Tag: George Anthony Roberts

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John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts- Indiana, Virginia, Illinois, and Iowa

 

John Roberts, c1920s?
John Roberts, c1920s?

John Roberts was 1 of 11 children born to Jane Saylor and John S. Roberts, both originally from Kentucky. He was born 05 December, 1832 in Indiana when it was still not a very settled place. The family farmed the land in Jefferson and Ripley Counties, Indiana.

When John was 23, around 1855, he went to Illinois to work as a farmhand. There he met Elizabeth Ann Murrell, who had migrated from her birthplace in Botetourt Co., Virginia to Illinois about 1853 when she was 18. They married 08 March 1857 in Roseville, Warren Co., Illinois. They had four children in Illinois: William Edward (1858-1935), Jason Lee (1859-1940), George Anthony (1861-1939), and Mary Jane (1863-1947).

In the fall of 1868 the family of six loaded a covered wagon and migrated to Jasper County, Iowa. (Their granddaughter Edith loved to tell that story.) Here another child, Wilbert John, was born but died in infancy (1877-1878).

John and Elizabeth lived the rest of their lives in Jasper County, Iowa. They are both buried in Waveland Cemetery, Prairie City, Jasper Co., Iowa.

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) This information has also been posted on Find A Grave, Memorial #99632803 for John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts, Find A Grave Memorial# 99632804.

 

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Copyright 2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
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Treasure Chest Thursday: The John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts Family in 1892

 

Family of John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts- 1892.
Family of John Roberts and Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts- 1892. (Click to enlarge.)


Having wonderful photos is such a family treasure, but not having them labeled with who each person is can be maddening to a genealogist, plus makes them of much less interest to most other family members. A dedicated and knowledgeable sleuth can piece together information that can help to identify people and places, and help to put a family into context.

Family portraits such as the above also help to show the relationships in a family. The persons are grouped by family, with the patriarch and matriarch front and center. Usually the photo is taken on the family homeplace.

Once persons are even tentatively identified in a photo, finding other photos in the future may corroborate, as happened with this photo, or give more clues to help identify persons in other photographs.

In the above photo, the identification of the George Roberts family and John and Elizabeth Roberts is certain. The other families are identified by the family-owned picture of the three brothers and their pictures in the Jasper County history, census records to determine children and ages of each family, and family bible records. The date the picture was taken was deduced by the age of Ethel Gay Roberts, who was born Feb., 1892, and was a baby being held by her mother; her older brother George, who was born June 1889, is in a stroller. Since he is so young and the leaves are on the trees, this may be early spring of 1892.

From left:

William Edward “W. E.” Roberts (oldest child of John and Elizabeth) family: wife Mary M. Main, daughters Clara and Maude (dau on right looks a bit older though there are 2 years difference in ages, so may be Maude), William Edward Roberts, and his son Orville.

Mary Jane (Mollie J) Roberts (fourth child of John and Elizabeth) and her second husband Samuel Blount holding their son Harry R.

John Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Ann Murrell.

George A. Roberts (third child of John and Elizabeth) and his son George A., wife Ella V. Daniel(s) holding daughter Ethel Gay.

Orpha & Oca Roberts with their mother Julia French to the right, son Guy L. sitting on fence next to his father, Jason Lee Roberts (second child of John and Elizabeth).

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Family-owned photo.

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Copyright 2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

 
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post, and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

 

 

Mystery Monday- Roberts Family- School Picture

Class photo found in with George Roberts' and Ella V. Daniel's photos and papers.
Class photo found in with George Roberts’ and Ella V. Daniel’s photos and papers.

 

This photo was found in with pictures and papers of the George Anthony Roberts and Ella Viola Daniel family who lived in Prairie City, Jasper County, Iowa. We don’t know who any of the people are in the photo, but the boy who is the third from left in the front row may possibly be their son, George Anthony Roberts, (Jr.) born 1889 in Iowa. That child also looks similar to George Sr., who was born in 1861 in Illinois. Would be very interested in learning more about this photograph and the people in it.

 

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

George Anthony Roberts- A True Iowa Farm Boy

 

This image of George A. Roberts was cropped from a family portrait. It was taken circa 1904.
This image of George A. Roberts was cropped from a family portrait. It was taken circa 1904.

George Anthony Roberts Jr. was the second of four children born to George A. Roberts, Sr. (1861-1939), and Ella Viola Daniel (1866-1922). Their first child, John Robert, was born 14 Mar 1888 in Jasper Co. and died just three months later, in June. George (Jr.) was born the next year on 11 June 1889 in Monroe, Jasper, Iowa, and was always called Georgie. He was a farm boy, and worked hard his whole life on the family farm. He had knee problems and thus was not able to enlist in the military during World War I. When we visited in the 1960s, I remember him having his knee wrapped as he worked throughout the fields and stock areas of the farm. It must have been very painful for him to do such hard physical labor his whole life.

Georgie Roberts with his great-nieces about 1963, dressed fashionably to gather eggs in the chicken house. (It wasn’t an idyllic farm scene at all- the rooster was in there. The kids got pecked a lot and flown at- quite traumatic for city kids. But they did emerge with unbroken eggs.)

George married Irene Artie deBruyn about 1915 in Knoxville, Marion, Iowa. They had been neighbors as children, and Irene kept a journal that mentioned him numerous times. (More about that in an upcoming series of posts.) They lived in an old Victorian farmhouse on one of the land parcels the Roberts children (George and his two sisters) inherited. Georgie and Irene never had children. They divorced before the 1960s, and Georgie’s little sister Edith tried to take care of him, bringing him baked goods and other foods when she visited. He farmed her land for her and they were very close.

George Anthony Roberts passed away 30 Jun 1965 in Jasper Co., Iowa.

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Family oral history

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Mystery Monday- Jasper Co., Iowa Students, circa 1899?

NewtonKidSoldiers_cropped

Ah, the delightful pictures with no names, no dates, but you just KNOW there is someone in the picture that belongs in your family…

This is another one of those pictures. It was found in with old photographs of the George Anthony Roberts (Sr.) family. After much study of this and other images over the years, I now believe the boy on the left of the picture is George Anthony Roberts, Jr. I do not know the other children, nor why they were in the uniforms they wore, nor why they had the broom handles. I wonder if this had to do with the Spanish-American War? We would love to hear from anyone who can explain this picture.

Georgie and his sisters Ethel Roberts and Edith Roberts attended a one-room schoolhouse just down the road from one of the family farms. Might this be a picture of his whole class?

 

[OK, this Mystery Monday post got published on a Tuesday, but I hadn’t thought of that topic when this was originally published.]

 

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Copyright 2013 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.