Grandpa Asa & Grandma Anna?

Let me tell you why I’m leaning towards Luke’s parents being Asa Phillips and Anna Work Phillips. It’s not just because I can’t find a single Darth or Anakin Phillips in the census. According to people who’ve researched Asa and Anna, they had ten children. I have been researching every Phillips with ties to early Michigan history, because I am a little obsessed. So I have a “Test” family tree set up for potential relatives. I have Asa and Anna in it. I only have six children for them. That leaves four unaccounted for, one of whom could easily be Luke. Luke said his parents came from Connecticut. Asa is from Rhode Island, but Anna is from Connecticut and they were married there.

Luke has a great grandson named Harold Asa Phillips, thus making Asa a name that made it to Michigan. New York Asa’s sister and mom were named Rhoda. Luke has a daughter named Rhoda. Asa’s grandson, Anson Gilbert Phillips, has kids in Michigan; Anson settled in Canada before coming to Michigan, though, thus potentially confirming my Uncle B’s claim that we have Canadian Phillips relatives. So, Anson would have been of the same generation and potentially a cousin of my great-great-grandpa Oscar. Anson’s children were Almira (Oscar’s sister was Almyra), Frances (Oscar’s son was Frank), Jessie (Oscar had a niece Jessie), Nellie (no correlation), and Hildreth Phillips, which is my grandpa’s name–Oscar’s grandson AND Oscar’s wife’s maiden name. It blew my mind, the chances of there being two Hildreth Phillipses, but the Hildreths were well-to-do farmers. If Anson’s family was close to Luke’s family, Anson would have known the Hildreths. Oscar married Mary Hildreth in 1867 and Anson’s Hildreth was born in 1874.

The only unsatisfactory thing about the Asa guess is that I’m still convinced that Luke and Jay Phillips have to be brothers, based on the families living near each other and Jay having a Frank and then Luke having a grandson Frank and all. But I couldn’t ever trace Jay any further back either. All I know about him was that he was born in 1815 in New York, but Asa was dead in 1813. Though Asa died in September of 1813, giving his last possible child a May/June birthday. Depending on how early the census taker came by, Jay could have still been something-5 years old in a -10 year, though it seems unlikely.

Jay may not have been any relation at all. Oh well.

I Think Geneology Eventually Makes You Want to Stab People

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to have as much information as I do about my family. But Luke Phillips is still driving me buggy. How can he not belong to anyone?

I feel like the census records and the internet are taunting me, like someone, somewhere knows his people and how he fits in with them, but no one is saying.

And Now I’m the Bad Guy

The New Kitty had something first in the dining room and then in the kitchen. In the dining room, I heard it squeak once, so I assumed it was a mouse. Good riddance, rodent. But it kept hollering, which is not how mice do. So I went to look and it was a god damn bird. Wet and mangled, but didn’t seem to be bleeding.

But still, as you do when you’re an adult, you go out looking for the heavy shovel to scoop it up with, so that when you have to kill it, it will be quick. But by the time I got the thing on the shovel, it appeared as if it might just be dazed and not near death.

So I put it in the strawberries and it made some good efforts to stumble away from me. I’m hoping it can dry out out there and get back to the business of being a bird.

As you can imagine, the new kitty is not happy with me. I tried to praise her, but when she figured out that we weren’t taking the bird outside to have more room to play with it, she came back in the house and is now sulking.