Having discovered that Jane's grandfather, George Ralston, was documented by the 1900 federal census as an eight-year-old boy living in Savannah, GA, with his family—father George, mother Valeria, and sister Mirtle—we discovered that, as usual, answering one question raised at least three or four new ones. Now we were on the trail of what we could find out about Jane's great-grandfather George Ralston in the other federal censuses, starting with 1870. (His birthdate was given as 1867.) Was he kin to the Cherokee Ralstons, or did he spring from some other Ralston family line?
Finding Great-grandfather George in the 1880 census wasn't so hard, although what we found of course raised even more questions: in 1880, he was a 13 year old boy, living on East Broad St., and with a family with several other family names, none of them Ralston, The head of the house was a white man named Frederick "Lapin" (it turned out to be "Lapham"), age 60, who was born in Maine—Freeport, as we found out later. Frederick Lapham's parents were also Maine-born. (We still have no idea what brought him to Savannah, although we do know now that he arrived before the Civil War.)
Living with Frederick Lapham in 1880 was a black, Georgia-born woman named Georgia DeBross, age 50. There were four children: Adlade, age 21, George, age 19, and Herman, age 14. They are identified as being the children of the head of the house. Then there's our George Ralston, Jane's great-grandfather, at age 13, but his entry shows no kinship to anyone else in the household. ("And you, young man, how did you come to be with this family?")
Pushing on back to 1870 wasn't so easy, mainly because the census-taker completely butchered George's last name. Instead of "Ralston" or "Rolston", somehow it came to the page as "Rottslin"(!). Not being able to find him under "Ralston," I ended up tracking the Laphams backwards in time, and when I found them, I found him.
This time, there were a lot more Laphams: the paterfamilias, Frederick, age 42, is identified as a "rice planter." 40 year-old Georgia wasn't a "deBross" in 1870; she was a "DeBois." The others in the household included 21 year-old Sarah, 18 year-old William, 13 year-old Frederick, 11 year-old Addie, 8 year-old George, and 4 year-old Herman. And then there was our 3 year-old George, with his last name tortured into "Rottslin."
Interestingly enough, the 1870 census records that Georgia, Sarah, and William had personal property totaling $2,100, although no real estate. But still: $2,100? In 1870, right after the Civil War? In the hands of People of Color? It's a considerable sum, suggesting that they had some kind of business acumen—after all, if their gains were ill-gotten, they would not likely have declared them.
That was as far back as I've been able to go with the DeBois/DeBross name to date. The federal censuses from before the Civil War are almost no help, as very nearly all black people in the south were slaves before the Civil War. They were counted in the federal census on slave schedules, but they were identified only under their owner's names as "male" or "female" along with their ages. No names at all. In many cases, even if the census takers had cared, the slaves had no last names anyway.
That so many were deprived of their full names has had the effect of making the Civil War into a giant roadblock in black family histories, as it is far more difficult to recover those histories before the War. And, in any event, the link between Great-grandfather George Ralston and the DeBois/DeBross and Lapham families is still unresolved. As of this writing, we just don't know who his parents were.
But let's go forward in time. I've already mentioned the now-married Great-grandfather George Ralston in the 1900 census, so the next step forward would be the 1910 census. And here was yet another surprise: Great-grandfather George was still living in Savannah, but Valeria and the children had disappeared. George is living at 625 E. Broad St., where the head of the household is identified as George's brother and his name as William Fontaine. Sarah Lapham is there and is identified as William's mother. Does that make her also George's mother, or are William and George half-brothers? Plus, there is a Mamie Fontaine and apparently her husband, Herman Lapham. Who were the Fontaines and how did they get into the mix?
The 1920 census came up completely empty: no George Ralston in Savannah at all, and still no Valeria, nor children. A trip to Savannah that included some looks at old city directories confirmed that George Ralston's name disappeared sometime after 1915.
But the real mystery for us was the disappearance of Valeria and the two children, George and Mirtle. Although Grandfather George at least had obviously ended up in New York, when and how did that happen?
It was time to start checking the federal censuses for New York, but that didn't rule out the aforementioned trip—our first—to Savannah.
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