#191--Sisters--Staying Together

The theme for this week is sisters. My great grandmother, Charity Mears,  had five sisters, they are part of my ancestry tree that I call the tribe and that I have written about before.  I think of them as a tribe because they tended to stay together.

This time I want to look at who they married and see if there were relationships among their husbands.

So the first thing I needed was a listing of the sisters and brothers and their spouses, which I obtained from an earlier blog.

 Mary Mears ((1786-1873)—Lemuel Boyle Sayer
Elizabeth Mears (1796—1880)—Jonathan Shreve
Catherine Mears (1799-1888)—Robert Legate (1802—1822)  and  Israel Donnelson Sayre (1807-1849)
Nancy Mears (1801-1883)—George Newell (1798-1875)
Jane Mears (1803-1878)—Jesse Stephenson (1804—1828)and David Calvin (1800/1810—1845)
Charity Mears (1806—1842)—John M. Hannah (1799-1842)
Sarah Jane Mears (1808-1899)-- George Fisher (1807-190)
William Mears (1799-1873)--Sarah Newell (180--1873).

There are several last names in common.  Were they related? I found that Lemual Boyle Sayres and Israel Sayers were brothers.  They were born in Brown County Ohio to Dennis and Hester (Donaldson) Sayres. Lemuel Remained in Brown County, while Israel moved to Edgar County, Illinois.

The Newells--George and Sarah--were brother and sister.  They were both born in Brown County.  Their parents were William Morris and Sarah (Paul) Newell.  Goerge and Nancy moved to Deer Park Illinois.  William and Sarah lived in several places in Indiana and then Ripley, Iowa.

I do know know how common it was for two sisters to marry two brothers.  I think it might have not been unusual in areas where the population was not large and therefore, there would have not been many choices in terms of spouses. I would like to talk to them to find how why these marrages took place. 

#188--Reunion

Here I am, sitting on the front porch with my great grandmother, Charity Mears Hannah.  I wanted to chat with her about a couple of people her family and what they are doing now.  Charity was born in Ohio on 11 FEB 1806 to David and Elizabeth Mears.  She married by John M. Hannah on 22 April 1822 in Brown County, Ohio.  They were married by David Rankin, a well-known abolitionist

 “Grandma, I am interested in learning a little about some of your brothers and sisters.  What can you tell me about Aunt Catherine. “

“Well, Catherine was born on March 1, 1799, in Kentucky. She is 6 years older than I am so she often took care of me when I was little.  I loved to play dolls with her.  When I was older, she sometimes showed me how to cook.  She married Robert Legate and they had two children together. After he died in 1822—that made her so sad--, she married Israel Donnelson Sayre and they had seven children. You know that Israel bought a good bit of land in Ross and Prairie Townships.  He’s a successful farmer.  While I do not ask, I think they have a good bit of money.  Ever since he died in 1848, she and the children have run the farm.”

“Wow, I did not know all that.  You know, I have never met Aunt Elizabeth because she still lives in Indiana.  What do you know about her?”

“I have not seen her in a very long time, but we do occasionally write to each other.  You know what? She is named after our grandmother, Elizabeth Mears and because of that when grandmother died, she inherited part of her estate.  She had a rather unusual will—she left her possession to those children who were named for her or for her husband, David.  Didn’t seem to fair to me, but they were her things to give away as she wished.”

“I agree.”

“Anyway she married Jonathan Shreve in October 15, 1812 in Indiana. They had 12 children in 25 years. . They had a lot of children, probably more than ten, I do not know their names off the top of my head, but will get them for you later.  You know, she is ten years older than I am.  Very often, Mother would put her I charge of the younger children, especially me.  She is one of the people who taught me how to read.  If I am correct, Jonathan built a flat boat and moved his
family down the Ohio to Cross Plains, Indiana.  Elizabeth told me it was an easy journey. So day, I hope to see her.”
“So interesting, one more Grandma and that will be it for today.   I was wondering about Aunt Mary?”

“I have not seen her in a long time, because she lives in Brown County, Ohio.  I hear from her once in a while or when friends and family come to visit from Ohio.  She is a lot older than I am and I did not much to do with her when I was a child.  She married Lemuel Boyle Sayers and they had only one child, David Mears Sayres.  They live in Eagle township now; he retired from farming and is now working making cabinets.  One thing I do remember is that Mary made the best pies, particularly her peach pie.”


 “Thanks you do much Grandma for the information, I have a better understanding of your family, but maybe next week you can tell me a little more.”

#180--Jane Mears Calvin--Female Farmer

The theme for this week is nature.  I have many relatives who were farmers; the vast majority of them were men; however, a couple were women.  So my blog this week focuses on Jane Mears Calvin, who ran the family farm after her husband, David died. 

Jane Mears, my 3rd great aunt, was born on June 20, 1803, to Elizabeth and David Mears in Adams (now Brown) County, Ohio.  On June 20 1803.  When Jane was 17 years old, she married Jesse Stephenson in Brown, Ohio, on August 10, 1820.  Jane and Jesse had four children, three sons and one daughter.  Jesse died on February 1828 in Brown, Ohio.  About1830 Jane moved to Edgar County, Illinois. 

Jane then married David Calvin in Edgar, Illinois, on June 2, 1833. They had five children: one son and four daughters.  Her husband David passed away on October 4, 1845, in Edgar, Illinois, at the age of 44. Jane Mears Calvin died on October 29, 1878, in Edgar, Illinois, when she was 75 years old.

The Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales and the private land sales indicate that David bought land in 15 Township North, 11 Range West.  The map of Edgar County shows that the land would have been in Brouletts Creek.  I assume that was where they lived and farmed. 

The 1860 Agricultural Census Schedule lists Jane Calvin as the owner of a farm.  The farm consisted of 107 improved acres and 147 unimproved with a value of $3800.  $100 was the value of the machinery and farm implements. Jane had 9 horses, 6 milch cows, 7 other cattle, 25 sheep and 20 swine.  The livestock was valued at $1050.  The farm produced 48 bushels of wheat, 1000 bushels of Indian corn and 85 pounds of wool. The farm produced 30 bushels of potatoes, 200 pounds of butter, 5 tons of hay, and 75 gallons of molasses.  The animals that were slaughtered during the year were worth $50. When I looked at the other farms which were listed, Jane’s farm was pretty typical, not the largest, not the smallest, just kind of typical.

I would love to talk o Jane and find out how she ran the farm.  Did her children do most of the work?  Did she hire people to help her? How did she learn to manage the farm?  Did she make changes to the farm as time when on?  Her sister-in-law Sarah Ann Hannah Mitchell also ran the family farm after her husband died in 1857 (See blog on the right side of this page).  I am wondering since Jane had been running her farm for some time, she provided any advice to Sarah. 

#162--Cluster Analysis--My New Challenge

Challenges are all around us.  Rather than blog about an ancestor who faced a challenge, I decided to write about a genealogy challenge that I am working on.  As I worked on my genealogy, I noticed that I had a group of ancestors that seemed to have lot of ties to each other.  They sold each other land, married brothers and sisters, and moved to similar locations.  For want of a better name, I call them the Tribe.  Then learned about a doing a cluster analysis of a group of ancestors, and decided that that is what I would do with my tribe. 

The idea of a cluster analysis is that people do not live in isolation.  They often lived near relatives, friends and neighbor.  They were involved in each other’s lives.  Anyone can be included in a cluster, but it typically involves siblings, extended family, and those living close by.  Thus, your research is expanded in the hope that you will learn more about your direct ancestors. 

So to do this, I first needed to define my cluster or tribe.  The main tribe is the sons and daughters of David and Elizabeth Mears and the sons and daughters of John M. Hannah and Charity Mears, who moved from Brown County, Ohio to Edgar County, Illinois. 

Inspecting what I have already learned, the Mears cluster would include the sons and daughters of David and Elizabeth Mears:

Mary Mears

Samuel David Mears

Elizabeth Mears

Catherine Mears

William Mears

Nancy Mears

Jane Mears

Charity Mears

Sarah Jane Mears.

This is the part of the cluster that I plan to explore first.  My first task would be to find out who each one of these individuals married.    Just dealing with this group should keep me busy for quite a while.  I want to know about their children, where they lived, who they sold land to, etc. as well as what I can learn from census data. 

#121--Selling David Mears's Homestead

I thought a lot about how to approach this week’s blog on “The Old Homestead.”  I have written about Jonathan Fairbanks’s house in Dedham so I needed another place.  I recently was able to acquire some land records from Adams and Brown County Ohio.  The land was owned by my great time 4   grandfather, David Mears.  David Mears was born about 1765, possibly in Ireland.  He first appears in the records of Mason County Kentucky in 1792 where he lived until at least 1799.  He next appears in the records of Adams County, Ohio where in 1811 he bought 200 acres of land on Eagle Creek from James Scott.  The land is described as falling in the Military District Warrant #2268 and bounded by Thomas Groves’s survey #1041.  The land is further described in terms of existing landmarks, e.g. a number of poles south to a particular tree, then a number of degrees west to a certain stone, etc.  Over two hundred years later that is not much help in terms of an exact location except that the land is on Eagle Creek, which is now in Brown County, not Adams. 

David paid taxes on 200 acres of land until 1823 when he sold 50 acres to John Rice for $202.  He continued to pay taxes on that amount of land until his death in 1828. 

I was interested in figuring out what happened to David Mears’s homestead.  He and Elizabeth had 9 children, 7 of whom continued to live in Brown County.  The other two (Elizabeth Mears, who married Jonathan Shreve, and William Mears and his wife, Sarah) had moved to Indiana.  I started by reading the sale of the homestead by the Mears heirs—those that lived Brown County.  The 150 acres were sold to Jeptha Beasley for $1200 on February 13, 1830.  What I found puzzling was that John and Charity Mears Hannah received 5/8 of the proceeds ($750) while Jane Mears Stephenson, Mary Mears and her husband Samuel Sayres, and Elizabeth Mears, David wife’s each received 1/8, which would be $150.  I wondered why John and Charity would get such a large share, while others received none or 1/8. 

A little more detective work gave me the answer.  Each son or daughter that lived in Brown County along with his or her spouse inherited 1/8 of the land.  Then in various dates in 1829 John and Charity Mears Hannah bought the rights to the 1/8 shares from four of her siblings:  Catherine Mears and her husband Israel Sayres; Nancy Mears and her husband, George Newell; Samuel Mears and his wife, Sarah; and Sarah Jane Mears and her husband, George Fisher.  To each couple John and Charity Mears Hannah paid $100. 

I would be interesting in knowing why that happened.  If my math is correct, 1/8 of $1200 is $150, so selling the rights for $100 when you could have gotten $150 is a significant loss.  Maybe they did not believe the land could sell for as much as it did so $100 seemed like a good deal.  Maybe they needed the money then.  If I could talk to them, I would surely ask. 

#118--Charity Mears, One Strong Woman

Strong women is this week’s theme.  I have blogged before about two women that I considered to be strong (Sarah Hannah Michell and Albertine Hannah.)  So now I had to find another one.  Information about women is hard to find—most information that is written is about men.  I looked for a likely candidate and finally settled on my 4th great grandmother, Charity Mears Hannah and to a great extent she is a pretty typical woman for that time.

Charity was born on February 11, 1806 in Ohio to David and Elizabeth Mears.  She was one of eight children.  At the age of 16 in 1822 she was married to John M. Hannah by the Reverend John Rankin, a noted abolitionist. She and John lived in Brown County, Ohio, where John farmed and she ran the household.  There their first five children were born. In 1830 John and Charity along with one of her sisters, Catherine Mears Sayres and her husband, Israel, and her mother Elizabeth Mears moved from Brown County, Ohio to Edgar County Illinois.  I suspect they moved for the same reason that other pioneers went west—better land for farming and greater opportunities to be successful.  While in Illinois, Charity and John had six more children.  On April 1, 1842, when she was 36 Charity died and was buried in the McKee Cemetery Chrisman, Edgar County, Illinois, USA.

Charity was a pretty typical woman for her time.  But I think Charity Mears Hannah like all pioneer women was a strong woman.  And I think that for a couple of reasons. First, I think about the challenges of getting from Brown County, Illinois on the Ohio River to Edgar County, Illinois, which is near the Wabash River.  I have no idea how these families got from one place to the other, but I do

have two ideas.  One is that they put all their belongings on a flat boat, went down the Ohio River and then up the Wabash.  The second is that they went over land in a wagon.  To do that, they would have probably gone up to central Ohio, across the National Road, and they up to Edgar County.  If that was not difficult enough, when they arrive, they had no home, that house had to be built and built quickly.   Hopefully it was a warm and snug cabin.  In either event, taking care of your husband and five small children on such a trip would require great strength and determination.  Compare that to today, when we load all our possessions in a truck, the family in a car, and arrive at our new home.


Second, Charity ran a very large household.  That would involve keeping and cleaning the house, taking care of the children, planting and harvesting the kitchen garden, tending the chickens, making clothes, churning butter, cooking all the meals and tending the fire.  All that with probably no help except from her older girls. Remember, there were none of the modern convenience we enjoy—no central heating, refrigerator, electric or gas stove, washing and dryer, etc.  Life was hard and women like Charity needed to be strong.  I know when I lose my electricity for a day or so, I am not happy.  The food in the freezer and refrigerator goes bad, I cannot cook or even make a hot cup of coffee, and the house is either hot or cold.  Compared to women like Charity, we have very easy lives.

I would love to talk to Charity about her life.  I would like to know how they got from Ohio to Illinois, how she  raised eleven children, what her typical day was like, if she had any time to relax, and if so, what she did, and what dangers did she encounter.

#99 Organizing the Minarciks, Eitelbachs, Hannah, and Richards—A Follow-Up

It has been an incredibly busy January and somehow this blog was put on the back burner. I did, however, think about my genealogy goals for last year. One of those goals was to organize all the documents that I have for my various lines. As I previously blogged, I decided that the best way for me to do that was to use the loose leaf notebook method. Each line has its own color-coded notebook, which is divided into sections for each person. The first document in each notebook is a chart that contains the ancestors who are in the notebook. After some experimentation, I decided to start with the most recent ancestor and work my way back.

So how did I do?  Pretty well.  My four main direct lines—Minarcik, Eitelbach, Hannah, and Richards were completed.  I now have birth, marriage and death information for each person along with other information that is unique to that person, e.g. pension records, land records, etc. A great deal of what I had was online so I did a lot of printing.  I also had to do some searching as I discovered that I was missing some of the information I wanted for some people.  Each document is in its own clear plastic holder.

Having gotten those lines done, I then turned to the collateral lines:  I completed the Cochrane line and most of the Mears.  I am now working the Newells.

This procedure was not with some problems.  One of the problems that I ran into while looking for a particular record was getting distracted and going off in another direction.  I found some interesting information while doing that, but it certainly did slow the process down.  Another problem was ending up reading all the information I had.  That was a plus and a minus.  I learned more, but got slowed down.

So what is up for this year?  I want to get the rest of the lines organized.  I also have a very, very large number of pictures.  I want to go through them and decide which ones to keep, which ones to scan, and which to discard. Tune in next year and see how I did.

#96--Moving with the Mears

OHIO MAP WITH BROWN COUNTY 

My last blog was about the way my great-great grandmother, Charity Mears, named her children. While working on that line, I noticed another interesting things about Charity Mears and her sisters.  I had always heard that families moved from one place to another because they know someone there or believed it would be a better place. With the Mears sisters I could see it in action.

When the sisters married, they all lived in Brown County, Ohio.  Here is a list of the sisters and their husbands.
 Mary Mears ((1786-1873)—Lemuel Boyle Sayer
Elizabeth Mears (1796—1880)—Jonathan Shreve
Catherine Mears (1799-1888)—Robert Legate (1802—1822)  and  Israel Donnelson Sayre (1807-1849)
Nancy Mears (1801-1883)—George Newell (1798-1875)
Jane Mears (1803-1878)—Jesse Stephenson (1804—1828)and David Calvin (1800/1810—1845)
Charity Mears (1806—1842)—John M. Hannah (1799-1842)
Sarah Jane Mears (1808-1899) George Fisher (1807-1907).


As I looked at the census information for these families, I noticed that they began to leave Brown County for places that were further west.  The first couple to leave were Jonathan and Elizabeth Mears Shreve who by 1820 had moved to Ripley County, Indiana, where Jonathan’s father now lived.
I knew that by 1830, my great grandparents, John and Charity Mears Hannah were living in Edgar County.  However, according to the census for 1830 George and Sarah Jane Mears Fisher and Israel and Catherine Mears Sayre were also living there.  But that was not the only Mearses who were in

TOWNSHIP MAP OF EDGAR COUNTY 

Edgar County.   I also knew from her will that Elizabeth Mears, the mother of all the Mears girls, was in Edgar County at the time of her death in 1842.   Further Jane Mears Stephenson, whose husband died in Brown County in 1828 also came to Edgar County as she married David Calvin there in 1833.
One couple did not go to Edgar County, even though they did leave.  George and Nancy Mears Newell stayed in Brown County until 1860 when they were in Deer Park, LaSalle, Illinois.  They remained there until their deaths.  While all her sisters left Brown County, Mary Mears with her husband Lemuel Sayre remained in Brown County.

So why might these families moved to Illinois?  I think the answer is land.   For each family I searched the Illinois Land Sales and found that each husband and Elizabeth Mears bought land.  Generally land was bought on a land warrant or for $1.25 per acre.  As I looked over the purchases they were all in the same area—Townships 15 and 16 in Ranges 11 and 12.  That would mean these families were living relatively close together in Ross, Prairie, Edgar or Brullet.  That area is the four townships in the upper right hand corner of the map.  Someday soon, I will take that township map and plot exactly where the land was purchased.

If I could talk to them, I would ask why they moved.  I would also like to know how they travelled from Brown County to Edgar County.  Did they go over land?  Did they go down the Ohio River and then up the Wabash River?  Or did go partly down the Ohio and then overland to Edgar County?

#95--What Should We Name the Baby? The Mears Know

What to name a child is a decision that many parents agonize over.  The name is eagerly awaited by the parents’ relatives and friends.  Today, many parents seems to be picking unusual names.  That was not always the case.  In ages past, some families followed naming conventions; e.g., the first son was named for his father’s father, the second son, for his mother’s father, etc.  Alternatively, other families named their children to honor a relative or friend.  I have relatives that followed both of those conventions.

Several weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to learn more about my great, great grandmother, Charity Mears’s, family.  As I added her siblings to my tree, I noticed that I had seen many of those names before—not just one or two of them, but almost all of them. I then realized where I had seen them before.  They were the names of Charity Mears’s children.

Charity Mears and her husband, John M. Hannah had nine children—six girls and three boys.  Of the six girls, five have the same first names as her sisters:
            Sarah Jane Mears—Sarah Ann Hannah
            Nancy Mears—Nancy Hannah
            Elizabeth Mears—Elizabeth Hannah (also named for her
                    grandmother, Elizabeth Mears)
           Catherine Mears—Catherine Hannah
           Mary Mears—Mary Sayres Hannah

Mary Sayres’s name also honored a brother-in-law.  Catherine Mears’s second husband was Israel Donnelson Sayres. The Sayres lived in Edgar County, Illinois.  The same location as John Wesley and Charity (Mears) Hannah. So that is where that middle name came from.

The sixth girl was Albertine Hannah.  At first, I thought that perhaps Albertine was a popular girl’s name in 1834.  That turns out not to be true.  However, Charity did have an uncle, Albert Mears, so perhaps Albertine is named after him.

Interestingly, while Charity had a brother,  Samuel, his names was not used for her sons. Her oldest son was named for her brother-in-law, the husband of her sister, Nancy.

    George P. Newell—George Newell Hannah

The second son was named Oliver.  I have not a clue where the name for Oliver P. Hannah came
from. Nowhere in my genealogy can I find the name Oliver. Further, a search of the census records for Edgar County did not turn up any one named Oliver.  I think that fits so well—Oliver P. is a mystery. Other than the dates of his birth and death at the age of 20, I know nothing about him and have not been successful in my search for more information.

The youngest son was named for her husband.
John M. Hannah—John Wesley Hannah

I would guess that the children’s names were selected by Charity Mears Hannah.  Her husband, John M. had 10 brothers and sisters.  With the exception of the name, Nancy, none of Charity and John M.’s children had their names.  I would just love to talk to Charity so I could ask about the naming of her children.  

#93 My DNA and More Cousins than I Can Count.

Several weeks ago, I blogged about the ethnic analysis I received from Ancestry DNA.  The second part of the analysis is a comparison of your DNA with the DNA of other people who have submitted their DNA to Ancestry.  The end result of that analysis is a listing of trees that contain people who have a DNA chain that matches yours. As I looked at my matches, I had 4 third cousins, 94 4th cousins, and 112 pages of 5th to 8th cousins.  I was also the member of 2 DNA Circles.  A circle is a group of individuals, at least 3, who share a common ancestor.

So what did I find? The two circles I was were in the John M. Hannah Circle and the Charity Mears Circle (my great, great grandfather and grandmother).  Those in the circle were descended from their two sons—John Wesley Hannah and George Newell Hannah.  I really did not learn much from these circles as all these folks were already in my tree.  I will, however, contact the person to created the tree.

All those cousins were a little daunting and overwhelming.  Also frustrating, because some people’s DNA is not linked to a tree or the tree is not available publically.  You can sort your matches in various ways:  relationship, hint, or new.  If possible, Ancestry will identify the common ancestor.  You know that because there is a leaf (Hint) next to the tree.  I had 25 people with hints.  I have not looked at all of them in detail, but 20 of them are for people who are my 5th to 8th cousins.  For the several I did look at it appears that many of them come from Massachusetts and my Richards line while other come from my McKee line.  Because I have access to their trees, I could use the information and added it to my tree.

For matches that have no hint, and that is the vast majority of matches, Ancestry gives you the tree
and the surnames that you have in common.  I have not very little success with that.  I suspect that you need great patience and an intimate knowledge of all the surnames in your tree.  You can have ancestry tell you the shared ancestors you share and the locations of all the ancestors in both trees.  Let me show you how that might work.  I have a match with a family I will call M.  We share the surnames Smith, Allen, While and Scott.  However, the people with those surnames do not match and from my perspective do not seem to be related.  When I asked for the locations, we had ancestors in common that was equally baffeling.  However, when I looked at who we shared matches with, the light was beginning to dawn. Several of those shared matches led back to John M. Hannah and Charity Mears.  So given that information, I at least now know what route to pursue, if I choose to.

It seems to me that how well this works for a person depends on how many other people who are related to you have submitted their DNA to Ancestry.  I also think it hinges on what you find most interesting in genealogy.  Many people want to have as many people as possible in their tree.  In fact I have a match with someone with over 16000 people in their tree.  I am more interested in having fewer people and knowing more about them and their lives, e.g. where they lived, what they did, where they went to school, etc.  In a couple of months, I will let you know how I am coming with my DNA.

#67--Abigail Smith--Many Questions, Few Answers

The theme for this week is to blog about one of our 32 third great grandparents.  So the first thing I had to do is figure out was who fell into that category.  That group goes back 5 generations in a family tree.

Since I like to keep my lines in separate files, it took some time to figure out who I was going to blog about.  I first settled on David Mears.  I have previously blogged about his wife, Elizabeth (#2—Elizbeth Mears) . So I thought that if I blogged about him, I would have completed that pair.  However, I quickly realized that what I would write about David Mears, I had already written about his wife Elizabeth.

So it was back to the drawing board.  After scouting around some, I decided that I would blog about Abigail Smith.  She is one of my 16 great great great grandmothers and I know little about her.
According to the Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Abigail was born to Luke and Abigail (Bellows) Smith on June 25, 1768.  Her brother, Solomon, was born on October 25, 1766 and Thomas, on November 28, 1770.

On September 3, 1796, Abigail married Timothy Fuller, who was a physician in Dedham, the town next to Roxbury.  Three years later, on January 12, 1799 Timothy died.  Abigail then married Reuben Newell on January 3 1801.  Reuben had previously been married to Sally Battle, who died in 1795, leaving four children.  In 1803, Catherine, their only child was born to Abigail and Reuben.  According to the Columbian Centinel of February 1832, the local Dedham newspaper, Abigail

 died in Dedham, Massachusetts in that year, while her husband died in 1825.

I always find it somewhat frustrating to research female ancestors. Unless they have done something that is in some way really spectacular, there is no information about them.  That leaves lots of unanswered questions.  So if I had the opportunity, I would have a number of questions for Abigail.  I would like to know how her first husband, Timothy Fuller died and how she managed for the three years that she was his widow.  Did she return home and live with her parents?  One of her brothers?  How did her meet Reuben?  She became a step mother to four children.  What was that like?  Where did she live after her husband died.  I cannot find her in any of the census.  Way too many questions, so few answers.

#55--Hannah Family Lore--Fact or Fiction?

I have a couple of letters that were written in the 1920’s to my Aunt Tim about the Hannah family. In part, they contain genealogies, but they also contain recollections about people and events.  I have always wondered how accurate some of those recollections were.  Now that I have a good deal of information, I decided to “fact check” the letters against what else I have.  One of the letters is from Phillip Emsinger Hannah.  He was born in 1860 in Edgar County and aside from a short time in Oklahoma, lived there his entire life.  Consequently, he should have some knowledge of the Hannah family.

He talks about remembering my Aunt Tim’s grandfather, John M. Hannah and added that he died at his daughter, Albertine’s, house.  I found it very interesting that Albertine as a single woman in 1860 owned her own house.  I would love to know where it was.  He also mentions that there were three John Hannah’s from Edgar County that fought in the Civil War—John M. Hannah, John Wesley Hannah (Aunt Tim’s father), and John Bayard Hannah, a cousin to John Wesley.  He is indeed correct about that—John M. served a couple of months with the 72 Illinois Infantry, John Wesley with the 62 Illinois and John Bayard with the 54th Illinois.  I knew about the first two, but not John Bayard.

           Phillip then writes about where people are buried.  He is correct that John M. Hannah, Albertine Hannah and Kate Hannah O’Hair are buried in the cemetery in Paris.  I have been to that grave site. He goes on to say that her grandmother (Charity Mears Hannah), Aunt Sarah Hannah Mitchell and Aunt Jane Riley are all buried in county burying grounds.  This is a little puzzling. Charity Mears

Grave of Charity Mears

Hannah is buried in the McKee or Hill McKee Cemetery in Chrisman, Edgar County.  I have not been there, but there is a picture of Charity Mears Hannah’s grave online.  It is located in a very overgrown, rural area.  I suspect at some point it was part of some one’s farm.  It is indeed possible that both Sarah and Jane are also buried there and the stones are not readable.  Also puzzling is the identity of Jane Riley—there is a Rebecca Jane Riley, and Elizabeth Hannah Riley, her mother.  I am not sure but I think he meant Elizabeth Riley, as Rebecca married a man named Thompson.  He also writes that his grandmother Hannah (Nancy McKee) married Jacob Jones, moved to Illinois and is buried somewhere he cannot locate.  That is partly correct.  Nancy McKee Hannah did indeed move to Illinois, but she moved with her son, John M. Hannah, then, she met Jacob Jones and married him. Her grave is located in the Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Edgar County, and describes her as the wife of first John M. Hannah and then Jacob Jones.

     He also mentions that the Hannah family was from Ireland and ran a linen bleaching green.  He then adds that his half-brother, Sam Hannah, visited them, but did not get much information about the family.  That is so frustrating, but does provide some clues to explore.  He adds, what I consider a nice “story” that James Hannah in Ireland came from a wealthy family, fell in love with one of the maids, which enraged his parents.  So he sold himself for passage to Philadelphia.
All in all, most of what he told my Aunt was correct.

#2--Elizabeth Mears

Elizabeth Mears/#2        

                Elizabeth Mears (abt 1770 to 1842) is my 3rd great grandmother.  I decided to write about her this week, because, while I do not know much about her, what I do know, I think is fairly interesting. 

According to the biography of J. D. Sayre, her grandson, in The History Edgar County, Illinois,

                “…his grandfather (David) came from Germany at an early date, he with his wife (Elizabeth) and two children, and a small party of others, were captured by the Indians at what is known as Three Islands on the Ohio,, and was marched across the county, to Detroit, MIch., where the “post trader” bought them of the savages to rescue them.”

Whether that is a true story or not, I have no idea, but it a good story.

                Elizabeth and her husband settled first in Kentucky, and then in Brown County, Ohio.  They had nine children:  Mary (1786—Unknow); Samuel (1791—1853) Elizabeth (1796—Unknown); Catherine (1799-1888); William (1799-1873); Nancy (1801—1883); Jane (1903-1878); Charity (1806—1842); and Sarah Jane (1808-1899).

                In 1822, her daughter Charity married John Hannah while in 1828 her daughter, Catherine, married Israel Donnelson Sayres.  In 1830, Elizabeth’s  husband, David, died. 

                As far as I can tell, in the year her husband died, Elizabeth moved to Edgar County, Illinois with her daughters, Charity and Catherine and their families.  While the husband of both daughters bought land in Illinois, shortly after they arrived, what I find most interesting is that on February 21, 1831, Elizabeth bought 200 acres of land in Brouletts Township, specifically the northwest part of Section 11 in the Public Domain Land Sales.  The cost of the land was $200.   On March 7, 1838, she bought two more parcels of land in the public domain:  first, the northeast section of the northwest quarter of Section 36 (40 acres) , in Prairie Township for $50, and second the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 35 (40 acres) for an additional $50.  From looking over the data base of land sales in Edgar County, it was extremely unusual for a woman to buy land and I wonder how she used it.  Did she have one or both of her son-in-laws farm it for her?  Did she hire men and farm it herself? 

                The last piece of information about Elizabeth that I find interesting is her will.  After the usual statements about paying for her funeral and her debts and  bequeaths of some personal possessions, she directs that all the rest of her property be sold and the proceeds divided among her grandchildren and held in trust for them until they either marry or become 21 years of age. Now that sounds fairly typical, until one realizes that the only grandchildren who will receive anything are those that are named for her husband, David, or herself.  It should come as no surprise that six of her children by the date of the will had children named David and/or Elizabeth.  It appears that Mary, William and Nancy did not name their children David or Elizabeth.  However, the will also states that should they have children of those names, those children would also share in the proceeds.  I have not read a lot of old wills, but I think that making bequeaths only to those who are named for you or your husband rather strange and pretty eccentric.

                If I could ask Elizabeth some questions, I would ask where she got the money to buy the land, who she lived with in Illinois, and why she restricted her bequeaths in the way she did.