From the Probate Files: Peter Worden - Berkshire County, Massachusetts - 1808

Note: This afternoon Christine asked me if I was ready to resume blogging and my answer was a firm "NO." However...

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) through its American Ancestors website has been a useful source for a large part of my early American family tree. An email from their blog today reminded me to check if I could find any more information about my 6X great grandfather Elder Peter Worden (or Werden as he spelled it) who died in western Massachusetts in 1808.

The results are too good not to share:

Berkshire County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1761-1917.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2017. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives. Digitized mages provided by FamilySearch.org)

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2725/i/48367/2541-co2/68553665

The file's 20 pages include his original 1804 will and the March 9, 1808 inventory. I'll share more findings at a later date but here's the sum total of his worldly estate:

You can read more about Peter Worden here and here.







© 2019 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Salt Lake City FHL Trip Preparation: Planning a Search for the Parents of Isaac Leonard and Jemima White

I think it is safe to say that I don't really have much of a handle on Hannah's ancestry. I'm not even entirely sure about her mother's name, for which we only have one source (Hannah's sister Cynthia Leonard Belcher's Michigan death certificate).

I'm going through my tree right now to see where my ancestral gaps are, and my 4th great grandmother Hannah Leonard is a prime candidate.  I can trace Hannah to her father Isaac because he lists his children's names in his will and in the probate notice published in Jefferson County, New York in 1863.

Also, Isaac Leonard's possible father, Ebenezer Leonard, was living in Burlington, Otsego, New York, the same place that William White was living in 1800, but that connection has yet to be made solid.  William White's widow's name, Jemima, was included in William's extensive Revolutionary pension file, giving the detail that she and William White were married on 13 Dec 1781 in Adams, Berkshire, Massachusetts, by Elder Peter Worden/Werden (the ancestor of Hannah Leonard's husband, Porter Worden).  So I think I am on the right track, but finding records on people in the mid/late 1700's/early 1800's in Western Massachusetts and New York has proven to be more difficult than I initially anticipated.

Last night I started to map out where Wrights were in the 1790 Census, 9 years after Jemima and William were married:

Wrights listed as head of household in Berkshire County, Massachusetts in the 1790 Census.

Jemima and William were already out in Canajoharie (Ancestry has Canajoxharrie), Montgomery, New York (a few counties west of Berkshire County) by the 1790 Census.  There were a number of Wrights there as well, and might very well be related to Jemima Wright.

Wright, Daniel--1-2-2-0-0
Wright, Earl--3-0-2-0-0
Wright, Gideon--2-2-2-0-0
Wright, Humphry--1-1-4-0-0
Wright, Jacob--1-3-4-0-0
Wright, John--1-3-1-0-0
Wright, Luther--1-0-3-0-*
Names from the New York GenWeb site on Montgomery county

Canajoharie was only a few counties west of Berkshire County.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.