Sideways on the family tree

Much of my ancestry research is focused on the direct line of descent.  I have deliberately omitted siblings of ancestors because it is hard enough to follow all of the thousands of leads for the ones that lead directly to me!  But I am very aware of the importance of sibling relationships and their descendants' importance in my research.  I have "met" several distant cousins in this process and it is thrilling to see where our family tree has branched out in this country.  There is something about cousins that touch our hearts in a special way.

There are many syrupy platitudes about cousins out there, and every word of it is true.  Our first cousins, and sometimes our 2nd and 3rd if we are lucky enough to know them, have a special place in our lives that no other relative can claim.  They are our contemporaries, but not necessarily our peers. The relationship is intimate, but not close enough to be dysfunctional or damaging.  Friendship may or may not be there, but the love and affection are true.  You may not see or talk with a cousin for years, but when you need them, you can count on them to be there for you. You reconnect without missing a beat.  There are no pretenses, because cousins know the real you.  They know things about you that no one else on earth knows.  The same blood flows through our veins, and that makes us forever joined in the bond of common history.

Aunts and Uncles also have an important place in our lives.  They are the ones who love you pretty much as a parent does, but with a little more objectivity.  They can afford to be fun and affectionate without having to discipline.  We view our family through our aunts and uncles with different eyes.  They can be a sounding board when we need perspective.  Through them, we can intimately experience a different version of home life, giving us more choices for our own futures.  Sometimes our aunts and uncles have played a significant role in our upbringing. They can be what a parent cannot... a friend. Watching my son proudly show off his new house to his ever so caring aunt and uncle put a lump in my throat.  How much more precious did his achievement become with the extended family's blessing?  It cannot be measured.

My cousin Barry loves family more than anyone I know.  He goes out of his way to visit family members all over the country.  He cares about their lives.  He connects with them in a personal way and makes them feel important by remembering details about their lives.  He loves nothing more than to discuss family, and can talk for hours, reminiscing and telling funny stories about our common childhood and about the elders in the family. I appreciate these types of relationships - my cousins - more and more as the years go by.  I am deeply grateful that my children (and future grandchildren) have the opportunity to experience this kind of enriching bond in their lives.

Plain brown wrapper

I received a mysterious package in the mail today from Aunt Teeny.  It was a thick packet of papers, but was addressed to "Leah & John" at my address.  So I called Aunt Teeny and she said that she had found a pile of genealogy papers and put them in the mail for me.  No clue why it said Leah & John.  When I opened it, it appeared to be a random assortment of letters and old typewritten documents.  On closer inspection, I realized that it was years of correspondence between Aunt Miriam and Uncle Herman and a relative in New Jersey named Ray Eggers.  Mr. Eggers had spent years doing research on the family and had published books about it.  He was particularly determined to prove the link with Roger Williams. He did it the old fashioned way, by traveling all over the Northeast doing research using primary documents.   It took more than a decade, but he finally accomplished his mission.

As I scanned the documents to post online, it occurred to me that Ray Eggers was probably a source for the Weismantel family Ancestry research as well.  I have been communicating with Matt Weismantel through Ancestry over the last year.  Ray's connection with Marge Weismantel was the source of many photos and documents, as well as the Bryant family Bible, all of which had already been shared with me by Matt.  We are all descendants of Roger Williams through the Abbott line.  

All of Ray's work and correspondence is now posted in Google Docs and has been shared with my fellow Ancestry researchers.

May Abbott Cowan, half sister of George Wright Abbott > Bonnie F. Cowan > Raymond F. Eggers.
[George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

In talking with Aunt Teeny this afternoon, more stories came out about the Butler family.  She said that Rawley Martin Butler came home from WWI with syphilis.  He came to live with the Lukhards when Junior (Herman, Jr.) and Dee (Rawley) were young and shared a bed with the boys until the syphilis was discovered. Rawley's wife Hilda divorced him and he eventually died of it in 1944.  Rawley's grandson questions some of these details, however, because Rawley and Hilda had two children in the 20's and she lived to a ripe old age.  He also said that Rawley had been known to have a gambling problem and had lost the family home which could very well have been a reason for the divorce.  The chronology of this story doesn't exactly make sense, but either way, it's a very sad situation.

Powell Family circa 1895

Soon after I started doing research on Ancestry.com, another researcher contacted me asking if I had information about her husband's ancestor, Jefferson Monroe Powell.  She had posted some family photos on her family tree and offered to share them with me.  One photo in particular took my breath away.  Several generations of Powells are pictured in front of a house in Henrico, Va.  There are two generations of adults in the photo, children of various ages, a dog and a goat.  An infant sits precariously on the top of a tall fence post, the mother barely within reaching distance.  A young girl standing at the gate is unmistakably my great grandmother, Georgia Powell. But I stared and stared at the young man at the right side of the photo... he is a dead ringer for my father.  Funny, I'd always thought my father was a Zaun through and through, but there's no doubt the Powell genes are very strong.

Notes from the owner of the original photo:
Susan Eastman (2018)
Hi! I am still researching and enjoying it! I hope you are too. :) The note I have on the photo is that RJ (Robert) Powell is the youngest child on the fence in white on the right and the photo is in 1895. I believe that it is Jefferson and Marie sitting on the left. I don't know who the elderly man is or who the young man on the right is. I believe Ada is standing by RJ, Georgia would be the girl standing in white, Lenora would be the young girl on left on the fence, Harry with the goat, Archibald with the dog. This is before the youngest two boys were born.

My response to her:

tzaustin (2026)
Eight years since we last communicated! I am still puzzling over this photo - which I am immensely grateful to have thanks to you. I wanted to update you on Jefferson Monroe Powell's father, George James Powell. A few years ago, another Powell cousin visited the graves of George and Mary Ellen (Stevens) Powell. George is buried under the name: "George Littleton Powell." He died in 1870. He had been captured POW on April 6, 1865, just three days before Appomatox. Of course, one new finding leads to more questions.. why is George buried with the wrong middle name? Anyway, we can eliminate the possibility that George is the old man in the photo. It could be one of Jefferson's older brothers and the young man could be the nephew...? Still working on it.