Ok, I think start with Courtney too but I want to say that I'm Not discounting Dalton or JWJ of Kearney yet.
We said when we started this part, we would start at the BEGINNING of the stories and then to get to possible sign, cashe, KGC, Southern Cause etc that we would pick these 3 men...put out what we found from as Far Back as Possible to Start and then go to the end. Then after we compiled as much information as possible on all three, we would vote who the most likely JWJ was and where he ended up. I think it's a good possibility we won't all agree and that's ok. There might be something that changes our minds and we see something we didn't know about that changes our minds again.
I do know for Certain...that I've Learned Many Things From All of You and Have Enjoyed This Topic Immensely! I'm Thankful for that.
After doing that, Then we could have directions to head on everything else that had to do with JWJ.
We went back to the beginning on JWJ, MO and went to 1882. Then decided to check Courtney and Dalton. Then Decide which of the three stories seemed the most plausible to us.
On Courtney, we can go back like we did with JWJ. There are a bunch of name changes but those can be traced.
JLC himself was never really Public At All in regards to being JWJ. His gGrandaughter made those claims. There are a couple people who we Don't Know wether or not they were Kin to Him or BDD who gave notarized affidavits saying they heard or saw something that led them to believe JLC was JWJ..Very Vague. I'll post them when we get to the end of BDDs claim on him. That doesn't mean at this point her claims were wrong or right....we just aren't there yet. James L Courtney has Two names that pop up consistent of JWJ....JAMES and LAFAYETTE...James is obvious but Lafayette is a A County in MO where JLC was born...Its also where Many Battles or Skirmishes took place during the Civil War..Battle of Lexington in Lafayette County and Very Close to the Battle of Lone Jack,MO in Jackson/Johnson County, MO (its on the line)just to name a couple notable CW battles.
JFD... He had many claims...that could be true or not. We touched on some of those when we started this. Claimed to be of the Dalton Gang... Claimed to be famed Lawman, John Dalton.. those were just two aliases he used. JFD had burns on his feet, rope burn from hanging and other wounds Supposedly consistent with JWJ...we All looked for that comparison to JWJ and could find none. I'm trying not to detail many of the claims yet because it's not the beginning of his story.
For me anyway, in my own family research I have to remind myself that information I can get TODAY through paid online sites that are documented as well as forums or blogs where there are more lore, legend or people trying to tie into famed families through many generations wasn't how I started my research. Most of You Can Relate to This. Others have heard about it from your parents.
First it was Family and Friends of Family Stories and Tin Type and BW Pictures. (These are before I could drive legally)
Then it was getting information from the;
Local Church Record Books
Cemeteries
VFW for the locals
Funeral Homes...I was lucky, very lucky..hopefully you have been too!
Back in the day, the Blacksmiths or Hardware Store Owners would write down who they made caskets for and Write into Ledgers the names of the deceased, birthdate, date of death,cause of death, where they were buried, if they were a veteran and who contracted with them to make the casket. Harware Stores, Churches or even someone's Barn would hold the service if the family couldn't. When funeral homes became fairly commonplace and Blacksmiths and Harware Stores weren't used anymore for that, they handed over All of their past records to the new Undertaker. The areas I wanted to research, by luck or divine intervention, the Funeral Homes allowed me access to ALL of the Handwritten Ledgers from days past. They had COPIERS that I could use and a room that I could take all the ledgers as far back as they went.
Library...searching old books,news papers for obituaries and stories from the era and areas. On MICROFILM!
All of that I had to write down..I still have it.
Back in the day people didn't have Social Security Cards or Drivers Licenses. Really the only way to document where anyone was, you had to go the the county assessor. Census records were not readily available then. The courthouse did have some vital records that you had to write down...From the beginning of my research til now, there are spelling errors, some people wrote phonetically. It didn't happen to me in my research, but some changed their names either by choice, or by the powers that be...
Indians and Black people are who I am Primarily talking about in saying Powers That Be...
Changing Your Name By Choice. I'm Refering Primarily to White People. There are exceptions to every race. If you were forced into a new name, you got what you got. If you decided to be some other name, well most people went with a common but unrecognizable name. Others decided to be someone famous...That's why we are discussing and researching this topic. Even now the Jesse James name is used to get attention..Jesse James of OCC, Jesse James DuPree of Jakyl??.. music guy etc. They want attention right off the bat and that name will do it. Just google how many real Jesse James there are. We are only talking about 3.
Then I thought I hit the big time, I could Drive and lived close to the RLDS Genealogy Library. They had copiers and yearbooks, Masonic Lodge Information and other organizations that I could research. We were going to Oklahoma racing quite a bit and there was the Indian version of the RLDS library! That place is both cool and sad.
Then Computers and Ancestry, Roots Web, Military Rolls etc...that is so informative and if that's all you want, it's great!
But the internet has flooded every topic including research and anyone can post or blog anything. It may be true and it may not be. Social Media, the same way. So if you want as close to accurate as possible and you are doing it yourself, It's Back To The Basics and taking with a grain of salt what you read online. I personally have found ancestry and roots web to be really accurate as long as you have verified the basics before you search.
Even as Recent as WW1...unless you were in NY or Chicago your newspapers were two weeks to a month old when you got them. They were Days old in NY and Chicago. None had the factual true story. People listened to the radio for news if they had one. That still wasn't in depth news. It was elaborating some on Headline News. That was our CNN.
Today we have DNA and Documented, Verifiable Information. It's going thru all the Horse Ships to get to it.
The Ballad or Song.. Jesse James...The one about The Dirty Little Coward Killing Mr Howard was released in 1919. ITS Not Factual Lyrics. It says Jesse left his wife and 3 children. Jesse and Zee had a set of twins who died in infancy and later A boy and a girl who lived to adulthood and married.
I don't want anyone to think I disagree with them on this yet. We don't know enough to make a Reasonable Decision on These Guys. We can't go just on a gGrandaughter trying to link herself to JJ and We can't go on a Business Trying to Profit from JJ. I Respect All of Your Views and I Really Like All of the Information That Everyone Has Provided. Everyone that has really participated has been very respectful here and That's Huge and Rare!
Kace
