May 2011, Week 2: Marriage of John Huigens

My great-grandparents John HUIGENS and Mary FITZLER were married in Henry, Marshall Co., IL at St. Mary's Catholic Church. The priest was Father Carl Hout.  The only thing I'm not sure about is the exact date of the marriage. Back in the 1990s my mother got an abstracted Certificate of Record of Marriage from the Marshall County Clerk. That document gave the date of the wedding as 29 Jan 1884.

In 2006, I obtained a similar certificate from the same place. As you can see, the date listed on that one was 24 Jan 1884. To further complicate the issue, I found a marriage announcement in the microfilmed Henry newspaper from Feb 1884. The wedding date listed in that article was 1 Feb 1884.

So which date is correct?  I think that the 24/29 is a transcription error where a 4 was mistaken for a 9 or vice versa. I also thank that date is the date on which they obtained the license and not the actual date of the ceremony. The three dates fall on a Thursday, a Tuesday and a Saturday.  (Gotta love those on-line calendars for any month and year!)  I think it's more likely that the wedding was on Saturday, 2 Feb 1884.  Seeing the actual marriage license at the county courthouse will resolve the conflict. I was hoping to to find the license on the microfilmed Marshall Co. records at the Illinois Records and Archives Depository in Normal, IL. Unfortunately 1884 was one of the years that was not filmed.  Drat!

I was able to tie Fr. Hout to the specific church thanks to on-line transcripts of newspaper announcements for other Henry marriages in the 1880s here. St. Mary's was the German Catholic Church in Henry. Like many towns across the mid-west in the 1800s, Henry had two Catholic churches, one for the Irish and one for the Germans. That way both of the two main immigrant groups of the period could have homilies and hymns in their native language.

One of John and Mary's wedding gifts was a clock that my dad now owns.  This summer I'll get a picture of it.  It's wonderful to have something that ties back to an event from over 125 years ago.

Surname Saturday - 49: Morrell

The mother of my great-great-grandmother, Hanora (Collins) Wallace Kennedy, would be #47 in my afentahl.  I don't know her name, so we move on to #49: Frances Amelia MORRELL and a long, long line of Morrells.

1. Kevin Joseph HUIGENS

2. Joseph Anthony HUIGENS
3. Shirley Ann OGDEN

6. Emery Julius OGDEN (b. 9 Sept 1896 in Elk Point, Union Co., SD, USA, m. 19 Mar 1929 in Gordon, Sheridan Co., NE, USA, d. 8 Apr 1984 in Martin, Bennett Co., SD, USA)
7. Esther Louise JOHNSON (b. 23 Feb 1902 in Milan, Rock Island Co., IL, USA, d. 24 Mar 1984 in Rapid City, Pennington Co., SD, USA)

12. William Fredrick OGDEN (b. 10 Oct 1871 in Simcoe, Norfolk Co., Ontario, Canada, m. 25 Jan. 1895 in Elk Point, Union Co., SD, USA, d. 19 May 1951 in Platteville, Grant Co., WI, USA)
13. Mary Elizabeth HERREN (b. 22 Dec 1873 in Batavia, Scott Twp., Sheboygan Co., WI, USA, d. 14 Nov 1938 in Mission, Todd Co., SD, USA)

24. James Robert OGDEN (b. 9 Feb 1836 in New Brunswick, Canada, m. 12 Nov 1861 in Grey Co., Ontario, Canada, d. 6 Aug 1910 in Rapid City, Pennington Co., SD, USA)
25. Hannah GIBBON (b. 10 Feb 1837 in Chinguacousy, Peel Co., Ontario, Canada, d. 18 Apr 1927 in Denby, Shannon Co., SD, USA)
 
48. Robert OGDEN (b. abt 1807 in New Brunswick, Canada, m. 13 Jan 1825 in Kings Co., New Brunswick, Canada, d. 26 Jan 1892 in Bruce Co., Ontario, Canada)
49. Frances Amelia MORRELL (b. abt 1809 in Canada, d. 1881)

98. Elnathan MORRELL (b. 2 Jul 1771 in Peekskill, Westchester Co., NY, m. 14 Feb 1799 in Springfield, Kings Co., New Brunswick, Canada, d. 1851 in Springfield, Kings Co., New Brunswick, Canada)

99. Mary GUNTER (20 Mar 1781 in Peekskill, Westchester Co., NY, d. 7 Jun 1849 in Springfield, Kings Co., New Brunswick, Canada)

196. Thomas MORRELL (b. 1735 in Newton, Livingston Co., NY, m. 1767 in Peekskill, Westchester Co., NY, d. 1819 in Springfield, Kings Co., New Brunswick, Canada)

197. Alchey GARRISON (b. 1750 in Peekskill, Westchester Co., NY, d. aft. 1791)

392. Samuel MORRELL (b. 1709 in Queens, Livingston Co., NY, m. 12 Jun 1728 in Newton, Queens Co., NY, d. 18 Nov 1742 in Newton, Livingston Co., NY)

393. Phebe BAILEY (b. 1710 in ?, d. ? in ?)

784. Samuel MORRELL (b. 1664 in Long Island City, Queens Co. NY, m. 1698 in Long Island City, Queens Co. NY, d. 18 Nov 172 in Long Island City, Queens Co. NY)

785. Susannah SALYER (b. 1668 in  NY, d. 14 Aug 1774 in Newton, Livingston Co., NY)

1568. Thomas MORRELL (b. Apr 1628 in Queens Livingston Co., NY, m. 1660 in Newton, Livingston Co., NY, d. 1704 in Newton, Livingston Co., NY)

1569. Hannah GLEANE (b. 1644 in Long Island City, Queens Co. NY, d. Apr 1676 in Long Island City, Queens Co. NY)

3136. Thomas MORRELL (b. 1590 in Devon, England, m. ? in ?, d. ? in ?)

3137. Joan SEARLE (b. 1593 in England, d. ? in Newton Livingston Co., NY)

That goes back quite a way, doesn’t it?  To my ninth-great-grandfather, if it can be believed.  Everything back from Frances Amelia was gathered by my brother from on-line family trees on Ancestry.com.  No sources, no documentation.  Some of it is highly suspect; especially the info for the last Thomas Morrell who supposedly died in England, yet his son Thomas was born in New York.  I guess it’s possible he stayed in England and died there while his pregnant wife crossed the Atlantic and gave birth to her son in New York.  It seems highly unlikely to me.

I’m also surprised that we have much more detailed vital statistics for Frances Amelia’s father than we do for her.

It does appear that the Morrells were a long established family in New York who went to New Brunswick as Loyalists after America won its freedom.  That’s probably true of a lot of my Canadian ancestral lines.  We’ll see when we get to Robert Ogden’s mother, #99 Mary Clark.

Mother's Day

Here is a picture of my mother when she had been a mom for just a week.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Surname Saturday - 45: Nolaurd?

That's right -- "Nolaurd." How's that for a typical Irish surname. Yet that's what it states on the microfilmed transcription of the Clinton Co., Iowa death register for John KENNEDY, one of my Irish great-great-grandfathers.  Maiden Name of Mother: Nolaurd.

I'm not sure what to make of that. It's like breaking through a brick wall and finding...another brick wall. 

The informant was John Sheppard. He is the husband of Anne (Kennedy) Sheppard. John Kennedy was living with the Sheppards when he died. In the 1900 US Census, he is listed in their household as "Uncle." I believe he's Anne's uncle, the brother of her mother, Mary (Kennedy) Lawler Kennedy. In the 1910 US Census he is listed in the Sheppard household as a boarder.

It's possible that John Sheppard got the information about his wife's grandmother's maiden name wrong. I know that information about my wife (Lynch and Kuntz), but stuff like that is important to me. Maybe John Sheppard wasn't all that interested in genealogy. I don't put much trust in the information he provided.

The other possibility is that it's a transcription error.  Maybe it's "Nolan" or something more common in the original death records. A trip to the Clinton County courthouse is in my plans. That will be on my list of things to look into.

Of course, if it is "Nolaurd" that will be a real break. An uncommon name will make it more likely when I find someone that they are the person I'm looking for.  Not like Kennedy. 

May 2011, week 1: Birth of John HUIGENS

This month I'm starting on documenting the lives of my great-grandparents. The first is my father's paternal grandfather.

John HUIGENS was born on 15 Jun 1862 near Henry, Marshall Co., IL. His parents were Evert/Edward and Catherine (Toemmes) HEUIGEN. The two main sources of information on him are from biographies in "Compendium of history, reminiscence, and biography of Nebraska," (1) which is availabe on-line here, and "100 years of progress, Creighton, Nebraska, 1874-1974. (2) I also have his NE death certificate which provides the same information on his parents, date and place of birth as the bios do. His eldest son, Bernard, provided the info for his death certificate. I don't know who provided the info for the 1974 bio.

If the parents followed the standard German and Dutch naming patterns, John, as the second male child, was named after his mother's father, Johann TOEMMES.  John most likely never met his grandfather.  His grandmother brought her children to America in 1853, all by herself.

John's father died in 1864, when he was 2 years old.  His mother married Nicholas WEND sometime before 1869, when their first child was born.

John's parents' farm was in the north half of the northeast quarter of Section 10 of Hopewell Twp. in Marshall Co., IL, east of Henry. That's where he was born, if he was born at home, which seems very probable. Here is an 1890 plat map when the farm was owned by John's brother-in-law, Joseph ROTH. I have also seen an 1873 plat map that shows the same piece of land owned by John's step-father, who would have assumed ownership of the farm when he married John's mother.

My great-grandfather John was born during the US Civil War and lived to the age of 86, when he died in 1949. He lived through the US Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.  Several of his grandchildren served in WWII. His life covered quite a span of US history.

Further lines of research are to look for a baptism record from St. Mary's Catholic Church in Henry and to find an obituary to see if  that has any inconsistent information.  I checked the newspaper archives at the Henry Library in Sept. 2006 hoping to find a birth announcement, but their microfilmed copies of the local newspaper do not go as far back as 1862.

1. Alden Publishing Co. 1912. Compendium of history, reminiscence, and biography of Nebraska: containing a history of the state of Nebraska ... also a compendium of reminiscence and biography containing biographical sketches of hundreds of prominent old settlers and representative citizens of Nebraska. John Huigens entry, 497, Chicago: Alden pub. co.

 

2. 100 years of progress, Creighton, Nebraska, 1874-1974. 1974. [Creighton, Neb.?]: Centennial Book Committee.