These are the kind of things that keep me at night. Recently my dad's first cousin informed me that she remembers her grandma (my great grandma) Pearl Bishop Mapes showing her a beautiful old photo album. This would probably have been in the 1950's. Later on Pearl informed my cousin's mother that she sold it to an auctioneer, apparently in need of some cash. Sigh.....
This would have been in Gratiot County, Michigan. Pearl and her husband Elmer Mapes Senior lived there in Alma. He died in 1959, but Pearl lived until the late 1960's.
I can only guess what pictures were in the album, but I'm guessing it was Pearl's family. Because we had all kinds of pictures from the Mapes side that would have come from Elmer and Pearl. But almost nothing of the Bishop's, Nevins, or anyone else on Pearl's side. So, where did it go? Did it get broken up? Sold in pieces? Is it sitting in someone's room, on someone's shelf? Or is gone forever....?
Yep, might not get much sleep again tonight. I'll keep looking for this, and if you have any clues or have info or these pictures. Please contact me! I'd love to hear from you.
Searching for lost gems and tossing in bed....
Copyright © 2021 Matt Mapes mapesm@gmail.com
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
On the Hunt for Lost Family Artifacts - the journal of Lettie Pangburn Mapes
I'm starting a series of posts on items that are mentioned, either in documents from the past, or from living relatives I've interviewed, that have gone missing in the mists of time. So many of these quite often are last seen with a relative, who inevitably has no children. And where or where do these items go? Hopefully they are out there somewhere, in someone's attic, basement, or book shelf. Here we go....
My 2nd great grandmother, Lettie Lavancha Pangburn Mapes, had a journal or diary or something of some sort. My grandpa's 1st cousin Margaret Mapes Jellison, who researched the Mapes and allied families for years and collected all sorts of items (which unfortunately now reside in many places who knows where...because, guess what? she had no kids), made reference to the journal in her research.
Let's start from the beginning. Lettie was born 23 April 1848 in Geauga County, Ohio to Nathaniel Pangburn and Laney Dingman. They moved to Eaton County, Michigan by 1860 and in 1866 she married Lyman Henry Mapes, my 2nd great grandfather. He was fresh back from the Civil War, his first wife dying while he was away. They moved to Gratiot County, Michigan, by 1870 where Lyman's grandfather Charles Cohoon lived. Lyman and Lettie were successful in raising a large family and had plenty of property.
Margaret also says that Lettie taught Lyman how to read. And as to what was in the journal, all I know is that Lettie listed her brothers and sisters, by their casual names: Letty, Likie, Polly, and so forth. Margaret used it as one of her sources for the family, "Handwritting of grandma Lettie Lavancha Pangburn Mapes in journal last seen in possession by Ray J. Plowman who is now deceased."
Ray Plowman was married to Lyman's daughter, Carrie Mapes. And go figure, they had no kids. Where did the journal go? What else was in the journal? We may never know. Carrie died before Ray, who himself died in 1963. I have looked at Ray's probate to see where his estate went. His estate was divided between 9 nieces! I guess the ones that helped take care of him or he liked I suppose, since there were other nieces. Those nieces are:
Florence Tatish, of Canandaigua, New York
Lylyan Lake, of St. Johns, Michigan
Lucile Deihm, of Dewitt, Michigan
Ruth Kyes, of Long Beach, California
Dorothy Horman, of Alma, Michigan
Edna Richardson, of Alma, Michigan
Elizabeth Martin, of Alma, Michigan
Mable Eichorn, of Alma, Michigan
Dorotha Gee, of Alma, Michigan
Dorotha is a Mapes, my grandpa Mapes' sister. However the rest are Plowman relatives from Ray's siblings. I've checked with Dorotha's kids and they don't seem to recall anything, and neither do other descendants from the family from other siblings. So, if the journal exists, it may have went to someone on the list above from the Plowman family. Unless it was given to a Mapes family member before or after Ray died. There's a lot of those. There were 9 in Carrie's family and quite a few descendants.
In any case, if anyone out there has the journal of Lettie Pangburn Mapes, I'd love to hear from you. I just want to copy it. That would be a priceless treasure.
Here's to keeping fingers crossed.....
Copyright © 2020 Matt Mapes mapesm@gmail.com
My 2nd great grandmother, Lettie Lavancha Pangburn Mapes, had a journal or diary or something of some sort. My grandpa's 1st cousin Margaret Mapes Jellison, who researched the Mapes and allied families for years and collected all sorts of items (which unfortunately now reside in many places who knows where...because, guess what? she had no kids), made reference to the journal in her research.
Let's start from the beginning. Lettie was born 23 April 1848 in Geauga County, Ohio to Nathaniel Pangburn and Laney Dingman. They moved to Eaton County, Michigan by 1860 and in 1866 she married Lyman Henry Mapes, my 2nd great grandfather. He was fresh back from the Civil War, his first wife dying while he was away. They moved to Gratiot County, Michigan, by 1870 where Lyman's grandfather Charles Cohoon lived. Lyman and Lettie were successful in raising a large family and had plenty of property.
Margaret also says that Lettie taught Lyman how to read. And as to what was in the journal, all I know is that Lettie listed her brothers and sisters, by their casual names: Letty, Likie, Polly, and so forth. Margaret used it as one of her sources for the family, "Handwritting of grandma Lettie Lavancha Pangburn Mapes in journal last seen in possession by Ray J. Plowman who is now deceased."
Ray Plowman was married to Lyman's daughter, Carrie Mapes. And go figure, they had no kids. Where did the journal go? What else was in the journal? We may never know. Carrie died before Ray, who himself died in 1963. I have looked at Ray's probate to see where his estate went. His estate was divided between 9 nieces! I guess the ones that helped take care of him or he liked I suppose, since there were other nieces. Those nieces are:
Florence Tatish, of Canandaigua, New York
Lylyan Lake, of St. Johns, Michigan
Lucile Deihm, of Dewitt, Michigan
Ruth Kyes, of Long Beach, California
Dorothy Horman, of Alma, Michigan
Edna Richardson, of Alma, Michigan
Elizabeth Martin, of Alma, Michigan
Mable Eichorn, of Alma, Michigan
Dorotha Gee, of Alma, Michigan
Dorotha is a Mapes, my grandpa Mapes' sister. However the rest are Plowman relatives from Ray's siblings. I've checked with Dorotha's kids and they don't seem to recall anything, and neither do other descendants from the family from other siblings. So, if the journal exists, it may have went to someone on the list above from the Plowman family. Unless it was given to a Mapes family member before or after Ray died. There's a lot of those. There were 9 in Carrie's family and quite a few descendants.
In any case, if anyone out there has the journal of Lettie Pangburn Mapes, I'd love to hear from you. I just want to copy it. That would be a priceless treasure.
Here's to keeping fingers crossed.....
Copyright © 2020 Matt Mapes mapesm@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
So Past Obsessed, I Didn't Blog for 5 Years!
I'm not even going to mention it. Let's not talk about it, really. It's been awhile. Five years actually. So, we'll just pick up where I left off, and pretend life didn't intervene dramatically.
Anyways....
The title of my blog, is "The Past Obsession." And believe it, I am "past obsessed." I can be on my way home from work, at the grocery store, or cooking dinner. Anywhere, and pieces of history, genealogy or research, can pop into my head. In fact, I'm not allowed to do research within an hour of bedtime, otherwise I won't sleep well.
While I've been researching my genealogy now for close to 25 years, I've been getting serious about the whole field lately. I've bought books, I follow dozens of blogs on Feedly, listen to podcasts on Stitcher (especially Extreme Genes!), and watch youtube channels, and Google hangouts, especially Dear Myrtle's hangouts. I'd love to do genealogy and research in general all the time, but alas, I suppose I need to work, sleep, and do a few other things in life.
So I've added to my library this year, in a serious manner. Here are the titles that I've bought:
Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, 3rd ed, rev.
The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, ed by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, 3rd ed.
The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood, 4th ed.
Genealogical Proof Standard, Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose, 4th ed, rev.
Genealogy Standards by Board for Certification of Genealogists, 50th Anniversary ed.
Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians by Elizabeth Shown Mills
Ancestry's Red Book, by Alice Eichholz, rev ed.
Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones
That is a list of some pretty heavy stuff, quite a few of the essentials of the genealogy world. So, it's going to take me some time to get through all of these I think. And (un)fortunately spring is on the way, or it should be, and I'll get distracted. But I intend to focus on the things that are really important to me, life is too short to do otherwise.
Happy hunting everyone!
Cheers
Copyright © 2018 Matt Mapes
Anyways....
The title of my blog, is "The Past Obsession." And believe it, I am "past obsessed." I can be on my way home from work, at the grocery store, or cooking dinner. Anywhere, and pieces of history, genealogy or research, can pop into my head. In fact, I'm not allowed to do research within an hour of bedtime, otherwise I won't sleep well.
While I've been researching my genealogy now for close to 25 years, I've been getting serious about the whole field lately. I've bought books, I follow dozens of blogs on Feedly, listen to podcasts on Stitcher (especially Extreme Genes!), and watch youtube channels, and Google hangouts, especially Dear Myrtle's hangouts. I'd love to do genealogy and research in general all the time, but alas, I suppose I need to work, sleep, and do a few other things in life.
So I've added to my library this year, in a serious manner. Here are the titles that I've bought:
Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, 3rd ed, rev.
The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, ed by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, 3rd ed.
The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood, 4th ed.
Genealogical Proof Standard, Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose, 4th ed, rev.
Genealogy Standards by Board for Certification of Genealogists, 50th Anniversary ed.
Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians by Elizabeth Shown Mills
Ancestry's Red Book, by Alice Eichholz, rev ed.
Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones
That is a list of some pretty heavy stuff, quite a few of the essentials of the genealogy world. So, it's going to take me some time to get through all of these I think. And (un)fortunately spring is on the way, or it should be, and I'll get distracted. But I intend to focus on the things that are really important to me, life is too short to do otherwise.
Happy hunting everyone!
Cheers
Copyright © 2018 Matt Mapes
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Long Time...No Post...
Okay, so it's been awhile. What can I say? The summer was pretty busy....and the nice weather we had in western Pennsylvania made it hard to be inside doing genealogy. Here's a recap of what's been done and been going since I last posted.
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The whole family took a two week drive out to Yellowstone and back. It was awesome and we saw so many great and unique sites. We were also able to drive through eastern Montana, in the McCone County area, where some of my great grandmother's cousins (Coburn, Vondette and Seeley) homesteaded in the 1910's and 1920's. That must have been something to live back then out there. I can only imagine. Of course this is after they had already homesteaded on the Saskatchewan prairie in sod houses, no less. Amazing lives some people live!
----------------------------------------------------
I am descended from Robert Seeley who immigrated to this country in 1630. The Seeley Genealogical Society (see their website here, they are a terrific family organization, doing so much research on the family) had their international meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan this year. I wish I could have gone, but was just not able to. However, in their announcements of what was going on at the meeting, I saw a lecture by Carol Seeley Scott about her book, The Eel Catcher's Travels: Robert Seeley 1602-1667. (see it at Amazon here)
I immediately bought the book and enjoyed it so very much. It uses all the facts that we know about Robert Seeley, which is a lot actually, and then it creates a historical fiction describing his life. It really brings the person alive for you. If you are descended from Robert Seeley, I would highly recommend this book.
------------------------------------------------------
If you didn't catch any of the episodes of Who Do You Think You Are, you missed out. See if you can find them to watch. They were quite enjoyable, if they do make genealogy look very easy. But some of the blogs around do have articles pointing out how many (sometimes hundreds) hours of research goes into those episodes. Right now I'm enjoying Genealogy Roadshow on PBS. It just started this week and you can find it on the PBS website. Very interesting concept!
------------------------------------------------------
I've been diving back into research and plugging along on my project to enter everything into my genealogy program. Now if only I didn't have to work for a living.... :)
Happy Researching!
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
---------------------------------------------------
The whole family took a two week drive out to Yellowstone and back. It was awesome and we saw so many great and unique sites. We were also able to drive through eastern Montana, in the McCone County area, where some of my great grandmother's cousins (Coburn, Vondette and Seeley) homesteaded in the 1910's and 1920's. That must have been something to live back then out there. I can only imagine. Of course this is after they had already homesteaded on the Saskatchewan prairie in sod houses, no less. Amazing lives some people live!
----------------------------------------------------
I am descended from Robert Seeley who immigrated to this country in 1630. The Seeley Genealogical Society (see their website here, they are a terrific family organization, doing so much research on the family) had their international meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan this year. I wish I could have gone, but was just not able to. However, in their announcements of what was going on at the meeting, I saw a lecture by Carol Seeley Scott about her book, The Eel Catcher's Travels: Robert Seeley 1602-1667. (see it at Amazon here)
I immediately bought the book and enjoyed it so very much. It uses all the facts that we know about Robert Seeley, which is a lot actually, and then it creates a historical fiction describing his life. It really brings the person alive for you. If you are descended from Robert Seeley, I would highly recommend this book.
------------------------------------------------------
If you didn't catch any of the episodes of Who Do You Think You Are, you missed out. See if you can find them to watch. They were quite enjoyable, if they do make genealogy look very easy. But some of the blogs around do have articles pointing out how many (sometimes hundreds) hours of research goes into those episodes. Right now I'm enjoying Genealogy Roadshow on PBS. It just started this week and you can find it on the PBS website. Very interesting concept!
------------------------------------------------------
I've been diving back into research and plugging along on my project to enter everything into my genealogy program. Now if only I didn't have to work for a living.... :)
Happy Researching!
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Well, I just caught up with the last episode of Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems podcast, and she read my email on the air about my blog! So I thought I better get on over here and write a post. It's a rainy day, luckily, otherwise I'd be outside.
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We've been quite busy lately with the nice weather, and we are getting prepared for our driving trip from Pennsylvania to Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to fit too much genealogy into this trip. Most of my family stopped at Michigan and Indiana. However, some brothers and sisters of my great great grandmother, Sylvia Cobin Seeley Larue, did homestead for some time in McCone County, Montana in the 1910's and beyond. This was after they homesteaded in Saskatchewan. They must have been an adventurous lot! I hope to stop in Circle, Montana, to see the town where they lived. Maybe we can catch a cemetery as well.
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Today was my kids last day of school. What fun for them! The whole summer is now theirs. I wish I had the summer off to do some things, like genealogy. Too bad that I am even more busy in the summer with everything to do outside, plus work and anything else inside. Hopefully will get to some family and genealogy research.
Hope you have more time to do genealogy than I do right now.
Happy Hunting...
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
-----------------------------------------
We've been quite busy lately with the nice weather, and we are getting prepared for our driving trip from Pennsylvania to Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to fit too much genealogy into this trip. Most of my family stopped at Michigan and Indiana. However, some brothers and sisters of my great great grandmother, Sylvia Cobin Seeley Larue, did homestead for some time in McCone County, Montana in the 1910's and beyond. This was after they homesteaded in Saskatchewan. They must have been an adventurous lot! I hope to stop in Circle, Montana, to see the town where they lived. Maybe we can catch a cemetery as well.
------------------------------------------
Today was my kids last day of school. What fun for them! The whole summer is now theirs. I wish I had the summer off to do some things, like genealogy. Too bad that I am even more busy in the summer with everything to do outside, plus work and anything else inside. Hopefully will get to some family and genealogy research.
Hope you have more time to do genealogy than I do right now.
Happy Hunting...
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
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