My Trails into the Past

In 1943, my husband’s grandmother filled out a family tree on binder paper. She described her grandparents as Thomas Davey and Mary Nicholas. She listed their children, including her father, Fred H. Davey. One of Fred’s sisters was listed as Lydia N. Colby, who had two sons, Albert and Alfred, and she identified them as twins. [1]  She included no dates and no locations for this family. I do not have much to work with, but I want to know if the boys were actually twins. Obituaries of Thomas and Mary Davey Thomas Davey died on 6 February 1886. The survivors included Mrs. Lydia Jackson of New York City. [2] Five years later, Mary Davey died on 18 September 1893 in Indianapolis. Mrs. Lida M. Colbey of New York was listed as one of the survivors. [3] The obituaries give two surnames for Lydia: Jackson and Colby. Both obituaries list her residence as New York City. An 1891 city directory lists a Lydia Colby, widow, living at 410 W. 57th Street. [4] This was the only directory fou...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. Multiple members of the same family left Sweden for America. Jonas Nilsson and Marta Larsdotter of Åsenhöga, Jönköping län, Sweden had seven children, six who lived to adulthood. [1] The farms in Sweden were getting too small to subdivide and only one child could then inherit the property. So, one inherited, one married a Swedish man, and four emigrated to the United States in the 1880s. Household Examination for Jonas Nilsson's family The family in the United States spelled their name as Nilsén, (pronounced neel-sane). Later the accent was dropped and the pronunciation morphed to “neel-son.” The first child to emigrate was Johan Laner . He left Sweden and arrived on 2 May 1887. [2] He liv...