Thursday, August 9, 2012

Moving From Utica To Troy NY

Have been looking for my great, great grandmother Jane James Williams (1815 - ?) born in Wales and presumably died in upstate New York. (See posts below for the full saga of this search.)

Mom and Aunt Betty mentioned a connection to the Utica area and there were a lot of Welsh immigrants who settled there. But my digging around Utica has come up with nothing. So on to Troy and Renesselear County where that photo was taken of Jane and six of her seven children!

It's kind of funny but when I was browsing around the Utica records of 1880-ish I just couldn't see my Williams ancestors living there, and the more I looked the less connected they seemed to this area, in spite of the big Welsh population. It's a heavy farming area and they weren't farming folks. I know, I know, that's just a feeling and not a fact you can site, but ... well, it's what I have at the moment. And it "feels" pretty strong. That said I won't stop looking for them in Utica 'cause ya never know.

On the other hand from the moment I started reading about Troy there was a connected feeling. My ancestors were miners, carpenters, and engineers (as best I can tell right now.) And as such they would have fit in well and found employment in the Troy area. Nope, they weren't farmers.

I'm obsessed with these people! What happened to them in Upstate New York? Why did they then seem to disappear out of the records? Where did they go? Did they go west just as my GGF went south and west to Western Maryland to work in the coal mines as a supervisor, get married, buy a house, have a bunch of kids? Jane, talk to me!!

Photos of the Day from Aunt Betty's Archive:


That photo taken in Troy NY by
TOWNE, 47 Third Street


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