Elizabeth Slaughter And Her Three Daughters

Elizabeth Slaughter was the youngest daughter of Isaac Slaughter and Charlotte “Lottie” Scrugg. She was born about 1817 in Granville Co., NC and had three daughters (Amanda, Mary, and Elizabeth) while she was single. She married William S. Ascue at the age of 40, after all her children were born. William soon died in the Civil War (1863). Previous genealogies have been incorrect in almost all the particulars.

The father of Elizabeth’s children has been unknown up to now, but many people have listed William S. Ascue as the father. William was certainly too young to have been the father of Elizabeth’s first daughter, Amanda. Elizabeth’s daughter Mary’s death certificate states that Mary’s father is unknown. Her daughter Elizabeth’s death certificate states that Elizabeth’s father is John Duncan. The only possibility, based on age and location, is John Duncan, Jr., son of John Duncan and Elizabeth Hayes. Without further evidence, I am accepting John Duncan, Jr. as the father of Elizabeth’s three children.

ElizabethSlaughter-1850Census-GranvilleCo.,NC(edit)
1850 Census of Granville Co., NC, showing Elizabeth with daughters, Amanda and Elizabeth. Daughter Mary is just above in the household of Elizabeth’s brother, Solomon G. Slaughter.

1 — Amanda Slaughter was born about 1838 and died between 1860 and 1870. She was listed with her mother in the 1850 Census of Granville Co., NC and with Sterling H. Duncan, as his servant, in the 1860 Census of Granville Co., NC.

AmandaSlaughter-1860Census-GranvilleCo.,NC(edit)
Here is Amanda Slaughter in the 1860 Census of Granville Co., NC.

2 — Mary Payton Slaughter was born May 10, 1845 and died 2-22-1929. She was married to Stephen Martin Slaughter, son of Martin Slaughter and Martha Duncan.

MarySlaughter-1860Census-PersonCo.,NC(edit)
Here is Mary Slaughter in the 1860 Census of Person Co., NC, living with her mother’s brother, Jacob L. Slaughter.

Mary was not with her mother in the 1850 Census, but was with Elizabeth Slaughter’s brother, Solomon Green Slaughter. In the 1860 Census, Mary was with another brother of Elizabeth, Jacob Lee Slaughter. She was back with her mother in the 1870 Census. Her death certificate states that her father was unknown. The informant on that certificate was Mary’s son, George Washington “Bud” Slaughter.

MaryP.Slaughter-DeathCert
Mary P. Slaughter’s death certificate.

3 — Elizabeth Hamilton Slaughter was born October 15, 1846 and died March 6, 1919. She was married to William Samuel “Billy” Ragan, Jr., son of William Samuel Ragan and Nancy Slaughter. Both her birth date and death date are incorrect on her tombstone. It says she was born October 15, 1842 and died February 12, 1919. She was three years old in the 1850 Census and was 72 years old on her death certificate. The death certificate says she died March 6, 1919 and was buried March 7, 1919.

ElizabethSlaughter-1870Census-GranvilleCo.,NC(edit)
Elizabeth and her two younger daughters in the 1870 Census of Granville Co., NC, living with Charles Slaughter (unidentified).

Elizabeth is in the 1850 Census and 1870 Census with her mother. Her death certificate states that her father was John Duncan. Her husband, Billy, was the informant. The only John Duncan in the area who could have been the father was John Duncan, Jr., son of John Duncan and Elizabeth Hayes.

ElizabethReggan-DeathCert
Elizabeth Ragan’s death certificate.

In summary — The third daughter, Elizabeth, is John’s child according to her death certificate. The second daughter, Mary, was born just a year before, and would probably have the same father. The first daughter, Amanda, was living with John’s brother, Sterling, in 1860, so that’s another connection to John Duncan, Jr. Therefore, Elizabeth Slaughter most likely had three daughters with her cousin, John Duncan, Jr.

ROYAL ANCESTRY THROUGH MY GRANDPARENTS

In reference to a post from three years ago about breaking through the brick wall of my ancestor, Martha Boreland/Bolling, I have researched and written about some of her further ancestry going back to royalty, along with another line that joins hers.

Royal Ancestry Through My Grandparents

The names beyond Richard FitzAlan and Alicia di Saluzzo will be added to my online tree here in the future.

© Copyright 2020 Michael T. Slaughter

Why Are These People In My Family Photo?

Here is today’s photo for discussion. (To view any image at a larger size, right-click on it and choose “View Image.”)


L to R (back row): unknown (possibly Charlie Garfield Jones), John Cannon, Alvania (or Alvina) Jones, Stephen Durham “Dink” Jones, Hortense “Tensie” White, William Thomas “Willie” Humphrey; (front row): Cecil Carroll Jones, unknown, Cannie Mae Jones, Lilla Estelle Humphrey, Thelma Mae Humphrey

I have inherited a lot of family photos. There are mysteries in some of them, as it’s not immediately obvious why there are seemingly unrelated people in many of them.

This particular photo is from a box of photos that were given to my mother in about 1961 or early 1962 by her grandmother, Tensie Humphrey (born Hortense White). They had been stored in an outbuilding, and some of them were damaged by the dampness. In the early 1970s, my mother gave them to me. In the early 1980s, I took them to my grandmother to see if she could help me identify them. She was able to identify all but two of the people in the above photo.

The first person in the photo to catch my eye was John Cannon. This is where my research story is a little out of order, as I was actually searching for something else and came upon the Cannon name. On another of my sites, I had written about another mystery photo of Daisy Pittman. She was married to Bryant Hatsell. I was researching the Hatsell/Hatchell name this week on Ancestry, and one of the search results was a Cannon family. That reminded me of the above photo, so I looked through the Cannon family tree.

I found John Cannon in that tree. He was the son of Thomas B. Cannon, and was the grandson of John Cannon and Susan Hatchell. He was born September 18, 1870 in Carteret Co., NC and died March 29, 1943 in Morehead City, Carteret Co., NC.

When I was going through the Cannon tree, I found a Charlotte Cannon who had married Isaac Simpson. Isaac Simpson had also married, as his 2nd wife, Charlotte Hatsell. Isaac Simpson and Charlotte Hatsell were the parents of Mack McClain Simpson. Mack was married to Pearlie Mae White, sister of my great-grandmother, Hortense “Tensie” White, who is in the above photo. In the 1910 and 1920 Census, John Cannon was a neighbor of Uncle Mack and Aunt Pearlie in Newport. My great-grandmother had probably gone there to visit, and the neighbors came over to visit as well.

Next, I tried to find out who the Joneses were and if they were related somehow. Since Dink was identified only by his nickname, I started researching Alvina, who seemed to be his wife. I found Alvania Riggs married to Stephen D. Jones in 1913, around the time of the photo. I noticed that Stephen D. Jones also was a neighbor of Uncle Mack and Aunt Pearlie in Newport.

Then I found Alvania’s death certificate.

Alvania’s father was listed as George Riggs. I searched again for Alvania after getting her birth and death dates, and found that her parents were George Noah Riggs and Missouri Elizabeth Littleton. I also found that George Noah Riggs was the same person who later married Mary Elizabeth White, another sister of my great-grandmother, Hortense “Tensie” White. The genealogy I found on Alvania gave her husband’s full name as Stephen Durham Jones. It also gave his 1st wife’s name as Laura Simpson and listed their children. Two of those children were Carroll Jones and Cannie Mae Jones. Further research gave me Carroll’s full name as Cecil Carroll Jones.

Here is a chart to show the connections. The names of the nine known people in the photo are highlighted.

The central figure in the photo was my great-grandmother. Everyone else in the photo was connected either directly to her, or indirectly to her through her sisters.

That solves the mystery, except for the names of the two unidentified young gentlemen.

© Copyright 2018 Michael T. Slaughter

Mystery Baby Photo – Raymond Cuthrell

I have a baby photo in my collection which I now believe is from the batch of photos formerly owned by my grandfather, Guy Raymond Summerell. The photo is labeled “Raymond Cuthrell.” I didn’t know of any Cuthrells in the family, so I did some research to see who he is and why I have his baby photo.

RaymondCuthrell

Raymond Edward Cuthrell was born on January 19, 1932 in Norfolk, VA and died June 1, 2007 in Coral Gables, Dade Co., FL. His father was Julian M. Cuthrell and Virginia Mae Mann. There are a lot of Manns in eastern NC, so I decided to start my research with Virginia.

VirginiaMannCuthrell(cropped)

Virginia Mae Mann had a short life that seemed troubled. She was born on March 14, 1914 in Norfolk Co., VA to Marion Spencer Mann and Bessie Mae Williams. When she was 17, she married Julian M. Cuthrell on October 14, 1931 in Camden Co., NC. Then she had her son Raymond three months later on January 1, 1932 in Norfolk, VA. Then nine months after that, she married Paul Everett Lennox on October 20, 1932 in Norfolk, VA. I cannot find a divorce for Cuthrell, even though he lived until 1976. Just two years later, she turned on the gas in the kitchen and died October 10, 1934 in Norfolk, VA. Her death certificate gives her name as Virginia May Lennox Cuthrell, even though it gives her current husband as Lennox. It says her death was either accidental or suicidal. She was buried October 12, 1934 at Oakdale Cemetery, Washington, Beaufort Co., NC. Her tombstone gives her name as Virginia Mann Cuthrell. This leads me to believe that there was some problem with her second husband. Since I haven’t seen the second husband in online genealogies, it may be that the rest of the family didn’t know about him, and they may not have known all the information that appeared on the death certificate.

VirginiaMayCuthrell-DeathCert(cropped)

Virginia’s parents took Raymond to raise, as he is with his Mann grandparents in the 1940 Census in Beaufort Co., NC. The next notice of him is the social security record of him getting his social security card in January of 1945, when he was 13 and probably starting to work. In 1995, he changed his name to Ray Edward Cuthrell on the social security records. He also got a delayed birth certificate in Norfolk, VA and gave his birth date as January 20, 1932, even though it is January 19, 1932 everywhere else. He also gave his name as Ray Edward Cuthrell.

I went to the Marion Spencer Mann family to see if there was a connection with any of his ancestors or descendants. I looked at one of the family trees on Ancestry and found that one of his daughters, Elsie Blanche Mann, was married to James Albert Smith. There are a lot of Smiths related to my grandfather, as both of his grandmothers were Smiths and were sisters.

I checked out James Albert Smith’s ancestry and found that his grandmother was a Summerell. So there was a connection. James Albert Smith’s father was James Edgar Smith, and his grandparents were Bryant Dawson Smith and Louisa Frances Summerell.

The next thing was to find out how Louisa Frances Summerell was related to my grandfather. The only online tree that listed a father for her said that his name was Blaney Sumrell. I did a thorough search and found that there was no one by that name old enough to be her father. As I was looking at trees that had her listed, I found one that had a link to her marriage record. Luckily, the record had the parents of both the bride and groom listed. It listed her father as Lemuel Summerell and her mother as Melvina, and it also gave her age, which indicated a birth year of approximately 1853.

I looked in my own tree and found Lemuel and Melvina. I also found that I had a daughter for them listed as L. F. Summerell, born about 1854. So here was Louisa Frances Summerell and the final link between Raymond Cuthrell and me. Raymond Cuthrell’s uncle, James Albert Smith, was my 3rd cousin, once removed, as you can see in the chart below.

RaymondCuthrell-Chart

© Copyright 2017 Michael T. Slaughter

Wiley Jones – Smith and Jones Confusion

Genealogists are familiar with the problems that come with the Smith and Jones surnames. They have different types of origins, but are similar in the problem of overabundance of unrelated families.

Smith is an occupational surname, so many men who were blacksmiths chose Smith for their last name, or had it chosen for them by the record keepers.

Jones originated with the first name John. When it was dictated by the King of England that the Welsh choose surnames, many of them used forms of their fathers’ first name. For example, if their father was named Richard, they chose Ap Richard, meaning “son of Richard,” which later became Pritchard. Other surnames came in a similar manner, such as Powell and Price. Many people had a father named John. Most of those got the surname Jones. So you can see how we came to have so many unrelated Jones families.

You can have two Smith neighbors who have no kinship whatsoever. I saw this firsthand when I was growing up, as there were neighboring Smith households down the road who, as far as they knew, were not related at all.

Over 40 years ago, I came upon this problem in my own ancestry. My great-grandmother was Lucretia Jones. Her parents, according to her death certificate, were Wiley Jones and Nancy Smith. So I had both problem surnames in one family. I have only recently been able to get anywhere with them.

There are many genealogies online now for Wiley Jones. They almost all say that he was born July 22, 1819 in Craven Co., NC and died December 12, 1897 in Pitt Co., NC. They also say that he married Marina Smith or Marina Ange and had about six children. My own genealogy says that Wiley Jones married Nancy Smith. There are also many genealogies online which say that Nancy Smith was married to Redding L. Jones.

There are contradictions and inconsistencies in the genealogies when compared with the available records. I have studied these and have come to the conclusion that most of the online genealogies are incorrect.

The first fact to note is that my great-grandmother, Lucretia Jones, was born April 14, 1857, to Wiley Jones and Nancy Smith. A supporting fact is that Wiley Jones (shown as Willie Jones) is in the 1850 Census for Pitt Co., NC with a wife named Nancy. They have one child, Laney, who is 8 months old. This means that Wiley probably married Nancy around 1848. As Lucretia was born in 1857, Wiley was still married to Nancy at least until then.

The 1860 Census for Pitt Co., NC shows “Wilie Jones” and wife, “Mariny,” with three children, Selina (age 6), W. A. (a boy, age 5), and S. A. (a girl, age 2). Later records show that the last two children were William Augustus Jones and Sophia A. Jones. All of the online genealogies say that Marina is the mother of those three children. If Wiley was still married to Nancy in 1857, the first two children obviously would have to be hers, not Marina’s. Further confirmation of this came when I found the marriage record of Selina. On that record, she states that her mother was Nancy.

Another question is about the Nancy Smith who married Redding L. Jones. When you look at the 1850 Census for Pitt Co., NC, you see Wiley Jones and his wife, Nancy (who we know was a Smith). In the preceding household in the Census, you see Willie Smith and his daughter, another Nancy Smith, who happens to be same age as Redding’s wife as shown in the 1860 Census. So there were two Nancy Smiths.

Here is the marriage entry for Redding L. Jones and Nancy Smith:
ReddingL.Jones-NancySmith-Marriage

So here is what I conclude about Wiley Jones, his wives, and their children.

Wiley was first married in about 1848 to Nancy Smith. She was born about 1828 and died in 1857, probably from childbirth. They had four children, Laney (b.c. 1849), Selina (b.c. 1854), William Augustus (b.c. 1855), and Lucretia “Lou” (b. 1857).

Wiley then married Marina Smith, who was born about 1831. They had four children as well, Sophia A. (b.c. 1858), Asa Warren (b. 1861), Sepepta (b.c. 1867), and Lousetta (b. 1869). Marina’s maiden name was Ange, as she was married previously to William Augustus Smith, who died in 1852. I didn’t have good evidence of which Marina Smith had married Wiley until I found their son, Asa’s, death certificate.

AsaJones-DeathCert

Wiley’s family group data is here.

A chart of Wiley’s descendants is here.

I have also found Wiley’s supposed ancestry. I had started adding it to my data, but I have stopped because there are too many problems with all of the online genealogies. I will write more about Wiley’s family when I find more data and can figure out the truth.

© Copyright 2017 Michael T. Slaughter

Betty Crocker Update

Here’s some additional information on the Betty Crocker radio show, which starred Betty L. Bucholz.

According to The New, Revised Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to ALL Circulating Shows, by Jay Hickerson, 1996, p. 42, “Betty Crocker” was a 15-minute mid-day show on the air from 1926 to 11-6-1953.

From 1926 to 5-29-1936, the show aired on Wednesdays and Fridays on NBC. From 6-3-1936 to 5-27-1937, the show aired on Wednesdays and Fridays at 1:15 PM on CBS. From 6-1-1937 to 3-28-1941, the show aired on Wednesdays and Fridays at 10:45 AM on NBC. From 4-2-1941 to 8-1-1941, the show aired on Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:45 AM on CBS. From 10-1-1941 until the show’s end, 11-6-1953, it aired on various days on CBS.

At the time the book was written in 1996, there were recordings of only three episodes in circulation, 8-10-1945, 7-14-1947, and 3-29-1949.

© Copyright 2017 Michael T. Slaughter

Betty Crocker Is My Cousin

I have been working on my book on the Slaughter family, writing about all the descendants of Jacob Schlotterer. He was born in Bodelshausen, Germany in 1693 and died in Germantown, PA in 1769. Jacob came to America in 1749 with two sons, three daughters, and the husbands of two daughters. The third daughter seems to have died somewhere along the journey, as she doesn’t appear in the church records in Germantown with the rest of the family.

Jacob’s oldest son, Hans Bernhard Schlotterer, stayed behind in Bodelshausen with his wife and children. I have a town family book for Bodelshausen, which compiles all the records of births, deaths, and marriages from the beginning back in the 1500s up to the early 1900s. I have just finished researching and entering into my book all the descendants of Hans Bernhard Schlotterer.

For a number of his descendants, the record book has notations that they went to America or married in America. For each of these, I have researched American records and have identified most of them and traced their descendants. After doing this, I started entering everyone from my book into Family Tree Maker, and checking the people I had already entered previously.

This week I came upon one of Hans Bernhard’s descendants that had a different note from the usual. This note was for Anna Rieker and said that she was born 7-27-1881 in Bodelshausen and had died in September 1976 in Princeton, NJ. So I had to stop entering my book into the genealogy software and research this new puzzle.

I had entered Anna into my database, so I hit the button to do an Ancestry.com search. The first thing I found was the Social Security Death Index which showed her birth date and the September 1976 death date. It gave her last name as Lutz. So I entered her husband as “unknown Lutz” and hit the search again. This time, it came up with a link to her entry on findagrave.com. This page gave her name as Anne Riker Lutz and gave her death date as 9-19-1976. The middle name further confirmed that I had found the correct individual, and I now had her exact death date. Other items in the search results gave me her husband’s name, Jacob Lutz, his age, and the names and ages of her children.

The census records gave me Jacob’s approximate birth year and the year of his immigration from Germany. When I hit the search button for him, I found a passport application he had filled out 7-9-1902. That application gave his exact birth date, 7-19-1876, and gave his birth place as Bodelshausen. It also gave the date that he emigrated from Germany, 11-24-1892. Since he was born in Bodelshausen, I was able to find him in the town family book and get his parents’ names, Hans Jakob Lutz and Agnes Nill.

JacobLutz-PassportApplication

An interesting thing I noticed about the passport application is that it was dated in 1902. I knew that date had shown up before, and I found that it was the year that Anna Rieker came to America, according to the census records. So my guess is that Jacob Lutz went back to Germany to get Anna and bring her back with him. A little over a year later, their first child, Agnes Betty Lutz was born.

Armed with all the dates and names, I did further research and found newspaper obituaries for Jacob and Anna. These gave the daughters’ husbands names. The obituaries didn’t say which husband was married to which daughter, so I had to research those.

JacobLutz-Obit

AnnaRiekerLutz-Obit

The first husband I researched was Arden K. Bucholz, mainly because it was an unusual name and should be easy to find. I found many references, including a number concerning his work in the radio business. One thing that puzzled me at first, was the fact that his wife’s name was listed as Betty in almost everything. I knew, based on her age, that she had to be Jacob and Anna’s daughter, Agnes.

I kept searching and finally found a marriage announcement from 1929 that referred to her as Agnes B. Lutz. So Betty was her middle name, and she dropped the Agnes. The 1940 census records said that Arden was a representative for a radio station and that Betty was an artist in the radio business. The marriage announcement said that she was Betty Crocker on the radio.

AgnesB.Lutz-ArdenBucholz-MarriageAnnouncement

After getting Agnes Betty Lutz’s full information, I was able to find much more about her on the internet. I found a photo of her tombstone, which was inscribed “the voice of Betty Crocker.”

BettyLutzBucholz-Tombstone

I also found a newspaper article that explained her role. It seems that originally there was one local Betty Crocker cooking show sponsored by General Mills. It was successful, so they expanded the concept to other stations around the country. They never announced that Betty Crocker was played by an actress, so the public thought she was a real person. When multiple stations had their own shows, sometimes people could receive two different stations that had different Betty Crockers. They would write in saying that one station or the other was airing an imposter.

General Mills decided that wouldn’t do, so NBC started a network version of the show, initially through 16 stations, and contracted Betty Lutz to play Betty Crocker. She married Arden K. Bucholz and became Betty L. Bucholz. She played Betty Crocker on NBC until the early 1940s. Hugh Downs was her announcer part of the time. Another actress later played the part for television.

Here is a chart showing how I am related to Agnes Betty Lutz Bucholz. So Betty Crocker is my 6th cousin.

BettyCrocker-6thCousin

©2017 Michael T. Slaughter

Johannes Nill, Early Zookeeper in Germany

I am working on a book on the Slaughter family, the descendants of Jacob Schlotterer, who was born in 1693 in Bodelshausen, Germany and died in 1769 in Germantown, PA.

During the past year, I discovered that there is a resource in Germany that collects town records together for easy reference. It is a series of books called town family books. In German, that’s Ortsfamilienbuch. A cousin of mine, Martha Hills, emailed me that there was one of those books recently published containing the records of Bodelshausen, the village from which our ancestors came. It is called “Ortsfamilienbuch von Bodelshausen,” compiled by Hermann Griebel in 2014.

Earlier this year, another cousin emailed me that she was going on a trip to Europe and would be visiting Bodelshausen. I asked her to pick up a copy of the Bodelshausen book for me. She did that, and I am now going through it and adding to my genealogy.

While going through the book, I noticed that there were some family photos for some people, and there was an animal poster for one of them.

I was going to just write about the book and the Slaughter research, so I searched online to find an online source for the Bodelshausen book so I could link to it in a post. There were some links to the book itself, but there were a lot of links to articles that were using the book as a reference. In particular, there were a lot of links to articles about Johannes Nill and a zoo in Stuttgart, Germany.

One of the articles was a German Wikipedia article on Johannes Nill. The first thing I noticed was a copy of the same animal poster that I had seen in the Bodelshausen book. I figured that Johannes was important enough that I should write about him, and since he was in the Bodelshausen book, and I’m related to most of the families in the book, that he might be a relative as well.

Johannes Nill

I found Johannes Nill in the Bodelshausen book and traced each line of his ancestry. I found that he was, indeed, related to me. Here is a chart showing that relationship:

JohannesNillChart

Here is a summary of what I found about Johannes Nill. He was born February 21, 1825, in Bodelshausen, Wuerttemberg, Germany, and died May 20, 1894, in Stuttgart, Wuerttemberg, Germany. His parents were Johannes Nill and Anna Barbara Eberhardt. You can find him in the genealogy here.

Johannes was a carpenter by trade. Around 1870, he bought some exotic animals, and in 1871, he opened a zoo on his property on the outskirts of Stuttgart. It was called Tiergarten Nill. Tiergarten is German for “animal garden.” At its peak, the zoo would have over 20,000 visitors on a Sunday afternoon.

Tiergarten_Nill,_003

When Johannes died, his son Adolf took over. Eventually, the city of Stuttgart expanded until there was housing all around the zoo. People started complaining about the noise and smell. So the zoo was forced to close in 1906. The animals were sold to other zoos, and the property was sold to the city of Stuttgart for a million marks.

One of his great accomplishments at the zoo was the first breeding in captivity of the great anteater.

Tiergarten_Nill,_001

Photos all from Wikipedia.

©2017 Michael T. Slaughter

The Search for Jeremiah Evans’ Parents

After finding Jeremiah Evans’ wife’s correct name and ancestry (as I posted yesterday), I decided to take another look for his ancestry.

Jeremiah was married in 1833 in Orange Co., NC, so I looked in the first census after that, 1840, to see if I could find him and other relatives in Orange Co.

Jeremiah-Samuel-1840

I found Jeremiah, and immediately above him was Samuel Evans. The 1840 census only lists heads of households, along with the numbers of males and females in various age groupings. In Jeremiah’s household, there were 2 males age 0-4, 1 male age 30-39, 1 female age 0-4, 1 female age 5-9, and 1 female age 30-39. That was obviously Jeremiah, Martha, and 5 children.

In Samuel’s household, there was 1 male age 10-14, 1 male age 20-29, 1 male age 50-59, and 1 female age 50-59. That would obviously be Samuel, his wife, and probably 2 sons.

The next step was to research Samuel Evans and try to see what the family connection was, since they were next-door neighbors in the census.

I found an estate file for Samuel Evans from 1840 in Orange Co. One of the papers was signed by his wife, Frances, on November 23, 1840, so Samuel most likely died earlier in 1840, but after the census date. The paper Frances signed stated that Samuel had just 3 children, Jesse, Henderson, and Jeremy. Jesse and Henderson would be the two sons in the census, and Jeremy would be my ancestor, Jeremiah.

I found Henderson Evans in the 1850 census for Orange Co., NC. He was 39 years old with a wife and children. He would have been 29 in 1840, which matches the 1 male child age 20-29 in Samuel’s household. Also, next door to Henderson was Frances Evans, age 60. She was his mother.

Since I now had Frances’ approximate birth year, 1790, I wanted to know Samuel’s. He was listed in the age category 50-59, corresponding to a birth year anywhere from about 1781 to about 1790. I went back to the 1830 census for Orange Co. and found Samuel’s listing. In that census, he was also listed in the age category 50-59, corresponding to a birth year from about 1771 to about 1780. So Samuel was actually born about 1780 or 1781.

So now I know Jeremiah Evans was the son of Samuel and Frances Evans.

©2017 Michael T. Slaughter

Jeremiah Evans Married Martha Boreland?

For many decades, I had Jeremiah and Martha Boreland as the parents of my great-great-grandmother, Lucy A. Evans, wife of Amos Glover Slaughter. Lucy was in the 1850 Census for Person Co., NC as the daughter of Jerry and Patsy Evans. The Orange Co., NC records had the marriage of Jeremiah Evans and Martha Boreland on April 9, 1833.

I decided earlier this week to attempt breaking through a brick wall and find Martha Boreland’s ancestry.

The first thing I did was search the 1850 Census for Orange Co., NC and note all the Borelands. I found a number of them, spelled “Borland” in the records. I then researched each family to see if I could find evidence of Martha or where she could fit in.

The first family I looked at was Andrew Borland, but he had a daughter named Martha who was much too young to be mine. Then I looked at the next family, Archibald Borland. He didn’t have a daughter in the census, so I added him to Family Tree Maker so I could research his family. I found his estate file, and in that was a listing of his children. There was no Martha.

The third family I checked out was Willis Borland. He had a Martha, age 80, living with him, who might be his mother. This looked promising, so I entered him and his family in Family Tree Maker.

When I started checking references on Willis Borland, I found the alternate last name of Bolling. Allowing for southern accents, I could see how the two names could be mistaken by record keepers.

I changed his last name to Bolling in my data and started researching again. This time I found genealogies of the Bolling family. They all gave Willis’s parents as John Bolling/Boling and Martha Mangum. In addition, among the children I found Martha, and she was exactly the correct age, born about 1810.

So John Bolling and Martha Mangum are the elusive parents of Martha “Boreland.”

For anyone in the immediate family, an added bonus is that John Bolling was a private in the NC Militia during the Revolutionary War. So Jeremiah and Martha’s descendants are qualified for the DAR and SAR.

Check out the Genealogy section for more ancestors of John Bolling and Martha Mangum.

©2017 Michael T. Slaughter