Divorce in the Family ~ 52 Ancestors #26

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Black Sheep.

Not that divorce makes a person a black sheep of the family (if that were so, this branch might have a dozen or more black sheep), but this great uncle of mine married and divorced twice and it made the papers.

James McAlpin Pyle was born in 1884 in New York as the oldest of six children of James Tolman Pyle and Frances Adelaide McAlpin. (They gave all six of their children the middle name McAlpin.) He married Miss Anita Merle-Smith on April 29, 1912.

The following wedding announcement was in the April 30, 1912, issue of The New York Times:

(Mourning in the bridegroom's family referred to the death of his father, James Tolman Pyle less than two months prior.)

James and Anita lived in New Jersey and were enumerated in the 1915 New Jersey State Census and the 1920 U.S. Federal Census with their two daughters, Sara, born September 10, 1913 (in 1915 and 1920), and Anne, born September 28, 1915 (in 1920).

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However, the November 23, 1929, Central New Jersey Home News reported that Mrs. Anita Merle-Smith Pyle had requested a divorce from her husband, James McAlpin Pyle of Norodon [sic: Noroton], Connecticut, on the grounds of desertion. He had apparently deserted his family on September 6, 1927.

(Interestingly, James was found twice in the 1930 U.S. census, once listed with his wife and daughters in Bedminster, New Jersey, and also listed with his sister and brother-in-law in Noroton, Connecticut.)

Charles Williston McAlpin (Another Charles) ~ 52 Ancestors #25

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Same Name.

There are several men by the name of Charles in my father's family. My father was a Charles, as was his father. I shared photos of them as children at Photos for Father's Day.

My father's mother was Elizabeth (known as Libby), and I have written about her many times. Libby's father and brother were both named Charles. Here is a photo of her father.

All of these men were known at times as Charlie, specifically spelled with the "ie" ending.

So who was Charley?

Wordless Wednesday ~ Photos for Father's Day ~ 52 Ancestors #24

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Father's Day.

Following are four generations of Pyles in photographs.

My father, Charles McAlpin Pyle Jr., at about the age of eight or ten in the early 1930s:

And his father, Charles McAlpin Pyle, at probably about the same age in the 1910s:

And his father, James Tolman Pyle:

A photo of his father, James Pyle, which I found at the Nova Scotia Archives website:

Happy Father's Day!

Percy and Marguerite Going to the Chapel ~ 52 Ancestors #23

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and this week's writing prompt is Going to the Chapel.

My great-grandparents, Percy Earle Hunter and Marguerite Lysle were married in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on 21 October 1897.

Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Clerks of Orphans' Courts, Pennsylvania County Marriage Records, 1885-1950, FHL Film 878632, p 49, no. 13646, digital image, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DY8Q-7CL : accessed 25 January 2012), citing marriage record for Percy E. Hunter and Marguerite Lysle, 21 October 1897.

So Far Away ~ 52 Ancestors #22

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and last week's writing prompt was So Far Away.

My brick wall ancestor, third great-grandmother, Susan (Rood) Chapin, had several children. One, my second great-grandmother, Susan Arville (Chapin) Adsit, settled in Chicago, Illinois, dying there in 1906. One of the strategies to break through a brick wall is to research siblings of a known ancestor and I have done some research on Arville's siblings to see if that leads me to Susan (Rood) Chapin's death information (or possibly her parents' names).

One of her sisters continued to move further west and settled in Utah. My third great aunt, Jane Eliza Chapin, was born 14 January 1822, probably in Massachusetts. She married Hiram H. Harrison in Chicago, Illinois, on 4 March 1841. The family was in Wisconsin in 1850 and 1860 (per the U.S. Census) and in Salt Lake City, Utah, by the time of the 1880 U.S. Census. That year, Jane was enumerated in the household of one of her sons. (I have not had luck finding the family in the 1870 U.S. Census.)

Jane was not enumerated in the 1900 U.S. Census (though I did find two of her sons in Salt Lake City). Her death record reported her place of death at the 1900 home of her son, Lester.