Big Daddy.......Little Daddy

My dad Arthur Elsworth Hugonin married my mother Margie Mitchell on December 20, 1941.  On August 25, 1942 my dad enlisted in the Army.  His enlistment period was for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six (6) months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to the law.  I was born on December 31, 1942.  My mother and I lived with her parents, John Hollis Mitchell and Zeda Chamness Mitchell, in Tomball Texas. 

The only daddy that I new was my grand daddy Mitchell.  So when I began to talk I called him "Big Daddy".  My daddy returned to the states from the War on October 4, 1945.  When I meet him for the first time I called him "Little Daddy".   

Patience Finally Pays Off

I found out this afternoon that the state of Colorado 1940 census and a few other states have been completely indexed on Family Search  for free.  So I entered my uncle's name - Jack A Carson expecting a hit.  Sixteen possible hits were displayed.  Not one of them was the Jack A Carson that I was wanting to find.  However there was a John Tex Carson with the correct wife's name and the correct children's name on the report.  Could this be my uncle?   Well.......maybe.... 

Questions...  Why did my uncle change his name in the first place?   Why is the name on the marriage application different from the name on the census?  My search for answers continues.

Other 1940 Census Surprises

When you do not know the street address where your relatives were living in 1940 you will have to wait until the 1940 census is fully indexed to locate them.  However sometimes you get lucky.  My cousin Joanne decided to check a small community close to where our family was living in 1930.  On page 19 of 33 ED # 101-49 Harris County Texas of the 1940 census she found my uncle Leroy A Hugonin 34, single, a chicken farmer, and my father Arthur Elsworth Hugonin (Leroy A Hugonin's youngest brother) 18, a farmers helper, living in the same household.   And on page 22 of 33 ED # 101-49 was my grandfather Lewis Alexander Hugonin (62) head of household,  grandmother Bessie Bell Myers Hugonin (60), and Bessie Mae Hugonin (16) their daughter.    

Patience.......Patience........Patience

Patience is not one of my virtues.   So waiting for the Colorado searchable indexes to be completed has been torture.   My daddy's brother Allen Hugonin A.K.A. Jack Allen Carson lived in Colorado in 1936.  I have a copy of his Marriage Record Report dated February 1, 1936 from the State of Colorado.  I also believe that Jack and his wife E. Mae Braddy(Brady) had twin girls born December 24, 1938 in Denver, Colorado.   Here I sit. waiting....waiting....hoping.....hoping.....hoping.

Adventures with the 1940 Census

  My first encounter with the 1940 Census on April 2, 2012 was not a very pleasant one.  The site that I checked first was "1940 census.archives.gov".  The response to my inquiries was very very very slow and when the display finally appeared it was very large writing and did not display the full page.   Also there were lots of error messages such as "cannot display page" and "page not available".  So after a frustrating hour of attempted inquires I quit for the day.  
  I decided to check out Ancestry.com on day two.  Ancestry only had three states completed for viewing.  Even though the states we not the ones I needed, I made a general inquiry in one of them.  To my surprise Ancestry displayed a full page.  The page was very easy to read and the options to enlarge or shrink and to print worked.   Ancestry also informed its users to check back occasionally to see when more states were completed.   On a scale of 1 - 10, day two was a 5.
  On day three the Images for Texas were available for viewing.  My home town is Tomball, Harris, Texas.  Tomball is located about 20 miles northwest of Houston Texas.  In 1940 there was about 1,000 residents within the city limits of Tomball.  There was only one E.D. number for the city.   After a few minutes of looking thru the records I found that my mother (Margie Mitchell) was living in the household of her sister (Willie Maurine Mitchell Thomas).   Also living in the same household was Ralph Loyal Thomas, Maurine's husband and Zeda Parlee Chamness Mitchell, my grandmother.   Day three was a 10!       

Learning From Live Streaming

The genealogy blogs that I have been reading today mention streaming video from the RootsTech 2012 Conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I watched four of these presentations.

• Google's Toolbar & Genealogy.  by: David Barney
• Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines.  by: Robert Gardner
• Publish Your Genealogy Online.  by: Laura Prescott
• Eleven Layers of Online Searches.  by: Barbara Renick

 WOW....WOW....WOW....  After watching all four, I looked at the clock and I could not believe that four hours had passed ever so quickly.  I would like to thank Lorine McGinnis Schulze that posted these conference presentations on her blog  Olive Tree Genealogy.

There are several other presentations that I will be watching at a later date.

City of Tomball Proclamation

Peggy and I went out Monday evening for the regular City of Tomball Council Meeting.  To our surprise the Mayor and Council presented to us a Proclamation declaring Monday March 5, 2012 Larry and Peggy Hugonin Day.  March 5, 2012 was our 48th wedding anniversary.     

GenForum and the Carpenters

While I was doing a Google search on the surname Carpenter last week, one of the hits was on one of my wife's ancestor William Henry Harrison Carpenter.  It was an inquiry in GenForum dated 2005.  I took a chance and sent an email hoping that the email address on the inquiry was still good.  To my surprise I received an email back from a distant cousin of my wife.  This cousins great grandfather wrote articles for the Lebanon Democrat newspaper in Lebanon Tennessee using the pen name "The Observer".  The cousin sent to us copies of transcripts from some articles dated 1891, 1896, 1900 and 1904.  What a joy it is to add these articles to our Carpenter Family files.

New Pages - Work In Progress

The following pages are currently "works in progress."  Revolutionary War Ancestors, Civil War Ancestors, WW l Ancestors, and WW ll Ancestors.  I will begin to add individuals that served in or provided services to these war efforts when I am able to document that service.

Beginning of Family Picture Photography

While I was still a youngster, I enjoyed taking pictures.  I had a small Kodak camera that took black and white pictures.  In the 1950s, we did not have digital cameras.  You had to load the camera with a roll of film that had 12 pictures on it. Take your pictures and then send the film off to someplace to have your pictures developed, printed, and returned to you.  Like all children I took pictures of all kind of things....flowers, animals, landscapes, trees, ponds and a few family pictures....Little did I know then that this early interest in the photography would become a life long interest in recording my family history thru pictures.  One of my regrets is that I did not begin to name the individuals in my pictures until much later in my life.  Memory fades over time unfortunately.
 Picture Lesson # 1 - Always record the names of the individuals in the picture, the date and the location where the picture was taken.  

"Maybe I Don't Want You To Find Me"

My wife and I were having dinner with another couple tonight.  The conversation came around to talking about genealogy and our ancestors.  I was telling them about one of my "Brick Walls."  Our dinner guest said something that I have not thought about before.  "Well maybe the person doesn't want you to find them."    How many of you have had this same feeling before?

1940 Census

I can hardly wait until the 1940 census is available for viewing.  Maybe I can find out when and where my uncle Carson changed his name.  He would have been 31 years old, married and possibly had children living in Colorado.

Surnames That Are Related To My Family

When I started this adventure in genealogy it was very easy for awhile.  The reason I'm saying this is that the surname Hugonin is not very common.  So when I typed the name "Hugonin" in a search engine I found ancestors that were mostly related to me.  As I began to branch out to my maternal side of the family, the surnames of my ancestors became more and more common.  To further complicate matters one of my dad's brothers changed his name from Hugonin to Carson.  I'm always interested in locating cousins with the following surnames: Hugonin - Farnell - Myers - Williamson - Mitchell - Wooten (Wootan) - Chamness - Pepper.

Why I named my blog Hugo's Musings.

Hugonin is my family name.  When my father Arthur Elsworth Hugonin was growing up in the Cypress Texas area, not many of his friends could pronounce his last name.  So they started calling him "Hugo".