Tuolumne County Oral Histories

Have you found the collection of Tuolumne Co. oral histories at Columbia College?   Clinking on the link will take you to the Index page.  Just brows through to see who these collectors spoke to.  Then listen to an interview or three.   Enjoy!

Another Local History Website

In exploring for another purpose altogether, I fell into yosemitegazette.com, The link will take you to their archives, where you can explore to your heart's content. Look for the two articles on Jacksonville, written by a Sonora woman who grew up there in the 1930's and 1940's. Read some of the other articles, too. Read about John Sheehan, Billy Mitchell and the Gamble Building.

I love the attitude over at Columbia State Park, described in the article titled, "California governor says 'close the park'. Locals say 'baloney,', plan to keep park open." It's like the children's tale of the Little Red Hen. "If you won't help me, I will do it myself. And she did."

Or "The Little Engine Who Could" -- I think I can, I think I can, I t-h-i-n-k I can --- I knew I could!

It is an attitude still found around Groveland and Big Oak Flat. We did it with Wayside -- oops, Mary Laveroni -- Park. We did it with ambulance service. Remember SEMSA? We did it with our museum and library. We are still doing it with the museum. We will do it with the Gamble Building. County-wide, we can do it with Columbia State Park.

All it takes is your willingness to respond to the call, get your hands dirty occasionally, and help out. You will meet lots of interesting folk and learn all kinds of tidbits of interesting information about people and places in our community. You will make a difference.

They Lived in Jacksonville?

Once upon a time, there was a town in Tuolumne Co. called Jacksonville. It was on the Tuolumne River, just downstream from the confluence with Moccasin Creek. When the "New" Don Pedro Reservoir was filled in the 1970's, Jacksonville was inundated. The overlooks on either side of the Hwy 120 bridge over Don Pedro Reservoir look down on the general area of Jacksonville.

Early county records seem to differentiate between the town of Jacksonville and the community of miners, farmers and ranchers living along Moccasin Creek. Yet at least in the 1904 Voter Registrations, after the glory days of mining along the creek and before the City of San Francisco built their operating headquarters for the Hetch Hetchy Project there, families known to have lived in Moccasin (aka Moccasin Creek) are listed as "of Jacksonville".

Researchers, be cautious when researching someone "from Jacksonville". They may indeed have lived in Jacksonville town. But they might have lived farther afield -- as far out as the community we now call Moccasin.

As for the New Don Pedro Reservoir ... it has been around long enough that the "new" designation is fading from memory. There's been a Don Pedro Reservoir since the 1920's, managed by the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts and providing irrigation water for those communities. In the 1960's, the Districts and the City and Co. of San Francisco joined forces to build a new dam and increase the storage capacity of the reservoir. You can read more about Don Pedro Reservoir here.

Indirect Evidence Confirms an Identity

The current Genealogical Standard reminds us to document every statement we claim as fact. Often we find nothing that directly supports our family claims, especially when we are depending on the Internet for access to that evidence. In the jargon of genealogy, the terms are direct and indirect evidence. Direct evidence takes us in one easy step from Fact A to Fact B. Using indirect evidence is like following the clues in a scavenger hunt to get from Fact A to Fact B. Here’s an example of using indirect evidence to confirm a woman’s maiden name.

Bonnie Stevens
June 2009

Angeline McAlee (1842-1926) is buried at the Divide Cemetery. Nobody in the community today remembers Angeline, although she lived in Big Oak Flat for at least 30 years. At the History Resource Center we knew Angeline was the wife of Thomas McAlee (1842-1890), also buried at the Divide Cemetery. The search for Angeline’s maiden name began with those facts.

In 1880 Thomas and Angeline (age 33, born New York) were living in Big Oak Flat. There were four children in the household: 3-year-old James, 2-year-old Royal, 12-year-old Mary M Nye, and 11-year-old Wm P Nye. The Nye children were listed as stepchildren of Thomas McAlee.

Aha! Angeline seems to have been married before. Sure enough, in 1870 Mary and P Nye were found in Gold Hill, Storey Co., Nevada near Virginia City. Their mother was 25-year-old A. Nye “of Illinois”. Not quite a perfect match for Angeline, but the children’s names and ages match the 1880 census.

From 1890 to 1919, Angeline lived with one or another of her children, sometimes in Tuolumne County, sometimes in Reno, Nevada. Mary married Joseph Harten of Big Oak Flat, and was living with him in 1900. In 1910 her children were still with Harten, but Mary was nowhere to be found. William (who appears in one Tuolumne Co. census as Peter W Nye) died in California in 1917. James and Royal both registered for the World War I Draft in Reno, NV in 1918. Then, in January 1919 a small piece appeared on page 8 of the Reno Evening Gazette. It popped up in the newspaper collection at Ancestry.com.

Roy L McAlee is Dead

Roy L McAlee, foreman of the Nevada Transfer company's warehouse for several years, died in a local hospital last night. He had been ill for some time. He was forty years old and a native of California. His mother, Mrs. A. McAlee, and a sister, Mrs. M. Frasberg of Chicago, and a brother, James McAlee, survive.

No Mrs. M Frasberg appeared in any of the commonly used genealogy websites or indexes. But Mrs. M. Forsberg did. Previous experience warned that folks at the Reno Evening Gazette were not very careful about their spelling.

Sure enough, Mary M. Forsberg is in the California Death Index. Her birth date matches that of Mary Nye. She outlived most of her family, dying in 1961 in San Joaquin County at age 94. Her mother’s maiden name is preserved in the record: Flack.

A quick visit to the 1860 census closed the circle. William Flack, born in Ireland about 1811, headed a household in La Grange, California that included his presumed wife Elizabeth (born about 1815 in Vermont) and three children – Samuel, Isabel, and 16-year-old Angeline. All the children were born in New York. By 1870, William and Elizabeth Flack had moved to Chinese Camp; their youngest daughter had married and was living in Nevada with her husband and children. By 1880 Angeline was either widowed or divorced from Nye, had returned to Tuolumne Co. with her children, and was now Mrs. Thomas McAlee of Big Oak Flat.

Searching Census Records

Did you know (I had forgotten) that you can search some census records by address even if you do not know the name you need? Beginning in 1880, the Census Bureau began using Enumeration Districts (aka ED). Enumeration Districts are described by physical address. If you know the enumeration district where a family lived between census years, you can look at that address for the census year -- and learn who lived there.

The best source for information about this process and tools to make it work for you is at http://stevemorse.org/census. The technique works well in large cities, not as well in smaller communities. It's definitely worth exploring.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Big Oak Flat

The 3rd Edition of the inventory of the cemetery at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church in Big Oak Flat, CA is hot off the press and available for purchase at the Groveland Yosemite Gateway Museum.

If you are a genealogist with an interest in that part of Tuolumne Co. south of the Tuolumne River, chances are you will be interested in this book. It's an excellent companion to the inventory of the Divide Cemetery published in 2005. All known burials in Tuolumne Co., including a handful of residents from Mariposa Co., are listed in one or the other of the two publications.

Margaret (Lennan) Coyle Simmons

Margaret (Lennan) Coyle Simmons was the original occupant of the Grandma Simmons house, which in August 1999 opened as the All Seasons Groveland Inn. In April 2009, descendant Carol-Anne Tucker-Watt gave a presentation about her family to the Groveland Chamber of Commerce as part of the Coyle-Simmons Family Reunion. Just click on the link to view the video and hear Carol-Anne's story of her family and their house.