Loretta Catherine Wycoff Culp (Photo courtesy of Tim Nichols)
Name: Loretta Catherine “Retta” WYCOFF Birth: 19 September 1854; Richmond, Jefferson County, Ohio Parents: John McCullough WYCOFF and Eliza “Jane” FRYE Spouse: Alonzo M. CULP Death: 01 August 1905; Hammondsville, Jefferson County, Ohio Relationship to Hollie: maternal 1st cousin 4x removed
Name: Robert MOORE Birth: 15 September 1787; Hookstown, Beaver County, Pennsylvania Parents: Thomas MOORE and Rachel PHILLIS Spouse: Agnes Nancy WYCOFF Death: 30 August 1847 Relationship to Hollie: maternal 1st cousin 5x removed
Name: Nancy J. DONALDSON Birth: 09 September 1849 Parents: Peter DONALDSON and Charity WYCOFF Spouse: Samuel S. DOUGLAS Death: (*1893) Not Proven Relationship to Hollie: maternal 1st cousin 4x removed
John Clark Paisley (& wife & child) ~ Bergholz Cemetery
Tombstone Tuesday
Name: John Clark PAISLEY Birth: 02 July 1880 Death: 07 May 1915 Parents: Simon E. PAISLEY and Jane “Jennie” WYCOFF Spouse: Gwendoline LEWIS Cemetery: Bergholz Cemetery, Jefferson County, Ohio Relationship to Hollie: maternal 2nd great uncle
Name: Charity WYCOFF Birth: 07 August 1822 Parents: Cornelius WYCOFF and Leah CRITZER Spouse: Peter DONALDSON Death: 04 November 1901 Relationship to Hollie: maternal 4th great aunt
Civil Wedding, Albert Anker [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
In preparation for this post, I exported a Marriage Report from my Family Treemaker software into an Excel spreadsheet so that I could do some sorting. Initially, my plan was to figure out what month most of the marriages of my ancestors took place in. (I, also, realized at this time just how many I didn’t have.) Would it be June, the traditional wedding month? Would it be October? But then, I happened upon two marriages that took place on the same day, in the same county, within the same family – but different officiants. This information was just begging for a closer inspection…
From The Carroll Free Press, Friday, May 14, 1847
On Thursday, 13 May 1847, while the Mexican-American War raged on against Santa Anna, a sister and a brother were being newly wed. Levi Wycuff, ninth born child of Cornelius Wycoff and Leah Critzer (and third-born son) was marrying Mary Earl and Eliza Wikoff, seventh born child (and Cornelius and Leah’s fifth daughter), was marrying David Donaldson.
Donaldson Wikoff Marriage Certificate
David Donaldson, the son of the Rev. John Donaldson and Mildred Goodwillie, was born 05 January 1823 in Harrison County, Ohio. Eliza was born 06 June 1820. I think that it’s pretty safe to assume that since David’s father was a minister attached at one time to the Scroggsville United Presbyterian Church, that this is the reason that David and Eliza were married in this particular church. The minister who performed the ceremony was James Patterson, who followed John Donaldson as minister of the church.
By Roseohioresident (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Scroggsville United Presbyterian Church is celebrating their 197th Anniversary this month (August 2015). The church, to this day, still holds weekly services. The Reverend John Donaldson was associated with at least three Presbyterian churches in Ohio.
Approximately 10 years after David and Eliza married, they made the move to Washington County, Iowa where they would settle for the remainder of their lives. David and Eliza Wycoff Donaldson both died in Washington County, Iowa. David on 11 September 1909 and Eliza on 24 January 1924. They are both buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington County.
“DONALDSON, DAVID, farmer; Sec. 36; P. O. Washington; among the pioneers of this township “is the subject of this sketch, a native of Harrison county, Ohio; was born January 5, 1823, but was raised in Carroll county, that State, on a farm, and has always followed farming as an occupation; he came to this county as early as the fall of 1853, and entered land and returned to Ohio that same fall, and in 1857 came out and located on his present homestead, which now consists of 180 acres; he is justice of the peace, and has held various other offices of trust; he was married in Ohio, November 24, 1846, to Miss Louisa Wycoff; by this union they have a family of three sons and one daughter living: John A., David O, William H., and Catharine Mildred, and two deceased : Isaac, and Martha L.”
The particulars of Levi Wycuff and Mary Earl have been a bit more difficult to bring to light. My theory for this is that some families were more social than others (throughout history, of course) and that the ones that were more “sociable” would be the very ones that we find out the most information about. The quiet folks (introverts) with a small circle of friends and family are probably the ones that have just faded away into history.
Wycoff Earl Marriage Certificate
Levi and Mary were married in a civil ceremony by a Justice of the Peace in Fox Township, Carroll County, Ohio, B. Boice (Boyce.) In the United States, there is no distinction made between church marriages and civil ceremonies. Both religious and civil forms of marriage carry equal weight according to the law.
Levi Wycuff (Photo courtesy of Denny Goddard)
Levi was born 22 November 1825 in Jefferson County, Ohio, one of the 12 children that were born to Cornelius and Leah. Mary was born 22 December 1825 in Carroll County, Ohio, the daughter of William Earl and Catherine Withrow.
Mary Earl (Photo courtesy of Denny Goddard)
Levi and Mary were married for more than forty years and had seven children:
Jane “Jennie”, born 29 March 1848, married Simon E. Paisley [*my line] and Henry C. Fried (Freed).
Leah Catherine, born 29 October 1849, married William M. Beadnell.
James Pierce, born 29 April 1852, married Minnie E. Harmon.
William “Henry”, born 4 June 1856, married Janet “Jane” Brown.
Samuel “David”, born 20 December 1858, married Bridget Hanley.
Cornelius Atwood, born 9 June 1861, never married, died young.
Thomas Ellsworth, born 8 March 1864, married Thaisa Hess.
1850 Census Washington Carroll Ohio
In 1850, we find the couple living in Washington Township in Carroll County, Ohio with their two young daughters. Levi’s occupation is listed as being a farmer. I have yet to find Levi and Mary in the 1860 census even though I am like 99.8% sure that they should be in Carroll County, Ohio. I can’t even imagine why I can’t find them even using “creative” spellings of Wyckoff (or as Levi’s family writes it, “Wycuff”.) Even after attempting to go through the county page by page and line by line, I am coming up empty. All of their children from Jennie through Thomas have claimed on various documents that they were born in Carroll County, Ohio and the births of those children would cover from 1848 through 1864.
The one thing in particular that I found disturbing while trolling through those pages was the high incidence of “unoccupied” written on a line instead of a family name. Seriously. There are a bunch. In all of my years of scouring census data, I have never run across so many homes listed as unoccupied. I seemed to find the highest incidence in Fox Township. I scrolled up and looked to see who the enumerator was (or the Assistant Marshall, as it’s called there) and the name is D.H. Tolan. The only likely candidate that I found was a 25-year-old David H. Tolan living in Carrollton whose occupation is listed as “Printer” living in the household of his father, the Post Master. Seems like an intelligent enough person (with very legible handwriting), so were there really that many unoccupied homes in 1860? (I get so very side-tracked in my researching…)
Map of Carroll County ~ 1915
The next thing that I did was to look up the historical population for Carroll County. From 1840 to 1850, the county saw a decrease in population of -2.3%. From 1850 to 1860, the population decreased by another -11.00%. And from 1860 to 1870, the population decreased by another -7.9%. Carroll County was (and still very much is) a rural farming community. Were people moving west as territories opened up for homesteading? Or were they just giving up farming and going to work in the coal mines?
1870 Census Salineville Columbiana Ohio1880 Census Salineville Columbiana Ohio
In Levi’s case, it appears that he gave up farming to move to the Salineville area to work in the coal mines, because that’s where we find him and his family in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.
Levi died 22 June 1888 and Mary followed him on 25 November 1894. They are both buried in West Grove Cemetery in Jefferson County, Ohio.
Levi and Mary Earl Wycuff ~ West Grove Cemetery (Photo courtesy of Denny Goddard)
As much as people think that marriage has changed in these times, it hasn’t really changed so much at all. There have always been civil ceremonies and religious ceremonies throughout the different countries and throughout the ages. It is essentially a contract between two people. Around the time of these two marriages, the mid-19th century in America, marriage was beginning to change in the fact that people were starting to marry for love, and not just out of necessity to run a household. Without any kind of record of how the day progressed for these two couple, I wonder about what that day was really like. Were these couples in love? Or did the union just seem like a good deal as they were moving into adulthood? I imagine that both women wore their best dresses (that in all probability were not white). Were those dresses black, blue, or red? Did all of the families involved – the Donaldsons, the Wyckoffs, and the Earls- meet at a central place to celebrate later in the day? Was it a nice relaxing evening in mid-May where the families took a break from the toil of farming to celebrate all together? So many questions…
I’m not supposing that I’ll ever know, but it is something to think about while trying to imagine the lives of our ancestors.
History of Washington County, Iowa: From the First White Settlements to 1908. Also Biographical Sketches of Some Prominent Citizens of the County, Volume 1Howard A. Burrell January 1, 1909, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
The History of Washington County, Iowa: Its Cities, Towns, and C., a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens ….m, January 1, 1880, Union Historical Company
Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington County, Iowa: Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Portraits and Biographies of All the Governors of Iowa, and of the Presidents of the United States, Brookhaven Press January 1, 1887, Brookhaven Press
History of the Upper Ohio Valley, with Family History and Biographical Sketches: History of Jefferson co., O., by J. H. S. And w. M. rainer. Brant & Fuller, 1890 – Belmont County (Ohio)
History of Washington County, Iowa: From the First White …, Volume 1; By Howard A. Burrell.
The History of Washington County, Iowa: Its Cities, Towns, and C., a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens …. January 1, 1880, Union Historical Company.
History of Carroll and Harrison Counties, Ohio, Volume 2 By Harvey J. Eckley, William Thomas Perry.
By R H Lee, County Engineer, Carrollton, Ohio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Name: Elizabeth HILDENBRAND Birth: 29 July 1843; Jackson County, Ohio Parents: Elias HILDENBRAND and Mary “Polly” WYCOFF Spouse: Jonathan SCURLOCK Death: 1925; Jackson County, Ohio Relationship to Hollie: maternal 1st cousin 4x removed
Name: John Clark PAISLEY Birth: 02 July 1880 Parents: Simon E. PAISLEY and Jane “Jennie” WYCOFF Spouse: Gwendoline LEWIS Death: 07 May 1915 Relationship to Hollie: maternal 2nd great uncle
Mary Catherine “Mayme” at left and sister, Florence Paisley on right
I don’t remember exactly when it was that I purchased my first computer. I think that it was about 1992, but I wouldn’t swear to that. Perhaps ’92 was the first year that we had dial-up service with AOL. It was also somewhere around this time that I started moving my genealogy into a computer program, starting with a DOS based program that I don’t remember the name of and then moving soon to a program that Broderbund had introduced called Family Tree Maker. Technology evolves and we change right along with it, so seamlessly that at times it is difficult to remember when those changes actually happened. The only year etched into my memory as far as technology goes, is 1963. That was the year that my dad bought a color TV and when the news broke about Kennedy, my five-year-old self was sitting in front of it, and I instantly made the connection to the framed portrait of the President that was hanging on the wall in our living room.
I think that I was pretty fortunate to be able to hold a subscription to Ancestry.com since its beginning days. I was also able to keep one or two other subscriptions going at one time or another, providing me with access to old newspapers and other information. All of that changed when this month, for financial reasons, I had to let those paid subscriptions go. When a company where you’ve worked for more than 35 years closes – there is oft times a big adjustment and this has been true for me. These last few weeks, it has become quite clear to me just how much and how often I used these services and how much I miss being able to sit down, in my home, at 6am or midnight to do a bit of sleuthing. But the good thing is that there are all kinds of places on the internet to help you with advancing your family tree that are free and this is going to force me to expand my horizons a bit. Plus, I’ll still be able to access some things at the library whenever I might get the chance to spare a few hours on a Saturday.
So, as I was preparing for my next blog posting, I thought a lot about the information that was out there that I (and anyone else with access to the internet) can obtain without charge. For this post, I was able to verify 94% of the factual information against sources found online without using a paid subscription. The bulk of those references can be found at https://familysearch.org.
My great-grandmother, Florence Paisley, was born on the 15 October 1874 in Salineville, Columbiana County, Ohio to Simon Paisley and Jane “Jennie” Wycoff. Florence had two brothers and a sister who survived to adulthood. A sister, Sarah Etta, died at four months of age in 1878 and a brother, Joseph Levi, died when he was not quite two in 1884. Florence was the oldest. Her sister, Mary Catherine, who was called Mayme, was born in 1876 and she married Lewis David McConnaughy. Her brother, John Clark Paisley, was born in 1880 and married Gwendoline Lewis and her brother, Charles Elliott Paisley, born in 1885, married Jennie Myers (granddaughter of Lambert Myers and Susannah Crawford.)
When Florence was 11 years old, her father, Simon, was killed by a train. Her mother, Jennie, remarried in 1887 to Henry C. Fried, a Civil War veteran who was also widowed, his wife having passed away the year before.
On 18 June 1893, Florence, or Flora, as she was called, married Thomas John Hackathorn, the son of Jacob A. Hackathorn and Mary Amna Myers. Thomas’ oldest brother, Christian, vouched for them, but by my reckoning, instead of 20 and 26, they were 18 and 28.
Their first child, Mary Amna, was born on 28 December 1893. In June of 1895, Flora gave birth to twins, but only one, William Henry, would live past that first day. Unfortunately, William would only live until October of the next year before he too died. The cause of death was listed as indigestion, but I’m not sure what that would have really been.
Tragically, this wouldn’t be the family’s last experience with the death of a child.
Jennie (left) with sister Silvia Dora
Silvia Dora was born on 17 January 1902, and died 05 May 1904 from pneumonia.
Eva Lucille, who was born 14 October 1905, died on 20 November 1906 from whooping cough.
Robert Clyde, born 17 October 1915, passed away shortly after birth. Those children who lived to adulthood were:
Mary Amna, born 28 December 1893, married Charles Edward “Chad” Champion, died 21 September 1966.
Charles Clarence “Shorty”, born 27 September 1896, married Sylvia Rebecca Jolley, died 28 August 1973.
John Thomas “Jack”, born 28 September 1898, never married, died 06 October 1959.
Jennie Marie, born 26 June 1900, married Joseph Fritz Champion, died 12 July 1992.
Golda May “Goldie”, born 17 January 1904, married Frank Gritser, died 08 December 1994.
Elsie Marcella, born 01 January 1908, married David Moore, died 11 December 2002.
George Ernest, born 01 January 1910, married Ruth Reising, died 26 September 1963.
Frank Edwin “Sandy”, born 16 December 1911, married Ruth Palmer, died 11 March 1976.
Audra Lois, born 05 October 1913, married Joe Paris, died 27 August 1977.
1910 Census Bergholz VillageJennie (sitting center) surrounded by her younger siblings. Elsie at far left. Jennie was 17 when Flora died. Lois, on Jennie’s lap, was 3 1/2 when their mother died. This photo would have been taken just a few years prior to Flora’s death.
07 May 1917, Flora went into premature labor and both she and the child, a boy, died. Her cause of death was “placenta previa” and she hemorrhaged to death. Flora had given birth to 15 babies in her short 42 years of life. She left behind six children who were under the age of 17. The oldest daughter, Mary, was a teacher and stepped in to help care for the youngest children. My grandmother was nine years old at that time.
Name: James WYCOFF Birth: 30 June 1820; Virginia Parents: James WYCOFF and Maria “Mary” PETERSON Spouse: Mary Ann THOMAS Death: 25 March 1865; Annapolis, Anne Arundel, Maryland Relationship to Hollie: maternal 1st cousin 5x removed
![Civil Wedding, Albert Anker [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://relativityitsallrelative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/albert_anker_-_die_ziviltrauung_1887.jpg)
![By Roseohioresident (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://relativityitsallrelative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/scroggsfield_ohio_presbyterian_1818-1.jpg)
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