Draft Card

I found my great-grandfather (grandfather’s father) World War I draft card while searching around again on ancestry.com. I don’t know how I missed it before, but it could be because the birth date my great-grandfather gave on the draft card was 7 years different from what was reported on the 1920 census (the only other record of him).

Speaking of my great-grandfather, I have been having a tough time finding him. The 1920 census says he was born in Tennessee. Even with the new birth date, it’s hard to find a concrete path of where he was before 1920. He has a common first name but unusual last name for an African-American. I found a few instances of a “J.M.” on the previous censuses, but I can only really rule out one family. The other J.M.’s were married in 1900 and 1910 (to different women!) and had other families. However, the women and families disappear in the 1920 census, where I found my great grandfather J.M. with my great-grandmother and grandfather.

He could have possibly been married to these other women. Afterwards, he could have abandoned their families to marry my great-grandmother. This is especially plausible since the family lore is that he eventually left my great-grandmother. However, this story kills the Michigan connection. How did my grandfather end up being born in Michigan? Supposedly, that’s where the M.’s are from. I will have to do more digging to find out the answer.