May 2006 Genealogy Road Trip, Part I

On May 10th, I headed north to Maryland and then into Pennsylvania, to try and discover additional information on our ancestors.

My primary goal was the discovery of John K Carson's parents. John K, if you don't remember, was a grandparent of Chester Carson.

Most records on John K Carson, including his own written record of his birth location, consistently place him in Hancock, Maryland and the Warfordburg, Pennsylvania area from his birth until at least middle adulthood. So, this is a prime location to search for more information.

I set my sights on two libraries... the Washington County Free Library, in Hancock, MD, and the Fulton County Libary, in McConnellsburg, PA, home of the Fulton County Historical Society.

I spent only a few hours in the Washigton County Free Library. I was able to search all microfilm they had on newspapers at about the time of John's birth. None had birth announcements, only death and marriage notices. Another dead end.

I did meet a gentleman who was introduced to me as "the local genealogy expert." He told me something very important. "Don't trust birth locations as absolutely accurate," he said. "Oftentimes families of that era reported their home, or a birth location, as their postal district. In that time-period, the Hancock, Maryland postal zone was quite large, extending down into Warfordsburg, PA. Your ancestor could have actually been born anywhere in this region."

"Unfortunately," he continued, "the likelihood of finding any record of his birth, anywhere in the region's government records, is remote."

So far, his depressing assessment has proven to be true.

Next time, I'll describe some of my findings in Warfordsburg.