Today I’m writing about the Hall family. Margaret Hall, my great-great-grandmother, was born in 1813 in Lycoming County. She married a fellow Lycoming Countian, Jacob Klees. Lycoming County is filled with ancestors from my mom’s side of the family. Many Halls appear on the 1873 map I wrote about last month, near various members of the Gortner and Klees families.
The Halls were relatively easy to find in the censuses throughout 1800s. Margaret’s parents, were Jonathan Hall and Mary Marsh. In addition to finding them in the census, I found them in the Family Data Collection on ancestry.com. I wasn’t familiar with this collection and researched it a bit only to discover some controversy with it. Still, I may have picked up some potentially useful information, including Jonathan’s birth date in 1788 and marriage year of 1812, along with his parent’s names. I also found a transcription of an 1812 marriage announcement for Jonathan and Polly Marsh. That was when I found out Polly is a nickname for Mary. Funny, I never knew that before.
According to the Family Data Collection, Jonathan’s father was Richard Hall and his mother’s name was Mary. But, I received information from the Lycoming County Historical Society that indicates his mother was Sarah Burrows. But, information from two books on archive.org, indicate Jonathan was the son of Richard Hall and Margaret Rogers. Well, I think I have to go with the Historical Society because they have Richard Hall’s will from 1849. It lists his wife Sarah (Burroughs), his sons, Jonathan, James and Joseph, and his daughters, Elizabeth, w/o Samuel Hall and Susannah w/o William Ramsey. I’m guessing there are several Richard Halls I should sort out.
Wish me luck.
