Monday, October 20, 2014

My Top Genea-Discoveries -- Kemp Family Records

Betty on the Betty's Boneyard Genealogy Blog wrote My Top Ten Genealogical Discoveries--So Far! on 31 August 2014, and I've been meaning to write about my own genea-discoveries ever since.  

I'm not going to rank them all, and I'm going to do them one at a time so I can describe them in some detail - perhaps my experience will help others, or perhaps a reader can suggest more resources for me to find.

Genea-Discovery:  Family Records for Abraham James Kemp and Sarah Fletcher, and descendants.


1)  When I started my genealogy research back in 1988, my mother provided one  handwritten sheet of paper that provided names, birth/death dates, and spouses names for the children of James Abraham Kemp (1831-1902) and his two wives, shown below:



This was a sheet that my mother probably copied from other records, and then added the later family information.  I don't know the source that my mother used.

2)  A second sheet of paper was provided by Mark Putman via correspondence in the mid-1990s, with information about the children of Abram James Kemp (1795-????) and Sarah Fletcher (1802-????) (parents of James Abraham Kemp and his siblings), which provided their names, birth and death dates, and spouses names:



This paper was apparently obtained from John Wesley Kemp of Santa Maria, California before Mark sent it to me.

3)  In the mid-1990s, I visited the Huntington Beach Public Library in Orange County, California, which included the surname files of the Orange County, California Genealogical Society.  I found another piece of paper with more information about the Abram James and Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp family:


The top of the typescript provides the source of the information - from an 1877 Bible that belonged to John Evans Kemp, son of Peter Evans Kemp, son of Abraham and Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp.

The bottom part of the typescript above provides birth dates, and a marriage date, for Abraham Kemp and Sarah Fletcher, plus information about their children.  

This remains the only source that my Kemp family has for the marriage of Abram Kemp and Sarah Fletcher, and for the birth date of Sarah Fletcher.

Back in March, 2014, I was at the Huntington Beach library again, and looked for this record in the card catalog, and did not find it listed.  Perhaps it is in a drawer that is not cataloged.  I will have to ask the docents and librarians next time I visit (probably on 3 January 2015).  

4)  Unfortunately, there are no locations provided on any of these papers.  Since I found the third paper, I, and other Kemp family members, have found many more birth, marriage and death records, plus census and other records, for these families.

5)  I know the families of Abram James Kemp's parents and grandparents.  However, I don't know who Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp's parents are.  The 1851 Census of Canada names her as "Sephrona" and says that she was born in France and was of the Catholic religion.  

I have more research to do especially for Sarah (or Sephrona?) - I need to look for Fletcher families in the 1800 to 1820 time frame in Prince Edward County, or Lennox and Addington County, Ontario.  I have looked in the Quebec Drouin Collecton for a baptism of Sarah/Sephrona, with no record found to date.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/10/my-top-genea-discoveries-kemp-family.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver



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