New Jersey Vital Records Online 1848-1878

This is wonderful news.

New Jersey's earliest state-level vital records are online at Ancestry!

The covered years are 1848-1878. There are no individual certificates in this time period; rather, births, marriages, and deaths were recorded in ledger books. The information varies, but can include the person's name, date of birth or age, names of parents, places of birth, marriage, and/or death, residence, and more.

Previously, these records were only available at the Archives in Trenton and, within the last few years, at a FamilySearch Center (not from your house).

The ledger books are "organized" by county, year, and event. Use the guide below to find the correct book.

Paper I copied at the Archives a long time ago

Remember to look in the correct county. Places currently in Union County were a part of Essex County until Union County was created in 1857.

Until 1857, Plainfield was in Essex County.
You need to look in records of Essex County to find what is now called Union County.
And that is how "Essex" looked. Double S.

The microfilm rolls at the Archives:

This image captured the spine of the book.
I have never seen the original books. Do they still exist?

The microfilm is viewable on the reader in the background.
Flashback to the 1960s.

Below is a page viewed at a FamilySearch Center. Alfred Dunlop (1831-1892) married Mary Bedle (1840-1927) on December 20, 1865 in Matawan, Monmouth County. He was my third great granduncle. They moved from New Jersey to Indiana and had three children, but no grandchildren.

Citation and blue markings added by author.

I don't know how Ancestry or FamilySearch comes by their images. The quality varies.

Same page at Ancestry

I didn't find all the images at Ancestry. For example, my great great grandfather, Charles Cook (died 1937) was born in Denville, Morris County on June 11, 1858. This was recorded in Book Z2, Births in Morris County, 1848-1867. I found no match in the searchable index and the book did not appear in any menu for browsing. Below is the image photographed on the microfilm reader at the Archives.

Typing added by author

The State Archives has already indexed this collection on their website. It is more precise than the index currently available at Ancestry.

Search page on the State Archive's website.
The exact URLs change over time, so Google for the current link.
Try "New Jersey State Archives Searchable Databases."

For example, a search of the State's index produces specific and accurate results for David Uhl, died October 3, 1867 in Newark. He was a baby of my third great grandparents, David Uhl (1834-1884) and Clara Patschke (1840-1914).

Ancestry's index, in contrast, omits distinguishing details, such as age, location, and date.

The image of the page in the ledger book is below. The month is written once; hence, the indexer only wrote the day. The year is inferred by the range of dates at the top of the page. In this instant, the dates are from June 1 of 1867 through June 1 of 1868. Because this event was in October, the year was 1867. All events were in Newark, but the indexer did not include location, perhaps because "place of death" was blank on each line.

Benjamin Marsh (1797-1867) was a son of my sixth great grandparents, Charles Marsh (1755-1833) and Abigail Denman or Faitoute (1756-1821). (That will be a post for another day.) Benjamin died in Newark on April 8, 1867 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. His entry in ledger book N "Deaths in Newark City 1848-1867" is below.

The State's online index tells us exactly where to find Benjamin's entry.

Ancestry's index is wonky. I did not think this could be him, but no other entries looked like him either. His gender, age (off by 44 years), date (missing year), and residence (name of parents of someone else) were all transcribed wrong.

I would anticipate (hope?) that Ancestry will clean up their index. If linking to such a record through your family tree software, you would need to discard the erroneous information. It would be a good idea to go to the page and download it for your files, in case something happens to this collection. Yes, folks, this can happen.

Around May of 1878, the State began creating individual certificates for births, marriages, and deaths. That is why this collection is only from the start of state registration in 1848 through the middle of 1878. If your event is on the cusp, search both the ledger books and the individual certificates.

Locating the Death Certificate of Jennie Bishop in 1957

My great great grandmother, Minnie Caroline Bishop (1866-1910), had a sister named Jennie Maud Bishop (1878-1957). They were buried in the same plot and share a gravestone at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, Union County, New Jersey. (The cemetery stretches across the Township of Hillside and the City of Elizabeth. This grave lies in Hillside.)

Gravestone at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey.
Children of William Reuben Bishop and Susan Jane Marsh.
Transcription:
William F. January 19, 1973 - March 20, 1895.
Mabel E. September 3, 1868 - April 17, 1907.
Minnie E. Wife of Charles E Cook. February 19, 1866 - March 25, 1910.
Jennie Maud. 1878 - 1957.

Evergreen Cemetery's records are available for viewing.

Picture of plot listing at Evergreen Cemetery owned by William R Bishop.
William F Bishop, age 22, buried March 24, 1895.
Mabel E Bishop, age 37, buried April 21, 1907.
Minnie Caroline Cook [nee Bishop], age 44, buried March 28, 1910.
William Bishop, age 72, buried April 29, 1915.
Susan Jane Bishop [nee Marsh], age 83, buried January 21, 1932.
Eugene T Bishop, age 60, buried May 4, 1936.
Miss Jennie M Bishop, age 74, buried July 5, 1957.
Lafon Allen Foster, age 57, buried March 7, 1964.
Bessie Foster [nee Gulick], age 54, buried March 7, 1964.
Bessie Gulick [nee Bishop], age 85, buried June 9, 1972.

When the 1957 death certificates became available at the New Jersey State Archives, I looked for Jennie Maud Bishop's record. She was buried in July 5, 1957. The index for death records has an entry for Jennie J Bishop, died in August of 1957. Close and worth a look. (Note: if you cannot travel to the Archives, you can request a copy from the Department of Health, but the cause of death will be blocked. Although the Archives holds the record, it is not authorize to release it via mail because it is too recent.)

New Jersey index of deaths
Available online at Ancestry.com or NewJerseyDeathIndex.com

Good that I did look at this death certificate. This is not my Jennie. This is the record for Jennie Josephine Bishop, born Tier, wife of John Michael Bishop. She was born in Jersey City in 1884. She died in Long Branch on August 4, 1957 and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington.

Death certificate of Jennie Josephine Bishop.
Born June 15, 1884 in Jersey City.
Died August 4, 1957 in Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

I remembered how I recently found a death record in Florida for a great great great grandmother. I checked Florida's death index. A possible match for Jennie appeared.

Online Florida death index at Ancestry.com

The turnaround time for a record request is only a few weeks and the cost is a mere $5. (Go Florida!)

This is the death record for my great great grandaunt, Jennie Bishop. She died on July 2, 1957, age 74, in Daytona Beach, Volusia County, Florida. She had uterine cancer.

Death certificate of Jennie Maud Bishop.
Born October 25, 1882 in Newark, New Jersey.
Died July 2, 1957 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Although Jennie's death certificate has her date of birth as 1882, this cannot be. Jennie was enumerated in the 1880 census as age 2.

1880 federal census. 29 Cross Street, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.
Wm R Bishop, age 37; locomotive engineer.
Susan, wife, age 32.
Minnie, daughter, age 14.
Mabel, daughter, age 11.
Emma, daughter, age 9.
Willie, son, age 7.
Eugene, son, age 5.
Jennie, daughter, age 2.
Georgie, daughter, age 8 months.

Jennie's sister, my great great grandmother Minnie, also died of uterine cancer, but at an earlier age. Jennie was the informant on that record.

Death certificate of Minnie Caroline Cook, born Bishop.
Born February 19, 1866 in Newark.
Died March 25, 1910 at 224 North 3rd Street, Newark.

Why did Jennie move to Florida? Was she staying with any family? I have not found a marriage record for her.

Photograph from 100 Years Ago

A cousin surfaced in the DNA database at 23andMe and kindly shared a picture of my great great great grandmother, Susan Jane Marsh.

This picture was probably taken around 1910.
The child, Bessie Gulick, was born May 19, 1908 in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.
Susan Jane Marsh married William Reuben Bishop.
My line descends from their daughter, Minnie Caroline Bishop.
The newly discovered cousin descends from another daughter, Bessie, pictured above.

The bearer of this century-old image is a second cousin, once removed of my father. Their common ancestors were William Reuben Bishop (1842-1915) and Susan Jane Marsh (1848-1932).

The shared DNA ranges from 49 centimorgans to 105 centimorgans among my father and his three siblings. This is within the expected amount for second cousins, once removed.

Two of the segments can be attributed to the parents of Susan Jane Marsh: Eliakim Marsh (1816-1881) or Susan Long (1819-1882). How do I know this? Because of the DNA test of a descendant of Susan's sister, Elizabeth Marsh (1835-1914).

The rest of the segments can belong to either William Bishop or Susan Marsh. The relationships of the other DNA matches on these segments will demonstrate the origins of the segments.

Enhanced Photographs

This tip is from a FaceBook group for New York City Genealogy. (Great resources for research are on FaceBook.)

FamilySearch.org may have better versions of passport photographs than Ancestry.com's database, so check it out. Sometimes these pictures are the only available images of a deceased relative.

In the example below, the image on the right is a passport photo of Eugene Totten Bishop from Ancestry. The application was signed in 1918. On the left is the same image from Family Search, revealing more detail.

Eugene Totten Bishop (1876-1936) was my father's great granduncle.
He was born in Newark, New Jersey to William Reuben Bishop and Susan Jane Marsh.
I have not found a marriage or children for him.
He died in Newark and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey.

Eugene resembles a man in a Bishop photo album I acquired from eBay years ago. I do not know if this is my family or not.

DNA of Marsh and Long Ancestors

This article discusses the DNA shared by Cousin Chris G, who reached out to me as a descendant of Eliakim Marsh (1816-1881) and Susan Long (1819-1882) of Westfield, (now in Union County), New Jersey.

Chris G's father is a third cousin, once removed to my father and his siblings.  As we approach the third cousin level, DNA may or may not be shared.  We checked for shared DNA at GedMatch.com so that we could see all the shared segments.

One of my uncles shares only a tiny segment (3 cM) of DNA with Chris G's father.  This would not have been reported as a match at the three major testing companies (23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and AncestryDNA), but GedMatch allows you to see tiny segments.

When we look at segments above 5 cM, the other siblings share larger segments with this third cousin:
My father shares two segments totaling 42.3 cM.
My aunt shares two segments totaling 46.9 cM.
My uncle shares one segment of 17.7 cM.

Next we looked at other people who also share these same segments.  Anyone who matches my father and Chris G's father on the same segment will descend from Eliakim Marsh and Susan Long, or one of the ancestors of Eliakim or Susan.

My father and Chris G's father share a segment of 25 cM on chromosome 5.  Someone who tested at FamilyTreeDNA matched both men on this same spot with a slightly smaller segment of 15 cM.

We had to travel back in this distant DNA cousin's tree many generations until we were in New Jersey.  The common ancestors are the 3rd great grandparents of Eliakim Marsh:  John Marsh (1661-1744) and Elizabeth Clarke (1664-1739).  They lived in Rahway and Elizabeth.

But- we may also have Denman ancestors in common.  I have not confidently traced back beyond Eliakim Marsh's great grandfather, Philip Denman.  This distant cousin also has Denman ancestors in Westfield, New Jersey.

Plus, Eliakim's mother, Abigail Willis, is another tail.  She could share some ancestral lines with her husband.

We may end up with a situation seen with the Morris County DNA cousins, where we share multiple lines of ancestry and cannot isolate the DNA to a particular ancestor.

My question is:  would this DNA cousin, who is probably a seventh or eighth cousin through these Marsh or Denman lines, share a segment of DNA 15 cM long?  Shouldn't the segment have broken up into smaller, and perhaps not distinguishable, fragments?  Is it possible that someone who was born in the 1660s still has a large segment of their DNA detectable in their descendants?

Thanks to everyone who participated in this effort through DNA testing and/or researching.

Who were the Parents of Susan Long (1818-1882)?

Who were the parents of Susan Long (1818-1882)?

She was my fourth great grandmother and married Eliakim Marsh (1816-1881) in 1839.  Their marriage was recorded in Essex County in the early New Jersey marriages collection at FamilySearch.  Eliakim was from NY City [New York City, New York] and Susan was from E Town [now Elizabeth in Union County, New Jersey].  No parents were listed, which was standard for these marriage records.

Eliakim and Susan are in New Jersey in the census from 1850-1880.
1850:  Elizabeth Township, Essex County
1860:  Newark, Essex County
1870:  New Brunswick, Middlesex County
1880:  Elizabeth, Union County

Susan died in Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey on December 28, 1882.  She is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, Union County.

Her death certificate lists her parents as Jonas Long and Elizabeth.

There are a few references online for a marriage of Jonas Long and Elizabeth Merrell/Merrill.  No further information for Jonas Long.  A few times in the 1820s in newspapers, Jonas Long is on the list of people who have letters at the post office.

Elizabeth appears often as the daughter of Richard Merrell (1775-1864) and Ann/Nancy Cole (1776-1861), born in 1797 in Staten Island, New York.  Richard and Ann are buried at the Piscatawaytown Burial Ground in Edison, Middlesex County.  If I have the correct family, Elizabeth Merrell was the 3x great granddaughter of Richard Merrell and Sarah Wells, who arrived on Staten Island, New York around 1675.  (And my 10x great grandparents.)

What confuses me is why Richard Merrell (1817-1861) is listed as the child of Jonas Long and Elizabeth Merrell.  At least the creator of the above tree from RootsWeb noted that Richard Merrell used his mother's surname and not his father's.  No mention of my Susan, who ended up using the surname of her husband, Marsh.  But she used the surname "Long" on her marriage record, and the informant for her death certificate knew her father's name was Long.

The Richard Merrell born in New Jersey in 1817, the possible brother of Susan Long, moved to Virginia, married Elizabeth Culpepper (1824-1892), and had issue.

I'm not sure that Richard Merrell (1817-1861) is properly placed as a child of Elizabeth Merrell and Jonas Long.  Other online family trees repeat this relation, still without another child named Susan, but list Elizabeth as the father and Jonas as the mother.  Entering the information this way into a tree program would trigger children to carry Elizabeth's surname, Merrell.

I have found a trace of Merrell to Susan Long.  In the 1870 federal census, an older woman named Phebe Merton is living with Susan and her family.  In the 1880 census, Phebe Merton is living with her brother, Abraham Merrell.  Phebe and Abraham may have been siblings of Susan's mother, Elizabeth.

When Susan's maternal grandfather, Richard Merrell, died in 1864, Samuel R Marsh was named as an administrator.  I do not know how this Marsh fits into the Marsh family that Susan married into, but demonstrates a connection to the family.

If anyone is studying these lines, or has any additional insight, please reach out to me.  Thank you.

Genetic Genealogy: Fourth Cousins

Another successful match in my genetic genealogy pursuits at 23andMe!  This time we have my father's fourth cousin.  The most recent common ancestors were my father's great great great grandparents:  Eliakim Marsh and Susan Long.  They were born in the 1810s and lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey.  [Elizabeth is currently in Union County, but the area was Essex County until 1857.]  Eliakim died in 1881 and Susan in 1882.

ISOGG.org

With an autosomal DNA test, you have slightly less than a 1 in 2 chance of sharing any identical DNA with a fourth cousin.  My father and his three siblings all share DNA with this fourth cousin.  The amount of DNA shared ranges from 0.66% to 1.18%, which is on the high side for a fourth cousin match.  This could indicate that we are related on more than one line, or that Eliakim and Susan were related to each other.  Additional research will yield more information.

Of special note is a match to my aunt and uncle on the X chromosome.  This is a 23 cM segment from either Eliakim or Susan- we cannot tell which one at this point.  The X chromosome has a specific inheritance pattern.  The chain is broken in any father to son descent.  A father passes on his only X chromosome to a daughter- an exact copy.  A mother has two X chromosomes that are recombined, likely into two or three segments, and passed on to her children.  Thus, large segments on the X chromosome may travel intact for many more generations than autosomal segments (the other 22 chromosomes).

By identifying the ancestors responsible for an area of a chromosome, we can specifically use that one branch as we look at the other DNA cousins who match on this same segment.

The path of inheritance for this segment of the X chromosome for my aunt and uncle was:
1.  Eliakim Marsh or Susan Long
2.  Susan Marsh
3.  Minnie Bishop
4.  Eugene Cook
5.  Beulah Cook
6.  Jody's aunt and uncle

How did we figure out the relationship and the most recent common ancestors?  Geography.  We looked in our family trees and identified people living in the same area of the world at the same time.  New Jersey, United States, 1800s.  Then we compared surnames.  In reviewing my notes on Marsh and Long, I realized that we had first corresponded years ago on these same people, where the relation had already been figured out.  Here we are, connecting again, because we share identical DNA from our common ancestors born 200 years ago.

Bishops of Morris County, New Jersey

For several weeks, on Amanuensis Monday, I posted pictures of handwritten records along with my transcription, of the contents of the family file for Bishop found at the New York State Library in Albany, New York.  As I uncover my Bishop line back in time, one generation at a time, I hope to link up with one of those documented Bishop lines (and continue researching).

The most recent Bishop in my family line was Minnie Caroline Bishop, my great great grandmother.  Minnie was born in Newark, New Jersey about 1866 and died in Newark in 1910.  She is buried with her parents and siblings at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, Union County, New Jersey.

List of burials in plot owned by William R Bishop
Courtesy of Evergreen Cemetery
located in Hillside, Union County, New Jersey

Minnie was one of several children born to William Reuben Bishop and Susan Jennie Marsh.

William Reuben Bishop was born in the 1840s in Morris Township, Morris County, New Jersey, to Reuben Bishop and Susan Ayers.  The earliest child I have found for this couple is Mary Bishop, born about 1836.  Reuben died in after the 1850 census.  I do not know where he is buried.  Susan remarried in 1860 in Newark to Enos Whitehead and died in 1890.

My strategy at this time is to uncover more records in Morris County on Bishops prior to 1860.  I need to find a record of the marriage of Reuben Bishop to Susan Ayers, probably in the mid 1830s.  There are some Bishop burials at the First Presbyterian Church in Morristown that I need to explore.  I have two possibly relevant wills probated in Morris County in 1823.  One is for Rachel Bishop, where she names two daughters, Elizabeth Smith and Mary Jones, and a son, William Bishop.  The other will is by Reuben Bishop and mentions brothers, Calvin Luther Mills and Abner Bishop.