vintagesusie & wings: Genealogy Love

My Civil War & Paper Dolls Too!

Union Woman

Good Morning Friends...Happy Thursday!

There's nothing really special about a Thursday, but it's as good as

any other day when it comes to finding your JOY...right! ;)

I have always been a HUGE history buff...I truly LOVE history, with

American history being top on my list. I also love genealogy, peering

through 100 year old records in search of a clue that will help you

connect the dots to your own family history.

For me the two go hand in hand...so as I dived into the Ancestry.com

pool, I was amazed to find the military records for my many times

great~grandfathers. My immediate family came from Illinois by way

of Virginia & we have been in this country since 1617. One of my

grandfathers fought in the 1st Colonial uprising, Bacon's Rebellion.

Confederate Woman

We fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Indian

Wars & of course with all that family history, we also fought in the

Civil War. In fact my family fought in the Civil War on both sides.

The idea that they all lived through these wars is a miracle to me &

had anything played out differently, I would probably

not be here...so crazy to think of!

As one might think, my Virginia 3x Great Grandfather fought for the

Confederacy, while my Illinois 3x Great grandfather fought for the Union

Army. Two men who had never met, who's lives were so completely

different, who would normally have absolutely nothing in common,

found common ground through the love of their children.

After the war, Virginia was a battlefield...it was in complete ruin. In the 1st

Census after the war which was in 1870, my Grandfather still lived in Virginia

with his wife & 5 children, one of them being my 2x Great~Grandfather who

was 8 years old. His household also included his mother~in~law & 2 young

women, 1 with a small son. {I love that census, it's my favorite! Can you

believe I actually have a favorite census? lol} I'm sure those women were

family or wives of close friends, who's husbands died in the war. It was

some time after this that he gathered up his family & took them west

to a place where he could start over, a place where he could buy

a few acres of land & begin again.

Abraham Lincoln

It was here in Illinois, the state of Abraham Lincoln's birth, my Brewer

clan would settle. Grandpa & Grandma would have 5 more children &

they would raise all 10 of them working the land as their father's,

father's had. And here, their 2nd son would fall in love with the

beautiful daughter of a Union soldier, they would marry

& our story would finally come full circle.

This is why I Love history so much.

For me, it's important to remember our collective past...

it's what creates the cloth from which we are all
woven from.

xoxo

vintagesusie

As a young girl, I sat & listened to the stories my grandmother would

tell of her childhood, always fascinated by them. She was born in

1918 at a time when divorce was uncommon, but before she was

2 her parents split up & she was raised by her father's, father.

Her dad worked on the railroad & was rarely in town & her

mother, working full time to make money to help support her,

only saw her on occasional weekends. Growing up, her world

was her grandpa's house in rural Illinois, her Uncle Tony & his

family & her beloved Aunt Flossie. She told me how Flossie

would sit on a stool, take down her long chestnut hair & brush

it 100 strokes every night. She told me why Aunt Flossie had

become a spinster, the tragic tale of her ruined engagement,

public humiliation & her withdrawal into her father's home.

I can picture her grandpa, pulling her in a sled to church every

Sunday during winter, placing a heated brick wrapped in

newspaper by her feet to keep her warm. Loving memories

of family, I can only see in my minds eye. I have been blessed

with a handful of old photographs, 2 of my great~grandfather

William, a few of my grandmother when she was small, but

none of the loving family that raised her all those years ago,

that is until now.

Let me introduce you to my Great~Great Auntie Flossie...

courtesy of an angel named Barbara & the Beauty & Joy

of Ancestry.com. Isn't she a BEAUTY!!! :)))

{Flossie, Lura, Mabel & Nellie}

I've been researching our genealogy for the past few years

& LOVE all the information I have been able to gather from

Ancestry.com. The community there is generous & supportive &

you can contact someone if you have a question or have added

documents or data that may help in their research , this is the way

Barbara found me. While going through some of her husband's,

grandmother's photographs, she came across many that had the

name Flossie Brewer on them. She too loves Ancestry & found

Flossie under my family tree & saw that I had no pictures of her.

{Nellie & Flossie}

She contacted me & asked if I would be interested in having

the pictures she had, to which I gave a HUGE, YES PLEASE!

It seems his grandmother Nellie & my Aunt Flossie had been

lifelong friends since childhood. I was so excited to be able to

finally get a chance to put a real photograph to the stories my

grandmother use to tell. When the package arrived I was

amazed at what JOY was in that small bundle, for not only

did she have photographs of my Aunt...

she also had photographs of my Uncle Tony

& my dear Grandmother, Twilla Mae Fern as a little girl.

For someone like me, this is the stuff dreams are made of.

This is like going into an abandoned house, up into the attic

& finding a treasure trove of antiques, but even better...

this is the story of me, the story of us.

This photograph has writing on the back by Flossie...

"Here's Twilla in the yard & that's me on the porch swing!"

Priceless!

I've never seen a picture of my great~great grandfather,

but now I can look at his house, the house that

raised at least 2 generations of my family.

The back of this one says...

Mrs. Brewer, Flossie & Twilla

I can see their lace curtains through the window & I know this

must be Uncle Tony's wife Lena, they lived across the street.

And here is grandma with her cousin Margaret, who she always

talked about & kept a correspondence up with until the day she died.

My sweet, little, red haired grandmother with her baby...

how cute is this?

Soooo, my Sweet Friends...

This is the Beauty & Joy of Ancestry.com for me. An unlikely

acquaintance of two women that live on opposite sides of the US.

Two women, unrelated, but soul sisters in their quest for the past

& their love for family mementos. An angel, who would go out of

her way to connect a long lost Aunt & Uncle, with the niece they

never knew, who will treasure these photographs forever.

I can never thank you enough sweet Barbara, for

the gift you have given me!

And yes, I had to make a little fabric book to hold my treasures

safe & sound. I wish my grandmother could have seen these

pictures, she would LOVE them so! I bet she's

smiling, right now.

Happy TGIF Sweet Friends...

The sun is shining, the sky is bright blue & the ground is

blanketed in white. Out the window, I can see smoke

coming from the chimney of the house next door.

It is MOST charming!!

I have been having a love affair...

a love affair with vintage lace, fabric, buttons & bows.

This Christmas, I made each one of the girls in my family

a fabric book filled with all the things I love. Each one had

a different theme...Baby's, Angels, Sisters, Photographs by

Julia Margaret Cameron & the one I made for myself...

Children of the Civil War.

I adore old tintypes, they always catch my eye, but it's the

images of children that I can't resist. Dressed in their

finest, little girls wearing beads around their necks,

there is often a hint of sadness in their eyes.

This little one is down right MAD,

with her off the shoulders, fine damask dress.

Loving history the way I do & loving genealogy, it has been a

revelation to me to find that on nearly all sides of my family tree,

I have grandfathers & uncles that fought in the Civil War.

They are equally divided by the North & South. In my family,

it is completely regional. The ones who lived in Illinois &

Ohio fought for in the Union Army, while those that

lived in Virginia, fought for the Confederacy.

In question was the equality of human beings,

the rights of man & the basic principal that this nation

was founded on...that ALL MEN are created EQUAL.

A nation divided...

a family divided.

I added a little envelope to each one of my books,

filled with tiny treasures.

In my book I have my business card, an antique handkerchief
& a picture of an old tintype of a little girl & her doll.

And I have copies of 2 letters sent to my Aunt Catharine

informing her of the death of her husband, my

Great~Great~Great Uncle James Knight,

from disease contracted while fighting

for the Union Army in 1862.

James & his brothers, Joseph & Thomas, joined
Company 'F' 123rd Illinois Infantry on September 6th 1862.
Both Joseph & Thomas returned from the war in 1865,
while James died in November of 1862, only
2 months after his enlistment.

"Woodsonville, KY Jan 14 1862

Mrs Night

I sit down to in form you of the death of James Night

he died her this morning about 6 oclock. I will send

his knapsack to you. I have nothing to tile about him

for he was a stranger to me he will be buried her to

day nothing more

J J Goudnay"

"January 17th, 1862

Mrs Knight,

I thout this evning that I woud write you a few lines

witch I thout of doing good while a go.

you have had to her the sad nues of the departire

of you husbman. I know will inform you that I was

at the same Hosptel but was in another room. he

hadent ben well for som time. I went to the hosptel

about the same time. I did as soon as I got abel I

went to see him and talk with him. he was very

joley but at his write mind. I ask him if he thout he

would git well and he sed he didn't know. he was

witing to die he had a good bed and evy thing he

wonted to eat. he was cered for and as well taken

cer of as cood be but you must recolebt that we

must all die sooner or later. I suspect that James

is at peas he sed that he was wiling to go. he

didnt say eny thing about wonting to be sent home.

we had a nise plane cofen made and he was berade

very desend. I think if I was in you place that I wodent

go to the trobel of moving him for he is at rest.

To Cathing Knight

From Samuel C Blankenbecker"

In the 1860 census, Samuel Blakenbecker was 17 & lived

with his parents on a farm neighboring my Aunt & Uncle.

James was 32 when he died & Catharine was left with

7 children to raise on her own.

With this sweet little fabric book, I honor my own American Story.

There is an American Story in each of us, I can't wait

to find out more about mine!!

my redheaded grandma twilla at 17, with my father

I have always been the one in my family who was completely sentimental &
overly nostalgic. I was the child who sat at my grandmother's & great~

grandmother's knee, peering at all their photographs & listening to all their

stories. I've looked at my parents senior yearbook from 1953 so much,

that I actually believe I was there, even though it was 3 years prior to

my being conceived, talk about awkward!

my great~grandma grace & grandma twilla

Although I'm a California girl through & through, both of my parents

& my older brother were born in Illinois. The small town of

Casey, in the county of Clark, was where generations of

my family were born & buried.

my daddy's senior picture

I have been told that my father, grandmother & great~grandmother were

all born in the same little house in Casey, Illinois, now long gone having

been torn down to make way for a larger church parking lot. It was the

house of my great~great grandparents, Katie & James. Oh, to have

had an old window or doorknob, some gingerbread trim from the

old front porch, a crackled spindle from a handrail, anything

from this house so filled with my family's memories.

my mother's senior picture from The Olnean yearbook

But that is only a DREAM...

Sadly, I can't go back in time & get what is no longer there.

I can begin my journey there though, among the records & headstones

that bear my family name. With the help of ancestry.com & several other

helpful genealogical sites, the secrets of the past will be revealed.

me, susie & my brother johnny

Today I look forward, to finding out more about yesterday

& am so excited to also see where tomorrow will lead me!

Oh...Where to begin our story???

So many ancestors, heading in so many directions, where does one start?

Initially, I thought I would just trace a lineage back as far as I could go &

then move on to another direct line, but that is easier said then done.

As I follow down the path of a male ancestor, often times it just stops & there

is no more information available to me. At that point I pick up on his wife

& her lineage, which then takes me down a completely different

path, sometimes making it a bit of a convoluted line.

I've just decided to start where I want to, rather 'Willy Nilly' if you may.

I'm going to write about what most interests me at the moment,

because as anyone knows who does genealogy, every day

is a new journey filled with excitement & intrigue, never

knowing where a new ancestor might take you.

What I'm most fascinated with right now, is two lines of family coming first from

Hampshire, England, then to Kittery, York County, Maine & onto

Illinois where the majority of my family ended up. The names

from these two lines are coincidentally...Spinney & Spenny.
Thomas Spinney left England & arrived in the English Colonies in 1651 at

the age of 21. He was a fisherman & left England with Captain Fernald

to go 'cod hauling', taking him to Piscataway, New Jersey & then on

to Kittery, Maine. I find this fascinating, as we have two other lines of

family, the Prigmores & the Higgins that left England & came to the

colonies arriving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, then moving on to

Piscataway & are listed historically as the Founding Fathers

of New Jersey, but that's a whole other story!

In 1651 at age 25, Thomas Spinney marries Margery Randall who endured a bit of

scandal in her native Kittery. The story goes that she was married to William
Norman, a philandering sailor who forgot to tell her he was already married &
had a wife back in England. He was given 18 months to prove he was divorced
from his 1st wife, which he was unable to do. Margery was granted a divorce &

found a more stable & suitable husband in Thomas & William Norman

was given 25 lashes at the whipping post. I kind of love that...no

prisons, no health care & food & clothing, just 25 lashes &

were done with you. That sounds fair to me!! lol

Thomas & Margery are my 10th great~grandparents.

Thomas & Margery's great~grandson Nicholas, married Alice Godsoe, who's father

was William Godsoe of Salem, Massachusetts & mother was Elizabeth Roberts.

William & Elizabeth are my 8th great~grandparents & had quite a colorful

past, for they were involved in 'The Great Corwin Burglary'!

{no wonder I'm a little on the naughty side}

{Captain George Corwin & wife Elizabeth's tombstone in Salem, Mass}

The story goes something like this...

In the spring of 1683, Elizabeth Godsoe was 24 years old & working as a

servant for Captain George Corwin. He was very wealthy & had a large

amount of money in his home, to which Elizabeth had keys & the knowledge

to which room the fortune was kept. She conceived a plan to rob her employer

with the help of her husband & some of his friends. On the night of March 6th,

they broke into the Captain's house & stole 500 pounds in English, Spanish

& New England currency. The perpetrators were caught & brought to trial

in June in Salem's courts, where William & his wife received their punishment.

Each got branded with a 'B' on their forehead, were whipped 39 times &

fined 10 pounds. They fled Salem forever & relocated to Kittery, Maine,

where their daughter Alice was born & married my grandfather Nicholas.

{Johnathan Corwin's tombstone also in the Broad St Cemetery in Salem}

Everyone has heard of the term 'Six Degrees of Separation', right!

Well, here is our family's 'Degree of Separation' from the Salem Witch Trials...

Captain George Corwin who was robbed by my grandparents,

was the father to Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges involved in the

'Salem Witch Trials' of 1692. Absolutely CRAZY & COOOl

for whatever reason!!!

Now, back to Nicholas & Alice Spinney, my 9th great~grandparents. They

had at least 7 surviving children, but I'm only going to talk about a few...

my 6th great~grand uncle Calab Spinney born in Kittery in 1755 &

my 6th great~grandmother Mary Spinney born in Kittery in 1744.

Caleb Spinney fought in the Revolutionary War for 3 years. He volunteered

on July 1st, 1775, making him 20 years old at the time he enlisted. These papers

were found on Fold3.com which I use almost exclusively for military information

& documents. It is from his pension paperwork that was started in 1832 when

he was 77 years old. It states that he joined the Massachusetts Militia & served

as a corporal for 6 months at Fort McClary for the protection of the 'Sea Board'

& as a Sargent for 1 year at Fort Sullivan, he reenlisted in another company &

was discharged from service in 1778. Caleb Spinney is just one of

our family's many American Hero's!

Caleb had 3 brothers about the same age as he was, John, Josiah & Nicholas.

In 1775 John would have been 18, Josiah 27 & Nicholas 29. I don't know if

they also fought in the Revolutionary War, but I'm going to look right now. Let's

see what we find out!! First I'll go back to Fold3, then I go to Browse All

Revolutionary War Records, then I'm going to type in the name Spinney. I use

to also type in the state I thought they had fought for, but just like with Caleb...

he was born & lived in Maine, but fought in the Massachusetts Militia, so my

search results would have come back blank. There are 252 results that come

up & the very 1st one is for John Spinney, now I need to check & see if

it's my John. The 1st thing I see, is he is from Maine...a good sign, but

he is from Lincoln County & is married to a Eunice & my John married

Abigail Dam & comes from York County & so it goes for hours & hours

& hours. But I did just find something kind of interesting to me...

here is the Revolutionary War Roll for Captain Daniel's Company which

Caleb was in. Often brothers signed up together & you will find them

in the same Company, but clearly his brothers are not here. Look who is

though, I mentioned John Spinney was married to Abigail Dam, 5 Dam's are

listed here, probably all brothers or brothers & cousins. Do you remember

the name Fernald, the Capatain who 1st brought Thomas Spinney over from

England to Kittery, Maine in 1651? More then 100 years later, there are 5

Fernald boys all in the same company as Caleb. I also see 2 Rogers brothers

who could be related to my naughty grandmother Elizabeth. What you

find doing genealogy is, what a small world it TRULY was back then.

You lived in your small town, you married the children you grew up with from

that small town, you went to war with your family & friends from that small town

& you were mourned & buried by those same people. Such a perfect

example of that right here on the Revolutionary War rolls.

I told you it can get convoluted!!! ;)

OK, now back to my 6th great~grandmother that I mentioned earlier,

Mary Spinney, sister to Caleb. She too was born in Kittery, Maine, along

with her husband James Spenny. I find it mysterious how a Spinney ends

up marrying a Spenny. There are very few records of this union & I can't

find anything on James parents or his siblings which is frustrating, but when

Googleing 'Spenny's in Maine', the name does appear. Not as much as the

Spinney spelling, but it is there, along with the spelling of Spenney. So is it

possible that Mary married a relative of some kind? Maybe a part of the

family that changed the spelling by 1 or 2 letters? I hope to one day know

the answer to this question because, inquiring minds want to know!!!

Something that I do know about my 6th grandparents, is that they are

the first Spenny's in the family line that moved south from Kittery, Maine.

They can be found in the 1810 census in Culpeper, Virginia & then in the

1820 census in Perry, Ohio. Their son, Benjamin Franklin Spenny & his

wife Nancy Morrison, were both born in Virginia & settled in Clark County,

Illinois, the county that most of my father's immediate family comes from.

I have no records of this, but I believe James Spenny probably fought in

the Revolutionary War too. He would have been 29, a prime age for joining

the cause in 1775. His son was born in 1768 & he names him the patriotic

name of Benjamin Franklin & he also serves & fights in the

Revolutionary War & the War of 1812.

We are the American Story!

Benjamin Franklin Spenny & Nancy Morrison Spenny are my

5th great~grandparents. Amazingly enough & with true pride in my

heart, I am a Daughter of the American Revolution many times

over, something I have dreamed of being & yet would have never

even known if I hadn't started my search on

Ancestry.com.

{all cemetery pictures are from Find A Grave}

Just one more ironic thing...

I haven't really been that many places in my life, but I have been to York County,
Maine. I have shopped in Portsmouth, New Hampshire & gone over the bridge that
takes you into Kittery, Maine. I played on the beach there with my girlfriend
Victoria & her son Scotty. I have stood on the rocks & looked at the Nubble
Light House in York & thought I had never seen such an amazing sight. I have
eaten lobster at the harbor in Kennebunkport. What are the chances

of that?? Maybe I was blown there by the spirits of

ancient ancestors & the wind. ;)

So, here is the family line starting with Thomas Spinney,

how wonderful it would have been to have known each &

every one of these people!

Thomas Spinney (1630 - 1701)

is your 10th great grandfather

Samuel Spinney (1660 - 1738)

Son of Thomas

James Spinney (1694 - 1733)

Son of Samuel

Nicholas Spinney (1719 - 1797)

Son of James

Mary Spinney (1744 - )

Daughter of Nicholas

Benjamin Franklin Spenny (1768 - 1853)

Son of Mary

Morrison Spenny (1816 - )

Son of Benjamin Franklin

Stephen Spenny (1839 - )

Son of Morrison

Estella Stella Spenny (1870 - 1922)

Daughter of Stephen

William Stephen Brewer (1895 - 1970)

Son of Estella Stella

& then 2 more to ME!!!

The never ending search continues, I wonder where it will take me next!

Since I was already on the track of the Spinney and Spenny clan, I thought we'd

continue playing with them for a while, but this time I'm going to focus in on the

other Spenny's! I'm going to focus in on my 5th Great~Grandparents...

Benjamin Franklin Spenny

and his wife

Nancy Morrison.

Benjamin Franklin Spenny was born in Fauquier County,

Virginia in 1768 and his wife Nancy Morrison was born 1778 in Culpepper

County, Virginia. They were married on February 28, 1809 in Fauquier County.

Being curious on how they would have met, I found an old map of Virginia and

see the neighboring counties share a border along with Stafford County, which

is the county that Nancy's father was born in. Virginia is a very important

state for my family, as almost every family line shares a part of history

with it. Before I go forwards with Ben and Nancy, I'm going to

take a step backwards as Nancy Morrison has

some amazing pedigree in her family.

{William Penn at 22}

Nancy's mother was Mary Munon who was born in 1750 in Salem,
New Jersey. I have very little information on her, but her family is well
documented and leads us back to Pennsylvania and it's founder,
William Penn. Mary's mother was a Cowgill, her great~grandmother
was a Blackshaw and her 3x great~grandmother was Rachel Penn,
born in 1607 in Bristol, England. Rachel married Captain Ralph
Blackshaw in 1630. She was the sister of Admiral Sir William Penn
and the aunt to his son, William Penn. So...William Penn is my 1st
cousin 12x removed and his grandparents, Captain Giles Penn and
Lady Joan Gilbert, are my 12th great~grandparents. Pretty Coool, right!

Here's a photograph of the Philadelphia City Hall, with the 27 ton, bronze

statue of William Penn on it's pinnacle. This statue is the tallest atop any

building in the world. Quite an honor I would say to my cousin!

I can't help but thinking about the random coincidences of the places I've

been to in my life. Again, for a person who hasn't been to THAT many

places, I have been to Philadelphia and took this picture of the Liberty

Bell with Independence Hall in the background. Another place that

without knowing it, I crossed the paths of my ancestors.

Benjamin and Nancy Spenny both died and were buried in Clark County,

Illinois, the birth place of my great~grandmother, my grandmother and my father.

They were the 1st of this family line that headed west into the unknown, but they

were not the last...it seems adventure was in the family blood. They had 6

surviving children, John Nelson born 1795 in Fauquier County, Virginia,

James born in 1799 in Culpepper County, Virginia, along with Addison in

1811, Elzina in 1813, my grandfather Morrison in 1816 and Sarah Ann in

1818. A great clue in doing any genealogical research, is a family name.

Besides the documentation provided by Ancestry.com for my grandfather

Morrison, I can also see he was named after his mother Nancy's maiden

name. One more way to connect the dots and another verification

that proves the line that takes us to the Penn's.

{Addison Spenny's tombstone, photos courtesy of Trudy}

My 4th grandparents Morrison and Margaret Spenny are also buried in

Clark County, Illinois, as are their children and their children's children.

But they had a son who was bound for adventure and left rural Illinois

after the 1850 census at 39, and was counted in the California State

Census in 1852, he would have been 41.

Now, this is really interesting. I was doing research on Ancestry, when I came upon

a story called 'Visiting Addison'. The story basically says, that this woman and her

mother would go to visit her grandmothers grave yearly on her birthday and that

over the years they would wander the cemetery and came upon a grave unlike any

others. It sat alone on half an acre of land under a tree, with ornate iron surrounding

a marble headstone that said, 'Addison Spenny June 28, 1811 Died Feb. 5, 1870

Native of Illinois'. The cemetery is in Grass Valley, California and my 4th
great uncle Addison Spenny died in Nevada City, California,

they are one and the same.

He had gone to Yuba County to mine for gold and live out the remainder of his
days. There is no evidence that he ever had a wife or any children, having been
buried alone would make that appear to be true, but he must have struck it a
little rich to have been able to afford such an extravagant resting place. I have
been in contact with Trudy and she and her mother have adopted uncle Addison.
They maintain his plot, trim the pine trees that shade him and bring him flowers
when they visit her grandmother. They talk to him and found a large quartz rock
outside his fence, that they moved inside thinking it would bring him back to his
mining roots. It's all so very sweet, I can't wait to go 'Visiting Addison' myself!
That's it for today, next we'll be finding out more about the Spenny brothers,
Stephen and William, their enlistment in the Union Army

and the Civil War...I LOVE all this history!!!