Death Index Expanded in New Jersey

A wonderful thing happened for genealogy in New Jersey.

Reclaim the Records has secured indexes for deaths 1904 through 2017, with quite a few (temporary?) gaps.

You can view the images at Archive.org.

Index of deaths in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey
Surname H. Year 1928.

The actual death records are housed at the Archives in Trenton through 1955. Deaths after 1955 can be obtained from the Department of Health, but only by certain people, and the cause of death is often obscured.

New Jersey Death Certificate
Mary Agnes Walpole (1831-1915), wife of Jacob Duryea
Note that the Department of Health blocks the cause of death.

Mary died of chronic nephritis. The full certificate of death is viewable at the Archives.

Before publication of this index, to find a record of death you needed to search the microfilm at the Archives year by year. Certificates are filed alphabetically on the microfilm. This is a waste of time and a barrier to promoting accurate research in New Jersey.

Deaths 1848 through 1900 are indexed at Family Search. An overlapping index by the Archives covers the years 1878 through 1897.

The indexes for deaths 1901 through 1903 were previously obtained by Reclaim the Records. They can be searched at Ancestry.com.


David Lutter Verona piano gun

Amanuensis Monday: Watson at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Jersey City

“Everdue”

Marble Dale Com.

June – 8 – 1932

Not Entered in Books

My dear Mr. Carnie:

I am sending you the correct data in connection with the deaths of my parents- this to be entered in the Parish book- for the benefit of any one in the future, wishing for such information.

Edward Malcom Watson

Born in New Milford, Connecticut

June 13, 1846

Died at his home, Marble Dale Connecticut,

September 12, 1908.

There is a window in St John’s in memory of my father. (The Parable of the Sower)

I did so enjoy being with you for a few weeks, and shall do so again in the near future.

With warm personal regards for you and yours,

Sincerely yours,

Mary S Watson

P.S.

As you know the Sanctuary Lamp is in memory of my mother.

Also please note change in my mailing address.

(Washington Depot Connecticut, R. F. D.)

My mother was-

Susanna Suttle, born in Paterson, New Jersey on July 22, 1846.

Died at her home in Marble Dale Connecticut,

July 7, 1930

My parents were married in St. Pauls Parish, Paterson, N.J. [New Jersey]

on September 18, 1867

by the Rev. Joseph M. Waite, Rector of the Church.

My mother was baptized, confirmed, and married from the same church.

If you will make correct entries I shall appreciate it so much.

I came across this note in the church book for Saint John's Episcopal Church in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey while researching a branch of my Heiser family. The author, Mary Smith Watson (1871-1948), so much wanted this bit of her family history preserved. For Mary, here is her information for anyone's benefit, as she wished.


Saint John's Church is not operational. The stained glass windows are gone. In spite of efforts to covert the structure into condominiums, the building remains vacant and deteriorating. Below is the image from Google maps in 2017.

Source of Census Information

Reminder to everyone-

The census is an invaluable source of information for family researchers.

The note in the above 1940 census reinforces that the source of information was not necessarily the enumerated people themselves.

"This line vacant due to misleading information given by neighbor"

I do not know what the misleading information was, or who it concerned.

The note is in between the household of Bernard Burn (usually seen as Burns) and his wife, Ellen. The next household is their daughter, Marjorie, seen here with husband John Lysaght and daughter Anita. They were residing at 127 West 6th Street, Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey.

Use census information, but cautiously.

Amanuensis Monday: Will of Samuel Peer, 1819, in Morris County, New Jersey

In the name of God Amen.

I, Samuel Peer, of the Township of Pequanack, in the County of Morris and State of New Jersey, being of sound mind and memory this fourteenth day of September in the year of our Lord Eighteen hundred and eighteen. Thanks be to God for all his mercies, calling to mind the mortality of my body; and as touching the things wherewith it hath pleased God to bless me in this life, I give and bequeath in manner following (to wit):

1st, after my debts and funeral charges be paid, which is to be done by making sale of so much of my personal estate as shall be necessary by my executors herein after named, I give and bequeath the residue of my personal estate together with all my real estate to the use of my daughter, Susannah Peer, for and during her natural life, provided she continue to live unmarried, but if she should marry, this bequest to be null and void.

2d, after the decease or marriage of my daughter, Susan Peer, it is my will that my real estate descend to my two grandsons, Samuel Peer and Jacob Peer, and to be divided between them, that Jacob Peer shall have the house and barn where I now live with twenty acres of land to begin at the river below my house and to run westerly parallel with the road in front of my house untill it strike the back line of my farm and the residence of my homestead farm. I wish to be so divided that each of the two have an equal quantity, that is each an equal quantity of acres in the whole homestead farm. Also that each have alike quantities of wood and meadow land. And if my said grandsons cannot agree on a division of the said lands abovesaid then I appoint that Thomas Vanwinkle herein after named as one of my executors shall divide the same between them agreeably to the directions herein laid down, which division shall be conclusive between the said Samuel and Jacob. It is my intention that the bequest of my real estate herein made to my grandsons, Samuel Peer and Jacob Peer, be to them, their heirs and assigns forever. Also the lot of woodland which I brought of William Miller containing about twenty acres I also give to my two said grandsons and to their heirs and assigns forever and to be equally divided between them.

3d,  it is my will that my daughter, Susannah Peer, shall have no liberty to sell any of my personal estate of which I have given her the use of, nor to cut any timber, only for her own firewood and for fencing and repairing the farm and buildings.

And 4th it is my will that my two grandsons aforesaid pay the following legacies five years after they get possession of the lands herein bequeathed to them.

Unto the heirs of my daughter, Elizabeth decd [deceased], the sum of fifty dollars;

unto my daughter Catharine or her lawful heirs, the sum of fifty dollars;

unto the heirs of my daughter, Jane decd [deceased], the sum of fifty dollars;

unto the heirs of my son, Jacob Peer decd [deceased], the sum of fifty dollars;

unto the heirs of my daughter, Rachel Peer decd [deceased], the sum of fifty dollars.

5th, after the decease or marriage of my daughter, Susannah, all the personal estate which she hath had the use of and is in being then it is my will shall be equally divided amongst my children or their lawful representatives so that the representatives of each have the share divided equally amongst them that their parent would have.

6^th, I appoint Samuel Peer, my grandson, and Thomas Vanwinkle to be executors to this, my last will and teswtament.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal dated as above.

Samuel Peer, his mark

Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said Samuel Peer to be his testament and last will in the presence of us:

Samuel Peer Jun

Thomas Vanwinkle

Isaac Drake

Thomas Vanwinkle, one of the witnesses to the foregoing will, being duly sworn according to law, did depose and say that he saw Samuel Peer, the testator therein making his signature to said will and heard him publish and declare the foregoing writing to be his last will and testament, and that at the doing thereof the said testator was of sound and disposing mind and memory as far as this deponent knows and as he verily believes and that Samuel Peer Jun and Isaac Drake the other subscribing evidences were present at the same time and signed their names as witnesses to the said will together with this deponent in the presence of the said testator.

Thomas Vanwinkle

Sworn before me March 16^th, 1819

David Thompson Jun, Surrogate

Samuel Peer, one of the executors named in the foregoing will, being duly sworn according to law, did depose and say that the foregoing writing contains the true last will and testament of Samuel Peer, the testator therein named, so far as he knows and as he verily believes and that he will and truly perform the same by paying first the debts of the said decd and then the legacies in the testament specified so far as the goods and chattels and credits of the said decd can thereto extend and that he will make and exhibit into the Surrogate’s office of the County of Morris a true and perfect inventory of all and singular the goods, chattels, and credits of the said decd, and render a just and true account when thereto lawfully required.

Samuel Peer

Sworn before me March 16^th, 1819

David Thompson Jun, Surrogate

Renunciation of Thomas Vanwinkle

I, Thomas Vanwinkle, being named as one of the executors in the foregoing last will and testament of Samuel Peer, late of Morris County, decd [deceased], do hereby renounce my right to act as executor of the last will and testament of the said Samuel Peer decd, and do decline taking upon myself the burden or duties of an executor to said will.

March 16th, 1819

Thomas Vanwinkle

Signed before me at Morristown

March 16^th, 1819

David Thomspon Jr

Note: Samuel Peer was my 7th great grandfather.
I descend from his daughter, Jane, who was deceased when Samuel wrote his will in 1818.
Jane married John Cook (1745-1821).

Marriage of Step Siblings

A marriage between step-siblings is not a rare encounter.

Below is an explanation with documents on one such marriage.

Richard Everet Wolff (1908-1992) was my father's second cousin, three times removed. The common ancestors were Peter John Hyser (1790-1874) and Ella Fritz (1801-1847) of Greene County, New York.

Richard married his step-sister, Grace Liebeherr (1914-1993) in 1939 in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. One year earlier, Grace's mother, Edna Schermerhorn Hogan (1884-1938), who was also Richard's step-mother, died. I don't know if her death influenced the timing of the marriage. Perhaps a descendant could write in to clarify?

Witnesses Edna Gamble Liebeherr (sister of Grace Liebeherr) and G Wallace McComb.

Death certificate for Annie Coombe, first wife of Charles Wolff, 1927
in Westfield, Union County, New Jersey.

Death certificate of Edna Hogan, second wife of Charles Wolff, 1938
in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.

Richard's parents were Charles Endicott Wolff (1881-1946) and Annie Rosalee Coombe (1886-1927). They had married in Jersey City in 1907.

In 1928, one year after his first wife's death, Charles Wolff remarried to Edna Hogan in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. Edna was the widow of Richard Liebeherr- Grace's father, who had died in 1924.

Death certificate of Richard Liebeherr, first husband of Edna Hogan, 1924
in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.
Informant was Ernest L Broome of Tarrytown, New York.
Why was his wife not the informant?

The merged families in the 1930 federal census at 116 Prospect Street, East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.

The family remained living together in 1940 following the death of Mother Edna
and the marriage of Richard and Grace.
195 Prospect Street, East Orange.