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.

Kissing cousins

Last week one of my cousins asked me to help her with her family tree. I already had plenty of information for her mother's side of the family (our common ancestors), so I decided to do some research on her father's family. One of her father's ancestors was a man named Andrew Francis Wolf. The only info I had for him was his name, but no dates of birth or death. Since Andrew, Francis, and Wolf are all very common names I didn't have much hope of finding him.

I did have one piece of information about Andrew, though, that was very helpful. I knew that his wife's name was Elizabeth Buchinger. Since that was a rather unusual surname, I decided to start with her. Searching through the census on Ancestry, I was able to find her pretty quickly. In 1900 she was living in Baltimore City with her parents, Vincent and Mary Buchinger.

Once I had found Elizabeth Buchinger, I turned my attention to Andrew. I did a search on Ancestry and checked the results for the 1930 census. There were 5 Andrew Wolfs living in Maryland at that time. One of them caught my eye: Andrew F. Wolf and his wife Elizabeth. When I viewed the image of the census record for this Andrew Wolf, I discovered 3 other people living with Andrew and his wife and daughter: Mary Buchinger and her 2 daughters! So I knew that I had the correct family.

According to the census, Andrew was born about 1896. I next turned my attention to the World War I and World War II draft registrations on Ancestry. I discovered a Frank Andrew Wolf, who was born in August 1895 or 1896. Fortunately for me, Andrew had not moved between 1930 and 1942, so I was able to confirm that Frank Andrew and Andrew Francis were one and the same person.

Once I had some more information about Andrew, I checked the earlier census records to see what I could find out about his parents and family. I found an Andrew F. Wolf in the 1900 census, who was born in August 1895 and was the son of Joseph and Barbara Wolf.

I did not have any luck finding an Andrew Wolf in 1910 or 1920, so I decided to search for a Frank Wolf born about 1895. Sure enough I was able to find Andrew again, living with Joseph and Barbara. His address in 1910 and 1920 was the same as that for Frank Andrew Wolf in the first draft registration, so I was able to confirm that Joseph and Barbara Wolf were Andrew's parents.

In the midst of all this, I remembered that years ago I had researched another family named Wolf. I decided to go back and look at my previous research, on the off chance that there might be some connection between the two families.

My grandfather's grandfather, Johann Georg Imhof, came to Baltimore in 1850 from a village in Baden called Landshausen. Several of his relatives immigrated to Maryland about the same time. Among those were three brothers named Joseph, Matthias, and George Wolf.

Matthias Wolf was born in Landshausen in 1824 and was married in Elsenz, Baden, in 1845. He and his wife had 11 children. Their ninth child was Johann Joseph Wolf, who was born in Baltimore in December 1864.

I checked my family tree database and discovered that this Johann Joseph Wolf had a wife named Barbara and 7 children. I was shocked when I saw the name of their third child: Andrew F. Wolf, born in August 1895!

So it turns out that my cousin's father and mother were actually related, though I'm sure they had no idea. My genealogy software has a tool for calculating the relationship between two individuals, so I was able to determine that her parents were seventh cousins!

Going digital

My husband and I just returned from an overnight trip to the Philadelphia area. The main purpose for our trip was a return visit to the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College, so that I could do some more research on Sarah Fox Hickey's Quaker ancestors.

On my last visit, I had looked at some records from the Abington Monthly Meeting where Sarah's ancestors were members. I had found lots of helpful information and had made many paper copies of pertinent records.

This time I decided to be "daring" and try something new. One of the microfilm readers at the library is set up so that you can made "digital surrogates" of the microfilm images. For a fee of $5.00 you can bring your own thumb drive and save as many images on it as you like. I tend to be "technically challenged," so the idea of this made me a little nervous. I decided to give it a try, though, and was very glad that I did.

Once I got used to the method of saving files, it was pretty easy to do. I found some new information and was able to make digital copies of the records. I also went back and made digital copies of some of the records I had copied last time. The advantage of having a digital copy is that you can zoom in on the image and can also enhance the image by adjusting the contrast, etc.

I went back to the library today to look at a book about the Livezey family. (Sarah's mother was Mary Livezey Fox.) The book was very helpful and had a lot of information that I wanted to copy. I started out carefully transcribing the information by hand.

Then I remembered seeing something on the library's website about using a digital camera. For $5.00 you could take as many photographs as you liked. I realized it was going to take me all day to transcribe the information by hand, so I decided to try using my digital camera (which I had brought in with me) to make copies of the pages of interest.

In less than an hour I had photographed all the pages I needed. Even copying them on a copying machine would have probably taken twice that long, and the copies would not have been nearly as good. In almost no time at all, I had about 30 crystal clear copies which I can now look over at my leisure.

So I have finally "gone digital," and I'm glad I did. I could really get used to this.

An unexpected discovery

Today I ventured down to the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis to do some research on the Hickeys. It's quite a hike for me (about 1 1/4 hours on a good day, even longer in heavy traffic), so it's always nice to come home with some information I can use. For the most part, I had a very productive 4 hours of research. I found some death records, a marriage record, and some wills. The best discovery I made today, though, was something totally unexpected.

The first roll of microfilm I looked at was a roll of Baltimore City death certificates. I was hoping to find death records for George Miles and James Hickey, my grandmother's cousins who drowned in 1895. (See my June 12 blog for the story of their deaths.) The certificates are filmed in sequential order, so as long as you have the certificate number it's pretty easy to find a specific record.

I quickly found certificates for the two boys and began transcribing the information. When I got to the bottom of the certificates, something caught my eye. The name of the physician who signed both certificates was P.V. Benson, coroner. It just so happens that P.V. Benson is Philander Virgil Benson, who is my husband's great-great-grandfather!