James Gurley

I would love for some great feedback on some research I have found on James Gurley.  James was Grandma Hurlbut's brother.  He is the only one in the family that I haven't been able to find after he left home.  He was last seen with his family in the 1850 census.  After many searches, I am hoping we may have found him.  Tell me what you think!

The wonderful genealogist I hired found a court record and real estate deeds that had the name of James Gurley on them.  The story is that James loaned some money to a man named Charles Page and the money was suppose to have been paid back in 6 months.  It never happened.  So, James took him to court to get his money back.  The court took some land from Charles and gave it to James as payment.  I have the transaction deeds for the land.  On the deeds it lists him James Gurley and his wife as Jane L. of Lucas County, Ohio.  However, all the transactions were done in Norwalk, Huron, Ohio.  If you will remember, the Gurley family lived in Huron County, Ohio.  Lucas county was a neighboring county.  So...this is where my research picked up.  Could this be our James Gurley?  The county for the transactions is right, but he lived in Lucas County.  So, I thought I would start a search for this particular James and see where it took me.  I found James and Jane on the 1860 census in Toledo, Lucas, Ohio.  Their last name was spelled Gerly.  Surely this was just either a transcription error or an error on the part of the census worker.  After finding this, I found the family on ancestry.com.  In the family tree that someone had put on there, James and Jane Gurley had a daughter named Alice that was born in August 1860 in Norwalk, Huron, Ohio!  This was during the court proceedings and the land transactions.  I found that interesting, but I have never been able to prove it.  I can't find her birth record anywhere!  I am having the genealogist search for it.  The other strange thing is that on the census record it lists Jane as being born in Ohio, but James in New York!  We know that James was born in Ireland, so this made me curious to what was going on.  James, Jane and Alice moved to Macon County, Missouri shortly after 1860.  I found James' Civil War registration in 1863 in Macon County, Missouri.  I then found the family in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.  All the the censuses listed James as being born in New York.  But....the Civil War registration said he was born in Ireland! Eureka!  If this is our James, I think he was embarrassed by the fact that he was from Ireland.  Many people back then were looked down upon if they were Irish.  They weren't very well respected.  I wonder if he just didn't want anyone to know and since they lived a year in New York before going to Ohio maybe he decided to pick New York as his birthplace.  I haven't been able to find anything else on his wife.  I assume her maiden name starts with the letter L, but I don't know for sure.  Alice went on to marry a man named Mark Nelson and have a nice size family.

So...what do you think?  I have requested the obituary for James from the Macon County Library.  I can't wait to see what it will tell me.  I figure that even if it doesn't say much, maybe with his death date I can get a death certificate for him.  I don't know what else to do.  Send me your thoughts and suggestions!  I would love for this to be a fun search for all of us!  By the way, almost all the documents of James list him as James D. Gurley.  I don't know what the D stands for, but I keep hoping it would be related to his mother's maiden name.

One brick at a time

I have considered Thomas and Jane Gurley my biggest brick wall in research.  I have been searching for so long for their parents and also Jane's maiden name.  Well, I think I may have taken one brick out of the wall yesterday!  I joined a group on facebook for Londonderry Ireland Research.  That is where Marie Gurley Hurlbut was born in 1836.  So, I posted a little information about her to see if anyone had any ideas on how to find her birth record.  I got the best reply ever!  A lady asked me if her parents were Thomas and Jane Gurley in Bronson, Huron, Ohio.  Of course I answered back with an excited YES!  She then told me that she a transcription of an obituary for Jane Gurley in the Londonderry Sentinel (the local newspaper).  It states that Jane Gurley died in 1868 in Bronson, Huron, Ohio and that her husband was Thomas Gurley of Ardnamoghill, County Donegal! So, after many years of research, we now know exactly where Thomas was from!  Yay!  The lady that posted the message to me actually lives there!  She says she has a lot going on this month, but next month she will see if she can make a copy of the obituary for me and also do some research to see if she can find anything else on the family!  I am so excited!!  Cross your fingers that she finds something wonderful for us!

Family Heirlooms

I have been having the best time getting to know cousins Linda and Janice.  Linda sent me some pictures the other day of items in her china cabinet that belonged to our ancestors.  The first one is of a small teacup that was part of a set of dishes belonging to Grandma Gurley!  It is around 200 years old!  Her sweet grandmother wrote a note to go along with the cup that described who it belonged to.  I love that.  Here are a few of the pictures she sent me:

These next pictures are of a glass slipper that is very old, too, and looks to be used for advertising for S. D. Sollers Fine Shoes. We don't know exactly who it belonged to, but we think it was probably Great Aunt Margaret who was Grandma Vera's sister.  She never married and was the only one in the family who really had any money.  She also loved to have nice things to wear.  It would make sense that she was given this glass slipper as a preferred customer of S. D. Sollers Fine Shoes.  

I can hardly wait to see what else she has!  I love getting fun, new things from our wonderful relatives!  If anyone else has anything they would be willing to share with us/me, I would love it!  

James Isaac Hurlbut

I have decided to try and find more information on Grandpa Hurlbut.  I noticed on his Find A Grave memorial that his birth date is wrong and his death date isn't complete.  In fact, I have never seen his full death date anywhere!  So...I decided to see what I could find.  Here is a link to his memorial: James Hurlbut on Findagrave.com. 

I received a new package from the genealogist I hired in Ohio.  In the package was a newpaper page he had found that included James Hurlbut's obituary.  Yay!  Here is what it said:

 

I wanted to verify his death date, so I contacted the Mountain View Cemetery to see if they had his burial records.  They didn't have them, but they were able to verify his correct death date.   So...September 30, 1888 was when he died of Typhoid Fever.  I am trying to verify the fact that he died at home in San Diego.  It seems correct so I am going to try and request his death certificate.  I hope they have it! 

Now if we could just find his first wife and figure out what happened to her!

Budding Genealogists!

Every evening and a lot of time during the day I find myself curled up on the couch doing family history work on my laptop.  I guess I must have rubbed off onto my two little girls.  This is how I found them this morning:

I wish I could put a genealogy program on their little computers to get them started young! Hum...  I just thought they were so adorable and wanted to capture the moment.

Information from Professional Genealogist

I have been anxiously awaiting the mail to arrive for the past few days!  I was waiting for the package from the professional genealogist that I hired.  Well, it finally arrived today with so much fun stuff!  He didn't uncover too much, but he found a few things that were pleasant surprises!  First was a copy of a picture of the Thomas Gurley Home in Bronson, Ohio.  Here is a copy of the picture:

He told me the picture was taken in 1898 and that he assumed the woman standing on the front porch was Aura Gurley.  I think he was correct.  Her husband had died the year before and the girls were still teenagers at this point.  What a fun find!  

The second wonderful piece of information that found was so fun!  He found a son that was born to James and Marie Hurlbut!!  A long lost brother to grandma Vera!  He was only 3 months old when died and was their first child.  He was born and died in 1866.  His name was Thomas Gurley Hurlbut.  Wonderful surprise!   I have a copy of his obituary.  

Third piece of information he found was the possible marriages of Kate and Antoinette (Nettie) Hurlbut.  They were the daughters of Grandpa James from his first marriage to Caroline Carter.  They are also Uncle Frank's sisters.  So fun!!  It says that Kate was married to a Frank Shotten and Nettie to Henry Moshier.  These are added to my future research to do list!  I do have the marriage records for both of them.  Now I just need to prove that it is them!

Nettie Gurley

I didn't worry too much about Nettie Gurley.  It looked like she married a nice man, had two children and lived happily.  Boy was I wrong.  First, here is her marriage record to Richard Manahan. Notice that she was pretty young when she married, but her mother is the one who gave permission for her to marry.

I had seen this death certificate before, but I didn't think it was her because it says that she died in Toledo instead of in Norwalk.  I finally decided to take a closer look at it when I found it again.  It also says that she was divorced which I thought was incorrect.  I had to do some much further research to determine what had happened.

I finally found a newspaper article from 1927 that states their divorce.  I had started looking at 1927 because that was how long it said she had been at the Toledo State Hospital.  Yes, the Toledo State Hospital is a mental institution.  I was very curious about a lot of things.  The divorce happened in the early part of 1927 and by the end of 1927 she was sent by court order to the hospital.  I was feeling pretty bad for her.  I ordered the court records for the divorce and received them in the mail.  If anyone wants a copy of them, let me know.  It states that Richard filed for divorce because Nettie was a neglectful from her duties as a mother and wife.  She would go out and spend money and ignore her family.  It never states Nettie's side of the story because she failed to show up for court.  Apparently she was having a pretty difficult time and eventually was sent to the hospital where she died.