more about Everett then Curtis when Curtis died more recently(1934) and I have many photos of him sitting in a bag. Now if Curtis hadn't died in Oklahoma I may have been able to find his death certificate too by now and see if his death was similar to Everett's or not.
(Edit: I have since found Curtis' death certificate and his cause of death was not similar to Everett's).

Oklahoma How I Love and Hate Thee

I have never been to Oklahoma and I'm sure that the version of it that exists in my mind is very inaccurate. The Oklahoma in my mind is not a real place or even a current place. It's a mix of what was and what may have been filtered through the imagination of a girl from California.

On one hand I love Oklahoma and on the other I don't.

Oklahoma to me is a romantic arid far away land where a skinny man worked a two man job out in the oil fields from mid 1920 something to 1940 something before he moved to California. It's where this same man, Harper was born along with his 11 little brothers and sisters. Where their parents Greeley and Amanda married in 1901 when it was still called Indian Territory. It is where Harper married his first wife, a marriage that was shortly annulled, though they had a daughter together. It is also where he married his second wife Emma and where their 6 kids were born. Their first born Jerald William died around the age of two and the greatly photographed Curtis, their second son, followed him shortly after his sister Helen(my grandmother) was born. Curtis was 5 when he died and how he died is not known to me at the time of writing this. This is the place where many with the Surname Graham are buried, lived and died. The land of my paternal grandmother's childhood. A land of oil fields and farms with ring swallowing chickens and little brothers that chase you with bugs -  and they were the side of the family that took the most photos back in the day.

Oklahoma is also one of the states, like Arkansas, which doesn't have a online database of death certificates and other vital records for me and other like minded people to sort through and figure out who the parents of Greeley R Graham were or what was the cause of death for 5 year old Great Uncle Glen Curtis Graham, Greeley's grandson.

Someday I may visit Oklahoma and Arkansas and Missouri and Maryland and Virginia and maybe even Germany and Switzerland Austria, but then again I may not. I love the native lands or native states as it may be of my ancestors but they do not all like to share their secrets from the past with me without a high fee.