Sunday Search: Documentation For My Supplemental Application

Ever since I received the letter from the Sons of the American Revolution saying that my application was accepted (actually, our applications), I have been working on my first supplemental application. As I have previously outlined, the first application was tracing back the Redcross line on my dad’s side of the family and now I am weaving my way through my mom’s side. It should be no surprise that the line that I am using for this application is tracing back to John Noblit.  

In addition to the previous difficulties tracing what was a line unbeknownst to us until recently, there was also the task of pulling together some of the documentation for recent generations. Surprisingly, there has been a lot of material uncovered and some tremendous recourses discovered which leaves little doubt about the family line prior to the 1940’s. Not including myself, the recent work has been in pulling together the documentation for the recent generations. Just last weekend, I finally got those last few items that I need to complete my second mountain of paperwork.

I have known about my grandfather’s Masonic Bible for most of my life and I knew that my grandmother would pull it out every once in a while not necessarily for what was written on the pages but to remember the family members represented by the scraps of paper between the pages. That being said, I had never taken the opportunity to sit down with my grandmother or my mom to really see what was contained within the blue covers. When my mom gave the Bible to me last weekend, I couldn’t help by start paging through the chapters and examining the documents that continue to buckle the cover.

There were certainly some interesting pieces of paper floating loosely between the pages containing names, marriages, birth and death dates, and some clippings from others moments in my grandmothers life including a photo from the local paper and a small clipping announcing a party for my grandparents’ 25^th wedding anniversary. Of course, bound deep within the pages of the book is something that I had been looking for… my grandparents’ wedding certificate from 1940. In the subsequent pages I found not only the births of my mom and her siblings in my grandmother’s handwriting but also some of the deaths in the family from the time they were married through the passing of my uncles.

It is a unique opportunity to use this family record in my most recent SAR application and it is also an honor to be entrusted with the history contained in its pages. It is not only a connection to my family history as a whole but a real, tactile, connection to my grandmother and my grandfather. In both regards, I consider myself a caretaker of the family history and I hope to preserve not just the pages that have been passed down but also the documents that have been discovered over the years so that we are never again in a position to forget. 

Sunday Search: Just Around The Corner

 Barren Hill Cemetery

This past week I was finally able to find the marriage license of my great great grandparents, William McKannan and Susan Laura Corner. It proved to be a difficult task as like many first generation Irish Americans the McKannan surname has been recorded in a myriad of different ways. While I was familiar with the current spelling and the way by which it was recorded for my great grandparents and grandparents in the 1940 census, McKenna, this new document brought to light another possibility, McCann. However, every single one of the other details in the document where accurate leaving no doubt in my mind that I had finally found one of the family records that had eluded me for nearly a decade.

Marriage License - 9 December 1890

When looking at this record I was surprised to find that the marriage actually took place on 9 December 1890, only five days prior to the birth of my great grandfather William Jacob McKannan when my grandmother was seventeen years old. Seems as though there may have been a little rush to the alter to say the least but the marriage did last for the rest of their lives so there must have been more of a connection beyond the simple fact of an unplanned pregnancy. Additionally, as I researched the details of their lives, it was fascinating to see the full lives that they had especially with regard to my great great grandmother.

1880 Census

Susan Laura Corner was born in Philadelphia on 20 August 1873 to Jacob Corner and Tamise Culp. Growing up the daughter of a farmer in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, she experienced loss at an early age as her twin sister, Emma Flora Corner, passed away on 17 September 1875. It is unclear how they met but by the time Laura was 16 she was pregnant and by the time she was 17 she was married to William who was six years her senior.

   

Sunday Times Advertiser - 22 January 1928

While my great great grandfather was working for the Pennsylvania Railroad (eventually becoming yardmaster at Morrisville), Laura was busy first raising her family and then, later in life, increasing her social activity among many of the organizations in the Trenton area. This is one of those situations where she may not have had an occupation listed in the census but she did work and she worked hard. This resulted in her being mentioned in the various Trenton newspapers over 140 times during the approximately 30 years prior to her passing in 1949. While she was a founding member of the Get Together Club (seemingly started after her husband’s passing in 1933, she was also active with her Bible Study Class, a member of Iska Council No. 33 (Improved Order of Red Men), a member of Laurel Temple No. 3 (Knights of the Golden Eagle), and, most prominently, she served as District President of the Patriotic Order of Americans and, later, appointed as Director of the National Patriotic Order of Americans Home and Orphanage in Lambertville. In the latter she also held various roles in Camp No. 6 ranging from Orator to Publicist to Trustee.

Sunday Times Advertiser - 2 December 1934

It seems as though both William and Laura slowly moved up in their respective social circles over the course of their unlikely marriage. They had at least 3 children, William, Mary, and Reuben and were married for 43 years at the time of my great great grandfather’s passing after a six year illness (still uncertain as to the cause of this illness). And, by the time she took her final breath only her daughter, three grandchildren, and four great grandchildren remained. Beyond the simple documents that have been found she is remembered as a good hearted, happy, giving, thoughtful, and intelligent mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and community leader. And, in the end, that is really all that any of us can hope for.

Trenton Evening Times - 3 November 1949

Sunday Search: Connections Through Occupations

There is a wealth of information that can be found in the census. Some of those facts prove to be quite useful when trying to pull the pieces together in order to learn about a distant relative. And while there are a number of things that should be checked and double checked, there is one piece of information in particular that seems to be regularly reliable… occupation. While the spelling of names, use of nicknames, and inaccurate dates abound in these national reports, the occupation of the individual is something really hard to mess up unless the census taker is told the wrong information on purpose.

While most of my family can be found listed as farmers and homemakers, there are the occasional outliers that catch my attention. Not because they are of any extraordinary profession but because it is simply something different than the norm and it makes me think about what that job must have been like at the time. After all, while the basic functions and responsibilities associated with a particularly line of employment, the means by which the tasks are completed are vastly different from that of over 100 years ago. There are exceptions to that rule as well.

Of course, what is even more interesting to me is the interplay between the different lines of the family tree. Sometimes there are other common connection both in geography and occupation that makes you wonder if ancestors in question ever ran into one another. This is where the intrest is really piqued and when the imagination can sometimes wander in to the realm of possibility regardless of how improbable it may have been. Let’s just take the 1900 Census for example.

In 1900 and at the time of his death in 1902, my great great grandfather on my dad’s side, Samuel Ardis, was a clerk for the railroad most likely the Pennsylvania Railroad which, at the time, was headquartered in Philadelphia (my three times great grandfather was a messenger for the railroad as well). Who knows, maybe he ran into my great great grandfather on my mom’s side, William McKannan, who was a Railroad Night Caller in Trenton. While he may have lived and worked in Trenton, there was still a lot of family that remained in Philadelphia. It is interesting to think about the duties and responsibilities that they each had and whether there was a possible connection between the two families over 70 years before my parents got married.

Another interesting consideration is the fact that at the turn of the 20^th century another one of my great great grandfathers on my mom’s side, John Uttley, was a Philadelphia Police Officer in Ward 5 (Roxborough). For good reasons or bad, I wonder if he ever ran into some of the other members of my family years before the trees would merge. You simply never know if there was ever an introduction among the families before the actual connections were made years later.   

And this is just one year of the census, one family, and one geographic location. There are undoubtedly times when you will see different families within the same page or two of the census but it is fascinating to look back decades before the families would eventually merge to find the possible points of contact and connection that may or may not have existed at the time. In a dedicated passion that requires facts, sometimes it is nice to think about the possibilities despite the lack of evidence. I guess you could say that this is part of the process as well. After all, you never know what you might find.

Sunday Search: Valentine’s Day Genealogy

Today I thought I would do something a little different but completely appropriate given the Hallmark cards that are being handed out. One of the interesting things I frequently find myself pondering when researching the various ancestors in my family tree is about how these two, sometimes completely different, people met? Most of the time this information can only be found in the stories passed down from generation to generation.

When looking through many of the documents that my great Aunt has shared with me over the years, I came across a single page on which she has typed up what is basically a summary of her father’s life. Many of the facts are easy to find in the census, birth certificate, marriage, and death records but there were also details not contained in those documents including a little about his work history as well as, and what is most appropriate given the subject of this post, what brought my great grandparents together. Here is exactly what my great aunt, whom I have written about before, wrote about her parents:

Harry was the son of LeRoy and Sally Clapsaddle Teaford. He was one of nine children. He was born in 1895 and died in 1963. His first employment was as a quarry worker in a local mill that his father managed. He became interested in farming and had a love for horses. In 1916 he met Nettie Love of Sugar Tree Hollow. Nettie and her sister were accomplished equestrians. Nettie won several awards at local fairs where she rode English (side saddle) style. Their mutual interest in horses brought Harry and Nettie together and they were married in 1917 at the Eagle Rock Baptist Church. Shortly after they moved to Lorraine, Ohio. They stayed in Ohio only a short time and moved back to the Eagle Rock area. Harry began working as a farmer and over the following years worked for several large farm owners. His favorite position was with the Graham Burhnman Farm in Gala. During their time in Virginia the family had twelve children. All twelve children were born in Virginia.  

However, more often than not, we don’t have these stories written down for us. Many times we have to try and find and fill in the details with the documents that we do have. Such is the case with my great grandparents on my mom’s side of the family. Basically, the census is what really reveals how they met and given the fact of with whom they were each living at the time, it really is a matter of what some would call fate. My great grandparents, William J. McKannan and Helen W. Fulton, can be found listed in the 1910 census living next door to one another. Both 19 at the time, Helen’s family was living in her grandmother’s house while William was living with his mother and sister at his uncle’s house… his father, my great great grandfather, was working for the Pennsylvania Railroad in Trenton, New Jersey at the time. Two years after the census was taken William and Helen were married. Unfortunately, as I have written about before, it was a marriage that wouldn’t last.  

Sometimes other forces intervene in order for fate to take hold ensuring that what was meant to be becomes reality. It is true in my family tree and it is true in how my wife and I met. There are countless factors that brought us to that Barnes & Noble in Bryn Mawr that particular night when I, having just published my book "Kaddish Diary”, was giving a reading and my wife was working the floor. It was that instant when we, coming from completely different backgrounds with vastly different experiences, met for the first time each of us taking the chance and getting to know one another. The same chance that my great grandparents took when they first saw one another.

Sunday Search: Putting Names To Faces

When my wife and I were figuring out our schedule for the weekend we knew that we wanted to get together with my parents before they left for a little warm weather vacation next week. Fortunately, despite some other changes to our plans, everything worked out and we spend yesterday afternoon together. More importantly, our son spent some time with his grandparents.

It was supposed to be one of our usual get togethers over lunch and then back at the house to catch up on things (even though I talk with them every few days). It is a nice relaxing time. However, I decided to change things up a bit yesterday when, because the thought popped into my head, I decided to pull out the photo album sent to me months ago (maybe over a year at this point) and flip through the pages with my mom. We did a quick scan before lunch noting some of the relatives I knew, many that I didn’t, and, oddly, some that I recognized but my mom didn’t.

This was a long overdue project and after lunch, toward the middle of the afternoon, we revisited the photos but this time we took a closer look and I had post it notes in hand to record the names. After flipping through a few of the pages and not being able to put a name to a face on a few occasions, we peeled back the plastic and carefully pulled up the pictures from the paper in the hope that there might be some information on the back. While this didn’t always work, there were a few times when it did and it allowed us to put a few more pieces together.

What we couldn’t figure out immediately was the handwriting on the backs of the photos until one of the last pictures had the simple words inscribed on it “My Mother” which means that my grandfather labeled many of the photos that we had been looking at over 30 years ago. It was one of those things that we didn’t expect but glad that we figured out. What was also nice was the fact that I have done so much on the family tree because there were a few times when only first names were known or ‘that was her or his daughter.” By having much of the tree completed, I can write down the bits of information now and put the pieces together later.

Hopefully, this is the first of many times when I can sit down with my mom and put faces to names. There are a number of other loose photos and albums stored in drawers at their house and I am eager to flip through them and finally pull together a visual history of the family in addition to the information that we already have. Who knows, maybe I can even discover something new. But, for now, it is back to the current album where I can now write (with an archival pen of course) on the backs of the photos the names of the faces on the front.   

Sunday Search: Lost Children

One of the things that many people overlook about genealogy is the fact that it is not always about making the remarkable link to some historical figure or event. Sometimes it is about making sure that people are not forgotten. This doesn’t just apply to those names that may not be part of the usual family discussions, it is about the names that may not have even carried over to the next generation. I have written about many of the people that lived interesting lives, some that may have died too soon, and others whom I simply wanted to learn more about. To date, the list is rather extensive and includes the following leaves from my tree:

• Samuel Ardis
• Jacob Wirth
• John Uttley
• Charlotte Noblitt
• William Jacob McKannan
• Percy Davis Teaford
• Cecile Teaford
• John Lewis Hallman
• William Edgar Yeagle
• John Redcross

Those are just a few of the lives that I have tried to bring back to the forefront of my family history. Many of the details were already known to various family members but there have been a few that have come as a surprise (at least some of the details). These stories are fascinating to me and I will certainly be adding to that list in the near future but, for now, I wanted to take the time to share some of the names that can too easily be forgotten. Some lives are cut short while other lives never had a chance to get started.

When looking through the census records it can be a little startling to see the two numbers listed a few columns over from the mother’s name. These columns stick to the factual… number of children followed by number of surviving children. The census is a form full of facts and numbers and doesn’t provide any additional insights as to the discrepancy. Seeing these do, usually different, figures has become routine for many of us conducting research on our families. However, when we dig a little deeper, when we find a name, that column is no longer filled with simple numbers. Below are just a few of the names that I have been able to find…

• I knew about my great aunt Frances Reba Teaford from the time I initially became interested in the family history. A few of her siblings are still around and have shared stories about her with me and the short life that she lived. Frances was born in Eagle Rock, Virginia to Harry Gilmore Teaford and Nettie Love in 1926. She succumb to the ravages of Tuberculosis a few years after the family moved to Pennsylvania in 1943. However, I didn’t find out until later about a baby brother that was born in August 1930. Unfortunately, he passed away three months later still without having been given a name.
• Samuel Ardis and Sarah Myers had three children together including twins born on April 18, 1902. Thomas died in July 1902 (a month before his father) and Edna died in March 1903 (seven months after her father).
• My great great grandmother, Susan Laura Corner, was one of nine children born to Jacob Corner and Tamise Culp. However, by the time she turned five year old, she had already lost three of her siblings including her twin sister. Calvin was born two decades before my grandmother and never made it to his first birthday. Hannah was six when her baby twin sisters were born but only knew them for five years. Emma Flora, Susan’s twin, was just over two years old when she passed away.  
• William McKannan and Susan Corner had three children, two sons and a daughter. Their youngest son, Reuben (named after Susan’s brother), was born in July of 1893. He was laid to rest in what would become the family plot in May of 1897.
• By the end of 1919, William Jacob McKannan (Reuben’s brother) and Helen Fulton had four children, two boys and two girls. By the close of 1922, William was a widower caring for two sons. His two daughters, Marion (1916-1920) and Helen (1919-1922), both preceded their mother in death. Helen succumbed to a stroke on September 7, 1922.  
• Over the course of a single year from 1879-1880, John Uttley lost both his first wife Sallie, who passed away in January 1880, as well as their only child Charlotte who was born in February 1879 and died three months later.
• Jacob Wirth and Mary Eppright had four children. By August of 1864, Mary was a single mother of one. Their oldest daughter, Emma, didn’t even make it to her first birthday passing away at 10 months old in October 1858. The day following her father’s death aboard the USS Tecumseh at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Laura died just over a month shy of her second birthday on August 6, 1864 and Mary succumb to her illness (likely yellow fever) three days after her sister on August 9^th.

Genealogy is about ensuring that the family history is passed down to future generations. Sometimes those facts and events are obvious and quite well known, other times it takes some digging to ensure that we have as complete a picture as possible. As many of you know, it is usually about the tiny details. Sometimes, even just ensuring that the name of a lost child it remembered is the greatest thing that we can accomplish. This is why I continue to try to make the connections and put the pieces together to tell the larger story but take the time to make sure that these children are part of the story and not forgotten. After all, each life is part of the family.

Sunday Search: Another Generation Of Baby Photos

Each month that passes, we do our best to take a picture of our son so that we can record his growth over time. Sometimes we manage to get the picture taken on the exact day of the month while other times we might be off by a day or two. Each time we think about the pictures that we have seen of ourselves and it is hard to believe that we are now on the other side of the lens. This time, however, I didn’t look back at some of my baby pictures, I looked back much further and sorted through some of the much older family photos that I discovered over the summer. They were actually included in the same group that I wrote about last month.

My great grandmother, Helen Fulton, was only 30 when she passed away from a stroke but there are numerous pictures from her life both from before she married my great grandfather, William Jacob McKannan, and throughout their 10 year marriage. The first picture, which prompted this post, is from about 1893 or 1894 when she was just a baby...

A few years later, we have a photo of her as a little girl taken in about 1900 (I can actually see my niece in this photo)…

By 1910 (according to the census), my great grandparents were living next door to one another. My great grandfather was living with his uncle (along with his mother and sister) while my great great grandfather was working for the Pennsylvania Railroad while my great grandmother’s family moved in with her grandmother. Some things can be written off as coincidence while other situations, like this one, seem to be fate. My great grandparents married two years later which is around the time when we can surmise that this picture was taken…

A few years later, both McKannan children were married and my great great grandmother, Susan Laura Corner, was still holding her own at home while the railroad continued keeping my great great grandfather away from his family. It was during this time, in the mid-teens (I surmise early 1914 since my grandfather was born in October 1914), when this family photo was taken with my great great grandmother in the middle surrounded by her growing family…  

As I have written before, by the end of 1922 my great grandfather was left a Widower caring for his two sons having lived through the loss of his wife and two daughters over the past two years. But the photos and memories remained allowing the family to remember her, what she looked like, and the happiness that filled her brief life. You never know how life progresses or when life will come to an end but the images continue to maintain the vibrant details, from birth to death, of the family history. It is a great feeling to be adding another generation of details to our tree with every passing month.

Sunday Search: Beyond The Camera

The McKannan Family c. 1920:
(L-R) William Jacob, William Reuben, Robert James, Helen Walker (Fulton).

In the last few years of my grandmother’s life, she went back and forth between wanting to pass things along to many of us (I will never forget her telling me that she wanted me to have her, and my grandfather’s, High School class rings) and just wanting to get rid of things “because no one would want them”. Unfortunately, what she thought no one would want were the piles of family photos piled in many of the drawers in my parent’s house. In hindsight, I wish I had told her that I wanted to see them from time to time and ask her who everyone was. Definitely a missed opportunity.

Thankfully there are some photos that have survived and recently I came across a few of the older photographs that I don’t remember ever seeing. While sorting through the boxes and files that have been piled in my office for the past several months, I came across a Priority Mail box that my Aunt had sent to me just prior to our move out of the old apartment last year. I had put it aside with the plan of opening it once we got settled and looking through what I thought would be an album of photos from when my mom was growing up.

When I finally pulled the tab on the box I peered in and saw an expected album along with an envelope. I first pulled out the bound pages and only half of it was about what I was expecting. There were also photos from long before that time back to around the year that my grandparents met. I didn’t think that this discovery could get better until I put the binder aside and opened the envelope.

In this unassuming package I found, in layers and layers, a wealth of family history in images. Sliding from one photo to the next, I was unaware of the existence of each image. Some of them were simple portraits and family photos while overs told a little more about the lives of the people in those images. Knowing the basic family history beforehand only added to the story even behind those moments captured. Having done the research, I know that the following photo shows my grandfather around 1910 as a driver for a local grocery store (as was recorded in the 1910 federal census).

Additionally, looking at the family portrait at the top of this post (my great grandparents, grandfather, and great uncle) I can’t help but think about what is happening beyond the scope of the camera. The picture was take around 1920 and shows a family of four. At one point, in 1919 and early 1920, this was a family of six (my great aunts passed away in 1920 and 1922 respectively). By the end of 1922, this was a family of three with my great grandmother having succumb to a stroke in September of that year. It just goes to show that pictures are truly representative of a single moment in time.

Of course, this is just a couple of the photos that have been shared with me and just the stories behind the photos that I have been able to piece together. There are still a lot of images that I have yet to scan, people in those photos that I have to identify, and stories that I hope to find. It is an ongoing project that I hope never ends but I need help from the family to accomplish that… I just hope that I don’t come across another situation when people don’t think that anyone wants these pieces of family history. I want to do everything I can to avoid that situation and prevent that regret for not talking about the photos and asking about family history. Definitely a lot of work but well worth the effort.

Genealogy Wish List

This time of year, regardless of a person’s faith, everyone puts together a wish list of what they would like to receive or see happen during the holiday season. Sometimes it is as simple as Ralphie repeatedly pleading for a Red Rider BB Gun while others are more complex or impossible to fulfill. This list, my genealogy wish list, leans more toward the latter while I hope that some will turn out to be as simple as Ralphie’s request. So here it is:

1. Redcross/Beverly Marriage License: This is the last remaining piece that we need to definitively prove our genealogy back to the Monacan records. While we know where it should be and have seen the document listed in the indexes of the local courthouse, the actual marriage license has disappeared and no one knows where it is. There are some theories however but it is going to take a lot of time and significant effort to either prove or disprove them.
2. Monacan Nation Membership: We don’t know if this is going to be possible without the aforementioned document but we need to at least give it a try. Maybe the index will be enough as it is still a state document but we just don’t know. Everything else is in place we just need to pull all the documentation together, pay the application fee, and see how things pan out.
3. John Uttley’s Service Record: While I have been able to track down when he was sworn into the Philadelphia Police Department and I have found his badge number and highest rank achieved (that was a long couple weeks of calls), there is little else that I can find regarding his service. During this research process, I found out that all the old police records were destroyed and that nothing is left but a basic database of names, badge numbers, and ranks. Maybe there is a copy somewhere… let’s hope that is the case.
4. McKannan Arrival Date: The original surname was McKenna. First name was William. Arrival was during the potato famine. This shouldn’t be challenging at all. This is going to take more luck (maybe luck of the Irish) than anything else as all existing leads have proven very little and, if anything, have created more possible links than verifying any. It’s a long shot but I am going to keep pushing and sorting through records.
5. Percy Teaford’s Service Record: While I have been able to find a good amount of information regarding my grandfather’s service in the Navy during World War II, I haven’t been able to get any additional information on his service in the Narberth Fire Department. This is one of those things that is just going to take time and me driving over there to see if they have any information. It would be interesting to read about this.
6. Autocar: Both my great grandfather and my grandfather worked at Autocar in Ardmore. While the factory is long gone I am curious to know if the records are still floating around (if they survived the fires just before the plants closed). I have reached out to the current incarnation of the company but have yet to hear anything. It would be nice to have an answer as to whether or not the employment records even exist.
7. Jacob Teaford’s Story: The second first generation to be born on this continent (before the founding of the United States). We know very little about him. We have more details about his father, the immigrant, and the generations since but he has remained a mystery for years. Heck, we can’t even figure out who was the mother of his son Jacob from which I am a descendant. He is the reason why we are green dot bastards and it would be nice to fix that.
8. Nicolas Love’s Parents: We have the names from his recently discovered death certificate but we no little else about them. We can’t find a record of their marriage and we can’t find any census records. While there are theories, like many other areas of the tree, we have yet to prove any of them no matter how probable one seems.
9. Maiden Names: This is always an issue in anyone’s tree as even death certificates of siblings can differ from one to another about their mother’s maiden name. This is just going to take more digging, marriage record research, and looking at census records for possible clues.
10. Revolutionary War Ancestry: There seem to be more and more connections found whenever I spend some time working on the tree. Many of them are confirmed but some connections remain tenuous at best. Even today I made the interesting discovery that my 6x great uncle was the inspiration for the movie “The Patriot”. It would be nice to confirm them all and have those findings verified by the Sons of the American Revolution. Shocker, more paperwork!
11. The Yeagle Connection: I reached out to that side of the family before but the connection didn’t last beyond the scope of our brief conversation over the phone. While I don’t know what thoughts may have been going through her mind, it would be nice to reconnect and find out a little bit more about this line that has been largely forgotten about by my family.
12. Organization (Not Just Lists): All of these things need to be organized both physically and digitally. Right now there is a mix of physical and digital records spread across a couple of computers, ancestry.com, shelves of binders, and books tabbed for the relevant passages. Eventually, they will all be pulled together, organized in binders, and uploaded to the tree so that everyone can benefit from the work that has been put into this continuous search for answers.

Some of the records are nearly impossible to find as they are either confirmed as missing or destroyed. Some of the things on my wish list are just a matter of me finding the time to commit to the various projects. In all reality, I would be happy just to fill in a couple of these pieces of information and have everything available so that the entire family can learn and appreciate where we come from. So, let’s see if I can be good this year and at least get a few of these things checked off!

Finding Family

Friday was a different kind of road trip for me and my wife as I took her to visit some of my family members whom she had never met before. In fact, I had never been there either as my family isn’t one that visits cemeteries. As I had no idea of where we were going it was time to call for backup so I had my mom join us for the four hour trip that took us to Roxborough (Philadelphia), Lafayette Hill, and Conshohocken.

None of the locations are very far from our apartment but each stop was a completely different world in comparison to our previous excursions. Getting to the different places was a breeze as my mom knew exactly where to go but, after that, the specific locations of the graves had been lost in the twenty to forty years since her last visit. It made for an interesting afternoon of searching but that wasn’t what held us up and took the most time.

Our first stop was to Leverington Cemetery on Ridge Avenue in Roxborough. No longer active, graves there date back to the mid 1700’s and serve as a microcosm of the history of Philadelphia and, in broader terms, the evolution of our country. Unfortunately, curiosity and a sense of history were not the dominant feelings that washed over us as we entered through the old iron gate. Instead I was overwhelmed by shocked sadness as I guided the car along the ruts that ran down the middle and looked out the window at the broken, tipped over, and unmarked graves that litter the cemetery.

One of the few legible markers still remaining. Notice the empty spaces between headstones that shouldn't exist in a full cemetery (there are maybe one or two flush markers in this picture).

 

While I did come across one family marker…

We found the Uttley's... we think. The original stone had the names of John and Adah Uttley on it. we don't know when it was replaced or who had it done.

…and another potential relative (still working on the surname in our tree)…

Family plot of the Hansell family... I have traced back to the surname and this location but I have yet to locate the grave of anyone in my direct bloodline.

…we were unable to locate one of the other headstones that I know is on those grounds or any with the Wirth surname for that matter. With nearly 50% of the headstones missing, broken, sunken, tipped over, or illegible I am not surprised. As if there wasn’t enough on the genealogical research list I am now going to have to see who owns / runs the cemetery (the church no longer does), find the burial records, and get in touch with both the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania (many of the unkempt graves are those of Masons) as well as the Philadelphia Police Department to see if they are willing to mark my family’s grave (John Uttley was a Philadelphia Police Officer in Roxborough (Ward 5)). I guess we will just have to see what happens.

After an exhaustive search for headstones no longer at Leverington we made our way to Barren Hill Cemetery in Lafayette Hill. Many of the family names found in Leverington can also be found in Barren Hill as, over the generations, families slowly moved further away from the city / Roxborough and into the suburbs / Lafayette Hill. Of course, there was also the fact that city cemeteries tend to become full after about 150-200 years and people need to look into alternatives.

Barren hill was a much quicker and more pleasant experience as the grounds were well maintained (just a few tilting headstones which is to be expected) and everything, at least in the section we were in, was legible. What made it exceptionally easy was that the family plot could be seen from the small, but paved, road that ran through the middle.

This is the view from the paved road that goes down the middle of the cemetery. Makes the family easy to find.

And on the headstone was 2 ½ generations of my mom’s family from the first born in the United States in 1868 after the family came over from Ireland (along with his wife and her brother)…

This is the first generation McKannan to be born in the United States. While born under the name McKenna by the time William McKannan died the family name had been changed to McKannan (newspaper articles mentioning him during his time with the Pennsylvania Railroad also refer to him as McKannan).

…to my great grandfather along with his two wives (his first wife died when she was 30) along with the unused plots (marked but not updated since his death in 1981) for my grandfather and his brother (unfortunately his sisters are in the family plot as they passed away when they were three and four years old). As you can see there are many different families represented and many different people listed on both sides of the headstone.

William Jacob McKannan was buried along side both of his wive and his two daughters. My grandfather, William Reuben, and his brother, Robert, were etched on the stone but never joined their parents in the cemetery.

From Lafayette Hill we made our way to Gulph Christian Cemetery in Conshohocken. Here we found two generations of my dad’s family. Again, this is a cemetery that is very easy to get to and our family plots are actually visible from the main road if you know where to look.

The Hallman headstones are further away than the Teaford graves but can still be seen from the road. Makes it really easy to visit if you know where to look.

Even being so close this was still my first time to the cemetery. These graves represent my family’s move up from Virginia and into Pennsylvania as both my grandparents and great grandparents are buried there.

I never had the chance to get to know my grandparents but that doesn't mean I can't still visit them. My grandfather is the reason why the family is in Pennsylvania. His parents are buried beside him along with his sister who passed away from cancer when she was a teenager.

It is also the only marked veteran’s grave that we came across during our afternoon travels as my great grandfather’s headstone marks his participation in World War I.

John Lewis Hallman served, along with his brother, in World War I. The flag that was in the holder was only briefly removed so that this picture was taken and it was immediately put back. The family is in the process of getting the same holder put on my grandfather's headstone.

I specifically used the word marked because my uncle is working on getting a flag holder on my grandfather’s headstone to mark his service in World War II. Graves previously found, and missing, also need to be marked in such a fashion.

In the end, it was a day of mixed emotions. I am glad that I was finally able to go visit these cemeteries for the first time but I am also left with a great sadness in the state of Leverington and in the fact that I have not previously gone out and looked for my relatives. At least now I know what needs to be done and I am motivated to do all I can to preserve my family’s history and the memory of those who should still be honored even by those of us who are a part of a generation who never knew them in life.