Another clue comes to light

Yesterday while I was writing about making physical files and paying attention to all the details in the documentation, I was also organizing the many pieces of paper that had accumulated on my desk recently. I even printed a few more. My sister and I often joke about needing a "murder board" like the ones we see in TV shows about homicide detectives. However, the reality is that my desk usually looks like this.

For a minute or two, it looked neat, but then I came across something that sent me on a new flurry of activity. As I sorted the papers pertaining to the two George Botsfords (father and son) and their wives, something caught my eye.

1875 New York Census for Warren, Herkimer County

New York State performed seven censuses from 1855 to 1925. Only the later ones are available on Ancestry.com at this time (new records are added all the time - I'm sure they will all be there eventually). Fortunately, FamilySearch.org has the entire set. These censuses are available in other places, too. A couple of weeks ago, my sister searched for George Arthur Botsford and found him on the 1865 and 1875 censuses. From his birth in 1848 through the 1865 census, George Arthur lived in Cherry Valley in Otsego County, but in 1875, he is married and living in Warren in Herkimer County.

Notice that on this census, it says "G. A. Botsford." How do we know it's George Arthur? Besides looking at his family members on the census, we must look at the place and see if it makes sense. I grew up in the area so I know Warren, but I will point out that when doing genealogy, it pays to use Google Maps for checking distances, among other things. Although they are in different counties, Warren is only about ten miles from Cherry Valley, and they both lie along the historic Cherry Valley Turnpike.

Cherry Valley to Warren, NY

(If this all seems tedious and perhaps beside the point to you, then perhaps genealogy is not the pursuit of your dreams. Genealogy requires drawing together many bits of information from diverse sources so that you can draw conclusions you feel are reliable. I enjoy every bit of this!)

I want to point out that Warren - where you see the B marker on the map between those two small lakes - is where George was struck by a car fifty-five years later, in 1930.

Now we are sure that this is a reasonable place for George to be in 1875, let's look at the family members. Before yesterday, I'm a little embarrassed to admit, I had only looked at the next two people on the census - the ones that share the surname Botsford. We have R. A. Botsford and John F. Botsford. That should be Rhoda and their oldest son, John Foster Botsford. Yesterday, I suddenly noticed there are three more people in this household!

• Hattie Barton, age 6, niece, born in New York
• George W. Barton, age 4, nephew, born in Nebraska
• Henry K. Barton, age 3 and 2/12, nephew, born in Nebraska

Using my Sherlockian powers of deduction ;-) (too bad I don't have his power of observation!), I determine that these children must be Rhoda's sister's children. George had one brother, so no chance of Bartons on his side. If they were the children of a brother of Rhoda, they would have Wilkin or Wilkins  (her maiden name) as their surname. Therefore, Rhoda must have had a sister who married a man named Barton.

First I looked for Bartons in the immediate area. I found a few, but none looked promising (wrong age, gender, etc.). Then I started searching for the children. I did look briefly for Hattie, but since most women marry and Hattie Barton turned out to be a fairly common name, no luck there. Next I tried searching for George W. Barton in Nebraska and I hit pay dirt.

John Barton & family, Omaha, 1870

Here we have John Barton, age 32, born in Ireland; his wife, Sarah, age 29, born in England; their daughter, Harriet, age 2, born in New York; and they son, George, age 5 months, born in Jan of 1870 in Nebraska. Hattie is a nickname for Harriet, so that fits. The ages for the children fit, too. If my theory is correct, then Sarah must be Rhoda's sister, but I thought that Rhoda was born in Cherry Valley and her parents were born in England. I went back to the documentation we have for Rhoda and I see that on the 1875 and 1880 censuses, she indicated she was born in England, but on the 1900 census, she indicated she was born in New York.

This opens up so many questions, but also so many lines of inquiry. What happened to John and Sarah Barton? Why did the children end up with George and Rhoda in New York? Were John and Sarah able to take them back? (They were not on the 1880 census in George and Rhoda's household.) Now I can search for Sarah and Rhoda together with England as their birthplace. They, and John Barton, will have record of their immigration. Somewhere, there will be a record of Sarah and Rhoda's parents.