Genealogy Jottings

Archive for January, 2020

My ancestor Lucy Snow (abt. 1760-1795) has not yet revealed her parentage to me.

This week I sought a birth record for her, but the only 1760ish birth record I could find for a Lucy Snow was from the Massachusetts town of Rutland. This place lies west of Boston. The parents were John and Sebilla Snow.

None of this Lucy’s information matches what I know or suspect about my own Lucy, reportedly the daughter of Thomas Rogers Snow and Hannah Lincoln. My Lucy was the first wife of Gershom Hall, and they lived in Harwich, on the Cape. She is buried there.

After some digging in various online databases, I did eliminate the Rutland Lucy as my ancestor. That Lucy married Thomas Whittemore and moved to upstate New York. There they raised a large family.

Besides not finding a birth registration, I have not located my Lucy’s name in any of the Snow genealogies I viewed this week. Without this low-hanging fruit to tell me the names of her parents, I will need to expand my search.

I have made a checklist of sources to study. I will look first at the PERSI database on Find My Past for articles on the Snow family. After that, I plan to search for wills or deeds that might mention Lucy.

She remains the link to any Mayflower ancestry I might have. Lucy Snow of Harwich had a family. They continue to wait to be discovered.

Uncovering information about my Massachusetts ancestor Lucy Snow (abt. 1760-1795) presents a more difficult task than I first imagined. I have been using the images at FamilySearch, Ancestry, and American Ancestors to find out more about her and to document her life.

This week I located only documentation of her marriage to Gershom Hall. The Harwich town records include a Marriage Intention from late 1780 and a Marriage from early 1781. These confirm that Lucy’s surname was Snow at the time of her marriage. Earlier I had found a town record of her children, including my ancestor Rhoda Hall.

Next, I looked for a birth registration for Lucy. A family tree on the WikiTree website claims she was the daughter of Captain Thomas Rogers Snow and Hannah Lincoln, both Mayflower descendants.

When I searched for a birth record for Lucy Snow, born about 1760 to this couple, no such record appeared. Instead, the only result was for Lucy, daughter of John and Sebilah Snow, born 5 February 1760 at Rutland, Massachusetts. Rutland lies a long way from Harwich.

Was my Lucy the daughter of John and Sebilah Snow? The birth year matches.

Or was her birth to Thomas and Hannah unrecorded? They lived at Harwich, the same town where Lucy married Gershom Hall.

The WikiTree list has no source for the claim of Lucy’s descent from Thomas and Hannah. I need some proof linking Lucy to a set of parents.

I can do two things to resolve this mystery:

1. Contact the WikiTree contributor and ask about a source, and
2. Keep working in the records in hopes of uncovering more information.

I plan to do both these things. Lucy is my link to possible Mayflower lineage. I hope she does not turn into yet another brick wall ancestor.

Female ancestors present difficult research questions. They left fewer records than their male counterparts did. Hence the common advice to look for the men in their lives when seeking information about the lives of the women.

As I follow my path towards documenting a Mayflower ancestor this year, I realize that much of my dad’s New England ancestry lies along the female line. I must trace back to the mid-1700’s before I reach a male in his suspected Mayflower heritage.

This month I have focused on Dad’s third great-grandmother, Lucy Snow (ca. 1760-1795). She may have descended from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins, both through his daughter Constance and his son Giles. The Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, which documents the descendants of the Pilgrims, does not mention Lucy because she would have been the sixth generation.

Lucy married Gershom Hall in 1781. I did some research on him years ago and have even visited their graves in Harwich, Massachusetts.

To find out more about Lucy Snow, I began by pulling out everything I had collected on her husband Gershom. I found her mentioned twice. The cemetery record and gravestone in Harwich, Massachusetts tell us that Lucy Hall, wife of Gershom, died 8 October 1795, aged 35 years. The Hall family chapter of The Library of Cape Cod History and Genealogy gave me their marriage date.

Today I have access to several online databases of New England records that I did not have the last time I looked at the life of Gershom Hall. I turned to a couple of these to find out more about Lucy.

I located the Harwich town records wherein I found a list of the children of Gershom Hall and his wife, Lucy. One re-copied version of the record pencils in the maiden name Snow for Lucy. The town shows birthdates for eight children, a son (Daniel) and seven daughters (Rosanna, my ancestor Rhoda, Thankful, Lucy, Tamsin, Olive, and Sukey).

My personal records include that name of one more daughter not mentioned in the town record. Her name was Patience, born in September 1795. Lucy died a month after Patience was born, and the little girl lived only eight months.

As I reviewed these documents, I realized that I need to locate the Hall’s marriage record because the Cape Cod history is a secondary source. I also need to find a birth registration for Lucy. Perhaps her father left a will that would help me tie the generations together.

To find everything I can on Lucy, I must follow the men in her life. Find the records created by her husband and father, perhaps her grandfathers, and I will find Lucy.

Last week I defined a project to link three of my female ancestors, Hannah Lincoln, Lucy Snow, and Rhoda Hall. I must do this as part of my goal to prove my family’s descent from a Mayflower ancestor. Hannah Lincoln descends through both her parents from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins.

Information posted by other researchers claims these women to be mother, daughter, and granddaughter. I have good documentation of my family line back to Rhoda Hall, my most recent ancestor among these women. My next step is to prove that Lucy was her mother.

None of the sites I have visited includes citations or links to proof of Rhoda’s relationship to Lucy Snow or Hannah Lincoln. Do I have enough proof to make the case that Rhoda was Lucy’s daughter? The Mayflower Society will not take my application unless I provide some documentation.

I began by reviewing everything I have collected about Rhoda Hall, my third great-grandmother.

According to the 1850 U.S. census for St. Joseph County, Michigan, the last one in which she appeared and the only one in which she was named, Rhoda was born about 1784 in Massachusetts. I have not yet located a birth registration for her.

Rhoda married Benjamin E. Dunbar on 2 June 1805 at Chatham, Massachusetts. The marriage record does not name her parents.

In the early 1830’s Benjamin, Rhoda, and their children relocated from Cape Cod to then-Portage County, Ohio. Benjamin died shortly after the move. After that sad event, records usually refer to Rhoda as the Widow Dunbar.

She appears in Ohio school census records and in court records through the 1830’s and 1840’s. Again, no record mentions her parents.

Rhoda passed away, probably back in Ohio, soon after the 1850 census was taken. No death record was created. She was buried next to Benjamin in the city cemetery in Stow, Ohio.

A record linking Rhoda to her father does exist. In his will dated 1841 and probated in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Gershom Hall leaves $50 to his daughter, Rhoda Dunbar. Gershom Hall remembers his wife Jerusha in the will, but Jerusha probably was not Rhoda’s mother. Gershom married Jerusha late in life, when Rhoda was in her thirties.

Gershom had been married more than once. Secondary evidence links Rhoda to a previous wife, Lucy Snow. A Cape Cod history relates that Gershom and Lucy married in 1781. Lucy’s 1795 cemetery marker tells us she was the wife of Gershom Hall. Rhoda was born in 1784, during the time between the 1781 marriage and the 1795 death of Lucy. Perhaps Rhoda was honoring her mother when she named one of her daughters Lucy Snow Dunbar.

After reviewing this material this week, I feel pretty confident that Lucy Snow was the mother of Rhoda Hall. I will spend some time searching the Massachusetts records for Rhoda’s birth record and Lucy’s death registration to confirm the dates. I will also begin locating probate records for other family members to determine whether their relationship is spelled out anywhere else.

Based on the evidence I have collected, I have posted Lucy’s name as the mother of Rhoda Hall Dunbar in my family tree. I believe Lucy Snow, wife of Gershom Hall, was my fourth great-grandmother.

With the new year comes a new genealogy project. After spending last year on foreign research in Finnish records, I will turn my attention closer to home in 2020.

My father had deep American roots. His mother’s family lived in New England a couple of centuries ago, and I want to find out more about them. I am hoping to prove a line or two of Mayflower ancestry.

Dad’s direct maternal line offers me a chance. According to a post on WikiTree, his third great-grandmother, Lucy Snow, descended two ways from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins. The lines go this way although no sources are cited:

Lucy Snow>Hannah Lincoln>Hannah Hopkins>Stephen Hopkins>Stephen Hopkins>Giles Hopkins>Stephen Hopkins

Lucy Snow>Thomas Rogers Snow>Nathaniel Snow>Edward Snow>Jabez Snow>Constance Hopkins>Stephen Hopkins

My first stop searching for proof of this ancestry has been the databases on the American Ancestors website (https://www.americanancestors.org/index.aspx). There I located documentation for the births and marriage of Lucy’s parents. Lucy herself is not mentioned so I have nothing to link her to them. I need to find some proof of her parentage.

I also need to find some proof that Lucy was the mother of my known ancestor Rhoda Hall. I have only cemetery information saying she was the first wife of Gershom Hall. I believe Rhoda Hall Dunbar, Dad’s second great-grandmother, was the daughter of Lucy and Gershom.

My next task will be to link up the three women. If I can find documentation for the relationship Rhoda Hall>Lucy Snow>Hannah Lincoln and Thomas Snow, I will have my Mayflower ancestry from Stephen Hopkins. Then I can turn my attention to learning whether I descend from any other Mayflower passengers. Many people who descend from one Mayflower passenger also descend from others.

New England family lines have been well-documented. I think proving a line of Mayflower descent, if I have one, should be doable this year. This project will offer me an interesting genealogical year.