My Family

I created this blog to keep track of my family history research. I do most of my research online.

The Francis name is my husband's which was originally Francisco from Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal. He also has ancestors from Sweden and England. So far, I have found that my family has come from Italy, England, French Canada, Scotland, and Ulster Ireland (Scotch Irish).

I have also taken a DNA test, which shows mostly Italian, but also England and France.

Monday, August 22, 2011

central cemetery middleboro, ma

Yesterday we were driving home from buying some very delicious peaches at Ashley's Peaches in Acushnet and we decided to stop at a cemetery in Middleboro on the way home. I was not sure which cemetery one of my Raymond ancestors was buried at (Priscilla (Raymond) Glaziur - my 4th great grandaunt), but I knew it was one in Middleboro.

I had borrowed the book, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts, from the library a couple of months back and found Priscilla listed. I was hoping that if I found Priscilla I may also find her parents, my 5th great grandparents, Cynthia (Dunham) Raymond and her husband Samuel Raymond. From memory, I thought the cemetery was Central Cemetery, so we stopped there and walked around looking for any Dunhams, Raymonds, or Glaziurs. There were some Dunhams and some Raymonds, but they were not familiar names to my tree and the deaths were more recent than what I was looking for. We did not find Priscilla either, but we had all four of our children with us and it was a hot day. Needless to say we did not look at every headstone.

I took some pictures of the headstones but none are in my family. I looked up my notes for Priscilla, and found we were at the wrong cemetery anyway. Priscilla is buried at the cemetery at the green - which I believe is now Parish Cemetery. I had my iPhone with me at the time and could have looked this information up on my previous blog post, but I did not. That is fine though, as no cemetery walk is wasted. Next time I will stop at the Parish Cemetery though and hopefully find Priscilla.

Here are some pictures of some Dunhams and Raymond headstones:



















Thursday, August 18, 2011

google+

I have been trying to stay current in genealogy - I usually read genealogy blogs of interest to me through my google reader on my iphone. This has worked very well when I find the time to read, but I think right now I have almost 200 blog posts to read. I recently also joined Google+, and have added some geneabloggers to follow. I just watched the webinar from Legacy Family Tree, Google+ the Next Big Thing and found ways to search for geneabloggers on Google+. I added a few to my circles and look forward to seeing the information added to my stream. I did find an interesting post from Joan Miller, a video on explaining relationships between people, Consanguinity - Made Simple by Lisa Lee. I am sure I will be looking back to this video frequently as cousin relationships still confuse me.

Monday, August 8, 2011

george clinton cowing and lydia helen french

George Clinton Cowing married Lydia Helen French on May 1, 1863, in Hingham, MA; they were both about 22 years old.  They were married by George Lincoln, day preacher. Their marriage was recorded in both the South Scituate town records and Hingham. There is a little bit of information on their preacher, George Lincoln in the Hingham 1893 book vol. 1 part 2

George and Lydia are my third great-grandparents. George grew up in the town of Weymouth. His father, Joshua, was a farmer on Commercial Street in East Weymouth in the year 1873, according to that years Weymouth Directory; but both George and his father were listed as boot makers in Weymouth in the 1860 Census.  Lydia grew up in South Scituate (later known as Norwell).  Before Lydia and George were married, she worked as a boot fitter in Scituate (1860 census p1; p2).  I wish I knew the story of how their lives crossed paths from different towns and how they eventually met, but I do not have these little details. Perhaps they worked at the same shoe factory, although I would think they worked closer to their homes as there were many shoe factories in the area.

Around the time George and Lydia were married, the civil war draft was enacted. This was the first time the US enacted a mandatory conscription, for men the ages of 20-45. I was not able to find George in the database on ancestry of U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 - I am not sure why. I tried browsing, but I found it difficult to find the congressional district for Weymouth or Hingham. Also, the names do not seem to be in perfect alphabetical order or by town. I tried searching for George C without Cowing, and I tried searching for Weymouth, but there were no results. I am not sure if George even registered for the draft, but I would think that he would have had to legally. I know you could pay someone to take your place as a substitute but I think this only happened if you were called from the draft register; so you would still have to register. A person could also pay 300 dollars to stay out of the war; but again, you would still first have to register and only pay if your name was called.

I did find an article from NARA's publication, Prologue, (Winter 1994, Vol. 26, No. 4) which explains these records. In this article, it does state that the consoloditated lists were not always complete and some records were lost. Perhaps this is why I am unable to find George in this ancestry database. George's brother, Charles G Cowing, and some of George's uncles did fight in the Civil War, as they are listed in another database on ancestry, U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865. I was not able to find any of these men in the Civil War draft register either; but they could have enlisted on their own, rather than register for the draft. I do find it interesting that George did not enlist in the Civil War on his own, as the Cowing family did seem to be interested in slaves' rights and abolitionism (see previous posts), but maybe as a newly married man, he was looking forward to starting a family and did not want to risk his life in a war.

Even though George did not fight in the Civil War, I am sure he heard many battle stories from those he knew that fought. His brother in law, Charles Hayward, his sister Elizabeth's husband enlisted at the age of 19 (before he met Elizabeth). According to his death record in 1892, Charles was imprisoned at Andersonville during the war. I did not know anything about this prison until I looked it up on Wikipedia - very troubling description and images. It would be interesting to obtain Charle's Civil War pension, to see how he ended up at the prison and how long he was there.

Lydia and George were about 23 years old when they had their first child, Mary Elizabeth born about 1864. The next year they had another daughter, Helen (my 2nd great grandmother); then their first son, George, in 1868. The 1865 Massachusetts Census has George and Lydia enumerated below Freeman and Joanna French, Lydia's parents.  They may have been living with them or maybe next door; but by the 1870 census it seems they moved a little down the street onto Washington street to a place of their own. The 1879 South Scituate map shows the location of George C Cowen residence. The map also shows Lydia's father Freeman, near the pond, still very close by. George and Lydia stayed in South Scituate, George working in the shoe industry, for the rest of their married life.

1879 South Scituate map shows the location of George C Cowen residence



George and Lydia did have a fourth child, but not until 1880, 12 years after their third child.  Lydia and George were about 39 years old when they had this last child, Percy. I would imagine that was tough to have another baby 12 years after your last one. I am sure their daughters Mary (age 16) and Helen (age 15) were helpful in raising Percy for the years before they were married in 1884 and 1885. At age 16 in 1880 Mary was no longer in school according to the census and would be at home the most.

I found an interesting bit of information on George when I searched for him and his family in the Massachusetts City Directories database on ancestry.com. George C Cowing is listed in the Hanover 1898 directory as belonging to the organization of The Temple of Honor, Corner Stone Lodge, no. 22. (He was living in Norwell, but the meetings were at Union Hall in Hanover, MA). I did not know anything about this organization, so I did some google searches. Most of the search results included information on the Odd Fellows organization, as I believe part of their organization was Temple of Honor and Temperance. I was not sure this was the right club that George belonged to as the Hanover directory also lists separately an Odd Fellows Organization and their members, which would have met at the Odd Fellows building in Hanover. I decided to look in google books for any references to The Temple of Honor, and I believe I found what I was looking for in a couple of books. One book, the History of the temperance reform in Massachusetts, 1813-1883, by George Faber Clark page 72, has an entire chapter on the Temple of Honor.




This excerpt triggered my memory of a document my mother gave me some time ago about an ancestor pledging not to drink alcohol.  I could not remember who signed this, until I looked up the document in my small box of family papers.  My scanner does not seem to be working, so I took a picture of it. 



This document is for Ethel F. Stoddard, George's granddaughter (my great grandmother).  It is from the Massachusetts Abstinence Society, signed in 1894.  Ethel would only have been 6 years old, I cannot imagine that she actually signed it.  It does seem that George and his family however felt very strongly against consuming alcohol that they would have their granddaughter at only age 6 pledge to not drink.  I did not know my great grandmother Ethel, nor did my grandmother talk much about her, but I wonder if she continued with her grandfather's strong beliefs.

George and Lydia had many losses in the late 1880s. In 1887, Lydia's mother Joanna died. Less than a year later, George's father, Joshua Cowing died in February of 1888. The following year Lydia's father also died in 1889. George's mother would live for another four years after her husband Joshua dies.

Unfortunately, George only lives 7 years after his mother's death. George died on October 4 1899, in Norwell, MA at the age of 58. The town record of his death states he died of heart disease, dropsy. I fould George's gravestone at the Washington Street Cemetery in Norwell with his daughter Helen and his son in law Arthur Stoddard. Sadly, George's wife is not buried with him, or at least there is no stone or engraving for her.



I am not sure when Lydia died, but I was not able to find her in the Massachusetts Vital Records online through familysearch or americanancestors.org. The records only go up to 1915, perhaps she lived past this date. She also could have married again, and listed under her new married name, although I was not able to find a new marriage record for Lydia either.   Her other daughter Mary is buried at Fairmont Cemetery in East Weymouth.  A volunteer from findagrave.com took a picture of Mary's stone for me, which is multisided.  I am not sure if Lydia is on another side of the stone, but it does look to be a family stone for Mary's husband's family, the Gardners.  I will have to visit the cemetery and check to see if Lydia is buried with them.

stone of Mary Cowing Gardner (George and Lydia's daughter) at Fairmount Cemetery, East Weymouth
photo by hammer on findagrave.com

I also have to search for her other two children to see if she is buried with them.   I did find her parent's gravesite at Liberty Plain cemetery in Hingham, but I did not see Lydia there either.   (See Update under to do list)


to do list:

1. Find where Lydia Helen French Cowing is buried (and when she died) (UPDATE: Ancestry.com has added a new database since I wrote this post - Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 - which is an index created by the Holbrooks of vital records throughout the state of Massachusetts.  I was able to find Helen L Cowing, which states she died in 1919 and actually is buried at Washington Street Cemetery in Norwell, MA.  So she did not remarry, and maybe she is buried with her husband and her name just is not on the stone.  Or maybe she is buried at another plot.)
2. Find if George did register for Civil War - also interesting to note that the 1870 census he lists his name as John Cowing - was he hiding his name.
3. Find land records for George C Cowing in Scituate, Plymouth County. Probably moved to own house in Scituate between 1865-1870. County Boundaries can be determined at this website : Historical County Boundary Maps - BETA
4. Find George's probate 1899 Norwell, MA - plymouth county (UPDATE: found probate docket - see post here)