Detangler Needed?

Scholefield Family Tree The sources I have located have stated that Harmanus DeGraff, Helen Scholefield’s father, was born in 1800; however, I also find possible matches who were born in 1796 or 1791. Which do I choose to believe? More evidence is needed. (And here is some…) The 1840 Census reports: Harmonus DeGraff of Amsterdam1 … Read more

Which Harmanus?

Scholefield Family Tree It behooves the serious researcher to remember that not all search engines have indexed every part of the web. In this case, a search on Dogpile for “harmanus degraff” turns up the following result from Ask and Bing: Simon, son of Daniel, born April 6th, 1753, married December 6th, 1779, first, Annatie, … Read more

Searching Sideways

Scholefield Family Tree I am certain that I have pushed back another generation with the names of Harmanus DeGraff and Susan Thomas; however, what were the names of all of their children and their parents? Earlier I found that Susan had a brother named Alonzo, so searching for information about him might lead me to … Read more

Widow Susan Road

Scholefield Family Tree Remember to keep reading articles which are returned when you search. You might find a gem like this one: Columnist Has Personal Interest In Amsterdam Widow Susan Road A bit of Amsterdam area history was included in yesterday’s issue of the Yonkers Herald Statesman where the column, “First Person Singular,” attracts attention … Read more

A Sister of Alonzo DeGraff

Scholefield Family Tree One of the challenges a genealogist often faces is the evaluation of contradictory bits of evidence. Which fact do we add to the family tree? The IGI at FamilySearch.org reports Helen Marr DeGraff’s parents as Harmonus Degraff and Susannah Thomas. 1 However, a biography about her son reports that she was born … Read more

Eastman's Newsletter and Helen

Scholefield Family Tree

Occasionally, I find something new. (Yeah, it can be a rare occurrence that I don’t know about something.) This time I found it by scanning Dick Eastman’s newsletter. One of his posts was about the Fulton History website which features millions of scanned pages of old New York newspapers.

The OCR software they used had quite a hard time reading the name Scholefield on some scans, but the “fuzzy” search capability means that I don’t have to try misspellings — it will try them for me. A higher number on the fuzzy search will return the weirdest combinations, but I found that a number around 2 was sufficient when searching for exact names (just the surname will return too many hits). Therefore, all I have to try are different combinations of first names and initials. Still, there were some events (obituaries) that didn’t pop up so the site also features a browse capability where you can hunt and find a paper with the correct date to read for yourself (really only usable if you have an exact date for something or if you are just generally interested in reading the news). Be aware that the pages can take quite a while to load!

Anyway — onto the findings for George’s mother Helen Marr DeGraff Scholefield…

Most interesting to genealogists is the obituary. An obituary in a person’s hometown newspaper is a possibility one should not forget. In Helen’s case, a simple death announcement ran in New York City where she died, but an obituary with family and biographical data ran both in Utica, New York, a place where she had been a longtime resident, and was republished in Amsterdam, New York, where she was born and had lived with her parents.

blockquoteMrs. Helen M. Scholefield.

The Utica Press says: There are very many people still residing in this city and our ancient suburb who remember Major Charles M. Scholefield and wife who lived many years ago at Yorkville. They were very prominent and popular people in their time and had a very large circle of friends and acquaintances.

Major Scholefield was a more than ordinarily acceptable public speaker and was much in demand as a temperance lecturer. Mrs. Scholefield will be remembered as a charming and attractive woman who did much to make the home a social center and who was held in high esteem by all who knew her. Major Scholefield died many years ago.

Mrs. Helen M. Scholefield, his widow, died in New York city Saturday in her 79th year. She was born in Amsterdam, being descended from the earliest Dutch settlers of the Mohawk valley. In 1859, she married Mr. Scholefield. During the Civil war, she lived in Washington, her husband and brother being officers in the army, and each day ministered to the sick and wounded in the hospital at a time when there were no trained nurses and very little knowledge of anesthetics. At the close of the war, they returned to Yorkville, but spent much time in Albany, as Major Scholefield was a member of the legislature and a preminent lawyer, editor and public speaker.

Upon the death of her husband, the family moved to Utica and Mrs. Scholefield opened a kindergarten, being a pioneer in that form of education, now a part of the public school system. She was a member of Westminster church and active in its work as well as the literary and social life of Utica.

In recent years she had made her home with her daughters, Mrs. Mae Edwards, of Nutley, N. J., until her death three years ago; with Mrs. Florence DeGraff in New York, where she died, and with Mrs. Virginia S. McMillan, during the summers at her country home, Spencertown. Besides her daughters, she leaves a son, George P. Scholefield, of Vail, Arizona.

The interment was made at Spencertown, Monday.1

From this obituary, we can calculate an exact death date of 18 Dec 1920. The married name of Helen’s daughter Florence is missing: Shaw. This could be because the name was not reported correctly, or it could have gone missing in the resetting of the article in the second newspaper. Also, Mae’s name should be Edwords, but no one seems to get that one right.

In addition to the obituary, the same paper also ran a funeral notice (so don’t forget to check for both possibilities).

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Charles and Helen

Scholefield Family Tree Alright, now that we are moving back, lets catch up on what we know about George Scholefield’s parents. Census research led to the possible name of Charles M. Scholefield’s mother: Abigal.1 The IGI agrees on that point, reporting that his parents were Arnold Scholefield and Abegail Burnham. Also that he married Helen … Read more

IGI — Maybe a Blessing?

Scholefield Family Tree Another resource available on FamilySeach is the International Genealogical Index (IGI). This index contains indexes to microfilm which contain vital records and to patron submitted information. It is recommended that all information located on the IGI be verified. One reason is that vital records may contain more information than was extracted or … Read more