Tracking Campbell through Catholic Church Records

Margaret Campbell and Patrick Joyce (1834-1905) were my great great great grandparents.

Patrick's death certificate lists his father as Richard Joyce. I have no further information on his origins.

I have no information on Margaret Campbell's place of birth in Ireland or her parents.

Margaret died in May or June of 1870 a few days after being struck by a train in Katonah, Westchester County, New York.

The first probable appearance of Margaret and Patrick is the 1860 census in Patterson, Putnam County, New York. Patrick is listed as age 25, born in Ireland, with a personal estate of $50. Margaret's age is 20, also born in Ireland. No children are enumerated with them.

In 1865, the family can be more definitely identified because of the children, Mary, age 4, and Adeline, age 2. Adeline came to be called Delia. She was my great great grandmother.

Note that in the 1860 census, 5 years earlier, Patrick and Margaret were 15 years younger.

Working with the expanded Catholic marriage index at Find My Past, a record of Patrick and Margaret's marriage may have been found in 1860 at St Joseph Parish in Somers and Croton Falls, Westchester County, New York. Margaret's name is transcribed as Cammell, not Campbell.

I need to see the actual record, if possible, to verify the names and capture any additional information that may not have been included in this index.

I found two baptisms for children of Patrick Joyce and Margaret Campbell:

-Bridget in 1863 at St Mary in Wappingers Falls, Dutchess County

-James in 1869 at Immaculate Conception in Amenia, Dutchess County

In the entry for James, Margaret's name is spelled Cammell. This is what caused me to return to the marriage in 1860.

Was Bridget actually Adelia, my great great grandmother? The 1865 census lists two children, none named Bridget.

Immaculate Conception in Amenia was the church of another branch, Sheehy and Frawley.

The next step is tracking down these records.

Hint: Surname as a Middle Name

Catherine B Dunn (1865-1944) and William Walling Winterton (1863-1932) were my great great grandparents. Catherine's paternal grandfather, Nathan or Nathaniel H Dunn, is a tail in my family tree.

From what I can ascertain, Nathaniel Dunn married Sarah Adams (1796-1882). In 1831, Nathaniel signed a receipt for the estate of Sarah's father, Ezra Adams (1768-1824), in Nottingham, then in Burlington County, New Jersey.

Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Adams had at least four children:
-Ezra Adams Dunn, born about 1821 (the father of Catherine B Dunn), married Hermoine Dunlop.
-Lucy Ann Dunn, born about 1822, married George P Sweet, then John S Seal.
-Sarah B Dunn, born about 1833, married James Burroughs Keller.
-David T Dunn, born about 1836, married Lucy M Smith.

The first available census for New Jersey is 1830. In Nottingham, Burlington County, is Nathaniel Dunn. He is probably the male "age 30 and under 40," making him born between 1790-1800.  Ezra could be the male "age 5 and under 10," born in 1821. The other male under age 5 could be a son not found yet or someone the family cared for.

The female "age 30 and under 40" is probably the matriarch Sarah Adams, born around 1796. Then we have three females between the ages of 5 and ten. I know of Lucy, born about 1822, but the other two are a mystery (at this point).

Nottingham is probably in Mercer County today.

In the 1840 census, Nathan Dunn likely has moved. He is in Northampton, Burlington County. This is probably now called Mount Holly and is still in Burlington County. Again we try to account for the number of people living in the household.

1 male age 15 and under 20: David born 1836.

1 male age 20 and under 30: Ezra  born 1821.

1 male age 50 and under 60: Nathan born between 1780-1790.

1 female age 10 and under 15: Sarah born 1833.

3 females age 40 and under 50: one is Sarah born around 1796.

Who are the other two older females? We may never know.

Daughter Lucy, born 1822, was married in 1840 to George Sweet. So she may not be in this household.

When viewing the 1840 census, remember to check the second page, which lists number of slaves in the household and occupations. Entries were not numbered until the 1850 census, so you have to count down the page to get to your household of interest. Make sure that the total number of people adds up. Nathan Dunn owned no slaves in 1840. Nobody in his household was employed in any of the named professions.

That's all we have to go on for Nathaniel Dunn.

In 1850, Sarah Adams, the widow of Nathaniel Dunn, appears as head of her household in Trenton, Mercer County, with two of her children, Sarah and David. So Nathaniel Dunn probably died sometime between the 1840 census and the 1850 census. I cannot find a will, death record, or obituary.

In 1850, my third great grandfather, Ezra Dunn, had moved to Raritan (now called Hazlet) in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and started his family.

A cousin sent me family pictures and notes, including estate papers for John Dunlop Dunn (1870-1939), an unmarried brother of Catherine B Dunn. For the first time I saw the middle name of Catherine. BUTTERFOSS. What an unusual middle name. It had to be a family name. But I didn't see it in her ancestors. BUT if I looked for a Butterfoss already entered in my family tree, I would have saved myself time. Instead, we get a longer research story.

After failing to find a Butterfoss ancestor for Catherine B Dunn in my tree, I looked online for a New Jersey marriage between a Butterfoss and a Dunn and found one.

Family Search had an entry for a Catharine A Dunn (I like that name) and John X or M Butterfoss marrying in 1849 in Trenton. My Dunns were from the Trenton area. This could be a big clue. But what is this record? I cannot see it from home.

This "record" is a card index of the newspaper Trenton State Gazette, available at the New Jersey State Archives and digitized by Family Search, though not viewable at home. I viewed the image at a nearby Family History Center.

The Trenton State Gazette is online at Genealogy Bank (subscription required). A textual search for this marriage did not produce any results. Using the information from this card, I found the mention for this marriage. The date of marriage was November 21, 1849.

Unfortunately the marriage notice provided no details such as parentage.


In 1850, John H Butterfoss and Catharine A Dunn lived in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey.

In 1860, John and Catherine lived in Lambertville, Hunterdon County.

From 1851 through 1864, they had at least five daughters who lived to adulthood:
-Mary, born about 1851, last seen in (a double enumeration in) the 1880 census.
-Sarah Elizabeth, born about 1853, died in 1923 in Washington, DC.
-Hannah, born about 1857, first married Winfield Broadhurst, then married Charles Dalrymple; had children by both husbands; died in 1924.
-Laura, born about 1859, died in 1917 in Washington, DC.
-Josephine, born about 1864, died in 1911; married Frank McMahon, one-time mayor of Rumson, New Jersey.


I retrieved the marriage records of Hannah to Charles Dalrymple and Josephine to Frank McMahon to make sure that I was indeed dealing with children of Catharine Dunn. That is what the records read, if you saw through the downward F loop of Butterfoss.

This is my line of descent from my earliest known Dunn ancestor. Is there a connection between my Dunns and the Catharine A Dunn, born about 1825, who married John H Butterfoss?

Catharine Dunn died after the birth of Josephine in 1864 and before the 1870 census, when John Butterfoss is remarried to Ann Lake. John created a successful tomato canning business in Lambertville, though neighbors despised the smell and waste products.

Ann Lake, the second wife of John Butterfoss, died in 1907. She was not called a step-mother in her obituary.

John H Butterfoss, his wives, and two daughters, Laura and Sarah, are entered at Find A Grave in Mount Hope Cemetery in Lambertville, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. There was confusion about the wives, but that was cleared up as per my suggestions. There are no pictures of the stones, if there are any.

Online family trees are not sure if John Butterfoss had one or two wives, nevermind who the parents were of Catharine Dunn. (But one has pictures of the family! John, all five children, and probably Ann- not Catharine, based on the age of the youngest child.)

I was going to leave this open for now as a mystery. But I stumbled upon a connection while reviewing the widow of Nathaniel Dunn, Sarah Adams. I was not going to bore you with her census entries of 1860, 1870, and 1880. I reviewed them myself.

You need to see 1880. I already had Mary A Butterfoss, born 1852, in my tree. She is enumerated twice.  Once with Sarah Dunn in Trenton and again with her parents in Lambertville. When entering members of a household from a census into the family tree, my practice is to enter everyone- lodgers, boarders, servants. They are usually family, or become family.

When I looked for a Butterfoss initially, I only looked to the sparse ancestors of my Catherine B Dunn (1865-1944). I should have looked for Butterfoss in my entire tree, not just in the ancestors of Catherine B Dunn.

This is the clue sitting in front of me for years. Darn it. This is the right Mary Butterfoss because "tinning store" is what her father's factory was called.

Mary was a niece of Sarah Keller. Sarah was born around 1833, and was the widow of James Burroughs Keller and the daughter of Nathaniel Dunn (the original tail end of the this story) and Sarah Adams (1796-1882). We know that Mary Butterfoss' mother was Catharine Dunn, born around 1825.

It is plausible that Sarah Dunn, born 1833, and Catharine Dunn, born 1825, were daughters of Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Adams. Going back to the 1830 census, there is room for another little girl in Catharine's age range in the household, though not in the 1840 census.

I have to revise one of the paragraphs above to read:
Nathaniel Dunn and Sarah Adams had at least four five children:
-Ezra Adams Dunn, born about 1821 (the father of Catherine B Dunn), married Hermoin Dunlop.
-Lucy Ann Dunn, born about 1822, married George P Sweet, then John S Seal.
-Catharine A Dunn, born about 1825, married John H Butterfoss.
-Sarah B Dunn, born about 1833, married James Burroughs Keller.
-David T Dunn, born about 1836, married Lucy M Smith.


Sarah Butterfoss, a daughter of Catharine Dunn (born 1825), had a passport with a photo. She would have been a first cousin to my Catherine B Dunn if the above construct is correct. I think they resemble each other.

Sarah was still traveling the globe in 1922, one year before she died at age 70.


The tail end remains in place but another branch is squeezed in. Welcome to the family, Butterfoss/Dunn descendants.

Genealogy Brick Wall Crumbled

Brick wall down!  The parents of Mary Neil, my 3rd great grandmother, have been discovered.

Five generations of my father's family tree.
The focus of this discussion is Mary Neil (1830-1898), a great great grandmother of my father.

Mary Neil married Calvin Cook in 1847.  Like most of the marriages recorded in Morris County, New Jersey in this time period, the names of parents were not included.

New Jersey County Marriage collection at FamilySearch.org.  Free index and free images.

In other records, Mary was born in New Jersey around the year 1830.  As time went on, some of her children recorded her name as O'Neill on their documents and gave her birthplace as Ireland.

In the 1870s, the family relocated to Jersey City in Hudson County.  Calvin died in Jersey City in 1889.  I found his death certificate with no difficulty in the Archives in Trenton; however, I could not locate his final resting place "at Dover" until someone kindly posted on FindAGrave the stone for Calvin and Mary's son, William Cook, who died in 1871.  The family plot is located at Locust Hill Cemetery in Dover, Morris County.  This was discovered over two years ago.

Mary's final passage is recorded on the same stone as her husband, Calvin.  She died August 9, 1898.

Great!  I had Mary's date of death.  But I still could not find a death certificate or obituary for her.

Time passed.  Recently I was at the Morristown and Morris Township Library and checked the Morris County newspapers again.  The few papers for the area for 1898 were published weekly, so I did not have too much to sift through.  This time, an obituary in the paper "The Iron Era" from Dover caught my attention.  Mary A Keating died on August 9, 1898 and was buried at Locust Hill Cemetery-- just like my Mary.  She was the wife of Nicholas Keating and lived in Rockaway.  No other family members were mentioned.

Could Mary Keating be Mary Neil, widow of Calvin Cook?

Digitized newspaper collection at the Morristown and Morris Township Library.  Free on-site usage.

At home, I checked the online index of New Jersey marriages at FamilySearch.  Calvin Cook died in 1889, so if Mary remarried, the date would be in the 1890s.  And there it was.  Mary remarried in 1892 (this is the correct year) in Jersey City to Nicholas Keating.

FamilySearch.org.  New Jersey Marriages.
This is a free index.  The images are not online.  They are at the Archives in Trenton.

This marriage record was my best chance of finding out the names of Mary Neil's parents, as the record was created during Mary's life.

I looked through the index at FamilySearch for Mary's death certificate, but found no matching entry.  Both Mary and Nicholas died in 1898 and their estates were probated through the Surrogate's Office of Morris County.

MorrisSurrogate.com
This is a free service to search probated estates in Morris County, New Jersey.
The actual files are in the court house.  [The other twenty New Jersey counties are online at FamilySearch.org.]

At the Archives in Trenton, I found Mary's marriage record to Nicholas Keating.  Her parents were listed as Charles O'Neill and Catharine Brougham, both of Ireland.  (This explains the source of the names for two of Mary's children.)

Witnesses were Margaret Tower, Mary's daughter; and Harry Tower, Mary's son-in-law.

I found a death certificate for Mary Keating.  No day of death is on the certificate; only the month and year- August 1898.  Maybe this is why it missed the index?  I looked at the microfilm roll of deaths from 1 July 1898 through 30 June 1899, Morris County, surname K.  This same method did not produce a death certificate for Nicholas Keating, who died 21 December 1898 according to his estate papers.

Whoever provided the information for Mary's death certificate only knew that her mother was "Katie."  This is why it is best to try to obtain a record created during the person's life.  (Cause of death was "cerebral haemorrage," probably a stroke.)

I went through the census to find Nicholas Keating.  In the 1860 federal census in Rockaway, Nicholas and his first wife, Catherine Shaw (1825-1891), were living next door to Mary Neil and her first husband, Calvin Cook.  32 years later, both of their spouses would be dead and Nicholas and Mary would marry each other.  For the record, Catherine Shaw was not merely a neighbor.  She was a first cousin of Calvin's father; the common ancestors were Conrad Hopler (1730-1815) and Elizabeth DeMouth (1735-1812).

In the 1895 New Jersey state census, Mary and Nicholas were residing together in Rockaway.  Had I not made the connection with the obituary, this piece of the puzzle could have provided a big clue.  I do not know how the three people named Nix tie into this yet, but look at the last person in the household, a child, Francis A Peck.  He is a grandson of Mary.  His parents were Calvin Peck (1848-1923) and Catherine Cook (1854-1885).  Francis was born on the 28th of April in 1885 in Jersey City.  Three weeks later, on the 17th of May, his mother, Catherine, died.

Mary's estate papers clearly list her surviving children and her grandson.  But estates are organized by the surname of the deceased, not by those who inherit.

Mary also left money to Louisa Lee "of Dover, N[ew] J[ersey], niece of my deceased husband Calvin Cook."  I don't know why Louisa received this special treatment.  Louisa's mother was Anna Cook, a sister of Calvin; her father was Jesse Lee.

Next I need to research Charles O'Neill and Catharine Brougham.  I'm not convinced that they were Irish.

Finding a Close Cousin

Yesterday I uploaded a bunch of people's DNA results to FamilyTreeDNA with the free transfer offer.  All of the uploaded kits produced the advertised twenty matches, except one.

This person tested at 23andMe about three years ago with a free kit from the Roots into the Future program (no longer offering the free kits).  She has a name and state of origin for her mother, but her father is not known.  23andMe paints her ancestry as half European, half Western African.  She has 205 matches at 23andMe now.

FamilyTreeDNA found four matches for her.  In comparison, I have thousands.


But- the first match is a good one- maybe a child of a first cousin.  This unknown close cousin listed four ancestral surnames.  One is the same surname and location as what we know about the biological mother.

I do not know if this person is also at 23andMe, where close relatives are not displayed unless they have activated the "Show Close Relatives" option.

Elusive Surname: Evenshirer

Mary Evenshirer was my 3x great grandmother.  She was born in New York City around 1842.  She died in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey in 1916.  Her surname and her father are a tail end in my family tree.

Mary's mother was Rene Brewer, a daughter of James Brewer and Mary Ann Lent from Westchester County, New York.  From the newspaper The New York Sun, we have the marriage announcement in 1842 in New York City of Miss Rene Brewer to John Evenshirer, "both of this city."

By 1848, John Evenshirer was dead or otherwise out of the picture when Rene had another daughter, Letty Jane, with George W Duryea.

The 1850 United States Federal Census as well as the 1855 New York State Census list Mary Evenshirer with the surname of Rene's husband, George W Duryea.

Ancestry.com

Note the servants in your households!!!
Mary Walpole married Jacob Duryea, a brother of George.

Mary married Stephen C Duryea, a brother of George W Duryea, so she retained the surname Duryea for future records.  The age difference must have been confusing to some.  In the 1880 census, Mary's mother, Rene, was residing with Mary and Stephen in Pound Ridge.  Stephen's age was 65, Mary was 38, and "mother" Rene was 64- no, make that 84 to try to make sense of this.

Mary's half-sister, Letty Jane Duryea, married Alfred Deciplet Eyre in 1868.  Letty died in 1889 from complications of a pregnancy.  (She was originally buried in Hoboken Cemetery in North Bergen, Hudson County, New Jersey, but was relocated to Fairview Cemetery.)  Mary had been widowed in 1887.  Mary and Alfred married in 1890, combining their children into an Eyre/Duryea household.  They were not just step-siblings; they were related by blood.

Ancestry.com

When Mary died in 1916, the informant, "Mr Eyre (son)," knew of her surname at birth and attempted to include it on the death certificate.

Your author at Fairview Cemetery (Fairview, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States)
Picture by Rob Berner

Tail: Imlay and welcome Taylor

When I can't find discover someone's parents in my family tree, I call this a "tail."  Someone gave me this term to use instead of "brick wall."

A DNA connection turned up at 23andMe with Imlay of Monmouth County, New Jersey in his family.  I needed more on my Imlay line because mine stopped in the 1800s.  I need to travel back into the 1700s to make the DNA connection.

Ellen (or Eleanor) Euphamy Imlay was the Imlay tail.  She was one of my 4X great grandmothers.  She was married to William Walling (1804-1870) and lived her life in Monmouth County, New Jersey.  She died in 1895 in Keyport/Raritan Township in Monmouth County at age 87.  Her parents were listed as Elisha Imlay and Ellen Imlay.

Through the Red Bank Register newspaper archives (available free) I found a brother of Ellen, Joseph Imlay.

Joseph Imlay's death certificate listed his parents as John E Imlay and Eleanor Imlay.  Pretty close to Ellen's parents:  Elisha and Ellen.

FamilySearch has many (free) New Jersey resources, such as marriages recorded at the county level.  There is a marriage in Monmouth County for Elisha Imlay to Eleanor Taylor, 25 April 1802.  They fit as parents of Ellen and Joseph Imlay.

Imlay is a popular name in Monmouth County and is going to require quite a bit of sorting.  For the moment, I was luckier with Taylor.  The Monmouth County USGenWeb featured a transcription of a book, "Historical and Genealogical Miscellany," by John Stillwell.  There was quite a bit on Taylors of Monmouth County.

Of special interest was a blurb about two wills:
---George Taylor Senior, probated in 1835, mentioning that the children of his daughter, Eleanor Embly, would receive her share.

---James G. Taylor, probated in 1836, mentioning Joseph Imlay, son of Eleanor- James' sister.

Although this transcription of a transcription seemed to have the information to help me trace back two more Taylor generations, I could not rely on it as a source.  I could use it to get closer to the original source- the wills.  Again, FamilySearch makes available (for free) New Jersey surrogate records (except Morris County).  The wills (actually first transcriptions of the wills) and related court documents contain far more information and names than the book summaries, which is another reason to always get as close to the original record as possible.

Will of George Taylor Senior, written and probated in 1835 in Monmouth County, New Jersey
FamilySearch.org

George Taylor named a daughter, Eleanor Embly, in his will, but left her share of his estate to her children, who are not named.  Embly could be Imlay, but I need more to make a firmer connection.  This pattern of inheritance suggests that Eleanor Embly/Imlay was dead at the time the will was written.  Fortunately for research purposes 180 years later, George Taylor had many more children and he named them in his will.  This makes James G Taylor, whose will was probated one year later, likely to be a son of George Taylor.

James G. Taylor, will probated in 1836 in Monmouth County, New Jersey
FamilySearch.org

The will of James G. Taylor was probated in Monmouth County in 1836, one year after George Taylor Senior's will.  James' siblings are the children of George Taylor in the previous will.  Eleanor Embly became Elenor Imley, which is closer to Imlay.  But more importantly, her children were named, and they match what I already traced, that Eleanor's son was Joseph Imlay and her daughter was Eleanor Euphamy, who married William Walling.

So I now have parents for Eleanor Euphamy Imlay:  John Elisha Imlay and Eleanor Taylor.  TAYLOR is a new ancestral surname for me!

And I have to get back to John Elisha Imlay, for he is my new Imlay tail.

1.  George Taylor (d 1835)
     2.  James G Taylor (d 1836)
     2.  Eleanor Taylor (d before 1835) married (1802) John Elisha Imlay
           3.  Eleanor Euphamy Imlay (d 1895) married William Walling
           3.  Joseph Imlay (d 1894) married Martha Roberts