Benjamin Sly...a mystery

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

OK. I had just proved that Sarah J Avery Van Buren was Jennie's aunt, and that Henrietta and George were Sarah's siblings. I was building a fairly detailed picture of the Avery family. More work lay ahead of me. But I really wanted to know more about Benjamin Sly, my 3rd great-grandfather.

Compared to the Avery family, I knew very little about him, and all of it was from the 1860 census:

Benjamin Sly
Born ca. 1820 in New York State
Blind
Wife: Mary L. Avery, born ca. 1836
Daughter: Jennie/Lucia/Lucy Sly, born 1857
possible relative: Samuel B Lent, born ca. 1854

It was time to dig into this man's past. I didn't think it would be easy. As we know, Jennie didn't talk about her family after moving to Ohio, but she had obviously been closer to the Avery side than the Sly side. The Averys raised her, while Benjamin seemed to disappear from her life. Why?

I wanted to start with the 1865 New York State Census. In that year, Mary and Jennie were living with Mary's mother, Polly, but Mary was listed as "married". Where was Benjamin in 1865, and why wasn't he with his family?

I searched the 1865 census for Benjamin Sly, born ca. 1820 in New York.

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

There he was, in Mentz, boarding with an Elizabeth Dineheart. As always, a closer look was needed:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Benjamin Sl(e)y, born in Onondaga County, New York. The birth year was 5 years later than the previous record I had found for Benjamin. I zoomed in on the age, inverted the colors, and was able to determine that the age was "45", not "40". That meant he was born about 1820, a match with what I had found before.

Summary of the 1865 census:

Benjamin Sley

45 years old (born ca. 1820)

male

boarder

parent of children: none listed

number of times married: 1

marital status: none listed

over age of 21 and not able to read or write: yes

deaf and dumb, blind, insane or idiotic: yes

2 pages later, I found a summary of Benjamin's blindness:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014

Kind of infirmity: Blindness

Duration in years: 20

cause: inflammation

similarly affected relatives: none

support: private means

able to earn a living by labor: yes

I was disappointed that no children were listed for Benjamin, but since his marital status was also omitted, it seemed like the record was not as complete as it could have been.

What I did learn was that Benjamin did not go blind in the Civil War, and therefore it was unlikely that he had served in the war. According to the record, he had been blind since he was about 25.

The other interesting tidbit was that it looked like Benjamin was able to earn a living doing some sort of labor.

Now I had 2 records for Benjamin Sly: in 1860 and in 1865.

I wasn't sure how far after 1865 I would be able to find Benjamin. Family lore said that Jennie's mother had died when Jennie was young, but I had no such information for Benjamin. All I had known originally was that his last name may have been Sly, and that he may have been blind.

Now I had confirmed those two things, but knew little else. It was time to do a broad search.

I searched for Benjamin Sly, born about 1820 in Onondaga County, NY, who lived in Mentz. Several results popped up, but the first one I clicked on was one from the 1855 New York State census:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1855 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

This was interesting.....if Jennie really was born in Illinois in 1857, then this record meant that Benjamin and Mary had moved to Illinois and back between 1855 and 1860. Why would they do that? Add yet another question to the ever-growing list! A closer look:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1855 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

Benjamin and Mary L Sly lived in a frame house. Mary is listed as Benjamin's wife, and Benjamin is listed as married. She was born in Cayuga, and he was born in Onondaga. Both had lived in Mentz for 19 years (which meant that Mary had lived there roughly from the time she was born), Benjamin owned land, and was listed as blind. One interesting additional fact: Benjamin was a chair matter. Was this the source of the income listed in the 1865 census?

All of these records were interesting, and I did learn a few new things about Benjamin. For instance, I now knew that he was born in Onondaga County, NY, and was a chair matter by profession. But many questions remained. What happened to him after 1865? Who was Samuel B Lent? Why did Mary and Benjamin not live together in 1865? Was it because Mary was already sick? Why did Benjamin and Mary possibly move to Illinois and back between 1855 and 1860? 

I had my work cut out for me. The very best kind of work.

A hunch

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

I had just found Benjamin Sly, who was probably my 3rd great-grandfather, and I was reasonably sure that his wife, Mary L. Avery Sly, was my 3rd great-grandmother.  Their daughter, the woman my family knew as Jennie Louise Van Buren, was the reason I had started down this road to begin with.

Jennie Van Buren Ham, late 1800s

Jennie was a woman who didn't talk about her past with anyone. Her daughter, Edith, didn't even know where Jennie had been born, and knew almost nothing about Jennie's parents.

The State Board of Health of Missouri, Standard Certificate of Death, filed August 23, 1945, No. 26786

Edith (Mrs. T. W. H. Irion) was the informant on Jennie's death certificate.  This was the only record I had that listed "Michigan" as a place of birth. I didn't think it was accurate. Jennie's father was listed as "Henry Sly". I was fairly sure that this first name was wrong, as well. I doubted it was shock or anguish that made Edith forget the details of her mother's life; rather, I think she didn't know anything to begin with.

All parents keep things from their children.  Some hide little details; others hide big things. Some do it to protect their kids; others because they are ashamed or afraid to share; some parents are fiercely protective of their "pre-kids" self; others don't want their children to know that they they did all the things they now tell their children not to do. All parents have little or big secrets, as do their children.

So what was it about Jennie's past that made her hide all of it from her only child? From what I had found so far, this family looked fairly normal, if there was such a thing. Jennie's grandmother, Polly Avery, had a many kids. This was common in the early 1800's. Presumably, Polly's husband had died rather early - also not uncommon for the early 19th century. Sometime in the early 1850's, Polly's daughter, Mary, married Benjamin Sly, and together they had a daughter, Lucy, in 1857.

When did it all go so horribly wrong that Lucy, or Jennie, never shared anything about her family with anyone after she moved to Ohio? Was family lore correct that Jennie had lived with distant relatives after her mother died? This, too, was not uncommon in the 1850's.  I'm sure it was difficult for Jennie, but why the secrecy? How did Benjamin Sly fit into this picture? If he survived his wife, Mary, why did he lose all contact with his daughter Jennie?  Why didn't Edith ever meet her grandfather?  What became of Benjamin, anyway?

Why were Mary and Benjamin living apart in 1865? Was this evidence of problems within the family? And who were Sarah and James Van Buren? They raised Jennie from at least the age of 13. Was this arrangement not as loving as it sounded? Why did Jennie marry a man from rural Ohio in 1877 and never look back?

Jennie Louise Van Buren Ham ca. 1877, at the time of her marriage

Jennie's story, or lack thereof, was eating away at me.

It was time for another list, this time about what I knew so far, arranged chronologically.

1850    Mentz, Cayuga Co., New York        Polly Avery, 43
                                                                     Thomas Avery, 20              
                                                                     Mary Avery, 14
                                                                     Edward Avery, 10
                                                                     Henrietta, 8
                                                                     Enos Avery, 6
                                                                     George Avery, 4
                                                                     Marietta Avery, 83
                                                                     Lewis Newman, 21
                                                                     Jane Newman, 16

1857    NY, IL or OH                                   Lucy J Sly, born

1860    Mentz, Cayuga Co., New York       Polly Avery, 54
                                                                    Edward Avery, 20
                                                                    George Avery, 14
   
            Mentz, Cayuga Co., New York       Benjamin Sly, 40
                                                                    Mary L. Sly, 23
                                                                    Lucy J Sly, 3
                                                                    Samuel B Lent, 6

1865    Auburn, Cayuga Co., New York    Polly Avery, 59
                                                                   Mary Sly, 28
                                                                   Thomas Avery, 37
                                                                   Edward F Avery, 24
                                                                   Lucia J Sly, 8

1870    Buffalo, Erie Co., New York         James Van Buren, 59
                                                                  Sarah J Van Buren, 38
                                                                  Henrietta Seaman, 27
                                                                  Jenny Sly, 13
                                                                  George Avery, 23


I really wanted to figure out how Sarah J. Van Buren was related to Jennie.  I had a hunch.  What if Jennie hadn't lived with distant relatives, but had gone to live with an aunt? I had tried to figure this out before, and had been disappointed when I hadn't found a "Sarah Avery" living with Polly Avery and everyone else in 1850 in Mentz. One of the notes I made at the time was that it was possible that Sarah was already living on her own in 1850. She would have been between 16-18 years old then.

Now, I thought it was worth looking for Sarah in Buffalo.

I searched for Sarah J Avery, living in Buffalo, Erie Co., New York, born 1834, -/+2 years.

And there she was.................

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

This was possibly THE Sarah J who had raised Jennie.  Was it possible that my hunch had been correct? Was she the sister of Mary L. Avery Sly?  A closer look was definitely necessary:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

In the household were:

Sarah J. Avery, born about 1836 in Cayuga County, New York.
Underneath: Henrietta Seaman, "officially" now Sarah's sister, born about 1842 in Cayuga County.
George Avery, their brother, born about 1846 in Cayuga County.

And

James V. Buren, boarder.  Sarah J Avery's future husband.

It was really too good to be true. I was stunned.

Jennie was not raised by distant relatives.  She was raised by her Aunt Sarah and Uncle James Van Buren after her mother died.

This was my family, and I was getting to know them, bit by bit.

One word proves it all

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

Since embarking on this adventure, I had gone from knowing almost nothing about my 2nd great-grandmother, Jennie, to being fairly certain that her mother's name was Mary Avery, and that Jennie had a slew of aunts and uncles who were all from New York State.

The family tree I sketched out now looked like this:

Jennie Louise (Lucia J) Sly Van Buren Ham's family tree

There was still a lot of work to do!  Right now, I only had names and dates.  I didn't know anything about my ancestors who now filled my tree.  I still had no idea how Sarah and James Van Buren fit in the picture, nor who Lewis and Jane Newman were.  I was anxious to answer all of those questions. I knew I wouldn't be getting much sleep in the days to come. How could I sleep when I had new family members to get to know?

But before all that, the one question that was causing the most obsession and sleep deprivation was this:  who was my 3rd great-grandfather? All I had so far was:

__________ Sly, male, possibly blind.

This was where djnflskjdnglksdjfngrj

Family research interrupted by Samson, the kitten

Sorry. What I was saying was that this was where I wanted to focus next.  Who was Jennie's father?

I had done searches for Jennie Sly in New York many times without results.  Now I could try her "new" first name.  That was where I would start looking for her.  I opened the search window in Ancestry and started typing.  I referred to my sketch to make sure I would spell her first name correctly, and...

Ah, this is not going to be very productive. Kittens like genealogy, too.

Kitten shenanigans aside, I searched for Lucia J Sly, born in 1857, living in New York:

Search results for Lucia Sly on www.ancestry.com

The top result was the one I already had, for Lucia living with Mary and Polly, her mother and grandmother. The bottom result was new to me.  Here was a "Lucy" Sly, born in 1857, living in...

Mentz.

Mentz is where Polly Avery and several of her children were living in 1850.  Wow! Jennie, or Lucia, or Lucy, would have been 3 in 1860.  Whom was she living with?

Year: 1860; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M653_729; Page: 787; Image: 310; Family History Library Film: 803729 
www.ancestry.com

And just like that, it was possible that I had just found my 3rd great-grandfather, Benjamin(e) Sly, born about 1820.

Benjamin.  My son's name.  Benjamin.  Surely he didn't spell it with an "e" at the end?  Time to take a closer look at the 1860 Federal US Census:

Year: 1860; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M653_729; Page: 787; Image: 310; Family History Library Film: 803729
www.ancestry.com

Clearly, this Benjamin spelled his name just like any other Benjamin I have ever known.  No "e" on the end.  The "10" is the value of Benjamin Sly's personal estate.  He did not own any real estate. Mary now had a middle initial "L" I could add to my data base.

Why did every record I found only add to the mystery?  Who was Samuel B Lent, age 6??

Be that as it may, there were now 3 possible names for the woman my family knew as Jennie:

Jennie (Jenny) Louise Sly Van Buren

Lucia J Sly

Lucy J Sly

The initials still stayed the same, so that was good.

I could add these 3 names to the 3 possible birth places of New York, Ohio and Illinois. Wonderful! 

But this: This!

All the way to the right on the record was one word that proved to me that Mary was indeed my 3rd great-grandmother and that Benjamin was her husband. The proof was here, right here on my computer screen:

Blind.

Other than the last name of Sly/Sleigh/Sligh in my notes, the only clue I had about Jennie's dad up to that point was that he was BLIND.

It was genealogical gold.

I knew I wouldn't sleep for a very long time.

Lucia J., not Jennie Louise?

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

I couldn't wait to get started on researching Mary Avery.  More than that, I wanted to know everything I could about the Avery family. Who was Polly and when did her husband die?  How many kids did she have? Where did they all end up?  Were they all from Mentz originally? And more importantly: Did Mary Avery marry someone with the last name of Sly, and did they have a daughter named Jennie?  How did the Van Burens fit in to picture? And what about George Avery?

Let's do a quick recap:

After ruling out any connection to the Martin Van Buren family, I had found 13-year-old Jennie Sly (likely my 2nd great-grandmother) living with James and Sarah Van Buren, and George Avery, in the 1870 census in Buffalo, New York. I had researched George Avery for a few minutes and found an Avery family living in Mentz, New York in 1850. George was 4 then. He was living with Polly Avery, presumably his mother, and quite a few siblings.  One of them was named Henrietta. She may have been the same Henrietta living with George and Jennie in Buffalo in 1870.  It was all starting to come together.  This is the family tree sketch, based on the 1850 census.

Referring to the notes I had gathered on Jennie, I ruled Henrietta out as a possible mother for Jennie. That left Mary, born ca. 1836.  Was she Jennie's mother?

It was time to get to work!  My first search was for "Mary Avery, born 1836, living in Mentz, Cayuga County, New York".

Search results for Mary Avery in Mentz, Cayuga County, New York
www.ancestry.com

The top result was what I had already found.  The second result stopped me in my tracks. Sly? Was there really a Mary Sly in my search results?? This was the potential last name of Jennie's father, and the last name Jennie had when living with the Van Burens in 1870.  Could it be?

Auburn and Mentz were both in Cayuga County, not far apart:

Distance between Mentz and Auburn in Cayuga County, New York
www.googlemaps.com

Here is the image of the 1865 New York State Census:

Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

There was Mary!  Mary Sly!  Living with Polly Avery (her mother) and her 2 brothers, Thomas and Edward.  And right underneath Mary's name was "Lucia J Sly, daughter, female, 8 years old (born ca. 1857), birth place of Illinois.

Lucia J.... not Jennie Louise  Well, at least the initials matched!
1857 ... that matched what I knew thus far.
Illinois ... not New York. Huh.

I had originally started with 6 possible places of birth for Jennie:

www.googlemaps.com

After some sleuthing, I had narrowed it down to 2: New York and Ohio.

www.googlemaps.com

But that was before I had found "Jenny" in the 1870 census. That record listed New York as the place of birth. The New York 1865 census listed Illinois.

After finding the 1870 census, I had been leaning towards New York as the probable place of birth, but only because it meant that my "sleuthing" had been correct.  Now I had to consider the source of the information on the 1870 census. I did not know yet exactly how the Van Burens were related to Jennie. Based on my notes, they were close relatives at best; more likely, they were distant relatives. In 1865, Lucia (if she was the same person as Jennie) was living with her mother and grandmother. That source of information on Jennie's birthplace was more credible.  Maybe I had been too quick to rule Illinois out!  I was back to 3 possible places of birth:

Illinois was back in the running as a possible place of birth

This question was on hand at the moment: were Lucia and Jennie the same person?  I thought it was likely. In 1865, Lucia was living with Polly and Mary, with same birth year, and at least the same initials as the 1870 census. The name Sly only strengthened the case.  I was excited.  It was possible I had just identified Jennie's mother: Mary Avery Sly, born 1836 in Onondaga County, New York. My 3rd great-grandmother!

Of course, a new question was racing around my head:  In 1865, Mary was living with her mother. Where was her husband? Was it possible that he was serving in the Civil War? Is that how he went blind?

Closer inspection of the census showed that Thomas and Edward Avery were both serving in the Army in 1865, yet they were still listed in Polly's household. If Mary's husband was serving in the war, why was he not listed, as well?

Was it possible that Mary's husband had died before 1865?  If so, why was Polly listed as a widow, but Mary was listed as married?  Something didn't quite add up.

It was another clue that there was more to this family than met the eye.

So many clues, so little time!

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

My mind was reeling.  Right in front of my eyes was the record for Jennie (Jenny) Sly, 13 years old, living in Buffalo, New York, with James Van Buren, and someone named George Avery. There were too many pieces of the puzzle that fit together for this to not be "my" Jennie.

Van Buren, Avery, Sly, Buffalo, born in 1857...it was a treasure trove of clues coming together.

The name Sly carried more weight now, as did New York as a possible place of birth.  The names Van Buren and Avery were now definitely connected to Jennie, and here she was right in the middle of Buffalo in 1870! 

It seemed too good to be true!

Only a few days before, I had felt like this was the future of my pursuit of the story of Jennie:

Now, I had so many paths to choose from!

I was reminded that genealogists say that when you find one answer, you gain 5 questions. This was an exciting and interesting problem to have!

First things first.  I knew exactly where to find Jennie in 1880. By then she was married and living in Harveysburg, Ohio with her husband, Arthur Tappan Ham. And I could practically track her every move after 1880 until her death in 1945.

Now, I was pretty sure I knew where she had been in 1870, but what about before then? I needed to check earlier years for Jennie (Jenny) Sly in Buffalo.

Alas, my hopes were dashed:

Search results for Jenny Sly born 1857, living n Buffalo, NY
www.ancestry.com

Other than the top result for in the 1870 census, that search yielded nothing.  I knew I had to dig deeper than this!

I had several avenues of research I could pursue, so where to start?  Should I research James Van Buren?  His wife, Sarah?  Should I start looking for any and all Slys in New York State? What about Avery?  George Avery was with James Van Buren in the 1870 and 1880 census records.  Who was George, and how did he fit into the picture?

After looking closely at those records, I decided to try to find out more about him.  I knew he had to be more than "just" a boarder.  I strongly suspected that he was related to James or Sarah Van Buren. I hoped that finding out more about George might lead me to Jennie and her parents.

I made a list (yes, a list!!) of what I knew about George so far, based on the information in the 1870 and 1880 census records:

George W Avery
Born 1846-47
Born in NY
Listed as widowed in 1880
unemployed for 2 months before 1880 census
no occupation in 1870
George N Avery, age 5, living with George W in 1880

Was it possible that George W Avery had married between 1870 and 1880?  If so, then he had also had a child during that time (George N) and had lost his wife.  What a turbulent decade!

I decided to cast the net fairly wide again, to see what I could find.  I searched for George W. Avery, born 1846 +/- 5 years, living in New York State.

The first result was for a George W Avery in Buffalo in 1910, but I decided to save that one for later. There were other George Averys here and there, including one in Baxter Springs, Kansas, of all places, but none of them caught my attention, until I got to the 15th result: George W Avery, age 14, living in Mentz, Cayuga County New York in 1860.

Result for George W Avery, 1860 census
www.ancestry.com

To this day, I don't really know why this result caught my eye more than the others. Maybe it was because it was the only result in New York I could see for the 1860 census. Maybe it was intuition. Whatever the reason, I clicked on the image to get more information.

George W. Avery in the 1860 US Federal Census
Year: 1860; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M653_729; Page 792; Image: 315; Family History Library Film: 803729; accessed on www.ancestry.com

There was just something about this result that grabbed me.  Mentz was not a place I had ever heard of.  Polly and Edward were new names to me.  I decided to pursue the matter further.  I did a search in the 1850 census in Mentz, Cayuga County, New York for Polly Avery, born about 1805 +/- 5 years.

This was my top result:

1850 Census result for Polly Avery
Year: 1850; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M432_481; Page: 118A; Image: 240.
Accessed on www.ancestry.com

Wow!  Polly had a big family in 1850!  I started sketching out a hypothetical tree.  I included everyone in this census record except for Lewis and Jane Newman.  I had no idea how they fit into the picture, so they didn't make the cut for now.

My original Avery family tree sketch.

I was tempted to go down every rabbit hole and research everyone on this tree that day. I knew I would do this eventually. For now, however, I decided to focus on the 2 presumed daughters of Polly.  I was trying, after all, to find Jennie's mother, whose maiden name I thought was Avery.

Here were my 2 candidates:

Mary, born ca. 1836

Henrietta, born ca. 1842

Something about the name Henrietta was bugging me.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  It seemed like I had seen that name somewhere recently.  I looked back through the records I had found so far -- and there she was -- or, I should say, there was a Henrietta:

Henrietta Seaman, living with James and Sarah Van Buren in 1870, born ca. 1843.  I felt certain this Henrietta Seaman and Henrietta Avery had to be the same person, but only time and research would tell for sure.  Was she the connection between James and Sarah Van Buren and Polly Avery?

Even though Henrietta was listed right above "Jenny" in the 1870 census, I decided to research Mary Avery first.  The assumption I was working under was that Jenny was living with James and Sarah after her mother died.  If that was true, then Henrietta couldn't be her mother.

I have to admit, I was disappointed that I had not found a "Sarah Avery" living with Polly in 1850. I had suspected from the beginning that George Avery and Sarah Van Buren were siblings.  It looked like this might not be true, after all.  Then I remembered that one of my sources had said that Jennie went to live with distant relatives after her mother died.  I would not consider an aunt to be a distant relative.  So, maybe they were cousins, not siblings.  It was one more avenue to pursue later.  I also considered that Sarah might not have been living with her mother in 1850.  She would have been about 18 years old by then.

I decided to deal with Sarah another day.  For now, I wanted to put Mary Avery, born ca. 1836 under the microscope.  If my assumptions were correct, she was a likely candidate to be Jennie's mother -- and my 3rd great-grandmother.

Van Burens, Slys and Averys, Oh My!

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

I had finally found the first real hint as to who Jennie Van Buren's adoptive father had been. In her scrapbook were those 2 newspaper clippings referring to his death. The only problem was, I had no idea where or when he had died!  So what does every good genealogist do when she has only one, tiny clue?  She casts a wide net and hopes for the best!

Late that night, I gathered my thoughts. From the obituary, I knew that James Van Buren died at the age of 76.  The obituary mentioned that he had not been engaged in business for a long time.  He had been an elected official as late as 1873.  Jennie married Arthur in 1877.  Assuming that James died after Jennie got married, and guessing that he had been in his fifties and sixties when he was an elected official, I estimated that he had been born between 1810 and 1820.  That is the wide net I cast:  I searched on www.ancestry.com for a James Van Buren, born in 1815, plus or minus 10 years.

The initial search results:

Search results for James Van Buren, born 1815 +/- 10 years
www.ancestry.com

The first result in New Jersey was interesting, but I decided to skip it as soon as I glanced at the second result.  Buffalo, New York!  This is where my mother thought Jennie and Arthur might have been married!

This is what came up when I clicked on the result:

1880 US Federal Census result for James Van Buren in Buffalo, NY
www.ancestry.com

Now this was interesting!  James was born in New York, and so was his wife, Sarah, on closer inspection. This was A LOT of New York! Oh, how I loved New York all of a sudden! This was one of the states where I had tried to find a birth record for Jennie.  And the birth year for James was about 1811, close to what I had estimated.  There was definite potential here!!!

In 1880, Jennie was already married and living in Ohio, so it didn't worry me that she wasn't listed with James Van Buren in Buffalo then.  I started taking furious notes and was suddenly wide awake, despite the late hour.  I decided the next step should be to look for James Van Buren in the 1870 census, to see if Jennie was with him then.  But before I started a new search, I decided to look at the scan of the 1880 original, just to make sure I hadn't missing anything.

Year: 1880; Census Place: Buffalo, Erie, New York; Roll: 831; Family History Film: 1254831; Page: 32C; Enumeration District: 159; Image: 0066
Accessed on www.ancestry.com

This was a really big household!  And then I realized - this was a boarding house.  A boarding house run by James and Sarah Van Buren.  Immediately, the word "hostess" sprang to mind.  Was is possible that Jennie had indeed been a hostess? Not for Martin Van Buren, but for James?


The address of this boarding house was 192 Franklin Street, Buffalo.  This is what it looks like today:

Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School, Buffalo New York
www.googlemaps.com

The school's address is 190 Franklin Street. Number 192 was where part of the building and the parking lot now are. Too bad!

Finding this boarding house was exciting! I started counting all of the boarders who were living with the Van Burens in 1880.  14 boarders and 2 servants lived with them.  It must have been a very large house!  I was fascinated with this large household.  And then.....I saw it.  Why hadn't I noticed it right away?  Right under Van Buren, Sarah J was:

Avery, George W, age 32, Boarder, born in New York
    ''    , George N, age   5, Boarder, born in New York

Avery.  This was the potential maiden name of Jennie's mother.  And here that name was, written right underneath James' and his wife's names.......  my head was spinning.  It was all starting to come together, and suddenly I had so many leads to track!  Were these older and younger Georges related to James or Sarah?  I suspected the answer, but didn't want to jump to conclusions.  I knew the first thing I needed to do was look at the 1870 census.

This time, I had more parameters for my search. I had an approximate birth year and a city. I searched the 1870 US Federal Census for James Van Buren, born 1811 +/- 2 years in Buffalo, New York.

Search results for James Van Buren in the 1870 census.
www.ancestry.com

This was not result I had expected....but fear not!  I remembered from my Martin Van Buren research that his last name was often spelled all in one, as in "Vanburen". A quick edit of the search, and Bingo!

Search results for James Vanburen in the 1870 census
www.ancestry.com

I could hardly stand it.  This next click might be the breakthrough.  I selected the first search result: James Vanburen in Buffalo Ward 9, Erie, New York. I was desperately hoping to find a girl named Jennie who was 13 years old.  She was my 2nd great-grandmother. Part of me didn't want to click on the result, for fear of being disappointed.  But that would have been silly. Momentary hesitation overcome, I clicked on the top result:

1870 Census search result for James Vanburen
www.ancestry.com

I looked at the laptop screen and screamed.  My cat who was sleeping next to me hissed and ran off.  The dogs started barking. I jumped up from my chair.  The kids were asleep upstairs, but I didn't really care if I woke them up.  I needed to share this with someone, but it was 2 in the morning.

There, after James, Sarah, Libbie, Edward, Henrietta, and before George, was

Jenny.

Sly.

13 years old.

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at all that night.  More than anything I wished my Grandpa Arthur could have been there to see it. I had just found his grandmother in the 1870 Federal Census.

A different Van Buren

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

This past weekend, I drove to the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.  It was a spur-of-the-moment road trip.  I am very fortunate to live only 3 hours away from this wonderful repository for genealogists.

It only takes me 3 hours 

Would you believe that I drove there to look at one, single book?  Crazy, right?  Don't worry -- I had plenty of other research to do, but really I went there to look at just one specific book.  I didn't learn anything new from that book, by the way, but that's the subject of another post.

I love road trips. My whole family does.  We love to just get in the car and go.  On the way to Ft. Wayne, I thought a lot about Jennie.  I always think a lot about Jennie.  I was thinking about why she is my favorite genealogical "brick wall."  I feel connected to her, in ways that are hard to describe.  The more I learn about the people who came before me, the more I understand my life and my immediate family, for better or worse.  Jennie and her family may have been highly dysfunctional, but I can't point any fingers.  After all, I am, as of one week ago, twice divorced.  There are events in my life that I will never get over. Jennie had plenty of that, too. She may not have been a warm and fuzzy person, but she was incredibly strong. I see her backbone in the strong and whacky generations that came after her.  But we really should get back to the story.....


This is where we left off:

Jennie wasn't born anywhere!

After getting frustrated with trying to pinpoint a place of birth for Jennie Louise Van Buren, I took a little break.  During that time, my mother was going through a box of memorabilia that belonged to Edith (Jennie's daughter) and her husband Theo.  In this box were treasures like the tiny violin my grandfather Arthur learned to play on when he was just a little guy.

Arthur Lloyd Irion ca. 1921

My grandfather's tiny violin.  We're not sure when the neck was lost....

And in this very same box was the scrapbook that my mother thought was Edith's, but on closer inspection, decided that it had to be Jennie's. It contains mostly newspaper clippings, in no particular order, as far as I can tell.  Many of these clippings are jokes that Jennie saved.

Like this one:

Or this one:

And this one:

(I have no idea which newspaper these are from, so please forgive the lack of citing the source.)

The scrapbook also contains many of Marion Franklin Ham's published poems.  Marion (Jennie's brother-in-law) was a Unitarian minister and gifted poet.

Jennie also saved other poetry and some news reports about birthday parties....

This party must have taken place soon after they moved to Chattanooga, TN

Or this little tidbit about their new cottage in Chattanooga

In between jokes, you might come across an obituary, like this one:

Lebanon Western Star, 25 August 1881

Georgie was Jennie and Arthur's 13-month-old son, Edith's only sibling.  He died one month before Edith was born.  What must it have been like for Jennie to bury her son in the hot August weather, being 8 months pregnant?  The cause of death was "Cholera Infantum", a bad stomach virus, which had a high fatality rate among little children back then. How sad this must have been for Jennie and Arthur.

George Walter Ham 1880-1881

On the very next page of the scrapbook, was the following death notice:

Death notice of James Van Buren, newspaper and date unknown

This made me sit straight up and pay attention.  Van Buren?  Van Buren!  But where?  And when? Who was this James Van Buren?

More determined than ever, I decided to finish looking through the rest of the book before trying to figure out who James Van Buren was.  In the following pages, there were more jokes, more poetry, other obituaries, and then:

Obituary of James Van Buren, newspaper and date unknown

No other person in Jennie's scrapbook can claim 2 death notices/obituaries.  James must have been a very important person in her life. There are no Slys or Averys in her scrapbook.  Just this mysterious Van Buren.  Could this have been her adoptive father?

It was late -- definitely time to go to bed -- but so what!  I fired up the computer and did an initial search.  One big puzzle piece instantly fell into place.