Genealogy Sleuthing

During the pandemic, I've had more time to go back through old papers and take another look at some mysteries. And happily, three are now solved! 

Hearkening back to my Nancy Drew days, we will call them The Clue in the Old Bible, The Matrimony Mystery, and The Missing Daughter.

The Clue in the Old Bible

Aaron Cramer missing from the Cramer Family Bible:
"why the cut out no one knows"

Our ancestors John and Sarah Cramer kept a family record in their Bible, but their seventh child (of nine) was cut out. I have this original page with my grandpa's typed comment from the 1960s "why the cut out no one knows." This missing son is Aaron Cramer (younger brother of our Hiram). Even though Hiram adventured west for the Gold Rush, and he and other siblings eventually settled in Nebraska, Aaron and his family lived in the same small Pennsylvania town near other relatives his whole life. What was the cause of the family rift?

As I was researching his life, I read through newspaper accounts and could find no scandals (Aaron doesn't seem to have robbed a bank or ran off with the neighbor). He lived a quiet life as a husband to Mary, father of five, and farmer. However, details about his son listed as George Cramer in other family records were nonexistent and I'd never been able to track down any sources to document his life. Voila, a newspaper article mentioning the birth of Aaron's daughter allowed me to unravel the situation. Aaron and Mary didn't have a son named George, born in 1862, but a daughter named Georgia. And Georgia F. Cramer Lipheart grew up and had her own well-documented life, marriage, family of five children, and so on.

This led me to do Georgia's temple work, and as I sat there in the temple yesterday staring at her name card, Georgia Cramer born in Pennsylvania in 1862, the truth struck me. I was thinking of the early temple priest, Aaron, and how Georgia was an Aaron's daughter instead of son, and wondered why in the world a Northerner named his daughter--born one year into the Civil War--after a Southern state. And then I knew--Aaron must have been a Southern sympathizer in a family (and community) of Union soldiers. They have a brother named Freman (who died in the 1840s as a baby), and his older brother Hiram enlisted, but Aaron, at prime soldier age, did not. Instead, he named his daughter Georgia and was cut out of the family Bible. (Hopefully the fact that Aaron named his next child, a son born at the end of the Civil War, after his father means there was some family reconciliation.) And thus Georgia solved this puzzle!

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The Matrimony Mystery

Pioneer ancestor John Cottam was engaged to be married in England as a teenager, but his mother objected to the couple's youth when the banns were read. He later joined the church, married Ann Smith; she divorced him in Utah due to polygamy conflicts when he married Scottish Mary Reid. He also married Anna Gustava Johnson, the Swedish cook (our ancestor), and was jailed for cohabitation. What I've wondered about is the other two women listed as his wives on family group sheets done by generations past: Ellen Thormbur and Mahala Billing.

I have tried to find these women in Utah, in ship and pioneer and immigration records, in cemeteries. There is a Mahala who traveled with a George and Mary Billings on the overland trail in 1862. Our family record says Mahala married John Cottam in 1863. (A George and Mary Billings in the 1870 census settled in Weber, ages 44. However, I can't figure out the connection.) Such a mystery! She isn't mentioned in any family writings and doesn't appear to be living with the Cottam family in any records. Can't find her death, or a remarriage--which is most likely and would mean she lived and died under another name. However, a Mahala Cottam died in England next year after the marriage (1864), did she return to be with her widowed mother there? Can't find her on ship records. Or were they just sealed from afar and not actually married in real life?

Ellen's 1874 sealing to John was even more strange, because his other wives were around then and presumably would have mentioned her in their histories. And then, it turns out, they did! I've been transcribing writings from my grandma Anna Cramer and found a page out of place, but once I figured out what it said, it led me to this great discovery:

[a page that appears to be about John Cottam’s Scottish wife Mary Reid, written by Anna's mom Lottie] "Aunt [Mary] was blessed with the spirit of discernment. When she worked on the mills in Glasgow she had a dream, her shawl was caught in the great rollers. She quickly pulled her shawl away from the rollers and saved herself from being pulled toward them. Next day as she was walking down the row her shawl caught and she remembered her dream and pulled out her shawl. Another time grandfather’s sweetheart he was not permitted to marry in England came to her in vision following her death and pleaded with her to have her temple work done and sealed to grandfather. Aunt complied and acted as proxy."

Ellen's church in England

Aha! Ellen never came to Utah, was never in a wagon train or a cemetery here, because there's an Ellen Thormbur who lived in John's hometown in England who was this same woman: the teenage fiancee, whom Mary sealed as proxy to John in 1874. After some busy hours researching, I followed Ellen's life: marrying David Dawson the year after her broken engagement with John, having nine children, dying at 42 in 1865. I found her children and grandchildren, mostly all who stayed in that same area of England. They all need temple work done. And that mystery is solved! (now, where's Mahala?)
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The Missing Daughter

Another trail I've followed with great success recently is on our Miller line: 

Alice Bayly's mother died when she was a young girl, and she was living with her aunt and uncle (Isabelle & Edwin Grovier) and grandmother Sally Miller in Johnstown Pennsylvania for the 1880 census (documented under the name Alice Miller, which is confusing). She married William Ray and moved to Baltimore, but she was just a newlywed with an infant daughter when her husband was killed. She returned to Pennsylvania for her father's funeral a few years later, and then she can't be tracked further at this point (remarried?).

Since her father's obituary mentioned that she was recently widowed, I looked through newspaper articles to find her young husband's death. And it was dramatic! William was electrocuted in Baltimore with that newfangled electricity, and his death written up in the paper. 

This article mentions his four month old daughter. After much searching for their elusive baby girl with no known first name, due to recently indexed marriage records, I've been able to find her (and her husband, and his entire family): Emily Matilda Ray Derringer. 

    Hurray! Georgia, Ellen, and Emily, found at last.