Finding a Family for Joseph Nickeson

This blog post was inspired by Amy Johnson Crow 's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge.  Learn more at her blog.

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I was scooting along quite nicely with the Nickeson line until I hit Joseph, b. 1797 in either New York or Pennsylvania.  I knew he married Margaret Coble in 1819 in Franklin county, Ohio, and between 1838 and 1840 had migrated to the Peoria county, Illinois area.  But trying to find proof of his parents has been difficult. 

Around the time of Joseph’s marriage, another Nickeson family resided in Franklin county – that of Aaron and Phebe Nickeson.  Aaron died 1814, and his wife in 1842.  Along the line, I was provided with a photocopy of a book, title unknown, which lists grave sites.  Phebe Nickeson, “widow of Aaron,” is buried in Central Blendon cemetery, and there appears to be another grave south of this one that could be the unmarked grave of Aaron. 

I began looking more closely at this couple, and found in some records they were “Nickerson” and in others, “Nickeson.”   I contacted the Nickerson Family Association initially about ten years ago, inquiring of both Joseph, and Aaron and Phebe.  It was felt by the chief researcher at that time that Joseph was indeed the soon of Aaron and Phebe, but no concrete proof had been found.  Joseph, I was told, was probably born in New York, near the Pennsylvania border; Aaron and Phebe were in this area a the appropriate time.  Also, one of Joseph’s sons was named Aaron.  On this scanty basis, Joseph was tentatively placed in the family of Aaron and Phebe. 

But now, having Joseph in Franklin county at the same time as Aaron and Phebe, I felt a little more comfortable with this assumption.  I began looking at censuses, starting with 1800 in New York.  I found an Aaron there with a female of the right age to be a wife, and 3 girls 10-26, and what looks like 3 boys under the age of 10.  Joseph would have been 3 at that time. 

Working backwards, I found an Aaron in 1790 in Albany county, New York; the family makeup appears to be the two parents, plus 3 daughters, consistent with what I found in 1800. 

And this is the point where it quit being easy.  

In 1810, there was no Aaron Nickeson or Nickerson to be found in New York.  Ohio’s census records for this year were destroyed for all counties except Washington, and he wasn’t there either.  He died in 1814, so I shifted the focus to his wife, Phebe.  In 1820, the census is missing for Franklin county.  In 1830, Ancestry.com does not list her in the census search results, and an attempt to browse the Franklin county census images was unsuccessful – Franklin county, for some reason, is not listed among the counties, although it was formed in 1803.  I checked other Nickeson households in Ohio for the presence of a woman of the appropriate age, and did not find one; this, of course, does not rule out the possibility that she was living with a married daughter. 

In 1840, there is an “A. Nickinson” in Franklin county, but no woman Phebe’s age in the household.

Turning to probate records, Aaron did leave a probate document, and I have a copy, but it is largely illegible.  An abstraction in the Ohio Genealogical Quarterly lists the executors of his estate as Thomas McFeeley, John Brickle, and Uriah/Urri Nickerson.  If this Nickerson is indeed Uriah/Urri, I have no idea who this Uriah is or how he connects, despite a tremendous amount of information from the Nickerson Family Association’s data.  However – Aaron has a known brother, Uzziel, who lived in the same areas at Aaron, and was in Ohio by 1812 – two years before Aaron died.  The signature at the bottom of the probate paper could have been “Urri”, or “Uzzi” in my opinion.  The part of the paper that supposedly reads “Uriah” is equally as unconvincing. But unfortunately, regardless of who is the administrator, no other names appear on this document; it appears, from what I can make out, that it simply names the administrators. 

I mentioned that Joseph moved his family to Illinois between 1838-1840, to an area in Peoria county near the Fulton county line.  There is a Charles Nickerson in Fulton county, who moved there in 1837, from where I do not know.   If Joseph is indeed the son of Aaron and Phebe, this Charles would be a very, very distant cousin, which opens up the possibility of Joseph perhaps being more closely related to this Charles than I’ve been thinking.  Or, perhaps, it’s a coincidence that they ended up relocating to the same area at roughly the same time. 

At any rate, as far as I can see, without some other clue to pursue I’m at the end of the line with Joseph, Aaron and Phebe Nickeson.

Many of us have one - an ancestor who was a stinker, put quite frankly.  And this can be quite a can of worms when writing and documenting our family histories.

I descend from William Nickerson, a fellow who gave the colonial government quite a run for their money back in the 1600s, and was well-documented for it.   There are amply written, unbiased sources documenting his behaviors and punishments, and it's a part of who he was.  He poses no problem for me in writing the family history - he was a character, and his own person, and no one is likely to be offended by what I write about him.

Then there's Aunt L.  She's not so far back in history, having departed this life not quite 30 years ago.  Many in the family still remember her.  She left no descendants that might be more easily offended than the rest of us.  But still, how exactly do I handle her in the family history?

She was my grandfather's aunt, and out of his own mouth come the memories of her locking he and is brothers in a dark closet and terrorizing them, and calling them names, because she hated their father.   Or all of the Christmases that the girls got gifts and the boys got nothing. One of her nieces has less than fond memories of her as well, saying that she tried to cheat their mother out of anything that she could, be it family heirlooms, inheritance, or their brother's insurance money.

My own memories are much tamer, but then, Auntie was quite a bit older by the time I knew her.  Once a year, at Christmas, we would gather at her house for a Christmas dessert and open small gifts.  She got out the family china, and spent time trying to tell us about her father and mother, and trying to show a largely (unfortunately) uninterested bunch of people about the family history.  No one, including me, seemed to care at the time.  Under that tame exterior, though, still lurked the same anger and temper that she had as a young woman.

After a bad fall, she ended up having to go into a nursing home.  She was furious.  And it was my grandfather, the same little boy she terrorized as a child, who looked after her.  He and my grandmother went to her house those last few years she lived there, and mowed the lawn, took her shopping, helped her clean, and visited with her... and in the nursing home, they went out twice a week to see her.   One particular week, they took me with them.  I was standing in the doorway when Auntie L., in a fit of rage, suddenly kicked her trash can violently out into the hallway. Two older gentlemen with walkers were approaching when the projectile shot out of her room, ricocheted on the opposite wall and came to rest in the middle of the hall.  Without missing a beat, one of them said, "Well, looks like another one kicked the bucket!"  Nursing home humor... not a great situation, but it has ended up being one of my favorite memories of Aunt L.  It was so very... her.

So, do we try to leave future generations with positive impressions of their departed family members, or do we do our best to capture them as they were, warts and all?  Should the wishes of other family members be taken into consideration, and if so, to what extent?  Do we, as family historians, respect truth, or respect the dead?  Is there a way to to both?

Treasure Chest Thursday – A Baby’s Hairbrush

These items, nestled together with the note, in a small box, belonged to Myrtle Lair.  The note reads, “The little baby’s hair brush belonged to Myrtle Lair age 1 in 1889.  The photo pin is her at the age of 10 or 12.”
Myrtle was the youngest daughter of Lawson F. and Margaret (Nickeson) Lair.  Her sister, Nettie, was my great great-grandmother.  After the death of her mother, with most of the rest of the surviving children married and/or gone from the area, Myrtle stayed on and cared for her father in his old age.  She never married.   She died in 1941 in Princeville, Illinois, where she had spent her entire life.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Collars from Long Ago

This note, written by my great-grandmother, Elvirta Knutz Graves, explains the significance of these collars she had tucked away.  The lace collar belonged to her mother, Nettie Lair Graves (1861 – 1935), and the fabric collar belong to Nettie’s grandmother, Margaret Coble Nickeson (ca 1803 – 1854).
Margaret Coble Nickeson, owner of the fabric collar, married her husband, Joseph Nickeson, in Franklin county, Ohio in 1819, and in the 1840s they relocated to Peoria county, Illinois with their children.  She died in 1854 at the age of 56 in Princeville.  Her daughter Margaret Nickeson married Lawson Lair in 1858.  They spent the rest of their lives in Princeville, Margaret passing away in 1900 at the age of 59.  Their second child was Nettie Lair, owner of the lace collar.  Nettie married Tom Graves in 1883 in Princeville, and they remained in that area until 1906, when they moved to Esmond, South Dakota.  Their daughter Elivrta married Will Knutz in 1910, in Huron, South Dakota.  The collars were eventually given to Virta’s daughter Mabel, who passed away last year.  I would like to thank my cousins for sending me these, and other, remarkable treasures that their mother had so carefully saved.  I am truly blessed and honored to have them.

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy – the DAR Database

The last time I visited the DAR database was years ago.  Tonight, as part of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy challenge, I took another look at it, and I’m really glad I did.
I thought I had no direct line ancestor with any military service during the Revolutionary War.  I knew some of my Lair ancestors had brothers who served, but when I discovered that my immigrant ancestor, Matthias Lehrer/Lair, played a part during the war, I was thrilled.   At this time, I don’t know how significant his role was, only that he was paid for the loss of a gun. 
Also, more significantly, I discovered that another direct-line ancestor, Issacher Nicke(r)son, apparently had some service, under Capt. David Waterbury.  I will need to find more information on this, and joining the DAR based on this ancestor’s service will be difficult.  His son, Aaron, is said to be the father of my ancestor Joseph Nickeson, and even working with the Nickerson Family Association, I have not been able to find proof of that relationship.  But there’s hope!

The Bible of Catharine Nickeson

When I bought this Bible from an historical society years and years ago, I assumed it was probably not the Bible of my ancestor Catharine Nickeson Smith, but I thought I’d take a chance.  It was from 1860, about the right time frame, but sure enough, it wasn’t hers.  But there was something about it that immediately drew me to an obsession to know who this Catharine Nickeson was.
This book was not a display piece, or a table-top book.  The old, worn brown Bible had obviously seen a lot of use in the 150 years since Catharine obtained it.  While the spine was strong, the pages were delicate, and the handwriting faded.  A poem or verse of some sort was written in pencil, only partially readable, but in dark pen was written “Catharine Nickeson’s Book, April 14, 1860”. 





Thumbing through it, I discovered several pages with old, dried leaves between them, some very intricate and unusual looking, like no plant I had seen before, all nestled in their hiding places.  But there, on the unprinted pages between the Old Testament and the New Testament was, in many different pens, over many different years, names and dates, births and deaths of those whom Catharine had held dear.  Her children, their spouses, her grandchildren – all the events of their lives had taken on immortality between the pages of Catharine’s Book.  Seeing her handwriting, shakier as the years went on, I could almost feel the pain as she recorded the births, and then deaths, of several of her children, some young, some older.  It was as if all of the emotion at these events had been locked within the fragile pages of her dear book.
I set about the work of getting to know Catharine Nickeson.  As her Bible told me, she was born April 2, 1833, and her husband, Lambert, or “Lam” as she referred to him, was born November 20, 1821.  They lived in Washington county, Maryland, and in 1850, their household was as follows:
Lambert “Nichoson”, 26, laborer
    Catharine, 28
    Mary E., 7
    Margaret A., 5
    Susan H., 2
    James A., 6/12
    Nancy Daynatt, 18 (Catharine later named one of her daughters Nancy – is this perhaps her sister?)
In 1880, I found them again, in Clear Spring, of Washington county:
Lambert NICKERSON, 58, Farm Laborer
     Catharine, Wife, 58
     Nancy, Daughter, 21
     Mattie, Daughter,  12
And I found them again, for the final time, in 1900, also in Clear Spring:
Clear Spring, Washington, Maryland, Image 28/42
Nickison, Lambert, 78
     Catherine, wife, 78
Interestingly, this last census notes that neither Lambert nor Catherine can read or write.  Error?  Or is there more to the story?
The birth and death entries in the Bible are -
Isaih Denton Hull was born October 4, 1869 
George Lewis Hughs 1847 was born January the 7
Elizabeth Nickeson was born June 28, 1854
Nancy Nickeson June 11, 1858
Rebecca Nickeson born April 13, 1861
Infant daughter of Lam and Catherine Nickeson born May 4, 1865
Rebecca Mills departed this life February 24, 1876
Lizzie Kelley baby was born September the 25 1890
Catherine Nickeson born April 2, 1822
Lambert Nickeson born November 20, 1821
Roseanna Hughs was born January the 27 1851
Elizabeth Host departed this life April the 14 1847
Roseanna Hughs departed this life January 20 1873
Marget Annie Kelley departed this life September the 18 1892
William Kelley was born July 16 17 A.D. 1878
Annie Rebecca Kelley was born March 15th A.D. 1880
Annie Rebecca Kelley departed this life March 20th 1880
Effie Kelley was born September the 5 188(6?)
Bessie May Kelley was born October the 10 188(5?)
I’m still trying to sort everyone out, but what I’d like to know most is what happened to Lam and Catharine?  I have been trying to find obituaries for them, and hopefully will be able to learn more about them and their lives.