Author: Chiara

52 Ancestors – Week 8 – I Can Identify

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Plugging along with the 52 Ancestors prompts so I can be caught up and work on putting some other things out into the universe and work on them. The prompt for week 8 is I can identify. Many different takes can be taken on this prompt. I am blessed that my Grandma started our family tree back in the day when things were done in person and letters via snail mail.

My Grandma is the reason I am so interested in family history, I have very fond memories of traipsing around cemeteries as pre-teen and teenager with my Grandma and Grandpa.

Picture of my Grandparents, Earl and Frances (Stewart) Witherwax.

So for the topic “I Can Identify”, I decided to highlight a couple of my favorite finds from over the years.

  1. When I identified that my 2x Great Grandmother Sarah Larkin Beardsley was indeed a doctor. This was found via a google search. She attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

2. Finding the passenger list of my Moro Family coming over from Italy in 1880. When I first found this record. I did not realize that the Chiara listed there was my 2x Great Grandmother.

3. Another favorite find of mine is the marriage registration of my 2x-Great Grandparents. Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico in Italy. I am hoping to find more Italian records because every time I find one it is always a sense of accomplishment, especially since I can’t read, write or speak Italian.

Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico were married in 1872 in Lentella, Italy.

4. Another fun find was my second Daughters of the American Revolution Patriot. Bezaleel Wood. After I joined the DAR back in 2016 through my original patriot Lorin Nehemiah Larkin. I joined a bunch of different Facebook groups pertaining to the DAR and in one of these groups a member said look at lines right near the patriot. So I looked at Lorin Larkin’s Wife Christiana Cutler and couldn’t prove her father so I looked at wife of his son John. John’s wife is a woman named Sarah Wood. Sarah’s father is Bezaleel Wood my 5x great-grandfather on my grandpa’s line.

This is Bezaleel Wood’s information in the DAR Database.

5. My last favorite find is anything on my husbands tree. Everything on this is fun because I am totally flying blind with no one to ask questions of. So when I am able to find records that confirm my findings or hunches I am totally ecstatic.

It is also probably a reason that I enjoy using ThruLines at Ancestry as an additional hint because I know there is a connection somewhere due to the DNA and it gives me a starting point to figure out where the connection is in the documents.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the prompt I Can Identify, until next time.

52 Ancestors – Week 7 – Outcast

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Week 7 of 52 Ancestors is upon us. 4 more entries and I will be current. This week’s topic is Outcast. I am seriously stumped about what to write about this week. I don’t think I have anyone who fits the definition of Outcast.

The closest person I could think of is my husband’s Great Grandfather Henry Bass. I wrote all about him in this post.

He is a true scoundrel and one day I will finish piecing together his actual story.

52 Ancestors – Week 6 – Social Media

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Yep another post today. This one is for week 6 of the 52 Ancestors challenge being hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. The topic is social media.

Social Media is a great tool to use in genealogy and I love connecting with family. Those of you who have been following for a while know that I love the <a href="http://&lt;!– wp:paragraph –> <p>Social Media is a great tool to use in genealogy and I love connecting with family. Those of you who have been following for a while know that I love the </p> NYS Historical Newspaper website. I have discovered so much about my ancestors and newspapers were an integral part of life back in the day.

I have discovered so many vital facts about my family from where my great grandparents were married in 1890.

to this query looking for the siblings of Jassiel Preston. I need to remember to look into this query and see what I can find out even if it is from the 1920s.

to this week finding the obituaries for my 2X Great Grandmother Ella Mayo Stewart. This first one appeared in the Plattsburgh Papers.

This second one is the obituary that appeared in the Massena, NY paper in the neighboring county where she actually died and is much more in depth.

I have been trying to break down the brick wall of who were the parents of Ella’s mother Jane A. West? I will break down my hypothesis in a future post. I think DNA is going to be crucial in deducting this so I am going to have to figure it out.

So back in the day, newspapers were the Facebook of the time. Also you can always hit me up on my social media if you want to connect.

52 Ancestors – Week 5 – Ooops

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The prompt for week 5 is Ooops. This Ooops can be a variety of things, maybe an oops you made or an oops an ancestor made. It is wide open to interpretation and to be honest I currently have Brittany Spears singing in my head Ooops I did it again.

It took me the longest time to figure out this one and the direction I wanted to go in but I figured this would be a good time to talk about the 2 men named Beverly Beardsley I have in my tree. They are father and son. They are also combined in ancestry trees to make a huge mess but it is slowly being rectified.

Beverly Beardsley (1770-1815) my 4x Great Grandfather and Beverly Beardsley (1815-1898) my 3x Great Grandfather. My 3x Great Grandfather was born 17 February 1815 in Chesterfield Essex County, NY to Beverly Beardsley and Ada Curtis, he was the youngest of their 5 children.

I was able to piece together this tree using the probate books online at Family Search for Beverly Beardsley who died in April 1815 in Chesterfield, Essex County, NY. I need to get my hands on copies of the original file because I see the letters appointing guardianship to all the children except their oldest daughter who was married already. I would like to know what happened to his wife Ada and anything I can piece together to get another generation back. It is one of the reasons I love wills and deeds because it can really bring the person to life a bit.

Here are some records I stumbled upon that drive me nuts because you create if a mess if you do not evaluate dates. One of the tools I do like to use on Ancestry is the notes and tags because I do put things in my tree that I have a hunch on and DNA hints but am trying to get further back.

This is a Geneanet hint that I found a on Ancestry today.

Ada Curtiss is my 3x Great Grandmother. Wife of Beverly Beardsley who DIED in 1815. Child Ada Curtis Beardsley is his daughter who married Asher Stevens. Everyone else on this belongs to Betsy Blake.

Beverly Beardsley my 3X great grandfather married Minerva Winchester who died in 1843. Betsey Blake was his second wife who I believe he married because he had 3 small children. Leslie Winchester Beardsley, my 2x Great Grandfather, his brother George Curtis Beardsley and Maria Helena Beardsley Weston.

This is the Geneanet page that the Ancestry tree takes you to and it stresses me out to look at because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Evaluation and reason come into play when sourcing your tree especially with people of the same name.

So be careful in perpetuating Ooopses.

52 Ancestors – Week 4 – Education

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Life has gotten into the way of me keeping up with the blog so I am going to try and do 2 or 3 every few days to get back on track. For this prompt I decided I would talk about on of my favorite collection on Ancestry.

Ancestry has a collection called U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-2016. There are all sorts of gems in there. I also find it fun to look at the pictures and how the times have changed. A great thing about this collection is I was able to get a picture of my husband’s father, James Francis Osborne. He attended St. Francis Preparatory School in Brooklyn. The school would later relocate to Queens.

Check out his Yearbook picture from 1955

Another picture I found is of my Mom while she was in college. My mom is with some of her fellow nursing students.

My mom is in the front row and this picture is from 1963.

So have you used this collection before.

52 Ancestors – Week 3 – Out of Place

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This weeks prompt was Out of Place. I have been pondering about what to right about for a few days and I am still in a quandry about what to write about.

My favorite family stories are about my much beloved 2X Great Grandmother Sarah Larkin Beardsley but I have already told you so much about her. My great mysteries now resolve around her Mother and Father. Ruth (I think Morgan) Larkin and Benjamin Wood Larkin.

So I am still sitting here and wondering who I should write about. So I finally decided on the take I would take on this prompt.

Domenick and Teresa are my great grandparents. Michaelangelo Moro and Chiara Ludovico are my 2X Great Grandparents.

My out of place is Teresa Tracchia’s parents. I haven’t found them yet. This is the only set of 2X Great Grandparents I haven’t found yet. Italian Research is like Irish Research to me. I have to be in a mood and it takes a lot of work for me, actually even more than Irish research as I don’t speak Italian. One goal I would love to accomplish in 2023 is to input names into this branch of my family.

So there you have it, my out of place is those missing names.

52 Ancestors – Week 2 – Favorite Photo

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This year I have a new favorite photo.

This photo is from a distant cousin of my husband’s family in Norway. She reached out to me on Ancestry and was able to solve a huge mystery about his 2X great grandfather Neils Osborne.

I am not sure who the people in the photo are but I can see a resemblance to my husband and his brothers. The picture was taken in Brooklyn, NY.

I can’t wait to discover who is all in the photo and it will be a great mystery to solve.

52 Ancestors – Week 1- I’d like to meet

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Yes I am going to attempt it yet again. Life seems a bit calmer at the moment and this is something I want and need to do for me. So here we go with prompt number 1 which is who would I like to meet and boy this is going to be super hard to pick just one so I am going to go with my top 3 or 5 and they will be in no random order.

  1. Sarah Larkin Beardsley my 2 times great grandmother. I have written about her extensively in previous blog posts and I feel a great kinship with her.
  2. Minerva Winchester Beardsley, my 3 times great grandmother. She lived from 1823 until 1843. She is the mother of my 2X great grandfather Leslie Winchester Beardsley. I would love to know who here parents were.
  3. David Weatherwax – My 4 times great grandfather. I would love to hear about his Revolutionary War experience and to ask where he is buried.
  4. Micheleangelo Moro and Chiara Ludivico my 2 times great grandparents on my Dad’s side. I would love to hear about why they came to America and then left and returned to Italy and if they had more children than the 2 I have found and any history they would share.

and lastly I would like to meet John Stewart (1755 – 1835). This is as far back as I have gotten my Stewart line. I believe they are originally from Scotland but I haven’t been able to go further than John and his wife Isabelle Armstrong in County Monaghan, Ireland. I would love to know if this line is truly from Scotland. There is a lot of family story but who knows.

Ruth Morgan Larkin – Where are the documents?

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Ruth Morgan Larkin is my 3X-great grandmother. She is the mother of my beloved Sarah Larkin Beardsley and the wife of Benjamin Wood Larkin.

I can not tell you much about her as she only shows up in records once and it is on the 1850 Census of Morristown, St. Lawrence County, New York. She is with her husband Benjamin and daughters Sarah and Julia.

1850 Census of Morristown, St. Lawrence Co, NY

If you notice the name right under them and the last one on the page it is Reuben Morgan. I have hypothesized that Ruth’s parent’s are Reuben Morgan and Sally Parsons even though their is no paper trail. She would not appear in his will as she died in approximately 1856 and Reuben died in 1862.

I do have some DNA matches that seem to support my parentage theory of who Ruth’s parents are.

This is my ThruLines profile for Ruth Morgan. The 11 matches are all from my great-grandparents children.

This next thru-lines image is from both my Mom and I and links some of the descendants of Reuben Morgan. I have just begun to go through these hints to ensure I am indeed related to these DNA cousins through Morgan as I have discovered that the Larkin and Morgan family has a couple sets of double cousins.

My Thrulines for Reuben Morgan

My Mom’s Thrulines hints.

I like Thrulines for the hints it provides and I am hopeful that I will find the elusive piece of paper someday to prove that Ruth is indeed Reuben Morgan and Sally Parsons daughter.

This is my ThruLine for Sally Parsons

I sometimes wonder the courage it must of taken Ruth to leave her home in Clinton County and head west with her husband. Her life must not of been easy and she left 5 daughters in Minnesota without a mother. I think it is part of the reason Sarah Larkin Beardsley is my favorite because she overcame so much to become a doctor at a time that wasn’t the norm for women.

Benjamin Wood Larkin – Where Did You Go?

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Benjamin Wood Larkin is my 3X Great Grandfather and is the father of my beloved 2X Great Grandmother, Sarah Larkin Beardsley, MD.

What I believe is true about Benjamin Larkin

  1. He is the son of John Larkin (1790-1865) and Sarah Wood (1789-1865).
  2. He married Ruth (possibly Morgan) I have a couple of theories and DNA matches that support the hypothesis.
  3. Daughters Sarah (1847-1886) and Julia (1849 – ??) were born in NY. In 1860 Sarah is with her Grandparents in NY.
  4. In 1850 – Benjamin, Ruth, Sarah and Julia appear on the Federal Census in Morristown, St Lawrence County, NY. Their is a Rueben Morgan in the next dwelling. I believe Rueben married Benjamin’s sister later on.
  5. In 1852, Benjamin and Ruth have a daughter Clare in Illinois. (This was derived from a Minnesota Territorial Census in 1857).
  6. IN 1853, Benjamin and Ruth had their daughter Lucy in Joliet Illinois. This was found by reviewing Lucy’s DAR application. Lucy married James Thompson. She died in NY in 1934.
  7. In 1855 a daughter Ruth was born in 1855 I think in Minnesota and died in 1864. She is buried in NY.
  8. !n 1857, Benjamin appears in a Minnesota Territorial Census with all the daughters. No Ruth. A new Wife Margaret, who is 18 and born in Norway and there is a son George Henry Larkin (1857 – 1936).
  9. Edward Jay Larkin was born to Margaret and Benjamin in 1859. Edward lists his birthplace as Wisconsin.

I have an 1859 Land Grant application in Fillmore County Minnesota in Benjamin’s Name. I do not find him on any subsequent census.

In the 1900 Census Margaret Larkin, lists herself as a widow and she is living with her son Edward and this is the last record I have of Margaret.

Today, I spent some time building down the descendents of Benjamin Larkin and his son George had no biological children. He did have a Stepson. His son Edward Jay Larkin had 3 children who had children. Also one of his descendants came up as a DNA match to my Mom so maybe that will yield some fruit.

I did find some Land Grants in Florida with the name Benjamin W. Larkin in the Gainesville area, so I need to see if I can find something there. I also found a newspaper in Clinton County mentioning Sarah and her husband going to Florida so maybe it is possible Benjamin went there.

I really would like to tie up the loose ends and delve further into my tree and maybe see if I can prove that his wife Ruth was indeed a Morgan, it would open up several more Revolutionary War Patriots. Seems like most of my DAR lines come through females and the records can be spotty.

So what do we think happened to Benjamin?

Here are a couple of my theories.

  1. I think Benjamin after Ruth died married Margaret to have some one to take care of all these daughters.
  2. Benjamin suffered from Wanderlust and started traveling and cashing in on his father’s War of 1812 Land Grant.
  3. He abandoned his Children with relatives and in his Son’s case left them with his mother.
  4. I think it is entirely possible his daughter Sarah did travel to Florida when she had consumption to see him and he did possibly die there.

If you have suggestions of resources for me to look at let me know.