#52Ancestors - FAMILY PHOTO - Who's Who?

Family Photo

I haven't done a very good job of organizing my ancestral photos.  My computer has a folder called "Family Pictures and Info" where I dump everything I find.  Of course, I always mean to go back to sort and label.  But that hasn't happened yet.  That's how I ended up with this series of photos with the following tags:

Levi Byram Hammon family

Hammon Family 1940s

Hammon Sisters

Sadly, I don't even know where I got these pictures from though I am assuming I took them from either Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.com.  I am fairly confident that they are the same family and I vaguely remember that at one point my mother told me who these people were.  There is one thing I do know - the man in the middle photo with the hat (in the middle of the top row) is my grandfather.  But, of course, I don't know how I know that.  

After some review on FamilySearch, here's what I found out:

Top Photo

Front Rose: Martha Jane Belnap, Levi Byram Hammon, Polly

Middle Row: D Glenn (my grandfather), Jane, Lettie, Frank

Back Row: Amasa, Rhoda, Robena, Ethel

I am grateful to the contributor  who added this information.  I found several copies of this picture but there was only ONE person who added the names.

Middle Photo

This photo was labeled Frank Hammon's Brothers & Sisters - August 1937 by a contributor on FamilySearch.  Now I'll just need some amazing facial recognition skills to figure the rest out.

I haven't yet found out which sister is which in the last photo.  Time to turn to Ancestry - wish me luck.  So PLEASE when you upload a photo, identify as much as you can of people, place and time.  If you do, I promise to keep a record of that!

#52Ancestors - LIBRARY - Surname Books

LIBRARY

I've only had a few opportunities to research in a genealogical library.  There were a couple of rushed visits to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and a longer, more focused, visit to the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) in Fort Wayne, IN.  It's definitely something I would love to do again.

But genealogy books have always been in my home, both as a child and as an adult.  So I am happy to use them in the libraries I visited.  I was especially excited to find the book that my father had worked on with his distant cousin, Mayo Bundy.

These kinds of books are invaluable when trying to dig deeper into family lore and relationships.  It was a thrill to find a copy in the ACPL.

There are also several books on my mother's side written by those studying the Hammon and Belnap family.  Here is one I've had on my shelves through the years - Gold Medal Pioneers - full of journal entries from when they crossed the plains to Utah.

When you run into a deadend while looking for records, search for a book instead!  Or at least visit a library.

#52Ancestors - I'D LIKE TO MEET - Gone too soon

I'D LIKE TO MEET

This week's prompt from Amy Johnson Crow really made me think.  There are so many of my ancestors that I would love to meet.  Only one of my grandparents was still alive when I was born, so I never was able to feel that connection to my past.  Though I was blessed to have wonderful great-aunts and great-uncles, they were always someone else's grandparents.  

One reason I'd like to meet my grandparents is to ask all those troubling research questions of who, what, when and where.  But when I really thought about it, the main reason I would like to meet them is to get to know what they were like.  That made me realize that the one person I'd love to meet most would be by maternal grandmother, Virginia Slater.  She died a very young woman, leaving behind 3 small children.  One of them was my seven year old mother.

Virginia Slater Hammon

Virginia was born in Slaterville, Utah, a town founded by  her great-grandfather, Richard Slater, whom I wrote about here.  She was the 4th of 7 children, though only 6 great to adulthood.  I think their's must have been a hard life.  In the 1910 census, her father is listed as a laborer in the "salt works".  By 1920, he is listed as not having an occupation. 

She married Daniel Glenn Hammon on 28 February 1923, when she was just 20 years old.  Her first child, my mother, was born in December 1925.  By 1930, they were living in Mohrland, Utah, where Glenn had work as a miner.  Mohrland was a company town which my mother recalls fondly.  It is now a ghost town.  This is where Virginia died, pregnant with her 4th child.  My mother came home from school and found the door locked.  She could see Virginia lying on the floor.  A neighbor had to let her into the house.  Virginia lingered for 18 days before dying of "mitral insufficiency".  Her heart gave out.

It was a devastating time for her three remaining children, my mother Jean and her siblings Sharon and Donald.  Now in her 90s, my mother often speaks of her own mother.  I would love to meet Virginia and let her enjoy the large family that is hers.  If my count is correct, she had 10 grandchildren - one named after her - with dozens of great-grandchildren.  I only knew Virginia through her two sisters, Thelma and Marvel, who were surrogate grandparents to me.  They were down to earth, loving, hard working, thrifty and kind. 

I love this picture of Virginia and Glenn.  She is so beautiful with a shy smile.

#52Ancestors - UNUSUAL NAME - Collateral Lines

UNUSUAL NAME

One of the nice features of FamilySearch.org is the frequent emails (or Facebook messages) with fun facts or important dates from my ancestors.  A while back I received an infographic listing some of the unusual names in my family tree.  The one that caught my eye was SHEREBIAH.  I had never noticed that name and certainly had never heard of it!

But finding this person in my tree was harder than I expected.  My personal tree on Ancestry.com is mostly about my husband's side so I couldn't search there.  On FamilySearch.org, the search was too broad and produced too many Sherebiahs.  Fortunately I was able to search my cousin's tree on Ancestry and that's when I noticed not one, but TWO Sherebiahs!!  One of them is a direct ancestor and the other is from a collateral line.  I will talk about that one first.

Sherebiah  Butts

Sherebiah Butts lived his entire life in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut where he was born on 11 February 1733 and died on 27 November 1807.  He served as a captain in the Revolutionary War, commanding forces at Lexington and Bunker Hill.  It is wonderful to have such a patriot in our family tree.  But how am I related?  Sherebiah Butts is the husband of my 7th great-aunt!  He, therefore, is from a collateral line, meaning he is not a direct ancestor such as a grand-parent or great-grand-parent.  This is how our relationship looks:

It would be fun to see how many descendants this couple have - that is called descendancy research and I will leave that for another day.  I do know that this isn't the only Sherebiah Butts - there were several others in the family, including his son, grandson and a great uncle.   Here's the list I found:

So what about the other Sherebiah I found?  Is he direct line?  Amazingly, yes and completely unrelated to our friend, Mr. Butts.   

Sherebiah Lee

Born 5 November 1747 in Barre, Worcester, Massachusetts, he died in Lenox, Madison, New York on 31 January 1843.  And, as you may suspect he also served in the Revolutionary War.   His service was as a Minute Man, part of the volunteer militia who were ready to serve at a minute's notice.  After the war, he became part of the Shays Rebellion, an uprising in 1786-87 against taxes and poor economic conditions.  This Rebellion was a major impetus for the Constitutional Convention.  Wow,  I have so much more research to do on this gentleman who is my 5th great-grandfather.

I also learned that Sherebiah, though not common, does have a biblical origin.  Sherebiah was a priest connected with Ezra and Nehemiah in Jerusalem.  He is mentioned in the 8th chapter of Ezra.  The name means "flame of the Lord".

#52 Ancestors - A New Year, A New Start - FIRST

FIRST

Hmmm, so my last blog post is from January 2018 and is marked START.  And that was also the END.  I didn't accomplish ANY of my genealogy goals and honestly didn't do much research during the year.  I made some initial contact with the Mayflower Society and continued enjoying my membership in the Marco Island DAR.  And that's where it ends.

So it's January again - same goals, and a fresh start.  I'm no longer going to number these posts - as there really is no sequence to follow.  But I will continue to use the prompts from Amy Johnson Crow.  And this week the prompt is FIRST.

I've always told my children that ALL their ancestors were in this country before the Revolutionary War.  And I honestly thought that was true.  Imagine my surprise when I found a whole line that arrived in the 1840s!

Several genealogy accounts that I follow recommended doing a spreadsheet of ancestry by birthplace.  It looks something like this:

 

This is from Kathryn Creeden's blog called Kathryn's Quest.

I made a similar chart for my family going back 6 generations.  It was amazing to see where everyone was from.  And for the most part it was true that our family was in this country by the early 1700s.  But it turns out that all of my mother's mother's grandparents were born in England between 1835 and 1850.  All 8 of these great-great-grandparents of mine migrated with their parents after 1840.   Thus I have maternal great-great-great-grandparents who were the FIRST to arrive in the United States of America.

Let me tell you about two of them: Richard Slater and Ann Corbridge from Lancashire, England.

Richard Slater
1811-1893

Richard was born in Little Bowland, Lancashire, England on 26 September 1811, the youngest of 9 children of Thomas Slater and Margaret Cutler.  His family had farmed there since approximately 1720.   Little Bowland is about 7 miles from Chipping, England.

Richard married Ann Corbridge on 29 September 1834 at a little church in Chipping.  It's looks like a lovely place.

                            

Ann was born in Thornley, Lancashire, England on 16 November 1812, the 7th of 11 children born to William Corbridge and Ellen Bolton who had also married in Chipping.

Ann Corbridge

1812-1902

Ann & Richard sailed to the United States in 1841 with 4 of their children, including my great-great-grandfather, Thomas (presumably named after his grandfather).  They came to join members of their new faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint, and initially settled in Nauvoo, IL.  

In 1846, after having another child, they were driven from their home.  Most members of the church relocated to Iowa.   They had another 5 children while trying to survive in Council Bluff Iowa.  In the 6 years they were in Iowa, Richard served with the Mormon Battalion and was away from home for at least a year.

The family traveled across the plains in 1852 and settled in Utah, though Richard also worked in Wyoming and Idaho.  They named the town Slaterville, which still exists west of Ogden, Utah. Two further children were born in Utah.

I wish their pictures were more happy - but such was the way things were then.  Amazingly only two of their twelve children died in childhood.  Both Richard and Ann are buried in Ogden, Utah.  I found it interesting that Ann's funeral was conducted by a minister of the local Episcopalian church.  I would love to know the story behind that!!

Start - #52Ancestors

I am starting AGAIN!  But this time it's more of a word association than an actual ancestor.  I hope that will keep me on track.

So let's

START

First, my genealogy goals for 2018. 

1. Join the Mayflower Society

2.  Help my husband's aunt join the DAR

3. Start a supplemental for myself with the DAR

4. Attend a research weekend with the NEHGS in Boston (ok, that may be a pipe dream...)

To accomplish goal 1, I went to Relative Finder.  When linked to your Family Search account, this can show you some famous relatives - from actors (like Gene Autry for me) to Presidents (hello, Abraham Lincoln).  But I chose Mayflower ancestry.  I had many cousins, but I was looking for direct lines.  Two men popped up: Edward Fuller at my 10th Great Grandfather and William Brewster IV as my 11th Great Grandfather.

Here are the charts:

Yep, it looks like a lot of work...I will have to prove this but to speed things up I will try to link to someone who has already used some of this lineage.  Wish me luck as I 

START

52 Ancestors #12: Three Hammon sisters born in March

If you have 15 children, there will obviously be several born in the same month.  Of the fifteen children born to my great-grandparents Levi Byram and Martha Jane Belnap Hammon, three girls were born in March.

Lettie, Robena and Ethel Hammon

Lettie (or Letty) Matilda Hammon was born on 13 March 1883 in South Hooper Utah.  She was the 8th child born to Levi and Martha.  Two of her previous siblings had died as infants and a third sister passed away just a month before she was born.  A brother died just two weeks later. So when Lettie grew up with only three older siblings.

Six years and two additional children later, Betsy Robena Hammon was born on 25 March 1889, also in South Hooper Utah.  She went by the name Robena and was known to my mom as Aunt "Bean".   Then an additional seven years and two more children (one of whom died as an infant) happened before Ethel Hammon was born on 16 March 1896 in nearby Roy Utah.

I can only give dates and facts here as I don't have my family history books with me.  But I'll come back later and fill in some details.

Lettie Matilda Hammon 

Lettie lived most of her life in Roy Utah.  She married Jesse Stoker on 10 July 1900 when she was only 17.  They had eleven children.  After Jesse's death in 1942, Lettie married twice more before she passed away on 24 September 1975 at the age of 92.

Betsy Robena also spent her life in the Weber County, Utah area. She married Lance (Lancelot) Greenwell on 14 November 1906, also at the age of 17. They were the parents of 7 children.  Robena died just a few days after her sister Lettie, on 2 October 1975 in Roy, Utah.  She was 86.  I wonder if there was a close connection between these two women.  Robena wrote a book about her grandparents that is a tremendous resource for our family (and is at home!).

Ethel Hammon McEntire
on her 50th wedding anniversary

Ethel stayed close to home, too, and lived in Roy or Ogden her entire life.  She married Horace McEntire on 19 December 1917 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  They had also had a large family of 6 or 7 children.  Ethel died on 17 May 1987 in Ogden Utah.

The family often got together for picnics and reunions.  I have a couple of group pictures that I enjoy. The first one is probably from the early 1900s, maybe 1908-1910 as my grandfather is the little boy on the left and he was born in 1898.

Levi Byram and Martha Jane Belnap Hammon and family

Front row: Martha, Levi, Polly

Middle row: Glenn, Jane, Lettie, Frank

Back row: Amasa, Rhoda, Robena, Ethel

 Here is a picture from the 1940s which I love as it shows my grandfather as a man with his siblings.

The three men are Amasa, Glenn (my grandfather) and Frank Hammon.  The sisters are Robena, Janie, Ethel, Lettie, and Rhoda.  I am so grateful that my family has recorded these times together so I can look back and know there was love and joy in the times they had.

52 Ancestors: #8 Sharon Gay Hammon

My Aunt Sharon was born on 3 February 1930.  As you can see from the date, she was born during hard times as the nation began the Great Depression.  Sharon was the second child of Daniel Glenn Hammon and Virginia Slater.  She was my mother's younger sister by 5 years.  The Hammons lived in Mohland Utah where Glenn, as he was known, worked in the coal mines.  A younger brother, Donald, joined the family a year later.

Tragically, Virginia died when Sharon was only 3.  My mother, Jean Hammon Brooks, clearly remembers coming home from school and finding the door locked.  She could see her mother collapsed on the floor.  Sharon was with her and this loss had a great effect on the family.  The children were scattered for a time to various relatives; something that would recur from time to time, even after Daniel Glenn remarried in 1935. This picture of the three siblings is probably from the mid-1940s.

Sharon grew up mostly in the Roy, Utah area.  She was a beauty with big green eyes and blond hair.  She was very outgoing and attracted a lot of attention.  She was also anxious to get out of the house which now had 4 additional children from the second marriage.  Sharon married Adrian (Bud ) Draayer in the Salt Lake Temple on 27 May 1948.  She had just graduated from high school.

Five years later, Sharon and Bud had four young children, three boys and a girl. Sharon also took care of other children, so the demands on her time and health were heavy.  She grew increasingly unhappy in her marriage. At the age of 31, she learned to drive and got a job.  Eventually she left her marriage and moved to California.  Her children remained with their dad.  

Sharon and Monte

Lynn, Connie and Vaughan Draayer

Sharon loved California and especially enjoyed the Bay area and all the excitement of the 1960s. She married three more times: to David Lyons in 1961, to Jerry David Bell in 1963, and to Bruce Battles in 1971.  None of these marriages lasted, but her marriage to Jerry Bell did produce another daughter,  Virginia Lee Bell..  Virginia and her half-brother Vaughan had green eyes and were left-handed, like their mother. The others, Monte, Connie and Lynn, were blue eyed and right handed.

Sharon and Virginia

After many moves, including a time in the Philippines, Sharon retired to Arizona. Though she had a difficult relationship with her children, they knew she loved them. Sadly, her four oldest children died within 5 years in the early 2000s.  Sharon died of heart failure on 10 November 2007.  She is buried in Warrenton, VA near the home of her youngest daughter.

Her daughter, Virginia, describes her mom as a paradox: she loved to eat but hated to cook; she was very generous but not good at managing money, she loved clothes but had no style.  If she didn't like you, you knew it.  She was a great story-teller, and would make things up on a whim  I certainly never knew what to believe. I did know that if you admired something of hers she was determined to give it to you!

These are Virginia's words:

When she died and I had to put a tombstone on her plot, I had no idea what to do. One night I had a dream about the Little Prince and his rose. The story is about a difficult relationship with a thorny and vain flower on the little prince's planet and how he travels the universe only to discover that that relationship meant a great deal to him because it was difficult. When I woke up I knew what I had to do:

I ordered a rose granite tombstone from Vermont, with roses etched into the stone including her name and dates, plus an epithet from the Little Prince: "A flower that was unique in all the world"

and she was

Sharon had planted a rose bush for each of her 4 deceased children.  There are rose bushes at her gravesite, and a Rose of Sharon planted behind the tombstone.  She was truly an unforgettable woman with a childlike wonder and enthusiasm for life through all her days.

52 Ancestors: #4 Rosel Belnap

In addition to writing about an ancestor born during the month of my blog post, I have also decided to rotate among the 4 lines of my children's grandparents: Norton, Palmer, Brooks and Hammon.  So this week we finally turn to my mother's side of the family, our Hammon predecessors.  That seemed like a good idea until I started combing the files for a January birthday.  It wasn't a popular month for some reason!

Finally I came upon Rosel Belnap, my 3rd great grandfather.  In order to make that understandable:

Rosel Belnap

|

Gilbert Belnap

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Martha Jane Belnap - Levi Byram Hammon

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Daniel Glenn Hammon

|

Jean Hammon Brooks

(my mother)

Rosel was born 4 January 1789 in Cayuga County, New York. His was a large family.  He appears to have been the 6th child of possibly 15 children. He married Jane Richmond, also of New York most likely prior to 1804. According to a copy of the family bible made in 1898, Rosel moved to Ontario, Canada in 1805.  This is an interesting parallel to one of Phil's ancestors,  the Pattisons. This area of New York and southern Canada was very interwoven and boundaries weren't firmly established until the late 1830's.  

Rosel appears in many census and tax records with a variety of spellings: Rosewell, Roswel, Belknop, Belknap, etc.  Spelling was obviously not important at that time. There is a family story that Rosel served in the War of 1812, but that seems unlikely as he is listed in a census in Hamilton Township, Ontario that same year. According to (undocumented) sources on the internet, Rosel's occupation was horse racing, particularly driving or carriage racing of trotter horses.  He died on 2 December 1832, apparently from an accident sustained during a race.  Sadly, his wife died three months later, leaving their large family of 8 children orphaned.

My 2nd ggf , Gilbert Belnap, was only 11 when his father died, but he did name his first born son, Gilbert Rosel Belnap.  I hadn't realized that Gilbert (the father) was born in Canada.  Gilbert made his way back to the states and eventually joined the LDS (Mormon) church.  Gilbert died in Utah in 1899, 67 years after losing his father. It amazes me how far this man traveled from his birthplace.  There are many Belnap descendants who have formed the Belnap Family Organization where you can learn more about their history.

Addendum:  Jessi asked a great question and I did find some information, mostly about our ancestor Gilbert Belnap.  After the children were orphaned, they were most likely farmed out to different relatives and even strangers.  Gilbert had already been indentured to learn the trade of wheelwright and wagon maker. The man he was apprenticed to was a heavy drinker and hard master.  They moved around, ending up in New York, where Gilbert learned that he no longer was bound by U.S. law as an apprentice.  After leaving his master, he returned to Canada seeking his siblings.  He learned that an elder brother had spent the inheritance and that the family was dispersed.  Gilbert took the youngest brother, Thomas (then 5 years old) back to the states.  He moved around extensively but did provide for this brother.  He reunited with his maternal grandparents in Pennsylvania and kept in touch with his siblings.  Of course, he eventually made his way west.  It will be interesting to learn the stories of the other children of Rosel and Jane.