For those who do ancestry, did any of your ancestors just ”appear”? I have one ancestor that was born in the US, as were his parents and grandparents, but on the male side, there is no info. This ancestor was born about 1904, so his parents and grandparents were further back. Still, nothing. He was asked, but he just knew the town his ancestors lived in. The idea that they came from somewhere else drew blank looks.
Now, I know they were born and died, and there are no living relatives in that line, so no more questions can be asked. They were all cremated. There are no graves, ergo, no stones. All we have are birth and obituary notices, and wedding licenses. We checked doctor records. There are minimal church records. We checked immigration. We checked DNA.
We tried searching from the old country angle, and got exactly nowhere.
We checked various incarceration records. Nothing.
We did find handwritten records for several months, during which period one ancestor was a sheriff. The last note was a resignation.
We checked military records. Several in the Civil War. Several in Indian Wars. Several prominently in the War of 1812. 1 in the Mexican War. 2 in WW1. One in WW2. We checked various penal colonies. We checked slave manifests. We checked ship crews. We looked for stow-away records. We looked for indentured servants.
We checked taxes and work records. We checked census records.
As best as we can tell, they just walked into town one day, and got married a month or so later, then vanished for a few years, to appear a few hundred miles away. All but one were officers in their branch of service. After the war, those that lived mostly just vanished. I figure discharge papers means they were alive. During the Civil War, one in particular was frequently mentioned.
We have family Bibles. None of them reference parents or siblings. Just man, wife, and children.
We looked at the families of the women they married. Nothing notable, except that the family did not contest or question the match.
The one oddity, was that the pre WW2 relatives did not enlist in their town or even their state. They went to Virginia. One served in the White House afterward.
We checked newspaper accounts, and found frequent but sporadic mention. One particular ancestor was in the paper for a feat, but appeared and vanished, just showing up for that one thing.
We checked supplies, trapper logs, and mining claims. We checked other property deeds. We found a smattering of homesteads or property, but not to account for much.
We checked postal records. Abe Lincoln made special delivery to one ancestor. There were a few other items.
We checked B&Bs, rentals, hotels, and various livery records. We found a few interesting love notes that may or may not have reached their intended recipients. Otherwise, no new info.
We found a note where a relative resigned for a post of some sort, with the intent to leave civilization. Whomever was the superior with whom the dissagreement occurred, this relative was ordered to be detained for his own well-being, and that of wherever this was. He was killed by accident more than a thousand miles West of there. This story was very entertaining.
We found record of a duel.
We checked various political records. An aide to Andrew Jackson turned up.
Of course, names changed, either deliberately, or due to miss-spellings. For the most part, during peace time, they all lived about 150 miles East of where I live now. Despite random appearances in various other states, most of the records are in a very small area.
What am I missing?
