Third in a series on how I found my Civil War ancestor Arthur Bull.

Sometimes in genealogy research the tiniest scrap of paper transforms into a road map that guides you to your ancestor’s history.

That’s what happened with the little bit of evidence I received about my great, great grandfather Arthur Bull from the Susquehanna County Historical Society.

I wrote the society asking about Arthur Bull, his wife Mary (Blakeslee) Bull, and their daughter – my great grandmother Eva Bull, who was likely born in Great Bend, Susquehanna Co., Penna. in the late 1860s before the state kept birth records. A researcher wrote back and sent the next clue:

“I am enclosing the marriage announcement for Mary and Arthur from our card files. It states that she was from Brookdale, which is part of Liberty township.

“Liberty is located on the New York State border. It is right next to Corbettsville, which is part of Conklin, N.Y.”

An index card? It doesn’t get much smaller than that.

But it was packed with information about my great, great grandparents — the date of their marriage, their geographical location on either side of the New York-Pennsylvania border and the newspaper in which it appeared.

I got on the phone to my dad, Norm Charboneau, to schedule another road trip together — to Binghamton, Broome Co., N.Y. where the public library held abundant records about nearby Corbettsville in the Town of Conklin. So off we went, index card in hand.

I have written on this blog about The little check mark in Arthur’s 1865 New York State Census entry that Dad and I discovered on that trip — which delivered the astonishing news that we had a Civil War soldier in the family.

The tiny road map had done its work by leading us to this landmark find — the starting point of a new journey  to unearth the details of Arthur’s military history.

Where to begin the next phase of the search? This time, closer to home. It turned out that several important clues awaited discovery just a subway ride away from where I now live in New York City.

To be continued.

© 2014 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved. 

 

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