The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Researching Anna E. Thomas

Piecing together the history of Anna "Annie" Thomas, daughter of David Thomas and Charlotte Reilly, has left a lot of gaps and guesswork, starting with her parents' lives after 1880. David and Charlotte married in Wells Cty, Indiana in 1873, and as of the 1880 US Census were living in Rock Creek Twp, Wells Cty, Indiana with two sons (David and William) and two daughters (Annie and one infant daughter whose name is indexed as "Quittie"). After that, I have not yet found any records for anyone else in the family except for Anna - no death records, no confirmed census records, and no burial locations.

The next record I find for Anna is in September 1899, for her marriage in Wells Cty, Indiana to the Canton, Stark Cty, Ohio-born Thomas Gilhuley. (His surname shows up in records with a number of variant spellings.) Their daughter Margaret was born in January 1900 (coincidentally on my birthday), and the family was boarding with the Rutledge family in Lima, Allen Cty, Ohio - just a handful of counties away from where they were married in Indiana. The dates indicate that Anna was obviously pregnant when she and Thomas married, and I would guess they may have had little contact with either of their families, if any were still living.

After that, the fates of Anna, Thomas, and Margaret are not completely clear. I can find no further record that seems to apply to Anna anywhere; there is a burial listed on the FindaGrave.com website for an Anna Gilhuley (b. 1880, d. 1906) in Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery, Alliance, Stark Cty, Ohio, but I do not know if the listing applies to the Anna in our family tree. (I should note that there is also a Thomas Gilhuley listed on the FindaGrave.com website as buried in the same cemetery, b. 1875, d. 1926, but without any photo of the gravestone to corroborate.)

The next confirmed record I can find for Margaret is her marriage in Seneca Cty, Ohio in 1924 to Frank John Stetzer, a World War I veteran more than a decade her senior. (The marriage record names her parents as Thomas Gilhuly and Anna Thomas, which seems a strong confirmation of her identity, along with her estimated birth year given as 1900.) She and Frank would settle nearby in Bucyrus, Crawford Cty, Ohio for many years. They had a daughter Audrey (b. about 1928), and would later retire to Florida where they appear to have lived out the remainder of their lives - Frank died in 1964, and Margaret later in 1981. I have not yet found any information to indicate whether they had other children, but by the time of the 1940 US Census, the twelve-year-old Audrey was an only child with a fifty-one-year-old father and a forty-year-old mother, so it seems likely they had no other children. I also do not yet have any information on Audrey after 1940.

The interesting record for Margaret comes up in that gap between the 1900 US Census and her marriage in 1924 - in that the only potential matching record I can find is for a ten-year-old Ohio-born Margaret Gilhuly living in what appears to be a Catholic orphanage in Wichita, Sedgwick Cty, Kansas in the 1910 US Census. I can't confirm that this record applies to the daughter of Thomas and Anna, but I have not found any other records that might fit.

Whether Margaret was an orphan by 1910 might well depend upon her father's history after 1900, the question of which hinges on the identity of her father as compared to records for a man of the same name found from later years. The marriage records for Thomas and Anna report his parents' names as Patrick Gilhuley and Mary Golden. Various birth and death records turn up for several different men which names these two as the parents; all the births seem to be in a compatible time range, and most of the records stem from Stark Cty and neighboring Tuscarawas Cty, Ohio. These would include a birth record from Stark Cty, Ohio, for Thomas Gilhuley, son of Patrick Gilhuley and Mary Golden, on 13 Sep 1874.

(I should point out that I have had limited success finding supporting records that would put all the supposed siblings, including Thomas, together as a family with parents Patrick and Mary. For whatever reason, either the family wasn't recorded in early census listings or their less-common Irish surname led to spelling errors that have made finding them in the indexed records a challenge.)

In the 1910 US Census, there is a listing for a married couple that includes an Ohio-born Thomas Gilhuley of the appropriate age with his Michigan-born wife Stella in Bucyrus, Crawford Cty, Ohio (near where Margaret would be found marrying and settling later). This same married pair shows up again in the 1920 US Census, but this time in Lexington, Stark Cty, Ohio, and with a pair of young daughters (Annetta, aged nine, and Beatrice, aged seven). The World War I draft card (dated 12 Dep 1918) for a Thomas Gilhuly of Maximo, Stark Cty, Ohio names his contact as Mrs. Estella Gilhuly, and gives his birthdate as 13 Sep 1874 - which would seem to be the record that ties this household to the identity of our Thomas Gilhuly.

Estella's death record (posted to the FindaGrave.com website) gives her vital dates (b. 6 Feb 1878 in Hillsdale, Hillsdale Cty, Michigan, d. 22 May 1929 in Alliance, Stark Cty, Ohio), her maiden name (Hamilton), her marital status (widowed), and her husband's name (Thomas Gilhuly). The informant's name is given as Annetta Gilhuly, her eighteen-year-old daughter. This would seem to be in line with the Ohio death record from 5 Apr 1926 for Thomas Gilhuly (misspelled in the index as "Gillinly" but apparently correct on the original record), which names his parents, gives his birthplace and current residence (Maximo, Stark Cty, Ohio), and his marital status (married). Estella's listing on the FindaGrave.com website gives her burial location as the Alliance City Cemetery, Stark Cty, Ohio - on the north side of the city - approximately three miles from Saint Joseph's Catholic Cemetery where it would appear that Thomas may well be buried.

The supposition at this point is that Anna must have died young, and after a few years Thomas re-married to Estella Hamilton. It seems likely (though not confirmed) that the three burials noted in Alliance are indeed for Thomas and both his first and second wives. What is unclear is whether Margaret was indeed left in the care of others after her mother's death, and if so, how she ended up in Wichita (assuming the census record mentioned does apply here). She would have been young enough at her father's remarriage that it wouldn't have been terribly unusual for her to have lived with her father and step-mother. Even neglecting that consideration, it seems that she could have gone to live with her grandparents or other extended family, though I will note that my research has indicated that her maternal grandparents (David and Charlotte) likely died by 1900, and it seems quite possible that her paternal grandparents (Patrick and Mary) were deceased as well. I've not yet found any connection for anyone in the family to Kansas, so despite the coincidence of name, age, and reported birthplace, that record may well not be for Margaret, daughter of Thomas and Anna.

It does seem clear that, at some point in her life, she was resident in Ohio (whether returning there or always having been there is unclear) to marry and have a child. If there are surviving descendants - either Audrey or any children she may have had, or even as-yet-unknown siblings of Audrey's - they may be able to help explain what happened to Anna and Margaret.

The orphanage in Kansas