Earlier this month, hubby and I joined other Society of Indiana Pioneers (SIP) at an Intergenerational Day at Mounds Park, Anderson, Indiana.
We had never been to the park and after a short hike, the ranger explained research findings about the constructed mounds on the premises. We then trekked back to the nature center and had an informative hands-on wildlife experience with reptiles and amphibians. After a box lunch, pioneer activities were scheduled – butter churning, broom making, weaving, flint knapping, candle making, archery, and visiting a historic home. We also observed volunteers who were making a dugout canoe for a museum exhibit.
SIP’s program is helpful in getting a younger generation interested in history.
It wasn’t just the kids who were excited nor was intergenerational just for attendees. My husband’s Hoosier Pioneer was Jacob Troxell, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on 2 October 1797. By 1810, he had emigrated with his parents to Bear Creek near Miamisburg, Montgomery, Ohio. There he married first Catherine Ranck/Raunk on 29 December 1819.
By 1822 Jacob, Catherine, and their first of eight children, Elizabeth “Betsy” moved to the then-new state of Indiana. They settled in Harrison Township, Fayette County, one mile north of Waterloo.
Jacob first farmed his property that was adjacent to the White River. The growing community had a need and he met it by erecting a saw and grist mill. Later he opened a dry goods business and became a County Commissioner.
After Catherine’s death, he married widow Mary Jane Carlton Port. The couple had one daughter.
Jacob died on 6 April 1885 in Fayette and is buried in Robinson Chapel Cemetery there.
Of my to-do plans is to visit where Jacob lived. Between speaking engagements, renovating our landscaping with native plants, and volunteering, it’s not likely we’ll get to visit this summer. The SIP program, however, enabled my husband to experience the White River for the first time. In this preserved park setting, it likely looks much as it did when his 3rd great-grandfather came in the 1820s. Wow, 200 years ago. Five generations ago. Now that’s really intergenerational!
First, an important message to those who follow my blog posted on Blogger….In July, you will no longer be receiving my blog directly to your email. I’m so sorry! Google has decided to cancel the email subscriber feature. I’ll continue blogging and you can find me through Blogger or at my GenealogyAtHeart.com website where I also post.
The photo above, which I discovered accidentally this week, haunts me. It connects my past to the present in a special way.
Since the pandemic began, my husband and I have sat next to each other almost daily working separately but together from our home office. When I began my career in the education field 44 years ago, if someone had told me this was how it would end I wouldn’t have believed them.
I have been fortunate throughout this difficult time when so many have suffered untold losses. Last Friday, as I was wrapping up the work week, I came across the picture above. Before reading the caption, I was overcome with a vague memory. I somehow recognized the building. I dismissed that thought quickly. The JSTOR Daily article title, Libraries and Pandemics: Past and Present could be a photo from any Carnegie library in 1918 since most used the same architectural plans. Except it wasn’t just any old library building.
The caption identifies the librarians sitting on the steps as protecting themselves from the influenze pandemic in October 1918 in Gary, Indiana. As a child, I climbed those steps many times with my mother, who would have been 6 months old when the photo was taken. Her father and maternal grandfather would bring the influenza home to the rest of the family three months later. Joseph Kos[s], who I’ve blogged about previously, would succumb to the disease.
The last time I visited that library was about 55 years ago. It has long been closed, not because of age or lack of use, but due to mismanagement of city finances. Six years ago I was told that most of the holdings were still inside, waiting for the day that funds became available to reopen. I don’t know if that’s still the case though it appears that it re-opened after a renovation in January 2018 but has been shuttered again.
I wonder what the librarians pictured above, who worked hard to preserve the library’s contents even during a pandemic, would think about the state of the library today. No doubt, like me, they would have found it difficult to fathom what the future held.
I also wonder about the condition of the contents remaining in an environment that is unheated in winter or cooled in summer. As a child, I well remember the annual heat wave in July where temperatures would sore to 100 degrees. We managed with the windows open and portable fans to catch the breeze blowing off Lake Michigan. The winters could be brutal with snow falling as early as October and as late as April.
But this blog isn’t about record loss; my thoughts today turn to sensory memory. After all these years, I still recall those steps that were so hard to climb when I was small. The angle the photo had been taken no doubt helped me recall the building. Being short in those days, the view I visualized and stored in my mind would have been from looking up at the entrance.
Using our senses can help recall those distant genealogy memories we carry. Smelling and tasting one of my grandmother’s recipe takes me to another time. For my husband, remembrances of holidays past are easily recalled when we share food around the table held in his maternal grandmother’s china. Hearing my departed relatives voices recorded on our old movies gives me that goose bump sensation as if they are still here. The sound of those voices helps me remember other events to which I associate them.
Partaking in a former activity can also help recall long forgotten memories. Early last year, my husband salvaged a bike that was placed for trash pickup. We have two bikes which we never ride and he couldn’t explain why he brought it home with its rear flat tire. I was drawn to the bike, too. Watching my husband tinkering with the bike recalled memories of my grandfather who had once been in the same position as my husband was, fixing the chain. After the repairs were complete I decided to take it for a spin. It was a cool spring morning and I felt like I was 8 years old again. The only thing missing was my apple red wind breaker my mom had purchased from Montgomery Wards on sale. I can’t explain why that one block bike ride made me remember that long forgotten jacket. Most likely it was due to my sense of macro reception, balance and movement on the bike, that enabled me to think of the past.
There is also that 6th sense, intuition, that is yet unexplainable. Somehow, we just know where to find that tombstone or missing document. Perhaps this sense is a compilation of the others mentioned when we relax and let the thoughts enter.
Using your senses in genealogy is another asset for your toolbox, however, caution is needed. Memory alone does not suffice; examination of records and the input of others who may have shared that memory are necessary.
It’s been a slow genealogy week for me. One of our computers is down and another is acting wonky – freezes and shuts itself off. Since I’m still holed up at home this greatly impacts my genealogical research.
Last week I blogged about my 3rd great grandmother Jane Morrison Duer who was mostly forgotten by her children and I was seeking to discover why. I suspected that discovering the divorce documents may shed light on this mystery.
Jane married John Duer in Trumbull County, Ohio on 29 Jul 1827. The couple had 11 children together and relocated to Holmes County and later, Mercer County, Ohio. They are last found together in the 1860 US Federal census with their youngest children residing in a residence two units away from their oldest surviving married daughter, Maria Duer Kuhn.
John remarried widow Margaret Martz Searight in Mercer County on 11 December 1864. John was raised a Presbyterian so there most likely is a divorce document somewhere. In other words, I doubt he was a polygamist.
I suspect he asked for the divorce because Jane’s tombstone in Kessler Cemetery records her as “wife of John Duer.” But she wasn’t that at the time of her death, 10 July 1866.
When the second wife died, her tombstone, also in Kessler Cemetery, records her as the “wife of John Duer.” She actually was the widow of by the time of her death but she was also the widow of her first husband. I suspect that her children purposely engraved the stone to reflect what was on Jane’s.
No tombstone has been found for John. Family legend says he’s buried next to Jane, which is possible but unconfirmed because Kessler’s records are incomplete. There is a sunken space next to Jane that likely is a burial but who is in that space is unknown. Second wife is buried in another section of the cemetery and there are marked stones on both side of her so that is not where John lies.
I was hoping to find the divorce document to get a better understanding of the circumstances. I guessed that John asked for divorce; I reasoned Jane would not have wanted all eternity to be known as his wife if she had wanted out of the relationship. She did not remarry so likely was not involved in another relationship.
I did not think finding the divorce document would be difficult but is has proven to be. In Mercer County, the Common Plea Court holds divorce records and they are not available online. I wrote to the Clerk and was informed that a search was made between 1860-1866 and no divorce record was found.
I then thought that perhaps the divorce was granted in Adams County, Indiana where John had purchased property in June 1860 when he was still married to Jane and where he eventually resided. He was shown with his second wife, their children, a child from her first marriage and two children from his first marriage in Adams in the 1870 census.
In March and May1863, John sued in Common Plea Court in Mercer for money owed him in the sale of property he had made in November 1862. Jane was not mentioned in the court document so it’s likely that she was not on the deed.
Why he remarried in Mercer and not Adams is another mystery.
I reached out to Adams County this week and was informed yesterday they have no divorce record.
So, do I give up. NOPE! I did ask both Mercer and Adams County Clerks where I might look and neither answered that question. My next step was to email a genealogist who lives in the Mercer area for recommendations.
Courtesy of Cousin Becky on Find-a-Grave. Burial in Kessler CemeteryCourtesy of Cousin Becky on Find-a-Grave. Burial also in Kessler Cemetery. John Duer was married to Margaret at the time of his first wife, Jane’s burial, in 1866.
Why was Jane Morrison Duer divorced from her husband John after about 37 years of marriage and eleven children together? Jane followed John from her native Trumbull County, Ohio to Killbuck Township, Holmes, Ohio and on to Mercer County, Ohio over their long years together. What would cause the relationship to end? I have a working hypothesis but no proof. This was a family most likely stressed by societal and personal crises.
Of the 11 children, 5 predeceased Jane. The couple’s first child, a female, died between 1830-1840. We only know of her existence from the 1830 census record’s tick mark that she was in the age group as being “under 5.” No grave has been discovered for her so she remains nameless.
The next child, William, was certified as insane at age 23 in Holmes County and sent to the Ohio Lunatic Asylum. There are only two other records found for William. In the first, he was listed in the 1860 U.S. Federal Census as an insane laborer, age 30, residing in the asylum in Columbus, Franklin, Ohio. That is correct but his birth in Germany is not. That’s interesting to note as his sister and several siblings did marry into the Kuhn family that were immigrants from Germany. Maria, William’s oldest surviving sister, had her birth place listed in error as Germany on her death record provided by her son. William and Maria most likely were born in Trumbull County, Ohio before the family relocated to Holmes County in the late 1930’s.
The second document is a notice in the newspaper, the Holmes County Farmer, on 14 March 1861 recommending that community members write to him and the 7 other “inmates.” I infer he must have been the longest committed as his name appears first. Although alphabetically his surname would be recorded first the others listed are not in alpha order. The article states that “some of these poor unfortunates are supposed to be incurable.” Most of his family had moved on to Mercer County, Ohio by the time the clip was published. No death date has ever been found for William so I suspect he died at the asylum. I am waiting for the organization that holds the records to reopen as they are closed due to the pandemic.
Next oldest son, Thomas Ayers, relocated to Winterset, Madison, Iowa by 1860, enlisted in the Civil War and died unmarried and likely childless of Febris Typhoides on 5 May 1862 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Daughter Maria wed Henry Kuhn and the couple lived two residences away from Jane and John in 1860. Henry enlisted in the Civil war, leaving Maria to raise their young children. During this time period, John and Jane divorced. Although no record has been found, John remarried in 1864, two years prior to Jane’s death. John relocated with his second wife to Adams County, Indiana where he had two deeds for land. Neither deed had then wife Jane’s name on them. When John died, Maria is not named in his will. Maria’s death certificate names both of her parents.
Son John B. had married first in 1860 but his wife Keziah died a few months after the marriage. He then married Carolina, one of the sibling of Maria’s husband, in 1863 and moved across the state line to farm in Adams County, Indiana. He seems to have had a falling out with his father as like Maria, he is not named in John’s will, even though he was residing in the same county as his father. Marriage records found do not name John B.’s parents. No death certificate for him as been located.
Mary Ann was found living with John and his second wife in 1870, however, she also was not named in his will. She may have had a falling out with her sister Maria as shortly after mother Jane’s death in July 1866, Mary Ann took Adam Kuhn, Maria’s brother-in-law, to court in Mercer County. Pregnant with Adam’s child, the unmarried couple could not agree on a financial settlement. Adam, in December 1866, was jailed by Jacob Baker, who married my 3rd great aunt, Caroline Bollenbacher, as Adam refused surety.
Sister Maria and her husband Henry was close to Adam as evidenced by their naming their son, born in February 1866, after him.
Mary Ann and Adam’s child must not have survived as there is no further court records of payment. He married an Elizabeth or Catharin Harper in Van Wert, Ohio 16 January 1868 and went on to have 5 daughters before dying at age 44, possibly due to injuries sustained during the Civil War when he fought in Union Company F, 99th Ohio Infantry.
Mary Ann married first, James Furman in 1875 who must have died shortly after the marriage as she married second John L. Ceraldo in 1879. John’s first wife had probably died as the child, Daniel, shown living with Mary Ann and John in 1880 would have been too old to have been theirs together. No record is ever found again of the boy who is presumed to have died. Mary died in 1909 in Michigan; her husband named John Duer as her father but her mother’s name was unknown. Although she had married after Jane’s death, why would she have not informed her husband in their 30 years of marriage what her mother’s name had been? Like Maria and John B., Mary Ann was not named in her father’s will.
Son Prosser remained in Holmes County, Ohio after the rest of the family relocated to Mercer County. He enlisted in the Civil War and died at Stones River, Tennessee on 2 January 1863. He did not marry or have any known children.
Daughter Sarah Jane married another sibling of Maria’s husband, Phillip, in 1870, four years after Jane had died. Sarah was also not named in her father’s will. Although she died in 1920, no death certificate or obituary has been found for her.
Son Mark Duer disappears from records after being found in 1850 with the family in Holmes, Ohio. He likely died there but no burial location has been found.
Son James William was found living with John and his second wife in Adams, Indiana in 1870 yet he, too, was not named in John’s will. When James wed in 1887 he named his mother as Sarah J. Marisum sic Morrison. James would have been 18 years old when his mother Mary J[ane] died. How did he not remember her name? Perhaps because she was called by her middle name and he thought of his sister Sarah and not Mary as having the first name as his mother. He spent the rest of his life living in Adams County where he was killed in a bike accident. He death certificate names his father as John but the mother was listed as unknown. It was completed by his son, Elra Leroy. Elra was born 6 years after his grandfather John had died. How did he remember John’s name but not the name of his grandmother Jane?
Youngest child, Angeline, was named in her father’s will. She is the only child of John and Jane’s to be named. She was living with him and his second wife in 1870. She married in 1874 and remained in Adams, Indiana until her death in 1933. Like her siblings, her father John is named on her death certificate. Her mother is recorded as Catharine, born in Ohio. The information was provided by Angeline’s daughter, Effie. Effie probably remembered her grandfather as she would have been 9 years old and living in the same area as him when he died. Where Effie came up with her grandmother’s name as Catherine is unknown as there is no Catherines in the family; her paternal grandmother’s name was Nancy.
Jane is buried in Kessler Cemetery and according to the trustees, the records are incomplete. They do not show who purchased the plot or if her husband John is buried next to her as family lore claims. There is a sunken area that appears to be burial next to Jane but records do not exist to state who is interred there. There is no tombstone. John’s second wife was buried in Kessler but in a different location. John is not buried on either side of his second wife. What is obvious is Jane’s tombstone that is boldly engraved “wife of John Duer” even though she wasn’t at the time of her death.
I suspect daughter Maria purchased the headstone as she was the only child still residing in Mercer County at the time of Jane’s death that had the means to afford it. Maria’s husband was a prosperous farmer and active in the community. In my opinion, Maria wanted the legitimacy of the first marriage noted for eternity.
It’s likely that Margaret’s children paid for her tombstone and wanted to show the world they, too, were legitimate so also engraved their mother as the wife of John.
The year 1866 must have been a tremendously difficult time for Maria. She had 5 children age 7 and under, her parents had recently divorced, her father remarried, her husband was away fighting for the Union in the Civil War, she has a brother that was committed to an insane asylum, 5 deceased siblings and her sister files a bastardly charge against her brother-in-law. What a mess!
But my underlying question is why did Jane and John’s children not hand down their mother’s name to their spouses/children?
Perhaps the state of the union, along with the loss of so many children caused Jane to suffer from the same melancholy as her son, William. John may have abandoned Jane for a new relationship with the widow who owned property close to his newly purchased land across the state lines in Indiana.
I believe Jane was forgotten by her adult children because it was too painful to remember those difficult times. They did not want to inform their children of their mother’s and brother’s mental state. No family member I have reached out to was aware of Williams insanity commitment. The family just didn’t speak about painful situations.
Last week I received a call from a clerk with the Mercer Ohio Common Plea Court. She had searched for a divorce record for John and Jane between 1860 and 1866. None was found. Perhaps John abandoned Jane and the paperwork was filed in Adams County, Indiana where I’ll be searching next. It’s possible that single document may help me better understand the straw that was the backbreaker of the relationship. The search continues!
A few blogs ago I mentioned I needed to check out the
sibling and step siblings of Margaret Ann Martz Searight Duer to try to
discover why she relocated from Hardin, Ohio to Adams, Indiana. I guessed that she had met my John Duer in
Adams as he was a property owner in the same area as Margaret. Turns out, there was much more involvement
than I thought.
Since Margaret was the second wife of John, I had never
researched her family since they are not related to me, or so it seemed.
Online trees showed Margaret was born to the first wife, Margarethae Himmelsbach, of George Peter Martz in Germany. I have found a baptismal record for another child of the couple, Catharina, born 17 September 1830 in Rheinzabern, Pfalz, Bayern. The child and the mother must have died shortly after as George married Elizabeth Goetz Martz, the wife of his deceased brother, John. The second union produced eight children. I never found a birth record for Margaret and determined her birthdate from her tombstone shown on Find-a-Grave.
Like Margaret and her first husband, George Washington
Searight, “father” George and “step-mother” Elizabeth lived in Hardin, Ohio in
1850. By 1860, some of the children were
still residing with George and Elizabeth who had moved to Mercer County,
Ohio.
Interesting, I thought!
Perhaps John hadn’t met Margaret in Adams, Indiana but instead, in
Mercer where he was found living with his first wife, Jane, in 1860. Actually, they are 3 pages away in the census
from where John and Jane lived. Also
living nearby, just two residences away, was daughter Maria Duer who had
married Henry Kuhn, also an emigrant from Germany. Perhaps John and Margaret met at a community
event as Henry Kuhn was a leader of the German settlers in Mercer County. His
wife, Maria, who was not German, even has an obituary in the German newsper.
Knowing that Margaret had family in Mercer helped me better
understand why she was buried there and not in Indiana. I still had no answer as to why Margaret
purchased property in Indiana so I took the time to learn about her step
siblings, thinking that perhaps, they lived in Adams County.
I decided to start with “step sister,” Hannah Lucinda and
what a surprise I found! Hannah died in
Missouri before 1880 when the census shows her husband, Abraham Orr, residing
with his brother, Thomas. I was
interested in learning more about Abraham because he was a property owner at
one time in Trumbull County, Ohio, where my John Duer was born and where he
first married. In researching Abraham I
discovered his mother was Anna Duer, sister to my John Duer. Who knew these families were interrelated! It
gets even better – After Hannah Lucinda died, her youngest children, Mary and
Phillip Orr, are found living in the household of Phillip Martz, “step-brother”
of Margaret in (drum roll, please) Mercer, Ohio. So the Duers and Martz’s were connected prior
to John’s marriage to Margaret. No
telling when or where they first met!
I hit pay dirt when I got to “step-brother,” Eli Martz. He had a bio in amugbook from Mercer County, Ohio that, although not 100% accurate, provided me with background information about Margaret and her family.
I thought it strange that Eli has two entries and the information is slightly different. The first, names him Eli Martz, “the son of George P. and Elizabeth (Goetz) Martz.” P. 429. I read this entry first. When I finished the article I noticed the next article was for an Elisha Martz. Hmm, who could he be?
Elisha Martz was the “son of G. Peter and Elizabeth (Goetz) Martz.” p. 430. Yes, George P. is the same man as G. Peter. Elizabeth Goetz Martz is the same mama. At the very end of Elisha’s article the confusion is cleared – Eli and Elisha are brothers. Why the parents would have named them so similarly I have no idea.
Their stories have a few discrepancies which makes this very
interesting!
Both stories state Margaret emigrated with her STEP-father
and 3 of her step-brothers to Frederick Town, Maryland about 1830. All of the online trees have Margaret’s
father’s name wrong – it was not George Peter but George’s brother, John
Martz. George Peter was Margaret’s uncle
who raised her after his brother died and George married the widow. That explains why no record for Margaret’s
birth has been found!
According to Eli’s article, the family arrived in 1830, however, the twins, Phillip and Caleb, were born in 1831 in Germany so that is not correct. Elisha’s article states they arrived in 1833. That makes sense and would explain the longer than usual lapse in children’s births. The couple seemed to have children annually in Germany but there is a longer gap between the twins (1831) and Eli in 1834. Having twins and moving to start a new life in a new country would definitely have put a damper on having another child at the original rate.
Margaret’s uncle was a shoemaker but decided he wanted to try farming so he relocated to Sandusky, Ohio after 3 years in Maryland, according to Eli, or 18 months, according to Elisha. Really, what’s a year and a half?!.
Quickly deciding raising corn wasn’t for him, they packed up
with the intent to return to Maryland.
On their journey they stopped at Wayne County, Ohio where they decided
to stay for 14 years, per Eli, or until 1848, per Elisha.
George bought land in the then wilds of Mercer County, Ohio but on the way in 1847 (Eli) or 1848 (Elisha), the family decided to stop in Hardin County, where they were found in the 1850 census. Both agree in 1852, the family made their way to Mercer. After his second wife died in 1876, says Eli, George relocated to Illinois where he died “about 1882.” Elisha says George relocated to Illinois in 1864. He doesn’t say when George died. He does gush about what a great dad George was; Eli says nothing. Hmmm.
This leads me to a big WHAT? So, sons Eli/Elisha did not keep in close contact with Pop, as the year discrepancy is rather large of when George left Ohio not to mention they don’t know when their dad died. Seems like this is a trend with the Duer siblings too, who never told their children their mother Jane’s name. What is going on with these folks?
Since George’s wife, Elizabeth, was found living with Eli in 1870 and George is not found in any record after 1860, I’m thinking that both Eli and Elisha were somewhat accurate about George’s whereabouts. Eli would have known when his dad left the area because mom was in his household. Elisha might have remembered when his parents split households, probably in 1864.
The mug book names George’s 9 children, the eldest, being Margaret, “the widow of John Doer, who resides in Adams, county, Ind.” p. 429 or “Margaret, the widow of John Deuer, of Jay County, Indiana.” p. 430. Yes, she was the widow but John wasn’t from Jay County and I love the spelling of John’s last name!
The point, though, is I would have never located this had I
not searched for more information on Margaret’s step siblings.
The book goes on to note where every sibling resided and the only step-brother/cousin of Margaret that lived in Indiana was Phillip. However, he lived in Salem which is in southern Indiana, Adams is in northeast so Margaret clearly didn’t relocate to Adams because of Phillip’s move to that state. I’m thinking Margaret moved to Adams to be near John and away from ex wife Jane who most likely remained in Mercer.
Now I’m intrigued as to why Uncle George (geez, I DO NOT need another Uncle George in the family) went to Illinois at an advanced age. None of his children were residing there between 1864-1876. Supposedly, youngest daughter Hannah Lucinda died in Illinois per an online family tree but there is no citation. Her spouse was listed as a widow in Iowa in 1880 so possibly she died on the way to relocating west. Whether she stopped to visit her dad on the way, I don’t know.
George didn’t appear to keep in touch with any of his children as no one seems to know what became of him. The year of 1864 is interesting to me as that was likely when John and Margaret married. The Civil War wasn’t over yet. Maybe there was just too much drama for a man up in age and he decided to leave his wife for a new start. I say that because Elisha mentions that George’s wife died in Mercer. Eli/Elisha both agree it was in 1876.
The mysteries may continue, however, the beauty of the information in the mug book is priceless. What a wonderful example of why it’s important to research the relatives, no matter how distant they may at first appear to be! My tree is becoming gnarled.
John Koss was my Grandfather, Michael A. Milinovich was my God Father and Steve Milinovich was Mike’s brother. Typo in my Grandfather’s city- should be Gary, not Cart! 26 Dec 1956, c. 3 p. 2.
You may have a Basic membership through Ancestry.com to Newspapers.com but that’s doesn’t permit you to view all of the holdings. I spent a few hours yesterday rechecking my closest to me relatives to see if additional newspapers had been added since the last time I took advantage of a free special offer from the company.
I was delighted to find several articles that I didn’t know existed – such as:
Who knew that my grandmother Mary Koss had an obit in a Hammond, Indiana newspaper? I have the obit from the Gary Post Tribune but didn’t know about the Hammond Times. Likewise, my Uncle George also had an obituary in the Hammond Times. Must have been a deal hrough the funeral home I just wasn’t aware was in place. Funny as they rarely visited Hammond and to my knowledge, had not friends there!
Struck gold in the Zajenicar, a Croatian newspaper that my grandparents used to receive. I had been told that my name had once appeared in it. Evidently, back in the day, the Croatian Fraternal Union sold life insurance policies to the parents/grandparents of newborns and my grandparents had bought a policy for me that expired when I turned 18. I was told that the children’s names were printed in the newspaper so I searched for me but didn’t find myself. I decided to search for my grandparents thinking it might have been placed under them instead. Surprise, Surprise! Discovered that my grandfather, Kum (that’s God Father) and his brother had given $10.00 to the organization before my birth to help fund an Immigrant Museum to be built in Pittsburgh. Don’t think that goal ever materialized but it was a sweet find for me. I think they all would be pleased knowing I have tried to honor all of the family’s immigrants through my blog and family tree.
Interesting to me, I also understood why my Grandparents always paid for a lamb to be raised and slaughtered at Buncich’s Farm in Hobart, Indiana every year. Duh – they were sorta kinda related and I had no idea until I found an obituary that mentioned my aunt through marriage. One of her brothers had married the daughter of the owner of the farm. That would just be like my grandparents to support a family member if they could. I always thought they just liked the taste of the lamb!
Finding that obit was another aha! moment for me. I have one cousin whose name is “off” the naming pattern the family typically uses – we have a zillion John – George – Joseph – Nicholas – Michaels and those names move from first to middle so frequently it’s often hard to keep everyone straight. Since my cuz is still living and I don’t want to hurt feelings if he ever sees this I’m not typing the name but now I realize where he got it from – his mom’s brother’s middle name that had been a grandfather’s name. Who knew? ! I guess most of the family but me.
Since this weekend will be very cold in most parts of the states and we’ve had torrential rains already this morning in my part of the world – stay warm, stay safe and stay focused on your genealogy by taking the weekend to visit newspapers.com. No telling what you might discover!
What do you do when you’ve looked for a deed in all the usual places – county property appraisers office, FamilySearch.org or other online database of deed records, and even probate files but you come up with nothing? I was fortunate to find deed records in an unlikely place and you just might find this useful…
What do you do when you’ve looked for a deed in all the usual places – county property appraisers office, FamilySearch.org or other online databases, and even probate files but you come up with nothing? I was fortunate to find deed records in an unlikely place and you just might find this useful.
I wanted to locate a deed record for my John Duer (1801-1885) because I was trying to discover which wife might be named on it. John married Mary “Jane” Morrison (1804-1866) on 29 July 1827 in Trumbull County, Ohio. The couple would go on to have 11 children together and relocate first to Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio by 1840 and then to Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio by July 1860 when they are found together living two residences away from one of their married daughters, Maria Duer Kuhn.
The census does not state if the residence was owned or rented. The couple owned property both jointly and separately when in Holmes County. I’m not exactly sure when they relocated but the last deed of sale I find for them in Holmes was 27 April 1854.
I began to look in Mercer County, Ohio for deeds between 1853 (when they sold another piece of land in Holmes-I figured they may have relocated then but couldn’t sell the other lot they owned until the following year) and 1864 when I knew John had remarried. I tried all the usual places but came up with nothing. The property appraiser site found no John Duer. The site doesn’t say how far back the records go but one of the options for age of buildings is 1800. I then looked for old deed books at the various online genealogy sites and found nothing for Mercer County, Ohio. I even tried the Familysearch.org image search that I blogged about two weeks ago but came up with a big zero.
Sometime after July 1860 and before 11 December 1864 John and Jane split up and John remarried widow Margaret Ann Martz Searight. They had a child together, Charles Edward, born in February 1866.
Since emigrating from Germany, Margaret lived first in Hardin County, Ohio but relocated to Adams County, Indiana, perhaps after her husband, George Washington Searight died 8 April 1863. John and Margaret, after their marriage, lived together in Adams County, Indiana.
My next search was for property in Adams County, Indiana as I knew, from John’s will made in August 1884, that he was leaving Margaret the property. That meant she had not been a co-owner. He possibly bought the land prior to their wedding or for some other unknown reason, decided to buy land separately from his second wife as he had done in Hardin County, Ohio with his first wife.
His will states, in the case of Margaret predeceasing him, the property would go to some of his children (why he selected only 3 children in his will I do not understand. He names the two children he had with Margaret and one of his children, Angeline, he had with Jane. Angeline had married and was living in Adams, Indiana. What is odd is two of his sons, John B. and James William, were also living in Adams. Why he excluded them from his will I hypothesized in my last blog, Missing Tombstones.)
The Adams County, Indiana property assessor’s office website is not very user friendly and I got lost in the clicking. I eventually found that “NEW! Electronic Records” were available but there is no link to where. Trying to click on what appears to be a link stating “Adams County is now ready to electronically record all your documents through e-recording.” also didn’t work. In small print, there is a note that the records are from 1990 to present. Oh well!
I continued to click and thought maybe “History” would be helpful but it was just a few facts about the 12 townships in the county. Under “Residents,” I decided to click on “Genealogy.” I was taken to INGenWeb for Adams County. I was so excited to find a search box so I entered “Duer” and found 59 items.
At this point I had to decide, did I want to derail my search for a deed, which I figured wouldn’t be placed here, or just get more info about the Duer’s who had lived in Adams County. I decided to stay focused but to do a new search for “John Duer” hoping that it would eliminate all of the other Duers except for John’s son, John B., known to also be living in Adams. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the search results were for 53 items.
What immediately caught my eye on the first page (10 items show per page) was “Estate of David Tressler2 – 1862.xls.” Who was David Tressler – certainly no one in my tree and how/why was John Duer associated with him? Intriguing!
The image (above) was a timeline followed by scanned documents of David Tressler’s estate from 1862. Using the Find trick (hold down the Ctrl and F keys and type in the box) I quickly found that John made a deed to purchase Tressler’s real estate on 8 September 1862. Yippee! So John had purchased the property IN HIS NAME ONLY prior to his marriage with Margaret which explains why she was not on the deed. This also tells me that either he and Jane were having marital problems/separated/divorced by this time since Jane was also not a co-owner.
After doing my happy dance, I went back to explore the remaining Duer findings on the site. I was surprised to find another deed record – on 28 June 1860 John Duer purchased from Benjamin Shafer, the estate administrator for John Tressler. Interestingly, this purchase was made ONE MONTH BEFORE the 1860 census records showing John in Mercer County, Ohio, which borders Adams, Indiana. Jane’s name was not on that deed, either. It’s likely the couple was already having problems with their marriage at that time. The property description matches the property he left Margaret in his will.
So John Duer planned to relocate to the next county over even before he and Jane divorced. (Yes, it would be wonderful to discover their divorce document but I have been unable to locate it in either county.)
Of course, every find leads to more questions. Now I want to know where and when John met Margaret. Her first husband died supposedly at age 35 but I don’t know where. I checked to see if he had enlisted in the Civil War but did not find him. I can’t verify his date of death; he’s not on Find-a-grave/Billion Graves. The date is unverified and comes from online family trees. He was last known alive in Dunkirk, Cessna, Hardin, Ohio in 1860.
My guess is one of Margaret’s sisters or step-sister was living in Adams and as a widow with a young daughter, Margaret moved to be closer to family. I will have to search them to discover if that theory is correct.
It appears from plat records I also found on INGenWeb that Margaret owned 20 acres of her own land in 1880 in Adams, Indiana. I don’t know when that land was purchased – before her marriage to John or after. More research is definitely needed. It’s now clear where John met Margaret; they were property owners in the same neighborhood.
Moral of the blog….when you can’t find what you are looking for check out the local genealogy sites. Kudos to those at INGenweb.org as they have done a phenomenal job in preserving local records and uploading them for FREE. I also love how they insert a timeline of the scanned original documents. I am deeply appreciative of your efforts.
I wanted to locate a deed record for my John Duer (1801-1885) because I was trying to discover which wife might be named on it. John married Mary “Jane” Morrison (1804-1866) on 29 July 1827 in Trumbull County, Ohio. The couple would go on to have 11 children together and relocate first to Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio by 1840 and then to Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio by July 1860 when they are found together living two residences away from one of their married daughters, Maria Duer Kuhn per the census.
The census does not state if the residence was owned or rented. The couple owned property both jointly and separately when in Holmes County. I’m not exactly sure when they relocated but the last deed of sale I find for them in Holmes was 27 April 1854.
I began to look in Mercer County, Ohio for deeds between 1853 (when they sold another piece of land in Holmes-I figured they may have relocated then but couldn’t sell the other lot they owned until the following year) and 1864 when I knew John had remarried. I tried all the usual places but came up with nothing. The property appraiser site found no John Duer. The site doesn’t say how far back the records go but one of the options for age of buildings is 1800. I then looked for old deed books at the various online genealogy sites and found nothing for Mercer County, Ohio. I even tried the Familysearch.org image search that I blogged about two weeks ago but came up with a big zero.
Sometime after July 1860 and before 11 December 1864 John and Jane split up and John remarried widow Margaret Ann Martz Searight. They had a child together, Charles Edward, born in February 1866.
Since emigrating from Germany, Margaret lived first in Hardin County, Ohio but relocated to Adams County, Indiana, perhaps after her husband, George Washington Searight died 8 April 1863. John and Margaret, after their marriage, lived together in Adams County, Indiana.
My next search was for property in Adams County, Indiana as I knew, from John’s will made in August 1884, that he was leaving Margaret the property. That meant she had not been a co-owner. He possibly bought the land prior to their wedding or for some other unknown reason, decided to buy land separately from his second wife as he had done in Hardin County, Ohio with his first wife.
His will states, in the case of Margaret predeceasing him, the property would go to some of his children (why he selected only 3 children in his will I do not understand. He names the two children he had with Margaret and one of his children, Angeline, he had with Jane. Angeline had married and was living in Adams, Indiana. What is odd is two of his sons, John B. and James William, were also living in Adams. Why he excluded them from his will I hypothesize in my last blog, Missing Tombstones.)
The Adams County, Indiana property assessor’s office website is not very user friendly and I got lost in the clicking. I eventually found that “NEW! Electronic Records” were available but there is no link to where. Trying to click on what appears to be a link stating “Adams County is now ready to electronically record all your documents through e-recording.” also didn’t work. In small print, there is a note that the records are from 1990 to present. Oh well!
I continued to click and thought maybe “History” would be helpful but it was just a few facts about the 12 townships in the county. Under “Residents,” I decided to click on “Genealogy.” I was taken to INGenWeb for Adams County. I was so excited to find a search box so I entered “Duer” and found 59 items.
At this point I had to decide, did I want to derail my search for a deed, which I figured wouldn’t be placed here, or just get more info about the Duer’s who had lived in Adams County. I decided to stay focused but to do a new search for “John Duer” hoping that it would eliminate all of the other Duers except for John’s son, John B., known to also be living in Adams. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the search results were for 53 items.
What immediately caught my eye on the first page (10 items show per page) was “Estate of David Tressler2 – 1862.xls.” Who was David Tressler – certainly no one in my tree and how/why was John Duer associated with him? Intriguing!
The image (above) was a timeline followed by scanned documents of David Tressler’s estate from 1862. Using the Find trick (hold down the Ctrl and F keys and type in the box) I quickly found that John made a deed to purchase Tressler’s real estate on 8 September 1862. Yippee! So John had purchased the property IN HIS NAME ONLY prior to his marriage with Margaret which explains why she was not on the deed. This also tells me that either he and Jane were having marital problems/separated/divorced by this time.
After doing my happy dance, I went back to explore the remaining Duer findings on the site. I was surprised to find another deed record – on 28 June 1860, John Duer purchased from Benjamin Shafer, the estate administrator for John Tressler. Interestingly, this purchase was made ONE MONTH BEFORE the 1860 census records showing John in Mercer County, Ohio, which borders Adams, Indiana. Jane’s name was not on that deed. It’s likely the couple was already having problems with their marriage at that time. The property description matches the property he left Margaret in his will.
So John Duer planned to relocate to the next county over even before he and Jane divorced. (Yes, it would be wonderful to discover their divorce document but I have been unable to locate it in either county.)
Of course, every find leads to more questions. Now I want to know where and when John met Margaret. Her first husband died supposedly at age 35 but I don’t know where. I checked to see if he had enlisted in the Civil War but did not find him. I can’t verify his date of death as he’s not on Find-a-grave/Billion Graves. The date is unverified and comes from online family trees. He was last known alive in Dunkirk, Cessna, Hardin, Ohio in 1860.
My guess is one of Margaret’s sisters or step-sister was living in Adams and as a widow with a young daughter, Margaret moved to be closer to family. I will have to search them to discover if that theory is correct.
It appears from plat records I also found on INGenWeb that Margaret owned 20 acres of her own land in 1880 in Adams, Indiana. I don’t know when that land was purchased – before her marriage to John or after. More research is definitely needed.
Moral of the blog….when you can’t find what you are looking for check out the local genealogy sites. Kudos to those at INGenweb.org as you have done a phenomenal job in preserving local records and uploading them for FREE. I also love how you insert a timeline of the scanned original documents. I am deeply appreciative of your efforts.
Last week I wrote about my awesome find locating the deed for one of John and Jane Duer’s children, Mary, in Mercer County, Ohio. I mentioned that no one knows where John Duer was buried and that it is my guess he is buried next to his first wife, Jane.
It is frustrating when we can’t find a burial location so before I get into why I believe that is where his body lies, I want to take a moment to list reasons of why someone may not have a tombstone.
1. Lack of Money – many families, especially if a breadwinner died in his/her prime, would have certainly been impacted by the loss of income. If it is between feeding the children and memorializing the dead, it is understandable that the living become a priority over the tombstone.
2. Family Dissension – unfortunately, as we all know too well, families don’t always get along. In my own, I know of a brother and sister who lived only a few miles from one another but did not speak after the death of their mother due to a disagreement over the mother’s care in a nursing home in her last year of life. The sister had no other living relatives when she unexpectedly passed except her brother and a few step-siblings that lived far away from her. The sister’s friends reached out to the brother when she died, taking up a collection and paying for the cremation. They wanted to know what to do with her ashes but the brother stated he didn’t care. The brother emailed me two months after his sister’s death to inform me she had died. He never told me about the ashes or the disagreement. I sent my condolences via an online memorial site. The friends saw my post and contacted me inquiring what I would like to do since I appeared to be the next closest relative to the brother. I accepted the ashes. I paid for the internment in the cemetery where the mother is buried as the friends stated that was the deceased’s wish. I did not pay for a stone as I believe that would be out of line while the brother is still alive. Perhaps I will have a small stone placed there someday. But what happens if the brother outlives me? Then there will most likely never be a stone. If a researcher ever checked with the cemetery, the records will clearly show that I requested the internment and where the location was. I do not own the rights to the deceased’s Find-a-grave or Billion Graves memorial so no information has been placed there. Perhaps someday I will and then I will add the burial location. Sadly, in the interim, no one seems to have been concerned where the cremains were interred.
3. There is NO Burial Site – Regarding cremains, the family may have scattered the ashes as requested by the deceased. Placing a tombstone in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico just isn’t an option!
4. Deceased Requests No Memorial – The family may be keeping with the wishes of the deceased who wants the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” to be literal.
5.Religious Preference – My example here is poor because I really don’t know if this was the case with my husband’s 4th great paternal grandfather, Wilson Williams (1754-1831). He is buried next to his wife, Margaret Hicks Williams, in Christ Church Cemetery, Nassau New York. She has a lovely stone. He has zilch. The family could afford a stone and there is no indication that there was family dissension. Although his death location is not noted in the current church’s records, it was recorded in an old work of cemetery transcriptions by Josephine C. Frost in 1913. (Thank you, Josephine!) In what appears to be empty space next to Margaret was once “a common field stone marked W.W.” In a past blog, I wrote that Wilson was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and a common burial practice was marking a grave with a field stone. Over the years, the stone has been lost and for a time, so, too, was our knowledge of where Wilson was buried since the church cemetery records are no longer in the church at that site. If not for the Frost transcription we would still be wondering.
6. The Missing – for those individuals that are no longer in touch with their family for any number of reasons, a falling out, an abduction, etc., the location of their burial is unknown so family cannot place a stone. Some families do place a memorial to the deceased in a cemetery as evidenced by the many fallen soldiers interred overseas who have a memorial in their hometown.
7. Avoid Remembering – deceased murderers often do not have a stone to ward off those who seek out the grave to disrespect it. Being eternally unnamed and forgotten is a final punishment for heinous crimes committed.
8. The Stone was Lost – tombstones sink, they fall over, they are vandalized or some idiot decides they would make great construction material and steals them. My 4th great paternal grandfather, Thomas Duer’s stone had toppled over in a rural Ohio cemetery that had become abandoned. A local genealogy group righted the stone and moved it to be in line with the other stones but its present location is not exactly where he was buried.
9. The Burial Site Relocated -My husband’s 2nd great maternal grandfather’s child, Lincoln Mordecai Harbaugh’s (1846-1847) was once interred in a cemetery adjacent to the family church in Waynesboro, Franklin, Pennsylvania. The church sold the property long after he died and the family relocated to Indiana. His remains are interred in a group burial site in Green Hill Cemetery after the new owners wanted to expand the building.
10. Chaos Following an Emergency – In some parts of the world today, due to the pandemic, those who have died are being buried in mass graves. This is not a new phenomena. During an ongoing emergency the need to inter takes precedence over individual burials. Whether the site will eventually be marked with a memorial may or may not occur.
Perhaps you can think of more reasons why tombstones might not be found.
In the case of my John Duer (1801-1885), I can only point to examining further family dissension as the reason why he doesn’t seem to have a stone. At the time of John’s death he had a second wife and 8 surviving children, 4 of whom were prosperous and have elaborate tombstones of their own (Maria, John B., Sarah Jane and James William). John died in Jefferson Township, Adams County, Indiana where he was residing with wife Margaret Ann Martz Searight Duer. He knew he was ill as he made a will in August 1884. He did not name his prosperous children in the will or his daughter Mary Ann, possibly because they didn’t need the money or perhaps, because he was not on speaking terms with them. Children Angeline, Charles and Lucinda were all named to receive John’s property, along with his wife. I also know from the will that John requested “that my body be burried (sic) in a manner suitable with my condition in life.” John wasn’t well to do but he did own 80 acres that he farmed and had few debts at the time of his death. A tombstone was not against his religious beliefs; he was raised Presbyterian as a child but there is no church membership found for him as an adult.
Mary “Jane,” his first wife who died after his second marriage and a few months after he had a son with his new wife, is buried in Kessler Cemetery, Chattanooga, Mercer, Ohio. The cemetery records are not complete and do not state who or when her plot was purchased. The family owns a plot next to her that is sunken and may contain the body of John. Family tales state he is buried in Kessler. His second wife is also buried in Kessler but not close to Jane. There are tombstones on both sides of Margaret’s gravesite so he is not buried next to her.
No death certificate has been found for John, nor an obituary or church records that may shed light on where he was interred.
Perhaps John’s older children did not think he needed a marker as his name is on Jane’s stone. It would have been awkward putting a stone next to Jane’s that said “John Duer, husband of Margaret.” Perhaps the children decided to ignore the situation and leave his plot unmarked. Since Jane died AFTER John’s remarriage, her stone’s inscription of “Wife of John Duer” holds a clue. Perhaps she didn’t remarry as she believed that one only marries once. Maybe she had no preference but her surviving children had the stone engraved as a way to voice their unacceptance of the second marriage.
The only way I’ll ever know if someone is buried next to Jane is if ground penetrating radar is used and I’m not planning on doing that. Even if someone was found to be buried there I wouldn’t know for sure it was John unless the body was exhumed. So, I’ll have to leave this Duer mystery unsolved for now. Sigh.
You may have tried the new MyHeritage tool that allows you to upload a black and white photo that will be transformed into color. I spoke with a colleague at a genealogy conference last month who gushed about the magic of the results.
I finally got around to trying it and decided the true test would be with one of the photos in my collection that were of a known relative so I could compare results with memory.
I selected a photo of my great grandmother, Anna Grdenic Kos[s]:
I recall this photo was taken Christmas 1961 or 1962. I remember the dress and that my grandmother, Mary Violet Kos Koss, purchased the corsage and it was worn to the church service. I even recall where they attended, St. Joseph’s Croatian [Roman] Catholic Church in Glen Park, Gary, Lake, Indiana. I didn’t go with them because the mass was in Croatian; instead, my mother and I walked a block to attend services at St. Mark’s [Roman] Catholic Church.
Here’s what the colorization looks like:
This was not my great grandmother’s skin tone in winter; she was quiet pale. Actually, it wasn’t even her tone in the summer as she didn’t go out in the sun. The dress was green and white. The corsage was silver with red balls and a green ribbon. I know this because I was there. I also played with the corsage and tried to affix it to my cat’s collar after the holidays. I thought that corsage was just awesome!
So, if you’d like to colorize your photos you can do so at MyHeritage. You can sign in through Google or Facebook and if you have a MyHeritage account, just enter your password. Then, just drop and drag the photo you’d like colorized in the box. It just takes a few seconds to get the finished image.
Know that MyHeritage retains the rights to the photo. Know, from my personal experience, the colors you get aren’t necessary true. Personally, I like my black and whites and sepias.
Here’s an often overlooked resource to help identify parentage – school records. I’m not talking about yearbooks on Ancestry.com. I mean the enrollment and attendance records that schools had to maintain to receive state and federal funding.
To acquire those records, which are not available online, visit the school district’s website. If there is a search bar, simply type in “records” or “school records.” Follow the link which usually is for recent graduates of the school district needing to get a transcript for further education or work. Obviously, you are searching for old records so find the phone number and make a call to see what will be required for you to get the documents.
In my area, a death certificate by a relative is needed but an attorney’s representative for the estate handing the deceased’s probate is also acceptable to receive the records.
Most districts have microfilmed their older records so you will not have your request fulfilled immediately. There’s no telling what you’ll receive, either, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to check it out. I live in a state that has lots of record loss due to mold, flood damage, fires and insects. Even with all the losses, there is usually some records that were able to be salvaged and scanned.
Recently, I assisted a client in obtaining school records from the 1950’s-1960’s in the hope of identifying parentage. The turnover time was a little over a week. Prior to the 1970’s, you’re not going to receive a birth certificate as most schools did not have a photo copier available to make a copy of that document at the time of enrollment. The best you’re going to get is a check mark on a line that noted a birth certificate had been presented. The name of the enrolling parent/guardian is then recorded on the document, along with the address where the student was residing. You may even get lucky and have a telephone number recorded.
Once you have the parent/guardian name it’s time for you to check city directory records. In my location, phone numbers were added in the mid-1950’s and I was able to match the telephone number on the school records to two different names not recorded in those records. Was there an error in the school records in recording the phone number? No, the information proved that the deceased had been involved with a social service agency and explained why the recorded schools’ names varied when the home address didn’t. The student must have been temporarily living in either a foster home or with a relative but the parent still had the right to obtain school records so the enrollment address did not change. The enrollment and withdrawal dates listed for the various schools attended provides evidence that the family was experiencing difficulty and gives more places, such as court records, to look for a better understanding of what was occurring.
In my situation, only one parent’s name was recorded in school records. That individual was never found in the city directory but the name and telephone of the individual who purportedly lived at the address in school records was a clue to find the other parent’s name.
The school records also contain a birth date for the student so a check of newspaper birth announcements for that date could lead to a further confirmation of parentage – or not. In my case, there was no announcement so it was likely the student’s parents were not married at the time of birth as it was the local policy to not record in the paper the names of children of single mothers.
School records will not provide every answer you seek but will point you in the direction of locating other records and help you gain insight into the life of the student and the parent/guardian.
So, what do you do if the district says there are no records? Don’t give up! Next check Worldcat online to see if those records were published in a book and held at an archive somewhere. On a trip to Boston a few years ago I spent a couple of hours at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I decided to browse through the Indiana section. I happily discovered a book that was a transcription of Lake County, Indiana school enrollments for the early 1900’s. The book contained my husband’s grandmother’s name and who enrolled her in first grade – one of her older stepbrothers. That made sense, Elsie’s mother was a recent immigrant from Sweden with little knowledge of the school system. The stepbrother, a graduate of that school district who was fluent in English was helping his stepmother with the enrollment while his father was at work. I had tried to get Elsie’s school records from the county previously and was told they had been destroyed. That was correct information; who knew that a transcription had been made of those records prior to their demise? I later checked with the library in Lake County that has the largest genealogical section and they didn’t have a copy of the book that was sitting in Boston. How strange that a record was located in a place the ancestor never visited. Of course, original records are preferred but in this case, a transcription was better than nothing and did shed light on the family dynamics at the time of Elsie’s school enrollment. Happy Hunting!
