Sorry loyal viewers, there isn’t a new genealogy blog post this week. I’ve been busy with my other passion, vegetable gardening. Hopefully I can get another genealogy post done for next week. Stay tuned……
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The Other Palazzo San Gervasio Families
A while back I wrote about the Belsanti family. Maria Rosaria Belsanti married Gervasio DiPaolo. I don’t really know much about his side of the family other than what I learned from my cousin’s wife’s relative who did a bunch of research into the family. You can see the different lines Gervasio DiPaolo is descended from here https://myfamgen.com/dipaolobarbuzzivolpe-families/. The family names in addition to DiPaolo are Barbuzzi, Calzaretta, Volpe, and DiMira. None of these are names that I have come across in the US.
Names I have found connected to Maria Rosaria and Gervasio’s daughter Teresa DiPaolo Vespignani, her husband Arturo Vespignani, and their children once they were in the US are Lamastra, Crocone, Lorosso, Fanizzi, Terbuta. I have no idea if any of these people were relatives, or friends from Palazzo San Gervasio, Italy, or people they met once they arrived in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Teresa and Arturo had a son Silvio Vespignani. His godparents were Vincenzo Fanizzi and Angela Terbuta. That is the only time these names show up and I haven’t found any other information about them. Silvio died May 1,1915 at the age of three. He is buried in Holy Name Cemetery in a plot owned by Luiga Lamastra. Also buried in the plot are Lucia Lamastra who died May 31, 1910 at age 18 months, Gennaro Crocone who died Sep 22, 1911 at age 3 months, and Angelo Lamastra who died July 31, 1931 at age 78.
Luigi Lamastra and his wife Maria were the godparents to Teresa and Arturo’s youngest son Pasquale Vespignani. I assume this is the same Luigi Lamastra who owned the cemetery plot. I have found Luigi and Maria in some family trees on Ancestry. At least I think it’s them. According to those trees Maria’s maiden name was Griesi. Teresa and Arturo’s son Michael Vespignani married Madeline DiNardo. Madeline’s mother Isabella’s maiden name was Griesi. So it may very well be possible that Luigi and Maria were not related to Teresa, but were close friends from the old village in Italy and that the families did eventually marry together in a later generation.
Jennaro Lorusso was Pasquale Vespignani’s confirmation sponsor. I am not sure if that is the correct spelling. It’s how the church says it was spelled, but I think it may have been Gennaro. There was a person who was referred to as Gumba Generane(Generain). I have no idea how to spell that, I have just heard how it was pronounced. I think that’s who this person was. Again perhaps not a relative, but a close family friend. See definition of Gumba here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goombah. He wasn’t his godfather, but I guess a confirmation sponsor could also be thought of in the same way as a godfather.
In addition to Jersey City, there were people from Palazzo San Gervasio who settled in Newark, New Jersey and Newburgh, Beacon, and Cold Spring, New York. There is a DNA match with the DiTullo family in Beacon, NY. He is descended from Giuseppe DiTullo and Maria Guiseppa Festino. There was a Domenico Festino present at Teresa DiPaolo’s birth according to her birth certificate. I still haven’t been able to figure out the connection between the DiPaolo/Belsanti and Festino families, but there must be a connection if the DNA says so.
So at this point, until I find any new information, this will be my last post about my Italian side of the family. I have one more to write about the Irish side with some new info about newly confirmed DNA matches that I have gotten some info from. After that it’s all going to be about my husband’s family, since I have so much more info about his side since they’ve been here in the US for so long.
But please keep reading my blog posts anyway. I think my husband’s relatives are interesting and so does my hairdresser.
The Mysteries of Vincent Doran
My husband’s grandmother’s brother Vincent Doran was an interesting person to research. I don’t know if my father-in-law or his siblings ever knew their uncle had been married and had a child, but none of the younger generation knew about it.
From looking at census records, I had always assumed that Vincent was an Irish bachelor. I always found him on the US censuses living at home with his parents in Oswego, NY. But then I found newspaper articles at http://fultonhistory.com. (It’s a great site for newspapers, especially ones from New York state.) Much to my surprise I found out that Vincent was for a time living in Utica, NY and had married Frances Kulow in February 1919. The wedding announcement says that he had been living in Utica for 2 years. Both Vincent and Frances worked for the G.R. Kinney Company. They do appear together on the 1920 US Census still living together in Utica. In May 1921 there is a newspaper baby announcement. All it says is that the baby was a boy. By the 1925 New York state census Vincent is living back with his parents and Frances and their son Robert are living with her parents and siblings.
Through Ancestry DNA testing we found a very close match to my husband. Based on the fact that we knew all the other cousins who were that closely related, the only possible way for this person to be that closely related was for her to be a descendant of Vincent’s. It turns out that she is Vincent’s great-granddaughter. We corresponded a bit, and she said she was interested in learning about her family, but then she went ghost. I don’t know if I scared her off because I gave her a bunch of information that I knew. It’s a real shame. My husband’s cousin found a book when she was cleaning out their aunt’s house that she thinks belonged to Vincent. I tried to contact the DNA match to see if she wanted it, but I never heard back from her. One thing she did tell me when we did correspond was that the story she had heard in her family was that Frances’ family didn’t approve of Vincent because he was Irish and convinced her to move back home with the baby. We have no idea if Vincent ever had any more contact with his son Robert, but it’s very sad if he didn’t get spend time with him.
Here’s the link to the Doran family https://myfamgen.com/doran-family/. I would suggest reading through it because there are a lot of snippets from newspaper articles about several of the family members.
The Heagney Clan
This is the part of my Irish side that I have the most people in the tree. The tree can be seen here https://myfamgen.com/hagneyheagney-family/. Several years ago a man named Jim McDonald contacted my brother. He said he was a distant cousin of my mother’s. It turns out that they are 2nd cousins. Ancestry DNA testing turned up another 3rd cousin twice removed from the Heagney line through the Maguires. The Heagneys were from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. According to the 1900 US Census Mary Murtha (nee Mary Bridget Hagney) came to the US in 1880. We didn’t really know anything about any of her side of the family other than her children and their descendants until we found out about Jim’s research. It turns out that she had a brother John and a sister Bridget. I have no proof that Mary’s middle name was Bridget, but that’s the family story I have always heard. It does seem a little strange that that would be her middle name when it was also her sister’s first name, but since Saint Brigid is the female patron saint of Ireland maybe the family just liked including it in all the girls’ names. I just read recently about a family that named all of their female children Mary and male children Joseph and called them all by their middle names. We have a somewhat similar situation in our family where many girls were named Mary and called by their middle names, but not any siblings with the same name.
Through DNA testing I have also found some Heagney relatives who still live in Ireland. One of them is my third cousin once removed through her father and my fourth cousin through her mother. Her parents were each other’s second cousins once removed. That makes her her father’s second cousin twice removed and her mother’s third cousin. In small villages without a lot of people to marry this was not uncommon.
There is another DNA match that is a pretty close match that we haven’t been able to figure out exactly how we are related, but it’s definitely through this line somehow.
Mary Hagney(that’s how it’s spelled on her marriage certificate) and James Murtagh had eight children, only three of whom, all girls, survived to adulthood. The other five all died young and at least four of those were within two years of each other. James on January 6, 1895 at the age of 18 months, Anna 6 days later on January 12, 1895. She was 5 years old. Agnes one year later on January 20, 1986. She was 11 months old. She was born one month before her other siblings died. Then later in 1896, Josephine was born on December 19, 1896 and died 8 days later on December 27, 1896. I am not sure when Michael died or how old he was, but he died sometime before 1900. It’s possible that he died in January 1895 because the family story has always been that three children died in the same week. Even most of the adult children died relatively young, Sarah(Sadie) was only 37 and Edna was 40. But Mary Ellen lived to be 80.
Edna’s first husband, Augustine Mulvaney, died when their daughter was under one year old. I hadn’t known his first name until I was contacted via Ancestry by one of his brother’s descendants. I was able then to put the person who contacted me in contact with Edna’s granddaughter. They are second cousins. Edna did remarry to Charles Lange. They had a son Robert. Edna died shortly after Robert was born. One of my biggest hopes is that I can find out what happened to Robert and if there are any descendants of his out there that I can locate. The last info I have is the 1940 US Census where Charles, Robert (age 2), and Charles’ mother Emily where living in Bogota, New Jersey. Since that’s the latest census that is available, I don’t know anything else about them.
The Lawder Family from England – Actually They Were Irish
Since the Lawder family lived in England before coming to the US, we had always thought that they were English, but it turns out that they were Irish Catholics. Edward Augustine Lawder was born in Ireland in 1821. He was in Manchester, England by the time he married Mary Farrall in 1841. Mary was also born in Ireland. 1841 is before the time of the Great Hunger(Potato Famine), so I am not sure why they moved to England. It does seem that many Irish families moved to that area of England, possibly to find work. I don’t know if their parents or any siblings also moved to England. I got official copies of their marriage license, their son James’ marriage license, and James’ son Edward’s birth certificate from England.
Edward Augustine Lawder signed the petition to free William Smith O’Brien and other prisoners in 1848. The petition was signed by 70,000 people in Ireland and 10,000 people in England. You can read about the story of William Smith O’Brien here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smith_O%27Brien.
The fact that the family was living in England instead of Ireland makes doing research so much easier. The family shows up on English census records in 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881. James and his wife Emma (Burke) and their children were in the US by the 1870 US Census, but his parents were still in England. Most Irish census records from that time period were destroyed so I would never have been able to find out all this info if they had stayed in Ireland.
James and Emma settled in Middletown, New York. According to the 1910 US Census they had 15 children, 5 of whom were still living. I am not sure if that is really accurate. It is possible that the census taker accidently put an extra 1 in front of the 5 in that column.
In 1904, James, Emma, and their daughter Mary (listed as Mamie on the ship’s manifest) returned to England for a visit. I don’t know if there was any particular reason why they went or if it was just a vacation.
I have a lot of information about occupations and where people lived from the Middletown directories from 1905 through 1959 listed in the family tree which can be seen here https://myfamgen.com/lawder-family/. Several members of the family worked for the railroads. Some at the O and W (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York,_Ontario_and_Western_Railway) and some at the CNERR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_New_England_Railway). I really enjoy learning about the history of the places where mine and my husband’s families lived.
The Northern Italian Who Moved South
Arturo Marco Domenico Vespignani was born in Modigliana in northern Italy in October 1864. He eventually moved to Palazzo San Gervasio in southern Italy where he met and married his wife Teresa DiPaolo. The family story has always been that his mother died, his father remarried, and Arturo didn’t get along with his step-mother, so he moved south. He supposedly also had a sister who went to live in Argentina. I have absolutely no proof if any parts of this story are correct.
I joined a Facebook group for Modigliana and someone in the group was able to find some census records for me. Who knew there were Italian census records? Not me. I don’t think they exist for all of Italy, but they do for Modigliana. So I was able to get some information about Arturo’s father, his father’s siblings and parents. But I don’t have any information yet about any siblings Arturo may have had. I also found someone in Italy on Ancestry with a Domenico Vespignani in his tree. It wasn’t Arturo’s father, but the guy did help find some other Italian records for me. Here’s the link to the tree for this family https://myfamgen.com/vespignani-family/
Since Arturo moved south and got married, the fact that his surname was not common in southern Italy certainly makes it a lot easier to find records for him and his children in Palazzo San Gervasio. It is not however so easy to find him in records in the US unless you have figured out the crazy ways Vespignani was misspelled over the years. For instance on the ship’s manifest when he arrived in the US it is spelled Vespignano. To make matters worse whoever indexed it at the Ellis Island website entered it as Vupignano, making it a lot harder to find it there. It also lists the town as Palarro S C. I submitted a request to get the index corrected. Then there’s the 1930 US Census, where it is spelled correctly, but indexed incorrectly as Vesfignani on Ancestry. Or even weirder, the 1920 US census where it is indexed as Visfunjun! Although on that one I can’t blame the transcriber because it really does look like that’s what is says.
Arturo came to the US in 1906. The ship’s manifest says he was going to see his brother-in-law Luigi Lamastra. I assume that term was not used literally because it seems highly unlikely that Arturo had a sibling who went to southern Italy with him and as far as we know Teresa only had one sister Carmella and we know who she married. However Luigi and his wife Maria must have been at least close family friends since they were the god-parents to Arturo and Teresa’s youngest son.
We believe that Arturo and Teresa had seven sons, 5 born in Italy and 2 born in the US. I had originally thought that only their youngest son was born in the US, but it turns out that the two youngest were. I had also always heard that the names of the two sons that died young, one in Italy and the one I didn’t know was born in the US, were Marco and Nullo. Well, no Marco has been found in birth records in Italy that I know of. There was a Paolo born in Italy in January 1907. Arturo left Italy for the US in June 1906, so Teresa was 2 months pregnant when he left. She didn’t go to join him until 1911, so she was in Italy with 5 children and no husband for many years. If there was a Marco that we just haven’t yet found a birth record for, that means she would have been there with 6 children. Either way Paolo/Marco died in Italy before she left for the US in 1911. The other son who was born in the US was Silvio, not Nullo. Apparently Nullo means “nothing” in Italian so there is the possibility that he was tiny and ill and was called Nullo even though that was not his actual name. Silvio died at the age of 3. Their youngest son Pasquale was named after his older brother who died 4 ½ months before he was born. The older Pasquale had come to the US in 1910 at the age of 14. We are not sure when, but at some point he went back to Italy, and he died there in early 1914. I have his death certificate that was found for me online, but unfortunately it doesn’t list the cause of death. He was 18 when he died. We have no idea why he went back to Italy when his parents and siblings were all in the US.
I still have a lot more research do to into Arturo’s side of the family. I believe he and Teresa are buried in Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery in Jersey City. I have a picture of his tombstone. The fact that they are buried there is puzzling to me since their son Silvio is buried in Holy Name Cemetery. Holy Name is the Catholic cemetery in Jersey City. I know their children born in the US were baptized in a Catholic church. So was Arturo not Catholic and he couldn’t be buried in Holy Name? And then even though Teresa was Catholic, she was buried with her husband even though she could have been buried in Holy Name? I tried e-mailing Bayview, but I never heard back. One of these days I need to call and see what I can find out. And I need to try to do more research into records from Modigliana to see if I can find out anything about his siblings.
Peter Doxtater and the French and Indian War/Revolutionary War
Until I started really getting into genealogy research, we had always thought that my husband was only Irish and English. Then I discovered that he had German ancestors which was verified by his DNA ethnicity report. It’s nice when your research is proven correct by DNA results.
My husband is descended from Georg Dachstatter who came to the US from Germany in 1709. There is 6 volume book set written about him and his descendants, The Dockstader family: Descendants of Georg Dachstatter, Palatine emigrant of 1709, who settled in the Mohawk Valley of New York by Doris Dockstader Rooney. I wish I could find a reasonably priced copy of it to buy, or that it was available online to search through. It is however available in some large libraries and luckily my husband has a cousin who works in one who was able to copy a bunch of pages about their direct line for us. The name changed over the course of time from Dachstatter to Dockstader to Doxtater.
Peter Doxtater, my husband’s 5 times great-grandfather had a very interesting life. During the French and Indian War, when he was only 4 years old, he and his sister were captured by Native Americans fighting on the side of the French and taken to Canada. They were treated well and learned about their ways of warfare and their language. He forgot his native language while there. At the end of the war they were returned to their parents in New York. The knowledge he gained of Native American modes of warfare was of great benefit during the Revolutionary War. So much so that the British supposedly had a bounty on his head for $50. (I’m not 100% sure of the accuracy of this story, but I have read about it in several books. If he was really 4 years old when he was captured, that would have been in 1755. The French and Indian War ended in 1763. So if he really was in Canada until the war ended he would have been there for 8 years and would have been 12 when he went back home.)
During the Revolutionary War he fought with the Tryon County New York Militia at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777. He was with the 4th (Kingsland-German Flatts) Regiment under Col. Peter Bellinger. Of the 800 militia soldiers, 500 died or were injured. Peter appears to have escaped unharmed. I told my kids it’s a good thing he wasn’t among the fatalities or they wouldn’t be here. You can read about the battle here: https://www.nps.gov/fost/learn/historyculture/the-battle-at-oriska.htm.
At the time of his service he was living in the town of German Flats on the Mohawk River. According to his pension papers, he served for two years. He gave a sworn statement in 1832 at the age of 81. He was often out in scouting parties. Twice during the war, while he was out scouting, his house, crops, and cattle were destroyed by Native Americans. Toward the end of the war, after being told by friends who were released prisoners, that the Native Americans were after him, he moved to Albany for his safety. His first pension application was rejected, so he needed to file again in 1833. In that he stated that he served for the entire length of the war, sometimes for a day or two, sometimes a week, sometimes a month for a total of at least three years. He filed again in 1834 stating he was 84 years old and feeble and infirm. It was not unusual in the early days of the US for bills to come before Congress “For the Relief of” an individual person or group of people. It looks like that happened in order for Peter to finally get his pension. On January 5, 1836 in the 1st session of the 24th Congress Bill H.R. No. 73 for the Relief of Peter Doxtator and Jacob Weaver. The applications for pensions were made at the last Congress. A favorable report was made by the committee on March 25, 1834. A bill for the relief of the petitioners passed the House. Not sure why they had to present another bill in 1836, if it had passed the House in 1834, but it does mention that the applications had previously been rejected by the War Department. So he was finally granted a pension in 1836. He was given $80 per year plus $400 in arrears, because he should have started receiving the payments in 1831. His pension papers file is 28 pages long.
After the war, Peter (along with Miles Copper who I wrote about in another blog post) was among the earliest settlers of Adams, New York. He went there from German Flats, NY in 1800. There is a Doxtater St in Adams, NY which I hope to get to see on vacation this summer. Here’s the link to the Dachstatter/Dockstader/Doxtater line https://myfamgen.com/dachstatterdockstaderdoxtater-family/.
The Murtha Connection
So as I mentioned in this week’s Bonus Blog, having close DNA matches and not being able to figure out the connection is very frustrating. Of the seven closest Ancestry DNA matches that my mom has (2nd to 3rd cousins) six of them are on the Murtha side of the family. I know this based on the shared matching function which shows other people both parties match with. I am fairly confident that two of those people are the grandson and great-granddaughter of James Murtagh’s brother John. The only thing is I have no absolute proof that James had a brother John. It certainly seems likely though that they must have been brothers based on the close DNA connection.
James Murtagh (later at some point changed to Murtha) was from County Mayo, Ireland. He originally settled in Philadelphia where he married Mary Bridget Hagney (which was actually spelled Heagney back in Ireland). She was from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. More about her family in a future blog post. The Heagneys are the only branch of the Irish ancestors I have a good deal of information about, thanks to a distant cousin who did a lot of research.
According to the 1900 census James Murtagh came to the US in 1881. He and Mary were married in 1885. Their daughter Mary Ellen was born in Philly. Her younger sister’s Sarah and Edna were born in Jersey City, NJ. They had moved there sometime between 1887 and 1891.
It looks like John Murtagh also moved from Pennsylvania to Jersey City between 1891 and 1894, making the likelihood that they were brothers even more plausible. With the information from the DNA match’s tree and census records I have found, John’s family was living in Jersey City in 1900. The census record says he came to the US in 1886.
I know for sure that James did have a brother Patrick whose son Hugh was apparently gassed in World War I, but he survived. Patrick married Anne Costello. I think it is their family that I have also found in the 1900 and 1910 census records in Jersey City. According to the 1900 census he came to the US in 1887. The 1910 census says he came in 1890. His Petition for Naturalization filed in Jersey City in 1900 says he arrived in the US on or about April 14, 1890. It seems likely that he never lived in Pennsylvania.
So here’s what we know:
| Name | Came to US | Lived in PA | Moved to NJ |
| James | 1881 | Yes, 1881 to between 1887/1891 | Between 1887 and 1891 |
| John | 1886 | Yes, 1886 to between 1891/1894 | Between 1891 and 1894 |
| Patrick | 1887-1890 | Maybe never | Most likely between 1887 and 1890, perhaps straight from Ireland |
So that begs the question, was Patrick the first one to settle in Jersey City straight from Ireland, and then his brothers joined him there later? Or had James already moved to Jersey City and then Patrick went straight there? I think I may be leaning toward Patrick being the first one there based on the dates, but who knows I could be wrong. But if Patrick was the first of the Murtagh boys to settle in Jersey City and then convinced his brothers to join him there then my family owes Uncle Pat a debt of gratitude. Because if James hadn’t ever moved there to join his brother Patrick, James’ daughter Mary Ellen wouldn’t have met her husband, and none of us would be here.
Here’s the link to the tree for this part of the family https://myfamgen.com/murtaghmurtha-family/. John and his family aren’t in it yet because I still need more proof before I add him in.
Bonus Blog – The DNA Connections
I thought I’d throw in an extra Bonus Blog post this week, since last Friday’s was a bit of a downer.
We have had my mom’s, mine, my brother’s, my husband’s, and his mother’s DNA all tested at Ancestry. FTDNA and GEDmatch are two other places where we have put our DNA. FTDNA does their own DNA testing, but they also have the ability to upload raw DNA that you have downloaded from Ancestry to their site. They will then find DNA matches similar to the way Ancestry provides matches. GEDmatch also allows uploading of raw DNA. I haven’t gotten into using GEDmatch too much though, because it’s much more technical. You can do all sorts of things comparing your kit to other people’s kits and find who you both match with. They do have people who have tested at several different sites there, but I find it hard to use. You can upload trees to those sites too, but I haven’t because they don’t hide living people like Ancestry does, and I definitely don’t want to put that info on the internet for the whole world to see.
I have however found a close match on FTDNA that I have been communicating with to try to figure out where the connection is. They are supposed to be a 2nd to 3rd cousin to my mom and a 2nd to 4th cousin to me and my brother. They had ancestors in Jersey City, but they don’t have any familiar names in their family tree. Their ancestors were originally from County Cavan, Ireland which none of mine were, although Cavan is somewhat in between County Mayo and County Tyrone where some of my ancestors were from. Their Jersey City ancestors also stopped in Pennsylvania before heading to Jersey City. (More about that on Friday in my Murtha Family blog post). Assuming this person is my mom’s 3rd cousin and trying to go back in both our lines, it looks like one of my great-great-grandmothers may have had the surname Kelly. I only know for sure the surname of one of my four great-great-grandmothers on the Irish side, so it could be any one of the other three. Since the DNA match knows more about their great-grandmothers, ie one was German and one was from England, we think we have narrowed it down to one of my great-great-grandmothers being a sister to Mary Kelly. But just like I discussed in the blog about the O’Leary and Doyle families a few weeks ago, unfortunately Kelly is a VERY common Irish surname. Why couldn’t it have been a more unusual name????
I really hope I can eventually figure this out. It gets very frustrating having close DNA matches and then not being able to figure out the connection. Much more about this on Friday.
The Tragic Events of the Finch Family
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Blizard family. Richard Blizard was married to Catherine Finch. Catherine was the daughter of James Finch Jr and Sarah Tooker. James was the son of James Finch Sr and Catherine Gale. I assume the town of Finchville, NY was named after James Sr since that is where he lived after moving there from Goshen, NY. He had served in both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Here’s the link to his descendants https://myfamgen.com/finch-family/.
But the real story involves James Jr and his family. Toward the end of 1843 a Typhus Fever Epidemic broke out in Mount Hope, NY where they lived. From mid November to late December, James, his wife Sarah, four of their adult children, and one grandchild died. Their son James Manning Finch died the following February, either from typhus or just exhaustion from caring for the rest of his sick family members. The manuscript “Descendants of John Finch of Connecticutt” (and no I didn’t type that wrong, Connecticut is spelled with two “t”s on the manuscript) contains a letter that James Manning Finch wrote in mid-December to his father’s brother Solomon who was then living in Ohio. James Manning Finch writes that his brother Jesse, age 35, died on November 30th. He was not married and lived at home with his parents. Martha, the daughter of his brother Peter, had died previously on November 17th at the age of 20. Both his mother (Sarah) and his sister Sarah died on December 30. (This doesn’t make sense if the letter was written on December 13th which is when it was supposed to have been written.) His father James Jr died on December 7th. His brother John who was married and had three children and lived in Sussex County, New Jersey had been at their father’s farm during their parents’ illness and died back at his home in New Jersey on December 9th. (Thankfully his wife and children did not get sick.) The cause of death for all the people who died was Typhus Fever. At the time the letter was written, his sisters Julia and Catherine(wife of Richard Blizard) were both very sick, but they hoped they would recover. Julia did survive, but Catherine died on December 30th. James mentions that Solomon’s sister Karen (Finch) Newkirk was well. He also says that he and his brother Zophar were quite unwell. “Anxiety and fatigue in taking care of the sick and dying have worn us out.” Zophar survived, but James died the following February.
I promise I’ll find a more upbeat story to post next week.