Introducing Louisa Whittemore

This post places Louisa Whittemore back on the family tree.  You will also see an example of why it is so important to research each of the siblings of your direct line ancestors.

Sabra stated in her War of 1812 pension application of 1879 that she had a daughter named Louisa, born 18--, who married a man by the name of Leavitt, now a widow residing in Cleveland.  Not much to go on, but with Ancestry.com, searching for Leavitt's in Cleveland is a simple task.

Using the search terms "Leavitt" in soundex mode, living in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the 1860 census has nine hits, including this family group of four:

This looks like a good match for our Louisa.  According to this record, Louisa was born circa 1816 in New York, which would make her a pretty good match for our Louisa, and it's the only record that seems to be even close to a match.

I broadened the search terms to include all of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and found the record below for the 1850 Federal Census.  This record made me fall out of my chair!

This family is for a William and Anna Leavitt living in in Brooklyn Township, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.  I think that even though J. W. Leavitt has aged 20 years between 1850 and 1860, the 1850 family is a match for the 1860 family.  But what really makes this census record "worth" the effort, is that a "Jane Whittemon" who is 18, is living in William an Anna's household.  Jane Whittemon is a perfect match, other than her place of birth, for my second great grandmother, Sarah Jane Whittemore.  What is exciting about this is that I have never been able to locate Sarah Jane in the 1850 Federal Census.  This is a great example of why it is so worth the extra effort to hunt down all siblings of your direct line ancestors.  

The 1850 census record also explains why I never could locate Jane in 1850, Whittemore and Whittemon soundex differently, so most searches would never have turned her up.  Add to that, that her place of birth is listed as Connecticut rather than New York, and a brick wall is born!  

So this is what I have penciled in for Louisa:

J. William Leavitt b. sometime between 1790 and 1810 marries Anna Louisa (or perhaps Louisa Anna) Whittemore b. circa 1816 (though this is more likely 1813) and the couple have the following children, Ellen Leavitt b. circa 1843 in Ohio and Ophelia Leavitt, born 1847 in Ohio.  

1870 Federal Census was a little more challenging to find.  Using the Leavitt and Cuyahoga County filters turned up nothing.  I know that Louisa is living in Cleveland in 1879, so I redid the search using Louisa as a first name, her date of birth as 1816 +-5 years, and Cuyahoga County and found the family living in Rockland Township.

This time the family is enumerated a Leverett, and Louisa is listed as being born circa 1813, which is more in line with her actual age.  Ophelia is out of the house but Hellen S. is still living at home.

1880 Finds Louisa Leveritt living with her daughter Ellen in Cleveland and Louisa is listed as a widow.

The only problem is that Louisa actually dropped two years in age from her 1870 census record!  I still feel this is the correct family, even if the ages do not match exactly - you know what they say, "never ask a lady her age..."

1900 Finds Louisa an inmate in the Cleveland Home for aged women.  She is listed as born circa 1812 in Connecticut.

Louisa is listed as the mother of 4 children with only 1 child alive in 1900.  

Let's see what we can find out about Louisa and J. William Leavitt....

    

  

Sabra Whittemore and her War of 1812 Pension

My last post described two of my favorite family tree documents, an 1880 Federal Census Record and a page from my second great grandmother's War of 1812 pension application.  I used the Census record to direct me toward her pension file.  The file contained a wealth of family information, including her marriage date and a list of all of her children.  If it hadn't been for her pension application, I would never have had a list of her children.

From her application, her children are:

• Louisa - b. 18--?
• Harriett - b. 1814
• James - b. 1816
• Orilia - b. 18--?
• Jane - b. 1831
• Hiram - b. 1833 

The census records for Caleb and Sabra are listed below:
1820:  Killingly, Windham County, Connecticut:

  1830:  Ticonderoga, Essex County, New York:

Sabra states her daughter Jane is born in 1831.  I'm wondering if Jane might have been born in 1830.

1840:  Middleburg, Cuyahoga County, Ohio:

You will notice that between 1830 and 1840, the three oldest Whittemore girls disappear from Caleb's household.  Unfortunately, Sabra only cryptically identifies two of her daughter's married names.  In her 1879 pension application she refers to Louisa, who married a man named Leavit and is now a widow residing in Cleveland; and, Jane, who married a man by the name of Tahyer, and is residing in Ashland, Michigan.  She also states that both Harriett and Orillia are dead by 1879.  

So I went on the hunt for Louisa Leavit, living in Cleveland in 1879.  I'll describe my results in my next post...

Sabra Whittemore and the War of 1812

Sabra Whittemore is one of my third-great grandmothers and has been on my mind lately.  I am in the process of moving and, like most family tree fanatics, have several boxes of family tree stuff which I have collected over more than two decades of research.  I say stuff because many of these boxes contain documents I have not looked at in several years and I have little recollection of what is in these boxes.  So I thought it made sense to go through my boxes and weed out any redundant documents (like copies of census records which are all easily available online now), and create electronic copies of documents and photos to attach to my online family tree.  This is where Sabra Whittemore enters the picture.

I have been actively researching my family tree for over 20 years now and have uncovered numerous generations of my ancestors.  Sabra and her husband, Caleb Whittemore, have always been one of my "favorite" ancestor couples because they were the first couple of my direct line I uncovered who were born before 1800.  Caleb was born in 1785 and Sabra was born in 1794.  It just blew my mind to think that both of these people were born when George Washington was alive!

Sabra also helped create a couple of my favorite family tree documents.  If you are a family tree researcher, I'm sure you also have a document or two which mean more to you than many of the other documents you might uncover.

Let me start with the 1880 Census record for Sabra.  She is living in the household of her son-in law and daughter, Alanson and Sarah Jane Thayer (my second-great grandparents).  The family was living in Ashland Township, Newaygo County, Michigan.  This household was enumerated over the 11th and 12th of June 1880.  Sabra would pass away on the 18th of June 1880, so she only had a week to live.

The reason I like this census record so much is because it is a four-generational household.  Sabra is the oldest generation and her occupation is "Pension of 1812" and Agnes Church (granddaughter of Alanson and Sarah Jane, and great granddaughter of Sabra) is the is the youngest generation.  Agnes, who is the oldest child of my great grandmother, Marium Ella Thayer, is raised by her parents, Alanson and Sarah Jane.  

When I discovered this record many years ago, it led to my ordering the War of 1812 Pension file for Sabra from the National Archives.  This leads to my second favorite document, Sabra's deposition for her pension.

This simple statement is packed with genealogical information.  Sabra lists all of her children, including Jane "born in 1831, married to a man by the name of Thayer".  Sabra's granddaughter, Ella Pratt (my great grandmother), is a witness to Sabra's statement.

I do not know why these two documents mean so much to me, but perhaps it is because they show the generational depth of this family.  I've often pictured Sabra as this ancient, shrunken women, hard of hearing, holding on to her granddaughter as she relates the story of how she married Caleb more than sixty years earlier back in Connecticut.  

My next post will describe how I located Louisa Whittemore, Sabra's oldest child.   

            

William Perry of Glamorgan, Wales: part 2

This is the second part to my previous post, William Perry of Glamorgan, Wales.  I provided two circumstantial reasons for why I think the baptismal record of William Perry in Glamorgan, Wales is my William Perry.  Now I will present the third reason.

When I started researching my family history, I diligently interviewed all the older family members, most all of whom are now deceased.  One of my regular stops was my grandmother, the great granddaughter of William Perry.  William's name had long since been forgotten in my family.  In fact, my grandmother knew the first name of her mother's, mother, Cynthia, but had no idea of the name of her grandfather, James C. Perry.  But names aside, my grandmother had all sorts of memories and stories which we spent many enjoyable hours talking about.

Family tradition is always one of those tricky areas for family tree researches.  Stories tend to grow and change as generation after generation retells them.  One of the stories my grandmother used to tell me was about the ancestor who used to compose music.  She said it was someone on her mother's side of the family.  Her mother, Mary Perry, was a granddaughter of William Perry.  So this is the story of the composer in the family.

I included a screen shot of William Perry's baptismal record in the last post.  William Perry's parents are married in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales.  I have attached the parish marriage record below:

This is the marriage entry for William Perry and Sophia Swaine performed on 25 Dec 1814 at Merthyr Tydfil.  I am feeling really lucky that Sophia has the name she does!  There are three other Swain(e) marriages which take place in Merthyr Tydfil, one for John Swain(e), one for Mary Swain(e), and one for Keziah Swain(e).  All of them occur in close proximity to each other and I suspect all four of these individuals are children of John Swain b. 1749.

A quick internet search finds the couple of John Swain and Susannah Holliday, the parents of 12 children.  This is where things get really interesting.  John Swain's parents are listed as Thomas and Mary Swain.  In addition to John Swain, a younger brother Joseph Swain is listed.  Joseph was a renowned composer of hymns.  He was born 22 May 1761 and died 16 Apr 1796.  

The individuals who did the Swain research online didn't trace the children of John and Susannah other than their son John (who is also listed in an English Who's Who).  A mention is made of Elizabeth marrying a man by the name of Brown and moving to the United States.  Not much to go on, but my kind of challenge.

I find John and Elizabeth Brown in Baltimore, Maryland.  Their oldest son, Joseph Henry Brown is born in Glamorgan, Wales in 1810.  Their next child, Thomas Brown, is born in 1820 in Maryland.  Fast forward, Joseph and his younger brother Richard Brown become very prosperous steel manufacturers in Youngstown, Ohio.  In 1920 a biographical history of Youngstown is written and a sketch is provided for both Joseph and Henry Brown.  Guess what - they go into great length to mention their hymn writing uncle, Joseph Swain!

What do you think?  Could this fragmentary memory of my grandmother be about Joseph Swain?  This memory would have been created in the 1790s.  

I've also included pictures of three of the individuals I mentioned in this post:

Joseph Swain

  

     

William Perry of Glamorgan, Wales

I attended RootsTech in Salt Lake City this year, and while I was there I ran over to the Family History Library to put in a little research time.  I enjoy going to RootsTech, in part, because of its close proximity to the library.  When I need a break from the classes, I can simply run across the street and get lost in my research.  This post describes one of my finds during one of these quick visits.

My 3rd great grandfather, William Perry immigrated to the United States sometime in 1819, if his obituary in 1904 is accurate.  I suspect it is accurate, as all of the other information the family provided in other records has always been accurate.  William always maintained he was born in Wales.  In fact, there is one census record where he must have been asked his place of birth and he said Wales, but the census taker wrote England.  You can see where England is crossed out and Wales is written just above the crossed out England.

I have a pretty complete picture of William Perry's life from his marriage in 1838 to his death in 1904.  His death record lists his date of birth as 24 Nov 1815 and place of birth as Wales.  Both parents names are listed as 'unknown'.  I always seem to come up with those death records that list parents names as unknown.  This is basically where my search for William's parents ends.  Until now.  

William's first 22 or 23 years seem to be a mystery.  I am not sure where he lived or with whom.  According to the same obituary I mentioned earlier, he didn't arrive in Michigan until he was 19 which would place his arrival circa 1836.  I have had good luck in tracing William's children and have even managed to find living descendants of most of them.  Sad to say, William's name has long been forgotten in family tradition.

The Family History Library has access to FindMyPast.com along with all of the parish records contained there.  I searched for William Perry b. 1815 plus or minus 2 years in Wales and almost fell out of my chair when the baptismal record below appeared.

This is the baptismal record for William Perry, son of William and Sophia Perry, baptized on 14 Jan 1816 in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales.  Assuming this is my William, he would have been under 2 months old when he was baptized.  Looking at the parish register, it seems they were baptizing children within two months of birth (some of the children had births or age, in days, listed).

So, how can I link this record of a William Perry being baptized in 1816 to my 3rd great grandfather who lived most of his life in Michigan?

I have three pieces of evidence, none of which are direct proof.  I'll let you decide if I have enough evidence.

First - William always maintained his 'Welshness'.  The above baptismal record is the only record I have found to date that matches my William Perry.  I double-checked the parish death records for William Perry and his death is not recorded.  There are no other birth records for this couple in Merthyr Tydfil or in Wales for that matter.  Maybe FindMyPast does not have all of the parish records for Wales uploaded yet - I will keep monitoring this in the future.

Second - Naming patterns strongly suggest this couple.  My William Perry marries Sarah Ann Fox in 1838 in Michigan.  Sarah descends from a German Palatine family in New York.  Both the Germans and the Welsh have strong naming patterns for their children.

In both naming patterns, the first male child would be named after the father's father, the second male child would be named after the mother's father, the first female child would be named after the mother's mother, and the second female child would be named after the father's mother.  

I have already verified Sarah Ann Fox's parents as Joel Fox and Mary Forbes.  And William Perry and Sarah Fox do name children Joel and May.  I have listed all of their children in the table below.  This list comes from William and Sarah's family Bible.   

Children of William Perry and Sarah Ann Fox:

Child	Named for
James C. Perry
Henry W. Perry
William Lester Perry	Father's father
Joel E. Perry	Mother's father
Mary E. Perry	Mother's mother
Alfred E. Perry
Sophia A. Perry	Father's mother
John Edwin Perry

   

It appears to me like they had a modified naming pattern.  The first two boys do not fit the naming pattern, however, there does appear to be a naming pattern.  I guess what really stands out to me is that they do indeed name a daughter Sophia and this is their second daughter so, in theory, would have been named after the father's mother.  And Sophia is such a rare name.  I had always suspected Sophia would be the name of William's mother - I just hope I'm not shoe-horning the record to fit my prejudice.

The third piece of evidence I will save for my next post.  It is circumstantial to say the least, but it involves a family tradition fragment that just happens to fit nicely into this Welsh family...    

Family Tree at FamilySearch

I've been doing what I do best - procrastinating!  I have been meaning to write a post on FamilySearch's new Family Tree.  It may sound a little strange, but I have often wondered what is going to happen with all the research I have undertaken over the last 20 years.  OK, maybe research is too lofty a word to use to describe some of the activities I have done, but, none the less, it was research to me.

Really, have you ever thought of what might happen to your research?  I do not have family members that find family tree research even remotely interesting.  My guess is that all of those piles of papers that I worked so hard to collect will probably be in the trash before my body is cold.  Perhaps the photos will be kept, but how many times have you gone into an antique store or flea market and found family photos and documents for sale?

To hedge my bet, I posted my family tree at Rootsweb and at Ancestry.  Rootsweb has proven its ability to survive, but I'm not so sure just how long it will be viable.  Ancestry has the ability to post all kinds of supporting reference material to my tree.  My question though, is how long will this information be available after my account goes delinquent?  I could see the delete button erasing any trace of my years and years of hard work.  Poof!  Here today, gone tomorrow.

Enter our friends at FamilySearch.  I think I may now have at least a chance to provide a depository for my research.  I created my free account and started a family tree.  

My tree project is serving two purposes.  I am using this exercise to re-enter my information from scratch.  It really has been an eye-opener for me.  All the information I am adding must have a verifiable source attached to it.  The convenience of linking sources directly from the FamilySearch database with a few simple mouse clicks makes this process easy.  The eye-opener part is in reviewing the records I am attaching.

I am retracing research I did, in some cases, twenty years ago.  My skills as a genealogist have improved over the years and things I missed, or connections I could have made, are far more apparent.  Additionally, I am in no hurry to build my tree.  I have been slowly combing the records and building solid family groups.  I have also started using the 'discussion' tab in my family tree to record stories and add personal knowledge for the individuals on my tree.

The second purpose this project is serving is in the area of photographs.  FamilySearch is allowing each individual account to upload as many as 5,000 photographs.  I have become the repository of my family's photos and have been worried what will happen to them when I am gone.  Now I can attach these photos to the family members in my tree.  The original photographs may eventually be scattered to the winds, but I can rest easy that at least digital copies will be attached to a biographical record of my family.

Has anyone else thought of ways to secure your 'genealogical legacy'?      

In the Lumber Regions

I'm always on the lookout for articles and stories about logging.  Many of my ancestors were early residents of Michigan and any history of Michigan is not complete without a mention of logging.  I have a couple of photographs of my great grandfather, William Pratt taken in the northern woods of Michigan where he worked as a lumberjack during the long Michigan winters.

William Pratt in the middle.

As I mentioned in my last post, I purchased a bound collection of The American Agriculturalist for the year 1869.  Much to my pleasure the January issue has a great article entitled "In the Lumber Regions" which describes the typical lumbering operation.  In the case of the article, the editor Orange Judd, sent an artist to a logging camp in Maine to record the lumbering process.  

I copied the six etchings reproduced in the article:

The images produce such an evocative view of the logging life.  The journalist who wrote the article talks about the hard work required by the lumberjacks and the dangers involved, particularly by the drivers.  He also mentions the boom which was designed to catch all the logs floated down the river.  It was at this point where the logs would be separated by their owners marks and made ready for the sawmill.  This also made me think of my family.  I had another ancestor who lived on the Muskegon River in Mecosta County, Michigan.  There is a deed in which he sold access across his property for the construction of a log boom across the Muskegon River.  

Enjoy the images!

That Farming Life

I am always on the lookout for any kind of materials that might shed light on how my ancestors lived.  Sometimes we family tree researches get lost in the 'name hunt'.  It's kind of like a game of 'my tree is bigger than your tree'.  The only problem with this is, when you are done, all you have is a list of names.  Think about all those trees on Rootsweb with 100,000 or more people in them.  I am always amused with the note, which almost always accompanies these trees, attached to the tree description, "I have no further information on any of the individuals listed in this tree."  Really?  No other information?  How sad!

If you think about a family tree, or at least a pedigree chart, each of the names on that list had a genetic part in who you are.  I always like to think there is a whisper of each of those individuals in me.  They all have played a part in who I am.  Having said that, I want to get to know these people.  How did they live?  Where did they live?  Why did they do what they did?  And the list of questions goes on and on.
 
Sometimes it is not an easy task to reconstruct the lives of our ancestors.  The Web has made it a little easier.  I usually start by Googling my ancestors and the places they lived.  You would be amazed at the number of hits you can get.  From there, I'll usually start weeding out the list to things that can give me the most information.  More often than not, I only can access an indirect notion of how my ancestors lived.  Most of 'my people' were hardscrabble farmers barely getting by.  They didn't leave much direct evidence of their existence.  However, they did leave mountains of indirect evidence.  Think about it - our ancestors were all part of society.  They were all part of the story we call history.

So, as I mentioned at the start of this post, I am always on the lookout for any kind of material that sheds light on how my ancestors lived.  This means I frequent auction houses, antique shops, thrift shops, and the like, looking for anything that shows how individuals lived, worked, or played once upon a time.  Recently I was able to purchase a bound collection of The American Agriculturist for the Farm, Garden, and Household comprising the entire year of 1869.  This was a newsletter edited by Orange Judd (pictured at right).  Click on his picture to open a short biographical for him located at Wikipedia.

The circulation for his paper was over 100,000 by 1864, so can I say for sure my ancestors read his paper?  Of course not.  I'm not even sure my ancestors could read.  However, I can say the majority of my ancestors were farming in 1869.  So Mr. Judd's newspaper can provide valuable insight as to how my ancestors might have been living from a source that was contemporary to my ancestor's lives.  What a deal!

So the next few posts will be inspired by the material contained in these papers.  I'll start with a little nugget gleaned from the January 1869 edition.  The editor states, "Dry wood is an excellent means of grace in a household, promoting good temper and cheerfulness."

So check back for my next post as we start to explore farming life in 1869...

      

Looking Back

I can’t believe it has been so long since my last post!  Time just seems to melt away – yet nothing seems to get done.  I wonder if our ancestors had the same problem?  Quite often throughout the day I will think “Oh that would make a good blog post” or “Oh I should research that for the blog”, but it usually stops at that.  Nothing comes out.  I read somewhere that you should just start writing and the story would appear, so this is my attempt at this exercise.

I have noticed that the older I get the more my mind tends to wander back in time during idle moments, especially with the change in seasons.  I’m not sure why the seasonal change causes this, but this year my backward glances have been particularly emotional.  Not only do I think back in my past but I think back to my parents and their parents too.  Maybe I have been delving too deeply in the whispers of the past.  I really cannot say.

One thing I’m sure about, the past was full of hope for the future and regret for paths not taken just like it is today.  And maybe I am missing those individuals in my life who are no longer with us, but little, seemingly insignificant things, can create such evocative feelings and a flood of memories.  A great example of this is walking outside in the autumn.  The crunch of leaves under my feet immediately takes me back to my childhood.  I remember those crisp fall afternoons spent raking great mountains of brightly colored leaves and the sheer joy of diving headfirst into the pile!  If I close my eyes, I swear I can smell the moldering leaves even now.  The reds, oranges, and yellows of the leaves look as bright in my mind’s eye as they did so many long years ago on that crisp autumn afternoon.

Another leaf that made me come to a full stop was on Ancestry.com.  You know the leaves I am talking about, those little green, wiggly leaves that tell you Ancestry has found something about ‘your’ ancestors.  I noticed a leaf doing a dance over my grandmother’s name announcing that Ancestry had found something.  When I clicked on the leaf it took me to FindAGrave and a digital picture of my grandmother’s headstone.  Complete stop.  Queue the flood of memories.

It seems only yesterday that we laid her to rest.  Has it really been 14 years?  I was blessed to have my grandmother in my life for 34 years.  My mind quietly ticked away random memories, my memories, of my grandmother.  But there is more.  I scanned around my living room and there she was, looking back at me through the photographs I had taken over the years.  I also had many other photographs of her, some taken long before I was born when the twentieth century was young and so was she.

There was so much more to say than that cold piece of marble could say.  I just had to upload a photo of grandma when she was in her early teens.  There – now you can see a young woman full of excitement at what the future might bring (you can click on her picture to see the Find A Grave listing - assuming I got the link right...).  Of course the future also brought suffering, but that is another chapter.  Look into her eyes and you see the hope for the future.  I wonder what she was thinking when the photographer said “steady, please” or whatever other phrase he used.  I cannot say why this picture of her creates such emotion for me.  It just does...   

Joshua Madeley of Lancashire, England

My last two posts described the family of Joshua and Martha Madeley of Philadelphia using documents which I rescued at a local thrift store as my starting off point.  I previously mentioned I had one more record to show you.

Among the papers was a document I first thought might have come from a family Bible.  I am not so sure that is the case, though.  It looks to me like it was a series of loose papers that, at some point, was then cut down and bound.  I know the paper was cut down because the handwriting flows right off the page.  It makes you wonder what else was on these pages.

There are a total of six pages with the last page being blank.  Here are the pages as they appear in the booklet.

Joshua Madeley (crossed out)

Thomas Madley was born June 11th 1807

John Madeley was born Oct 25th 1809

Mary Madeley was born Apr (?) 23rd 1813

Joshua Madeley was born June 7th 1832

Thomas Madeley was born July 26th 1835

Ann Madeley was born July (the rest falls off the page)

 Died Augt 19th 1834

James Madeley was born Oct 17th 1836

Levena Madeley was born Feby 3rd 1840

Walter Madeley was born Augt 9th 1842

James Scholfield   Book 1824
  December 10

I James Scholfield was born Agust 7th 1768 babtis Oldham Church (click on link to see a picture of the church in which he was baptized)

John Madeley was born October 25 1809

Mary Madeley was born August 23 181X (falls off page)

Joshua Madeley was born June 7 1832

Ann Madeley was born July 23+ 1834 Died

Agust 19 1834 (?) (falls off page)

Joshua Madeley was born June 7 1832

Ann Madeley was bo(rn) July 23+ 1834

Died August 19+ 18XX

Hannah Madeley was born June 9 1849

George Madeley was born June 9 1849

John Madeley was born March 7 1852

Sarah Madeley was born January 10 1853

Edwain Madeley was born October 13 1857

Emma Madeley was born October 13 1857



















On 18 September of 1848, Joshua Madeley and family immigrates to the United States.  They arrive in Philadelphia and interestingly enough, several Scholfield's (spelled Scofield on the list) accompany the group. I clipped this image from Ancestry and it is part of the passenger list of the Saranak.

It appears James Scholfield b. 1768 is related to Joshua Madeley somehow ... I'm just not sure yet what that relationship is ...

Mary Medeley Reynolds

My previous Medeley post introduced the family of Joshua and Martha Medeley.  I mentioned that they only had one child that lived to adulthood, Mary.  Mary Medeley was born 16 Aug 1860 and this post will include the documents that were lovingly preserved by Mary's only child, Edith.

 Mary Elizabeth Medeley married John B. Reynolds on 22 April 1884.  Two other related documents to their marriage certificate are shown below.

    Both the marriage announcement and the reception announcement were saved along with the marriage certificate.  I tried to locate the church, but didn't have much luck.  There is a reference to an 'Old St. Paul's' but I am not so sure it is the same church.

The reception hall is even more difficult to locate.  Google maps has a pretty neat feature that allows you to actually see the street as if you were standing on the sidewalk.  There is a boarded up building which might be the reception hall, it is just hard to say.  It does appear like the area has seen better days.

The remaining two items are related to Mary's husband John B. Reynolds.  He was a druggist and worked for Harrison Duffield located at 2601 N. Sixth Street at the corner of Huntingdon.  John's business card was also lovingly saved.

I had a little more luck locating the drugstore.  There is one storefront still standing at the corner of N. Sixth Street and Huntingdon.  It looks like there may have been another storefront across the street at one time, but it is now a vacant lot.  The other two properties are still standing but look like residential rather than business properties.  

Is this the home of Harrison Duffield Druggist?

The remaining item is a clipped obituary for John B. Reynolds.  I wonder if Edith clipped it from the paper?  Now she would be alone.

I Googled the address listed in the obituary and, assuming the addresses have not changed the house is shown below (you've just got to love Google!)  The drug store might be the image on the right.

Edith Reynolds dies on 23 April 1959.  With her death, the line of Joshua Medeley and Martha Sweeting comes to an end.  An end that is until I scooped up a handful of documents in 2012.  For sixty-three years these documents were kept together by someone.  Now this family lives on.

I've still got one more document to share with you - a Bible record which takes os back to merry old England!        

Joshua Medeley and Martha Sweeting of Philadelphia

Genealogists look at old stuff differently.  You know what I mean.  You are walking down the aisle of a thrift store, flea market, or antique shop and you spy the yellowish paper covered with handwriting.  I have to admit, it makes me come to a dead stop every time!

I always think of those documents as having a life of their own.  You know they must have been important to someone at sometime or they would long ago have disappeared into the trash or used as a fire starter.  And when I see a stack of documents related to the same family, I rarely can walk away without rescuing them.

This post was created from such a stack of family documents.  It makes you wonder how these family papers ended up in a thrift store?  Maybe it represents 'the end of the line' for a family descent.  Unfortunately, a stack of family documents quite often become scattered to the wind when they find their way into the thrift stores and the like.  Many collectors look for specific categories of documents and leave the others behind.  Such was the collection I purchased for the Madeley family.  By the time I came along, several of the documents had already been purchased and I rescued the rest.

So let's see what we can find out about the Madeley family.

Joshua Madelely married Martha Sweeting on 17 November 1859 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.  Witnesses to the marriage were Thomas Madeley and Emma Sweeting.

Joshua and Martha Medely (listed as Medly) are living in the household of Samuel and Laura Eckerly in the 1860 census for Philadelphia Ward 18.  I am pretty sure this is the same Joshua Medeley in the marriage record especially since Martha is there also.  They both are listed as being born in Lincolnshire, England.

1870 finds Joshua and Martha Medeley with a young family still living in Philadelphia.  Mary b. circa 1861 and Clara b. circa 1862 are also living in the house.  Joseph and William Sweeting are also living in this household.  They, almost certainly, are related to Joshua's wife, Martha Sweeting.

Joshua and Martha are living in Philadelphia in 1880 with their daughter Mary E. Medeley.

1900 has Martha Medeley, listed as a widow, living with her daughter Mary E. Reynolds.  Mary and her husband, John B. Reynolds have one child, Edith Reynolds b. 15 July 1886 (the census-taker was gracious enough to record everyone's birthday).  Martha Medeley also listed she was the mother of three children with only one child still living.

John B. and Mary E. Reynolds along with their daughter Edith are still living in Philadelphia in the 1910 census.

1920 has no change, John, Mary, and Edith Reynolds are still living in Philadelphia.

1930 finds John B. Reynolds, now a widower, and his daughter Edith still living in Philadelphia.

1940 finds Edith Reynolds living alone and unmarried at the age of 53.  It appears Edith Reynolds is the end of the line.  I would assume she was the owner of the documents I would purchase in 2012.

A quick Ancestry search for Joshua Medeley turns up several pertinent documents for this family, including the marriage record I copied above.

Joshua Medeley dies 02 May 1887 with the funeral services being conducted at St. Marks Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.  Martha Sweeting Medeley dies 15 Mar 1906.
Martha Sweeting and Joshua Medeley have four children:

• Mary Elizabeth Medeley b. 16 Aug 1860
• Clara Medeley b. 26 May 1862 d. 18 Mar 1871
• William Medeley b. 1865 d. 26 Mar 1871
• Anna Medeley b. 1869 d. 11 Aug 1869

I wonder if Martha misunderstood the census taker when they asked how many children she had because she said she was the mother of three with 1 child still living.  Maybe she thought the census taker asked how many children she had who were deceased which would have been 3 and 1 child living.  Notice she lost two children within 1 week of each other.  Imagine the sorrow which must have descended on this family late in March of 1871.


My next post will cover the family of Mary Elizabeth Medeley Reynolds...