The Abraham Lincoln Connection

The Abraham Lincoln Connection

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 2 Theme: Challenge

James Elmore
Generation 9
My 4th Great Grandfather

Rigsby - Kienlen - Aden - Holland - Hartman - Estep - Elmore

Most of the time I really enjoy researching my family history. Sometimes, however, I encounter frustrating challenges. I have decided to write about one of these for this week's entry:  James Elmore.

James was born about 1821 in Kentucky, possibly in Green County. At some point, many people with the surnames Elmore and Strader moved from Green County, Kentucky to the New Salem area of Illinois. Many New Salem residents later relocated to nearby Petersburg in what is now Menard County, Illinois. For those of you who don't know this, New Salem was also home to Abraham Lincoln. The town has been partially reconstructed 
and is a now tourist site. 

( New Salem, Illinois, April 2018; Original photograph by Leslie D. Rigsby)

There were several families who intermarried quite a bit and used a lot of the same names. There is no easy way to sore them out. To make things even more challenging, EVERYONE with online trees assumes that Conrad/Coonrod Elmore, living with James in 1850, was his father. There is only a 15 year difference, so I am hesitant to believe this. Also, no one has a source for this information. I currently have three different Elmore family

 trees on Ancestry.com and I am attempting to sort them out. 

Hopefully I will be able to merge them at some point.

I am challenging myself to work on this in 2019, and I hope to finally be able to break through this brick wall.  

Last May I went to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. to find Civil War pension records for other ancestors. I was fortunate to also find Elmore records from the Black Hawk War. One of the documents I found for a man named Travice Elmore (one of several Travis/Travice Elmores) was signed by Abraham Lincoln. THE Abraham Lincoln!

(National Archives, Washington D.C. - now relocated from bounty land file so current location unknown.)

Like any good researcher, I knew that this should have been separated from the rest of the Bounty Land file and put in a special place. I notified the staff and I felt like I had discovered the tomb of King Tut! The staff were just as excited to find this as I was! I had already learned that my Elmore family had known and interacted with Lincoln. 

Now I want to find out how well they knew him. 

I do not know how I relate to this Travice Elmore. I have not identified the parents of James Elmore. The information I have is scant, but I will keep searching for more.

What follows is all I know of James Elmore, my 4th Great Grandfather.

The French-Canadians: Thoughts Before Québec

Origins

When I was growing up, my dad always said we were German. As it turns out, that's not true. While I do have a healthy dose of German ancestry, I am also (in no particular order) English, Scottish, Fresian, Irish, Native American, and French. My roots in the US run deep in almost all of my family lines. The most recent arrivals were the Adens. They came in 1870 from Germany, but were ethnic Fresians. 

My earliest immigrant ancestors, though, were the French. I believe Louis Hébert  to be the first of those. One of my ancestors, he and his wife are mentioned in the Canadian Encyclopedia: "Louis Hébert visited Canada three times between 1604 and 1613 with the expeditions of Pierre Degua de Monts, Samuel de Champlain, and Jean de Beincourt de Pourtrincourt. In 1617 he decided to settle in Québec City with his wife and three children. He was ceded 10 arpents of land near the site of the present cathedral of Québec, and his family is renowned for having been the first to cultivate land in Canada.His wife, Marie Rollet, was the first Frenchwoman to scratch the soil of New France. It is said that, thanks to his medical knowledge among other reasons, Hébert was on good terms with the native people."

Next Saturday, I'm headed to Québec to do some research with my daughter Jennifer. We're hoping to find more information about our French-Canadian ancestors. I want to see the Louis Hébert monument. (Do we look alike?)

These brave French men and women were travelers. They were explorers. They were adventurers. That means records of their lives can pop up almost anywhere. Not only did they leave the security of a place like France, they continued to move to even more remote locations once in Nouvelle-France (New France), eventually arriving in "Illinois Country" or, as they called it, "Pays des Illinois" which was part of "Louisiane".

Primarily, we will be researching in Montréal and Québec City. But as I said, our ancestors were mobile. They lived in little villages all along the St. Lawrence River. Places like Batiscan, Cap-Santé, Lotbinière, Trois-Rivières, and Verchères to name a few. We hope to drive through these towns, get out and have a look around, and imagine what life was like 350-400 years ago. 

I want to see what my ancestors saw. I know things have changed, but I'm really hoping we can get a feel for the place. We can't travel back in time, but as my daughter Jennifer and I agreed, it will be fun just to go somewhere and hear people speaking French, the language of our people, or at least some of them.

Our Link to Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill

From Buffalo Bill Center of the West (public domain)

I always thought it would be fun to have famous or royal roots. Don't we all! I haven't found any well-known direct ancestors (yet), but I have come across some other interesting  connections. For example, a few weeks ago I discovered some documents written for or about my illiterate ancestors (Elmore and Estep lines) by Abraham Lincoln. Yes. That one. That's pretty amazing! I need to pull together some more pieces, which requires some Black Hawk War research at the National Archives in Washington. Luckily, I'll be going there for work in a week or so. I'm taking a super early flight the day before the conference so I'll have some research time there. Wish me luck!

Since I'm currently at a brick wall on that line, I decided to explore another rumored connection - to William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody.

It's true!

(It's not a close connection, but I really enjoyed adding him to my tree.)

My Flint family, originally from Manchester, England, didn't have it easy. It was one of those families that seemed to have tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. My second great grandmother, Emma Flint (married John Dunsford), died at age 35.

Emma's brother, Agrippa Flint (who died before age 30), married a woman named Elizabeth Frederici. His brother-in-law was none other than Buffalo Bill, who was married to Elizabeth's sister Margaret "Louisa" Frederici.

Of course, when Agrippa knew him, he was still just William F. Cody, American Civil War veteran (Union). Researching this connection, though, may give more insight into my Flint family. I had previously wondered how Elizabeth and her four very young children survived after the premature death of her husband. I would imagine that Louisa wrote letters to Elizabeth. I don't know if they exist, but I sure hope I can find something about Elizabeth's  life after Agrippa died. Now I have another place to look. Could she have received financial support from Buffalo Bill? Maybe so!

Researching those more distant family branches, friends, and neighbors can be helpful. You often find new paths to explore, and sometimes those paths lead to famous or influential people who make you feel more American than ever.

Especially when it's Buffalo Bill!