Finding the Parents of Sarah Merrill Part 2: a Genealogy Case Study

January 10, 2023 Jessica Neaves

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How long have you been researching your brick wall ancestor(s)?

One of mine has been causing me trouble for about 15 years.

After years of occasional searching, I decided to get serious and focus on who her parents were and where she was born.

Once I got serious about it, I started making breakthroughs!

This is my latest in a series sharing a genealogy case study about trying to discover the parents of my 4th great-grandmother, Sarah Merrill.

I hope you will join me in my journey sharing the steps I took to find answers and that you can learn from my research.

Before I get started, I want to first note that I’m discussing the steps I took in researching this brick wall ancestor. There are different ways people could have approached it. I don’t believe that there is only one way to research a brick wall – it’s whatever gets you answers!

You can see my first post in the series here.

Okay, let’s dive in!

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Research question

Who were the parents of Sarah Merrill, born circa 1812 in Vermont, married Samuel Jones 24 November 1831 in Lebanon, Grafton County, New Hampshire, and died 20 October 1863 in Woodstock, Windsor County, Vermont?

Genealogy case study background information

To recap part 1 , I knew nothing of Sarah’s origins before 1831. I found two marriages for her kids that said she was born in Hartford, Windsor County, Vermont. Searching all of Vermont, I found a good candidate to be Sarah’s father, a man named David Merrill. But he didn’t appear in Hartford until about 1830, way after she was born.

Other records for Sarah’s children

I had found a lot of vital records for Sarah’s nine children, but they weren’t giving me many clues. The next step I took in this genealogical case study was to start exploring a broader set of records for her children and dig into offline sources.

Sarah’s son, Henry, served in the Civil War and died at Andersonville. His young wife had died before he enlisted and I hadn’t found another marriage for him, so I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a widow’s pension available.

Still, I took a look to see if there was any sort of pension for him and found an application from his father, Samuel, in 1875.

Sarah had died a long time before that, but I was eager for any clues since Samuel is also a brick wall, so I ordered it.

Applications from parents were less common than other dependents. I knew there could be some great stuff inside since Samuel would have to prove his relationship to Henry, as well as his need, to qualify.

When I got the file, I was excited to see that it was 64 pages long and filled with some wonderful genealogical information about Henry and Samuel, but sadly no hints about Samuel’s background.

There were, though, two big clues about Sarah, both affidavits from 1875-1876.

The first was from Eliza Rice of Roxbury, Washington County, Vermont. It began by saying she was a sister of Olive Sleeper who lived in Orange, Massachusetts. She stated she was a cousin of Sarah and had attended Sarah’s wedding with Olive in Lebanon on Thanksgiving eve in 1830. She also said the Rev. Mr. P. Cook performed the marriage.

See this content in the original post

The other was from Olive Sleeper. She also stated that she was Sarah’s cousin and had attended Sarah and Samuel’s wedding on Thanksgiving eve in 1830 at Lebanon. Congregationalist minister Rev. Mr. P. Cooke performed the ceremony. And then she gave her maiden name of French!

I now had the names of two of Sarah’s cousins, along with their maiden name and location about 1875 to take me to the next step of the research.

But of course, there had to be another complication thrown into this mystery. Both cousins claimed the wedding was Thanksgiving eve 1830 and was performed by Rev. Cook. The town record I found said it was 24 November 1831 and performed by a Justice of the Peace.

Did they marry twice? And if so, why? This is something I’m still working on researching to resolve the conflict.

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Tracing Olive Sleeper and Eliza Rice

Of course, the first thing I did after finding this was research Olive Sleeper and Eliza Rice. If they were Sarah’s cousins, then their mother would be Sarah’s father’s sister. If I could trace the cousins and their mother, perhaps I could find confirmation about David being Sarah’s father - or another man entirely.

I learned that Olive and Eliza French were the daughters of William French and Olive Merrill. They had at least five other kids: Thomas, William, Amasa, Almira, and Hezekiah.

[Note: I’m going to now use maiden and married names for the Olives because there are three generations in a row.]

William French and Olive Merrill filed their intention to marry 2 April 1808 in Newbury, Massachusetts. William was of Newbury and Olive was of Londonderry, New Hampshire. They then married on 23 June in Londonderry.

The family primarily lived in Washington, Orange County, Vermont [hint: this location will be important in the future] and Roxbury, Washington County, Vermont. Olive Merrill French died in Roxbury in 1870. Her death record states she was born in Methuen, [Essex County], Massachusetts, and that her parents were Samuel Merrill and Olive. She was 89.

Another clue to the next step!

I now had ideas about where Olive Merrill French was born or lived, her estimated birth year (1781), and her parents’ names.

But I couldn’t find her birth in either Methuen or Londonderry. While that’s not unheard of for the time, of course I wanted to find some sort of record.

I also had very few leads from the records of her children about where she was born. The death record of her daughter Olive French Sleeper said Olive Merrill French was from “Londonderry, Mass.” This doesn’t seem to be a place but rather a mix of Londonderry, New Hampshire, and Methuen, Massachusetts. The 1870 census for Olive Merrill French said she was born in Massachusetts.

I knew the names of her supposed parents so I decided to jump ahead and see if I could place them in Methuen or Londonderry. I could then search for more records about her and any possible siblings once I located the parents.

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Researching Samuel and Olive Merrill

I knew that Olive Merrill was in Londonderry in 1808 [her marriage] so I began my search in the 1800-1810 censuses.

The 1800 census of course didn’t include Londonderry because nothing about this family has been easy. There was no Samuel Merrill there in 1790, either, when Olive would have been a child.

There were, though, three interesting Merrill households in Londonderry in 1810: two men named Samuel and one named David. The potential father for Sarah was named David, so it began to get very intriguing.

One of the Samuels was the right age to be Olive’s father (born 1765-1784) while the other Samuel and David were the right age to be Olive’s brothers (born 1785-1794). David had a daughter who could be Sarah (born 1800-1810) or an older sister. But Merrill was a common name in the area so these may or may not have been the same men I was seeking.

While I couldn’t find a marriage for Samuel Merrill in Londonderry or Methuen, I did find one in Salem, New Hampshire. That marriage says Samuel Merrill and Olive Messer married 30 December 1783. As Salem is about 13 miles away from Londonderry, these could potentially be Olive’s parents.

The trail went cold again here for census and vital records. There was no Samuel Merrill in the 1790 census for Salem, although there were several men with similar names in the county. Both Samuels and David Merrill disappeared from the Londonderry censuses after 1810. There were no vital records for David in Methuen or Londonderry.

Stay tuned for my next post in this series, where I’ll share how a specific type of record gave me a huge link to who Sarah’s dad was.

Final thoughts

Here’s a little recap of where we are in this genealogy case study.

Sarah Merrill and her suspected family members were all proving to be pretty elusive.

Sarah’s kids left behind hints to a connection to Hartford, Vermont, where a man named David Merrill lived after the time of Sarah’s marriage.

Affidavits found in a Civil War pension file gave clues about two of Sarah’s cousins: a pair of sisters whose mother, Olive, was from Londonderry, New Hampshire or Methuen, Massachusetts. Olive’s parents were Samuel and Olive Merrill.

Two men named Samuel Merrill and David Merrill lived in Londonderry about the time Olive got married and were the right age to be Olive’s father and brother, respectively.

But few vital or census records in Londonderry or Methuen can be found to help trace the family or connect Olive to Samuel and David.

I felt pretty certain at this point I was on the right track. But there weren’t enough leads in basic record types to get me direct or indirect proof of the relationship between any of these people. The next step was to broaden the types of resources in the hopes of getting more information.

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