Workday Wednesday: Francis Earle Wood, Carpenter to Decorator

Francis Earle Wood, Sr., was hubby's 1st cousin 1x removed--born in 1890 in Toledo, OH, he worked in wood just like so many of the children and grandchildren of carpenter Thomas Haskell Wood (his paternal grandpa) and Mary Amanda Demarest. His birth would have been a joy to the family because the grandfather had died just a few months earlier.

Francis (known as Frank) showed his occupation as carpenter when he married Lottie Best in Toledo on June 25, 1913 (marriage cert is above). Frank and Lottie had three children (Francis Earl Wood Jr., Roy A. Wood, and Charlotte Alice Wood) from 1915 to 1919.

The Toledo directory of 1923 (at left) shows him as a decorator, while his father is shown as a carpenter.

Sadly, Frank contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and died at age 37 the end of July, 1927, barely 14 years after his marriage. I've requested his obit from the Toledo public library, which generously offers to e-mail scans for free.

His death cert shows his occupation as interior decorator for Geo Roux, his employer. He and Lottie and their children were still living at home at 816 Clay Ave. in Toledo.

Cousin Frank is buried in Forest Cemetery in Toledo (Findagrave #132727886).

Tombstone Tuesday: Remarkable GGM Mary Wood's "65 Years, 8 Months, 4 Days"

Mary Amanda Demarest Wood, 1831-1897

Hubby's great-grandma, Mary Amanda Demarest Wood, had quite an interesting life. Born in Manhattan 184 years ago yesterday (on June 1, 1831), Mary somehow managed to get to Plaquemine, Louisiana where -- at age 14 -- she married a New England carpenter Thomas Haskell Wood (1809-1890) who was 22 years her senior. 

Remarkable Mary gave birth to 17 children, including a set of fraternal twins who sadly died of diphtheria at age 5. Before the Civil War, Mary, Thomas, and their growing family left Louisiana for a part of Virginia that became part of West Virginia after the war.

By 1870, the Woods had settled in Toledo, where the second half of their family was born. A full list of Mary's children (including hubby's grandpa, James Edgar Wood) is here. She later became a nurse, as well.

Thomas Haskell Wood, 1809-1890

Mary outlived her husband by 7 years and 2 days. Her obit, above, shows that she died "aged 65 years, 8 months and 4 days." (His obit is at right.)

The funeral was at Calvary Church, and she's buried in Section P, Lot 8 of Forest Cemetery in Toledo, Ohio. (Thanks to local historian Gary Franks for kindly correcting my original info! Despite the obit at top of this page, Mary was not laid to rest in the vault but has a headstone in the cemetery itself.)

Thank you to the Toledo Public Library, which will kindly e-mail obituaries for free on request from this search site.

Thankful Thursday: Hubby's Pioneer Ancestors

Hubby's immigrant ancestors were all pioneers to be proud of--and thankful for:

• WOOD. Way back on the Wood side, via the Cushman family of Fortune fame, he has four Mayflower ancestors (Degory Priest, Mary Norris Allerton, Isaac Allerton, and Mary Allerton). Their courage in braving the dangerous trip to the New World in 1620 is quite astonishing. John Wood, Sr., called "The Mariner" by Wood genealogists, was a seafaring man who came to America around 1700. His male descendants were mainly ship's captains, ship builders, or ship's carpenters. Hubby's great-grandpa Thomas Haskell Wood left his life on the sea to marry Mary Amanda Demarest and raise a generation of sons who were all carpenters or painters.
• McCLURE and McFALL. The next set of pioneer ancestors to arrive in America was the McClure clan. Patriarch Halbert McClure and his family--originally from the Isle of Skye--came from Donegal to buy farmland in Virginia in the 1730s. McClures continued pioneering other areas further west in America. Halbert's grandson, John McClure, married Ann McFall in April, 1801, in Rockbridge county, VA. Above, a note scanned from the marriage bonds for that county, and posted by the US GenWeb archives. I'm now in touch with another McFall researcher and we're pursuing that family's connections. More soon!
• LARIMER. The original Larimer pioneer left from Northern Ireland for America in 1740 with a trunk of Irish linen. Alas, he was shipwrecked but eventually made his way to central Pennsylvania and then the family continued west to Ohio and pioneered even further west over time.
• RINEHART and STEINER. Hubby's McClure line includes intermarriages with the Rinehart and Steiner families. Both were pioneer farm families who seem to have settled originally in Pennsylvania in the late 1700s, then continued to Ohio (for more land?). Sadly, I still don't know which ancestors were the original immigrants and their original homeland.
• SLATTER. The Slatter family lived in inner-city London, apparently so poor that the parents put three of their sons into a training program leading to stable careers in the military. This was in the 1870s. These sons grew up to be pioneers in the Canadian music world--specifically, conductors and composers of military band music. Both the Slatter daughters came to America around 1895, and married soon afterward. Mary Slatter married James Edgar Wood, hubby's carpenter grandpa. 

52 Ancestors #47: Smiles and Tears for Mary Amanda Wood Carsten

When I was scanning the 1917 photo album created by my late dad-in-law, Edgar James Wood, I had no idea I would uncover a previously unknown family story that runs the gamut from smiles to tears.

Above is the photo and caption that started me on the hunt. Tall guy Wallis is Edgar's brother, shown behind two younger kids, Olive and Chester Carsten. Their last name is shown elsewhere in the album. Never having heard the Carsten name in connection with the Wood family, I consulted the 1910 US Census and there, in Toledo, was a household consisting of:

• August Carsten, a carpenter, age 25
• Mary Carsten, age 25
• Edward Carsten, son, age 6
• Ernest Carsten, son, age 4

But Ancestry also delivered up birth info for Chester Carsten: He was born after the 1910 Census, and "Wood" is additional info in the birth file--a clue! Olive Carsten was born in 1914. By the time dad-in-law Ed took the photo at top, Chester was 7 and Olive was 3.

I asked our Wood family genealogist for help and after a bit of research, he came back with the info that Chester and Olive were grandchildren of William Henry White Wood (1853-1893), who was dad-in-law Ed's uncle. He also figured out that Mary Carsten is actually Mary Amanda Wood Carsten, a first cousin of my dad-in-law and niece of Ed's father, James Edgar Wood.

My dad-in-law Ed had a LOT of first cousins because his father was one of 17 children of Mary Amanda Demarest Wood and Thomas Haskell Wood. Most of the cousins were way older because the oldest and youngest siblings were literally a generation apart.

Chester and Olive's mother, Mary Amanda Wood, was obviously named after her grandmother, Mary Amanda Demarest Wood. (For more about the mystery surrounding this matriarch, the mother of 17, see here.)

The photo at top was taken in the summer of 1917. Alas, Mary Amanda Wood Carsten, mother of Olive and Chester, isn't in the photo--because she died in January, 1917.

Sad to say, her cause of death was extrauterine gestation, tubal, as shown in the death cert (courtesy of Family Search).

Poor Mary was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Toledo, and later moved to a different plot in the same section. (The cemetery is checking on why that happened and will let me know who she's buried next to.)

Meanwhile, widower August Carsten was left with four young children, the oldest barely 13. He remarried in the summer of 1917 to Matilde C. Kohne, with whom he had two children: Warren (born in Toledo) and Bruce (born in Illinois, where the family later moved).

So the photo at top, with smiling children, shows cousins seeing each other months after a family tragedy. Young Mary Amanda Wood Carsten was my hubby's first cousin, once removed.

52 Ancestors #30: Alfred Olando Wood of the Wood Bros. Carpenters in Toledo

If name influences destiny, then hubby's Wood ancestors were following their name by working in wood.

Hubby's great-grandpa Thomas Haskell Wood and great-grandma Mary Amanda Demarest Wood had 17 children. Their fourth-oldest son was Alfred Olando Wood, born in 1855 in what was then Cabell County, Virginia* (and is now Huntington, West Virginia).

Alfred Olando Wood was a carpenter, part of the "Wood Bros. Carpenters" family business in Toledo, Ohio.

Above, an excerpt from the 1891 Toledo directory, showing Alfred O. and several of his Wood brothers (Frank E.--really Francis Ellery--plus Charles A.--really Charles Augustus--and Marion E.--really Marion Elton).

The Wood brothers who were not carpenters were painters, according to Census records and city directories. Robert Orrin Wood was a painter. William Henry White Wood was a painter. Marion Elton Wood, shown above as one of the Wood Bros, was also listed as a painter in several Toledo directories.

Poor Alfred died at age 39, in 1895. I know the exact date because it's in the 1895 Toledo directory. And that's where I learned his widow's name, Mary A. [maiden UNK].


*When Virginia voted to secede from the Union at the start of the Civil War, Cabell County stayed in the Union (with the exception of one town). 

52 Ancestors #25: Isaiah Wood and Harriet Taber of the "Little Compton" Wood Family

Isaiah Wood Sr. (abt 1784-1834) and Harriet Taber (abt 1790-1838) married in New Bedford, Massachusetts on May 18, 1806. They're hubby's great-great-grandparents. The 1810 Census finds them in New Bedford with one child.

Given the timing, this one child must be Thomas Haskell Wood, born in 1809. (As an adult, Thomas wooed New York teenager Mary Amanda Demarest and then married her in Plaquemine, Louisiana--a geographic mystery we have yet to solve.)

Harriet Taber: Our cousin (and family researcher extraordinaire) Larry linked Harriet Taber's line back to Philip Taber, born in England and transplanted to Plymouth, Mass in 1630. Philip moved around the area, settling in Watertown, Yarmouth, and Martha's Vineyard, among other areas. He died and was buried in Tiverton (part of Dartmouth, MA). 

Isaiah Wood, Sr.: Thanks again to cousin Larry, we know Isaiah Wood was of the "Little Compton Woods," who can trace their line back to John Wood "The Mariner," born about 1590 in or near Southwark, England. The men of the Wood family were seafaring, building and often captaining ships. Patriarch John "The Mariner" was just such a man, a Master's Mate or possibly a captain.

Workday Wednesday: The Woods Worked in Wood

Hubby's great-granddaddy, Thomas Haskell Wood (1809-1890), was a railroad carpenter, a joiner, and a coach builder during his long career working in wood.

Most of his children also worked in wood. The above excerpt from the Toledo, Ohio directory shows his children Frank E., Charles A., and Marion E. in businesses as the Wood Bros, carpenters. Also listed in the excerpt is James E. Wood, apprentice--that's hubby's granddaddy.

Jane A. Wood (1846-1936), the oldest daughter of Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest, is shown as "bds 414 South," the same address where her mother Mary A. Wood resides, the widow of Thomas Haskell Wood. Jane married George Black around 1898, just about a year after her mother Mary Amanda died.

The Wood brothers continued in business together for a while. James E. Wood went on to build homes in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where a street (Wood Road) is named for him. Not one of James's four sons worked in wood, although one of his great-grandsons works in wood.

Surname Saturday: Contacted by Slatter, Wood, Markell (and more)

Thanks to my Ancestry family trees and this blog, I've heard from three people this week who are either related to my/my hubby's ancestors OR are researching the same surnames. And thanks to a genealogy message board--and a LOT of patience--my Boulder cousin has connected with cousins we never knew we had!

• Slatter. This morning I awoke to an Ancestry message from Australia, written by a descendant of John Slatter and Mary Shehen Slatter. This relative is the child of hubby's second cousin! Because that branch of the Slatter family left England for Canada in the early 1900s, I've had little luck tracing their more recent whereabouts. Now I know why. Can't wait to share info with this Slatter cousin!
• Wood. Earlier in the week, I heard from a distant relative on the Wood side, a descendant of Thomas Wood and Content Thurston (married 1690). He had read my ancestor landing page about Mary Amanda Demarest and got in touch! Now he and our Wood family genealogist, Cousin Larry, are exchanging family tree information, I'm delighted to say.
• Markell. This afternoon I got an intriguing e-mail from a Markell, asking about the Julius Markell I wrote about in "Two Lebowitz Sisters Marry Two Markell Men." 

Lena Kunstler Farkas, about 1923

There has also been an exciting new development in my Boulder cousin's research into the family trees of my maternal great-grandparents, Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler.

Years ago, my cousin posted a Kunstler query on a JewishGen message board. She never got so much as a nibble.

But her patience paid off. Last week, out of the blue, she heard from a lady who is definitely a cousin from the Kunstler family. New cousins! What a genealogy week it's been.

Motivation Monday: Those Brickwalls Are Crumbling

When I began this blog in 2008, I put the following sentence at the top: Adventures in genealogy . . . finding out who my ancestors were and connecting with cousins today!  What adventures I've had, and what joy in finding cousins all over the map. 

Botpalad, hometown of Moritz Farkas

Nothing is as motivating as a breakthrough, right? November is possibly my best-ever month for bringing down brickwalls, which only makes me want to dig deeper. It's been so exciting that it's hard to know where to begin...remember, all of this happened in the past 25 days, and the month isn't over yet :)

• "Hello Cousin" was the subject line on a much-anticipated e-mail from Israel. After many months of searching, I've finally connected with long-lost Schwartz cousins on my maternal grandfather's side! My 2d cousin confirmed our relationship and sent me wonderful photos of herself and the rest of our family in Israel. Next up: A Skype session! All in the same month that Sis and I met "Philly Cuz" for the first time in person--she's also a 2d cousin on the Schwartz side. And in the same month, I saw my 1st cuz from Queens (Hi, Ira!)
• "James Elmer Larimer" was the subject line on an e-mail that arrived out of the blue. As I wrote just recently, this gentleman is trying to find the connection between hubby's Larimer line and his family (still working on that). He was kind enough to share the wagon-train journal kept by James Elmer Larimer's widow, Asenath Larimer, who went with her brother John Cornwell and three of his neighbors to join the Gold Rush in 1852. The journal is an incredible first-person account of what it was like to walk day after day through an unknown landscape, battle illness and accidents, and--hardest of all, in some ways--to leave loved ones behind, never knowing if the family would see one another again. Spoiler alert: Asenath is reunited with her young children after all!
• "I'm the grandson of ... " read the Ancestry message I received from a first cousin, 1x removed of my hubby's! He's just beginning to trace his family tree and I'm delighted to share what I know about Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest, our common ancestors. Can't wait to hear from him again.
• Remember microfilm? Last week I located the handwritten birth entry of my great-grandpa Moritz Farkas in the records of Botpalad, Hungary, contained on a Family History Library microfilm titled "Anyakönyvek Izraelita Hitközseg, Fehérgyarmat." Now I can search the same records for any siblings, knowing I'm in the correct part of the world at the correct time. I'm very motivated to keep cranking through this microfilm, even though part is in Hungarian and part is in German :( 
• Cousin JW, who was thought to be a family friend but turns out to be a cousin of the Farkas family, sent naturalization records and other documents from her parents and grandparents so I can connect her line to our line. I'm almost there. This is an immense breakthrough because we believe it will show we're actually related to a large group of Farkas descendants in Europe and the U.S.
• "Captain Slatter" was the subject line from a lady whose father trained under Captain Jack Slatter in 1941. Captain Jack (actually John Daniel Slatter) was hubby's great-uncle and a renowned bandmaster for 50 years. Replying to this inquiry, I sent a photo of Capt. Jack and a request to hear her father's memories of the good Captain. It's a small world after all!

So many ancestors, so many cousins, so little time. I'm motivated! 

Surname Saturday and Getting Down to the DNA

The newly enhanced Ancestry DNA results are a much closer match for hubby's family tree origins than the old version. Above, the new map of his origins. Below, the summary of his origins, which make sense in the context of the updated Heritage Pie I created for him earlier this year.

Great Britain (England, No. Ireland, Scotland) and Ireland were the original homes of these families from hubby's tree:

• Bentley 
• Denning 
• Larimer
• McClure
• Shehen 
• Slatter 
• Taber 
• Wood

At left, 2022 snapshot of DNA at LivingDNA.

Western Europe was the original home of these families from hubby's tree:

• Demarest
• Nitchie
• Shank
• Steiner
• Rinehart

Surname Saturday: Heritage Pie Updated

Last October, I modified the idea of creating a heritage pie chart of great-great-grandparents and posted my pies with hubby's great-grandparents and my grandparents.

Today I have enough information to post a chart with the birth place of all 16 of hubby's great-great-grands (above). Except for 4 people, all of hubby's great-grandparents were born in the US (mainly Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Ohio). However, not all of the great-great-great-grands were US-born.

Here's what I know or suspect about where the families of each of hubby's great-great-grandparents were from originally:

Ireland: John Shehen and wife Mary (maiden UNK)--have evidence
England: John Slatter Sr. and wife Sarah (maiden UNK)--have evidence of English birth, but this family might have long-ago Irish roots
England: Ancestors of Isaiah Wood Sr.--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Harriet Taber--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Sarah Denning--need evidence
England: Ancestors of Lucy E. Bentley--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Henry E. Demarest--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Catherine Nitchie--need evidence
Scots-Irish: Ancestors of Benjamin McClure--have evidence
No. Ireland: Ancestors of Brice S. Larimer--have evidence
Germany: Ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner--have a clue (a letter from a descendant)
Switzerland: Ancestors of Joseph W. Rinehart--have a clue (a family story)
???: Ancestors of Elizabeth (maiden UNK) Steiner
???: Ancestors of Margaret Shank, who married Joseph W. Rinehart

Ancestor Landing Pages: Views But No Connections Yet

As you can see from this chart, my ancestor landing pages are being viewed. The bottom two pages were posted just a few weeks ago, so the low page views are no surprise.

I started using ancestor landing pages back in January, after reading a post by Caroline Pointer. 

The Birk and Mahler pages were among the earliest posted, so it makes sense that they're the most viewed. Even though the pages have not yet brought me new genealogical connections...I still have hope they'll lead to breakthroughs!

2022 update: I added an ancestor landing page for McClure, Donegal--and it's now the most viewed by far. 

Two Servings of Heritage Pie (with Surnames!)

Thanks to Randy Seaver, Sheri Fenley, and Diane Haddad), I've been thinking about creating genealogical heritage pie charts for hubby and me. Alas, I don't have enough info to go back to all of our great-great-grandparents, so I had to adapt the idea...for now.

At left is Wally's heritage pie for his great-grandparents. He's 25% UK (2022 update: the Slatter line is England but now I know the Shehen was originally from Ireland).

The rest of his great-grands (Wood, Larimer, Demarest, Steiner, McClure, Rinehart) were from the US. The one Ohio great-grand might actually be from Pennsylvania, but we're not sure yet.

The second heritage pie, below, is for Sis and me, showing our grandparents' origins.

We're 50% Hungarian (both maternal grandparents were from Hungary), 25% Lithuanian, and 25% Latvian.

I do know the names of my great-grands on the Farkas and Schwartz trees, and can be sure (as of 2022) that they were from Hungary, as well.

The Latvian great-grands (Birk) are mostly a mystery, and I know nothing at all about the Lithuanian (Mahler) great-grands (if that's where they were from). At least I now, in 2022, have names to research.