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I’m hoping someone here can help me with missing records relating to my great-great grandfather and his family while they were living in New York and in Illinois after 1858 and before 1881.
This is what I have:
Charles BOWER born May 29, 1832 in Darley, Derbyshire, England.
Married Mary (Bowler) on December 26 1854 in Derbyshire. Mary was born in 1836 in Derbyshire. I don’t have specific birth date but she was christened June 19 1836.
Charles was a miller for his entire working life.
They had a son, Leonard, born September 22 1855 in Derbyshire.
In 1858 the family sailed to New York on “West Point”, arriving July 12.
They had a son, Charles, born in 1859 in New York (allegedly in Westchester).
In the 1860 census they are living in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois. (They have been indexed as Bowen)
They had a daughter, Hannah, born in Illinois (almost certainly in Morris) in 1861. The family lived in Morris until at least 1864 as Charles was naturalized there in April that year.
By 1870 they were in Hampton Township, Rock Island County, Illinois. Son Leonard is no longer listed. Hannah has been listed as Anna. Charles’ younger brother Thomas is also there.
By 1881, the family is back in Derbyshire, England. Charles now a widow. Son Charles and daughter Hannah are still living with him.
I have all the info on the rest of their lives.
What I don’t have:
- Birth and/or christening record for Charles Bower (born New York, possibly Westchester) in 1859.
- Death and/or burial record for Leonard Bower in Illinois – either Grundy County or Rock Island County. I am presuming he died as I haven’t found anything at all for him in either the US or England after the 1860 census and there is no mention of him in his father’s Will, nor any mention of him in family stories.
- Birth and/or christening record for Hannah Bower – born 1861 in Grundy County, Illinois.
- Death record for Mary Bower – in Rock Island County, some time after 1870 and before 1881. She does not seem to have died in England (and English records are pretty solid, so I think I would have found her if she died there). It is possible that the family moved away from Rock Island after 1870 and lived elsewhere before returning to England but I found no evidence of that.
- Details of the family’s return (shipping record) from the US to England – some time after 1870 and before April 1881. I know Charles’ younger brother Thomas returned to England before late 1871 because he got married then.
Since I’m in Australia I can’t physically show up at the various County Records offices. Before I write to them, I thought it might be worthwhile to ask if anyone here has access to any info not provided by ancestry.com and familysearch or can point me in the right direction for additional online info.
The Bower name frequently gets mangled – usually into Bowen or Bowers!
Thanks PAhippo. The records I'm seeking are all US based. I felt that C-D genealogists who know their way around US records might be able to help the most.
Illinois death index (pre-1916): Illinois Statewide Death Index
However, Grundy is one of the counties that are not on the statewide index. Death records not held by IRAD will be available from the county clerks of the various counties.
Contact info for Grundy vital records: Grundy County
There are no U.S. manifests for passengers leaving the U.S. Ancestry does have records of UK incoming passengers for years 1878-1960: UK, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
Ancestry is available for free on many public library computers.
Regarding the 1859 birth: Westchester Vital Records, NYGenWeb "Vital Records were not mandated by New York State until 1880. However, the law was not enforced utnil about 1917. If you are looking for a birth, marriage, or death record prior to this time period, you must contact the clerk's office of the town, city, or village in which the event was registered. Also check the church or synagogue where the event may also have been registered."
Regarding the 1861 birth in Illinois: Genealogical Research at the Illinois State Archives
"Most Illinois counties did not begin recording births until 1877. Birth records prior to 1916 were recorded only by county clerks."
You might try searching their names in local newspapers. You may find birth announcements, obits & other items.
Also try contacting the local public library in the town in Illinois where they lived. The local library may have a name index to the local paper even if it's not digitized. They may also have old city directories on microfilm which may help you to figure out exactly when they left Illinois.
Thanks daliowa! The tips re online newspapers are especially helpful. Will start looking.
I searched and searched the UK incoming passenger lists for a record of the family's return to England, so I suspect it was before 1878.
Looks like a trip to the US may be on the cards at some point.... I have travelled there countless times in the past, but wasn't interested in genealogy until very recently!
I do have a worldwide sub to ancestry which I may cancel next month since I haven't found anything new on it for some time.
Thanks daliowa! The tips re online newspapers are especially helpful. Will start looking.
I searched and searched the UK incoming passenger lists for a record of the family's return to England, so I suspect it was before 1878.
Looks like a trip to the US may be on the cards at some point.... I have travelled there countless times in the past, but wasn't interested in genealogy until very recently!
I do have a worldwide sub to ancestry which I may cancel next month since I haven't found anything new on it for some time.
Keep in mind that names are often spelled incorrectly when transcribed into an index. Passenger manifests were notoriously tough to read, so try searching without exact spelling.
Are there old city directories for the UK? If so, that may help pinpoint when they returned.
Thanks daliowa! Your suggestion about old city directories for the UK prompted me to have another look at the directory collections to see if I had missed anything. And I had! I found Charles Bower listed in 1876 as a miller in the same town (village, really) that he was living in 1881! I had actually seen that record before, but had presumed it to relate to Charles' father (also Charles). A further check found the father Charles also listed in the same directory but in the next village!
So now I know the family was back in England by 1876!
Unfortunately there are no local directories available for the 1870-1875 years, so that might be as close as I get.
I'm very aware of the name-mangling possibilities! One of my family lines is Barrett - which I have found indexed as Barnett, Borrett, Bonnett, Bartlett and goodness knows what else! Fortunately all the members of that family lived their entire lives in the same few streets in a small area of London, and never went anywhere, so they were pretty easy to track down!
Newspapers have been incredibly useful to me for that time period! I had to be careful, because often the blurb would discuss "Mr. Bower and his wife did X" or "The son of Mr. Bower", etc, without using a first name anywhere in the blurb. The writers just assumed that the readers knew who these people were.
Would there be any mention in an English newspaper when they returned?
Illinois had state censuses every 10 years. I checked 1865 and found this possibility for you. I'm not sure how many other C. Bowers there were in this area in that time period.
Morris, Grundy County, Illinois
Page 57
Bower, C.
1 white male under age 10
1 white female under age 10
1 white female between 30 and 40
1 white male between 40 and 50
Total free males: 2
Total free females: 2
I also checked the 1870 mortality schedules, and Leonard did not appear; this implies that he did not die in 1869 (the mortality schedules cover the 12 months before the census date).
Did they own any property in the 1860 or 1870 censuses? Land records may give you more information on when they moved from one town - and country - to another.
Thanks Aggie! It does look like you found the right family in the 1865 Illinois census - all other Bower people I found in both Grundy and Rock Island counties had completely different initials and family configurations. However, the ages of the parents are wrong. Charles would have been about 33 and Mary 29... maybe a slip of the enumerator's pen? Assuming it is the right family, it means son Leonard had already died by 1865.
I haven't found that they owned any property in the US, though they were certainly cashed up in 1870 (the whole Bower family was generally fairly well off by English standards of the day). In the 1860 census there is nothing at all in the relevant census columns. They lived next door to another miller, who did own real estate - so it's likely that Charles may have been his employee.
In 1870 Charles is listed as having a personal estate valued at $2,000 (which is way more than others on the same census page), but has no real estate. Charles' younger brother Thomas (who lived with them for about 3 years) had a personal estate valued at $1,500. Maybe they were planning to invest in a corn mill?? Thomas was back in England within a few months of the 1870 census, so perhaps they decided against it. I'm beginning to think they may all have returned to England with Thomas. I'll take a look to see if I can find a newspaper account of Thomas' marriage (in 1871) ... perhaps it will list Charles and his family as guests!
I love this supersleuth stuff!
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