Saturday, September 25, 2010

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Birth Order

Hey, genealogy readers and champions - it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Pick one of your ancestral lines - any one - patrilineal, matrilineal, zigzag, from a famous ancestor, etc.  Pick a long one if you can.

2)  Tell us which position in the birth order that your ancestor was in each generation.  For example "third child, first son."  Also list how many children were born to these parents.

3)  Share your Birth Order work with us on your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a comment on Facebook, etc.

Here's mine:

1.  Randall J. Seaver (1943-....) - first child, first son of Frederick and Betty (Carringer) Seaver (3 sons)
2.  Frederick W. Seaver (1911-1983) - fifth child, second son of Frederick W. and Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver (3 sons, 4 daughters)
3.  Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942) - first child, first son of Frank W. and Hattie (Hildreth) Seaver (3 sons)
4.  Frank W. Seaver (1852-1922) - first child, first son of Isaac and Lucretia (Smith) Seaver (2 sons, 2 daughters)
5.  Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) - third child, first son of Benjamin and Abigail (Gates) Seaver (2 sons, 2 daughters)
6.  Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825) - fourth child, second son of Benjamin and Martha (Whitney) Seaver (4 sons, 6 daughters)
7.  Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816) - second child, first son of Norman and Sarah (Read) Seaver (8 sons, 5 daughters)
8.  Norman Seaver (1734-1787) - fourth child, third son of Robert and Eunice (Rayment) Seaver (7 sons, 2 daughters)
9.  Robert Seaver (1702-1752) - first child, first son of Joseph and Mary (Read) Seaver (2 sons, 4 daughters)
10.  Joseph Seaver (1672-1754) - second child, second son of Shubael and Hannah (Wilson) Seaver (3 sons, 3 daughters)
11.  Shubael Seaver (1640-1739) - first child, first son of Robert and Elizabeth (Ballard) Seaver (4 sons, 3 daughters)

One of the interesting facts about this particular line is that every one of the males in this line was the oldest son that had children (some older sons died, and some were single without children).

Surname Saturday - TRIMMER (Germany > NJ)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I am up to number 113 - Sophia Trimmer (1747 - ca 1811), one of my 4th-great-grandparents.

My ancestral line back through three generations of TRIMMER families is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

6. Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976)
7. Emily Kemp Auble (1899-1977)

14.  Charles Auble (1849-1916)
15.  Georgianna Kemp (1868-1952)

28.  David Auble (1817-1894)
29.  Sarah Knapp (1818-ca1900)

56.  Johannes Auble (1780-1831?)
57.  Anna Row (1787-1860)

112. Johannes Able, born about 1758 in Roxbury, Morris County, NJ; died about 1818 in Sussex County, NJ. He was the son of 224. Michael Able and 225. Christina. He married 30 January 1777 in Oldwick, Hunterdon County, NJ.

113. Sophia Trimmer, born 1747 in Hunterdon County, NJ; died before 1811 in Sussex County, NJ.
Children of Johannes Able and Sophia Trimmer are:  Anna Maria Able (1778-????); Johannes Able (1780-1831?); Anna Maria Able (1784-????); David Able (1787-1858); Elisabeth Able (1789-????); George Able (1789-????); Jacob Able (1796-1837?).

226. Matthias Trimmer, born 1722 in Germany; died before 10 March 1793 in Readington, Morris County, NJ. He married  1742 in NJ.
227. Anna Martha Nachbar, born about 1724 in Germany. She was the daughter of 454. Johann Leonhard Nachbar and 455. Maria Margaretha.

Children of Matthias Trimmer and Anna Nachbar are:  Mary Anna Trimmer (1743-1826); John Trimmer (1745-????); Matthias Trimmer (1746-????); Sophia Trimmer (1747-1811); Elisabeth Trimmer (1750-????); Leonard Erhart Trimmer (1752-1777); Jacob Trimmer (1757-????); David Morris Trimmer (1759-1824).

452. Johannes Trimmer, born about 1700 in Feldkirchen, Palatinate, GERMANY; died January 1748/49 in Amwell, Hunterdon County, NJ. He married  before 1720 in GERMANY.
453. Mary, died 1738 in at sea.

Children of Johannes Trimmer and Mary are:  Matthias Trimmer (1722-1793); Anthonius Trimmer (1725-1754); Andreas Trimmer (1726-1793); Amos Trimmer (1727-????); George Trimmer (1728-1807); Harman Trimmer (1730-1810); Hannah Trimmer (1733-????); Mary Trimmer (1737-????).

If a reader has more, or more accurate, information about these families, please contact me at rjseaver@cox.net.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Dear Randy - Family Tree Information

I love it when readers comment and ask questions - then I can use them as blog fodder on days that I need a blog post - like today!

Kimberly commented on my (Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 121: Georgia (Kemp) Auble in 1898 post, noting that she and I are cousins on two different lines, and noting (Kimberly's comments are in red, my responses in black):

I have a couple of ideas/questions that if you have time to explore in a blog post or point me to places where you have already explored this I would be very interested...

1. What did your tree look like when you were first starting genealogy, ie how many of your ancestors were known from records or memories kept by your own family?

When I first started my research in 1988, I had some of my mother's family papers, including two family Bibles, a Kemp family paper, some Seaver and Richmond family pictures with names on the back, a Seaver genealogy manuscript (later found it was copied from a town history book), and a fanciful story about being descended from Peregrine White of the Mayflower in 1620 up the Richmond line.  So I had information on most of my great-grandparents, but only the Seaver line back to Robert Seaver the immigrant to Roxbury in 1634 before that.

Because I had this fine New England ancestry in the Seaver and Richmond lines, and the incentive to prove the Mayflower connection, and had many of the Seaver wives names, I was able to quickly collect names, dates and places for many lines using books at the local libraries and the LDS IGI and Ancestral File databases.  I had quite a bit of the Seaver/Richmond tree defined by mid-1990 when there was a family reunion in Massachusetts, including the White line.  Then census work, trips to New England and England, contacts with other researchers on Prodigy and by mail, and I was off and running. 

2. What percentage of your ancestors in your tree were in previously published compilations, and what percentage were researched by yourself?

This is really hard to determine for me.  I currently have 39,387 persons in my database.  Of those, I have over 2,000 known ancestors of my own and about 200 of my wife's known ancestors.  I have also performed surname searches on Seaver, Carringer, Auble, Vaux, Dill, and Buck and they are in my database also. 

In general, I have mined published books, published periodicals, manuscripts from the Family History Library, online databases, online family trees (especially Rootsweb WorldConnect), message boards and mailing lists, in order to find information about names, dates, places and family history. 

I researched some of my families extensively since there was nothing published about them - usually back through the great-great-grandparents - finding vital, census, military, land, probate, city directory, and other records.  I have made an effort to find and transcribe probate records for many ancestral families in an effort to "prove" connections.  Fortunately, many of my New England families before 1850 are in the printed vital record books, so I've used those to source names, dates and places for them.  For the surname studies, I've used vital, census and military records to provide information up to the 1930 time frame. 

As you can tell, I've searched and found family information in published works and in online resources for almost all of my ancestral families, and I've researched more deeply for some of my ancestral families.  If I were to guess how many ancestors that I've done original research on (meaning defining family members, doing a reasonably exhaustive search for records, etc.), then I would guess I've done that for maybe 10% of my ancestors (or about 200), which is less than 1% of the persons in my tree.  For the rest, I've relied upon the collective wisdom of other researchers.

What I've done - the name collecting, the family definition, and finding the family history material - has taken me 22 years, and I'm nowhere near done with it.  It;'s been a part time quest also - really only Saturdays and some evenings until I retired in 2002, and then blogging has gotten in the way of doing more of my own research since 2006.

3. As you progressed through your genealogy research, who were the most exciting discoveries? And what was the biggest brick wall overcome? Do you feel a special kinship with any ancestors that were especially difficult to trace?

Good questions, all! 

The most exciting discoveries have been few and far between it seems:

*  Getting back to Peregrine White was exciting early on for me and the extended family. 
*  Figuring out that Isaac Buck (1757-1846) was the illegitimate son of an Isaac Buck in Southborough MA was exciting, and was one brickwall overcome. 
*  Finding that Devier J. Smith was adopted by Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith was exciting and deflating - it cost me a nice Dutch ancestry in the Hudson River valley. 
*  Finding the marriage record of my wife's Norwegian great-grandparents in Wisconsin in 1876, with their patronymic names, broke open her Norwegian ancestry - and that was a lot of fun, since we went to Norway soon after.
*  Finding the parents of Jane (Whittle) McKnew has been really fun this month!

I have almost all of my brick walls that I had in 1992, but not because of not trying!  I still have these brick wall ancestors:

Thomas J. Newton of Maine (ca1795 - ????) - who were his parents?
Elizabeth Horton Dill (1794?-1869) of Eastham MA - who were her parents?  I have conflicting evidence.
Hannah Smith (1767-1827), wife of Josiah Sawtell - who were her parents?
John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann Marshman (1784-1856) of Hilperton, Wiltshire - who were their parents?
Anna Kenyon (1742-????), wife of John Kenyon - who were her parents?
Devier J. Lamphier Smith (1839?-1894) of Jefferson county NY - who were his birth parents?
Martin Carringer (1758-1835) of Pennsylvania - who were his parents?
Mary Hoax (1768-1850) wife of Martin Carringer - who were her parents?
William Knapp (1775-1856) of Dutchess County NY and Newton NJ - who were his parents?
Sarah Sephrona Fletcher (1802-????), who married Abraham James Kemp - who were her parents?
*  William Hutchinson (1746?-1826) of New Jersey, New Brunswick and Norfolk County, Ontario - who were his parents?

There are plenty more in earlier generations, of course. 

The biggest brickwall overcome would have to be the Norwegian marriage in Wisconsin - that unlocked my wife's Norwegian line.

Do I feel a special kinship to ancestors difficult to trace?  I feel a special kinship to those that have had hardship in their lives and who overcame those hardships.  Isaac Buck, Isaac Seaver, Devier Smith, David Jackson Carringer, James Richman, etc. 

This is one reason I'm so interested in the Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle story and history - there is tremendous heartbreak in their family history, I think. 

Thank you, Kimberly, for the questions!  I hope that I answered them to your satisfaction.

What happened to Rachel (Morley) Whittle?

I've exhausted my English and Australian resources in this research saga about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle, so we'll try to figure out what happened to Alexander and Rachel Whittle in California.  In the first post in this series, I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census   I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com. 

I did not find Alexander Whittle in the 1852 California State census, and wondered if he died on the trip from Australia to California, or if he died after he got to California but before Rachel and the children arrived, or if he died after they arrived. 

What happened to Rachel (Morley) Whittle?  If you've been following my research trail, you know that she was born in England, married Alexander Whittle in 1840, migrated to Australia in 1841, had seven children (including my wife's great-grandmother, Jane (Whittle) McKnew), owned a pub in Sydney with her husband, and was in San Francisco in the 1852 census.

I could not find her as Rachel Whittle in the 1860 or 1870 U.S. census records. 

I turned instead to the newspapers to see if I could find more information about Rachel, and perhaps some indication of her death.  I started with the California Digital Newspaper Collection site (http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc) and searched for "Rachel Whittle".  Here are the results:






The above article reads:

"Robbery -- Thomas O'Brien, John Foster and Thomas Spencer were charged with having robbed Rachel Whittle of a pistol, a dress, and a petticoat.  By the evidence of the woman herself, it appeared that after she had gone to bed and was asleep, James O'Brien came into her room and got into her bed, and she was awakened by his trying to take a diamond ring off her finger.  She got out of bed and ran into the bar-room.  O'Brien followed her.  She went to the door and screamed, when the police came in and found O'Brien concealed upstairs.  She then missed her dress and petticoat.  The dress contained $54 in the pocket.  The house was searched, and the dress was found under the head of Spencer, and the petticoat in O'Brien's room, they being lodgers in the house.  The parties were all sent to the Court of Sessions on a charge of grand larceny with the bail fixed at $1500 each."

A search using "Whittle" found:

2)  Daily Alta California, Volume 2, Number 363, 10 December 1851






This article reads:

"Court of Sessions -- Before Judges Campbell, Corbett and Shepheard.
People vs. John Foster -- Defendant was charged with grand larceny, in having stolen a ring and $202 in money from Rachael Whittle while she was asleep in her bed.  Foster was a boarder in the house.  Defendant was found not guilty, and Spencer and O'Brien, jointly indicted with Foster, were acquitted."

I searched on "Alex* Whittle" and found this item:





This article from 1870 reads:

"WANTED
If Mrs. Alexander Whittle, who left Sydney, N.S. Wales, on or about August 1850, and who, it is believed, was afterwards married to Mr. Thomas Spencer, will call at the Post Office, San Francisco, she will find a letter from an old friend, addressed, 'Mrs. Alex. Whittle.'"

She married Thomas Spencer?  Really?  The guy who had her dress under his head?  Does this mean that Alexander Whittle was dead?  Or did she know?

A search for "Rachel Spencer" turned up a whole month's worth of advertisements asking about her whereabouts:

4)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 15, Number 2229, 19 May 1858


This 1858 advertisement reads (it ran every day in May 1858):

"WANTED -- Information of the whereabouts of Mrs. Rachel Spencer, who may hear of something to her advantage by applying, without loss of time, to H. Olmerd, Bernard street, between Mason and Jones, San Francisco."

Two search results using "Rachel Spencer":

5)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 17, Number 2549, 28 May 1859


This 1859 article from Sacramento reads:

"Rachel Spencer, charged with using obscene and vulgar language on the public street, was adjudged guilty and will be sentenced today.  The defendant was extremely obstreperous (probably on account of inebriation) during the examination of the case, disregarding the frequent warning of the Court, and finally compelling the Court to order that she be committed till 10 o'clock this morning for contempt.  Upon the motion of her counsel and his waiving her presence and promising to remove her to another room, the order was rescinded and the trial proceeded, with the above result."

6)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 19, Number 2829, 20 April 1860




This 1860 court notice in Sacramento reads:

"DISTURBING THE PEACE -- Lafayette Andrews, while under the influence of frequent potations, visited the residence of Mrs. Rachel Spencer alias Mrs. Trask, yesterday, and created a disturbance.  He was subsequently arrested by officer Grant, on a warrant issued by Justice Foote, on complaint of the above named Rachel Spencer."

So I've found her as late as 1860 in Sacramento.  And there is another name in the last article - Trask! 

That's all I've found on Rachel (Morley) (Whittle) Spencer so far, but stay tuned.  I now have another lead! 

We still have to figure out what happened to Alexander Whittle.

During the search for Rachel and Alexander in the newspapers, I've also checked the San Francisco Chronicle on Footnote.com, the Ancestry.com newspaper collection, the Early American Newspaper collection available on the AmericanAncestors.org site, and the Chronicling America site at the Library of Congress.  I have not checked GenealogyBank because I don't have a subscription.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The elder Alexander Whittle in English Census Records

I managed to get to the San Diego Family History Center today (first time all year!) and visited the English census records on Ancestry Institution on the computer system.  Talk about really slow... but I digress!

I was after the census records for Alexander and Margaret (Mansley) Whittle - the parents of Alexander Whittle, who married Rachel Morley in 1840 and ran off to Australia to start a new life there.

Here is the 1841 English Census record in Chorley in Lancashire for Alexander Whittle:



In this record (Class: H0107; Piece: 525; Book: 8; Civil Parish: Chorley; County: Lancashire; Enumeration district: 15; Folio: 28; Page: 11; Line: 1; GSU Roll: 306911) the family includes:

*  Alexander Whittle - male, age 60, gardener, born in county
*  Margaret Whittle - female, age 60, born in county
*  Alford Whittle - male, age 15, born in county
*  Charles Brighouse - male, age 20, ????, born in county
*  Margaret Blackburn - female, age 20, born in county
*  Thomas Blackburn - male, age 3 months, born in county
*  John Worthen - male, age 40, Roper, born in county

I wonder if Margaret Blackburn is the daughter of Alexander and Margaret (Mansley) Whittle?

The 1851 English Census record in Chorley in Lancashire for Alexander Whittle:


In this record (Class: H0107; Piece: 2263; Civil Parish: Chorley; County: Lancashire; Folio: 202; Page: 62; Household #198; GSU Roll: 87288) the family resided at Whittle's court #11 and includes:

* Alexander Whittle - head, married, male, age 78, Ag laborer, born Lancaster, Charnock ??
* Margaret Whittle - wife, married, female, age 75, care of house, born Lancaster, Chorley

These ages seem to be pretty accurate - they are only one year off (baptisms in 1774 and 1777 respectively).  Unfortunately, Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle had left England before the 1841 Census day so they were not recorded. 

One piece of useful information in the 1851 census is that Margaret is still living - I found an online tree that said she died in September 1850.  There are several Margaret Whittles that died in Chorley in the 1850s, I think I'll have to access the parish registers in order to figure out when Margaret died.  I think Alexander Whittle died in August 1855. 

I checked all Ancestry.com English databases for Alexander Whittle , Jane Morley and Rachel Morley without finding much more than these two census records.  I did find John Whittle (Alexander's father) and Robert Mansley (Margaret (Mansley) Whittle's father), both of Chorley and died in 1802, are in the Probate Index.  Another record to seek and find!

Ancestry.com Acquisition of iArchives (including Footnote.com)

...
The genealogy world is abuzz today with the news that Ancestry.com has acquired iArchives, Inc. for about $27 million. One of the major holdings of iArchives, Inc. is the Footnote.com genealogy and history website. The press release is here.

The announcement states that iArchives will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Ancestry.com. I think that means that Footnote.com collections will not be incorporated into the Ancestry.com collections, but will operate as a separate entity.

The press release says that Footnote.com has 35,000 subscribers and over 65 million images, which is small compared to Ancestry.com's 1.3 million (worldwide) subscribers and billions of images, not to mention the 19 million family trees.

What else does iArchives have besides Footnote.com? The iArchives Services page notes that:

"We use iArchives’ highly accurate and patented OCR software which consistently produces higher accuracy results when compared to the 'off the shelf' OCR engines. Then we index the text, digitize the images using highly sophisticated software (providing image enhancement among a host of other elements), attach any needed metadata and store the records in a database of your choice. The records are then accessed utilizing a search engine of your preference."

Is that a significant acquisition for Ancestry.com? Compare the image enhancements and annotation capability available on Footnote.com and on Ancestry.com. I think that the iArchives capabilities may enhance Ancestry.com's offerings.

One reason that Ancestry.com may have acquired Footnote.com is for the available Footnote Page capabilities. Footnote permits a FREE creation and editing of Footnote Pages for any person. The ease of use and capabilities of the Footnote Page is much better, in my opinion, than the Person Page in the Ancestry.com Member Trees. I can see a Footnote Page having shaky green leaves to lead a user to Ancestry databases, and an Ancestry Member Tree page linking to a Footnote Page for a person.

I posted The Future of Genealogy Collaboration? at the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City, where a FamilySearch team used Footnote Pages to gather and display facts, stories, images, video, etc. of a specific person. The implication was that the new FamilySearch Family Tree was going to create hundreds of millions (billions?) of Footnote Pages for persons in the nFS Family Tree database. I wondered at the time, to myself, if Footnote.com had the available computer resources necessary to handle the information load. Ancestry.com probably has the financial and physical resources to handle the load.

What does this mean for genealogists like you and me? I have some thoughts:

* Will Footnote.com be a separate entity with its own separate collections? If so, will there be significant additions to these collections? I hope that they will, and there will be, and that the rate of additions may be accelerated due to Ancestry.com investments. If so, that is only good news for genealogists. [the hopeful vision]

* Footnote.com may become stagnant with no new acquisitions similar to what Genealogy.com (also a wholly owned subsidiary of Ancestry.com) has become. If that happens, there will be cries that Ancestry.com is taking over the genealogy world again. [the hopeless vision]

* Ancestry.com may offer a subscription bundle that includes Footnote.com collections. [a hopeful vision]

* Ancestry.com may provide links to search results from Footnote.com, and Footnote.com may link to Ancestry.com search results. [a hopeful vision]

* The Footnote Pages may become the go-to resource for information about a person in history - with attached documents (obtained from all potential sources), images, videos, events, stories, lists of interested researchers, etc. [a hopeful vision]

More to come, I'm sure!

What do you think? Why did this happen? What will happen now?

Disclosure: I am a paid subscriber to both Ancestry.com and Footnote.com. I have not been remunerated in any way to post this information. I have no "inside information" about either company that pertains to this acquisition. The above comments are my own speculation and may be wrong.

Treasure Chest Thursday - 1841 English Census Record for John Richman Family

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to show-and-tell another goodie from my collection of paper and digital images.

Here is the 1841 English Census record for two Richman families residing on Marsh Lane in Hilperton in Wiltshire (obtained from an FHL Microfilm):


The two Richman families are the first two families on the left side of the page (all are born in the county):

* Jno Richman Junior (age 25, Ag Lab)
* Mariah Richman (age 25, weaver)
* Elizabeth Richman (age 5)
* James Richman (age 3)
* David Richman (age 9 months)

* Jno Richman Senior (age 52, coal hauler)
* Ann Richman (age 59, weaver)
* Elizabeth Richman (age 30, weaver)
* James Richman (age 20, Ag Lab)

The second family are my third great-grandparents - John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann (Marshman) Richman (1784-1856), and James Richman (1821-1912) is my second great-grandfather.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

New England Historical and Genealogical Register - July 2010 Table of Contents

The July 2010 issue (Volume 164, Number 3, Whole Number 655) of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, published quarterly by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has this content:

* page 163 -- Editorial

* page 165 -- The Brothers William2 and Daniel2 Harris of Middletown, Connecticut, by Gale Ion Harris

* page 175 -- Edward1 Breck’s Baptismal Record and Identification of His “Daughter Blake,” by Doris Schreiber Willcox

* page 184 -- Cornelius4 Handy of Sandwich, Massachusetts by Ellen J. O’Flaherty

* page 191 -- Thomas Wiswall of Newton, Massachusetts, and Arundel, Maine: His Parentage and Marriage History, by Elizabeth Goddard

* page 200 -- Some Employees and Suppliers of Services to Thomas Fayerweather of Boston and Cambridge, 1753–1802, by Eric G. Grundset

* page 207 -- The Family of Nathaniel4 and Esther (Carpenter) (Bardeen) Bowen, by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg (continued from 164:134)

* page 219 -- New England Articles in Genealogical Journals in 2008, by Henry B. Hoff

* page 237 -- Reviews of Books, including:

** Newport, Rhode Island, Colonial Burial Grounds, by John Eylers Sterling, Barbara J. Austin, and Letty R. Champion, edited by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG (Hope, R.I.: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2009.

** A Family Becoming American, Volume 1: Krüger, by David Watson Kruger (Boston: Newbury Street Press, 2009.

** Early Families of Bethlehem, New Hampshire, by Kathleen C. Beals (Bradford, N.H.: the author, 2009.

** Discovering Black Vermont: African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790–1890, by Elise A. Guyette (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2010.

** Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (Plymouth, Mass.: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2009.

** Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, edited by Bernard Rosenthal and eleven associate editors (Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

** Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, by Helen P. Trimpi (Knoxville, Tenn: University of Tennessee Press, 2010.

The article I was most interested in was the Henry Hoff article about New England articles in Genealogical Journals. The new book list has several interesting entries also, especially the Jeremy Bangs book.

I now receive the NEHGR by download from the NEHGS website, so I "miss" getting it in the mail;. I decided to go that route because I'm only one major earthquake away from being buried in my genealogy cave by the stacks of periodicals! The drawback is that I get no notice that the issue has been published or is available for downloading, so I have to remember to visit the NEHGS website in the publication months.

Other Records for Jane, Leah and Rachel Morley in Lancashire

It has been good genealogy fun to find more and more records for Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in England and Australia, and for her mother, Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley in Lancashire.

I've had a lot of help from other genealogists, and I really appreciate the research and suggestions that they have provided. The help just keeps on coming too - and I need all of the help I can get, since I'm pretty much a neophyte when it comes to English and Australian research.

After my post More on Rachel Morley's Parentage yesterday, Lorine McGinnis Schulze (who has the excellent Olive Tree Genealogy website and Olive Tree Genealogy Blog) commented several times on the post, including:

* if Rachel and her sister were bpt the same day, they may have been twins. Why not look for her sister's marriage to see if she named her father?

Excellent suggestion. I didn't find a marriage for Leah Morley in the FamilySearch Beta English Marriages, 1538-1973 (there is one in 1846 in Derbyshire) or in the FreeBMD Marriage Index (three before 1850, none in Lancashire).

* Randy, you might want to check Bastardy Orders and Examinations. Since Rachel was illegitimate there's a very good chance the Parish took her mother and father to task and ordered money given to the parish on a regular basis to support the child. The father would be named in the examination of the mother and in the orders. See Bastardy Orders for more help.

I will follow up on this after I read Lorine's article about it!

* Oh oh oh!! Look what I found! I was just going to write and suggest you check Removal Orders...

Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Jane Morley, widow, and Leah and Rachael her children QSP/2941/37 1830 29 Nov

The docs are at the Lancashire Record Office so you can order them online http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=55

Aha - there is a good lead into the Lancashire Record Office holdings. I followed that, and after a bit of thrashing through links and dead ends, I found that record by going into the Lancashire Online Catalog (LANCAT) and searching for "Jane Morley."

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Here's what a Removal Order looks like... mine contained lots of great info! http://www.olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/04/finding-removal-order-for-english.html"

I hope that Jane's removal order has all of that good information!

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Also see this record: Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Leah Morley QSP/2945/60 1831 14 Mar These documents are held at Lancashire Record Office" and "and Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Rachael Morley QSP/2945/59 1831 14 Mar (held at LRO)"

I also found these items, and tried to find a way to order them online through the Lancashire Record Office website. I downloaded and printed the Copyright Declaration that has to be signed and sent with the letter or email requesting the specific records. I sent a message to their Help Centre asking what the costs and ordering procedure was, and if I could obtain digital images through email or downloading from their site rather than use the postal services.

I searched for information on the Lancashire Online Catalog for "alexander whittle," "thomas morley," "rachel morley," "rachael morley" and "leah morley" and found only the items listed above by Lorine.

* So exciting. I am so curious why Jane and her girls removed one year then only girls next year. Wonder if Jane died? Please keep us informed!

I'm trying! I found a burial record for a Jane Morley on 2 July 1834 buried at Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire, age 53 (so born about 1781) which may be "our Jane."

Once again, I get by with a little help from my friends! Thank you, Lorine, for doing some fun genealogy work and leading me to the Lancashire Record Office site.

We'll look at some more California records about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in the next few days.

=====================

Here are the previous posts in this series - isn't it amazing how much I've found (with help!) over the past two weeks:

* I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census where I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com

* Jane's Birth Record, and more... - I found out that Jane's parents were Alexander and Rachel Whittle, not Joseph and Rachel.

* Finding the Whittles in Australia highlighted some of the newspaper articles about the family in The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1840 to 1850 time frame from the Historic Australian Newspapers , 1803-1954, Trove website.

* The Whittles Migrating to Australia - a Forrest Gump Genealogy Moment in which the immigration record was found and analyzed.

* Lesson Learned - Check the Image too! in which I learned that not all information on the immigration record was in the FamilySearch index entry.

* Whittle Marriage Record in England - I found the marriage of Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley in Lancashire in two places online - the English Civil Registrations and the LDS IGI (and on the http://beta.familysearch.org/ site).

* Whittle Birth Records in Australia - birth records for the Whittle children were online in the FamilySearch Beta Australian Birth and Baptism collection

* Whittle Birth and Marriage Records in England - Alexander's birth record and his parent's marriage record were found in the English Birth and Christening Collection

* Rachel Morley's Birth and Parents which finds Rachel Morley's baptism record and her parents marriage.

* More on Rachel Morley's Parentage in which I find a record that indicates Rachel was illegitimate.

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 121: Georgia (Kemp) Auble in 1898

I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is a photograph from the Carringer/Auble family collection handed down by my mother in the 1988 to 2002 time period:


This photograph is of my great-grandmother, Georgianna (Kemp) Auble (1868-1952), who married Charles Auble (1849-1916) in 1898 and was the mother of my grandmother, Emily Kemp (Auble) Carringer (1899-1977).

The photographic studio was Stevens in the McVickers Theatre Building in Chicago, Illinois.

The photograph was taken in about 1898, when Georgianna Kemp married Charles Auble.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Red Star Collections on FamilySearch Record Search

Like many other researchers, I have struggled to determine what New or Updated Collections are added to FamilySearch Record Search every month.

FamilySearch sends out helpful emails to me from time to time, and they have long lists of collections that are being indexed or are completed, but the lists don't always match what shows up on the Record Search list of collections each month. It's nice to know what's in the pipeline, but I really want to know what is now available for me to use.

In his post Hide and Seek with FamilySearch Record Search on the excellent Genealogy's Star blog, James Tanner tried to correlate the latest list from FamilySearch with what was actually on the Record Search site. His conclusion was that:

"It means I can not tell hide nor hair of the announcements coming out about new records being added to the Beta FamilySearch or Record Search or whatever. In some cases I cannot find the records, in other cases the descriptions in the announcement do not correspond to what is in the collections. Just as a suggestion, why not make a list, as they go along, of all of the records added and subtracted and just let the users see the running list?"

That matched my experience, and feelings, exactly! What we need is a list that tells us what is now available that wasn't available before.

So, as an occasional service to all of my readers, I'm going to go through the FamilySearch Record Search list every so often and list the collections with the Red Star that denotes a new or updated collection. Then, all of us can compare the lists from time to time and determine what has been recently added. I will stop doing this when FamilySearch makes a list of these collections themselves and passes it to those who are interested.

On 21 September, there are 457 collections on the FamilySearch Record Search list. The new and updated collections, as denoted by a Red Star, are:

* Prince Edward Island Baptism Card Index, 1721-1885 (browse images only)
* Prince Edward Island Death Card Index, 1721-1905 (browse images only)
* Prince Edward Island Marriage Registers, 1832-1888 (browse images only)
* Mexico, Catholic Church Records (browse images only)
* California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1835-1931 (last updated 15 September 2010)

* Civil War Pension Cards (90% complete, last updated 18 September 2010)
* Freedman's Bureau Marriages, 1815-1869 (last updated 31 August 2010)
* Illinois, Probate Records, 1819-1970 (browse images only)
* New York, King's County Estate Files, 1866-1923 (last updated 10 September 2010)
* Rhode Island State Census, 1925 (last updated 10 September 2010)

* South Carolina, Civil War Confederate Service Records, 1861-1865 (last updated 16 September 2010)
* South Dakota State Census, 1945 (48% complete, last updated 31 August 2010)
* United States Census, 1910 (61% complete, last updated 12 September 2010)
* United States, Navy Widow's Certificates, 1861-1910 (last updated 16 September 2010)
* United States, Revolutionary War Compiled Service Records, 1775-1783 (last updated 16 September 2010)

* Czech Republic, Northern Moravia, Opava Archive Record Books, 1571-1905 (browse images only)
* Czech Republic, Southern Bohemia, Trebon Archive Church Books, 1650-1900 (browse images only)
* Germany, Baden, Church Book Duplicates, 1810-1869 (2% complete, last updated 16 September 2010)
* Italy, Napoli Province Municipal Records, 1809-1936 (18% complete, last updated 31 August 2010)
* Spain, Municipal Records (browse images only)

* Central America, Colonial Census Records (browse images only)
* Argentina, Catholic Church Records (1% complete, last updated 9 September 2010)
* Brazil, Catholic Church Records (browse images only)
* Dominican Republic Civil Registration (browse images only)
* Jamaica, Civil Birth Registration (18% complete, last updated 15 September 2010)

* Nicaragua, Managua, Civil Registration, 1879-2007 (53% complete, last updated 31 August 2010)
* Chinese Genealogies (browse images only)
* New Zealand, Immigration Passenger Lists, 1871-1915 (17% complete, last updated 31 August 2010)

There are 28 Red Star collections on the list today, all added or updated since 31 August 2010.

There is no indication as to how complete the "browse images only" collections are - the percentage is not given. These collections are usually organized by political division (e.g., state, province or county), or by alphabetical surnames, so it may be difficult for FamilySearch to come up with a record count.

In the 1910 U.S. Census, they are adding records state-by-state - but they don't list the states with currently available data.

Are Collections being deleted from FamilySearch Record Search and transferred to the FamilySearch Beta collection list? I can't tell, and am too lazy to make the comparison! The FamilySearch collection list currently has 455 entries (if someone added them up right -not me!). Obviously, there are some collections on Record Search that are not yet on Beta.

Will this list be helpful to anyone? One great use of a list such as this is to put it in genealogy society newsletters so that society members are kept up-to-date on new collections available for online searching. If society newsletter editors want to use my list, please do so - you have my permission as long as you refer to this blog post.

More on Rachel Morley's Parentage

I posted the christening record of Rachel Morley yesterday in Rachel Morley's Birth and Parents. She was christened in St. Peter's Church in Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire on 25 December 1821 with a Leah Morley, both children of Jane Morley. No father's name was provided, which may indicate that the father was deceased, the children were born out of wedlock, or the father was not known.

Reader "Sharon in Oz" emailed me, asking if I knew about the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks website which provides listings of 19th century parishes and records transcribed and indexed from the church parish registers. The Parishes in Lancashire page looks like this:




One small red rose next to a parish name means that the church has a web page, and two roses means that some records have been transcribed. I was lucky to find that St. Peter's Church had some parish registers transcribed and indexed by volunteers. Here is the St. Peter's page for Marriages:

Further down the page is this screen:


I had searched for "Morley" on the page and the entry above says:

"Marriage: 17 Aug 1840 St Peter, Bolton, Lancashire, England
Alexander Whittle - Full Sawyer Bachelor of King Street
Rachel Morley - (X), Minor Spinster of Lum Street
Groom's Father: Alexander Whittle, Sawyer
Witness: James Gorse?; James Liptrot
Married by Banns by: "P.R. Robin, Curate"
Notes: ['Illegitimate' is written in the bride's father's name column]
Register: Marriages 1839 - 1841, Page 155, Entry 309
Source: Microfilm of the register at Manchester Library"

This may be as close as I get to knowing who Rachel Morley's father was. It looks like he's Mr. Illegitimate, eh? And it says that she is a minor (at that time, I think that means under the age 21, but I'm not sure).

If the Rachel Morley christened on 25 December 1821 in St. Peter's Church, the daughter of Jane Morley, is the same as this Rachel Morley who married Alexander Whittle on 17 August 1840 (and I have no conflicting evidence that she is not), then she was at least 18 years and 8 months old at the time of her marriage.

So I will attach Rachel only to her mother, Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley in my database.

Interestingly, the next entry on the marriage list above is for Amelia Haslam, a minor spinster who was also illegitimate. I wonder if she was related to Rachel Morley?

Why am I so concerned about Rachel Morley, the illegitimate daughter of a twice widowed mother? Rachel, and Jane, are in my wife's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) line - their mtDNA should be the same as my wife's, my daughter's, and my granddaughter's mtDNA.

Some lessons learned:

* I really need to consult the original source records, if at all possible. The record above is a transcription from a parish church register entry. I need to obtain the microfilm of this record, and others, in order to capture every piece of information possible.
* There are websites in many localities that have useful information created by volunteers and professionals.
* There are expert genealogists and family historians who have a wealth of knowledge about specific localities and the records available in those localities.
* There may be other records, like Churchwarden accounts and poorhouse records, that may have more information.

Thank you, Sharon in Oz, for the lead to the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks website that shed more light on the parentage of Rachel (Morley) Whittle - my wife's great-great-grandmother.

Monday, September 20, 2010

SDGS Seminar on 9 October - National Archives and Footnote.com

The San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS) Seminar is on Saturday, 9 October from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Mission Valley.

From the SDGS Newsletter for September 2010:

N.A.R.A. and a representative from Footnote.com will guide us in using the N.A.R.A. website in finding records learning about the N.A.R.A. holdings of special interest to genealogists. We’ll also learn about the partnership between the N.A.R.A and Footnote.com and their website. The presentations will be live demonstrations giving a clear understanding of how these different websites function. Advanced registration is required for this event.

The Many Facets of the National Archives Website, by Kerry Bartels

This presentation focuses on the question, "What Records Do They Have in the National Archives?" Mr. Bartels will demonstrate how genealogists can use the various descriptive tools on the National Archives website to determine which records may be useful in their particular family history research. He will discuss the Archives and how the billions of documents in its holdings are organized.

The session will concentrate on locating descriptions of records in the National Archives valuable to genealogists but little known and little used.

Kerry Bartels is an Archives Specialist at the National Archives at Riverside in Southern California. He has been a professional archivist since 1977 and has worked in historical societies, libraries, museums, universities, state archives, and now at the National Archives. He has extensive experience with county, state, and Federal records as well as private manuscripts of individuals and records of private organizations. Over the years, he has written oral histories and administered a state micrographics laboratory and a conservation laboratory and other specialties. A genealogical practitioner since 1962, he has done research in the United States, Canada and Europe.


Who is Footnote, and what records do they have? by Justin Schroepfer

Justin Schroepfer from Footnote will provide us with a live demonstration of footnote, and explain:


• What’s on Footnote – What content is unique to footnote, how to navigate the content and find out what is on Footnote.
• Basic usage – Demonstrate a basic search, search results, the image viewer, uploading content,
creating footnote pages, etc
• Using Browse to search

• What’s on the search results – how it’s different from other sites
• How to use the facets to change the search results


The Seminar cost is $35.00 per person for SDGS members or $40.00 per person for non-members. Registration includes a seated luncheon. The Crowne Plaza charges $5.00 for all day parking with event validation. To register, please complete the registration form available online here.

Rachel Morley's Birth and Parents

I've enjoyed searching for Whittle, Morley and Mansley records in the online English Births and Christenings and English Marriages on the LDS FamilySearch Beta and FamilySearch International Genealogical Index.

In this post, I'm going to try to find and show the christening record of Rachel Morley, and the marriage of her parents.

From earlier posts, I knew that:

* Rachel Morley's parents were Thomas Morley and Jessie Haslam (see Lesson Learned - Check the Image too!)

* Rachel Morley's parents were dead when she migrated to Australia in 1841 (see Lesson Learned - Check the Image too!)

* Rachel Whittle was born about 1820 in England (see I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census ) and her "native place" was Bolton in Lancashire (see Lesson Learned - Check the Image too!).

Using the English Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 Collection on FamilySearch Beta, I easily found a christening record for a Rachel Morley in St. Peter's Church in Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire:




This record indicates that Rachel Morley was christened on 25 December 1821. The record lists her mother as Jane Morley (not Jessie?). No father's name is listed. There were also records for three other children with Jane Morley as the mother in the same church and source - James christened 19 November 1809 (Thomas and Jane Morley as parents), Robert Morley christened 5 February 1815 (Thomas and Jane Morley listed as parents), and Leah Morley christened 25 December 1821 (only Jane Morley listed as a parent).

The source for this record is Microfilm 559177 - the Parish registers for St. Peter's, Bolton-le-Moors, 1587-1838. Why would no father be listed for Rachel and Leah Morley? Was he not known? Was he dead? Was he not married to Jane Morley (Jane or Jessie Haslam?)? I have no answers yet, but perhaps there are other records, not available online, that provide answers.

What about a marriage record for Thomas Morley and Jane? Haslam? There is a marriage record in the English Marriages, 1538-1973 collection for a Thomas Morley and a Jane Bury on 29 September 1806 in St. Peter's Church in Bolton-le-Moors:


Jane Bury? Was she married before? There were several other records listed for marriages of a Thomas Morley, and one of them was:


This record also lists Jane Bury on the same date, but this record notes that the bride was widowed! Ah, so perhaps Jane Haslam married a Bury before she married Thomas Morley. I searched again and found:



This record shows that Jane Haslam married Robert Bury on 28 November 1798 in Bolton-le-Moors. The mystery is solved - Jane Haslam married Robert Bury, who died, and widow Jane Bury married Thomas Morley in 1806, and they had at least four children, James in 1809, Robert in about 1815, and Rachel and Leah before 1821. That's a neat little package. Case proved? The entries for James and Robert list the parents as Thomas Morley and Jane Morley, but the records for Rachel and Leah only list Jane Morley as a parent.

All three of these marriage records are extracted from the Parish Registers of St. Peter Church in Bolton-le-Moors, so they are probably accurate. The extractions for the same marriage came from two different microfilms of the same records.

We know from Rachel (Morley) Whittle's immigration record that her parents were dead in 1841. Are there death records for them? I looked for a Jane Morley (perhaps born between 1770 and 1785) who died before 1841. In the English Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991 collection, a Jane Morley, aged 53, was buried 2 July 1834 in Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire. Age 53 in 1834 implies a birth in about 1781, which is within my target range, and the place is right. That seems to be the only record that fits my two criteria. However, not all deaths and burials were recorded in the Parish Registers.

What about Thomas Morley? My search criteria are a Thomas Morley that was born in the 1770 to 1785 range and died before 1841 (and probably before 1821), probably in or near Bolton in Lancashire. Only one entry in the Collection met my criteria:

Is this Thomas Morley, born in 1780 and buried 7 August 1814 in Bolton-le-Moors, the husband of Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley, and the father of Rachel and Leah Morley, born to Jane Morley? Perhaps, but there is a significant problem here. He died in 1814, seven years before the christening of Rachel and Leah Morley by their mother, Jane Morley.

This implies that if this Thomas Morley was the father of Rachel (Morley) Whittle, then she was born in 1814 or 1815, not in 1820 as previously thought. Births after the death of a father are not unknown, but are relatively rare. Robert Morley was baptized several months after Thomas Morley died. Why weren't Rachel and Leah baptized then also?

Or were Rachel and Leah Morley, daughters of Jane Morley, born out of wedlock after Thomas Morley died? And then baptized in 1821 as infants or young children?

One of the unknowns here is the presence of Non-Conformist churches. Before Civil Registration started in 1837, children baptized in Non-Conformist churches may have not been recorded at all, or were recorded in the Church of England Parish Registers when thier parents returned to that church.

So what should I do now? My first thoughts are:

* Look for the St. Peter's Church in Bolton-le-Moors Parish Register in the Family History Library Catalog, and, if available, order it at the FHC to review the entries.

* Look for Non-Conformist church records on the Family History Library Catalog and order them if available.

* Look for any other records in the Family History Library Catalog that might provide more information about Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire.

* Look for more information about records held in the Lancashire Record Office about this area - my first stop probably should be http://www.genuki.org.uk/.

I welcome comments about the records I've found so far, my analysis and conclusions above, and any other suggestions for more research. I am painfully aware that I don't know a whole lot about researching in England!

=========================

Earlier posts in this series include:

* I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census where I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com

* Jane's Birth Record, and more... - I found out that Jane's parents were Alexander and Rachel Whittle, not Joseph and Rachel.

* Finding the Whittles in Australia highlighted some of the newspaper articles about the family in The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1840 to 1850 time frame from the Historic Australian Newspapers , 1803-1954, Trove website.

* The Whittles Migrating to Australia - a Forrest Gump Genealogy Moment in which the immigration record was found and analyzed.

* Lesson Learned - Check the Image too! in which I learned that not all information on the immigration record was in the FamilySearch index entry.

* Whittle Marriage Record in England - I found the marriage of Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley in Lancashire in two places online - the English Civil Registrations and the LDS IGI (and on the http://beta.familysearch.org/ site).

* Whittle Birth Records in Australia - birth records for the Whittle children were online in the FamilySearch Beta Australian Birth and Baptism collection

* Whittle Birth and Marriage Records in England - Alexander's birth record and his parent's marriage record were found in the English Birth and Christening Collection
UPDATED: Corrected several errors concerning parish register sources.

Amanuensis Monday - Will of Samuel Hubbard (1687-1753) of Concord MA

Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started his own Monday blog theme many months ago called Amanuensis Monday. What does "amanuensis" mean? John offers this definition:

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The subject today is the probate file of Samuel Hubbard (1687-1753) of Concord, Massachusetts, one of my 7th great-great-grandfathers.

Samuel Hubbard died testate, and his probate papers are in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Probate Records, in Probate Packet #12,200 (accessed on FHL Microfilm 0,397,102). The will of Samuel Hubbard, late of Concord, taylor, deceased, was presented to the Court on 28 January 1754 by the executor, Isaac Hubbard, with witnesses Jonas Haywood and Ephraim Wood, Junior. The will was accepted by the Court. Isaac Hubbard (husbandman) and Jonas Hubbard (cordwainer - probably Jonas Heywood, since his signature appears on the document), both of Concord, posted bond of 300 pounds with the Court. The will, written in a clear hand, reads:

"In the Name of God Amen. The Second Day of September in the Twenty first year of His Majesties Reign annogree Domini one Thousand and Seven Hundred and forty seven. I Samuel Hubbard of Concord in the County of Middlesex, within the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Taylor, being in good bodyly health and of perfect mind and memory Thanks be to God therefor. But Calling to mind the mortality of my Body, and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to Die, Do make & ordain this my Last Will and Testament.


"First and Principally I give & Recommend my soul to the Hands of God that gave it. And my Body I commend to the Earth to be buried, in a Christian and Decent manner, at the Discreation of my Executor (hereafter named) nothing Doubting but at the Resurection I Shall Receive the same by the mighty Power of God.

"Imprimus. I Will and Bequeath unto Prudence Hubbard my now dearly beloved Wife all my Houshold goods propper to be used within Doors, of every sort to her own Disposal forever. also my Will is that my sd Wife shall have the improvement of the whole of my now Dwelling house with Liberty to pass to and from the same for firewood and water &c. Further my Will is that my Executor or his Heirs Executors or administrators shall yearly and every year provide for and Deliver to my abovesd wife six bushel of marchantable Indian corn, four bushel of Rie and one bushel and an half of malt and one Hundred & forty pound of marchatable pork and two barrels of Cyder, and a sufficiency of firewood Cut fit for the fire, an one Cow kept for her use, summers & winters, also three pounds money old Tenor. And if my said Wife Die my Widow, my Will is that he my said Executor bestow upon her a Decant Christian Burial. The articles sbove shall duely & yearly be performed towards my sd wife by my Executor During her natural Life if she Die my Widow; but if she shall marry to another man in that case at her marriage my Executor shall be quit from any further payments as abovesaid (only she shall be the sole owner of my Household goods as abovesaid) also at her second marriage she shall quit the Improvement of sd Dwelling house.


"It. I give to my sons Ephraim Hubbard and Samuel Hubbard all my weaving apparrel to be equally Divided between them.


"It. I Give to Ephraim Hubbard my Eldest son the sum of fifty pounds money according to old Tenour.

"It. I Give to Samuel Hubbard my second son the sum of twenty pounds money according to old Tenour.

"It. I Give to my Daughter Mary Gates the sum of thirty pounds money according to old Tenour.


"It. I Give to my Daughter Sarah Jones the sum of thirty pounds money according to old Tenour.

"It. I Give to my Daughter Lydia Davis the sum of forty pounds money according to old Tenour.

"I Give to Silance Darby my youngest Daughter the sum of thirty pounds money according to old Tenour; further my will is that my Executor pay the Respective sums of money to the six children above named or their Leagal Representatives within one full year after my Decase.


"I Give to my Grandaughter Lois Hubbard Eldest Daughter of my son Ephraim Hubbard, if she arrive to the age of eighteen years, the sum of ten pounds according to old Tenour in Bills of publick Credit.


"I Give to my Grandaughter Sarah Hubbard Eldest Daughter of my son Samuel Hubbard, if she arrive to the age of eighteen years the sum of ten pounds according to old Tenour in Bills of Publick Credit. The Leagacies to sd grandchildren to be Payd to them by my Executor when they arrive to the age of eighteen years Respectively.

"The Remainder of my Estate both Real and Personal of what Name or nature soever (besides what is given as abovementioned) I Give and Bequeath to my youngest son Isaac Hubbard forever. Whom I also Constitute make and ordain the only and sole Executor of this my Last Will and Testament and I do Hereby utterly Revoke make null and void all other Wills and Testaments by me made at any time. Confirming this as my Last Will and Testament IN Witness Whereof I have affixed my Hand and Seal the Day of the Date above written.

"Signed Sealed Pronounced
Published and Declared
In the Presents of us Witnesses ................................................... Samuel Hubbard
Jonas Heywood
Ephraim Wood Junr
Samuel Heywood"


No inventory, account or distribution was included in the probate packet.

Samuel Hubbard married (1) Sarah Clark (1681-1720) in 1709, who bore him five children - Ephraim, Mary, Samuel, Sarah and Lois Hubbard. He married (2) Prudence Temple (1692-????) in about 1721, who bore him three children, Lydia, Silence and Isaac Hubbard. He doesn't mention daughter Lois in his will, so she may have died young. The other seven children received legacies.

I don't know if Prudence (Temple) Hubbard married after Samuel's death, or if she continued to benefit from the legacies specified in his will until her death. Unfortunately, there was no account provided in the probate packet. Presumably, the legacies were paid and youngest son and executor Isaac Hubbard kept his mother in his home for the rest of her life.

My link to Samuel Hubbard is his daughter, Mary (Gates) Hubbard (1712-1754), who married Amos Gates (1706-1783).