So the first family lineage that I uploaded is the Blizard Family. See it here https://myfamgen.com/blizard-family/
I had created a book for my husband’s mother and her siblings for Christmas. Of course then in January I found more info that I could have added, but that’s how genealogy research goes. The farthest back I have gotten on this line is my husband’s 4 times great-grandfather Oliver Blizard who I believe was born sometime between 1750 and 1760. He bought land in Minisink, New York in 1802. That land purchase record is the picture at the top of this website. There are great land and probate records online for New York, and especially Orange County. I had found Oliver’s three sons mentioned in books about the area, but it was in Oliver’s will that I discovered that he had four daughters too. Oliver’s wife’s name was Mary, but I haven’t been able to find out yet what her maiden name was. Some people have her listed as Mary Evans in their family trees at Ancestry, but I haven’t been able to verify that yet. I believe he is the Oliver Blizard who was in the militia in Ulster County during the Revolutionary War. It’s quite possible that he moved from Ulster County to Orange County although county boundaries often shifted, so it may have been the county that moved and not him. But the big question I still need to solve is where was he born? There is a family cemetery on the farmland in Minisink that was owned by Luther Hallock, known as the Hallock-Blizard Cemetery. I have found the deed for the land being set aside as a burying ground. There were Hallocks who married Blizards. There are many of the Blizard family buried there. (I really hope to get to go see it sometime this spring and take pictures of the tombstones.) I am pretty sure that the Hallocks came to Orange County from Long Island so it is possible that Oliver Blizard lived on Long Island too, but again that’s one of the things I still need to figure out.
Some of the other things I am investigating:
My husband is descended from Oliver’s son Richard. One of Richard’s sons, Coe Blizard (not my husband’s direct ancestor), moved to Indiana at some point between April and August 1858 since he and his wife were listed on deed records as being in Mount Hope, NY in April and Logansport, Indiana in August. He is listed on the US Census of 1860 with his wife and daughters in Indiana. By the 1870 US Census he has a new wife and no children are listed. I just assumed that his wife had passed away and his daughters had grown up and moved out. Well much to my surprise I later found information about his first wife’s death back in Orange County in 1877 and their daughters were back there too. I’d love to know how his wife and daughters made their way back to New York from Indiana, while he stayed out there with a new wife.
I believe the Blizard Hotel that once stood on Front St in Newburgh, New York was owned by another of Oliver’s sons, William. When William passed away he still had a mortgage on the property which was then sold at public auction. The following is info abstracted from the deed. “William had taken out a mortgage with Benjamin Carpenter when he bought the land on May 1, 1837. He still apparently owed $5,518.99 at the time of his death. There was a public auction on Aug 12, 1847 at the Blizard Hotel on Front St. (Was William’s property a hotel?) Notice was sent to Richard Blizard and John Blizard Sr administrators of William’s estate. John Jr, Ephraim, and Juliette Blizard bought the land at the auction for $5,648.11. William died in 1845, which is the year the mortgage should have been paid off, but he still owed a large amount on it.” I haven’t added the buyers to the tree yet, but I am assuming that the people who purchased the land back were William’s children. The question is why didn’t they just pay off the mortgage that was owed instead of letting it go up for auction, since they ended up paying $129.12 more than the mortgage still owed? I also found an article about a fire that “broke out in stables south of Blizard’s hotel” on August 28, 1847, just a few weeks after the auction. The hotel wasn’t damaged, but several other buildings in the area were. I have found later census records with a bunch of brothers and sisters living together who may be William’s children. It looks like Juliette, who was one of the purchasers of the hotel, was one of the oldest of the siblings, so she may have been taking care of her younger siblings after her parents passed away. She is also listed in deeds buying other property.
So that’s my first post with some family stories. I hope you enjoyed reading it and found it interesting.
Nicely done, thanks!