Virdie & Virgie Trapp: Sisters With Almost The Same Name

My great-great-grandparents William Wright Trapp and Martha (Mattie) Ann Murphy had seven children. The first two were daughters born less than a year apart. The first was born in November of 1880 and the second was born in October of 1881.

The first was named "Virdie" and the second was named "Virgie". I guess nobody ever told them that parents already have a hard time keeping their kids names straight. Why make it harder for yourself?

For a time I thought these were variant spellings for the same person, until I saw this 1900 US Census. It isn't a typo.

Virdie and Virgie Trapp in the 1900 Census

Trapp-Doolin Family Connections

In the early 1900's the Trapp family had a very close relationship with the Doolin family. Long story short, my great-grandfather James Duncan Trapp and his brother Tank married a set of sisters, Bertha and Mary Doolin, who were next door neighbors to the Trapp family.

My great-grandfather James Duncan Trapp was first married to Ella Tatum in 1916, but they were divorced by 1923, when she remarried. They only had one child, my grandfather James D. Trapp.

By 1930 James Duncan Trapp was remarried to a Mary Isabella Trapp, and they had two children already ages 5 and 2 (I've been told that, in her later years, his wife was called "Mean Mary" by her step-grandchildren). Interestingly, James Duncan and Mary had already known each other for many years, because the 1920 census shows James Duncan and his young wife Ella living next door to the Doolin family. James Duncan was 26 and Mary was 17 at the time.

1920 US Census showing James and Ella Trapp living next
door to Mary Doolin, James' future 2nd wife.

This bit of trivia is intriguing, but what further caught my attention was the discovery that James Duncan had a brother named Eugene Tankesly ("Tank") who married Mary's sister Bertha.

The website "Find-a-Grave" features the obituary for Bertha Trapp (nee Doolin), wife of Tank Trapp, and includes this detail:

Survivors include two daughters, Mrs. Carl (Louise) McMillan of Cooper and Mrs. Ray (Iva Lee) Kennemer of Paris; one brother, E. H. Doolin of Paris; one sister, Mrs. Jim Trapp of Leonard; nine grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. 

Furthermore, in the same 1920 census as before Ms. Bertha Doolin is a 25 year old widow with three small children, and she lives next door to Eugene (Tank) Trapp, who is 27.

Eugene (Tank) Trapp is 27 living next door to the widow Bertha Doolin

Finally, if we reach way back to the 1910 census we can see that 16 year old Bertha Doolin and her 6 year old sister Mary I Doolin live next door to one Dewitt Trapp, who at the time is living with his aunt and uncle Robert and Virdie Cain. Cain is the maiden name of James Duncan and Tank's grandmother Augusta Clarissa Cain.

Sisters Bertha and Mary Doolin lived next door to a Trapp and the Cain family.

So, lots of connections between the Trapp and Doolin families of Cooper, TX. My great-grandfather James Duncan Trapp and his brother Tank married a set of Doolin sisters. The addition of a Cain family as next door neighbors makes the story even better, but will require more digging to flesh out.

How the Trapps Came to Texas

I recently saw a short presentation on tips for doing genealogy work, and it led me to reaching out to a local library in Delta County, Texas to see if they have any resources. I want to learn more about my great-grandparents James Duncan Trapp and Ella Tatum, who lived for over ten years in and/or around Cooper, TX.

I sent an email to a the only email address I could find for the Delta County Library, and I was very surprised to actually get a response at all, which came the next day. I specifically had asked about available old local newspapers which might be available. A librarian responded and said that the microfilm for the Cooper Review had been sent to UNT and over the course of the next year they would be digitizing it, which is great!

She also asked me for a bit of information about my family history in the area, and she passed my phone number to a distant relative of mine who I didn't even know existed. Eddie Trapp is an elderly gentleman who lives in the area. He called me this afternoon and we shared a brief but very good conversation. I haven't confirmed any of this with Eddie, but it looks like Eddie is a retired science teacher who was beloved by his students. See this article here:
http://www.myssnews.com/news/2008/October/nt101308-2.html

Also, this is the Facebook picture for Eddie Trapp living in Cooper, TX:

Eddie's genealogy:

William Simpson Trapp

William Wright Trapp (g-grandfather)

Eugene Tanksley (went by "Tank") Trapp

Tommy (Thomas?) Trapp

Eddie Trapp

My genealogy:

William Simpson Trapp

William Wright Trapp (g-g-grandfather)

James Duncan Trapp

JD Trapp

LeeAnn Trapp

James Stutz

So W.W. Trapp is Eddie's g-grandfather, and is my g-g-grandfather. Eddie is my 2nd cousin 1x removed.

Eddie mentioned that as far as he knew there is no information beyond William Simpson Trapp, because the "Yankees" destroyed the courthouses and all the records in the south. We actually do have some information, including names, beyond W.S. Trapp but in our brief conversation I wasn't able to mention it to him. I'll have to call him back sometime.

Eddie related the following information to me:

William Simpson Trapp married to Augusta Clarissa Trapp (which is extremely helpful, as I've been struggling to get her name right; the records are confusing). After the Civil War they left Atlanta to seek a new life because Atlanta and all the South was in ruins. Everybody was moving to Texas in those days, so decided to go there too. The train stopped in Mississippi because of a flood, and while they were waiting of the flood to go down Augusta got real sick so they ended staying there for 10 years. They lived in Iuka, and in the town of Eastport which he said is currently under a lake (I'm not sure I totally understood that detail).

After about 10 years they started their journey to Texas again, saw the beauty of east Texas as they passed through it but stayed on the train further west, toward Childress/Midland area (two cities he specifically mentioned), but decided they didn’t like how it looked and wanted to live in the big trees back in east Texas. They got back on the train and went back east. One of the sons said he was getting off in the Paris area and they could all do what they wanted, but they all got off together and “scattered like quail” from there.

W. S. Trapp and Augusta were eventually divorced, There is a fine picture of William and his five sons (below). Augusta referred to the picture as the devil with his 5 angels.

(Top left to right: James Simpson, Dorman, & Nathan. Bottom row left to right: William Wright, Land Lott, William Simpson. This according to Eddie Trapp.)

I'm very grateful that Eddie called me and I hope we get to meet someday.

Descendant of the Mayflower

(Originally written July 30, 2013)

Back in November of last year (2012) I did some genealogical research and found that I was a direct descendent of several of the passengers from the famed Mayflower ship which landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Here is the chart I made at the time to try and organize the data:

Now, I shared this information on Facebook and Aunt Ellen (my dad's aunt) responded telling me that we were related to several more, but I have not yet done the research on them or added them to my illustration. Their names were:

William Brewster
Peter Brown
James Chilton
Francis Cooke
Edward Fuller

If I include all of these names that is a grand total of 12 Mayflower passengers of whom I am a direct descendant!

Stephan Ramik & Bela Cerkow, Russia

(Originally written May 3, 2015)

Stefan (Steve) George Ramik was my great-grandfather (my mother's mother's father). My family history on that branch of the tree is currently at a dead end, with no information beyond my great-grandparent's names. I hope that is going to change sometime soon.

On his registration card he wrote that he was born Oct 1, 1888 in "Bela Cerkow", Russia.

I have long struggled to identify this location. Tonight I may have had a breakthrough. While doing another Google search for "Bela Cerkow" (not really expecting to find anything new) the second result in my search was something that has never appeared before in previous searches. It was the city of "Bila Tserkva", in modern day Ukraine.



But, of course, this isn't Russia. My mother has told me that even though he was technically born in Russia he never considered himself a true Russian, but instead considered himself ethnically Polish. There is in fact an interesting historical reason for this.

The "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" was an independent nation that existed from 1569-1795. The extent of this nation covered parts of many modern nations, including modern Ukraine. While it was a union of two different nations (Poland & Lithuania, obviously) apparently Poland was the dominant influence. In the image below the colored sections (pink/pinkish colors) all represent the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth

At the end of this nation's existence it was split into three partitions. One of those partitions fell to the Russian Empire, including the area that includes the town of "Bila Tserkva" mentioned earlier. The name of this town translates literally to "White Church". The Polish spelling is something much closer to "Bela Cerkow", which is how my great-grandfather spelled it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bila_Tserkva

This annexation of Bila Tserkva into Russia was accomplished in 1793, almost 100 years before his birth in 1888. I hope to continue researching the history of this area, beyond what is available on Wikipedia, to hopefully find information that suggests that people born in the late 1800's in Bela Tserkva would have identified themselves more as Polish than Russian.