Finding Family

People who have never tried genealogy research have varying degrees of appreciation for how it is done and the work that is involved. I decided to write this narrative for my family as an example of how I tracked down some of our relatives.

Finding Phillip Shaffner

My initial research ended with our great-great-grandfather, Phillip Shaffner, who died in 1920. His burial, as well as that of his wife, Maria Alleman, was listed on the Steelstown EC Church cemetery survey, which I found posted online by Marian Snyder. I visited the cemetery and transcribed his birth and death dates from his gravestone. Then I went to the offices of the Lebanon Daily News, searched through the microfilm archives, and found his obituary. [The Daily News staff was very gracious to allow me to search their archives, but they are not generally accessible to the public. Instead, the archives are accessible at the Lebanon County Historical Society.] However, Phillip's obituary did not name his parents or say where he was born. The only clue it contained was that he was survived by a sister, Barbara Ulrich.

I did more searches on the Internet. I could find no reference to our Phillip Shaffner (forwards and backwards, with other variations of the spelling) or our Barbara Ulrich. I found a web site which listed the 1830 census of Annville Township, but there were no Shaffners. Another web site had the heads-of-household (but not other family members) from the 1850 census of East Hanover Twp, which named a Frederick Shafner. Still another web site had the 1850 census of North Annville Twp, but the only Shaffner which appeared there was a John Shafner. In an unrelated matter, I had asked my mother to visit the Ono Cemetery. She told me that, while there, she saw the gravestone of a Peter Shaffner (1855–1912). I found several web sites which mentioned Shaffners in Lebanon and Dauphin Counties, including a Frederick and a Peter, but none of them shed any light on the parents of Phillip, or on the relationship, if any, between Phillip, Frederick, John, and Peter.

A few notes about old census records: Before 1850, the census recorded only the name of the head of household, and then the number of people living there, categorized by age, etc. Beginning with the 1850 census, the names and ages of all persons living in the household were also recorded. Although their relationship could be implied from the names and ages, it could also be misleading. For example, a niece or nephew, or even a younger sibling, living in the house could be mistaken for a child of the head of household. Beginning with the 1880 census, each person's relationship to the head of household was also recorded. However, that does not mean that their precise relationship to each other can be definitely deduced, i.e. stepchildren and half-siblings. And they would not include children who were deceased or had already moved out or were living with other relatives or were live-in employees somewhere else (or were not yet born!). As a result, when census records provide the basis of genealogy data, they often contain the wife's first name only (not her maiden name), estimated birth years, and incomplete lists of children.

My search for Phillip's parents seemed to be at a dead end. Several months later I was browsing the message boards on Ancestry.com, when I read a message from someone who seemed to know something about the Shaffners in Dauphin County. It then occurred to me that East Hanover Twp was originally part of Dauphin County before it was split into Lebanon County. So I enlisted the help of another researcher, who graciously searched the 1880 census for all the Ulrichs with a wife named Barbara. One of them, which seemed to be about the right age, was Solomon Ulrich, living in Swatara Twp, Dauphin County. That was the break I needed. A new search for Solomon Ulrich turned up a transcription from the 1896 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County of a profile of Samuel Nisley. His wife, Maria Shaffner, daughter of Frederick Shaffner and Catherine Deibler, had a sister, Barbara, who was married to Solomon Ulrich, and a brother, Philip, who was married to Mariah Alleman. The article contains other information about the Shaffner family, including a mention of the brother, Martin, who was "killed in the army". Incidentally, this web page did not appear in my original searches because the first and last names (Phillip + Shaffner and Barbara + Ulrich) do not appear together on the page.

My next search for Frederick Shaffner turned up a message from another researcher, who had transcribed information from Kelker's 1907 History of Dauphin County that stated that Frederick Shaffner, married to Catherine Deibler, was the son of Martin Shaffner and Feronica Haldeman. The message contained other information about the Deibler family as well. From there I was able to make the connection with the Halterman Family website, which contained a full page history of the family of Martin and Feronica Shaffner. I had seen that page months before when I had done a general search for Shaffner + Lebanon, but at the time I had no way to know that one of the sons named in the article was Phillip's father. Another website by Anne Frysinger Shifflet, contained a detailed genealogy of Hiram Schaffner, who was a nephew of Phillip. This same series of discoveries led me to write the article about Phillip's younger brother, Martin Shaffner, who fought at Gettysburg and was later killed in the Civil War. When I visited the Ebenezer cemetery and located Frederick's plot, I was pleased to find Martin's grave as well.

I made my first visit to the Ebenezer cemetery on a blustery overcast day in January 2004. My camera lens soon fogged up, and the ink in my pen froze as I frantically transcribed the tombstones: Frederick Schaffner, Catharine Schaffner, Martin Schaffner, Franicka Shoffner, and Barbara Deibler.

As my research became more and more engrossing, I made the decision to subscribe to Ancestry.com to access the US censuses myself. The US Census, in enhanced, indexed form, is available from the two main genealogy websites. It is an expensive subscription for the casual user, but an invaluable resource for the serious researcher. I also joined the Lebanon County Historical Society, where I have since spent countless hours in front of the microfilm reader searching for marriage licenses and obituaries. There I found a few other genealogy books related to our family. The most important was Shifflet's book, Pennsylvania German Ancestors, which contains a full chapter about our Schaffner relatives. Eventually I was able to put all of the pieces together, as the John Shafner mentioned above was Phillip's older brother, and Peter Schaffner was Phillip's oldest son.

Finding Priscilla Mark

Early on, I found another set of our great-great-grandparents, John E. Mark and Dolly Snoke. The burials at Steelstown showed that John had been married previously to a woman named Mary, who died in 1865. When I researched the 1860 census, I discovered that John and Mary had a daughter, Priscilla. In 1870, Priscilla Mark would have been about twelve years old, but I could not find her anywhere on the 1870 census. It was possible that she was also deceased, but that seemed unlikely, since she surely would have been buried next to her mother, which she wasn't. I then searched the 1880 and 1900 censuses for any woman in Lebanon County named Priscilla, assuming she would have been married by then, who was the appropriate age, but I found none. Going back to the burials at Steelstown, I did find a woman who matched Priscilla's description — Priscilla Ensminger, wife of David R. Enminger — but the tombstone gave no indication of Priscilla's maiden name. Later I searched the newspaper archives but found no obituary for either David or Priscilla.

David R. Ensminger was another distint relative of ours. He was a half-brother of Lydia Ensminger, who was the mother of John Reese, who married Priscilla Mark's half-sister, Ida Mark. (Did you follow that? In other words, Priscilla Mark and David Ensminger were not related, but they were each related to one of our great-grandparents.) David was another mystery. I had found him on the 1860 and 1870 censuses in his parents' household, but I could never find him on the 1880, 1900, or 1910 censuses. He showed up again in Annville on the 1920 census, with his wife, Priscilla, as expected. Once again, it was possible that Priscilla Mark and Priscilla Ensminger were the same person, but the evidence was purely circumstantial. Since civil marriage licenses only started in 1885, they would be no help in identifying David's wife, either. In my genealogy database, all I could do was state that Priscilla Mark "may be the same person who was married to David Ensminger." And that's how I left it for two years.

Then one day, while researching an unrelated family, I came upon that same 1920 census page, with David and Priscilla Ensminger, in their 60's, living alone in Annville. But this time I noticed something else. Living next door to them on Church Street (the other side of a double house) was the family of an Ivan Ensminger, age 26. I checked my database, and I didn't have any Ivan Ensminger. Now Ensminger, of course, is a common name in Lebanon County, so there'd be no reason to assume that Ivan and David were closely related, but there was one peculiar fact on the census page. Ivan was born in Kansas. Kansas? An Ensminger in Kansas? Yeah, Kansas! So I looked in the 1900 Kansas census for Ivan or David Ensminger. Nothing. Searching for people in the census is an acquired art. You can search by exact name, of course, but you can also search by first name, or by surname, or by sounds-like surname, or by municipality, or by age, or by relationship, or by any combination (which is what I had done when searching for Priscilla Mark above). At this point I decided to search the entire state of Kansas for anyone named Ivan, which is a relatively uncommon name, who was born around 1894. There were only 95 of them, and one name immediately jumped out at me: Ivan Emminger. I went to the page, and there he was! David R. Ensminger, born Jan 1857 in Pennsylvania, with his wife, Mary, and four children, including Ivan. (The person who'd indexed the page for Ancestry.com mistakenly read the E-n-s-m as E-m-m, so that's why they didn't show up before, even on my sounds-like search.)

Now knowing that David had moved to Kansas, I was able to piece together his early family life. I did indeed find David and the rest of his family and in-laws on the 1880 and 1910 Kansas censuses as well. David had married Mary Ellen Fackler from Dauphin County. They moved with her family to Allen County, Kansas, where their children were born, and where Mary Ellen died. David then moved back to Lebanon County, along with his son, Ivan, where David married Priscilla. My next step was to find their marriage license. I found the 1912 license for David Ensminger and Priscilla Long. The application confirmed that David was the son of Peter and Rebecca Ensminger, and he stated that his former wife had died in 1911. Priscilla reported that her former husband had died in 1909, and that her parents were John and Mary, but she didn't state her maiden name — more circumstantial evidence that she was Priscilla Mark, but no real documentation. My next step was to look for the marriage license of a Mr. Long and Priscilla. Sure enough, I found the marriage of Frank Long and Priscilla Sanders. Once again, Priscilla reported that her former husband had died, and that she was the daughter of John.

Going back to the censuses, I found (1880) Prescella, wife of Daniel Sanders; (1900) Precilla, wife of Frank Long; and (1910) Priscilla Long, widow. Apparently, I had not found her the first time around, because her first name was spelled differently on the censuses. Since Daniel and Priscilla had married before 1880, there was no marriage license to find. So now I had a lot more circumstantial evidence, but I was still missing anything that actually connected this Priscilla with my Priscilla. Once again, I was at a dead end. Nevertheless, I had discovered more relatives, so I followed up on Ivan Ensminger. I looked and found his 1915 marriage license. He was married to Ruth Long, daughter of Frank and Priscilla. Yeah, that Frank and Priscilla. After David married the widow Priscilla Long, Ivan married her daughter. But here's where the magic happened: On their marriage application, Ruth stated that her parents were Frank Long and Priscilla Ensminger nee Priscilla Mark! Q.E.D.

A few notes about marriage licenses: The Pennsylvania Assembly enacted legislation which created the civil marriage license system in 1885, to be administered by the individual counties. Our great-grandfather, John Reese, received license #16 in November 1885 when he married Katie Walmer. The actual content of the marriage application has changed periodically over the years. From a genealogical standpoint, a significant change occurred in 1913. Prior to that year, the application asked for the parents names, which, like the census, would only give the mother's first name, such as "John and Katie Reese". The application form changed in 1913 with separate lines for the father and mother and mother's maiden name, such as "John Reese, Ida Reese, nee Ida Mark." However, it is not uncommon to find marriage applications with incomplete information, sometimes simply stating, "Don't know."

To this day, I have never located Priscilla on the 1870 census. It's likely that she was living with other relatives, perhaps moving from one to the other, and was simply missed when the census-taker came around. However, I also discovered that Priscilla had a younger sister, Tacie, who was raised by their aunt, Sarah Mark Herr — Priscilla does not appear in their household, either.

Priscilla Mark was married three times and widowed twice. She had several children with her first two husbands. She then married David Ensminger, who had several children with his first wife. Priscilla's daughter, Ruth, married David's son, Ivan, so their children are related to us in both directions. Although Priscilla and David spent most of their lives with other spouses, they are buried together at Steelstown, where they both grew up, and where all four of their parents are buried as well.

» Read about some of my other research at the National Archives.