Thursday, April 25, 2013

Celebrating Marie Kelly Beaumont's 95th Birthday

Dear Aunt Marie,
Happy 95th Birthday. Today we're remembering your life and especially the effort you made to keep your nephews and nieces, the sons and daughters of your brother Edward E. Kelly part of the larger Kelly clan. Though their parents divorced when the children were young, no birthday passed with out a card of good wishes and a dollar tucked inside. We are very appreciative of all your efforts.

Life was not always easy for the Kelly household. The stories you told of only having heat in your home when there were enough coins to put in the household meter have stuck with me. You were barely 20 when your father was killed 17 Sep 1939.


1940 Census for Mary Kelly
from www.ancestry.com
The form shows your family living on Conestoga Street including:

Given Name   Relationship   Sex  Race   Age    Marital Status   Last Grade
Alice                 Head                 F      W       40        Widowed             4th
Mary                Daughter          F      W       21          Single                10th
Alice                 Daughter          F      W       20          Single                  9th
Dorothy           Daughter          F      W       19          Single                10th
William            Son                    M     W      17          Single                  8th
Edward            Son                    M     W      14          Single                  7th
John                 Son                    M     W        9           Single                 3rd

It also shows the level of education completed by each member of the family . Your mother Alice Mae Hanna Kelly left school after the 4th grade and by 1940 no family member had completed high school each having left school to go to work.

You and your sisters were winders at a Rubber factory with an income of $670 for 16 weeks of work. That means that your family may have had no more than $2,010 income in the last 12 months.The form also shows that though your brother William (Bill) wanted to be working, he had been unemployed for 52 weeks.

Ed reconnected with your son Joe last year and he let us copy your wedding picture with Uncle Jack (John J. Beaumont). You were a beautiful bride. Your love lasted a lifetime.


We know how important family was to you and vow to endeavor to keep in touch with your sons.

Love,
Ed and Cecily

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Surname Saturday - WARNER

Today is the 306th anniversary of the birth of my 6th great grand uncle Elisha Warner, which has led me to focus on the Warner Family this Surname Saturday. Those of us who have early American immigrants in our family trees, the search for information often yields lots of details. This is true of the Warner family.

Our Warner immigrant, Andrew, has been written about extensively. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Vols. I-III has information on him (This information is available at the New England Historical Genealogical Society's website www.Americanancestors.org).

He was born at Hatfield Broadoak in Essex, England about 1595. His immigration is listed as 1633 with his first residence at Cambridge. He moved to Hartford in 1636, to Farmington in 1648, back to Hartford in 1650 and finally to Hadley in 1659. He was a member of the Puritan Church in Cambridge prior to 14 May 1634 when he was declared a freeman. He became a Deacon in the Church at Hartford by February 1639.

In his later years, Andrew Warner was a "maltster" or one who brewed malt beverages. According to "History of Hadley: Including the Early History of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby, Massachusetts by Sylvester Judd and Lucius M. Boltwood published in Northampton by Metcalf & Company in 1863 and available on www.books.google.com, "John Barnard...had a malt0house in Hadley, and another in Wetherfield, and was called "maltster." Andrew Warner hired his malt-house in Hadley, and it was burnt in 1665. He then built malt-works for himself, and was the maltster of Hadley, and his son Jacob seems to have succeeded him." It seems that he was also distilling other liquors as his inventory shows "Andrew Warner of Hadley had a small still valued at 10 shillings."

Lucien C. Warner and Josephine Genung Nichols compiled a genealogy, "The Descendants of Andrew Warner" which was published in New Haven, Connecticut in 1919. This volume is available at http://archive.org/details/descendantsofand00warn digitized by Brigham Young University for all to read. They trace the Warner ancestry to John Warner of Great Waltham, England. The link below will take you to a copy of the Coat of Arms for the Warner family of Great Waltham that they believed was used by John Warner Arms of Warner of Great Waltham. Another Warner researcher, has included a more up-to-date image on his website www.babcock-acres.com.
Unfortunately, I could not find a means of contacting him to ask the origin of this image. He does state that he had not found information on this image to tie it to John Warner.

Our descent from Andrew Warner is as follows Cecily daughter of Charles N. Cone, Jr.; son of Charles N. Cone, son of Frederick N. Cone, son of William Warner Cone; son of Naaman and Joanna Warner Cone; Joanna Warner daughter of Thomas Warner and Rhoda Hopkins; Thomas Warner son of Eleazer Warner and Joanna Hale, son of Thomas Warner and Delight Metcalf, son of Andrew Warner and Deborah Leffingwell, son of Isaac Warner and Sarah Boltwood, son of Andrew Warner and his first wife Mary Humphrey.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Newsom Gibson was a red head!

Dear Grandfather and Grandmother Gibson,
Last week I had the opportunity to visit the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and look at your service record from the Cherokee War and Grandmother Gibson's pension application contents. When I last wrote you, I explained that I have been searching for the names of your parents and your wife's parents for years. Though I did not find the exact answers, there were some clues in the pension file.

On "Indian War Pensions Act of July 27, 1892" Declaration of widow for Pension, Grandmother Gibson lists her birthplace as Rutherford County, Tennessee not Davidson County. That will be a new place for me to research. With the maiden name of Elizabeth Jane Jones, it has been a challenge to determine which of the Jones' were your parents.
Newsom Gibson from family Bible of his granddaughter
Mary Elizabeth Hugunin Colby in the possession of
her great granddaughter Leslie Cone
Your descendants were especially excited to read the physical description of Grandfather Gibson. Each of the three depositions in the pension file described Newsom Gibson as being of fair complexion, having brown eyes, being between 5'7" and 5'9" in height about 145 pounds, and having red or auburn hair. I think the photograph below, shows you why we were especially excited to discover you were a red head.
These red-heads are your 3rd great grandchildren Charles "Rusty" and sister Trude Cone.
They are enjoying ice cream near where Trude lives in Amsterdam, Holland.


We had previously known that our paternal grandmother and her father were red heads. Our mother's maternal grandfather and two of his daughters were also red heads. Now we know there was red hair in the Gibson line also.

It was wonderful to learn more about you both and the search for your parents continues.

Love,
Cecily

P. S. For family members; Newsom and Elizabeth Jones Gibson's daughter Sarah Amanda Gibson married Van Epps Hugunin, their daughter Mary Elizabeth Hugunin married William Wallace Colby, their daughter Ada Grace Colby married Cecil Oscar Werst, their daughter Betty Lorraine Werst married Charles Newton Cone, Jr, I am their child.