I can't tell you how many times late at night when I finally make that decision to shut things down for the night, I come across a gem while searching for information on Homer Percival.
It read: Mrs. Mattie Van Dyke and Homer Percival were guests of her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Cottet...
Just that little bit told me that Mattie Van Dyke was Mattie Percival Van Dyke; Homer was her first cousin, and her daughter married Leslie Cottet. The 1920 Census shows Mattie and her husband, Donald and son Donald P. I couldn't read the daughter's name, but it looked like Krista to me. Searching for Krista Van Dyke did not yield any results.
This is where my subscription to America's Genealogy Bank comes in handy. I figured there was a good chance Krista ? & Leslie had passed, so I looked for his obit and found him and mention of his wife, Kniste. Whoa. That's unusual. I found her obituary and this explanation for her name:
"Mrs. Cottet was born in Canastota. She was named Kniste, an Oneida Indian word meaning cluster of pines, because the hospital room where she was born was named Kniste, her daughter said.
"Her mother saw that name and thought, 'Wouldn't that be different?"'
Canastota was called Knistestota by the Indians, according to local history accounts, meaning cluster of pines by silent or motionless water."
Okay. That sure is a different way to pick a name!
*Obsessive Compulsive Family Research Disorder
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
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