Confer Home in Pennyslvania

William Confer was born in Pennsylvania where his family had lived for many years.  His father, John Confer, at one point owned some land where a home was built.  He stated in his will that after he died the property was to be sold and divided between his sons William and David Fulton.  William, as we know, took his family and moved away from Pennsylvania.  David stayed behind and at one point put the property up for sale stating he was moving west.  We assume he was moving west to be closer to his brother.  This never happened.  In fact, he never sold the property.  The property did change hands for a time, but David's great granddaughter, Beth, purchased the property and is currently living in the old home.  Pretty cool huh!  I have been talking to Beth and another of David's descendants named Justin who is David's 3rd great grandson.  Beth and Justin are 2 cousins 3 times removed.  They descended from two different children of David's.  Anyway, they sent me an old picture of David's family in front of the old homestead and then some current pictures of the home.  I thought you might like to see them!

These are some picture of the homestead today.  Some of the pictures are taken at the angle as the above pictures!

Our Wonderful Confer Ancestors

Did you wonder if I had forgot to put anything on here?  I have uncovered some fun information and hopefully I can share it all with you!  So... Alice Confer, my 3rd great grandmother, was the daughter of William Confar and Rebecca Bennett.  When Rebecca died in 1872 many of the other children were still pretty young.  Alice was the oldest child and married to Edward Hartshorn with their own family and living in Iowa.  In fact, Alice died only a few years after her mother died.  Alice's father, William, took several members of his family and moved to Missouri.  In the 1880 Census you find William married to an Eliza living Cass County, Missouri.  I haven't been able to determine if he married Eliza in Iowa before he left or if he married her in Missouri.  Some websites have Eliza listed as Eliza Tilletson and marrying William in 1874, but I have been unable to prove this bit of information.  Still searching!  Many of William's children married in Missouri and started families of their own.  By 1885 we find William and his son Louis living Archuleta County, Colorado.  I don't know for sure when he came to Colorado, or why, but in the 1885 Colorado Census he is living in a house with another man and his son Louis.  Some of the other children also came with their families to Colorado a little later and settled there.  William died in September of 1890 in Chromo, Archuleta County, Colorado.  By this time he had a homestead where he was living with a new wife, Nancy Webb, whom he had married just a few months before his death.  By law, much of his estate was left to his widow, Nancy, and the rest divided between his sons.  Well, his children, particularly Louis, was not happy with what Nancy inherited and decided to fight for it in court.  There are several court documents pertaining to this fight.  Here is a link to some of what was going on:  Confar vs. Confar .

I don't know any more about Nancy.  The only documentation on her is her marriage to William and the court documents between her and Louis.

About 10 years or so after William's death, many of the children decided to move to California where many of them lived the remainder of their lives.  These are our cousins!

William Confar

Have you noticed that I put the last name for William as Confar instead of Confer? So far everything I have found has had their name spelled with the 'a'.

I went in search of some information about William Confar, the father of our grandmother Alice.  Everyone had said that he died in Chromo, Archuleta, Colorado in 1890.  What would he be doing in Colorado!  I still haven't find that out, but I did find him living there.  In fact, he moved there with several of his children.  I even found his burial information!  I would put it on Find A Grave, but I have no idea how to put it on there since it is so obscure!  Here is what I found on the following website: William Confar grave information

 Graves
      These grave sites are at various locations through out the 
     county and contain only one grave.

    BIRTH DEATH
GIVEN NAME SURNAME  YEAR YEAR  LOCATION

William M.  Confar   1820 -  1890  Located on Confar Homestead Chromo, Colorado.

If you pull up the website, it's pretty far down on the list.  He is the only one buried there!  I haven't been able to find any additional information about it, but I thought I would contact the courthouse for his estate papers.  I will let you know how that goes!

Confer Family Line

Okay, I thought I would let you know what I have been working on this past month.  Actually it was mostly just this past week!  I have had an impression that I should work on our Confer family line.  For those of you who aren't sure how this works, let me fill you in.  Alice Confer was my ggg grandmother.  Alice married Edward Hartshorn and one of their children was David Hartshorn who married Vera Hurlbut, my gg grandparents and their Daughter was my sweet great grandmother Margaret Hartshorn.  So...I have been trying to find more information about Alice.  I did find that she died on October 6, 1875 from burns she sustained from fire from a kersene lamp.  Ouch!  Here is a link to her grave memorial:
Alice Confer Hartshorn on Find A Grave

There is more information about her on her husband's grave memorial.  Here is a link to Edward's memorial:
Edward Hartshorn on Find A Grave

So..where did I go from here?  I have found from a few other people that they believe her parents to be William Confar and Rebecca Bennett.  I think this is correct too because of where William and Rebecca were living in comparison to Alice and Edward.  They were all in Wapello and Mahaska Counties in Iowa.  Alice and Edward married in Mahaska County and then made their home in Wapello County.

I am just going off what others are reporting as the parents of William Confar and on back to the 1500's in Germany.  So far I haven't been able to prove much of anything!  I would love some help from anyone who would like to help.

No Posts for awhile

Just wanted everyone to know that I have not forgotten about the blog!  Life has gotten a little crazy and hopefully once school starts again I will be able to focus more on keeping all of you up to date.  Will you all do me a favor?  Will you let me know if you are reading my blog?  I would love to hear from all of you!

James D. Gurley

I received the obituary for our uncle James Gurley.  It was full of great information.  It said that he immigrated with his parents in 1837 to Norwalk, Huron, Ohio.  Sound familiar?!  Another piece of the puzzle that fit nicely together.  It also lists his wife as Jane Louise High.  She died 12 years before he did.  James died in 1902 in Ten Mile, Macon, Missouri while living with his daughter Alice and her family.  The funny thing about this is that the document trail from 1900 to his death in 1902 all says that Alice was his niece!  I don't think that is correct.  Anyway, James and Jane married in Janesville, Rock, Wisconsin in 1859.  That is where Jane was living with her parents.  James was a railroad conductor and had been working on the railroads from a fairly young age.  I think his occupation took him to Wisconsin where he met Jane (many documents list her as Louise or Jennie).  He then had to go back to Norwalk to take care of some court issues and while they were there, Alice was born.  They stayed in Toledo for three years and then moved to Missouri.  I am not sure why they moved there.  Another mystery!  He did register for the Civil War in 1863 while living in Callao, Macon, Missouri.  They lived there for a few years before settling in Ten Mile where both he and Jane passed away.  They only had the one daughter, Alice and she was a first cousin to Grandma Vera.  I wonder if anyone really knew she existed?!  She married Mark Nelson and had several children of her own.

We found him!

I got back home yesterday to a package from the Huron County Courthouse.  I knew they were sending me the Estate papers for Susan Gurley.  I never dreamed I would get a huge answer to my last post when I opened the package!  33 pages of wonderfulness!  Apparently there was a dispute about which will was the true last living testament of Susan Gurley.  I actually love it when there are problems in the past because it gives us more information for the future!  They had to list all of her 'closest kin' and because she wasn't married, she didn't have children and her parents had passed away they had to list her four living siblings!  This is what they listed Thomas Gurley, Olena, Ohio; James Gurley, Macon, Missouri; Matilda Hurlbut, Jasper, Michigan; and Maria Hurlbut, San Diego, California.  Did you notice where James was listed as being from?!!  This wonderful document proved that I had at last found James.  I was so excited.  So, for all of you that want to know, we have cousins in Missouri!