All posts by Linda Stufflebean

Linda is a retired special education teacher, who is also a 35+ year genealogy addict.
Riddle

12 for ’26: Update – Family of Isaac Riddle & Catherine Johnson, Cumberland County, KY, 1800s

Leave a comment

It’s been many years since I’ve looked at the Riddle family – more than a decade – and I was quite surprised to find that I haven’t covered the family of Isaac Riddle and Catherine Johnson of Cumberland County, Kentucky and Fentress County, Tennessee in the 1800s.

Therefore, it’s time to learn more about Isaac, Catherine and their large family of ten children.

Isaac Riddle was born c1800 in Virginia, the eldest of thirteen children born to Joseph Riddle and Rhoda Monk. His wife, Catherine, was born c1803 in Tennessee and they married about 1824.

The death certificate of a child gives Catherine’s maiden name as Johnson, but her parents haven’t ever been identified. There are several Johnson household in Cumberland County, Kentucky, but there are also Johnston families associated with the same county in the 1820s. Additionally, there are eight Johnson families enumerated in 1820 just over the state line in Overton County, Tennessee, which was a parent county of Fentress County (formed in 1823). Isaac and Catherine Riddle left Kentucky and settled in Fentress County in the 1840s. On top of the county changes, Fentress County had a fire in 1905 and lost marriage and probate records extending back to 1823. Overton County had a fire in 1865 and lost its early records, too. To make matters worse, Fentress was also partly formed from Morgan County, which lost its records in 1862!

So far, DNA hasn’t helped connect Catherine to her parents or even to any siblings – at least not to names supported by documentation.

Isaac Riddle and Catherine Johnson settled into married life and Isaac purchased land in Cumberland County by 1826. While it’s possible they lived in Tennessee right after marriage, census records for their children indicate that the first seven children were born in Kentucky.

Just a bit of background – Cumberland County is one of the poorest areas of Kentucky and life there has always been hard.

In spite of that, at least eight out of ten of Isaac’s and Catherine’s children lived to adulthood.

Children: (Riddle)

  1. Mary, born c1825, probably Cumberland County, Kentucky; died after 1880, probably Scott County, Missouri, where she lived with her daughter’s family; married (1) Henry Nation, c1850, probably Fentress County, Tennessee (2) James Conkin, c1865, probably Missouri. Mary and Joe were the parents of four children. She had no children with James Conkin.
  2. Ruth, born 4 March 1827, probably Cumberland County, Kentucky; died 10 December 1914, Cumberland County, Kentucky. Ruth never married, but had one daughter, Rilda Monk, whose father is Unknown Monk.
  3. Joseph, born 15 December 1828, probably Cumberland County, Kentucky; died 12 March 1914, Putnam County, Tennessee; married Nancy Hood, c1850, probably in Tennessee. They were the parents of seven children.
  4. Rhoda, born 1 December 1832, Cumberland County, Kentucky; died 15 December 1914; married Jefferson York, c1855. They were the parents of four sons.
  5. Phillip, born 11 December 1832, Cumberland County, Kentucky; died 23 April 1906, Columbia County, Arkansas; married Mary A. Massey, c1865. They were the parents of at least seven children.
  6. Christianna (Annie), born 10 September 1833, Cumberland County, Kentucky; died 23 January 1923, Overton County, Tennessee; married (1) Elijah York, about 15 September 1850, Tennessee (2) Joseph Michael Nation, c1856, probably Fentress County, Tennessee. When Annie married Elijah, her sister Rhoda became her sister-in-law and when she married Joe Nation, her sister Mary became her mother-in-law! Annie reported in 1900 that she had given birth to 15 children with 10 living, but only eight children have been positively identified, all Nation children. However, it is thought that Greenville F., York, born c1856 plus Isaac York, born 1851 and Catherine York, born 1853 were also her children by Elijah York.
  7. Eliza, born c1837, Cumberland County, Kentucky; supposedly married Willie Page, but no further information has been found and that information is questionable. If she did, she died soon after.
  8. Jane, born c1839, Fentress County, Tennessee; died after 1850. No further record.
  9. Catherine (Happy F.), born September 1841, Fentress County, Tennessee; died 22 October 1920, Cumberland County, Tennessee; married Thomas Abston, c1859. They were the parents of thirteen children, nine living in 1900.
  10. Elizabeth (Betty), born January 1843, Fentress County, Tennessee; died 10 June 1921, Overton County, Tennessee; married Anderson (Ance) Ashburn, c1870. They were the parents of about ten children.

Next, we’ll look at the families of each of the children who married – all except Henry, who appears to have died in childhood.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: An Ancestor Who Has a Life Event on Hallowe’en

3 Comments

It’s Halloween weekend! However, it’s also the end of Daylight Savings Time – boo!

Randy Seaver has a fun challenge for us and, of course, it’s related to the holiday:

1)  Find an ancestor who has a life event (e.g, born, baptized, married, died or buried) on Hallowe’en (31 October).

2)  Tell us about him or her — who were his or her parents, spouses, children, occupation, residences, etc. 

Like Randy, I ran On This Date in RootsMagic and decided to go with the earliest date that pertained to a direct ancestor. By chance, it happened to be the first entry on the list.

Dorothy Austen is my 10X great grandmother and never came to the colonies. She was likely born c1560 and married (1) Thomas Foster on 20 January 1581 in Biddenden, Kent, England.

They had one son, my 9X great grandfather, Richard Foster, born c1582, but it was one more gneration before Dorothy’s grandson, Hopestill, was born and made the decision to leave England and settled in Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, c1641.

However, Thomas died soon after and Dorothy married (2) John Besbeech on 31 October 1586, also in Biddenden.

No information has been found about the occupations of either Thomas or John. Dorothy was likely a housewife or, perhaps, worked as a servant for neighbors.

Dorothy died between 27 December 1619 and 4 January 1620, probably in Biddenden, Kent, England.

I asked Claude the significance of Halloween (All Hallows Eve) in 1586. Its reply:

In Tudor England, 31 October was All Hallows’ Eve, the vigil before All Saints’ Day (1 November), followed by All Souls’ Day (2 November). Before the Reformation, these were major observances: bells rang through the night for the souls in purgatory, and people prayed for the dead, gave alms, and sometimes gave “soul cakes” to the poor in exchange for prayers.

By 1586, though, England had been Protestant for decades under Elizabeth I. Reformers rejected purgatory and prayers for the dead, so many of these practices were officially suppressed. All Saints’ Day remained in the Church of England calendar, but the vigil rituals, the all-night bell ringing, and the soul-cake customs were discouraged or driven underground. Some bell ringing and quiet traditions persisted in places, since customs rarely vanish on command.

Therefore, under Protestant England, 1 November remained as All souls Day in the church year, but 31 October had no official significance.

Thanks, Randy, for a fun Halloween-themed challenge this week.

Holidays

Hallowe-en Greeting!

2 Comments

Tis Hallowe’en and I’m here again
from the man in the Moon in an aeroplane
My charms are new and right up to date
Go tell by the Cards your fortune and fate.

I love this Halloween postcard from 1917 from the NYPL digital collections.

It’s not the most colorful, but as the message points out, all the necessary ingredients are present – a jack o’lantern, the black cat (who doesn’t looked thrilled to be there), owls and I really love the witch with her now outdated broom as she’s decided to fly by aeroplane instead!

Have a safe and fun Halloween!