Beardsley

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 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.

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.

52 Ancestors – Week 3 – Favorite Photo

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This week in the 52 Ancestors Challenge hosted by Amy Johnson Crow, the topic is favorite photo and WOW it is a tough one. I can’t pick just one so here are a couple of my favorites.

The first is of my husband’s great grandfather, Henry Bass. Henry was a bit of a scoundrel and not much is known about him. I am hoping with the release of the upcoming 1950 census I can fill the picture out a bit more.

Henry Morrissey Bass picture courtesy of Ancestry.com

The next photo is of my favorite ancestor Sarah Larkin Beardsley, MD.

Circa 1880

Sarah Larkin Beardsley is my 2X Great Grandmother on my maternal Grandfather’s line. I joined the DAR through Sarah’s Grandfather Lorin Nehemiah Larkin. The stories she could tell and the trails she blazed by becoming a doctor in the 1880s.

My Mom is currently getting a bunch of family photos from a family member so it will be awesome to see what she gets.

52 Ancestors – Week 2 – Favorite Find

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This week in the 52 Ancestors Challenge hosted by Amy Johnson Crow, the topic is favorite find. To this date I think my favorite find is about my 2x Great Grandmother, Sarah Larkin Beardsley. Sarah was born in Clintonville, Clinton County, NY in 1847 and sadly she died in April 1886 but she is truly a remarkable woman. Now let’s get back to the find.

I discovered a blurb about Sarah being inducted into the Michigan Medical Society in 1884 that means she had to be a doctor. So there was more research and let’s look at the 1880 Census for Ann Arbor Michigan.

On this 1880 Census we find Sarah with her husband Lesley Beardsley and she is listed as a Student.

On Google Books I found the Calendar for the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and listed inside is Sarah A. Beardsley as a 3rd year student.

from the 1880-81 Calendar for the University of Michigan.

Another search of Google Books yielded the In Memoriam Page for the Michigan State Medical Society, where Sarah is listed as deceased.

Sarah died in Valley Falls, New York in April 1886 of tuberculosis. I have found numerous articles about her in the New York newspapers for Clinton and Essex County to this date she fascinates me.

I also have a new favorite find. I have been trying to find out a death date for my husband’s 2X Great-Grandmother, a woman named Bertha Maier Brucks. Bertha was born in approximately 1863 in Germany. She emigrated to the United States and in 1887 she married Robert Brucks who also was a German immigrant. Robert died in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois.

After Robert died the family left the Chicago area after the 1930 census, I know that two of the daughters settled in the Washington DC area. Daughter Charlotte was a gifted pianist and attended Julliard and daughter Helen settled in Maryland.

I found Bertha in a Washington DC City Directory in 1954 but after that I couldn’t find her after that. She was living with her daughter Charlotte.

So this past weekend I decided to run an Ancestry search on Bertha and a new result for Find-A-Grave popped up but I wasn’t sure it was her so I ran her husband Robert and daughter Charlotte. I knew Robert was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago due to an obituary and his death certificate.

So I think this is my new favorite find.

Find A Grave Memorial – Photo Courtesy of MHunt.

This wonderful Find-A-Grave contributor has been going section by section and photographing Rose Hill Cemetery. So now I have a Year of Death for Bertha. So maybe now I will be able to find a death record for her.

So these are my 2 favorite finds.

So much fun…

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I spent some time colorizing some old photos I had taken pictures of and oh my what fun that was. My Heritage has a tool to colorize your old photos in seconds. Here are a couple of photos that I had already in my computer. I can see this getting addictive really fast.

You know I had to start with my favorite relative Dr. Sarah Larkin Beardsley. I have an actual copy of this picture that I am going to redo this with.

Next up is my Beardsley Sibling picture. The men are George Beardsley and my 2X great grandfather Leslie Winchester Beardsley and their sister Helen Maria Beardsley Weston.

 

Then of course is my husband’s 2X great grandfather the infamous scoundrel Henry Morissey Bass that I am sadly still trying to piece his sad life together including his death.

and I had a couple of pictures of my grandma’s side of the family. We will start with Joseph Gardiner Stewart.

and my great grandmother Mildred Arvilla Shumway Stewart. This one I think I prefer the black and white version better.

and let’s finish with 2 of my absolute people in the world who I miss every day. My Grandpa and Grandma. I am not sure where I put the black and whites on my computer but here are the colorized photos.

Isn’t this just fabulous. I have a stack of photo’s from Gerard’s family that I am excited to try this on including my in-laws wedding photo.

To my family I would love photos to put in my tree and you can always email them to me.

52 Ancestors – Week 7 – Favorite Discovery

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One of my favorite discoveries to date is always in reference to my 2X-Great Grandmother, Sarah Larkin Beardsley. On her tombstone it is inscribed with Sarah A. Beardsley, MD. We always thought it was a mistake.

Until I found reference to her in a publication of the University of  Michigan. (thank you Google).Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 7.20.16 AM

and the discovery of her in the 1880 Census in Michigan, listed as a student, along with her husband, Leslie Beardsley. One of my next projects is to find my Great Grandmother, Minerva during this period.

Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 7.18.45 AM

and then sadly I found her in another publication this time of the Michigan Medical Society. Sadly Sarah died at the age of 39 in 1886. Not much is known about her but I think she must of been a super strong woman as she pursued her dream at a time it wasn’t common.Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 7.16.27 AM

This is the only picture we have of Sarah Beardsley and it also hangs in the University of Michigan Medical School as part of a group photo of her class.

Dr. Sarah larkin Beardsley

52 Ancestors – Week 4 – Close to Home

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Week 4 already. As I was finishing my final ProGen assignment this week, I decided since Beverly Beardsley (1815-1898) was fresh in my mind he would be the perfect subject for this week’s prompt.

Beverly Beardsley was born 15 February 1815 in Chesterfield, Essex County, New York and died 19 December 1898 in Ausable, Clinton County, New York. He spent the majority of his life on the Essex / Clinton County Borders.

beverlybeardsleydeathnotice

Courtesy of NYS Historic Newspapers

He lived in the towns of Chesterfield and Black Brook during his life and farmed for the majority of his life. He is buried in the Old Clintonville Cemetery in Clintonville, New York with his two wives, Minerva Winchester Beardsley (1823 – 1843) and Bestsey Blake Beardsley (1807 – 1887).

Beardsleytombstone BeverlyBeardsley

Beardsley Tombstone in the Old Clintonville Cemetery.

Tombstone Tuesday – January 21, 2020

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Beverly Beardsley is the topic of my final ProGen assignment this week, so I thought it was fitting that he was my first Tombstone Tuesday topic.

He is buried in the Old Clintonville Cemetery in the same plot as his son, Leslie Winchester Beardsley and my beloved Sarah Larkin Beardsley, MD.

Beardsleytombstone BeverlyBeardsley

Beverley Beardsley lived in the Clintonville area all his life. He was married first to Minerva Winchester (1823-1843) and then to Betsey Blake (1807? – 1887).

According to his obituary, Beverly Beardsley will be missed at the revivals. I love little facts like that. I will expand more on Beverly Beardsley once this assignment is over.

Another Rabbit Hole

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This week I have been going down a lot of rabbit holes. Currently I am in the beginning stages of my final ProGen Assignment. I have to write a narrative about an ancestral couple and their children. I have decided I seriously do not want to write about my Stewart Lines as there are just to many children. Seriously the Stewart Line had 8 or 9 and those Shumway’s with 11 seriously not happening.

So I was going to work on my Witherwax line but I may want to use them for certification. So then I was leaning towards G’s Scoundrel of a Great-Grandfather Henry Bass. (I love Henry, plus he has great material, Possible bigamest).

I finally yesterday had a calling. A certain ancestor was calling me and it is requiring me to flesh a tree out slightly and I want some insight into the Characters and I stumbled across in the papers. You know I love my papers. Thank heavens for the NYS Historic Newspapers.

I found this gem, when searching Maria Weston. I had to use her husband’s name Sylvester Weston but look what I found.BenjaminWeatherwa and MinervaBeardsleyThe Plattsburgh Sentinel, courtesy of NYS Historic Newspapers

In Chesterfield, May 10, 1890, at the residence of Mr. Sylvester Weston, by Rev. J.H. Bond, Benj. F. Weatherwax, of Valcour and Miss Minnie Beardsley, of Clintonville.

So how about those apples. Benjamin Weatherwax and Minnie Beardsley are my great-grandparents. I knew they were married in Chesterfield (I have their marriage license) but I figured they were married in the Methodist Church. Things like this put things together for me.

So as a hint to the relatives that spoke to me it was Mr. Beverly Beardsley. I figured he had something he wanted me to look for and I should listen.

It has been a somewhat productive week for rabbit holes.