Seth Pope & Deborah Perry.

This is one of my early New England families.  Both Seth Pope and Deborah Perry are first generation descendants of immigrants  Seth Pope was born 13 Jan 1649 in Plymouth, Massachusetts to Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney.   If you want to read more about Seth Pope specifically check out In their footsteps - Seth Pope.  

Seth Pope was the oldest son Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney.  His father arrived from England as part of the "Mary and John" immigration and arrived sometime between 1630-1632.  Sarah Jenney was born to her parents in Jul 1623 on the ocean voyage to America.  Seth was the oldest 11 children. Remarkably, 10 of those 11 children lived to adulthood...which seems to be remarkable for the time period.

 According to the Pope genealogy, Seth Pope first appears as a peddler in Sandwich, MA.  He ended up buying a boat and settled in Acushnet, MA.  He was active in the coast wide trade and operated a wharf and warehouse.  By the time of his death on 17 Mar 1727, he owned farms, dwelling houses, a saw and grist mill as well as his store and warehouse.

Deborah Perry was the daughter of Ezra Perry Sr and Elizabeth Burgess.  Both were immigrants from England - Ezra Perry having arrived with his parents in 1637 to Massachusetts from Devonshire, England.  Elizabeth Burgess was born in Truro, Cornwall, England and also probably arrived in 1637 with her parents as well.  They were married on 15 Feb 1651 in Sandwich, MA.  Deborah was the second of 6 children, and the oldest daughter.

I don't imagine that Seth Pope and Deborah Perry's life was easy - but it must have been much easier than their immigrant parents.  I always think about the journey across the ocean being a particularly harrowing journey and when these new arrivals got to America - it must have been a very strange place to try to forge out a new life.

My line from Seth Pope & Deborah Perry is:

Elnathan Pope m. Margaret Pope (Daughter of Isaac Pope and Alice Freeman - Granddaughter of Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney - They were 1st cousins)
Seth Pope m. Sarah Winslow
Winslow Pope m. Mary Wheelock
Francis Pope m. Belinda Willey
Winslow Lonsdale Pope m. Nancy Ann Marie Lyons
Shirlie Louisa Pope m. Ulpian Grey Johnson
Frank Stewart Johnson m. Helen Marian Gage (my grandparents)

If you click on the links above, you will be connected to their Find a Grave profile.  This is one of best things that the internet has brought to modern genealogy.  The photos of some of these very old gravestones are being photographically preserved and made available to those of us who don't live close enough to visit these graves.  They stretch from old cemeteries in Massachusetts and Quebec, Canada to tiny cemeteries in North Dakota and Idaho.

A Gallup Puzzle (in Nebraska)

When I first started piecing my own Gallup family together, I found an “odd” Gallup that I couldn’t put within my own Gallup line.  My grandmother used to talk a lot about her Aunt Lila.  My grandmother never knew her natural grandmother…but she did know her step grandmother very well….and her step grandmother’s relatives became my grandmother’s relatives. (Tamsey Perry m. George Christian Shawver and became my great grandmother’s step mother) So…I understood how Aunt Lila fit (she was Tamsey Perry Shawver’s sister, but how did her husband, Albert Gallup?

Lila Corine Perry was born 7 Jun 1878 in Bridgewater, Adair Co., IA.  She was the daughter of Joseph Henry Perry and Sara Ada Drake and was the fourth oldest in a family of seven.  Lila married Albert George Gallup on 19 Dec 1896 in Monona Co., IA.  By 1910, Lila was living in Burt Co., NE with her growing family.  There were a multitude of Gallup’s living in Burt Co., NE and I am sure that Albert knew the family.  I assumed that he was connected to my Gallup branch either through Silas Gallup and Phoebe Montanye or James Ebenezer Gallup and wife Ella Bacon.  To my surprise he was not connected to either family…at least not closely.

One thing that the search for Albert Gallup did for me, was force me to fill in the blanks as much as possible.  This assured me that Albert was not a close connection, so now it was time to approach him as I would any other genealogical mystery.  My first step was to check the census records.  I located Albert in Fairbank, Buchanan Co., IA in 1870 as a two year old with his parents Weldon Porter Gallup and mother Mary.  I found that Weldon Porter Gallup was born in Italy, Yates Co., NY.  As a young man, he moved to Mercer Co., PA and married Mary Ann McGranahan on 30 Mar 1863.  Unfortunately, this bit of information did not immediate connect me back further into the Gallup line.  I have Gallup’s dating back to my ancestor, John Gallop b. 1591 in Mosterdon, Dorset, England who was married to Christobel Bruschett.  John Gallop arrived in Boston on the Mary and John in 1630.  I am descended through his son, John Gallup (m. Hannah Lake) who moved to Connecticut.  My Gallup’s moved from Connecticut to New York in 1796 and my Gallup branch left New York in 1887 for Nebraska.  Weldon Porter Gallup didn’t fit in with the descendants of John Gallup and Hannah Lake.  In the nine generations from John Gallup to myself, Weldon Porter Gallup didn’t fit.  He was part of my Connecticut branch, nor New York and certainly not Nebraska.  So, it was time to see if I could take him back a bit further.  My 1987 Gallup genealogy only took him back one further generation – but that was the important key.

Back in 1997, I was unemployed and bored, so I input all of the 1966 Gallup genealogy into my database.  Since that point, I have communicated with a lot of researchers and the majority of them are descended through the John Gallup (m. Hannah Lake) line.  When I referred to the 1987 Gallup genealogy, I found an entry for Weldon Porter Gallup and his father William Weldon Gallup but nothing further.  I found an entry in my database of a William Weldon Gallup.  William Weldon Gallup was also born in New York, traveled to Pennsylvania and was buried in the same county in Iowa that Weldon Porter Gallup married his wife.  After connecting with other researchers, I had finally connected Albert George Gallup to his Nebraska distant cousins…and it stretches back many generations before they meet: 

Here is Albert’s line:

• Albert George Gallup m. Lila Corine Perry
• Weldon Porter Gallup m. Mary A. McGranahan
• William Weldon Gallup m. Minerva Mary Holcomb
• Joseph Gallop m. Jerusha Treat
• William Gallop m. Hannah
• Benjamin Gallup m. Theoda Parke
• John Gallup III m. Elizabeth Harris
• John Gallup m. Hannah Lake

My nearest direct Gallup ancestor (with that last name) is Edith Phoebe Gallup my great great grandmother who was married to Orlando Gage.  Here is her line:

• Edith Phoebe Gallup m. Orlando Gage
• Silas Gallup m. Phoebe Montanye
• Ebenezer Gallup m. Susan Harden
• Silas Gallup m. Sarah Gallup
• Nathaniel Gallup m. Hannah Gore (Silas’ parents)
• Nathan Gallup m. Sarah Giddings (Sarah’s parents)
• Nathaniel Gallup m. Margaret Gallup (Nathaniel’s parents)
• Benadam Gallup , Jr. m. Eunice Cobb (Nathan’s parents)
• John Gallup III m. Elizabeth Harris (Nathaniel Sr’s parents)
• Benadam Gallup m. Esther Prentice (Margaret Gallup’s parents)
• Benadam Gallup m. Esther Prentice (Benadam Gallup, Jr’s parents)
• John Gallup III and Bendam Gallup are both the sons of John Gallup m. Hannah Lake

I must say that Albert George Gallup’s line is much easier to spell out than mine.  Edith’s parents are buried in Lyons, Burt Co., NE with many of their children also in the same cemetery.  Albert and his wife, Lila are buried about fifteen miles away in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Decatur, Burt Co., NE.  My genealogy programs tells me that my great great grandmother Edith and Albert Gallup were half 5^th cousins.  I suspect that the Gallups in Burt Co., NE never knew what their family connection was with Albert Gallup.

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mom...Betty Tannahill Johnson

I am the daughter of a fabulous mother.  She was strict, loving, wise and fun.  I don’t know if there is a better combination in my opinion.  I had her for thirty eight years until she passed.  I miss her every day and will always miss her.  However, I was lucky.  I had a wise and wonderful mother to guide me, nurture me and love me.  Not all children are as fortunate as I was – and sometimes it takes a special woman to mother a motherless child.

Cappy and her mother Sophie!

My grandmothers were both as fortunate as I…they too had loving mothers who helped guide them through life.  Grandma Cappy had her mother until sixty eight years old and Grandma Marian had her mother until she was almost seventy one years.  While I never had the discussion with Grandma Cappy…Grandma Marian and I agreed that you never stopped missing your mother even if you were lucky to have them a long time.  However, Grandma Sophia (Mom Friddle) and Grandma Florence weren't quite so lucky.  Both lost their mothers had a young age.

Rebecca Jane "Frankie" Pitsenbarger Shawver

Grandma Florence’s mother was Rebecca Jane “Frankie” Pitsenbarger .  Frankie was the daughter of William Pitsenbarger and Mary Amick.  Grandma Florence was the third of six children, she had and older sister and brother and a younger brother and sister.  The youngest sister died at a year of age.   When Frankie died in 1904 tuberculosis, she left behind five motherless children.  The oldest who was 13 and the youngest was only three. When Grandma Florence’s father, George Christian Shawver, remarried two years later, it must have been a daunting task that faced her. 

Tamsey Perry Shawver

Tamsey Omiska Perry was a widow herself, and had one young son.  When she married Chris Shawver, she gained five more children.  From everything that I have heard, she took that role very seriously.  I never heard my Grandma Florence say one negative word about Tamsey and she always called her mother.  I always saw Grandma Florence as one of the kindest and gentlest of women.  I've been told that she was a great deal like her mother…and Grandma Florence regarded Tamsey as her mother.  She took on the care of those motherless children but more importantly, she loved them as a mother should.  Every one of her children held her in the highest regard.  It takes a special kind of strength and love to take someone else’s children and treat them as your own.   I never knew Grandma Shawver, but I know that my Grandma Florence missed both of her mother’s every day for the rest of her long life.

Buena Vista Bailey Dollar

Grandma Sophie’s mother was Buena Vista Bailey and I think that my grandmother knew very little about her mother.  Buena Vista Bailey was born in 1872 and she too lost her mother at the age of five to tuberculosis.  Her father married a widow who also had several children.  Buena Vista married John Dula Dollar on 21 Apr 1889 when she was 17 years old.  She had her son Claude in 1890, daughter Bessie in 1891 and Grandma Sophia was born on 27 Jan 1894.  Just a few short months later on 14 Apr 1894, Buena Vista died.  I don’t know what the exact death cause was…perhaps it was the effects of childbirth, but I suspect from what I have learned of late that it might have been tuberculosis as it seemed rampant within her family.  Her mother died of tuberculosis and I know of two siblings who also suffered from the disease.  Grandma Sophie was left with her Grandfather and step grandmother, Lulu Pearce.  When her father remarried a few years later, (John Dula Dollar m. Cleopatra Gentry on 28 Mar 1897), Grandma Sophie stayed with her grandfather and step grandmother.  Lulu Pearce was absurdly young to be called a grandmother.  She had married Alexander Monroe Dollar when she was nineteen years old and now she was twenty-six.  From what I know of Grandma Sophie’s childhood – she was spoiled and coddled by her adoring grandmother.  She never learned to do the things that young women learned back in the early years of the twentieth century.  When her grandfather died in 1908, her grandmother knew that her father would take his daughter back to live in his house.  Lulu feared that Grandma Sophie would be nothing more than a nanny to her younger siblings and when the time came; she strongly encouraged Grandma Sophie to elope…which she did.  I gather from one of Grandma Sophie’s nieces (through her full sister Bessie) that they weren't too fond of the step mother.  She was called “Old Pate!” and Bessie didn't have much good to say about her stepmother.  She had had to live with her father and stepmother, while Grandma Sophie had stayed with her grandfather and step grandmother.

David Carl Friddle & Sophia Dollar - After their elopment

There is a lot I don’t know about Lulu Pearce…I know that she remarried within a year after her husband’s death and moved to nearby Ashe Co., NC from Johnson Co., TN.  She again took the mothering role to her second husband’s grandson.  Grandma Sophie was able to go back and visit Lulu before she died.  That must have been a wonderful reunion.  Grandma Sophie hadn't seen her for over 40 years, and she was able to be with this woman who was the only mother she had ever known.

So, as Mother’s day approaches…I think of my own wonderful mother as well as my grandmothers.  We share a common bond in that we had wonderful and long lasting relationships with our natural mothers.  However, I must also honor all the women who taken on the role of motherhood to children who they never gave birth too.  So…I honor Grandma Tamsey Shawver and Grandma Lulu Dollar and thank them for taking on the role of mother to Grandma Florence and Grandma Sophia.  As they helped shape them into the wonderful women that they became in life…they have also helped shape me as their great granddaughter.  Happy Mother’s Day Momma…and all of the other Mom’s out there whether you gave birth to your children or took them into your heart!

Great Great Aunt Jeanne

Taken 1981 - Top L- Ernie, Dewey, Harold
Bottom L: Ruth, Jessie, Florence and Jeanne
(7 of the Shawver Siblings)

A few days ago, we learned that my great great Aunt Jeanne had passed away.  She was the last of my great grandmother’s siblings – and had been the last one for the last ten years.  I always identified with Aunt Jeanne…and whenever we got together at reunions or funerals, I always spent some time visiting with her.  I don’t think that she would be offended if I called her a combination of “sugar and spice!”  I believe that she would appreciate the cooking term as she was a well known "great" cook.  Aunt Jeanne was a lady who as incredibly kind and loving but she always had spine of steel.  The health challenges alone that she survived took a strong will.  She had had numerous joint replacements for the last 20 years.  Aunt Jeanne was stubbornly independent but was also generous and strong presence in the lives of all she touched. She was a wonderful mother and grandmother – the devotion of her children and grandchildren are proof of that. 


George William Shawver &
Elizabeth Matilda Legg

In genealogical terms, I have always found Aunt Jeanne to be fascinating.  She was the youngest child of the 17 children of George Christian Shawver (he had three separate families).  Her oldest sibling was born in 1883 (Harvey) and she was a great aunt when she was only a few years old.  Her paternal grandparents were born early in the previous century.  George William Shawver was born 15 Nov 1824 and his wife, Elizabeth Matilda Legg was born 16 May 1830.  They both died in 1900 (Elizabeth on 12 Feb 1900 & George on 9 Mar 1900) and her paternal great grandparents were born in the late 18^th century.  Aunt Jeanne was born on 6 Jun 1926 when her father was 59 years old and her mother was 44 years old.  Her next oldest sibling, Virginia, was eight years older than her.  I suspect that she was an “oops” baby!  My great grandmother, Florence, was born on 14 Jun 1897 and she married in 1917 when she was 20 years old.  Her oldest five children were all older than Aunt Jeanne.  Aunt Jeanne used to love to hear stories from my grandmother and great uncle because she said that they knew her father better than she did.  They had more time with their grandfather than Aunt Jeanne had with her father.  Aunt Jeanne lost her father in 1931, when she was only 5 years old and she was raised by her mother.  She married Warren Renz in 1946 in Lyons, Burt Co., NE and she and Warren were the parents of six children.  Aunt Jeanne lost her husband twenty years ago and had remained a widow since.

George Christian "Chris"  Shawver & Tamsey Perry

It wasn’t just the gap in years with her ancestral generations but even when with the younger generations.  She was my great great aunt and 42 years older than I!  She was a great aunt before she was a mother.  She probably had at least 20 great, great, great, great nieces and nephews.  She has a large family with many children and grandchildren – but her nieces and nephews must number near 1000 and span at least 5 generations.  (I know from my family alone, there are about 180 nieces and nephews!)  Her father was old enough to have known his grandparents who were born in the 1700’s and Aunt Jeanne was old enough to remember her father.  That span of memory is over 200 years. 

It will be strange attending the next Shawver picnic and not finding Aunt Jeanne there with her coffee directing traffic or at the Gage picnic enjoying the visiting with the family.   She has been a presence in my life – for my entire life…and I will miss her!

Early Pope Ancestors

You will never find one of my ancestors listed on the Ellis Island records or probably any immigrant records past 1810.  From what I have been able to discover, most of my ancestors arrived much earlier with a large group arriving in the 1700’s and many arrived much earlier including the group that arrived on the Mayflower and shortly thereafter.  One of these couples both arrived with their families shortly after the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620 and were my 8^th great grandparents

.

Thomas Pope was born about 1608 in England – as far as I know, his parents are unknown.  He arrived in America around 1632 and married Ann Fallowell in 1637 in Plymouth Co., MA and after her death married Sarah Jenney on 19 May 1646 in Dartmouth, Bristol Co., MA.  Thomas first appears on the 1633 tax list and is listed as a cooper by occupation.  He was chosen as a Constable in Plymouth in 1645 and a surveyor of highways in 1651 and 1652.  Thomas owned several lots of land including Plymouth and Dartmouth.  He died before Aug 1683 when his estate is inventoried.  Thomas would be counted as one of the more prominent men of the colony. 

Sarah Jenney, Thomas Pope’s second wife, was born in July 1623 on the “Little James” while crossing the ocean to her parents, John Jenney and Sarah Carey.  I have heard John Jenney described as a cooper and as a brewer.  However, he was most known as a miller and built a mill in 1636 that remained in continuous operation until it was destroyed by a fire in 1847.  The Jenney Grist mill was a center for commerce because John Jenney would usually trade goods and services for the milling of corn, wheat, and rye flours.  When Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney married in 1646 it was after the death of her father who died in 1644.  They had 7 children.  I am descended from both their oldest son, Seth, and their youngest son, Isaac.  Seth’s son, Elnathan married Isaac’s daughter Margaret Pope.

 

While Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney were probably considered to be a fairly successful family in the colony, they experienced one of the worst tragedies that any family could face.  Susannah Pope and her husband Jacob Mitchell and her younger brother, John were killed by King Phillip’s warriors as they were fleeing to the Dartmouth garrison in July 1675.  If you have never heard of “King Philip’s War” you can look at http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/enquirer/king_philip.htm - King Philip aka Metacomet was the Chief of the Wampanoags who led a war against the Plymouth colony villages.  The whole situation was a disaster for both the Puritans and the Wampanoags.

 

If you are interested in further information on the Pope family – You can check out the “Genealogy of Thomas Pope (1608-1883) and his descendants” at http://books.google.com/books/about/Genealogy_of_Thomas_Pope_1608_1883_and_h.html?id=E3tIAAAAMAAJ

You can also visit www.findagrave.com and see some of the early Pope gravestones including that of Deborah Perry, wife of Seth Pope a the Acushnet Cemetery which is the oldest stone still in existence at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8233908