Tag: Marshall Cortis

The Bela Remington Family of Hingham, Massachusetts

I have taken a long break from telling stories of the Remington’s and the families associated with them. I started writing about Bela Remington many times. But I would get distracted, and do a little more research. The Remington family tree branches stretch into the earliest of New England’s settlers. That means there are many generations and over 300 years of history just in New England! That’s a lot of history!!

The search has been interesting. I found family who served in the Revolutionary War. Another direct ancestor was one of the earliest ministers in Hingham, and many ancestors played prominent roles in the establishment of Hingham. I also learned that the descendants of Marshall Cortis are related to Abraham Lincoln – Abe Lincoln is a cousin although many times removed! That is pretty cool. And we can’t forget our Mayflower Ancestor Richard Warren. I have only scratched the surface in looking at this family. I will share some of the stories I have found and encourage you to do your own searches to see what else you can find.

Hingham Marker
I have lived in New England for over 40 years, and have never been to Hingham. I’ve heard of it, but really didn’t know anything about the town. Hingham, Massachusetts is located on Boston Harbor on the South Shore of the Greater Boston Metropolitan area. It was first settled by English colonists from Hingham, England in 1633. Most of the early settlers were Puritans, leaving England because of religious dissent with the Anglican Church. The ancestors of Ruth Martha Andrews DeBoise and her father, Marshall Cortis, were among those early settlers.

Thomas Remington was the first Remington I found in Hingham. He was listed in marriage records for March 1688 when he married Remember Stowell.  Remember’s family was in Hingham in the early 1630s. Thomas was probably not the immigrant ancestor, but I have not been able to verify his parents. He is often confused with another Thomas Remington who was also born in Massachusetts about the same time as our ancestor. The other Thomas moved with his father to Suffield, Connecticut where he died. Our Thomas was still fathering children after the Suffield “Thomas” was deceased! Six generations later, the grandfather of Marshall Cortis was born – Bela Remington II.

ancestorsRemington

Bela Jr. (II) was born in May 1824 in Hingham, the son of Bela Remington Sr. (I) and Esther Manuel. It was not quite 50 years since the United States declared its independence from England and fought the Revolutionary War. There was a contentious presidential election in 1824. Andrew Jackson had the largest number of electoral and popular votes among the four candidates running for office, but he did not have a majority of electoral votes. The House of Representatives was left to decide who the next President was going to be. Politics have never been nice. Favors were called in by Henry Clay, a leader in the House, and John Quincy Adams was selected as the sixth President of this new Republic.

Bela Sr. was the son of Elisha Remington, Jr. and Margaret Stowell. Bela Jr.’s mother, Esther, was the daughter of John Manuel, who had emigrated from France, and Esther Lewis, whose ancestors are among the earliest settlers of Hingham. Esther Lewis traces her direct ancestors back to Samuel Lincoln, who is also a direct ancestor of Abraham Lincoln.

Bela Jr. was the oldest of five children of Bela Sr. and Esther. His mother died in 1839 when he was 15 years old, and his father died two years later. Bela Sr. left land and an estate, which was sold off a little at a time over the next few years to help care for the  children. The youngest child was 5 years old at his father’s death. Esther’s brothers, John and Robert Manuel, became guardians of the youngest children.

Bela Jr. married (1) Bridget Crehan on October 24, 1848 in Boston. Bela was 24 years old and Bridget was 22. Bridget was born in 1826 in Ireland, and was 20 years old when she arrived by the ship Agnes Gilmore, which sailed from Liverpool, England to New York City. Following arrival in New York, she went north to Boston, where many other Irish immigrants were settling.

About the time that Bela married, he took custody of his brother Charles, who was then 13 years old.  Bela worked as a milk carrier and farmer. In 1860 he and his family were living on the George Glover, a local merchant, property, where he worked as a laborer.
Bela and Bridget had five children, all born in Hingham. Bridget was 35 years old when she died on May 31, 1861 from peritonitis caused by childbirth. This is an infection of the abdominal cavity and the most common cause for women dying from childbirth until the 1900s, when the infection could be treated with antibiotics.

The children of Bela and Bridget were:

1. Bela Crane was born October 6, 1851. He married Maria Elizabeth Stoddard on September 20, 1876. They were living in Weymouth by 1880, and in Holbrook by 1900. Bela C. was 79 years old when he died in 1929. His wife died the same year. They had at least two children, Edith and Lizzie Florence.

2. Mary A. was born November 29, 1852. By 1880 she was a servant in the Quincy home of Isaiah Whidon and his wife. Mary was 34 years old when she married George A. Oberlander and they took up residence in Everett. George died eight years later, leaving her a widow with a young daughter. She and her daughter lived with her step-son, Andrew Oberlander, until her daughter was old enough to marry. Then Mary lived in her daughter’s household. Mary died in 1919. She was 67 years old.

3. Lucy Frances was born in December 1854. In 1880, when she was 26 years old, she was the live-in servant of Joseph Newhall and his wife.  Lucy was 32 years old, living in Boston and working as a domestic, when she married Armeal H. Robinson, a waiter, on April 20, 1887. Armeal was black. Interracial marriages were not common in 1887. By 1900, her father, Bela Jr., was living with her and her husband. Bela was working as a laborer and her husband as a painter. She did not have any children. Lucy died October 7, 1906 from cerebral hemorrhage and tuberculosis. She was 51 years old. Her husband died the following year from insula sclerosis, more commonly known as multiple sclerosis, with arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, a contributing factor.

4. Martha Shepherd was born September 10, 1857. She was living in Boston by 1880, where, like her sisters, she was a servant in a private residence. She married Michael Strobel sometime between 1887 and 1892, although a record of the marriage was not found. Michael’s first wife died in 1886. Martha had two children, the first infant dying within a few months from malnutrition. Her husband was a German immigrant and worked as a sausage maker. He was murdered in 1894, leaving Martha with a six week old infant girl to care for. Martha worked as a laundress for private families to support herself and her daughter. She was 62 years old when she died October 7, 1919 in Boston.

5. Infant born in 1861. Although I could not find birth or death records for an infant born in 1861, since Bridget died from periodontitis as a result of childbirth, there had to be a child born. The child probably was stillborn or died shortly after birth.

After the death of Bridget, Bela was responsible for the care and support of four children ranging in age from four to ten years. Although grieving the loss of his first wife, Bela needed to marry again for help with his children, in addition to the companionship of a wife. On October 9, 1862 Bela married (2) Margaret Cullen in Boston. The daughter of John Cullen and Margaret Mulhanney, both of Ireland, Margaret was born March 3, 1831 in Ireland. She left the poverty of her native land and traveled on the ship Robert, which departed from Liverpool, England and arrived in Boston November 19, 1849. She traveled with Edward Cullen. Edward was probably her brother. He was listed as 18 years old on the ship roster, and Margaret was listed as 16.

Margaret was 31 years old when she married Bela, somewhat late for a first marriage. However, she likely had the maturity to become the step mother to Bela’s children. Bela and Margaret soon started their own family. Children of Bela and Margaret, all born in Hingham, were:

1. Agnes Ester was born July 22, 1863. Agnes married James Edward Conrad on September 8, 1896. Soon after the family moved to Quincy. Agnes and James had at least one child. She was 58 years old when she died in 1921.

2. John Theodore was born October 21, 1865. He was 31 when he married Flora H. Noiles on March 21, 1897. Following his marriage he moved to Cambridge then  to Boston. He worked as a waiter and night watchman. John was 64 when he died in 1929. He and Flora had at least two children.

3. Bernard Collan (Cullen) was born September 5, 1867 and was 52 when he died on February 19, 1920. A previous blog was about Bernard.

4. Winifred Cullen was born October 27, 1869. She was 36 when she married Paul D’Angelo on June 3, 1906 in Boston. Winifred and Paul moved to Everett, and had at least two children. She was 74 and a widow when she died in 1943.

5. Margaret M. was born May 5, 1873. She was 24 when she married Robert Elmer Gibson on October 31, 1897 in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Margaret and Robert first settled in Melrose, and moved to Woburn by 1920. They had at least six children. Margaret died in 1926.

Margaret (Cullen) Remington died July 12, 1889 of uterine cancer. She was 58 years old, and her husband, Bela, buried another wife. Bela moved from Hingham and lived with several of his children and their families. In 1900, he was living with his daughter Lucy, and her husband Arm Robinson. Following Lucy’s death in 1906, he moved to Melrose and was living with his youngest daughter Margaret and her husband Robert Gibson. He was living in Quincy with his daughter Agnes and her husband James Conrad when he died on December 15, 1912 from arteriosclerosis. He was 88 years old, and outlived two wives and two children. He is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Hingham.

In the next post I will share ancestor charts for the direct ancestors of Marshall Frederick Cortis, and share information on Bela Remington, Senior and his wife, Esther Manuel.

Thank you for the feedback I have received on these blogs. It is nice to hear that they are being read.

Enjoy the holidays. Hope everyone is able to spend some time with family and friends. What kind of traditions does your family have? How many were passed down from your parents and grandparents?
Until next time,
Teri

“Hello Daughter, I’m Your Father”

Marshall Cortis young man
Ruth Martha Andrews was born October 12, 1912. She never knew who her father was – always a missing piece in her life. Even if you don’t have a relationship with your birth parents, most children want to know who they are. Well, now we know – Marshall Frederick Cortis. The last blog was about how DNA was used to locate this missing piece of the family. A recent show on the ABC News 20/20 “Buried Secrets”, featuring CeCe Moore as the genealogist, detailed a similar process in locating the birth parents of two babies who had been abandoned. DNA is opening doors that could never have been imagined 20 years ago.

What I have pieced together about Marshall’s life has largely been through public records. He might still have a daughter living. If so, she would be 89 years old. I have not been able to find records of her beyond a mention in her sister-in-law’s 2011 obituary. The other relatives that I have connected with were not able to tell me  what the man was like, and none had met him or knew him.

Marshall Frederick Cortis was born April 16, 1889 in Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts and was named John Marshall Remington. He was the second son of Bernard Collan Remington and Margaret L. Deveau. His older brother, George, was born two years earlier and only lived for two months.

His father’s family had deep roots in Plymouth County, stretching back to the original passengers on the Mayflower. There were also more recent immigrants from Ireland. His mother was an immigrant from Digby, Nova Scotia.

Fourteen months later, in June 1890, Marshall welcomed another brother to his family – Bernard Charles Remington. Things must have been difficult between his parents because they separated and his father married Estelle May Wood on March 26, 1894 in Boston. According to Bernard’s marriage application, this was his first marriage. On November 29, 1894, Margaret “Remington” married Thomas Powers in Malden, Massachusetts. On February 5, 1897, a daughter was born to Margaret and Thomas – Gertrude Theresa Powers.

However, months before either of these marriages occurred, Bernard and Margaret had given their oldest living son up for adoption. On January 2, 1894, Marshall was adopted by Fred O. Cortis and his wife Ella. His name was changed to Marshall Frederick Cortis. I do not know if the Remington’s knew the Cortis family, or if this adoption occurred through an agency. Marshall was not quite five years old when his parents approved his adoption. His younger brother stayed with Margaret, and was raised by his mother and step-father.

Marshall moved to Oxford, Massachusetts with a new family to start his new life. In 1900, when he was 11 years old, he was still living in Oxford. There was also an 8 year old girl, the daughter of Fred and Ella, living with them. By 1910, Marshall was living in Worcester and was a piano maker. On February 11, 1911, when he was 21, he married Ella Victoria Ross. Ella was the daughter of Gustaf and Louisa Ross. Ella was born in Worcester on October 10, 1883. Both her parents were born in Sweden. Ella was 27 when she married, and this was her first marriage. Seven months later, on September 17, 1911, their first child was born – a daughter that they named Evelyn.

Early in 1912, Marshall was involved with Blanche Louise Andrews, resulting in the birth of Ruth nine months later. It is unlikely that Marshall was aware that he fathered another child.

Marshall and Ella had eight children together, all born in Worcester. They are

  1. Evelyn L. was born September 17, 1911. She was 79 years old when she died on March 14, 1991 in New York City, and was unmarried.
  2. Chester Marshall was born February 9, 1913. He married Catherine Frances Fogarty in 1935. Chester was 64 years old when he died in Queens, New York City in December 1977, seven months after his wife’s death in May 1977.
  3. Freeman R was born on January 31, 1915 and died in 1916.
  4. Bertha Margaret was born November 10, 1916. In 1930, when she was 14, she was a boarder in the home of Sadie Adams in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, along with her younger siblings Norman and Lillyan. Her mother had died and she and her siblings were probably in foster care. In 1958 she was working as an elevator operator. Bertha was 72 years old when she died on October 17, 1989. She never married.
  5. Edward was born in 1918 and died in 1919.
  6. Norman Elliot was born May 13, 1920. By 1930 he was in foster care. Norman served in the Army during World War II. He married Barbara Frances Weeden, and he died in Florida on February 20, 2000. He was 79 years old. His wife died in 2011.
  7. Howard was born in 1922 and died the same year.
  8. Lillyan Gertrude was born March 4, 1923. She was in foster care in 1930. She married Bernard Thebodo. Lillyan died on May 25, 2011 in Millbury Health Center, Worcester. She was 91 years old.

Cortis kids 19240003Ella was 40 years old when she died on March 7, 1923 from pneumonia, following the birth of her daughter.

In 1924, Marshall married Lucy May Carleton. This was Lucy’s second marriage. She married (1) Christian Charles Brennenan. Together they had four children, born between 1915 and 1919. The children stayed with their father when this marriage was dissolved and Christian remarried.

Marshall and Lucy had five children:

  1. Carleton Emerson was born May 6, 1926 in Providence, Rhode Island. He served in the Navy during World War II. Following his service, he returned to Worcester where he was an employee of the Chain Belt Company. He was married to Cecilia A. (Moquin). Carleton was 79 years old when he died on July 5, 2005.
  2. Donald Myles was born February 26, 1927 in Worcester. He served in the Navy during World War II. Upon his return from the War he moved back with his parents for several years. In 1958 he was working as a salesman at Denholm & McKay Company in Worcester. In 1961 he was a beautician at David’s House of Beauty. Donald was 64 years old when he died on November 3, 1991 in Sun City, Riverside County, California. I did not find a record of marriage for him.
  3. Barbara A was born about 1929 in Worcester. She married Luther G. Avirett, and in 2011 they were living in Bradenton, Florida. She and her husband might still be living. I could not find a record of them beyond 2011 when mentioned in a sister-in-law’s obituary.
  4.  Leroy Hebert was born April 24, 1930 in Worcester. By 1992 he was living in Phoenix, Arizona where he died on September 28, 1998. He was 68 years old. I do not know if he ever married.
  5. Carol Virginia was born November 12, 1933 in Worcester. She married Edmond J. Robidioux. Edmond served in the Navy during World War II, and died in 1983. Carol was 67 years old when she died March 29, 2001 in Worcester.

I have not tried to identify the grandchildren of Marshall. Many are still living. This can be a project of Marshall’s descendants.

Marshall had a number of jobs. In his early years, he was a woodworker and made pianos. In 1917, he was a tool room foreman at the Norton Company, and in 1920, he was working as a machinist. In 1927 he was working as a shipping clerk, and he did this for several years. I don’t know how he fared during the depression, and he might have lost his position as a shipping clerk when so many others lost their jobs and manufacturing was struggling. By 1939, he was a landscape gardener. In 1940 he was a salesman, and again in 1941 he was working as a gardener. By 1942 he was working as a salesman at the Worcester Rod and Gun Club. He then became a sales clerk for Iver Johnson Sporting Goods, where he worked for 10 years until his retirement in 1955.

Marshall registered for the draft in 1917, and again in 1942. The draft cards give us a little more information on what he looked like. He was 5’5”, and in 1942 weighed 157 pounds. He had light brown hair. The 1917 draft card said he had grey eyes, and the 1942 card said he had blue eyes.

Marshall completed one year of high school. It was not unusual for young men and women to leave school early during this time period in New England in order to go to work.

Lucy and Marshall stayed together until separated by death. Marshall died from a heart attack on February 29, 1956. He was 66 years old. He is buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Leicester, Massachusetts in a lot owned by the Carleton family. His wife, Lucy, died February 20, 1991 at the age of 96. I have a copy of Marshall’s obituary, but do not know which paper it was published. It was probably a Worcester newspaper.

OBITUARY MARSHALL F CORTIS 
1956 February 29
Marshall F. Cortis, Sportsman, Dies.

Marshall F. (Curt) Cortis, 66, of 2 Kings St. who retired a year ago after 10 years as a sales clerk for Iver Johnson Sporting Goods Co., died Wednesday in City Hospital.
Before joining Iver Johnson’s, he worked for Worcester Rod and Gun Club. He was widely known in the Worcester area as a sportsman.

He was born in Hingham, son of Fred O. and Ella S. Cortis, and had lived in Worcester 45 years. He leaves his wife, Mrs. Lucy May (Carleton) Cortis, six sons, Chester M. of Jamaica, L.I., NY, Norman E. of Oxford and Carleton E., Donald M. and Leroy H. all of Worcester; five daughters, Evelyn L. of New York City and Bertha M, Lillian G. wife of Bernard Thibodeau, Barbara A., wife of Luther G. Avirett, and Carol V. wife of Edmond J. Robideaux, all of Worcester; a brother Bernard C. Remington of Malden, and 12 grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Friday at 11 am in the Athy Memorial Home, 4 King Street. Rev. C. Fraser Kierstead, pastor of First Church, Old South Congregational, will officiate. Calling hours at the funeral home will be 2 to 5 and 7 to 10 pm today.

Although we know a lot more about Marshall Cortis, we still don’t know what the man was like. What kind of relationship did he have with his children from his first wife, who no longer lived with him after Ella died? Why didn’t they come to live with him after he remarried? Did the children from his first marriage have any type of relationship with the children from the second marriage? Did he feel like his birth parents had abandoned him? Did he have a relationship with his birth mother and birth father, as well as his brother? Lots of questions, and we will probably never know the answers.

Ruth Andrews grew up as an only child. I wonder how she would feel to know that she had so many half siblings.

The next post will be on the birth parents of Marshall Cortis – Bernard Collan Remington and Margaret L. Deveau.

Until then…..
Teri

Finding the Father of Ruth Andrews DeBoise – Breaking Down Brick Walls with DNA

DNA symbol

Who was the father of Ruth Andrews DeBoise? That was the big mystery in the search for her ancestors. If Ruth’s mother, Blanche, knew the man who fathered her daughter, she did not tell anyone. She was only 16 when she became pregnant. She was single, and an only child who was doted on by her parents. All that was known about him was that he was white, and probably Irish or Scandinavian. This was 1912. Although there have always been interracial relationships, it was still not common or accepted. And family lore indicated that this was not a consensual relationship.

I wrote for and received Ruth’s birth certificate – no father was listed. I double checked with her death certificate – unknown. Family did not know. I was stuck for many years, and wondered if I would ever find the answer.

I’m sure you have all seen Ancestry’s DNA ads – “I thought I was German, and found out I was Irish (or something like that!)”; “I had no idea I was Native American”, etc. When I started looking for DeBoise family information, DNA was not part of the “toolkit”. You went to town halls, talked to the elders, and as access to the Internet became easier, you connected with other researchers to share information. A great world of resources opened when Ancestry.com and Family Search offered access to their records on the Internet.

A few years ago, 23 and Me, Ancestry, and a few other companies began offering DNA testing at an affordable cost. Why take a DNA test? For many people, all they want to know is their ethnic background. For others, it can help identify, or confirm, ancestors. Adoptees use DNA to help find their birth parents. As more people take the DNA test and their results become part of the database, the chances of finding the answers and identifying the unknown ancestor becomes greater.

My sister and I, and both my parents, took the Ancestry DNA test several years ago, when it was still in the relatively “new” stage. We were curious about our ethnic background, and we were hoping that we could break down some of our brick walls – particularly on those common names of Smith and Cook. You get half your DNA from your father and the other half from your mother. The DNA that you get is random. Just because you have the same parents, it does not mean that you get the same DNA segments. Only identical twins receive the same DNA.

That’s why siblings can have different skin tones, different color eyes, and different color hair. That’s why we look different. For example, my ethnicity estimates are 27% Irish; 27% Scandinavian, and 24% Great Britain. My sister’s estimates are 31% Scandinavian, 25% Great Britain, and 19% Irish. I had dark blonde hair (before it turned grey!) and green eyes. She has platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. We have the same background, but in different percentages because of the random distribution of DNA from our parents.

So, I felt that DNA might be the way to identify this elusive man. After much persuasion and several years after I had my DNA tested, one of Ruth and James’s children agreed to DNA testing. Oh happy days! The test is very simple. I ordered the test kit from Ancestry, the DNA donor spit in a vial, and off the spit went to Ancestry for analysis. A few weeks later, we had the results.

The most immediate result was the ethnicity estimates. The ethnicities of the children of Ruth and James are: Benin/Togo; Ireland/Scotland/Wales; Scandinavia; Mali; Cameroon/Congo; Europe South; Great Britain; Native American; and several other African countries. I did not share the percentages, because each child who tests will have different percentages in each of these regions – explaining why everyone looks similar but yet different.

Finding matches to help you identify unknown ancestors can be a little more challenging. I had a learning curve in understanding how to use the results to find the answers I was seeking. Fortunately, others have taken the time to write easy to understand information on interpreting DNA results, and YouTube also has some good videos. GEDMATCH.com is a free site where you can upload your raw DNA results and expand your potential matches, in addition to the matches provided by Ancestry. When you find potential matches, you usually need to do some more work to find out who your common ancestor is. It takes time and patience.

After about a year, I began to see a number of relatives that shared DNA with the DuBose family who originated in South Carolina, both white and black. I was able to connect these relatives to Peter Purdept DuBose. This family was discussed in one of the earlier blogs on the DeBoise family.

After a year, I still had not been able to figure out who Ruth’s father was. I found a number of matches from Nova Scotia, which I could tell were from the Andrews side of the family. However, the people I connected with did not know who in their family might have lived in New England – and they were still living in Nova Scotia! But I am a patient person. I figured as more people tested their DNA and the results were added to the databases, the chances would increase that I would eventually find out the answers.

And then the pieces began to fall together. I had several very close matches, contacted the individuals, and was able to identify who their common ancestor was. Through genealogy research, confirmed by the amount of DNA that was passed down, I was able to determine that this common ancestor was Marshall Frederick Cortis! The matches were all grandchildren of this man, and cousins of the child of Ruth and James who had completed the DNA test. I was able to connect with a woman who had worked on the genealogy of her husband, a grandson of Marshall Cortis, and she was a goldmine. She shared pictures of Marshall, an adoption record for him, and the birth certificate of his father.

The pictures were unbelievable. The family resemblance between the sons of Ruth and James, and Marshall Frederick is uncanny, and there is no question that they are related.

We will never know the exact details of the relationship between Blanche Louise Andrews and Marshall Frederick Cortis. However, they had a daughter – Ruth Martha Andrews – who was deeply loved by her family. Ruth’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are many, and the numbers continue to grow! Blanche would be very proud of her daughter, her descendants and their accomplishments.

The next post will be on Marshall Frederick Cortis, and what I have been able to find out about his story.

Stay cool. When you think you have had enough of the blistering summer heat, think back on those very frigid days we had in New England last winter. I don’t think I’m ready to repeat that just yet!

Until next time…..
Teri