Cobb(s) and Bruton Parish Church

Robert Cobb(s), 1627-1682, son of Ambrose Cobbs and Ann White, arrived in the United States with his family when he was 8 years old. As a young man, he settled in Marston Parish, York County, Virginia where he served as church warden of Marston Parish from 1658 until 1674, when Marston Parish and Middletown parish were absorbed into Bruton Parish. Then he became one of the first vestrymen of the Bruton Parish Church.

A tile I found at an antique shop features the present day Bruton Parish Church.

In 1677 the vestry decided that instead of repairing the existing churches in the parish, they wanted to build a new one out of brick to serve the entire consolidated area. An agreement was signed in 1681 that would require the payment of  "L150 and sixty pounds of good, sound, merchantable, sweet-scented tobacco. to be leveyed of each tytheable in the parish for three years together" in order to build the church. The land for the church and churchyard was given as a gift forever by the wealthy colonist, John Page. It was in what was then known as Middle Plantation, but in 1699 it was renamed Williamsburg when it became the colonial capital.

A plaque commemorating those involved in the building of the first brick church
at Bruton Parish includes the name of Robert Cobb.

Robert Cobb(s) died in December of 1682, midway through the construction of the church. A new, larger church was built in the same location in 1715, when Robert's son Ambrose was a member of the vestry, and still stands in Williamsburg. 

A plaque commemorating the 1710-1715 vestry, when the present church was built,
includes the name Ambrose Cobb(s), son of Robert Cobb(s).

Robert Cobb(s) was my 9th Great-Grandfather, his son Ambrose, my 8th Great-Grandfather. These men were in the midst of the beginnings of this country and knew all the important players in colonial Virginia. They were strong Christian leaders in the community and I'm proud to have them as ancestors.

John C Moore, aka John Pulcheon, 1843-1920

Shortly after the death of his mother, John Pulcheon left his remaining family in Ohio and set out on his own. He landed in Iowa and created a new identity for himself by changing his surname to Moore. It took a lot of time and frustrating research to determine that the two seemingly separate men were actually one and the same.

John F. Pulcheon

John F. Pulcheon was born in July of 1843 to German immigrant parents, William Pulcheon and Catherine (Crates/Kröz) Pulcheon. William and Catherine lived in Canton Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, near where their families had settled after immigrating to the United States. Canton township inhabitants were mostly native Pennsylvanians, but there was a smattering of Germans living there, too so the Pulcheon family wouldn't have felt entirely out of place. Catherine's father, Christian Frederick Crates/Kröz, desired to live in a predominately German community, however, and had recently moved to Van Buren, Hancock County, Ohio. In Van Buren, the population in 1850 was almost all German. The churches were Lutheran. It felt more like home. He must have written to his daughter and son-in-law and urged them to come, too, because within a few years they also relocated to Hancock County, Ohio.

Catharine Crates Pulcheon, 1823-1859
Photograph shared on Ancestry.com by user Clingermangirls on 11 Jun 2011.
A note added by Clingermangirls says it was contributed by Martha Avery.

A. William Pulcheon, c. 1814-1900
Photograph shared on Ancestry.com by user Clingermangirls on 11 Jun 2011.
A note added by Clingermangirls says it was also contributed by Martha Avery.

In 1850 and 1860, John Pulcheon is listed in the household of his father William Pulcheon. In 1850, Catharine and 3 other sons, Eli, William, and Henry, were also listed. In 1860, after Catharine's death, John is listed with his father, brothers, and a sister born in 1853, Mary Jane. Then John disappeared.

John C. Moore

John C. Moore was my 3rd Great-Grandfather and for many, many years I was at a standstill trying to research his family. The earliest record of him was in 1865 when he married Miss Sarah Coffin in Mahaska County, Iowa. They weren't located on the 1870 census but were in Oskaloosa, Mahaska, Iowa in June of 1874 when their daughter Josie Lena Moore was born and when the 1880 census was taken. Sarah died in 1882 and a year later, John married Mary Roenspiess. It was the record of this marriage that led me back to Catherine Crates and William Pulcheon.

Iowa Marriage Records, 1923-1937, from Ancestry.com
Cropped image of the page showing the names of John Moore's parents.

In this record, the parents of John C Moore are listed as William Moore and Catherine Crates and it gives his birthplace as Pennsylvania. Unable to narrow down to a fitting William Moore in Pennsylvania, I searched for John's mother. I found Catherine with William Pulcheon and my first thought was that he was her second husband. I looked for any connection for her to a William Moore but found nothing. I did, however, find a record stating that they married in 1840. Three years before John's birth.

The census records in 1850 and 1860 listing a son named John Pulcheon with the couple and the obituary for William Pulcheon lead me to conclude that John Pulcheon and John C Moore were one and the same. William's obituary states he was the father of four sons and a daughter. In the 1850 and 1860 census records there were 4 sons and a daughter. I believe they all were his children.

The obituary of William Pulcan(Pulcheon):

William Pulchan was born in Holland. Died May15,1900, his age 

being one hundred years or over. At the age of twenty years he 

came to New York City, and from there he went to Pennsylvania, 

and was united in marriage with Catherine Crates who preceded 

him to the grave 41 years ago. To this union were born five children, 

four sons and one daughter. He leaves five children, fourteen 

grandchildren, and 47 great granchildren to mourn their loss. Early 

in life he united with the German Lutheran Church and lived a 

consistent Christian life. He was a kind and devoted father and a 

good neighbor. Extreme old age was the cause of his death. 

The funeral was held from the M.E. Church in Williamstown 

conducted by W.W. Curl.

DNA matches confirm my connection to the Catharine Crates that married William Pulcheon, so it doesn't seem to be a case of finding the wrong Catharine. Coupled with the fact that John Pulcheon disappeared shortly before John C Moore appeared in records, I do believe the two are the same man.

John and his second wife Mary had a son named Leo or Lee in 1887. There were no other children. John lived until 1920 and is buried in Forest Cemetery, Oskaloosa, Mahaska, Iowa.

The first Ambrose Cobb

Generation 1: Ambrose, an oft-repeated name in the Cobb family in America, started with Ambrose Cobbs, born circa 1565 in Eastleigh Court, Lyminge, Kent, England and died between 1605-1607 in Petham, Kent, England. He was my 11th Great-Grandfather. His son Ambrose (1603-1655/56) was the first American immigrant in my Cobb line, arriving in Virginia in the early 1630s.

All Saint's Church, Petham, Kent, England
The burial place of Ambrose Cobbs (1565-1605/7).

Generation 2: Ambrose the Immigrant was the second son of Ambrose and Angelica Hunt, so he wasn't likely to inherit land in England. He had two uncles, his mother's brothers, who were some of the first Jamestown settlers. Perhaps it was their encouragement, coupled with his "second son" status, that led to his decision to leave England. He and his wife, Ann White, with their young son Robert and daughter Margaret, arrived in Virginia about 1634. They had at least two more children after they settled, Ambrose in 1635 and Thomas in 1637.

Generation 3: Robert Cobbs, son of Ambrose and Ann, married Elizabeth Thorpe in Bruton Parish (Williamsburg) about 1655. They had at least five children, one of them to be named Ambrose.

Generation 4: Ambrose Cobbs, son of Robert and Elizabeth, married Frances Elizabeth Pinkett in 1687 in Bruton Parish. Ambrose was one of the founding vestrymen of Bruton Parish Church, a building that still stands in Williamsburg. Ambrose and Frances had several children, one of them was a son named Ambrose. Their son Robert, though, was my direct line ancestor.

Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Generation 5: Robert Cobb, son of Ambrose and Frances, was born in 1687 in Bruton Parish, Virginia. He married Crosia Frith by 1725. Of their many children, a son named Ambrose is in my direct line.

Generation 6: Ambrose Cobb, son of Robert and Crosia, was born in 1729 in Bruton Parish. He married Sarah (last name may be Howell) and had at least eleven children. One of those was a son named Ambrose, but my ancestor was a younger son named James, born in 1770. Ambrose and Sarah moved to Lincoln County, North Carolina, where Ambrose died in 1797.

Generation 7: James Cobb, my 5th great-grandfather, is the one that broke the Ambrose tradition in my direct line. He had at least three sons, but none carried the family name as far as I can find. James married Sarah Beach in 1790 and died young, in 1805, leaving his widow with several young children to care for. Sarah died in 1823.

The name Ambrose continued, however, in other lines. Vintner, another son of Ambrose and Sarah, named a son Ambrose. Another of their sons, William, named a daughter Ambrosia. I haven't researched all of the family lines, but I would bet that I'd find another Ambrose somewhere along the way.

Note: I have done a lot of work researching the Cobb family from James to the present, but the research into the earlier lines is not my own. Credit goes to Cobb and Cobbs, the Kent Cobb Families, and research done by Robert S. Cobb, which is included now on the Cobb and Cobbs website in its entirety.

Albert's Swedish roots

Eric Albert Ericsson (also Eriksson, Erickson) was born in 1869 in Sweden and came alone to the US as a young man. He was my second great-grandfather, and the most recent immigrant in my family tree. I  wondered about his life in Sweden, about his family there, and what made him decide to come to America.

Albert and wife Josie in Renton, WA
Photo shared with me by my cousin Thomas Timson

To find out where he came from in Sweden, I started with the records I had already found here in the US. A handwritten note listing his parents as Eric Johnson and Johanna Peterson was my first hint. It had been recorded by the wife of Albert's grandson, but I didn't know how she got the information. The Washington State death record lists his father as John Erickson and his mother as Johanna Peterson and gives a birthdate of May 22, 1869. Again, I don't know who the informant was. Albert was listed in census records for the years 1900-1940, first in Mahaska County, Iowa and later in Washington state, with Sweden as his birthplace and his immigration year as 1887 or 1888.

While reviewing the records I had already seen, I followed a shaky leaf hint on Ancestry where I found Albert's marriage record in Oskaloosa, Iowa. It gave me an earlier account of his parent's names, and he was likely the informant.

Marriage record of E. A. Erickson, born in Sweden, father Erick Johnson, mother Johanna Pearson.
Ancestry.com. Iowa, Marriage Records, 1880-1940 [database on-line]. Iowa Department of Public Health; Des Moines, Iowa; Series Title: Iowa Marriage Records, 1880–1922; Record Type: Textual Records

That led me to this:

Ancestry.com, Sweden, Indexed Birth Records, 1859-1943 [database on-line]. 
From Swedish Church Records Archive; Johanneshov, Sweden; Sweden, Indexed Birth Records, 1880-1920; GID Number: 100004.22.44000; Roll/Fiche Number: SC-521; Volume: 309; Year Range: 1869

Or, more specifically, this:

Birth record from Östra Vingåker parish, Södermanland, Sweden shows Eric Albert, born 22 May 1869, to Eric Jansson and Johanna Charlotta Pehrsdotter of Starrhult.

This birth record matched the birthdate on Albert's death record. After a short lesson on patronymic naming patterns, I realized I had struck gold. Now I had the PLACE and the Swedish spellings of his parent's names - Eric Jansson and Johanna Charlotta Pehrsdotter.  The remaining records that I found on Ancestry didn't include images, which I wanted to see, so I hopped over to www.FamilySearch.org to see if the images were there. Most of the records for that parish have been digitized, but are available for viewing only at a Family History Center, affiliate branches of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Luckily, there is a church nearby that I can visit to view those restricted images.

In 19th century Sweden, the church was responsible for recording all the families within each parish. Household Examination Books were kept by the church to follow each parishioners religious education. These records are a genealogist's dream! Each family member is listed under the head of the household by name and, in most cases, full birth dates. Each book covers a number of years and notations are made if a person moves, marries, or dies during that period. Having the full birthdate for an ancestor is a key piece of information when looking at these records. Because of the patronymic naming patterns in Swedish families, many people have the same name. For example, Eric Jansson's children were all given a first name, then the boys assumed Ericsson as a surname and the girls would be called Ericsdotter. I wanted to take my ancestry back another generation, so I was looking for a household with a father Jan or Johan that included a son Eric and a household with a father named Pehr or Per with a daughter Johanna. Quite literally, there is one on almost every page. Thank goodness the priests included birthdates!

In Gillershult, the family of Johan Persson, 1832-1836.

In Lilla Tholtorp, the family of Per Nilsson, 1832-1836.

Equipped with the birthdates and names of their parents, I was able to find the birth records for Eric Jansson and Johanna Pehrsdotter:

Eric, along with twin sister Johanna, was born to Jan Pehrsson and his wife Stina Pehrsdotter
 in Gillershult on the 5th of July, 1831.

Johanna Lotta was born to Pehr Nilsson and his wife Anna C. Olsdotter
in Lilla Toltorp on the 10th of September, 1833.

Now that I had some basic information to get started with the Swedish end of the research, I decided to try a subscription Arkivdigital.com. I paid for a month and dug in. By recording the names and birthdates, moves from one village or farm to another, and looking at birth, death, and household records, I have been able to expand the family tree from knowing virtually nothing about Albert's family to this:

My tree from Albert now includes five more generations in Sweden. Amazing. All of these families lived in the Östra Vingåker parish of Södermanland or in the neighboring province of Östergötland (where I haven't even begun researching yet!). It appears that they were all tenant farmers. When children were old enough to work, they often moved to other farms as farmhands (male) or servants (female) until they were married.

I still haven't learned why Albert made the decision to come to America.

1887, Sweden, Emigration Registers, 1869-1948. Lehi, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018.
Original data: Göteborgs Poliskammare, 1869–1948, Landsarkivet i Göteborg; Norrköpings poliskammare; Huvudarkivet Polisen in Helsingborg; Poliskammaren i Malmö Överståthållarämbetet för polisärenden 1 (ÖÄ): Äldre poliskammaren (Stockholm 1869-1904); Överståthållarämbetet för polisärenden 2 (ÖÄ): Poliskammaren (Stockholm 1905-1940).

S. S. Orlando, Wilson Line steamship built 1869 at Hull, England by C. & W. Earle.
from Illustrated London News, April 2, 1870 p. 336
http://www.norwayheritage.com/gallery/gallery.asp?action=viewimage&categoryid=10&text=&imageid=395&box=&shownew=

On October 14, 1887, at the age of 18, he boarded the S. S. Orlando in Göteborg, alone, heading to Hull, England. His final destination was listed as Oskaloosa, Iowa. There were a few other young men from his parish boarding the ship that day, but he was the only one heading for Iowa. It's clear that he had a specific plan in mind when he left his family and homeland behind.

Obituary for Eric Albert Erickson

In a writing group, I was challenged to craft an obituary. I could choose to write my own (creepy!) or one for a deceased ancestor. It's a bit harder when it's someone you never met, obviously, but it was an interesting exercise. Here is my attempt to capture the life of Eric Albert Erickson, my second great-grandfather, in an obituary. 

E. Albert Erickson

     As a young man, growing up in a small Swedish village, Albert Erickson dreamed of living in America and the opportunities that could be found there. He worked hard, saved money for the voyage and, at just eighteen years old, bid farewell to his childhood home, friends and family and left for NordAmerika. Born Eric Albert Erickson in the Spring of 1869 to Eric Jansson and Johanna Charlotta Pehrsdotter, he was raised in the village of Östra Vingåker, Södermanland, Sweden . He died at the age of 83 in his home in Renton, Washington, on Sunday, July 6, 1952 after a lengthy illness. Albert’s bravery, adventurous spirit, and willingness to work hard to reach his goals served him throughout his life. 

     Soon after arriving in America, Albert settled in Mahaska County, Iowa, one of only a handful of Swedes in the area, where he immersed himself in the process of becoming American. He quickly learned the language, completed the naturalization process, and set about making a life for himself. Josie Lena Moore, a young woman native to the area, caught his eye and became his wife in March of 1892. Josie’s father and step-mother were of German heritage, so she brought those customs into their home to blend with Albert’s Swedish upbringing. They were members of the Friends Quaker community in Oskaloosa and attended services with Josie’s family. The couple was blessed with seven children, four daughters and three sons. Sadly, their firstborn son, Walter Dewey, died at only three months of age. Even in adversity, he remained joyful with faith in his God, and the goodness of his fellow man, his buoys. It was rare, indeed, to see Albert without a happy grin on his face. 

     By 1910, the Erickson family had moved to Grant County, Washington, settling in the brand-new community of Ephrata. It was hard work to clear the dry desert land of sagebrush and prepare it for farming and building. Albert’s eldest two daughters helped support the family by working in a restaurant, while Albert worked as a farm laborer. After ten difficult years in Ephrata, he once again chose to make a drastic change. This time, he packed everything up and headed for the city. Albert, Josie, and the four youngest children moved to Seattle.

     City life suited Albert. He was a happy, jolly man and enjoyed the people he encountered at work and at home. He found employment with the City of Seattle Water Department, where he remained until retirement. He and Josie cheerfully welcomed the spouses of their children and all the grandchildren that became part of the rapidly expanding family. Albert will be remembered for bouncing them all on his knee as he sang out, in his native Swedish, children’s rhyming songs of his youth. His zest for life and willingness to work hard for his dreams have left a lasting impact on all who knew him. 

     Albert is survived by his wife of sixty years, Josie; two sons, Roy (Marie) and Earl (Margaret) Erickson, both of Seattle; four daughters, Eda (Peter) Peterson of Cashmere, Chelan County, Katie (Art) Cavanaugh of Selah, Yakima County, Rose (Theodore) Cox of Wesley, California, and Pearl (Clyde) Morrison of Seattle. He also leaves 11 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

     Funeral services will be held on Thursday at 1 o’clock in Stokes Chapel, Renton, Washington, with burial to follow in Mount Olivet Cemetery. While his family will long mourn his death, they will forever remember Albert with fondness and strive to live as he did, finding joy in each day.