Our prompt this week is 'Where There's a Will'. That was the magic for 1 of my brick walls.
My great-great-grandfather
David Berry in Malone, Franklin Co., NY lost his first wife Betsey Wilcox in
1838, less than 2 months after she gave birth to their second child. He
apparently muddled through for nearly 2 years, likely with assistance from his
mother or other females in the family or neighborhood, until October 1840 when
he married a young woman named Phebe Adams, who gave birth to 3 children, one
of whom was my great-grandfather Horace Adams Berry. And then she died 3 months
later in December 1848!
When I started researching
Horace's line, I got stumped on Phebe--who was she? Where did she come from? I
checked all of the 'Adams' families in Franklin Co. to no avail. Dead end. No
tools that I had then (about 20 years ago) revealed any clue to Phebe.
My local genealogy club
started a 5-generation chart project about that same time, and I submitted
mine, showing a dead-end at Phebe. We published the volume and distributed it
to various genealogy centers around the country. And that was that.
Some months later, the phone rang, and a very nice woman from Racine, Wisconsin introduced herself, confirmed who I was, and then said, 'Have I got a surprise for you!' She had been researching her husband's Adams line and came across our club's 5-gen chart book, and saw my dead end with Phebe. Her research for her husband had found Phebe's parents, John and Rebecca Adams, buried in Portage, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and in the county courthouse, she found Rebecca's will and probate documents! Where there is a Will, indeed! The will left her estate to her 5 children (John predeceased her), but Phebe was long dead, so her fifth share passed through to Phebe's 2 living children, Horace and Ellen, and the probate courts tracked them down (now in their mid-30's). The documents include affidavits from Horace and Ellen with their signatures.
Pictured here are 4 generations of Berrys, with Horace (son of David and Phebe), surrounded by son Ernest Harold Berry, grandson Floyd Ford 'Bill' Berry, and great-grandson Derek Ford Berry, circa 1934.
Some months later, the phone rang, and a very nice woman from Racine, Wisconsin introduced herself, confirmed who I was, and then said, 'Have I got a surprise for you!' She had been researching her husband's Adams line and came across our club's 5-gen chart book, and saw my dead end with Phebe. Her research for her husband had found Phebe's parents, John and Rebecca Adams, buried in Portage, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and in the county courthouse, she found Rebecca's will and probate documents! Where there is a Will, indeed! The will left her estate to her 5 children (John predeceased her), but Phebe was long dead, so her fifth share passed through to Phebe's 2 living children, Horace and Ellen, and the probate courts tracked them down (now in their mid-30's). The documents include affidavits from Horace and Ellen with their signatures.
Pictured here are 4 generations of Berrys, with Horace (son of David and Phebe), surrounded by son Ernest Harold Berry, grandson Floyd Ford 'Bill' Berry, and great-grandson Derek Ford Berry, circa 1934. But that is not the whole story. My informant, Fran Adams (now deceased) had been on the ground here in St. Lawrence County, NY doing research with her husband. It turns out that Phebe's parents migrated to Michigan after living 20 years in northern New York, in St. Lawrence County, in a little mining town of Rossie on the western extremes of the county. Rossie is approximately 40 miles from Malone using today’s roads. That was pre-railroad for that part of the state, and the roads were not much more than wagon tracks. So it begs the question of how David got fixed up with Phebe that distance away, but one assumes the church ladies got the word out and about. And it appears that upon the marriage of daughter Phebe, the parents John and Rebecca headed west to Michigan.
Thank you, Fran Adams, for
your help! Where There's a Will!
'Til next time,
Ron
