Investigating the Walter Family

A friend recently loaned me a copy of a family tree of her mother-in-law's family – the Walter Family. I wanted to see if I could verify the information in it and add anything else to the stories that it represents. As I built back the family tree using ancestry.com, most things lined up, but there were three areas that needed further examination

The Tree

The tree I was loaned was a single piece of rolled-up paper that was in the form on a descendant tree. It was developed and drawn in 1975. The person at the head of the tree was Jacob Walter (1729-1803). There was a crude drawing of the Walter family crest and information about how he came to America in 1749 and made his way to Centre County, PA. The branch of interest to my friend goes as follows:

1. Jacob Walter (1729-1803), m. Maria Kauffman, only 2 children listed, only one with descendants

2. Jacob Walter (1762-1817), m. __ Lauver, only 2 children listed, only one with descendants

3. Jacob Walter (1798-1873), 2 wives, 17 children listed, but only two with descendants

4. Abraham Walter (9/1/1829-1893), m. Mary Ann Shively, 13 children

5. Elmer Abraham Walter (3/8/1872-1925), m. Sarah Newberry, 3 children

6. Harold G Walter (10/1/1910-), m. Catherine Weiser, 4 children

7. Mary E Walter (1929-) [still living]

The right-hand side of the paper is covered with hand-written additions representing the 45 years since the page was originally drawn.

Tracing Back Even Further

The paper genealogy chart starts on the left with Jacob Walter (1729-1803). But it notes that this is a very old patronymic. Can we trace it back farther? The answer is yes. [Note that I did not do this research myself, but relied on what other had already posted in various family trees.] Here is the continuation of the Walter name before Jacob (1729).

Johann Jakob Walther (1702-1734)

Hans Walther (1680-1754)

Hans Jacob Wather (1653-1742)

Hans Jacob Walther (1625-1693)

Hans Jorg Walther (1590-1635)

Hans Walther (1560-1645)

Christoph Walther (1534-1603)

Christoph Walther (1512-1592)

Hans Jorg Walther (1491-1526)

That's 9 more generations, taking the family tree back to the year before the voyage of Christopher Columbus! And all in what is now Germany. Truly a rich family history!

The Tale of the Three Jacobs

The first few generations (1-3 above) have a dearth of information, then there is suddenly an explosion in the 4^th generation. Because colonial families tended to be very large, there appears to be much missing. Since the investigation of this family took place in 1975, long before the Internet and online genealogical tools, I thought that I could fill in the missing information. But in the process I also discovered some errors in the chart.

According to the best sources, Jacob (1729) and his wife had 19 children between the years 1754 and 1780. One of these was the Jacob of generation 2 above, except that he appears to have been born in 1757, not 1762. But this Jacob did not marry someone with the last name of Lauver. He married Maria Bobb and they had 11 children. Moreover, none of their children had the given name of Jacob (the purported name of Abraham's father).

However, there was a line from Jacob (1729) to Abraham. One of the other of Jacob's sons was David Walter (1761-1838). David married Susanna Barbara Eberhart and they had 12 children, one of whom was Philip Walter (1790-1855). And one of Philip's children was listed as Abraham (1827-1893).

To be fair, there are a handful of trees in ancestry.com that show a Jacob as being the father of Abraham. But these trees do not list a father for Jacob, nor do they have any supporting evidence. And this is all complicated by the fact that the name Jacob/John was often used as almost a prefix with families having multiple sons with that first name – for example, David had sons named John Jacob, John David, John George, John Adam, and John Conrad. Other families often used the name Mary in a similar fashion with female children. So while I cannot be 100% certain that the family tree is Jacob-David-Philip-Abraham or Jacob-Jacob-Jacob-Abraham.

The VERY Young Couple and a scandal?

The final thing that I saw worthy of investigation was the heritage of the last person in the original chart, Mary Elizabeth Walter. Her parents were listed as Harold G Walter (b. 10/1/1910) and Catherine Weiser. But Mary Elizabeth was purportedly born in 1929 when Harold was not yet 20. And my research showed that Catherine was even younger! Also, the family trees I ran across all had Mary Elizabeth's mother as Mary Catherine Neugebauer. What was correct?

By looking at census records and obituaries, I was able to determine what was going on – and confirm that this had been worthy of investigation.

Here is the obituary for Harold. You can see that he was indeed born on 10/1/1910 to Elmer and Sarah Newberry. His wife is also listed as Mary Catherine Weiser. His four children are also properly listed with information that matches the family tree I had been provided. So nothing seems strange here.

[Obituary – Harold Walter]

But now let's look at the obituary for Mary Catherine several years later. She was born on 11/10/1912, married Harold on 9/22/1928, and has the same list of children. But her parents are listed as William and Mary Ellen (Woleslagle) Neugebauer! Further investigation into the 1910 and 1920 census showed that her mother was [Mary] Eleanor Woleslagle who was living as a 16-year-old servant in 1910, and that William and [Mary] Eleanor Neugebauer were living together with then 7-year-old Mary Catherine in 1920. So [Mary] Eleanor was only 18 when Mary Catherine was born. But that's still older than the age of Mary Catherine when her first child was born.

[Obituary – Mary Catherine Walter]

So, we now have another error in the hand-written chart – Mary E Walter's mother's maiden name was NOT Weiser, but was Neugebauer, the erroneous obituary of her father not withstanding!

Now let's look at the 1930 census when Harold and Mary Catherine were married and had their first child, Mary E Walter, who would be not yet two year's old.

[1930 Census – Harold]

[1930 Census – Mary Catherine]

As you can see, Harold is 19, living with his mother, Sara [Newberry], age 48, and her new husband, Wilson Engleman, age 77. Sara and Wilson have only been married a few years as Harold's biological father passed away in 1925. Also living with them is Harold's grandmother Elizabeth (listed by a nickname Lydia). Interestingly, Wilson's new mother-in-law is six years younger than he is! But note that Harold is listed as Single! That is clearly wrong as we know he married nearly two years before. [It's quite possible that Sara intentionally gave the wrong information to the census taker to help cover up the scandal.] But where is Harold's wife and daughter?

We find Mary Catherine living with her parents, William and Eleanor. She is listed as “[Mrs.] Harold Walters” (note that she is a daughter and female) and her child, Mary Elizabeth is age 1 and 1/12. As this census was taken in April 1930, that means that Mary Elizabeth was born in March 1929. Mary Catherine is properly listed as married.

So, what it going on here? Apparently Harold had gotten Mary Catherine pregnant around June of 1928 (9 months before the birth of Mary Elizabeth). He was 17 at the time (his 18^th birthday would have been in October of that year), and Mary Catherine was only 14 (her 15^th birthday would have been in November of that year). When they discovered that she was pregnant, their parents forced them to get married in September of 1928, but they were not allowed to begin living together – being much too young. Thus, in April of 1930 when this census was taken, Mary Catherine and her 13-month-old baby were living with her parents in Tyrone, PA, and Harold was living with his mother and step-father in Milton, PA – about 95 miles away!

Not a very auspicious start for this young couple! But we know that they must have reunited by the end of 1930 as Mary Catherine became pregnant around December of 1930 and their next child was born in September of 1931. Oh, the tangled web we weave!

Finding Your Roots - Glenn Close

I was watching a recent episode of "Finding Your Roots" where one of the celebrities being featured was Glenn Close (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknCSNuc25E). At 17:20 they were following one of her ancestral lines back and ended at John Strong (1605/6-1699). I immediately thought, "he's in my family tree!" I paused the program to check my tree and, sure enough, he is my great*10 grandfather.

That was exciting enough - to know that Glenn (who is only a year older than myself) is a distant cousin. But I was unprepared for what came next (at 19:35) as they revealed that there are over 100,000 descendants of John and that some other important individuals who Glenn (and by extension myself) are related to through the Strong family - FDR, Clint Eastwood, and [drum roll please] Princess Diana.

I've not done the detailed analysis to see exactly how these individuals are descended from John Strong, but I trust that the researchers of this TV show have done their homework.

I had previously documented (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/presidential-connections.html) how I am connected to ALL the US presidents [not sure about Joe Biden yet], but this connection is 30 generations ago, so this connection to FDR is much closer. And as my wife is a distant cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt (https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/02/genealogy-story-roosevelt-connection.html), so this is also a case of my cousin marrying my wife's cousin. Made my day.

Immigrant Ancestors

The vast majority of my ancestors came to New England during the Great Migration of 1620-1640. Over 1000 of the estimated 20,000 individuals who came during that period are my direct ancestors. However, there are also a number who came later, or who did not initially come to New England. While I have a few dozen “brick walls” which I am still investigating, here are all those I have been able to identify in the research I have done thus far. All these individuals came here from England unless otherwise noted. All but a dozen of the below came to New England, the others came to New York (7), Virginia (4), or Pennsylvania (1). (The notation GxGF/GM/GP is short for my great*x grandfather/grandmother/grandparents, e.g. G9GM = my great*9 grandmother.)

1600s – Arrivals in New England, but after the Great Migration ended in 1640

(note that in my original analysis I included those who came through the end of the 1640s to catch some of the stragglers, so the below starts in 1650)

·       Rebecca Beebe (1630-1672) (G9GM) arrived in New London, CT, in 1650. Her mother had died in England just before Rebecca and her father left, and her father died on shipboard during the trip. As a 20-year-old orphan, she married only a few months after arriving.

·       Noah Giles (1595-1675) and his wife Marie (G10GP) came to Boston around 1650.

·       Robert Stewart (1625-1688) (G9GF) came to Boston in 1651 from Scotland.

·       Robert Winsor (1620-1679) and his wife Rebecca (G10GP) came to Boston in 1652.

·       John Munro (1632-1691) (G8GF) came to Boston in 1652 from Scotland.

·       Robert Webster (1619-1676) (G10GF) came to Connecticut in 1652.

·       Thomas Barlow (1620-1658) and his wife Rose (G10GP) came to Connecticut in 1653.

·       Moses Ventrus (1625-1697) (G9GF) came to Connecticut in 1654.

·       William Pringle (1631-1690), my great*8 grandfather (G8GF) came to New Haven, CT in 1654.

·       Alse Mose (1630-) (G9GM) came to Rhode Island around 1657.

·       Richard Howell (1629-1709) and his wife Elizabeth (G10GP) came to Massachusetts around 1660. They later moved to New York.

·       Samuel Scripture (1649-1738) (G8GF) arrived in Massachusetts in 1662.

·       Humphrey Davie (1625-1688) and his wife Mary (G8GP) arrived in Massachusetts in 1665.

·       Nicholas Evans (1649-1689) (G9GF) came to Connecticut around 1670.

·       Augustine Cobb (1633-1714) (G8GF) came to Connecticut around 1670. He married Bethia Harvey (1658-1748), who had come to Connecticut with her parents around the same time.

·       Joseph Crowfoot (1632-1678) (G10GF) came to Massachusetts in 1672.

·       John Cunnabell (1650-1724) (G8GF) came to Boston in 1674.

·       Daniel Shelton (1668-1728) and his wife Elizabeth (G8GP) came to Connecticut in 1686.

1600s – Arrivals other than in New England

·       John Culpepper (1606-1674) (G9GF) came to the US in the 1620s, but initially to Virginia, not New England. Only a few years later he moved to Boston where he married, then with his wife settled in Branford, CT.

·       Richard Frisbie (1598-1635) and his wife Margaret (G9GP) came to the US around 1620, but initially to Virginia. They both died at sea in 1635. Their son, Edward, moved to Branford, CT in 1644.

·       Richard Valentine (1610-1684) (G9GF) came to New York in 1644.

·       Christopher Branch (1598-1681) and his wife Mary (G10GP) came to Virginia in 1624.

·       Francis England (1609-1677) and his wife Sarah (G10GP) came to Virginia in 1642.

·       Jan Wouters Van Der Bosch (1638-1707) (G8GF) came to New York around 1660 from the Netherlands. His son, named Wouters Janze (Jan’s son) in the Dutch tradition, anglicized his name to Walter Johnson.

1700s

·       Ralph Burn (1692-) (G7GF) came to New Hampshire sometime around 1715.

·       John Dunkins (1690-1749) (G7GF) came to Rhode Island sometime in the 1710-1730 timeframe.

·       Robert Russell (1730-1811) (G6GF), the one from whom I received my last name, came to New York around 1750 from Scotland.

·       Hugh Thompson (1720-1797) and his wife Sarah (G7GP) came to Pennsylvania sometime around 1750 from Ireland.

·       John Smith (1730-) (G6GF) came to New York around 1750.

1800s

·       Sarah Shilling Few (1847-1928) (G2GM) arrived in New York from Lincolnshire, England, as a two-year old in 1849 with her parents. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY, but married a man from Prospect, CT.

·       Alexander Levy (1840-1918) (G2GF) arrived in Brooklyn with his parents in 1851. The Levy family were Ashkenazi Jews. Although they arrived here from England, the family origins were in East Germany/Poland. Alexander married Phoebe Isaacs (1843-1910) who had arrived here with her parents in 1852 from the same part of East London. Alexander and Phoebe moved to Connecticut in 1870.

·       Francis Xavier Merchant (1826-1910) (G2GF) arrived in New York from Switzerland in 1853. Francis married Nancy Anna Soan (1840-1900) who had arrived here with her parents in 1847 from Ireland. They raised their family in Dutchess County, NY, but later moved to Litchfield County, CT.

 

Russell Hill

In an earlier blog, I had written about the History of Connecticut and how the part of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, PA had been settled and claimed by families from Connecticut in the mid-to-late-1700. I wondered if I could document any of those earlier settlers as being relatives of mine.

One of the resources which I found was “History of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming Cos. Penn. 1786-1800” (available in Google Books and other places). In looking through this for a list of those early settlers, I found a short paragraph with a bio of an individual which read:

“A. H. Russell was born in Washington township, near Russell Hill, January 24^th, 1834. His father, Alban Russell, came from Connecticut many years ago, and from him Russell Hill received its name.”

Since that’s not only my last name, but my initials as well, I was naturally intrigued. Where was Russell Hill and was A. H. Russell related to me? So, I temporarily abandoned my initial search for early settlers to find the story of this Russell family.

Using the facilities of ancestry.com as well as other websites, I quickly located A. H. Russell. I was a little disappointed that the “A. H.” did not stand for “Alan Harold” (my name), but “Alban Hartwell”. Apparently that combination of names was very common in that family line, as it was not only his name, but the name of his uncle and his grandfather. I also discovered that the above quote was incorrect as the Alban Russell who came from Connecticut was his grandfather, not his father. Also, his birth was in 1823, not 1834. (Note – to avoid confusion in the rest of this blog, I’ll refer to the Alban who was from Connecticut as Alban#1 and the Alban in the book as Alban#2. The uncle of Alban#2 I’ll refer to as Alban#3.)

Alban#2’s Russell family line was: Alban#2 (1823-1904) <- Schuyler (1800-1859) <- Alban#1 (1771-1850) <- David Jr (1715-1797) <- David Sr (1673-1752) <- Rev. James (1640-1709) <- Dr. Richard Woodward (1611-1676). Dr. Richard Russell came to Charlestown, MA from Herefordshire, England in 1640 as part of the Great Migration. Thus, there is no connection to my Russell ancestors, at least those in the last 10 generations.

But there were other connections that I was able to find.

First, Alban#1’s great-grandmother (the wife of Rev. James Russell) was Mabel Haynes (1645-1676). She was the aunt of Sarah Haynes (1659-1696), the second wife of my great*7 grandfather, Rev. James Pierpont (1659-1714) and the ancestor of the members of the Pierpont Family Association in New Haven, CT.

Second, the wife of Alban#1 was Hannah Hartwell (1769-1869). The name Hartwell is also significant to me. Hannah’s great-grandfather was Samuel Hartwell (1666-1744). Samuel is also the great*5 grandfather of my great-uncle, Joseph Hartwell (1900-1991), making Alban#2 the 4^th cousin, twice removed of my great-uncle Joe.

These connections were one on my mother’s side (Pierpont) and one on my father’s side (Hartwell). But I was also able to find two other direct cousin connections.

Third, there is a direct connection between myself and Alban#2 on his mother’s side. One of his great*5 grandfathers is Peter Mallory (1627-1698). Since Peter is also my great*9 grandfather (on my mother’s side), that makes Alban#2 my 6^th cousin, 4 times removed.

And finally, there is at least one direct connection between myself and Alban#1 (on Alban#2’s father’s side and on my father’s side). One of Alban#1’s great*3 grandfathers is John Lawrence (1609-1667). John is also my great*9 grandfather, making Alban#1 my 4^th cousin, six times removed and Alban#2 my 6^th cousin, 4 times removed by another path.

Alban#1 was born in Killingly, CT in 1771. In 1795 he married Hannah Hartwell who lived near Plymouth, MA. They lived for a few years in Killingly and their first two children (Alban#3 and a daughter, Alvisa Louisa) were born in there. They moved to PA sometime between 1798 and 1800 as their son Schuyler was born there in 1800. They had other children also born in PA during the coming two decades. These dates mean that Alban#1 was not among the Connecticut settlers who took part in the Pennamite Wars as the last conflict between CT and PA was in 1784 and it was in 1799 that the US Congress finally settled everything.

In an 1869 map of the area, there are three Russell families living in the village of Russell Hill. I’m not sure who they are as there are no first names given. There was a post office located there from 1843 to 1908. And the Russell-Prevost Cemetery is still located there. The cemetery is named after Russell Hill and the Prevost family who are the most numerous ones buried there (the cemetery is on Prevost Road). There is at least one Russell occupant – Phoebe J Russell Arnts who is the granddaughter of Alban#1 through his son Wilbur. Other members of the Russell family are buried in other locations in Wyoming County.

According to the Wyoming County Historical Society (pawchs.org):

“In 1762 settlers from New England came to the Wyoming Valley, but were driven out by the Indians. It was not until after the Sullivan expedition in 1779 that families were able to establish a permanent settlement in the Tunkhannock area. In 1842, Wyoming County was created from part of Luzerne County. The name ‘Wyoming’ is derived from an Indian word meaning ‘extensive meadows.’”

[Map of Russell Hill]

 

It’s been an interesting investigation – finding distant relatives who share the Russell surname living just to the north of me in eastern PA, and a bonus of finding a location even named after them. That place now is barely known, with the post office a distant memory (the area is now part of Tunkhannock) and the small cemetery of 188 old graves hidden away on Prevost Road just down the road from the Russell Hill United Methodist Church at the intersection of Route 6 and Prevost Road, and just a few old postcards depicting the beauty of it. There are still a number of Russell families living in the area (with addresses in Tunkhannock). Perhaps on a nice summer day (after the COVID pandemic is just a distant memory), I’ll take a drive and visit the area.

[Russell Hill postcards]