Mini Mingus Mystery
A second "Robert Mingus" in the Philadelphia area in the 1940s?
Back when I was searching the WWII U.S. Draft records for my grandfather-in-law, Robert W. Mingus (I'll refer to him as Bob), I came across a draft registration from 1942 for someone with a very similar name: Robert Mingus Bechtel.
Although I'd never heard of him, I felt sure that he must be related to Bob. But leaving aside his name for now, I was also surprised by his age. He was 49 at the time - too old for the draft? I finally noticed the words at the top: “Men born on or after April 28, 1877 and on or before February 16, 1897” (that is, between 45 and 64 at the time). The so-called “Old Man’s Draft,” I am learning, was a way to collect information on a segment of the population that could be drawn on to help with the war effort locally, rather than to be sent into battle.
At any rate, here was an unknown man carrying two of the same names as Bob. In fact, all three names stood out to me:
Robert - the same first name. But this was one of the most common names in the U.S. at the time, even more than it is today.
Mingus - an unusual middle name. Surely there is a connection to the surname Mingus!
Bechtel - I was sure I'd seen this surname somewhere among Bob's ancestors….
Another connection is that Robert Mingus Bechtel lived in Philadelphia, PA, where Bob's father, Walter J. Mingus, was born (and less than 15 miles from his home at the time). It is also interesting that these three men were each about 30 years apart in age, such that Walter J. Mingus could have been the father (at age 31) of Robert Mingus Bechtel, and Robert Mingus Bechtel could have been the father (at age 27) of Bob. To be clear, this is only idle speculation and there isn’t any evidence to suggest that this could really be the case. But I did entertain the thought, if only because it’s much more common for someone to become a father at the age of 27 or 31 than 59 (that was Walter’s age when his son Bob was born).
I did a quick search through my family trees to look for the surname Bechtel and I didn’t have to look far: Bob's paternal grandmother was born Miriam Bechtel. Ah-ha! One caveat is that this information is from my trees on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org - information that I added a few years back but have not yet carefully verified. One of my goals for my family history research is to go through the information that I have previously gathered and make sure I have adequate documentation to support the data I have for each ancestor.
At any rate, I know from the Mingus Family Bible that Bob’s grandmother’s married name was Miriam B. Mingus and I am working on the assumption that my previous research is correct - that her maiden name was indeed Bechtel. Miriam Bechtel was, it seems, the daughter of John Bechtell and Catharine Bender. John and Catharine were therefore Bob's great-grandparents. As it turns out, John and Catharine were also the great-grandparents of our mystery man, Robert Mingus Bechtel (Jr.), which makes him Bob’s second cousin. Here is a look at the connections, using the info I have found on Ancestry and FamilySearch:
You can see that Bob’s grandmother, Miriam Bechtel, had a brother named James C. Bechtel. Miriam married Robert W. Mingus (Bob's grandfather and namesake), and it appears as if her nephew was named after him, his uncle(-in-law). Sadly, only two years after Robert Mingus Bechtel (Sr.) was born, Robert W. Mingus died at the age of 31, leaving Miriam a widow with two children. A generation later, Robert Mingus Bechtel passed his name on to his son, and Miriam's son, Walter J. Mingus, must have named his son after his father. This, perhaps, solves the mystery of the two men with uncannily similar names!
Up next I would like to write about the process of entering info and sources into my trees on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. I have found several new pieces of information, for example, about Robert W. Mingus, which I would like to save there for others to access. And I want to check that what is already saved there is correct and supported by sufficient documentation.
Thanks for reading!
You know so much more about my family than I do! I am loving learning through your research! Thanks!
Great article on an amazing family discovery!