Tag: mothers

Minnie Arabella Hine

Hine_Minnie
Minnie Hine Prince

This week in #52ancestors #52familyphotographs Minnie Arabella Hine takes center stage as a good example of incorrect information in a marriage record.  Corroborate, double check and check again! Minnie was my great grandmother and figuring out her real mother set me a merry chase.

Minnie was born on 1 August 1866 in Orwell, Pennsylvania.  Her father’s name was James Edwin Hine.  Her mother’s name was Catherine Tyrrel or Terrell.  She was the second of two daughters of this couple.  Martha or Mattie, her older sister, clearly lists her mother on her marriage record as Catherine but Minnie lists her mother as A. E. Hine.  James Hine married Ann E. Phillips in 1870 when Minnie was about 4, and she may not have had any memories of her birth mother.  Luckily, I happen to have James’ bible which records Catherine’s death and his remarriage.

Minnie married George Cornell Prince on 9 July 1894 up in Bradford County.  George was living in Philadelphia at the time, employed as a stenographer with the Philadelphia Typewriter Exchange.  I am not sure when he went down to Philadelphia, but he appears in city directories from 1895 to 1904.  The family lived in Philadelphia until 1897, when the directory notes that his home is in Rosedale, New Jersey.

Minnie and George Prince had four children, the first born in Philadelphia and the rest in Camden:

Hine_Minnie_Arabella3a
Minnie Hine Prince with George? and Philip?

I don’t know much about her life in Camden.  I know she went home to Bradford County occasionally as her visits are tracked in the local paper.  Her father and step-mother had one son, Arthur Hine and she appears to have visited him and her sister.

Minnie Prince died at home on 23 June 1931 and is buried in Bethel Memorial Park in Pennsauken, NJ.  Her obituary mentions her children and grandchildren but does not highlight any other activities.

Tom, Anne, Carol and Mary

Sometimes snapshots like this one can help remind you of the connections between children who played together and adults who lived in different states.  #52ancestors #52familyphotographs

avtalbum10_tom_anne_carol_mary
James Tompkins Jr., Anne Tompkins, Carol Tompkins and Mary Tompkins

 

 

Lillie Jones

Jones_Lillie
Lillie Jones

I like to find ancestors with my birth date. It doesn’t happen very often but this week in #52Ancestors I get to come pretty close with Lillie Jones Weest.  I also got to follow leads presented when the person I was searching for disappeared from one census family and appeared in another.

Lillie Jones was born on 6 August 1867 to Benjamin and Mary Elizabeth Carrell Jones in Pemberton, New Jersey. She was baptized in 1868 at Grace Episcopal Church in Pemberton.

In 1870, she is living with the Jones family in Pemberton but in 1880 she is living with someone who gives me a clue about her mother’s family!!!!

Census_US_1880_NJ_Burlington_Pemberton_ED32_21_crop

She is listed with a Joseph and Anna P. “Scraggy” and she her relationship to them is niece.  I don’t know how I missed this the first time around but thank you #52Ancestors!  This time I followed the lead as the Jones family is not linked to the Scraggy family.  It turns out it is the Scroggy family.  And Joseph is a Civil War veteran married to Anna P. Carrel.  Could this be Mary Elizabeth’s sister?   Joseph Scroggy is also enumerated in the 1885 New Jersey census with Annie P. and Lillie Jones.

Census_NJ_1885_Burlington_Pemberton_29_crop

I am not sure why Lillie is not living with her birth family but I can’t argue with the records.  She is also with them in 1895.  Thank goodness for state census records!  They really fill the gap caused by the absence of the 1890 Federal Census. And this one presents another clue to the Carrel family: Eliza Carrel (aged over 60) is living with the Scroggy family as well as Lillie!  Mary Carrell Jones’ mother’s name was Eliza.

Now a little sleuthing work because Lillie Jones disappears.  A few newspaper leads on other family members lead me to the discovery that she married a man named George B. Weest.  This name really confounds many database searches which seem to have been programmed to ignore double vowels: I got a lot of unrelated West returns.  Lillie Weest appears in the 1910 Census in Pemberton living with husband George B. and daughter Mary.  They are living with George’s mother and sister.  Mary is noted as born in New York but I view this with suspicion as the record also shows her father is born in New York when two lines up he is clearly born in New Jersey.

Weest_George_advertisement_The_Fair_Haven_Era_Thu__Jun_7__1900_I did find George in the 1900 Census, living alone in the town of Hampton, NY.  This is right across the Vermont border from Poultney where a newspaper search shows that George has acquired a business.  A little more sleuthing unearths the news that 1910 marked the return of the family to New Jersey from Vermont.  In focusing on that I found that Mary was born in 1901 in Vermont according to her death certificate (dated 1957 in Pennsylvania from a brain tumor).

The family settled in Pemberton where George opens a machine shop.  George died in 1937 about a month after their 37th wedding anniversary.  I have yet to find a marriage record but a newspaper story confirms this date.  Jones_Lillie_marriage_The_Fair_Haven_Era_Thu__Feb_8__1900_And the newspaper is one of the best sources of information on Lillie, other than the Census.  Mary was apparently active in the Burlington County community, attending her friends weddings and holding parties.  Lillie is often noted as attending as well.  In the 1940 Census their household consists of Lillie, Mary and a boarder named William Sullivan and in 1941 he married Mary.

Lillie Jones Weest died 2 January 1946 and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery in Pemberton.

I was able to fill in many blanks as I worked on this entry for #52Ancestors but I still have questions, which is probably why this exercise is so important.  I will continue to search for Lillie but one of my New Jersey relatives probably has several clues that will help fill in the blanks and now with this blog, they know what I want to know:

  • why did Lillie go to live with her aunt and uncle?  Too many Jones mouths to feed? Or was Anna frail and in need of help?
  • did the marriage of George and Lillie occur in NY or Vermont?
  • is there a better death notice than the tiny one that appears in the Philadelphia Inquirer?
Weest_Family
George B. Weest, Lillie Jones Weest and their daughter Mary Weest

Susan Ellis Gibbs Jones

Jones_Susan_Ellis_Gibbs_grave_1837This week in #52Ancestors I’d like to finish the other half of the Richard Jones story: his first wife Susan Ellis Gibbs, from whom I am descended.  She was born 9 May 1814, the second daughter of Joseph N. (1781-1865) and Elizabeth Ellis Gibbs (1785-1845).  She appears to have resided her entire short life in Burlington County, New Jersey.
Gibbs_JosephN_admittancetoMountHollyMonthlyMtg_8May_1817_cropThe Gibbs family appears in Quaker meeting records moving from Upper Springfield meeting to Mount Holly meeting in 1817, but the next time I find them is in 1835, when the entire family is being “disowned” by the Mount Holly meeting.  This may be due to the fact that Susan and her sisters seem to have each married outside the faith.  Gibbs_JosephN_disownmentduetoseparationofwholefamilyMountHollyMonthlyMtg_May_1835_cropThe marriage for Richard Jones and Susan Gibbs was performed by a justice of the peace in Burlington County on 13 June 1833.
Susan and Richard had two sons, Benjamin Jones (1835-1896) and Joseph Gibbs Jones (1834-1895).  Susan died 22 February 1837 and is buried at Juliustown, in Arney’s Mount Friends Burying Ground, as is her father Joseph N. Gibbs.  Although this cemetery is so named, there seem to be a number of “lapsed” Quakers buried there.
Mary_Ann_FurnaceWhile I know that Richard Jones lived at Mary Ann Furnace later in the 1840’s I do not know if this is where Susan E. Gibbs lived with him during their short marriage.  Because she entered and left the family history between two censuses and because her two boys had so little time with her, it is hard to find details.
This is the 1849 Map of Burlington County by A.W. Otley and E. Whiteford, which provides the most detailed view of Mary Ann Forge and its small village of worker housing.

 

Mary Elizabeth Carroll Jones

Carrell_MaryElizabeth_jpegThis essay was originally published on 1 May 2018.  It contained erroneous information and so I have updated and corrected it as of 2 June 2018.

I recently received the pension packet from the National Archives for Benjamin Jones and his widow, Mary E. Jones.  It added a great deal of information to what I now know about this couple.  It also presented the problem of how to update this essay.  Rather than start from scratch I am going to try to incorporate the new information into the original.

This week in #52ancestors I am going to write about a woman who fascinates me.  She is not someone famous, or who had a public talent that everyone talked about.  She was a wife, mother, daughter, neighbor.  Just an ordinary woman, and yet she intrigues me.  Possibly it is because of a family story about her, which I cannot prove or disprove.  Possibly it is because her children loved her so.

Mary Elizabeth Carroll (records also use the spelling Carrol, Currel, Curl, Carrel) was born on 1 May 1840 or 1841 in Juliustown, Burlington County, New Jersey.  Her parents were William Carrel and Eliza F. Cox.  William Carroll of Juliustown is proving to be elusive but I have now discovered that although the family does not seem to hit the Census very often, Mary E. appears to have been the middle daughter of three:  Anna P. (1839-1902), Mary E. and Martha (1843-1905).

Mary Elizabeth Carroll married Clayton Taylor (son of Samuel G. and Mary Ann Taylor), on 14 March 1861 at Columbus in Springfield township, NJ.  Clayton appears to have been born around 1833 in Recklestown, NJ.  Sadly, Clayton died later that year on 13 October when his dog bumped his hunting rifle.

Mary E. Taylor then marries Benjamin Jones, recently returned Civil War veteran, on 20 October 1863.  They were married by a Justice of the Peace.  This is the crux of a family mystery.  The story is that Benjamin Jones compromised a young lady in the employ of the family, a maid or laundress.  Having gotten her pregnant, he was forced to marry her and his father, Richard Jones, disowned him.  It’s a great story but the supporting factual details elude me. Having now found a marriage date, it does highlight that their first child was born 7 months later.  Benjamin returned from the war a broken man.  His pension application is filled with details of his inability to work at any manual labor for any length of time.  Mary E. seems to have helped support the family by “working out” which means she did cleaning and housework for pay.  It is possible that this is how she met Benjamin.

Burlington_county_1876

And yet, apparently regardless of his ability to do prolonged manual labor, Benjamin and Mary proceed to have 11 children:

  • Susan Gibbs Jones (1864-1895)
  • William Carroll Jones (1865-1937)
  • Lillie Jones (1867-1946)
  • Elwood Andrew Jones (1869-1940)
  • Alice W. Jones (1871-1937)
  • Elizabeth Watts Jones (1873-1900)
  • Arthur Wells Jones (1875-1936)
  • Horace Jones (1878-1884)
  • Mary “Stella May” Jones (1881-1946)
  • Rebecca Clevenger Jones (1883-1963)
  • Martha Evans “Mattie” Jones (1885-1891)

The couple lived in Pemberton apparently in a house held in trust for Benjamin and Mary (I need to find more information on this as it is outlined in the pension documents) to be used during their lives.  After Benjamin died in 1896, Mary lived at Egbert Street through the 1910 Census.  In 1915, Mary is living with her daughter Alice and son-in-law Charles Wills. After that, according to the 1920 Census, Mary moved in with daughter Lillie (married to George Weest).  For most of this time she is surviving on her widow’s pension and what “work out” she can get.

Carrell_MaryElizabethwithfamily_jpeg
Mary Elizabeth Carroll Jones, William Carroll Jones, Harley Roscoe Jones, Merie Vivian Jones (original photograph held by Louise Jones)

Mary Jones died on 29 May 1922 in Vincentown and is buried in the Methodist Cemetery in Pemberton.  Her passing received far more attention than Benjamin’s and several months after her death her children post a memorial to her in the newspaper:

Mount Holly Herald, 7 October 1922

In Memoriam: In loving memory of our dear mother, Mary Elizabeth Jones.  Four months have passed since that sad day, when one we loved was called away, God took her home, it was his will, but in our hearts she is living still.  Sadly missed by sons and daughters. 

I am still in search of many pieces of this story but the goal of #52ancestors is to get what you know down in print, so here it is.  I would love to find out more about Frank Earl, who is the trustee of the house where Benjamin and Mary live.  How did this come about?  And now that I know a bit more about Mary Carroll’s parents I can try to put together that part of the story.

%d bloggers like this: