Wavetops: Adam Brookhouser (Juniors and Seniors)
or, Catching Up With the Joneses
You might recall that I talked about my wife’s ancestry in February—particularly the difficulty in tracing the Jones family of her 2nd great-grandmother, Alice Frances (Jones) McCullough. I had intended to follow up on the Jones family sooner than this, but today is the day:
Introducing the Brookhousers
Alice’s mother was Susanna (Brookhouser) Jones (1836–1924). After I wrote about the Jones family, another descendant of David Jones and Susanna Brookhouser reached out on Ancestry, and we have been corresponding periodically since then. I have to confess, she has been doing the heavy lifting, so right now, I’m building off of her work.
There is a lot we still don’t know about David and Susanna’s lives. If you look at Susanna’s WikiTree, I have Albert Jones (b. 1851) listed as their eldest son, but I haven’t been able to prove whether Albert was their child or not. If he was, he most likely died at an early age. And I am still trying to determine when they were married. The only evidence I have is the 1900 Census stating they were married in 1854. And I estimate that they moved to Iowa between 1864 and 1870, probably after the end of the Civil War.
Susanna was the daughter of Adam Brookhouser, Jr. (1803–1865) and Mary Stokes (1808–1881), born in 1836 in Pennsylvania. Her family lived in Hayfield Township, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. When Adam was born, his parents lived in Crawford County. They appeared in Meadville on the 1800 Census. Mary Stokes was the daughter of John Stokes and Margaret Elizabeth Peters (1780-1876), and was also born and raised in Crawford County.
Adam and Mary had ten known children, including Susanna. My goal is to flesh out their biographies on Ancestry and then add them to WikiTree in the next couple of weeks. Once that is done, I’ll be able to connect Adam Jr.’s profile to the existing family that currently ends at his father’s profile.
Ascending the Brookhouser Tree
As you work your way through your family tree, you probably have one or two generations of ancestors who don’t get the attention they deserve. For whatever reason, one person’s biography will get less focus than their children and their parents. In this family, that person is:
Adam Brookhouser, Sr. (1776-1863) will eventually get more attention, but for now, I need to finish documenting his grandchildren. And while I’m doing that, cousin Jodie keeps finding interesting sources to tell us about the rest of the family. For example, here is the biography she found for Adam Sr.’s father:
JOHANN ADAM BROOKHOUSER
JOHANN ADAM BRUCHHAUSER later BROOKHOUSER, tailor {9,27}, born Obernhof in Rheinland-Pfalz, near Koblenz, Germany, 2 March 1734, son of Johann Jacob Bruchhauser and his wife Margaretha Elisabetha Klumb {1}; emigrated to Philadelphia in 1764 {3}, and later lived in Berks {5}, Northampton {6,7}, and Westmoreland counties {8} before moving to Crawford County, Pennsylvania, by 1800 {9,10,19}; died 2 February 1818 {17}; married Swedes Church, Philadelphia, 6 June 1768 {4} ANNA MARIA HAUCK or Houch, born Germany in 1743 or later, died Hayfield Township 22 December 1839 {17,19-21}; both buried there in Brookhouser Cemetery.
Each of those {digits} is a source that needs to be examined and verified before I can incorporate it into the existing profile for Johannes Adam Brookhauser (1734-1818)!
I will have to take special care since I have three generations of men named “Adam Brookhouser” with records in the same county.
Meanwhile…
Though it takes time and effort to properly care for a family tree, it can help to see the work laid out ahead of you. And I find the prospect of turning names and dates in a list from data points into people to be a fine motivator.
They may be beyond caring about what I do, but I like to think that someday soon, there will be a well-sourced story behind each of these faces.
