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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Kinfolks, lost and found
By Wanda Orton
Contributor Published September 9, 2009 One of the joys of genealogy is finding kinfolks you never knew you had. One such discovery was Floriene Casey Spain, who grew up in Barbers Hill but lived many years in Tennessee.
When she returned to the Baytown area temporarily to care for her mother, Lucy Busch Casey, Floriene dropped by my office one day, introducing herself as my husband’s long-lost cousin. She and Skeeter are descendants of James Casey, a medical doctor who settled in Montgomery County in the 1800s.
We took it from there and for many delightful months, before Floriene returned to Tennessee, we exchanged stories and information about the Casey clan. (Skeeter’s mother and Floriene’s father were grandchildren of Dr. Casey.)
Randy Busch, related to Floriene’s mother, picked up on the family connection and thereafter kidded Skeeter with the standard greeting, “Hi, cuz.”
(Old-timers may remember the Busch and Casey grocery store on East Texas Avenue. Owner Busch was Lucy’s brother and co-owner Casey, her husband.)
Our daughter’s Lee classmate, Margot Bruce, dated a Sterling student named Mark Casey but at the time no one snapped to the fact that Jan and her friend’s boyfriend were kin. Now married, Mark and Margot live in Austin, and it was from the Capitol City that Mark e-mailed me a few years ago. Did I know that his dad and Skeeter were cousins?
Did not know -- but was glad to find another Casey descendant interested in genealogy.
On my dad’s side, I learned in recent years that I’m kin to several Hopper families in the Baytown area, including the late Highlands school principal B.P. Hopper. I told his daughter that I considered it an honor to be related, albeit distantly, to the beloved educator.
The Hopper connection goes back to our ancestor, Texas Army veteran Jesse T. Jones, in Cherokee County.
Interestingly, the Hopper line appears again in Skeeter’s family. His great-grandfather, the Rev. John Walding of Montgomery County, married a Hopper lady after his wife died.
Although I’m no kin to the Chambers family of Chambers County, I can claim an indirect link on my dad’s side through a cousin, Patti Oliver. Her husband is a descendant of Stella Chambers, daughter of Gen. Thomas J. Chambers. Little Stella was sitting in his lap when an unknown assassin shot and killed him in Anahuac.
My mother was a descendant of Thomas Crawford of Angelina County, and in tracing that line I’ve found a number of Crawford kinfolks. One of them was a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas in Baytown when I belonged to the Solomon Barrow Chapter, and I didn’t even know her.
One day when I was clearing out my DRT yearbooks, one of them fell to the floor, opened to a page that listed member Mary Rowe Stevens as a descendant of Thomas Crawford.
I quickly contacted Mary, and sure enough, we have the same great-great-great-granddaddy.
Dale Crawford, another “lost and found” cousin, has helped me a lot in genealogy research and has informed me about other cousins, Norman Crawford, who’s retired from ExxonMobil in Baytown, and Norman’s sister, Nelda Hollamon of Highlands. Their brother, the late Glen Ray Crawford, worked in a car business and later in real estate in Baytown.
Besides family history, Dale has shared his knowledge of the history of Houston, especially about old movie theaters and railroading.
So you never know who you’re going to meet on your next genealogy journey. While looking for ancestors from another time and place, you may find “cousins unaware” and some of them close to home.
Wanda Orton is a retired managing editor for The Baytown Sun.
Contributor Published September 9, 2009 One of the joys of genealogy is finding kinfolks you never knew you had. One such discovery was Floriene Casey Spain, who grew up in Barbers Hill but lived many years in Tennessee.
When she returned to the Baytown area temporarily to care for her mother, Lucy Busch Casey, Floriene dropped by my office one day, introducing herself as my husband’s long-lost cousin. She and Skeeter are descendants of James Casey, a medical doctor who settled in Montgomery County in the 1800s.
We took it from there and for many delightful months, before Floriene returned to Tennessee, we exchanged stories and information about the Casey clan. (Skeeter’s mother and Floriene’s father were grandchildren of Dr. Casey.)
Randy Busch, related to Floriene’s mother, picked up on the family connection and thereafter kidded Skeeter with the standard greeting, “Hi, cuz.”
(Old-timers may remember the Busch and Casey grocery store on East Texas Avenue. Owner Busch was Lucy’s brother and co-owner Casey, her husband.)
Our daughter’s Lee classmate, Margot Bruce, dated a Sterling student named Mark Casey but at the time no one snapped to the fact that Jan and her friend’s boyfriend were kin. Now married, Mark and Margot live in Austin, and it was from the Capitol City that Mark e-mailed me a few years ago. Did I know that his dad and Skeeter were cousins?
Did not know -- but was glad to find another Casey descendant interested in genealogy.
On my dad’s side, I learned in recent years that I’m kin to several Hopper families in the Baytown area, including the late Highlands school principal B.P. Hopper. I told his daughter that I considered it an honor to be related, albeit distantly, to the beloved educator.
The Hopper connection goes back to our ancestor, Texas Army veteran Jesse T. Jones, in Cherokee County.
Interestingly, the Hopper line appears again in Skeeter’s family. His great-grandfather, the Rev. John Walding of Montgomery County, married a Hopper lady after his wife died.
Although I’m no kin to the Chambers family of Chambers County, I can claim an indirect link on my dad’s side through a cousin, Patti Oliver. Her husband is a descendant of Stella Chambers, daughter of Gen. Thomas J. Chambers. Little Stella was sitting in his lap when an unknown assassin shot and killed him in Anahuac.
My mother was a descendant of Thomas Crawford of Angelina County, and in tracing that line I’ve found a number of Crawford kinfolks. One of them was a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas in Baytown when I belonged to the Solomon Barrow Chapter, and I didn’t even know her.
One day when I was clearing out my DRT yearbooks, one of them fell to the floor, opened to a page that listed member Mary Rowe Stevens as a descendant of Thomas Crawford.
I quickly contacted Mary, and sure enough, we have the same great-great-great-granddaddy.
Dale Crawford, another “lost and found” cousin, has helped me a lot in genealogy research and has informed me about other cousins, Norman Crawford, who’s retired from ExxonMobil in Baytown, and Norman’s sister, Nelda Hollamon of Highlands. Their brother, the late Glen Ray Crawford, worked in a car business and later in real estate in Baytown.
Besides family history, Dale has shared his knowledge of the history of Houston, especially about old movie theaters and railroading.
So you never know who you’re going to meet on your next genealogy journey. While looking for ancestors from another time and place, you may find “cousins unaware” and some of them close to home.
Wanda Orton is a retired managing editor for The Baytown Sun.