The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Researching Martin Eley and family

My initial research into Martin Eley and his family was quite sparse, informed primarily by a handful of unsourced online family trees and genealogies and a few records found in my own searches. A great deal of my work at that point relied heavily on some entries on the FindaGrave.com website, as well.

A few years later I found the text Immel and Imel Families in America by Velma Byrum Keller (1974), and an excerpt from that text (p383) follows:

PARENTS OF AMANDA ELEY: Martin Eley (1810-1892) and Sarah (1810-1877), both born in Pa. Came to Jay Co., Ind. ca 1837 and settled near Boundary. Sarah died 8-29-1877, age 67 yrs. Eight children: John b. 1834; James b. 1836; Mary b. 1837; Elizabeth b. 1839; Amanda b. 1843; Catherine 1844-1858; Sarah b. 1847; and Lydia b. 1852. After Sarah died, Martin married Caroline Alexander (1845-1892) who was 1/4 Cherokee Indian. Caroline was a widow with a daughter Sarah b. 1871. Martin and Caroline had two children: Martin Jr. b. 1880 and Martha b. 1883. Both wives and several children are buried in the Boundary Cemetery and it is assumed that Martin is also buried there. Martin Eley Jr. b. 1880 d. 12-27-1956, m. Ida Elizabeth Garringer on March 3, 1910 and had six children: Walter, Albert Jacob, Martin Henry, Ida Luella Elizabeth, Charles Francis and John Joseph.

Starting from this text and a more practiced set of searching skills, I researched Martin's family much more thoroughly and corroborated most of the information in the excerpted text while finding a few errors or mistaken assumptions there, as well. I believe the writer of the text may have relied primarily on Indiana marriage, death, and cemetery records, along with at least some cursory review of the federal census records for Jay Cty, Indiana. Beyond that, they may also have had some information from other descendants of Martin's, aside from those from Amanda (Eley) Imel's family, but this is merely speculation on my part.

The text indicates that Martin and Sarah were each Pennsylvania-born and came to Jay Cty, Indiana about 1837; their oldest two children, sons John and James, were each noted in records as born in Ohio, while their third child, daughter Mary, was born in Jay Cty in 1839, and the 1840 US Census places Martin, Sarah, and three children in Jay Cty, as well. Martin and Sarah's wedding date and location is unknown, but would presumably be in the early 1830s, and likely in Pennsylvania or Ohio.

Of the eight children ascribed to the couple in the text, I can corroborate all but one. Elizabeth appears only in the 1850 US Census for the family, listed as age eleven, but in the previous census the family's listing reported only one female child (under the age of five) in the household, not two. (Mary would have been the other one, as she was listed as age thirteen in 1850.) It is possible that the family's list in 1850 is mistaken, but I would expect it more likely that the 1840 tally was simply incomplete. Further exploration of this potential daughter finds an Elizabeth Eley married to Henry Shaneyfelt in Portland, Jay Cty, Indiana on 11 Aug 1859, with the couple resident in Jay Cty (primarily Pike Twp) for many years, and parents to several children (mostly sons). Elizabeth Shaneyfelt died in 1886, and is buried in Boundary Cemetery - the same cemetery where a large portion of the Eley family is buried. The listing for her on the FIndaGrave.com website gives her vital dates as b. 13 Apr 1838, d. 17 Apr 1886, with her maiden name as Eley. The supplemental information on the listing names her the daughter of "Martin Eley and Sarah Moore Eley," though the source for this information is not given.

For the remaining seven children, the following information is what I have found so far:

- John (b. 1834) married Margaret J. Moore in Jay Cty, Indiana in 1854, and moved first to Randolph Cty, Indiana, and later to Miami Cty, Ohio, where he died in 1906. He and his wife had at least six children.

- James (b. 1836) was listed with the family in the 1850 US Census, but I have not managed to find further record of him after that. I do not know if he died as a teenager or young man, or if he survived to adulthood.

- Mary (b. 27 May 1839) married Charles Earhart (or similar spelling), a German immigrant from Baden, in late 1859 in Jay Cty. The two of them had at least seven children, and later moved to Miami Cty, Ohio as well.

- Amanda (b. 25 Feb 1843), my ancestor, married John Imel on New Year's Day 1863 in Jay Cty, and had at least six children. She remained in Jay Cty for the remainder of her life.

- Catherine (b. 1844) appears to have died as a teenager, and is buried in Boundary Cemetery; her listing on the FindaGrave.com website included vital dates, but lists her birthdate as in 1846, which I think is incorrect. The headstone pictured in the listing's photo is highly eroded and covered in lichen, so a cleaning and rubbing would likely be required before the inscription could be made more legible to confirm what is engraved on it.

- Sarah (b. 3 May 1848) married Jesse Mcfarland in Randolph Cty, Indiana in 1867, and the two of them moved to Pike Twp, Clark Cty, Ohio after a short time. They appear to have had at least six children.

- Margaret (b. 25 Sep 1852) was listed in early records as Lydia or Lydia M., and occasionally L.M. before calling herself Margaret or Maggie much more consistently in later years; I believe her full name was Lydia Margaret Eley. Margaret moved to Miami Cty, Ohio as a teenager, living near two of her older siblings who had already married and relocated there, and married there three times: Samuel Stickel in 1877 (with whom she had two children), Swiss-born Frederick Gurtner (or similar spelling) in 1898, and D.G. McCutchen (or similar) in 1914. She appears to have been widowed from all three marriages, and her younger child, son Harry L. Stickel, died in 1899 as a teenager.

Sarah, Martin's first wife, died in 1877. I have not found a marriage record for Martin and Sarah at this point, nor determined her parentage. Of the marriage and death records for her children that gave the parents' full names, all that I have reviewed so far name her Sarah Ferrel (or similar spelling, such as Farrel). The specific vital dates I have were taken from her listing on the FindaGrave.com website, and though the years agree with the text above, I have not found specific confirmation of the dates. I will note that the census listings from 1850 through 1870 consistently reported her birthplace as Pennsylvania, but her age as given in the listings was reported as thirty-five, forty-nine,and sixty. Sarah is buried in Boundary Cemetery, as well.

In 1879, two years after Sarah's death, Martin married the much younger Caroline Alexander in Randolph Cty, Indiana, and the two of them are counted together in the 1880 US Census with a nine-year-old Sarah (who is listed with the Eley surname on that census record). The text above mistakenly gives Caroline's death as occurring in 1892, but that was the year Martin died. Caroline survived him by at least twenty years - in 1900 she was counted living in Randolph Cty with her son Martin prior to his marriage, and in 1910 she was living with her daughter Martha (now married to Alva Franks) in Jay Cty. By 1920, she was living in the County Infirmary in Wayne Twp, Jay Cty, where I believe she died a few years later. I have not determined Caroline's parentage, whether she was actually part Cherokee, nor her place of birth - in the 1880 and 1900 federal census records she is listed as Indiana-born, but in the 1910 and 1920 records her birthplace is simply given as "United States." I have not managed to confirm her actual vital dates nor her burial location, and I have not found record of her previous marriage, so I cannot say whether Alexander was her maiden or married surname. I suspect it was her married name, as there is a marriage record from Randolph Cty in 1895 for Sarah A. Alexander (possibly Caroline's daughter) to Daniel Houser. I have not managed to confirm this speculation, as I have not found additional information to confidently identify for Caroline's daughter after the 1880 US Census.

Martin and Caroline had two children prior to his death:

- Martin (b. 6 Jun 1880) married Ida Elizabeth Garringer in Jay Cty on 3 Mar 1910, and the two of them had at least five sons and one daughter prior to divorcing sometime between 1930 and 1940. Martin remarried in 1946 to the widowed Clara (Weyrick) Bisel.

- Martha (b. 20 Dec 1883) married Alva Franks in Jay Cty in late 1902; Alva had been previously married and was either divorced or a widower with two young boys. Martha and Alva were married for over forty years, but had no children, and after his death she remarried to John Henry Thomas (also a widower) in 1947. John Henry died in 1961, and Martha followed in 1962, with both of them buried with their previous spouses.

That I can confirm - not counting the aforementioned Elizabeth Shaneyfelt - Martin Eley had at least nine children from his two marriages, and at least thirty-three grandchildren, most of whom were born before his death in 1892. It does stand to reason that Martin is buried in Boundary Cemetery with at least his first wife and a few of his children, but this is not confirmed at this time.