Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Making Progress on My Auble Cousins - Post 7: Sophia Auble's Descendants

Previous posts in this series include:

*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins - Post 1: Finding Elizabeth's Will (25 April 2016).
*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins - Post 2: Transcription of Elizabeth Auble's Will (28 April 2016)

*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins - Post 3: Identifying Elizabeth Auble's Heirs (29 April 2016)

*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins -- Post 4: The William Auble Challenges (3 May 2016)
*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins -- Post 5: The Sophia Auble Challenges Part 1 (5 May 2016)

*  Making Progress on My Auble Cousins -- Post 6: Solving the William Auble Challenge (6 May 2016)

In this series of posts, I am discussing the challenges that I found with the heirs of Elizabeth Auble named in her 1893 will.


In Post 5, I started discussing the Sophia Auble challenges, and got as far as answering several of the questions I formulated, but not all of them.  In this post, I'm going to wrap up the Sophia Auble study (I hope!).

1)  If Euphemia Foster, born in December 1828,  was the daughter of Sophia Auble, who was her father?  

I found three records in the New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records collection on Ancestry.com.  The first is a Sussex County, N.J., Probate Proceedings Index entry for Alley H. Foster of Stillwater township:



A letter of administration was filed on 24 September 1833, as was an Inventory of the estate.  Later, an allowance of the account was filed in 1834, and a Receipt was filed in 1845.  The Letter of Administration is not in the Ancestry.com volumes for Sussex County, New Jersey.  The Inventory record is:



The Inventory of Alley H. Foster totaled $672, but did not mention the names of his heirs.  The source citation is:

New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records, 1656-1999, indexed database with digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 April 2016), Sussex County, "Inventories, Vol. D-F, 1819-1840," Volume F, page 144-145, Inventory of Alley H. Foster, 1833.

A conclusion can be made that Alley H. Foster died before 23 September 1833.

The 1834 Account Allowance is not in the Ancestry.com collection, but the 1846 Receipt names Euphemia [Foster] as the heir of Alley H. Foster:



The source citation for this record is:

New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records, 1656-1999, indexed database with digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com :, accessed 26 April 2016), Sussex County, "Receipts, Vol. A-B, 1813-1858," Volume A, page 299 (image 185 of 515), Alley H. Foster's heir's receipt, 1846.

Note that Euphemia Foster was just 17 years of age when she received her inheritance from Alley H. Foster's estate.

What I don't have is a record that says Sophia Auble married Alley H. Foster, or a record that says Euphemia Foster was a daughter of Alley H. and Sophia (Auble) Foster.  But I have direct evidence on a record that says Euphemia is the heir of Alley H. Foster, and I have direct evidence on another record that says Euphemia was the daughter of Sophia Auble (later Hulse), and two census records where Euphemia resided in the same household as Sophia Hulse.  I have found no contradictory records, but I have not done an exhaustive search.

While there is no direct evidence that Sophia Auble married Alley H. Foster, there is indirect evidence, and my working hypothesis is that they were married, and that their daughter was Euphemia Foster.

Euphemia Foster died 6 October 1895 in Blairstown, Warren County, New Jersey, aged 66 years, 10 months, according to her Find A Grave record.  The source citation is:

Jim Tipton, indexed database, Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com), Union Brick Cemetery, blairstown, N.J., Euphemia Foster memorial #130762000.

There was no probate record in Warren or Sussex County, New Jersey, for Euphemia Foster.

2)  I also have no direct evidence that Sophia (Auble) Foster married Seth W.  Hulse before 1850, but the 1850 census of Sophia Hulse with Seth W. Hulse is indirect evidence that they were married.  A death record for Seth W. Hulse was published in the Sussex [N.J.] Register newspaper dated which provided daily highlights from years past.  For 19 July 1856, the newspaper item was:

"Seth W. Hulse, a native of Orange County, committed suicide by throwing himself into the Paulinskill between Stillwater and Middleville.  Body floated down the stream and was not found until midnight.  He had been in a dejected state of mind for several days."

The source for this record is:

"Newspaper Clippings from the Sussex Register," online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com) citing newspapers from Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, page 284, 19. July 1856, Seth W. Hulse death item.

There was no probate record for Seth W. Hulse in the New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records database on Ancestry.com.

Sophia (Auble) (Foster) Hulse continued using his name until her death in 1887, as indicated by her death record and probate record.

4)  There is a birth record for a Samantha Foster on 23 April 1855 in Stillwater, N.J. in the New Jersey birth records in Sussex County, daughter of Euphemia Foster.  The source citation for this record is:

"New Jersey Births and Christenings Index, 1660-1931," indexed database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org), Samantha Foster entry.

As discussed in Post 5, Ann C. Buit, age 5, was enumerated in the 1860 U.S. Census in Stillwater, N.J. with Sophia Hultz and Ann Auble.  Samantha Bales, age 16,  was enumerated in the 1870 U.S. Census in Stillwater, N.J with Sophia Hulliz.  Annie C. Foster, age 23, was enumerated in the 1880 U.S. census in Blairstown, N.J. with Euphemia Foster.

The 1900 U.S. Census indicates that Anna S. McCracken (born Apr 1857, age 43)  married John McCracken in about 1882.

The last question to be answered is "Are Samantha Foster (1855 birth record), Ann C. Buit (1860 census), Samantha  Bales (1870 census), Annie C. Foster (1880 census), Annie S. McCracken in the 1893 will of Elizabeth Auble, and Anna S. McCracken (the 1900 and 1910 census)  the same person?"

I think they are the same person.  My working hypothesis is that Euphemia Foster had the child Samantha Foster in April 1855 out of wedlock by a man with the surname Bales or similar; that she was called Annie or Anna throughout her life; that she resided with her grandmother Sophia Hultz in 1860 and 1870, and with her mother in 1880; that she is mentioned in Elizabeth Auble's 1893 will; and that she married to John McCracken in 1882, according to the 1900 census.

John and Anna S. (Foster) McCracken had a daughter, Gertrude H. McCracken, born in November 1882, who married Cleveland Shuster (1884-1967) before 1920, and died in 1956, all in Blairstown, Warren County, New Jersey, apparently without children.

5)  I recall that Elizabeth Auble's 1896 codicil to her will defined some of these persons:

"And WHEREAS, my niece Euphemia Foster has departed this life; Now Therefore I do revoke the said legacy, and give the Sum of Three hundred dollars ($300) free of tax to Gertrude McCracken, the daughter of John McCracken, of Blairstown, New Jersey."

Working backwards, Gertrude (McCracken) Shuster (1882-1956) was the daughter of John and Anna S. (Foster) McCracken; Anna S. Foster (1855-????) (also known as Samantha?) was the daughter of Euphemia Foster;  Euphemia Foster (1828-1895) was the daughter of Alley H. and Sophia (Auble) (Foster) Hulse.  Euphemia Foster was mentioned in the probate records of her father and mother.  Sophia, Euphemia, Anna/Samantha and Gertrude were all named in Elizabeth Auble's will and codicils.

That's the working hypothesis - there are several assertions without direct evidence, but there is indirect evidence of these relationships that is consistent with my working hypothesis.  What other records do I need, or might I find in northwestern New Jersey to help me draw conclusions about this Auble line?


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1 comment:

cleaverkin said...

If Euphemia Foster was a minor at the time of her father's death, there may be a petition for guardianship in the Orphan's Court records (or Surrogate's Court, or whatever New Jersey calls it), which might clearly establish her paternity.

Obviously, local church records might also go a long way in establishing parentage, children's names at birth, marriages, etc.

I would also verify insofar as possible that there was only one Euphemia Foster at that place and time. I ran into a similar situation with a Permilla Snyder, where there was no direct evidence that the daughter by that name was the same person as the wife and mother, despite matching in every other detail. It turned out that there were two Permilla Snyders born in the same town in the same year. Misspellings of the given name made it difficult to locate records for one of them, let alone to determine that there were two. I suspect the same may be true for the given name Euphemia.

All in all, this is shaping up to be an excellent case study on the use of indirect evidence.