City Directory Sleuthing

In my last post, I wrote about the seven wives of my 2nd great grandfather, James Baker Warner.

For the longest time, his 4th wife was known to me by only her first name and middle initial: Irene M. My only record of her was in the 1920 US Federal Census, where she was listed with him and his 2 children along with her daughter, Edith D. Her daughter was recorded incorrectly as Edith D. Warner, but based on her age, 16 years, I presumed she was Irene’s daughter from a previous marriage. At the time, they were living in Easton, Northampton County, PA and James was working as a finisher at a silk mill. He worked in the textile industry for much of his life, bouncing between New Jersey and other states like Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina. Despite his common name, his daugther Iola made it easy to identify him in the various censuses. So in 1920, he had yet another new wife, Irene M.

I had no idea of Irene’s maiden name and couldn’t find a marriage record for her and James. I tried searching for an Edith D. born to an Irene M. and left out the surname, hoping to find either a birth or marriage. I also couldn’t find an Irene and Edith together in the 1910 census.

1920 City Directory for Easton, PA

However, I recently found James and Irene listed in the 1920 city directory for Easton. Nothing exciting there, but there was an address. This is a different address than the one they were living at when the census was taken that same year. Out of desperation and curiosity, I searched the city directory by address instead of name. And to my surprise, I found a John. G. Brodhead living at the same address.

I researched this man on Ancestry and newspaper resources and learned that his parents were Irene May Dent and Alonzo Brodhead, who died in 1907. And he had a sister, Edith Dent Brodhead.

An Ancestry hint found a newspaper blurb about Irene marrying a W.J. Warner in 1919. There is a name discrepancy, but everything else fits. And the article was published in her hometown of Plainfield, NJ, so I suspect her family submitted the information and didn’t know the correct details. I obtained their marriage record from the county (with his correct name) but unfortunately, it only has basic information and doesn’t provide their parents’ names. However, I am confident this is my James Warner

Marriage announcement

Using more city directories, I tracked Irene and found that she had moved back to Plainfield by 1927. Which makes sense, because James was on to wife #5 by 1928. Irene reported herself as widowed in the 1930 census and had reverted to her first married name, Brodhead, by 1940. She continued to go by Irene Brodhead until she died in 1961. Edith never married.

U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, Easton, Pennsylvania, 1920, entry for James and Irene Warner, image 278. (Ancestry.com).

The Courier-News, Bridgewater, NJ. 26 Aug, 1919 page 1. (newspapers.com, accessed 26 Dec 2021).

The seven wives of James Baker Warner

Several years back, I wrote about the six wives of my 2nd great grandfather, James Baker Warner. Since then, I’ve discovered a 7th wife and further identified one of the wives who I’d only known by a first name and middle initial.

As a review, James was born in South Norwood, Surrey, England in 1879. He immigrated to Canada with his family and then down into New Hampshire, where he married for the first time.

In 1903, at the age of 23, he married Annie Hughes, age 22. It was the first marriage for both of them. He was listed as a laborer. A stillborn son was born to them in August of 1904. In 1907, another son, James, was born, but he died two month later of marasmus. I don’t have any record of Annie’s death or a divorce.

In 1908, James married my 3rd great grandmother, Sara Matilda Zutavern at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chester, PA. He was working as a cotton finisher in Bergen, NJ at the time of their marriage. They settle in Bergen and over the next two years, have two children, including my 2nd great grandfather James William Warner, and his sister, Iola. Six year after their marriage, Sara died.

In 1914, less than three months after Sara’s death, James married Alice Amanda Tillotson in Clifton, NJ. He was 34, she was 19. He was still working as a cotton finisher. He reported himself as a widower and on his 2nd marriage. They appeared together on the 1915 NJ State Census with his two children, James and Iola. Alice died in 1919, apparently of a heart attack at the age of 24.

One month later, in August 1919, James has married again! This time he married Irene May Dent Brodhead in Easton, PA. She was previously married and widowed and had two children, Edith and John. Based on the 1920 census, James was working as a finisher at a silk mill in Easton. The couple even showed up in the city directory together in 1920. However, by 1927, Irene had moved to her hometown of Plainfield, NJ. In the 1930 census, she reported herself as widowed. She continued to go by Irene Warner until the 1940 census when she reverted back to her first married name, Irene Brodhead. She died in 1961.

By 1928, James had moved to Virginia and married Ruth Virginia Nunnally. Their marriage record lists him as a widow. In the 1930 census they were living in Delaware, but he still worked in the textile industry as a cotton finisher. Ruth’s son from her previous marriage lived with them. By 1940 they have moved to New Jersey where James worked as a foreman at a cotton mill. Ruth died shortly after the census is taken.

James made his way back to Virginia and married Lillian Ragan in 1949. This is the wife I have the most doubts regarding because their marriage certificate lists James as being a doctor. However, his age and the names of his parents fit. And Lillian is listed as working in the textile industry, the field James had worked in up to this point. They must divorce, because Lillian didn’t die until 1987. 

James married one last time in 1953 in North Carolina. Clevra Glendolia Batchelor became his seventh and final wife. When James died in 1966, she was mentioned in his obituary along with his daughter, Iola.

Voter Registration Records

Back in November, inspired by the election, I decided to search for voter registration records for some of my ancestors. This turned out to be a good idea because it was here that I found the only documented reference to where my McKeegan ancestors came from in Ireland.

This wasn’t exactly new information to me, it was just the first documented proof of it. I’ve long known that my 3rd great grandfather, Hugh McKeegan, came from County Antrim, and based on DNA matches and the distribution of the McKeegans in Griffith’s Valuation, I knew he likely came from the Cushendall area. Unfortunately, he was born prior to the start of baptism records in that parish and left before Griffith’s was conducted.

And so I was delighted when I found his name on the voter registration record for Cascade County, Montana in the year 1894. Right next to his name, in the column for “where born” was the same town I’d long suspected was the location of his birth: “Cushendahl, Antrim, Ireland.”

The registration also asked about citizenship status, and though this is also information I also already knew and have, it sure could be a goldmine for someone who didn’t know this. It shows that he was naturalized in Morris, IL. Funny that it says papers lost. Hey Hugh, I have a copy if you need it!

Thank you Hugh for registering to vote and providing this information!

2021 Genealogy Goals

First, a review of my 2020 genealogy goals:

• My biggest goal is figure out how to interpret my dad’s Y-dna results and matches. I am still working on this. I watched a few webinars, but I still really don’t understand my dad’s matches. It could be because he only has a few matches and none of them seems to have a tree built out further than our tree. I don’t know.
• Write more about my ancestors. I’ve started books on my Fitzgerald and DeCarlo lines. I’d like to fill those out more with stories or memories, so they aren’t just filled with documents. Erm. I think I forgot about this goal.
• Figure out if my great grandgather, Francesco DeCarlo, was ever naturalized. His responses to the US Census indicate he filed first papers and then became naturalized, but I’ve never found proof of this. Check! I actually determined he was naturalized through a cousin who is pursuing dual US/Italian citizenship. He sent me copies of Francesco’s naturalization documents. Unfortunately, because my grandfather was the baby of the family and born after Francesco naturalized, we are unable to pursue dual citizenship through him. If we want to, we might be able to pursue it through his wife Maria Teresa.
• Post in a family Facebook group I created for my Crawford/Martin cousins, most of whom I don’t know. I created the group earlier last year but really didn’t most much in it. My plan this year is to post on the anniversaries of the Martin kids’ birthdates and share what I know about them. It’s a small group, so I am hoping people will share the group and help build its membership. Check! I posted on each of the Martin kids’ birthdays. A few memories were shared and some additional photos were added by my distant cousins. One cousin even posted photos of my great grandmother’s autograph book from when she was a child and it contains signatures from the 1890s and on, including both her parents.

I also had a few other successes:

• Broke down my John Smith brick wall, which opened up a whole new branch of my tree.
• I posted on my Instagram about my grand and great grandparents on each of their birthdays.
• I visisted the State Historical Society Arhives and Library to access information not online, including a book that documents my 4th great grandfather and his family on the Oregon Trail.
• Confirmed the birthplace of my 3rd great grandfather, Hugh McKeegan, using a voter registration record. I’d long suspected his place of birth based on DNA matches, but this confirmed it.
• Photographed the headstones at a local cemetery and uploaded the images to Find-A-Grave. The cemetery is now 96% photographed.

This year, I have a few goals:

1. Confirm who the father of my great grandfather, John Wiggins, is. I suspect it is a man names Charles Wiggins, but don’t have proof yet. I’ve started working on this using the Research Like a Pro method and hope to finish it.
2. I’d like to use my DNA matches to help me identify the parents/family of my 2nd great grandfather, Fred Martin. He’s been a thorn in my side for a while. I have a set of DNA matches that I am certain are from his branch of the tree. And the common thread among them all is they are French Canadian. There’s even a set of DNA matches whose surname is St. Martin. I’m hoping I can get closer to figuring out where Fred really came from.
3. In theory, I’d like to take a genealogy road trip or two, depending on the Covid situation, of course.
4. “Attend” RootsTech, virtually.

Calabria, Italy, 1951

“My God, where the hell did you find these?” the Australian owner of this super cool salvage shop asked me when I produced a pile of curled black and white photos I’d dug out of a basket in the back of the shop. Why did I dig up these photos? Because one word scrawled in sloppy penmanship on a Post-It note caught my eye: Calabria.

According to labels on some of the photos, this pile of photos, many stuck together, were taken in 1951 in the Sila and Crotone areas of Calabria, Italy. My great grandfather was born in Calabria (albeit, not Sila or Crotone). Some of the photos were taken on the occasion of the first electric light being inaugurated in the town. In 1951.

Some show the local women working at a loom. While researching my family in Calabria, many of the women were employed as spinners and weavers. Although the people in these photos aren’t my relatives, and they were taken about 50 years after my great grandfather left Italy, I like to think they are representative of what life and Italy might have looked like for my ancestors.

I ended up buying 5 of the photos for a buck each.

I guess the saying about one person’s trash being another’s treasure is true.

Frasers Found

Cousin collaboration for the win! After a reference to “the memoirs of John Fraser Sr.” on a Find-A-Grave page led me to a new cousin, I was able to connect my 5th great grandmother, Mary Ann Fraser, to the rest of her family tree. Apparently, her branch was the “long lost” branch and I’d found the rest of the tree. My new cousin-in-law had a copy of these memoirs written by Mary’s father, John Fraser Sr. 

The memoirs were dictated by John and recorded by his son, Simon. Simon then compiled them, along with his own narrative, about March 1853. The original handwriting was quite difficult to read, so my cousin-in-law transcribed them into a typed document.

The memoir describes John’s place of birth, Muirton, as being one mile west of Inverness, Scotland. Their plot of land had a full view of Inverness, Fort George and Red Castle. His family lived there from “time immortal.”

Family members identified were:

• Father, John
• Grandfather, John
• Great grandfather, Alexander
• Brother, Simon. Died about 1820, leaving one son, John, a schoolmaster in the Highlands.
• Sister, Margaret, who was “deaf and dumb,” immigrated to NY with him and died in 1835 aged 81.
• Mother, not named, but was previously married with children.

He also describes the family of John’s wife, Mary MacDonald. They were married in 1794; he was about 30 and she was 26. Her family consisted of:

• Brother, John
• Brother, Dugald
• Brother, George

He tells of his family of 7 emigrating to the US in 1803. Their traveling party included John and Mary; their children, Donald (age 7), John, Mary, Simon (7 days old); and his sister Margaret. An older, unnamed daughter died before they left Scotland. The daughter Mary died once they arrived in New York. They sailed from Glasgow to New York, then took a sloop to Albany and eventually made their way to the Genessee Valley. Someone even made a map plotting the route they’d traveled. They’d emigrated with 4 other families from the same area in Scotland and all settled in the same area; they named their new little colony Inverness.

The memoir continues with descriptions of his acquiring land and farming. It also tells of his children and their marriages. About Mary, he wrote: In April 21st, 1836 Mary the youngest daughter was married to Amos Smith, a blacksmith to trade, moved to Wisconsin where they still reside.

The following children of John (siblings to Mary) are mentioned in reference to their marriages:

• Donald, the oldest son
• John
• Simon
• Alexander
• Jannette, the oldest daughter
• Thomas

John Fraser Sr. died in 1847 and was buried at the Inverness Cemetery in York Township.

The Long Lost Branch

So this is a continuation of sorts of my research into Amos Smith and his wife, Mary Frazier. And it’s more of a road map of how I got from point A to B. Based on his biography in The History of Waukesha, Wisconsin I knew that Mary was from Livingston County, NY, which is also where they were married. The bio stated that Amos was born in Oswego* County.[1] His land patent for land in Waukesha County also identified him as a resident of Livingston County so I figured they lived there after they were married.[2]

I went looking in Livingston County to see what I could find. I don’t know if this is a New York thing or a North Eastern USA thing, but it seems as if many of the towns and counties have a historian on staff. And lucky for me, the Livingston County historian’s website has a lot of information. I think I clicked on just about every link to see what was there. But the one that was the turning point was for land records. This link took me to New York Land Records 1630-1975, a searchable database with images on Family Search. I decided to browse the images myself and looked for an Amos Smith in Livingston County.  In 1844, he bought/sold land to John Frazer Sr. in the Town of York.[3] Could John be a relation to Mary? Maybe a brother or even her father?

I went back to the town historian’s website and used their searchable database to look for this John Frazer Sr. There was death information for a John Fraser Sen. who died 24 Oct 1847 in York. He was 83 years old. In the notes, it states his place of birth was Inverness, Scotland and that he’d settled in York in 1804. He was buried in a cemterey bearing the same name as his birth city, Inverness.[4] There weren’t any results for John Fraser Sr. in the newspapers so I went to Find a Grave.

John Fraser Sr.’s grave at the Inverness Cemetery in York, New York is photographed on Find A Grave. Linked to his listing are his wife, Mary McDonald Fraser and four children: Simon J. Fraser, Alexander Fraser, Janet Fraser Blair and Thomas Alexander Fraser. No Mary Fraser and also no John Fraser Jr. So I clicked on each of the childrens’ graves to see what I could learn. Alexander, Janet and Thomas all had a small paragraph referencing “the memoir of John Fraser Sr.” A memoir?? How could I get my hands on this thing? I googled, but nothing came up.

From Janet’s grave:[5]

Per the Memoir of John Fraser, Senior:
1837, November 23rd, married Jannette the oldest oldest daughter to James Blair, an industrious, moved to Mumford, Monroe County, N.Y. where they still live and carry on the business of machine making extensively to advantage (thrashing machines). They have a family of 4 girls and 1 son, James, at this time 1853.

A few things looked familiar here: the surname Blair and the “thrashing machines.” Sounds a little like someone else I’ve recently learned about.

But it was Thomas’ that proved most helpful:[6]

Per the Memoir of John Fraser, Senior:
1839, September 27th married Thomas Fraser, the youngest son to Anna Fraser from Scotland. About the 3rd of October they emigrated to Illinois, Kane county, about forty miles from Chicago, where he purchased two hundred acres of land on which he lives till this day March 1853.
Contributor: xxxxxxxx

His entry had a contributer identifier (someone who didn’t manage the listing submitted the information) . So I wrote a message to this contributer, explaining who I am, that I’m researching Mary Fraser who married Amos Smith who bought or sold land to John Fraser Sr, and where can I find this memoir? And then I crossed my fingers that it was someone who checked their (likely spam) email and hit send.

All the genealogy stars aligned because later that day I received my reply:

So . . the long lost branch of Mary (Fraser) Smith has been found!
She IS mentioned in the memoir as the youngest daughter of John Fraser Sr (22146178) and Mary MacDonald Fraser (73506008). I received a copy of the “memoirs” from a Fraser relative, but have been unable to track down “who” had the original. I have lots of other items as well, so would love to connect.

!!!!!

*After further research, I now think that Amos Smith was actually born in Oneida County, NY.

[1]: The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Western Historical Company, Chicago 1880. Entry for Amos Smith, page 944. Linkstothepast.com [online database].

[2]: Bureau of Land Management, “Land Patent Search,” digital images, General Land Office Records (http://glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch : accessed [9 Jun 2020]), Amos Smith (Waukesha, WI), certificate no 7852.

[3]: United States, New York Land Records, 1630-1975, [database with images, familysearch.org] Livingston County>Grantee Index 1821-1921 S-Z>image 75 of 339; multiple county courthouses, New York.

[4]: County Historian, Livingston County New York, County Historian Records Index, searchable index (http://depot.livingstoncounty.us/HISTORIAN/HISTORIAN2.pgm) death information for John Fraser Sen.

[5]: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 10 September 2020), memorial page for Janet Fraser Blair (1808–26 Jan 1894), Find a Grave Memorial no. 15711922, citing Mumford Rural Cemetery, Mumford, Monroe County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Donna Ruhland Bonning (contributor 46786861) .

[6]: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 10 September 2020), memorial page for Thomas Alexander Fraser Sr. (12 Aug 1812–30 Nov 1882), Find a Grave Memorial no. 44787419, citing Memorial Washington Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery, Elgin, Kane County, Illinois, USA ; Maintained by Suze (contributor 47016239) .

Amos Smith, blacksmith

After finding the family of my brick wall ancestor, John Smith, my 4th great grandfather, I set out to see what more I could discover about them. I should note here that I found his parents, Amos and Mary Smith, in Waukesha County, WI. This is very “small world” to me because this is the very town where my husband grew up and where his family still lives. So it’s a little wild that the only branch of my family that lived in Wisconsin did so in the same town. My husband’s mind is still blown by this fact.

John was born in New York, so I knew the family had started out there. According to Amos’ biography, he was from Oswego County, NY and his wife, Mary Frazier, was from Livingston County, NY, where they were married. ¹ Amos was born about 1816 and Mary about 1818. They were living in Mt. Morris, NY in the 1840 census with 2 children and Amos was identified as being employed in manufacture or trade.² They moved to Wisconsin after 1840. He acquired some land south of Waukesha via a cash entry land patent in 1843. The patent identifies him as a resident of Livingston County, NY. ³ Interestingly, the land he bought is now a subdivision with streets all named after locations in Scotland. This could be a coincidence, but in a later post will seem a little less so.

In 1850, the family was living in Pewaukee, a village near Waukesha, and consisted of Amos, Mary and their 6 children. Amos was listed as a farmer. ⁴ By 1852, Amos partnered up with William Blair to operate an implement manufacturing business. I suspect Amos was the blacksmith behind this venture and William was the businessman. As a side note, William Blair became a very well known figure in Waukesha and Wisconsin history. He later served on the state sensate for 3 terms. There’s a road and a school named for him in Waukesha and his house is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1860 the Smith family was enumerated in Waukesha and Amos is finally listed as a blacksmith. ⁵ Plat maps for Waukesha show Amos as having property in downtown Waukesha, near the foundry he and Blair operated.

From the 1858 City Directory. I might be biased, but I think this a pretty cool logo.

 

In 1861, Amos and Mary’s youngest child, Charles, was killed in a shooting accident. He and a friend were practicing shooting at a target; the friend held up the rifle when Charles suddenly stepped in front him as he took the shot. Charles was shot in the head, causing “instant death.” He was 12 years old. ⁶

A few years later, Blair and Amos dissolved their partnership. ⁷ Amos apparently went back to “rural” life in Pewaukee after that. There are newspaper accounts of his Aldernay cow producing 20.5 lb of butter per week. ⁸ In 1872 he sold off a number of animal and farm implements and in 1879 there is an account of his return from Nebrasksa, where he was so impressed by the soil and weather that he bought another farm. The article noted that he had no intention of leaving the village though. ^{9 10}

Less than a year later, Amos was dead. He drowned while ice fishing on Pewaukee Lake in late January of 1880. ¹¹ The mortality schedule lists him as a retired blacksmith. His probate was adminstered by his eldest son, Albion B. Smith. ¹²

I am not yet sure what became of Mary after this point. I have a found a couple possibilities for her in the Wisconsin Death Index, but I suspect she died prior to 1900 because I haven’t found her after the 1880 census.

As for their children:

• Albion B. Smith moved to Minnesota where he married and had 2 children. He became a railroad engineer and at one time was the oldest engineer in America. He was in charge of the locomotive “William Crooks” at the Alaska-Yukon World’s Fair in 1909. He died shortly after that. The William Crooks is now in a museum about 4-5 hours away from me and I think I’d like to go visit it sometime. I may also do a write-up in Albion.
• John Smith, my 4th great grand father left Wisconsin sometime between 1850 and 1863 when he married my 4th great grandmother in Bannack, Montana. I have previously written about him.
• Luke Smith disappears right along with John. They show up together in Oregon in the 1880 census and that’s the last I hear of them.
• William Henry Smith also married and moved to Minnesota. He also became an engineer.
• Mary Jane Smith married and moved to Illinois.
• Charles Smith died at the age of 12 due to a gunshot wound.

 

---

1. The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Western Historical Company, Chicago 1880. Entry for Amos Smith, page 944. Linkstothepast.com [online database]. ↩
2. United States of America, Bureau of the Census. 1840 United States Federal Census, St. Morris, Livingston, New York; Entry for Amos Smith; Roll: 294; Page: 192; Ancestry.com [database online]. ↩
3. Bureau of Land Management, “Land Patent Search,” digital images, General Land Office Records (http://glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch : accessed [9 Jun 2020]), Amos Smith (Waukesha, WI), certificate no 7852. ↩
4. United States of America, Bureau of the Census. 1850 United States Federal Census, Delafield, Waukesha, Wisconsin; Entry for Amos Smith, line 2; Roll: 1009; Page: 390A; Ancestry.com [database online]. ↩
5. United States of America, Bureau of the Census. 1860 United States Federal Census, Waukesha, Waukesha, Wisconsin; Entry for Amos Smith, line 1; Page: 262; Ancestry.com [database online]. ↩
6. Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, WI; Tue, Dec 10, 1861, “Died.” NewspaperArchive.com [online database]. ↩
7. Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, WI; Tue, Jan 20, 1863, “Dissolution of Co-partnership.” Newspaperarchive.com [online database]. ↩
8. The Superior Times, Superior, WI; 1 Jul 1875, page 2; “Waukesha County,” Newspapers.com [online database]. ↩
9. Waukesha Plaindealer, Waukesha, WI; Tue, Sep 24, 1872, “Auction Sales,” Newspaperarchive.com [online database]. ↩
10. Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, WI; Thu, Apr 24, 1879, “Correspondence,” Newspaperarchive.com [online database]. ↩
11. Waukesha Daily Freeman, Waukesha, WI; 4 Mar 1880,  page 1; Newspapers.com [online database]. ↩
12. Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, WI. Thu, Nov 25, 1880; Newspaperarchive.com [online database]. ↩

Family Lore: Fact, fiction, or somewhere in between?

When it comes to family history, oral stories can be gold, but they can also be the source of falsehoods that get passed down through the generations. For example, the story that you’re descended from an Indian princess. Or Charlemagne.

Growing up, whenever my mom would talk about her father’s family (of which there were 12 children that lived into adulthood), she always said that no one ever knew what happened to his sister, Florence, because she was in the witness protection program. Neat, right? Of course no one knew why she was in the witness protection program. But the family is Italian, so maybe it had something to do with the mafia? So that’s the story as I knew it.

Now, years later, that branch of the family has a Facebook group. Florence’s son connected with some others via DNA testing and joined the group. According to M, Florence’s daughter-in-law, her children never knew that she had such a large family. In fact, Florence had told them that all of her family was deceased and it was a surprise to them to find so many of us (descendants of her 11 siblings). So it sounded like Florence was “lost to the family” in some way, but was she really in the WPP? It would seem not, as she was still known by her birth name (ahem…I am basing all my knowledge about the WPP on what I’ve seen on TV). Did her family know of this “rumor” we all believed about her?

Recently, in my quest to track down obituaries for all of my grandfather’s siblings, I came across this article in the newspaper.

According to the article, Florence had called in a tip about a crime after her manager at work talked about being present while it was commmitted. He later called her and threatened the lives of her and her five children. He was arrested for this as well.

I’d never heard this story before and wasn’t 100% sure it was our Florence (but how many share her married name?), so I presented it to her daughter-in-law, M. And she corroborated the story. She said Florence was so afraid that this man would follow through on his threats that they “ran away to Florida.”

So, it would seem there was a kernal of truth in the story about Florence being in the witness protection program. She did witness a crime, but she went into hiding herself. The effect of that was that her siblings lost touch with her and her own children didn’t know about her family for years. Thanks to DNA testing, we’ve reconnected.

 

Searching for John Smith

One of my brick wall ancestors has been my paternal 4th great grandfather, John Smith. That’s right, John Smith, one of the most common names ever. Searching for him is like searching for a needle in a haystack

Literally everything I knew about John Smith was gleaned from the 1880 Census, his children’s death or marriage records, and his wife’s obituary. This is what I knew:

• He was born about 1840 in New York.
• He married Nancy Ellis sometime between 1863 (when she arrived in Bannack, MT) and 1867 (when their first child was born, also in Bannack).
• In 1880, he was married, living in Oregon with his wife, Nancy, and 4 children: Walter, Emma, Charles, and George. He worked as a farm laborer.
• He died before 1900, when his wife is listed as a widow on the 1900 census (darn that missing 1890 census).

My first thought was to find the family in the 1870 census, not that it would necessarily add new information, but you never know. And I figured, start with what I know and work backward. Easier said than done, as I have yet to find the family anywhere in 1870. Can’t find them in Oregon, Washington or Montana. I even went page by page through the census for the whole county of Beaverhead (where they were living in 1867 when child #1 was born). I also thought searching for a Nancy Smith or Walter Smith would lead me to them, since those names aren’t quite as common as John Smith. Nope.

And searching for him in 1860 was futile, as I wasn’t sure when he’d arrived in Montana, and by which route he would have arrived (there’s a lot of land between New York and Montana). I also didn’t know which area of New York to look for him in, so that was out.

Lastly, I tried to search for an obituary for him, hoping to find when and where he died. Nothing.

And so I ignored John Smith. Set him to the side and figured he’d remain a mystery. Every now and then I’d go back and look through his known information and hit the brick wall again. And then, I looked a little closer. I noticed in the 1880 census, living with the family was John’s younger brother, Luke Smith, born in Wisconsin. Huh. Thankfully his name wasn’t William. My John was born in New York in 1840, and Luke in Wisconsin in 1843, which means the family would have moved in those intervening years.

This led to me looking for a Smith family in Wisconsin with sons named John and Luke in 1850, 1860 and 1870. And I found one in Waukesha County.

1850	1860	1870
Amos, 35, NY	Amos, 45, NY	Amos, 54, OH
Mary, 34, NY	Mary, 44, NY	Mary, 52, NY
Albion, 12, NY
John, 11, NY
Luke, 8, NY		Luke, 27, WI
Henry, 5, WI	William, 15, WI
Mary, 3, WI	Mary, 13, WI	Mary, 24, WI
Charles, 1, WI	Charles, 10, WI

The ages and the birth locations (mostly) fit. Not wanting to get too excited, I built another tree and started following these people forward, trying to prove or disprove them as mine. Unfortunatly, I didn’t find any record of John after that 1850 census, and nothing of Luke after that 1870 census (besides the 1880 census I already had). While I found some fascinating information about the rest of the family members (Albion was a railroad engineer and had a large write-up in papers across the US; Charles died in a horrible shooting accident at the age of 12, described in a very colorful article; Amos drowned while ice fishing), I still wasn’t quite sure they were mine. After all, I didn’t have any information connecting them to John Smith of Montana or Oregon.

I’ve written before about how I don’t often have occasion to research within my own state. So I don’t really know the ins and outs of what is available. But Google does. I found a nice website with genealogy info for 4 counties in Wisconson, including Waukesha. Even better, it is easily searchable. So I punched in Amos Smith, held my breath, hit enter, and was happily rewarded.

AMOS SMITH (deceased), was a native of Oswego County, N.Y. He was married in Livingston County to Mary Frazier, a native of that place; they came to Waukesha County, Wis., in about 1846, and in 1849 he went to California, remaining their two years; he afterward went to Pike’s Peak. On his return from the latter place, he engaged in manufacturing and was a most energetic and enterprising citizen, taking an active part in the progress and development of the interests of Waukesha County. He was accidentally drown in Pewaukee Lake; his death was heard with sadness; he was an open-hearted, generous man; he loved his friends and loved to show, in some natural way, his regard for them. His wife is now living in Pewaukee, a most estimable woman. Their children are John and Luke, in Oregon, Henry in St. Paul, Minn., and Mary J., wife of J. Fields.

From “History of Waukesha County” by Western Historical Company, Chicago 1880

And there was my connection. His death and this biography in 1880 coincided with the known residence of both John and Luke in Oregon in 1880. I still have not found out what John did between 1850 and 1863 and I still don’t know when or where he died.  But for now, I am happy with this additional generation added to my tree.

• I don’t know why Albion wasn’t mentioned in the biography. He lived until 1909 and was residing in the same county in 1880. Maybe they only mentioned the kids living out of town?