The Mystery of 1860

In writing Book Five of the Louisa Saga, a novel series based upon historical and genealogical fact, I am employing tools such as census and other public records. But I am also adding a few I have not used before.

Since this novel takes us into the decade before the Civil War and on to the first two years of it, I am now turning to outside resources and am using more of my tools. One cannot analyze the mood and events of this time period without employing all one can.

Unlike when I wrote the first four books, there is far more available documentation. So far, I am combing through eight books. And I am turning to the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) for help in digging out unpublished manuscripts.

Online, besides Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and NovelFactory.com I am employing a tool I have not used in a very long time: MacKiev's Family TreeMaker to answer a simple question: Where were my main characters in 1860?

Louisa, her husband John, and some of their children are nowhere to be found in the census records that year. Believe me, I have been looking for years, including going through the records for every address in the town of Greensboro, Alabama where they lived since about 1834. I know from other sources that they still owned the house post-War. I even extended my online census search to the entire United States.

At first, I thought it was an error of omission the census-maker made. That is, until I realized that the house they owned is accounted for. Within it are cotton gin-makers; John owned and operated a cotton gin factory just two doors away. This is no accident, then, that they are there.

My theory became that the family was traveling in December, 1860, when the census-taker made the rounds. And to provide newly-hired workers with lodging, John either bartered or charged rent.

To where would they travel?

I have three theories:

1. Europe. Several of their social and geographical contemporaries made tours of the Continent around this time period. John was prospering. The family not only could afford it, but traveling could benefit the family by enlarging their horizons.

2. The Northern seaboard and New England. At least one son attended graduate school in Maryland in the 1850s; later census records place some family members in New York City; and postwar records show they were utilizing factories in the North.

3. They visited family and friends throughout the South.

For Europe, I have the journals of local families for the time period. I will soon be able to peruse these unpublished works which I found out about through connecting (and befriending) with local descendants and historians. I hope one or more journals actually mention John and Louisa's family.

For the North, I have the aforementioned records.

And for the South, I have a tool from Family TreeMaker I have not heretofore used: the "Places" function. Using this, I could see at a glance where extended family members lived in 1860. Also, the online newspaper (the Alabama Beacon) informed me from its ads where John's agents solicited business. From these two resources, I could then map out a plausible route.

In a little over a month from now, I will take what I have so far in the way of research to Greensboro where I will present the facts and have attendees of my lectures give me their choices and their reasoning.

Stay tuned...