Harris & Lydick Census Fun

You never know where you'll find someone when you search census records.  For instance, last night I ran across a family in which two grandchildren were listed as living with the grandparents ... and the grandchildren were from different parents.

Here is the household from the 1880 federal census:

Harris, Benjim, age 75 - head
-------, Nancy, age 70 - wife
-------, David, age 27 - son
-------, Bell, age 20 - wife
-------, Joseph, age 1 - son
Lidyck, Florence, age 10 - grandchild

A census is supposed to show everyone's relationship to the head of household, but this enumerator didn't quite follow the rules!

Of course, Benjim should read Benjamin - but if you're writing too fast it's easy to leave out a few letters here & there.  Either that or the census taker was practicing to become a doctor!  But I digress ...

It looks like Benjamin had two wives - but there's no polygamy in the Harris family (at least not that I know about).  Bell is the former Rosa Belle Rulong; she married David Harris who really is Benjamin's son.  So that solves that issue.

How likely is it that a couple aged 75 and 70 have a one-year-old son?  Not very.  Since Bell is shown with her relationship to David rather than Benjamin, it seems much more likely that Joseph is David and Bell's son.  That would make him grandchild no. 1 in this household.

Of course grandchild no. 2 is actually shown as such - although I believe her surname is misspelled and should be Lydick, the spelling used by most of those families in Marshall County.  It's a name that has been spelled different ways down through history, including Leidig, Lidick, etc.

Who is this Florence?  I believe she is the daughter of Oliver Perry and Mahala Lydick - the very next family on that census sheet.  Interestingly, the enumerator spelled their last name correctly as Lydick ... go figure!  This is Mahala Harris, the oldest daughter of Benjamin and Nancy Harris - so there's the connection.  Perry (as he was commonly known) and Mahala lived next to her parents; so while Florence was living with her grandparents, she was still close to her parents.

As I said at the beginning, you never know what you'll find in a census record!

Ohio Valley Cost of Freedom Tribute

Wednesday, August 22 ... the American Veterans Traveling Tribute was escorted into Moundsville, West Virginia, by 837 motorcycles.

It was a day of pride - after all, Marshall County residents have always been very proud of the men and women who have served their country.  And this pride was exhibited by the large number of folks who turned out to line the route - one of the largest numbers the Patriot Guard has witnessed according to one of their members.

The next day, that pride was mixed with a lot of emotions as family and friends visited the replica of the Vietnam Memorial to honor the fallen veterans - many laying roses at the base of The Wall, taking photos and making rubbings of the names of their loved ones.

Lyle G. Aston,
11th Armed Cavalry Regiment
"The Blackhorse Regiment"

R.I.P. cousin Lyle ... you may be gone, but you'll NEVER be forgotten.

---

Additional info about Lyle's service

Anderson Photos

I've been looking for military photos for my sister to display in her store during the Ohio Valley Cost of Freedom Tribute in Moundsville this week.  One that I'm taking is of David Anderson in his Civil War uniform.

Remember my Jesse Anderson post from a few days ago?  I mentioned having photos of three Andersons:  Rachel (Anderson) Aston, Maggie (Anderson) Allen and Dave Anderson - and I'd like to confirm whether or not they are siblings.  I won't repeat all the details, but thought it might be nice to add the photos here.

Here is Dave ... research leads me to believe that he is holding a cavalry sword in addition to the two pistols/revolvers he has tucked into his belt.

 

Here is the photo with both Maggie and Rachel.  They have their arms around each other, which seems indicative of a close relationship.

They certainly all three have rather square jaws.  Do you see a resemblance?

David Harris

David Harris was born 20 October 1815 in Virginia (now West Virginia) to John and Nancy (Binnegar) Harris.  He married Melissa Jane Bartlett, whose parents migrated to (West) Virginia from Maine. 

Just as many of my Harris ancestors remained in or near Marshall County, (West) Virginia ... others, including David and Melissa, headed west as so many folks did in the 1800s.  Six of their children were born in (West) Virginia; two more were born in Illinois. 

The photo above is courtesy of Rosann Brown - a distant cousin and direct descendent of David and Melissa who I met online and eventually in person when she came "back east" a few years ago.  I consider this photo a wonderful treasure as it's not everyday I get an image of someone from that generation.  I don't know the exact date the photo was taken, but the year was 1885, meaning David would have been around 70 years old.  I wonder if his birthday might have been the occasion - he was looking quite dapper!

David died on 20 February 1897 at the age of 81; Melissa lived another 17 years.  Both are buried in the Dallas City Cemetery, Dallas City, Illinois.  You can find a photo of their gravestone and additional details about their family on my website - search for either David Harris or Melissa Jane Bartlett.

---

Reviewing David has been part of my ongoing cleanup as I work through my database.  His ID no. is 253 ... the highest one is currently 2638 ... time to get back to it!

Burial site of Samuel Lydick

The following was posted by Boyd Lydick on the Find A Grave memorial he maintains for Samuel Lydick:

"An article appearing in Moundsville Daily Echo, 12/13/1929 states:

'On the J.R. Earlywine farm - - can be found, in a small burying plot, the grave of Samuel Lydick. The stone marker tells that he was buried there January 5, 1852, or 77 years ago.'

Comment: the year seems inaccurate as his wife is listed as a widow in the 1850 census. Hopefully clarification will come. Also note that this burial site, as stated, is on the J.R. Earlywine farm (on Fork Ridge Road) and very probably is not in this Earlywine Cemetery. The J.R. Earlywine Farm Cemetery is not among Find A Grave's listed cemeteries."

The "Earlywine Cemetery" Boyd references is located in the Sand Hill area, i.e. northern Marshall County. There was reportedly an Earlywine farm on French Run on Fork Ridge - closer to the center of the county.  French Run lies between Brushy Ridge and Glen Easton Ridge Road, north-south roads that connected Fork Ridge and Glen Easton when they were fully open. Knowing that the general area was home to various Harris and Lydick families, it seemed very likely to me that this would be the Earlywine farm where Samuel was reportedly buried.

(Bear in mind that Mary Ann Lydick, daughter of Samuel, married Uriah Harris who lived on Brushy Ridge.  Uriah and Mary Ann are my 2nd great-grandparents.)

Subsequently I ran across another account that referenced the same newspaper article in the Moundsville Daily Echo. In a section titled "Pioneer Graves," the first paragraph referred to the burial of Elias Harris "on the John Long farm near Glen Easton." The second paragraph stated:

On the J. R. Earlywine farm near this place can be found, in a small burying plot, the grave of Samuel Lydick. The stone marker tells that he was buried there January 5, 1852, or 77 years ago. Two of his sons were among those from this section to fight for the reservation of the union in the Civil war.

The Long farm referenced in the first paragraph was located on the lower end of Brushy Ridge closer to Glen Easton. The second paragraph states that the J. R. Earlywine farm was near the Long farm, i.e. on Brushy Ridge. This seems to lend credence to my theory about the location of Samuel Lydick's grave being on Brushy Ridge, closer to the center of Marshall County.

Comments yea or nay anyone?

---

To get the sources for the info above, check out the citations at the bottom of the Samuel Lydick page on my website.

Website Additions

The folks at facebook are messing with my genealogy schedule.  They updated me to the new timeline format ... which has resulted in two evenings spent on facebook finessing my timeline.  Bummer.

Here's an update of my progress before facebook infringed on my time ... 

After reviewing the family of Samuel Lydick and Catherine Fair, I now have eight more people in my database:

• Catherine's father:  Jacob Fair (or Fehr)
• Catherine's mother:  Catherine Knappenberger

I already had 10 children of Samuel & Catherine:  Jesse, Benjamin, Mary Ann, George Washington, Josiah, William, John, Levi, Samuel, and Oliver Perry.  I have now added:

• Levi's wife:  Elizabeth Standiford
• Elizabeth's father:  Peter Standiford
• Elizabeth's mother:  Margaret (unknown) Standiford

I've also found three more grandchildren of Samuel & Catherine from two of their sons, Jesse and Oliver Perry:

Another son of Jesse Lydick and Jane Billiter:

• Noah Lydick

Two more children of Oliver Perry and Mahala Harris

• Daughter:  Birtie E. Lydick
• Son:  George Lydick

Leaving the Lydicks and looking back to my Anderson research, I have added a son of John Porter Allen and Margaret Elizabeth "Maggie" Anderson:

• Charles Erwin Allen

The next upload to my website will include the info I have for these nine new people - but I have a couple things I want to check out first.  I'm shooting for a Sunday upload, so stay tuned!

Jesse Anderson

Two days ago I wrote that I was beginning a thorough review of my newly expanded website ... here's the first puzzle I uncovered:

Rachel J. Anderson married James Aston - they are my 2nd great-grandparents.  According to their marriage record, Rachel's parents were Jesse and Angeline Anderson.

The antique photo album I received from my grandmother includes a photo that is labeled as Maggie Allen with Rachel Aston.  There are also two photos on facing pages that are identified as Maggie Allen and John Allen.  Sure enough, I found a marriage record for Margaret E. Anderson and John P. Allen.  But here's the rub ... Maggie's parents are shown as Jesse and Anna Anderson.

The album also includes a photo of Dave Anderson in military uniform- if he's in the album, there must be a connection ... don't you think?

I have no proof yet, but my initial guess is that Rachel, Maggie & Dave are siblings.  I currently have two Jesse Anderson's in my database (#176 father of Rachel and #233 father of Maggie), but I suspect they're actually the same man.  Similarly, I won't be surprised to find that Anna and Angeline are the same person.

Can you shed any light on these folks?

---

Read more about James and Rachel.

Did you miss me?

One of the primary rules for a successful blog is to post frequently ... guess I missed the mark on that one!  Actually I do have a good excuse.  When I started my West Virginia Heritage website last September, my plan was to slowly add people as I worked my way through a huge clean-up process, one person at a time.  And then I changed my mind.

My new plan was to do some "relatively quick" clean-up for limited types of info (primary events like birth, marriage, death, and burial plus a few others).  Then I could expand the site to include all the people in my database that are deceased.  The only problem was that I actually believed that I could do a "relatively quick" clean-up.  Ha!

I still have a few things to find and fix, but I decided to pull the trigger earlier today.  The website now includes 1,274 people (although a few of those are "pseudo people" used to create pages for cemeteries, census records, etc.).

You may run across something that looks a little weird - maybe something out of place or not worded quite right - that's the kind of things I'm looking for so I can get them corrected.  Feel free to email me if you find something.  Think of this as a challenge like "Where's Waldo?" ... except this is "Where's the Errors?"

Happy Hunting!