Mid-week Mayhem

I've decided to make up my own theme for Wednesdays. I have a lot of criminals and victims of crimes in my family so Wednesday is now "Mid-week Mayhem."

This week I'll just tell you a little about why you want murders, horse thieves, moonshiners, and other miscreants in your family.

For years I just went along doing genealogy like many people do, collecting dates and places. But I was always wondering "why" and "what." Why did my Pattersons (from GA) serve in the Union army? What were my ancestors really like (this usually followed a why I couldn't understand)? As all good genealogists should, I began researching these questions.

Eventually I had to step my genealogy research up a level and break into less used sources. That's when I started to find the "good stuff." Mostly crimes my relatives committed but occasionally crimes committed against them. I got started in genealogy because no one could give me good answers about my family. Not surprisingly, that meant we didn't have many stories. Since I wasn't starting with family stories that means I started with documented information (albeit not always the best documentation). For crimes this usually means there's more documentation out there because they obviously got caught since I knew about it. I soon learned to check very dry court records for my family (in one case this connected three siblings I could not document elsewhere). Online newspaper records are fantastic for locating relatives in trouble with the law as well. When I'm trying to locate my family farther back in a new location, I can usually check court records to see if they appear. Tax records or census records often aren't available when I need them but court records often are.

All those relatives involved in 'mayhem' have provided a great stories but also a great research methodology. Along with using genealogy sources I also try and research the history that goes along with all these stories. From that I've learned that my family isn't that different from their neighbors. If I can't locate a relative it's much more likely they are living in the least developed part of the state (assuming the land's cheap), not in a city. When I'm reading those dry court records it's pretty likely my relatives are involved with other residents whose names keep coming up over and over again for moonshining or hog stealing. Yet more places to look for new information!

I've never been under the delusion that I would find rich and powerful men in my family so finding criminals wasn't a shock. If you are always on the look-out for relatives that rose to the top of society, maybe you should consider looking for common criminals instead. They can leave great records and the stories aren't too bad, either.