Sleeplessness, a Stephen King Novel, and Small Thinking in Genealogy

Just as forewarning, this is bound to be a meandering post, but hopefully interesting and helpful, too. I've had some pretty severe insomnia for the last two-plus-weeks as a side effective of a new, essential medication. The last time I experienced a bout of insomnia this bad was in 1994 or 1995. I was in college and it was then a side effect of medication as well, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, I was thinking about that time and decided to approach this current bout in the same way I did then, by reading Insomnia by Stephen King. Of course, in 1994 or 1995, the book had just recently been released, so I was flipping through crisp, perfect pages held together by a pristine spine. This time around, I'm reading my beat up, musty-smelling, almost-30-year-old copy with a few teeth marks in the corner from an anxious, destructive dog instead. This is only my second blush with the novel, but 30 years of sitting on a shelf and being moved from place to place in boxes, not to mention sitting in a box inside of multiple storage units, tends to take its toll. The book is in pretty good shape, all things considered.

Regarding the tale itself, my reaction this time is the same as the first: it's so nice to have a story in which the main characters are older adults - elderly to be more precise, though 70 years old isn't generally considered as elderly today as it was in 1994, when the book was published.

Many parts of the story hit me differently now than they did then, of course, since just like my beat up, old copy of the novel, I have a lot more wear and tear on me. I also have more intimate or first-hand knowledge of life experiences similar to those of the story’s protagonist, which actually makes for an even more interesting read the second time around.

Get to the Genealogy, Already!

Now, if you’ve hung in there this long, you’re probably wondering what in the hell this post has to do with genealogy, and I promise, my insomniac-brain is finally working its way around to that bit of my musings.

Some years ago now, I watched the Stephen King guest episode of PBS’ Finding Your Roots, with Henry Louise Gates, Jr., and I was surprised to learn of King’s connection to Indiana. I think this is because we have a tendency to think small when it comes to family history.

What I mean by this is that many of us have a profound attachment to a single town, city, or state, and we often have multiple generations of our family living in that same town, city, or state. Our small thinking comes into play when we assume that we should only search for our ancestors within a particular geographic region, when in reality, people have always eventually moved.

Even if our ancestors may have lived in one place for several generations, we should never assume that we will always find our relatives in the same place that we’ve found previous generations. In other words, if someone “disappears” from records, it’s time to open the geographic parameters of your search to include other towns, cities, counties, states, and maybe even countries.

My surprise over King’s connection to Indiana was also because I have an ingrained bias in my own thinking when it comes to American migration. I tend to think of migration largely in terms of Americans moving west or north. This is no doubt in part because these were the big and well-known, mass migrations that we history majors/historians spent a lot of time learning about in history classes. In some ways our knowledge of American history benefits our research, while in others it hinders us. We must always be aware of big historical events and how they affect the movement of people from one place to the another, but we should never overlook or discount the “small” factors that drive people to relocate either.

I also suppose I have a bit of a cultural bias in thinking that only certain kinds of places presented a large enough draw to merit a cross country move. After all, in this part of Indiana, we are quite familiar with ancestors heading west to California and the Pacific Northwest; south to Texas and Florida; and Southwest, primarily to Arizona. We’re also very familiar with ancestors going to Chicago, IL, St. Louis, MO, and Detroit, MI in search of work, and in fact, Stephen King’s paternal grandfather can be found in Chicago in 1930, probably because of his step-father’s employment.

So, whether it’s because of my classically-trained historian bias or my cultural (or Hoosier-familiarity) bias, I don’t always immediately consider the possibility of someone from Indiana, migrating to the northeastern-most boundary of the United States: Maine, like King’s family did. A silly notion, especially for me, given that members of my own family did just that, moved from Indiana to Maine, and Orono at that, one of King’s stomping grounds. So, my limited thinking in terms of migration is just another example of small thinking, something we cannot afford when it comes to genealogy.

Stephen King’s father was born in Peru, Indiana (another place to which I, too, have strong family ties). King’s paternal grandparents were both Hoosiers, born in Miami and Cass counties, and King himself spent some of his youth in Fort Wayne, Indiana, living in the home of his paternal aunt, Betty L. Pollock.

King’s family history also highlights another way in which limits in our own thinking can get in the way when conducting family history research. The King family name isn’t historically King. Stephen King’s father, Donald King, was born Donald Pollock in Peru, Miami County, Indiana. He legally changed his name to King somewhere between the 1930 and 1940 U.S. Federal Censuses.  

Pictured at left: the Birth Certificate of Donald Edwin Pollock (a.k.a. Donald King), the father of author Stephen King

When an ancestor “disappears” from records, we shouldn’t always assume the person died or moved somewhere else. A name change must always be among the possible reasons we consider for the sudden vanishing act. Now, with a person like Donald Pollock, alias Donald King, making the connection between the two names and verifying that they are, in fact, the same individual is relatively easy. After all, Donald lived at a time from which available records are still abundant, and those records are robust in terms of the details they report about an individual.

Once you locate enough records that report the same given name, birth date, and birth location, but with two different surnames, you may suspect there was a name change that occurred. You’ll still need supporting evidence. Let’s say you then find that man (who has the “new” surname) living in the same household as an unmarried sister that has the “old” family surname. This would indicate you’re probably on the right track and that your male ancestor did change his last name. You must still hunt for additional evidence to move that assumption from the category of suspicion to proven fact, though.

As a general rule, it takes at least three primary sources, all proving the same information, before you can consider a fact truly substantiated. When it comes to proving a name change, you should shoot for a significantly greater number of sources, ideally six or more, some of which will be primary and some secondary sources.

You’ll also want to write an explanatory brief on your conclusion that a name change occurred, spelling out the research that proves your findings. You’ll do this, especially if you want to sell other discerning family history researchers on your conclusions. You will also compose this brief so future researchers can easily follow your methodology, and so future generations don’t think the rumor of a name change in the family’s history is just a big load of hooey. Not to mention so that you can remember your own methodology, when you return to this branch of the family tree sometime later to conduct additional research.  

Proving a name change for an ancestor who was born or lived prior to 1900 becomes significantly more challenging, and the further back you go, the harder it becomes. There is no doubt that many families experienced surname changes, and in some families, “the name change challenge” may even present itself multiple times over several generations.

Perhaps, at a later date, I’ll share some thoughts and insights on the hunt for ancestral name changes in the Victorian Era and prior, but for now, my insomnia-brain is telling me that it’s reasoning capacity is spent and that it’s time to draw this ramble to a close. Besides, I have a Stephen King novel calling my name.    

Sources:

Donald Edwin Pollock. Indiana, U.S., Birth Certificates, 1907-1944, retrieved from Ancestry.com on 8 Sep 2023.

Donnal Pollock, in the household of Victor Szczeponski [Donald’s step-father]. 1930 United States Federal Census retrieved from Ancestry.com on 9 Sep 2023.

Donald E. King, lodger in the household of Maria R Mc Cawley. 1940 United States Federal Census, retrieved from Ancestry.com on 9 Sep 2023.

“Stephen King lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana” by John Beatty at the Genealogy Center and Allen County Public Library. Article posted to the Fort Wayne Memories Facebook Page, retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/MemoriesAllenCountyIndiana/photos/a.649475628778239/830306154028518/?type=3 on 8 Sep 2023.