Day 30

An odds and ends day. I went back to the Verona area to check in with the town clerk. NY vital records are held by the village or town in which the people lived. Centralized, NY state records are only available after 1880. I was hoping to find birth records for Armenia Mehrhof or marriage records for her parents or death records for her grandparents. No luck - the records from 1852 - 1875 are missing. They are probably in someone's basement, thrown out or burnt up.

From there, it was on to Herkimer, NY to look for a birth record for Roxanna Peabody. Stopped at the town clerk again. They thought I was nuts even asking for an 1815 record. On to the Historical Society but no records for Peabodys - at least none that I recognized. Again, I think it is a matter of families moving through the area and a scarcity of records. I will keep searching.

By this time it was 1pm. I was going to head for Kingston but have not heard from the genealogy society there so my research opportunities may be limited. I decided to spend the night in Albany and go to the state Archives tomorrow morning to look for military land grants for Peabodys and Coats. Then I will go on to Kingston tomorrow afternoon and do some Middaugh research at the Historical Society which is only open on Thursays and Fridays.

I did get some time this afternoon to transcribe notes and try to sort through the tangled Coats-Peabody mess. Any interesting "A"H"A emerged. Remember that Eugene Davenport's wife was Emma Jane Coats. Her grandparents were Ezra Peabody Coats and Roxanna Peabody. There has always been some question as to whether this husband and wife were related. Question answered - YES. I found that Thomas Peabody (1727-1813) and his wife Ruth Burdick (1735-?) were Roxanna Peabody's ggrandparents and Ezra P Coats' grandparents. If I have calculated it correctly, this made Roxanna and Ezra first cousins once removed. We now have an easy explanation for any odd behavior - just blame it on the ancestors!