Rebecca Wells Archives - PHILIP ALAN FARMER

March 3, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 5: Hiram Fee

The conclusion of a tutorial on deductive reason when branching your family tree using Hiram Fee as the example.

If you happened upon this blog, recommend you read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Having performed the prior steps, it’s time to move on to Step #8.

STEP #8: NEVER STOP SEARCHING

Searching for answers on Hiram Jones Fee has been a two-year undertaking. When I first encountered Hiram as the “son” of Henderson and Sarah, he just sat there on the branch… just a leaf that needed to be completed later.

Then a few months ago in branching Stephen Farmer’s son, Lewis C. Farmer (1798-1870), I find a great granddaughter Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie” Farmer (1888-1986). Sarah was the daughter of Lorena Jane Yeary (1861-1945) and Leonard Farmer (1857-1938) who was the son of Catherine Fannie Branson (1831-1920) and William C. Farmer (1824-1910). William was the son of Lewis. Then I find another Hiram Fee as the wife of Sallie Farmer. It was through more searching that I was able to conclude that the two Hiram’s were one and the same.

Never stop searching, especially if you continue to have that nagging question that your leap of faith may have been in error. By continually searching, I found additional information about Hiram Fee that really helped with the assumptions and conclusions.

Websites are constantly updated or added. Pay attention to the emails from Ancestry.com, Family Search, or Newspapers.com about their records updates. New records added to their repository may have what you are searching for. The same goes for the notices that someone has added a story, photo, or record to someone in your family tree. That’s how I came across a “Stephen F. Lee vs. David Lee” lawsuit from 1903 that was added by another Ancestry member. In it,

“Hiram Fee above named was a son and an heir of the decd. [John Fee]… that said Hiram Fee left two other children and heirs whose names and place of residence these plaintiffs cannot after diligent inquiry ascertain, they are here sued as ‘Unknown defendants’…”
“Stephen F. Lee vs. David Lee“

Search engines are fallible. Type in some search words on Ancestry.com and nothing. Do another search, and there it is. The same goes for Newspapers.com. After typing in numerous variations of Hiram Jones Fee, Hiram J. Fee, H.J. Fee, Hiram Fee, etc., I find another obituary for Hiram Jones Fee… and I wasn’t searching for Hiram. The obituary explicitly states Lee is his son… information omitted from the other obituary. The leap of faith was correct!

Obituary of Hiram Jones Fee
Source: The Tribune, IN (29 May 1950), p.1

Countless times I’ve done a Google search and have nothing come up. Then out of the blue, conduct another search using the same phrases and, voila, there’s the information you’ve been looking for. Like this website on John Fee and Jane Lee with this additional information [edited for content and errors]:

“Hiram Fee was born ca 1843 – he was killed 188_ ‘when a gun went off accidentally in Pineville.’ He married #1 1861 Sarah J Daniels born ca 1847 daughter of __; md?? #2 Rebecca Ann Jones [Hiram and Rebecca were indicted for adultery in 1875, ‘the parties being married but not to each other’] and #3 1871 to Joyce Howard [1852-1915] daughter of James T and Minerva Lee Howard. [check marriage order – Joicy had married Jasper Jones by 1903 Circuit Court LEE case] Hiram’s children, Hiram, Sally, Polly Jane and Boyd are named in the LEE vs LEE Circuit Court case in 1903 which also states that there were 2 more children of Hiram, whereabouts and names unknown!”
“Hiram J FEE was born 16 Feb 1876 and was raised from the age of three by his uncle and aunt, Henderson and Sarah OSBORN FEE. He married first in June of 1892 to Louisa “Ludie” Adeline HENSLEY born April 1879 died 1967. They set up housekeeping on Henderson’s farm on Turtle Creek. When she and Hiram divorced, Ludie took Annie Ethel with her and left the other six children with Henderson & Sarah. Hiram married #2 17 Feb 1907 to Sallie FARMER who is believed to have married next to a HUDSON [sic, HUTTON]. Hiram married thirdly to Susie REED who had been married to an EVERSOLE by whom she had two daughters, Maud and Flora. Hiram deserted her and she married Lewis HENSLEY. Hiram spent his last years in the homes of his son J. Lawrence and daughter Arta, dying at the former’s home in Brownstown, Indiana 27 May 1950.”

I wish the website had a better bibliography. The search is on for the 1875 indictment!!

Join or search as many online sites that you can. For example, even though you have a Newspapers.com account, search the digitized newspapers at the Library of Congress. Newspapers.com doesn’t have the Harlan Daily Enterprise, but NewspaperArchive.com does!

Fulton History has obscure newspapers that have solved countless brick walls. For many years, my mother and her cousin have searched state libraries and many, many dead ends to find information on their grandmother, Sallie (Sexton) Addington. With newspaper articles on “Little Johnny has a runny nose today,” surely there is some article about a woman who died from a stove explosion? Within a few minutes on Fulton’s, there it was as front page news.

Connect with other family members by joining a Facebook group, or contacting the owner of a tree, or contacting living relatives. Since publishing this blog series, I’ve been in contact with Ms. Jan Fee, the granddaughter of Hiram Jones Fee through Hiram Jr. Her personal accounts of the family history have been very educational and fill in a lot of blanks that records don’t disclose. After countless fruitless searches, she sends the 1920 Kentucky marriage bond for Hiram Jones Fee in which he marries widowed Susie Eversole and discloses that his mother is Rebecca Wells. Another leap of faith was correct!

1920 Kentucky Marriage Bond of Hiram Jones Fee and Susan (Reed) Eversole.

Go old school and get offline. Even if distance prevents you from searching paper records, contact local historical and genealogical societies for their assistance. Find someone local who is willing to volunteer their time. Make a tax deductible donation that benefits your search, and their cause. Additionally, new books are published that may have what you are looking for.

The take away from this blog series is that you should never copy another person’s family tree. Looking back at the fifteen trees that Ancestry presented as their leafy hint, my family tree would have been a total mess had I accepted all of the suggestions! Worse, I would have been perpetuating the same errors that lead to brick walls, as was the case in determining the ancestors of Stephen Farmer.

Just go slow, document, verify, and never give up.

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out the current discounts through our printing partner LuLu.com which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

March 1, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 4: Hiram Fee

A tutorial on deductive reason when branching your family tree using Hiram Fee as the example.

If you happened upon this blog, recommend you read Part 1, Part 2, and/or Part 3. Having performed the prior steps, it’s time to move on to Step #6.

STEP #6: APPLY THE HARD PROBABILITIES TO YOUR POSSIBILITIES.

At this point, there may be no “smoking gun” that outright gives you the information you’re looking for. This is where you really need to dig into the collected records and go back through Step #1 thru Step #5… again. This is where you need to examine everything on a record. This is where we may need to correlate a lot of circumstantial evidence.

By now, we have to question if the obituary of Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr. is for the son of Hiram Jones Fee?

Obituary of Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr
The Courier-Journal, IN (25 Dec 1997), p.9

No death certificate could be found. No marriage record indicating spouse or parents could be found.

First, we analyze the information in his siblings’ obituaries. That gives us location. Next, we search the city directories of those locations. That gives us possible spouses and occupation. Going back and following Step #1 thru Step #5, we find the 1997 obituary correlates location and occupation. Further research shows that Hiram Jr.’s children listed in the obituary have a mother named Colleen Flannery. Applying Step #5, when placed in chronological order, the collected records suggest that all of them pertain to one person.

1953: Jeffersonville City Directory with wife Colleen and occupation as “A&P Bakery (Lou[isville]).”
1955: Jeffersonville City Directory with wife Colleen and occupation as “mixer A&P (Lou[isville]).”
1970: James Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr. of Jeffersonville…”
1971: Granville Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr., of Jeffersonville…”
1973: Garrett Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee, Jr., of Jeffersonville…”
1981: Paul Fee’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Jr. of Jeffersonville…”
1984: Arta Farmer’s obituary states “[brother] Hiram Fee of Clarksville.”
1997: Obituary for Hiram “Pappy” Fee, Jr., 74, [of Clarksville] died Wednesday [24 December 1997] at Audobon Hospital [Louisville]… a native of Harlan County, Ky., a retired baker for A&P bakeries in Louisville… with burial in Jeffersonville…” The obituary also lists surviving siblings, but neither of them are the children of Louisa Hensley or of Sallie Farmer.

Yet we still have not proven that he is the son of our Hiram Sr. There is still a high probability that there are two Hiram Jr’s in the Clarksville area.

From the obituary, we can deduce that Hiram Jr. was born in or around 1923 and that he was formerly of Harlan County. A records search brings up a 1940 federal census of Knox County in which “H.J. Fee, age 16 (born about 1924), stepson” is living with a “Lee Fee, age 19, stepson” in the household of Lewis Hensley. Hensley’s wife is “Susie” with an additional step daughter, Flora Eversole, age 21.

*Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Kentucky, Knox County, Magisterial District #5, Supervisor’s District #9, Enumeration District #61 & 62, Sheet #3A, Line #21-31 (06 April 1940).*

Going back through the steps, we find a birth date of 21 January 1923 and “Susan Hensley” as the mother of Hiram Jr. The death date on his tombstone is 24 December 1997 that matches the obituary date. But we still haven’t correlated Hiram Jr. with Hiram Jones Fee.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/141047943

Going back through the steps, we find a record with a birth date of 12 January 1923 and “Susan Fee” for Lee Clellan Fee. His tombstone is inscribed with a death date of “…son of Mrs. Louis Hensley…” All this information matches the 1940 federal census, but again, we still haven’t correlated Hiram or Lee with Hiram Jones Fee.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15052391

It’s a small article on page nine of the Jackson County Banner (21 August 1957) that states “Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Fee and Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Fee were called to Cincinnati Tuesday by the death of Mr. Fee’s brother, Lee Fee.”

*Jackson County Banner, IN ( 21 August 1957), p.9*

With all of this information, as well as the records for E.B. Hensley, Bruce Hensley, Keith Hensley, Norma Stopher, and Irene Williams, we can conclude with higher probability that Hiram Jones Fee and Susan Alice Reed had sons Hiram Fee and Lee Clellan Fee.

However, we’re still back to the 1880 federal census with Hiram Jones Fee enumerated as the son of Henderson Fee and Sarah Osborne which conflicts with the death certificate stating that Hiram Fee and Rebecca Jones are his parents.

*Death Certificate of Hiram Jones Fee (1875-1950)*

STEP #7: TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH.

With extremely limited information, yet armed with your knowledge of family history, local history, social customs, and personal experiences, start asking “what if…?”

In a time where large families were needed to work the farm, where are the other children of Henderson and Sarah? Is there any evidence other than an 1880 federal census that Hiram is Henderson and Sarah’s son? Again, “no data is data…”

It’s the 1910 United States Federal Census that has the most interest. Henderson and Sarah now have a household that includes Louise Hensley and Granville, Artie, Finley, Garrett, and Ethel Fee.

*Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Kentucky, Jackson County, Magisterial District #3, Supervisor’s District #11, Enumeration District #94, Sheet #6, Line #72-80 (28-29 April 1910)*

Instead of daughter-in-law and grandchildren, Louisa and children are listed as nieces and nephews. Just to double verify, were they the children of one of Sarah sisters who married a Fee (or Hensley)? Mapping out Sarah’s siblings shows no Fee’s or Hensley’s. Are they the children of Henderson’s siblings? No, except Hiram Jones Fee.

What if the 1880 census is incorrect? What if Hiram was living with Henderson and Sarah, and although he’s listed as a son, he really isn’t their son? Is there a family situation that justifies this conclusion?

There may be.

HJF’s father Hiram had been previously married to Sarah Jane Daniels and had a son, John who was born in 1867. Later, Hiram married Joyce Howard on 02 October 1871. Together they had Granville (born 1871), Sarah (born 1874), Mary Jane (born 1876), David (born 1879), and Boyd (born 1881).

What if a pregnant Joyce was too busy to care for HJF with 3-year-old Granville, 2-year-old Sarah, and Mary Jane on the way? What if HJF was placed in his uncle Henderson’s home, especially when considering that Henderson and Sarah were married on 21 April 1861, and having no children in the fourteen years since, welcomed HJF as their own?

There may be another family situation. The “Rebecca Jones” from Hiram Jones Fee’s death certificate may be Rebecca Wells (1845-1924), the daughter of Clayborn Wells and Rebecca Midgett formerly of Tennessee who moved to Kentucky. With the birth of David Fee in 1879 and Boyd in 1881 (with evidence to suggest they were Joyce’s children), Hiram was still married, and therefore didn’t remarry to Rebecca. With no marriage license, was Hiram considered an illegitimate child and all of the stigma that it carried in 1875?

What if at the age of thirty, Rebecca did not want to raise Hiram? Did having a child hinder her chances of getting married now that she was in her thirties? What if Joyce refused to raise a child that wasn’t her son, especially due to her husband’s infidelity? With Hiram Jones Fee’s birth date of 16 February 1875, he would have been six months old when Rebecca married Marion Alexander Jones on 16 August 1875. What if Marion refused to raise Hiram because he wasn’t his son?

So which is correct… the 1880 census or the 1910 census? If you can answer the “what if” questions with a degree of certainty, the leap of faith conclusion is that Hiram Jones Fee must have been Henderson’s nephew.

Going back to Step #1 thru Step #7 for both Louisa Hensley, Sallie Farmer, and Susan Alice Reed, our tree now looks like this.

Click here to see how the family tree is starting to look.

Next blog: the final step and conclusion.

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley

February 24, 2019December 17, 2020

Part 2: Hiram Fee

In this multi-part blog series, we examine “Hiram Fee” to educate genealogical research and deduction methods.

Obituary of Hiram Jones Fee.
Source: Jackson County Banner, IN (31 May 1950), p.2.

So you’re researching your ancestors and you’re trying to determine if your person of interest belongs in your family tree. In our last blog, we started with two basic steps to prevent you from adding someone that does not belong on your branch:

Step #1 advised to stop with you what you know (or, what you have). This is especially true if your person of interest shares a name with another local person. Step #2 advised to expand the family branches. This will help with uncovering multiple persons with the same name, and it will assist when coming across documents that describe a family relationship such as a step relative, niece, nephew, uncle, aunt, or cousin.

Once you’ve expanded the family branches, it’s time to move on to the next step:

STEP #3: EXAMINE OTHER FAMILY TREES TO GATHER CLUES.

Note this step doesn’t state “copy other family trees.” Why? Because there are both good and bad trees out there. There are also branches that are not complete or properly vetted; information is there as a place holder based on Step #1 “Stop with what you know (or have).” I am guilty of having incomplete branches until I can properly research the information and draw the conclusions.

When mapping your family tree, there’s no reason to “reinvent the wheel” when you can start from the work of others. For this blog, we’ll focus on the fifteen public trees on Ancestry.com; however, there are many other public trees on other sites that you could (or should) examine. After looking through the fifteen trees, we now have possible names and dates for Hiram and for his parents, spouse(s), and children… as well as two locations: Kentucky and Indiana.

First, click here to access a document that collected the data from all fifteen trees.

After analyzing the tree data, seven trees have his name as “Hiram J. Fee” while six have his name as “Hiram Jones Fee.” The other two are simply “Hiram Fee.”

Eight of them don’t have any parents listed. Of the remaining seven, two have Hiram’s parents as Hiram Fee and Rebecca Ann Jones, while the other five have his parents listed as Henderson Fee and Sarah Osborne. Thirteen of the trees have his spouse as Louisa Adeline Hensley (1878-1967). Two trees also show a second wife of Susan Alice Reed (1898-1967), and only one tree has a third wife, Sallie Farmer.

Almost all of the trees agree that Hiram had three sons (James Lawrence, Silas, Frank Finley, and Garrett Charles) and two daughters (Artie Lissie and Annie Ethel) with his wife Louisa. Tree #9 adds Alabama, Chester, and Dora. The two trees showing Hiram with wife Susan show two sons (Lee Clellan and Hiram) and a daughter (Verna). None of the trees show any children with his wife Sallie.

What do you do if your person of interest is not in any other family tree? Jump right to Step #4…

STEP #4: GATHER EVIDENCE OF POSSIBILITIES.

This step entails taking the data in Step #3 and finding every possible birth, death, marriage, or legal record for every name in those trees. It also includes searching through newspaper articles and obituaries. At this stage, we’re not attaching those records to our trees… we’re simply trying to find all available data before we can make any conclusions.

I am a firm believer that those who ignore documents because it doesn’t fit a mental picture of what they thought they should find are those persons that encounter their brick walls faster than others.

So although we started our search with an 1880 federal census of a Hiram Fee, son of Henderson and Sarah Fee, we’ll want to search all possibilities. For example, we’ll also want to find any Hiram Fee’s associated with Hiram Fee and Rebecca Wells. We’ll also want to find a record to determine why Tree #13 has a birth date of 1862, regardless of how strongly we may feel that our Hiram was born in 1875 or 1876.

We don’t want to ignore any document we find. For example, if we find a document with “Granville R. Fee,” we don’t want to reject it because we have “Granville W. Fee” or “Granville White Fee” on our list.

We’ll want to locate records for every combination of his spouses’ name. Tree #4 and #5 indicate that Louisa married a “Collins.” Therefore, conducting a search for “Louisa Collins” may yield a death certificate, obituary, or other document with very important information on it.

A sample of collected documents can be viewed by clicking here.

As we conduct our records search, more names will appear. For those names, we may need to revert back to Step #1 and then follow steps two through four.

Coming up in Part 3 of this blog series, coming to conclusions with the data you’ve collected…

Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of Stephen Farmer’s family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Complete with bibliography and footnotes that supports the research. Check out LuLu’s current discounts which may save you money than purchasing through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or other retailers.

“Very well written and researched…” Ms. L. King

“I love your work… Very interesting!” Ms. B. H. Baker

“Amazing research!” Ms. J. Shipley

“Wonderfully researched, well written… recommend it even if you’re not related to the Farmar’s…” Mr. D. Roark

“Excellent book! We highly recommend!” Ms. E. Wolf

“Very informative and interesting. I could not put it down.” Ms. E. Farley