It's all relative…
“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.” ~ George Burns
There’s no doubt that I come from a family of long livers. On both my mother’s my and father’s maternal and paternal lines there are scads of people who lived well into their nineties and some just the other side of one hundred. If the average life expectancy is around 73 years, then we’ve been beating those odds for a couple hundred years.
I’ve always been curious about things that tend to run in families, like longevity, and eye and hair color, and handedness. Not just those things that are explained away in biology classes, but also things like a love a reading, or athletic ability, or artistic talent, or even the sound of one’s voice. In the nature versus nurture argument, I tend to lean more towards nature having the biggest influence on one’s life. With this in mind, a couple of years after I had my DNA tested, out of curiosity I uploaded my results to Promethease, just to see what the report might have to say. I was pretty pleased to see that I carried an SNP associated with “better odds of living to 100” and an SNP related to an exceptional long life and a 70% less chance of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s. My immediate thinking went to my ancestors and realized that this would be one possible explanation for having so many “long livers”.
Since I was a kid, I had heard stories about my great-grandfather, William Grant Moore. Apparently, he was quite the character and among the stories that I’d heard about “The Old Man”, was that he was 100 years old when he died.
If any of you have Moores in your line, you might be able to sympathize with me concerning the trials of searching for any Moores, let alone those with names like William, Charles, David, Thomas, James, Sarah, Emma, Mary. I knew that he had died in 1963, but there are more than 20 William Moores who died in Ohio in 1963 that could have fit the bill and several of them are listed as William G. I didn’t have a lot of information to go on and these were pre-internet days. After waiting 12 long weeks for the first death certificate that I had sent for, I learned that it was the wrong man. Sigh. Back to the library and the microfilm readers.
The scant information that I had from my grandmother suggested that William was born after his father, “Mr. I Don’t Know What His Name Was”, came home from the Civil War. She thought that his mother’s name might be Ruth. She also knew that at one time they lived around Salineville, that he dealt in horses and that the undertaker frequently called on him to provide horses to take the caskets to be buried, and she knew the names of some of William’s brothers and sisters and who they married. There was Thomas, Sadie (who married a Duke), Lucy (who married a Liggett), Charles (who was called “Tally”), and Mary, who was sometimes called Moll, or Polly (who married a Wallace). I spent a lot of time looking for Moore families with children’s names like these.
My breakthrough came several years later when I was digging around in 1870 Coshocton County census films trying to help a friend find something and stumbled upon a “More” family with children with these names. I looked at those names something like 10 times trying to figure out if they were, indeed, my Moores. What the heck were they doing in Coshocton County? Turns out that they were there for work. Stumbling upon this information opened up a bunch of information that I’d been unable to find before, but there was a problem. It looked as if William had been born in 1866. Uh-oh! Not 100 when he died, but a long life nonetheless.
This is the complete list of William’s siblings:
Wesley, born 1849 and married Sarah Catherine Landers, and Mary B. Rose.
Mary, born 1852 and married 1) George W. Ossler and married 2) James Wallace.
Thomas, born 1854 and married Elizabeth Cameron.
Sarah Ann, “Sadie”, born 1856 and married John Duke.
Emma, born 1858 and married Joseph Griffith.
Charles, born 1860 and married Mary Elizabeth Wilson.
James H., born 1862 and married Ida L. Simpson.
Lucinda, born 1862 and married Neal M. Liggett.
William was born on April Fool’s Day, 01 April 1866, to Charles Moore and Jane Johnson near Jacobsport, Coshocton County, Ohio. William married Nancy Jane Hale 14 April 1886 in Jefferson County, Ohio. She was the daughter of Elisha Hale and Mary Ellen Jacobs and was born on 10 May 1868 near New Somerset, Jefferson County, Ohio.
The following census snips show William’s age progression over a period of sixty years.
1870 – 4 years old.
1880 – 14 years old.
1900 – 35 years old. April 1865 stated as birth year and month.
1910 – 43 years old.
1920 – 53 years old.
1930 – 67 years old.
1940 – 75 years old.
William and Nancy were married for 65 years and had seven children, including my grandfather David, who was born 07 April 1903. Nancy Jane passed away on 01 September 1951. William died 18 February 1963. They are both buried in West Lawn Cemetery near McKinley Monument in Canton, Stark County, Ohio.
I guess that sometimes family stories aren’t exactly as they appear to be. Even when faced with evidence that seems to back up some circumstances, the end result is usually a product of pulling all of the pieces together and making some assumptions before you can get a clearer picture of what the actual story was.
This is my Week #16 post for Amy Johnson Crow’s
52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge.
The optional theme for this week was “Live Long”.
We like to camp in the fall. A few years ago, we were unhappy to learn that the state was shutting down our favorite camping spot, Jefferson Lake State Park, because of low attendance. (Which is exactly why we liked it.) It was October and camp sites across Ohio were filling up fast because the end of camping season was approaching, and especially for the weekend that we were planning – Halloween weekend. Finding a campsite was proving to be even more difficult because we needed to make sure that we reserved a spot that was pet friendly so that we could bring along our two dogs. Out of frustration, I started calling state parks in West Virginia and finally reserved a campsite at Tomlinson Run State Park. As I hung up the phone, something was nagging at me about the name of this park. It seemed vaguely familiar…
The night before we left for our camping weekend, it occurred to me that maybe the place we were heading off to for camping had something to do with the family history, so I jumped on the computer and searched for a connection to Tomlinson Run. In the thirty-plus years that I have been researching, I tend to take breaks where I don’t do much except maybe update information from obituaries or, perhaps, I veer off into a different direction on some other family line. I don’t find it an easy task to hold specific information in my head at all times about the family. (It’s possible that this is age related.) When I found the connection, I was a little shocked that it hadn’t come to me sooner. My 5th great-grandfather, Joachim Wycoff, had settled in this very area and, from checking out the map, it looked as if he was buried not far from where we would be camping. In fact, Flats Cemetery appeared to be right down the road. And it was! The first cemetery that we found on the left side of Flats Cemetery Road was, I think, a Presbyterian cemetery and there were Wycoffs buried there, but none that I could connect to Joachim. After searching for a while, I spied someone at a house nearby washing their car in the driveway. I ran across the cemetery and asked about Flats Cemetery, and received the answer that we needed to travel up the road a bit and that it would be on the right.
And there it was, a big triangle of a cemetery cut into the woods butting up against state park land. We walked right up to the stone for Joachim.
Joachim Wycoff was born 18 November 1749 at Somerset County, New Jersey, to Jacobus Wyckoff and Catelyntje Gulick, perhaps named after his maternal grandfather, Joachim Peter Gulick. One of 14 children, he was the fourth child and, also, the fourth son born to Jacobus and Catelyntje. Joachim is the great-great-grandson of immigrant ancestor Pieter Claessen Wyckoff and is my 5th great-grandfather.
This short excerpt from the Somerset County Historical Quarterly touches on the many, many different spelling associated with the Wyckoff surname. The sentence in the middle of this clipping made me chuckle, especially because we now know that the “of the town court” meaning is the fanciful one and that Wyckoff is most certainly Friesian in origin with a likelier meaning related to the place name in East Friesland from which Pieter originated. I highly recommend that those who are interested in surname studies and the etymology of Wyckoff, read M. William Wyckoff’s, “What’s in a Name? History and Meaning of Wyckoff”. Others wanting to learn more general knowledge about the Wyckoff family should go to this website of The Wyckoff House Museum in Brooklyn or visit their Facebook page to meet other Wyckoffs.
Within my own family tree, I have the Wyckoff, Wycoff, Wicoff, and Wycuff spellings and, at times, siblings who have adopted a different spelling from each other. Whenever I’m in doubt, I use the spelling Wyckoff. An altogether different problem arose for me with Joachim, though, I didn’t know how to say his first name. When I asked my grandmother about it, she thought that it was probably “Jo-Kim”, but admitted that she’d only seen it written and had never heard anyone pronounce it. I’ve asked others who thought it should be “Wa-Keem”. I found this on YouTube and am going to use this one in my head while I read more about Joachim, because this post will have to serve as an introduction to Joachim until I finish transcribing the many documents that I have found and do more researching on the history of both New Jersey and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. It appears that from 1681 to 1689 there was a big migration of families from Long Island, New York into the Raritan region of New Jersey and that several lines of the Wyckoffs followed suit. While pouring over old history texts, it occurred to me that it might take me some years to sort out which Wyckoffs were which and who belonged to whom as the Wyckoffs were prolific and tended to use the same names within each family line. Sigh…
On 26 February 1772, twenty-three-year-old Joachim married sixteen-year-old, Hannah Yerkes, daughter of Silas Yerkes and Hannah Dungan, at Six Mile Run, New Jersey. Hannah gave birth to 14 children, 13 of which are listed in this pension application.
In 1776, when New York City was captured by the British, Joachim and Hannah were living in White House, New Jersey and Joachim was drafted into the militia, serving in Captain Stillwell’s company. (I have Stillwells in my paternal line in New Jersey at this time and this just begs for more research!) I am looking at Richard Stillwell, Captain of the 4th Regiment, Hunterdon Militia as the probable Captain and company Joachim served with. Joachim served a total of eighteen months and as payment for that time served, he was given a land warrant and on 01 July 1802 was granted 294 acres of land in Brooke County, Virginia near Pughtown and Tomlinson Run (now New Manchester). This portion of Brooke County is now Hancock County, West Virginia. From reading pension applications, it appears that those eighteen months were not served concurrently, but as terms such as one month on duty, one month at home, etc. In the spring of 1780, Joachim and family moved to Somerset County where Joachim finished up his enlistment in the militia.
Family bible records, such as the page below, were used to help establish who the family members of the pensioner were. This also helped to establish the fact that Hannah was, indeed, Joachim’s wife so that she would also be permitted to petition for pension monies.
Joachim would be granted a $60.00 per year pension that would transfer to Hannah after his death and then, because of a provision for Hannah’s living children after her death, would be divided between Joachim and Hannah’s surviving children after her death. Those children were Hannah, Cornelius, and Agnes “Nancy”.
Of these three surviving children, Hannah married a Richard Durham who hailed from Fayette County, Pennsylvania. They removed to Ohio and had nine children.
Cornelius, my line, and my 4th great-grandfather, married Leah Critzer on 20 February 1810. They lived in Ross Township, Jefferson County, Ohio and had 12 children, including Levi, my line, born 22 November 1825. Cornelius died, 28 November 1867, and is buried in Shane Cemetery in Jefferson County, Ohio. Leah died, 17 October 1869. I haven’t found a record of where she might be buried.
Also, of particular interest, is Agnes “Nancy”. In 1811, Nancy married Robert Moore, who was the son of Captain Thomas Moore (another Revolutionary War veteran) and Rachel Phillis, who is suspected to be the sister of my 4th great-grandfather, Charles Phillis. It appears as if Joachim and Hannah were living in the Robert Moore household at the time of the 1840 census. This also helps point to the idea that Nancy was the holder of the family Bible that helped to prove the family relationships. Joachim died, 18 May 1841, and Hannah on, 21 October 1844. Although Hannah is also supposed to be buried in Flats Cemetery, I did not find her stone while we were there.
This tri-state area of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia (Virginia) is so very rich in history, not only of my own family, but in the history of the United States. I read just about everything that I can get my hands on that has historical information of this area. So many books, so little time. While we were in Flats Cemetery, I turned my back to the road and stood looking at the woods surrounding the cemetery on three sides and tried to absorb the essence of the area. It felt like it was a good place for my ancestor to stop and build his home. As we were leaving, I noted that the entrance to the cemetery has this sign:
This is my Week #15 post for Amy Johnson Crow’s
52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge.
The optional theme for this week was “How Do You Spell That?”.
Week #11’s 52 Ancestors post is more than a little late and I’m afraid that the only excuse that I have is that with the plethora of Irish research site links posted across the internet over the past week, I felt compelled to investigate many, many of them (and there is only so much free time).
My family never leaned toward any cultural or ethnic traditions while I was growing up. I had lots of friends who had those type of family traditions, but we never did. We were just people who lived in Ohio. Because of my auburn hair, fair skin, blue eyes, and smattering of freckles across my nose, I had been asked many, many times in my life if I was Irish – usually around St. Patrick’s Day. I have usually replied that maybe I was, just a little. I really had no idea. Most of my lines, both maternal and paternal have been kicking around the U.S. for hundreds of years, so I think that would make me mostly an American with a heavy dose of European and Scandinavian roots. Now, thanks to DNA testing estimates, I found that indeed I am a bit Irish – approximately 12% worth. There are certainly surnames in my tree that have the appearance of being Irish, but I have always assumed that these people were probably Scotch-Irish. The problem is that all of these Irish sounding ancestors have been here in America forever. Seemingly so, anyway, since I’m not having much luck tracking down the immigrant ancestor for these lines and the records in Ireland are sketchy, at best, pre-1843.
My maternal grandfather Moore’s death certificate stated that he was Irish/American Indian. But then, that’s what my grandmother told them as the informant and that’s the story that he told her. So far, the Native blood hasn’t surfaced, but he did have black hair, darker skin, and eyes that were so brown that they looked black. Moore’s can be Irish. I did a lot of reading seeking information about what exactly the term “Black Irish” means, but it seems that there is no definitive answer on that. It also seems that there is really no answer about what “Luck of the Irish” means, either. Is that bad luck? Is that good luck? So many questions.
After all of my fruitless searching this week, I decided to put Susannah Crawford out here as blatant “cousin bait”. This is one of my huge brick walls that has a bunch of circumstantial evidence, so let me tell you what I know and don’t know. Susannah is my 3rd great-grandmother. She is the mother of Mary Amna Myers, who married Jacob Hackathorn. According to the 1900 census, Susannah was born in February of 1815. This is very consistent with ages given in all other censuses since 1850. In fact, the very consistency with Susannah’s information is why I’m writing about her this week. In giving information to the census enumerator, she always states that both of her parents were born in Ireland (and that fact has also been part of family tradition) and her age is always consistent with the progression of the census years. There is a researcher in Augusta, Ohio who states that Susannah is daughter of Matthew Crawford and a Susannah. As of this writing, no proof of that exists. I had always taken Susannah to be a daughter of one of Matthew’s sons, either William, Matthew, John, or James. My initial reasoning was circumstantial, at best. All of these people lived relatively nearby each other between Augusta and Norristown in Carroll County. These families also lived nearby the family of Silas Myers and all had settled in Columbiana County early on (this part of Columbiana County became Carroll County in 1832 on December 25).
![Donegal Bay. Kelisi at the English language Wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons](https://relativityitsallrelative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/donegalbaycloseup.jpg)
Matthew Crawford, Susannah’s suspected father, was born about 1750 in County Donegal, Ireland. County histories all seem to agree that he immigrated to America in 1803 or 1804 and settled in Washington County, Pennsylvania accompanied by his four sons William, Matthew, John, and James and their families. James’ birth has been stated to be in Drumhome Parrish, County Donegal. A diligent search of ship’s passenger lists from Ireland from 1802 until 1805 have, so far, failed to produce these Crawford families. While son William remained in Pennsylvania, between 1810 and 1820 Matthew and sons Matthew, John, and James removed to the Augusta Township area and the three boys entered 160 acres of land each.
It appears that Matthew, the father, did not purchase land. Although, apparently, he was living in Augusta Township and “spent his last days on this land”. Matthew has sometimes been associated with two younger daughters – Rebecca, born in 1787 and Mary, born in 1791. The mother of the boys is probably named Margaret Letta Brown (or Lettie). Indeed, in the 1810 census where we find him in Washington County, Pennsylvania, the household would appear to reflect this. I have not found Matthew in the 1820 census in Ohio. The Matthew that is attributed to being Matthew, the father, in several trees for the 1820 census I believe to be Matthew the son because of ages of the males. Information for if, and when, Matthew married a Susannah – who would be my Susannah’s mother – has not been found and neither has what happened to her after Matthew died, assuming that he passed before her. I even put out an S.O.S. to the Carroll County Facebook page to see if anyone there might be related to the Crawford or Myers family and still hanging out in the area. No luck.
During these past two weeks I have systematically gone through the 1850 through 1880 censuses noting the sons of Matthew and their families. First, to get them straight because they continue to repeatedly use the same names for their children (and occasionally, using the names again if a young child dies). And secondly, to make sure that Susannah, my 3rd great-grandmother, doesn’t turn up as one of their children. Excepting Matthew, the father, it has also been relatively easy to find the wills of these people through probate records and my Susannah has not turned up as being named as a child in any of these wills. So…speculatively, Matthew, born in County, Donegal, Ireland is going to be who I’m working with as Susannah’s father.
Susannah Crawford married Lambert Myers, son of Silas Myers and Catherine Eads, on 14 September 1830 in Columbiana County, Ohio.
Susannah gave birth to eleven children who survived to adulthood, 3 daughters and 8 sons.
Between the 1850 and 1860 censuses, Susannah and Lambert moved to the East Liverpool area from Carroll County and would live out the rest of their lives in that vicinity. Lambert passes away sometime after the 1880 census. No death certificate or burial site has been found, as of yet, for him. We find Susan living with her daughter, Margaret Elizabeth, 83 years old and widowed, in the 1900 census. This daughter had lived nearby Lambert and Susannah for many years. The 1904 East Liverpool City Directory lists Susannah living just around the corner from Martha Elizabeth in a room at 118 Jackson Square and then she passes away 24 July 1904 and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in East Liverpool, Ohio.
I don’t have a positive identification on most of the women in the photograph of Susannah at the beginning of this post. We know that Susannah is sitting front center and standing behind her, slightly left is her daughter Margaret Elizabeth. Susannah had three daughters, and because of the similarities between the woman sitting on left and standing far right to Margaret, I have to believe that the one standing is daughter Katherine and the one sitting in front is daughter Mary. Katherine had two daughters, Minnie G., born 1868 and Mary Susan, born 1870, and it is possible that these two young girls pictured beside and in front of the supposed Katherine in the photo could be those daughters. Because of the clothing styles, it is not unreasonable to think that this photograph could have been taken somewhere between 1880 and 1887, but what the heck would Mary be doing in East Liverpool when she was living in Indiana at that time? One possibility might be that everyone was in town because of the death of Lambert. One might think that Susannah does not look the age of a woman who might be a couple of years either side of 70 in this photo, but some of the women in our family wear their age incredibly well. I really have no idea who the women standing on far left might be. Perhaps they are wives of Susannah’s sons? Perhaps more photographs of the family will surface in the future and we will be able to identify all of these women. Hopefully. So many questions…
This is my Week #11 post for Amy Johnson Crow’s
52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge.
The optional theme for this week was “Luck of the Irish”.
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