Sunday 20 December 2015

Does it MATTER?

A recent smartmatch on MyHeritage led me on a wonderful, overdue, voyage of exploration on what on earth did happen to the children of my 3x great grandmother Betsy MATTERS' brother Joseph (married Mary CUDLIP).
Betty's tree showed that their daughter Elizabeth married a John NORTHMORE and had emigrated to the States.
That led me to re-check data from many years ago that had her brother Richard possibly in Michigan but not proven at the time.
One thing led to another and I also realised I'd never investigated what happened to Joseph and Betsy's sister Honour either.
Sure enough, yet another immigrant, but with a bit of a mystery involved in the records.
When did she and her husband die?

Honor BORLEY nee METTERS or MATTERS:
Of the 18 tree matches ancestry throws up as a hint, 2 are actually her sister, 2 don't venture a death date, the rest consistently show her as dying in Ulster, New York in Jun 1880.
I found a source document for her death - the mortality schedule (edited here to bring the relevant entries up to the headings from the bottom of the page)
which purports to show deaths to the year ending 31st May 1880.
Both Francis and Honor show on the schedule, Francis as dying in March, Honor in June.
Both show as married (the heading options are single, married, widowed), which itself causes a few logistical problems as one had to have died prior to the other.
At this point I concluded that Honor had died in Jun 1879 and Francis in Mar 1880.
So far so good.

Then I looked in the 1880 census for their children.
There, in Kingston, Ulster, NY is son Thomas and family.
Date of the census is 17 Jun 1880.
In the household is his widowed father Francis, aged 83.

Anyone found a headstone? A family bible?
I'm happy enough that Honor probably died in Jun 1879 but what about Francis?