Moyer Family – Moore-Mays Genealogy

Update on the Carter Girls!

Posted on 02-Oct-2012 by Kathleen

This entry is going to show you just how far behind I am on following leads, but oh well! Such is life I guess. Anyway, months ago, I wrote an entry about how I loved being a mystery detective when it comes to my family tree. That entry highlighted Emma Carter and my search for her mother among a group of sisters. I discovered her mother was Sina Carter and that Emma married Charles Hurdle.

Thanks to a wonderful friend/reader, Magda!, I have a few more leads after this entry to get me started. Unfortunately or fortunately, it could be both, I am only left with more questions. Ha! Magda commented on the entry to say my Carters sparked a few thoughts about her own Carters in that area, so she decided to dig a little deeper to see if there was a connection. Sadly, there wasn’t, but she did find some great records on FamilySearch for me to look at and analyze!

The first record she linked was the death record of Lewis Carter, the other mystery Carter from my previous entry. The death record gives his mother’s maiden name as Sina Carter and doesn’t list a father except for the last name of Carter. So that’s still an unknown at this point. The other record Magda found was a marriage record for Emma Hurdle and Elmer Fite! The best part is it actually gives Emma’s father’s name as John Jennings. I do wonder if maybe Lewis had the same father but without any record to back up that thought, it stays a thought. So I’ll leave Lewis for another day this week and take on Emma’s clues.

After the marriage record, I immediately did a search on the Ohio Death Records to see if I’d get a hit on Emma Fite, since I hadn’t gotten one on Emma Hurdle previously.

There was indeed a record. The name, birth date and place of death all fit my criteria. Also, this Emmie Fite being buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery also is in the positive column. I have yet to come across any of this family of Carters NOT buried in this cemetery. The only thing that was disappointing was that the mother is listed as Ellie Carter, not Sina and there is no father listed. So it’s an up in the air record. I’ll go ahead and use it and see where I go, knowing I might have to remove it later.

Since the death date was listed as 1931, I went ahead and jumped to the 1930 census to see if I could find Emma and Elmer in Clark township, Brown County, Ohio.

emmacarter-02 — 1930 U.S. census, population schedule, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 1753. Brown County, Ohio. Clark township, ED 003, sheet 04-A, dwelling 96, family 97, Elmer E Fite; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

1930 found them exactly where I expected them to be, so I moved on to 1920… where the intrigue got started again.

emmacarter-03 — 1920 U.S. census, population schedule, NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1351. Brown County, Ohio. Clark township, ED 026, sheet 10-B, dwelling 240, family 240, Elmer Fite; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

On the 1920 census, it lists a Meredith Hurdle as Elmer’s stepson. There are a few problems with this. I have record of Emma’s children with Charles Hurdle and Meredith wasn’t one of them. I found a death record that fit Charles for 1897. So if Meredith was born about 1902… well, then Charles isn’t the father of Meredith. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the family in the 1910 census yet, I have to go page by page in Clark township yet. So I set off for more information on Meredith. I came across a marriage record for him and that’s when things got more interesting!

On Meredith’s marriage license, it gives an exact date of birth. Doing my calculations, that means he was born 16 Dec 1901. Definitely too far from 1897 to be Charles Hurdle’s son. Even more interesting is he’s going by the last name Fite and lists his father as Elmer. My first thought was that maybe he was Elmer’s son. Then I realized he was born 6 and a half years before Elmer and Emma’s marriage. Which doesn’t mean Elmer isn’t his father, just that it’s not a given fact.

Then I started thinking about it, and really I ended up happy. Happy that a boy without a father at his birth might have found a father figure by the time he married at the age of 22. Really Elmer might have been there his whole life, I don’t know. Just another one of those mysteries that keeps growing.

So thanks again Magda for all the great leads you gave me, and next I’ll have to ferret out Lewis!

A Tale of Many Sisters: Finding Emma Carter’s Mother

Posted on 11-Jun-2012 by Kathleen

Most of the times, my genealogy days turn into a long day of entering information into my family tree program of choice. I love the record keeping part of genealogy. The one part I didn’t realize I enjoyed so much is the mystery-solving aspect. Every so often, I can’t be satisfied with just entering names and dates and making lists of places to search newspapers for. Every once and awhile, there are members of my family that just jump out and say investigate me more!

Emma Carter was one of these people. Emma first showed up in the 1870 Census, living with Rachel Miller-Carter and her family. Emma was listed as being 8 years old. That presented a problem to me. Rachel’s husband, Levi Carter passed away in March of 1860. So was Emma an illegitimate child of Rachel’s? Rachel was listed as being 52 years old in 1870, so I was a little doubtful of that. I next started wondering about Rachel’s daughters. She had four daughters and three that were living with her in 1870: Betsy, Sina, Eliza. I eliminated Hannah, the married daughter because I had her tracked through my life. She is my 3rd Great Grandmother. If she was Hannah’s daughter, I would have either known about it already, or I wasn’t going to find out by my usual means. So I decided to eliminate her for now, but not permanently.

I jumped ahead to the 1880 Census, the first one to show relationships, to see what that would bring me in the way of information.

emmacarter-01 — 1880 U.S. census, population schedule, NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 0996. Brown County, Ohio. Lewis township, Higginsport precinct, ED 198, p. 342-C (stamped), dwelling 215, family 233, Rachel Carter; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

Luckily for me Emma was still living with her in the same household in the 1880 US Census. So now I know that Rachel is in fact Emma’s grandmother. From this information, I still don’t know who Emma’s mother is. The next step was to follow the daughters and Emma to see where they end up. Luckily for me some Brown County records are online at FamilySearch. I was a little worried about the 20 year gap between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. So I decided to try and see if there was a marriage record for any of Rachel’s daughters first. There was not. Then on a whim, I searched for a marriage record for Emma Carter.

I was in luck to have found a marriage record for 1881! Now I had a place to search for Emma in 1900, but I couldn’t be sure this was my Emma without further evidence.

There are a few problems with this record, like Sina being listed as male (she wasn’t), and that she was widowed. I still haven’t found a marriage record for Sina, so I can’t confirm or deny that fact. What’s interesting is she is listed as a servant in the household instead of as a relation. So by this record, I’m still not sure who Emma Carter’s mother is, but I am positive the above marriage record fits with my Emma Carter. So I will follow Emma’s family into the next census to see what that brings.

emmacarter-04 — 1910 U.S. census, population schedule, NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 1160. Clermont County, Ohio. Franklin township, ED 029, sheet 02-A, dwelling 33, family 33, Hamer Hurdle; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

The 1910 Census answers all the questions that I first had and gives me two more. The question I had answered is the identity of Emma Carter’s mother. That I know is Sina Carter. However I now have two questions: Where is Emma Carter if Sina has 2 living children in 1910? Who is the second child, Lewis maybe?

Double Wedding

Posted on 29-Mar-2012 by Kathleen

I know I’ve suspected it before on my Taylor lines, but I’ve never actually found the records to prove a double wedding until now. Only this isn’t my Taylor line, but my Moyer/Evans line.

On October 17, 1901, brothers James Franklin Evans and William P Evans (they aren’t added to the website yet, still gathering their details), married twin sisters Nora and Cora Fiscus in Clermont County, Ohio. ((Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1899-1903, vol 26, p. 350, no 700, J F Evans-Nora A Fiscus; Family History Library, 35 NW Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150.)) ((Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1899-1903, vol 26, p. 351, no 701, W P Evans-Cora A Fiscus; Family History Library, 35 NW Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150.))

Fun fact: James was also a twin, but his twin sister Angeline did not partake in the double wedding, she married Robert Dunbar the previous year. ((Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1899-1903, vol 26, p. 161, no 18904, Robert C Dunbar-Angie Evans; Family History Library, 35 NW Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150.))

A Pleasant Surprise

Posted on 05-Mar-2012 by Kathleen

record_image — Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1881, p. 516, no 299, Lafayette Moyer-Mollie Howell;

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting much is because I’ve been catching up on my family file cleanup. It’s been going really well. I’m onto the Moyer line of my family tree. I’ve also been soaking up the Ohio, County Marriage and Birth images that were added to FamilySearch. At first I wasn’t going to do new research into Daniel Moyer‘s (my 3rd great grandfather) brother. I know he had siblings, and I knew I’d get back around to it, but I couldn’t help myself with these county marriages. What would a little search hurt right?

Well, I found Henry Moyer up to the 1880 census. I know he had two children, Emma and Lafayette. I was having problems finding the children after they left their father’s house. For Lafayette it would be the 1900 census and Emma the 1880. As you all know, the girls take a little more leg work. Well, I found Lafayette in the marriage records as you can see above. However, it was a pleasant surprise to also find that Henry Moyer, appeared with the couple. This is the first time I’ve actually had a parent appear with the child. Lafayette was well over the age of consent (21), so that wasn’t the reason why.

I think what I want to do is learn more about the marriage records from the 1800’s and figure out what little surprises like this could actually mean about the family.

County Records on Family Search

Posted on 01-Feb-2012 by Kathleen

It’s finally happened. I’m finally out of the Kentucky section of the family file cleanup. Not that I don’t love the Kentucky section. It just has a way of going on and on without end. I did make some decisions to not follow some leads on the siblings of my ancestors. I’ll get back around to them. I just needed to take a break. I’m now onto the Clermont County, Ohio section of my family tree. The main surname there is the Moyer surname. I’m in much more comfortable territory on this section because I’m very familiar with Clermont County and two of my Aunts still live there. It’s so easy to call Aunt Molly and ask her any questions about the area or even some of the family history.

The one thing I find difficult in my long distance research is trying to see the records myself. I love nothing more then to scan down the pages of a birth or marriage register. I find it a lot of fun. The only problem is I don’t have any of those records for my family in the immediate area. Even worse, the Family History Center by me is within a half hour drive, and I still haven’t been able to find the time when it’s open twice a week. So I make to do lists, and hope that one day I’ll be able to visit these repositories in an area my family once lived.

Back when I first found FamilySearch.org, they didn’t even have an Ohio Birth Index. Now they have a huge one. As I switched over to my Moyer ancestors, I went back to Family Search to see if there had been any new entries I could add to my family tree. Boy did I get a pleasant surprise!

The very first record for “Ina Bell Moyer” is from the old index. The bottom record was a big surprise for me! I know I had seen some marriage register images had been added, but I had no idea there were birth registers! I think that there were Clermont County registers was a surprise too. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just used to not having anything come up online that I was expecting more of the same!

Now all I have to do is find Great Grandma Iva‘s siblings!