I just randomly looked up my biological grandfather on Wikipedia, and am irrationally annoyed that his fourth wife is listed as spouse instead of my grandmother. (She was his wife at the time he died, and he may have been married to her longer, but still. My Nana was the one who raised all his kids, damnit. Two of whom are also missing from the entry.)

The question is Samuel Barrett Moulton Barrett--did he have kids with a Jamaican black woman, and if so, what were their names?

The curiosity is--clearly the official documents don't support their position or they'd be wearing the T shirts--how could I find out about shenanigans? I guess I can't eliminate them, but still.

I'm sure the best our Moultons could do would be to have been being owned.

I'm not sure. There are a bunch of slave registers from Jamaica that are searchable at ancestry.com, but without knowing first names, I wouldn't know how to figure out which people to look at. There are a lot of slaves listed as belonging to Samuel Moulton Barrett, and some listings where the slaves have the last name Moulton and the owner is listed as just Samuel Barrett, so there is information there, if you know what to look for.

Hil, if you don't mind looking up some more, I have a question about one of my great grandfathers. Isaac Valli (1878-1947) was born in Finland and came to the US around 1900. His father's name was Jacob Sorkala Eliasson (1846-1931), who also immigrated to the US around then. Apparently Issac was legitimate, so I've been wondering--why the name change? My theory is that he had another family as "Isaac Eliasson," but I'm not sure how to find out. (The family story is that he only came home long enough to get great grandma pregnant, so it seems possible.)

Is he albino, Anne?

Nope. He's got greeny-gold eyes.

Hil, if you don't mind looking up some more, I have a question about one of my great grandfathers. Isaac Valli (1878-1947) was born in Finland and came to the US around 1900. His father's name was Jacob Sorkala Eliasson (1846-1931), who also immigrated to the US around then. Apparently Issac was legitimate, so I've been wondering--why the name change? My theory is that he had another family as "Isaac Eliasson," but I'm not sure how to find out. (The family story is that he only came home long enough to get great grandma pregnant, so it seems possible.)

Well, according to wikipedia, Finland didn't require hereditary surnames until 1921, and there were a bunch of regions that didn't use them before that. So it could just be that they had different names.

Oh, here's another one. Andreas Koch (1759-1826) emigrated to Baltimore ca. 1798. Daughter Sophia Dorothea Koch. I can't find him in immigration records, I can't find him in a census, nothing. Everything I know about him is from a 3x5 card in my grandfather's handwriting/

An interesting bit of context. There was a series of Pograms from 1903-1906, with one of the biggest in 1905. And there were Jewish Bunds in the area who fought back! Further as confirmation that we have the right person, the town was a big tanning center - one of the most common jobs for Jews was tanner. My Grandfather was a tanner. So he probably was in a Jewish Bund fighting back against a Pogram.

Wow, Hil -- you seem like magic.

Finnbar Fancypants McGee, aka "Finn"

Love!

This afternoon, I went through the wrapping paper portion of my inheritance -- my grandmother had basically a dresser full of wrapping paper, and I got most of it into a plastic under-bed storage box. (Threw some away, and a few rolls were too long for the box.) Slowly but surely...

TB, I know you always knew it, but how cool to find more evidence that your fam was fighting against The Man from way back!