On Sunday, I wrote a bit about Minnie Mae Williams Brasher Horne, my husband Dave’s great grandmother. Minnie Mae died in 1945, before Dave was born so he never knew her, but his father, Ed, did. When I first got working on the family history, Ed shared details about his grandmother, along with some old photos of her. I followed up and filled in the basics about her, her two husbands and her two children. I also filled in what I could about Minnie’s own parents, stepmother, siblings and half-siblings, but there were a few missing dates and dead ends on the family group sheets.
It’s been quite a while, years actually, since I spent a lot of time on this family. With over 15,000 people in two family trees – my own and Dave’s – I do circle back to take new looks, but the ancestors have to wait their turns because there are so many of them!
As I worked on yesterday’s post about Minnie’s life and sharing her obituary, I started checking for new records that might be found online. Not surprisingly, I can say that there are fewer empty branches today on these trees.
Basically, I used Ancestry and FamilySearch and was more than pleased with the results. Here are some of the new documents I found in just a couple of hours:
- I knew that Minnie’s second husband, Charlie Horne, was born about 1880 and died before her. I found:
World War I Draft Registration
Source: Ancestry
This World War I draft registration not only gave me Charlie’s date of birth – 20 December 1879 – I also learned that in 1918, the family was living in Alvin, Brazoria County, Texas, just south of Houston and not far from the Gulf of Mexico. I had had no idea that they ever lived there.
2. I had never been able to find Joseph Brasher, wife Minnie and daughter Pearl in the 1900 census. Joe was Minnie’s first husband. They married when she was 16, he was 20 and they divorced after not very many years. A new check online found:
Index to Texas Marriages
Source: FamilySearch
I had assumed, since Charlie and Minnie had only one son, Aulton Edward, born in 1910, that they probably married about 1907 or 1908, but I had no marriage record for them. Now I know they married much earlier than that – 2 October 1904 – and they married in Paris, Lamar County, Texas, about 40 miles north of Sulphur Springs, where Minnie had grown up and married Joe Brasher. I never knew they had any connection to Lamar County, either.
3. I knew that Aulton Edward Horne was born in 1910, but I had no birth record for him. Since the familv was enumerated in Plainview, Hale County, Texas, it seemed likely that Aulton was born there. I found:
Baby Boy Horne’s Birth Certificate
Source: FamilySearch
Although Aulton hadn’t yet been given his name, his birth was duly recorded in Plainview, Hale County. Interestingly, though, Aulton always claimed 10 March 1910 as his birth date, but this certificate says 12 March 1910. I wonder if the doctor filled this out several days and babies after Aulton’s birth and wrote in the wrong date? Minnie only had one other child and I don’t think she would have forgotten that her son was born on 10 March.
4. Minnie Mae had several siblings and half-siblings. Her full siblings were brothers James Benjamin, who lived and died in Hopkins County, and Levi, born about 1877 and died on 8 September 1879, also in Hopkins County. Minnie Mae also had a sister, Louella J., born about 1875 and enumerated with the family in 1880. After that, I could never pick up a trace of her. I found no marriage records for Louella, Ella or L.J. Williams who could possibly be her. She wasn’t buried at Connor Cemetery, where the rest of the family was buried. and I didn’t have any idea what her middle name might be.
While looking at the 1880 census as I worked on the obituary post, there was a link to Junnie, Jennie Hullen, Hullender, etc. in Kings Mountain, Cleveland County, North Carolina. I figured that was probably not related to Louella, but I checked it out. Her first and last name were spelled a myriad of different ways, as was that of her husband, Benjamin Ivason (Ivy) Hullender. However, an online death certificate named her father as John C. Williams and there were records connected to her showing a birth place in Texas and Arkansas. She was actually born in Arkansas. I also found:
Hullender-Williams Marriage, 1899
Source: FamilySearch
B.T. should probably be “B.I.” but the name was unusual enough that I looked in the 1900 census for them. In 1910, the oldest child, Mary, born about 1902, had a Texas birthplace listed. I found:
Hillender, Benjamin & Juna L.
Hopkins County, Texas
Source: Ancestry
Louella was Louella Junnie or Juna or Junia or Jennie Williams, which is why I couldn’t find her anywhere. The family moved back to North Carolina where Benjamin’s family lived and Jennie died there in 1937.
Jennie Williams Hullender, 1937 Death Certificate
5. There may be more to be found, but the last discovery thrilled me. I have never been able to find Joseph, Minnie and Pearl Brasher in the 1900 census. Pearl was born in February 1898 and I had hoped to be able to narrow the time frame in which Joe and Minnie separated and divorced. I know Pearl attended school in Hobart, Oklahoma in 1905, but had no idea if she still lived with both parents at that time.
Ben and Junnie/Jennie Hullender were living in Justice Precinct #5 in Hopkins County, Texas in 1900 and were found on image 43. I checked to see where Minnie’s father was living because I knew he was in the same precinct. John and family were on page 32. I started to scroll down looking for him when this caught my eye:
1900 Census of Hopkins County, TX, Image 32
Now I know why I couldn’t find the “B”rasher family. They are indexed as “Rrasher” and that is exactly how the name looks in the actual census record. In addition to that, the census enumerator wrote what looks lie “Jae” for Joseph and “Mennie” for Minnie. However, this mystery is solved.
I learned that Joe and Minnie divorced sometime between the 19 June 1900, the date of this census, and 2 October 1904, when Minnie married Charlie Horne.
The moral of the story here is to be sure to revisit your ancestral families. New records are becoming available every day and your ancestors will be in them.