The Huguenot Walloon Uzille Family

 My 8th great grandfather was the Huguenot Pierre Uziele. Huguenots were French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. His parents at his baptism 14 January 1659/60 at the French Church in Mannheim Germany were David Usille and Marie Casier, He is registered as Pierre. His godparents were Philippe Casier and Marie LeNoir

There is a marriage record from Bergen Church Marriages in NJ for:Josi: Pieter and Cornelia Damen, m. by the minister upon certificate from Breuckelen, Staten Island. 6 April 1686. "Josi" would be the phonetic representation of Pieter's surname "Uziele"

Read more at THE HUGUENOT WALLOON UZILLE FAMILY

Are You a Peer Descendant?

The Peer family were loyal to the British Crown, and suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Jacob and his family left Sussex County New Jersey for Upper Canada in the summer of 1796. Four of Jacob’s sons – Jacob Jr., Edward, John and Philip Peer petitioned for land one year later. They settled in the Hamilton area of what was then the wilderness of Upper Canada.

This series of 6 books discusses the lives of Jacob, his wife and their sons Levi, Edward, Philip, Stephen, and Jacob Jr. Each book is fully sourced with footnotes. Descendants will enjoy seeing images of early documents such as land petitions and wills.

The Peer Family in North America: V.1 Jacob & Anne Peer, Immigrants from New Jersey to Upper Canada in 1796. Revised Edition Available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Also available as an E-book	The Peer Family in North America: V.2 Levi Peer & Elizabeth Marical and their Descendants to 3 Generations Available at or Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Also available as an E-book Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
The Peer Family in North America: V.3 Edward Peer & His Two Wives and their Descendants to 3 Generations Available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Also available as an E-book Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca	The Peer Family in North America: V.4 Philip Peer & his two Wives Ester Dunn and Susan Griniaus and their Descendants to 3 Generations  Available at or Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
The Peer Family in North America: V. 5 Stephen Peer & His Wife Lydia Skinner and their Descendants to 3 Generations Available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca	The Peer Family in North America: V6 Jacob Peer Jr. and his wife Lucy Powers and their Descendants to 2 Generations 152 pages, full color Available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.ca

New Jersey Archives Starts Indexing NJ Early tax Lists

New Jersey State Archives announced yesterday on Twitter:

Archives staff are indexing New Jersey's early tax lists (over 1,800 in all). The resultant database and digital files will eventually be posted for free use on the Archives' website. As most date from 1772-1820, they are vitally important given the loss of New Jersey's first 4 federal censuses.

This is great news for those of us who have New Jersey ancestors pre 1800!  I'll be anxiously watching their website for further updates

Are You a Taelman/Talma descendant?

If you descend from Douwe Harmanse Taelman & Dirkje Teunise I have good news. A new book on the family has just been published.
 
The Taelman family in America descends from two sons of Douwe Harmanse and his wife Dirkje Teunise. Douwe was born in Friesland, married in Amsterdam, and emigrated to New Netherland in June 1658. Eventually the family settled in New Jersey. This book follows the first two generations of Douwe and Dirckje in the New World.

Available now on Amazon.com and on Amazon.ca
 
New Netherland Settlers: The Taelman Family is the 14th published book in my New Netherland Settlers project. The complete list is available on my New Netherland page




 

Finding Nancy Longstreet Part 3

Deciding to go on a hunt for the mysterious John Longstreet born ca 1796 in New Jersey but settling in Ontario was fun. Challenging but fun!

Typing the information above into Ancestry.com search engine brought up two results. I always start with precise information and then I widen my parameters as needed. So I was eager to see the details on the two results of my search.

Online Family Trees

The first hit was an online Family Tree. I don't use online trees for anything except clues and ideas for more searching, because each tree is only as good as the person who did the research. No sources? Forget that tree! Sources are good and that allows you to double check that the conclusions drawn are correct. Don't be fooled. I have encountered trees that linked to a vital record but clicking on the link revealed that the record was NOT for the individual in the tree!

This particular tree had a John Henry Longstreet born ca 1796 in either New York or New Jersey with three wives: Anne Page, Phoebe Bear, and Sarah Lawrence. Five children were shown with wife #1, four with wife #2, and three with wife #3.

Immediately we see that I need to track down every child shown. That is a total of 12 individuals. This was going to be a very time-consuming research project! But my eye immediately seized on an Abigail Longstreet born 1833 in Caledon Township, marrying a Calvin Snyder. According to the online tree she died in 1894 in Gainsborough Township. This was definitely worth investigating. Could she be the 1851 Abigail?

This Abigail was shown as having a sister named Nancy Ann but there were no details about her birth, marriage, or death. I was really intrigued now! I had to take a little detour over to the death registrations to see if Abigail's details were correct, and what else might be found.

Death Registrations

A search for Abigail Snyder on  Ancestry.com revealed she died 31 December 1894 at the age of 61 in Gainsborough, Lincoln County and that she was indeed born in Caledon Township, which is in Peel County Ontario. That clue gave me a new location to search for Nancy Longstreet. New information that I knew might prove useful later was that her husband was a miller in St. Ann's Ontario. Remember that the original query mentioned St. Ann's, so this is interesting. Of course there's also the possibility that the original query got this information from the same online tree I found

The Second Search Engine Result

 

The second "hit" when I searched for John Longstreet was an 1861 census record for Caledon, Peel Township. Clicking on the image showed the following:

Longstreet, John, gentleman, born New Jersey, Baptist, 65
Sarah, born Canada West, Baptist, 55 <--agrees with the online tree showing wife #3 as Sarah
Matilda, born Canada West, Baptist, 18
Francis, born Canada West, Baptist,16
Erastus, born Canada West, Baptist, no age but a note in the column "residence if out of limits" reads "Township of Caledon"

The family lived in a 1 1/2 storey log cabin. A few names further down the page I saw

Longstreet, Henry, farmer, born Canada West, Baptist, 38 <-- Baptist religion means it will be more difficult, perhaps impossible, to find church records
Elizabeth, born Canada West, Baptist,39
Wm. Alf?, born Canada West, Baptist,18
Erastus,, born Canada West, Baptist,16
Herman, , born Canada West, Baptist,14
Sarah Catherine, born Canada West, Baptist,11
George, born Canada West, Baptist, 3?

My intuition tells me that Henry age 38 could very well be a son of John age 65. I'll need to add that idea to my theory of the family unit. 
 
Forming a Theory

Forming a theory is important when researching a challenging family. But you must be careful to remember that it is only a theory and you are going to try to either prove or disprove it. It should be based on some solid facts, circumstantial evidence or other details that can support your theory. This is where I start writing down all the scenarios that might make sense, and all the resources I might try to find to either prove or disprove my theory.

If you're not used to developing theories, you might want to read my article Never Assume - Develop a Theory Instead

I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to look for next, and I was excited to get started! There are so many different paths a genealogist could take at this point. Here are the first few that came immediately to my mind:

• Continue gathering records about John Longstreet born ca 1796 in New Jersey
• Track the children we found in this 1861 census record
• Track Henry who I think might be another child
• Track each of the children listed in that online family tree
• Check marriage records for children who list their father as John Longstreet (and use each of the 3 wives' names from the online tree)
• Check death records for any children whose father is recorded as John Longstreet (and use each of the 3 wives' names from the online tree)

What would your next step be?

Here are the links to all 5 parts of this series

https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-1.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-2.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-3.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-4.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-5-end.html 

Finding Nancy Longstreet Part 1

Lisa B. posted on a Facebook group about her ancestor Nancy Longstreet  

"Olive Jane Fisher married Joseph Rose (also born Ontario) and they married and lived in Michigan. Olive was born in St Ann's, Ontario, 3 Apr 1858 (no birth record found) to George Fisher and his wife Nancy Longstreet (Fisher). I have verified Nancy's maiden name by the marriage and death certificates of one of their other children, son George Fisher Jr. Also Nancy Longstreet is listed on several other children's marriage records. The Brick-wall - I simply cannot find the parents of Nancy Longstreet. She appears to have been born in Ontario in 1822 (possibly St Ann's) according to census records. In 1851 she is 31 years old, married, but has 20 y.o. Abigail Longstreet living in the household. This may be a sister or cousin. I have seen references to John Longstreet, b NJ in 1796 (moved to Ontario) as Nancy's father, but I have found no proof of that. There are plenty of census records on him, but nothing that lists Nancy. Any suggestions would be welcome!" 

I was intrigued. I love a challenge! So off I went on a hunt which became more and more convoluted with each record I found. Spoiler alert: I found Nancy Longstreet's father but you'll have to wait until the end of my story to find out who he was.

My first step was to gather as many records as I could find for George Fisher and his wife Nancy Longstreet (Fisher). I needed to analyze each record carefully, one at a time as I found them. Analyzing each record usually leads to more clues and ideas for further searching.

I started on Ancestry.com with census records. Sometimes relatives lived nearby families so I wanted to know who lived near George and Nancy in 1851. And I wanted to know who was in their family group, as well as ages of each person.

In 1851 they were in Gainsboro, Lincoln County Ontario

George Fisher, 35
Nancy 31
David 12
George 7
Maria 5
Calvin 2
Abigail Longstreet, 20

This census gives us some approximate years of birth. However it is important to note that the 1851 census was taken in 1850, so this throws off the approximate birth years.

George Fisher, 1816
Nancy 1820
David 1839
George 1844
Maria 1846
Calvin 1849
Abigail Longstreet, 1831

The location of births for each individual is given as "F". That representation was unknown to me so that meant a search to find out what instructions the census takers were given in 1851 for recording place of birth.

A quick trip to AllCensusRecords soon revealed the following instructions for 1851 census takers:

Place of birth. Those born of Canadian parents were denoted with an ‘F’ 

This tells us everyone in this family was born in Ontario.

Another clue we should follow is "Who is Abigail Longstreet?" She could be Nancy's younger sister. She could be a niece, a cousin, or married to a relative of Nancy. There is also the possibility that she is not related and the surname is a co-incidence. 

We can also come up with an estimated year of marriage, based on the ages of Nancy's children. This is only a "best guess" since we don't know if Nancy had other children who may have died before this 1851 census. But based on this census alone, we might want to look for a marriage record before 1840.

Next up: It's time to decide what research route to take next - more census records? Look for Abigail Longstreet to see how/if she fits into Nancy's family? Look for a marriage record? Marriages in Ontario did not have to be registered until 1869 so we would have to look for church records if we decide to take that path next. What would you do? Keep following this series to learn what I did next. 

Here are the links to all 5 parts of this series

https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-1.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-2.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-3.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-4.html
https://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/finding-nancy-longstreet-part-5-end.html 

New Jersey Death Records 1848-1878 Online

Do you have New Jersey ancestors?  You can now search New Jersey death records from May 1848-May 1878 on the State Archives' website! Over 300,000 entries. See Searchable Databases and Records Request Forms on the New Jersey Archives website.

Search for an ancestor or a surname, select any of interest and they are put into your shopping cart. You can then pay for the full record. 

 

 

The Peer family left New Jersey for Upper Canada (present day Ontario) after the American Revolution. I was excited to see that the New Jersey Archives has earlier records pre 1800 and hope to have time to search them all next week!

The Peer Family in North America: V6 Jacob Peer Jr. and his wife Lucy Powers and their Descendants to 2 Generations

The Peer family, loyal to the British Crown, suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Jacob Peer Jr. and his wife Lucy Powers settled in the wilderness of Upper Canada (present day Ontario) after the American Revolution. After suffering losses during the War of 1812, they left Ontario for Michigan in 1821.

This book discusses the lives of Jacob, his wife, and their children in those early years.

Descendants will enjoy seeing early documents such as land petitions, family photographs, probate records and wills.

The Peer Family in North America: V6 Jacob Peer Jr. and his wife Lucy Powers and their Descendants to 2 Generations

Available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.ca

The Peer Family in North America: V. 5 Stephen Peer & His Wife Lydia Skinner and their Descendants to 3 Generations

The Peer family, loyal to the British Crown, suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Stephen Peer was born circa 1780 in New Jersey to Jacob & Anna Peer. His father left New Jersey for Upper Canada (present day Ontario) in the summer of 1796.

Stephen married Lydia Skinner, the daughter of the Loyalist Haggai Skinner & his wife Elizabeth Westbrook. Stephen was killed at the Battle of Chippewa during the War of 1812.

This book discusses the life of Stephen, his wife, and their children and grandchildren in those early years. Descendants will enjoy seeing early documents such as land petitions, family photographs, newspaper clippings, and wills.

The Peer Family in North America: V. 5 Stephen Peer & His Wife Lydia Skinner and their Descendants to 3 Generations

Available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca 

Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Postcard to Ruth Vessey from Elizabeth Finger 1910

Annette P. has kindly donated ephemera items to Olive Tree Genealogy for sharing with other genealogists. This is an early postcard, perhaps 1910 (date is hard to read) sent to Miss Ruth Vessey in Pennsylvania. It is from Miss Elizabeth Finger in New Jersey

 

 

The Peer Family in North America: V.4 Philip Peer & his two Wives Ester Dunn and Susan Griniaus and their Descendants to 3 Generations

The Peer family, loyal to the British Crown, suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Philip Peer and his family left Sussex County New Jersey for Upper Canada in the summer of 1796.

After his first wife Ester Dunn died Philip married Susan Griniaus. This book discusses the lives of Philip, his two wives, and their children and grandchildren in those early years. Descendants will enjoy seeing early documents such as land petitions, family photographs, newspaper clippings, and wills.

The Peer Family in North America: V.4 Philip Peer & his two Wives Ester Dunn and Susan Griniaus and their Descendants to 3 Generations 

Available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

The Peer Family in North America: V.3 Edward Peer & His Two Wives and their Descendants to 3 Generations

V3. Edward Peer & His Two Wives and their Descendants to 3 Generations. The Peer family, loyal to the British Crown, suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Edward Peer, son of Jacob, came from New Jersey to the wilds of Upper Canada (present day Ontario) in 1786 with his first wife Anna.

By 1820 he and his second wife Sarah left Ontario for Pennsylvania. He died in 1834 in Erie County Pennsylvania.

This book discusses the lives of Edward, his two wives, and their children and grandchildren in those early years. Descendants will enjoy seeing early documents such as land petitions, family photographs, newspaper clippings, and wills. 

The Peer Family in North America: V.3 Edward Peer & His Two Wives and their Descendants to 3 Generations

Available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Note for the book on his parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Book on Levi Peer & Elizabeth Marical New Jersey to Illinois and Canada

The Peer family, loyal to the British Crown, suffered from persecution in New Jersey throughout the American Revolution. Levi and his family left Sussex County New Jersey in 1801 to join his parents and siblings in Upper Canada (Ontario). Shortly after the War of 1812, Levi and family left Canada for New York, then Pennsylvania, and eventually Illinois. One son returned to Canada.

This book discusses the lives of Levi, his wife Elizabeth Marical and their children and grandchildren in those early years. Descendants will enjoy seeing early documents such as land petitions, family photographs, newspaper clippings, and wills.

The Peer Family in North America: V.2 Levi Peer & Elizabeth Marical and their Descendants to 3 Generations is now available at or Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Note for the book on Levi Peer's parents you also need to purchase V. 1 Jacob & Anne Peer which is available at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca