Category: Roots Life

An Introduction to My Family Tree

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The Beginnings – The Karn – Ashton Family Lines

I believe it was probably more than a year ago now, when I wrote that I was going to write more about my family heritage. So I guess it’s about damn well time I got started, don’t you think?

So let’s begin, I was born in the hospital in Riverside, New Jersey. My mother thinks she was there but she was never sure! They zonked her with some strong drugs and the next thing she knew, I was in her arms!

Anyway all the DNA evidence points to the fact that I am the son of Edward Karn and Helen Ashton. Born in Riverside, NJ on October 1, 1951. A date that always made me the oldest person in our class that hadn’t been held back. The reason was that the cut-off date for enrolment was September 30th!

The Ashton Family (My Maternal Line)

John Heen Eva Ashton Family Picture
John, Helen and Mon Elva

My mother was Helen Ray Ashton. The middle name Ray is correct. She was given that name by her grandmother Charlotte Trout Regars. Ray was the name of my grandmother‘s sister Cora‘s first husband! Note I said her first husband!

So much for using an in-law‘s masculine first name for your granddaughter‘s middle name! Well, Cora’s second  husband was William Atz, so I guess Ray is better than William!

At least she used the names of her brothers for her grandsons. One grandson‘s name came from her brother Howard – John Howard Ashton.The other one Elmer was from another brother and her grandfather. – James Elmer Ashton. Jimmy hated the name Elmer so much he would tell people his name was James no name“ Ashton.

Helen Ray was born in Tupelo, Mississippi I’m sure. But my mother was born in Beverly, New Jersey on June 12, 1928. She was the daughter of John Sherrington Ashton IV and Elva Mildred Regars. John was born in Beverly. Elva was born in Florence and raised in Burlington.

Helen was the third of three children Her oldest brother was the aforementioned John Howard born in 1923. James Elmer was born in 1923.

I never knew my Uncle Jimmy. He was killed on July. 1944. in the „hedgerows of hell“ in France. Shortly after D-Day as Us troops moved away from the beaches of Normandy.

Uncle Johnny I knew well and I will write about him in a future post.

John Sherrington Ashton IV

My Grandfather John Sherrington Ashton IV was the son of John Sherrington Ashton and Margaret Agnes McCloskey. He was born in Beverly, NJ
While my grandmother, the daughter of John McCloskey and Mary Stewart, was born in Northern Ireland. She had too many brothers and sister to list them here.

The Karn Family

Arther, Kenny and Edward

My father Edward Henry Karn,  Jr. was the son of Charlotte Frieda Meyer and, drumroll please, Edward Henry Karn. He was born in Riverside,NJ on June 23,1923 and was the oldest of the three Karn boys. His brothers were Arthur Herman Karn and Kenneth Irving Karn. Uncle Kenny may belong to the what the kind of name is that, club! I’ve never understood where Irving came from.

Edward Henry Karn

My grandfather was born in New Jersey, his parents were Henry Karn and Pauline Heckler. Edward was the younger of five children. He had two brothers Harry and Charles and two sisters Emma and Anna.

Based on the only immigration records that’s I can find for a Heinrich Karn that match Henry indicate that Henry was born in Hesse, Germany.

Pauline and her family came from Switzerland.

Charlotte and Irmagard

Charlotte Meyer

My paternal grandmother, Charlotte Meyer was born in Dresden Germany. She was the daughter of Herman Adolph Meyer and Helene Wendel. Herman was born in Konigswalde, in the Kingdom of Saxony and Helene in Dresden.

Charlotte had one older sister Irmagard and one brother Albert. Both Charlotte and Irma were born in Dresden while Al was born in NJ.

Summarizing My Ethnicity

Ok so based on the above here is my ethnic background. Karn -German, Heckler – Swiss, Meyer and Wendel -German, McCloskey and Stewart -Irish and Ashton- English and Regars your guess is as good as mine!

So there you have it! My family tree back through my great-grandparents. Two of the families, the Karns and the Hecklers came to the US In the 1880s. The McCloskey‘s arrived in the late 1870s. The Meyers and Wendels came in the early 1910s. Herman was the first to arrive coming in 1911, with Helene and the girls coming the following year.

I hope this initial story wasn’t to boring but it lays the groundwork for further explorations of my various family lines. I will try to tackle their stories, at least as much as I know about them, one post at a time! First up, in the next post, will be the Ashtons!

Featured Image: the Karn Family at my first birthday party at the table: me and cousin Jim Ashton. Family: left to right: Father’s Brother Art, Nana Karn, behind her Art’s wife Polly, John Ashton’s wife Jim’s mom Jean Plant Ashton, My dad Edward Karn, his brother Kenny and my grandfather Edward H Karn Sr.

Pauline was born in Switzerland.

Sixties Baseball Memories of Some Great Seasons….

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Baseball Memories – Thank You “Uncle” Barney

As I sit and watch the Cubs in the baseball play-offs memories arose of some magical years in my life. I was born in 1951 and I have vague memories of the 1957 or 58 World Series my mother was rooting for the Braves over the Yankees. The first time I really remember watching the games was 1960 when the Pirates beat the Yankees in a seven game series, which ended on a Bill Mazeroski homer. I remember getting home from school just in time to see the homer!

1961 – Barney Gets the Call!

The following year 1961 was also a big year for me.. In that year, my mother’s first cousin Barney Schultz was called up to pitch for the Chicago Cubs. Barney was a knuckleball relief pitcher. He languished for most of his career in the minor leagues. By the time he was called up in 1961 he was 34 years old!

We went to several Phillies games that year. One of the times when my Uncle Kenny took me to an afternoon doubleheader, Barney collected a save in both of the games!! That feat was on the back of his baseball card the next year!

Another time because we were family, we got to go below the stands to the hallway outside of the visitors locker room.

That night I got autographs from several Cubs players. At one point I walked up to a player who was standing by himself near the exit. I got his autograph, when I looked at it, I saw it was the hottest rookie in the league and the future savior of the Cubs- Ken Hubbs.

The sad part of that story was that after the  season in the league Hubbs died when private plane he was piloting from Provo, Utah to Colton, California crashed during a snowstorm. Topps issued the In Memoriam card below in 1964.

 

1964 – What a Year!

Speaking of 1964, now there was a season for a 13 year-old to remember! In Phillies history . In Phillies year that the year that Ruiz’s steal of home started the Phillies Plop that saw them blow a 61/2 game lead with 12 games to play. (1) But in my baseball history it is the year that “Uncle” Barney helped lead the St. Louis Cardinals to the pennant! At 38 years-old Barney was a September call-up for the Redbirds. He appeared in 30 games and saved 14 of them. His ERA over those gamed was 1.64! His 14 saves placed him 5th best in the National League and the Cardinals in the World Series against the hated (at least by me) Yankees.

Barney Pitches to Mickey Mantle – Oh My!

Oh and it placed me in the left field bleachers in Yankee Stadium for game 3 of the Series. With the score tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning Cardinal manager Johnny Keane summoned Barney from the bullpen to replace started Curt Simmons. What I didn’t know at the time was what an aging Mickey Mantle told Yankees starter Jim Bouton. Bouton relates….

 “He was standing there with the bat on his shoulder watching Barney Schultz. His warm-up pitches were coming in about thigh high and breaking down to the shin, to the ankles — two or three in a row. Mickey said, ‘I’m gonna hit one outta here.’ (2)

 

Catcher Tim McCarver recalls what happened next……

Mantle stood in. Schultz wound up. McCarver knew right away:

“Nothing good was gonna come of this pitch. There are a lotta pitches that don’t do anything during the course of a game. There are fastballs that aren’t fast. There are fastballs that are meant to hop in on a lefthander and they don’t hop. There are breaking balls that are meant to break and guys pop ’em up, foul ’em back, or pull ’em foul, or hit ’em for a single, or hit ’em for a home run. But nothing like this.”

The first pitch to Mantle, a knuckler, didn’t dance or flutter or defy expectation. It didn’t do anything at all. “It wasn’t thrown,” McCarver said. “It was dangled like bait to a big fish. Plus it lingered in that area that was down, and Mickey was a lethal low-ball hitter lefthanded. The pitch was so slow that it allowed him to turn on it and pull it.” (2)

And Mantle sent it sailing over the right field fence! It was Mantle’s record-breaking 16th World Series homer!

Schultz took one quick look over his shoulder and walked off the mound. “I crossed the third base foul line as he was rounding third base,” he recalled. “I didn’t even watch him run the bases. I wasn’t interested in that. I was interested in punching myself in the mouth.” (2)

It Was Still a Great Year!

The car ride back to our home in New Jersey was sad that day, for every but my Yankee loving cousin Jimmy Ashton!! However, the Cardinals went on to win the Series in 7 games, capping a pretty great 1964!

A year that also saw me go also go to my first and only All-Star game! In that game the Phillies’ Johnny Callison hit a walk-off homer to send the National League home winners!! We also went to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows that year!

Also in 1962 and 1964 my Little League baseball team Hope Hose, in spite of me, won two league championships!! Great Times!!

Links

  1. Today in Philly Sports History: Chico Ruiz Steals Home, 1964
  2. The story behind Mickey Mantle’s 1964 walkoff Series home run
  3. Fifty years later, memories of Ken Hubbs still glowing

The Hunt for DNA Connections Goes On!

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Through DNA the Hunt for Genealogical Connections Goes On!!

So over the last several weeks I have spent more time at Ancestry.com, trying to unravel the tangled roots of my various family lines, than either reading or listening to music. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been reading or listening at all, just that my focus has been on searching for dead people. One of the most interesting finds was a great-aunt Alice Matilda Ashton.

My great-grandfather John Sherrington Ashton III was born in 1858. The son of John Sherrington Ashton and Mary Parezo. John married Mary E Warwick in 1881. As far as I knew they had five children: Mary Catherine, Edward, William L., Horace, and Blanche. Of those children, my mother only knew one, William, who was to her Uncle Bill, who lived in Pennsylvania. From my genealogical searching I knew of Horace,Edward and Blanche. Edward and Blanche both died as teenagers. Horace was only one when he died. Recently, I discovered through DNA and Ancestry that Mary Catherine married an Emil Gottlieb and lived in Philadelphia. She even had a child named John Sherrington Gottlieb!!

Discovering the DNA Connection

Anyway, several weeks ago a high DNA match came up with a Jim Smith from New York. He was listed as a 3rd cousin and is one of my highest matches. When we (my wife and I) looked at his tree, we saw an Alice Ashton. After seeing that Alice was born in 1890 our thoughts immediately turned to Alice being a child of John and Mary.My wife quickly went to Family Search there she discovered a birth record for a female Ashton child of John and Mary born in March of 1890. No name was listed, but when we went back to the census we saw that the month and year of birth of the unnamed girl matched Alice’s.  (Alice’s mother Mary died in 1892 and John remarried.Margaret McCloskey, who was a grandfather’s mother.)

In the 1900 census,  Alice was living with a Danse family in Monroe Township in Middlesex County, NJ and her relationship to the head of the house was a servant!. Monroe Township is about 40 miles northeast of Beverly where Alice was born. A servant at nine years old! How sad!  Alice eventually married Sidney A Smith in New York in 1913. He was the grandfather of the Jim Smith who is my DNA match.

After we unraveled the mystery of the DNA connection I emailed Jim and welcomed him as a new cousin. Jim was thrilled to discover his Ashton roots since Alice was one of his brick walls. So through DNA Jim discovered more about a grandmother he didn’t know anything about and I discovered a great-aunt that I didn’t know anything about!!

Since then we have spent many hours trying to find connections to high DNA matches in my McCloskey line and also a connection to the Lehman family. So far we have had no luck in establishing either of those connections.I fear that both connections are back in Ireland!!

What Else has been Happening!

Over these last few weeks, I have also been reading. Today I finished Red Cell by Mark Henshaw. Yeah Me!. I will try to write about it tomorrow! I am also about halfway through 2 or 3 other books, that I can hopefully finish over the next week or so!!