Ancestor Fever

Ancestor Fever;  It strikes at times like the flu. 

The eyes get fuzzy, breathing shallow, the body stiff from hours at a key board. Frustration. Stupor. My sensible self is telling my obssesive self,"SNAP OUT OF IT!" 

Sensible Me: Stop. You have stuff to do.

      Obsessed Me: mmmm… Just one more thing.

Sensible Me: Yeah, you said that 20 minutes ago.

      Obsessed Me: I know, I know.  But I gotta do x,y,z, before I forget.

Sensible Me: Time's up!

       Obsessed Me: Gotta file this clue somewhere so I can find it later.

Sensible Me: STOP NOW.

       Obsessed Me: Uh huh…. but its so hard to get rolling and I've got this momentum.

Sensible Me: Sometimes, I think you might be possessed by spirits.

       Obsessed Me: Could be.

Sensible Me: Yeah, well… how come these spirits are not forthcoming with answers?  

Besides,  is chasing dead people around for hours on end how you should be spending your time? 

When my mind goes into this obsessive state, it only wants to focus on the past. It is not a random past, rather a particular past with a particular set of people. It could be the Acadians of Port Royal, or the miners of Rosario in Sinaloa, Mexico, or the Latino immigrants of San Francisco’s North Beach.  

This episode of Ancestor Fever is about the Pennsylvania past. The past of our Great Grandfather John R Allison, his sister Louisa Allison and his mother Sarah Gurley Allison in the village of Greencastle, Pennsylvania circa 1850.

Obsession defined is the  domination of thoughts by a persistent idea.  This time it is, who were the Gurleys? Where did the come from?  Persistence is what it took to locate Sarah Gurley, our great grandmother. Now the question is can we go a generation back into the past to locate her kin?

It is a puzzle, detective problem... The odd thing is I have a lifetime of avoiding puzzles, and no love for detective stories. So this is more like an obsession. Or perhaps it is possession.

Whatever it is, the spirits of the past are pushing to continue the search.
And I seem to comply.

Greencastle, Pennsylvania: It Takes a Village

Sarah Gurley and her origins have stubbornly remained buried in the dust of the past.  She has resisted the head-on search method of shaking all the records that might contain her name.  She has resisted the backdoor method, searching our  DNA connections. We are stuck. Sarah G's origins continue to elude us.

To solve this mystery the Search Sisters decide to go sideways.We aim to meet the people that surrounded our people. To do this we must build the village of Greencastle, Pennsylvania 1855 and populate it with FANS (the friends and neighbors of Sarah G).

We review the names on our Allison tree to locate aunts, uncles, cousins.  We find McLanahans, Boggs, Johnstons. Wilkins. We consider the contemporaries of Sarah Gurley Allison and her children John R. Allison and Mary Louisa Allison.  The employer: George Ziegler. The blacksmith: Charles Hartman. The medic: Doctor Boggs. 

We dig up maps of Franklin County. We discover the county shifts: Franklin was once Lancaster. It was also Cumberland. Before that it was Chester. We peer at the tangled geography of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  We study the roads.  We trace creeks and rivers.  

We look at the muster rolls containing the names of the soldiers of Franklin County. We read about of the war of 1812. (What was THAT war about?).  So many questions....

We stalk the library and the internet archives to read the history of Presbyterian churches in the Cumberland Valley. We locate the cemeteries. We collect images. We find portraits and attach them to the family tree.

We build a separate tree called Antrim Greencastle tree that includes everyone in the village for 100 years: McLanahans, Boggs, Johnstons, Wilkins, and Allisons.  

Still no kin of Sarah G.  Where, oh where, can her clan be?

The Will of Sarah Gurley Allison 1859 Transcribed

Sarah didn't write her will. Her wishes were related to the Franklin County, Pa. probate court
by relatives J McLanahan and William Allison.

Sarah Allison died in 1859 leaving two surviving children; John R Allison and Louisa Allison. 

Now we definitely know John R. had a sister Louisa. We thought there was another sister, Mary. She is not mentioned in the will. Perhaps she died. Or perhaps she was Mary Louisa, and we were confused.  John R was only 16. Louisa was also not of age.  Sarah didn't appear to be a wealthy woman, leaving only some bedding, silver, furniture and a watch.  

The witnesses that sign the will are relatives: Jas C McLanahan and William Allison. The executor is a man called Charles Hartman.  Stella's research indicates he may have been the village blacksmith.  

What was his relationship to Sarah G? How exactly were the witnesses related to Sarah?  

The Search Sisters have more mysteries to unravel.

Sarah Gurley Allison

So far the Search Sisters have been unsuccessful at finding kin for our great grandmother Sarah Gurley Allison.  We have looked in Pennsylvania, in Maryland, on ships lists and immigrants records.

Sarah has resisted our search efforts so far. Gurley. Gourley. Gerly. Gourley, so many ways to spell her name.  Sarah G had the bad luck to live in the time where ladies are reduced to a check mark on the census under a husband’s name. Her husband died leaving her alone to raise her children around Greencastle, Pennsylvania . No Gourleys live in Greencastle. Perhaps she was from Virginia?....  She didn’t own property, or at least she doesn't appear to be taxed for her property. 

Stella and I  decided to try again. We sacrificed a sunny Saturday in May in the basement library of the California Genealogical Society in Oakland. Late in the afternoon Stella discovered Sarah Allison’s last will and testament in records of Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

Finally. Something. 
Finding her will is a break through.