(Also Roberts)

In the search for our elusive ancestor Wiley Anderson Murrell and his early life and parents, we have employed a combination of the paper trail as well as the latest DNA techniques. Unfortunately the paper trail seems to only begin in 1834 in Botetourt County, Virginia, when Wiley was 28- where was he before that??

Our DNA trail is very confusing. When going back 5-6 generations or more (Wiley is #5 to me), the shared amount of DNA gets less and is less accurate. We have connections all over but cannot tie them together with a paper trail, and that is required to help us learn more about Wiley, who may have been called William A. Murrell as well.

A comparison of DNA matches using GEDmatch indicates that one recently-found cousin and I have our most recent common ancestor at 4.9 generations ago. Since Wiley is #5 to me, it would suggest that she too is descended from Wiley, but her family tree does not include him. Ancestry.com and other DNA services usually give an error margin of 1-2 generations, so she might be descended from Wiley’s parents instead, or maybe his brother. That’s our mystery for today (and probably many days to come)- to find the relationship and then document the ancestors involved.

Looking at her family tree, 5 generations would take us to Major James Murrell (1781-1859). He was born in Lunenberg County, Virginia in 1781- that would make him 24 years old in 1805, when our Wiley was born, so that date does not rule out the Major as Wiley’s father. In 1818, the Major married Nancy Cobbs (1795-1855) in Campbell Co., Virginia. That date suggests that James and Nancy were not Wiley’s parents, since he would have been 13 at the time of their marriage. (Yes, he could have been born out of wedlock, and we know of a case of that within the family of Wiley’s wife, Mary M. Honts, but generally it was not common.) Also, if Nancy’s birth date is correct, she would have been just 10 years old when Wiley was born, so that really does not fit.

One possible explanation for this mystery could be that Wiley was the Major’s son by a first wife, and after her death, the Major’s second wife, Nancy (Cobbs) Murrell raised Wiley. (This is just a hypothesis.)

Let’s verify a number of things, such as the marriage- see below for the sources used to confirm that the marriage of James Murrell and Nancy Cobb took place on 30 May 1818. While these are only transcriptions/abstracts, Ancestry.com does furnish us with the source they used, FHL microfilm #31050. We could check to see if that film is online yet or if it is available anywhere, to use a primary source, or more accurately, an image of a primary source, to confirm the marriage date.

Next, let’s look at this family in the census.

Of course, we cannot yet be positive this is the same couple and children, as it does not list Nancy’s maiden name, nor that she is his wife. The ages given are ~ correct for the birth years we have for James and Nancy, and they lived in Campbell County, so that does suggest we probably have the correct couple. This census entry lists people who likely are their children, although ‘relationship’ was not a column on the census that year so we would need to verify the connection through other means. (They have the same surname, but they could also be a niece or nephew.)

One of the first things to notice about the children is that Wiley A. Murrell is not listed in this family. In 1850 he was 44 years old, married, and living with his wife and five children in Botetourt County, Virginia (about 60 miles away), so that does not rule out the possibility that he was one of the children of the Major. His wife, Mary Magdalene Honts, was born in Botetourt, where they were married. Her mother had been deserted by her father (that story to come later), so maybe Wiley decided to settle near to his mother-in-law to help care for her. (We have not found land records for Wiley, but do need to search more for the Honts family’s land.) But we digress from this census record.

Take a look at the ages of what we assume are the children of this family. Louisa, the oldest, is 43, so Nancy would have been 13 at Louisa’s birth. Again, it is possible that Nancy was her mother, but fairly unlikely. Since Louisa was born in 1816, she could have been a full sibling of Wiley, as 15 or more years of child-bearing was not uncommon in those days. The next oldest child, Obedience, was born when Nancy was 22, which is plausible, but then there was a four year gap (Sarah E. Murrell was 30 at this census), with four more children then born at the usual 2-3 year spacing. A child who died young may have been within this gap, so we do need to look at more censuses for this family. The tough part is that federal censuses before 1850 only list the head of household, and then number of persons of various ages and sex, so it would be impossible to verify the names and exact ages of those persons.

So what are your conclusions from the given evidence? Have we solved the mystery of Wiley’s parents, or, possibly his father and step-mother? Or are there more questions to ask, more proof to find? Sadly, I feel the latter.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. James Murrell-Nancy Cobb marriage record on Ancestry.com, no image of original and data originally from Dodd, Jordan R., et al.. Early American Marriages: Virginia to 1850. Bountiful, UT, USA: Precision Indexing Publishers, and  Virginia, Marriages, 1785-1940. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
2. Various records on Ancestry.com.

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Roberts Family, Murrell Family (Click for Family Tree)

Last week we posted about a surprising find- that Matthias/Matthew Johns was buried in a Friends (Quaker) cemetery in Wilkinson, Hancock County, Indiana. It made us wonder who else in the family had become Quakers, with a special interest in Matthew’s father, Henry Honts, who is our direct ancestor.

Even though Quakers kept very good records, they have not all survived, or they may be in library collections that are only accessible in person. Apparently, as the number of Quakers decreased after the Civil War, and the population continued to move west, Monthly Meetings (MM) got smaller and were combined with others in the area.  Wilkinson MM seems to be one of these, so records are a bit more challenging to find. We finally did find some with the Johns name, attached to the Raysville-Knightstown MM.

The names shown above, however, were not familiar, as the Johns family has not been a research focus except for Henry Honts, who changed the family name to Johns. so some collateral research was in order, to find out who these folks were, and how they were related. It made sense to start with Matthew’s family, but he did not have a son named William H. Johns. So research on his sons was next, and amazingly, Henry Johns (1844-1895), the first son, was the connection. (Of course, I had started with the youngest son instead…)

Henry Johns married Sarah J. Coon/Kuhn (1849-1903) and of the seven children found in that family, William H. Johns was the second-born, on 1 July 1869 in Wilkinson, Hancock County, Indiana. He was found in the 1870 and 1880 US Federal Censuses there with his parents and siblings. Some Ancestry.com trees state he married first Mary J. Henshaw in 1891 (Marriage Book 3, page 522 in Hancock Co., IN), then Florence Walker (Marriage Book C8, page 406) in 1892; getting copies of these marriage licenses could be a next step. The marriage we do have more sources for is to Bertha Corbin, as shown above. The 1900 US Federal Census has them listed together with their 3 year old daughter Mamie Esther Johns, and states they have been married for 3 years, thus married about 1897. It also states this was his second marriage.

In 1900 William H. was working as an engineer in a sawmill, and he had been employed all of the previous 12 months. They rented their home. Ten years later, William H. was listed as a machinist, and Bertha was working as a washerwoman. Their daughter Mamie Esther was listed with them, but no daughter named Martha Carol Johns- perhaps she died young?

By 1920, William and Bertha owned their home, mortgage-free, and he was working still as a machinist. Their daughter M. Esther was living with them, along with her husband, Walter Winn, and their daughter, Martha V. Winn. Walter was also a machinist, and worked at a “bottle house.”

Bertha passed away on 30 Aug 1925, and William was listed as widowed and a laborer in the “thresherman” industry in the 1930 census. He had not worked the previous day, however, and was listed on the unemployed schedule. He was 61. In 1940, he was still living on his own at age 71, and was not employed.

William died 11 May 1953 in Wilkinson, where he is also buried, alongside his wife Bertha in McCray Cemetery. The plaque in the cemetery states that a Baptist Church was first built on that spot, then later First Christian Church. It thus appears this is not a Friends cemetery, so had William abandoned the Quaker faith, had his children, or was it just more convenient to be buried with family nearby?

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. How are we related? If you are a descendant of Edith (Roberts) [McMurray] Luck, her great-grandparents were Mary M. Honts and Wiley A. Murrell. Mary’s father was Henry Honts, who changed his name to Johns when he left his first wife and Mary in Virginia and moved to Tennessee. Matthew Johns was the son of Henry and his second wife, Elizabeth (Firestone) [Lampert] Johns, so Mary’s half-brother.
2. “Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana,” Births, Vol. 7, Part 4, available from FamilySearch– https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE190486
3. Johns family members buried in McCray Cemetery, Wilkinson, Hancock County, Indiana– https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/85847/memorial-search?firstName=&lastName=Johns&page=2#sr-28834638
4. McCray Cemetery History- see plaque in images– https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/85847/mccray-cemetery
5. See also cemetery image for “The Elopement Girl” and the beginnings of the cemetery- so sad.

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Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

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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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Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

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Ephemera tucked into the Murrell Family Bible:

 

As this is dated 17 Dec 1893, it must have been from the second owner of the bible, as Wiley A. Murrell and Mary M Honts Murrell had both passed away by this time. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts was a church-goer, so it may be her handwriting. (Sorry, just can’t do a totally “Wordless Wednesday” but I’m trying.)

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Murrell Family Bible, possibly c1835.

2) Post updated 3/1/2021 to clarify relationship of George Anthony Roberts. He was born 1861 and was the third of five children of Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts (1835-1917) and John Roberts (1832-1922).

 

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The final page of entries in the Murrell Family Bible documents the deaths of Wiley Anderson “W.A.” Murrell and his wife, Mary M. Honts Murrell, who are both buried in Mound Prairie Township, Jasper County, Iowa. That hill in the midst of very gently rolling farmland has the most wonderful breeze sometimes, and a breath-taking view of the farms all around, including the farm that was owned by their daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth Ann Murrell and John Roberts. What a delightful place to be ‘quietly resting,’ especially for a couple who were farmers their whole life.

The entries in the Bible record are in a number of hands, which would be expected if the bible records were maintained by Mary M. Honts Murrell, since she could not document her own death. Mary may have written all the birth and marriage records, as well as the record for the death of their young daughter Mary Catharine, since they are all with the same ink and hand. The 1850 US Federal Census notes that Wiley could neither read nor write, but there is no mark in that column for Mary. So that is contemporary evidence she could read and write, and we can then surmise with some confidence that Mary wrote the first entries. Her handwriting is just beautiful!

Daughter Mary Catharine probably died in 1846 in Botetourt, Virginia, since the family is listed there in the 1850 census, and did not migrate to Illinois until 1853. How hard that must have been to leave the grave of one’s child, knowing that they likely would never return to Virginia!

A previous post mused about the date of the Bible and original entries, since so many look like they may have been written at the same time yet they cover a wide span of years. The bible may have been purchased in Virginia after Mary and Wiley married in 1834 in Botetourt County, Virginia, since all their children were born there. The handwriting makes that somewhat unlikely, unless they had not been very religious and then converted, purchasing the Bible after the births of some of the children. Another possibility is that the original family bible with entries written at the time of the events was lost or destroyed during the difficult trek by covered wagon over the Appalachian Mountains, through the Illinois prairies to Roseville, Warren County, in northern Illinois in 1853. A third possibility is that the original bible may have been lost or destroyed on their second migration, from Illinois to Iowa in 1868. With either loss event, a new bible would then have been purchased and some earlier events entered at the same time to tell the story of the Murrell family, explaining some of the writing differences.

Mary could have written the death entry for her husband Wiley “W.A.” since she survived him, but the writing does not have the same characteristics of her earlier script- the capital “A”s and “W”s are very different. Such styles do not usually change with age, even if the size of the writing and its smoothness do change. This entry could have been her daughter Elizabeth’s handwriting, as it may have been too painful for Mary to enter the information for Wiley- they were just one month short of celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary when he died. Since Mary’s death entry is in what looks to be the same hand, we again have some evidence that Elizabeth may have inherited the family bible.

It appears that the entry for John Murrell was added much later than his death, since he is listed after Mary’s 1887 death entry, even though he died in 1880. The entries for the Murrell’s daughter Ann Elisy Murrell Brown and her husband Aaron Brown in 1892 and 1894, respectively, must also have been made by someone else after Mary’s death in 1887. The handwriting is the same for both Ann and Aaron, but does not looks the same as what we are thinking may be Elizabeth’s hand; that person will likely remain a mystery.

Ann Elisy and her husband, Aaron Brown, who is the only in-law included in this record, both died in Jasper County, Iowa, and are buried in the Mound Prairie Pioneer Cemetery along with Wiley and Mary. (The cemetery is also known as Greenlief Cemetery.)

Son John died in Pettis County, Missouri, but has been included in the family record. Sons William Anderson Murrell, who stayed in Illinois and died in 1922, and son James Edward Murrell, who passed away in Missouri in 1926, however, are not included in this record of family deaths. This may have happened because the Bible had already been passed to Elizabeth Ann Murrell Roberts at her mother’s death in 1887, and then Elizabeth died in 1917 after being bedridden for many years. The Bible was apparently no longer being used after her death, so the surviving brothers were not added after their deaths in the 1920s.

 

Transcription:

Deaths

Mary Catharine

Daughter of Wile

And Mary H. [or Mag]

Murrell Departed

this Life in the

Year of our Lord and

Savior November

the 6 1846

Age 7 yrs 1

Month And 12

Days

 

Anne E Murrell

Brown

Died May 2^nd 92

Aaron Brown

Died Mar 19^th 94

 

[next column]

 

W A Murrell

Departed this

Life in the year

of our Lord & Savior

March 28^th 85.

 

M. M. Murrell       [Mary Magdalene Honts Murrell]

Departed this Life

in the year of our

Lord & Savior

July 13^th 87.

 

 

John Murrell

Died March 23

1880 

 

 

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Murrell Family Bible, possibly c1835.

2) 1850 US Federal Census for District 8, Botetourt, Virginia, “Wiley A Marrill” as head of household. Source Citation: Year: 1850; Census Place: District 8, Botetourt, Virginia; Roll: M432_936; Page: 156B; Image: 551. Accessed 2-8-14 on Ancestry.com.

3) Anne E. Murrell Brown is sometimes called Ann Elisy, Elisy,  Eliza, and Anneliza. She married Aaron Brown 15 Sep 1869 and they had five children. Her parents migrated to Jasper Co., Iowa in 1868, and Ann and Aaron followed sometime between 1870-1880. Her headstone in Greenlief Cemetery/Mound Prairie, lists her as “Annelliza.”

4) This post has been updated on 3/1/2021 with new information.

 

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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.