Spinners and Weavers

Yesterday I received an email from ancestry.com informing me that new hints had been located that might involve folks in my family tree. On the ancestry.com web site these are indicated by small green leaves on the corners of the nameplates in my tree.

As it turned out, some of these new hints were indeed associated with ancestors in my tree. Both involved Smiths. This Smith family was on my Bowen grandfather's mother's side of the family. The hints were military service draft records completed in the early 1900's. I have found that these draft records include a lot of interesting information.

I am amazed at the high quality of the pictures of these old draft records. Many appear as if they had been filled out yesterday. On them I see such things as full name, day of birth, address, age, closest relative, occupation, employer, and even physical information such as hair and eye color, height (tall, medium, short), size (slender, medium, stout), and health problems (none, general poor health, bad leg, etc.).

I found two of these newly associated records interesting. This Smith family was from Bedford County in mid-Tennessee. However by these draft records I could see that two sons had sought their fortunes elsewhere. One, registering in 1917 was 23, single and living in Knoxville, working as a textile worker in the Brookside Cotton Mills and said he had no health or other exemptions. The other was in Winona, Mississippi, was 42, married and working in The Winona Cotton Mill as a mechanic.

It seems that around the mid 1850s the Bowen and Smith families had often turned from farming, to working in cotton mills. Perhaps they saw the regular pay, and regular working hours as a benefit. Some may have been attracted by the relatively new and nice homes available in the mill villages.