Surname Saturday

Mauzy, Mauzey, Mauze, Moze
For many years, Genealogical Record of the Descendants of Henry Mauzy, A Huguenot Refugee, the Ancestors of the Mauzys of Virginia and Other States from 1685 to 1910, by Richard Mauzy, 1911, was the definitive work on this family. It boasted responses from Mauzys all across the U.S., 105 pages on the descendants of Henry Mauzy. But it was only breadcrumbs showing the way, none of it supported by documents. Still, it was something.

Since then other researchers have taken up the search. It is generally thought that John Mauzé, born in England about 1675 to Michael Mauzé of France, is the common ancestor for the Mauzys of the U.S.

Dr. Armand Jean Mauzey published his research in 1950 in an excellent article for the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography¹. He believes the Mauzé name might have come from the Arabian word “Mauz”, a plantain tree, and may have been adopted during the Crusades. He documents 10 Mauzé families that left France for the British Isles between 1681 and 1724, Huguenots who fled France on the repeal of the Edict of Nantes. The family appears to have come from lands near LaRochelle.

The Mauzys undertook the hardship of escape from France, travel to the British Isles and then to the New World in search of religious tolerance and freedom. How proud and grateful we should all be for their courage.




1. Armand Jean Mauzey, M.D., D.S.C., “The Mauzey-Mauzy Family”, Virgina Magazine of History and Biography 58 (1950), 112-119.

Destination Delmarva

Well, it has been a while since the last posting. The start of school always brings new work for me, which is a good thing, and less time for genealogy, which is not.

Saturday, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Destination Delmarva 2009 workshop at Washington College, sponsored by the Delaware Genealogy Society and the Maryland Genealogy Society. Each lecture that I attended gave me a piece of information I didn’t have before about history and resources that can help clear some of the cobwebs from my research. I knew there was a boundary dispute in the 1600-1700’s around the boundary between Maryland and Delaware, and I knew my Dehortys were on land smack in the middle of the disputed area. Russ McCabe’s presentation gave me a clearer picture of how the land was settled, a few ideas about where my folks might have come ashore, and a nifty new book to read for more information. The Deakyne twins, Sally Burke and Peggy Mealy, reminded me about the importance of investigating all the names in the Orphan’s Court records for possible family connections. Bob Barnes had a fascinating collection of “Black Sheep” ancestors…I haven’t found any yet, but I must have some and now I know where to look. Ed Wright has cataloged the churches of the early period and the records that he has transcribe. Unfortunately, my folks were Methodists, who were not known for their record keeping. But, you never know if the odd Quaker or Anglican might have married in, so, they will be worth a look. And, of course, I took home a couple of new books for the research library.

The weather was horrible, rainy and cold, but a bright spot on the day was meeting fellow blogger Kathleen Ingram. Her enthusiasm and positive spirit were infectious!

What a great day! Now to catch up on my blog reading……

Melodrama on a Sunday Morning

Still sorting through those pesky Delaware Dehortys, I came upon a newspaper article from the front page of The Logansport (IN) Journal, dated August 20, 1898, with a story about my cousin (3X removed) Tillie DeHority. It is a long post, but fun, so I'll excerpt the article below. The writing is such fun, dramatically telling the story of two young lovers. It was a lesson for me on the importance of looking for newspaper articles of the period to give life to our ancestors' stories.

THEIR SECRET OUT
*****
CAME TO LOGANSPORT
***
Here an Obliging Justice Said the Words that Made Them One

Society circles in the little cities of Elwood and Kokomo are just at present all excitement over the episodes of a couple of lovers who ran away to this city and, sometime between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning are supposed to have been united in marriage by some obliging official possessing the authority to tie knots that are said to bind. The principals in the elopement are prominent in the social circles of both the cities both being residents of Elwood.

The bride is the daughter of the president of the leading bank of Madison county's second city and the groom is a handsome young widower, in the drugs and soda water line. The dramatis personae also includes a wronged wife seeking her lost marriage lines: a young attorney, mutual friend of the principal characters, and a friend of the heroine who was inoocently made to aid in the development of the plot, while the "villian" in the play is supposed to be represented by the irate papa of the blushing bride.


The first part of the story is told by the Kokomo Dispatch as follows:'Tuesday morning Miss Tillie DeHority, a daughter of J.H. DeHority, president of the Elwood National bank and perhaps the foremost man in the commercial life of that place, came to Kokomo for a brief visit with Mrs. Cordis Ovens of West Walnut street.....Miss DeHority had visited Mrs. Ovens here on several occasions. Naturally she suspected nothing when she received a letter from her Elwood friend a few days ago announcing her purpose to 'come over' for a brief time. Invitations were secured for her to a number of social gatherings, functions at which she was to be the houseguest were organized among the younger set, and no effort was spared to make her visit a pleasant one...

Miss DeHority came to Logansport on Tuesday night and here [she was] met by Curt Howe, an Elwood druggist, and attorney Bert Call of Elwood. No record of any marriage license having been issued to Mr. Howe and Miss DeHority appears on the books in the office of the county clerk here, but from an acquaintance of the parties here the statement comes that the marriage license was brought from Madison County by Mr. Howe. The marriage ceremony howeve is said to have been performed here, but even surrounding that there seems to have been thrown a circle of secrecy for, while it is whispered that one of Logansport's very popular and ever-obliging justices in matters of this kind knows more than he is willing to tell, no definite statement has been given out. However, certain it is that when the Elwood young lady left here Wednesday, returning to the home of her friend in Kokomo, she went not as Miss DeHority but as Mrs. Howe.

She, however, failed to apprise her friends at Kokomo of her marriage and she attended an afternoon and an evening social gathering and another on Thursday, as Miss Tillie DeHority, 'heart whole and fancy free.' On Thursday afternoon, however, as the Dispatch tells the story, when on her way to the Ovens home in company with Mrs. Ovens, Mrs. Howe was met by a messenger boy with a telegram. It was from her husband and announced that he would be in Kokomo that night. With many tears and much pleading that her secret be kept she told Mrs. Ovens the whole story. Mrs. Ovens was dumbfounded and greatly distressed at the fact that she had been innocently made to aid in what was evidently an elopement and a match that she was sure would not be approved by the young woman's parents.

Mr. Ovens at once communicated with Mr. DeHority by telephone, laying the story before him. Mr. DeHority asked Mr. Ovens to keep his daughter at his home under any and all circumstances until her brother who he would send on the first train could reach Kokomo. The first train was that reaching there at 10:12 o'clock Thursday night. On it Mr. Howe came, but not the brother of his bride. Whether a truce had been patched up between Papa DeHority and his son-in-law is not known. Mr. Howe went to the Ovens home. His stay was significantly brief, but when he came away his wife was with him. They remained at the Clinton hotel until the 1:45 train, which they took to Elwood.

I've left out the tale of Tillie's friend, who seemed to have misplaced her own marriage license. It was altogether a bad day for poor Mrs. Ovens! The story goes on the give particulars on the families, ending with the note that Curtis Howe's first marriage was also "a runaway match".

I wonder what 18-year-old Tillie had gotten herself into?

Back in time--1820

So, when last heard from, I was trying to organize all the data I’ve collected on the Dehorty family in Delaware to try to identify the father of my brick wall, 3g-grandfather James M. Dehority (1819-1891).

I am most of the way through that, having sorted through census records, probate records, orphan’s court records, tax records, marriage listings in the Delaware Public Archives’ card files, land records, and various mentions in books and journals on the period. I’ll chronicle my thoughts here in hopes that if someone reads this and notices things I have overlooked or errors of any sort, they will be so kind as to leave me a note.

I’ve decided to focus on the time around the 1820 census, as James was born in 1819 (or, by one count, 1816). Either way, he would be under age 5 in 1820. If I count the number of Dehorty men on the census who are of an age to father a child in 1820, I have 15 candidates. If I use information from James’ obituary, that he was orphaned by age 8, then I am looking for someone who has died by the 1830 census, both husband and wife (and the wife could have died prior to 1820). This is a little harder, but I can definitely eliminate 5, so I am down to 10.

Of the 10, there are 2 definite candidates. One Benjamin Doroty of Little Creek Hundred, Kent County, is enumerated in 1820 with 9 people in his household, of which 2 are males under the age of 9 and 2 males of “fathering” age (16-25). Benjamin dies intestate in 1823. The problem with Benjamin is that his wife is listed a s Louvania, and the will to Thomas Dehorty previously mentioned references a James, son of Sarah Silivan (Paternity Search in Delaware).

Research that I just received also finds a John Dehorty in the tax lists of Kent County who is a head of household in 1820, but dies insolvent by 1823 (must be a bad year for Dehortys). Here is where I run headlong into what I don’t know about the 1820 census.
I think that everyone counted in the household was a member of the family, excepting the slave listings. But, could they be related as siblings of the head and his wife, grandchildren, cousins, or in other ways related? This is where my count of 10 could be high. There seem to be a lot of “blended” households on my list. There is a John Dorothy in Duck Creek Hundred, Kent, listed in 1820. Could this be the one from the tax list? Or, might he be listed as a tick mark under a different household? How do I resolve the unnamed gentlemen from the census?

This is going to require some thought.

Slogging Along

It has been quite the wet week in our little part of Virginia. Downpours and flooding and lots of reasons to stay indoors when you don't have to go out.

It was a good week to get results from a professional genealogist whom I engaged to try to find information about you might be the father of my "brick wall" ancestor, James Madison Dehority (1819-1891) from Delaware.

I received 8 pages of data, an amazing amount found in just 4-5 hours in the Archives. It just goes to show how much more efficient are the folks who know the records of the time like the back of their hands. Some of the information I already knew, but much of it was new to me. He made an educated guess as to the likely candidate from what he found. Rats! This is not going to be a "smoking gun", can't be anyone else but kind of discovery, but a guess made based on a process of elimination.

What became evident very early on was that my organization of information in my FTM program by individual was not going to be the best way to embark on this hunt. So, I have spent every spare moment organizing what I have on the Dehortys of Delaware (sounds like the Kennedys of Massachusetts, doesn't it?....or Kelloggs of Battle Creek?...no, that's cereal). I decided to organize by census year and group land record and tax record between the given census years to help me zero in on the 1815-1820 time frame. Re-typing and sourcing all this info has been quite the slog this week, but I'm almost ready to merge the data from the professional research. I can only hope that it points with some certainty to one of the families.

I can only hope....

Saturday Night Fun-the Great-Greats

I've been in a real genealogy "funk" lately. DNA test results on a distant cousin that were due July 6th won't be posted for a couple of weeks. I'm waiting with fingers crossed on a report from a genealogist in Delaware doing research on one of my brick walls. Those kinds of things never come quickly enough, do they? And, I just can't translate one more old land record.

To the rescue is Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge: Name and place your 16 great-great grandparents. One thing I love about blogs, and Randy's in particular, is that they focus my attention on what I know, and what I don't. It turns out, there's a lot I don't know about these folks.

Let's get started:

1. John Wesley DeHority, b. 16 Oct 1840, Madison Co., IN, d. 28 Aug 1881, Madison Co., IN. Ethnicity: IRISH.
   
2. Jane W. Moore, b. 14 May 1840, Madison Co., IN, d. 25 Aug 1925, Elwood, IN. Ethnicity: UNK.
   
3. George Washington Hupp, b. 3 Dec 1834, Shenandoah Co., VA, d. 18 Jan 1923, Elwood, IN. Ethnicity: GERMAN.
   
4. Isabelle Stokes, b. 7 May 1843, Butler Co., OH, d. 7 June 1918, Elwood, IN. Ethnicity: ENGLISH.
   
5. Abram Gooding Mauzy, b. Feb 1825, Bourbon Co., KY, d. Aug 1905, Rushville, IN. Ethnicity: FRENCH.
   
6. Emily R. Jamison, b. 29 May 1828, Bourbon Co., KY, d. 12 July 1873, Rushville, IN. Ethnicity: UNK.
   
7. Houston Carr, b. 6 Feb 1821, KY, d.10 Sept 1856, Rushville, IN. Ethnicity: UNK.
   
8. Mary A. Dunnohew, 8 Sept 1834, OH, d. UNK. Ethnicity: UNK.
   

Now, for the other half. These are the folks that I don't know. I do know that in all probability, they are all LITHUANIAN. I just haven't braced myself to tackle "jumping the pond". Since the oldest complete generation that I have are the greats, I'll list them here:

1. John Douglas (Dobrovolskas), Dates UNK, but born and died in Lithuania.
   
2. Anna Urnikas, b. UNK, d. before 1916, Lithuania
   
3. Jacob Wychulis (Vaiculis), b. 3 May 1865, Lithuania, d. 3 Apr 1942, Old Forge, PA. Ethnicity: LITHUANIAN.
   
4. Anna Burke (Bartkeiwicz), b. 1874, Lithuania, d. 10 May 1951, Old Forge, PA. Ethnicity: LITHUANIAN.

So there you have it! I don't know whether to be pleased about what I know, or blue about what I don't know.

It must be something about August......