I read a Nancy Drew this past week: The Hidden Window Mystery. This coming weekend is a Nancy Drew convention in Charlottesville. This group chooses a location each year from a book. The Hidden Window Mystery takes place in, of all places, almost my backyard! My husband and I had a good laugh when one of the characters states that "the head of the university art department might help us. I'll call him." [Andy's office is a part of the fine arts department, hence our laughter.] But while reading this book (I should say re-reading, since I did read it about 18 year ago, and it's probably with all my other Nancy Drew books still at my parent's house), I was struck by the thought that the mystery solved never starts out on the same path where it ends up. And it's just like genealogy!
This week, I spent some time trying to find my great-great grandfather, Lewis Carlton Allen, in the 1870 and 1880 census. I have the 1850 and 1860 census for him. He lived in Kentucky then. The 1890 census is non-existent (destroyed in a fire), and I have the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 census when he lived in Texas. I had always been told that he was in the Civil War and fought for the Confederacy, though I didn't know where. In the Texas State Archives, I found an index for the Confederate pension applications that includes his application and his wife's widow application. Though I do not have a copy of the application (I made a request for copies from the Archives yesterday, so I should get them soon), this index said his service was in Matagorda County, Texas! That's on the coast near Galveston! How did he end up in Texas soon after he appeared in the 1860 census in Kentucky? After a quick search of the 1870 and 1880 census in Texas, I still cannot find him!
My next step in the search was to look at his siblings. All of them stayed either in Kentucky or another bordering state. Lewis seems to be the only one to "leave the nest" and go so far away. I found his older brother Jasper (older by about 14 years) in the 1870 census in Kentucky with his wife, Hulda, and family. Since I was on a Civil War trail, I decided to see if there were any military records for Jasper. To my surprise, I found records for Jasper, but not quite what I expected. Jasper fought for the Union in Kentucky! Kentucky was a border state and it was here that "brother truly fought against brother." Another brother, William G., also fought for the Union in Illinois!
Now here is another interesting aspect: their great-grandfather, Ananias Allen, owned 4 slaves in 1790, then 1 slave in 1830. Other family members (cousins, uncles) owned a few slaves. But by the time you get to the 1850's, I haven't found any immediate family members who owned slaves. Could this be the reason that Lewis left Kentucky shortly after the 1860 census? Was there a difference of opinions over slavery in his family? I will probably never know. But I began my Nancy Drew family sleuthing trying to solve one mystery, and ended up solving another instead. Hopefully when I receive Lewis' Confederate Pension Application soon, it will shed more light on his whereabouts during his years missing from the census record.
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