The Name Game

Names can be the key to any genealogy effort.  This can be a good thing, or sometimes a challenge.  Knowing the right name enables one to correctly identify an ancestor.  However, the name can also be the source of more confusion, not less.  How?  How about when three generations of men have the same given name, same middle name and same surname without any Jr. or III involved?  

We have that on the Gupton side with three Benjamin Smith Guptons.  The first was the son of Arrington Gupton, being the ninth child - young Benjamin Smith Gupton was born in 1873.  B.S. tragically died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight and one month before the birth of his third child, Benjamin Smith Gupton, born on February 28, 1901.  That Ben Gupton had four children, the eldest of which was…Benjamin Smith Gupton born in 1923 and still happily thriving in Washington State.  Keeping matters simple, Ben wisely chose to have two daughters, so the matter is at rest. Sort of: Ben’s grandson, Robert Peters has contributed a great-grandson named Benjamin so the tradition takes a twist as the surname changed, but the given name does not peter out.   

Over on the Ward side of the family the similar names trend can be seen in the popularity of the given name of Edith.  There was Edith Ward Root, the sister of Jacob Ward whose third daughter was Edith Almeda Ward Gaylord (1829). Edith Alemda’s brother Zelotes had a daughter, Edith Lurena Ward Hunt (1808) and Edith Almeda’s other brother James also had a daughter, Edith Grace Ward( 1877).  James’ son Wilbur later had a daughter, Edith Irma Harpster (1899). This frequency of names meant that the ladies almost always seemed to go by their first and middle names.  It was either “Edith Grace” or “Edith Lurena” as the cousins sought to keep the conversations clear.  

Another sort of confusion occurs with the succession of Bretons named John.  Initially, back on the French-speaking island of Guernsey there were three generations of Jeans before our Jean Breton emigrated from Guernsey to the USA.  Jean named his first-born Jean (1854), however Jean died at sea on the trip over (1857) and the name was later bestowed on the first-born in America child. John (Not Jean!) Walter Breton emerged in Racine, Wisconsin in 1859.  John Walter often went by the name of Walter to avoid being confused with his father, John (formerly Jean).  Later J.W. name d his first-born son Walter Sawyer Breton.  To avoid similar confusion between father and son Walters, the son became commonly called “Bud.”  “Uncle Bud” was my introduction to a living link to other generations and was most helpful in conversations and correspondence in the mid 1970s.  

Among females a favorite given name on the Breton /Sawyer side was Marguerite.   Marguerite Brehaut was the wife of Jean Breton and they named their first daughter, Marguerite.  She married Abram Thompson while her youngest sister Sarah Elizabeth married Uzell Sawyer.  Sarah’s daughter’s name was Marguerite and she married Herbert Purcell.  Their daughter’s name was also Marguerite and she married Charles Campbell.  Their daughter’s married name is Patricia Marguerite Campbell Nuyttten.  So we see the given name survive through five different surnames!

Each of these people is unique and has an individual identity, making contributions to our family.  It takes a bit of sleuthing to be sure who you’re talking about, but ultimately, the identity and the individual emerges.  I kept track of the Guptons by always including their birth date when I was researching them.  The Edith’s were easier due to their different middle names.  The Bretons coped with their similar names by utilizing middle names or nicknames to differentiate themselves.  Getting beyond the confusion of similar names requires an absorbing effort but perseverance will lead to clarity and then the fuller stories of these many wonderful people can be known. 

MB  11-4-11

UPDATE Nov. 2, 2011

Today I overcame a technological problem.  I delved into the world of HTML coding and corrected a problem that had stalled my blogging progress.  Although we’re coming up on the holiday season and all the attendant activities, I hope to soon share the knowledge I gained on the July trip.  Some points were shared in the nine blog posts, but overall there is more to tell that I think will be of interest to the family and friends that want to know more. 

Finding Females

  A chronicle of how I discovered branches to the Breton tree

John and Margaret (Jean and Marguerite) Breton had six children, Jean and Rachel Mary died in infancy, and Mary Louise was blinded by scarlet fever and never married, so that Marguerite, John Walter and Sarah Elizabeth were the survivors who had families of their own. 

Marguerite was the oldest of the children being born in 1853 in St. Martin’s Parish on Guernsey.  In America she married Abram Thompson in 1877.  A child shows up in the 1880 Census as Willie B. Thompson, but no other trace of him has been found.  Maggie died in the depths of the 1885 winter in Madison, in the Dakota Territory and Abram later remarried and moved to Minnesota.  Thus it appears that that line of descendants ended with the death of Marguerite’s son, Willie B. Thompson. 

John Walter Breton was the first American-born child of John and Margaret being born in Racine, Wisconsin.  The bulk of my research has been tracking his descendants…a path that branches from his three children to the present day.  Two sons were the first to be tracked, with personal inspiration coming from his first son, Walter Sawyer Breton who I always knew as “Uncle Bud.”  Bud shared family memorabilia with me in the early 1970s.  The other brother was his half brother, Vivian Howard Breton, my grandfather.  I knew that Edith was the oldest child but did not know if she survived and married.  It wasn’t until 2008 that I began researching at the Family History Center and using their connections to Ancestry.com that I keyed in John Walter Breton in the Family Trees section.  It was there that help was received from a posting showing a picture of Leland Edwards  and another showing his grandfather’s lifetime railroad pass, the name on the pass?..... John Walter Breton!  With the help of Wanda Castoe, a volunteer at the FHC, I was able to contact the Tree’s creator and discover that Leland Edwards was the son of Edith Breton Edwards and that the postee was his granddaughter, Kristi Schertz from southern California.  Thus began follow-up effort with emails, correspondence, phone calls, and meetings with Edith’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

The last child born of John and Margaret was Sarah Elizabeth Breton born in 1863.  She married Uzell Sawyer, brother of Lizzie Sawyer who was John Walter’s first wife and the mother of Edith and Walter S. Breton.  Based on family notes my early charts showed her two children as Clyde and Marguerite. I knew of Clyde since his family stayed in the Morgan Hill area and he was listed in the U.S. Census’s there.  Marguerite was an unknown for years as I had no idea of how to learn if she had died, married or what her name was if she had married. 

In 2011 while again researching at the local Family History Center I looked a little further into Kristi Shertz’s Ancestry pages and saw that she had a married name for Marguerite…Purcell.  With that clue the name showed up frequently in Ancestry’s Immigration records.  Apparently they lived in Hawaii and were passengers on ships coming and going to the islands.  I had known from the Family Bible that Sarah Breton Sawyer was buried in Eva, Hawaii but didn’t know why.  From the immigration records it’s clear that Marguerite’s husband, Herbert, was an engineer at a sugar plantation there.  The ship’s records showed three children, Herbert, Louise and Marguerite.  Interestingly, Louise was born February 1^st, 1919 which was special because the ship had left San Francisco just the day before.  Her records indicate birthplace as “Born at sea.”  That must have been a challenging experience for Marguerite! 

At some point I was researching the descendants of Clyde Sawyer and knew of his two sons, Donald and Wesley.  These boys had been raised in Morgan Hill and were spoken of by Paul Ward and Lois Dickman and her father, Leland’s brother, Donald Edwards.  In 2008, I recorded the children and grandchildren of Donald, but little was known of Wesley’s descendants, if any.   

By corresponding with Laverne Sawyer in 2008, his wife, I learned that he had passed away in 2004.  Laverne was, and is, very helpful, sharing some wonderful genealogical charts that Wesley had made tracing the Sawyer side of the family back to a John Sawyer in 1590.  From that genealogical chart I saw that Wesley had had two children, Thomas and Gayle, but had no way to find them.  Then in September of 2010, Wanda at the FHC retrieved Wesley’s obituary from the Santa Cruz Sentinel that listed Thomas and Gayle with their towns they lived in.  I went to the internet and was able to find Gayle due to her more unique spelling and reached out to her for help in 2010.  She was helpful also and cooperative, supplying me with an old photo of the Breton ranch house in Florida and tantalizing me by saying she had her dad’s genealogical binders and other family materials. She sent me a handwritten chart, probably used by Wesley showing names and addresses, and spouses of his cousins, the children of Marguerite Sawyer Purcell.  Here I learned that the two daughters, Louise Purcell had married a Gentry and that Marguerite Erna Purcell had married a Campbell.  The latest date on the chart is 1975 so the information was probably current as of the late 70s or early 80s. 

Using that information I began checking Ancestry for birth, marriage and other records.  This was mostly an exercise in frustration, but I knew from their last trans-Pacific journey records that they had an address in Sacramento in the 1950s.  I was looking everywhere for Marguerite Campbell since she was the youngest and most likely to still be alive. I found a record of her death in the California Death Index in Sacramento, but there was no information about next of kin or survivors.  After getting so much help from Wesley Sawyer’s obituary I futilely searched the online records of the Sacramento Bee for more information about Marguerite.  Thinking that someone “on the ground” might have more success I contacted Bonnie Hinrichsen, my maternal cousin who lives in Sacramento.  She also could not find any newspaper obituary but suggested I contact the County Recorder for a Death Certificate.    

I resolved then to spend some money and wrote to the Sacramento County Recorder’s office for an informational death record for her. 

I was hoping that the form would list her survivors.  It did, but only showed her husband Charles A. Campbell.  So that was no help, but a bit more research did show that he’d died in Sacramento two years later.   After thinking about it for a week or two I sent off for his death certificate and got it back the following week.  It showed that his next of kin was a daughter, Patricia Nuytten.  FINALLY, a next generation name.  I found her in the Public Records Index which shows records from phone books and a variety of other places.  Tracing her through moves from California through four other addresses I was left with a 2002 address in Florida.  I then called information and asked for the phone number and found yet another address and phone number.  I called on June 2^nd, 2011 and established that her mother’s maiden name was Purcell and was delighted to learn that she was interested in helping update the chart.  The next day I sent her a Breton Descendants chart along with a relationship chart which showed we are third cousins. 

As this is written I’m awaiting updates from Tom and Gayle Sawyer regarding their families and Patricia is getting in touch with Sally Gentry, her cousin, a daughter of Louise Purcell Gentry.  I’m not sure if Herbert had any children but time will tell.  I think I see the light at the end of the John and Margaret Breton Descendants Tunnel.  

P.S.  This was written before the July trip.  Knowledge gained from that trip will be posted soon.   I'm pleased to report that answers to questions raised in earlier blogs were answered.  Stay tuned...

N. INDIANA VINTAGE TRAILER RALLY, POST #9

Northern Indiana Vintage Trailer Rally

KOA Kampground

Granger, Indiana

7/28-7/31/11

Milwaukee in the rear view mirror sped me on my way south on a major interstate.  I was surprised when the Garmin took me off the interstate and routed me onto an older state highway.  I guess it was shorter than the interstate, but was a bit more stressful due to the closer traffic, intersections, and differing speed limits.  On the other hand I did get to see suburban Skokie. 

This highway took me onto the major interchanges around and through Chicago.  I was going slowly, really crawling along with a rolling traffic jam and doin’ ok.  At the south end of town I was getting ready to shift to the left onto an eastbound freeway when a car sped up on my left and cut right across in front of me and I missed the opportunity.  The Garmin recalculated a new route and boy did I get some more sightseeing!  I ended up going east on 79^th street.  I was the only RV going through the two lanes of the “South Side of Chicago” with thoughts of Jim Croce songs about Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Jim and Slim running through my mind.  I just hoped I wouldn’t have to turn around or back up in the tight traffic.  With a resolute trust in the Garmin I crossed town and got on the Skyway Toll Road.   They must think a lot of the Skyway; it cost me $10 for about a five-minute drive segment.

After several more toll road challenges I got to the KOA Kampground in mid afternoon, and was directed to a great spot in the shade with a cement patio.  The KOA host even led me to the spot and then stayed to verbally direct me into the optimum space for that site.  I was set for the weekend.  For the first time the Jauch Collection of re-canvassed sling chairs saw daylight and the matching awning went up without delay. 

I was late to the 8 pm meet-n-greet session since I was still on Central time and Indiana is in the Eastern time zone.  How did I miss that?  Surely there must have been a sign somewhere along the road.  After a watch readjustment I walked with the folks around the campground at 10 pm to see the lit up trailers like they were “back in the day,” well, like “back in the night.”  Along the way there was genial conversation, cocktails and charming views of the glowing trailers, lanterns, hanging decorative lights, and even a lit up palm tree.

I was very comfortable spending two days of strolling, seeing unique creations, learning from those more experienced and talented than I, and marveling at the range of treatments to the old bones of the trailers.  One of my favorites was a beautiful Yellowstone 14 footer with polished aluminum top and sides complemented by a turquoise side stripe.  What made it unique was that after the polishing it was caught in a hailstorm.  The pebbled look on the polished roof of the little guy was just charming.  It was a testament to how hard the people worked to get it looking so good, but that nature will still have its say.  I like that kind of character.   

With some prearranging Lee Dick, a good friend from our Brazil days came from Auburn, Indiana to visit.  Lee left education and has been in Indiana banking, has a lovely wife and two children.  He also has displayed some creativity in converting a 1937 Chevrolet that I last saw in his family’s barn.  It was in pieces, rusted, dusted and otherwise coated with excrement from various barn dwelling birds, bats, mice and who knows what else.  I had implored him to drive the project over from his home in Auburn, about an hour and a half drive.  He’s not taken it that far before but after a weather check and an early departure, the throaty exhaust announced the arrival of his purple street rod.  Naturally we took a spin, but spent most of the afternoon in the 1940s sling chairs that go with the awning.

Our sling time was also the time of the Open House home tour of trailers so I was often interrupted to answer questions or point out features of the Angelus.  For everyone it was the first time they’d ever heard of the brand, so everything about it was a new discovery.  Karen calls the trailer “cute” and I did hear others use the same term but I was very gratified to hear others say it was “Fabulous” or “Stunning” or from one of the experts ‘You did this exactly right.”  The feature that got the most raves was the original 1946 linoleum flooring.  It IS very rare to see that component survive after 60 years.  In a near blizzard of interior turquoise themed trailers, the tomato red of the Angelus was also a standout.  Of course, the turquoise was correct for the fifties and the Angelus was from the forties.

After hosting for about two hours, Lee and I left an information sheet on the table in the trailer and went on our own tour.  People were so nice and proud of their salvage and restoration of these antiques.  Some were re-configured to suit the owners’ needs, some were still almost original, and others were in mid-development.  There were four or five Sisters on the Fly there with their painted trailers.  This group of female campers/fisherpeople has held events on the White River, which I’ve attended.  I believe I heard one lady say that they now have over 2,000 members.  Originally, it was two sisters who liked to fly fish and traveled around in their travel trailer. There were long trailers, tiny trailers and even a couple of vintage motor homes from the 70s. 

One of the nicest features of the event was a workshop hosted by a guy whose work I’ve admired online for years.  It was very helpful.  His trailer was simply a masterpiece.  He redid all the wood in it, has period correct furnishings down to the magazines (trailer magazines at that) and a beautiful moss green paint job on the exterior of the 30-foot trailer.  It was way beyond what I could do, so I was so happy to hear him and see the trailer in person.  I could go on and on about the variety, but I’ll just leave it that it was thoroughly delightful.

The owners were cordial, nice folks that were pleasant to share stories with.  Several times during the event I just dropped in on folks sitting outside and found myself sharing tales of trailers, remodeling challenges and triumphs. In short…. my people.    

Notable was the way these people had coped with the challenges of the heat and the uncooled trailers.  I saw air conditioning units free standing inside some trailers, some units outside on the ground with ductwork into vents inside the trailer, one with a small unit inside the trailer cabinetry, and the always popular “take out the window and mount a unit in the space” approach, but the best was a very clever approach which preserved both the inside and outside of the trailer’s integrity.  This method used a big tripod for a public address speaker to set an AC unit on outside the trailer at window level.  The window was then lifted open (like mine do), the unit moved flush against the window frame and then used some packing foam to stuff between the frame and the AC unit to seal the flow, plugged it in, and voila…cold air inside!  This is the way to go, it provides AC to the inside yet allows the outside and inside to remain stock.  It’s all about the preservation.

There will be many pictures posted soon.

I packed up and headed home Sunday.  Many had pulled out but as I left the lady who had coordinated the event was still at the roadside to thank those departing.  I thanked her and as I drove away I heard her say to a friend nearby, “Beautiful trailer.”  I drove away on cloud nine.  As I Ieft town I saw I wasn’t the only Mountain Homer there: a truck passed by pulling a Champion bass boat!  Going down the interstate I was enriched by seeing the quilt patterns painted on the barns.  I ‘m sure there’s more to know about them, but even without knowing the stories there, they made a lively sideshow to the freeway boredom.  Speaking of boredom, I was barreling down the interstate thinking it was some very flat county when a town sign became visible.  The name of the upcoming town was Kansas!  How appropriate.   

Like the first day of the trip I had planned to sleep at a rest area, so didn’t want to get there too soon, hence the late departure.  I again set the cruise control at the speed limit and this time headed south.  Making good time I got to the rest area with three hours of daylight still left.  One reason is that I’d just gone from Eastern time zone back to Central.  It was too soon to stop so I motored on and found myself back in Theodosia by midnight.  Howdy greeted me with a standing hug and Karen with kisses. 

How sweet it is to get home.  This was a wonderful trip with much gained in family knowledge, travel experiences, new friends, and increased personal growth.  Yes, I threw out outdated food, took medicine on my own, showered and did laundry without prompting, kept gas mileage records and organized the family search materials.  The next challenge is to transfer these emails and the appropriate photos onto the genealfamilial blog.   In that way the whole experience will be recorded and available to those that I didn’t send the emails to.  Once again, my thanks to all who made the trip possible and those who enriched my experience on the road.   Thanks also to those email recipients who replied with words of encouragement and commentary.   

DON'T FORGET: For a more visual perspective of the trip, a web album of over 100 photographs with captions is posted at https://picasaweb.google.com/udadster/JulyTrip2011a?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7O8bTM_pieBQ . Feel free to look at any time, if you want to see the pics first, or after you read each posting.  

Happy trails to all.

MILWAUKEE WEEKEE, POST #8

Milwaukee Week

Sunday PM July 24, 2011

After setting up the trailer (no awning in this urban setting) I drove down to the Post Office to see if they had a Sunday pick-up since I wanted to mail my anniversary card to Karen in time for our 42^nd anniversary on Wednesday.  They didn’t have a Sunday pick-up, but I dropped off the card knowing that it would be processed at 10 a.m. on Monday.  The downtown area has gentrified the old buildings and the old Third Ward District where the Bretons lived is now “The Arts and Fashion District.”  Driving around on this sunny afternoon, it looked very inviting with folks eating at sidewalk cafes, people strolling to window shop and intriguing displays in the shop windows.  I want to come back and explore it more on foot. 

The “campground” is next to the state fairgrounds and is all asphalt with hook-ups for the RVs.  It’s totally non-scenic.  There were no Mourning Doves to gently encourage me to wakefulness. When the place advertises “Easy on and off freeway” you can read between the lines that the freeway is close.  That closeness brings a constant roar of trucks, the rolling thunder of Harley-Davidsons (This is their hometown after all), howls of sirens, and the low roar of jets leaving the airport, which must not be too far away.  It’s just a matter of adjusting, especially when you’ve already paid.  So I’ve adjusted, but cherish my quiet nights and mornings back at the Leon Valley Campground. 

Monday

On into the heart of the big city beast.  The freeways were a bit of challenge with racing vehicles, lane changes, sign reading, and Garmin instructions, but the truck’s height gave me an advantage of getting a good perspective for my next moves.  Off the freeway and onto the streets of Milwaukee led me without too much circling to the huge old courthouse.  I parked in a garage and shagged myself to a lowly basement entrance.  No one gets to use the wonderful old multi-door entrance…security again.   Utilizing my past successes with the Register of Deeds to identify property I went first to that office.  I guess because of the size of the town, they don’t keep the records by name, but by the property description.  Since I wanted to know the addresses, there was no way to proceed further there.  The lady suggested I check at City Hall to see if the Tax records would reveal who paid for what.  After a hot walk I learned that they too also keep their records by property description.  I left there and by this time the big library was open.  So I then went to their microfilms for newspaper mention of Sarah Breton’s birth, which our records show to have been in Milwaukee in 1863.  No mention of Sarah, but I was surprised to read the accounts of the New York draft riots and reports for the Civil War battles that were decimating both sides.  Well, at least I could plug in the laptop and do some writing.  Even this turned into a disappointment, as I seemed to have lost some of my earlier work.  The morning had pretty much been a washout. 

Before leaving I asked the Periodicals Librarian if there was a part of the library that dealt with genealogy.  She pointed me down the hall to the Humanities room. 

A patient lady there suggested I look through the old City Directories.  This was a resource I’d not utilized in the smaller towns.  Perhaps they didn’t have such resources.  These Directories were so old that the covers had come off of them and each one was held together by a paper with the year number on the spine as it was wrapped around the volume with a fancy string with a slide eyelet holding it all together.  It was really a privilege to handle these old resources.  As gently as I could I opened the 1859 volume and soon found in the B range.  “John Breton, shoemaker “ with his home address given.  I continued through to 1871 when they no longer appear, but by then had learned of other places he worked and gotten three more home addresses. These discoveries and handling such treasured resources was the bright spot of the day for me.  These were wonderful specific facts and exactly what I needed to take back to the courthouse on Wednesday where I have an appointment to look up Sarah Elizabeth’s birth record.  She is J.W.’s youngest sister and the one who married into the Sawyer family.  Actually she married Lizzie Sawyer Breton’s brother, Uzell.  It was a smaller world back then.

While looking in the 1863 Directory I was perplexed to see an ad for the Chicago and Indiana Air Line.   Planes in 1863…?  No way!  I showed it to the Reference Librarian who looked it up and informed me that Wikipedia lists over fifty railroads that had the phrase “air line” in their title.  Like “beeline” or “as the crow flies” it meant a route that was straight, flat, and direct.  All aboard!  Something new everyday, right?   

That evening I got a call from Jean Weber telling me that I wouldn’t be able to meet with her husband, John Weber because he’d been hospitalized.  This was another disappointment since I knew that Karen’s grandfather, William

Haag did not spend much time in Milwaukee before he worked his way to San Francisco.  My hope in coming to Milwaukee was to establish a link to the descendants of his sisters who had stayed and married in Milwaukee.  Karen’s parents and grandparents had each made trips to this town to maintain those family bonds but the younger generations seem to be less inclined to maintain those relationships.  I’ll keep trying but there’s not much I can do while I’m here.  Too bad.  The other cousin who has been of help is out of town, so I’ll have to confine myself to researching rather than bonding. 

Tuesday got off to a slow start as I made calls to line up a stop at an RV place to refill my 1947 propane tank and then check out the source of my propane leak.  I had run dry after just one cooked meal, so if I wanted any more hot meals I had to get that fixed.  I was also calling local libraries to get their hours and Wi-Fi connectablity (‘nother new word?). 

At some point I walked to the Milwaukee Historical Society headquarters, which are in a restored old bank building.  Just being among the gilt wall décor and huge bank vault doors was impressive.   I joined the Society and as a member began looking through old Milwaukee court records to see if there was any legal actions that might be enlightening.  I couldn’t find anything though so I suppose the early Bretons were either law-abiding or really clever criminals.  Wanting to know more about when the family immigrated and knowing that they had Naturalization records I was shown their card file in an old wooden card file.  Going through the B’s there was no listing.  That meant that Naturalization had not been granted n Milwaukee.  Another strike and a miss!   On a table nearby lay another big old ledger titled, ‘”Declaration of Intent.  I thought that that referred to the first step in the naturalization process and so I, as a member can only do, moved the book to a table and looked in the B section.  It’s kind of a thrill to find something you’re looking for and I was thrilled to see John Breton listed with a file number.  The file turned out to be a single sheet that was his legal declaration that he intended to give up his allegiance to Queen Victoria and become a citizen of the United States.  That was in 1859, two years after they’d arrived.  Most importantly, he’d listed their port of entry and approximate date as New York, June of 1857.  This was new knowledge for me and I felt that I’d really found a nugget that I’d long be seeking.  I lingered a bit longer but then felt I needed to move on, since my time is limited.

Armed with that new knowledge I went to the other resource that Gen Web contacts had previously told me over the Internet would be a good source of information.  It was the Family History Center at the Mormon Church in the Milwaukee suburb of Hale’s Corner.  FHCs are at many churches but are totally non-sectarian and no pressure.  The folks at the FHC in Mountain Home have been very good to me and are responsible for many discoveries that have led me this far.  Using Karen’s gift GPS I found my way there and settled in.  I began looking for FHC.  Hearing my success in finding the month and place of their arrival one of the ladies there began exploring on the computer to see if she could help.  I hadn’t asked but everyone loves to find treasure so, unbeknownst to me she went to work.  What cued her in to my quest was that I had asked to see their National Archives microfilms of the New York Passenger lists for June of 1857. 

I began the challenging task of scrolling through each day’s microfilmed, handwritten records of ship arrivals and passengers beginning June 1.  I knew that they had left from Southampton, but that didn’t mean that that was the original starting point of the ship.  The ships were listed by where they started from, not their last stop before arriving.  So, I had to look at each European ship, but could discard the ones coming from the Caribbean and other spots.  I had spent about half an hour and was up to June 23^rd 1857 when the lady, Odessa, by name, brought me a Xerox copy she’d made of the passenger list with the Breton family, mis-transcribed as Bretton on it!  Another breakthrough!  Here’s a stupid realization…the computer could search faster than I could.  The same roll of microfilm that I was looking at had also be transcribed and made a part of the resources searchable on Ancestry.com.  “Searchable” means that you can enter a name and the computer looks at the resources and then shows the matches.  I could have done this at home, but wasn’t patient enough to go through all the possible misspellings of Breton.  They were on a ship that started from Bremen, but made a stop in Southampton, picking up about twenty passengers.  There was John, Margaret, Mary and Johnny with a Mary, aged seventy with them.   Who was she? …and no Margaret (Maggie, who later married Abram Thompson and is buried in Huron’s Riverside Cemetery).   Looking a little further down the list, there was Margaret.  I guess that in boarding the ship some others got in front of her so she was briefly separated from the family, she was only four years old.  She was behind another head of a family, so maybe the two families were from Guernsey and traveling together.  We know that she got back together with her family for the trip and that poor Johnny died at sea, but again, who was the seventy-year old lady listed as a Breton?  Looking at the next (1860) U.S. Census we see that a 73-year-old lady named Mary Garvey is still part of the Breton household in Milwaukee.   I suspect she’s an aunt of John’s.  John’s father, Niclolas, married a woman named Rachel Gavet, so I think this might be a sister of hers.  The difference in Garvey and Gavet can be simple miscommunication.   John Walter doesn’t mention her in his “Memoirs” as being part of the family trans-Atlantic trip but there she is.  She boarded with the family and was counted as a Breton, when she probably shouldn’t have been.  She was a family member, but not a Breton.  New knowledge! 

The Fairgrounds workers are gearing up for the State Fair; the Comet roller coaster is being erected right in front of my camping parking spot. I’m parked so near that I’m sure the swells in their big, flashy RVs think I’m one of the carny folk. The fair is definitely coming to town.  Every day there are more trucks with carnival rides parked across the street.  Today I went to the laundry room and there were three guys passed out asleep while waiting for their laundry.

At the other end of the spectrum are $200, to $300,000 motor homes that come to this campground for its ability to handle such large units.  They take pride in the number of slide-out sections that expand the living rooms, bedrooms and so on.  Some may have up to five, the slides may be not very wide or they may be a super-slide which can include the living area and the kitchen.  People have described one to me that expands vertically to make a split-level motor home.  Rather than feel impoverished I can feel proud that my RV has four slides too.  Each window slides out to allow max ventilation and such innovation is the seed from which these modern units grew.  They should be thanking me!

We’ve had rain on Wednesday, but nothing serious.  The rain slowed me down in my wish to walk the streets where the Bretons did since they lived here for thirteen years.  To get a birth certificate you have to make an appointment two days in advance.  I had done that and Wednesday was the day for me.  Since I had such success with the City Directories at the library, I also thought I could look up the deeds to those addresses and see if the Bretons owned or rented. their housing.  Despite another rainy morning I got there ahead of time and the ladies at the counter were very nice and went to look for the record.  They came back a few minutes later and said, they had no record for her, but that was not too unusual, records were not required until 1923.  They didn’t charge me the $20 fee for that research so I returned to the Register of Deeds lady I’d talked with on my first visit to the courthouse. Today I had the addresses but boy what a challenge.  I admit it was too much for me.  The properties have changed hands so many times, been expanded or shrunk, and their old residential neighborhood is now such an office building district that it proved to be more than I could follow.  The records were on microfiche with the dark blue background and supposedly white lettering.  All the records I looked at were all hand-written and scarcely legible.  After peering at over twenty sheets of 12 pages on a sheet I gave up.  The lady said they were all for the same property but I have my doubts. 

I left the courthouse and drove downtown to see if I could see the addresses.  Not one was still visible.  They each had been subsumed into bigger, taller properties as the downtown values escalated and the area expanded.  I had planned a nice walking tour of this restored Third Ward area, but it was still raining and since I had no family connection to it, I headed back to the fairgrounds.  While jogging that morning I’d noticed a nice restaurant and so dropped in there and had a Spanokapita Dinner with tsatsiki sauce, feta cheese, Greek olives, peppers and a bowl of mushroom soup for $7.  Thinking back on my time here though I wish I had found a German restaurant and sampled some of that cuisine.   There’re still a few days left, maybe Thursday on the way to the rally?