Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
Linda, there are two Jacobs of approximately the same age among the Ulster County Churchills. What is the source of your information that your husband's great grandfather Jacob had the middle initial E. and that his father was John? If it comes from family records, such as a family Bible or family papers, it pretty well establishes his identity. If it comes from internet sources, it needs to be treated with great caution and confirmed by independent records.
I gather that the great-grandfather of Steve and Robert Churchill, mentioned in my August 16, 2007, posting, is also your husband's grreat-grandfather. He is shown in the 1900 census simply as Jacob, born October 1857, living in Montgomery, Orange County, a day laborer, married for 18 years to Mary, with children Atwell, born May 1884, Grover, born May 1888, Frederick, born June 1891, Vera, born Jan. 1895, and Harry, born Jan. 1898.
Complicating matters is that the only Jacob Churchill shown in Orange County in 1910 is a Jacob T., with a different family. That the 1900 family did not move from Orange County is suggested by such things as World War I draft records, so it is an open question as to whether Jacob of 1900 and Jacob T. of 1910 are the same person. The 1910 Jacob T. is shown as age 55, in a second marriage of ten years' duration with wife Abbie, age 42. Abbie had borne three children, two of them living. The only other person in the household was a grandson, Edward something (second word was illegible), age 4.
To try to get at the parents of Jacob, I went to the 1860 census for Ulster County. It shows two Jacobs of approximately the same age. One is a Jacob with a middle initial that looked to me like a P but might have been a T. The parents of this Jacob, aged 2, were Joseph and Matilde Churchill. The other Jacob was Jacob E., age 3, whose parents were John and Margaret Churchill. This John Churchill is of course the John Churchill discussed in my August 16 posting.
Besides the question as to which Jacob is the Jacob of the 1900 census, there is the question of who the parents are of both the Joseph and the John who had sons Jacob. I will forward to you an August 22, 2007, e-mail to Kenneth Margison with my latest thinking on this. The likelihood is that the John numbered 551 in "Churchill Family in America" is the father of both. However, there is as yet no documentary evidence of this.
As to the spelling Churchwell changing to Churchill, the further back in time one goes, the more erratic and inconsistent spellings were (all spellings, not just surnames). Then, as spellings began to be standardized, in the case of Churchill various families would settle on one or another of the various spellings. More recently, the dominant Churchill spelling came to be adopted in a gradual process of individual choice. At least into the 1930's there still were Manhattan Churchells in central New York State adhering to their traditional Churchell spelling. Grover's story that a teacher changed his spelling from Churchwell to Churchill is quite plausible. This would be a case of a person with a little more education assuming that a rural family just didn't know how to spell their name the "proper" way. In this case, since we know that these are Massachustts Churchills, Churchill would indeed be the standard spelling, but Churchwell persists today as a separate surname not necessarily related to Churchill.
Malcolm
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/churchill/messages/2479.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|