Seeking gold in California

52ancestors Week 15 (April 8-14)
 DNA (prompt)

Seeking gold in California 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2019 

I yearn to reach back into fragile pages of history and actually see, feel and smell what it is like in certain places and time periods. I like to know as much about the history in which my ancestors lived as I do the genealogical aspects. I like to see my ancestors in the settings in which they lived, grew up, married, wept over loss of children, and failed crops and how some defied conventions and did it “their way.” It also would be nice to figure out why they pulled up stakes and left XX and went to YY as I doubt that my assumptions are always accurate.

Hans van der Maarel [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

I have to confess that some members of my family tree are much more interesting than others. Some of them swirl back there in the misty fog of the past and beckon me — almost dare me to come find them. What amuses me, especially on a cold winter day, is to take a virtual sleigh ride through the woods of the past and look for them — and the historical evidence about their lives.

“How far back have you traced your family tree?” neophytes (and reporters) have often asked me — especially when they find out I have been “into genealogy” for decades. Or they will ask, “How many names do you have in your database?” — like I’m in some contest to collect the most. 

 I usually give them a casual comment about someone in my Dutch, French, Swiss, or Swedish lines that reaches back to the 15th or 16th centuries. That usually satisfies their curiosity. But what some do not seem to understand is that it is not how many ancestors you can squeeze on a chart or how far back in time the genealogical research takes you. That’s really unimportant because it is not the destination, but the journey — that delivers so much pleasure. 

The Road Not Taken (1916) 

by Robert Frost (1874-1963) 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

. . . I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, 

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference. 

The joy of genealogy is taking those obscure or winding roads that diverge into Frost’s “yellow wood” which lead to tidbits — the incredibly rewarding nuggets — about my kin that show them as humans beings trapped in their historical eras. That is what delights me. So, what if it takes me a 100 years and endless hours of exploring? Who cares? 

Jonathan Lewis, a Forty-niner, was one of the first of our clan (he was the youngest child of Daniel Lewis and Betsy Vanderpool of Ashe County, North Carolina) who “went out West” and got rich in California — or so the story went. He did become rich indeed. Rich, with a fine ranch in the Sierra Nevada mountains, beautiful apple orchards, two wives and 14 children. But, when he died in 1900, the doctor noted the awful social disease that killed him and recorded that he was a “squaw man.” 

You can feel the scorn the doctor had for Jonathan as he wrote the latter — instead of just listing his occupation as a farmer/rancher the doctor seemingly had to allow his own bigotry and prejudice show through. That was a road in the yellow woods for me. I had to know more about Jonathan — not just the blurb in a county history or the description written on his death certificate. 

Finding him and his family in 1880 and 1900 censuses in California was rather straight forward. He had had 10 children by his second Indian wife. Tracing that large family was fairly easy, even with a common surname and luckily for me, descendants knew the name of their mother and her tribe [Sally Goodeye (1858-1935), Chukchansi]. 

It was Jonathan’s first Indian wife, probably born about 1842 in what was then Alta California that remained hidden in the mists of the redwoods and Sierra Nevada. She had no name — no identity whatsoever that I could ascertain. Of course, it is impossible to find someone without a name, so a search in 1860 census was useless, plus she was not likely be enumerated on that record as a single native woman. She died before the 1870 census was taken and marriage records of 49ers and native girls were not recorded in traditional records. All I knew about her is that she and Jonathan had produced four children between about 1862 and 1870. I feared she was going to disappear into the splendors of Yosemite or remain hidden among the rocks and ravines of the California Gold Country and be forever lost to me. But I kept looking. 

I’d like to dazzle you with my brilliant sleuthing and how I tracked down secret, long-lost or obscure files. Alas, not true. Like many crime solvers will tell you — it wasn’t the clever researcher, the high-tech equipment or the DNA — it just good old police work, or in this instance, genealogical research, patience and persistence. 

One day while digging through the records of those who claimed their Indian heritage in the 1928 census for the Indians of California, the youngest child of that couple recorded her mother’s name — Cee-au-na. So, one more blank was filled in on the family tree, but it comes attached with a thousand more questions and many roads yet to explore. 

For another story about Jonathan Lewis, see “Putting it to a Vote” https://shakingfamilytrees.blogspot.com/2018/09/putting-it-to-vote_17.html