Thursday, May 22, 2014

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 215: Death Record of William Knapp in Newton, New Jersey

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the Death Record for for William Knapp (1775-1856) in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey (two images, left and right portions of a large page):



The transcription of the 16th line for William Knapp is:

*  Date of Death:  June 16 1856 
*  Name of Decdent:  William Knapp
*  Sex:  Male
*  Married or Single:  Married
*  Age:  81
*  Occupation:  Shoemaker
*  Place of Death:  Newton N.J.
*  Place of Birth:  Dutchess Co. N.Y.
*  Names of Parents:  [blank]
*  Cause of Death:  Old Age
*  Date of Making Record:  June 16 1856

A source citation for this record is:

New Jersey, Records of births, marriages, and deaths of New Jersey, 1848-1900, "Births, marr., deaths, Sussex County, Vol. AF, 1848-1867," page 655, line 16, William Knapp entry, accessed on FHL Microfilm 0,584,582.

This is the best record I have for the death of William Knapp, and it provides his age (which is consistent with the 1850 U.S. census record), and is the only record that provides his birthplace (the 1850 U.s. census record says "N.Y."  The inscription on his gravestone has the date of death as June 16 1856 and his age as "in his 80th year."

Unfortunately, the field for his parents names is blank.  Because of this, William Knapp continues to be an end-of-known-line ancestor of mine, a third great-grandfather.  


Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver




1 comment:

Fax said...

Randy,
Re William Knapp
I know there were (and probably still are) Knapps in Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County, NY. Here is a great list of sources: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~katy/knapp/sources.html