Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Transcription:

Concordia, Mar. 21st 1884

To Friends

Go, little book, thy destined course pursue,

Collect memorials of the just and true,

And beg of every friend so near,

Some token of remembrance dear.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

From our Roberts cousin:

This is a transcript of a small autograph book of personal notes to my great grandmother, Clara Lillian Shrader, before she married my great grandfather, Isaac Henry Roberts.  It was handed down by my grandfather, Lloyd Roberts. Most of the entries with dates range from 1883 to 1891, where she would have been between the ages of 17 and 25. Most are in 1884 and 1885, when she was 18 and 19.

[Editor: Transcript will be posted in blog with each autograph book page.]

A list of all names, dates, and locations identified in this book are:

A few autographs identify her as “Teacher Clara”, suggesting she was a teacher as a young adult.

Some identify the relationship of the writer to Clara:

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Fantastic job of documentation, dear Roberts cousin! These scans and your transcription are the very best way to preserve and share such an artifact.

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Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

(Note price of 50¢ on left page.)

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. 1. Thank you to our Roberts cousin who so carefully has preserved, scanned, and transcribed this autograph album.

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Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Tuesday’s Tip: Do you have family treasures stashed in a closet or trunk? Share them- your cousins will enjoy learning more about their family!

Our Roberts cousin is doing just that. And so are we, through this blog.

A great-uncle of Edith (Roberts) [McMurray] Luck, William Roberts, left a big and wonderful family as his legacy. William and his family stayed in Indiana while our ancestor, John Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Ann Murrell, migrated to Iowa.

William’s descendants kept many of the family artifacts from their line, and they are a delight to see. We have already posted pictures of family and friends- see “Friday’s Faces from the Past: The William Roberts Family” for the first of nine posts in the series called the “Lloyd Roberts Family Photo Collection.”

William’s son Isaac Henry Roberts married Clara Shrader, daughter of Mary Ann (Bennett) Shrader. Clara kept her autograph book throughout her life. Completed in her late teens, it obviously was quite an important keepsake to her, and held a lot of memories.

An autograph book was a small, usually hardbound book with blank pages, or sometimes there were lines or images on a page. The book would be passed around to friends to autograph, and they usually wrote a quick little poem. (Those who were born in the 1950s or 60s will remember autograph books as being popular back then too.)

Clara’s autograph book has been lovingly kept by the family and passed down since the 1880s. The current owner has shared the pages of this sweet book for posting, in the hope that not only will descendants enjoy it and it be preserved online, but that descendants of Clara’s friends might see it and get a small glimpse of their ancestor’s personality.

Transcription:

Remember and don’t forget

The Bigest fool you ever met

Command you may

your mind from play

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. “Friday’s Faces from the Past: The William Roberts Family“as the first in the series ” Lloyd Roberts Family Photo Collection” at http://heritageramblings.net/2016/03/04/fridays-faces-from-the-past-the-william-roberts-family/

2. Thank you to our Roberts cousin who so carefully has preserved, scanned, and transcribed this autograph album.

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Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Roberts Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

After decades of research, a printed mention of the elusive Wiley Anderson Murrell (1806-1885) has finally been found!!

It was a serendipitous find, as I was sorting through emails.

We have a marriage bond plus censuses in Botetourt County, VA, Roseville IL, and Prairie City IA for Wiley A. Murrell, but never a mention in a newspaper or other document found online- until now. We do not know the names of his parents nor siblings. We know nothing about his life before he married at age 28, except that he was born 3 February 1805 per the family bible. And we have not found an obituary. So it has been very frustrating. (Genealogists understand.) Until now.

Sometimes I think I get too many genealogy emails, so have been sorting through to determine which ones duplicate information and can be unsubscribed from, and which have been productive enough to want to keep reading. I decided to go ahead and click on some of the links in the Elephind.com newsletter- I have found some information from their site previously, and it is a genealogy/newspaper search engine so more specific than Google. I am so glad I decided to take the time. They had the Virginia Newspaper Project (VNP) featured, so searching for one of my most elusive ancestors seemed the thing to do late in the evening. (Genealogists understand.) It took a bit of clicking on the VirginiaChronicle.com website- not super easy to use overall, but I got 30 hits using “Murrell” as my search term and setting the date filter to 1787 (their earliest paper) to 1850, when I knew he was already in Illinois.

Skimming down the page, the fourth hit included “Wiley A. Murrell”!! Oh my- I was so excited I could hardly breathe, afraid the words on the screen would go away. (Genealogists understand.) Could this be “our” Wiley? There actually are more Murrells than I ever thought there would be, especially in Virginia, and ‘Wiley’ was apparently a common name- probably short for ‘William.’ So I was hoping against hope that it would be the right man, especially since it was a Richmond, Virginia paper, and we know that after 1832, when he married, he lived about 170 miles away, in Botetourt County.

But there it was:

“Wiley A. Murrell.”

The 12 March 1840 Richmond Enquirer included a list of County Committees appointed at the Democratic State Convention on Feb. 22 1840. There was a Botetourt Central Committee with 12 men listed, and then a “Committee of Vigilance” with ~143 members. Down that list was “Wiley A. Murrell.” That had to be him! Right name, right county, right time period.

Trying to be calm and analytical was hard as I was inspired to do the Genealogy Happy Dance. (Genealogists understand.) I won’t, however, describe that here as one could never ‘unsee’ how pathetic that would be with my 3 left feet.

I knew I needed to be looking at the other names on the committee for familiar names- Elizabeth Shown Mills’ FAN (Friends, Associates, Neighbors) Club, to help me make sure I had the right Wiley. Sure enough, there was a name that clicked- Andrew Obenchain/Obernshain. The name sounded familiar, but at first I could not find it in my tree. Looking at the Honts family information compiled by the late George E. Honts, III, however, I realized that Wiley’s wife, Mary Magdalen (Honts) Murrell, was Andrew’s sister-in-law, as he had married Mary’s sister, Elizabeth B. Honts (1809-1881). So maybe we need to add a “C” to the FAN Club- for “Collateral kin.” (Includes in-laws, cousins, etc. who are not a direct ancestor but related. Not as catchy an acronym though.) There are Coffmans listed on this Botetourt committee too- the mother of Mary and Elizabeth was Catharine (Coffman/Kauffman) Honts (1784-1867).

There is also a “Jas. A. Murrell” listed- perhaps a brother, father, uncle, cousin?

So it is very highly likely that this is the correct Wiley A. Murrell.

Wow. Oh wow. (Genealogists understand.)

So sort your data, emails, papers, etc. on a regular basis, and stay up to date with what is newly available online and in archives. You never know what you will find.

Coming up: more about Wiley A. Murrell and the Committee of Vigilance.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Richmond Enquirer, March 12, 1840, Volume 36, Number 102, Page 4, Column 2 @ Virginia Newspaper Project, Virginia Chronicle, http://virginiachronicle.com/cgi-bin/virginia?a=d&d=RE18400312.1.4&srpos=4&e=–1787—1850–en-20–1–txt-txIN-Murrell——#
2. Murrell Family Bible- see our series beginning at http://heritageramblings.net/2014/02/09/sentimental-sunday-murrell-family-bible-part-1/. Wiley’s birth record is shown in Part 2.
3. The Descendants of Jacob Hons/John by George E. Honts III, Fincastle, Virginia, 1999. Available only from the Botetourt (VA) Historical Society, https://bothistsoc.wordpress.com.

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Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Murrell Family, Roberts Family (Click for Family Tree)

Ann Elisy (Murrell) Brown, also known as Anneliza, passed away on 2 May 1892 at the relatively young age of 46.

Her youngest child was just seven years old; the oldest, 22.

Her husband Aaron Brown followed her in death just two years later, on 19 March 1894. Their little daughter Edith Brown would have been just nine when she was left without parents. We do not know who the children lived with- we have only been able to find Mary in the 1900 census, and she had married in 1892, the year her mother died. None of her siblings are listed that year with Mary, her husband George Underwood, and their son on the census. (Years later, however, Edith was single and living with them as an adult in Grant County, Minnesota at the 1920 and 1930 census.)

Both Anneliza and Aaron are buried in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery in Jasper County, Iowa, adjacent to the Roberts family’s homeplace settled by Anneliza’s sister Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts and her husband John Roberts. (Interestingly, Elizabeth and John are not buried there, but in Waveland Cemetery in Prairie City.)

Anneliza’s parents, Wiley Anderson Murrell and Mary M. (Honts) Murrell are also buried in Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Anneliza (Murrell) Brown– Find A Grave Memorial# 39599402, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39599402
2. Aaron Brown– Find A Grave Memorial# 39599324, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39599324
3. The bios on Find A Grave for this couple were a collaboration between this author and the creator of the memorials. We appreciate his work, and his permission to share his photos with family.

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Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.