Surname Saturday - Ward Family

I got an email this week from someone on Find-A-Grave who asked me if I could connect my ancestor, Martha Ward Putman to her parents, Castleton Ward and Mary McGrada. I opened the links and found a wealth of information for both Castleton Ward and his wife Mary that I did not previously have. I emailed the contributor and asked her where she learned all of this information from and she has been sending me articles, emails, and information ever since. So from this little request I have learned more information about my Ward family, and learned about two new surnames - MCGRADA and AKE. Here is my Surname Saturday Ward Family Profile:

My 3rd Great-Grandmother was Martha Ann Ward Putman. She was born July 24th, 1850 [1] in Arkansas and died 10 Jan 1924 in Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas.[2] She married Thomas Adolphus Putman on January 20th, 1869 in Sebastian County, Arkansas.[3] Thomas and Martha Putman lived in a house at 3720 Park Avenue, Fort Smith, Arkansas until they died in the 1920s. Their daughter Rosalie Putman and her husband James Lasiter lived in the house as well. Rosalie and James Putman's son James Putman Lasiter Sr and his wife, Louise Benson Lasiter (my great-grandmother) lived in the house as well. After Louise's death, the house was sold. Louise's brother Jimmie Putman Lasiter Jr lived next door around the corner until he died a few years ago. His house burned down in a fire.

Martha was the daughter of Castleton WARD and Mary Malinda MCGRADA. I was unaware of Mary's maiden name and Castleton's parents' names until the FAG contributor emailed me. Castleton WARD was born October 1st, 1820 (or 1821)  in Tennessee to William WARD and Letha Leah AKE. He died September 18th, 1899 in Lavaca, Arkansas and is thought to be buried in the Ward Family Cemetery at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Castleton's wife Mary MCGRADA was the daughter of Robert and Sally MCGRADA.

So this is what my pre-Research chart looks like:

Ancestors of Martha Ann Ward (pre-Research) with new Surnames

Here is a list of Castleton and Mary Ward's children I've learned about so far:

1. Asberry Alexander Ward (1842-1852)
2. William Franklin Ward (1844-1897)
3. John Robert Ward (1845-1895)
4. James Madison Ward (1847-1889)
5. Martha Ann Ward (1850-1924)

Mary Ward died in 1881 and Castleton Ward remarried to Sallie Hood in 1882.[4] 

From emailing with the FAG contributor I have learned that most of the information about the Ward family came from Martha Ward Presson and a book she wrote on the Ward and allied families. The FAG contributor forwarded a digital pdf copy of the 130 page book to me. Unfortunately it is not searchable, so navigating the information in the book is a bit difficult. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the author, Martha Ward Presson, was related to this Ward family. And there are no sources (of course). Although I am happy to have more information about this family, I am not 100% comfortable taking it at face value without verifying it first. I can, however, use it as a guide. In fact in my post from yesterday I already found some errors on the information the author wrote about my family (Martha Ann Ward Putman).

Another surname I learned about is JOY. Castleton Ward's brother, Joseph S WARD, married Amanda JOY and his sister Nancy WARD married Amanda JOY'S brother, John William JOY. With regards to autosomal DNA, any children that Castleton's brothers and sisters had, regardless of surname, would be genetically linked to me and could possibly show up as genetic matches to me through ftDNA's Family Finder DNA test. This is why building up my collateral lines has become a priority for 2012.

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Sources:
[1] Headstone for Martha Ward Putman, Forest Park Cemetery, 5001 Midland Blvd, Fort Smith, AR: "Martha Ward-Putman, July 24, 1850, Jan 11, 1924"
[2] See Note 1 above; Fowler, Robyn and Karrant, Wanda, Fowler's Index to Interments in Forest Park Cemetery, 5001 Midland Blvd, Fort Smith, AR: 1910-1988, "Martha H Putman died 10 Jan 1924, Interred by Putman Mortuary."
[3] The Goodspeed Publishing Co., History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas, Chicago : The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889; "Sebastian County," Article on Thomas A. Putnam, p. 1356-7. See also, Ancestry.com, "Arkansas, Northwestern Counties History, 1889," Online database, [http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7931 : accessed 20 January 2009]. [4] Jim Tipton, Find A Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com), accessed 7 January 2012; miscellaneous data and gravestone image for Caselton Lawrence "Cash" Ward (1820-1899), memorial # 82778690, webpage created by S Remmark-Fuhrman, 31 Dec 2011, citing Ward Cemetery, Sebastian County, Arkansas.

Genealogy Research Progress for Monday, January 9, 2012

We are already into our 2nd week of the New Year! With that in mind, I wanted to take some time today to review my progress towards the goals I set for myself for 2012. Here are some of the things I worked on last week (usually I would write these as a Follow-up Friday post, but I missed it last week).

1. Wrote more blog posts - I got more than 1 blog post written during the course of the week which I'm really pleased with because I really love writing to my blog and sharing with others.
2. I worked on my DUNLAP brick wall some. I reviewed my research log and I organized the North Carolina transfer of deeds into a timeline. The deeds still have not given me any clue about a familial relationship. 
3. I got sidetracked by an email exchange with a FindAGrave contributor of the WARD family - She asked me to link my ancestor to her parents. The memorials of her parents contained a lot of new information for me. This is new research that can be done! She also sent me a copy of a book written in the 1950s on the Ward family which I need to make time to review. 
4. I met a new cousin on my SMITH side who found me on my blog. We have been exchanging information and pictures via email. 
5. I reviewed the Civil War Pension file of a cousin's ancestor (George SABIN) and I received information on the pensioner's children that I need to find time to enter into my genealogy database. This goes towards my goal of working on collateral lines.
6. I am collecting information on the Davis, Cockerell and GODWIN families who are related by Y-DNA to see if and when a Non-Parental Event (NPE) occurred. 
7. I emailed a descendant of James and Martha PETERS of Anderson County, Tennessee to see if there could be a connection to my 2nd great-grandfather, William E.  PETERS. So far no one is willing to consider the idea that Martha moved on and had 3 more children after her husband James "disappeared." Martha still seems like a good candidate to be my William's mother though.

I hope to continue working on this research throughout this coming week. One of the difficulties I have with staying on track and keeping up with my goals is what I get in EMAIL! It always distracts me and throws me off course. One little email can send me into weeks of tossing and turning and flipping of pages and before I know it I've thrown all  my other projects to the back burner. But we all know what happens if we don't follow up on our emails. If we wait too long, the person who sent us the important message has already moved on, probably forgotten about us, or what they originally wrote to us about, or deemed us as too high and mighty to write them back and are possibly no longer interested in corresponding with us. So the moral of the story is that we have to be flexible. 

So for this week I aim to do the following: 

1. Enter the information I received on my collateral SABIN and SMITH lines in #4 & #5 above. This is a tangible and do-able task and counts towards my 2012 goal of building upon my collateral lines.
2. Start reviewing the information on my WARD family that the FAG researcher sent to me and ask her about her collateral JOY line, also counting towards my goal of building upon my collateral lines. In addition, I should take advantage of asking her any questions I might have since she is currently available.
3. Continue writing more blog posts - including a post about the deeds I have found on my DUNLAP family and how I am trying to learn about the family from the transfer of land. I am at a standstill with the DUNLAPS right now, so there is no hurry to break down this "brick wall." I also need to get to the North Carolina State Archives to do more research. We had planned to go this Saturday, however, the Archives will be closed because Monday is Martin Luther King's Birthday and for us in North Carolina, that is a State Holiday (I will be off of work).