Saturday, August 8, 2015

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- How Many Elizabeth "LNUs" are in Your Family Tree Database?

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music):


1)  I have many females in my family tree database without a last name.  One of those female first names is "Elizabeth."  Do you have situations like this, where you don't know the surname of some females? [I call them LNU persons - Last Name Unknown.]


2) How many "Elizabeth" persons without a surname do you have in your genealogy database?  How many of them are your ancestor?  

3)  If you have one that is your ancestor, have you looked recently to determine if there are more records online that might lead you to her surname?  Go look for one - you might be surprised!

4)  Tell us about your Elizabeth LNU ancestors with no surname.  Perhaps someone will read it and help you out!

5)  Share your information in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+.

6)  NOTE:  If you don't have any "Elizabeth" persons without a surname, then pick another female first name.

Here's mine:


 I have 150 Elizabeth LNU persons in my database of 44,917 persons.  39 of them are my direct-line ancestor.  Almost all of them are persons born before 1700, and many of those were born before 1600.

Three of the most recent ancestors named Elizabeth LNU are:

1)  Elizabeth --?-- (1731-????), married in about 1760 to Henry Pickel (1729-1765), and mother of Baltus, Gertraut, Elizabeth and Henry Pickel.  Elizabeth Pickel (1764-1849) is my ancestor, who married Jacob Sovereign (1759-1845).  

2)  Elizabeth --?-- (1683-1750), married in about 1705 to John Terrell (1680-1748), and mother of William, Amy, Mary, Mary, Thomas and John Terrell, all born in Somerset, England.  Amy Terrell (1708-1780) is my ancestor, who married James Vaux (1704-1776).

3)  Elizabeth --?-- (1673-????), married in about 1699 to Samuel Ayers (1669-1740), and mother of Rhoda, David, Elizabeth, Samuel, Jacob, Rachel, Benjamin and James Ayers, all born in Woodbridge, New Jersey.  James Ayers (1716-1794) is my ancestor, who married Hope Bloomfield (1715-1776).

For these three Elizabeth LNUs, I looked on Ancestry Member Trees using the spouse's name, and did not find any real help.  There are too many entries and they are not ordered in any rational way.

I also looked on the FamilySearch Family Tree and found:


1)  Elizabeth --?-- who married Henry Pickel:  no maiden surname or parents are given for this Elizabeth (--?--) Pickel.

2)  Elizabeth --?-- who married John Terrell:   no maiden surname or parents are given for this Elizabeth (--?--) Terrell.

3)  Elizabeth --?-- who married Samuel Ayers:  the Samuel Ayers that matches my Samuel Ayers well has a wife's name of Elizabeth Tuttle (1670-????)  listed, with a marriage date of 17 November 1693 in Haverhill, Mass, but with no parents names listed.  This is a definite possible - I need to check the marriage record and Tuttle probate records in Essex County, Massachusetts to see if one of them named Elizabeth Ayers as a daughter.  

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Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


1 comment:

Lois Willis said...

Here's my post about the Elizabeth LNUs in my tree
http://loiswillis.com/sunday-afternoon-genealogy-fun-how-many-elizabeth-lnus-are-in-your-family-tree-database/