Monday, May 19, 2014

North Texas Normal College

I was again playing on Ancestry.com looking for anything new on my Great-grandpa James Alton Manire. I came across a 1916 yearbook for North Texas Normal School  .. "The Yucca" it was called. It showcased James Alton Manire's name under the Organizations...  the Montague County Club. It also listed 2 of his brothers, Charles and Ira.

Knowing how yearbooks usually work I wondered if there was any class pictures of the 3 brothers. I scoured the pages (and there were alot of them) until I found Charles in the upper class men pictures. Ira and James were both in the Freshman class for Language.

It's really kewl to see the old pictures of them in their late teens. And it's interesting how much my grandpa looked like his father James Alton Manire.

This was a awesome find but not nearly as awesome as finding the info for Miss Peggy Marie Manire (Grandpa's lil sister), but that's another story.

** side note:  There was an Ivan Coleman (female) also in the yearbook. She was also a member of the Montague County Club. Could this be the daughter of Martha Elizabeth Manire and J. B. Coleman? Supposedly Arthur C. Manire and "Aunt Jenny" went to collect the Coleman children when Martha died in 1906. Ivan would be James' cousin I believe.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Census Hunt

I was working on a project for a cousin. I had come to my Great great-grandfather Arthur Cornelious Manire. I was looking at the info I had for him. I only had censuses for him from 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920. I knew he lived until 1949. What about the 1930 and 1940 censuses?

Well I went on to Ancestry.com and plugged in the information I had in the search engine. I couldn't find Arthur. I tried different spellings and using "Wildcards". There wasn't anything remotely close for Arthur. I tried looking up his brother and sister William Archibald and Emma Virginia Manire, who lived with him sometimes. I couldn't find them either.

I had their death certificates. So I went back and looked at Emma's and Arthur's. Emma died in Forestburg, Montague County, Texas in 1936. So I knew she was would be on the 1930 Census. She was also hemiplegic so chances are she'd be with Arthur still. It also stated that she had lived in that area about 37 years. So she should be in the Forestburg, Montague County, Texas area on the Census. Luckily on Ancestry.com I can look at a census page by page if I know the state, county, and city. I looked at the previous census to guess on the precinct or district number. The 2nd page I went to view had them there... so I have the 1930 census. The indexer had them listed as MA?lal instead of Manire.

So I wanted to find the 1940 census also. I looked at Arthur's death certificate. He died in Lubbock County, Texas, but had only been there a few years. So he wasn't living in Lubbock at the time of the census. So I looked for the Montague County Census. There were only a few cities/towns listed and OTHER. St. Jo was one that was listed but I didn't think that was it. It's another family that lived in St. Jo at one time. So I went to the Other... I scrolled down until I came to one that came to edge of Forestburg. There were 2 of them and I wasn't sure which one. I started with the first one... I started going thru the pages 1 by 1. Finally about page 15 I found him with his oldest son's family. Which was kewl since I never had anything with Harry and his wife or kids together. The family was listed under the name Marine instead of Manire.

I was soo elated to find the censuses and fill in some more information.