Going to Augusta

Going to Augusta

By Mark Wright

I have never been to the Master’s. The venerable golf tournament, arguably the most significant on the Professional Golf Association Tour, is what the Georgia city of Augusta is most known for.

I have taken part in a less heralded occurrence in that city. I was born in Augusta on December 3, 1979 to a nurse mother and an Army doctor father from Texas. I was only there for about a year before my family returned to Texas. I was only around those parts for one Master’s. Sadly, I did not witness Seve Ballesteros’ first green jacket, in April 1980. Although, given that I was four months old at the time, I could have been at the bottom of a dusty red crater on Mars for all I know. I, of course, remember nothing of those sleeping, crying, self-wetting early days.

George W. Wright was also not in town for golf. Long before there was a Master’s, George was in Augusta for about a month in the spring and early summer of 1865. My third great-grandfather was there to occupy a Confederate arsenal in the months following Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and President Lincoln’s assassination. In late June, George and his fellow members of the 28^th Iowa Infantry Regiment moved on to Savannah, Georgia, where they were mustered out of the Union Army at the end of July after nearly three years’ volunteer service[1].

George, born in Ohio to a westward-moving pioneer mother and father, enlisted as a private in August 1862 at the listed age of 26 – I believe he may actually have been 25, four days after older brother Enos signed up[2]. Their regiment served with distinction, especially during the pivotal Vicksburg campaign in the spring of 1863. Enos D. Wright, two years George’s senior, would be discharged due to disability at the end of the Vicksburg campaign[3]. The campaign was a rousing success for the North. The Federals forced the Confederates inside the walls of Vicksburg in a decisively disadvantaged position and helped Gen. Ulysses S. Grant boost a sagging reputation[4].

Grant would go on to become the scandal-marred 18^th president of the United States. George, meanwhile, would serve out the duration of the war, including that brief assignment in Augusta, and return home in August 1865 to the humble farmlands of Benton County, Iowa, where his wife, Sarah E. Curl Wright, an Indiana-born descendant of Scots-Irish Quakers, and their three children beckoned. A year later, in July 1866, my second Great-Grandfather Harrison “Harry” Henry Wright was born.

Somewhere along the way, the story of my third great-grandfather, a man who supplied me with my surname and my Y DNA, was forgotten to Wright family lore. My dad had never heard the name George W. Wright. I discovered George and many other ancestors and relatives when I began undertaking a study of the history of my father’s side of the family in early 2014. Even now, after many hours of research, I know precious little about George W. Wright, except what the documents reveal. I have seen his pension file[5] and the record of his headstone at the cemetery of the Veterans Home in Marshalltown, Iowa.[6] But many mysteries remain about this veteran of the Battle of Champion’s Hill, this brief visitor to Augusta.

I wonder why he died in his early fifties. I wonder how he felt about his service in the Union Army and what led him and Enos to enlist rather than wait for the eventual advent of a draft. Hardly a military lifer, George, like many of his contemporaries, was, at his core, a simple farmer. But for a little while, in his country’s time of need, he was a foot soldier.

Gen. Alvin P. Hovey offered this lofty assessment of Wright’s 28^th Infantry Regiment in a May 23, 1863 report on the Battle of Champion’s Hill: “Of the Twenty-ninth Wisconsin, Twenty-fourth and Twenty-eighth Iowa, in what words of praise shall I speak? Not more than six months in the service, their record will compare with the oldest and best tried regiments in the field.”[7]

Generally, I am loathe to cast mortal men and women into the role of hero, nor do I assume that war a person's service, however honorable, is done purely out of virtue. But I find a lot of valor in Pvt. George W. Wright’s war record. I do think he was a hero in his own small way. He certainly risked his life and endured many hardships. I wish I could shake his hand and thank him or at least see a picture of the man who gave me my family name. It is just too bad I got to Augusta some 114 years too late.

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[1] Logan, Guy E. Roster and Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of the Rebellion, Together With Historical Sketches of Volunteer Organizations, 1861-1866, Vol. 3, 17th-31st Regiments – Infantry, pp.1240-1241. Des Moines: Emory H. English, state printer, 1910.

[2] Ibid, p. 1334.

[3] Ibid, p. 1334.

[4] Civil War Trust. Champion Hill – Champion’s Hill, Bakers Creek – Hinds County, Mississippi, May 16, 1863. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/champion-hill.html?tab=facts. Accessed 14 April 2015.

[5] Fold3. Civil War and Later Veterans Pension Index - Wright, George W. http://www.fold3.com/image/2095864/. Accessed 14 April 2015.

[6] Ancestry.com. Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Card Records of Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, ca. 1879-ca. 1903; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M1845, 22 rolls); Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[7] Reports of Brig. Gen. Alvin P. Hovey, U.S. Army, commanding Twelfth Division, including operations May 2-20. MAY 16, 1863, Battle of Champion's Hill, or Baker's Creek, Miss. O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXIV/2 [S# 37]. http://www.civilwarhome.com/hoveychampionhillor.html. Accessed 14 April 2015

Who Am I? - What Three Different Genetic Genealogy Sites Say About My Ethnic/National Origins

Growing up, if anyone asked where my ancestors came from, I had a quick answer: English/Irish on my dad's side. German on my mom's side.

In the last year, a thorough study of my genealogy (with more success finding information on my dad's side) has taught me that the answer to where you come from is a bit more complicated than naming off two ethnic groups. For one, ancestors on my dad's side have been in America much longer than I would've ever expected. Some were very early 17th century colonists in places like Massachusetts and Virginia. So I feel much more American after doing my genealogical study. But I have also found English, Scottish, Irish, German and Prussian origins for immigrant ancestors, so genealogy does engender some stronger bonds to the "Old Country," as well.

The paper trail is amazing. But each line I trace hits a dead end somewhere along the trail backward through time. To dig deeper into my ancestral roots, I tried to determine the answer to this question: "What does my DNA say about my origins?"

Autosomal DNA testing services provide users with DNA-based national/ethnic origins that suggest where my ancestors were living some 500 years ago -- before the era of European exploration of the New World. And consequently, the three services I have used have a high amount of agreement about my results and there really weren't many surprises. English and German was a bit of an oversimplification on my younger self's part, but there was a lot of truth to it, given that there's a strong predominance of Northern and Western European DNA roots. About the only surprise was the relatively high level of Scandinavian DNA. If I am part Norse, I never knew it. The paper trail certainly has offered no clues in this regard. Or has it?

Because many of my ancestors on my dad's side hail from northern and eastern parts of England, I can safely presume that the Danelaw, a region of Viking settlement and rule prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066, had an influence on my ancestry. And my Y-DNA haplogroup, as tested by 23 And Me, is I1, which suggests my paternal ancestry might harken back to roots in Scandinavia or the Jutland Peninsula. In other words, my dad's dad's dad's and so on line could well have originated with Vikings, or possibly Anglo Saxons. But the point is, the apparent Norse aspect of my ancestry, while surprising, actually neatly fits within my British origin story.

Posted below are my results. Rather than pick apart the small differences, the significant takeaway comes from the broader picture that emerges when comparing the three: Heavily Western and Northern European ancestry with strong hints of British (with some Irish), German and Scandinavian origins. And then a small percentage of Southern and Eastern European origins and maybe just a trace of the Asian Caucasus Mountains.

No Native American, African or Middle Eastern/Semitic origins are indicated. I would have welcomed such a surprise. At any rate, my ethnicity does not define who I am, really. It's how I choose to act that should define me. But it does hint at the deep origins of my ancestors. So it begins to tell the story of how I got here.  

Family Tree DNA
European 99%:
Western and Central Europe 68%
Scandinavia 29%
Eastern Europe 2%

23 And Me (Speculative View)
European 100%:
Northern European:
British/Irish 31.1%
French & German 19%
Scandinavian 3.9%
Finnish 0.1%
Broadly Northern European 37.9%
Eastern European 2%
Southern European:
Broadly Southern European 1.2%
Broadly European 4.8%

Ancestry DNA
Europe 98%:
Great Britain 32%
Europe West 31%
Scandinavia 14%
Ireland 8%
Europe East 5%
Iberian Peninsula 5%
Italy/Greece 3%
West Asia 2%:
Caucasus 2%

The Family Witch: An Essay

The Family Witch

By Mark Wright

My family has a dark side. It’s a sordid tale of witchcraft and devil worship. … And it’s available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and video on-demand. Whether the tale is true depends on who’s telling it – Hollywood or historians. Either way, it makes for one hell of an interesting family tree.

I am a Georgian by birth, but I’ve spent my formative years in Texas. Yet, there’s something Northern in my blood. My paternal grandmother, who was raised in Missouri (pronounced Missouruh), had deep New England roots on her mother’s side. One of those Yankee families from which I descend is named the Shermans. In 1844, Rhode Island denizen Bathsheba Thayer married into said Sherman family. Bathsheba was the wife of Judson Sherman and daughter-in-law of my fifth great grandparents Asahel Sherman (who died in 1830) and Rowena Ballou Sherman (who lived until 1859). My fourth great grandfather Dutee Sherman (born in 1790) was Judson’s older brother and Bathsheba’s brother-in-law.

Horror movie enthusiasts know Bathsheba Thayer Sherman for a different reason than marrying into the Sherman family. In the 2013 film The Conjuring, Bathsheba is portrayed as a malevolent spirit haunting a young couple and their daughters in the early 1970s in rural Burrillville, Rhode Island. Ah yes, my fourth great grand uncle’s wife was a witch who came back from beyond the grave to haunt a family.

Betty Mencucci, president of the Burrillville Historical& Preservation Society, assures me that genealogists have found no evidence to support claims that Bathsheba Thayer Sherman was accused of killing a child or practicing witchcraft or worshiping the devil, contrary to what the film suggests. Furthermore, records indicate that she died, not from a suicide brought on by madness, but rather from complications from a stroke.
"As a historical society we researched all the claims made against Bathsheba and it is all nonsense," Mencucci said.
Bathsheba, who was born in 1812, is recorded as a housewife of Burrillville, Rhode Island, in the 1880 U.S. Census. She died about 1885 and was buried on a quiet burial plot with a nice marble headstone. No one in the community, then, seems to have feared that this old woman would return from beyond the grave as a wicked ghost. But in the Internet age, a significant segment of the population, mainly horror-movie fanatics and gullible teens, will forever regard Bathsheba Thayer Sherman as an evil witch who returned from the dead to terrorize an innocent family. The film The Conjuring was based on a book series by Andrea Perron called House of Darkness: House of Light. The author was one of the children living in the reportedly haunted farm house. The book series is positioned as a work of non-fiction, but Perron's claims about Bathsheba have no merit, based on records that exist from Bathsheba’s lifetime. Plus, one should probably always question any claims of paranormal activity in an old house. Dark, creaky buildings get the imagination bubbling over. But no objective evidence ever seems to emerge from those who report the haunting. Instead, ghost stories rely on the willingness of the audience to accept these wild tales on faith, an odd little phenomenon given the general skepticism of the current day.

Whether she's a witch is no real concern to me. But Bathsheba is buried in the same graveyard as my fifth great grandparents. Because her tombstone attracts movie buffs and cannabis-inhaling college kids, I am concerned for the ongoing preservation of the Shermans’ graves. Incidents of vandalism have already occurred, and a local law enforcement official damaged Asahel's gravestone during a botched repair job. I am also concerned for the family’s reputation. The Shermans were a prominent farming family with ties to the founding of Rhode Island. And these Shermans are related to other famous Shermans, namely, Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Constitution signer the Honorable Roger Sherman. I hope mostly people simply view those buried alongside Bathsheba as God-fearing early residents of the bucolic Blackstone River Valley of Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts and not as the family of a witch.

Regardless of what folks think of the Sherman family, I remain proud of my New England ancestors. My direct Sherman ancestors achieved less fame than our distant cousins William Tecumseh and Roger, but the Rhode Island Shermans nonetheless played a pivotal role in the early history of this nation. Rowena Ballou Sherman’s father, Pvt. Eleazer Ballou, fought in the Revolutionary War. Rowena and Asahel’s daughter-in-law Nancy Emerson Sherman, my fourth great grandmother, was the granddaughter of two Revolutionary War Patriots, Capt. John Emerson of the 3^rd Worcester County regiment of the Massachusetts Militia and Capt. David Burlingame of the Rhode Island Militia. In fact, Pvt. Ballou served in a horse troop under command of Capt. Burlingame. Nancy’s father, Ezekiel Emerson, is recognized by the Daughters of 1812 as a veteran of the War of 1812, the conflict in which this fledgling nation repelled British attempts to forcefully retake its former American colonies.

The Daughters of the American Revolution documentation for my paternal grandmother, Frances Ann Sunderland Wright (AKA Grandma Sundie) authenticates Capt. John Emerson as her fourth great grandfather and certifies that he served in the Revolution. The same record shows her great-great grandparents are Dutee Sherman and Nancy Emerson Sherman. Therefore, my grandmother could have also claimed Eleazer Ballou and David Burlingame as Patriot direct ancestors on her application.

The Shermans also provide me with a direct link to the Pilgrims. Robert Hicks, my tenth great grandfather, brought his family to the Plymouth Colony a year after the arrival of the Mayflower. His granddaughter Dorcas Hicks married Edmund Sherman, and they are, respectively, my eighth great grandmother and grandfather.  

Edmund’s father, my ninth great grandfather Philip Sherman, made quite a name for himself in the early days of New England. Philip, who was born around 1610 in southeastern England and migrated to Massachusetts Bay in his early 20s, had the fortitude and convictions to question the rigid Puritan doctrine. He was banished from the colony for his beliefs during the Antinomian Controversy but found his way to what became Rhode Island, where he was one of the purchasers of Aquidneck Island. He served as the colony’s first secretary and later as the town clerk of Portsmouth. Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush and famed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill are my distant cousins through our shared ancestor from the 17th century, the aforementioned Philip Sherman.

My brother and my dad find it hard to believe we are scions of these old New England families. "How could we be related to presidents?" my brother said, underscoring our status as average Joes from Texas (kind of like the Bushes often claim to be). But, indeed, my paternal grandmother was the great granddaughter of Ora Sherman Sinclair, the daughter of the aforementioned Nancy and Dutee Sherman. The only family lore I heard during my childhood was that we were related to Roger Sherman, who signed the Declaration of Independence. And he is a relative, but it’s a far more distant relationship than my grandmother’s stories implied. Indeed, several of my aunts are reticent to accept my genealogical findings because I found old Rog to be a fourth cousin seven times removed – hardly the close relative the family imagined him to be. Still, we Wrights inherit quite a colorful and illustrious history through our direct ancestors: the Rhode Island Shermans and related families. For instance, a ninth great grandfather Joseph Emerson was a Puritan minister who links us to distant relative Ralph Waldo Emerson.

My New England ancestors established themselves as early landowners and prominent citizens in the American colonies and played an active role in the struggle for independence from Britain. And if you ever visit a bookstore or rent a film on demand, you might see something about a witch who married into my family. And if you believe my family had a witch in it, maybe there is a pair of ruby slippers I can sell you.