Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Search for this Over is Over

I've really been fortunate lately with the discoveries I've made in adding details to my collateral families.  I've been remiss to write about many of them.

One that I discovered yesterday related to my paternal 2nd-great grandaunt, Amanda Matilda SHERRICK, daughter of David and Susan (JACOBS) SHERRICK.  Until yesterday, I knew that she was born about 1844 in Ohio from the 1870 census of Ashland County, Ohio, and that she had been married to ________ OVER from her father's obituary, where she was referred to as Tilda OVER of Burbank, Ohio.  Not a lot to work with.

A quick search of Ancestry.com gave me a few possible clues, one of which being the 1880 census of Wayne County, Ohio, which showed a Jacob & Matilda OVER in the right place (Burbank), but I didn't want to jump to the conclusion that this was the right family until I found some other evidence.  This Jacob & Matilda had the following family in 1880 : son Melvin, aged 12; daughter Emanda, aged 9; daughter Stella, aged 6; son George, aged 4; and daughter Eldora, aged 2.  

A quick Google search for the combination of "Jacob Over Matilda" brought several hits, one of which was the archived OH-FOOTSTEPS mailing list on Rootsweb.  In a January 30, 2008 email entitled 'Oh-Wayne Co. Cemetery (Burbank Cemetery) was a partial listing of burials in that cemetery.  Among the names were 'Over Jacob W 1839 1909 h/o Matilda Over' and 'Over Matilda Sherrick 1845 1924 w/o Jacob Over'.  Looking really good now, I decided to see if anyone had posted a photograph of their tombstones at the Find A Grave website.

Sure enough, there were listings in the Burbank Cemetery in Wayne County, Ohio for Jacob & Matilda, as well as other Over family members.  According to the description of the cemetery, the cemetery is located south of the Medina/Wayne County line, in Congress Township.  Congress Township is where members of Susan (JACOBS) SHERRICK's family were from.  

The listing for Matilda (SHERRICK) OVER including a copy of her obituary, confirming that she was the daughter of David and Susan SHERRICK (or SHERICK, as the obituary spelled it).  Also included was the fact that her husband, Jacob, was a Civil War vetThe kind soul who added the scan of the obituary even was kind enough to source it as being from the October 3, 1924 Medina County Gazette - and listed a link to the Medina County District Library!

So know I know that Amanda Matilda SHERRICK was born August 18, 1845 in Ashland County, Ohio and died September 10, 1924 in Lodi, Medina County, Ohio.  She married to Jacob OVER on January 29, 1865.  Unfortunately, the obituary doesn't list her surviving children by name, but with Jacob's name - I can now dig into the census and see who else I can find.

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