little bits ...

… and pieces. For Christmas of 1905, my great grandfather, Charles Stanton Adams, was given a small journal entitled “Mathison’s Life Diary, For Recording the Events in the Life of Men, Women, and Children.” Each page contained three small lined areas for a month in the year so there is limited room for noting events. Charles made a couple of back entries from memory and then for several years made notes most months, finally tapering off.

A number of these notes involved holiday dinner guests and a few other social occasions. For the most part I recognized all the names he listed as himself and his wife Grace, their son Arthur and his wife’s brothers, Arthur and Moody Newhall and sister Mary Ella Whiteman and their spouses.

However, one pair of names listed for most of these events eluded me: Delmont and Ellen Andrews. A quick check of my genealogy database was no help but thanks to the internet, even though these events were taking place in Winchester, Massachusetts, and I am in St. Augustine, Florida, I could quickly and easily start searching for information on them to resolve why they were such frequent guests.

My initial impression was that Delmont and Ellen were husband and wife but the 1900 and 1880 census quickly demolished that theory. They were living together but they were listed as brother and sister. After that, tracking backwards finds them in the household of Hiram and Almira Andrews, Delmont born circa 1831 and Ellen born circa 1840.

Now the probable parents’ names rang a bell so back to my genealogy database and there they are, Hiram Andrews and his wife, Almira Wyman Locke, and there is the connection. They married in 1829 and had six children. Delmont was the eldest followed by Henry, William Hiram, Ellen, Asa, and last, about 1847, Daniel.

And the connection to Charles and Grace (Newhall) Adams? Technically, Charles was actually distantly related by blood to Delmont and Ellen, fifth cousins twice removed through several greats grandfather Richard Cutter (c1622-1693) but the connection was in some ways closer. Charles was the son of William Adams by his second wife, Emma Isadora Stanton. William’s first wife was Lucy Gardner Locke, sister of Delmont and Ellen’s mother Almira.

The only 'extra' thing I found about Delmont was that he and two of his brothers, Henry and William, registered for the Civil War draft in 1863. As far as I can determine, none of them actually served.

So … William’s half-siblings were first cousins of Delmont and Ellen. Now I know of no terminology for that relationship nor any for what William’s son Charles would be to Delmont and Ellen but clearly the two siblings and my great grandparents maintained a close friendship and my little puzzle is solved. Of course, as often happens, my little digression had no descendants... sigh!