Truma Brundage and William Niehoff.
Sometimes an email, a phone call, or a message board can open a family history book to something much wider than the information found on its pages. Several years ago, I began what has proved to be a lifelong endeavor to find out more about my 4X great-grandfather, Solomon Brundage. As a child, I had quizzed my grandmother, Truma Brundege Niehoff, about her ancestors.
She was able to fill me in on the names of her parents, grandparents, and her great-grandfather, John Brundage, all of whom had lived in Missouri. Going back further, she knew they had lived in Kentucky and before that, England. I dutifully wrote everything down, and I still have that piece of paper today. As an adult, I joined Ancestry to search for John and his family. I could identify Solomon Brundage and Sarah McCarty as his parents living in Clark County, Kentucky, but I was confused when it came to other members of his family.
Solomon first appears in the records of Botetourt County, Virginia in 1774, having enlisted in the militia from the Rockbridge area of the county for Lord Dunsmore’s War[1]. In 1777, he showed up listed in the Revolutionary War recruits of the 2nd Virginia Line[2]. In 1782, he was listed in the Washington, VA, tax records[3], and by 1786 he had traveled over the Wilderness Trail to Crab Orchard, Kentucky, where he married Sarah[4]. They located and paid taxes in Clark County, where their children were born and most were married. Tax and census records show these Brundages as living there for over 30 years until 1817, when their Kentucky records stopped. In 1819, John received a notice for held mail at the Franklin, Missouri post office[5], and in 1822, the family showed up in tax lists of Howard County, Missouri.
Boon’s Lick Road, St. Louis to Franklin. Permission from Historical Society of Missouri.
Mine the Internet
When I began researching Solomon, I combed the Ancestry message boards looking for anyone who posted information on Brundages. There I found snippets from what appeared to be a lengthier study of Missouri Brundages and sent off messages to whoever posted these references. One respondent told me of a self-published family history of the Missouri Brundages/Brundridges, entitled Farmers and Frontiersmen, a Brundridge Genealogy, written by Harry “Buck” Brundridge of Hermitage, Missouri. Unfortunately, that person had no idea on how I could get hold of a copy, because it was privately published. So, it was back to the message boards, where I identified an Ivan Brundridge as another likely suspect and went about trying to reach him. By messaging him about my interest and including my phone number, I struck gold. He called me back.
Ivan, as it turns out, is the grandson of Harry Brundage, with whom he was very close, and we are fifth cousins. He had inherited all Harry’s records, notes, and letters relating to his grandfather’s original research, and he immediately emailed me the family history. He also generously offered to send me his grandfather’s original research papers to copy. A few days later, five cardboard boxes filled with a wealth of information on the Brundages arrived on my doorstep. Bear in mind that Harry’s research was done pre-computer, making his achievement all the greater. While Solomon’s probate and tax records proved useful in identifying his children, the letters Harry had exchanged with the New York Brundages offered the most intriguing family lore. One relative wrote that, according to family lore, Solomon “went west to Pennsylvania early” with an uncle. This seems geographically possible, as the Pennsylvania/Virginia western border was in dispute. It would not have been an impossible leap to go from southwestern Pennsylvania to Botetourt County, Virginia, at that time.
Contact the Author
I also used the Internet to search for other Brundage family histories, finding one by Thomas William Brundage with an addendum by Perry Streeter mentioning the Southern Brundages. While information was limited, Streeter included his email, which prompted me to get in touch and tell him about my search for information on Solomon. He responded enthusiastically and invited me to join an online group of Brundage researchers focused on their Southern roots. We used Dropbox and email to share information. One member told how she and her daughter had driven to New York to visit the seat of the Colonial Brundage ancestors and discovered housing developments and landmarks named after Brundages. Another woman shared a real treasure: her father had the original page of John Brundage’s family Bible listing each of his children. She posted a copy for all of us to have. I shared copies of Harry Brundage’s research and my own findings.
The lesson I learned from these experiences taught me to reach out to researchers and authors. Don’t hesitate. Genealogists are incredibly generous and happy to share with those of us who are interested.
Citations
[1] Warren Skidmore and Donna Kaminsky, Lord Dunmore’s Little War of 1774 (Heritage Books, Inc. 2002), 136.
[2] Ancestry.com, U.S. Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 [database on-line]. Lehi, Ut, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.
[3] New River Notes, Jeffrey C. Weaver, https://www.newrivernotes.com/washington-personal-property-tax-list-1782/.
[4] Ancestry.com, Kentucky Marriage Records, Lincoln County 1781-1792.
[5] Notice of Held Mail, John Brundage, Missouri Intelligencer, 12 November 1819, p1, col. 1.
