Week 11, Brick Wall: I Still Haven't Knocked This One Down

Week 11 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is “Brick Wall.”

My brick wall ancestor unfortunately hasn’t changed since I first wrote about her a few years ago in this post.  I’ve made almost no progress on my 3rd great-grandmother, Jane Felker.  According to her death record she was born in Maine in around March 16, 1811.  She married Greenlief Owen Shaw on August 18, 1940 in Albion, Kennebec, Maine and they had at least six children: sons Oscar and Resolvo (who were likely twins), and daughters Mary, Susan, Ellen, and Annie.  Jane died in 1863 and is buried in the Lakeview Cemetery in Oakland, Kennebec, Maine.

Many of her children died as teens or young adults, and their death records offer little information about their mother.  Resolvo’s death record lists his mother’s birthplace as Albion, Kennebec, Maine, but her birth isn’t listed in the Albion records – and I’ve manually read through all the town registers.

I’ve traced all of her children on all census records, hoping to find one living with a Felker aunt or uncle.  Some lived with Shaw uncles, but no Felkers.  There are no wills or land records with Felkers and Shaws on them together.

Felker is not a common surname, but there was a cluster of them in Kennebec and Somerset counties.  They came from New Hampshire and are likely Jane’s people.  I’ve created a detailed tree of all the Felkers in that area.  I’ve even made a chart that lists all the Felker males on the 1820 census to see who could have a had a daughter Jane’s age, then ruled potential fathers in or out based on known daughters on the tree.  I still can’t figure it out.  I’ve looked at names of all Felkers in the tree hoping to uncover potential naming patterns.  There are no Resolvos or Oscars, and unfortunately all their daughters’ names are too common.

The only real breakthrough, or rather brand-new dead end I encountered was thanks to FamilySearch’s text search feature.  I’ve long been frustrated that I’ve been unable to find the Shaw family on the 1850 census.  Most genealogists maintain that other than a few rare instances where people are missed, almost everyone living in 1850 is on there.  Maybe they’re under a different name or living somewhere unexpected.  I’ve tried searching every which way, and let’s face it – with a son named Resolvo, you’d think I’d be able to find them even if the census taker listed them under a different surname.  It turns out the Shaw family was in the process of moving in 1850, right around the time the census was taken.  They’re one of those rare families that sold property and moved out of their town shortly before it was taken, and were either crashing with relatives for a bit, or they settled in their new town right after the census was taken there.  They were missed.  Naturally, this doesn’t help me! 

I still hope to solve this mystery.  I can only hit so many dead ends, right?