Susannah "Reed"

Most of the records I have for my great-great-great-grandmother, Susannah Parker, give her maiden name as Tilghman. A few weeks ago, though, I came across death certificates for two of her children which listed her as Susannah Reed. This presented a puzzle for me to solve, and I always love a good puzzle.

When Susannah married Zebedee Parker in 1819, the marriage record listed her as Susan Tilghman. I had assumed this was her maiden name, but these death certificates made me wonder. Perhaps she had been married before and Tilghman was her married name.

Another piece of the puzzle was a census record from 1850. At that time Susannah was widowed and living in Carroll County with several of her unmarried children. Also listed in Susannah's household that year was a 79-year-old woman named Margaret Reed. When I first came across this record years ago, I had wondered if Margaret was Susannah's mother. She was the right age (about 25-30 years older than Susannah), but I had wondered where the Reed name came in if Susannah was a Tilghman.

I did some research in the Maryland Marriages database to see if I could find a marriage record for a Susan or Susannah who married a Tilghman, but to no avail. I also went back and looked at Susannah's obituary from 1892, but the obituary definitely said that her maiden name was Tilghman.

I was stumped until a day or two later when I had a sudden inspiration. Perhaps it was Susannah's mother who was married more than once, not Susannah! I went back to the Maryland Marriages database and did a search for a woman named Margaret who married a man with the last name of Reed. Bingo! I was ecstatic when a record came up for a marriage between John Reed and Margaret Tilghman in Baltimore County in January 1821 (just one year after Zebedee and Susannah were married)! Further research revealed that John and Margaret were married by the same minister that married Zebedee and Susannah.

Now that I know who Susannah's mother was, I need to figure out who her father was. I've made some progress on that side as well, but I'll save that for another blog.

William Henry Harrison Dell

Today I made one of the most exciting discoveries that I have ever made in my years of family history research. In my blog last year about the Tale of Two Mothers, I talked about the young man who is buried at Wards Chapel Cemetery with a stone inscribed simply W.H.H. Dell, Co. E, 5th MD Inf. Ever since I first laid eyes on that stone I have wanted to know more about the soldier buried there.

Through my research over the years I had surmised that his name was William Henry Harrison Dell, and that he was the son of Nicholas and Barbara Dell, but I had never been able to prove it. I had located his Civil War service records and learned that he had been wounded at Antietam and had died 3 months later of disease, but there were very few details in the records.

About a year ago I learned that William Henry Harrison's mother had applied for a widow's pension. I knew from experience that Civil War pension files can be loaded with information. However, those files are kept at the National Archives in Washington. I added a trip to Washington to my genealogy "to do" list, but I knew it might be months or years before I could arrange a trip there.

A few days ago I got an e-mail from Ancestry.com about a special offer. Another genealogy website called Fold3 was offering an annual membership to Ancestry members for just $39.95 a year. Fold3 specializes in military records, and the price was right, so I signed up today.

After I signed up with Fold3 I went to their home page to see what they had to offer. They claimed to have Civil War pension files, so I decided to check it out. The database was searchable by state, then Arm of Service, then Regiment, then company.

I worked my way through the links to Company E and waited for a list of names to come up. When the names appeared I could not believe my eyes. There were only 5 men listed, but the second name on the list was William Henry Harrison Dell!

I followed the link and spent the next hour or more reading the files and getting a snapshot of this young man's life and death. I was able to confirm that his name was William Henry Harrison and that he was in fact the son of Nicholas and Barbara Dell. Before his enlistment he had worked at the Oakland woolen mill and also as a farm hand. He had given most of his wages to his mother for her support, even sending home a large portion of his military pay after he enlisted.

The files also detailed William Henry Harrison's last days. There were affidavits from one of his commanding officers and from the surgeon and doctor who attended him in his final illness. According to the afffidavits, Henry contracted dysentery a few days after the battle of Antietam and was treated by the company surgeon. When his condition worsened he was sent home on furlough, under the care of his local doctor. It was at his home that he died on December 23, 1862.

I am so thankful to have finally had the opportunity to "meet" William Henry Harrison Dell, to get a glimpse at his character and to honor the sacrifice he made. His death must have been a tragic loss, especially to his mother, but it is a comfort to learn that he died at home and not in some hospital far away from his family and friends.

Hot on the Trail

I've been out of the loop for a while, due to wedding planning, Christmas, extra hours at work, etc. A few weeks ago, though, I got back to researching my family history. In my last blog, over a year ago, I was talking about my two great-great-great-grandmothers, Barbara Barnhart Dell and Susannah Tilghman Parker. When I got back to my research this month I decided to concentrate on my Dell and Parker ancestry. I hope to write a book about the Dells and Parkers, focusing on these two women and their strangely parallel lives, and I had a lot of gaps to fill in.

Over the past few years I've done a lot of research in old newspapers. I keep a log of interesting things I come across that I might want to follow up on. Unfortunately I'm not as good about the following up part. So one of the first things I did this month was to go through my log and start following up on some of the leads.

As I was going through my notebook I came across a reference to two articles that looked particularly promising. The articles were from 1821 and 1826, and both mentioned an insolvent debtor named Zebadiah Parker.

The 1826 article was a notice by S. Barry, sheriff of Baltimore County, regarding some land belonging to Zebadiah and William Parker. The sheriff had seized the property and was going to offer it for sale at public auction the following month. The property was described as "about 18 miles from Baltimore, and near the 'Deer Park Road.'" This was very interesting to me, because my Dell and Parker relations lived very close to Deer Park Road, and I had never been able to locate any land records for Zebadiah Parker. I was pretty sure this was the same Zebadiah Parker who was married to Susannah Tilghman Parker, but I wasn't sure how to proceed from there.

The first thing I did was to search the Baltimore County land records around 1826, hoping to find a record of the sale. I was able to find a deed transferring the property from Standish Barry to Jesse Bennett, but I still didn't know how Zebadiah Parker came to own the property.

A few days later I had the inspiration to look through the administration index for Baltimore County for that time period. With a common name like Parker, I didn't really have much hope of finding anything conclusive, especially since the earlier records for Baltimore County include Baltimore City as well. However, I hit the jackpot. I located an administration in 1824 for a William Parker. The administratrix was Rachel Parker.

When I saw that name, it rang a bell. Years before I had found a Rachel Parker in the census on the same page as Zebadiah Parker. I had wondered then if she might be his mother, but had never been able to prove it. Another clue that I might be on the right track was the names listed under "securities": Edward and Eli Triplett. I knew the Tripletts lived in the same area as my Dell and Parker relations, and several of them had married into the family. Further research on Edward Triplett revealed that he married Elizabeth Parker in October 1817 (2 years before Zebadiah Parker and Susannah Tilghman were married).

I am now pretty sure that Zebadiah Parker was the son of William and Rachel Parker. The land that was being sold in 1826 was originally deeded to William Parker in 1779, and it was his property up until his death about 1824. William's estate was settled in 1826, just a few days after his land was sold at public auction. There were no heirs listed in the Administration Account, probably because there were more debts than assets. I think it is likely that William Parker and Elizabeth Parker Triplett were also children of William and Rachel Parker. I hope to eventually find the court records detailing the Parker insolvency case. With any luck they will confirm my suspicions about Zebadiah Parker's ancestry.

A Tale of Two Mothers

This is the tale of two mothers: Barbara Barnhart Dell and Susannah Tilghman Parker. These two women, who were the mothers of my great-great-grandparents, are buried side by side in the cemetery of Wards Chapel Methodist Church in Harrisonville, Maryland. It is fitting that they share a final resting place, for their lives were strangely similar and intertwined.

Both women were born in what is now Carroll County, Maryland. Barbara, who was born about 1810, was the daughter of David Barnhart. I have yet to identify Susannah's parents, but she was born about 1790. If the information on their tombstones is correct, both women (especially Susannah) lived very long lives for that time period. Barbara died in 1881 in her 79th year. Susannah died 11 years later, in 1892, in her 101st year!

Both Barbara and Susannah had very large families. Barbara and her husband, Nicholas Dell, had 8 children. Susannah and her husband, Zebedee Parker, had 9 children. Both Barbara and Susannah were widowed. Nicholas Dell died between 1850 and 1860. Zebedee Parker died between 1840 and 1850. Neither Nicholas nor Zebedee are buried with their wives. I have yet to locate a final resting place for either of the husbands.

These two families were joined in 1854 when Barbara's oldest son, Jesse W. Dell, married Susannah's daughter, Susannah Parker. (These were my great-great-grandparents.) Four years later Barbara's daughter, Tobitha Dell, married Susannah's son, Columbus Parker.

Both these women lived out their later years in the homes of their sons. Barbara went to live with Jesse and his family and Susannah lived with Columbus and his family.

This morning I discovered one other thing that these two mothers had in common; something no mother should ever have to go through: the death of a child.

When I first visited the cemetery at Wards Chapel about 10 years ago, I noticed a stone engraved with a shield and this simple epitaph: "W.H.H. Dell / Co. E / 5th MD Inf." Because of the inscription, I suspected this was the grave of a soldier, and I wanted to know more about the person who was buried there. One day, years later, I was doing some research online and came across a photograph of a Civil War era cemetery. In the picture was row after row of identical stones, and each one had that same shield design as the one at Wards Chapel. I knew then that my anonymous soldier had served during the Civil War.

I later discovered that a "Henry Dell" served with the 5th MD Infantry Regiment in Co. E from October 1861 till September 1862. Further research in the service records at the National Archives revealed that "Henry" was wounded in the battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 (the bloodiest single-day battle in American history). He died three months later on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day of 1862. He had either succumbed to his injuries or had contracted an illness while in the hospital.

Barbara and Nicholas Dell's youngest son was listed in the 1850 census as Harrison Dell. In 1860 he was listed as Wm. H. Dell. This information, along with the name in the Civil War records and the initials on the tombstone, have led me to believe that the young man buried at Wards Chapel was named William Henry Harrison Dell and that he was Barbara's youngest son.

Last night I was trying to fill in some gaps in my Dell family research. I located a death notice for Henry Klausman, who was married to Barbara's youngest daughter Sarah in 1864. The obituary noted that Henry had served in the Union army during the Civil War. I decided to research his war service on Ancestry.com, and I came across a very interesting piece of information. Henry had also served in Co. E of the 5th MD Infantry Regiment!

I made a note of this tidbit, then went on to something else. This morning I was thinking about my discovery, and I had a brainstorm. Susannah Parker's obituary had mentioned that her youngest son, William, had died in the Civil War. If William Henry Dell and Henry Klausman were in the same unit, then perhaps William Parker was as well.

I went back and checked the record, and sure enough there was William Parker. The notation next to his name indicated that William died at the battle of Antietam! So both Barbara and Susannah lost their youngest sons in that fateful battle, one on the battlefield that day and the other in a hospital three months later. What a sad coincidence.

Eureka!

Well, it's been a while but I finally found something new to blog about. After taking a break from genealogy for several months, I recently got back to working on my family history book. For the past week or two I've been researching farm life. The second chapter of my book is about James Hickey's time as a farm laborer on the farm of John Fox (who would later become his father-in-law). I wanted to have an idea of what life was like for James and his future in-laws.

I was able to find quite a bit of information about farming in Maryland in 1850, but I also wanted to know more about the setting of John Fox's farm (the layout of the land, etc.). To do that, I needed to know where the farm was located.

A few years ago I had found an entry from 1843, in the Baltimore County land records, which detailed John's original purchase of over 200 acres. I knew the property was located near Perry Hall, just south of the Gunpowder River. Pinpointing the exact location on a modern map, though, proved quite a challenge.

I knew that John Fox had died in 1872 and that his wife had died five years later in 1877. However, in spite of years of searching, I had never been able to locate a will or any probate records for John.

Two years before his death, he was listed in the census as a farmer with property valued at $8000. If he had been in possession of that much property at his death, there should have been an estate to settle. No such luck, though.

If he didn't have the property when he died, then he must have disposed of it sometime before his death. A thorough search of the land records, though, revealed no such transaction. I tried searching under John's name, his wife's name, even his sons' names. Nothing.

Last night I decided to look back at the original land transaction to see if I could get some new clues. First, though, I decided to look back over some notes written years ago by a distant cousin. She also had done extensive research on the Fox property. I had looked at the notes before and followed up on some leads, but had not found what I was looking for. This time, though, I hit the jackpot. It's like I said in a previous blog: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

After several hours of backtracking through land records, I came across a deed from April 1872 (two months before John's death) which explained everything. The deed was from H. C. Wysham, trustee, to Emma Renshaw. Since John Fox was neither the grantor nor the grantee in the transaction, his name did not show up in any indexes. However, John and his wife are mentioned in the deed. It seems that John and Mary had a mortgage on the property which was not repaid, so they lost possession of their land, which was being sold to satisfy the debt.

Now that I knew what had become of the property, I still wanted to know where it was located. Since Emma Renshaw was now the owner of the property, I searched for her name in the land record index and came across an entry which showed that she sold the property in 1881. There was a notation in the 1881 deed that the property would thereafter be known as Rockland.

With this new piece of information I tried a Google search for Rockland near Perry Hall, Maryland. Eureka! To my delight, I discovered that Rockland Farm (also known as the Spamer Homestead) is on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties. I followed the link on the Maryland Historical Trust website and located a 19-page PDF file about the property. A line in the first paragraph particularly caught my eye: "The 1850 Sidney map denotes the Spamer Homestead as belonging to John Fox." The PDF file contains a history of the property, a USGS map showing its location, and photos of the house which was built in the early 1800's.

If you'd like to take a look at the PDF file, follow this link:
http://www.mdihp.net/dsp_county.cfm?search=county&criteria1=R&criteria2=BA&criteria3=&id=3365&viewer=true

Sarah Fox Hickey

My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Fox Hickey, was the daughter of John Fox and Mary Livezey. Most of the documents I have which refer to Sarah give her name as Sarah N. Fox (or Hickey). One of my third cousins had theorized that Sarah's middle name was Nice, after her mother's sister (Sarah Livezey Nice). This seemed like a good theory, since it was a common practice in Mary Livezey's family to name daughters after married sisters. For instance, Sarah's youngest sister was named Tacy Hallowell Fox after her mother's sister (Tacy Livezey Hallowell).

Although I thought my cousin was probably right about Sarah's middle name, I had never come across any documents to confirm or refute this theory; that is, of course, until yesterday. My husband and I made a trip to the Maryland State Archives yesterday to do some genealogy research. We spent most of the time looking at microfilmed copies of death certificates. One of the death certificates I looked at was for James and Sarah Hickey's youngest daughter, Agnes Matilda ("Tillie"), who died in 1965.

I was mostly trying to fill in some gaps in my research, such as where and how Tillie died. I did find that information, but Tillie's death certificate also provided me with an unexpected bonus.

Later death certificates list the names of the deceased's parents. There is a place on the certificate for the mother's maiden name. However, sometimes the person supplying the information about the deceased did not know the maiden name and would just give the mother's first name or her first name and married name. At first glance I thought this was the case with Tillie's death certificate. The name on the certificate was pretty faint, and when I first looked at it I thought the name was Sarah Hickey.

When I took a closer look at the name, though, I realized that the last name was not Hickey at all. Tillie's son had given her mother's name as Sarah Nice Fox. So I finally had confirmation for Sarah's middle name, when I wasn't even looking for it.

Detective work

As I said in my first blog, genealogy is much like detective work. Like a good detective, a genealogist must be persistent, looking for clues and drawing conclusions. She must then find evidence to support those conclusions. While a police detective works to uncover criminals, a genealogist uses some of the same methods to uncover relationships and dead relatives. (Of course in some cases the results are the same. Many a genealogist, in the search for relatives, has uncovered a criminal or two in her family!)

Modern detectives use physical evidence (like fingerprints and DNA) and the testimony of witnesses to solve crimes. Genealogists, on the other hand, must rely on written records (the census, newspaper articles, city directories, etc.)

Unfortunately, some genealogists don't go far enough in their research. It is important to look at more than one source. If a detective showed up in court with only one piece of evidence, he would not have a very strong case.

The favorite source for many genealogists is the federal census returns, which can be very informative. However, information found in the census should be verified in other sources.

In my research of the Wolf family, for instance, I had drawn some conclusions about Andrew Francis Wolf, but I needed to find evidence to prove my conclusions. I had already proved that Andrew F. Wolf (from the 1930 census) and Frank Andrew Wolf (from the draft registrations) were one and the same person. I next wanted to prove that Andrew F. Wolf, who was listed as the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf in the 1900 census, was also the same person.

I was able to do this by checking the 1910 and 1920 census and verifying that the address was the same as for Frank Andrew in the World War I draft registration. This was pretty good evidence that Andrew Francis was the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf. I still plan to verify this fact by checking the church records. A marriage record for Andrew Francis and Elizabeth Buchinger should give the names of their parents.

Once I knew who Andrew Francis's parents were, I wanted to find out more about them. First I wanted to prove that Joseph Wolf was really the son of Matthias Wolf of Landshausen. To do this, I searched the Baltimore City Directories. Fortunately for me, many of the directories have been digitized and put online, so it was fairly easy to locate Joseph and his family.

I knew from the census that Joseph and Barbara were married about 1892, so I started searching the directory about 1890. Sure enough, I came across Joseph W. Wolf, candymaker, living at 564 Union in 1890 and 1891. At the same address were Matthew (listed as Matthias in 1891) and Charles Wolf. I already knew from my previous research that Matthias Wolf's youngest son was Charles, so this was pretty good evidence that this was Matthias Wolf of Landshausen and his two youngest sons.

I was also able to use the city directory to find an approximate date of death for Matthias Wolf. He was listed in the directory through 1901, but not in 1902. I then searched the Baltimore Sun (also available online) for a death notice for Matthias, which showed that he died in September 1901.

Next I searched the Baltimore City marriage index to see if there was a record for Joseph and Barbara Wolf's marriage. I discovered that Joseph Wolf married Barbara Hasselberger on October 6, 1891, at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Baltimore.

I was pretty sure this was the right marriage, since they had been married about 8 years in 1900. Also, Joseph had moved out of his father's house between 1891 and 1892. In the 1892 directory Joseph was living at 1225 Patapsco Street, which is just a few blocks from Holy Cross Church. I also remembered that, in 1920, a cousin named Ernest Hasselberger had been living with Joseph and Barbara. Again, I will try to confirm this by looking at the marriage records at Holy Cross.

I next turned my attention to Barbara Hasselberger, to see if I could find her in the census. I was able to find her in the 1880 census as Barbary Hazelberger. Her parents were Sigmund and Maggie, who were born in Germany. I was not able to locate Sigmund in any other censuses, so I once again turned to the city directories.

I was able to locate Sigmund Hasselberger, off and on, in the city directory from 1879 to 1892. From about 1890 to 1892, Sigmund was living at 1225 Patapsco Street, the same address as Joseph Wolf in 1892! So I'm pretty sure that Barbara Wolf was the daughter of Sigmund Hasselberger, but I'll check the church records to be sure.