Genealogy Story – Uncovering the parents of an orphan

Recently I was assisting a friend with some research into her ancestors. Her maiden name was Miller and she knew her Miller ancestors back to her great-grandfather, Albert Noah Miller, who had passed on in 1924. But she had no information about his parents.

My initial searches using ancestry.com located the census records of 1860 and 1870. In 1860 he was 3 years old and was found in the home of Philip and Maria Fetherolf. Philip was a retired farmer at age 58 and it was obvious that these were not Albert’s parents. In 1870, at age 13, he is found at the home of Abe[Abraham] and Susan Fetherolf. At age 26, Abe is the son of Philip and Maria.

I was also fortunate to find on newspapers.com Albert’s obituary from June 5, 1924 in the Reading Eagle. Besides an account of his life it noted first that his personal physician was Dr. Fred A. Fetherolf. Then it stated, “Left an orphan at an early age, he was adopted and reared by the late Dr. A. P. Fetherolf, father of Dr. Fred A. Fetherolf.” Finally, it states that “While living with Dr. [Abraham] Fetherolf he read medicine and in 1877 was graduated from Bellevue Medical College”

The second statement was a bit confusing to me, as Abraham Fetherolf was only 16 when Albert was first found living with Philip and Maria and he certainly was not old enough to adopt Albert. So while it’s true that Albert lived with Abraham from when he was a teenager and most certainly learned his doctoring skills from Abraham, and it’s possible that Abraham formally adopted Albert in his early teen years, it is misleading since at the time he was orphaned (before the age of 3), he must have been adopted by Philip and Maria, not Abraham.

So, who were the parents of Albert?

The mystery was finally solved when I was able to locate the death certificate for Albert. His attending physician was F[red] A. Fetherolf and was attested to by Albert’s son, Austin R. Miller. The names of his parents were given as David Miller and Elizabeth Fetherolf! Further investigation revealed that David and Elizabeth were married in January 1856, Albert was born on December 28, 1856, and Elizabeth passed away on October 7, 1857 when Albert was only nine months old. Elizabeth’s tombstone records that she was the w/o [wife of] David Miller, an indication that David was still living at the time. Since the name David Miller was a very popular name in that part of Pennsylvania at the time and I have no further information about him (age, etc.), I have not been able to find other records about him.

So, it appears that when Elizabeth died in October 1857 that Albert was not really orphaned, but that his father, David, who was about 21 at the time, did not feel capable of raising him and so gave his young son to Elizabeth’s parents to raise. Philip then passed away in 1868 when Albert was only 11 and the job of raising him fell to Albert’s uncle Abraham who was 24 at the time and had been married about 3 years.