Chenoweth research moments

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Ding! A Sixth Cousin Marriage!

I got a notice this morning on find-a-grave, from Sheryl, inquiring about the YOB for Lydia Elizabeth Chenoweth page: 30202809. This page is under my management and I had posed a short blurb about how her birth year was different from the tombstone date: 1860. As you learn in genealogy, nothing is etched in stone even if it is. In the 1860 census, Lydia is 5 years old, born first, one year after the marriage of James Prather Chenoweth to Maria Regan on 24 Sep 1854. In the 1870 census she is 14. It is only after she married William Harvey Hubbard, 5 years her junior, that the census data started reflecting a younger age. In 1900 she is listed as b: Jul 1859. She wouldn’t be the first woman to fudge her age. Sheryl had also posted an obit for Lydia. It helped refine the data I had. First I now had exact date for her July 24, 1928; second, it told me that she was born in Greenville, Darke Co., OH. James married Maria in Pike Co., OH in 1854. In 1860, they are in Logan Co., IL. Of the three children born to them at that point, the first two, Lydia and Charles were born in Ohio. The youngest, Benjamin, was born in Illinois, assumed to be Logan Co., where they are found in 1860. But the obit tells us that Lydia started her life in Greenville. This makes sense as the parents of James, John Chenoweth and Elizabeth Foster were living in Darke Co.,, OH in 1850 and made the same move to Logan Co., IL in 1860. [John was the son of Thomas, Jr. who had settled in the south west corner of Franklin Co., OH in the late 1790’s after migrating from Allegany Co., MD through Mason Co., KY before crossing the Ohio and traveling up the Scioto River Valley north to Franklin Co.] So James had headed to Darke Co. after marrying in Maria in Pike Co. and Lydia was born there, and spent her earliest years there.

As I started looking at this family, I saw they had moved to Sumner Co., KS and had three children. All of them married but only two grandchildren were born and one these died young. So Gretchen Hubbard, the daughter of James Willis Hubbard and Anita Schermerhorn, was Lydia's only surviving grandchild. I had her still living with her parents in the 1940 census at the age of 24. I searched her name and came up with her SSA application, where her birth was given as 04 Nov 1915 in Conway Springs, Sumner Co., KS. This fit the census data, all confirmed by the names of her parents. I put this date in to the data base and started to look for her husband who was given as a Heaton, by the same SSA application tracking of her SSA status. Sure enough she popped up in find-a-grave with matching dates buried in Highland Memory Gardens, Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, LA. Her husband was Byron Hal Heaton b: 31 Jul 1906. But when I entered his name and birth into the database, he was already there. So was Gretchen, but the program had not recognized it as I did not have her middle initial. (Her middle name was Lucille.) Bryon was a Chenoweth descendant from the line of William, Gretchen from Thomas. This was a 6th cousin marriage, the common ancestors, John and Mary Calvert Chenoweth. Thus was only the sixth I knew about, the first two found in the Harris book involving a Chenoweth surname marriage. This is a wow to me. I also found that Gretchen's father, James had died on 18 Feb 1964 in , Calcasieu Parish.

This morning has been a bit crazy. It started off with a new fine-a-grave page for Wayne Chenoweth of Gillman, WV. Wayne died 03 Feb 2021, 6 days ago. I had met Wayne's brother, Okey, Jr., at the 2002 Elkins Reunion. As I was working down his family in the posted obit, I saw that his granddaughter had married a Joe Tallman. When I entered it, there, beside him, in the index, was Joseph Daniel Tallman, about the same age range. I started looking at it and give it a 80% change that he was the Joe Daniel in my file, a 5th cousin marriage going back to Jehu Chenoweth, one of the sons of John Chenoweth and Mary Pugh who helped settle this Appalachian valley 225 years ago. Of course I expect this sort of thing in Randolph County; there are so many families that have lived in that lovely area for 10 generations. They keep getting intertwined.

But this didn't end my adventure. I saw that the page for Charles Jasper Chenoweth had become available. He becomes a interesting nexus in the tree. His father, John Henton Chenoweth, born in Kentucky, in the line of William Chenoweth, the brother of the John Chenoweth that settled in the Elkins area of Randolph Co., came out to California from Missouri just after 1850. As I started to write a short bio about him, I realized that he was probably the frist Chenoweth male, bearing the family surname, to be born in California, on 04 Jul 1853 in Sonoma County. The family he would found has lived in this charming county ever since. Charles married Julia Steward on 23 Apr 1884 in Occidental. She was the daughter of William Stewart, an Irish immigrant, and Elizabeth Main, who had been born in Australia. Charle and Julia had 7 children. Hardin, Leslie, William, Leland, Josephine, Myrtla and Verna, a spate of sons and then 3 daughters. I remember following the line of the brother of Charles, William Lemuel Chenoweth as he had taken his family up the coast to Curry Co., OR near where Gold Beach is and where a fishermen's paradise, the Rogue River, empties. The coast ot Oregon is wonderful. I have driven along it many times. This is not only is scenic, it enjoys a sun-lit summer with the Pacific constant beating against sandy beaches and rock lined cliffs, dotted with pleasant towns. We would take the family to Cannon Beach several times.

Seeing that links to a couple of his children were missing I set out to find them. Actually two were already in my find with pages, they just hadn't been linked. When I linked in Josephine, I saw she was buried in Alsea, OR, or at least that's where her marker is. In the Harris book, she and her husband were cremated and their ashes spread over the ocean, off Oregon, near Walport. The Alsea River empties here. Deanna and I had stayed Just up the coast in Newport where the picturesque Yaquina Bay Bridge sits. The first Josephine in the file was born in 1843, Josephine, the daughter of Hamilton J.'s first marriage to Phoebe Ann Sherman. She is listed in the Harris Book as Phoebe Ann, and that name is reflected in the 1850 census where she is living with her grandparents in Connecticut. But in 1860 and then on, she is Josephine. Was the 1850 a mistake, and if not what was the reason for the name change? Without more records it is an unresolved item. AS for Josephine, there are 12 in the file, four less than Absolom; and, like Absolom, Josephine seems to have gone out of style, the last one was born in 1917. Absolom died much earlier, in 1851.

Yesterday I came across the find-a-grave pages of Christina Simmons Chinworth, the wife of William Chenworth born 1840 in Ohio. This family is found in the unknown Harris pages on page 632. To my knowledge no known tie for this William has been uncovered as of this date. William died in Des Moines Co., IA in May of 1880 just before the census. He is found in just two censuses, both in Des Moines Co., IA, in 1860 as a single man living with Daniel and Elizabeth Ingersol and in 1870 with his wife Christina. Christina, widowed, is in the 1880 Census of neighboring Henry Co., IA with 5 of her 7 children: Jeanette, James, Athea, Anne and Rachel. Missing is Sarah who would be 22 and Cora, age 13, presumed to have died young.

One aspect of the Chenoweth book is that he listed family members under the one spelling of Chenoweth, regardless of how they actually spelled there name. I have used the same approach in our database, as it makes it easier to find people if you don’t have to worry about how they spelled Chenoweth, with a separate fact field for spelling variants of Chenoweth. Of course 88% of the family does use this spelling, but the variants generally have distinct groupings. The main variants within the family are Chenowith, Chinouth, Chenowth, Chinowth, Chinworth, Chenworth, and various spellings like Channyworth, Chennyworth, etc. You can find more detail on this using this link: http://chenowethsite.com/chenweth.htm#spell The Census is full of misspellings. To get a more accurate sense of the spelling actually used by a branch, I use SSA listings and trace back.

William and Christine only had one son, James H Chinworth, and to this point I had not had much success in tracing the line down. Until now I had no sense that a variant spelling was in play. Up to now, Chinworth is a spelling that fell to only one branch, that of Robert S. Chinworth of Wabash Co., IN. This line is also found in the Harris unknowns on page 627. According to descendants in this branch this Robert was the son of Arthur Chenoweth of Tuscarawas Co., OH, who had two sons, Robert and an Arthur who settled in Paulding Co., OH as well as two daughters Ann and Margaret. Though the latter Arthur had 2 sons, John and Soloman, there were no Chenoweth grandsons and the name of Arthur Jr. (ie presumed to be Arthur IV) died out, not making it to modern vital records. Arthur of Tuscarawas Co., OH has become one of assumed placements with no real proof, only a strong likelihood of being correct as there are no other known or likely solutions. It is thought that he was Arthur III who went west according to Cora Hiatt, the son of Arthur, Jr. of Baltimore. He is found in Brooke Co., VA (now West Virginia) in the 1810 Census. As the children of Arthur of Tuscarawas Co., OH (believed to be Arthur III) are all born more than a decade after Arthur III’s marriage to Elizabeth Baxter on 25 Nov 1791, these children are possibly from a second wife who name is unknown. A more speculative assumption is that Arthur and Elizabeth may have has a daughter Sarah who later shows up in Licking Co., OH to marry Moses Sutton Jr.

The obvious first question is” Could this William have come from this family of Arthur of Tuscarawas Co., OH?” Born in 1840 in Ohio, he have to be a grandson and no such fit seems likely to what we know of Arthur’s sons. Robert has a son William born in 1837, but his life is known and traceable. In 1850 Arthur in Pauling Co., OH IV has only 3 children, none matching this William. We don’t know where this William is to be found in the 1850 Census and there are no possible known and unaccounted for Williams of this age born in Ohio. It seems likely that he was orphaned in some way. The upshot is this variant spelling seems to shed no light on who this William who married Christina might be.

Both Christina and her son James are found buried Aspen Grove Cemetery, Burlington, Des Moines Co., IA as are two of Christina and William’s daughters, Jeanette, who married Charles Horace Emerson, and Althea who married Henry Casper Hokamp. The other 4 daughters, Sarah, Cora, Anne and Rachel have never been traced. James married Rosa Gries about 1885. His middle name is unknown, but records record his middle initial as H, possibly Hale or Henry as those were middle names given his two sons. James and Rosa had a total of 3 children: Pearl who married Louis Bonnard Larson and lived in Kansas City, KS, Lloyd Henry who married Bessie May Creager and lived in Kansas City, MO and Neal Hale, also of Kansas City, MO who appears to have married 3 times without any children. Of note Neal’s middle name was Hale, which evokes possible connections to Tennessee lines which used variant spellings quite often, but have no trails to Ohio. Lloyd had one son, Lee Hale Chinworth (a reusage of the name Hale). He is last found, 13 years old living with his mother Bessie and stepfather, Edward V Cummins in Twin Falls, ID. No records have been found after his date.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

The Horns of a dilemma

This week someone posted a find-a-grave pages for Thomas Chenoweth, son of Joseph Chenoweth and Sophia Taylor, and great grandson of Richard Chenoweth of Louisville. He was buried in the Union Cemetery in Lyonsville, Fayette Co., IN where his cousin wife Mary Ann was buried ten years before him. Mary Ann was the daughter of William Chenoweth and Lucinda Defibaugh of Bedford Co., PA. William was a grandson of John Chenoweth and Hannah Cromwell of Rock Hall, Berkeley Co., VA (now WV). So Mary was 6th generation in the line of Arthur, and Thomas was 6th generation in the line of John, fourth cousins. Mary had been first married to Daniel T. Gates on May 25, 1861 in Clinton Co., IN, the same county where Thomas was born. His grandfather Thomas had relocated here from Shelby Co., KY in the 1830s after a stop in Jefferson County, across the Ohio River from Kentucky. How and why Mary had gotten west from Pennsylvania is unknown. She and Daniel were not together very long, for a few years later she married Thomas Chenoweth and they are found together in the 1870 census of Union Co., IN with two sons, Willie and Henry, along with a stepson Daniel T. Gates, Jr. from Mary’s first marriage. They are again found in 1880 with four children and the step son Daniel Gates, Jr. And this is the way it was entered into the Chenoweth books, four children from Thomas and Mary: William (1866), Henry (1868), Robert (1871) and Alice (1875), with Mary’s one stepson, Daniel T. Gates, Jr. (1862). But there are two additional Gates children born in Union Co. to a mother, Mary Chenoweth, James Marion (1862) and Nancy J. (1866), both of whom’s death certificates and marriage records state that their parents were Daniel Gates and Mary Chenoweth. Indeed Daniel Gates, who died in 1878 is buried in the same Union Cemetery in Lyonsville with a shared tombstone with as wife Mary (1841-1924). My head was exploding. Then I found a 1880 Census with a Mary Gates living in neighboring Wayne County, widowed, with James (1862) and Nancy (1866) and two more children: Mathrw (1868) and Emma (1874). She is born 1841 with parents born Kentucky and Maryland! Voila! Thomas had a sister Mary born about 1841. The parents of Thomas and his sister Mary were Joseph Chenoweth born Shelby Co., KY and Sophia Taylor born Maryland. What might have happened, Mary Chenoweth Gates (b: 1833 PA) found a Chenoweth family nearly by in Clinton Co. and they became acquainted. Her husband Daniel Gates had a tryst with Joseph and Sophie’s daughter Mary and the result was a child, James Marion Gates born 10 Feb 1862. Daniel and Mary soon divorced even though she was pregnant with Daniel, Jr. born 11 Sep 1862. Thomas Chenoweth, Mary’s brother, seems to have stepped in and married Mary Ann Chenoweth Gates some time about 1865. Daniel appears to have gone off to war, enlisting in 1863 in Union Co., IN as a single man. He came back to reunite with, Mary, the sister of Thomas, and have three more children, Nancy, Matthew and Emma. It explains what happened to Mary the daughter of Joseph and Sophie, who otherwise is not found after the 1860 Census in Clinton Co. It is the only examination I can find, as the gravestones exist and the death records and marriage records agree with this analysis.

Thursday, July 21, 2022

We have cousins

This past week, I got involved in tracings the Triplett family of Phoebe Ann Clark. This is not the Triplett line that abounds in Randolph Co., WV. Phoebe was the daughter of Sarah Tucker who married Joseph Clark in Pike Co., OH and settled in Pike Co., IL, both Chenoweth places settled on much earlier. Sarah was born in Hampshire Co., VA (now WV), the daughter of Thomas W. Tucker and Phoebe Ashbrook. This Phoebe was the daughter of Mary Chenoweth, the daughter of John Chenoweth, Jr. of Frederick Co., VA, the oldest son of the family. That makes Phoebe Ann Clark 6th generation. Her husband Elzie Triplett was born 22 Mar 1819 in Athens, McMinn Co., TN. Their one son, Lemuel Perry Triplett, married Vivian Elizabeth Wing on 05 Nov 1876 in Adams Co., IL. They were 4th cousins once removed. The Wings are a very interesting family. Vivian was the daughter of Commodore Perry Wing and Lucinda Jane Bennett. Perry’s three brothers had joined the Mormon Religion and migrated to Utah, a family that blossomed into a huge family line wife a brief dip into polygamy. They were the sons of Matthias Wing and Elizabeth Chenoweth. Elizabeth was a daughter of Samuel Chenoweth and Nancy Orr. Samuel was a son of Jonathan Chenoweth, the 4th generation son of William Chenoweth of Frederick Co., VA and a brother to the Mary Chenoweth who married the Rev. Levi Ashbrook. That makes Vivian, 8th generation in the family, Vivian and Lemuel's common ancestor being John Chenoweth Jr. Lemuel and Vivian had 6 children, five sons and a daughter, all born in Missouri. One, George Martin Triplett, had died in his teens in Kansas City, Mo and is buried in the Elmwood Cemetery, Kansas City, Jackson Co, MO. Vivian would died in Orofino, Clearwater Co., ID, becoming a Mormon as well. Her one daughter Maidie Ola Triplett married Ernest Marion Davis and ended up in the Flathead Co., MT with three of her brothers, Ezra, Henry Perry and Walter. The 4th brother, Elzie Fonzo Triplett married Fern Adelle McPherson in Asotin Co., WA before returning to Missouri. Henry Perry Triplett had a large family of 11 children, 7 daughters and 4 sons. His wife, Edna Gertrude West, died 8 years after the last was born at the age of 46. Perry remarried to Edna's older sister Susie, who helped to raise this large family, many of whom moved west to Coos Bay, OR. Perry's brother Ezra, who had married Florence Alice Elliott had a smaller family of two sons and two daughters, one being Marjorie Maurine Triplett who married Robert Conrad Myers in Asotin, WA and settled in Colfax, WA. They divorced after 6 children and Maurine remarried to Jack Bundy Chenoweth, her 7th cousin (or 7th cousin once removed, depending and which line to John you choose). Jack had had 2 prior marriages but no children. The second, Diane B. Roberge, he had married in Whitman Co., WA, so it is likely they met here. They married however in Couer d'Alene, ID and they had a daughter Jane Chenoweth, who with two cousin marriages in her tree, ends up with 3 paths to John Chenoweth, the progenitor. Jack's line goes back to Ison Chenoweth of Hocking Co., OH. Ison was the sole son of Edward Chenoweth, a son of Isaac Chenoweth, who was the son of William Chenoweth on Mill Creek VA (now WV). Quite Remarkable.

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