James Files for Workman's Comp

Another interesting set of documents included in James McGregor's probate records pertain to an on-the-job injury he sustained in 1911.  At that time, James was a station hand working for the Burlington railroad in Macon, Missouri, and had held that position for 10 years.  Then, on the 27th of November, an accident happened that appears to have changed, and may have ultimately ended, James' life.

Five documents make up the Brotherhood of American Yeomen Proof of Accidental Injury packet.  At first I assumed that the Brotherhood of American Yeomen (BAY) was a type of labor union, but once I dug into the organization I found that it was actually a fraternal insurance society associated with the Iowa State Insurance Company, through which James maintained several policies.  It's clear from the affidavits that James' injury was severe enough to warrant a claim, and that his career was ended by the events of that November day.

According to James' statement, signed on 24 February 1912, he was unloading timbers from a rail car when somehow the 10-foot long 8x10 ties broke loose.  Eight to ten beams fell on top of James, breaking his pelvis and severely bruising his left side and back.  He was confined to his bed for six weeks and to his home for four weeks after that.  Two physicians attended James, a W.H. Miller and an A.B. Miller, and both of their statements are included in the package.  Both of their accounts and diagnosis are similar, with their answer to one of the questions being of particular interest.  Question number 11 asks "Will claimant recover from accident in the ordinary course of treatment?"  Dr. W.H. Miller simply states "do not know" while Dr. A.B. Miller writes "I cannot tell. He is slowly improving."

According to James' death certificate, he died from sepsis with a contributing factor of tuberculosis prostate, a condition he suffered from for 2 years - or since early 1912 or late 1911.  I'm certainly no medical expert so I cannot say if James' accident contributed to the onset of this disease or was simply a coincidence.  I can conclude, however, that the events in the rail yard on November 27th, 1911, ended James' career.

Besides shedding light on the injury, the affidavits also give a glimpse into James' every day life.  His own questionnaire (pictured below) shows James to be fond of a beer now and then, having last visited a "saloon" two days prior to the accident.  There is also a form from a correspondent, or witness, named Mrs. Elizabeth Miles who was a seamstress in Macon.  She's essentially a character witness, having known James for 3 years and confirming James' own description of his lifestyle.  The final affidavit in the package was completed by F.T. Skinner, James' foreman, who also knew James for 3 years prior to the accident.

Introducing James and Giddie McGregor

My wife's new-found cousin has been kind enough to send some scans of family photos our way, and of those we've received thus far the most cherished is this photo of James and his third wife Ida "Giddie" Calhoun. I am uncertain of when the photo was taken, though judging from their clothing I would assume this is a wedding photo and would be dated around 24 December 1897.  It is credited to The Smith Photo Co., but I can find no information about that entity.



James McGregor's Will

Back in August I blogged about my James McGregor brick wall and mentioned that I had sent away to Macon County for his will and probate records.  Well, the packet arrived a couple of days ago and I was very pleased with the wealth of information, and number of surprises, it contained.  As to the big question about James' origins, the documents didn't contain even a hint of an answer.  They did, however, reveal some details about James' life that were previously unknown to us.

The first document in the packet was James' will, handwritten on the 3rd of February, 1914 - the day before he died.  It was obviously written by someone else's hand, for James' scratchy signature is at odds with the rest of the handwriting on the page.  The will revealed the expected - dissolution of his estate, with the proceeds distributed among his children Robert Lee, James, and Opal - but the valuable information began to be revealed immediately.  We learned that James' (the son) middle name was Pleasant, after James' (the father) father-in-law.  We also learned that Giddie Calhoun was actually James' third wife!  Until now, nothing we'd found mentioned previous wives - or children.  The will revealed both.

First mentioned was Mary Jane Jenkins, with whom James had a daughter named Mary Jane McGregor.  Digging through Missouri records online I discovered their marriage in 1882 and Mary Jane's birth in 1884.  Sadly, Mary (Jenkins) passed away on September 14th, 1884, at the age of 21.  While the record of her death attributes the cause to malarial fever, the proximity to her daughter's birth leads me to think that complications from that event at least contributed.  With the loss of the 1890 federal census it's hard to say if James' baby girl lived with him or her maternal grandparents. What is certain is that in 1900, according to the census, Mary was indeed living with her grandparents in Lingo Township, Macon County.  I suspect it wasn't very long before she went to live with them because....

Wife Number 2 came on the scene.  James married Emma Bundren on June 16, 1886, in Macon County.  With Emma he also had a daughter, May.  I could find no birth record for May, but additional contents of the probate packet places her age in 1896 at 8 years.  Those additional papers are the divorce decree issued in Arapahoe County, Colorado on February 25th, 1896.  Did James spend time living in Colorado?  It turns out that he did not, but his wife certainly did.  The same year that her divorce from James was granted, she married a man named William Baer - in direct violation of the divorce terms which stated that neither party was to marry within one year.  James married Giddie Calhoun on Christmas Eve 1897, but Emma's circumstances seem shady.  William Baer was also from Missouri, so there's circumstantial evidence to believe that the two ran off to Colorado.  It would certainly be interesting to know the whole truth of the matter.

There are many more documents and other interesting tidbits of information contained in the probate records, but this post has become quite long so I will share the rest in subsequent installments.

The Greatest Reward

For family historians, discovering who our ancestors were and where they came from is what drives us to spend hours upon hours pouring over records, indexes, photographs and newspaper clippings. Equally important and rewarding, however, is the opportunity for discovering previously unknown (or long-lost) living relatives with which we can share being a part of the same family. Yesterday I had just such a breakthrough.

Back in August I detailed my James McGregor brick wall which prevents me from peering further back down the McGregor family line.  I decided to attack the problem using a linear approach - digging for more on James' two other children (Robert Lee, James' other child, was my wife's great-great-grandfather, so I have his descendants pretty well researched).  I knew the birth date and place of James' son James, but little else.  For his third child Opal, however, I had a lot more to go on.  One item of interest was her obituary.  A month ago I blogged about the value of obituaries, and so I'd hoped to strike gold (or at least some silver) by looking for Opal's survivors.

Opal had two sons listed, Wendell and Jerry.  I hit the 'net and found Wendell rather quickly.  Unfortunately, it was his obituary from Wisconsin.  I'll be sending away for a copy of it soon, but in the meantime I returned to my searching and focused on Jerry.  I found a match in both name and location, but the only additional info I managed to learn was his mailing address.  Cheryl typed up an introductory letter containing her contact information and snail-mailed it to California - fingers crossed.  Last night an email popped in from Jerry, and he confirmed that he was indeed Cheryl's first cousin (twice removed)!  As an added bonus, he had been doing his own genealogical research and mentioned having boxes of photos, records, and newspaper clippings that he'd be more than happy to send our way.

Besides the prospect of knocking a few bricks out of the James McGregor wall, Cheryl has reached out and connected with a member of her family that she never knew existed.  Jerry mentioned that he thought his branch of the family had lost touch with his uncle Robert's branch (Cheryl's g-g-grandfather) forever, so he seems equally thrilled at this discovery.  This is what makes those long hours so worth the effort.

Brick Wall: James McGregor

I've recently begun researching my wife's ancestry and it didn't take very log at all before I encountered my first, and very formidable, brick wall.  At issue is the origin of her paternal great-great-grandfather, James McGregor of Macon County, Missouri.  Through online research I've been able to learn a great deal about James, such as his marriage to Ida "Giddie" Calhoun and his death in 1914 which left his three young children (the oldest of which, my wife's great-grandfather, was only 15) orphaned.  He's a steady fixture in Macon County from 1880, according to census records, but it's the time from his birth in 1858 until that first census appearance that has me scratching my head.

Family lore has always held that James was an orphan, and that fact is confirmed on his death certificate.  James' father-in-law, Pleasant Calhoun, is listed as the informer on the certificate and notes that James was orphaned in infancy, an event which occurred in Pennsylvania.  This is also circumstantially backed up in the census records as James' story about where his parents were born varies from year to year.  For example, in 1880 he declares that they were both born in Pennsylvania.  In 1900, however, he states that his father was born in Scotland and his mother originated from Ireland.  The census for 1910 displays a slight alteration to the story, with his mother now being from England.

A pretty exhaustive search of census records from 1860 and 1870 has yielded no match for James McGregor, or any name remotely similar, with a birth year of 1858.  So how, if he truly was born in Pennsylvania, did he reach Missouri twenty-two years later?  When he first appears in 1880, he's a boarder in the home of an elderly couple named Linn.  No other McGregors are listed in the county, so a familial tie is very unlikely.  Enter the Orphan Trains as a possibility, then.  I fired off an email to Shirley Andrews, the Missouri contact for the National Orphan Train Complex, asking for more information of the resources available to those who think they may have had an ancestor who was a rider.  After all, several hundred thousand children from eastern cities moved west as part of this phenomena.  Shirley very quickly replied to my inquiry, though she couldn't locate James among her records.  She did, however, have some great suggestions, such as perusing the local newspapers from the period since many Orphan Train arrivals were mentioned in the press.  An interesting side note to my theory is that, in the 1870 census, there is a James Smith living with a Gordon family in Macon County.  This James was born about 1856 in Pennsylvania and is listed as a "domestic servant".  Many Orphan Train riders weren't adopted, but were taken in as laborers, farmhands, and servants.  Could this James and my James be one and the same?  Intriguing.

So what are my next steps?  Thanks to the great information on the website of the Macon County Genealogical Society I was able to ascertain that James' will and probate records still exist at the county courthouse.  I've sent away for copies in the hope that some clue to James' early years might be found there.  The State Historical Society of Missouri has a great collection of newspapers on microfilm that contains many Macon County editions from the 1870s.  They participate in the Inter-Library Loan program, but my local library refuses to accommodate requests for microfilm.  Hopefully the Kentucky Historical Society's Martin F. Schmidt Research Library can help me to get my hands on these reels.  One way or another, I am going to scour through those newspapers!

I'll keep you posted.