My Trails into the Past

This post will double as a 52 Ancestors and a 12 for ’26 post. This month, I’m studying the Shotts and Bishop families, beginning with Amos Gorrell’s wife, Catharine Elizabeth Shotts. Elizabeth was born on 18 February 1835 in Ross County, Ohio, to Daniel Shotts and Mary Ann Bishop. [1] She was the second child of six. The family lived in Huntington Township and Daniel was a farmer. Even though Daniel could not read and write, his children were all attending school in 1850. [2] When she was 22 years old, she married Lemuel J. Sayre on 14 January 1857. Rev. William Morris officiated. [3] Lemuel was a 21-year-old Virginia-born farmer, the son of Squire and Lydia Sayre. [4] They had three children. Mary Adela Sayre was born on 29 May 1857 and she died 11 November 1858. [5] She is buried in the Denver Cemetery, Ross County. Her death date was calculated from age at death: 1y 5m 13d. [6] George Sayre was born on 3 August 1859 and he died on the same day. He is also buried in the D...

Here is my last post about the Gorrell family for the month of July. I did not get as far as I had hoped, certainly not researching Amos Sr's wife, Leah Wollam's family, or James Jr's wife, Sarah Milholland's family. Perhaps I'll get to it next year. This is the final installment about the tax and census records I found for Beaver County. The previous posts can be found here and here . I never found how these men acquired the land or how the land was disposed of. I learned that townships have local records and the next time I visit Pittsburgh for GRIP, I will take the time to visit Beaver County, particularly Ohioville and South Beaver. After discussing the tax and census records for the two James Gorrells and their widows, I wrote a few paragraphs about the history of Beavery County book I found that mentioned James Gorrell in the early part of the county's history. The Report* I recorded the information from census and tax records from 1800 through 1841 for v...