Other Ties to Alexander

As I was going through grade school, I had a best friend named Chelsea. We were constantly together, and because of this, our parents soon had the opportunity to meet each other and socialize. One day at a tennis tournament that Chelsea and I were both playing in, my dad and her mom got to talking. As it turned out, Chelsea's mom's side of the family, the Hickmans, had some pretty big ties to Beaver, Utah. I don't know if it was the name that tipped my dad off, but they eventually figured out that Chelsea's great-grandfather and my great-grandfather, Alexander Hamilton, opened the first bank in Beaver together. Apparently they were the best of friends for many, many years.

A few summers back, I had the opportunity to stay in the Hickman house in Beaver with Chelsea and her family for a day. All I can say is that I wish I knew then what I know now about Alex. I'm sure that he was in that house at some point, going over strategies with his partner and friend to make their business as successful as it could possibly be.

Life of Mittie

Just like Alex lost his mother at a very young age, my grandmother, Barbara, lost her own mother at a very young age. The circumstances were extremely unfortunate and still leaves messy footsteps upon the memories of my grandmother.

Although we do not know what caused the death of Alex's mother, we do know the cause of the death of his wife. Alex's family was the only family in Beaver, Utah that was not LDS, Mittie being a devout Christian Scientist. As a Christian Scientist, she firmly believed in the concept of "mind-over-matter", her principles towards medicine lying in the notion that the body and mind can heal itself without the use of any type of medical drug. The only problem with this idea was that Mittie was a diabetic, and as we all know, diabetes is an illness that requires the constant companionship of insulin shots and other various drugs to curb its symptoms.

The time came when Mittie had to go to the dentist for a procedure that by today's means and technology would be ever so simple. As a Christian Scientist, Mittie made it certain that she wanted no drugs during the procedure. As a result of the stress of the procedure, Mittie slipped into a diabetic coma and eventually died from it, leaving Alex without a wife and Emma and Barbara without a mother.

To this day, I think the memory of Mittie's death was central in developing my grandmother's set of religious beliefs, which is ever so unfortunate because she has some atheistic views. However, I know that they will one day be reunited and all will be well.

Census Success!

One of my assignments for my genealogy class required us to look up our particular families in different censuses. I perused the Ancestry.com website until I was able to find Alex, now the head of a household, in the 1920 United States Federal Census. By this point in time he was 25 and married to his first wife, Mittie Leone Barnett, then 21 years old.

Through this census I was able to verify Alex's immigration year as 1903, just like the Ellis Island website said. However, not only did I gain some more information about Alex, but I gained that his wife, Mittie, and her parents were all born in Ohio. A digital copy of the actual page of the census taken in 1920 with Alex's household listed is pictured below.

I decided to try other censuses for more information on Alex's household. I searched the 1930 United States Federal Census and, with a little luck, found him and his family on a census much more detailed than the 1920 one. I found that I was much more attached to this document more than any other because not only were Alex and Mittie listed on it, but both of their daughters, Emma and Barbara (my grandmother), were on there, as well. The following is a digital copy of the actual census taken with Alex's household's information on it, as well as a translation of the information on the census:

Alex R. Hamilton - Head - White - 35 - Est. Birth Year abt 1895 - Born in England

Mittie L. Hamilton - Wife - White - 31 - Est. Birth Year abt 1899

Emma L. Hamilton - Daughter - White - 8 - Est. Birth Year abt 1922

Barbra M. Hamilton - Daughter - White - 3 yrs. 9 months - Est. Birth Year abt 1926

Mystery Parents of Alex

One of my biggest problems I faced while researching Alexander was not knowing the exact names of his parents. You would think I would easily be able to gather such information from my grandparents, but due to the circumstances of how young Alex was when his parents died, no information about them was ever really passed along through Alex.

For the longest time I thought Alex's original name was Alexander Ramley Reed Hamilton; however, after some more phone calls to my grandmother, I found this to not be the case. Alex, when born, was named Alexander Ramley Reed; it wasn't until he immigrated to the United States that he took on his aunt's last name, Hamilton. So, the entire time that I was researching Alex, I was using the name he had when he died. Once I just searched for Alexander Ramley Reed on New Family Search, results began to open up for me.

Finally I found the right pedigree. Something was slightly off, though. Bridget Jones was listed as his mother, but his father was listed as Henry Harry Hambleton. I was confused about this due to my grandmother telling me that Alex didn't take on the Hamilton name until he was in the United States with his aunt. At this point in time I am still a little perplexed about the situation, but I am confident that I found the right pedigree.

Alex's mother, Bridget Jones, was born in Wales in 1862. She had six children, five boys and one girl, Alex being third oldest. Her youngest son, Robert Richard Jones Reed, died thirteen months after his birth. On April 23, 1902, Bridget died in Llangorse, Brecknock, Wales. I have not yet been able to discover the cause of her death.

Alex's father, Henry Harry Reed-Hambleton, was born on the 23 of December, 1858, in Peterchurch, Madley, Hereford, England. He died on July 13th, 1903, but where is not exactly known. According to my grandmother, Henry ran off to fight in some sort of war and did not return. I have made only a little effort to find out which war this may have been, but later efforts will be made.

Ancestry via Ellis Island?

The above picture is of the ship, the ship Germanic, which Alex sailed upon to the United States via Ellis Island.

As a student, I have had many instances in which I have learned about the historical significance of Ellis Island. I had always wondered upon the chance of one of my own ancestors having immigrated through that very port. After my grandmother and I ended our interview, I realized that the fact that Alexander had immigrated to the United States from Europe via Ellis Island stuck out to me more than anything else she had said. Intrigued by this thought, I jumped online to see if I could find any evidence documenting Alex's actual voyage.

After some searching around, I happened upon the Ellis Island Organization website. I searched the name Alexander Reed, only to have over a dozen results of individual passengers show up. Luckily I was able to narrow the field down until I finally found the record of my Alexander Reed.

According to the passenger record made available, I learned that Alex departed from Liverpool upon the ship Germanic. On October 31, 1902, Alex arrived in the United States. I was thrilled to find that a digital copy of the ship's manifest was available! Upon the manifest page #0303, manifest line #0020 lay Alex's name. Although only his name and gender were supplied, I found this to be a terrific discovery and used this info to further my research.

Meet Alexander Hamilton

My search began with one name: Alexander Hamilton. As I searched my mind for every scrap of knowledge about the man, I realized that if I wanted to consider this project a success, I'd have to do a lot more digging around than initially thought.

My basic knowledge was narrowed down to a few stray facts: Alex was my grandmother's father on my dad's side; he lived in Beaver, Utah; he opened the first bank in Beaver; and his first wife, Mittie, was a Christian Scientist and died in a diabetic coma because of her firm beliefs. Other than these few facts, I was completely lost as to who this man was. So, I began my sporadic search for information with a phone call to my grandmother, Barbara Gempeler.

I was able to gain a few more facts during this brief interview. Alexander Hamilton's full name was actually Alexander Ramley Reed Hamilton, and he was born in Wales. According to my grandmother, Alex became an orphan at a very young age and was brought to America (via Ellis Island) by his aunt. He then lived with his aunt in Beaver, Utah. Due to Alex's parents' deaths at a very young age, my grandmother didn't know much about them. However, these basic facts were a great help in giving me a better idea of how to go about continuing my research.

What This Is All About ...

Coming from a predominantly inactive LDS family, it had always been an aspiration of mine to learn how to research and organize my family history for the specific reason of taking names of my ancestors to the temple. When I was registering for my winter classes at Brigham Young University, I saw that a class entitled Family History and Genealogy was available. Thinking that this would be a great help in my quest for how to go about submitting names, I immediately signed up.

Now I'm here, at the creation of a new blog dedicated to my family history and all my research connected to it. But how did I get here? It all began in my Family History class when we were assigned to choose a family from our ancestry to research and gather information about. After quite a bit of consideration, I decided to begin with my great-grandfather, Alexander Ramley Reed Hamilton.

There are various reasons as to why I chose to begin with Alex. Within my very limited knowledge of my family history, I knew that Alex's family was not LDS. I thought this would give me a better shot at finding names that had not made their way to the temple. However, as I began my research, the names I found evolved into something much more. The names actually became people, and I felt myself connecting on a deeper level than I had ever expected.