Genealogy, Family History, and History … From Particular to General

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been digging out new material to expand and revise my On This Day (OTD) blog articles. One recent search reminded me of a couple points that we sometimes “under-appreciate.”

First of all, genealogical data can provide a valuable addition to other forms of historical research. Of course, genealogy is a specialized type of history anyway. And “family history,” which encompasses more than a succession of “begats,” is clearly a subset of history in general.

Family Group, 1898. Library of Congress.

A substantial fraction of my OTD blogs are biographies, which usually start with information from histories of Idaho published in 1920 or before. Most of those people were still living when their bios were published. That being the case, I often turn first to genealogical sites (Ancestry.com and/or the LDS FamilySearch.org) to learn more about my subjects. Those sites pull together a wealth of different sources. For my blog biographies, the census data and death records are the most valuable, but almost everything there can help.

Here’s an example from my soon-to-be published book, the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. The matter involved May’s protegé, Edward C. Newell. A letter from him to May told me he was headed to Europe on the steamship Bremen on July 17, 1936. It also said he planned to stay until the following spring. And, indeed, I next found him back in New Hampshire in the spring of 1937. (A letter written many years later told me where he had gone on the Continent.) Good enough, right?

But internal remarks in the “spring” reference suggested he had been back in the U. S. for quite a while. To make a long story short, further research at the genealogical site turned up his name on a passenger list – Steamship Bremen, departed Southhampton, England on October 16, arrived in New York on October 23, 1936. (He never said why he returned early, but tensions were high in Europe at the time because Germany had re-occupied the Rhineland in March and the Spanish Civil War flared into violence in July.)

City directories are another valuable resource. Census data sometimes tells me that a person changed locations, and jobs, over the span of a decade. The directories then allow me to narrow down the time when the person made the change. (Downside: The books are issued yearly, but some may be missing from the archives.)

I’m sure I’m “preaching to the choir” for some (many?) of you out there, but: If you’re not using genealogical resources to supplement your other historical research, you’re missing a bet.

The second point has to do with a matter of family history where our “modern” perspective can lead us to miss a key point. The issue came up during my revision of the OTD article for July 3. My references said that Idaho Territorial Governor Edward A. Stevenson (1831-1895) was a cousin to Adlai E. Stevenson (1835-1914), Assistant Postmaster General of the United States. (Later, Adlai was Vice President under Grover Cleveland.) For various reasons, I wondered how closely they were related. (Having the same last name does not always indicate a close link.)

As you might expect, genealogical information for Adlai was readily available. That traced his lineage back many generations to ancestors living in the Scottish borderlands. Around 1715-1720, Adlai’s direct line ancestor moved to Ireland and then, about twenty years later, the family came to the United States. They settled in Pennsylvania before moving on to North Carolina. Over a couple more generations, they moved to Kentucky, where Adlai was born, and then Illinois. (After the Revolutionary War, they used the Stevenson form rather than the original Stephenson.)

Adlai Stevenson, ca 1880.
Library of Congress.

The lineage of Edward A. Stevenson proved more difficult, so I turned to the family trees posted on Ancestry.com. That finally did take me back four generations in his line, but no location was listed for the oldest ancestor. Two other problems arose. First, none of the names or dates in Edward’s line matched up with those for Adlai’s line. Also, where Adlai’s early ancestors settled in North Carolina and Kentucky, Edward’s ended up in New Jersey and New York, where Edward was born.

So, as a test, I “invented” a common Stephenson link back in Scotland. The genealogy software responded with the information that Edward and Adlai were, at best, fourth or fifth cousins. In a “modern” view, that connection seemed pretty tenuous, even if they did share the same last name.

However, I also came across a key observation in one of the many biographies related to the Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965) line. The Baker reference had the passage:
Even as the Stephensons changed locations, their remembered attachments to kin served as a protective shelter in the boundless terrain of their new country. They were a clan, and they carried with them to America an inherited sense of blood relatives – past and present – as a “derbfine,” an ancient arrangement recognized in the laws of northern Britain and Ireland that “encompassed all kin within the span of the last four generations.” They referred to themselves as “our people” and meant by that an extended family whose younger generations carried the names of their forebears and whose dead were remembered in story and legend.

Several times, the author reinforced that persistent remembrance of family. They didn’t need genealogical charts, the information was woven into their lives. So, as I say in the revised blog: There was no such thing as a “distant” cousin; they were simply “family.” Moral: As we read old histories/references, we need to keep in mind that those generations had a far different concept of family than we are used to now.

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Reference: Jean H. Baker, The Stevensons: A Biography of an American Family, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York (1996).

Water Starts Flowing Through Egin Bench Irrigation Canal [otd 06/01]

On June 1, 1883, water flowed from a pioneer canal onto Egin Bench farmland. The Bench bends for about 12-14 miles along the west side of Henry’s Fork, some 25 to 35 miles north of Idaho Falls.

Egin Bench farmland near Henry’s Fork.

The first settlers arrived on the bench during the summer of 1879, shortly after Utah & Northern Railway tracks reached Eagle Rock (today’s Idaho Falls). While they saw potential there, they had to be content at first with cutting hay and raising stock. The river level lies 30 to 40 feet below the plain along much of the Bench's expanse. Farming had to wait until a ditch could be dug to take water from the river above today’s St. Anthony.

Still, the area proved attractive to homesteaders and a post office was established at Egin within a year. Locals thought “Garden Grove” would be a suitable name. The U. S. Postal Service said no … that name was already taken within Idaho Territory. As the story goes, the settlers met to pick another name on a nasty, cold day. They then chose “Egin,” an Anglicized version of the Shoshone word for “cold.”

The settlers began digging a canal during the fall after they arrived. However, they lacked the capital to hire more men and equipment, so it took four long years to complete the channel. Still, by all indications, that first water delivery in 1883 was a success. Perhaps enough water came through to mask what they would learn later.

Soon, more settlers began to break out land and dig irrigation ditches. The results were a shock to farmers used to normal flood irrigation: The coarse, sandy soil absorbed the water almost faster than they could deliver it.

Reports indicate that this phenomenon discouraged some settlers, who left. In reality, Egin Bench is one of the few places in the world that provides natural sub-irrigation. Although the ground absorbs a tremendous amount of water initially, a layer of basalt stops the seepage not too far down (the depth varies). After that, the underground flow can only go sideways.

St. Anthony Sand Dunes,
a popular recreational spot west of the bench.

Once the soil is “charged,” crops receive moisture directly to their root systems, and evaporation losses are minimal. With such a structure, the depth of the water table can actually be regulated by raising or lowering the water level in a network of strategically-spaced canals.

Egin Bench subirrigation also has a notable side effect. Water began to “escape” west by percolating underground over the impermeable rock layer. When it had charged all that area, the flow resurfaced to form today’s Mud Lake, 25-30 miles away. Before that, the low area had water only during periods of very heavy run-off.

Today, large greenhouses often use sub-irrigation to water their indoor crops. Sub-irrigation of field crops using man-made structures is very costly and is generally done only in special situations. (The trade-offs involved are far beyond the scope of this brief article.)
                                                                                 

References: [French]

Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West, University of Washington Press, Seattle (1999).

“Golden Jubilee Edition, 1884 1934,” Idaho Falls Post-Register (September 10, 1934).

Andrew Jenson, “The Bannock Stake of Zion: Parker Ward,” The Deseret Weekly, Vol. XLII, No. 9, The Deseret News Co., Salt Lake City, Utah (1891).

L. A. Zucker, L.C. Brown (eds.), “Agricultural Drainage: Water Quality Impacts and Subsurface Drainage Studies in the Midwest,” Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 871, The Ohio State University, Columbus (1998).