An Ostrich Ride for Evan and Annie Evans: Wordless Wednesday

Evan Evans was a native of Carno in Montgomeryshire, Wales, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1881. He and his wife, Annie (whose maiden name was also Evans), lived in Bratenahl, Ohio. Their granddaughter told me that they took the train out to California on vacation more than once. This was taken at the Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena, probably in the late 1920s. It looks like they were in for a fun ride, doesn’t it? It’s one of my favorite photos.

--Shelley

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The Arch City, 1905

Finding Common Names in Census Records: Evans, Part 1

Finding Common Names in Census Records: Evans, Part 2

A Brilliant Reception for John and Carrie Evans: Wedding Wednesday

Thoughts of love and weddings seem to come naturally around Valentine’s Day. And who doesn’t love a good wedding announcement? One of my favorites is this one for John Evans and Carrie Beum, my husband’s great-grandparents. It appeared on the front page of the Westerville, Ohio Public Opinion on New Year’s Eve, 1896. I can almost see the hall lit up for their reception on one of the most festive nights of the year, the guests dressed in their holiday finest, the tables aglow in candlelight.

                                   Will Wed This Eve. 

         John Evans, one of the most popular conductors on the Columbus Central, and Miss Carrie Beum, the accomplished daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Beum, are to be married at the home of the bride’s parents on Plum street this evening at 8 o’clock. Rev. N. D. Creamer will be the clergyman in charge, and James Lawson and Miss Barbara Williams are to be best man and bridesmaid. The bride and groom will spend a few days with the latter’s parents in Columbus, where a brilliant reception is to be given them to-morrow evening. They will reside here and, for our part, we wish them abundance of all that is good. (1)

John Evans

John was an immigrant from Montgomeryshire, Wales, having arrived in Columbus in 1881. Carrie was the only daughter of a long-established Ohio family. I’m not sure how or where their paths crossed—perhaps it was literally on one of the High St. streetcars he conducted. How long did they court? What did they like to do? I have a picture of John, young and handsome, but none of Carrie. I wish I knew what she looked like, how pretty she was in her wedding dress. 

I like to think of the new Mr. and Mrs. John Evans on their wedding night, happy and surrounded by family and friends on the cusp of a new year, because their happiness would be cut short all too soon. In less than two generations’ time, even Carrie’s name would be lost, just a shadowy figure in the family lore. But that, my friends, is a story for another time. For now, let’s let love carry the day, and raise a toast to wedding nights gone by.

--Shelley

Written in conjunction with the 2013 Family History Writing Challenge

1. “Will Wed This Eve.,” Public Opinion (Westerville, Ohio), 31 December 1896, p. 1, col. 2.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/46603454@N02/4531806670/">Passion for Flowers</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

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Evans Family Portrait

Finding Common Names in Census Records: Evans, part 2

Lately I’ve been working on the challenge of identifying three generations of my husband’s family, all named Evan Evans, in the census records of Montgomeryshire, Wales. Evans is a very common surname there, and it’s taken some strategic moves to narrow the field and find exactly the right family. If you haven’t read Part 1 of the story yet, with my first few strategies, you can find it here. As a refresher, here’s a cast of characters guaranteed to make you head spin:

• Evan Evans, born about 1840, who married Mary Hughes (Evan A)
• His father Evan Evans, born about 1812, who married Elizabeth Jones (Evan B)
• His grandfather Evan Evans, born about 1781, who married Elizabeth Reynolds (Evan C)

After the first flush of success finding Evan A and Mary with their children in the 1881 and 1871 censuses of Wales, I hit a roadblock with the hunt for Evan A as a youth in his parents’ home in the 1861 census. I had one candidate who fit the location well, but the father was widowed and the results inconclusive.

If you’re not getting anywhere, try a different tack

In a sailboat race, if a boat isn’t catching the wind, it will come about and head off on another tack. Since I couldn’t pin down either Evan A or Evan B in 1861, that’s what I had to do now. With a less common name, I might have broadened my search to adjacent counties. But that wouldn’t help here because I already had an overabundance of results. Another thing I could do was look at Evan’s neighbors in 1881 and 1871, and see if I could find them in 1861. But what I chose to do instead was look for Evan’s mysterious brother, John Higgs.

Higgs is a much less common surname and I quickly found John in Carno in 1861. But the census record didn’t give me the results I hoped for. He wasn’t living with the Evans family; he was living in Stephen Higgs’ household, and identified as Stephen’s brother. Evan was nowhere to be found. There was, however, a Hannah Evans, identified as “sister.” Hmmm. The plot thickened.

Yet another tack was in order. I left the 1861 census and decided to search in 1851. According to the family summary, I could expect Evan B to be about 39 years old, with a wife Elizabeth and a son Evan (A) about 11 years old. I had no idea if they had any other children. But I was tired of looking for Evans—I had Evans coming out the wazoo by this time—and this Higgs business intrigued me. So I started my search of the 1851 census of Montgomeryshire by looking for John Higgs, born about 1837.

And just like that, there was my family. With one important twist.

1851 Census of Wales, Evan Evans (B) (see source citation below)

• Place: Trawscoed township, Carno, Montgomeryshire, Wales
• Evan Evans, head, married, 37, farmer (90 acres) employing no man, born in Carno, Montgomeryshire
• Hannah Evans, wife, married, 45, born in Carno
• Children: Mary Evans, daughter, 13; Evan Evans, son, 11; Hannah Evans, daughter, 9; Rebecca Evans, daughter, 7; Margaret Evans, daughter, 5; Stephen Higgs, stepson, 22; Elizabeth Higgs, stepdaughter, 17; John Higgs, stepson, 15 (all born in Carno, Montgomeryshire) 

Form a hypothesis if you find unexpected results

As you can see, Evan B wasn’t married to Elizabeth in 1851, but to Hannah. There’s no mention of Hannah in the family summary, so how do I really know this is the right family? I needed to make a hypothesis and test it with other evidence. The hypothesis I drew up is: If Evan Evans married Elizabeth Jones, as asserted in the family summary, she died prior to 1850. Evan remarried to a woman named Hannah, who previously had been the wife of a Mr. Higgs. She brought at least three children—Stephen, Elizabeth, and John Higgs—from this marriage into Evan’s household.

I decided to look back to the previous census, 1841, the earliest one available, for more clues. I searched for Evan Evans (B), born about 1812, in Montgomeryshire. Ancestry returned 57 results. Based on my locality information, I narrowed that down to six likely records. One of these, in Trawscoed township, Carno, was clearly a better match than any of the others. It was the household of Evan Evans, a 30-year-old farmer, with Hannah Evans, age 35; Mary Evans, 3; Evan Evans, 2; Hannah Evans, 9 months; Elizabeth Higgs, 8; John Higgs, 6; Thomas Rees, 15, a servant; and Mary Benbow, 75, Ind. (“of independent means”). Relationships were not stated.

1841 census of Wales, Evan Evans (B) (see source citation below)

This census tells me that Evan’s supposed first wife, Elizabeth, as well as Hannah’s husband Mr. Higgs, died before 1841. I adjusted my hypothesis accordingly. It’s pretty safe to assume that Evan and Hannah were married at the time this census was taken. Most likely, little Hannah Evans was the daughter of Evan and Hannah. It is not possible to determine from this record who the mother of young Mary and Evan Evans was. This census also gives me another name to research: Mary Benbow. Could she be Hannah’s mother, and therefore a clue to her maiden name?

Search for correlating evidence

The census records of 1871 and 1881, where John Higgs is listed in Evan Evans’ household as his brother, support my hypothesis. And the odd result I found for John Higgs in the 1861 census, where he was living with Stephen Higgs, brother, and Hannah Evans, sister, makes perfect sense now. It also made this result from the 1861 census, where Evan B was widowed but living in Carno with children Mary, Evan, Rebecca, and Margaret, look like the correct one:

1861 census of Wales, Evan Evans (B) (see source citation below)

This meant I had five decades worth of census records that were in agreement with one another. The next logical thing to look for was a marriage record for Evan Evans and Hannah Higgs. Unfortunately, very few Welsh marriage records are available at FamilySearch.org, and none at all prior to 1916 on Ancestry.com. Neither could I find any newspapers from Montgomeryshire.

Ancestry.com does have a FreeBMD Index to Welsh death records that begin in July 1837. I searched for an Elizabeth Evans who died between 1837-1840 in Montgomeryshire, and got 29 results. Narrowing it down to the Newtown registration district left me with 12 prospects. Unfortunately, the index does not provide any personal information, so I was unable to tell if any of them might be my Elizabeth. Next, I searched for a man with the surname Higgs who died during the same time period. There were no results in Montgomeryshire, which suggests he may have died prior to when the index starts. Finally, I searched for a Hannah Evans who died between 1851-1861. Again I received way too many prospects in the Newton registration district, with too few details to identify my Hannah. A search through the Welsh death records on FamilySearch.org returned similarly inconclusive results.

As a final step, I searched for the grandfather, Evan C, in the 1841 census. The family summary indicated he was born about 1781, lived in Carno, had married Elizabeth Reynolds, and had children named Evan, Richard, Roger, Maurice, and Mary Elizabeth. Now I just love that name Maurice. It is unusual enough that I rarely get multiple results for him—and with a common surname, you can’t ask for more than that. I’ve already researched Maurice Evans after he immigrated to Columbus, Ohio and have his obituary. He would have been about 18 years old in 1841, and that made quick work out of finding the right family—living in Trawscoed township, Carno—in the census.

1841 census of Wales, Evan Evans (C) (see source citation below)

Evan Evans (C), age 60, had no wife listed and apparently was widowed in 1841. He still had three of his children at home: Roger, Maurice, and Elizabeth. The fact that his son Evan was not living with him supports finding Evan B as the head of his own household in 1841, in the exact same locality as his father. The puzzle pieces fit.

Draw your conclusion and plan future action

Here’s my conclusion: Three generations of the Evan Evans family lived in Trawscoed township, Carno, Montgomeryshire, Wales, between 1841-1881, as evidenced in the census records of that locality. One thread that links the records together is the presence of John Higgs, stepson of Evan B. While more research is needed to confirm the results found in these census records and identify the wives of Evan B, it will primarily need to be done offline in archives and repositories, or possibly on UK-specific websites.

To recap, here are the strategies I used to locate my Evans family in the census:

• Compile background information on your family
• Start your search where you know the most
• Milk every bit of info from the records you find
• If you’re not moving, try a different tack
• Form a hypothesis if you find unexpected results
• Search for correlating evidence
• Draw your conclusion and plan future action

What do you think? Have I made my case for finding the right family? Do the strategies I used seem like they’d be helpful in your own census searches?

Source citations:

1851 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 397, page 13, household 52, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 9 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 104258, class HO107, piece 2496.

1841 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 16, page 2, line 16, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 9 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 464338, class HO107, piece 1436.

1861 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 32, page 5, household 21, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 9 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 543256, RG 9, piece 4247.

1841 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 21, page 11, line 24, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 9 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 464338, class HO107, piece 1436.

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Finding Common Names in the Census: Evans, part 1

Evans Family Portrait: Wordless Wednesday

Finding Common Names in Census Records: Evans, part 1

For the past two weeks, I’ve been searching UK census records for the family of Evan Evans in Montgomeryshire, Wales, which is one of my January goals. The problem wasn’t a lack of findings. It seems like half the families in the county had the surname of either Evans or Jones. And the given name Evan was quite popular, too. So the challenge was identifying my particular family out of a sea of men named Evan Evans. I’ve tried before only to give up discouraged, but this time I’m happy to report success. I found six census records spanning three generations, and identified a wife’s family in two additional records. The process I followed can be used for identifying families with common names in U.S. census records as well. Here’s how I did it:

Compile background information

The first thing I did was read over all my notes and research on the family. I had three generations to work with: an Evan Evans, born about 1840, who married Mary Hughes in 1865 (we’ll call him Evan A); his father Evan Evans, born about 1812, who married Elizabeth Jones (he’ll be Evan B); and his grandfather Evan Evans, born about 1781, who married Elizabeth Reynolds (make him Evan C). Do you know your ancestor's occupation? That can be an important clue. Making a chart, timeline, or ancestor profile can help you visualize the information you have better.

Two pieces of information ended up being keys to my success:

• The name of the town where the family lived. With common names, it’s crucial to pinpoint their locality as much as possible, down to the city or town, and then to the township or parish if possible. I had a short family summary from my husband’s grandmother (Evan A's granddaughter) that said the family lived in Carno, a small town in Montgomeryshire. It was enough to get me going. Admittedly, I was lucky because my family stayed in one place. If your ancestor moved, can you estimate when? Collect clues on both localities.

• A list of all the children of Evan A and some children of Evan C, from the same family summary. With census records, it’s helpful to have the names of as many family members as possible—children, siblings, even in-laws and neighbors.

The family of Evan and Mary (Hughes) Evans

Start your search where you know the most

Like other aspects of genealogy, it’s usually easiest to start with the most recent generation and work backwards. Since I had the names of Evan A’s children and knew some of them immigrated to America in the 1880’s, I started with the 1881 UK census. This first step ended up being pretty easy. Ancestry.com returned 55 results in Montgomeryshire for an Evan Evans born within two years of 1840, but only four of these met my criteria. One Evan Evans living in Carno with a wife Mary had four children whose names and ages corresponded with those on my list. There was one extra person listed in Evan’s household: 46-year-old John Higgs, whose relationship was “brother.” My first thought was that Higgs must actually be Mary’s brother, since her maiden name was Hughes—perhaps the enumerator got the spelling wrong. But as you’ll see later, that assumption was a mistake.

1881 census of Wales (see below for source citation)

It was relatively easy to find Evan A in the 1871 census, too. Ancestry.com returned 53 results in Montgomeryshire for an Evan Evans born in 1840 (plus or minus 2 years), but only three matched my criteria for both town (Carno) and wife’s name (Mary). One of these, an Evan living in the township of Trawscoed, had children corresponding to the names and ages of Evan A’s three oldest kids (Evan, John, and Thomas). And there was John Higgs again, a 34-year-old laborer, identified as Evan’s brother.

1871 census of Wales (see below for source citation)

So far, so good. But going back to 1861 meant taking the search back a generation, before Evan A’s marriage to Mary. I didn’t know if Evan A had siblings, so I didn’t have any names other than his parents, Evan and Elizabeth, as a guide. Would my strategies be enough to overcome this hurdle?

Milk every bit of info from the records you find

Ancestry.com showed me 59 men named Evan Evans in Montgomeryshire in 1861 who were born about 1840. Fourteen of them were residing with fathers named Evan, three of them lived in Carno, and several had a mother named Elizabeth. I went through them one by one. But none of them seemed like a good match for my Evan. I had given up at this point before, because it seemed like I just didn’t have enough information to make a connection. He had to be floating around there somewhere, but where?

I took a closer look at the locality information for the two census records I had found. In both 1871 and 1881, Evan Evans was living in Trawscoed township. His registration district was Newton, and his sub-district was Llanwnog. (US censuses often note the township, and in various years the enumeration district and/or post office district.) Now, it’s certainly possible that he lived in a different place as an adult than he had as a child. But it’s also possible that he lived in the same place. There was one Evan Evans residing in Trawscoed township in 1861, and he had a father named Evan. But there was no wife named for the elder Evan; he was marked widowed. Four children were listed, but I had no names to compare them with. It seemed inconclusive at best, risky at worse, to assume this was my man. I tried searching for a death record for Elizabeth Evans, but without at least an estimated date, there were too many possibilities. It looked like I was drawing a blank on 1861.

If you’d like to know how I eventually solved this, and the rest of my tips for finding common names in the census, stay tuned for the next part of the story later this week! 

Source citations:

1881 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 28, page 3, household 16, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 5 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 1342318, RG11, piece 5483.

1871 census of Wales, Montgomeryshire, Carno, Trawscoed Township, folio 28, page 1, household 6, Evan Evans; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 5 January 2012); citing original records, The National Archives of the UK, London, GSU roll 892470, RG10, piece 5611.

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Evans Family Portrait – Wordless Wednesday

The Arch City, 1905

Lisa at Are You My Cousin? is hosting a Postcard Bonanza, inviting bloggers to share some of their favorite family postcards. What a great idea! Vintage postcards are so much fun, aren’t they?

This postcard depicts High Street in Columbus, Ohio around the turn of the century. It’s postmarked December 20, 1905. Columbus used to be nicknamed the "Arch City” because of the lighted arches that spanned High Street downtown and northward. You can see one of the streetcars that ran under the arches in this scene, as well as various horse-drawn carriages. Signs advertise “The New Idea in Millinery” at N. Myers and “Meals 25¢” at a nearby diner. The black clock was a familiar fixture for many years.

The postcard reads: “Dear Bro. & Sister – Just a few lines to tell you that Grandma Evans is very poorly. Will send you a letter end of the wk. Lizzie” It was addressed to Mr. Evan Evans, Lake Shore Blvd., Glenville, Ohio, c/o Samuel Mathers. Evan was a gardener at the Samuel Mathers estate along the shore of Lake Erie. He later became Mathers’ head groundskeeper. Lizzie Roberts and Evan Evans were the sister and brother of my husband’s great-grandfather, John Evans. John was a Columbus streetcar conductor. I wonder if his route took him down High Street?

My father and grandfather used to own Reeb’s Restaurant, which featured murals of classic Columbus scenes painted on the walls. One of the murals portrayed the High Street arches and looked a lot like this postcard. The arches have been recently reconstructed in the Short North district. So a visitor from 1905 might find something familiar in the Columbus of today, after all.

If you'd like to know more about the Columbus arches, check out this article by local historian Ed Lentz. Hope you enjoyed this peek into the past!

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Evans Family Portrait - Wordless Wednesday

Evan Evans and his wife, Mary Hughes Evans, posed with their seven grown children for this family portrait at the Baker Art Studio in Columbus, Ohio. The portrait is undated, but I estimate it dates to about 1895. The Evans were Welsh, having immigrated from Montgomeryshire in north Wales. They look quite distinguished, don’t they?

In the front row, from left to right, are: Mary Evans Williams, Evan Evans (father), Elizabeth Evans Roberts, Mary Hughes Evans (mother), and Hannah Evans Morgan. In the back are: Evan Evans (son), John Evans, Anne Evans Morgan, and Thomas Evans.

Evan and Mary Evans were my husband’s great-great-grandparents, and John Evans was his great-grandfather. As I dip my toes into Welsh research, I’m finding that the Evans surname is just about as common in Wales as Smith is in the U.S. But fortunately I have this lovely photograph to inspire me!


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The Arch City, 1905

Cruisin' in the 1920's - (Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Oh, to be young in the summertime and have a car! This picture, taken in the mid-1920’s, shows Harry Baxter, his sister Agnes “Nan” Baxter (in the middle), and Leatha Evans (left)—probably around the time she became Harry’s wife. Harry, an Irish immigrant, and Leatha, whose family came from Wales, were married on May 27, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. They were my husband's grandparents. I know the quality of this photo isn’t the greatest—I think it's a copy of a copy of a copy—but I’m glad to have it. Harry looks like quite the scamp, doesn’t he? And don’t you just love those 1920’s dresses? Can't help but wonder what they were up to that day!