Hiram Fee Archives - PHILIP ALAN FARMER

March 3, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 5: Hiram Fee

The conclusion of a tutorial on deductive reason when branching your family tree using Hiram Fee as the example.

If you happened upon this blog, recommend you read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Having performed the prior steps, it’s time to move on to Step #8.

STEP #8: NEVER STOP SEARCHING

Searching for answers on Hiram Jones Fee has been a two-year undertaking. When I first encountered Hiram as the “son” of Henderson and Sarah, he just sat there on the branch… just a leaf that needed to be completed later.

Then a few months ago in branching Stephen Farmer’s son, Lewis C. Farmer (1798-1870), I find a great granddaughter Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie” Farmer (1888-1986). Sarah was the daughter of Lorena Jane Yeary (1861-1945) and Leonard Farmer (1857-1938) who was the son of Catherine Fannie Branson (1831-1920) and William C. Farmer (1824-1910). William was the son of Lewis. Then I find another Hiram Fee as the wife of Sallie Farmer. It was through more searching that I was able to conclude that the two Hiram’s were one and the same.

Never stop searching, especially if you continue to have that nagging question that your leap of faith may have been in error. By continually searching, I found additional information about Hiram Fee that really helped with the assumptions and conclusions.

Websites are constantly updated or added. Pay attention to the emails from Ancestry.com, Family Search, or Newspapers.com about their records updates. New records added to their repository may have what you are searching for. The same goes for the notices that someone has added a story, photo, or record to someone in your family tree. That’s how I came across a “Stephen F. Lee vs. David Lee” lawsuit from 1903 that was added by another Ancestry member. In it,

“Hiram Fee above named was a son and an heir of the decd. [John Fee]… that said Hiram Fee left two other children and heirs whose names and place of residence these plaintiffs cannot after diligent inquiry ascertain, they are here sued as ‘Unknown defendants’…”
“Stephen F. Lee vs. David Lee“

Search engines are fallible. Type in some search words on Ancestry.com and nothing. Do another search, and there it is. The same goes for Newspapers.com. After typing in numerous variations of Hiram Jones Fee, Hiram J. Fee, H.J. Fee, Hiram Fee, etc., I find another obituary for Hiram Jones Fee… and I wasn’t searching for Hiram. The obituary explicitly states Lee is his son… information omitted from the other obituary. The leap of faith was correct!

Obituary of Hiram Jones Fee
Source: The Tribune, IN (29 May 1950), p.1

Countless times I’ve done a Google search and have nothing come up. Then out of the blue, conduct another search using the same phrases and, voila, there’s the information you’ve been looking for. Like this website on John Fee and Jane Lee with this additional information [edited for content and errors]:

“Hiram Fee was born ca 1843 – he was killed 188_ ‘when a gun went off accidentally in Pineville.’ He married #1 1861 Sarah J Daniels born ca 1847 daughter of __; md?? #2 Rebecca Ann Jones [Hiram and Rebecca were indicted for adultery in 1875, ‘the parties being married but not to each other’] and #3 1871 to Joyce Howard [1852-1915] daughter of James T and Minerva Lee Howard. [check marriage order – Joicy had married Jasper Jones by 1903 Circuit Court LEE case] Hiram’s children, Hiram, Sally, Polly Jane and Boyd are named in the LEE vs LEE Circuit Court case in 1903 which also states that there were 2 more children of Hiram, whereabouts and names unknown!”
“Hiram J FEE was born 16 Feb 1876 and was raised from the age of three by his uncle and aunt, Henderson and Sarah OSBORN FEE. He married first in June of 1892 to Louisa “Ludie” Adeline HENSLEY born April 1879 died 1967. They set up housekeeping on Henderson’s farm on Turtle Creek. When she and Hiram divorced, Ludie took Annie Ethel with her and left the other six children with Henderson & Sarah. Hiram married #2 17 Feb 1907 to Sallie FARMER who is believed to have married next to a HUDSON [sic, HUTTON]. Hiram married thirdly to Susie REED who had been married to an EVERSOLE by whom she had two daughters, Maud and Flora. Hiram deserted her and she married Lewis HENSLEY. Hiram spent his last years in the homes of his son J. Lawrence and daughter Arta, dying at the former’s home in Brownstown, Indiana 27 May 1950.”

I wish the website had a better bibliography. The search is on for the 1875 indictment!!

Join or search as many online sites that you can. For example, even though you have a Newspapers.com account, search the digitized newspapers at the Library of Congress. Newspapers.com doesn’t have the Harlan Daily Enterprise, but NewspaperArchive.com does!

Fulton History has obscure newspapers that have solved countless brick walls. For many years, my mother and her cousin have searched state libraries and many, many dead ends to find information on their grandmother, Sallie (Sexton) Addington. With newspaper articles on “Little Johnny has a runny nose today,” surely there is some article about a woman who died from a stove explosion? Within a few minutes on Fulton’s, there it was as front page news.

Connect with other family members by joining a Facebook group, or contacting the owner of a tree, or contacting living relatives. Since publishing this blog series, I’ve been in contact with Ms. Jan Fee, the granddaughter of Hiram Jones Fee through Hiram Jr. Her personal accounts of the family history have been very educational and fill in a lot of blanks that records don’t disclose. After countless fruitless searches, she sends the 1920 Kentucky marriage bond for Hiram Jones Fee in which he marries widowed Susie Eversole and discloses that his mother is Rebecca Wells. Another leap of faith was correct!

1920 Kentucky Marriage Bond of Hiram Jones Fee and Susan (Reed) Eversole.

Go old school and get offline. Even if distance prevents you from searching paper records, contact local historical and genealogical societies for their assistance. Find someone local who is willing to volunteer their time. Make a tax deductible donation that benefits your search, and their cause. Additionally, new books are published that may have what you are looking for.

The take away from this blog series is that you should never copy another person’s family tree. Looking back at the fifteen trees that Ancestry presented as their leafy hint, my family tree would have been a total mess had I accepted all of the suggestions! Worse, I would have been perpetuating the same errors that lead to brick walls, as was the case in determining the ancestors of Stephen Farmer.

Just go slow, document, verify, and never give up.

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out the current discounts through our printing partner LuLu.com which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

March 1, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 4: Hiram Fee

A tutorial on deductive reason when branching your family tree using Hiram Fee as the example.

If you happened upon this blog, recommend you read Part 1, Part 2, and/or Part 3. Having performed the prior steps, it’s time to move on to Step #6.

STEP #6: APPLY THE HARD PROBABILITIES TO YOUR POSSIBILITIES.

At this point, there may be no “smoking gun” that outright gives you the information you’re looking for. This is where you really need to dig into the collected records and go back through Step #1 thru Step #5… again. This is where you need to examine everything on a record. This is where we may need to correlate a lot of circumstantial evidence.

By now, we have to question if the obituary of Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr. is for the son of Hiram Jones Fee?

Obituary of Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr
The Courier-Journal, IN (25 Dec 1997), p.9

No death certificate could be found. No marriage record indicating spouse or parents could be found.

First, we analyze the information in his siblings’ obituaries. That gives us location. Next, we search the city directories of those locations. That gives us possible spouses and occupation. Going back and following Step #1 thru Step #5, we find the 1997 obituary correlates location and occupation. Further research shows that Hiram Jr.’s children listed in the obituary have a mother named Colleen Flannery. Applying Step #5, when placed in chronological order, the collected records suggest that all of them pertain to one person.

1953: Jeffersonville City Directory with wife Colleen and occupation as “A&P Bakery (Lou[isville]).”
1955: Jeffersonville City Directory with wife Colleen and occupation as “mixer A&P (Lou[isville]).”
1970: James Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr. of Jeffersonville…”
1971: Granville Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr., of Jeffersonville…”
1973: Garrett Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr., of Jeffersonville…”
1981: Paul Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Jr. of Jeffersonville…”
1984: Arta Farmer’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee of Clarksville.”
1997: Obituary for Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr., 74, [of Clarksville] died Wednesday [24 December 1997] at Audobon Hospital [Louisville]… a native of Harlan County, Ky., a retired baker for A&P bakeries in Louisville… with burial in Jeffersonville…” The obituary also lists surviving siblings, but neither of them are the children of Louisa Hensley or of Sallie Farmer.

Yet we still have not proven that he is the son of our Hiram Sr. There is still a high probability that there are two Hiram Jr’s in the Clarksville area.

From the obituary, we can deduce that Hiram Jr. was born in or around 1923 and that he was formerly of Harlan County. A records search brings up a 1940 federal census of Knox County in which “H.J. Fee, age 16 (born about 1924), stepson” is living with a “Lee Fee, age 19, stepson” in the household of Lewis Hensley. Hensley’s wife is “Susie” with an additional step daughter, Flora Eversole, age 21.

*Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Kentucky, Knox County, Magisterial District #5, Supervisor’s District #9, Enumeration District #61 & 62, Sheet #3A, Line #21-31 (06 April 1940).*

Going back through the steps, we find a birth date of 21 January 1923 and “Susan Hensley” as the mother of Hiram Jr. The death date on his tombstone is 24 December 1997 that matches the obituary date. But we still haven’t correlated Hiram Jr. with Hiram Jones Fee.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/141047943

Going back through the steps, we find a record with a birth date of 12 January 1923 and “Susan Fee” for Lee Clellan Fee. His tombstone is inscribed with a death date of “…son of Mrs. Louis Hensley…” All this information matches the 1940 federal census, but again, we still haven’t correlated Hiram or Lee with Hiram Jones Fee.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15052391

It’s a small article on page nine of the Jackson County Banner (21 August 1957) that states “Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Fee and Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Fee were called to Cincinnati Tuesday by the death of Mr. Fee’s brother, Lee Fee.”

*Jackson County Banner, IN ( 21 August 1957), p.9*

With all of this information, as well as the records for E.B. Hensley, Bruce Hensley, Keith Hensley, Norma Stopher, and Irene Williams, we can conclude with higher probability that Hiram Jones Fee and Susan Alice Reed had sons Hiram Fee and Lee Clellan Fee.

However, we’re still back to the 1880 federal census with Hiram Jones Fee enumerated as the son of Henderson Fee and Sarah Osborne which conflicts with the death certificate stating that Hiram Fee and Rebecca Jones are his parents.

*Death Certificate of Hiram Jones Fee (1875-1950)*

STEP #7: TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH.

With extremely limited information, yet armed with your knowledge of family history, local history, social customs, and personal experiences, start asking “what if…?”

In a time where large families were needed to work the farm, where are the other children of Henderson and Sarah? Is there any evidence other than an 1880 federal census that Hiram is Henderson and Sarah’s son? Again, “no data is data…”

It’s the 1910 United States Federal Census that has the most interest. Henderson and Sarah now have a household that includes Louise Hensley and Granville, Artie, Finley, Garrett, and Ethel Fee.

*Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Kentucky, Jackson County, Magisterial District #3, Supervisor’s District #11, Enumeration District #94, Sheet #6, Line #72-80 (28-29 April 1910)*

Instead of daughter-in-law and grandchildren, Louisa and children are listed as nieces and nephews. Just to double verify, were they the children of one of Sarah sisters who married a Fee (or Hensley)? Mapping out Sarah’s siblings shows no Fee’s or Hensley’s. Are they the children of Henderson’s siblings? No, except Hiram Jones Fee.

What if the 1880 census is incorrect? What if Hiram was living with Henderson and Sarah, and although he’s listed as a son, he really isn’t their son? Is there a family situation that justifies this conclusion?

There may be.

HJF’s father Hiram had been previously married to Sarah Jane Daniels and had a son, John who was born in 1867. Later, Hiram married Joyce Howard on 02 October 1871. Together they had Granville (born 1871), Sarah (born 1874), Mary Jane (born 1876), David (born 1879), and Boyd (born 1881).

What if a pregnant Joyce was too busy to care for HJF with 3-year-old Granville, 2-year-old Sarah, and Mary Jane on the way? What if HJF was placed in his uncle Henderson’s home, especially when considering that Henderson and Sarah were married on 21 April 1861, and having no children in the fourteen years since, welcomed HJF as their own?

There may be another family situation. The “Rebecca Jones” from Hiram Jones Fee’s death certificate may be Rebecca Wells (1845-1924), the daughter of Clayborn Wells and Rebecca Midgett formerly of Tennessee who moved to Kentucky. With the birth of David Fee in 1879 and Boyd in 1881 (with evidence to suggest they were Joyce’s children), Hiram was still married, and therefore didn’t remarry to Rebecca. With no marriage license, was Hiram considered an illegitimate child and all of the stigma that it carried in 1875?

What if at the age of thirty, Rebecca did not want to raise Hiram? Did having a child hinder her chances of getting married now that she was in her thirties? What if Joyce refused to raise a child that wasn’t her son, especially due to her husband’s infidelity? With Hiram Jones Fee’s birth date of 16 February 1875, he would have been six months old when Rebecca married Marion Alexander Jones on 16 August 1875. What if Marion refused to raise Hiram because he wasn’t his son?

So which is correct… the 1880 census or the 1910 census? If you can answer the “what if” questions with a degree of certainty, the leap of faith conclusion is that Hiram Jones Fee must have been Henderson’s nephew.

Going back to Step #1 thru Step #7 for both Louisa Hensley, Sallie Farmer, and Susan Alice Reed, our tree now looks like this.

Click here to see how the family tree is starting to look.

Next blog: the final step and conclusion.

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

February 27, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 3: Hiram Fee

A tutorial on deductive reason when branching your family tree using Hiram Fee as the example.

Assuming you have been following this blog series on determining if your person of interest belongs in your family tree, we’ll skip the introductions and move on to the next step. If you haven’t been following along, recommend you read Part 1 and Part 2.

Obituary of Hiram Jones Fee.
Source: Jackson County Banner, IN (31 May 1950), p.2.

By this point you have now amassed a large number of documents on your person of interest and possible associates such as their parents, spouses, children, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Time to move on to Step #5:

STEP #5: APPLY THE EASY PROBABILITIES TO YOUR POSSIBILITIES.

Wait, what? Aren’t they the same?

No. Possibility means something may happen. Probability applies a belief to that possibility, typically based on increasing amounts of credible evidence. For example, it is possible it may rain today. If you don’t see any clouds, the probability that it may rain is low. If you see dark clouds and lightning in the distance, the probability increases. Another example: it is possible that aliens exist. The probability that aliens exist is, well, dependent on what evidence you want to believe.

Essentially, you’re “playing the odds.” If you come across five documents that all have the same information, the odds are great and you have high probability that the information among the documents correlate. In most cases, a record with ever-increasing data provides even higher probabilities. For example, if you find a will with a name, what’s the probability that it is the will of your person of interest? What if we add a location? What if we start adding a spouse’s name? Then start adding children? And what if the will was dated near the suspected death date?

Be wary of user-submitted data such as anything from Family Data Collection, other family trees, and even Find A Grave. As they are resources and not sources, they do not increase probability; they simply provide additional possibilities.

To really apply probabilities, it helps to have some knowledge of local history, whether it be city, county, state, country, or other locale, and to have some family history, whether it be true or false. For example, in an earlier blog trying to locate the father of Lucinda Baker, taking that extra leap of faith that Samuel Chase Early was her father was in the fact that he ran for sheriff of Knox County… family history was that Lucinda’s husband John Linville was sheriff (which turned out to be false.)

In genealogy, you may see language like “probably,” or “may have,” or “it is believed,” or other verbiage that makes an argument with the data provided. That is because in some cases, you have to make an educated guess. However, there does become a point where you can’t keep throwing “what if’s” at the problem. Occam’s Razor in problem solving states that “simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex solutions.” Or as the US Navy noted in 1960, “keep it simple, stupid.”

Remember the 1880 federal census where Hiram is enumerated as the 5-year-old son of Henderson Fee (age 41) and Sarah (age 30). Henderson’s age matches our known birth date of 1839; Sarah’s age of 30 is five years lower than our expected age of 35. So what do you believe? Sarah “probably” 1) lied about her age, or 2) didn’t know her age, or 3) really wasn’t born in 1845.

The 1880 census shows she cannot read and she cannot write, whereas Henderson can. Sarah’s death certificate, with information provided by Henderson, has her birth year as 1845. Her age on prior 1850, 1860, and 1870 censuses all suggest she was born in 1845. It is probable that Sarah didn’t know her age; maybe the census guy came around when Henderson was away? It is also probable that Sarah lied about her age; a socially acceptable trait, particularly with women who want to remain young. But what if it isn’t Sarah Osborne, which is to say, Ms. Osborne passed away and Henderson remarried another Sarah? What if aliens abducted her and replaced her? Ok, now we’re getting silly, but you see where too many “what if’s” can be detrimental to solving the problem.

Also, sometimes no data is data. What do I mean by that? No other census could be found for a Henderson and Sarah Fee; therefore, the probability is high that the 1800 census is of our target couple. Be prepared to lower your probabilities if/when another record surfaces… this is where most people start getting into forum arguments because they’ve held onto their beliefs with what records they’ve located.

In addition to Step #4 with looking at other family trees, obituaries and media articles are my go-to for genealogical problem solving. If you read the obituary of John who has a wife Mary and sons Jim, Jack, and Jose, then read the obituary of Mary who had a late husband John and sons Jim, John, Jack, and Jose, then read an obituary of Jim who was the son of John and Mary and survived by brothers Jack and Jose, then… well, you get the picture. Did you notice one obituary included a son John, whereas the others didn’t? I have solved more brick walls in obituaries and media articles than any other source.

Obituaries provide birth dates, death dates, residence, parents, spouses, siblings, extended family, occupation, and other information, that when paired with other records, increases the probabilities that the record(s) match your person of interest. Again, no data is data. No sibling listed in the obituary? They probably died before their sibling did. Or they were a step-sibling. Or they moved away and nobody knows their status. Or someone just plain forgot in their remorse. Or purposely omitted them due to the fight they had during the last Thanksgiving dinner. Or they were abducted by aliens.

Using the sample of records and obituaries collected from Step #4, we start branching the family tree of Hiram Fee.

Click here for the sample records collected.

Click here to see how the sample records start to branch out the family tree.

Note that so far, we’ve only used death certificates, obituaries, and one marriage record.

The very observant cynic will notice that this is just an incomplete tree about a “Hiram Jones Fee.” But is it the son of Henderson and Sarah? To finish this family tree, we’ll need to get religious and hurdle a few problems.

Coming up in Part 4 of this blog series, taking the leap of faith…

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

February 24, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 2: Hiram Fee

In this multi-part blog series, we examine “Hiram Fee” to educate genealogical research and deduction methods.

So you’re researching your ancestors and you’re trying to determine if your person of interest belongs in your family tree. In our last blog, we started with two basic steps to prevent you from adding someone that does not belong on your branch:

Step #1 advised to stop with you what you know (or, what you have). This is especially true if your person of interest shares a name with another local person. Step #2 advised to expand the family branches. This will help with uncovering multiple persons with the same name, and it will assist when coming across documents that describe a family relationship such as a step relative, niece, nephew, uncle, aunt, or cousin.

Once you’ve expanded the family branches, it’s time to move on to the next step:

STEP #3: EXAMINE OTHER FAMILY TREES TO GATHER CLUES.

Note this step doesn’t state “copy other family trees.” Why? Because there are both good and bad trees out there. There are also branches that are not complete or properly vetted; information is there as a place holder based on Step #1 “Stop with what you know (or have).” I am guilty of having incomplete branches until I can properly research the information and draw the conclusions.

When mapping your family tree, there’s no reason to “reinvent the wheel” when you can start from the work of others. For this blog, we’ll focus on the fifteen public trees on Ancestry.com; however, there are many other public trees on other sites that you could (or should) examine. After looking through the fifteen trees, we now have possible names and dates for Hiram and for his parents, spouse(s), and children… as well as two locations: Kentucky and Indiana.

First, click here to access a document that collected the data from all fifteen trees.

After analyzing the tree data, seven trees have his name as “Hiram J. Fee” while six have his name as “Hiram Jones Fee.” The other two are simply “Hiram Fee.”

Eight of them don’t have any parents listed. Of the remaining seven, two have Hiram’s parents as Hiram Fee and Rebecca Ann Jones, while the other five have his parents listed as Henderson Fee and Sarah Osborne. Thirteen of the trees have his spouse as Louisa Adeline Hensley (1878-1967). Two trees also show a second wife of Susan Alice Reed (1898-1967), and only one tree has a third wife, Sallie Farmer.

Almost all of the trees agree that Hiram had three sons (James Lawrence, Silas, Frank Finley, and Garrett Charles) and two daughters (Artie Lissie and Annie Ethel) with his wife Louisa. Tree #9 adds Alabama, Chester, and Dora. The two trees showing Hiram with wife Susan show two sons (Lee Clellan and Hiram) and a daughter (Verna). None of the trees show any children with his wife Sallie.

What do you do if your person of interest is not in any other family tree? Jump right to Step #4…

STEP #4: GATHER EVIDENCE OF POSSIBILITIES.

This step entails taking the data in Step #3 and finding every possible birth, death, marriage, or legal record for every name in those trees. It also includes searching through newspaper articles and obituaries. At this stage, we’re not attaching those records to our trees… we’re simply trying to find all available data before we can make any conclusions.

I am a firm believer that those who ignore documents because it doesn’t fit a mental picture of what they thought they should find are those persons that encounter their brick walls faster than others.

So although we started our search with an 1880 federal census of a Hiram Fee, son of Henderson and Sarah Fee, we’ll want to search all possibilities. For example, we’ll also want to find any Hiram Fee’s associated with Hiram Fee and Rebecca Wells. We’ll also want to find a record to determine why Tree #13 has a birth date of 1862, regardless of how strongly we may feel that our Hiram was born in 1875 or 1876.

We don’t want to ignore any document we find. For example, if we find a document with “Granville R. Fee,” we don’t want to reject it because we have “Granville W. Fee” or “Granville White Fee” on our list.

We’ll want to locate records for every combination of his spouses’ name. Tree #4 and #5 indicate that Louisa married a “Collins.” Therefore, conducting a search for “Louisa Collins” may yield a death certificate, obituary, or other document with very important information on it.

A sample of collected documents can be viewed by clicking here.

As we conduct our records search, more names will appear. For those names, we may need to revert back to Step #1 and then follow steps two through four.

Coming up in Part 3 of this blog series, coming to conclusions with the data you’ve collected…

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

February 19, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 1: Hiram Fee

In this multi-part blog series, we examine “Hiram Fee” to educate genealogical research and deduction methods.

Several weeks ago, I was on the telephone with a gentleman who had questions regarding the westward expansion from Grayson County, Virginia into Kentucky. Amidst the explanations of King George’s Royal Proclamation of 1763, Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company, and Daniel Boone’s development of the Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap, he made an inquisitive statement.

“How do people know that the person they’ve added into their tree is really the person that should be in their tree?”

Good question.

Assume I introduce myself as Phil when you and I meet on a busy street. You would most likely accept my introduction. But how do you really know my name is Phil? You could ask for my drivers license. But how do you know the license is mine? How do you know the information on the license is correct? You could ask for my birth certificate and verify my age. You could even ask for my utility bill and verify my address.

Quite simply, given the circumstances in how the information is presented, you’ll accept a level of data on faith. We live in a time where identification cards are issued with additional checks and balances. We accept a drivers license has the correct and necessary information, even if we lied a little on our height and weight, which does not require proof. And faith only goes so far. If you were a store clerk and I was to write you a check, you’d need some additional documents to believe that the check was from my bank account. If you were a coroner in the absence of verbal statements or written documents, you might verify my dental records or DNA.

What you have then is a system of people defending their faith or belief with the available information. I believe you are who you say you are because you told me. Or because you have some form of identification. Or because the science proves it. And yes, even with increasing levels of data, some people will continue to question its validity, or refuse to accept data contrary to their belief.

The same is true for genealogy. It is a system where you assess historical documents, examine DNA markers, take a leap of faith, and occasionally challenge assumptions. And regrettably, get involved in an argument as to who is “more correct.”

So there have been a few blogs regarding cautionary advice on “user submitted data” and today’s “click and save” software which makes it easy to build your family tree, or makes it just as easy to screw it up. One blog cautioned that even with “leafy hints” you may still have to do some hard work to find the family connections. The blog on Enos “Bear” Hensley was an example of how you might have to really sort out the information at hand. There is a lot of online advice against copying another person’s tree.

One common issue you may face is what to do when confronted with multiple people with the same name living in the same vicinity at the same time. For example, there are about six Gary Farmer’s living in Battle Creek, Michigan. One is my father; we have no idea who the other five are and have never met them, yet we are constantly asked if we are related. For those researching the Osborne, Skidmore, or any family surname where each of the branches names their children after the patriarch, you know the struggle. For anyone researching a John Smith, we definitely feel your pain.

*Deepest sympathies for those constructing the family tree of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.*

This is probably more evident when reading forums or looking at family trees in which aspects of multiple people are presented as one. For example, assume there is a John Doe (1811-1879) married to Susan, and a John Doe (1816-1867) married to Rachel. Just with two different birth dates, two different death dates, and two different spouses, if you confused the two, then there are now eight different combinations of John Doe’s with a John Doe (1811-1867) married to Rachel, a John Doe (1816-1879) married to Susan, and so on.

One such name is “Hiram Fee” and using him as an example, this blog is part one in a series that continues the education on genealogical research and deduction methods.

I first came across a “Hiram Fee” when researching Stephen Farmer’s daughter, Malinda Farmer (1817-1900). Malinda married Enoch Osborne (1811-1860) on 04 November 1834 and together they had a daughter, Sarah J. Osborne (1845-1916). Sarah married Henderson Fee (1839-1918), the son of John Fee and Jane Lee.

The 1870 United States Federal Census shows Henderson and his wife Sarah. Ten years later, the 1880 United States Federal Census shows Henderson with his wife Sarah and a son Hiram, age four. The 1900 United States Federal Census shows Henderson, Sarah, and mother-in-law “Belinda Thompson,” presumably Malinda (Farmer) Osborne who appears to have remarried after her husband Enoch died in 1860.

*1880 United States Federal Census, Harlan County, of Henderson, Sarah, and Hiram Fee.*

After adding Hiram as Henderson and Sarah’s son, no leafy hint appeared. So I started a records search. Yet after searching, I had no other document that added a name to what I knew. For example, no death certificate could be found that had Hiram, Henderson, and Sarah’s names, or a marriage document with their names and Hiram’s wife. A Kentucky County Marriage Record has a Hiram Fee marrying a Sallie Farmer on 08 March 1907. But which Hiram Fee? Which Sallie Farmer?

*A Hiram Fee marries Sallie Farmer on 08 March 1907 in Harlan County.*

It appeared there may be several Hiram Fee’s in Harlan County at about the same time.

So what do you now?

STEP #1: STOP WITH WHAT YOU KNOW.

If you start attaching a lot of documents and you don’t document how you came to your conclusions, you’d be painstakingly deconstructing your tree if your assumption was incorrect and learning the importance to document, document, document, then verify, verify, verify.

STEP #2: EXPAND THE FAMILY BRANCHES.

When dealing with multiple names in a family surname, you may need to go beyond a direct ancestor or descendent. I will admit that when I first started, I didn’t add much information on the spouses’ branches. This is partly because the amount of work would become overwhelming on family members that were not direct descendants, and partially because I didn’t need the constant reminder or spam that I had 1,834,273 hints on those ancestors. If you also adopted that approach, note that from time-to-time, you may need to research the spouse family branches, especially when two or more intermarry into the same family (e.g. Mr. X marries Ms. Y whose brother Mr. Y marries Mr. X’s sister.)

Thus began a process of elimination in branching all of the second, third, and fourth cousins to determine if more than one Hiram Fee was living in the same vicinity at the same time.

*Click to enlarge.* *Multiple Hiram Fee’s living in Harlan at the same time.*

To be continued in Part 2…

[Note: This blog edited from an earlier version. The family tree had the spouse of Jane Lee as John Gregg Fee in error.]

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of the Farmer family’s immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

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