Taking Notes From the Bible

I’m finally getting some time to sit down and compare my information to that provided by the Bible of Carrie L. (Brown) Carlyle, which was sent to me earlier this month by Mr. Illinois. If you missed it, you can do a genealogy happy dance with me via this post.

I’m first going to examine the family page that goes back to my second great grandfather, Oscar F. Brown:




Starting at the top of the page, and working my way down.

Family Register
Grandparents

Grandfather (Father’s Side)	Date of Birth	Date of Death
James Carlyle	May 1, 1841	March 27, 1889
Grandmother (Father’s Side)	Date of Birth	Date of Death
Jane Reid	1840	1881
Grandfather (Mother’s Side	Date of Birth	Date of Death
Oscar Fitzallan Brown	1831	1906
Grandmother (Mother’s Side)	Date of Birth	Date of Death
Frances Elizabeth Lawrence	July 20, 1853	June 7, 1929

Parents
Nov 12, 1912 Married Orting, Washington
Adam Carlyle (Husband)
Date of Birth: Aug 19, 1874  
Place of Birth: Vernon, Osgood, Ontario, Canada
Date of Death: June 26, 1945 Snohomish, Wash. G.A.R. Cemetery, Snohomish
Carrie Louise Brown (Wife)
Date of Birth Oct 3, 1886
Place of Birth: Richland, Nebraska

I am assuming Carrie wrote this in herself. I have samples of her writing from her teenage years through the end of her life, and this writing seems to loosely match her style. The Bible was “presented to” her son, Lawrence Byron Carlyle in 1946, so it would appear that she filled in this information prior to gifting it to him.





Comparing this data with what I already knew…

• James Carlyle: I have been able to add his birth date and month, but I knew the year already. I also had the death date correct.
• Jane Reid: All I had originally was that she died “after 1895”, which conflicts with the Bible a great deal, but I will use the Bible as my primary information source for now.
• Oscar F. Brown: His birth year has been disputed for some time, but we always knew it was around 1831/1832. The Bible gives the earlier date. We knew his death date already.
• Frances E. Lawrence: All of the information listed for her we already knew.
• Adam Carlyle: I had his birth date as 18 Aug 1876, but the Bible states 19 Aug 1874. The location is the same. We also had his death information and burial location, as well as the marriage date and place between Adam and Carrie.
• Carrie Brown: Her birth date was the same, but the location varied slightly. The Bible states Richland, Nebraska, and I had Central City. The two communities are about an hour apart from each other in today’s terms, and the Brown family moved back and forth between them several times, though their homestead was closer to Central City.

The following page lists the Children’s Registry:

• Lawrence Byron Carlyle: b. Nov 16, 1913, Orting, Washington
• Stuart Brown Caryle: b. Nov 3, 1914, Orting, Washington. “Sgt. U.S. Army; Inducted Sept 1940, Discharged Nov 1945”
• Helen Elizabeth Carlyle: b. April 9, 1917, Wauna, Washington (which is just north of Gig Harbor, and makes sense geographically). Married June 27, 1945 in Seattle, Washington to Sgt. Jerry William De Vries. “School teacher for eight years.” All of this information except her birth year, marriage year and the surname of her husband is new to me.
• Ruth Louise Carlyle: b. April 10, 1920, Tacoma, Washington. Married to Joseph E. Miller, Seattle, Washington.
• Robert Adam Carlyle: b. April 10, 1920, Tacoma, Washington (he and Ruth were twins). “2nd Lieut. U.S. Army, Over 5 yrs in Service, Unknown, Germany, Feb 19, 1945”. From his gravestone, I know he received a Purple Heart for his service, but I did not have information on where he served, nor did I have what I am assuming to be his discharge date.

I have much more to learn from these texts, and this is but a simple comparison between the Bible and my genealogy software.

Torn and Ragged

About a week ago, I got the email that every family historian dreams of. 

It happened. It really happened.

A man in Illinois (for privacy reasons, I will simply refer to him as Mr. Illinois) had discovered a piece of my history, a piece of my family; one we did not even know was missing. He found it in his Grandmother’s attic, in a trunk, with a few other odd items. No one in his family, not his mother or any of her siblings, had any idea why Grandma possessed these items. No one knew they were there. No one knew that she had held onto them, carefully wrapped, gently placed. How did she obtain them? Why? The answers are still to be discovered, perhaps we’ll never know.

Torn and Ragged
The Bible that originally belong to
Adam and Carrie (Brown) Carlyle of
Orting, Washington. 

It came to me torn and ragged. It felt I was living out some kind of alternate space. It all happened so quickly!

You see, Mr. Illinois found part of the answer to his many questions on his search engine. A quick look at the oldest name in the Bible sent him to my blog, to this very site, to me. He realized that he needed to contact me, to find out about Oscar F. Brown. Yes, my Oscar. My most challenging brick wall ancestor. The one I have written about over and over. The one I will continue to write about until some of the mysteries are solved. 

(Tell me again that genealogy blogs do not need to utilize search engine optimization! He found me easily and quickly!)

So, that phone call came. A conversation of discovery, matching names, dates and locations. Enough that both of us were satisfied: yes, it’s a match.

What he found in his Grandmother’s attic was a collection. Two Bibles, a letter with photographs, and a photo album of Civil War soldiers; all members of the unique Mississippi Marine Brigade. In one evening, I went from hopeful to elated: the family in Illinois had decided to send me the Bibles. The photo album will be copied professionally, then sent on to the Civil War Museum in Virginia. Where it belongs, because, truly, the collection is a national treasure. It is not just for my family alone. That is very satisfying.

Back to the Bibles. One was property of Carrie (Brown) and Adam Carlyle, my great aunt and uncle. The other belonged to their eldest son. Their descendants are my 2nd cousins, and after a few years of research in their own right, they have passed on their own family collection of letters, photos and other heirlooms to me. I have referred to this vast collection before, and have coined it, "The Carlyle Collection."  The decision was made that I should receive the treasure, and that I did.

Surprisingly, Mr. Illinois sent it rather quickly, in a simple U.S. Post Office box. He had either had it long enough that his curiosity was sedated or was ready to get rid of them. Either way, within a week, they were sitting on my dining room table. It is not lost on me that the table belonged to my own Grandparents originally, and here I am, using its surface to photograph the penmanship of Grandpa’s aunt. Oh, how the wheel of life turns…

I am sure that future posts will detail all I learn from these precious gifts. For now, it is enough to say that my family is incredibly grateful to another family in Illinois. We have regained a piece of us; we have been able to connect with another part of us that makes us who we are. For that, Mr. Illinois, I will never forget you.

Both Bibles, side by side.

The inside cover of the oldest Bible, belonging
to Carrie (Brown) and Adam Carlyle. The writing
lists the lineage of Adam.
The copyright is 1895. 

School Photo

Great looking school group. My Great Aunt Carrie Brown is one of the teachers, indicated with the red arrow at the top. This would have been taken in Orting, Pierce County, Washington. The sign, front middle, says "Sixth Grade, '09".