Stalking Dead People

Only people who have spent a great many hours researching their family’s genealogy can fully appreciate the name on a family tree posted on Ancestry.com. I laughed out loud when I saw the title, “Stalking Dead People,” and promptly sent an email to my fellow genealogy buffs. And as one friend replied, “Yes, and some of those ancestors are pretty good at hiding!” Haven’t we all had that elusive ancestor? I have one, named Samuel Barton Walker. He served in the Civil War with the Army of Tennessee. He became a hardshell Baptist preacher and was father to nine children. I even have his photograph. Yet, despite all of this information his birth origins remain unknown. As my cousin Dottie Cole remarked after – literally – years of research, “I swear Samuel just appeared out of thin air one day!” I find the best way to deal with such an ancestor is to ‘back burner’ him or her for a few months. With all of the improvements in online genealogical researching, a clue may appear that wasn’t available before. I found just such a clue with Samuel Barton. I “put him away” for a few months, perhaps even a couple of years. One day I started surfing around for information. I read a posting on a surname board that someone had a letter written by Samuel Barton Walker and addressed to Elizabeth Lancaster. The salutation reads, “Dear Mother…” At long, long last, a clue.

The elusive ancestor, Samuel Barton Walker