Tuesday's Tip; Sorting Extended Families

     I am quite literally drowning in O'Horas.  My great-great-great O'Hora grandparents had five sons, at least four of them came to America from County Carlow, initially settling in Auburn, New York.  Their oldest son John had five sons and their son Michael had a whopping ten sons that survived.  Their other sons also had children but they didn't pose a problem for me in figuring out who's who in Auburn; Edward followed his dreams of wealth to California's gold fields and my great-great-grandfather James moved his family to Manchester, New York.  John's five sons never married; which was a very good thing as they were hellions of the first order who actually earned the sobriquet-- the O'Hora gang.  Still, they were in the mix in Auburn.

     There were of course many daughters as well, but since they didn't retain their maiden names after marriage their children didn't enter into the seemingly bottomless pool of O'Hora's in Auburn.  The Auburn newspapers were filled with articles about various O'Hora's but it's difficult sometimes to know which Michael, John, or Edward had died or was being arrested.  Especially when researching later generations by which time there were multiples of multiples of all the common forenames they were so fond of, though usually if someone was in trouble it was a member of the gang mentioned above.

     One of the most useful methods I've found to differentiate between individuals of the same name is to concentrate on finding their addresses.  While news articles didn't always give ages, they often gave the home address of the person mentioned or in the case of a death notice, the address where the funeral would occur back when those were held at home.  I've actually made a spreadsheet for the O'Hora's using the streets and street numbers found in newspapers, city directories, and census records.  In the federal census of 1900 thru 1940, and the New York State censuses from 1905 onwards, the street the family lived on is written in the left hand margin.

     When I see the address 302 State Street in Auburn I know that was the home of Michael O'Hora from Ireland with the ten sons, and that he or one of his sons or grandchildren is likely the subject of the article. Others of the ten brothers lived in Throop, right next to Auburn.  Being so close they still appeared in Auburn newspapers but living outside the city set them apart. John's sons moved around quite a bit, but with the spreadsheet I can spot them.  Using this method I can usually find the right O'Hora even if he happened to be staying with his parents or a sibling rather than at his usual address.


   

     

   

Dueling Dunhams

   

     The past few days I've been researching Ephraim Dunham, (1750-1823), who was born in Holland and died in Halfmoon, New York.  He's not related to me, I have no deep interest in the man, so why did I invest the time on him?  I'm bored, and ... someone told me that the information I had in my Ancestry tree on him was wrong.  That my friend, is a challenge.

     A couple of days ago I found a peculiar message in my mailbox at Ancestry in which the writer, Mr. R, informed me, "if you direct your attention to the two male individuals, [named earlier in his message, one being an Ephraim Dunham from New Jersey who died in 1815], you will discover something Amazing".  Amazing?  I welcome new information and perspectives, but that sounded like something from an advert for long wearing lipstick.

     The Dunham's come into my tree only because Maria Vincent, my fourth-great-aunt, married one.  Specifically, she wed Morgan Dunham in Saratoga County, New York around 1830.  Morgan's father was William Dunham and William's father was the above mentioned Ephraim.  The Dunham's, along with my Vincent family, resided in the quaintly named town of Halfmoon in Saratoga County, New York, gradually moving westward as people did back then.

     I researched the whole tree of this part of my family several years ago when a cousin contacted me and suggested that we collaborate.  We had a long distance ball working together and between us we pretty much nailed the Vincent-Dunham line, so when Mr. R told me Ephraim was not who I thought he was I was a little taken aback.  I began re-reading my notes just to make sure I wasn't mistaken. One piece of evidence was a biography of Charles Dunham, another son of William and brother to Morgan, in which Charles told the author his grandfather Ephraim came to America from Holland as a young man, settling in Halfmoon Township, New York.  Charles explains that he himself came to be born in Canada because his father William had moved there in 1811, only to be forced to return to Halfmoon when the war of 1812 broke out causing their welcome in British Canada to become less than cordial. 

     Another clue was a land record from Halfmoon that mentioned Ephraim Dunham's will was written in June of 1822 so obviously he did not die in New Jersey in 1815. That will, which named his son William among his heirs, was probated in October of 1823, in Saratoga County.  Census records from 1800 to 1820 also place Ephraim in Halfmoon as does a history of the town that indicates Ephraim was living there before the revolution.  I've seen nothing at all indicating he was born in New Jersey or spent time there. 

     As I looked around the net I found quite a few Ephraim Dunham's actually, which surprised me, but then again Ephraim was a much more common name a few hundred years ago than it is today.  Luckily, "my" Ephraim left a quite substantial paper trail. In conclusion, I'm comfortable saying cousin Christine and I did our homework and Ephraim Dunham of Halfmoon is indeed who we believe him to be.

I Think He Made The Whole Thing Up

     Way back in June of 2013 I wrote a blog about a cousin, George Worden (1858-1950), who claimed his father was, "a full blooded Indian", and that he, George, was born on a reservation near Seneca Point, New York.  You can see that blog and George's photo here.  Ever since, I've been looking for any evidence that could back up George's assertion.  His father was a brother of my third-great-grandfather Paul Worden, so it follows that Paul would also be of Native American heritage if George was correct.

     After thoroughly researching this matter, I am prepared to state for the record, George was a big old liar. When George celebrated his ninety fifth birthday in 1947 Lena Steele, a reporter for the Democrat & Chronicle, made the drive from Rochester to interview him in Bristol, New York located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. George told her quite a tale that day in May.  Along with his birthplace he noted his father was named Carter Worden, his mother was Pennsylvania native Mary Colver, and that he came to South Bristol with them when he was six years old. Fascinating story, especially to a genealogist, unfortunately it's not true.

     George's father was named Sylvester, not Carter although Carter was the maiden name of Sylvester's mother.  Also, Sylvester was living in South Bristol a full eight years before George was even born as evidenced by the 1850 census which shows Sylvester with his wife Mary and their three youngest children there.  His mother Pelina Carter Worden also resided with him that year so I'm sure I have the right man. They are also living there in 1855 and 1860. George couldn't have come to South Bristol at age six, he was born there.

     The maiden name of Sylvester's wife was Culver, not Colver, but that's close enough for me to chalk it up to a spelling error or misprint.  She was however, born in New York not Pennsylvania.  And the reservation?  There was no reservation anywhere near Seneca Point in 1858, the year of George's birth.  That place was the site of a large Seneca Nation village in the years before the American Revolution but in 1779 Major General John Sullivan, at the order of George Washington, mounted an expedition targeting Loyalists and the Native Americans who sided with them against the Patriots.  That included the residents of Seneca Point who left the area at that time.  Some may have lingered near their old home, but a reservation there did not exist.

     George passed away at the county home for the aged in Hopewell, New York on 27 October 1950.  His obituary gives his birthplace as the Town of Bristol, New York, not Seneca Point.  So why the story?  I've wondered about that and the best I can come up with is he did it for the attention.  George outlived his wife, Eva Bartlett, by almost thirty years and their only child, a daughter they named Ethel, passed away in 1896 at the age of six.  George was lonely...

     

     

Culling My Book Collection; In Which I Learn I Can't

     With so much time at home I've been sorting, cleaning, and weeding out items for donation. Yesterday I started on my stacks of books, let's just say I have MANY of them.  I've always loved books, I love cracking them open for the first time, I love revisiting my old friends filled with notes I've made in the margins, I even love their scent. Needless to say, I will never own a kindle. Historical fiction has been my favorite genre since high school, (imagine that), but with all we uncover about our families as we trip through their pasts, who needs fiction?  

     Most of my ancestors were Irish.  The list of books I've acquired on Irish history and genealogy would fill at least ten blogs.  The classic, The Great Hunger, by Cecil Woodham-Smith was one of my first purchases followed by Paddy's Lament, The Hidden Ireland, The Famine Ships, and too many more to list. My youngest son often chooses a book for my birthday and Christmas gifts, usually with a nod to my admiration for Irish rebels.  I have a 1917 copy of, History Of The Sinn Fein Movement And The Irish Rebellion Of 1916, a copy of  Allegiance, on the same subject, signed by the author Robert Brennan, and one of, Irish Rebel John Devoy and America's Fight for Ireland's Freedom. Those and many more like them all go in the keep pile.  A long lost cousin, Tom E., has very generously sent me numerous books; it was he who first introduced me to James Charles Roy who has become one of my favorite authors.  I love his quirky observations of historical and present day Ireland and I'm keeping all four books I own of his.

     The majority of my immigrant Irish crossed the ocean during the famine, but a few left home in the 1860's.  So of course when I saw a used copy of, Transatlantic, for sale at Amazon I had to have it and I'm so glad I bought it. Stephen Fox's descriptions of early steam ships, the Liverpool docks, and the harrowing voyage across the stormy North Atlantic were utterly fascinating.  I could almost feel the dock rising under my feet with the incoming tide flooding up the Mersey.

     One branch of my O'Hora/Hore line from County Carlow went west seeking their fortune in the mines and gold fields of California, eventually settling in San Francisco so when I spotted a used copy of, The San Francisco Earthquake,  by Gordon Thomas and Max Witts it looked like something I really needed.  And I was right, it's a painstakingly researched tome well worth the pittance I gave for it.  

     My eighth-great-grandmother Winifred King Benham, aka, The Witch of Wallingford, inspired my purchase of, Connecticut Witch Trials: The First Panic in the New World', and my son to buy me,  A Storm of Witchcraft, when he came across it in a gift shop while vacationing in Salem, Massachusetts.  I'm not giving that away, it was a gift!  Speaking of Massachusetts, that was home to my Galloway ancestors one of whom, Milo, came to New York and was a mover and shaker on the Erie Canal, so of course I needed a copy of, The Artificial River, and just for a change, the fiction work, Canal Town, set in Palmyra, New York where Milo lived for a time and four miles from where I now reside.

     Mary Augusta Vincent, my third-great-aunt, left New York for Nebraska with her husband George Matteson and two small children shortly after the Civil War.  That necessitated my purchase of, Pioneer Women, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith.  You won't find descriptions of prairie life like those included in this book on Ancestry.  Definitely a keeper.

     Their Own Voices;Oral Accounts of Early Settlers in Washington County, New York.  Now this one is really special.  Beginning in the 1840s and continuing until his death, Dr. Asa Fitch of Salem, NY, interviewed elderly neighbors, questioning them about the time of first European settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the first decades of the 19th century. Two of the interviewees were actually directly related to me!  How often does that happen?  I can't possibly part with that book.  I even bought my uncle a copy.

     I've barely touched on the number of books I own and love, there are books I bought when I found Civil War soldiers among my ancestors along with Revolutionary War soldiers, local history books of places they lived, etc, etc. and as I discovered about three hours in, I can't part with any of them. I'm buying more bookshelves.

     

Yo Ho Ho And 100 Gallons Of Rum

     I've been looking around the net for more information on the Semple brothers, John and Robert who married my 7th-great-aunts, sisters Betty and Mary Wheat.  I managed to find the inventory of the goods on board The Ship Peggy when it was captured by the Rebels as mentioned in yesterday's blog.  The document can be found in Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Volume 6, part one, page 15.

     It makes interesting reading if only for the amount of alcohol in the shipment.  I've read before that colonial Americans liked their libation and that is certainly borne out by this inventory.  The drink on board The Peggy included--74 dozen porter, 83 dozen strong beer, 100 gallons of rum, 12 1/2 dozen claret, 230 dozen red port wine, 50 dozen sherry, 53 dozen white port wine, and another 16 dozen strong beer.

     I'm not sure if those numbers denote bottles, barrels or something else.  Also in the shipment was "Rappee snuff", salted beef, 6 barrels of herring, and 2,648 mutton hams.  There were supplies for the British Army, camp kettles and canteens, along with home furnishings such as candlesticks, spoons, and fabrics like 180 yards of Irish sheeting and 3,884 yards of oznabrig, an unbleached linen.  It was quite a haul for the Rebels and the Rebel officers too, who seem to have divided the vino between themselves.

     Even more interesting, to me, the inventory listed the names of Tories traveling on The Peggy; among them was, "Robert Semple and wife", she being my relative Mary Wheat.  When they were later questioned, the Tories revealed they had left Halifax on 4 July 1776, heading for New York in the company of three transport ships carrying Hessian Troops.  Blown off course by a gale they were separated from the transports, making them easy prey for the privateers.  Also traveling on The Peggy was a man named Thomas Semple who appears in one other Boston record I've seen.  I wonder if Thomas was another Semple brother, or maybe even their father?

     I also found mention of the Semple brothers in the book, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, volume 2.  This publication claims Robert Semple left Boston in 1776, (as I wrote yesterday he left with the British evacuation fleet), but this source claims he did so with a family of three.  If that can be interpreted to mean he and his wife Mary had two children at the time, Mary who was born in 1757 must have been a teenager when they wed.  It too narrows the places their nuptials could have occurred since the marriage must have happened before they left Boston.

     Another engrossing find was dated nine months earlier, 14 October 1775.  At that time, Continental Privateers overpowered the brigg Loyal Briton, of which John Semple was a part owner, just as it was leaving St. John's River in Nova Scotia loaded with cattle, sheep, hogs, smoked salmon, butter and sundry items for the British Army in Boston.  The privateers then raided the British fort located at St. John's River, appropriated their provisions, took prisoners, and burned the fort.  One of the prisoners taken that day was none other than John Semple of Boston.  The Loyal Briton was hauled to the nearest American port at Machias, Maine with it's cargo and prisoners, but somehow John and the ship's mate managed to escape their captors.

   I don't anticipate finding much more about this band of loyalists, digitized records are few and far between for those early dates, but it's been fun researching them and I find it fascinating that relatives of mine were involved in this intrigue on the high seas.  Maybe those papers of George Washington I mentioned in the last blog will hold more information once they make their way online...

18th Century Family Feud

Long Wharf, Boston

     When New York's stay at home order came down my first thought was, "now I have an excuse to sit home and work on my family tree guilt-free".  I was certain everyone in the same boat would also be whiling away the hours on Ancestry and filling up my Ancestry mailbox.  That didn't happen.  In fact this pandemic has been anything but a boon to research.  I can no longer visit my local Family History library and many digitization projects have come to a screeching halt.  So what's a person to do?

     In my case I returned to my neglected British ancestors.  Being enchanted with all the Celts in my tree, I've pretty much ignored that one little branch that holds the Wheat line.  There must be plenty online I hadn't seen already pertaining to them.  And after all, they were fighting the British in the American Revolution, so I gave them a go.

     Almost immediately I discovered the will of my seventh-great-grandfather John Wheat, born 1717 in Concord, Massachusetts.  Yes, Concord of, "shot heard round the world", fame.  John was a prosperous farmer who with his wife Grace Brown was blessed with eight known children, all of whom were mentioned in his will made in 1779, six years before his death.  That's when things got even more interesting.  In his will John provided well for his offspring however, his second daughter Betty was left a measly six shillings because, "she has left this state and gone as a friend to the enemies of this continent, to be paid only on condition that she return a friend to America".  Betty's youngest sister Mary received a similar bequest.  With the women's older brothers serving the Rebel cause, John Wheat's outrage at what he viewed as a betrayal of family and country is easily understood.

     I discovered the sisters had married two brothers born in Scotland who were well off merchants and loyalists in Boston at the time of the Revolution.  At age twenty five, Betty married John Semple on 30 November 1772 when her sister Mary, ten years her junior, would have been only fifteen.  I would love to know when Mary married Robert Semple.  Most women in colonial America married around age twenty to twenty five but we can assume Mary wed Robert at a younger age since the two of them left Boston in early 1776.  It's odd that there's no record of Mary's marriage in Boston.  Perhaps they were married in New York or even Canada.

    In order to discover what became of John Wheat's wayward daughters I made an effort to research the two Semple brothers.  Betty Wheat was born on 17 July 1747 per Concord, Massachusetts town records and married in Boston in 1772, so I would estimate John Semple was born somewhere in the neighborhood of 1743 since men married later than women in the Boston of that era.  Several trees at Ancestry have a published death notice for John Semple that gave his birthdate as 1711 making him thirty six years older than Betty.  Come on people!  That is obviously a death notice for a different John Semple.

     What I now know of John is that he signed a farewell address to the departing loyalist Governor Hutchinson in Boston in 1774 and also an address to the new Governor Gage the following year.  In March of 1776 John and Betty left Boston with the British evacuation fleet when the British army abandoned the city.

     As for Robert Semple, he was probably the younger of the two brothers and also extended his good wishes to the Tory governors.  He too left with the evacuation fleet in 1776.  Both brother's names can both found on a list of refugees traveling with the British army; no women's names were included.  After that things get a little hazy.  Most likely the group settled for a time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the destination of the fleet.  An associate of the Semple brothers, Benjamin Davis, likewise evacuated to Halifax with the British that March but he eventually relocated to New York State which by the end of July of 1776 was partly in British hands where it would remain until war's end in 1783.  It's possible the Semples did the same.

     On July 28th in 1776 David Cobb, a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress,  wrote the following in a letter to Robert Treat Paine, a member of the Continental Congress--

 "Two of the Continental Privateers have taken a ship [traveling] from Halifax to New York laden with English goods, provisions, and Tories and carried her this morning into Marblehead.  Among the Tories are Benjamin Davis & son and two Semple Scotchmen".  

Further research showed this was the Ship Peggy and some of the goods onboard were the property of John Semple.  His wife Betty was also on board and was arrested with her husband.

     At the end of his letter David Cobb added this post script, "Just now the Tories were landed at the Long Wharf from Marblehead and were attended thence to prison by two thousand people... I wish the devil had them".  Ironically, the Long Wharf was the spot the evacuation fleet had left from. The Semples being apprehended with Ben Davis makes me tend to think they too may have returned to America via New York.  Massachusetts passed a Banishment Act in 1778 forbidding the return of loyalists to that state under pain of death, the names of  Benjamin Davis and both Semple brothers appeared in that document.

     The records are frustratingly silent about the eventual fates of Betty and Mary or their husbands.  I've checked Canadian and American sources but I can't determine when or where they died, if they bore children, or if they ever reconciled with their family.  Quite a few loyalists did eventually return to America, even their old friend Benjamin Davis was allowed to return to his native Massachusetts shortly before his death in 1805.  There is more about the capture of the ship Peggy in George Washington's Papers, but Volume 5 where it is included, is not yet available online.  Supposedly it's being worked on.  I don't imagine it will shed any light on the Wheat sister's futures, but it  includes an inventory of goods seized from the ship Peggy and who knows what else?  Someday, digitization will resume!


   

Ramblings On A Hot Summer's Day

     There are times lately when working on my family tree at Ancestry.com feels more like data entry than genealogy.  Hints are continually popping up which is good, but it's getting a little overwhelming.  Having already found most of the available online information pertaining to my direct ancestors, most of the new hints are for peripheral relatives.  Now I end up dropping my current research into ancestors I'm more interested in to clear out the pages of hints.

     I've come to miss the act of real in person research and the thrill of finding that piece of information that had been eluding me.  As they say, the hunt is part of the fun.  It's so easy to become preoccupied with winnowing through those endless hints that I sometimes fail to stop and give due consideration to what the facts are telling me.  Not just the research paths they could point me towards, but the stories of the human beings involved, their motivations, emotions, and everyday lives. Which fascinate me every bit as much as finding a new fact.

     My Irish ancestors are my main interest. After decades of scrutiny I've discovered the stories one hears of chain migration and "clannishness" are essentially true. It's one thing to read that, but another to see it for yourself. Comparing Irish land and church records with similar American records the patterns are easy to spot. In Palmyra, New York there were large contingents from Counties Tipperary and Laois, (formerly Queens County). Now when I see the surnames Delaney, White or Keyes in documents I automatically think, Laois. Ryan, O'Dwyer, and Hogan bring Tipperary to mind. The city of Auburn in New York became home to many immigrants from Kildare, Carlow and Wicklow. The Coleman, McGarr, O'Hora, and Kinsella families, names heard in Auburn to this day, all hailed from those counties. It's amazing to find an individual in Irish baptismal records and then find that same person in a marriage record in New York. I know much of this from research in offices and repositories and can confirm much of what they have has never made it online.

    
    Shaky leaves will never be the equal of years spent poring over entries in church registers, OSI maps and other sources. I learned a lot in the hours spent reading line by line. For one thing the indexes of church records do not include the names of sponsors and witnesses, very pertinent pieces of information. I would have missed entirely my third-great-grandfather being a baptismal sponsor to the child of a family who later turned out to be related had I relied only on searching an index for him. In a way I'm grateful I had to start my research the hard way before indexed records were available, although indexed history books are a Godsend.

The British loved to hold hearings on social and economic conditions in Ireland then compile notes and statistics on same. Many of these can be found at Google Books and are full of details about different areas of Ireland. I've even found an interview done in the 1840's with my ancestor's parish priest. Daniel McGarr, a small farmer living in the back of beyond, would never make it into a book, but the observations of his priest are the next best thing.

     My point is, there are so many questions that Ancestry and their hints can't answer. They are indeed helpful but can't take the place of in depth research, so much would be missed by not looking any further.