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Hoyt Family Tree

Charlotte’s headstone does confirm the information in the online tree (here’s hoping that the tombstone is also right!)

Charlotte and Joseph are buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.

Additionally, from the information on the stone, Charlotte’s date of birth can be calculated. She died September 26, 1875, aged 31 years, 1 month & 22 days; therefore, she was born on August 4, 1844.*

*Jim Tipton, Find A Grave, digital images (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 24 Sep 2011), Joseph H. Berry (1838-1907) and Charlotte Eugenia Dwight Berry ( -1875) gravemarker, Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.

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Hoyt Family Tree

I have general information about the Berry family and where they lived. I want to make sure that I add more specific vitals for Lottie’s parents if they are available. There is an online family tree that reports that Joseph Hooper Berry was born on 10 Mar 1839 in Elizabethtown, Union, New Jersey, and that he died 22 Mar 1907 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.¹ He married Charlotte Eugena Dwight on 22 Oct 1868 in Wayne County, Michigan. She was born in 1844 in Michigan and she died on 26 Sep 1875 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.

A search for Michigan Death Records at www.deathindexes.com (a GREAT site) shows that certificates are available online for Michigan from 1867 to 1897 at FamilySearch.org and from 1897 to 1920 at the Library of Michigan.

Joseph H. Berry’s certificate can be found here. The dates above are confirmed and his parents are named as John Berry and Catherine Hopper, both born in England. The informant at his death and the doctor who completed the medical certificate portion was his son-in-law Dr. Edwin Lodge. Joseph was buried in Elmwood Cemetery.²

Searching for Charlotte’s death record proves problematic though. She isn’t in the database. Therefore, I decided to try navigating page by page to see if she was mis-transcribed. When I began the process, I was presented with a list of microfilm numbers to begin narrowing my search. Not knowing those off the top of my head, I opened another tab and navigated to the card catalog record for the death records. There I found this little note: missing Oceana County to Wexford County, 1875. Proof that catalog records should be checked!

I’ll have to keep looking for confirmation of Charlotte’s dates. Maybe the cemetery…

1. “reblady”, “Read – Berry Family Tree,” member tree, Ancestry.com (http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/25883569 : accessed 28 Aug 2011), entry for Joseph Hooper Berry.
2. Michigan Department of Community Health, death certificate 82 (1907), Joseph H. Berry; digital image, “Death Records, 1897-1920,” Seeking Michigan (http://seekingmichigan.org/ : accessed 28 Aug 2011).

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Hoyt Family Tree

I didn’t have to go far to find out more about Lottie’s parents. A quick Google Search for “Hayward Hoyt” returned one book that states that he married into the Berry family on 26 Feb 1921. The book is titled “The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922.”

The genealogical information the book contained:
Joseph H. Berry was born 10 Mar 1839 at Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey.¹ His father was John Berry, a native of Lewes, England, who immigrated in 1835. One of Joseph’s brothers was named John A. Berry, who was the first of the family to move to Detroit; another brother, who became his business partner, was Thomas Berry. In 1868, Joseph married Charlotte E. Dwight, a daughter of Alfred A. Dwight, a prominent and well known lumberman of Michigan. Charlotte Berry died in 1875, leaving three daughters: Charlotte, the widow of Henry G. Sherrard; Alice Dwight, the widow of Dr. Edwin Lodge; and Lottie D., wife of Hayward N. Hoyt. Joseph Berry died 22 May 1907.

Biographical facts: Joseph H. Berry was a pioneer manufacturer and financier of Detroit. His father, John Berry, was a tanner. Joseph attended private schools in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Richmond, Virginia, when his family lived in those locations. When he moved to Detroit at age sixteen, he shortly became employed and in his work at a chemical house, he developed a superior varnish. When nineteen, he established his own business and prospered thereafter.

This book gives clues about family which can now be “chased down.”

Research Plan:

1. Using censuses, verify the parents and siblings of Lottie Berry Hoyt.
2. Discover more about Lottie’s grandparents: John Berry and Alfred Dwight. To do this, begin by checking for more books!

1. Clarence M. Burton, et al., editors, The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, 5 volumes (Detroit: The S. J. Clarke publishing company, 1922), 3: 16-20.

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Hoyt Family Tree

Checking at genealogy.az.gov, I did find a death certificate for Lottie.

Certificate of death

Lottie Dwight Hoyt was born on 17 Nov 1874 in Detroit, MI.¹ Her parents were Joseph H. Berry, who was born in Elizabeth, NJ, and Charlotte E. Dwight, who was born in Detroit, MI. Hayward was the informant when she died on 23 Feb 1949. From the information regarding her usual residence and her Tucson address at E. Broadway (Rural Rt.8), it seems that Tucson’s “snowbird” phenomenon is not new. Lottie’s body was removed to Detroit for burial.

So where is Hayward?

1. Arizona Department of Health Services, death certificate 1026 (1949), Lottie Dwight Hoyt; digital image, Arizona Genealogy Death Certificates (http://genealogy.az.gov : accessed 1 May 2011).

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