Thursday, August 21, 2014

The WDYTYA Episode Last Night....Mostly for Linda

Well it didn't go quite as I thought.  That promo I saw early last week on this episode mentioned a "Patriot" and a "Pioneer".

They didn't do a patriot ancestor at all.  Besides Jacob Grammer I mentioned in yesterday's post on his father's line, there was another one on his mother's Dimmick/Dean line.  Comfort Dean's grandfather was Benjamin Deen(later changed to Dean).  Benjamin was from Ireland and came over around the time of the American Revolution as a teenager.  He fought as part of the Virginia Militia evidently and was awarded land for having fought.  The land was in Ohio in the Ohio River Valley region.

And I got Joseph Dimmick correct, sort of.  I mentioned Joseph Dimmick but the son Joseph Dimmick of the Joeseph Dimmick they profiled.  My Joseph Dimmick's parents-Joseph and Comfort Dean Dimmick-were the ones they talked about.  But my Joseph was there but he was only 9 years old at the time the family traveled on the Oregon Trail.

More interesting tidbits about Kelsey's 2 x great grandfather, the son Joseph, he was a twin with James Benjamin Dimmick.  As an adult Joseph worked as a school teacher and later as a dentist...his father in-law was a doctor and his wife's brother also worked as a dentist.

And Kelsey's 2 x GG Joseph's wife, Mary Frances Kriechbaum was also an Oregon Trail traveler with her parents John George(originally Johan as he immigrated from Germany) and Lucy Morgan Kriechbaum.  If Mary F. and Joseph didn't travel to Oregon the same year/in the same party(the Kriechbaum's started in Iowa, not Illinois), they settled near each other, which is how they knew one another and married.

And Mary Frances was married before she wed Joseph Dimmick, to a Lewis Belfils, a French immigrant.  She had 2 sons, Louis, in 1860 and Victor Hugo in 1863, both born in Oregon, before her husband died.  She married Joseph  shortly afterwards, as their 1st child together was born in 1865.
Joseph and Mary Frances Dimmick didn't stay in Oregon long, since Mary Frances and Joseph are found living with Mary's parents in the 1870 census for Sonoma County, near the Russian River in California, along with another son, Clarence, born in 1868 in California.  Joseph is working as a farmer and his father in-law, John George Kierchbaum is a doctor.  While still in Oregon, John George Kriechbaum was the Coroner for Benton County, Oregon.
More than you ever wanted to know about these families, right? lolz

They spent most of the show on Kelsey's Great grandparents, Ellis Loughborough and Genevieve Marriott Geddes Dimmick.

Ellis was quite the train wreck.  Married to Genevieve in 1905, Kelsey's grandmother, Evangeline, born Dec. 1905, Ellis abandoned her and the baby and is never found in census records living as a family unit. 
Incidentally, Genevieve named her baby Evangeline for her oldest sister with that same name.

Mother and baby were living in 1910 with her parents and her maiden and widowed sisters in Alameda, CA, then in 1920 Genevieve is living with her 2 maiden sisters and the baby, Evangeline, is living with her mother's married sister's family in San Francisco, CA. and in the 1930 census at the age of 24, the baby, Evangeline is married to Gordon Cranmer with a 1 yr. old daughter, Kelsey's mother, Sally.
In the 1930 census Genevieve is found married to William Foltz, a hotel clerk, living in San Francisco and by 1934 she is dead.  William was 13 years older than his wife and this was his only marriage.

The show covered Ellis' marriage to Genevieve and after his marriage to Genevieve in 1905 and leaving her and the baby, Evangeline, he enlists in the Marine Corps in 1908 and is promptly kicked out in 1909 because of his neglect of duty and "excessive use of intoxicants".

Here is what they didn't cover in the show.....
Ellis is found in the 1900 census living with a family named Heeseman along with 2 of his older brothers and lists his occupation as a brakeman on the railroad.   This was pre-marriage and baby.

In the 1910 census, after marriage, baby and expulsion from the Marine Corps, Ellis is found living again with his parents in Oakland, CA, at the age of 30.  He gives his occupation as a dentistry student.  That makes sense as his father Joseph was a dentist.  He does report himself in 1910 as married.
The whole dentist thing didn't "take" though(probably too much like work for Ellis), and he marries again to a Nora G. Sullivan in 1916, and then in 1918 he is working and living in a high tone hotel in Berkeley CA as a night porter according to his 1918 draft card and Nora is nowhere to be found by then..

In the 1920 census, he lists himself as widowed and is renting a room in the home of Amelia Blackman a divorced 53 year old woman, in Oakland, CA.  He lists his occupation as a rigger in a shipyard.
I can't find him in a 1930 census and by 1939 Ellis is dead.

So as Paul Harvey might have said, "Now you know the rest of the story."  8-)

Sluggy

 

4 comments:

  1. Brakeman, Ship Rigger, and Dentistry Student--all professions that don't jive with alcoholism. Whew! That was interesting. Really!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And that's why Ellis didn't work at them long! lolz

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    2. I am surprised he did not die at the first two and kill someone at the third.

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  2. As an amateur genealogist I have always figured they don't tell the whole story on "Who Do You Think You Are". Since reading your info I know that I am right. They only show what they think people will be interested in.

    ReplyDelete

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