Genealogy Reviews Online

The Hunt for Daniel Cone (1626-1706) - Separating Facts From What You Want to be Facts

As I was researching my 8th great grandfather Daniel Cone, I discovered all sorts of information in family trees, on genealogy websites, and other places on the Internet about his life that made me excited I was his descendant.  Finally, I thought, I have an ancestor who participated in some truly extraordinary events worthy of a book or movie.  Someone who fought for his country against overwhelming odds.  Someone who experienced adventure, then tragedy, and finally in the end rose up to become one of the founding fathers of a town in Connecticut. 

Here's what I learned during my Internet research coming in bits and pieces from a variety of sources:  Daniel Cone was born in Edinburgh Scotland around 1626 and was originally named Daniel Mackhoe (various spellings were McHoe, MacHoe and others).  By 1650 he was an officer in the Scottish Army and fought for Charles II against Oliver Cromwell, and his New Model Army, at the pivotal Battle of Dunbar in the fall of that year.  Cromwell won the engagement and sent 5000 of the captured Scots, to include Daniel, on a Bataan style death march south into England where only 3000 of them survived.  After a horrible imprisonment where hundreds more of these captured Scottish soldiers died of starvation and disease, Daniel was sold as an indentured servant and sent to the new world on a ship called "The John and Sara." Once he arrived, he was put to work in a Massachusetts iron mill, and after his indenture ended, he moved to Connecticut and helped establish the new town of Haddam.

These are truly wonderful stories.  The only problem is I've found no proof any of them are true.  With the exception of the new town he helped create, I found no documentation tying Daniel Cone to any of the events other researchers have linked him to.  Where the heck did all of these cool "facts" come from? 

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The 1918 Flu Pandemic

I was reading the Washington Post this morning and came across an article discussing a study showing that the blood of those who survived the 1918 flu pandemic were still producing antibodies 90 years later.  It's a very interesting article.  As I was reading, I remembered I had planned to write a post about this pandemic because I recently discovered my father's mother and older brother (Joseph Agazio) both got sick in 1918, but I just never really got around to writing it.

The only information I have on how the 1918 flu affected my family came in a story passed to me by my cousin.  Apparently both my grandmother and uncle had this flu, and unfortunately my uncle died after only a few months of life.  I'm not sure if my grandmother was sick while she was pregnant, or caught it afterwords, but she survived to have my father a couple of years later (fortunately for me).  All I know of my uncle is he was born sometime in 1918, died the same year, and is buried somewhere in Boulder County.  I find it curious I never heard anything about this story while growing up, and didn't even know I had an uncle named Joseph.  I'm going to be visiting my brother in Colorado for 3 days in September and I plan on trying to find and take photos of Joseph's grave.  I know the family was living in the town of Lafayette during the 1920 census while my grandfather worked as a coal miner, so this will be my starting point.

I found a few links to information on the 1918 flu pandemic (AKA Spanish Flu) you may find interesting:

The Great Pandemic - Department of Health and Human Services

Spanish Flu - Wikipedia

The 1918 Flu Epidemic - Gena's Genealogy (a fellow genea-blogger with interesting links on the subject)

Spanish Influenza Much Like Grippe - New York Times, September 22, 1918

New Influenza Cases Doubled - New York Times, September 28, 1918   

85,000 In Bay State Ill With Influenza - New York Times, September 30, 1918

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Smile for the Camera - Mystery Woman Identified

Here is my very first contribution to the Smile for the Camera Carnival.  This photo was a mystery to me for a long time.  While it's not my absolute favorite photo, I was sort of obsessed about finding out who this attractive young woman was.  She's in a number of photos in my maternal grandmother's album and the captions all only say "Peggy."  All of them are dated from the early 1920s and always depict her as a young, stylish and attractive woman.  She appeared about the same age as my grandmother so I just figured she was a friend.

A few years ago I was going through one of my mother's albums and I found this tiny photo of a young woman with a hat on - it's about 1/2 inch square, but on the back it says "Aunt Peggy."  I immediately scanned it and compared it to the others and, based on a number of indicators, figured out it was the sister of my grandmother's first husband.  Her name was Marguerite Marie Zaring (1905-1983).  I don't know why she was called "Peggy," but it sure was nice to finally figure out who this woman was.

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