Help is the topic for week 31 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, and I certainly need some help breaking down a brick wall. I’ve traced most of the branches of my family tree back pretty far, but I’m stuck on two of my 3rd great-grandparents. One is understandable – he’s a German immigrant. The other is Jane Felker, born in Maine according to the scant documentation I’ve found. I’ve travelled down every rabbit hole I can think of to trace her lineage and I’ve come up with a big, fat nothing every time. I’ll tell you the little I know about Jane and the steps I’ve taken to find her. Hopefully someone out there will think of some avenues I haven’t.
Jane Felker Shaw died on January 19, 1863, and was buried in the Lakeview Cemetery in Oakland, Maine, which is in Kennebec County. The Maine Cemetery Records list her age at the time of death as 51 years, 10 months, and 3 days, which if correct, gives her a birthdate of March 16, 1811. Her birthplace is listed as Maine on the 1860 census and on her daughter Annie’s record of death. Her place of birth is listed as Albion, Maine on her son Resolvo’s record of death, but I’ve been unable to find her birth listed on any Albion, Maine records.
Jane married Greenlief Owen Shaw on August 18, 1940, in Albion, Kennebec, Maine (Ancestry, Maine, Marriage Records, 1713-1922). Jane and Greenlief are on the 1860 census in Waterville, Kennebec, Maine with the following children: Oscar (18), Resolve (18), Mary A. (16), Susan (14), Ellen (13), and Ann M. (6).
I searched newspapers and came across a few mentions of Jane Shaw, but she was a different Jane Shaw. I found one Jane Felker and I’m certain she's mine. In a list of letters remaining at the China, ME post office on October 1, 1837, there is a Jane Felker listed and also a Greenlief Shaw. That puts Greenlief and Jane in or around the same town three years before they were married. I’m not sure if every town had a post office; China may have been the closest one.
To find more information on Jane, I started at the logical place – with her children. Most of her children were born before 1850, but I couldn’t find the family on the 1850 census, nor could I find birth records for any of them. I searched the extended Shaw family and didn't find Greenlief, Jane, or any of their children on the 1850 census. I searched for Felkers on the 1850 census, thinking maybe they were with her family and the census taker put down the wrong surname. No luck. Since her son, Resolve (also listed as Resolvo in many documents) had such an unusual given name, I searched for everyone with his first name and no last name, with the thought that the census taker may have had the wrong surname or his penmanship was so horrible that the record was indexed incorrectly. I completely struck out. I took down all the names of the people ten pages before them and ten pages after them on the 1860 census, knowing that people often lived close to the same people or moved with the same people. I searched for those neighbors on the 1850 census. There was still no sign of the Shaw family.
I took a look at the 1870 census to see where her children were. Perhaps they were living with Felker relatives? Again, no luck. By 1870, three of Jane’s children – Mary Ann, Susan, and Ellen - had died. They are buried in the same cemetery as their mother and listed on the same record. Greenlief Owen Shaw had remarried by 1870 and had more children. His son, Oscar, was married and living next door to Greenlief in Waterville. Resolvo was in Lewiston with his wife. I found him on an 1865 Massachusetts census living with a Shaw uncle in Boston. The only child unaccounted for on the 1870 census is my great-great grandmother, Annie. She isn’t with her father, her brothers, or any of her Shaw aunts, uncles, or cousins. I found an Annie M. Shaw with the correct age boarding in a house in Portland and working as a dressmaker. It may be my Annie, but it may not, and none of the people she’s living with are named Felker.
The only Jane Felker I found born approximately during the same time was Catherine Jane Felker, the daughter of John Church Felker. I followed the record trail, but she wasn’t my Jane.
I expanded my search to all Felkers, hoping I would find some similar naming patterns. The girls all had common names, but Oscar wasn’t incredibly common and Resolve/Resolvo was definitely an unusual name. There are no Oscars or Resolves in the Shaw family, and I was unable to find any Oscar or Resolve Felkers.
I have searched wills and probate records for any mention of Jane Shaw, Jane Felker, Greenlief Shaw, or their children. Only Greenlief and his heirs (no names of the children were given, just the general “heirs”) were mentioned in the will of his mother, Cynthia, (Witherell) Shaw in 1844.
I found some possible families for Jane. There is a Samuel Felker in the 1820 and 1830 census in Pittston, Kennebec, Maine. Few Felker vital records are available for Pittston. There is a marriage record for Samuel Felker and Hannah Hill on December 30, 1810. If these are Jane’s parents and her age on her cemetery records is correct, she would have been born out of wedlock. There is only one birth record for Samuel’s children: Hannah Melvine Felker born July 10, 1831, the daughter of Samuel and Hannah. A single child after 21 years of marriage? That’s not impossible, but I think it’s more likely that the town didn’t consistently record birth records. The 1820 census lists an adult male (him), and adult female, and three children under 10 -- two girls and a boy. I have no death date for Samuel Felker (again, an indicator that consistent vital records weren’t kept), but Mrs. Hannah Felker and John Porter filed a marriage intention in Pittston on May 3, 1833, so Samuel must have died between 1831 and 1833.
Another Felker, Daniel, married Martha T. Gardner in Albion, Maine in 1844. Albion is the same town where Jane & Greenlief married in 1840. Could Daniel be her sibling? Daniel and Martha are on the 1850 census in Embden, Somerset, Maine in the home of Mike and Betsy Felker.
Embden had many Felkers, and though it’s in Somerset County, it’s close to the Kennebec County towns where Jane resided. In Embden Town of Yore: Olden Times and Families There and in Adjacent Towns by Ernest George Walker, the genealogies of several branches of the Felker family are given. Most originated from Mike Felker, and likely one of his brothers who came from New Hampshire. Jane isn’t mentioned, but again, I doubt all births were recorded. Some of Walker’s details were sketchy. He often noted that certain people mentioned *could be* children of Mike or of Mike’s brother. I’m currently working on a tree tracing Mike Felker’s family in the hope that I’ll be able to link it to Jane in some way. Maybe there’s an Oscar or a Resolve hidden away. Maybe there’s a Jane who married into the family and was widowed and that’s my Jane. Tracing Mike Felker’s family may end up being a lost cause, but it’s worth a shot.
So, friends, what am I missing? I’m holding out hope that someone will miraculously come forward waving a Felker family Bible complete with a handwritten genealogy in the back that includes Jane. Since that’s not super likely to happen, I would appreciate any advice on unexplored avenues. Please help me break down this brick wall and uncover Jane’s story.
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