The Slovak Yankee

Madness Monday: John Drake of Windsor, Connecticut

This isn't so much an ancestor who drives me crazy, as it is the researchers who discover John in their ancestry.  He's my ancestor, so I can say this.  In one of the more peculiar episodes in colonial genealogy, two men, both named John Drake, came to Massachusetts.  One was from the gentry Drake family, the one that included Sir Francis Drake and one that was descended from royalty.  The other was not.

The royal, gentry John Drake died early, whereas the other John Drake moved to Windsor, Connecticut and had six children by two wives, and died there on 17 August 1659.  This second John Drake's English origins were researched by Douglas Richardson and given to me and not yet published.  He was from Hampton in Arden, Warwickshire, England and his first wife was named Lettice Shakespeare.  Yes, that Shakespeare family.

In any case, without much problems, you find out this information.  It appeared in two articles in The American Genealogist 65 (1990):87-88 and 63 (1988):193-206.  Unfortunately, people are citing to this book on Google Books from 1913.  So, this is a long standing misidentification which will live on forever thanks to Google Books and other such sources.  And that makes me crazy.

Madness Monday: Elizabeth (Plumer) Pinkham 1724-after 1775

If I could have one genealogical wish, it would be to find the marriage book for the Rev. Jonathan Cushing, minister of Dover, NH from 1717-1766.  For some odd historical reason, his book of baptisms survives, but his log of marriages must have been misplaced or destroyed.  It is not published in the Vital Records of Dover, New Hampshire.  How does a church save its baptismal book and not its marriage book?

My ancestors Jonathan and Elizabeth Pinkham have all their children baptized by the Rev. Cushing in Dover, so there's little doubt he married them.  However, they leave no probate records and no deeds that shed light on her maiden name.  There may be court records, but most of the Strafford County court records of those times are still unprocessed and unindexed in Concord, NH (Live Free or Die--But Too Slow on Organizing Records).  

I'm fairly sure I know who she is: the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Beard) Plummer.  However, no smoking gun has emerged.  She's the right age; her daughter uses the Beard name for a son; I can prove the Plummer Genealogy is wrong with who they think Elizabeth's husband was [it was not William Twombly]; there are huge amount of land transactions between Jonathan Pinkham and the Plummers in Rochester, N.H. where they all move.  

Madness Monday: John Pratt ca. 1760-bef. 1826

My 5th great-grandfather, John Pratt, was born about 1760.  All I can be sure of is that he married Martha Archibald, the daughter of Samuel and Eleanor (Taylor) Archibald about 1785 or so in Londonderry, Nova Scotia.  By 1790, he was in Stewiacke, where he is taxed and calls for a minister.  He was dead by 8 July 1826 when his son John takes his livestock mark and calls his father "late. Where did he come from?  Was he from the colonies, a loyalist?  Was he Scottish or Scots-Irish and a new arrival?  Certainly, he married such a person.  He appears in the following works, much of which are based on each other: Stewiacke: The Centenary Celebration(Truro, NS, 1902, reprint 1973); Planters and Pioneers Nova Scotia 1749 to 1775 by Esther Clark Wright;History of Colchester County by Thomas Miller (1873); Janet Fisher Archibald in Nova Scotia by Margaret Janet Hart.  Deeds give no indication of a previous whereabout.  He leaves no probate.  There is no newspaper or vital record of his death giving his age.  And just last week I received some really bad news.  I received the research of a Stewiacke genealogist who notes that there are no gravestones for John or Martha (nor for the next generation down in my line).  This makes the task of figuring out ages difficult if not impossible.  

Because his name is John and the Pratt name is more common than I knew, I'll probably never find his parents.  So, of the big four surnames of my grandparents, Pratt has turned out to be the toughest to research.

Madness Monday: Andrew Jackson Hall ca 1830-1900

This is one of Michael's ancestors.  Whereas my ancestors suffer from lost records, Michael's ancestors were pioneers and it is their perambulations that cause the headaches.  Andrew Jackson Hall first appears in the U.S. 1850 Census in Pulaski County, Missouri as Andrew J. Hall age 19, labourer, born in Tennessee.  Sadly, this means, he never appears in a census with his parents.  So we have a man with a fairly common surname, no parents, and no birthplace.  That's the long and short of it.

On 12 May 1853, Andrew married Mary Jane Bench at Laclede County, Mo. [Laclede County Marriages Book A, p. 284 named as "Jackson Hall and Sary Benton" obviously a transcription error].  They had the following children: Emma, Nancy Emeline, Elizabeth J., William N., George W., Francis Marion, and Laura Belle.  He is listed in the 1860 Census in Pulaski County, Missouri as Andy Hall, age 25 with wife Jane, and daughters Emeline and Elizabeth.  During the Civil War he took the Union's side and served as a scout with Captain Murphey in the Pulaski and Texas County Militia.  However, his Civil War Service did not qualify him for a pension and remains a disputed claim. [Civil War Pension Application #858513]

In the 1870 Census he was a Lebanon, Missouri as Andrew J. Hall, age 44, born in Tenn., Gunsmith, with wife Mary Jane, aged 36 and five children.  By 1880 he had moved to Precinct No. 1 in Jackson County, Texas as Andrew J. Hall age 49, butcher, born. Tenn. (with parents born in Tenn.), wife Mary J. and three children.  Andrew died on 30 May 1900 at Cleveland County, Oklahoma.  

Madness Monday: Deborah (---) Wallis

My closest brick wall at the present, and therefore the woman who could provide the most new New England ancestry for me, is Deborah, the wife of Nathaniel-5 (Samuel-4 William-3-2 George-1) Wallis of New Hampshire.  We know her given name since she released her dower on a deed dated 27 August 1792.  Her children were born between 1772 and 1794.  She was probably born about 1750 and she is probably still alive in the 1830 census, although women weren't separately enumerated at that point.  Her children were Samuel, Nathaniel, John, James, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Deborah, and Meribah.  No death record, gravestone, or probate record exist for her or her husband.  Her husband didn't serve in the American Revolution either, or never applied for a pension.  There is a gap in his children's estimated births from 1777 to 1784 which is telling.  The actual birth records from Moultonborough are missing.  The children are gathered from their respective marriage records there.  Nathaniel was born in Greenland, lived in Epsom and then moved to Moultonborough before removing once more to New Durham.  Deborah was probably from Greenland or Epsom.  Who is the question.

Madness Monday: Patience (Hartford) Stanton ca. 1740-ca. 1825

Another of favorite brick walls with a marriage record is the identity of Patience Hartford who married Isaac Stanton at Rochester, N.H. on 7 April 1757. [“The History of the Town of Rochester, New Hampshire 1722-1890” by Franklin McDuffee (2 vols., 1892, reprinted as one volume, Somersworth, NH, 1988), 2:618]  No doubt she was the same Patience Hartford who was baptized at Rochester on 18 July 1756 and owned the covenant at Rochester (Ibid, p. 593).  On July 12, 1820 Charles Stanton deposed in his Revolutionary War Pension Application as being 61 years old and living in Brookfield, N.H. with a father aged 86 and a mother aged 80.  [Rev. Application #S16543] So Patience was born ca. 1740.   Her husband died at Middleton on 24 February 1829 at age 96 and his death notice was in several newspapers due to his age and his service in the French & Indian War.

So, who were the parents of Patience?  She was likely born a Quaker and was an adult convert to the Puritan church, hence the baptism in 1756.  A William Hartford married Patience Long at Dover, N.H. in 1701[New Hampshire Genealogical Record 1:51] and any sons born between 1702 and 1710 would be married between 1730 and 1739 and could have named an eldest daughter after their mother.  The problem is there are no records for William and Patience (Long) Hartford in the surviving Dover Quaker records.  There is also a competing Hartford family in Dover: Nicholas Hartford and his wife Elizabeth Jenkins.  They were married c. 1700 and their eldest daughter was named Patience (b. 16 September 1701).  One of their twelve children Stephen moved to Rochester.  So this family is also a possibility.

Isaac and Patience (Hartford) Stanton had eleven children: John, Charles, Elizabeth, Elijah, Eleanor, Patience, Isaac M., Hannah, Sarah, William, and Mary.  Isaac was the son of Benjamin and Eleanor (Ricker) Stanton.  Naturally all probates, vitals, and deeds have been checked and nothing has popped up as a smoking gun yet.

Source: Stanton Manuscript by Benjamin I. Stanton (NEHGS Mss SG/STA/8 (186)), gift of Minnie Stanton, 1902.

Madness Monday: Arthur Scovilles of Connecticut

Some brick walls are just cruel.  I have two successive generations of Arthur Scovilles whose wives' maiden names are not known.  However, we can blame this on the idiotic town clerk of Lyme, Connecticut.  Arthur Scoville and Rachel were married on 17 September 1690 [Connecticut Vital Records (Lyme, Births, Marriages and Deaths 1667-1852) The Barbour Collection, [Connecticut State Library, 1919], p. 175-6.]  NO MAIDEN NAME! The actual entry reads "Arthur and Rachel Scoville were married. . . . "  And the clerk did it again to his son.  On 10 February 1710/11, Arthur and Elizabeth Scoville were married [same page as above.]  So two records of marriages with exact dates and no maiden names.  Who does a genealogist need to sleep with to find a decent record???

Madness Monday: Lydia, Do You Know Lydia?

I have two successive generations of Cromwell men who married women named Lydia. Joshua Cromwell, the son of Philip and Elizabeth (Leighton) Cromwell and grandson of Giles and Alice (Weeks) Cromwell, was born about 1672 and married about 1699 to a woman named Lydia. Their children were: Joshua, John, Joseph, Samuel, Caleb, Elizabeth and Lydia. Lydia is still alive on 19 January 1743/4 when she deeds with her husband (New Hampshire Provincial Deeds 28:228). Both Lydia and Joshua are dead by 1752 when their children exchange deeds for their land (NHPD 45:248, 70:326).

Their son John is even more of a riddle. There is a marriage record for John Cromwell and Mary Ridley on 26 December 1720 at Dover, N.H. Yet Mary never appears thereafter. No children are baptized for this couple. There are no Ridleys at Dover (in the Dover Vital Records, this is the only Ridley entry). Whether this is a clerical error or not is a mystery. If Mary existed she died before 23 May 1735 when John, a tinker, deeds land with his wife Lydia (NHPD 25:140). Certainly as Master Tate notes John's wife was Lydia when they died on the same weekend. John Cromwell had at least three children: Benjamin, Sarah who married Jacob Chadwick, and Keziah who married Abner Coffin (Jr.). These two are the only surviving children and Abner and Keziah Coffin quitclaim to the Widow Sarah Chadwick land that was the late John Cromwell's on 26 March 1794 (Strafford Deeds 17:326).

Madness Monday: Hannah (Holman) Spear (c. 1669-1751)

If you can have a favorite brick wall, Hannah Holman, the wife of Nathaniel Spear of Braintree, Mass. is my favorite.  Most 17th century women, whose parentage is unknown, lack marriage records that give them a surname.  Not so in this case.  In fact, there is an abundance of records for Hannah, but still no provable parents.  Hannah married on 8 August 1689 at Braintree.  She died there on 4 February 1750/1 at the age of 81 years.  She and Nathaniel had ten children recorded at Braintree born between 1690 and 1713.  If her age at death is reliable, Hannah was born about 1670.  If 45 at the birth of her last child in 1713, she was born in 1668, which would also make her 21 at her marriage.  Her husband was born on 15 May 1665.  All in all, we can say that she was born between 1668 and 1670 and it was unlikely that she was a young widow.  Therefore her maiden name is Holman.  The problem is there is no available Holman family in which she can be placed.  There are no grantor deeds for Hannah Spear in Middlesex, Essex or Plymouth County Deeds.  Suffolk County Deeds 59:16 shows Hannah Spear as a widow with all surviving children.  I thought that perhaps the name was mis-transcribed so I read the original marriage record at Braintree Historical Society and it is Holman.  So now I think that the clerk got her name wrong.  Was she a Tolman?  Holmes?  This is actually no better than being Hannah (---).  She names her children (in order) Hannah and Nathaniel (after she and her husband); John, Mary, David, Joseph, Nathan, Thomas, Margaret and Lydia.  Nathaniel's mother was named Mary and his father George.  So are we looking for a John, David, Joseph, Nathan or Thomas?  The work The Descendants of George Spear who settled at Braintree, Massachusetts 1642-1988 by Verne Raymond Spear (1988) punts on this question.  Of the two major Holman families, John Holman of Dorchester (the most logical) is ruled out by the work of Alfred Lyman Holman which appeared in the New England Historical & Genealogical Register 72 (1918):185 et seq.  The other family William Holman of Cambridge, is found in both the Parker-Ruggles Genealogy and the Mayflower Five Generation Project for Degory Priest.  There are several Holmes families, but most have appeared already in the Great Migration Project.  So, who was she?

[Previously posted on 12/7/07]

Smiths

The bete-noire of any genealogist is the common surname.  For me, it's Smith.  I have the following Smith ancestors for whom I don't know parents:

• Hugh Smyth b. ca. 1780 in Co. Armagh, Ireland
• Simon Smith who died at Haddam, Conn. on 9 November 1687
• James Smith who died at Durham, N.H. on 6 July 1690
• John Smith who died at Boston, Mass. in May 1674
• Helen Smith who married John Rider on 1 November 1600 at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England