During the month of December, the television channels out-do each other to give us made-for-television, Christmas movies several times a day. Hallmark says, “make it Hallmark for the Holidays.” ABC Family offers the 25 Days of Christmas. Lifetime shows Christmas movies every morning and again in the evening.
When I am punching reports, folding mailers, stuffing envelopes, and licking stamps (actually I use the self-adhesive kind), I have these fluffy stories going softly in the background to keep me from getting too intense.
Here is the story line of 8 different movies: Santa is getting too old to stay up all night Christmas Eve and he’s worn out making toys all year or supervising playful elves who never get enough done. It is time for the next generation to take over. Santa’s son (or daughter) has always resented the time Daddy spent on other children at Christmas, leaving mother and kids at home, to celebrate alone. So the heir wants nothing to do with the Santa job. The first 2/3rds of the show goes into the many diversions the kids use to avoid becoming Santa Claus. They often use the magic,however, for their own benefit.
A few story lines include the futile attempts of the heir-apparent to update, modernize, and make Santa’s life more efficient. All attempts fail to win approval of the jolly old elf, and Sonny gives up in disgust.
The final third of the show reveals the reconciliation–usually their own child pines for that same attention now lavished on corporate toy making (and a few other corporate pursuits) by Santa’s heir. Indeed, the young child has no idea that Grandpa is really Santa and most have never met Grandpa. For the secret that Daddy is Santa Claus only brings ridicule and suspicion for the heir-apparent–what rational adult believes in Santa Claus anyway?
But a year without Santa Claus, no presents under the tree (with associated financial ruin to all the toy companies and their retail outlets who aid Santa each year), no bells and reindeer flying across the moon, is too dreadful to consider. So they all end happily–Sonny begins to believe so the magic will work and the reindeer will fly and the sack will always be full of gifts. Grandpa gets to meet his grandkids. The presents are delivered on time. And Santa nurses his hot chocolate into retirement. Like Father, Like Son–to the third generation and beyond.
What does this have to do with your genealogy? Like Father Like Son–
Peter R. Knights, in an intriguing article, “Facts of Lives: or, What Happened to 2,808 Nineteenth-Century Bostonians,” Genealogical Journal 12 Winter 1983-84) 162-73, describes the first work force most fathers have–their own children. He was able to trace his lost Bostonians because the first son, 85% of the time, had the same occupation or profession as his father. And the majority of these first sons went home to Boston and its immediate environs to collect his bride.
David Davenport found similar statistics in New York, when he traced the whereabouts of people who migrated West. He, too, tied the sons to their fathers by occupation. See his “Tracing New York’s Out-Migrants, 1855-1860,” Historical Methods 17 (Spring 1984) 59-67. He located 93% of the people listed in the census by studying the basic families, including relatives, who lived in each household. Then he searched newspaper gossip columns, letters to the editor, and county histories to track these residents to 64 different localities in 14 states and territories and one Canadian Province.
If it works for these writers, this essential concept will work for you, too.
Parents and children do not live their lives in isolation from each other. And finding the father does not occur in isolation either. When you trace John Kennedy from his death back through his birth in the records of Augusta County Virginia, you want to collect the information on all Kennedy persons recorded in those same sources. If John’s parents lived in August County, their information will be collected at the same time.
Look carefully at the data you have retrieved: Joseph Kennedy and his wife Rose, lived on the farm next to John. Joseph witnessed John’s marriage and signed his marriage bond. Joseph sold John a piece of land for “other valuable considerations.” For seven consecutive years, Joseph and John paid their taxes on the same day to the same tax collector. Joseph was a witness on John’s deeds and testified in his behalf in court.
John sold two pieces of land, near the end of his life, which Joseph had purchased–lands included in the estate division to Joseph’s heirs. Finally, John was buried with his wife and two infant babes in the same family burial ground where Joseph and Rose had been laid to rest twenty five years earlier.
Even though no record actually states that John is the son of Joseph–not one–we can conclude from the many parallel and linked circumstances of their lives, that they are father and son.
Archibald & Son… just think of the tidiness in this corporate name–for generations it works over and over. Even though the heir may be a daughter, the name continues to work. Callahan & Son. Berryman & Son. Directories are filled with such evidence. Dig a little deeper this next year, and locate the like father, like son evidence in the records you search.
Merry Christmas–and try to catch at least one fluffy Christmas Show–
Your favorite genealogy expert, Arlene Eakle
P.S. Oops! We missed Forefathers Day, 21 December–set aside to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on these shores, 21 December 1620. So a day late, Happy Forefathers Day! See, I told you we need a daily New Sheet. Well, 2007 is another year when we can celebrate them all.