Full House: James Hunter's Family ~ 52 Ancestors #42

My second great grandfather, James Hunter, was in construction. He fathered ten children with his wife Mary Freeland.

Because of his construction business, he was very involved in building his home on Perrysville Avenue in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, where the Hunter family moved by 1890-1891 (based on city directories).

Undated photo

Fall 1905

Fall 1905

Fall 1905

The 1900 U.S. Census shows that it was a full house:

1900 U.S. census, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Allegheny Ward 10,
ED 82, p. 15A, dwelling 270, family 306, record for James Hunter.

James Hunter, Head, age 55
Mary S. F. Hunter, Wife, age 50
James F. Hunter, Son, age 24
Samuel K. Hunter, Son, age 21
John R. Hunter, Son, age 18
Chester A. Hunter, Son, age 16
Helen R. Hunter, Daughter, age 13
Mary Lois Hunter, Daughter, age 11
Curtis C. Hunter, Son, age 8

The household included three servants: Mary Coyne, age 21, Katie Malley, age 20, and John Jones, age 17. Mary and Katie were born in Ireland and John Jones was born in Virginia.

Sadly, Mary died in March 1902, at age 52. Her husband, James died about seven months later at age 58. I believe that his second son (and my great-grandfather) Percy Hunter, became guardian for his underage siblings and moved back into the family home with his growing family. 

Twelve Children of George and Margaret Lysle ~ 52 Ancestors #41

I was looking for the most children in one family for this week's theme and without going back to colonial New England, I think that my third great-grandparents, George Lysle and Margaret McIlwaine had the most children of any ancestor in the past 200 years or so.

George Lysle, Sr.

Margaret (McIlwaine) Lysle

The very basic information about the family comes from a printed family tree from the late 1930s that has been passed down in the family which I shared in May 2013.

Libby: Least Number of Cousins ~ 52 Ancestors #40

My paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Adsit, known as Libby, is the grandparent with the least number of close family, specifically first cousins. I have no first cousins, second cousins, or third cousins on this specific ancestral line. I showed this graphically at  Descendants of my Great-Grandparents and in a list at Counting Third Cousins.

Elizabeth Adsit, circa 1913, about 16 years old

John Hull, Mintmaster ~ 52 Ancestors #39

Earlier this week, while reading an article in The Boston Globe about one of the oldest American coins being put up for auction, I thought I saw a familiar name and checked my family tree.

John Hull, authorized as "mintmaster" by the Massachusetts General Court in 1652, is my 8th great grandfather.

He and a colleague, Robert Sanderson, established a mint in Boston, about where Macy's currently is located, according to the Boston Globe article. The earliest coins minted in America were at this mint in Boston in 1652. The men continued to mint coins for several decades, but all were dated 1652 to be able to claim that the coins were made during the period right after the English Civil War. (Otherwise minting of coins in the colonies was a treasonous act!)

Image from The Boston Globe article

John Hull was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, England, on December 18, 1624, to Robert and Elizabeth Hull. The family immigrated to Boston in 1635, where his father, was granted 25 acres for farming, though he primarily worked as a blacksmith. 

School Pins and Rings ~ 52 Ancestors #38

Recently, my brothers and I were going through some items that had come from my mother's collection of family treasures.

Some items had symbols on them that needed to be deciphered.

The first items were relatively easy to decipher. This pendant has the Greek letters Beta Theta Pi. It is just under an inch in diameter and is stored in this small leather case.

Grandfather Lowell Townsend Copeland attended Northwestern University in the early 1920s. He was a proud member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. I shared information from his school yearbook at What Else You Can Find in Yearbooks.