Brick Wall and Brother says I'm wrong

Question

My brother told me he couldn't find the parents of Joshua F. Justice and  said he was born in NC. He said he visited NC and met one of our cousins.... who said Joshua had been a minister in the Asheville area after the Civil War. I found records that he was buried in Bull Creek Cemetery, Madison County, NC but when I went to www.Findagrave he was not listed. So that's the first thing I would like to find out about. If he was a minister, where, and where he's buried. I am going to contact that cemetery to ask for info. 

I also found Civil War records for him. It SEEMS like he joined the Confederate Army but then deserted and joined the Union Army towards the end of the war. My brother insists that he was never in the Union Army. Both records say Joshua F.

then I located a census that shows an Edmund P & Sarah as his parents, but on this census it states that Joshua was born in VA. Again, my brother insists that I'm wrong and that Joshua was born in NC.

I am trying to trace Edmund P. and think it might be the one from VA/KY, one of the children of John Justice and Elizabeth Young. Brother says I'm wrong. On the list I found, Edmund has a different wife, but that could be from a previous marriage.

When are people going to realize that the census happens every 10 years and a LOT CAN HAPPEN in 10 years???

I can't find any other combination of Edmund P and Joshua F. and the problem is that I don't trust too many sources other than the census, which is extremely tedious work.

Any hints?

Comments

DeBee - Have you looked into using Evidentia to evaluate your information? It's a handy tool for these situations where there is a lot of conflicting evidence.

All the best,

Rosemary

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https://familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3A"Joshua%20F."~%20%2Bsurname%3AJustice~%20%2Bbirth_year%3A1800-1850~

Extremely tedious was a good description of the work required to find your guy.  The link above yields about 9,000 results but that was without entering a birthplace and only using 1800  - 1850 as a range on his age.  You can use that link and narrow the search criteria and maybe find your guy.  Find a Grave is OK but sort of to just provide an image for verified information.  Of course Find a Grave can be very helpful when families are buried together in plots or share memorial stones.  Good luck!

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Unfortunately Find a Grave does not have all the people that have died. I have family that I know is buried in certain cemeteries. I have searched for them in Find a Grave and have not found them. I have seen that the information added to the site is by other people that add the information themselves.

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Yes, the work is all done by volunteers. some of them go around and photographs the gravesites. I was able to locate quite a few family members through the site. It helps to verify birth & death dates. With the pic of my gr grandmother's grave there's no question of what her name was. I found  her father, mother, and two sisters at the same cemetery, along with two of her children. But not my grandfather.

It was kind of exciting to see the pics. It not only proved me right, but it shows that there are people out there doing a lot of work to preserve our ancestor's memory with tangible and real info.

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going to check this out. My brother is just adding to the problem. he is now throwing new names my way that I've never heard of, and the one I did know about is not related by blood. Oh well, just let him keep bragging....

I'm thinking, why correct him? If he can prove me wrong, fine. I'm just going to give him hints and make him do all the work I'm doing. He said he couldn't find my gr gr grandmother and it took me about an hour. And I cross-reference and record my sources.

Now you should see the stuff my  sister  has put on one of these. websites!!! She wrote that a [certain] male fathered my grandfather, but he would have been 10 years old at the time! She obviously didn't even do the math!

When some people  cant find a piece to the puzzle they  just shove one in, and that's more common than you think. It hits you in the butt later down the road though. My brother is on this very site and stated that my grandparents were half siblings.

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Stick to your process.  Your skills are your best advantage and your reasoning is your best asset. Actually your competition is also a positive because your siblings will keep you honest and having something to prove/disprove is easier than just reaching out into the unknown. It never hurts to continue your education and learn about other source types because census and burial will only get you so far.

Answer 1

Do you have a profile set up - do you know wife and date timeframe?

Try some searches at Family Search

https://familysearch.org/search

If you can narrow search down to wife, check marriage records to see if parents are listed.

https://familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Ajoshua~%20%2Bsurname%3Ajustice~%20%2Bbirth_place%3A%22north%20carolina%22~

Also, try Internet Archives.org for histories of the area to see if you can find some type of history document that has minister's listed.  Sometimes they did bios which may have some clues.

https://archive.org/details/texts?&sort=-downloads&and[]=asheville%20north%20carolina

Kitty's Library on Wiki has some good online research links.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Kitty%27s_Library

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

There's good advice in those answers!  I also want to suggest, at the risk of starting a family feud, that it may be time to ask brother to produce his sources.

Comments

That's what I keep doing. ha ha. He cites Ancestry.com against me using the Census.

He kept claiming that my great-grandmother's first name was Ellen when that's her middle name, as it was customary to use the middle name by some people. This makes research even harder! Now get this: Grandpa was illegitimate and I'm the first to find out who his father was, linking him to the Metcalf family, and linking them to Keziah Vann, who was Cherokee. My brother is now claiming credit for this. ha

It's a real puzzle. So I sent him a picture of Mary Ellen's grave from that website. This is another source that helps tie everything in, and I say the more the better.

The census was really great when proving who my grandfather's father was. What do you know? His maternal grandmother was close neighbors with that family as a child.

Which tells you, when checking the Census, see who else is in the area.

I found an 1850 Census that shows Edmund P. as Joshua's father, but on it Joshua was born in Russell County,  VA 1839/40. Yes, he lived in NC and died there @1900, but I cant find any records of him being born there. Records show  a "first wife" named Frances, [1870 Census] as the mother of William and James. Then he married Nancy E. [1880 Census] It looks like James had died by then but I have not followed up on it.  William is my direct line. 

I hope everyone else that has commented about this is reading this because I still haven't gotten anywhere with this.

If Joshua had been a minister there should be a record of it somewhere.

 

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If I were you I'ld set up a timeline in a spreadsheet program. It also helps to keep things straight in your mind.

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oh I've been keeping things written down on paper for as long as I've been doing this.

I have two notebooks, one to scribble hints on, and one to add info. I will write down a lot of possibles and then cross them off when proven wrong.

There's no way could I keep all this organized otherwise.

I have info from both parents along both maternal and paternal lines. That's four major trees.