DECEMBER 1990 At this Thanksgiving time of year we have much to be thankful for in regards to the work accomplished. We have had a interesting experience this month which I would like to share with you. This will interest those of you who descend from Henry Mower Sr. and Mary Amick.
Mary had a brother, Joseph, of whom we knew nothing. No records at all had been uncovered about this brother. Last month a researcher working at the Bedford Historical Society found a manuscript of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Bedford County, Pennsylvania and sent it to me. In the record were listed some Maurers and Amicks. One of the Amicks listed was Joseph, wife Mary Ann and daughter, Henrietta. This was the first account of Joseph's family that we had.
I travelled to Salt Lake to the FHL on two weekends in November and spent those days researching Joseph Amick. We were not able to locate him in Pennsylvania. A search of surrounding states however produced a Joseph Amick in Ohio. Tracking him through census records we found he moved through Ohio, still we did not know if he was OUR Joseph or not. The 1850 Census however, lists names of children and spouse. There in Monroe County in 1850 was Joseph Amick, wife Mary Jane and 8 children! One daughter was named Henrietta--age matched the Trinity Lutheran Church records perfectly.
I spent most of the day trying to locate him in 1860, but he had moved from Ohio. Towards late afternood I found Joseph and all of those previously listed with him in Ohio---living in Cass County, Nebraska. Also included were two other sons. Now we had Joseph and 10 children. Now having run out of time I had to come back to Salt Lake. We did so just before Thanksgiving and spent the day working on this family.
I succeeded in finding Joseph's eldest son, George, and 7 of his children. We also found a daughter, Margaret, and 3 of her children; son John P. and 10 of his children; son, Thomas and 5 of his children; and 2 grandchildren of Joseph who had married and had 2 children. We also found leads on the married names of other daughters of Joseph, and even found some of their children. From these two trips alone to the library we have over 40 descendants. We are not experts, in fact I term us as "Dedicated Stumblers".
While working at the library, I ran into Jim Petty, our genealogist. He has now scheduled us for another 20 hours of research on our Maurer line. This work is to be done in early December and he will report to us about Christmas time. After I receive his report, I will enclose a copy of his report with the next Newsletter I send out.
I am receiving many genealogies, family group sheets, and inquiries about the Mower line from our relatives around the West. Thank you all for sharing these things with me. I am copying information you send onto my computer and including us all into one LARGE file of Michael Maurer descendants. I have about 10 hours of back logs to work on which should keep me busy at night the next few weeks after work .