Sunday Search: Another Rediscovered Surname In The Revolutionary War

The Noblit surname is one that was lost to my family for well over 100 years until I started digging into this lineage. We were well aware of John Uttley, whom I have previously written about, but his parents were a bit of a mystery. It wasn’t until I found his death certificate that this new branch of the family tree was discovered. And to say that this has been an interesting journey would be an incredible understatement. But, for the time being, we are going to focus on the three generation prior to my 2nd great grandfather, John Uttley, beginning with his mother, Charlotte Noblit.

According to Charlotte’s obituary, she was the oldest living person in Manayunk at the time of her death in 1903 at the age of 93, which was not surprising given the longevity of her uncle, Dell Noblit, who exceeded the century mark. My grandfather was one of 16 children between her two marriages (first to Joseph Miller and later to John Uttley) and her father, Thomas Noblit, was noted to have served in the War of 1812. What has proven to be an invaluable tool at this point in the research process was that Charlotte was the most recent generation mentioned in John Hyndman Noblit’s book “Genealogical Collections Relating to the Families of Noblet” which also provided generations of additional information.  

Focusing more precisely on my lineal line, my next ancestral subject was Charlotte’s father, Thomas Noblit. While I was unable to find any information related to his service during the War of 1812, I did manage to find an interesting document. In 1855 Ann Pearce, Thomas Noblit’s widow, filed a Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application in which she states that Thomas Noblit, who died in 1850, served as a “private in the Revolutionary War from Chester County, Pennsylvania, and served at Chadds Ford and Battle of Brandywine commanded by Colonel Wallace, she thinks” and that he was drafted at Chester County, Pennsylvania in June 1777. While additional evidence is provided through a letter from the State Treasurer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania noting the pension that Thomas, and now Ann, was receiving, I could not find any additional information regarding his service in the war. However, his father, John Noblit, was a completely different story altogether.

Born in Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania in 1734 to Tavern and Inn Owner (The Black Horse Hotel) William Noblit and Mary Parke, the first mention of John Noblit that I found was in the depredation claims stemming from when the British Army occupied his land during the Philadelphia Campaign in September of 1777. However, there is much more information available outlining his service in Captain William Britton’s Company commanded by Colonel Oliver Spencer (also known as Spencer’s Regiment of Continental Troops) from March of 1777 until May of 1778. During his service he fought during the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown before spending the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. It seems as though he returned home in the spring most likely to help his family recover from the depredations suffered in the fall and later moved to the adjacent Ridley Township in Delaware County where he died in March of 1786.

And this is just the beginning of this part of my family history as there are pages and pages of documents that have survived the centuries to tell the story of this surname. From the United States and Ireland to Great Britain and France, there is a lot that have yet to learn about this family and about this part of my heritage. But, for now, I guess I will be working on pulling together all of the aforementioned documents and additional materials for my first supplemental application for the Sons of the American Revolution. And, once approved, I will have patriots on both sides of my family.

Sunday Search: Speaking For My Ancestors

A few weeks ago I was at a business event in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia. While I did notice the construction being done on I-95 in that area I didn't take notice beyond the fact that the resulting traffic and detours delayed my arrival at the venue. However, after a conversation I had this week, there is certainly greater significance for me concerning that highway expansion project. It all started with a simple email that I received through my Ancestry.com account.

As it turns out, as part of this project they are conducting extensive archaeological excavations around the area that will be impacted by the build out. Again, being that I am not too familiar with that section of the city, I was unaware of this research being done. And while they slowly sift through the layers of history they are also digging into the records for each of the impacted properties. Well, to my surprise, my family turned up during this examination of historical documents.

The connection and the basis of the query which I received was because of Adah Mary Worth, my great great grandmother on my mother’s side, being listed in the 1870 census. At the time she was living in the Mullin household and the researcher was curious as to the connection she had with the family. He had been consulting both my public tree on ancestry.com and had been reading a few of the relevant posts on my blog to try and figure things out himself but, in the end, still needed to connect with me in order to put the pieces together. Well, after a long conversation where we each shared what we have been able to uncover, the resulting story was rather interesting.

As I have written about previously, Adah’s father, Jacob Worth, was killed in action during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. Adah’s two siblings passed away at around the same time leaving her as the only remaining child. By the 1870 census, Adah’s mother, Mary Eppright, had remarried to a man named William Mullin, a widower with a young daughter of his own from his first marriage (to Mary Pote). The duplication of Mary’s is what originally confused the research but we were able to verify everything shortly after our conversation. This new merged family lived in the area in question.

Adding further intrigue was the fact that Mary Eppright was born in Haverford, lived in Roxborough while married to Jacob Worth, moved to Fishtown with William Mullin, and, once again a widow, moved back to Roxborough soon after Adah met John Uttley who was a Philadelphia Police Officer in the 5^th Ward (Roxborough). This answered the researcher’s additional question of why only Mary Mullin and Adah Worth are found living in Roxborough in the 1880 census (Adah and John Uttley married in 1881).

So, as it turns out, my family touches on more neighborhoods in the Philadelphia area than I originally thought and, once again, the census has proven to be a valuable tool in filling in some of the interesting colors and shades of some of the leaves in the family tree. And now I am interested in learning more about the archaeology being done in a few of the Philadelphia neighborhoods… some of the initial information can already be found at diggingi95.com. While by no means the primary reason for devoting the time and energy to researching the various lines in my family tree, this has been a crystal clear example of the impact that our work can have on others. Furthermore, by trying to find out as much as we can about our ancestors, it puts us in a better position to give them a voice in situations such as this. There are few feelings and situations more rewarding than that.

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: In Flight Questions

I am not someone who flies well. In fact, there have been many times when I have barely been able to open my eyes on the plane. It isn’t really the flying part that gets me it is the taking off and landing that doesn’t play well with my stomach. However, there have been moments from time to time when, for some reason, there hasn’t been even the slightest twinge of queasiness. Ever hopeful, I always have a project or two on hand when I fly with the hope that I will actually be able to remain productive during these unusual moments.

Today was kind of an in-between flight for me. While I was not in a position to start pulling out books and files or flip open my laptop, I was still able to think about some of the questions that still linger in the family tree. Keep in mind that these are topics that I keep on hand, jotted either on a post it note at my desk or, as was the case here, written as a note on my cell phone. Here are the questions that I keep coming back to hoping that I can think of a new angle or a new place to look:

• Why can’t I find any record of Marcellias Nicholas Love prior to his marriage to Laura Belle Redcross in 1889?
• Who was the third Jacob Teaford’s mother? Can this information be found in his service record from the War of 1812?
• Where is the marriage certificate of Paulus Redcross and Frances Beverly?
• When did the original William McKenna immigrate to the United States? Where did he enter?
• Where are the records for Alexander Fulton? Any relation to the Fulton family in Lancaster County?
• Why is there so little information on Mary Eppright? Is the family really tied to the Muhlenberg line?
• Who is John W. Ardis’ father? Was he in the Revolutionary War?
• Where can I find more information on the Yeagle and Corner families?
• Who was John Uttley’s father? What did he do (his son and grandson became Philadelphia Police Officers)?

These are the questions that I am most eager to answer at this point in my research. This is why I keep this list with me nearly everywhere I go. It is a simple reminder that I am sure most genealogists keep on hand not just for when we are sitting among the stacks or at our laptop at home. Sometimes we just need to step away from the inundation of information and just think about the possibilities of where we might find the answers as well as mull over the many theories that we all have regarding our family mysteries. In the end, there are times when these undistracted moments can be the most fruitful. But, for now, for me, they remain questions.

Sunday Search: More Dead Ends

While I have been able to make some progress recently on tracing back along the branches of the family tree (more on that next week), I have also encountered a number of roadblocks. It hasn’t been a matter of being able to find the right person to call, it is largely a matter of records no longer existing. Of course, there are also a few instances where I simply don’t have the access to the records. Really it is the combination of these two situations that has forced me to find other avenues to find the information for which I am searching.

I previously wrote about my numerous interactions with the Philadelphia Police Department and the discovery that most personnel files have long since been destroyed. While I was able to piece together a few aspects of John Uttley’s service, there are still many holes and questions that remain. However, sometimes we have to be satisfied with what we have and take some measure of contentment knowing that we have been able to confirm that he did serve, how long, badge number, and rank. Some people don’t even have that much information.

I ran into a similar situation as this when I called the Narberth Fire Department the last couple of weeks to try and get more information about my grandfather who was a Captain with the volunteer company. As it turns out, after years of renovations, moving buildings, leaks, and other instances, all the records prior to 1970 have been lost. However, I was still able to find out that, late in life, he was on over two dozen calls. Thankfully, there are some photos in the family from this time.

As I waited for Narberth to return my call, I also reached out to the current incarnation of Autocar now located in Indiana to see if they had any of the personnel files from the early days on the Philadelphia Main Line… this is where my great grandfather spend nearly his entire working life. I can’t say I was surprised when the woman on the phone informed me that only the name has been transferred over the years and the whereabouts of the files are unknown. There still is a chance that these records exist but now it is a completely different task trying to figure out where they ended up… I guess it is time to reach out to a variety of historical societies.

Lastly, while conducting the aforementioned outreach, I also looked into trying to secure my grandfather and great grandfather’s service records from WWII and WWI respectively. While these records exist, at least most of them, only next of kin are allowed to order the files. The simple translation is that I have to have my father submit the request in order to get these copies. Sometimes these extra steps seem to add up but at least there is a simply solution.

What I have found throughout the process and the point that has been driven home again and again is the simple fact that we, as a family, must keep our own records. If you want to know the story of your family and you want future generations to know about the family we can’t rely solely on the depositories found in other places. At the same time, make it known that you have certain records and share them with anyone who is interested in learning about the generations that preceded them. In other words, don’t let someone else control your family story… don’t be afraid to be the family historian.

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: Missing Documents

 

Over the past few months there have been moments when I have made surprising progress researching my family trees and there have also been instances when I have hit some pretty significant walls. No matter how hard I have tried to hit the brick or how heavy the hammer, the structure remains solid. While there is still some small glint of hope that these records will turn up, it is not an endeavor that will likely produce significant results anytime soon… I guess I will have to get the chisel out and try to find the answers that way.

After all, that is how I found the few details that we know about John Uttley’s service in the Philadelphia Police Department. After dozens of calls and many hours leveraging various resources I was able to find out that while the full personnel files have long since been destroyed, there are pieces (i.e. rank, badge number, date of swearing in, rank, accounts in the newspaper) scattered across multiple sources. It isn’t much but it is a heck of a lot more than we have had in the past. Other endeavors haven’t even produced this level of information.

My great grandparents (William Edgar Yeagle and Bessie Wirth Uttley) divorce is something that is still interpreted different ways depending on with whom you speak. His first family, which is my line, sees the dissolution of marriage in one way namely that it was his drinking and abuse that caused the divorce. However, his second family, according to his granddaughter with whom I briefly spoke a couple of years ago, sees things a little differently in that it was my great grandmother that caused the issues in the marriage. When I called the court records office in Philadelphia City Hall (where they got divorced), there was little information that they could share as the records have long since faded and the only information on hand was that of the actual decree (without mention of cause). But at least that record can be produced unlike some others.

The marriage certificate of Paulus Redcross and Frances Beverly continues to be one record that we are continuing to search for through various offices, depositories, and whatever other means out there. It is something that we know exists as it is recorded in the Amherst County, Virginia ledger but the actual document seems to have disappeared. Not faded or destroyed (as far as we know) it is just gone. No one has been able to provide any definitive explanation although there are plenty of theories out there which is a completely separate topic altogether.

All of these documents have the potential to provide my family with a wealth of information (and answers) beyond what the existing documents ever could but there is significant doubt as to whether we will ever be able to read them. While we will continue seeking answers to other questions and look to fill in the family tree, these are things that we will always be looking for even if the possibility of finding them is slim. While these situations may be a deterrent for some, it only serves to motivate me to find and write the story without them (or at least try).  

Sunday Search: Putting The Pieces Together

Picture taken during my visit to Leverington Cemetery in 2003. 

In recent months I have made a little bit of progress on the family tree tracing back a number of lines a couple of generations and finding out a few additional details of some of my ancestors. One line that I keep coming back to lately is that of my great great grandfather, John Uttley. While I never knew much about this line growing up (and I still kick myself for not talking to my grandmother about genealogy when she was alive), there has been a lot of progress made in finding out some of the details.

Last year, through online research, reading through a variety of books, sorting through brief mentions in the local newspaper, and calling various city offices, I was able to piece together a few facts about John Uttley and his career in the Philadelphia Police Department. It wasn’t much but I was able to find out that he was appointed to the police force by Mayor Stokley on May 6, 1876 and assigned badge #596. After over five decades on duty, he retired from the force in 1931 having reached the rank of Sergeant. Because the official records for the police department have long since been destroyed, this is all of the information that I could find on the career of the man who helped raise my grandmother.

The same record that provided me with his retirement year, his death certificate, also listed some very important information… the names of his parents. While I am still search for additional information on the Uttley line, his mother’s tree proved to be more fruitful. John Uttely obviously got his longevity from his mother, Charlotte Noblitt (also found at Noblit, Noblett, and Noblet), as they both died as nonagenarians. In fact, according to her obituary, she was believed to be the oldest living resident in Manayunk at the time of her death at age 93 in 1903.

While death certificates in 1903 don’t provide the same valuable information as later official forms, her obituary did offer some additional leaves as her father, Thomas Noblitt, was mentioned as having served in the War of 1812. This is always great information to find so, with those new details I started looking for his pension application. Days of searching and nothing was found. Could it be that the information in the obituary was wrong?

This happens more often than people realize, when obituaries are written, especially those authored by non-family members, there are assumptions made. Maybe Thomas was older than the reporter realized. Maybe it he wasn’t in the War of 1812. Once I made this adjustment to my search criteria, I found the answers I was looking for. The pension application and supporting documents from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania confirmed his service in the Revolutionary War. Charlotte was actually conceived later in life long after Thomas Noblitt’s military service… longevity it obviously part of the Noblitt legacy.

Recently, I also made an interesting discovery to expand the branches out further in this line. While attempting to learn more about this line I came across a book, Genealogical Collections Relating to the Families of Noblet, published in 1906 by John Hyndman Noblit. The surname was close enough that I had to take a look inside these digital pages and found that this was our family. Not only does the book contain the basic information that you would find in any family tree but it also has reproductions of the actual documents from the countries where the name was once prevalent. While it doesn’t have everything, it has given me a lot more information to sort through, digest, and add to this part of my family history. And, just think, this all started with a desire to learn more about a single leaf.

What’s In A Name?

One of the hardest if not the hardest decision that my wife and I have had to make was when we had to come up with a name for our son. We went back and forth countless times and consulted more books and websites than I can recall each time writing down anything that appealed to us. We couldn't decide between choosing a traditional Jewish name and those names that can be found in our extensive family trees. After we each wrote a few options down we would share with one another. This eliminated many of the options. More still were eliminated when we considered the names of some of our young relatives.

After several months going back and forth we had a few options both of first names and middle names, Jewish names and family names, some that we both really liked and others that had a certain amount of indifference with one or both of us. About a week before our son arrived we sat down and looked at the options that we both liked. We played around with the names switching between first and middle as well as family and non-family names. We also considered some of the surnames on my wife’s side for the middle name… after all it has worked for me.  

I guess there were about 5 first and 5 middle names that it came down to. Not being able to figure out what exactly fit our son we both took turns just saying them out load to see what sounded right. This is when we notice something very special. Each time we read the names our son decided to cast his vote. It didn’t matter whose voice, he consistently kicked, punched, or head butted when we would say each name… one first and one middle. Not many parents can say that their son chose his own name but we can.

His first name is one that runs throughout both sides of my family. When looking throughout the tree I see it across many branches with various surnames in tow: Teaford, Hallman, Uttley, Redcross, Cooke, Clapsaddle, Ardis, Noblit, and a few others. It runs throughout the generations and it has always been a family name. In addition to the recent significance and honor that the name carries it was also the name of my great great grandfather Uttley, a member of the Philadelphia Police Department for over 50 years, who raised my grandmother after her parents divorced. My 5^th great grandfather Redcross, member of the Monacan Nation and Revolutionary War soldier. My great grandfather Hallman who served in WWI. My 5^th great grandfather Noblit, one of the early residents of Middletown Township in Delaware County who saw much of his property seized during the Revolution.

With our son selecting his first name from my side his middle name had to be one of significance in my wife’s family. Thankfully our son agreed and chose a name which, according to what I have been told is the name of the last in a long line of Rabbis on my wife’s side. My wife’s great grandfather Greenburg may have passed nearly a decade before she was born but his legacy still lives to this day. Born in Romania and having come to the United States around the turn of the 20^th century as a child, he supported his family the best he could and raised my wife’s grandmother whom she still misses. In the end, our son chose names from the men who raised both of our grandmothers to which we were very close. He also made picking a Hebrew name really easy. 

So some many see it and wonder how we came up with the name and we have been asked that many times over. We did consider the origins of the names (which did seem to fit our son) but the family meaning behind them is far more significant. While we have both given the short answer during the course of conversations, now you have the full story behind the name. Our son has a part of each of us, myself and my wife, but more importantly he carries with him a long family history on both sides of which he can be proud and all he has to do to remember that is look at his own name.

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!

Car Conversation

William Edgar Yeagle's World War I draft registration card...
after the marriage but before the divorce.

On my way home from the office last week I decided to take a chance, pick up the phone, and follow up on a letter I had sent the previous Monday. It was sent in the hope of finding a few missing pieces on my mom’s side of my family tree. After a few rings a woman picked up the phone clearly not recognizing the number. On the other end of the line was a woman who was a bit surprised by my correspondence but happy to share everything that she knew about my great grandfather, William Edgar Yeagle.

My great grandparents were married in 1914 and soon after had my grandmother. Within a few years they had divorced and not long after that, in about 1920, my great grandfather had remarried and had another daughter, Alma. The woman I spoke with was Alma’s daughter who, as it turns out, was raised by her grandfather and still lives in the same house that he did many years ago. She knew her grandfather well and was raised by him when her father left. She knew that he was married once before but she was told a complete different story as to what happened in the first marriage. As it turns out, after my grandmother refused to have anything to do with him or her half-sister Alma, my grandmother’s name was forgotten. Only the story remained as to what caused the marriage to dissolve.

The facts passed down in my family were rather clear cut… William was an abusive drunk disliked by my great grandmother’s family. Having a child did not change that fact and, in the end, divorce was the only option. After that, my great grandmother took her child and moved in with her father. He would serve as the male figure in my grandmother’s life until his death in 1941 at the age of 92 (more about him in a later post).

It should be no surprise that this was not the same story that was passed down in William Yeagle’s second family. The story that I was told over the phone was that William owned a bakery but was working too many hours for my great grandmother. So that he wouldn’t work so much, she forced him to sell the bakery. Not long after that she left him despite his efforts. Not liked by my great grandmother’s family, he was cut off from his daughter.

So, the only commonality between the stories is that my great grandmother’s family didn’t like him. But let’s take a step back and look at the other facts that we have. While there is a William Yeagle who owned and operated a bakery during that period of time it was not the man that we are discussing in this post. It was his uncle, William Ludwig Yeagle. Furthermore, in every census record and directory listing from 1900-1952 at no point was he ever listed as a baker. Seems like that part of the second story doesn’t really hold up.

What about the version of the story that was passed down in my family? Well, in those same census and directory records, interspersed between various other occupations, we can see that on several occasions William Edgar Yeagle lists his occupation as Bartender (basically be bookended the Prohibition Era with official listings as a bartender). Makes you wonder what he was really selling as a ‘salesman’ during that time of illegality. While that alone is not enough to verify this version of the fact I tend to believe my family’s story. Why? Because of a simple fact that my three times great grandfather was a Philadelphia Police Officer for 54 years and there was probably good reason for him not liking him.

While I look forward to meeting this woman and discussing some of the missing branches in our tree, I do so carefully knowing that many of the initial ‘facts’ already don’t add up. Of course, this is part of the process when researching your family. Sometimes you will have two sets of information completely different from one another and investigate to see which option makes the most sense. It is all part of the process of filling in and pruning the family tree.

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.