Accidental Death of John Stone of Scarborough

The following report appeared in the Newport Mercury on January 25, 1773 reporting the accident that led to the death of John Stone. The accident occurred on December 28, 1772.

Scarborough (probably a now non-existent town in Rhode Island, but it could refer to a town in Maine or New York as well).
"Last Monday morning a sorrowful accident happened at the house of Mr. William Hurman, in this town, as three of his neighbors, viz., John Stone, Paul Thompson, and John Waterhouse, were about to assist him in butchering a large hog. Waterhouse with an ax went into the pen and struck the hog on the head, in order to stick the hog, but the stroke not being effectual, the hog rose, ran between Thompson's legs, and brought him up against one corner of the pen, where in order to secure himself, he placed his arm and hand in which he held the knife over the side of the pen. Stone unfortunately came up to the place, and reaching over to seize the hog by the bristles, received the knife into his bowels, which wound put a period to his life in less than 48 hours, to the inexpressible grief and loss of his poor widow and 7 small children. Thus died a very honest, industrious member of society, who in the anguish of death, as it were wiped the tears from the eye of his neighbor that held the fateful knife."

Don't Just Use the Index!

As I consult with people who visit our family history center, I always encourage them to not just rely on the indexes for their information, but to use images of the original records. I came across another case this week of why this is important.

I was looking for information on the second husband of one of my cousins. His name was Thurston Viele and on his WWI draft card his birthday was given as 10 June 1881. I found him in several censuses with his first wife Ida, but one census seemed very odd. It was the 1892 New York State census. Thurston should have been about 11 years old, but there he was in the index born about 1868 (24 years old).

I clicked on the link to look at the image and here is what I found.

Here's a blow-up showing Thurston and his wife Ida, ages 24 and 23.

 
Remember this is indexed as the 1892 New York State census. However, if we look at the year listed on this page it is not 1892.

No it's not the 1892 census at all, but the 1905 census. In 1905, Thurston's age should have been 24, so this fits with other records. I searched for Thurston in the 1905 New York State census, and sure enough the index lists him and Ida as 24 and 23 years of age, but when I click on the image link, it takes me to an image that does not have this couple listed. Here it is. It's a nice image of pages from the 1905 New York State census, but not the pages that contain Thurston and Ida.

I did find Thurston in the 1892 New York State census, age 11, but indexed as Thurston Velia.

And here is his family.

But Velia did not come up when I searched using Viela. I only found him when I searched using only his first name, Thurston.

So, be very grateful for those indexes. They have been and will continue to be great helps in finding records, but don't count on them always being correct.

Kowallis Name Origins

Y-DNA haplogroup I2a map from Eupedia.

Several years ago my wife bought for me a DNA test through the National Geographic Genographic Project. She got it for me because she knew how very interested I was in family history and, I think she wanted to test to see if I was actually human, there being, on occasion, some question about that fact. It was a 12 marker Y-DNA test that by today's standards is a fairly minimal sampling of the DNA, but I found it fascinating nonetheless.

I was hoping that the DNA test would help to identify the origin of the name Kowallis. My most distant ancestor, Jacob Kowallis, was born about 1735 and lived in Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia (now Germany). But Kowallis is not a German name. One of my Kowallis relatives, Stephan Kowallis, who still lives in Germany, communicated this about the Kowallis name to my niece, Jernae:

"The name Kowallis has a background in the east European old Slavic language. Kowall means smith (blacksmith). In different areas they extended the name with different endings. For example, Kowallow (Russia); Kowalski, Kowallek, Kowalsky (Poland); Kowallis (Latvia, Lithuania); Kowalowsky (Russia/Poland), etc."

So, what did my 12 marker Y-DNA test show? It showed that my Y-DNA haplogroup (my branch of the human tree) was I2a (I-P37.2). The map above shows where the I2a haplogroup is concentrated, mostly in the Balkans, the area of southern and eastern Europe that borders the Adriatic and Black Seas. The Kowallis family could still have migrated through one of the Baltic countries, but there is a strong possibility that prior to that they came from the Balkans.

This year in March while attending the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City I had my Genographic results transferred over to Family Tree DNA (the company that actually ran the tests for Genographic). They gave me some additional information about the test. From their database, my 12 markers were an exact match for 5 people: one each from Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia-Herzogovina, and two people from Greece. In addition, I matched 11 of the 12 markers with 8.0% (7 of 87) of the people in their database from Bosnia-Herzogovina, 3.3 % (7 of 213) from Croatia, 1.4% (2 of 148) from Slovenia, and much smaller percentages from 30+ other countries. All of the highest percentages for the close matches and most of the exact matches come from the Balkans area.

Now that I've got my appetite whetted with this fairly minimal information on the Kowallis family origins, I have ordered a more detailed 37 marker Y-DNA test as well as a mitochondrial DNA test. The additional markers on the Y-DNA test may help to further constrain the origins of the Kowallis family and tie me more precisely to possible relatives. The mitochondial test may help to find cousins on my maternal line, where I am also at a dead end.

There is the other possibility too. These tests may conclusively show that I am not human, as a number in the family have suspected for some time.