The Quest for Euphemia
[or, The Foulks Family Web Site And How It Grew]
by Thom Foulks
Colorado Springs, CO
February, 1997 (updated in 2001 and 2003, below)
When my California resident youngest son picked up a college history class assignment to write about California's pioneers, I had no inkling that it would turn me into a thirsting genealogical maven, seeking more and more information.
I was complacent that I knew just about as much of my family tree as I wanted to know; and not only that, but I was confident a cousin of mine had a firm handle on family memorabilia -- I'd only have to ask him to learn anything I wanted to know. Foulks is not a name as common as many others, and I knew there were not many of us -- compared to Smiths or Joneses, as example.
Then son Dana chanced to give a fellow college student a ride home one evening, and learned that he was a Foulks descendant! In fact, the Sacramento suburb of Elk Grove had many Foulks descendants. Plus, there was a Foulks Ranch Elementary School, a Foulks Ranch Road, and other longstanding marks of a significant group of Foulks in the community.
I'm 62, born in Northeast Indiana's farm country, and have done a lot of traveling as a youth and during a 13-year U.S. Air Force stint. Although I knew there were a scattering of Foulks branches in the Indiana-Ohio area, finding an almost separate tree of them in California was more than a little startling. Where was the link?
| "The other day it was warm enough to tour the garage loft and while searching for one of my items, I took a peek at some of mom's things. One box seemed to be begging to be opened and it contained stacks of letters to 'Etta - most of them addressed to her Stophlet Street home and they come from various friends and members of the family. If you would like to explore through some old musty envelopes in hopes of adding to your knowledge of the family, I will send them to you. Let me know. Of course the payback is that you have to let me know what you have found. Be advised, we're talking about a lot of letters - this is going to take you a while." -- Nolan Schmidt, March 9, 1998 |
Questions of my still-Indiana-resident cousin began. "Give me more information on my grandfather, and we'll start looking backward", I said. At this point, the curiousity was more idle than obsessive. Back came the answer -- my grandfather had been a Ft. Wayne policeman; my cousin still holding his badge and service revolver.
Piece of cake. I'll simply ask the Ft. Wayne Police for the records of Albert G. Foulks, and turn the whole matter back over to Dana. Making his second pass through ivy-covered walls at 32, he was certainly mature enough to follow through. By then, he'd already tracked the Elk Grove Foulks family back to Ohio farm country about 140 miles from where I was born. Immediate, easy, linking seemed a good probability.
Ooops. The Police Department reported they had no record of my grandfather, even though my cousin's stack of family stuff included the badge #43 that could now be regarded as only "purportedly" his. What's more, failing health of my aunt -- sole remaining child of Albert -- make it impossible for her to try to explain the mystery.
The police department was not being obtuse; in fact, very helpful. Their personnel department conducted a search far more thorough than could be expected of such a casual request, but their records covering the early 1900s simply did not show a trace of my grandfather.
That lighted my fire. Question back to my cousin: Who was our great-grandfather?
Hmmmm.... It seems we don't know. Because my grandfather abandoned his wife and three children while they were youngsters (my father was an infant), there were no typical "granddad/grandma" ties forged. In fact, no one remembers anyone (my late father included) ever talking much about Albert, and certainly not the Foulks links behind him. it was a disgruntling self-revelation to me, to realize I never had known a Foulks grandparent. It was something I'd simply never thought of before.
That was more fuel on the fire and I began my own quest for information on Albert. On a parallel quest, Dana began researching Euphemia Pugh Foulks, the root of the California Foulks tree.
Euphemia turns out to be quite a gal...a person anyone would be proud to be related to. As a several-year widow in 1853, she packed up her five children in Mansfield, Ohio, and headed west. First, by riverboat, then by wagon train. Her brother, Jonathan Pugh, led the party through American Indian country and eventually over the infamous Donner Pass.
We know of those events because Euphemia's daughter, Josephine, wrote a diary of the journey. It was a godsend for Dana, eventually forming the heart of the history class paper he needed to produce. He also located current Foulks clan descendants in the area. My wife and I were already scheduled for a grandparent visit to our two sons in California, so part of that trip included a fascinating, long, chit-chat brunch with one of them.
I was, yes, fascinated. All of the information I'd gathered made two firm impressions -- one, I had to know my backward links, and two, I really wanted the ability to be able to brag about this long-distant great-aunt "of mine" (I hope) who braved her era to become a California pioneer. Mary Mauger, the Foulks descendant with whom we chatted, and I now call each other cousins. Factual or not, it's a neat feeling.
My quest moved more slowly. I began a standard way -- letters to my home Allen County county offices, and to the Allen County Public Library. I rapidly learned the Library has a renown for its repository of genealogical information, about the only plus factor going for me as snailmail moved between Colorado Springs and Ft. Wayne. As a lifelong newsman (who generally writes now only on computer topics), I was also very frustrated. I felt that a few hours of my own, spread over a couple of days in the library, would quench my thirst easily.
On the other hand, a trip to Ft. Wayne for this simple purpose was not practical; and my own still voice cooled me with the comment that I might be a proven good researcher in Colorado, but in Indiana -- who knows? Record-keeping systems differ in all states, and getting an answer to a simple question can be baffling in some locales if you don't know of whom to ask it. You got to know the territory.
I hired a professional researcher, one of those on a list sent to me by the Allen County Public Library. But first, I used the Internet to check for an email address of all the researchers shown on the list. Of 23 on the list, only two turned up "hits" using Internet search engines. I voicelined both of them. The first was more attuned to cemetery searches than microfiche, so we chatted pleasantly and parted. The second, however, was just becoming accustomed to Internet use and I agreed to her contract in only a couple moments on the phone.
More snail-mail...contract, retainer check, etc. But while Dana was able to plow on with this history paper (getting an A), I'd been stalled for six weeks. I didn't totally waste the time. I spent hour upon hour, searching the Internet for scraps of Foulks info, subscribed to Ancestry (of course), and purchased Parsons Technology's Family Origins software. Just to give myself some practice, I began contacting members of my maternal Lydy family, seeking data. (On that track, I found that a distant Lydy cousin was way in front of me -- from her, I obtained a 2" looseleaf binder of Lydy info. But I used to summer with Mom and Pop Lydy, so it untangled no real mysteries).
Then information began to flow from Jane Ritchhart, my researcher. Grandfather Albert WAS a Ft. Wayne cop, but under circumstances which explain his absence from FWPD records. He was actually a railway motorman, and sworn in temporarily as strike-breaking police officer during a motorman-conductor's strike in 1893. The strike was brief, as was Albert's law enforcement career -- but the badge still haunts the family's memories.
The Allen County library's own staff kicked in with gratifying information. Albert's dad (my great-grandfather, heretofore unknown to me) was a well-known farmer and longtime justice-of-the-peace in an Allen County township. His obit says he was "a man of more than ordinary ability and of strict integrity, and sterling worth." Not to be ancestrally snide, but he also didn't abandon his wife and children, which somehow makes my genes feel a little better. I think great-grandfather Charles S. (Charlie?) and I could easily converse; at least, on politics. (I'm an ex-county commissioner.)
What's more, Charles was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, just across the river from Beaver County, Pennsylvania -- where Euphemia's husband, Alfred was born! In fact, the 17-1800s turn of the century of their lifespans is appropriate for the two to have been brothers!
And with that, I have to say the quest continues. I can't locate the appropriate references online to corroborate the potential link, and researcher Jane is currently on vacation. But the bug has bit me, and the only vaccine will be untangling the roots. I just want to be able to brag about my great-aunt Euphemia, and bore party conversation with references to my J-P great-grandfather Charlie.
It's now been four years since I wrote the above, and I have had an incredible journey while climbing my family tree. I now know the heroic tales of George and Elizabeth Foulkes; the image problems of sometime-politician William Foulks (my great-great-great-grandfather); the entrepreneurial skills of great-great-grandfather Charles Morgan Foulks, from whom I derive ancestral contact with George Washington; the pioneering sense of my ancestors, as they followed the American frontier westward -- all this, and a host of other things I never had even hoped to learn when I wrote the above.
However, my research success owes itself to the power of the Internet; not to the structured, organized quest I outlined above.
In early September, 1997, I posted queries about my research on Web sites in Columbiana and Richland Counties, Ohio -- sites operated by volunteers of the USGenWeb project. A few days later (yes, that soon), I received email from a Bob Binsley.
| "...I'm writing on behalf of my wife, Martha Foulks Binsley. She is the great-great-grandaughter of Charles Morgan Foulks, who died in St. Clair Township, Columbiana County. His will was written 30 Nov. 1869. He died 27 April 1872. In the will, probated in Columbiana County, he names, among others, his (probably eldest) son, Charles S. Foulks. (My wife located the will just last summer at the Courthouse in Lisbon.) Charles S. was left a farm (if he paid $200 to his sister, Elizabeth Jane Carman, within 2 years of Charles M.'s death.) Charles S. served in the Civil War, along with his brothers, James M. and Albert G. All were in the First Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company I..." |
The letter continued, "What would you like and where should we send it?"
The packet of information that arrived a few days later was incredible to behold. I happened to represent a "missing link" in a family tree that had been researched for more than 50 years by members of Martha's family...most particularly, her mother, Minabelle, and her older brother, Bill. I was astounded by the depth of information; and by the historical ancestral linkages of the Foulks family. What's more, son Dana's research in California had developed scads of information about Euphemia Foulks and her family, not known before by Martha, Bill or Minabelle. We had ample information to exchange.
By happenstance, months earlier, I had registered the www.foulks.com Internet domain, for no other reason than I learned it was available.
NOW, I had a reason for having done so. The Web site allows me to use my experience as a writer/editor and my skills at HTML coding, while satisfying my ego by bragging about my family. The site, and its information files, has grown apace as other family members have contacted me with additional information.
I am not sure where all this effort is going, but I am certainly enjoying the trip.
Dana and I have found Euphemia...and some euphoria, as well. I think it's justified.
Above, I said I didn't know where this was going. Well, one place it's gone is back home again in Indiana. (which is a different story). Genealogical research was only a minor motivating factor in going home, but I intend to take full advantage of it, now that the 68-year-old me is here.
The treasure-trove of the Allen County Public Library is less than ten miles away, and for on-foot research, I need only to drive down almost any road and start walking. My oldest surviving aunt and uncle are both here, and I expect both to be willing resources for research.
The quest that began with a question from Dana, continues...and with a heck of a lot more intensity.
-- Thom Foulks
Fort Wayne, IN
Send E-mail to thomfoulks@foulks.com