Joining your host Andrew Martin for this third episode of Season Eleven is Ulysses Swanson – a US-based public and community historian, whose research helps to tell the stories of transgender people through history via his Transgender Ancestors project. Andrew discovers how a joke resulted in Ulysses getting hooked on researching family history, and how he has learned a research methodology to find members of the transgender community in historical documents.

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The Life Story – Edgar Wales Burnham

Ulysses has chosen to tell the life story of Edgar Wales Burnham. The earliest record Ulysses first encounters Edgar, it’s 1841 but Edgar’s name is given as Ellen and is the daughter of Milo and Ellen Burnham in Woodstock, Vermont, USA.

The family moved to Broadhead in Wisconsin in 1856, where Milo was a druggist. Edgar (named as Ellen) married Luke Winthrop Powell in 1860 when Luke had begun the Broadhead Reporter newspaper.

By 1863, advertising for Milo Burnham’s drug store is now re-named M. L. Burnham & Son, cementing Ellen’s transition to Edgar.

However, in 1868, Powell is noted as a state agent, and Ellen is arrested in the belief that Edgar was a male confederate spy in women’s clothes.

Also in 1868, a glut of newspaper reports emerge to reveal Edgar’s transition, and unfortunately these articles would continue resurfacing hundreds of times for more than 20 years. The author was Edgar’s ex-husband – L. W. Powell, who happened to be coincidentally down on his luck as a journalist.

Did Luke Powell write these stories to make money, or did he finally enact this spiteful revenge? That leaves Ulysses to speculate.

Edgar re-marries twice in later life, and goes on to open a playhouse, where he can use his skills as a pianist.

The Brick Wall – John Talboy ‘Sallie’ Binns

There’s rumours about an Irish ancestry for John Talboy Binns, often known as Sallie Binns, who was born about 1812.

Ulysses has found a record of Sallie in 1860, but a newspaper report suggests that she had arrived in the US in the 1850s from Ireland.

It’s known that John/Sallie was in the Philadelphia Almshouses in 1853, and that she died there in 1882.

• Can you help Ulysses find out Sallie’s life before entering the Philadelphia Almshouses in 1853?

If you think you can help, then you can send Ulysses a message via his Wikitree page, or via the email address he gives in the episode. Alternatively, you can just send us a message and we’ll pass it along.

In the meantime, Andrew and Sándor have an offer of help to give, but is Ulysses convinced it will work?

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Episode Credits

• Andrew Martin – Host and Producer
• Ulysses Swanson – Guest
• John Spike – Sándor Petőfi