The Slovak Yankee

Battle of Bunker Hill

June 17th was the 250th anniversary of the  Battle of Bunker Hill.  My ancestor Abraham Runnels with his four  eldest sons were at that battle.   Abraham survived and died in 1804.  I descend from his youngest son Ebenezer.

 

ChatGPT and Genealogy

The New Hampshire Society of Genealogists held a zoom webinar on AI and genealogy.  It was quite informative.  I've now fooled around with some things and can report that genealogy can be enhanced with ChatGPT but AI can't do genealogy.

My first  question was who were the  parents of Polly Daniels who married Amos Learned in 1818 in Dublin, New Hampshire?  AI always gives an answer but it said there were no records for Polly and gave me some not very helpful suggestions.

Secondly, I asked Chatgpt to date an old photograph I  have.  This it did quite well. Based on the clothing the photo was 1870 to 1890.

I then had my genealogical software make an ahnentafel for 50 generations and uploaded it and asked how many times I descended from Edward I.  I really wanted to know but it could only do direct lines and when  they were duplicated, it didn't count it.  So Chatgpt said 6 times and I know it's 8.  I then asked how many times I descended from Rev. Joseph Hull.  The answer was 3 but it's really 4 since I descend from one of his daughters twice.

Lastly, I asked who was youngest to die and oldest to die.  AI got that wrong too.

I asked what percentage Irish I was and it only counted my one great-great=great-grandfather and mother from Ireland so 1/32.  It didn't count all the Irish ancestors further back. It got that I was 50% Slovak and 12.5% Scottish.

I think it would be helpful for writing a  family history.  But for the nitty gritty of  genealogy it still doesn't have the records and can't help someone.

 

Evolution of an American Surname

First of all I want to acknowledge that no U.S. government official changed the names of immigrants at Ellis Island or any other port of arrival. However, our immigrant ancestors did change their own names upon arrival to these shores. Sometimes curiously.

Vrbovce is a small village in western Slovakia (today, the Austria-Hungary Empire prior to 1918). There were only maybe 25 different families with different surnames. At some point, to distinguish one family of the same surname from another, the town minister used delineator names and surnames became double names. Sometimes triple names.

Luckily I knew my paternal grandmother very well and she knew her family history. She noted that Dolinsky was not the surname at all, but rather Chodur was. Dolinsky in Slovak meant of the valley. And she had her father’s birth certificate from 1877 as proof. Certainly his name is given as Pavel Chodur Janowych Dolinsky. Curiously when he shortened the name he chose the delineator name that was last rather than the surname Chodur. Why? We’ll never know.

I can show using church records the evolution of that surname over time.

A few things about Slovak Protestant Church Records (all of which are accessible at familysearch.org). Women retain their maiden names throughout their lives. The records start about 1711 and go through 1895. The records are in Latin to 1843 and in Hungarian from 1844 to 1852. From 1853 they are in Slovak.

Pavel Chodur born say 1710. His name is known from his son’s marriage record. There are two candidates: one baptized 8 February 1711 and another on 3 May 1712. There is no way to differentiate between the two.

Jan Chodur born say 1735 and died before 1785 when his wife is called a widow. He married on 13 November 1768, Catherine Kadljcek who died 5 June 1785 aged 50. They had:

Jan Chodur baptized 12 July 1775 as Jan Chodur but dies on 15 October 1837 as Jan Chodur Dolinsky. He married 16 November 1795 Catherine Ondris baptized 6 February 1775, died 10 January 1842. In the baptisms of his children he is regularly given as Jan Chodur Janowych.

Pavel Chodur Janowych, baptized 2 December 1817 and died 26 April 1891 as Pavel Chodur Dolinsky. He married on 29 September 1834, Elisabetha Tomecek, baptized 4 October 1814 and died 20 August 1870. He had:

Jan Chodur Janowych baptized 22 September 1838 and died 15 September 1915 as Jan Chodur Janowych (death certificate in possession of the author). He married on 22 November 1869 as Jan Chodur son of Pavel Chodur Dolinsky, Anna Valuch-Malarik, baptized 22 January 1849 and died 16 April 1921. They were the parents of:

Pavel (Paul) Chodur Janowych Dolinsky, baptized 6 January 1877 and died in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania on 10 May 1937 (certificate #1629022). He married at Lansford, Pennsylvania on 20 October 1903 (Carbon County, PA marriages, p. 361) as Paul Dolinsky, Anna Kristofik, baptized 13 April 1883 at Sobotiste, Slovakia and died 31 March 1959 at Nesquehoning (certificate #1629118).

It is a bit of a mystery when Paul emigrated. He was certainly here by 1903 to marry. However, in the 1910 U.S. census he is listed as Paul Dolinska (clearly the census taker spoke to his wife who gave her name declined as feminine, Dolinska v. Dolinsky). He claims he emigrated in 1897. [census for Mauch Chunk Township, Carbon Co., PA, enumeration district 23, Sheet 33] In the 1920 U.S. census he is listed as emigrating in 1906 (demonstrably false) and not naturalized.[census for Nesquehoning, Carbon Co., PA, Enumberation District 33, Sheet 22 B] In the 1930 U.S. census his emigration year is given as 1893 and he is naturalized. [census for Mauch Chunk Township, Carbon Co., PA, Enumeration District #13-29, Sheet 3B} He cannot be located in the 1900 U.S. census under Dolinsky, Chodur or Hodur.

Fort Ticonderoga

May 10, 2025 was the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga.  My ancestor Thomas Pinkham was there according to his pension papers.  After securing the  fort the army took  the cannons all the way to Dorchester Heights.

Sadly Thomas only served 9 months and in order to receive a pension  you had to serve at least one year.   So his widow was denied. But the pension papers survive and paint  a wonderful story.

 

 

David and Lois (Whitney) Dudley of Sutton, Massachusetts

Following up on the wikitree hint on the parentage of Betsey (Dudley) Learned of Vermont, I did some preliminary researching using the Mass. Vital Records to 1850 series which is online.  I used Sutton, Millbury, and Auburn.

David-4 (Rogers-3 Samuel-2 Francis-1) Dudley was born 14 January 1749/50 at Sutton (Sutton VRs) and died 8 August 1814 at Millbury (Millbury VRs).  He married at Sutton as David Jr. Lois Whitney on 16 December 1773 (Sutton VRs), she born say 1750 and died at Millbury 13 January 1822 (Millbury VRs) and whose parentage is unknown despite a prominent New England name.  Both David and Lois have gravestones still extant at the Millbury  Cemetery and on Findagrave.com.  David is consistently given as David and never David Daniel.  Like I said no one had two given names in the 18th century.

They had:

i. Molly born 3 July 1774 at Auburn (Auburn VRs)

ii. Sarah, born 27 July 1777 at  Auburn (Auburn VRs)

iii. John, born 27 January 1780 at Auburn  (Auburn VRs)

iv. David, born 5 June 1781 at Auburn (Auburn VRs)

v. Luther born 12 June 1783 at Auburn (Auburn VRs)

vi. Betsey born 9  February 1787 at Sutton (Sutton VRs)

vii. Joseph born 14 March 1790 at Sutton (Sutton VRs)

viii. Amasa born 17 October 1792 at Sutton (Sutton VRs)

This looks like a full picture of their family.  Here are the problems.  The Betsey Dudley who married Moses Learned did so on 30 May 1802 at Windham, Vermont.  She also lives long enough to be recorded in the 1850 U.S. census at age 73.  (1850 Census of Windham, VT, 2 Oct 1850, page 356).  She cannot be the Betsey born in 1787.  She would be 15 at marriage and her age would be off by 10 years in 1850.

Likewise Polly Dudley (if in fact she is a Dudley) lives to the 1850 census too at age 63 so born in 1787.  She cannot be born much before that since her last child is born in 1830 when she is 43.  So she can't be the Molly Dudley born in 1774.

So this family is a bust and wikitree again proves to have dubious information.  I am still curious about this family and will someday look up David's probate records.

 

Why Do I Do It?

Every time I identify a possible couple that might end a brick wall, before I find out if that's possible, I sketch out their ancestry.  And it's usually glorious.

When I first identified Abiah Leonard of Canton, Me. as my ancestress, I did her genealogy which had nine Mayflower lines.  But she was really  Abiah Russell Learned of Canton.

Likewise when researching Abiah's mother, Polly Learned, I first identified her parents as Nahum Dudley and Margaret Howe.  That line included Simon Willard, the founder of Concord and Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard.  But that Polly married someone else.

The next Dudley was Josiah Dudley and Elizabeth Denison.  Again, there was a Mayflower line and an immigrant of royal descent.  But that didn't pan out.

I even traced the ancestry of Addington Daniels (and brothers Reuben and Aaron).  They descend from the Adams family of presidential fame.

Now, with David Dudley and Lois Whitney I've seen their ancestry on wikitree.  David Dudley is the son of Rogers Dudley, he the son of Samuel Dudley and Abigail Rogers.  Abigail is from Ipswich and is the granddaugher of the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, the first minister of Ipswich and on her mother's side Jonathan Wade, the merchant.  She is also the niece of the Rev. John Rogers, the third president of Harvard and Harvard Class of 1649.

So before I check the will of David Dudley, I already covet his ancestry.  I've had my heart broken so many times.

 

Ministers

I’ve always kept track of the professions of my ancestors. If possible. So there seems to be over a dozen ministers for which I can account. Three are famous enough to be on wikipedia.

1. and 2. Rev. Samuel Arnold b.ca. 1622-1693 and his son Rev. Samuel Arnold 1649-1708. They were Puritan ministers. The Puritan church in Massachusetts was the only church available (it was a theocracy) and it would in time become the Congregational Church of today. The older Samuel Arnold was the minister at Marshfield, Massachusetts and his son was the minister at Rochester, Massachusetts. They each married and had children

3. Rev. John Buss ca. 1644-1736, the minister at Durham, New Hampshire. Born in Concord, Massachusetts he eventually settled in Durham, New Hampshire where he was minister for 45 years. He lived so long he had three wives and had six children by the first two.

Rev. John Buss m. Eilzabeth Bradbury
Elizabeth Buss m. John Smith
Hannah Smith m. Abraham Runnels
Ebenezer Runnels m. Betsey Stanton
Alice Runnels m. Jonathan Pinkham
Luther Hale Pinkham m. Mary Chamberlain Wallis
George Hale Pinkham m. Olive Ann Hurd
Burt Hale Pinkham m. Kate Kinmond
Clarence Melvin Pinkham m. Agnes Elizabeth Pratt
my grandparents.

As a footnote, Elizabeth Bradbury in line #1 was the daughter of Thomas Bradbury and Mary Perkins who was accused of being a witch in the Salem witch hysteria of 1692. Convicted she was not executed. Thomas Bradbury himself was the grandson of William Whitgift, the brother of the Rev. John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to 1604. See wikipedia for his biography.

4. and 5. Rev. Nathan Cleveland 1777-1868 and his son John Cleveland 1802-1892. The Rev. Nathan was a Baptist minister. He was the minister of Onslow, Nova Scotia for ten years before moving to Hopewell, New Brunswick and preaching there before retiring to Alma, New Brunswick. There’s no doubt he was a ordained minister. His son John was a carpenter and itinerant preacher. I’m not sure he was ordained but he acted as a minister during his life.

Rev. Nathan Cleveland m. Diademia Dexter
John Cleveland m. Amy Martin
Ama Ann Cleveland m. James Smith
Agnes Jane Smith m. John Quigley (this is the couple who first owned the family Bible)
Lila Mae Quigley m. Archibald Thompson Pratt
Agnes Elizabeth Pratt m. Clarence Melvin Pinkham

6. Rev. Gershom Hall 1648-1732. He was also a Puritan preacher. He was a millwright by trade but was called to the pulpit as there was an opening. He preached on and off for twenty years. He married and had five children.

Rev. Gershom Hall m. Bethia Bangs
Bethia Hall m. Kenelm Winslow, III
Rebecca Winslow m. Samuel Rider
Lydia Rider m. Ebenezer Dexter
Diademia Dexter m. Rev. Nathan Cleveland, see above nos. 4 and 5.

7. Rev. Thomas Hooker 1586-1647. This man has a biography on Wikipedia as well as written biographies. In my estimation he is (not counting medieval royalty) the most famous person from whom I descend. He was one of the big five ministers who came on the Winthrop Fleet. He was first the minister at Cambridge, Massachusetts (then called Newtown) but disagreed with the idea of theocracy. So he left and established Hartford, Connecticut and was the minister there. His early writings form the nucleus of the concept of separation of church and state. We descend from him twice through two of his daughters.

Rev. Thomas Hooker m. Susannah Gabrand
Mary Hooker m. Rev. Roger Newton Sarah Hooker m. Rev. John Wilson, Jr.
Sarah Newton m. her first cousin John Wilson, III
Sarah Wilson m. John Marsh
Samuel Marsh m. Jemima Spear
Joshua Marsh m. Margaret Corbett
Isabella Marsh m. Robinson Thompson
Joshua Thompson m. Mary Spencer
Rebecca DennyThompson m. Samuel Pratt, Jr.
Joshua Thompson Pratt m. Elizabeth Jane Stack
Archibald Thompson Pratt m. Lila Mae Quigley see above nos. 4 and 5

8. Rev Joseph Hull 1596-1665. He also has a biography on Wikipedia. B.A. from Oxford University in 1614. He was the curate at Broadway in 1633 and 1634 and was instrumental in organizing the ship Marygould which he was on in 1635. He married twice and had seventeen children. We descend from him four times. He lived in Hingham, Barnstable, and Yarmouth, Massachusetts, York Maine, and Isle of Shoals, New Hampshire.

Rev. Joseph Hull m. Joanne (—-)
Temperance Hull m. John Bickford
Benjamin Bickford m. Sarah Barsham
Temperance Bickford m. George Walton, Jr.
Jane Walton m. Reuben Heard, see below

Rev. Joseph Hull m. Joanne (—-)
Elizabeth Hull m. John Heard
Mary Heard m. John Ham             Tristram Heard m. Abigail (—-)
Mary Ham m. John Horne             Tristram Heard, Jr. m. Jane Snell, see below
William Horne m. Mary Varney     Reuben Heard m. Jane Walton, see above
Abigail Horne m. Moses Hayes
Moses Hayes, Jr. m. Anna Coffin
Nancy Ann Hayes m. Frederick Heard, grandson of Reuben Heard and Jane Walton, above
Benjamin Wingate Hurd m. Abiah Russell Learned
Olive Ann Hurd m. George Hale Pinkham, see above no. 3

Rev. Joseph Hull m. Agnes (—-)
Reuben Hull m. Hannah Ferniside
Elizabeth Hull m. John Snell
Jane Snell m. Tristram Heard, Jr. see above

9. Rev. Roger Newton b. ca. 1620-1683. Studied at Kings College, Cambridge and may have finished his studies at Harvard College. He studied under the Rev. Thomas Hooker whose daughter Mary he married. They moved to Connecticut where Roger was the minister at Milford, Connecticut for years. See under Hooker for descent.

10. Rev. Charles Luther Pinkham 1841-1903. He attended Bates College and graduated in 1879. He first enlisted and fought in the Civil War. He was a free-will Baptist and lived in New Hampshire. Later in life he was a representative of Alton, New Hampshire in 1903. He married but had no children. His wife outlived him and died in 1919. He is the brother of George Hale Pinkham see no. 3 above. I include him even though he’s not a direct ancestor because he’s the most recent mnister I can find.

11. Rev. Richard Slaney b.ca. 1550-1599. Minister at Bartlow, Cambridgeshire, England. We know him from his burial record which records his profession

Rev. Richard Slaney m. Margaret Adams
Mary Slaney m. John Baisey
John Baisey, Jr. m. Elizabeth (—-)
Mary Baisey m. Samuel Burr
Elizabeth Burr m. Thomas Clarke, Jr.
Ann Clark m. Benjamin Cleveland
Benjamin Cleveland, Jr. (a noted hymn writer) m. Mary Elderkin
Rev. Nathan Cleveland m. Diademia Dexter, see above, nos. 4 and 5

11. 12, and 13. Rev. Willam Wilson b.ca. 1542-1615, his son Rev. John Wilson 1588-1667, and his son, Rev. John Wilson, Jr. 1621-1691. Rev. William Wilson educated at Merton College, Oxford (B.A. 1564, MA 1570, BD 1576 and DD, 1607). He was a minister in Islip, Clifee and Caxton before becoming a prebendary at St. Paul’s in London 1595-1615, at Rochester Cathedral 1591-1614 and most importantly canon of Windsor for 32 years. He married Isabel Woodhull, the niece of Edmund Grindal, another Archbishop of Canterbury. See wikipedia for his biography.

Rev. John Wilson 1588-1667 was another of the big five ministers of the Winthrop Fleet. He was the first minister of Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Christ College, Cambridge University in 1606 with AB and 1609 with an MA. He has a biography in wikipedia and well as other sources such as the Dictionary of American Biography and the American National Biography. He married Elizabeth Mansfield whose grandmother was the daughter of a lord. Through her we get all kinds of wonderful medieval ancestry.

Rev. John Wilson, Jr. 1621-1691 graduated from Harvard College in 1642, in the very first class of graduates. He was minister of Medfield, Massachusetts 1652 to his death. He married Sarah Hooker, daughter of Thomas Hooker, no. 7 above, See that for your descent.

14. Benjamin York (IV) 1761-1845, Baptist minister. He first took part in the American Revolution. After that he settled down in New Hampshire and became a minister. He married his first cousin Rebecca Coffin and had ten children.

Rev. Benjamin York m. Rebecca Coffin
Rebecca York m. Joseph Wallis
Mary Chamberlain Wallis m. Luther Hale Pinkham, see no. 3 above.

So you have a bunch of puritan ministers from the 16th and 17th centuries and some Baptist ministers since then. The puritan ministers were not nice people (my opinion). They truly believed that there was only one true religion and if you believed in that you went to heaven and if you didn’t you went to hell. John Wilson of Boston was so drastic he hanged Mary Dyer, a Quaker, for not being puritan. (She was warned away and exiled in Rhode Island but she returned and they executed her). So there wasn’t much room for love and compassion. But they were products of their times.

There are a few more ancestral uncles that were ministers:

James Hamden Thompson 1742-1795, Princeton Class of 1761 (AB and 1764 AM) Presbyterian minister of Charleston, South Carolina, brother of Archibald Thompson, Jr.

Samuel Thompson 1802-1885, Baptist minister in Nova Scotia., brother of Joshua Thompson


Descent:

Archibald Thompson, Jr. m. Martha Robinson
Robinson Thompson m. Isabella Marsh
Joshua Thompson m. Mary Spencer, see above no. 7.

 

The parents of Pavel Chodur Dolinsky 1817-1891 of Vrbovce

I have just completed abstracting the Vrbovce protestant church records from 1783-1815 for all baptisms, marriages, and deaths for the surnames Chodur, Valuch, Tomecek, and Balaz.  It was an overly ambitious project that took months.  The records are in Latin which is easy, but the handwriting changes over time from scribe to scribe.

I know my great-great-great-grandfather Paul Chodur Dolinsky died 26 April 1891 aged 74 and 1/4 according to his death record.  That aligns beautifully with a Paul Chodur baptized on 9 January 1817 son of Jan Chodur and Anna Chodur.  Jan and Anna are the two most common given names in Vrbovce and trying to distinguish them from others is difficult. 

They certainly seem to be the couple who married 21 November 1803.  They had the following children:

1. Elisabeth bapt. 10 August 1806
2. Jan bapt. 21 October 1810 died 11 April 1814
3. Pavel bapt. 23 December 1813 died 4 June 1814
4. Pavel bapt. 9 January 1817 above
5. Catherina bapt. 25 November 1818

However, I continued abstracting death records from 1816 on and to my dismay the Paul Chodur baptized in January 1817 dies that same month.  He can't be my great-great-great-grandfather and this identification is wrong.

I looked around and found another candidate.  This Paul Chodur is baptized in December 1817 to Jan Chodur Janowych and Catherina Ondris.  This couple marries on 16 November 1795 and has eight children and Paul is the youngest.  Paul uses the dual name Chodur Janowych when he baptizes his own children.  This seems like a likely match.  Fortuitously I found Catherina Ondris's death record in 1842 and can put  her with her parents Jan and Catherine Ondris.  Identifying Jan Chodur Janowych will be more difficult.

 

 

Betsey (Dudley) Learned wife of Moses Learned of Windham, Vermont

Part of my reasoning for the identification of Polly Learned in my article, Searching for the Parents of Polly B. (Dudley) (Daniels) Learned, New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Vol. 20 (2003):141-150, was that Moses Learned, brother of Amos Learned, married a Betsey Dudley and settled in Vermont.

There was also an available Betsey Dudley in the family of Josiah and Elizabeth (Denison) Dudley and it made good sense that two sisters married two brothers.  Well, as I have written, I no longer believe that Polly was a Dudley but probably a Daniels.

Yet on Wikitree, Betsey Dudley is given parents as David Daniel Dudley and Lois Whitney.  That is intriguing.  First of all no one born in 1750 had two Christian names so there's something dubious about David Daniel Dudley.  He is from the Francis Dudley of Concord family, a family I have already researched in regards to Polly.  But intriguing too is the Lois Whitney.  That would mean a second Whitney Line for me and it would make Amos and Polly cousins.  Sadly, Lois Whitney is given no parents on Wikitree.  She is another woman known only from her marriage record.  But according to Wikitree David Daniel and Lois had a daughter named Polly.  Is this worth pursuing?  They were in central Massachusetts (Sutton) and David Daniel Dudley dies in 1814.  Did he leave a will?  Well, if he did it wouldn't help since Polly doesn't marry until 10 December 1818.  Perhaps if probate took long enough she could be mentioned as Polly Learned in court documents.  But this is a long shot.

 

Wikitree errors in my ancestry

If only genealogy were as easy as filling up names on a chart.  But if you are using Wikitree (or Ancestry) and you're trusting someone else's research beware.  There's lot of unproven connections on the Internet.

 

• John Briggs of Sandwich's  origins are unknown as are his parents.
• Robert Barrow's parents aren't John and Anne Thompson Barrow.  In fact, I wrote an entire article on this: John Barrows of Plymouth, Massachusetts, NEHGR 166 (2012):119-131.
• Samuel Arnold's parents and origins are unknown
• Margery Tonge's maiden name is unknown as are her parents.
• William Chapel's wife's name is just Christian and unknown surname.
• Likewise John  Huntley's wife's names is just Jane and unknown surname.
• Arthur Scoville's origins are unknown.