Saturday, May 10, 2014

Happy Mothers Day

May Mothers everywhere have a Happy Mothers Day

                         Virginia "Ginger" Adeline Phillips
                                         1928-1980

                                     Mom and Me 1951
                                  Long Beach California

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Jonathan Crocker 1662-1746


  Jonathan Crocker, my 8th g-Grandfather, was born on July 15th 1662 in Barnstable Massachusetts. Jonathan was the son of John William Crocker and Mary Bodfish.

  On May 20 1686, in Barnstable, Jonathan took for his wife a Hannah Howland. Hannah was the Grandaughter of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley. (subjects of earlier posts) From the marriage of  Jonathan and Hannah would be born five sons and four daughters

  Jonathon's wife Hannah died on February 2 1710. In February 1711 Jonathan took as his second wife a Thankful (Troot) Hinkley. No children were born of this second marriage.

  Jonathan lived to the age of Eighty-Four, outliving all but two of his children, dying on August 24 1746 in Barnstable Massachusetts. He was buried at the West Barnstable Cemetery in West Barnstable Massachussets

From Jonathan's Headstone:
In Memory of
Mr JONATHAN
CROCKER who
died August 24 1746
in the 84th Year
of his Age


Monday, November 4, 2013

George Osias LeBlanc (When were you born??)



  My Great Grandfather, George Osias LeBlanc, went through life using the birth-date of 9 April 1870. Was this really the correct date of birth?



  The first record of George using the birth year of 1870 is on the 1880 census of Oswego New York. Subsequent United States census for the years of 1910-1940 give his birth year as "1870", based on his stated age, and the 1900 United States census of Spencer Twp Minnesota lists his birth more specifically as "Apr 1870". To lend further credence to the 1870 birth are George's headstone and death certificate.

 
   Baptism, Saint-Anicet, Quebec (Under the name of Joseph Jean Baptiste?)

  George was the ninth or tenth child of thirteen or fourteen siblings born and baptized in Saint-Anicet Quebec. In a Catholic Parish where all vital records where recorded, there is no baptism for George. Searching for George's birth and baptism everywhere throughout Canada and the United States has produced no birth record.

  In Saint-Anicet, where George should have been baptised, I found a baptism of 19 April 1869 for a supposedly unknown sibling named "Joseph Jean Baptiste". The only mention of this name "Joseph" in the family is at his baptism. The name of "Joseph Jean Baptiste", beginning with the 1871 census of Saint-Anicet, seems to have disappeared. A search of all parish records in Canada and the United States for a death of an individual by this name has come up empty.

  I believe "George" and "Joseph Jean Baptiste" are possibly the same person.
1. Their birth dates are similar: 9 April and 19 April.
2. The 1871 census of Saint-Anicet Quebec lists George under the name of         "Ozais" age 2. (George Osias would have been only 1 year old if born in 1870,       while the age of 2 would fit the age of the Joseph born in 1869)
3. George's siblings were all born at least 15 months apart, yet for George to have     been born in April 1870, he would have been only 12 months after his previous     sibling and 9 months before his next sibling. While it is medically possible for        George to fit in between the siblings, it is highly unlikely.

  George's correct birth date is a mystery that may never be proved. Whatever his real birth date, he lived a long eventful life to the age of Seventy-Nine or Eighty years old.


 






Monday, October 7, 2013

Margaret Agnes Wilkeson



  (The following is from a collaboration with my cousin Anne Cassidy)

  Margaret (Maggie) Agnes Wilkeson, my 2nd great-Grandmother,  was born March 6, 1854 in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Margaret was the sixth child born to George Wilkeson and Margaret Keefer. (Subjects of earlier posts)

  Margaret spent the first fifteen years of her life growing up in Warren Township, St. Joseph County, Indiana. She moved with her parents to Earlville, Delaware County, Iowa around 1869. In 1871 the family moved onward to Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa where they finally settled.

  A very pregnant Margaret, seven months, married Aldrich (Jack) Jackson Reynolds on October 14, 1874 in Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa. Jack was the brother of Margaret's sister's husband. From the marriage would come one son and two daughters. One of the daughters died before the age of three.

  Margret became a widow at the age of forty-four, when her husband was killed in a shooting accident on 11 August 1898 . (See earlier post) After her husband's death, Margaret lived with her daughter, Nellie in 1900. She was living with her son, Charles and his family in 1910.


  Margaret died on January 10, 1912 in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska from a heart attack at age 57. While she was preparing to leave on a train to Fort Dodge to visit her son she had a fainting spell and it is understood that she never regained consciousness. She was buried at Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa.


Monday, September 23, 2013

Pierre Rollin dit Maconais



  Pierre Rollin dit Maconais, my 5th Great-Grandfather, was born about 1732 in France to Pierre Rollin and Francoise Gathier. Pierre was my last ancestor to arrive in Quebec from France, circa the 1750's, from the Parish of Saint Clement, Macon France.

                              Rollin-Forest Marriage

  Pierre, at the age of about twenty-nine,  took for his bride a thirteen year old Madeleine Forest. (Subject of a previous post)
 http://leblancroots.blogspot.com/2011/05/theodose-forest-orphan-of-french-and.html  The couple was married at the Parish Church of Sainte-Anne de Bellevue, Quebec on 15 June 1761.

  Pierre and Madeleine would reside in Les Cedres Quebec through the mid 1770's, Vaudreuil Quebec through 1781, and would finally settle in Chateauguay Quebec. From the marriage of Pierre and Madeleine would come thirteen verified children, five daughters and eight sons. Pierre and Madeleine may have had three to four more children, but parish records to verify this are missing for their first nine years of their marriage.

                          Burial Record of Pierre Rollin

  Pierre died at the age of sixty-six on 19 February 1798 and was buried two days later in Chateauguay Quebec





Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Elisabeth Smith of Hardwick Massachusetts



  Elizabeth Smith, my 6th g-Grandmother, was born about 1717 in Hardwick Massachusetts. Elizabeth was the first child born to Benjamin Smith and his second wife Experience Curtis.

  Elizabeth's mother died before her fifth birthday and her father re-married a Hannah Phillips on 23 April 1724. Elizabeth grew up in Hardwick in a "blended" family with six siblings, three brothers and three sisters from three mothers.

  On 3 July 1739, in Hardwick, Elizabeth married a James Robinson. The couple would operate a farm in the Hardwick area and from this marriage would come eight children, three sons and five daughters.

  Elizabeth lived her entire life in Hardwick, where she died at the age of eighty-three in 1800. She is buried at the Hardwick Central Cemetery of Hardwick Massachusetts.





Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Josephine Anna Weber



  Josephine Anna Weber, my Great Grandmother, was born on 3 May 1873 in Mount Calvary Wisconsin. Josephine was the fourth of nine children, five girls and four boys, born to Peter Weber and Pauline Flatz. (Subjects of earlier posts)


  Josephine would grow up in Mount Calvary, moving with her family to Superior Wisconsin in 1890 at the age of seventeen. Shortly after moving to Superior Wisconsin, Josephine's father contracted Pneumonia and passed away. Josephine would live with her widowed mother in Superior until 1902.

                           Clarke-Weber Wedding Photo

  On 21 October 1902, in Superior Wisconsin, Josephine married a George F Clarke (Subject of an earlier post). From this marriage a daughter, Lois, would be born on 18 August 1903. On the morning of 27 September 1904, Josphine's husband supposedly went to work at his job with the railroad and never returned. Josephine would support herself and her daughter, for the next eight years, working as a live in maid and as a restaurant worker. Josephine was granted a divorce from her husband on the grounds of abandonment on  12 April 1911.


  Soon after Josephine's divorce, she married a Charles Foster. The couple would farm in Springbrook Wisconsin where they would have a daughter named Marion. Josephine's second husband would die on 15 April 1936.



Josephine's two daughters would move to Southern California, and Josephine followed to live near her family Josephine died in Bellflower California on 17 September 1965, at the age of ninty-two, and was buried next to her second husband in Earl, Wisconsin