Youngs Again

As I worked on my Youngs line for my Monday post, I ran into some, shall we say, misdirection in sources I found.  In the end I was feeling confident I had traced the line accurately, but it lacked the closure I like.

I had been concerned about the connection from David Youngs, my 5x great-grandfather back to the next generation.  Was his father John or was it Judge Benjamin?  And while I was at it, I wanted at least one more source showing my 4x great-grandfather, James, was David’s son.

So, instead of preparing a post on my Halsey line, I kept at my online search.  I had read that the most reliable source on Youngs genealogy was Youngs family : Vicar Christopher Yonges, his ancestors in England and his descendants in America : a history and genealogy by Seleh Youngs and published in 1907.  But I hadn’t been able to locate a digitized copy.  I wanted to make another attempt because I thought maybe it had been partially transcribed somewhere.  I don’t remember now how I discovered it on ancestry.com, but there it was—the whole book digitized.

It’s tempting to wish I had discovered it earlier in order to save a lot of effort.  But I found tons of transcribed records for the Youngs that I might not otherwise have added to my documentation.  And I learned a lot about the family in the process.

Oh, yes, sure enough, David’s father was John and his son, James, was the right James.  What surprised me was the volume of information about David.  He was a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Setauket, Long Island and the book had eight pages devoted to him and included a facsimile of two handwritten pages of one of his sermons. 

The book also answered a lingering question I had.  David Youngs was born and died on Long Island.  How did James end up in New Jersey?  After David’s death, his wife Bethia married Judge Benjamin Halsey of Morristown, NJ and her four children grew up and were married there.  (There is a typo in the book—it has “Morristown, NY”, not NJ, but it is clear from the context, New Jersey is the intended state).


I also found a few unexpected nuggets of information.  James was in the state militia during the Revolution and his daughter Hannah settled in Schenectady, NY after her marriage to Joseph Hinds.  That last bit will hopefully lead to some clues about the Hinds family.

Up next, the Halsey family, not because Bethia married a Halsey after David’s death, but because James married his step-sister, Ruth Halsey!

Hinds-sight

I still have a lot of research to do on the Hinds (variations: Hines, Hindes).  Initially it seemed like I would be okay because I had family reunion documents, one from 1910 and one from 1933.  But the only dates were handwritten in the margins and there were no towns mentioned.  Still it was something to go on.

My maternal great-grandmother, Mary Etta Hinds, wife of Everett Gaskill, was born in New York in 1846 and died in Emporium, PA in 1897, so I at least knew which states to start in.  And I did know a few generations of names so that helped with the census research.  In 1865, Mary Etta’s future husband enlisted in the Union Army in Union, NY—her hometown in 1860.  It looks like the Everett Gaskill followed the Hinds family to Pennsylvania between 1870 and 1880.    So, when the Hinds showed up in the same geographical areas as the Gaskills, I felt I was headed in the right direction.  Because I'm so new to this, I always worry I’m going to rush off on a wild goose chase, but I was comfortable enough to target New York.

Mary Etta’s father was Solomon Hinds, who was supposedly born in Morris, NJ around 1816 and died in Cameron County, PA.  He's listed in the census and in the reunion brochures, but otherwise he is like a ghost.  Except I do have his photo! It’s from the late 1800s.  

Solomon's father, Joseph Hinds, was listed as the head of the clan in the reunion booklets and was married to Hannah Youngs.  I was able to locate him and his family in US census records, the earliest being 1820, in Danby, NY.  In later censuses, his place of birth, in around 1778, was listed as New Jersey.  Directing myself to New Jersey, further research led to the History of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, New Jersey on Google Books.  There I found a reference to Joseph Hinds marriage to Hannah Youngs on March 24, 1804.  I’ve been looking for Joseph in the 1810 census, but I suspect he might not have been a head-of-household at that point.

But what a lack of information, especially compared to what I found out about other branches of the family.  My blogging is catching up with my research, so I haven’t had the opportunity to contact the local historical societies in New York and New Jersey, but I hope to get to that soon.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I get some good leads.