Another of my wife’s dad’s cousins, Cecil Warren Cheney, age 93, has died. Cecil left this life on January 10, 2009, exactly a month after his cousin Howard Cheney. These were the two men who we got together in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in October 2006, eighty-eight years after their last having been together. I won’t repeat the story here; see the link if you are interested.

Cecil had a good life. Twenty-six years old when the USA entered World War 2, and recently graduated from college and married, Cecil went to work in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on the Manhattan Project. That was his service to his country during the war rather than armed combat. He remained in technical professions his entire career, but at some point (I’m not clear where) was also a sports coach of children’s or teens’ teams. He maintained his love of sports to the end, spending his Saturdays and Sundays in the fall glued to his television, eyes quite close due to poor eyesight, watching any football game that was on. He was preceded in death by his wife, Alwilda, who died in 2003 at age 89, from West Nile Virus. Cecil’s years after Alwilda’s death were not happy, and I’d like to think the reunion was a bright spot for him.

Cecil’s father was William Boynton Cheney. Born and raised in Meade County, Kansas, he spent time in New Mexico as a cowboy, then came back to Meade County after his dad’s death to help his mother with their 2,040 acre ranch and start a family. By 1916 the ranch had been sold, William had a wife and three children, and had acquired a ranch of his own in Meade County and perhaps extending into Clark County. Adjacent to Will’s place was land owned by a large land and cattle company out of Kansas City. In September 1916, a dispute arose between Will and James West, who worked for that company, over the location of a fence. Only the two of them were there at the time of the dispute (or at least only the two of them knew for sure what happened). Will Cheney came away from that dispute dead, shot in the back. West was arrested but acquitted at trial. The family believes, and I’m sure it’s true, that the jury was bought off. Some of them were later seen driving fancy new cars (in 1916, remember).

So Cecil was born during the very late days of the old west, in the old west, and had the family background that confirmed it. His grandfather, Seth Boynton Cheney, was a 49er, raised in Vermont, but left home in 1849 at age 16 and never contacted his family again. He spent almost three decades in California–prospecting, homesteading, logging, ranching–then made his way back to the Texas panhandle and eventually to southwest Kansas, where he married a girl thirty years younger and had his family. It’s a very interesting story, and I’ve written a home-published book about Seth. Cecil was one of sixteen grandchildren of Seth; only one is now left alive.

My family? We’re a bunch of recent immigrants in comparison. I have to go back to olde England to find characters and skeletons.

My genealogy work last week was mainly concerning Cyrene Snyder, my wife’s great-great-grandmother. She was a puzzle for a while. I thought her maiden name was Whitaker, but eventually learned of her previous marriage.

Cyrene was born 1839 in Brown County, Ohio, to Adam Snyder and Mary M. __________, the fifth of six children born to this couple. They moved to Van Buren County, Iowa, between 1850 and 1856. There Cyrene, when she was 19, married Thomas Whitaker. Thomas was a music teacher (which seems kind of strange for that part of the country in that era), and had attended a Bible college in Weableau, Hickory County, Missouri, north of Springfield. Thomas was not well, suffering from a lung ailment that may have been tuberculosis. Yet he was able to travel, making two trips to the west coast, once to look for gold, and once “for his health”, boarding a ship there and sailing to Central America, making the crossing, then up to the east coast and eventually back to Iowa. Cyrene was pregnant when he began this last trip, and delivered their third child while he was away.

Thomas died around 1870, and Cyrene spent time with his relatives and with her brother (either Hiram or Peter, I haven’t yet determined). Thomas had given her a lot of instability. Her children were all born in different locations, her first in a covered wagon miles away from any family. She may have been looking for stability when she married Walter Thompson in Appanoose County, Iowa in 1872. Walter was recently widowed, and had seven children, four still in the home. He was about 24 years older than Cyrene, but he seems to have given her the stability she did not have with Thomas Whitaker. I think the Thompsons lived in the same place for the next 15 or so years.

Walter and Cyrene had three sons, including my wife’s great-grandfather. This meant the blended family–his, hers, and theirs–was 14 children in all. Tracking down this brood and their descendants has been difficult, but a picture is beginning to emerge. Still much more to go, but I think I can find many of Cyrene’s descendants.

Walter passed away sometime between 1885 and 1889, at which time Cyrene married John Bailey in Sullivan County, Missouri. I have not yet been able to learn how many children he brought to the mix. Photos show him to be a learned, refined person. They resided in Green City, Missouri, where Cyrene had at least five of her children near her most of the time. Once daughter, Florence Whitaker Schnelle, moved with her family to Sharon, Barber County in southwestern Kansas in 1900. Cyrene paid her a visit in Oct-Nov 1902 and died there of “dropsy of the heart” on November 8, 1902, age 64. Her obituary says she “came home a corpse” on the day she had intended to return.

All of this is of no interest to almost anyone in the world, save me and a couple of Lynda’s cousins who are also working on this line. But I find Cyrene’s life fascinating. Much data exists from which to piece together her biography. I like her; I like what she stands for. Her family was not in the first wave of emigrants to the west. They followed the pioneers, always a state behind the frontier. Yet they were pioneers in their own way, and did much to build America.

Last night I filed most of the papers generated from last week’s research. I have one more night to go, of filing and maybe drawing a few charts, after which I will return to writing with renewed vigor.

Returning from the trip to Florida, rather than jump right back into writing stuff I have worked on genealogy the last two days. Shortly before the trip I received an e-mail from one of my wife’s cousins about their joint lineage, but had to put off doing much with it due to the trip. The relationship is her husband is my wife’s half-second cousin once removed. I wrote to this woman some years ago, but we never established a sharing dialog. Now we have.

She has come into a treasure trove of pictures she is willing to share, and I have some information on the common line I’m willing to share. She will also have some info on that line that I was not able to dig out of archives. So this will be mutually beneficial. And, the next time we go to Meade, Kansas we will spend time with a “new” cousin. I say new because these folks and my wife’s family lived in Meade for years and were not aware of the relationship.

I think genealogy is even more enjoyable to me than writing, if that’s possible. It’s like detective work and history fused together. I’ve always loved history, and have found, in this decade of genealogy research, that I love detective work. What joy I experience in finding a new ancestor, or debunking a family myth, or finding long-lost cousins, or corresponding with like-minded people even if it turns out we are not related. Meeting those living, breathing cousins makes up for all the time the genealogist spends with dead people.

I don’t know how long I will do this, maybe only another day or so. The writing self-imposed deadlines are waiting, and should any of my proposals meet with acceptance I will find myself inundated. But for now, Cyrene (Snyder) Whitaker Thompson Bailey, b. 1839 d. 1902, you have my almost undivided attention.