Sisters and Their Stories

 

Though I can't say I've found an answer yet, this has been a month which may have come full circle. I began the month looking for all the women who belong on my mother-in-law's matriline. I eventually settled on researching the daughters of her fourth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Howard, wife of William Ijams. The only problem: it's hard to find stories of sisters born in the late 1700s. Until, that is, I ran across a document identifying two of them, and hinting at a third.

Elizabeth Howard and her husband, William Ijams, had five daughters. Besides my mother-in-law's direct line third great-grandmother, Sarah, the other daughters were Rebecca, Rachel, Mary, and Comfort. This month has been one continuous struggle to find any records of these sisters' married lives, particularly the details indicating the names of their children—especially their own daughters.

We've found a bit of information on Mary's daughter, Providence Teal, but none of her three daughters had continuing lines of female descendants—they didn't "daughter out." With Rachel, an early census record after her marriage to James Turner indicated that she may have had at least five daughters, but what their names were or whether they lived to adulthood and married, I still can't say.

And then there's Rebecca. With Mary and Rachel, at least I could find some documentation beyond the marriage record to indicate what life had brought them in later years. For Rebecca, I had little beyond a reference to her husband's name in her father's will—William Ijams had named William Wiseman as his executor. I did find a will for someone by that name, living in Fairfield County, but the document didn't specify the names of any descendants. All the will mentioned was three apparently unrelated people with whom William Wiseman had been living at the time of the most recent census before his 1854 death.

In the 1850 census, living in William Wiseman's household were Eliza Noals and her likely daughters Elsa and Catherine Noals. Like William, Eliza had been born in Maryland, though she was almost thirty years younger than William. Her two supposed daughters were both born in Ohio, and were in their twenties. An unrelated eleven year old boy from Germany rounded out the household.

When William Wiseman's will was entered into the court records on February 7, 1854, names quite similar to those appeared as his legatees. Those named were Alicia Ann Noles and Catherine Noles. In addition, a third person of that surname—Leo Noles—was mentioned in William's will. Oddly, though Eliza Noles was also mentioned, she was only indicated as recipient, along with the other women, of support from the estate's executor for "protecting and maintaining" the three women "during their single life." All the rest of William's estate was bequeathed to the Literary Society of Saint Joseph in neighboring Perry County, Ohio, whose director was named as executor of William's will.

With no mention of a wife or descendants of his own, I considered whether the document was written by our William Wiseman. And yet, some details seemed to match. As indicated in his will, William was buried in Perry County. But there was no sign of a wife named Rebecca or any children from that marriage. I began to wonder whether there was another William Wiseman in town.

Fortunately, a land transaction in Fairfield County helped provide another piece of the Wiseman story. Dated May 1, 1831, the record indicated that land purchased by one Edward Stevenson was sold to him by "William Wiseman and Rebecca his wife," and "James Turner and Rachel his wife." With that one document, we are gifted with the names of the wives of those two men. Of course, we already knew from their father's will that Rebecca and Rachel were sisters, but finding their husbands' names in any records has been a challenge. This, at least, gave another verification of the connections.

What is interesting about that document in Fairfield County records is that, immediately preceding it was another document regarding another property exchange, between Joseph H. Ijams and Edward Stevenson. Referring to an original exchange in 1827, the 1831 document revealed that the description of the property in question contained an "incorrect recital of the metes and bounds" of the location.

What doesn't get mentioned in those documents is the other relationships contained within the named parties. Joseph H. Ijams was brother of William Wiseman's wife Rebecca, and James Turner's wife Rachel. In addition, Edward Stevenson had married another Ijams sister, Comfort, in 1811. While the land may have been changing hands, it was all still kept within the same family—but if it weren't for knowing who the sisters were, that fact would have remained invisible.