A little Harlow and Boris, a geneaology mystery and what is this name?



First, I torture you with photos of my adorable doggies, enjoying a nice Spring Day (while I torture them to try to get a photo of them both together and looking at the camera)
Left is Harlow, right Boris. Looking unhappy to get their photo taken, but still adorable.
Below is Harlow, laying in her favorite patch of vines. She thinks that no one can see her when she lays down in the vines.







Next, I'm still doing that family tree trace. My grandfather's mother has been a mystery. Her name was Maymella King. First married to a Walker then to my great grandfather Baker. We know she was born in PA, but we know nothing about parents or siblings. So in a process of elimination and educated guessing (which could be totally wrong because I have no way of checking for sure) I have narrowed her down to May King born in 1878 to John and Harriet King, with a brother named Eli. Maybe.
I think that John had a brother named Valentine and this is the 1850 census that shows their mother's name, but what the hell is it?

It looks like Exephan King, but I've never heard of such a name. I've seen alot of bad spelling on the censuses, so what else do you think that it could be?

I also found this, which is interesting. The 2nd ad, Eli V. King would be Maymella's brother and he was a bricklayer. This came from a bricklayer's newsletter, dated 1911. The ad was placed by his father John, who is looking for Eli. John is very ill and needs to get in touch with Eli. From what I have found, it looks like Eli's wife either died, or ran off, and Eli then went away looking for bricklaying work, leaving his son Harry with his parents. I wonder if Eli came back, what happened to Harry? Are these people even my relatives? I don't know, but I'm totally caught up in the mystery.

2 comments:

Nancy said...

First, I love your doggies. We're planning on getting some english bulldogs ourselves.

Second, isn't genealogy fascinating? I wish I hadn't started going back into mine... somethings you just don't want to know... but it was very fun! I hope Eli came back and as for the name...Eiehliem? lol. There's my best guess.

Cranberry Morning said...

My only suggestion,which you've probably already done, is to check through that 1850 census and compare handwriting of particular letters for consistency. That may help you figure out what it is. But like I said, you probably already did that. I was able to use that method to decipher a hand-written letter written in the mid 1860s.