Maybe I have too much time on my hands. One of the projects I was working on this week involved finding the ancestry of my dad’s best friend, Cleve Henry.
One of my middle names — Cleve — is after this guy. He and my dad were cowboys together in the glory days of their youth. Then they married sisters. Then they divorced the sisters. By the time I was born Cleve counted still as my uncle but purists would snarl.
The way I heard the story, Uncle Cleve was named after a plantation his family had before the Civil War. And somehow he was a distant, very distant, cousin. So it was the name coming back to our branch of the family.
When I was doing genealogy in my teens this was one of the stories I wanted to know about.
It was easy to find the plantation. It’s famous. Cleve Plantation in Virginia belonged to Charles Carter, of Cleve (1707-1764). A very famous family.
But as it turned out, it would be very generous to say my family is related to those Carters. Charles Bowen Howry (1844-1928), an ancestral 2nd cousin, was married to a Carter descendant, but that’s as close as it gets.
Then I found out that there is a Henry family that uses the given name Cleve. They’re descended from Oliver Cleveland Henry (1805-1863). I couldn’t find Uncle Cleve’s father among them but his full name was Oliver Cleve Henry, so I was pretty sure he would turn out to be a descendant. So, that’s it, I figured. There’s no connection on that other side either.
This weekend I did another push to find Uncle Cleve’s missing father. As I often do. But this time I found him. Here in Denver.
And, now I know the end of that story. Uncle Cleve was not descended from the Carters of Cleve, probably wasn’t named after Cleve Plantation, and is not descended from Oliver Cleveland Henry.
He’s just some guy whose parents like the name Cleve. And that pleases me greatly.
This is a piece from Masaman about different ethnic groups in the old Roman Empire. Toward the end there is a brief bit about the Etruscans and Rhaetians in the Alps.
Of interest to the Hauri DNA project because our G-L42 haplogroup seems to be concentrated in this region and probably originated there.
Masaman, Extinct Romans (July 19, 2019), at YouTube.com, beginning at 10:18, visited July 27, 2019.
When I first starting to do genealogy, I wanted to find out more about my Place ancestors. I quickly came to the conclusion Brig. Gen. Solomon Place was a direct ancestor. I soon found some cousins had come to the same conclusion. It seemed to be a family tradition.
But, we were all wrong. Wishful thinking. And it was easy to demonstrate our mistake with just a little actual research. Our ancestor Thomas Place (1803-1893), of Auburn, New York, was not Solomon’s son.
Solomon Place
Solomon Place (1770-1834) was an affluent citizen of Greenwich, New York, a descendant of immigrant Enoch Place, who came to America in 1657 and settled in Rhode Island.
Solomon had a military career and rose to become a brigadier general. In 1803 he appears as a Captain in Lt. Col. Simon De Ridder’s regiment in Washington County, New York. His name appears on the Massachusetts Civil List for June 1806, when a legislative committee reported the state owed “Solomon Place to the time of his leaving the State, £150 45s.” He was named as “Capt. Solomon Place” on the gravestone of his son Hiram, who died 23 January 1811. In 1812 he was Second Major in Lt. Col. Hendrick Van Schaick’s regiment in Washington County. In 1814 he was First Major. In 1815 he was named Lieutenant Colonel following Van Schaick’s resignation. In 1819 he was Brigadier General, 16th Brigade. He was named as “Gen. Solomon Place” on the gravestone of his wife Martha (1825), and on his own gravestone (1834).
My Connection
When I started doing genealogy, I didn’t have much to go on or much help to start. My (step) dad Carroll Place was puzzled about my interest. One of his cousins from California was in Daughters of the American Revolution. She had already done their genealogy. All done; no reason to look further.Dad didn’t remember any details. His parents owned Place Dairy in Rock Island, Illinois. Before they came to Rock Island, the Place family was in Michigan. Back further, there was a Revolutionary War General, some Mayflower people, and a guy who came from England in Colonial times.
I did find out my grandfather’s name was George Washington Place (1889-1958). (I never knew him. My parents were married after he died.)
Grandma tried to help. She pointed out my bedside lamp: George Washington praying before the Battle of Valley Forge, a lamp that had belonged to my dad when he was growing up. George Washington was part of my dad’s heritage. Grandma didn’t know how; don’t ask silly questions, just be proud of our heritage.
George Washington praying before the Battle of Valley Forge, Art Nouveau lamp, 1930s.
I did some poking around–as much as I could do at the public library in Grand Junction (Colorado) in the days before the Internet. I also wrote some letters and ordered Family Group Sheets from the Mormon library in Salt Lake City.
I quickly figured out our ancestor was Thomas Place, who went from Cayuga County, New York to Huron County, Ohio in 1833, then I hit a brick wall. Thomas sold land to his brother Solomon Place in 1835, and was co-executor of Solomon’s estate in 1845. Before that, nothing.
Speculation
However, it looked like our ancestor the unnamed General might have been Solomon Place. This was an exciting discovery. Solomon was the only General I could find anywhere with the surname Place. He served in the War of 1812, not the Revolutionary War, but close enough.
Solomon was born in 1770 and married Martha Heard in 1796. Thomas Place, who we thought would be Solomon’s son, was born in 1803 or 1804 in New York. His brother Solomon was born in 1811. The names, dates, and places fit. It’s easy to see how the brothers Thomas and Solomon of Cayuga County, New York could have been sons of Gen. Solomon Place of Washington County, New York. I didn’t find any explicit evidence, but it looked like a reasonable guess based on the evidence.
Evidence
That’s where I left it for some 35 years, with no further research. Over the years, I heard from other researchers who had come to the same conclusion. Some of them claimed to have an explicit family tradition our ancestor Thomas Place was a son of Gen. Solomon Place.
Then, in 2005 I was contacted by John Folsom, a fellow researcher.
John pointed me to the published family record from the Bible of Gen. Solomon Place. Solomon made this record in his own hand and signed it February 10, 1817. He names (among other relatives) himself, wife Martha, and children Phebe, Hannah, Harriet, and Hiram. (New York DAR GRC). No sons named Thomas or Solomon.
The Bible record is supported by the cemetery, will, and probate records of Gen. Solomon.
Solomon’s cemetery plot also contains the remains of his son Hiram (died 1816, age 1 month), (1st) wife Martha (died 1825, age 54); two daughters: Phebe (died 1869, age 73) and Hannah (died 1882, age 84); and grandson Stephen (died 1849, age 22).
Solomon’s January 1833 will names (2nd) wife Dorothy; daughters Phebe, Hannah, and Harriet, all apparently unmarried; his grandson Stephen Place (son of his unmarried daughter Phebe); and Josiah Barrett, whom he calls a nephew of his first wife.
Conclusion
Armed with this information, which has been easily available since 1934, we can no longer believe Thomas was a son of Gen. Solomon Place.
Thomas is now believed to be a son of Shadrach Place (1778-1840), who came from Washington County, New York to Cleveland, Ohio some time after 1810. The evidence, however, is circumstantial. If this is the correct connection, Thomas was a cousin, not a son, of Gen. Solomon.
For Pioneer Day, some quick examples of the Utah Accent, also called a Mormon Accent or a Pioneer Accent. It’s a little different from a standard American Midwest Accent. I don’t know why linguists so often ignore it. If you know how to hear it, you’ll find it in Utah, eastern Nevada, southern Idaho, southwestern Wyoming, south Idaho, and western Colorado:
When the letter T comes in the middle of word replace it with a glottal stop. For example, mountain is pronounced mou’uhn and kitten is ki’uhn. But sometimes a word needs a T at the end. Across is pronounced acrosst.
The letter R gets removed if it’s inconvenient. Library is pronounced lie-berry, and February is Febee-ary. An R can also be moved. Prescription is pronounced per-scription. And, an R can be added if needed. Wash is pronounced wahrsh, but water might or might not be wahrter.
And not just Rs. Sometimes other difficult consonants can be eliminated. Picture is pronounced pitcher.
The ending -ing becomes either -in’ or -ink. (I spend a lot of time workin’ on Geni.)
Diphthongs become single vowels. For example, sale and sail are pronounced sell, and real is pronounced rill.
Middle vowels are eliminated. Mirror is pronounced mirr, caramel is kar-muhl, and family is famlee.
Labor-intensive vowels get flattened. Miracle is muhr-kuhl or muhr-a-kuhl, creek is crick, milk is melk, pillow is pelluh, and well is wuhl. Then the classics: to is pronounced ta, for is pronounced fur, and your and you’re are pronounced yur.
But some vowels are just different. For example, the days of the week are Sundee, Mondee, Tuesdee, etc., and measure is pronounced mayzhure,
In some rural areas, OR and AR get switched. Barn is pronounced born, and born in pronounced barn. (This one is said to be the influence of Danish pioneers.)
And lots of unique phrases. The classic one is “Oh my heck.”
When I was little we visited my cousins quite regularly. But still it took some time for us kids to understand what they were saying through their thick accent. Nowadays I live in Colorado. I’d swear I can hear a Utah accent a block away. And it always brings a smile, even when it’s me I hear.
North American English Dialects, visited July 24, 2019. The standard Western dialect has only 13 vowels rather than the usual 14 or 15. No difference between caught and cot, or father and bother. However, he seems to miss the rural Utah dialect.
Utahn Talk (March 20, 2012), by DixieSunLink at YouTube.com, visited Sept. 8, 2019.
I’m increasingly convinced Findagrave is moving toward a naked power grab of our data. I learned this week that they have no scruples about taking away “added by” credit and giving it to someone else. Dates don’t actually matter.
The point of altering the facts seems to be rewarding the people who add masses of information at the expense of those who just add a few memorials here and there.
Here’s what happened to me. There’s a cemetery plot that has three graves in it—my step-mother and two step-brothers. The three of them share one grave marker. I added two of the memorials, then months later another user added the same memorials. Then on the third grave, she added the memorial first, and I added a duplicate without noticing.
There is no doubt that they were duplicates. This other user even added her photos to the memorials I had created.
When I requested a merge, Findagrave reversed the order of the merges so the other user got credit for adding them. Why? According to their email, it was because I had edited the memorials I created. Presumably they don’t like people adding things like obituaries and relationships.
I complained. And they came back saying essentially, “No, ignore our email. That wasn’t the reason.” The real reason, they said, was because of some confusion (on both our parts) whether the graves are in the main cemetery or in one of the sub-cemeteries. Since the other user added two of her three in the sub-cemetery she wins the credit. I had all three correct now but I had originally added them to the main cemetery so it didn’t count.
The tone deafness here is staggering. I don’t want to actually name names here since the other user didn’t do anything wrong. She’s added masses of memorials. One might wonder why she didn’t notice that the same marker was probably not located in two different cemeteries, but she didn’t. Findagrave did, though, and used it as a pretext to take my family memorials away from me and give them to a stranger.
The other user was exceptionally kind, as ordinary users often are. She transferred management of the memorials to me. And she still keeps photo credit. Nothing she can do about Findagrave giving her credit for adding the memorials.
I think the one thing I can do now that I’m aware I can lose credit for my work at any time is focus my efforts on Billiongraves instead.
