More Than Just a Name

Some years ago a fellow researcher called me a name collector. I didn’t appreciate the moniker and it simply isn’t true. While I have thousands of people in my trees, do note that I made a grievous error and melded all four main family lines into one ginormous tree that has all of the appearances of  Hector the Collector. Over the years some of my most difficult relatives have simply refused to reveal themselves by direct line research. I know we all wish we had neat and tidy little trees with no dangling participles, but that my friend just ain’t how it works. Sometimes you just have to take the carpet bombing approach and add in some (or a lot) of those peripheral relations. Like yoga, you have to go up to go down.

One of the things that I have discovered about true ancestral research is that you have to make connections, with the living and the dead, where you can. Often collaborating with another researcher will mean working with someone who isn’t related to you. Not even remotely. Don’t pooh-pooh those sources of information as they may have local knowledge you don’t and they also have no emotional attachment to the information.

I wrote about a discovery I made about a month ago and I am still quite jazzed about it. You can catch up and read about it here.  As I carried on with my search regarding John Jordan I noticed that I had a “shaky leaf” hint on Ancestry. I clicked through and it seemed as though the person with the matching tree could be a relative. I sent a message to which they promptly replied:  “No, I am not related but compiling information about Naples, New York Civil War veterans. John Jordan is one of those veterans and I have some information that I could share with you.”

Bob, I am over the moon with all of the wonderful ephemera that you collected and shared with me! I have said this a million times but I will say it again, someone out there has the answers you are looking for. You just have to find that someone….

This index card was the basis of Bob’s research into this veteran and he had collected additional information about Sgt. John Jordan. In the next few weeks I will request John’s service records to see if there is any more to be learned. I do know that he was injured in the battle of Port Hudson, Louisiana in 1863.

After John’s wife passed away, he relocated from Naples, New York to California. The editor of the Naples newspaper requested that he write a letter describing his life and times in the west.

Written in 1902 this is not only a glimpse at life in early California, it is an important piece about who John Jordan was.

As he became infirm, his brother James retrieved him from his California digs and together they returned to Naples. Soon after, John passed away. His obituary is written in the flowery style of the day and yet the warmth of a well respected and upstanding man shines through.

This elusive brother of my gggrandfather was always destined to be more than just another name in my tree. However, thanks to Bob and some good old fashioned sleuthing, John’s story has blossomed into so much more!