Find Your Dead

Scholefield Family Tree

It turns out that this group REALLY wanted to keep the Armour name alive. What do you do when your mother is an Armour, you have the middle name Armour, one of your brothers has the middle name Armour, and your brother married an Armour? Well, you marry an Armour too!

However, I had to do a little digging to discover this fact. Searching for Hester Moore turns up this family:
John A. Moore, age 54, Merchant, NY¹
Hester A. Moore, age 52, NY
Caroline Williard, age 25, NY
Joseph C. Williard, age 30, Commission Mercht, Vermont
Frederick R. Moore, age 20, NY
Catherine S. Moore, age 19, NY
Joseph R. S. Moore, age 12, NY
Julia T. Moore, age 10, NY
Mary Cunningham, age 20, Ireland
Ellen Lee, age 30, Ireland

So, this is the family of the last brother — John Armour born in 1796. He seems to have been enumerated in two places that year (once at his brother James’s home). Between 1850 and the time of the lawsuit, John appears to have died because the suit names his children and his wife. We can assume that Caroline is a daughter who married a Williard.

We could go back to the IGI in order to verify some actual dates for this family. Or, a web search for “trinity church new york” will lead you to the church’s page. They provide online transcriptions of their registers and burials in their two churchyards: www.trinitywallstreet.org/history/registers. Note that the name fields need to be as exact as possible. John A. Moore’s 1818 marriage to Hester Ann Armour² only appears if you put “John A.” in the search box–no the similar names option doesn’t help. Lesson: Try all variations. In this case, the IGI might be easier to search, but the church’s site has the benefit of providing baptismal records with sponsors and minister’s names on marriages.

I’ll be gathering the exact dates to appear in my final report.

1. 1850 U.S. census, New York County, New York population schedule, New York, Ward 5, p. 128-129 (handwritten), 64B-65A (stamped), dwelling 570, family 920, Household of John A. Moore; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 Jun 2010); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 537.
2. Trinity Church, “Parish Registers,” database, Trinity Wall Street (http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/history/registers : accessed 24 Jun 2010), entry for John A. Moore and Hester Ann Armour, married 25 Apr 1818.

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Innis Family Tree

My first search was in Ancestry and simply for John Ennis (the spelling from the 1850-1860 census) to see if I could follow both John and his son John, who was born about 1824. Amazingly, one of the records that came up was a death record for John W. Ennis from the Kentucky Death Records, 1852-1953.¹ The record lists his parents as John and N. Ennis. He died 7 Aug 1853 at the age of 28 in Warren, Kentucky. It also lists his place of birth as Warren, Kentucky, but I can almost ignore that – after all who would have reported these deaths? The thing that lends real weight to this entry is the information about his parents. If it just said John Ennis I would probably have moved on, but it’s John and N. Ennis which certainly narrows that down. He died a day ahead of his son Henry, who was born about 1850. Henry’s parents are listed as John and Rebecca Ennis.²

I believe that this John W. is the oldest son of John H. and Nancy Innis who was born about 1825. This is the John that I was questioning on the 1850 census who was indexed as John R.K..

I got very excited by Ancestry’s collection of Kentucky Births, 1852-1910 and Death Records 1852-1953, until I realized that Morgan and Clinton County were not part of the returns included in the database. I also had little luck in the Marriage Records – it’s all a conspiracy against me.

Actually, it’s time for a little history work Clinton County. A Google search for Clinton County Kentucky Genealogy took me to MyKentuckyGenealogy which has history and information on each of the Kentucky counties. According to their site for Clinton County, Most records were lost in a courthouse fire in 1864. Another fire in 1980 destroyed some records.”

However, it appears that will and probate materials exist from 1863.

According to the same site for Morgan County, “Courthouse records were lost twice: in Oct 1862 and in 1925.” Although it looks like land and marriage records are available from 1823 and probate records from 1866.

1. Warren County, Kentucky, John W. Ennis, 7 Aug 1853; digital image, The Generations Network, Inc., “Kentucky Death Records, 1852-1953,” Ancestry (http:www.ancestry.com: 24 Jan 2010).
2. Warren County, Kentucky, Henry Ennis, 8 Aug 1853; digital image, The Generations Network, Inc., “Kentucky Death Records, 1852-1953,” Ancestry (http:www.ancestry.com: 24 Jan 2010).

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