genealogy Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Lillian Archer (Yates) and Maurice Holland

my great-grandmother and her second husband

As I have noted, my second-great-grandfather, James Archer, married Harriet Bell in the 1850s and had two sons before the Civil War, Morgan and James. Then James fought in the war.

He returned, and the couple had two more children, Lillian and Frederick. Lillian Archer married Edward Yates (b. c. 1850) in the early 1890s. After their first daughter died young, they had four children (F, M, M, F) between 1897 and 1908, living at 13 Maple Street in Binghamton, NY. The eldest surviving child was Gertrude, who became my maternal grandmother. But Edward Yates died in March 1911, coincidentally around the time that James Archer passed away.

Less than five months after Edward died, the widow Lillian Archer Yates married Maurice Holland, b. 1856. I know very little about him, except that he was likely Mexican, according to the 1920 Census, and that his native language was Spanish. The 1930 Census said he was from Texas, and that he spoke English.

In the 1940 census, he was an 85-year-old stationary engineer for a cold storage plant. He died in 1943, five years after Lillian, even though she was about a decade younger than he was.

How does that happen that a guy marries a widow with four children under 14 the same calendar year that her first husband died? I dunno.

Tintypes

The images came from the tintypes I found in my baby sister’s living room in Charlotte, NC, in May 2026. What’s that?

From Wikipedia: A tintype, also known as a melanotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal, colloquially called ‘tin’ (though not actually tin-coated), coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion. It was introduced in 1853 by Adolphe Alexandre Martin in Paris…

“Tintypes enjoyed their widest use during the 1860s and 1870s, but lesser use of the medium persisted into the 1930s, and it has been revived as a novelty and fine art form in the 21st century. It has been described as the first ‘truly democratic’ medium for mass portraiture.”

A photography studio created the before-and-after images of Lillian and Maurice.

Clarence Williams, WWI vet

maternal grandfather

**Top, 4th from the left is Clarence; seated on the right end is Charlie (1911)**

Clarence Williams and his brother Charles loved to play baseball. In fact, in the 1915 Census, Charlie lists his profession as a ballplayer.

But as I noted back in 2019, I didn’t know much about the Williamses, even though Clarence was my biological maternal grandfather. I’m fairly sure I attended Clarence’s funeral in 1958, though I have no recollection of it.

Their father was Charles Williams, who was married to Margaret Collins (1865-1931), whose parents almost certainly were born in County Cork, Ireland.

When I was in Charlotte, NC, recently, I went through a bunch of photos and came upon a few paper relics. I realize that they are exceedingly hard to read. The record below, even blown up, I can’t really make out.

But I was able to find this on Ancestry: Clarence was inducted in Owego, NY, on November 23, 1917. He was 31 1/2 years old and 5’10”. He got promoted twice and served overseas from May 27, 1918, to March 1919, when he was honorably discharged without wounds.

I have noted that his paternal grandfather, Daniel Williams, served in the Civil War.

NYS Health Department records take forever

cf, New York Genealogical & Biographical Society

There was a story on the front page of the Albany Times Union for May 9, 2026. “Health department backlog leaves families in limbo. Frankly, it surprised me because anyone who has attempted to work on genealogy would likely already know that Health Department records take forever.

“The department’s vital records office, where requests for birth certificates, death records, and marriage documents have languished for years. Last year, the state stopped accepting new requests for some of these public records altogether…

Moreover, “genealogists said they are further troubled by a proposed increase in the embargo on certain records. Currently, birth certificates at least 75 years old are eligible for review; the new proposal would increase that requirement to 125 years. Death certificates would similarly have to be 75 years old instead of 50, while marriage records could only be accessed if they were 100 years old instead of 50.”

“The proposed changes have roiled both professional and amateur genealogists. And they come as some genealogists have pointed to ongoing court battles over the full disclosure of all death records the state has access to as one reason behind the attempted reshaping of the Bureau of Vital Statistics’ work. “

NYG&B

Alternatively, I’m quite fond of the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society. The NYG&B’s online records and collections contain thousands of pages ranging from county histories, immigration records, vital record substitutes, and much more from all over New York State and New York City.

“We’re continuously adding records to both new and existing collections, many of which aren’t available online anywhere else. So even if you’ve searched our databases in the past, there’s always something new to discover.”

“Anyone can go to our website and search our collections, free of charge. But you do need to be a member to open and access most of the records. To help you better understand the kind of information we have available, we have unlocked the following collections for you to explore:

Leslie went on the 2025 Dave Coz cruise

cousins

Leslie and Rebecca with the cruise director

My sister Leslie went on the 2025 Dave Coz cruise. Someone described it as a “24/7 daytime adventure from Amsterdam to Norway and finally Iceland. The sun never sets this time of year. Wow, what an excursion.”

The website says, “Our guests are fully immersed with the energy and sounds of an array of all-star talent, guided tours, relaxation, and fine dining. ‘Seeing the world together through music’; that’s what the Dave Koz and Friends at Sea cruise is all about!” The 2026 tour of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina is already sold out, and a waitlist exists.

Leslie has been on a few of these Koz tours, generally as the guest of Rebecca Jade, a ship performer and, not coincidentally, Leslie’s daughter. Based on her comments and those reposted by others, Leslie was particularly taken by Iceland.

In 2018, Leslie dueted with Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone. She’s participated in some music competitions onboard and has done well, which is not a surprise, as she’s been singing virtually all her life.

In anticipation of her birthday, I played a CD called Harbor City Heights Worship 2009 on which she appears. It’s not a fair representation of the range of her skills, and they misspell her first name as Lesley(!), but I can hear her vocals, usually in the harmonies. Anyway, I found it on YouTube.

I have other recordings of hers, mostly her solos during her church’s Advent/Christmas Eve services. Alas, I’ve never come across any Green Family Singers recordings.

Genealogy

In the past year, Leslie has spoken to two of our cousins, one each on our mother’s and father’s side, trying to fill the holes in the family tree. As I’ve noted, our lineage has peculiar mysteries, going back not that far.

Anyway, happy birthday, Leslie! If you ever retire, you must transcribe all that family data!

Less Irish

slightly more African

In various iterations I’ve gotten from ancestry.com I seemed to “become more Irish,” starting about 23% and getting up to about 28%. And then there was a big drop in the last interpretation. It’s not that I’m less Irish; I knew this this intellectually.

Region	August 2023	July 2024: more information	% Change
Ireland	28%	20%	– 8%

“Your DNA doesn’t change, but our knowledge does. Over time, the amount of data we have increases, and we improve the ways we can analyze it. When that leads to new discoveries, we update your results.”

Iin some ways it makes a whole lot more sense I couldn’t figure how it could be more than 25% Irish given the fact that my father’s side is virtually 0 percent. Virtually all the Irish is on my mother’s side.

I’m still looking for my mom’s father’s (Clarence Williams)’s mother’s (Margaret Collins) parents, who are almost certainly from Ireland. maybe this year, I’ll be able to crack that nut.

But I haven’t spent that much time looking at my mom’s mom’s (Gertrude Yates Williams) father’s (Edward Yates, b. 1851) mother (Anna Kiser), who may be Irish.

“Same data, more detail. This chart shows the percentages of each region you inherited from your parents. Added together, the percent from each parent for a region equals your percent for that region.”

Mixing it up

The thing about doing genealogy is that I, and likely others, often try to take the easiest path. There’s been a line of my mother’s mother’s mother’s people that I’ve known all my life because they were all lived in Binghamton and there was a family Bible that gave much of the story. Oher branches are much more mysterious, in large part because families have secrets.

Parent 1 is clearly my mother, parent 2, my father. Hmm, I’m more Germanic than I used to be.

Region	Parent 1	Parent 2	You
Total: 14	50%	50%	100%
Nigeria	7%	13%	20%
Ireland	20%	<1%	20%
Benin & Togo	5%	10%	15%
England & Northwestern Europe	8%	7%	15%
Mali	1%	4%	5%
Germanic Europe	3%	2%	5%
Senegal	0%	4%	4%
Ivory Coast & Ghana	1%	2%	3%
Nigerian Woodlands	2%	1%	3%
Cameroon	1%	2%	3%
Western Bantu Peoples	1%	2%	3%
Central West Africa	<1%	2%	2%
Indigenous Americas—North	1%	0%	1%
Norway	<1%	1%	1%