1889 Obituary of Samuel Fryman

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

Transcription of the 1889 obituary of Samuel Fryman, a member of the Home Guards in the border state of Missouri during the Civil War

An earlier post included the newspaper image of the obituary of Samuel Fryman, my 3rd great-grandfather (through his son, Frederick Fryman). I have posted the transcription here as well to aid other researchers. Please note that I have taken some liberties with the formatting to improve readability for this media platform, but all wording remains true to the original. Like many obituaries, it provides a neat capsule of his life, but is incomplete and contains incorrect information.

[Transcription follows]

Death Roll.

FRYMAN.

Samuel Fryman was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, January 15, 1807, and died at the house in this place, November 13, 1889. His first wife was Mary Shepherd, to whom he was married February 9, 1832 in Belmont County, Ohio.

They came to this county in 1853 and located on a farm three miles east of the Court House. By this union there were 11 children, 7 sons and 4 daughters. Of these, 4 sons and 2 daughters are now living. George and James Fryman who live here and Mrs. Josiah Smith, at Forest City. Frank at Seneca, Kansas, Mrs. Jacob Baskins in Jewell County, Kansas, and Thomas in Custer County, Nebraska.

Mr. Fryman left 31 grand-children living. Of these, George has 7, James 2, Mrs. Smith 4, Thomas 3, Fred 6, Mrs. Baskins 9. There were also 18 great-grand-children—7 by George’s children and 11 by Mrs. Baskins. Mary Fryman died, August 9, 1879. After a year or so Mr. Fryman married Margaret Dunkelberger, who died a few years afterwards. October 22, 1885, he married Mary E. Crumb, who survives him. All of his children were by his first wife.

Mr. Fryman after the death of his first wife left the farm, and went to Minnesota Valley, where he lived awhile, when he came here, and remained ‘till his death.

His death was the result of kidney disease and the immediate cause of death overwork. He was a man of a vigorous constitution, but overestimated his strength. He was confined to his bed only a few days. The burial took place at the family burying ground at the old place east of town.

Mr. Fryman, though a Democrat before the war, early espoused the cause of the National Government against the states in rebellion. He served in the Home Guards at all times when their services were required and was ever a consistent, law-abiding citizen. He joined the M. E. Church in Ohio more than sixty years ago, and when he came to Holt County attached himself to the Richville congregation. When he removed to Minnesota Valley he dropped his membership in the church, and never renewed it although he remained consistent to the faith ‘till his death.

[Transcription ends.]

Source:

“Death Roll,” Holt County Sentinel (Oregon, Missouri), 22 Nov 1889, p. 4, col. 3, Samuel Fryman obituary; digital images, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90061417/1889-11-22/ed-1/seq-4/ : accessed 12 Apr 2014).

“Happiest when surrounded by little children”

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

1944 newspaper obituary clipping for Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson of New Jersey and Kansas

[Transcription follows]

[M]ORRIS COUNTY, KANSAS, THURSD[AY]

OBITUARY–CARSON
_____

Mrs. Andrew Carson, (Anna Mary Hopkins) was born December 25, 1857 in Trenton, N.J., and died at the home of her daughter, Mrs R. Knott in Abilene, Kansas, on Saturday, September 16, 1944, at the age of 86 years, 8 months and 19 days.

On June 9, 1875 she was united in marriage to Andrew Carson of Trenton, N. J., in 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Carson moved to Skiddy, Kansas, later they moved to a farm near White City, where they lived until 1919 when they moved into town.

She joined the Methodist church in White City on December 2nd, 1894, during the pastorate of Rev. J. S. Ford. She was a very faithful and active member until her health failed her. By such women of love and integrity are our churches and communities maintained. She was a good neighbor and loved by all who knew her. She was happiest when surrounded by little children.

Mrs. Carson greatly loved her home and family, always kind and thoughtful as a wife and mother, she lived in her own gentle way.

Her passing is a great loss, not only to her family but to all who knew her. A devout christian has gone to her God.

Mr. Carson preceded her in death on April 18, 1937.

She is survived by the following children: Mrs. Ralph Knott of Abilene, Mrs. George Tyson of Council Grove, Roy of White City, Elmer of Herington, Mrs. Amanda Carroll of Pittsburg, Frank and Raymond Carson and Mrs. Lillian Bailey of Wichita; thirty two grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren and one great, great, grandchild.

Mrs. Carson had been an invalid for nearly three years, spending most of her time with her daughter Mrs. Knott, who employed Mrs. Cordelia Williams to care for her. About two years ago she fell and broke her hip, and spent some time in the hospital. When it had almost healed several months ago, she had another fall and the hip was rebroken.

Funeral services were held at the Methodist church Wednesday at 2:30 with interment in White City cemetery. Frey funeral home had charge of arrangements; Rev. O. J. McCulloh preached the sermon.

The pall bearers were: R. R. Adam, W. H. Ashe, Howard Shepherd, C. C. Miller, George Hauserman and F. F. Girtch.

Music was furnished by Mrs. J. F. Bacon at the piano and C. C. Miller, Howard Shepherd, Mrs. E. G. Larson, and Mrs J E Bowert, who sang “The Old Rugged Cross,” “Sometime We’ll Understand,” and “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.”

Supper was served by the Eastern Star at the Full Plate Cafe to relatives from a distance attending the funeral.

[End of transcription.]

I am a descendant of one of the eleven great-grandchildren mentioned in the above obituary. My grandmother would have been one of the unnamed 32 grandchildren, and would probably have attended the funeral of her grandmother, although I do not have any recollection of her telling me that. Our branch of the family has no photographs, letters or ephemera from the New Jersey Hopkins side of the family, and I am still working to prove her ancestry.

The clipping transcribed above is, just that, a clipping, so full publication data for a proper citation is lacking. Two facts suggest publication information: 1) the newspaper was published on a Thursday following the death and funeral of Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson and, 2) the newspaper was published in Morris County, Kansas.

Consulting a perpetual calendar for 1944, I was able to determine that the likeliest publication date would have been Thursday, 21 Sep 1944, the first Thursday following her death on Saturday, 16 Sep 1944.

I was then able to narrow down the newspaper to one of two possibilities using the U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present online as part of the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress, which I have blogged about previously.

Search of the U.S. Newspaper Directory using state of Kansas, and county of Morris, plus decade from 1940-1950, as shown in yellow, above.

Only the Council Grove Republican and White City Register (indicated in red, above) are likely candidates for this newspaper clipping based on the publication information. My belief is this obituary appeared in the 21 Sep 1944 edition of the White City Register, page unknown. Determining whether this is, in fact, true has been added to my “to do” list.

Notes: The formatting shown in this post is not true to the original; it was a very long, narrow column in the original newspaper, which I have chosen not to replicate. In the original, each new section is indented, and there is no spacing between the paragraphs. I was unable to get it properly formatted in this blog post but felt that sharing the information was more important than formatting of same.

1. The children of Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson all lived in towns and cities in Kansas, although that may not be clear to those unfamiliar with the area.

2. “Mrs. Lillian Bailey of Wichita” was actually Mrs. Lillian Barley, wife of Christian Arthur Barley. They lived in at 850 Faulkner in Wichita in 1943, per Polk’s Wichita City Directory (Kansas City, Missouri: R. L. Polk & Co., 1943), p. 57, entry for Christian A. and Lillian Barley; digital image, “U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989”, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 Mar 2014). The 1944 Wichita directory, if one exists, is not available on Ancestry currently.

Where There’s a Will…

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

Tracking down the Will of Morris Kelly Sheppard of Ohio on the FamilySearch website

My 3^rd-great-grandfather, Samuel Fryman, allegedly born in Virginia in 1807, married as his first wife, Mary Shepherd (aka Shepard, Sheppard, Sheppards etc.) in Belmont County, Ohio in 1832. When research on this line commenced nothing was known of her birth family, siblings or early life, outside of the fact that her father was living at the time of her marriage and that the couple were both residents of Smith Township. Census households headed by Shepherd males in the vicinity suggested possibilities for further research but nothing concrete had been established.

Shepherd families can be found in the starred counties of Belmont, Morgan and Richland counties, Ohio between 1820-1847.

At a later date, I serendipitously pulled a book off the shelf at the local library and found this will abstract linking a Samuel Fryman to a Sheppard man in Richland County, Ohio, several counties and fifteen years removed from the Belmont County marriage. Here is the information from the will abstract, as entered into my genealogy software program:

SHEPPARD, MORRIS KELLY, Bloomfield Twp. 21 Jun 1847 23 Aug 1847
To Samuel Fryman, $250.00.
To Arnold Sheppard, $250.00.
To brothers and sisters Prudence, Rebecca, David, Priscilla, and John, residue of estate equally.
Witnesses: William Baskins, Francis P. Griffith.¹

Could this be my Samuel Fryman?

I wondered if I could learn anything further by looking at the original will. My attempt to do just that failed when at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City in 2005. At that time I was simply unable to locate the appropriate volume. Now that image copies of these records are available online at FamilySearch.org, I thought that I would try again.

At the main page, I clicked on the Search button, then scrolled down to the bottom of the page and clicked the United States link, which took me to the Historical Records Collections page. From the Place list on the left, I selected Ohio. Under Collections, I selected Probate & Court, which left me with a manageable list of seven collections.

Richland County was not listed out separately, so I clicked in to the larger collection of court records called Ohio, Probate Records, 1789-1996. I then located Richland in the list of counties. Since I knew I was dealing with a will, and had a date of 23 Aug 1847 for when the will was probated, I selected Wills 1816-1864 vol 1/2-2.

There are 677 images on this microfilm, so I should be able to find what I need. Volume 1/2 on FHL film 388,794 covers the years 1816-1822.

Volume 1 on the same film covers 1849-1855.

What about 1823-1848? Clearly, this gap in the records is what I ran into in 2005, when I quit looking. But surely, I reasoned, the author of the book on will abstracts was working off of something. This time, I advanced the images to read the information at the front of volume 1, to see if there was any explanation for this gap. That is when I found this note penned on the inside cover of the volume:

Index for the years 1849 to 1855
~~to which is added~~

To which is added an Index to the Wills in

the Administration Records

from 1813 to 1849

Embracing all the wills in the old
Records
Made for the benefit of all whom it may
concern by John Meredith, P. J., 1859

Thank you, Judge Meredith. I scrolled forward to find the S section of the index. Eureka! There I found the index entry for the 1847 will of Morris Kelly Sheppard.

Clicking back in to all the Richland County, Ohio probate and court records, I located the link for Administration Records, volumes 7-8.

The index entry to the will of Morris Kelly Sheppard said it was located on p. 28, but information regarding the settlement of the estate actually starts on p. 27, filmed on frame 12 of FHL microfilm 960,100.

Richland Co., Ohio administration of estate of Morris Kelly Sheppard, 1847.²

From my experience, it is rather unusual that a will would be filed in with the Administration Records when there are separate volumes for wills. That fact most likely signals that we are dealing with a special type of probate, called an Administration C.T.A. (C.T.A. being an abbreviation for a Latin term “cum testamento annexo“. Black’s Law Dictionary explains the phrase this way:

L. Lat. With the will annexed. A term applied to administration granted where a testator makes an incomplete will, without naming any executors, or where he names incapable persons, or where the executors named refuse to act.³

The will of Morris Kelly Sheppard was entered into the bound volume of the Administration Records and clearly shows that no executor was named. What I have not yet verified is whether all wills in Richland Co., Ohio were for some reason included in with the Administration Records between 1823 and 1848.

Sources and credits:

1848 Ohio map by Jeremiah Greenleaf, courtesy David Rumsey Historical Map Collection online at http://www.davidrumsey.com/ via a Creative Commons license.

All screenshots in this post are from the FamilySearch.org website created and maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), accessed 06 Feb 2014.

¹ Anne Lockwood Dallas Budd, Richland County, Ohio, Abstracts of Wills, 1813-1873 (Mansfield, Ohio: Ohio Genealogical Society, 1974), p. 71.

² Richland County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, Mansfield, Administration Records vol. 7, 1844-1848 p. 27, entry for Morris Kelly Sheppard, 21 Aug 1847; digital images, “Ohio, Probate Records, 1789-1996.” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 06 Feb 2014), imaged from FHL microfilm 960,100.

³ Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, abridged 5th ed. (St. Paul, Minnesota : West Publishing Co., 1983), p. 200.

Looking Ahead to 2014

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

As we usher in a new year, it affords each of us the opportunity to reflect on the year that just concluded, and with it, our successes and our failures. Invariably our thoughts turn to what events may unfold in the next twelve months and how we might improve, refresh, or reinvent ourselves. Many of us will make resolutions or set new goals, even if we choose not to verbalize them or share them publicly. Normally, I choose only to share my goals with one or two close friends, if at all. Somewhere I read recently that we are more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down. With this in mind, here are my genealogy goals for 2014.

Improve my blog

First and foremost, I need to change my hosting company, upgrade my blogging platform and choose a new WordPress template. I want my site to load quicker, look better on mobile devices, and better reflect my vision for the site, which I have not yet achieved in the nearly two years since I started. I would also like to incorporate TNG on the back end to begin displaying selected genealogy data using php and MySQL.

I recognize that the way the blog looks and functions is but one part of the equation; the writing is probably even more important. I would like to resolve to blog more frequently, but I prefer quality over quantity, and doubt I can improve considerably on the frequency of my posts, due to my work schedule and other commitments. Suffice it to say that a lack of ideas is not the problem – I have more un-posted drafts than published material.

Begin using a new genealogy database

After more than thirteen years of using The Master Genealogist (TMG), I intend to begin using RootsMagic instead as my primary database. With nearly 6,000 people in my main database, and hundreds more in a separate regional research database, this is no small endeavor. I am no longer convinced the publisher of TMG is interested in improving the product, so I have not recommended it to colleagues and those I mentor for a few years now. It is time for me to finally make the switch as well. One thing that makes this decision difficult for me personally is that we have a fantastic TMG users group in Seattle led by Ed Godfrey, and attended by friends and colleagues that are very well-versed in the nuances of the software and are very experienced genealogists to boot. As far as I know, there is no such support group for RootsMagic in my area currently.

A few days ago, I actually purchased RM6 and exported my data from TMG using GEDCOM. In limited testing, it appears a fair amount of data did not come across, so I will have to run both programs in tandem for a while in order to recreate the lost events and witnesses to those events in the new program. This will give me an opportunity to review and improve my source citations. With the iOS RM6 app, I will be able to have my genealogy data with me on my smartphone, much like the old days with my PalmPilot and Pocket Genealogist!

Get better organized

Shopping for new supplies is the easy part

This is the year I finally plan to get better organized. Not that I haven’t tried a variety of organizational methods in the past, but I still find myself unable to locate physical and digital documents as quickly as I would like. So, for the time being I am putting a halt to additional research, and will really focus on getting my existing documents organized and transcribed. I believe the answers to some of the questions I have about various individuals or families may be buried in the information I have already obtained. Re-organizing those materials will give me an opportunity to look at everything again in light of what I have learned in the interim. Doing complete and full transcriptions of those documents will provide me the opportunity to do a proper analysis. I have chosen to begin using the MRIN system for both paper and digital documents. I have amassed a lot of records and photographs in several active decades of research so this will be a multi-year project to be sure. My plan is to begin with the two or three families that I work on most frequently and go from there.

Overall, my goals revolve around being better prepared when I return to Virginia in a few months to do on-site research at the Library of Virginia. By blogging about my Virginia-based families, having my genealogy information with me no matter what device(s) I choose to travel with and by locating and assessing the information I have already obtained in prior trips I hope to break through one or more of my genealogy brick walls.

Ancestor Roundup

Reining in my American Ancestors

Author Archives: Dawn Bingaman