Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Family History Writing Challenge - Frank Hoover

Day 26, Yeah!!!  2 more days!!  I am ready to finish my commitment   I will still write something everyday, but I won't feel like I'm under pressure to do it.  Although, maybe I need that.  I guess I will see after the challenge is over.  I had only been blogging a short time when I started this.

I have written about Frank Hoover before, but he is my biggest challenge.  I  don't really know where he grew up and I am not sure who his parents were.  He married my great grandmother Lulu Pickett and they had three children, one of which is my grandfather.  My great grandmother was from a Quaker family and remained in the religion and her second husband was a Quaker.  I believe Frank was probably from a Quaker family.

I believe Frank had three marriages, the first two being very short.  I have not yet been able to document it, but I have evidence leading to the fact that the first two wives died.  I have been told that he had a son by one of the wives who was named John.  Again I have no evidence of that, just a cousin that said she knew of him.

On his three marriage certificates, that is if all three are really the same man, the ages and some of the information indicates that it is, except that his parents name changes a little and his place of birth is either Kentucky or Virginia   In an earlier post, I showed the marriage information from the three marriages.

Frank died at a pretty young age, 42 year, 3 months, and 27 days.
I searched for his death certificate and was lucky enough to find it very quickly.  The problem with that was there was very little information recorded on it.  He died from meningitis.  The death certificate had date of death, where he died, and the cause of death.  Nothing else.  Whoever was filing in the record book did not record parents names, dates of birth, or any of the other entry areas on the page for anyone.  Great!


Next, I went to the cemetery where most of the family is buried, not really expecting to find anything.  This is a predominantly Quaker cemetery.  Well his grave was there, right beside Lulu's mother's grave.  They died within three years of each other.  Lulu is buried a little further over in the cemetery with her second husband.  

I guess I will continue to search for Frank Hoover, my great grandfather.  I hope to someday figure out who he belongs with and find out who my great-grandparents were.  The town of Richmond was made up in large part by Quakers.  There were many families with the last name Hoover.  I haven't found any with the names listed in the marriage records of Frank.  

Any suggestions?



2 comments:

  1. Hi Betty! Found you on the Blog hop! Tracing your family history is a commendable challenge and so very rewarding. Enjoy yourself as you find the roots to who you are. Have a lovely day!

    ReplyDelete