Family Group Dag - Approx Date?

Elarnia - I have a very significant Dutch heritage. Lots of entries in my trees from the RDC in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhasset and Kingston.

 

My grandparents lived there from the 1920's up till about 1968. Grandad and was the first generation born in New York, his parents were from Guilford, Ct and Grandma's family came from Northern Ireland.

In Flushing they were members of the Church on the Hill and lived a few blocks from it. In the City Grandad and his brothers in law were officers of Madison Ave. Presbyterian in the 20's.

 

I live about an hour from Sacramento. Up in the hills in what is considered the Gold Country. Hwy 49 named for the 49ers who came looking for gold.

That is an interesting read. Sounds as though George was a very prominent farmer. There are many old families going back to the 49er days that still live here in this county and all around the Sacramento Valley.

As for Rosina's father being in the Revolutionary War, he may be named for his own father who fought in the war. Have you checked Revolutionary War Pension Records? I found my father's I don't know how many great grandfather listed in his late 80s still receiving a pension from the war. Later found members from my mother's side who also received pensions. Been a long time since I did any of that I'm afraid I don't know how I went about finding them.

 

Ah, I lived in Flushing with my first husband from June '67 to June '68 and then we moved out of state. He'd been in Flushing with his parents since '64 I think. So there's some overlap there.

My mother moved from Brooklyn to Flushing around '70.

 

Lake House seems to have been a township of some kind 6 miles or so southeast of Sacramento in the 1860s. According to the 9/1/1860 Sacramento Daily Union, a Samuel Barker of Lake House was either selected or elected as a Judge/delegate to a Democratic primary or convention to select Breckenridge and Lane for President and Vice President.

The middle column, "Political Notices," 4th article down titled "Sacramento County - National Democratic County Committee." The end of the article has a listing of the delegates' townships/districts with one of them Lake House.
http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18600901.2.5.2#

Hmmmmm.... interesting. John Beckenridge was the Southern Democratic Party Presidential candidate that ran against Lincoln in November 6, 1860 election. Stephen Douglas was the Democratic candidate and a John Bell was the Constitutional Union Party candidate. Lincoln won the northern states including California and Oregon, Douglas won only Missouri, Bell won Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, and Beckenridge won the southern states of NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, AR, LA, and TX.

Also a Pacific Coast Business Directory of 1867 has Lake House near Sacramento. Scroll down the following site to the "Directories & Telephone Books" section. The 6th one listed is "Link 1867 Pacific Coast Business Directory." Note it has a "Lake House n413."

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/sacindex.html

Here is a direct link to the the Lake House n413 in that directory:
https://archive.org/stream/cihm_17457#page/n413/mode/2up/search/Sacramento
For those that do not want to click links, in the California section on p. 157:
"Lake House, Sacramento Co, PO. 6 miles s e of Sacramento
Duden George E., blacksmith
Inglis George, post master"

 

As for Rosina's father being in the Revolutionary War, he may be named for his own father who fought in the war. Have you checked Revolutionary War Pension Records? I found my father's I don't know how many great grandfather listed in his late 80s still receiving a pension from the war. Later found members from my mother's side who also received pensions. Been a long time since I did any of that I'm afraid I don't know how I went about finding them.

Cluttered - Rosina's grandfather Jacobus DeMott was born in 1752 and was baptized at the Jamaica RDC. (I have the line all the way back to the "immigrant" who arrived from France in the 1600's and lived in Kingston (Esopus) up the Hudson River. Most of his many children left that area - some for Brooklyn and some for New Jersey.)

Ancestry has a lot of NY Revolutionary War material for search (including Pension and Land Bounty records and scholarly works about the period) but the only war-related entries for Jacobus are about his attendance at the meetings to vote for or against delegates. He did not file for a pension and does not appear in any of the militia lists.

The fact that the Immigrant's descendants were very prolific and that the given names got re-used frequently in keeping with the family customs of the time has made for a lot of tedious work to untangle all the cousins. It's quite possible that the story had gotten retold so many times that the actual relationship to the soldier got confused. One thing that still eludes me is the name of Jacobus' wife.

As for "prominent farmers" - the one of George Thomas Rich's daughters who married, married a Joseph Holmes. One of the Holmes' daughters married a Heringer and had quite a few male children, most if not all of whom were large farmers in Yolo County.

 

Thank you Susan!! I love the way you weave additional items of interest into your replies.

 

@Ladybranch

Thank you so much for bringing that digital newspaper archive to my attention! I was able to capture death notices for both Rosina and Samuel Rich. Unfortunately the notices were quite brief, although hers did mention that their son George was a celebrated fruit-grower and Samuel's said that "his residence" was near The Lake House. Thus I assume the community of Lake House must have gotten its name from an actual house of that name.

I was really hoping that his notice would at least give his place of birth, but no such luck.

 

You're welcome. I enjoy reading historical stuff and such that reflex historical events. I have found more references on that Lake House in connection with your Samuel Rich, but nothing on his birth.

1. Here is a reference to "The" Lake House concerning your Samuel Rich. Seems the marriage of probably his daughter, Carrie Rich, to a Sparrow Smith occurred at Samuel Rich's house, "near the Lake House, Sacramento county, April 3d..."

Sacramento Daily Union newspaper 4/7/1867, middle column, "Married," 3rd listed marriage:
http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18670404.2.18.1#

2. Sacramento Daily Union newspaper, May 23, 1867, mentioning Samuel Rich of Lake House. This notice says just Lake House with no "the" before it. It seems Lake House was in the Sutter township.

Middle column, "Regular Union Convention and Primary Election" article, has a listing of the Townships with the delegates from each. Seems your Samuel Rich was the delegate of Lake House. These delegates of the Union Party were going to vote in favor for a

"Constitutional Amendment and the Reconstruction of the late rebel States in accordance with the laws of Congress, who will promise to support the Union nominees at the next election and who voted for the Lincoln Electors at the last President Election. ..."

on down the article is the listing of the Townships with Lake House under Sutter Township saying:

"Lake House - 2 delegates. Samuel Rich, Supervisor."

http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18670523.2.10.1#

3. No mention of Rich, but has Lake House as a designated post office in Sacramento in the Post-office Directory for 1866:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ed...="Samuel RICH" Sacramento Lake House.&f=false

--- Susan

 

Well, there had to have been another Samuel Rich in Sacramento at the time, because "my" Samuel had only 1 child - George Thomas. Now George did have a daughter named Carrie, but she was just an infant in 1867, so it isn't her who got married.

But I do have confirmation that my Samuel died in 1868 because the occupants of the family plot in City Cemetery (along with the ages of death) match what I had already found in census records. So those references are not to him.

Now, I had not done any "searches" on that site, just browsed the newspaper editions on the dates around the known death dates of Samuel and Rosina to see whether either had an expansive obit.

But thank you for giving it a try.

 

Aha! There is a Carrie "Hicks" born in Wisconsin in abt 1847. living with them in the 1860 census! She was NOT with them in the 1852 Census, so I don't know what to think about where she came from. But perhaps they adopted her? Or she was their "ward?" and took the family name out of convenience?

She is not listed in the family in the normal way (chronologically descending age) and unfortunately the census did not provide "relationship" until 1880. So I guess that really might have been him in the political arena, although you'd think something like that would have been included in his death notice.

 

Oh my. I found her in the 1850 Census in Placerville, in a mining camp - with 3 siblings, ages 11 down, no parents.

 

Oh boy. Talk about a sad story. I found a tree made by the descendants of one of her sisters. The parents were from Cornwall England and were living in Mineral Point, Wisconsin (as were Samuel and Rosina) in the 1840's (where their children were all born.) It seems that the mother and an infant died of cholera on the way to California. The "family story" attached to their tree says that Caroline (Carrie) was adopted by a "rich family named Rich" in Sacramento who raised her.

I did finally locate the father in another part of the Placerville 1850 Census. Must have left the children in camp and gone off with a mining partner at that time.

At least we know why she shows up with the Rich surname.

 

Interesting! Bake, spotted the cemetery records of the "Sacramento City Cemetery 1849-2000" online. No doubt you have already seen it for you have their death info and know about George's piano in the State Library; however, in case you haven't seen this particular source it has all these folks listed from George, Rosina and Samuel RICH to Carolyn R. and Sparrow SMITH. It has their age at death, DOD, and additional info like POB, cause of death, etc...

The 3 Smiths cemetery records are on page 15, Carolyn R. Smith on page 42, and Sparrow Smith on page 49.

Smith, Samuel Age "62" DOD: "Dec, 6, 1868" Birthplace/Misc: "England 1805; cause not given; 1827>America; 1849 to CA; d nr Lake House."

Smith, Rosina DeMotte Age: "90y 8m 3d" DOD: "Dec 26 1895" Birthplace/Misc: "Hempstead, L.I., NY Apr 23, 1805; bronchial catarrh; wife/Samuel."

Smith, George Thomas Age "64y 3m 18d" DOD: "Jun 5 1902" Birthplace/Misc: Milford, Pike Co., PA Feb 17, 1838; chr nephritis; to CA 1849; his piano in State Library"

http://www.cityofsacramento.org/ccl/history/pdf/collections/publicdocuments/Sacramento City Cemetery, 1849-2000.pdf

--- Susan

 

Yes, Susan! I had accessed that document already - even before I found the dag and had printed out the page that has the Rich family records for my files. (You typed Smith above, but I'm sure you were just excited to share.) Of course I did not know about Carrie until today.

Interesting that that record says Carolyn was born in Missouri (MO) because all of her census records clearly say Wisconsin. Of course they were dependent on what information was provided at time of death and the informants are not always accurate sources.

Since she's not a blood relative, I haven't included her in my tree, but it has been a very interesting bit of research.

 

That is really interesting about Carrie -- sad story about her origins, but it sounds like it worked out well for her. I wonder what happened to her siblings? Did they stay with the father? (Maybe this is more than you feel like researching...)

In my line there is a mystery child who is in just one census in one of my ancestral families... I have not figured out who he really was, and whether or not he was a relative or just took on the family name. He outlived my great-great grandparents but was not listed as one of their heirs at law in their probate records. Yet there are one or two other things I've found that show he was connected to their family.

This thread gives me more ideas in looking for him. I haven't looked for family trees in Ancestry yet (although did look for other records about him).

 

Don't you just love a mystery?

It appears from the trees I found that both of Carrie's sisters married before the 1860 census was taken. They seem to have married a set of brothers, eventually went to San Francisco and survived the 1906 earthquake.

 

Just a note on the "mystery" children that sometimes pop-up:

As a youth I was confused that my Great Grandparents named their first son (my grandfather) and their youngest son (17 year difference) with the exact same names. And as the youngest he was not the coddled, beloved kid that most "last babies" are - even unto being ignored in the will.

It wasn't until I read a purloined copy of a book about my family that I found out that my great uncle was adopted - and was actually the illegitimate child of my grandfather's eldest sister - her parents had adopted their own grandchild and raised him as their own child - but not without prejudice.............

 

There's a situation just like that in part of my tree, Mansons, although I learned about this directly from the "child" who was open about the fact that she was raised to think that her real mother was her older sister.

 

Mansons,

That is too bad that he wasn't treated as well -- did you know him well? How do you think it affected his life not to be treated as the other children were?

In the case of the one I mentioned, he was born in New York, but the family lived in Michigan at the time he was born... and had never lived in New York as far as I can tell.

I suspect he was the child of a relative, and that my great-great grandparents did not officially adopt him, or he would have been an heir at law. However, at the time of his second marriage he listed my great-great grandparents as his parents. But I don't think they really were.