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Reuben Levy Bishop (1805-1856) was my fourth great grandfather. He died in Morris County, New Jersey. I have not uncovered his parents yet.

There was another man living in Morris County also named Reuben Bishop. His records, alongside my known Reuben, were discussed in this article. (The first name is usually written as Ruben, Reuben, or Rueben.)

Modern technology has brought us Full Text Search of records. In the past, the creation of an index of a record set might only include the name of the subject of the record. Full Text Search enables a search of any word in the document.

Here's how this menu option appears at Family Search.

Drop down menu of Full Text Search at FamilySearch

There is an exception for the results. If a record set is blocked from home viewing, it is not included in the Full Text Search if performed at home.

New Jersey Probate Records is a collection at Family Search. Each county maintains its own probate records. New Jersey currently has 21 counties. Only 20 are offered in this record set. Morris County is missing.

Probate records for New Jersey at FamilySearch
Morris County was removed from this collection

I've been told that Morris County probate records, although digitized by Family Search, cannot be viewed from home because of contractual restrictions. I visited the Morris County Surrogate's Office last year to locate a will from 1782 that was not filmed. Nobody could locate the films from this time period. I asked to speak with someone who could address the issue with access through Family Search. I was told, "We want people to visit us and view the films here." (I found the skipped will at the New Jersey State Archives.)

Me at the Morris County Surrogate's Office
September 11, 2025

You can perform a Full Text Search on restricted records from a Family Search Center. There may be differences in access to records between a Center and an Affiliate Library. I am geographically near both types of facilities, but their hours are limited.

While logged into a Family Search Center computer, I searched for Reuben Bishop in Morris County. He witnessed three wills:
-John Woodruff in 1816
-Joseph Wheaton in 1824
-Josiah Goff in 1826

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the mark of John Woodruff
Township of Chatham 1816

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the signature of Joseph Wheaton
Township of Chatham 1824

Reuben Bishop's signature witnessing
the signature of Josiah Goff
Township of Chatham 1822

Note: these are poor quality images because these are restricted records, meaning you cannot download them. Compare these to the images of Reuben's will below, which were printed from microfilm at the Morris County Surrogate's Office years ago.

I looked into these three people. They appear to have been neighbors of Reuben in Chatham.

The Reuben who signed these documents was not my Reuben. My Reuben was born in 1805, so he was too young to begin signing in 1816. The signer was the other Reuben.

This other Reuben signed his own will on January 30, 1829. The will was proved September 21, 1829, indicating that he likely died in September 1829.

Signature of Reuben Bishop on his own will
January 30, 1929
Witnesses: William Sayre, H L Burnet, and H V ???

The family mentioned in this 1829 will were Reuben's brothers: Calvin, Luther, Miles, and Abner. No wife and no children were mentioned.

Family mentioned by Dr Bishop in his will:
brothers Calvin, Luther, Miles, and Abner

These names are not rare, but they are more unusual, especially as a group of five Bishop brothers.

A Google search produced an unsourced document purporting to be an index of death notices in Morris County newspapers.

Name indexes for Morris County newspapers are floating around the internet

The Jerseyman was digitized and is available at GenealogyBank (pay site). But the issues from September and October 1829 are missing.

Dates of The Jerseyman newspaper
available at GenealogyBank

The pertinent information from this index:

Reuben Bishop was a doctor of Bottle Hill. He died September 11, 1829 at the age of 58 [say born in the year 1771]. He was from Woodbury, CT [Connecticut].

Bottle Hill was the name of the area renamed Madison in the 1830s. Madison was a village within Chatham Township. This tracks because Reuben Bishop appeared on the tax ratables for Chatham in 1814.

1814 Tax Ratables, Chatham, Morris County, New Jersey
Reuben Bishop was taxed for a horse.

The other location mentioned in the newspaper index is Woodbury, Connecticut. Dr Reuben Bishop has a memorial page at Find A Grave for South Cemetery in Woodbury.

Memorial page for Dr Reuben Bishop died 1829
South Cemetery
Woodbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut

The gravestone transcription:

In memory of

Doct. Reuben Bishop

who died

Sept 11, 1829

in his 53 year.

A respectable physician & an honorable man.

The etching at the top of the stone appears to be a weeping willow over an urn.

A book about the descendants of John Bishop, a founder of Guilford, Connecticut, was published in 1951.¹ Dr Reuben does not seem to appear in this book, but a cluster named Miles, Calvin, and Luther does appear- and they lived in Woodbury.

A book that possibly pertains to Dr Reuben Bishop's family

In this book, we see three of the names mentioned in Reuben's will from 1829: Miles, Calvin, and Luther. Miles was the father and Calvin and Luther were sons of Miles. Below is this family arrangement linked to their memorial pages on Find A Grave. They were buried in Woodbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Miles Bishop (1739-1815) and Sarah Chapman (1737-1822) had two sons:

-Calvin Bishop (1761-1834)

-Luther Bishop (1763-1850)

It is possible that Dr Reuben Bishop, born circa 1771, was also a child of this couple. He and the other two brothers, Miles and Abner, are not mentioned in this book.

Was Dr Reuben Bishop, originally from Connecticut, related to my fourth great grandfather Reuben Levy Bishop? Why did Dr Bishop move to Morris County, New Jersey?

More research is needed.

1. Cone, William Whitney, and George Allen Root, comps., Record of the Descendants of John Bishop, One of the Founders of Guilford, Connecticut in 1639 (Nyack, N.Y.: John Guy Bishop, 1951), 22; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62282/records/4372365112 : accessed April 10, 2026).

Pending Orders

Below is the list of records not available online that were ordered and not yet fulfilled.

More items were ordered since the last published list on January 21, 2024.

Service Record and Application for Bounty Land of Jonas Long, War of 1812

Requested from CivilWarRecords.com on February 12, 2024.

$55 via credit card online.

Death certificate of James Cummings, 1912

Requested of the New York State Department of Health. Form DOH-4384 mailed February 9, 2024.

$22 check.

Death certificate of Jane Cummings, 1899

Requested of the New York State Department of Health. Form DOH-4384 mailed February 9, 2024.

$22 check.

Death certificate of John Grant, 1882

Requested of the New York State Department of Health. Form DOH-4384 mailed February 9, 2024.

$22 check.

Death certificate of Beryl Nanejian, 1989

Requested from the State of California. Form VS 112 mailed January 19, 2024.

$24 check cleared February 8, 2024. Confirmation email received February 7, 2024.

Probate records of Jonas Long, 1837, and William Owens, 1853

Requested of the Richmond County, New York Surrogate's Court. Email dated June 25, 2023.

No fee at this time.

Social Security Earning Information of Jeannette ODonnell, 1937 through 1993

Requested of the Social Security Administration. Form SSA-7050-FR mailed June 2, 2023.

$100 check cleared October 26, 2023.

Death certificate of Mollie Schwartz, 1925

Requested from City of Bridgeport and State of Connecticut. Forms VS-39DST mailed April 6, 2023. (Same form number on both town and state forms.)

$20 each via money orders.

Death certificate of Edward Sheeby [Edmond Sheehy], 1893

Requested of the New York State Department of Health. Form DOH-4384 mailed March 1, 2022.

$22 check cleared April 2, 2022.

Originally requested in 2015.

Town of Amenia provided an obscure ledger entry in 2023.

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

Killed by Death

Abraham Lent Brewer was born in 1826 in Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, to James Brewer and Mary Lent.  His sister, Rene Brewer, was my 4X great grandmother.  Abraham married Fannie Duryea.  She was a sister of Stephen Duryea, my 3X great grandfather.  (We'll save that story for another day.)

Because Abraham predeceased his wife, Fannie, their entire estate passed to her family, which helped me immensely in identifying her siblings and their children.  [This is why you need to follow siblings and not just your direct line!]  In researching this couple, I discovered that Abraham Brewer was the source of the naming of the Brewer Fire Engine Company of the Monsey Fire Department.

Yet the exact dates of death for Abraham and Fannie eluded me.

They died within hours of each other in April of 1901, according to newspaper articles.

Their gravestone at Brick Church Cemetery in Spring Valley, Rockland County, New York, listed the year of death, 1901, without a month and day.  Only the International Genealogical Index ("IGI") gave a month and day:  April 28.  Below are copies of the actual paper submissions that the IGI is based upon.  Sources are not provided!

Family Group Sheet submitted for IGI
Abraham Lent Brewer- "died 28 Apr 1901"

Family Group Record for Abraham Lent Brewer, his parents, and some siblings

Today's online version of the IGI
FamilySearch.org

I ordered the death certificate for Abraham Brewer from the New York State Department of Health.  In return I received the death certificate for Fannie Brewer, his wife, with a date of death April 28, 1901 at 3 am.  This is the same date in the IGI for Abraham's death.  If the date in the IGI were correct, Abraham would have died between midnight and 3 am on April 28th in order for Fannie to have survived him, enabling her family to collect the entire estate.

New York State death certificate for Fanny M Brewer, died April 28, 1901 in Ramapo, Rockland County.

When I was in Albany, New York last year, I checked the index of deaths myself and took another shot at ordering Abraham Brewer's death certificate.  (Unlike neighboring New Jersey records, you cannot search yourself for the certificates.)  After several months, the death certificate arrived.  His date of death as per the death certificate is April 27, 1901 at 3 pm.

New York State death certificate for Abram L Brewer, died April 27, 1901 in Ramapo, Rockland County.

Now that we have Abraham Brewer's death certificate, we can form a picture of what happened, using the newspaper articles.  Abraham died in the afternoon of April 27th.  After caring for him for at least a week, his wife, Fanny, retired to her bed and died.  Her 3 am time of death is probably an estimate after neighbors checked on her the following morning and found her dead, but reflects that the deaths were within hours of each other.  Their deaths were not on the same day/date, but rather within the same 24 hour timeframe.

The date in the IGI is incorrect by one day and further illustrates why you should be leery of certain databases as well as all unsourced information.

Finding Parents

The Wallings of Monmouth County, New Jersey are an interwoven bunch that I am trying to sort.  Of particular interest at this point is proving the parentage of William Walling, who died in 1870 (the second entry in the Estate Index below).  The Monmouth County Genealogy Society publishes a newsletter, The Monmouth Connection.  The September 2012 Newsletter provided a transcribed will for William Walling, written in 1823 and proved in 1824.  I looked for the original will at Family Search in the New Jersey Probate collection.  The digitized collection is not named-indexed yet, so you need to browse through the images to locate a usable index.




Estate Index for Monmouth County, New Jersey.
I am sorting the Wallings.  William was a popular name among the Wallings of Monmouth County.
The first entry is the transcribed will that I noticed in The Monmouth Connection.



Proceedings Index.
William Walling, 1824, is file number 27096 from the Estate Index.
His will is in Volume B, page 396.
Monmouth County, New Jersey

Will of William Walling, signed 3 December 1823, Volume B, page 396.
Monmouth County, New Jersey.

From the will, we learn that this William Walling had a wife named Rebecca.  He had children under the age of 21 and he had at least three sons whom he named as executors: Isaac, Amos, and William.  It is possible that this William Walling (died 1824) and Rebecca were the parents of William Walling who died in 1870.  We need more records before we can be certain.

The transcribed wills in The Monmouth Connection contained additional numbers not in the Surrogate's index.  William Walling's will was number 9571M.  I browsed through other images of wills organized by number and not volume and located the original will and inventory.



Will and Inventory filed as 9571M
Monmouth County, New Jersey



Inventory of property of William Walling in 1824.
He had $16 in cash and an assortment of household items.
His most valuable asset was firewood.



Accounts owing to William Walling 1824
Several of these people are related in more than one way.

New Jersey Probate Records Online

Family Search has just offered New Jersey probate records- over 3 million images.  Dates range from the late 1600s through the 1900s.  I am going to be very busy!  The records on this site are free and are the digitized versions of the microfilm rolls that you can order through a FamilySearch Center.  Types of records include wills, accountings, and guardianships.  To use the probate records, you need to use the indexes on the film as created by the Surrogate's Court.  The site is actively indexing its holdings and you can volunteer to help index.

You may discover dates of death from these records along with heirs at law (if no will/will rejected) or the people/family to whome the testator devised the estate.  Guardianship proceedings are also informative because all minor children should be named.  The surviving parent did not automatically receive custody of the children, hence the guardianship records.

The records are organized by county.  Keep in mind two things when you search for probate records.  First, boundaries of counties changed over the years and new counties were carved from existing counties.  If you know the name of the town (which also may have changed) where your family lived, you should be able to identify which county to search within a range of years.

The map on the right represents the 21 modern counties of New Jersey.  [Credit Geology.com.]
The map on the right is from circa 1826.  [Rutgers Special Collection]

The second point to keep in mind when searching for probate records is that the will or estate did not necessarily have to be probated in the county where the deceased lived.  The proceedings may be in a neighboring county or in the county where the real property (land/houses) was located.  This could result in probate proceedings in more than one county or even state, so read the records carefully for references to other proceedings.

Page from the Surrogate's Docket Index of Essex County, New Jersey
You may have to play around with the numbers until you find the corresponding documents.



Docket #17226 turned out to be a guardianship proceeding for the minor children of Charlotte Uhl,
awarding her guardianship of her own children after her husband died.

Kings County, New York Wills 1866-1923 online

I continue to be amazed by the growing collection of original records over at Family Search.  Original and indexed probate records for wills are available for Kings County, New York, for the years 1866-1923.  You can't beat free and online original records, so if you have any lines with any connections to Brooklyn, you best run the names through the search.

Documents accompanying the will can include a date of death.  If you are unable to easily locate a death certificate, probate records are another source to try to uncover a date of death.  Remember that a date of death recorded on a death certificate is a primary source, while a date of death recorded in the estate file is secondary information at the most.

I used this resource in hopes of uncovering more information about a pair of siblings, Mary and George Hawkins, born in the late 1880s in Brooklyn.  Fortunately, all four of their grandparents have records in this collection.  Their maternal grandparents, Georgianna and Smith Nostrand, could be considered collateral lines, but I find such lines to be worth researching for at least a few generations.  Georgianna's records were most interesting.  We were provided with a date of death of 15 May 1917, which will greatly assist in locating a death certificate and obituary.  The witnesses to the will were what intrigued me.  Marguerite Stewart, formerly Hawkins, was one witness.  This provided a married name and made Marguerite easier to trace.  The other witness was Walter Phelps.  He was a cousin of Marguerite, but on the Hawkins side, not the Nostrand side.  So why did Walter bear witness?  We do not know.  He may have simply been available when Georgianna was creating her will.  Or his signature could indicate a deeper relationship among these families that has not yet been uncovered.  It is something to bear in mind as research continues on these lines.

Portion of estate papers of Georgianna Nostrand, 1917.

1900 federal census
Georgianna and Smith Nostrand with their daughter and her family
914 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn

Miniature family tree diagram illustrating relationship between testator, Georgianna Nostrand,
and witnesses, Walter Phelps and Marguerite Hawkins

Divorce

If your research leads you to suspect a divorce, look for the divorce record.  Herman Lutter and Clara Uhl were married in Newark, New Jersey in January of 1888.  They are not found living together as a couple in the 1900, 1910, or 1920 census.  I suspected that the couple may have divorced because Herman married Emma Neubauer in Newark in March of 1915.  The marriage certificate lists Herman as divorced.

Divorces in the late 1800s in New Jersey were heard in the Chancery Court.  The records for a divorce may be in a few locations with no clear dividing points.

Description of holdings for divorces at the website for the New Jersey Archives.

The Archives in Trenton carries microfilm of the docket for some years of cases heard in Chancery, so I started there.  I found proceedings for Lutter versus Lutter for 1894 and 1895.  I was told that the records for these years are held by the manuscripts room at the Archives, but off site.  I placed an order for copies and about ten days later, I had copies of the divorce proceedings.

There are few details provided in the record, such as the marriage date and place, that I already had.  I discovered the cause of action, desertion of Herman by Clara, not even ten months into the marriage.

You may need to read what is not there.  The marriage ended very quickly.  You also need to gather any other documents that you can find.  There is no mention of a child in these divorce proceedings, but Clara filed a delayed birth certificate for a child in 1935, claiming a birth date of June 1889.

Filing a delayed birth certificate, especially in the mid to late 1930s, is common because of the Social Security Act.  While we should not necessarily read into Clara's not filing for a birth certificate at the time of the birth, we have more of a prospective on Clara's circumstances in 1888.  She left her marital home and returned to her mother when she was newly pregnant.  She may or may not have known about the pregnancy, but that is the timing of the events.

Herman acknowledged his son in his will, dated 1923, leaving him $5.  (Not a large sum of money then or now.)

Three Hours

Fannie Duryea and Abraham Lent Brewer were married in the 1840s and had no known children.  They lived in New York City and then Rockland County, New York.  They both died in 1901.  Fannie left her estate to Abraham, but he died before she wrote a new will, so her estate passed intestate to her surviving sister and nieces and nephews.  The disposition of her estate solidified many of these suspected family lines.

I recently discovered that Abraham founded a fire department in Monsey, New York.  (You can read the post here.)  In spite of his local fame because of his contributions, I have yet to find an obituary for Abraham.  I decided to widen my search and found a notice of the deaths of Abraham and Fannie- in Georgia of all places.  They have no connection to Georgia, so I never thought to look there for information.

The Augusta Chronicle, Augusta, Georgia, 1 May 1901, page 4.
Retrieved from genealogybank.com.

Fannie died at 3 a.m. on 28 April 1901.  If Abraham died before her, but on the same day, he had only a three hour time span.  This quirk enabled me, one hundred years later, to map out her family lines.  Had Abraham died just a few hours later, I may still not have such a clear mapping of Fannie's lines.

Certificate and Record of Death for Fannie M. Brewer,
died 28 April 1901 in Ramapo, Rockland County, New York.

Even on Fannie's death certificate, she is listed as widowed.  I never suspected she was a widow for only a few hours.

Following Daughters

Louise and Charles Lutter were parents of five known children- all daughters.  This could spell disaster for tracing this family, as women of the late 1800s tended to marry and change their last names.

1880 federal census, 52 Belmont Avenue, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey
ED 81, page 15, enumerated 3 June 1880

Fortunately, all of these sisters and their children can be traced with little difficulty.  In his 1920 will, their father lists each of them by their married names.

Will of Charles Lutter, proved 12 January 1921 in Essex County, New Jersey

When you get stuck trying to trace the life of one sibling, switch to another sibling.  Sometimes siblings are living in the same house or on the same block.

1900 federal census, 342 Camden Street, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey
ED 132, page 2A, enumerated 8 June 1900

Getting Closer

A small newspaper blip about the will of Herman Lutter led me to find his actual will, filed in Monmouth County, at the Archives in Trenton.  The article referred to "the three children of his sister who lives in Germany."  I wanted names and a location.  I found them in the will.

Red Bank Register, 23 July 1924

Will of Herman Lutter, proved 16 July 1924 in Monmouth County, New Jersey

The newspaper provided a few details.  It is best to get as close to the original source as possible; in this case, the actual will.  Herman Lutter's will names his deceased sister, Ottillia, as well as her three children: Paul, Edeline, and Anna Michel.  I also received confirmation that I need to be looking in Thueringen for records.