Friday Finds

Have you collected lots of files while researching your family history? Having spent over 40 years researching my family tree, I have collected a lot of paper and am collecting a lot of digital files. One of my 2022 goals was to go thru some of that paper research. This review has allowed me to

• discard some (Yes, I’m throwing it out! — But think of how one did census research in the 1980s compared to now. I don’t need those paper transcriptions when I’ve gone back and attached an image of the census file to my source along with a transcription.)
• shared some as my Friday blog posts
• updated the sourcing I have in RootsMagic to current standards
• transcribed deeds and wills so I could include the transcription in the source citation and in research notes

Am I done? NO! I’m not even close. But it is a start.

Today’s Friday Finds comes from my Crawford-Pennsylvania folder. While I currently can’t place my particular branch of the CRAWFORD family in Pennsylvania, I likely did not know that in 1987. In the summer of 1987, my husband and I went on a vacation with my parents that took us through Salt Lake City for a few days before venturing north into Idaho to cross the Teton mountains to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

While in Salt Lake, we spent the days in the family history library where my parents assisted me with my research with each researching their own branch of my tree. Thus, the notes for the Crawford family in Pennsylvania are in my dad’s handwriting.

While there isn’t enough information to create a footnote for this source, there is enough information to locate the book, Biographical Annals of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania:

• on Archive.org
• on Ancestry
• on FamilySearch
• on Google Books

Thus, I can create a full footnote for this information and take advantage of OCR (optical character recognition) capabilities to search inside of the book. Such a search reveals that there were multiple CRAWFORD entries in this book while my father only recorded one. I’m guessing that I had figured out that my ancestor was named James and my father focused in on that name.

Using the Ancestry version of the book, I found the entry for Solomon Schnader on page 110 in a section on the Schneider (or Snader) family.

(1) Solomon Schnader married Elizabeth Jane Crawford, a daughter of James and Mary (Bothewell) Crawford, who came to this country from County Tyrone, Ireland, about the year 1800, and settled in what is now Crawford county, Ohio. Their children are: Edward L. Snader, an actor of prominence on the American stage, whose wife is Fanny McIntyre, a celebrated singer and actress and Susie Snader, wife of William Duncan, of Bloomfield, Ohio.

Also in the book is a biography of John CRAWFORD and his father, Oliver, who (according to the biography) have Irish roots. This biography begins on page 1260 and continues on page 1261.

John Crawford, a retired farmer of Colerain township, Lancaster county, was born on his present farm Nov. 4, 1823, his parents being Oliver and Martha (Walker) Crawford, old time families in both Lancaster and Chester counties.

Oliver Crawford was born at the family home in Colerain township as early as 1794, and his wife Martha Walker, in Chester county in 1799. Mr. Crawford was the son of John Crawford who was born in County Derry, Ireland, and who came to this country when a young man, and took part in the Revolutionary War, being with Washington at Valley Forge. After the war he married a Miss Bunting, and established the home where John Crawford now lives. When he secured it he found wild land on his hands, and by hard and tremendous work he cleared up a farm which has remained in his family to the present day. The stone house and barn which he erected are still in use. Here John Crawford and his wife died. They were the second family to locate in this section. The Crawfords

page 1261

were Presbyterians in their faith. To John Crawford and his wife were born two sons and two daughters: William who moved to Ohio when a young man, married there and became the father of a numerous family; Mary A. married a Mr. Campbell, and moved with him to Baltimore, where he died, leaving no children; Polly died at the home unmarried; and Oliver, the father of John, received but a meagre schooling when a boy, and began life for himself as a farmer on the old homestead.

When Oliver Crawford was married to Martha Walker, they settled on the old Crawford homestead, and there they lived and died. His death occurred in 1841, and her death in 1861, his father dying the same year with Oliver. Oliver and his wife were the parents of the following family: Ellen married Frederick McClellan, and settled on his farm, where she died leaving a family, three of whom live in Chester county, and John, in Chicago; Mary A. married James McClellann, and lived in Colerain township, where she died leaving one daughter, Martha, who is now the wife of Joseph Richardson, of New Jersey; Jane married James Palock, of Chester county, and died leaving two children, James and Martha, both of Oxford; Amanda married Robert Black, and is deceased. Hannah married Silas Williams, and they reside in Colerain township; Samuel, deceased, married Mary J. Cooper, and located in Chester county, but while visiting in Philadelphia he died, leaving three children, Thomas who lives in Oxford, Elizabeth who lives in Chester county, and Martha, wife of C. McClellan; Elkahah died unmarried; and John.

John Crawford whose name introduces this article …

While my father took the Schnader notes, it appears that I didn’t enter this information in my genealogy file. Perhaps that is because it is another James Crawford that I can’t link to my branch of the tree. Nor, do I have this particular Oliver Crawford in my files. Since current research and yDNA results point to Virginia and Scotland, I’m not sure how Oliver Crawford and his father John would connect to the larger Crawford tree. Thus, this particular piece of Crawford history may stay hidden in my files until I can prove a link to early Pennsylvania, Ireland or this branch of the Crawford tree.