Re: John Henry Shipley
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In reply to:
Re: John Henry Shipley
Kelli Blake 7/02/07
Well, I tried to track your John Henry Shipley in the Federal Censuses, and I may have some information for you....or I may have gone off track here somewhere, but I started by following your John Henry and Mary E. Shipley from the 1880 Fed Census and going backwards, as follows:
I find your family in the Brookline township of Greene Co., MO, in 1880.p. 8 (h/w), p. 123D (printed), ED 38, family #70:
John H. SHIPLEY, 40, farming, b. IN TN NC (him, father, mother)
Mary E., wife, 34, b. MO (MO) (MO)
[I'm not sure why the birthplaces of Mary's mother and father are listed in parentheses, unless she was unsure of the info.]
Nancy J., 10, daughter, b. MO IN MO (same for all children)
John P., 9, son
William H., 7, son
Nathan A., 6, son
Linia May, 4, daughter
Charles H.?, 1, son
I found them in the same general area in 1870, enumerated in the Campbell township of Greene Co., MO, p. 210/57B, hh/fam #1419/1420:
John Shipley, 30, farmer, $400 pers. estate, b. IN
Mary, 24, b. MO
Nancy, 6/12, MO, born in "Feb" [which doesn't calculate right since the official enumeration date was June 1]
I then searched the 1860 Fed Census for any John Shipley, born in Indiana, about 1839-40.There is no such John Shipley in MO at that time.There are 9 John Shipley's in IN, born in that state, but only 1 born in within five years of 1839.This MAY BE your John Shipley but it will take some independent confirmation.Notice that the female head of household, presumably his mother, was born in NC, consistent with the 1880 information:
1860 Fed Census: IN, Putnam Co., Madison township, Greencastle Post Office, p. 158/299, hh/fam #1097/1097:
Nancy Shipley, 42, b. NC
Jno [= John], 21, farmer, b. IN (for all children)
Lena, 15
Amos, 18, farm laborer
Wm E., 16, farm laborer
Nathan, 14
Apparently this Nancy Shipley was either divorced or a widow at the time.There are at least four other Shipley families in the Madison twp of Putnam Co., the heads of whom are all from Tennessee.(Recall that in the 1880 census, John listed his father as being born in TN.)The eldest is John Shipley, 62 (b. ca 1788 in TN).Other Shipley households there are headed by Jesse (28, wife Sarah), Richard (27, wife Mary), and George (25, wife Charity).Since we don't know who Nancy's husband was, we can't tell if these families are related, but conceivably, Jesse, Richard, and George Shipley could be his uncles and 62-yr-old John Shipley from TN could be his grandfather.That's just one of many possibilities.
[By the way, there is a serious error in the transcriptions of the Putnam Co census on Ancestry.com.All of the people born in Indiana were annotated "Ia" by the enumerator but these have all been indexed in error as "Iowa" and some even as "Georgia".This is a common error I'm seeing on Ancestry.com indices.Very annoying and very misleading.]
It took me a while to find Nancy and her family in 1850 but I finally did: They are actually *in* Iowa:
1850 Fed Census, Iowa, Washington Co., Division 20, p. 1085/544, hh/fam #414/414:
Nancy Shapley [or Shepley], 30, b. NC
John, 12, b. "Ind" = Indiana [same for all children]
Linsey, 10 (female)
[illegible, perhaps Amos], 8, male
William, 7
Nathan, 5
Elizabeth J., 1
By this listing, if these were all Nancy's children, then she was recently widowed or divorced *and* had recently moved to Iowa, since all of her children were born in Indiana.This presents a real challenge to find this family (e.g. Nancy and her husband and son John) in Indiana in 1840 since ONLY the heads of households are listed in that census and we don't know where in Indiana the family may have been living.They might have been in Putnam Co. or anywhere else.
I recognize that this history of John Shipley in Indiana does not match up with what you relayed, so as I said earlier, I may have gone off track, but this is what the "process of elimination" and the U.S. Censuses suggest!It all brings up a basic question: If you are confident of the history of your Shipley's coming from Virginia, then Fulton Co., IL, before getting to Springfield, Greene Co., MO, then the John H. and Mary E. Shipley I tracked back from Greene Co., MO, to Putnam Co., IN, may NOT be your line!
Good luck with this.
Chuck