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: A Second Marriage

On June 21, 1892, my great great grandfather, Roy Teaford, married for the second time to Sally Bette Clapsaddle. Roy, who can also be found under many other names, had lost his first wife, Mildred McNulty, earlier in the year and had employed Sally to care for his three young children. It is unclear exactly how the relationship developed over the months but, by summer, the two married and soon after began having children of their own. This included my great grandfather, Harry Gilmore Teaford, who was born just over three years after they first married on September 28, 1895.

Both Roy and Sally had deep roots in Virginia with both families predating the Revolutionary War. Roy had spent his life to that point laying track for the railroads through the Appalachian Mountains while Sally, 13 years his junior, was only just beginning her life beyond the walls of her childhood home. Roy came from a long line of farmers, from his great great grandfather Jacob Teaford who arrived in the colonies on October 27, 1764 to his grandfather, Jacob Teaford, who served in the War of 1812 and his father, John Wesley Teaford, who was the first to move the family out of Augusta County.

Sally’s family was long a mystery to me but the lines that have been explored in recent years are rather fascinating. Sally’s parents, George William Clapsaddle and Margaret Ann Bowyer, married shortly after George returned from serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and settled in Botetourt County. Ironically, both of her parent’s families trace their roots back to Pennsylvania having migrated down to Virginia around the same time that Roy’s family was arriving on the continent with both the Clapsaddle and Bowyer families intermarrying throughout the 19^th century and during parts of both the 18^th and 20^th centuries. Many of these records can be found in “The Related Families of Botetourt County, Virginia”.

When all the other lines from both Roy and Sally’s families are taken into consideration it is astounding how far the family tree stretches throughout Virginia as well as many of the other colonies. Some of those surnames include Cook, Bailey, Riggins, Pemberton, Stinson, Belcher, Snider, Wilfong, Veitheim, Stever, Brown, Schmucker, Steel, Hester, Rinehart, Mankey, Niday and Caldwell. Of course, there are alternate spellings for just about each one as well. Basically, if you scan the pages of the history books you are bound to find at least one of these surnames somewhere in the pages. All of these names tracing back to two people, my great great grandparents, Roy Teaford and Sally Clapsaddle.

Sunday Search: The Samuel Ardis Mystery

One of the first things I noticed when I initially began compiling my family tree was how many ancestors grew up not knowing either their mother or their father. One of the other examples that I have previously written about was that of Jacob Worth who remains interred with his fellow Union soldiers at the bottom of Mobile Bay having fallen victim to a Confederate torpedo while aboard the USS Tecumseh. This is a tragic tale but one which has the documents and facts by which we can determine exactly what happened. That isn’t always the case which is what I faced when looking at the life and death of my great great grandfather Samuel Warner Ardis.

The day following his early demise, on Monday, September 1, 1902, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed a story under the sensationalize headline “DEATH USED PHILADELPHIA AS A TARGET” with one of the many bulleted subheads stating “Element of Mystery in Case of Samuel W. Ardis Dispelled by Investigation”. Having been printed only a day following his death, the coroner’s inquest was still pending but the details suggested that heart disease played a factor. However, some of the details remained a bit fuzzy.   

To that point the investigation suggested that Samuel Ardis, who was employed as a clerk with the Reading Railway Company, was taken in by a stranger on his way home after falling ill shortly after his departure from work. Early the following morning, Sunday, the police were notified that Samuel Ardis had died suddenly at the house at some point during the night. When questioned later, my great great grandmother stated, according to the report that she was in “total ignorance of her husband’s movements since Saturday”.

While the autopsy later revealed, and was recorded on his death certificate, that the cause of death was pneumonia, we will never have a complete picture as to what transpired that night. The only facts that we know are that he died just over a month after his 3 month old son, Thomas J. Ardis, passed away and left his wife to care for their only remaining child, my great grandmother, Sarah Mabel Ardis, who turned three only four days after he baby brother died. In the span of just over a month, my great grandmother lost her father and her brother with her birthday falling in between. I can’t imagine what must have been going through her, or my great great grandmother’s, mind as all of this is happening.

We know a little but the mystery, and questions, still remain… Did he knock on a door or was he found and brought inside? Did he know the people / person who took him in? If so, how did they know one another? Did he know that he was sick? Did anyone notice at the office or was he seemingly ‘fine’? Why weren’t there any signs that this could happen? All these questions I want to have answers to but know that will probably never happen.