Medina

This is part three in a series of posts on what happened to the Wood brothers after they left Canada.  My ancestor was Charles S. Wood who ended up in Michigan along with his brother, John.  They had a sister, Jane, who married Edward Maycock and went to British Columbia.  Their mysterious brothers were: Alexander, William, James A., George D., and Andrew.


When last we left off, there was a William Wood family discovered in the same Lockport area as George D. Wood.  Reading newspaper articles soon clenched that this was indeed, my ancestor's brother, William.  His obituary sealed the deal by both mentioning George in Missouri, and also Jane (aka "Jennie") Maycock in British Columbia.  It also gave me a location for brother Andrew, who was living in Imlay City, Lapeer, Michigan, at the time.

I soon located Andrew in census records and learned he had been a Methodist minister (Google his name and the various locations he ministered and you'll get quite a few hits).  This was wonderful news because it meant the Methodist Church might have some biographical information on him. A quick search of their Annual Conference Journal Memoirs index revealed an entry for, I believe, my Andrew Wood.:


I have written for a copy of this memoir and am anxious to read it.  I do know that my other ancestors who members of the Methodist Church clergy had wonderfully detailed memoirs published about them when they died and I am hopeful that Andrew's will prove equally illuminating.

There was still one brother left to locate after all this, Alexander.  Where to start?  How about here:


William had many out of town guests at his funeral, most either relatives of his or his wife.  One person in particular stuck out: "Arthur W. Wood of Syracuse."  It seemed pretty likely that Arthur was a relative of William's but how did he fit in?  Neither William nor any of his known siblings had a child named Arthur.  Could he be related to the mysterious Alexander?

I began investigating Arthur by looking in city directories of the time and then census records.  Interestingly enough, Arthur was also an artist like William.  I was able to establish that he was born in New York around 1880.  Then I found this from the 1892 New York Census:


This Arthur was living in Buffalo, Erie County.  It looks like he was living with a sister, Nellie and parents Alexander and Hattie.  Hmmm...  If this is my Alexander Wood, then Hattie is a remarriage because the only spouse of his I knew of was a Margaret McFadden who had died in Canada in 1886.

Since it seemed possible that Arthur would be in the 1880 US Census, I went looking.  An Arthur Wood, six months of age, appears in Medina, Orleans, New York:


Also in the household is Nellie, again, as well as Alex(ander) and... Margaret.  This really seems like my Alexander Wood, and I believe it is.  Of note is the fact that also living in Medina in 1880 was William Wood and his family.

While looking for Alexander in later records I stumbled upon an online tree which gives him a death date in 1893.  But, since I can't find any proof to confirm or deny this, I simply have him listed as dying after 1892.  Since he doesn't appear in either the 1900 US or 1901 Canadian Census, it seems probable that he died before then.  

Now, back to where I started: John's obituary.  It states that at the time of his death in 1918, he was survived by five brothers and one sister.  Assuming the obituary is correct and taking into account this new research, the five surviving brothers were: James A., William, Andrew, George D. and... Charles S. 

One of the reasons I wanted to research Charles' siblings was to maybe learn when he died.  I knew it was between 1910 and 1920, but if John's obituary is correct (as well as this new research), then Charles was one of the surviving five in 1918. 

Much research still needs to be done on these people, but I feel like I have many more avenues to go down now - and I can't hardly wait to get going!

Comments

  1. Nice work! You have a lot of leads now ... I look forward to seeing how you solve this!

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