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There are some issues in genealogy that require years of beating, prodding, and poking before you break through them. We call these “brick walls”. While there are some brick walls that are more stubborn than others, and some that have stood for over twenty years, I recently plowed through a big one which may lead to some interesting work proving Mayflower ancestry. This involves finding the parents of my paternal second-great-grandfather, Theodore “Frank” Snyder.

Frank Snyder was the husband of Elizabeth “Libbie” Cole, and the father of Ruth Adele Snyder Curtis, my great-grandmother. Unfortunately, Grandma Ruth died in 1982, long before I had an interest in genealogy. Apparently she spoke to no one about her family, as interviews with my father and other relatives on that side of the family yielded absolutely no clues. Most of them didn’t even know her parents’ names — in fact, I don’t remember any of them did. I could at least tell them that, as I had their names on Ruth’s 1896 birth certificate. Finding Libbie and her parents was the subject of my first professional genealogy article in FAMILY CHRONICLE magazine, as this was also an odyssey.

I started out with only a few small pieces of information about Frank:

1. He was born in August 1861 in Marilla, Erie, New York (Ruth’s birth certificate)

2. His given name was possibly Theodore (notes on a very old copy of a short family tree my paternal grandfather had put together years ago).

3. According to Grandma Ruth, he was buried in North Collins, Erie, New York, as was her mother. One of her last wishes was to be buried with them, but she was buried in Rockland County with her daughter instead.

This wasn’t much to go on, and the few records I could find were not helpful.

I did find a Theodore Snyder born about 1861 in Marilla, New York, a son of Isaac and Martha Snyder. He was in the 1865 and 1875 state census records, and the 1870 federal census, in this household in Marilla. However, he was always listed as Theodore, never as Frank — not even Theodore F., for that matter. I could not be sure this Theodore was my Frank.

Frank and Libbie Cole married in late November or early December 1880, which is a pity because the state had only just enacted the law requiring towns to keep track of vital records and the vast majority were not in compliance yet. The only record of their marriage was an exceedingly brief and incomplete notice in the Le Roy Gazette newspaper on 8 December 1880:

SNYDER-COLE: In Morganville, Mr. — Snyder, of Alexander,to Miss Libbie Cole of Le Roy.

I mean, for heaven’s sake, they didn’t even know his first name.

I also found Frank Snyder living with his wife Libbie in the 1892 state census in North Collins with their son Lester (never have found out what happened to Lester), and in the 1900 federal census in North Collins with Libbie and daughter Ruth. But I found little connection between this Frank and the previous Theodore.

In the 1905 North Collins census, he’s gone. Libbie and Ruth are there, and Libbie was listed as a widow. However, as I pointed out in my Week 1 blog entry about the informal divorce, I was not taking Frank’s death at face value. He would have only been in his early forties, so I counted it equally possible he was “over grass” rather than “under sod”.

Add to this that both Isaac and Martha, his purported parents, also seem to disappear. Isaac dropped from sight after the 1875 census. While it was easy to assume him dead, Martha was enumerated living with her children in the 1892 census, and although she was alone, she was listed as married, not widowed.

Add to this that even after extensive searches of the New York State Vital Records Index, I could find no record of deaths for Frank, Isaac, or Martha, nor could I find any records of their burials. If Frank is in North Collins, his grave is unmarked.

Just a few months ago, however, I decided to expand my search for Isaac, and what I found really surprised the heck out of me.

Isaac was born in 1819 in Ontario, Canada, and judging from information about his siblings, had probably been born near the present-day town of Bertie in Welland, near Fort Erie and just over the border from Buffalo. And in 1891, I found an Isaac Snyder, aged 72, living in Bertie with a widowed female cousin named Magdelene Edsall twenty years his junior. He was listed in the 1891 Census of Canada, and his religion was listed as “United Brethren”.

The United Brethren was a Mennonite order founded near a settlement that turns out to have been called Snyder — with good reason. Isaac’s parents, Peter and Jane Snyder, had moved from Albany County, New York to this part of Ontario to help set up this church, which apparently also had some ties to the Methodist Church. Isaac was born here and lived there until he was in his late teens or early twenties. He was enumerated again living with the same widowed cousin in the 1901 census — and in both instances, she was listed as widowed and he was listed as married. So apparently, at some time between 1875 and 1891, Isaac Snyder left his wife and (by this time grown) children back in the States and went to live with the religious community that he had lived with growing up. But both Martha and Isaac apparently considered themselves still married, even though Martha did not go with him.

(Aside: Magdalena’s maiden name was Johnson, the same last name as Isaac’s paternal grandmother. So this was another possible confirmation, although Johnson is hardly an unusual name).

While interesting, however, this did not solve the question: where and when did Frank, Martha, and Isaac die, and could their death certificates prove the relationship between them?

It was actually Isaac’s proximity to Buffalo that got me thinking: what if one or more of them had died in the city limits of Buffalo?

The New York State Vital Records Index (VRI) lists all births, marriages, and deaths recorded in New York State after June 1880, although it took several years for towns to comply fully with the law. I had searched the VRI for their records to no avail. It was possible this wasn’t “my” Isaac living in Canada and he’d really died prior to it being recorded, but the Canadian Isaac was looking pretty good at this point.

However, there were a few exceptions — and Buffalo was one of them. Buffalo actually started keeping some records as early as 1852, but here’s the kicker — they didn’t start sending them to New York State until 1914. Any Buffalo death records prior to 1914 would not show up in the VRI.

So in December 2014, I headed over to Buffalo to the Inactive Records Office, hoping to find at least one of them — and I found all three.

Martha Snyder died first, on 20 Jun 1901 in Buffalo. It listed her address as 152 N. Delewan Avenue, and listed her parents as Theodore and Eliza Edson. I had known her parents’ names, but it definitely confirmed I had the right person.

Isaac Snyder died 22 May 1902 in Buffalo. It listed also his address as 152 N. Delewan Avenue, but that he had only been living there for a year. It did not list his parents, but that was all right with me because I had positively identified his parents years ago (although I still have not found his mother Jane’s maiden name).

I used the Buffalo city directories to find who was living at 152 N. Delewan Avenue in 1901 and 1902. Neither Martha nor Isaac Snyder were listed, but for just a few years it was the residence of Homer D. Sprague, who was husband to Viola Adell Snyder, Isaac and Martha’s third daughter. It appears that Martha had lived with Homer and Viola for some time, but either shortly before or shortly after Martha’s death, Isaac had rejoined the household and lived there until his own death eleven months later.

Frank’s death certificate was both a confirmation and an extra puzzle. He died on 21 November 1905, having spent the last six months in Erie County Hospital from complications of diabetes. He was listed as “Frank Snider” (not Theodore) and it confirmed his place and year of birth. More importantly, it listed his parents as Isaac and Martha “Snider” (they were at least consistent about misspelling the name).

So why was it a puzzle? Because of Libbie’s answer to her marital status in the 1905 state census. Every census has an official date, and the census reports the status of a household on a particular date. The census is usually taken about that time, although they can’t be there on the exact date everywhere in their district. The date of the 1905 census was 1 June 1905 — and yet Libbie reported herself a widow, even though Frank did not die until the end of November. It’s conceivable that the census taker was VERY late that year (almost half a year late) and didn’t make it clear that it was supposed to have enumerated everyone who was alive on 1 June 1905. However, that would be a lot later than is usual.

So had I thought to look for their deaths in Buffalo, I would have “plowed through” this problem a lot sooner. However, given that none of them had ever lived in Buffalo or even that close to it (both Marilla and North Collins are a little over 20 miles away), it makes sense in retrospect. Two aged parents die at the home of a daughter, and one man has a lingering illness requiring long hospitalization — which required going to the largest local city.

Frank’s death certificate did confirm he is buried somewhere in North Collins, but did not say which cemetery. Part of him apparently still wants to keep his secrets.