Monday, November 4, 2013

From a distance of nearly 200 years

Even from the distance of five generations, it was surprisingly sad when I discovered this brief obituary for my 3x great-grandfather in the June 12, 1822 Cayuga Republican:



Based on 1880 census information for his daughters, he was born in Connecticut and based on his own enumeration in the 1820 census, he was born between 1776 and 1794. He was a witness on a Brutus, NY 1810 deed of sale between David Murray and Francis Hall (so there's a chance David was his father or other family member). He married a widow, my 3x great-grandmother Ruth Snow Stanford, around 1811. In addition to his wife, he left behind five children: stepson David Stanford, age 12, Erastus (my gg grandfather), age 10, Jane, age 8, Lydia Ann, age 7, and Lucetta, age 1.

That's it. That's all I know. It may be all I'll ever know. I'm guessing part of the reason we knew so little about this line of my family was because of the stigma of mental illness. Just another family secret kept like the secrets of so many families throughout history.