A Lesson in Family History Chapter 2

My work day couldn’t end soon enough. Oh, it was a beautiful day. The clouds had rolled away; the sun was shining down on the capital building, just beautiful. But if I had to smell one more ounce of fish, I was going to go crazy. I was in Jefferson City for some meetings and our annual Capitol Hill fish fry. Every year the Electric Cooperatives from around the state throw this big fish fry for the legislators in Jeff City and I had just about my fill of the smell of fried fish and hushpuppies.

My day was finally over and I darted down the Capitol steps, in a rush to get back to work on my family history. I was hoping beyond measure that they would be able to link up with one of the genealogy websites and help me find the answers I had been trying to find.

Finally, my truck was in site. I was also in a hurry because I knew I had been at the Capitol building longer than an hour and the meter had run out. I jumped inside, started the truck and took off. Wait. What’s that smell? Oh my gosh, it’s me! I smell like fish! I couldn’t believe it. Here I was heading back to the State Archives and I smell like I just walked off the set of the Discovery Channels, Deadliest catch. Don’t panic, just dig the cologne out of the bag and a few sprays should do the trick. Nope! Now I smell like a… eewww, I just realized that is probably a really bad comparison, so let’s just move on. (I’ll let you figure it out on your own.)

Back to the archives I go, right to the front desk and the woman who can help me is sitting there waiting for me. I gave her the only information I knew. My grandfather’s and grandmother’s name, what county they grew up in and about when they were born. She began to search and I saw something I had already seen many times before. “There are 0 results for your search.” Now I am beyond dejected and frustrated. To be honest, the words simply can’t describe the feeling I was having at that moment. I had told my wife Mindy at one point; it was as if they just came into existence.

While the woman tried different searches she received a phone call. Long story short, she needed privacy, so headed back into the Archives room to look at books and do some more searching. She promised me as soon as she was off the phone she would look some more, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

About 15 minutes had passed and I was sitting at a computer, sifting through different state and county records, looking for any kind of information about my grandparents. Suddenly, the woman who occupied the front desk approached me with papers in hand and she said “I found them!” Now I have been told that my face tells exactly what I am thinking. That if I were to play poker, I would lose. I wish I could have seen my face at that very moment, because my inside was just going crazy. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating as I gasped at her revelation. Her voice was ringing over and over in my head. “I found them!” No three words had ever sounded so sweet and wonderful before. She began to lay out the case, that the people she found were indeed my grandparents.

First up was their marriage certificate. Well, a copy of it anyway, that she found on her search. I looked down and there they were the two names I had been searching for the past few weeks. Williams Jennings Brian Cantrell and Audrey Ethel McDonald.

Just a side note, I don’t think I have mentioned this, but I never knew my grandmother. She died before I was born. All I have of her are a few pictures and a few stories that my mother and father have told me about her. I have only one memory of my grandfather, which is of us visiting him in the nursing home. He died when I was very young. So this isn’t just a search that I am doing for my father, it is one I am doing for myself as well. I want to know more about where I come from and who they were.

So, there they were right before my eyes, but it wasn’t over yet. She found more. My grandfather was born in 1899, so she looked at the 1900 census and found him and the rest of his family. Ok, I don’t mind admitting, I got a little emotional at this point. Because she was about to reveal to me something I never knew and I know that my father did not as well, the names of his grandparents. William T. Cantrell was my great grandfather, a farmer in Oregon County. His wife was Jemima Cantrell. Wait, what? Jemima? I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too. Turns out, Jemima was a very common name back in my great Grandparents day.

So I sat in astonishment as she laid it all out for me. I was listening to every word, but all I could think about was hurrying back to Sikeston and showing my dad what I had found. I wanted him to feel what I was feeling at this very moment.

Suddenly the woman stopped talking. I looked up at her and she had this big smile on her face as she held this one piece of paper close to her chest, like, “I have a surprise for you.” And she did. The last piece of paper she had for me was the marriage license for my great grandparents and it held another piece of the puzzle.

Back in the their day, there was a law that basically said if the groom is under the age of 21 or the bride under the age of 18, the guardian or parent had to sign for the underage future wife or husband. Well, it just so happens, that my great grandmother was one year older than my great Grandfather. He was under the age of 21, so my great-great grandfather had to sign the marriage license! There he was, giving permission, J. A. Cantrell. Of course I have no idea what the J or the A stand for, but who cares at this point. I have more information about my past than I ever had before.

The day was getting better and better. But wait, that’s weird. I wonder what that means. While the woman from the Archives printed a few things for me, I continued my search and found my grandmother in a 1910 census, but something isn’t right. What does this mean? Dad never mentioned this before. Remember, last time I mentioned that you never know what you’re going to find when you begin a search like this one? Well, I quite possibly stumbled across something that was not previously known. Now my eagerness to tell my father what I had found has now turned into an eagerness to find out more about the woman I never met.

I couldn’t wait to get back to Sikeston.

A Lesson in Family History Chapter 1

A few weeks ago I began a journey into the past. You see, my father knows very little about his family history. He has some recollection of a few aunts and uncles, but it pretty much stops there. No idea who is grandparents were or where they came from or where their parents came from and so on. So I decided I didn’t want to go the rest of my life wondering the same thing. I began to look at my family’s history.

Now this is exciting in one sense and a little scary in another. It would be great to unveil some past family member who made a huge contribution to the country or the world. However, there is always a skeleton or two in the closet of every family.

So my search began, where else, but online. All I knew was that my grandparents grew up around Thayer, Missouri, which is in Oregon County on the south side of the state. So I first searched for any type of census information, birth or death certificates, by typing certain info into Google. Now Google is great, because it gives you all of these different websites that are there to “help” you find your family history. As you search however, you will notice that their goal is not so much to “help” you as it is to “help” themselves to your bank account.

Now I want you to understand, that I do not feel like the government should be an open book and we should know every single move the government makes. However, I do feel some info should be readily accessible. One piece of info that should be are the census reports. I do not quite understand why a piece of information gathered by the government to help the government is given to companies who sell you the opportunity to view such info. Should this not be covered under the Freedom of Information Act? I guess they feel you have the freedom to pay to look at it or not.

So I was running into road blocks, because every site I came to wanted me to pay to view their information. So now what? Pay for it or is there another way? Enter the NBC show “Who do you think you are?” This show follows celebrities who are looking for information about their past. While watching a particular episode recently, I discovered a new possible source of information, the State Archives! Why didn’t I think about this before? So off I went on the internet to find out more about our State Archives.

The website is wonderful and full of information. For instance, did you know there was a war in the state of Missouri? Just in Missouri. It was called the Mormon War. Yep, the Mormon War. It was a conflict that didn’t end until Kit Bond was Governor. Look it up, I promise, I am not lying. Anyhow, I digress. The website allows you to search birth records, death certificates, military records and other tidbits of information about Missouri and its residents.

I was so excited to finally find this little gem of information. So, the search began and it continued for several days resulting in no information. Oh sure, I found plenty of Cantrell’s, but none that I could link to my family. I became highly frustrated with everything. I even questioned what little information my father had about his past. Could he be wrong? Could my grandparents have been from a different state? Maybe they came from Oregon state and not Oregon county. I was sinking fast into a funk I didn’t want to be anywhere near. I wanted to find out something. Even just names would have been great. But all I ever received was this message, “There are 0 results for your search.”

So I am feeling bummed out when I realize that within days I have to take a business trip to Jefferson City. While I am there, I will have time to spare and I will stop by the State Archives building and see what I can find out. After all, not all the information about the state and its people are on the website.
So the day came recently, when I found myself in Jefferson City for meetings with time to spare. I drove to the building which houses the Archives, which is the Secretary’s of State building. It’s very nice and modern. It can’t be too old. It sits just north of the Capital building on the Missouri River, right next to the railroad tracks.

I walk into the building and find the State’s Archive, which is on the main floor, less than 20 feet away from the front doors. I begin to walk in when I am stopped by a woman at a half moon desk, which sits out front. She asks me if I need anything and I told her I was just there to do some family research. She smiled, asked me to sign in and then escorted me around the archives.

Once my personal tour was over I went right to work. I knew where my grandparents were from, so I thought I would look for some type of birth certificate for the two. I got nothing. I looked for marriage certificates. I got nothing. I began to look at different county books and directories, trying to work myself backwards and everything turns out empty. I had basically become so frustrated with this whole process, that I was ready to give up.

It was close to noon and I needed to go to my meeting. I spoke with another woman who works at the archives and thanked her for all of her help. When she asked how it had gone, I just unloaded my high level of frustration. She just nodded her head and gave me this sincere look, as if she had heard it all before. She asked how long I would be in Jeff City and I said I am leaving today. She mentioned they have subscriptions to websites that allow people to search census records and much more. So I told her I would be back after my meetings! I was so excited. Maybe this will help lead me down the road to my families past.