Harris Brickwall Smashed! (Probably)

For more than 20 years, my father and I have wondered where in Wales our immigrant ancestor, William Harris, came from. Now, thanks to computer indexing and the Internet, we have found out! (Probably.)

We knew for years that our William Harris married Sarah Ann Jones and had two children, Thomas J. and Lewis W., before leaving Wales and coming to Ohio. We had looked at the IGI and seemed to find indication that they came from Monmouthshire, but we had nothing firm. However, not long ago, I used Ancestry.com to check for Thomas Harrises living in Wales who were 1 year old at the time of the 1861 census, and whose parents where named "William" and "Sarah." Amazingly, there was only one hit for these critieria.

The family lived in the parish of Merthyr Tydfil, in the county of Glamorgan. At the time of the census, they were living at 41 George Street, with two children (John, age 3, and Thomas, age 15 months); William's father, Thomas, age 70; and William's brother, Charles, age 40. The census notes that Sarah and the children were born in Merthyr Tydfil, but that husband, grandfather, and brother were born in Abergwili, Carmarthenshire.

But is this our family? The ages listed for William and Sarah were both too young by 1 year when compared to our family records and U.S. census data. Using FreeBMD, I found and ordered the birth registration certificate for their child, Thomas. It listed his mother's maiden name as "Jones." Hurray, a match! But wait, the birth date on the certificate was 13 Jan 1860, and the birth date on Thomas's Akron, Ohio, death certificate was 16 (or possibly 15) Jan 1860, off by 2 or 3 days. Seeing this, and having William and Sarah too young by 1 year, made me lose confidence. But there was another test I could make.

My William and Sarah had one more child who was born in Wales, Lewis W. Once again checking FreeBMD, I found there was only one Lewis Harris birth registered in Glamorgan within the timeframe. I ordered the certificate. It showed that Lewis's mother's maiden name was "Jones," and that he was born at 41 George Street. An exact match on mother's maiden name and linkage to the 1861 census family!

I don't have Lewis's death certificate, but none of the his U.S. census data matches the certificate's birth date of 4 Dec 1861:

• 1870 census - born Jun 1859/May 1860
• 1880 census - born Jun 1860/May 1861
• 1900 census - born Nov 1862
• 1910 census - born Apr 1862/Apr 1863
• 1920 census - born Jan/Dec 1862
• 1930 census - born Apr 1862/Mar 1863

Still, I think that this is him, and that this is my family, despite the discrepancies with birth dates. The names of the childen are right. The names "Thomas" and "Charles" repeat frequently in this family line. The family disappears from Merthyr Tydfil by the time of the 1871 census.

Children of Edwin Charles Henderson

I'm still playing around with the Find a Grave website. Before I add a name, I always check to see what's there. The other night I found someone had already made entries for Edwin Charles Henderson, Sr (1863-1939) and Emma H Wood (1868-1929), as well as their three children (Emline Lavinia, Wilmer Thomas, and Edwin Charles, Jr) and son in law (Ben Bunyar, Sr). I emailed the person who posted the entries, "Phyl," but he said he was not related. Apparently there are a number of people like him who, as a public service, take photographs of gravestones and post them to this site. As Edwin and Emma are my great granduncle and great grandaunt, I was happy to not only find these graves, but see them too. Each of the graves has the same style, which makes me think that there may not have been stones for the older burials until recently. Previously, in March, I wrote a cold contact letter to the person who I believed was the great grandson of Edwin and Emma, but I never received a reply.

Newspapers at the LoC

I went to the Library of Congress (Madison Building, Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, LM-133) Thursday night, thinking I could access microfilm of the Akron Beacon Journal, but I had misread the Library's on-line catalogue and they didn't have any of the issues I was looking for. (Their collection begins in 1973.) So instead I looked through some issues of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and found death notices for Emma Beck (d 3 May 1910), wife of Thomas Henderson, and Annie Elizabeth Henderson (d 2 May 1942), wife of Daniel Charles Harris.
I looked very thoroughly for a notice of Thomas Henderson's death on 8 Jul 1888, but I could not find it. It makes me think this date might be wrong. The Plain Dealer at that time carried death notices in the same spot every week, and on some days it also had a list of deaths provided by the Board of Health. The Board of Health list appears in the Sunday, 8 Jul 1888, issue, but not in the Monday, 9 Jul 1888, issue, the issue in which one would expect to find the notice. The paper also carried obituaries at that time, but not in the same place every day.

The Reading Room did have WPA-produced bound indexes to the Akron Beacon Journal for 1929-1938 (AI21.A4) and the Cleveland Plain Dealer for 1933-1938 (AI21.C53), which I scanned briefly.