52 Ancestors In 2022

Welcome to  the 2022 Edition of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

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Every Monday of every Month a Texas Ancestor post will be featured.  Many hours have been spent on the research and writing of 'Tracks of My Texas Ancestors'.  The 52 Texas Ancestors and their stories will be based on previous research and writings with a new focus following 'Weekly Prompts' from the 52 Ancestors guidelines.  

Posts will be published on this PAGE in Month order and linked to the following: 
Generations Cafe on Facebook
Sue Pittman McPeak on Facebook

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JANUARY Week 1...FOUNDATIONS

In an Interview the year Tracks of My Texas Ancestors was started,  I was asked, "What got you interested in or started your family history/genealogy?

It was my first Genealogy Interview and, I thought the questions were going to be harder to answer.  I was prepared to fess up to questions about having ancestors that might have been Wild West Texas Outlaws.

So the question about how I got interested and started was an easy one to answer.  I even have a photo of the two people who inspired, motivated, and gave me my start as 'The Keeper of My Family's History'.

 Meet the 'Foundation First Keeper' aka as the 'Barefoot Genealogist'...my Aunt Vera Irene Pittman Sinks.  She's sitting beside the 'Cowboy Inspiration' for Tracks of My Texas Ancestors...my Dad...Willard Carroll Pittman.

Irene was the oldest of the six siblings and Willard the youngest.   There was ten years difference in their ages with two brothers and two sisters between them. They were Texas born and raised with an appreciation for their Texas Pioneer heritage.

Irene spent much of her lifetime in search of our Family History.  She loved to talk and write about our ancestors, and the information she found in her research.  Her hours of note taking in libraries and the inquiries from Genealogical Societies from Georgia to Texas gave me an abundance of information on which to build our Family Tree in the Technologically Advanced Genealogy Community of the Twenty-First Century.

January Week 2...Favorite Find

There have been hundreds of surprising even shocking 'Finds'.  It's hard to narrow down to just one, but in keeping with Irene's research done before the Internet, I'm going with her positively, no question about it identification of her Great Grandfather....my 2XGreat.  

First, though, she made me take an Oath of Truth and Dedication as the next Family Historian.  So on a stack of Bibles I swore to continue her research and stay true to the Family History.  I swear I tried, but some things just did not add up.

Aunt Irene's family history was gathered the 'Old School' way...through libraries, historical societies, court and city records and passed down word of mouth from family members. 

At the TOP of the Pittman Family Branch, Irene had traced as far back as Rene Marion Pittman from Alsace Lorraine, France who came to America and married a Black Dutch woman...no name. Right off the bat, I'm wondering how a Frenchman...which could be with a name like Rene, got a surname like Pittman which I knew was not French, and how his wife could be Dutch and black. 

Finding Rene Marion Pittman's information on Ancestry was not only a favorite find, but blasted an opening in Irene's Old School Brick Wall that led the Pittman Ancestry all the way back to Colonial America.

Rene Marion Pittman Myth .... Debunked

Rene Marion Pittman was Born, Raised

 and Died in Georgia, USA!

His wife, Mary Anne Howell Pittman was 

Born, Raised and Died in Georgia, USA..
.was not Dutch or Black. 

Link To

Rene Marion Pittman ~ Notable Ancestor

January Week 3...FAVORITE PHOTO

In 2004 I inherited my Great Grandmother's Photo Album from her Grandson, my Dad's first Cousin.  He inherited it from his Mother who was the youngest daughter of Martha Jane Carroll.  That name was the only thing he knew about the Album which was more than I knew about her or any of her ancestors, parents, siblings and families with the exception of my Dad's generation.

The entire Album was a Genealogists 'Brick Wall'.  

The 1890-1910 Photo Album was full of unidentified pictures, cards, and a few fragile clippings.  One photography studio setting photo had her name and description of children on the back....obviously written by the photographer. 

After long hours of online searching for anything in her name, a birth record, marriage record and even a death record...none found, I turned to my Aunt Irene's somewhat all over the place in time, hand written family history notes.

There it was...Martha Jane Marley (daughter of E.S. Marley and Mary Josephine Leatherwood ?)  Thankfully...no question mark after the name Marley. In addition...Married in Cleburne, Texas, Jack County.   Her notes included the names of Martha Jane and Steven B. Carroll's children, their birth dates, and the death date of great grandfather Steven and the fact that he was buried in Cleburne. One of those children was my Grandmother who had given her Maiden name Carroll to my Dad, Willard Carroll Pittman.  The pieces began to fit together.

Her studio setting Portrait became my FAVORITE PHOTO. At last I had not just one maiden name, but two...Marley and Leatherwood.  Both names opened a flood gate of Family Histories dating back to the American Revolution and the identities of people from the inherited Album. 

And in turn led to the establishment of my Ancestry Family Tree

The Pittman-Carroll-Marley-Leatherwood Family Tree

 My first Genealogy Blog

Tracks of My Texas Ancestors

and a greater respect for

Irene's Old School Genealogy Record Keeping!

January Week 4...CURIOSITY

It's the nature of a 'Family Historian' or Genealogist...curiosity that is.  Are you curious to know what it means to be a 'Curious Person'?  I was!  Who knew it was definable and fitting?!!  

1.Eager to learn or know; inquisitive (okay that's reasonable)

2.Prying; meddlesome (oops, that's a bit negative, but has some merit) 

3.Speculative interest (yes, otherwise wouldn't bother)

4.Attention to the inexplicable, highly unusual, odd, strange and done with painstaking accuracy and focus on detail.  (Nailed It) 

Meet my Second Great Grand Aunt Palmyra J. Akin Thedford. 

This photo of her was in my Great Grandmother Martha Jane Marley Carroll's Photo Album, and even though her  name was barely legible on the back, I somehow couldn't bring myself to admit that anyone could be named Palmyra.

Honestly, I really wanted this photo to be of my Great Great Grandmother Mary Josephine Leatherwood Marley, as I didn't have and couldn't find a photo of her anywhere. 

You would think Martha Jane would have at least one picture of her own Mother.

Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that it was not Josephine, and put it in the back of the 'Old Photo Album'.  However, the name really stuck in my head and Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a Google! 

Did you know that Palmyra was an ancient city in Syria?  

In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria located in an oasis northeast of Damascus and southwest of the Euphrates.  

It had been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the 'Bride of the Desert'.

Interesting, right? But still who was she and what was this portrait doing in my Grandmother's Album?  

Curiosity did not kill this 'Cat', and eventually her kinship and non-Syrian heritage was revealed..in an odd, prying, meddlesome manner through Ancestry.  If nothing else, I can chew a single waving leaf to pulp.

She was the Aunt of my Great Grandfather Stephen Bennett Carroll.

Born Palmyra J. Akin on November 7, 1845 to Stephen B. and Catherine Ann Akin Carroll.

Raised in Dyer County, Tennessee

Married John A. Thedford on January 9, 1867

Mother of Naomi B. Thedford born in 1876

Moved to Cleburne City, Johnson County, Texas

Died June 17, 1912

Buried Cleburne Memorial Cemetery, Cleburne, Texas

Brick Wall chiseled down one brick at a time 

leading to Great Grandfathers Carroll ancestors and my Tennessee Roots.

And to Cousins now Friends on Facebook...pays off to be Curious!

February Week 5...BRANCHING OUT

Where did all these folks come from?   Who knew there would be so many people to acknowledge on a persons Family Tree?   Where does one start picking off leaves or chopping off brances?

And to think, when I first started growing My Family Tree, I never would have thought I'd find so many ancestors that I'd have to 'Trim The Tree'.

 I've always thought of 'My Tree' as a Mesquite Tree.  It's a hardy and prolific plant found in West Texas with deep tap roots and what can be anywhere from two feet scrubby shrubs to thirty foot trees.   I've often referred to myself as the 'First Bean' of my Dad's Branch/Twig and my Siblings as Beans Two, Three, Four and Five.

About those Mesquite Beans...they have been known as a food source.  Dried and ground beans have been made into flour which adds a sweet, nutty taste to breads or used in jelly or wine.  It is unwise to eat these beans raw unless you are a heifer or steer. They love those green beans and snap them right off the tree.  Now you know how they got to be the most prolific plant in Texas. 

Now don't misunderstand my 'Prolific Bean Theory' as a comparison to my 'Prolific Production of Ancestors'.  It wasn't until the 1890's that they were exposed to the Texas Mesquite Tree, and as you can see from the 'Grandparent Chart', just about any Tree can handle that number of Branches, Twigs and Beans.  It's the Great Great's To Infinity that have cluttered up my Tree.  There are so many 'GG's2InFin' that I have invented 'TAGS' that say Profile Done....after all you only need to DigEm Up Once.

So where do I draw the Family Tree Pruning Line?

How many 'Great Great's 2 Infinity' Ancestors do I need to know?

Finding Mary Polly Rowe's 5XGreat Grandparents in Scotland is tempting!

Just think...10X Great Grandparents...WOW!!!

NEVER MIND!!!!!

February Week 6...MAPS

My great grandfather traveled from Georgia to Texas in the late 1890's arriving in Ward County, Texas, by way of a more Eastern route not shown on map.  A survivor and Veteran of the Civil War, he lost all family farming land to Georgia's Reconstruction and taxes after the Civil War.  Without the hope of owning land, he settled his family in the Southwestern part of Ward County known as Grandfalls.

Excerpts from the Ward County History 1877-1977.   George Washington Pittman whose Civil War record includes Co. B 7th Infantry, Andersons Brigade, McLaws Division, N. Virginia's Army.  As a widower with 6 of his 10 surviving children settling in Grandfalls, Ward County, Texas, his farming skills were in high demand among the Emigrant land owners.  He and his children lived many years in Ward County, and became land owners of plats shown on the map.  

Only one son, C.C. 'Chapo' Pittman, stayed on in Grandfalls for the remainder of his life.  And it is Chappo, my Grandfather, whose life and the lives of his descendants that have been impacted by the 1902 General Land Office Map.  

Born in 1875, Chappo was 77 years old when he came to live with us.  I was 4.  It was not until I was an adult and became 'The Family Historian' that I learned about his early life in Grandfalls and his occupations on the Pecos River.  It was humbling to be standing on the Brush Dam bridge where my two pioneer grandfathers had helped build and build a second time after a flood.  It was incredible to learn that stories had been written about their part in the history of Ward County.

Brush Dam is pinpointed on the map by the 'Red Arrow'...as far as I can determine.  According to the Ward County History 1887-1977, Chappo contracted with the water district to build Brush Dam and the Canals...Blue Arrow on the map.  In the following years Chappo was the canal 'Ditch Rider'.  On horseback he rode the long winding canals often for days and nights clearing the 'check' points of debris so the water could flow freely through the irrigation canals.

Along with the Ditch Rider work, my grandfather was literally a dirt farmer living along the irrigation canal.  There he raised his youngest two sons, my Dad and uncle...story Two Boys and A Donkey Makin' Tracks Down The Dusty Road.  

Perhaps the most incredible Chappo survival story happened when he was a 'Freighter'.  Once a team of mules ran away with him on the Pyote-Barstow road.  He was thrown from the wagon and suffered a broken neck.  The story goes he walked all the way to Pecos to Dr. Camp's office holding his head between his hands.

My grandfather lived out his life in Grandfalls with his youngest son, W.C. Pittman and family.  He spent many hours fishing on the Pecos River where the water still flowed and the irrigation ditches still had to be cleared of Tumbleweeds.

And so, with that...there's more to a map than rivers, canals, crossings and plats.

February Week 7

As a pilot and navigator, he was assigned to the 315th Bomb Wing in Guam.  He flew the first airlift into Japan after their surrender during World War II.  During the cold War he was assigned to the Strategic Air Command to fly converted B-29s to refuel U.S. Strategic bombers.  He was one of the first pilots to perform air-to-air refueling.

In 1955, this Command Pilot flying B47's for the Strategic Air Command Crash Landed.  His B-47 exploded in mid-air over the eastern Canadian wilderness.  One of the objectives of the flight was to test a new type of flight suit.  When he was miraculously found alive four days later, he had bravely used his parachute to fashion a tourniquet for his badly mangled leg and built a shelter.  A pack of wolves surrounded the crash site and the badly wounded pilot.  He later said the wolves had saved his life by protecting him from an aggressive moose.

  The test suit having been designed to endure the cold of high altitude flight played a major role in surviving the Canadian wilderness extreme conditions.  After being rescued he lost his leg to amputation.  He was the first Air Force pilot to be reinstated to fly with a prosthetic.  He was a Missle Man (Silo Launch) and Four-Headed Monster pilot, navigator, bombardier and radar man for B-47 Stratojet Bombers.

During his distinguished career he received many awards most notably the World War II Victory Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal and the coveted Aviator's Valor Award.  He commanded the AF Recruiting and Language Schools at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas, before retiring as Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Leland Pittman.

Willard C. Pittman and Thomas L. Pittman 

Sons of brothers Chappo and Cobb Pittman and sisters Estella and Mary Ella Carroll Pittman

Making my Dad Willard and Tom...Double First Cousins

Willard Carroll Pittman 1927-1988

Thomas L. Pittman 1920-2006

February Week 8

 Secret Second Wife

Their journey ended in a small West Texas community.  It looked as if they were the typical homesteading couple as they embarked from the covered wagon with a passel of children.  

Who they were, where they came from, why they chose this place to put down roots and what was the story behind a man named after the First President of America....not important in 1899.  

Also, not of great interest or importance to those living and dying through the years that stretched into decades and two centuries. 

Not until a granddaughter began 'Old School Research' in the 1960's-1980's did some of the 'Who, Where, What and Why' questions come to light. 

Then along came a great granddaughter's 21st Century Technology/Internet research and establishment of a Family Tree on Ancestry.  Not until then was the Second Wife Secret discovered.  A fact based timeline, 'Old School' notes, and my 'Factual Fiction' License put together George's Courting of Nancy Anne.

Like George, who was a widower with both grown and young children, Nancy Anne was a widow with children of much the same ages.  It is assumed...based on timeline facts...George and Nancy Anne met on the road, so to speak.  George and children traveling from Georgia to Texas and Nancy Anne and children living in Monroe, Tennessee.

In all likely hood, they met by chance or perhaps it was fate.  Monroe was a stopping over place for George.  Planning to stay long enough to make enough money and get supplied for the next leg of his trip.  Nancy Anne turned her home into a boarding house and her barn into a farm hand bunkhouse.  

We can just imagine their courtship as one of mutual survival that became more.  When it was time for George to move on...Nancy Anne and her brood moved on with him.  It's not known if it was all about just George and Nancy's courting days, but very likely that their respective oldest children had been courting as well. 

George and Nancy Anne were married in Texas on January 1, 1899.

John, Nancy's son, and Mattie, George's daughter, were married on March 11, 1901.

George's Granddaughter's 'Old School Research' never mentioned, much less documented the existence of a Second Wife.  However, the marriage of John and Mattie was well documented along with their history and life as early settlers in the same small West Texas community as their parents.

Nancy Anne, my Great Step Grandmother's life and death enriched our Family Tree in ways that my Old School Genealogist Aunt Irene would have loved knowing.  Especially Nancy Anne's life, death and burial in the same small West Texas community where she was born, raised and buried.

Fort Stockton Pioneer, August 23, 1918 (Microfiche Archives)

Mrs. G.W. Pittman, of Grandfalls, who only recently had come here for medical treatment, died very suddenly from organic heart trouble, at the Riggs Hotel, Saturday evening August 16th.  The remains were prepared for burial by Undertaker W.H. Bird, after which they were taken to Grandfalls, Sunday afternoon and interred in the cemetery at that place.  The funeral services were conducted by Reverand M.O. Williams, pastor of the Methodist Church, of which church the deceased was a devoted Member.  A husband and two children, who reside in Grandfalls, are left to mourn her loss.

PS...As you might guess, Nancy Anne's entry in our Family Tree opened a 'Whole-nother Can of Worms' including my Great Grandfather's THIRD SECRET WIFE....a story for a future 'Prompt'.