Captured by Native Americans

I recently discovered my 7th great grandparents Noah Frederick and Margaretha Becker were attacked and killed by Native Americans and that their son, my 6th great grandfather Thomas Frederick, was abducted by them. This was in 1756 in an area of Pennsylvania near Jonestown, not too far northeast of Harrisburg, in what was then Earl Township, Lancaster County (now Lebenon County, Earl Township defunct). Thomas would have only been four years old so it's difficult to say if he even remembered the event. By one account, two of his siblings were also taken captive, though I have yet to discover their names (if anyone knows them, please leave a comment!). They could not have been with the Natives for more than two years though, since records say they were released to the French Fort Duquesne, which was destroyed and replaced by Fort Pitt in 1758 and later developed into the city of Pittsburgh.

Thomas, now an orphan, apparently grew up under unknown guardianship in Philadelphia where there was no longer threat of Indian attacks. He later returned to the area of his tragic youth where he married Ann Margaret Tibbens in Bethel, Lancaster County in 1774. Two years later, the Revolutionary War broke out and Thomas joined up, fighting for his nation's independence.

An 1860 map of Centre Township, Columbiana County,
Ohio with Frederick lands outlined in red. J. Frederick was
Thomas' son, John. Thomas may have own all three lots.

Later in life, Thomas made a somewhat surprising move out to Lisbon, Centre Township, Columbiana County, Ohio in 1804. This area was only just beginning to be settled, Ohio had been admitted as a state merely one year prior, and so it was still very much the frontier at the time, still susceptible to Indian attacks. For this reason, land was often cheaply or even freely available as an incentive to settle the land. It seems surprising that Thomas, who had been a victim of such attacks as a child, would uproot his settled family and take up this particular risk. However, as a orphan, Thomas probably inherited nothing and had to make his own way in life. We don't know what his situation in Pennsylvania was like, perhaps his family did not have much to live on and maybe the opportunity to freely or cheaply acquire a lot of land was too good to pass up. He and Margaret had a grand total of 12 children together so they had a lot of mouths to feed. Obviously, Thomas' experience as a child did not stop him from taking a chance and moving out to the frontier. It is this kind of courage and initiative on which America is founded.

To read more and view sources, check out my Frederick Family History.

July 2, On This Day in My Family Tree

On this day in my family tree . . .

Death/burial record of Inger Simonsdatter Bomen (later Narum)
from the parish in Gjerpen, Norway.

119 years ago in 1894, my 4th great grandfather James Frantz died in Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio at the age of 77.

And . . .

92 years ago in 1921, my great grand aunt Ruth Springer Pike was born in Columbiana County, Ohio. 

And . . .

182 years ago in 1831, my 5th great grandmother Inger Simonsdatter Bomen died in Gjerpen, Telemark County, Norway at the age of 58. (Document shown adove). Gjerpen has since been annexed into Skien.

Sources:

• "Ohio, Deaths and Burials, 1854-1997," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F6XB-XJD : accessed 29 Jun 2013), James Frantz, 02 Jul 1894.
• Findagrave.com (1894). James Frantz (1816 - 1894) - Find A Grave Memorial. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr [Accessed: 29 Jun 2013].
• Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011. Ruth S. John.
• Ancestry.com and Ohio Department of Health. Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1932, 1938-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Ruth S John.
• Ancestry.com. U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Ruth S John.
• Norwegian Digital Archives. Death and burial records 1829 - 1834, Gjerpen Parish, Telemark. Inger Simonsdatter Narum, Page 238. http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read?idx_id=1366

June 27, On This Day in My Family Tree...

I know I have been remiss in posting so I've come up with another feature which will detail events from my family tree that occurred on the same day as the post, however many years ago. I got this idea when it dawned on me that on December 7th of this year, my 2nd great grandmother died exactly 100 years ago. I don't think there's enough events in my tree to have each one be a milestone anniversary, like precisely 100 years, but I thought it'd be interesting nonetheless.

If you're interested in doing something like this yourself, I used FTM 2012 to create a calendar, including everyone in my tree. Just go to the "publish" tab and under "other" there will be the option for a calendar. On the right, under the options, choose "All Individuals". Also be sure to click the first icon in the toolbar row, shown to the left. Here you can customize what gets included (shown below) but I was a little disappoint that I didn't get the option to include any fact like I can with other reports. Only BMD gets included, I guess because they think those are the common anniversaries that people celebrate or mark. It's a shame they couldn't think of any other use one might have for a calendar, like this one! I would have liked to include facts like military enlistment, baptism, burials, immigration, etc. I wish FTM would add a feature that would basically be like a timeline of all the events in my tree. It's worth noting there is a Timeline Report but it's under "Person Reports" and is therefore only a timeline for one person. I realize a timeline of every event from every individual in a tree would be a lot of data but what use is a genealogy management program if it can't process a lot of data, right?

But I digress. The options you do have are things like how many months to include, whether to list people's ages or how many years it's been since that event, whether to use married names for females, etc. These are all up to you. The important ones that you make sure are UNticked are "Include births and marriages only if still living" and "Exclude marriage anniversaries if relationship status is "deceased". If you leave these ticked, you'll only get results for people still living.

You may wind up with a calendar full of names you can't remember, which is why I'll be looking up each person and getting more details of the event - but the calendar provides a quick and easy reference for finding what happened "on this day in my family tree".

So, on this day in my family tree . . .

118 years ago in 1872, my 3rd great grandfather Wilson S. Ramsey married his third wife Laura S. Vincent in Columbiana County, Ohio. His first wife, Susan Frantz, was my 3rd great grandmother.

And . . .

53 years ago in 1960, my 2nd great grand aunt (the sister of my 2nd great grandfather) Mary Louise Pike died in Ohio. She had never married.

The Ramsey Curse and Happy Endings

Sorry for the lack of posts, I recently had house guests and then my husband suffered a family tragedy. But it's partly for this reason that I want to get back into honoring ancestors and relatives.

Bertha May Ramsey suffered from the
"Ramsey curse" of early deaths in her
family, including herself.

This article is about what I've started calling the "Ramsey Curse" in light of all the premature deaths in this family. My 2nd great grandmother, Bertha May Ramsey, lost her mother when she was only about 10-12 years old. Her father remarried twice and so she had several half siblings. As an adult, Bertha's first husband, George Benton Phillips, also died prematurely leaving her with five young girls to raise on her own in rural Ohio. Not surprisingly she quickly remarried to my 2nd great grandfather, Ralph Springer Pike, and had three more girls. Then Bertha herself died in 1914 when she was only 40 years old and Ralph remarried to Edna Zearley who, according to my great grandmother, resented her stepdaughters and embodied the evil stepmother. Bertha's daughters from her previous marriage were then orphans and what happened to them while they were still minors is still a mystery to me. They might have stayed with their stepfather or gone to live with another relative or they may have even lived in an orphanage, which were still in use at the time. Given that Ralph's new wife resented his own children, it seems unlikely that she allowed his orphaned stepdaughters to stay with them.

The second eldest, Eva M. Phillips, had already been married the year prior to Bertha's death and the eldest, Lela Phillips, was an adult and married a year after her mother's death. But the remaining three, Ester, Ruby and Alice, were still minors and unmarried. Ester and Alice married immediately upon turning 18 which suggests that wherever they were living as orphans was turning them out as they reached the age of majority and their best option was to marry quickly. Ruby Phillips (b. 1899), however, obviously decided to go it on her own and sadly, as a result, she wound up pregnant and unmarried in 1920 when she was 21 years old. She found refuge in the Salvation Army Home Maternity Home and Nursery in Bellevue, near Pittsburgh, which was a home for women like Ruby having a child out of wedlock. It originally aimed to keep mother and child together, a very progressive idea for the times, but they also arranged for adoptions.

Sadly, the fate of Ruby's baby is unknown. It either died or was adopted - as you can see, I don't even know whether it was a boy or girl and I don't know how to find out, I've never done adoption research before (any tips?). But Ruby's story at least has a somewhat happy ending. By 1930, she had become a nurse, probably inspired by those who worked at the Salvation Army home and had helped her when she needed it most. And then in 1937, she finally married at the age of 37 to a man named Thomas C. Russell. When I heard this name, I knew it sounded familiar. See if you can follow this.

Ruby's half-sister, Jennie Lee Pike, had married James Edward Bauer whose mother, Anna Jane Russell, had a half brother named Thomas C. Russell. So Ruby married her half sister's husband's mother's half brother.

Unfortunately, Ruby and Thomas didn't have any children together that I know of so she has no known descendants apart from possibly the baby she gave up. Thomas was 44 when he married Ruby and had been previously married with two children from his first wife so it's possible he was only looking for companionship from his second marriage. Having a child out of wedlock was still very taboo in the 1920s and 1930s and could ruin a woman's chance of ever marrying and having a traditional family. But as I covered in a previous entry, the Russell family was no stranger to scandalous behavior.

I am putting this one out there so Ruby's story gets told - with no legitimate children, she has no one else to remember her and tell her story. And maybe if anyone is researching the genealogy of their parent or grandparent who had a birth mother named Ruby Phillips, they will find this. I have a lot of info on the Ramsey lineage, though granted nothing on the Phillips lineage since I am descended from the Pikes.

Family History Writing Challenge Day 25: Springer and Sutch

Another two from opposite sides of my tree. Springer is an 18th century family who migrated from Pennsylvania to Ohio and married into the Pike family, though their European origins are unknown.

Sutch are also of unknown origins but settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and married into the Gilbert family (who married the Rorer family, then Fallows).

Join the Family History Writing Challenge.

Family History Writing Challenge Day 18: Ramsey

The Ramsey family is from unknown origins but the name certainly suggests Scottish. They married into the Pike family, who I just covered yesterday.

Join the Family History Writing Challenge.

Family History Writing Challenge Day 6: Frantz, Knepper, and Lindesmith

I merged these three families into one chapter because they all get "daughtered out" after one generation so I didn't have enough detail to give them each a dedicated chapter. Frantz, Knepper, and Lindesmith are all believed to be Swiss or German colonial families who first settled in Pennsylvania before moving to Ohio. As with many colonial branches, there are some facts which are still up in the air.

Join the Family History Writing Challenge.