Author: Nancy

I have been researching my family history since 1999 in my spare time. I have made several trips to local repositories in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut to do research in addition to using online resources. I even did a trip to Northern Ireland to try to find my Irish roots. I have attended conferences for RootsTech, National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies and Association of Professional Genealogists. Additionally, I have completed the Boston University certificate program for genealogical research as well as the Intermediate Genealogy Research classes at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburg and at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research. I love doing genealogy research.

Frances Jane Munson Rivers (1845–1915)

On By NancyIn Ancestor ProfileLeave a comment

She was born Frances Jane Munson on 7 August 1845 in Bridgeport, Saginaw County, Michigan, the fourth child of Henry Munson and Elizabeth Foster.¹ In the records created during her lifetime, however, she is simply and consistently Jane.

Frances Jane Rivers

At five years old in 1850 she appears in her father’s household in Bridgeport as Jane Munson.² Ten years later, in 1860, she is fifteen and living with her married sister, still Jane.³ She carries that name forward into adulthood, and her own death certificate records her as Jane F. Rivers.¹⁰

The formal name Frances belongs primarily to retrospective records. On the 1945 death certificate of her son Gardner, her maiden name is given as Frances Munson by the informant, his wife Alice (Wickham) Rivers — Jane’s daughter-in-law and also her niece — and the compiled Munson genealogy uses the same form.¹² In the documents created during her lifetime, she is Jane.

Marriage and place

In January 1862 she married John Rivers in Saginaw County.⁴ His life as a French-Canadian farmer rooted along the Cass River has been treated in an earlier post; Jane’s married life unfolded in the same landscape. Bridgeport, Taymouth, and Albee Townships — the locations attached to the Rivers household across four decades — lie within only a few miles of one another. Her world did not expand geographically. It deepened in place.

By 1870 she was in Taymouth Township with John and their children in a working farm household.⁵ That remained the center of her life for the next thirty years.

Twelve children

In 1900 she reported that she had given birth to twelve children, eight of them living.⁶ That single census column compresses nearly forty years of her adult life.

Those children were:

  • Betsy
  • John Jr.
  • Thomas
  • Gardner
  • Burt Eugene
  • James Daniel
  • Mary Jane
  • Rosa (Rose)
  • Victoria (died young)
  • Leana (died young)
  • Franklin (died young)
  • Joseph⁷

The three who died in childhood are present in the county’s vital records and absent from the later household. The number eight living in 1900 is the official accounting of those losses.

The households she lived in

Jane’s life is always recorded within a family home.

In 1900 she was in Taymouth Township with her husband John and their sons James D. and Joseph, the household still tied to the farm.⁶

1900 Federal Census showing Jane in the Rivers household.

John died on 21 November 1902.⁸

By 1910 Jane was a widow in the household of her son Burt.⁹ The setting had shifted to the next generation’s home, but the structure of her life had not. She remained where she had always been — within the family.

Her death

Jane died 24 March 1915 of bronchial pneumonia in Wayne County, Michigan.¹⁰ The informant on her death certificate was her son Burt, with whom she had been living in 1910.¹⁰ She was returned to Saginaw County for burial in Taymouth Township beside her husband.¹¹

The certificate names her Jane F. Rivers — the everyday name she had carried from childhood, with the formal initial that connected her to the Munson family.

Read in time, not in compilation

If her life is followed through the records in chronological order, the identity is straightforward: Jane as a child in Bridgeport, Jane as a young woman in her sister’s household, Jane as a farmer’s wife in Taymouth and Albee, and Jane as a widow in her son’s home.

Only when the record turns backward — to death certificates of the next generation or to compiled genealogies — does the name Frances reappear. Those works preserved the formal birth name. The contemporary record preserved the name she lived by.

Burial

She was buried in Taymouth Township in the community where she had lived since her marriage more than fifty years earlier.¹¹

Sources

  1. Michigan death certificate, Jane F. Rivers, 24 Mar 1915, giving birth date and parents Henry Munson and Elizabeth Foster.
  2. 1850 U.S. census, Bridgeport Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, Henry Munson household.
  3. 1860 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, household of [married sister], entry for Jane Munson.
  4. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, John Rivers and Frances Jane Munson, Jan. 1862.
  5. 1870 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, John Rivers household.
  6. 1900 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, John Rivers household.
  7. Michigan birth and death records for the children of John and Jane Rivers; cemetery and obituary records where applicable.
  8. Saginaw County, Michigan, death record, John Rivers, 21 Nov 1902.
  9. 1910 U.S. census, Wayne County, Michigan, Burt Rivers household, entry for Jane Rivers.
  10. Michigan death certificate, Jane F. Rivers, 1915.
  11. Taymouth Township cemetery records; Find a Grave entry for Jane F. Rivers.
  12. Michigan death certificate, Gardner T. Rivers, 1945, naming mother as Frances Munson; informant Alice Rivers; compiled Munson family genealogy.

Margaret Doonan: The One Who Stayed

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Margaret Doonan was born into a family that already knew how quickly life could fracture.

Margaret Doonan. On the back it states it was taken October 20, 1923.

She was the daughter of William Doonan and Rosetta “Rose” Smith — a household still living with the consequences of the violent death of Rose’s brother Jude at the hands of another brother. That history formed the emotional landscape of Margaret’s childhood, one we have already explored through the lives of her parents.

Margaret was born on 2 June 1888 in Beaver Township, Bay County, Michigan, at a time when her parents were part of the steady movement of families through Michigan’s lumber and farming communities.¹

And then, as the family began to move north into Ontario, Margaret made a different choice.

She stayed.

The Michigan Line

While her parents and most of her siblings eventually settled in Canada, Margaret remained in Michigan with her husband, William Henry Lacy, whom she married in Midland County on 28 May 1907.²

That decision created the divide that would shape the family for generations — a Canadian branch descending from her parents and a Michigan branch descending from Margaret.

But she did not disappear from the Canadian story.

One of the many trips to Canada. In the tree is Flo Doonan. Then Rosie Ball, Margaret Doonan, Sabria Lacy and Keith Rivers. A 4-generation picture.

Border-crossing notices in local newspapers and family photographs document her frequent trips to Ontario to visit her parents and siblings. She did not follow them permanently, but she maintained the relationships in person, again and again, across an international boundary.

She became the living link between the two halves of the family.

A Young Family in Bay County

Margaret and William began married life in Bay County, where their first children were born in Garfield Township and the Crump area.³

Their daughter Elizabeth Sabria Lacy — known in the family as Sabria — was born 24 January 1909.⁴

Motherhood for Margaret was marked by a pattern that repeated with painful regularity. Between 1908 and 1918, four of her children died:

  • Milo in infancy in 1908
  • Ira in 1910
  • Howard in 1916
  • Dorothy in 1918

Each death is documented in Michigan death records, each a separate entry in the public record — and each a private loss within the same decade of her life.⁵

The surviving children — Sabria, Eva, Cora, and Martin — would carry her line forward.

Widowhood in Saginaw

By 1920 the family had moved to the city of Saginaw, where William worked to support the household in an industrial economy very different from the rural communities where their marriage began.⁶

On 7 July 1924, William Henry Lacy died in Saginaw at the age of forty-six.⁷

Margaret was thirty-six years old.

City directory entries from the mid-1920s place her at 3369 Glenwood Avenue, an address that would remain associated with her for years.⁸

This is the moment when she stopped being defined primarily as a daughter or a wife and became the central figure holding her household together.

A Second Start — and Grandpa Jack

Margaret married Stephen Wolverton in Tuscola County in October 1927; the marriage ended in divorce in Saginaw in September 1929.⁹

Five days later she married John William Phillips in Saginaw.¹⁰

Grandpa Jack, Margaret Doonan, Mary, Dorothy Rivers, Archie Doonan on another Canada trip.

He is remembered not by his formal name but as Grandpa Jack — the name that tells us he became part of the lived family memory, not just the documentary record.

The 1930 and 1940 censuses show Margaret and John together in Saginaw, once again in a stable household on Glenwood Avenue.¹¹

The Border That Remained Open

Even as she built that stability, Margaret continued to travel to Canada to see her parents and siblings.

Her father died in Timiskaming District, Ontario, in 1913.¹²
Her sister Emily died in Montreal in 1917.¹³
Her mother died in Cobalt, Ontario, in 1952.¹⁴

Margaret did not move north — but she never allowed the distance to become separation.

The First Diagnosis

Margaret died on 12 October 1950 in Saginaw.

Her Michigan death certificate records the cause as diabetes mellitus, following a diabetic coma of forty-eight hours.¹⁵

She is the earliest person in this family line for whom that diagnosis is documented.

That fact places her not only in the past but in a continuing medical history that reaches into later generations — including my own.

What She Built

Margaret grew up in a family defined by violence, migration, and loss.

She spent her adult life creating something different:

  • a fixed home in Saginaw
  • a surviving line of children and grandchildren
  • a living connection between the Michigan and Ontario branches

Every Michigan descendant of this family traces back to one decision — her choice to remain.

She was the one who stayed.

And in ways she could never have known, she is still present — not only in the records we read, but in the inheritance carried forward by her descendants.

Sources

  1. Michigan birth records, Bay County, for Margaret Doonan; 1894 Michigan state census, Beaver Township.
  2. Midland County, Michigan, marriage record: William Henry Lacy and Margaret Doonan, 28 May 1907.
  3. 1910 U.S. census, Garfield Township, Bay County, Michigan.
  4. Michigan birth record, Elizabeth Sabria Lacy, 24 January 1909, Crump, Bay County.
  5. Michigan death records: Milo W. Lacy (1908); Ira Gerald Lacy (1910); Howard Guy Lacy (1916); Dorothy Helen Lacy (1918).
  6. 1920 U.S. census, Saginaw, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  7. Michigan death record, William Henry Lacy, 7 July 1924, Saginaw.
  8. Saginaw city directories, mid-1920s, listing Margaret Lacy/Phillips at 3369 Glenwood Avenue.
  9. Tuscola County marriage record, Margaret Lacy and Stephen Wolverton, 1927; Saginaw County divorce record, 9 September 1929.
  10. Saginaw County marriage record, Margaret Lacy and John William Phillips, 14 September 1929.
  11. 1930 and 1940 U.S. censuses, Saginaw, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  12. Ontario death record, William Doonan, 1913, Timiskaming District.
  13. Quebec death record, Emily Doonan, 1917, Montreal.
  14. Ontario death record, Susan Rosetta (Smith) Doonan, 1952, Cobalt.
  15. Michigan death certificate, Margaret Phillips, 12 October 1950.

Marie Jeanne Oudin

On By NancyIn Ancestor Profile, Fille a MarierLeave a comment

Marie Jeanne Oudin was born in 1643 in the parish of Saint-Merri in Paris, the daughter of Antoine Oudin and Madeleine de La Rusière.¹

She came to New France in 1657 and married François Gariépy at Québec on 13 August 1657.² Her arrival, marriage, and the baptism of her first child the following year place her among the filles à marier — women who immigrated to the colony before the beginning of the royal program in 1663 and married soon after their arrival.

Peter J. Gagné identifies her as a native of Saint-Merri and states that she likely arrived on 27 May 1657 aboard La Vierge. On 22 June 1657 she entered the Ursuline boarding school at Québec at the request of François Gariépy, who arranged lodging and a pension for her prior to their marriage. Their marriage contract was executed before the notary Audouart on 15 July 1657. Gagné also notes that François Gariépy was a master woodworker from Montfort-en-Chalosse in Gascony and that Marie Jeanne Oudin appears in the records of the Hôtel-Dieu of Québec in 1692 and 1710.³

The couple settled on the Côte-de-Beaupré, and the parish registers of Québec, Château-Richer, and L’Ange-Gardien record the baptisms of their children over a period of nearly thirty years:

  • Marie-Ursule, baptized 8 July 1658 at Québec
  • Marguerite, baptized 22 March 1659 at Château-Richer
  • Charles, baptized 1661
  • Louise, baptized and buried in 1664
  • François, baptized 11 March 1665
  • Jacques, baptized 26 March 1667
  • Marie-Geneviève, baptized 13 July 1669
  • Marie-Madeleine, baptized 1672
  • Louis, baptized 19 November 1673
  • Catherine, baptized 1677
  • Jean, baptized 1679
  • Alexis, baptized 23 April 1681
  • Pierre, baptized 14 November 1685 at L’Ange-Gardien⁴

These records document the family’s presence in that section of the colony as settlement expanded along the St. Lawrence River during the seventeenth century.

François Gariépy died at Château-Richer on 25 April 1706.⁵ Marie Jeanne Oudin died on 29 March 1721 and was buried at Château-Richer.⁶

Her life in New France is traced through the parish registers from her marriage at Québec in 1657 to her burial on the Côte-de-Beaupré in 1721.

Sources

  1. Parish register of Saint-Merri, Paris, for the baptism of Marie Jeanne Oudin; parentage also given in Peter J. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à marier, 1634–1662 (Pawtucket, Rhode Island: Quintin Publications, 2002), 239.
  2. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), marriage of François Gariépy and Marie Jeanne Oudin, 13 Aug 1657.
  3. Gagné, Before the King’s Daughters, 239.
  4. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), baptisms of the children of François Gariépy and Marie Jeanne Oudin, 1658–1685.
  5. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), burial of François Gariépy, 25 Apr 1706, Château-Richer.
  6. Québec (Canada), Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), burial of Marie Jeanne Oudin, 29 Mar 1721, Château-Richer; see also Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, s.v. “Gariépy.”

Filles du Roi and filles à marier

On By NancyIn Ancestor Profile, Fille a Marier, Filles du Roi, King's Daughters, Marriageable womenLeave a comment

Filles du Roi and filles à marier

As the research moves back into the earliest French-Canadian generations, a number of the women in these families are identified in parish records and in modern compiled sources as either filles à marier or Filles du Roi. Those are historical terms, and they describe two different waves of female immigration to New France.

Understanding the difference helps place these marriages in their proper historical setting.

Filles à marier

The phrase fille à marier simply means “a marriageable woman.” In a genealogical context it is used for women who came to New France before 1663, prior to the royal immigration program.

These women were not sent by the Crown. Their passage might be paid by relatives already in the colony, by an employer, by a religious community, or through a private arrangement. What they have in common is that they arrived unmarried and married soon after their arrival.

They are found in the earliest parish registers of Québec and Montréal, at a time when the European population of the colony was still very small and the establishment of families was essential to permanent settlement.

When a woman in these early generations is described as a fille à marier, it is not a title that appears in the original parish record. It is a modern research designation based on her date of arrival, her marital status at that time, and the historical context in which the marriage took place.

Filles du Roi

The Filles du Roi — the “King’s Daughters” — came later, between 1663 and 1673.

By that time the French government had decided to actively promote population growth in the colony. The Crown paid for the passage of approximately 800 women and provided each of them with a dowry. In many cases they were also given a trousseau — a small outfit of clothing and household linens — so that they could establish a household after marriage.

Unlike the earlier filles à marier, these women are often documented as part of a specific immigration program. Their status can be confirmed through a combination of sources: parish registers, notarial marriage contracts, royal accounts, and later compiled studies that identify the participants in the program.

Most married within a short time of their arrival, and their marriages are concentrated in the parishes along the St. Lawrence River during that ten-year period.

Why these designations appear in this research

The population of early New France was small, and a large proportion of later French-Canadian families descend from these women — often multiple times.

As a result, it is not unusual to encounter both filles à marier and Filles du Roi in the same ancestral lines. Their identification in these posts is not a general historical label; it is based on the available documentation for each individual woman.

In practical terms, the designation tells us something important for the timeline:

  • a fille à marier indicates a marriage in the colony before 1663
  • a Fille du Roi places the arrival and marriage within the royal program of 1663–1673

That information helps explain when a particular couple first appears in the parish records and places the family in the early development of the colony.

I have a combined 17 ancestors who were either filles à marier or Filles du Roi. They are:

  • Marie Jeanne Oudin
  • Anne Talbot
  • Suzanne Betfer (Betford)
  • Jeanne Françoise Petit
  • Louise Bercier
  • Marguerite Charlot
  • Marie Lorgueil
  • Perrine Lapierre
  • Marie Madeleine Raclos
  • Antoinette DeLiercourt
  • Marie Marguerite Jourdain
  • Catherine Charles
  • Françoise Marthe Barton
  • Françoise Cure
  • Madeleine Chrétien
  • Catherine Forestier
  • Marthe Arnu

Alice Mary (Wickham) Rivers

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A Life Rooted in Taymouth

Alice Mary Wickham was born 4 October 1876 in Tittabawassee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, the daughter of Reuben Thomas Wickham and Mary Emaline (Munson) Wickham.¹ She entered a world already shaped by family. Her father was an English immigrant; her mother was the child of New York pioneers who had helped settle Taymouth Township.²

Alice Mary Wickham

She would never really leave.

A Marriage Within the Family

On 13 June 1897, in nearby Freeland, Alice married Gardner T. Rivers.³
It was a marriage that joined not two different families, but two branches of the same one.

Alice’s mother, Mary Emaline Munson, and Gardner’s mother, Frances Jane Munson, were sisters, making the bride and groom first cousins and both grandchildren of Henry Munson and Elizabeth Foster.⁴

Gardner and Alice Mary Wickham Rivers

In a rural farming community like Taymouth, this was not unusual. Families lived near one another, worked together, attended the same churches and social gatherings, and their children grew up side by side. Alice did not marry a stranger — she married someone who had been part of her world since childhood.

Their marriage would last nearly forty-eight years.⁵

Building a Home in Taymouth

Alice and Gardner began their married life in Taymouth Township, where most of their children were born:

  • Ernest John (1898–1933)⁶
  • Willard Fay (1900–1981)⁷
  • Edward Joseph (1903–1993)⁸
  • Earl G. (1904–1935)⁹
  • Claude Alvin (1906–1976)¹⁰
  • Adrith Irene (1908–1957)¹¹
  • Loella Jane (1913–2000)¹²
Gardner and Alice with all of their children

Like many farm wives of her generation, Alice’s occupation in the official record was simply “housewife,” but that single word does not begin to describe the work of raising seven children, keeping a home, and supporting a farming household through the first decades of the twentieth century.⁵

Census records place her consistently in Taymouth Township, surrounded by the extended Munson, Wickham, and Rivers families who had settled there in the mid-nineteenth century.¹³

Her life was not marked by long-distance moves or dramatic change. Instead, it was defined by continuity — the same roads, the same community, the same network of relatives — for nearly seventy years.

Joy and Sorrow in the Same Place

The newspapers occasionally caught glimpses of her life.

In October 1936, friends and family gathered to celebrate her birthday.¹⁴
In June 1941, she and Gardner marked their forty-fourth wedding anniversary.¹⁵

The Saginaw News – 7 Oct 1936

These small notices remind us that hers was not an anonymous life. She was known, visited, and celebrated within her community.

But Taymouth also witnessed her losses.

She buried her parents, Reuben in 1903 and Mary Emaline in 1907.²
Most painfully, she buried two of her sons — Ernest in 1933 and Earl in 1935.⁶ ⁹

All of this happened without her leaving the place where she had been born.

The Final Months

Gardner died 13 January 1945 in Taymouth Township.¹⁶
For the first time since her marriage — and, in many ways, for the first time since childhood — Alice was alone.

Her death certificate records that she was a widowed housewife, sixty-eight years old, who had lived in the community for forty-seven years. It gives the cause of death as cardiac degeneration.⁵

She died 23 April 1945 and was buried in Cook Cemetery beside her husband.¹⁷

The medical record describes a chronic weakening of the heart.
The timeline tells another story.

After nearly forty-eight years of marriage — and a lifetime spent in the same close circle of family — Alice lived only three months without him.

A Life Measured in Roots

Alice’s story is not one of travel or reinvention.
It is a story of belonging.

She was:

  • the granddaughter of pioneers
  • the daughter of an English immigrant
  • the wife of her first cousin
  • the mother of seven children
  • a lifelong resident of Taymouth Township

She spent sixty-eight years within the landscape her grandparents had helped settle.

In the end, the record states that her heart failed.
Those who look at the whole of her life — the shared childhood, the long marriage, the losses, and the brief months of widowhood — may read that line a little differently.

Alice Mary (Wickham) Rivers was laid to rest on 24 April 1945 in Cook Cemetery, surrounded by the generations who had made Taymouth their home.¹⁷

She had never truly lived anywhere else.

Sources

  1. Michigan birth records, Alice Mary Wickham, 4 Oct 1876, Tittabawassee Township, Saginaw County.
  2. Death certificates of Reuben Thomas Wickham (1903) and Mary Emaline (Munson) Wickham (1907), Saginaw County, Michigan.
  3. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, Gardner T. Rivers and Alice M. Wickham, 13 June 1897, Freeland.
  4. Munson family relationships demonstrated through vital records and census listings for Mary Emaline (Munson) Wickham and Frances Jane (Munson) Rivers.
  5. Michigan death certificate, Alice M. Rivers, 23 Apr 1945, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County.
  6. Michigan death record, Ernest John Rivers, 9 Feb 1933, Taymouth Township.
  7. Michigan birth record, Willard Fay Rivers, 21 Feb 1900, St. Charles, Saginaw County.
  8. Michigan birth record, Edward Joseph Rivers, 6 May 1903, Taymouth Township.
  9. Michigan death record, Earl G. Rivers, 17 Mar 1935, Saginaw Township.
  10. Michigan birth record, Claude Alvin Rivers, 1 June 1906, Gaines Township, Genesee County.
  11. Michigan birth record, Adrith Irene Rivers, 19 Feb 1908, Gaines, Genesee County.
  12. Michigan birth record, Loella Jane Rivers, 5 June 1913, Burt, Saginaw County.
  13. 1880, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, households of Gardner T. Rivers.
  14. The Saginaw News, 7 Oct 1936, birthday gathering notice for Alice Rivers.
  15. The Saginaw News, 17 June 1941, 44th wedding anniversary notice for Mr. and Mrs. Gardner Rivers.
  16. Michigan death certificate, Gardner T. Rivers, 13 Jan 1945, Taymouth Township.
  17. Find a Grave memorials and Cook Cemetery burial records for Gardner T. Rivers and Alice Mary (Wickham) Rivers.

Untangling Three Men Named Matthias Whitney of Killingly

On By NancyIn Critical Thinking, RecordsLeave a comment

The trail began with a brief entry in the American Genealogical-Biographical Index pointing to Revolutionary War rolls for a Matthias Whitney of Connecticut. At first it seemed possible that the record might belong to Matthias Whitney born in 1747, a known resident of Killingly. But once the probate files were examined, it became clear that the real issue was not whether “Matthias Whitney” had service — it was determining which Matthias the record described.

Two probate files — one in 1776 and another in 1800 — proved that more than one man of that name lived in Killingly. A later Revolutionary War pension deposition then introduced a third. When the records are placed in chronological and geographic context, the identities separate cleanly.

Matthias Whitney (1720–1776)

Matthias Whitney, born 26 May 1720 in Groton, Massachusetts, son of Cornelius and Sarah (Shepard) Whitney, removed to Killingly, Connecticut, where he married Alice Robbins and raised his family.

His estate was probated in the Plainfield probate district in 1776. The file explicitly treats him as deceased and names his widow Alice and their children, including Jonathan.¹ This record fixes the end of his life in Killingly and establishes the first generation of the family there.

Because he was dead by June 1776, no later Revolutionary War record or nineteenth-century deposition can belong to him.

Matthias Whitney (1747–1800)

The second man was his son, Matthias Whitney, born in Killingly on 22 February 1747.

He died in 1800, and his estate was settled in the Plainfield probate district. The distribution is especially valuable because it preserves the birth order of the children:

the widow (not named)
George Whitney, eldest son
Sarah Whitney, eldest daughter
Martha Palmer, second daughter to the deceased
Aaron Whitney, second son
Selah Whitney, fourth daughter
Achsah Whitney, fifth daughter²

This is not simply a list of heirs — it is a ranked family structure.

Separate guardianship records dated October 1800 identify the younger children and give their ages:

Aaron Whitney, aged 12
Selah Whitney, aged 16
Achsah Whitney, aged 9³⁻⁵

These guardianships confirm that the Matthias who died in 1800 left minor children whose legal affairs were handled immediately in the Plainfield probate district. That evidence places his death in Connecticut and shows that his family remained there.

It also directly contradicts the long-repeated statement that this Matthias removed to Hancock, Massachusetts, and later to New York. If he had done so, his estate and his minor children would not be under the jurisdiction of the Plainfield probate court in 1800.

In addition, minor probate records exist for the children, including Aaron, further reinforcing that this family group belongs to the man who died in Connecticut.⁶

The Third Matthias: The Nephew/Cousin

The third man appears in an unexpected place — a deposition in the Revolutionary War pension file of Noah Day dated 1832.

In that statement, Matthias Whitney testified that he:

was born in Killingly, Connecticut
later removed to Hancock, Massachusetts
and afterward moved to New York⁷

This single paragraph explains the migration that Pierce associated with the wrong man.

This Matthias cannot be the 1720 Matthias, who was dead in 1776.
He cannot be the 1747 Matthias, who died in 1800.

He is instead the son of Joshua Whitney — the nephew of the elder Matthias and the cousin of Matthias (1747–1800).

Once he is placed correctly in the family, the geographical pattern makes sense. The deposition confirms that the man who went to Hancock and then to New York was a different Matthias — not the one whose estate was probated in Connecticut in 1800.

Pierce Revisited

Frederick Clifton Pierce correctly showed that multiple men named Matthias Whitney existed in this generation. However, on page 59 he assigned the Hancock, Massachusetts and New York residence to Matthias (1747–1800).⁸

The deposition demonstrates that this migration belongs to the nephew/cousin instead.

In that sense, Pierce preserved an important clue — the movement to Hancock and New York — but attached it to the wrong individual. The probate and guardianship records allow that clue to be reassigned to the correct Matthias.

Conclusion

The records resolve into three distinct men:

Matthias Whitney (1720–1776), the father, who died in Killingly and whose 1776 probate names his widow Alice and their children.¹

Matthias Whitney (1747–1800), the son, who died in Connecticut; his estate was divided among his widow and children in a clearly ordered distribution, and whose minor children — Aaron (12), Selah (16), and Achsah (9) — were placed under guardianship in October 1800.²⁻⁵

Matthias Whitney, the nephew/cousin, born in Killingly, later of Hancock, Massachusetts, and ultimately of New York, who gave a deposition in 1832 and is the best candidate for the Revolutionary War references that began this investigation.⁷

What first appeared to be a single confusing identity becomes, when the records are read together, three separate and well-documented lives.

Sources

  1. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, estate of Matthias Whitney, 1776.
  2. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, estate distribution of Matthias Whitney, 1800.
  3. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, guardianship of Aaron Whitney, October 1800; aged 12.
  4. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, guardianship of Selah Whitney, October 1800; aged 16.
  5. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, guardianship of Achsah Whitney, October 1800; aged 9.
  6. Plainfield (Connecticut) Probate District, minor probate for Aaron Whitney, son of Matthias Whitney, 1800.
  7. Revolutionary War pension file of Noah Day, deposition of Matthias Whitney, 1832; states he was born in Killingly, removed to Hancock, Massachusetts, and later to New York.
  8. Frederick Clifton Pierce, The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635 (Chicago: Press of W. B. Conkey Company, 1895), 59.

Matthias Whitney (1720–bef. 4 June 1776) of Groton, Massachusetts, and Killingly, Connecticut

On By NancyIn Ancestor ProfileLeave a comment

Matthias Whitney, born 26 May 1720 in Groton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, was the son of Cornelius Whitney and Sarah Shepard.¹ As a young man he removed with his family to Killingly in Windham County, Connecticut, where he spent the remainder of his life and raised a large family.

He married Alice Robbins about 1743, and their children were recorded in the Killingly vital records: Mary (1743), Asa (1744/5), Matthias (1747), Cornelius (1749), Joshua (1751), Alice (1753), Samuel (1757), John (1759), Jonathan (1761), and David (1764).² These entries place the family firmly in Killingly throughout the mid-eighteenth century and establish the structure later confirmed in probate.

A Life in Killingly

Matthias appears in the records of Killingly during the period when the town was expanding and new religious societies were forming. He and his family were associated with the Separate (New Light) congregation at Breakneck Hill, where the baptisms of his children Matthias and Joshua were recorded in the 1740s.³ This affiliation places him among the dissenting families of the town who sought relief from the established Congregational parish.

Land and probate records show that he was an established resident and householder by mid-century. Like many men of his generation in northeastern Connecticut, his life was rooted in family, church, and local community rather than in long-distance migration.

The Probate That Defines the Family

The most important record for Matthias Whitney is the administration of his estate in the Windham District Probate Court.

On 4 June 1776, the court began proceedings for the estate of “Matthias Whitney late of Killingly deceased,” proving that he had died shortly before that date.⁴

The subsequent distribution, ordered in February 1777, names:

  • his widow Alice Whitney, and
  • his children Asa (eldest son), Matthias (second son), Joshua, Samuel, John, Jonathan, and David, together with his daughters Mary and Alice.⁵

Two sons, Matthias and Cornelius, were noted as having already received their portions during their father’s lifetime.⁶

This single document:

  • fixes the time of his death,
  • confirms the identity of his wife,
  • establishes the full list of his surviving children,
  • and preserves their birth order.

It is the record that anchors the entire Whitney family in Killingly.

Death in the Opening Year of the Revolution

Because the estate was opened in June 1776, Matthias died during the first phase of the Revolutionary War, at about fifty-six years of age.

This timing is significant.

Men of his generation who rendered extended military service in Connecticut generally appear in later payrolls, class lists, or pension-related records. Matthias does not. His death in 1776 explains that absence and distinguishes him from younger men of the same name who lived into the post-war period.

Separating Three Men of the Same Name

The Killingly records include three contemporaneous men named Matthias Whitney:

  1. Matthias Whitney (1720–1776) — the subject of this sketch
  2. Matthias Whitney (1747–1800) — his son
  3. Matthias Whitney (1757–1851) — his nephew, son of Joshua Whitney

The probate of 1776 belongs to the elder Matthias and identifies his children, including the younger Matthias. The nephew, born in 1757, lived into the nineteenth century and appears in later records, including Revolutionary War–era testimony for another pension applicant.

Distinguishing these three men is essential in evaluating military and migration records for the Whitney family of Killingly.

Conclusion

Matthias Whitney lived the life of a mid-eighteenth-century New England householder: born in Groton, established in Killingly, active in the Separate church, the father of a large family, and deceased as the American Revolution began.

His 1776 probate not only defines his death and family but also provides the key to separating multiple men of the same name in the same community. Through that record, his identity and place in the Whitney family are securely established.

Sources

  1. Groton, Massachusetts, vital records, birth of Matthias Whitney, 26 May 1720.
  2. Killingly, Connecticut, vital records (Barbour Collection), births of children of Matthias and Alice Whitney.
  3. Breakneck Hill Separate Church records, Killingly, baptisms of children of Matthias Whitney.
  4. Windham District Probate Court (Plainfield), estate of Matthias Whitney, administration begun 4 June 1776.
  5. Ibid., distribution to widow and children, February 1777.
  6. Ibid., notation of advancements to sons Matthias and Cornelius.

Jonathan Whitney (1761–1832): Sorting Out the Revolutionary War Question

On By NancyIn Ancestor Profile, Mis-attributed service, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

For some time, Jonathan Whitney has appeared in various places as a Revolutionary War soldier. The references seemed promising: an entry in the American Genealogical-Biographical Index pointing to Connecticut service records and a 1790 census placement that aligned with his known residence.

The difficulty, as so often in eighteenth-century New England research, is that the name is not unique. The question is not whether a Jonathan Whitney served, but whether the Jonathan Whitney who was born in 1761 and died in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was one of them.

Establishing the Identity of Jonathan Whitney

Jonathan Whitney was born in 1761, the son of Matthias Whitney of Killingly, Windham County, Connecticut. He married Olive Cady in Killingly in November 1784.¹ This places him in that town as a young adult at the close of the Revolutionary War period and provides the starting point for his own household.

Ancestry.com. Connecticut, U.S., Church Record Abstracts, 1630-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: 2013.
Original data:Connecticut. Church Records Index. Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut.

The 1790 census for Killingly includes “Whitney, Jona” in the same cluster as Matthias Whitney and Asa Whitney. The household consists of one male aged sixteen or over, three males under sixteen, and four females, a structure consistent with Jonathan’s known family at that date.²

1790 Census Killingly, Connecticut
1790 Census for Killingly, Connecticut. Solid red arrow is Jonathan Whitney. Hollow red arrows are known relatives.

His will, written in Luzerne County on 9 December 1830 and proved 15 April 1832, names his wife Olive and his children: Ransom, Charles, the heirs of Asa Whitney, Walter, Frank, Horace, Martha (late wife of Marsh Lake), and Lucina.³ This record connects the Connecticut resident to the Pennsylvania man and fixes his identity at the end of his life.

Taken together, these records identify a single individual who was in Killingly in the 1780s, head of his own household there in 1790, and later a resident of Luzerne County.

The AGBI References

The American Genealogical-Biographical Index entry for Jonathan Whitney directs the researcher to two Connecticut sources:

  • Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States: Connecticut
  • Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution⁴

As an index, AGBI does not distinguish between men of the same name. Each reference must be examined and compared with the known details of Jonathan’s life.

The Connecticut Service Records

One of the cited service entries places a Jonathan Whitney in Canaan, in Litchfield County.⁵ Jonathan of Killingly is not known to have had any connection to that town, and the Whitney families there form a separate group.

The second reference is to a Jonathan Whitney who served as a captain.⁶ A man born in 1761 would have been fourteen at the beginning of the war and in his early twenties at its close. He does not fit the age or the community standing expected of a Revolutionary War officer, and no other record places him in that role.

Both entries therefore refer to other men of the same name.

The Pension Question

If Jonathan had later qualified for a federal pension, there would be a corresponding file or index entry. He does not appear in the Revolutionary War pension indexes, and his estate papers contain no reference to pension payments, arrears, or certificates.⁷

Age and Military Eligibility

Jonathan’s age during the war is central to the question:

YearAge
177514
178019
178322

He reached military age only in the final years of the conflict. Any service would have been short-term local duty in the Killingly militia, and no record has been found that can be attributed to him.

Conclusion

The Jonathan Whitney who was born in Killingly in 1761 and died in Luzerne County in 1832 can be identified in the 1790 census and in his Luzerne County will. The Revolutionary War service records cited in AGBI belong to other men of the same name, and there is no pension or other military record that can be connected to him.

Sources

  1. Connecticut, U.S., Church Record Abstracts, 1630–1920, vol. 093 (Putnam), entry for Jonathan Whitney and Olive Cady, marriage, Nov. 1784; citing Killingly church records.
  2. United States. Bureau of the Census, Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790: Connecticut (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1908), 144, Killingly, Windham County, “Whitney, Jona”; digital image, HathiTrust, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210012158174&seq=152.
  3. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Will Book, Jonathan Whitney, will written 9 December 1830, proved 15 April 1832.
  4. Fremont Rider, American Genealogical-Biographical Index, vol. 197 (Middletown, Conn.: Godfrey Memorial Library), entry for Jonathan Whitney.
  5. Record of Service of Connecticut Men in the War of the Revolution (Hartford: Adjutant General’s Office, 1889), 230, entry for Jonathan Whitney of Canaan.
  6. Ibid., 485, entry for Jonathan Whitney, captain.
  7. U.S. Revolutionary War pension and bounty-land warrant application files; search for Jonathan Whitney yielded no file corresponding to the man of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

The Case of John Whitney’s Wife

On By NancyIn Brick Wall, DNA, Land recordsLeave a comment

Back in 2018 I wrote about finding my second great-grandmother, Nancy J. Whitney, in the 1850 census and the immediate question that followed:

Who was her mother?

At the time, the census seemed to offer a straightforward answer. With the addition of DNA and Ancestry’s ThruLines®, I expected that question to finally be settled.

It wasn’t.

Instead, the combination of census records, a single marriage record, and a series of land transactions has created one of the most instructive conflicts in my research—and a perfect example of why no single source should ever stand alone.

What ThruLines Does — and Does Not — Tell Me

ThruLines confirms my descent from John Whitney.

It does not identify a wife for him.
It does not suggest a mother for Nancy.
It does not offer a second pathway through another marriage or through a different set of descendants.

In this case, ThruLines is doing exactly what it is designed to do—it is confirming a line. It is not resolving a documentary conflict.

And that silence is important.

The 1850 Census: A Household with Two Adult Women

The 1850 census for Wayne County, Ohio, shows the household of John Whitney as:

  • John Whitney, 28
  • Hannah, 24
  • Nancy, 7
  • Mary Belle, 5
  • Lucretia, 3
  • Susannah Robison, 26¹

The census does not state relationships in 1850. Any identification of a spouse is based on the common pattern of enumeration, not on an explicit statement.

What is clear is that Hannah and Susannah are two separate individuals. They have different given names, different ages, and Susannah is listed with the surname Robison rather than Whitney.

Whatever their roles in the household, they are not the same person.

The Marriage Record That Complicates Everything

There is one—and only one—marriage record for John Whitney in Wayne County:

John Whitney to Susannah Robison, 18 August 1842.²

Nancy’s 1843 birth fits this marriage perfectly.

If this were the only record, the conclusion would be simple.

But it isn’t.

The Deeds: A Legally Identified Wife Named Hannah

In a deed, a wife is not named casually. She appears because she must relinquish her right of dower, and she is often examined separately to confirm that she is acting of her own free will.

John appears with Hannah as his wife in multiple land transactions:

On 4 September 1844 (recorded 13 June 1845), John Whitney and Hannah his wife sold land in Wayne County.³

On 13 September 1853, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife conveyed land to Cornelius Paugh.⁴

On 18 February 1854, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife conveyed land to Israel Layton.⁵

These are not isolated references. They establish a legally recognized wife named Hannah over a period of at least ten years.

By 17 December 1862, when John sold land again in Wayne County, no wife was named.⁶

Hannah was no longer living—or no longer his legal spouse—by that date.

Establishing That This Is the Correct John Whitney

John’s father, Charles Whitney, died in 1836. His mother, Tamer (Pierce) Whitney, remarried Phillip Yarnell on 31 March 1840 in Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio.⁷

So when John P. Whitney appears in the June Term 1851 partition case with the Yarnell heirs, it confirms that these land and court records belong to the correct man.⁸

In the October Term 1851 case of Rinear Beall vs. John Whitney, the summons was served by leaving a copy at John’s residence “with his wife,” again placing him in a marital relationship at that time.⁹

The Negative Search

If the answer were in the usual places, this would not be a problem.

I have searched for:

  • a divorce record for John Whitney
  • a death record for Hannah Whitney
  • a death record for Susannah Robison or Susannah Whitney
  • any additional marriage for John Whitney

I have also looked for records that might name Nancy’s mother:

  • guardianships for John’s children
  • deeds involving his children
  • death records for Nancy and her sisters

None of them identify a mother.

Could the Marriage Record Be Wrong?

One possible explanation is that the 1842 marriage record misidentifies the bride as Susannah rather than Hannah.

However, the record clearly names Susannah, there is a separate woman of that name in the 1850 household, and there is currently no record connecting Hannah to the Robison family.

That makes this a hypothesis—not a conclusion.

One Conflict, One Conclusion

Taken together, the records establish five things:

John Whitney is Nancy’s father.
He married Susannah Robison in 1842.
He had a legally identified wife named Hannah from at least 1844 to 1854.
Hannah and Susannah were two different women in the 1850 household.
The land and court records all belong to the same John Whitney.

What they do not establish is which woman was the mother of Nancy, Mary Belle, and Lucretia.

ThruLines does not resolve that conflict. The census does not resolve that conflict. The marriage record does not resolve that conflict.

So the only evidence-based conclusion is the same one I reached years ago—now with far better documentation:

The identity of Nancy J. Whitney’s mother remains unproven.

Footnotes

  1. 1850 U.S. census, Wayne County, Ohio, population schedule, John Whitney household.
  2. Wayne County, Ohio, marriage record, John Whitney and Susannah Robison, 18 August 1842.
  3. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John Whitney and Hannah his wife to Youngs & Augustus Case, 4 September 1844 (recorded 13 June 1845).
  4. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife to Cornelius Paugh, 13 September 1853.
  5. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife to Israel Layton, 18 February 1854.
  6. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney to Jonathan Potts, 17 December 1862.
  7. Wayne County, Ohio, marriage record, Phillip Yarnell and Tamer Whitney, 31 March 1840.
  8. Wayne County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, partition case, June Term 1851, naming John P. Whitney and Yarnell heirs.
  9. Wayne County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, Rinear Beall vs. John Whitney, October Term 1851.

John Whitney Through Land and Court Records

On By NancyIn Ancestor ProfileLeave a comment

Vital records are wonderful when they exist, but for many people in the early and mid-nineteenth century they are missing or were never created. In those cases, we are left to reconstruct a life from the records that document a person’s economic activity, legal standing, and family connections.

John Whitney of Wayne County, Ohio, and later Saginaw County, Michigan, is one of those men.

He was the son of Charles Whitney, who died in Wayne County in 1836. A few years later his mother, Tamer (Pierce) Whitney, remarried Phillip Yarnell on 31 March 1840 in Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio.¹ That remarriage becomes critical in identifying John in later records, because when John P. Whitney appears in the June Term 1851 partition case with the Yarnell heirs, it ties the adult man directly to his mother’s second marriage and distinguishes him from any other contemporary John Whitney in the county.²

Early Land Transactions

By the late 1840s John was participating in land transactions in his own name. On 19 August 1848 he purchased land in Wayne County, indicating that he had reached adulthood and was established enough in the community to engage in real property transactions.³

There is one—and only one—marriage record for a John Whitney in Wayne County during this period: John Whitney to Susannah Robison on 18 August 1842.⁴ That record fits the birth of his oldest known child the following year. As discussed in a separate post, later records consistently name a wife called Hannah, creating a conflict that remains unresolved. For the purpose of following John’s life, what matters here is that by mid-century he was a married man and the head of a household.

A Wife Named Hannah

The land records provide the clearest view of John’s economic life and identify the woman who was legally his wife for at least a decade.

On 4 September 1844, recorded 13 June 1845, John Whitney and Hannah his wife sold land in Wayne County.⁵ On 13 September 1853, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife conveyed land to Cornelius Paugh.⁶ On 18 February 1854, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife conveyed land to Israel Layton.⁷ In each case Hannah was required to relinquish her right of dower and was examined separately, confirming her legal identity as John’s spouse.

By 17 December 1862, when John sold land again in Wayne County, no wife was named, indicating that by that date he was either widowed or no longer legally married.⁸

The 1850 Household and the 1851 Lawsuit

In 1850 John’s household included three daughters—Nancy, Mary Belle, and Lucretia—all under the age of ten.⁹ This places him firmly in the role of a young father in mid-century Ohio.

A small but vivid glimpse of his daily life appears in the October Term 1851 case of Rinear Beall vs. John Whitney. The summons was served by leaving a copy at John’s residence “with his wife,” confirming that he maintained a fixed home and was still living in Wayne County at that time.¹⁰

Migration to Michigan

By 1860 John had left Ohio and was living in Saginaw County, Michigan, in the household of his siblings. This is a classic example of cluster migration, in which family members move together and re-establish themselves in a new location.

Even after relocating, he retained legal ties to Wayne County until the 1862 sale of his remaining land.⁸ That transaction marks the end of his economic presence in the place where he had grown up.

Following the Records

There is still no located death record for John. No probate file has yet been found for him. The identity of the mother of his children remains unresolved, and the absence of a divorce record or death record for either Susannah or Hannah leaves that question open.

What the surviving records do provide is a way to follow him through his life: a boy in a widowed household after 1836, a young man buying and selling land, a husband whose wife repeatedly appeared beside him in legal transactions, a father of three small daughters, a defendant in a county lawsuit, a migrant moving west with his siblings, and finally a man closing out his last piece of property in the county where he came of age.

The story is not finished, but the outline of his life is now visible.

Sources

  1. Wayne County, Ohio, Marriage Record, Phillip Yarnell and Tamer Whitney, 31 March 1840.
  2. Wayne County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, Partition Record, June Term 1851.
  3. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed, John Whitney purchase, 19 August 1848.
  4. Wayne County, Ohio, Marriage Record, John Whitney and Susannah Robison, 18 August 1842.
  5. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John Whitney and Hannah his wife to Youngs and Augustus Case, 4 September 1844, recorded 13 June 1845.
  6. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife to Cornelius Paugh, 13 September 1853.
  7. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney and Hannah his wife to Israel Layton, 18 February 1854.
  8. Wayne County, Ohio, Deed Book, John P. Whitney to Jonathan Potts, 17 December 1862.
  9. 1850 U.S. Census, Wayne County, Ohio, population schedule, John Whitney household.
  10. Wayne County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, Rinear Beall vs. John Whitney, October Term 1851.