Her maiden name of Benham? Unrelated people could share it. Her native England had been multi-ethnic, "-ham" endings more common in the north. If Germanic, Benham might be a variation of Benheim, "-heim" meaning home, maybe some old Ben's homeplace was remembered even if no one any longer lived there. A variation-- "-ham" might be a shortening of "-hampton", meaning some riverside town.
Her husband, William Veazey, had been a brass finisher near Boston when they met and married. Also an immigrant from old England, her spouse, being new, was not of the old Veasey/Veazey families arriving in New England several centuries pre-Civil War.
His surname was thought to be Norman French, imprecisely defined. Purists in New England wanted it spelled with an S, as Veasey, since a Z in French could be silent. Younger people wanted it said properly, borrowed British rules, not French ones, so chose Veazey.
One old book said spellings included "Vesci". That might be Italian/Swiss, definitely Latin-like, but, if so, how did they come to England? If not crossing from France, some Norman French offshoots were known in Italy. However, access to England was a shorter trip, for those with the "old French" dialect called Walloon. Not Scandinavian Norman, Walloon was a patois of Celtic words-mixed in with commoner Roman, their mixed tribes migrating away from colonizing Rome very early, toward the Atlantic coast, modern remnants of their speech heaviest in Belgium.
By her 1880 US Census, Sarah Benham Veazey would be out of Boston, to a place where fewer had heard the New England name of Veazey. She was, by then, a young widow, living on Fulton, now in downtown Chicago. Young daughters at or nearing adulthood filled her household, plus one small son. They were less cramped than back in Boston, no boarders needed to pay the rent
No one knew yet that her son's life span would be shortened, that he would die at Cuba Libre. That was a re-naming of as military camp in Florida, initially called Springfield. It would experience some very bad luck. The camp's new name showed a desire of US political and business interests to "liberate Cuba", a mere 90 miles away from Florida's tip. History professors tell us the War to push out Spanish interests was short, but it led to longer US military actions in the Philippines later, to wrest those islands away from the Spanish, as well.
Their 1880 US Census, done in Chicago, when her son was still small, still alive, was handwritten. Viewable at FamilySearch.org.
this was a working link in 2022:
FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYYY-9S3K
Done four years after the father's death, the 1880 listed the widow's name, then seven daughters, by age, one aready a widow, one still married, maybe "just visiting", then the youngest, her son. Their best Census for birthplaces, If their own mother did not know where they were born, who would? She also knew their ages, whereas survivors ordering gravestones decades later might guess that, too.
CIVIL WAR TIMING. Five daughters, Isabella, Elizabeth, Anna, Martha and Sarah, were Massachusetts-born, ages given as 25 to 16 in 1880. Another three,, two daughters and her son, ages 14 to 9 in 1880, were Illinois-born. The parents' Illinois arrival was, thus, after the 16 year-old's birth in MA, before the 14-year-old's birth in IL, so made circa 1864 to 1866. Mid-1865 marks the year the Civil War ended for most soldiers. However, married men were called up later, so maybe stayed in service later, used to guard armories and departing supply trains from ex-confederates, maybe not sent back to their families until, say, early 1866. Had her husband William gone to the War, things he learned then causing their move to Chicago?
Ohio as a birthplace was sometimes guessed by a daughter's family that later spent some time in Cleveland. No one was described by their mother as born in Ohio. The three Illinois-born were Emma J, Julia and William D.
What had soldiers sent from Boston learned about Chicago, from other soldiers? Something like this? " Chicago has a rail hub, so more kinds of work. Plus, Chicago's a newer place, not "all filled up". You can afford a bigger house for a growing family there. Wouldn't it be nice to afford something without having four boarders in the house, squeezed in with your own family?"
Three daughters had trackable marriages, a fourth had a career, stayed single longer. She became hard track when other known family members were not in her household to confirm her identity.:
*Daughter Isabella would marry a Scotsman and stay in Chicago.
*Daughter Julia Alice married Secord Fisher. At first, they lived in Chicago and Cleveland (not the same as being born in Cleveland!). Julia Alice and her spouse, Mr Fisher, later headed away from Chicago, going eastward across the Great Lake, to Michigan.
*Daughter Martha is more of a question mark-- She worked as a telegraph operator in 1880, able to support the family. Her next steps are not yet researched.
*Daughter Anna would meet a young man, Ed, who had been boarding solo, without his family. When they left Chicago, Sarah would go with them. Consistent with being moved by his employers, his new positions took them to Minnestoa, to Texas, to California.
Anna's Edhad apparently come earlier to the growing city with his family. His siblings'stayed longer with their railroad-employed father, Timothy, who may have been Ireland-born. Ed had moved apart by the 1880 US Census. The two, despite being father and son, used different spellings for their last names, making them harder to find in records.
Ed was a "Lemasney" (his father used "Lomasney"). Ed was in 1880 a telegraph operator, too, just like daughter Martha. Maybe operator Martha introduced operator Ed to her sister Anna? Anne and Ed married and had daughter Edith before leaving Illinois for their other opportunities, this Sarah to join them later.
As telephones replaced telegrams, new telephone operations were opened at new locations. The people at telegraph operations earlier often shifted work accordingly. As Ed's occupations changed, they moved. They must have liked the company. Annie and Ed went to Duluth, Minn, up on Lake Superior, where he would be a telephone manager. Sarah was with them there, by their 1895 Minn. State Census. Sarah was detected with them again, once in El Paso. TX, for their 1910 US Census. Their last location together was harder to find, but she then went with them again, off to California, where she died shortly.
The last records filed for Sarah, mother to many, mostly girls, had her death date.
As a widowed mother, she received a pension earned by her son's death at Camp Cuba Libre in 1898. The pension record began with his death date, ended with her death date.
Archives kept at FamilySearch.org further show her death in Alameda County, California, in the Bay area. Again, her move there marked her last with married daughter Anne's tiny family.
Cook County, Illinois, kept a different death record for her, needed to show receipt of her body. Remains could be cremated for easiest shipping, but people did not yet like that solution. Or, a body could be moved by rail, as freight, in a specially designed coffin. Her remains were, thus, removed, from Berkeley, Calif., to the Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, where her son and her spouse, both as Veasey, and daughter Isabella, married, then widowed, all lie.
FINDING SARAH. Her story seems simple. But it was not easy to work out.
Three sets of users at FamilySearch had been working on it since maybe 2014, each adding bits and pieces. Duplicates of daughter Anne/ Anna F/ Annie F under different spellings split up the records, preventing a big picture, until they were merged in to one entity in 2021.
There was an early sense in the family trees that Sarah had somehow ended in California, but dates and with whom were unclear. No one knew where she was buried. A big leap forward was made possible, when the two William Veazeys, spouse and son, were put at Findagrave, showing burial at Rose Hill/Rosehill. Daughter, Isabella Veazey Mackie is buried nearby, her spouse Alexander also at Rosehill/ Rose Hill.
Again, there was an earlier mess, accidental, three entities not understood to be the same person, yet, all her daughter Anne. Lessons are learned, to help us the next time. The repetition was due to...
NAME CONFUSION. Daughter Anne Veazey, married aLemasney, shifted later to LeMasney. Mrs. LeMasney's name changed, from Annie F at birth, to Anna F when living with her parents, to Anne, once out in California. The Lemasney surname was hard to track, and so was Veazey.
Anne's surname was given as Veazie at her birth in Cambridge, MA, northish of Boston. Then, it was spelled differently, TWICE, as Veasey, then Veazey, seen in Censuses pre-marriage. Finally, an 1895 Census in Minnesota mis-spelled widow Sarah's married name as Veacey, with a C. The family could have chosen differently, but appeared to agree, at the end, upon Veazey. The other spellings were "sound-it-outs?"
Sarah lived with daughter Anne's family while son-in-law Ed used Lemasney, but the son-in-law was born Lomasney, the "Lo-" prefix a more traditional spelling for the Irish, while "Le-" leans French. The prefix used changed by generation and by place. Anne and Ed's daughter Edith, as Sarah's married granddaughter, would later re-spell her maiden name in two parts, as Le Masney, giving it more of a French look.
Maybe she believed the surname, like Veazey, had its origins in Norman French, with the old-time Norman French. (If originally of Scandinavian Viking heritage, their ethnic group moved about, sometimes scandalously, many more times as mere farmers, some venturing into Britain's Celtic places, into Wales (aka Cambria in Latin), and into Ireland (aka Hibernia).
Some called those Normans off to Wales, "Cambro -French", not staying isolated, but inter-marrying with native people. The Cambros then turned into Hiberno-French after going a step further west, into Ireland. A well-known example, the first Fitzgeralds went in to Ireland in 1190, their father someone called Gerald, with Fitz- meaning "son of". Surnames were not yet inherited in 1190, so were still changing each generation if there was one. New ones advertised one's occupation or father's first name or family location. Rules making surnames inherited were much later, the Swedish not forbidding changes until very late, where many places still rural.
one split was Fiar vs Dark, refrring to hair-- Wiki has a good article on "Cambro-Norman" and on "Normans in Ireland", the Hibernians. The latter says the Gaellic (Celts) and the Gallic (old French) gradually merged via inter-marriage: "Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late-16th century Tír Chónaill, points out that the Normans were not referred to there as Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") but rather as Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill.,,,(Fionnghaill meaning 'fair-haired Foreigners', i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meaning 'black-haired Foreigners', i.e. Danish Vikings)"
After intermarriage, the types previously separate became less clear? The Wiki authors say, whether Celtic or Norman French, they saw their advancement and land ownership increasingly forbidden as the Tudors came and conquered. In reaction, both Celts and Norman French started to call themselves "Irish Catholics", the Tudor Protestants mainly not succeeding in eliminating the religion cherished by both sets present in pre-Tudor times, both the Celtic side and the Norman French.
That said, were the Lemasneys a particular faith? A site called SurnameDB.com (where DB means DataBase), in 2022, said this about Lemasney:
"This is one of the rarest and one might say, unusual of all Irish surnames. [With] spellings of Lomansey, Lemasney, Lamasna, Lomasna, and at least once as Lummasana, local tradition gives it as being of French origins. This is wholly incorrect like so many 'local traditions', the derivation is from the Ancient Gaelic 'lom' meaning 'bone' and 'asna' - a rib!"
So, its an Irish name, thus Gaelic, not French, not Gallic. The database author was mystified about why anyone would want such a surname. The most common surnames are locational or occupational (when not patrynomic, a father's name).
If locational, it might be due to living near a rock formation looking like a huge rib, very rare, so the name is rare, but useful, as no one fails to find the place described. If occupational, it might be due to some butcher-farmer both breeding and raising his steers to produce perfect rib roasts, then selling meat to order. The surname advertised his special and rare abilities. NOTE: Even if a surname's rare, people sharing the surname need not be related. The database author comments the Irish used fewer occupational names, not impossible, just did them less often. The author adds the surname went to England by 1837, when it was used at a marriage in Westminster.
JB, 2021, Oct 14, Under revision Jan,2021; Dec. 2022.Jan. 2023.
Her husband, William Veazey, had been a brass finisher near Boston when they met and married. Also an immigrant from old England, her spouse, being new, was not of the old Veasey/Veazey families arriving in New England several centuries pre-Civil War.
His surname was thought to be Norman French, imprecisely defined. Purists in New England wanted it spelled with an S, as Veasey, since a Z in French could be silent. Younger people wanted it said properly, borrowed British rules, not French ones, so chose Veazey.
One old book said spellings included "Vesci". That might be Italian/Swiss, definitely Latin-like, but, if so, how did they come to England? If not crossing from France, some Norman French offshoots were known in Italy. However, access to England was a shorter trip, for those with the "old French" dialect called Walloon. Not Scandinavian Norman, Walloon was a patois of Celtic words-mixed in with commoner Roman, their mixed tribes migrating away from colonizing Rome very early, toward the Atlantic coast, modern remnants of their speech heaviest in Belgium.
By her 1880 US Census, Sarah Benham Veazey would be out of Boston, to a place where fewer had heard the New England name of Veazey. She was, by then, a young widow, living on Fulton, now in downtown Chicago. Young daughters at or nearing adulthood filled her household, plus one small son. They were less cramped than back in Boston, no boarders needed to pay the rent
No one knew yet that her son's life span would be shortened, that he would die at Cuba Libre. That was a re-naming of as military camp in Florida, initially called Springfield. It would experience some very bad luck. The camp's new name showed a desire of US political and business interests to "liberate Cuba", a mere 90 miles away from Florida's tip. History professors tell us the War to push out Spanish interests was short, but it led to longer US military actions in the Philippines later, to wrest those islands away from the Spanish, as well.
Their 1880 US Census, done in Chicago, when her son was still small, still alive, was handwritten. Viewable at FamilySearch.org.
this was a working link in 2022:
FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYYY-9S3K
Done four years after the father's death, the 1880 listed the widow's name, then seven daughters, by age, one aready a widow, one still married, maybe "just visiting", then the youngest, her son. Their best Census for birthplaces, If their own mother did not know where they were born, who would? She also knew their ages, whereas survivors ordering gravestones decades later might guess that, too.
CIVIL WAR TIMING. Five daughters, Isabella, Elizabeth, Anna, Martha and Sarah, were Massachusetts-born, ages given as 25 to 16 in 1880. Another three,, two daughters and her son, ages 14 to 9 in 1880, were Illinois-born. The parents' Illinois arrival was, thus, after the 16 year-old's birth in MA, before the 14-year-old's birth in IL, so made circa 1864 to 1866. Mid-1865 marks the year the Civil War ended for most soldiers. However, married men were called up later, so maybe stayed in service later, used to guard armories and departing supply trains from ex-confederates, maybe not sent back to their families until, say, early 1866. Had her husband William gone to the War, things he learned then causing their move to Chicago?
Ohio as a birthplace was sometimes guessed by a daughter's family that later spent some time in Cleveland. No one was described by their mother as born in Ohio. The three Illinois-born were Emma J, Julia and William D.
What had soldiers sent from Boston learned about Chicago, from other soldiers? Something like this? " Chicago has a rail hub, so more kinds of work. Plus, Chicago's a newer place, not "all filled up". You can afford a bigger house for a growing family there. Wouldn't it be nice to afford something without having four boarders in the house, squeezed in with your own family?"
Three daughters had trackable marriages, a fourth had a career, stayed single longer. She became hard track when other known family members were not in her household to confirm her identity.:
*Daughter Isabella would marry a Scotsman and stay in Chicago.
*Daughter Julia Alice married Secord Fisher. At first, they lived in Chicago and Cleveland (not the same as being born in Cleveland!). Julia Alice and her spouse, Mr Fisher, later headed away from Chicago, going eastward across the Great Lake, to Michigan.
*Daughter Martha is more of a question mark-- She worked as a telegraph operator in 1880, able to support the family. Her next steps are not yet researched.
*Daughter Anna would meet a young man, Ed, who had been boarding solo, without his family. When they left Chicago, Sarah would go with them. Consistent with being moved by his employers, his new positions took them to Minnestoa, to Texas, to California.
Anna's Edhad apparently come earlier to the growing city with his family. His siblings'stayed longer with their railroad-employed father, Timothy, who may have been Ireland-born. Ed had moved apart by the 1880 US Census. The two, despite being father and son, used different spellings for their last names, making them harder to find in records.
Ed was a "Lemasney" (his father used "Lomasney"). Ed was in 1880 a telegraph operator, too, just like daughter Martha. Maybe operator Martha introduced operator Ed to her sister Anna? Anne and Ed married and had daughter Edith before leaving Illinois for their other opportunities, this Sarah to join them later.
As telephones replaced telegrams, new telephone operations were opened at new locations. The people at telegraph operations earlier often shifted work accordingly. As Ed's occupations changed, they moved. They must have liked the company. Annie and Ed went to Duluth, Minn, up on Lake Superior, where he would be a telephone manager. Sarah was with them there, by their 1895 Minn. State Census. Sarah was detected with them again, once in El Paso. TX, for their 1910 US Census. Their last location together was harder to find, but she then went with them again, off to California, where she died shortly.
The last records filed for Sarah, mother to many, mostly girls, had her death date.
As a widowed mother, she received a pension earned by her son's death at Camp Cuba Libre in 1898. The pension record began with his death date, ended with her death date.
Archives kept at FamilySearch.org further show her death in Alameda County, California, in the Bay area. Again, her move there marked her last with married daughter Anne's tiny family.
Cook County, Illinois, kept a different death record for her, needed to show receipt of her body. Remains could be cremated for easiest shipping, but people did not yet like that solution. Or, a body could be moved by rail, as freight, in a specially designed coffin. Her remains were, thus, removed, from Berkeley, Calif., to the Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, where her son and her spouse, both as Veasey, and daughter Isabella, married, then widowed, all lie.
FINDING SARAH. Her story seems simple. But it was not easy to work out.
Three sets of users at FamilySearch had been working on it since maybe 2014, each adding bits and pieces. Duplicates of daughter Anne/ Anna F/ Annie F under different spellings split up the records, preventing a big picture, until they were merged in to one entity in 2021.
There was an early sense in the family trees that Sarah had somehow ended in California, but dates and with whom were unclear. No one knew where she was buried. A big leap forward was made possible, when the two William Veazeys, spouse and son, were put at Findagrave, showing burial at Rose Hill/Rosehill. Daughter, Isabella Veazey Mackie is buried nearby, her spouse Alexander also at Rosehill/ Rose Hill.
Again, there was an earlier mess, accidental, three entities not understood to be the same person, yet, all her daughter Anne. Lessons are learned, to help us the next time. The repetition was due to...
NAME CONFUSION. Daughter Anne Veazey, married aLemasney, shifted later to LeMasney. Mrs. LeMasney's name changed, from Annie F at birth, to Anna F when living with her parents, to Anne, once out in California. The Lemasney surname was hard to track, and so was Veazey.
Anne's surname was given as Veazie at her birth in Cambridge, MA, northish of Boston. Then, it was spelled differently, TWICE, as Veasey, then Veazey, seen in Censuses pre-marriage. Finally, an 1895 Census in Minnesota mis-spelled widow Sarah's married name as Veacey, with a C. The family could have chosen differently, but appeared to agree, at the end, upon Veazey. The other spellings were "sound-it-outs?"
Sarah lived with daughter Anne's family while son-in-law Ed used Lemasney, but the son-in-law was born Lomasney, the "Lo-" prefix a more traditional spelling for the Irish, while "Le-" leans French. The prefix used changed by generation and by place. Anne and Ed's daughter Edith, as Sarah's married granddaughter, would later re-spell her maiden name in two parts, as Le Masney, giving it more of a French look.
Maybe she believed the surname, like Veazey, had its origins in Norman French, with the old-time Norman French. (If originally of Scandinavian Viking heritage, their ethnic group moved about, sometimes scandalously, many more times as mere farmers, some venturing into Britain's Celtic places, into Wales (aka Cambria in Latin), and into Ireland (aka Hibernia).
Some called those Normans off to Wales, "Cambro -French", not staying isolated, but inter-marrying with native people. The Cambros then turned into Hiberno-French after going a step further west, into Ireland. A well-known example, the first Fitzgeralds went in to Ireland in 1190, their father someone called Gerald, with Fitz- meaning "son of". Surnames were not yet inherited in 1190, so were still changing each generation if there was one. New ones advertised one's occupation or father's first name or family location. Rules making surnames inherited were much later, the Swedish not forbidding changes until very late, where many places still rural.
one split was Fiar vs Dark, refrring to hair-- Wiki has a good article on "Cambro-Norman" and on "Normans in Ireland", the Hibernians. The latter says the Gaellic (Celts) and the Gallic (old French) gradually merged via inter-marriage: "Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late-16th century Tír Chónaill, points out that the Normans were not referred to there as Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") but rather as Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill.,,,(Fionnghaill meaning 'fair-haired Foreigners', i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meaning 'black-haired Foreigners', i.e. Danish Vikings)"
After intermarriage, the types previously separate became less clear? The Wiki authors say, whether Celtic or Norman French, they saw their advancement and land ownership increasingly forbidden as the Tudors came and conquered. In reaction, both Celts and Norman French started to call themselves "Irish Catholics", the Tudor Protestants mainly not succeeding in eliminating the religion cherished by both sets present in pre-Tudor times, both the Celtic side and the Norman French.
That said, were the Lemasneys a particular faith? A site called SurnameDB.com (where DB means DataBase), in 2022, said this about Lemasney:
"This is one of the rarest and one might say, unusual of all Irish surnames. [With] spellings of Lomansey, Lemasney, Lamasna, Lomasna, and at least once as Lummasana, local tradition gives it as being of French origins. This is wholly incorrect like so many 'local traditions', the derivation is from the Ancient Gaelic 'lom' meaning 'bone' and 'asna' - a rib!"
So, its an Irish name, thus Gaelic, not French, not Gallic. The database author was mystified about why anyone would want such a surname. The most common surnames are locational or occupational (when not patrynomic, a father's name).
If locational, it might be due to living near a rock formation looking like a huge rib, very rare, so the name is rare, but useful, as no one fails to find the place described. If occupational, it might be due to some butcher-farmer both breeding and raising his steers to produce perfect rib roasts, then selling meat to order. The surname advertised his special and rare abilities. NOTE: Even if a surname's rare, people sharing the surname need not be related. The database author comments the Irish used fewer occupational names, not impossible, just did them less often. The author adds the surname went to England by 1837, when it was used at a marriage in Westminster.
JB, 2021, Oct 14, Under revision Jan,2021; Dec. 2022.Jan. 2023.
Her maiden name of Benham? Unrelated people could share it. Her native England had been multi-ethnic, "-ham" endings more common in the north. If Germanic, Benham might be a variation of Benheim, "-heim" meaning home, maybe some old Ben's homeplace was remembered even if no one any longer lived there. A variation-- "-ham" might be a shortening of "-hampton", meaning some riverside town.
Her husband, William Veazey, had been a brass finisher near Boston when they met and married. Also an immigrant from old England, her spouse, being new, was not of the old Veasey/Veazey families arriving in New England several centuries pre-Civil War.
His surname was thought to be Norman French, imprecisely defined. Purists in New England wanted it spelled with an S, as Veasey, since a Z in French could be silent. Younger people wanted it said properly, borrowed British rules, not French ones, so chose Veazey.
One old book said spellings included "Vesci". That might be Italian/Swiss, definitely Latin-like, but, if so, how did they come to England? If not crossing from France, some Norman French offshoots were known in Italy. However, access to England was a shorter trip, for those with the "old French" dialect called Walloon. Not Scandinavian Norman, Walloon was a patois of Celtic words-mixed in with commoner Roman, their mixed tribes migrating away from colonizing Rome very early, toward the Atlantic coast, modern remnants of their speech heaviest in Belgium.
By her 1880 US Census, Sarah Benham Veazey would be out of Boston, to a place where fewer had heard the New England name of Veazey. She was, by then, a young widow, living on Fulton, now in downtown Chicago. Young daughters at or nearing adulthood filled her household, plus one small son. They were less cramped than back in Boston, no boarders needed to pay the rent
No one knew yet that her son's life span would be shortened, that he would die at Cuba Libre. That was a re-naming of as military camp in Florida, initially called Springfield. It would experience some very bad luck. The camp's new name showed a desire of US political and business interests to "liberate Cuba", a mere 90 miles away from Florida's tip. History professors tell us the War to push out Spanish interests was short, but it led to longer US military actions in the Philippines later, to wrest those islands away from the Spanish, as well.
Their 1880 US Census, done in Chicago, when her son was still small, still alive, was handwritten. Viewable at FamilySearch.org.
this was a working link in 2022:
FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYYY-9S3K
Done four years after the father's death, the 1880 listed the widow's name, then seven daughters, by age, one aready a widow, one still married, maybe "just visiting", then the youngest, her son. Their best Census for birthplaces, If their own mother did not know where they were born, who would? She also knew their ages, whereas survivors ordering gravestones decades later might guess that, too.
CIVIL WAR TIMING. Five daughters, Isabella, Elizabeth, Anna, Martha and Sarah, were Massachusetts-born, ages given as 25 to 16 in 1880. Another three,, two daughters and her son, ages 14 to 9 in 1880, were Illinois-born. The parents' Illinois arrival was, thus, after the 16 year-old's birth in MA, before the 14-year-old's birth in IL, so made circa 1864 to 1866. Mid-1865 marks the year the Civil War ended for most soldiers. However, married men were called up later, so maybe stayed in service later, used to guard armories and departing supply trains from ex-confederates, maybe not sent back to their families until, say, early 1866. Had her husband William gone to the War, things he learned then causing their move to Chicago?
Ohio as a birthplace was sometimes guessed by a daughter's family that later spent some time in Cleveland. No one was described by their mother as born in Ohio. The three Illinois-born were Emma J, Julia and William D.
What had soldiers sent from Boston learned about Chicago, from other soldiers? Something like this? " Chicago has a rail hub, so more kinds of work. Plus, Chicago's a newer place, not "all filled up". You can afford a bigger house for a growing family there. Wouldn't it be nice to afford something without having four boarders in the house, squeezed in with your own family?"
Three daughters had trackable marriages, a fourth had a career, stayed single longer. She became hard track when other known family members were not in her household to confirm her identity.:
*Daughter Isabella would marry a Scotsman and stay in Chicago.
*Daughter Julia Alice married Secord Fisher. At first, they lived in Chicago and Cleveland (not the same as being born in Cleveland!). Julia Alice and her spouse, Mr Fisher, later headed away from Chicago, going eastward across the Great Lake, to Michigan.
*Daughter Martha is more of a question mark-- She worked as a telegraph operator in 1880, able to support the family. Her next steps are not yet researched.
*Daughter Anna would meet a young man, Ed, who had been boarding solo, without his family. When they left Chicago, Sarah would go with them. Consistent with being moved by his employers, his new positions took them to Minnestoa, to Texas, to California.
Anna's Edhad apparently come earlier to the growing city with his family. His siblings'stayed longer with their railroad-employed father, Timothy, who may have been Ireland-born. Ed had moved apart by the 1880 US Census. The two, despite being father and son, used different spellings for their last names, making them harder to find in records.
Ed was a "Lemasney" (his father used "Lomasney"). Ed was in 1880 a telegraph operator, too, just like daughter Martha. Maybe operator Martha introduced operator Ed to her sister Anna? Anne and Ed married and had daughter Edith before leaving Illinois for their other opportunities, this Sarah to join them later.
As telephones replaced telegrams, new telephone operations were opened at new locations. The people at telegraph operations earlier often shifted work accordingly. As Ed's occupations changed, they moved. They must have liked the company. Annie and Ed went to Duluth, Minn, up on Lake Superior, where he would be a telephone manager. Sarah was with them there, by their 1895 Minn. State Census. Sarah was detected with them again, once in El Paso. TX, for their 1910 US Census. Their last location together was harder to find, but she then went with them again, off to California, where she died shortly.
The last records filed for Sarah, mother to many, mostly girls, had her death date.
As a widowed mother, she received a pension earned by her son's death at Camp Cuba Libre in 1898. The pension record began with his death date, ended with her death date.
Archives kept at FamilySearch.org further show her death in Alameda County, California, in the Bay area. Again, her move there marked her last with married daughter Anne's tiny family.
Cook County, Illinois, kept a different death record for her, needed to show receipt of her body. Remains could be cremated for easiest shipping, but people did not yet like that solution. Or, a body could be moved by rail, as freight, in a specially designed coffin. Her remains were, thus, removed, from Berkeley, Calif., to the Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, where her son and her spouse, both as Veasey, and daughter Isabella, married, then widowed, all lie.
FINDING SARAH. Her story seems simple. But it was not easy to work out.
Three sets of users at FamilySearch had been working on it since maybe 2014, each adding bits and pieces. Duplicates of daughter Anne/ Anna F/ Annie F under different spellings split up the records, preventing a big picture, until they were merged in to one entity in 2021.
There was an early sense in the family trees that Sarah had somehow ended in California, but dates and with whom were unclear. No one knew where she was buried. A big leap forward was made possible, when the two William Veazeys, spouse and son, were put at Findagrave, showing burial at Rose Hill/Rosehill. Daughter, Isabella Veazey Mackie is buried nearby, her spouse Alexander also at Rosehill/ Rose Hill.
Again, there was an earlier mess, accidental, three entities not understood to be the same person, yet, all her daughter Anne. Lessons are learned, to help us the next time. The repetition was due to...
NAME CONFUSION. Daughter Anne Veazey, married aLemasney, shifted later to LeMasney. Mrs. LeMasney's name changed, from Annie F at birth, to Anna F when living with her parents, to Anne, once out in California. The Lemasney surname was hard to track, and so was Veazey.
Anne's surname was given as Veazie at her birth in Cambridge, MA, northish of Boston. Then, it was spelled differently, TWICE, as Veasey, then Veazey, seen in Censuses pre-marriage. Finally, an 1895 Census in Minnesota mis-spelled widow Sarah's married name as Veacey, with a C. The family could have chosen differently, but appeared to agree, at the end, upon Veazey. The other spellings were "sound-it-outs?"
Sarah lived with daughter Anne's family while son-in-law Ed used Lemasney, but the son-in-law was born Lomasney, the "Lo-" prefix a more traditional spelling for the Irish, while "Le-" leans French. The prefix used changed by generation and by place. Anne and Ed's daughter Edith, as Sarah's married granddaughter, would later re-spell her maiden name in two parts, as Le Masney, giving it more of a French look.
Maybe she believed the surname, like Veazey, had its origins in Norman French, with the old-time Norman French. (If originally of Scandinavian Viking heritage, their ethnic group moved about, sometimes scandalously, many more times as mere farmers, some venturing into Britain's Celtic places, into Wales (aka Cambria in Latin), and into Ireland (aka Hibernia).
Some called those Normans off to Wales, "Cambro -French", not staying isolated, but inter-marrying with native people. The Cambros then turned into Hiberno-French after going a step further west, into Ireland. A well-known example, the first Fitzgeralds went in to Ireland in 1190, their father someone called Gerald, with Fitz- meaning "son of". Surnames were not yet inherited in 1190, so were still changing each generation if there was one. New ones advertised one's occupation or father's first name or family location. Rules making surnames inherited were much later, the Swedish not forbidding changes until very late, where many places still rural.
one split was Fiar vs Dark, refrring to hair-- Wiki has a good article on "Cambro-Norman" and on "Normans in Ireland", the Hibernians. The latter says the Gaellic (Celts) and the Gallic (old French) gradually merged via inter-marriage: "Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late-16th century Tír Chónaill, points out that the Normans were not referred to there as Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") but rather as Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill.,,,(Fionnghaill meaning 'fair-haired Foreigners', i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meaning 'black-haired Foreigners', i.e. Danish Vikings)"
After intermarriage, the types previously separate became less clear? The Wiki authors say, whether Celtic or Norman French, they saw their advancement and land ownership increasingly forbidden as the Tudors came and conquered. In reaction, both Celts and Norman French started to call themselves "Irish Catholics", the Tudor Protestants mainly not succeeding in eliminating the religion cherished by both sets present in pre-Tudor times, both the Celtic side and the Norman French.
That said, were the Lemasneys a particular faith? A site called SurnameDB.com (where DB means DataBase), in 2022, said this about Lemasney:
"This is one of the rarest and one might say, unusual of all Irish surnames. [With] spellings of Lomansey, Lemasney, Lamasna, Lomasna, and at least once as Lummasana, local tradition gives it as being of French origins. This is wholly incorrect like so many 'local traditions', the derivation is from the Ancient Gaelic 'lom' meaning 'bone' and 'asna' - a rib!"
So, its an Irish name, thus Gaelic, not French, not Gallic. The database author was mystified about why anyone would want such a surname. The most common surnames are locational or occupational (when not patrynomic, a father's name).
If locational, it might be due to living near a rock formation looking like a huge rib, very rare, so the name is rare, but useful, as no one fails to find the place described. If occupational, it might be due to some butcher-farmer both breeding and raising his steers to produce perfect rib roasts, then selling meat to order. The surname advertised his special and rare abilities. NOTE: Even if a surname's rare, people sharing the surname need not be related. The database author comments the Irish used fewer occupational names, not impossible, just did them less often. The author adds the surname went to England by 1837, when it was used at a marriage in Westminster.
JB, 2021, Oct 14, Under revision Jan,2021; Dec. 2022.Jan. 2023.
Her husband, William Veazey, had been a brass finisher near Boston when they met and married. Also an immigrant from old England, her spouse, being new, was not of the old Veasey/Veazey families arriving in New England several centuries pre-Civil War.
His surname was thought to be Norman French, imprecisely defined. Purists in New England wanted it spelled with an S, as Veasey, since a Z in French could be silent. Younger people wanted it said properly, borrowed British rules, not French ones, so chose Veazey.
One old book said spellings included "Vesci". That might be Italian/Swiss, definitely Latin-like, but, if so, how did they come to England? If not crossing from France, some Norman French offshoots were known in Italy. However, access to England was a shorter trip, for those with the "old French" dialect called Walloon. Not Scandinavian Norman, Walloon was a patois of Celtic words-mixed in with commoner Roman, their mixed tribes migrating away from colonizing Rome very early, toward the Atlantic coast, modern remnants of their speech heaviest in Belgium.
By her 1880 US Census, Sarah Benham Veazey would be out of Boston, to a place where fewer had heard the New England name of Veazey. She was, by then, a young widow, living on Fulton, now in downtown Chicago. Young daughters at or nearing adulthood filled her household, plus one small son. They were less cramped than back in Boston, no boarders needed to pay the rent
No one knew yet that her son's life span would be shortened, that he would die at Cuba Libre. That was a re-naming of as military camp in Florida, initially called Springfield. It would experience some very bad luck. The camp's new name showed a desire of US political and business interests to "liberate Cuba", a mere 90 miles away from Florida's tip. History professors tell us the War to push out Spanish interests was short, but it led to longer US military actions in the Philippines later, to wrest those islands away from the Spanish, as well.
Their 1880 US Census, done in Chicago, when her son was still small, still alive, was handwritten. Viewable at FamilySearch.org.
this was a working link in 2022:
FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYYY-9S3K
Done four years after the father's death, the 1880 listed the widow's name, then seven daughters, by age, one aready a widow, one still married, maybe "just visiting", then the youngest, her son. Their best Census for birthplaces, If their own mother did not know where they were born, who would? She also knew their ages, whereas survivors ordering gravestones decades later might guess that, too.
CIVIL WAR TIMING. Five daughters, Isabella, Elizabeth, Anna, Martha and Sarah, were Massachusetts-born, ages given as 25 to 16 in 1880. Another three,, two daughters and her son, ages 14 to 9 in 1880, were Illinois-born. The parents' Illinois arrival was, thus, after the 16 year-old's birth in MA, before the 14-year-old's birth in IL, so made circa 1864 to 1866. Mid-1865 marks the year the Civil War ended for most soldiers. However, married men were called up later, so maybe stayed in service later, used to guard armories and departing supply trains from ex-confederates, maybe not sent back to their families until, say, early 1866. Had her husband William gone to the War, things he learned then causing their move to Chicago?
Ohio as a birthplace was sometimes guessed by a daughter's family that later spent some time in Cleveland. No one was described by their mother as born in Ohio. The three Illinois-born were Emma J, Julia and William D.
What had soldiers sent from Boston learned about Chicago, from other soldiers? Something like this? " Chicago has a rail hub, so more kinds of work. Plus, Chicago's a newer place, not "all filled up". You can afford a bigger house for a growing family there. Wouldn't it be nice to afford something without having four boarders in the house, squeezed in with your own family?"
Three daughters had trackable marriages, a fourth had a career, stayed single longer. She became hard track when other known family members were not in her household to confirm her identity.:
*Daughter Isabella would marry a Scotsman and stay in Chicago.
*Daughter Julia Alice married Secord Fisher. At first, they lived in Chicago and Cleveland (not the same as being born in Cleveland!). Julia Alice and her spouse, Mr Fisher, later headed away from Chicago, going eastward across the Great Lake, to Michigan.
*Daughter Martha is more of a question mark-- She worked as a telegraph operator in 1880, able to support the family. Her next steps are not yet researched.
*Daughter Anna would meet a young man, Ed, who had been boarding solo, without his family. When they left Chicago, Sarah would go with them. Consistent with being moved by his employers, his new positions took them to Minnestoa, to Texas, to California.
Anna's Edhad apparently come earlier to the growing city with his family. His siblings'stayed longer with their railroad-employed father, Timothy, who may have been Ireland-born. Ed had moved apart by the 1880 US Census. The two, despite being father and son, used different spellings for their last names, making them harder to find in records.
Ed was a "Lemasney" (his father used "Lomasney"). Ed was in 1880 a telegraph operator, too, just like daughter Martha. Maybe operator Martha introduced operator Ed to her sister Anna? Anne and Ed married and had daughter Edith before leaving Illinois for their other opportunities, this Sarah to join them later.
As telephones replaced telegrams, new telephone operations were opened at new locations. The people at telegraph operations earlier often shifted work accordingly. As Ed's occupations changed, they moved. They must have liked the company. Annie and Ed went to Duluth, Minn, up on Lake Superior, where he would be a telephone manager. Sarah was with them there, by their 1895 Minn. State Census. Sarah was detected with them again, once in El Paso. TX, for their 1910 US Census. Their last location together was harder to find, but she then went with them again, off to California, where she died shortly.
The last records filed for Sarah, mother to many, mostly girls, had her death date.
As a widowed mother, she received a pension earned by her son's death at Camp Cuba Libre in 1898. The pension record began with his death date, ended with her death date.
Archives kept at FamilySearch.org further show her death in Alameda County, California, in the Bay area. Again, her move there marked her last with married daughter Anne's tiny family.
Cook County, Illinois, kept a different death record for her, needed to show receipt of her body. Remains could be cremated for easiest shipping, but people did not yet like that solution. Or, a body could be moved by rail, as freight, in a specially designed coffin. Her remains were, thus, removed, from Berkeley, Calif., to the Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, where her son and her spouse, both as Veasey, and daughter Isabella, married, then widowed, all lie.
FINDING SARAH. Her story seems simple. But it was not easy to work out.
Three sets of users at FamilySearch had been working on it since maybe 2014, each adding bits and pieces. Duplicates of daughter Anne/ Anna F/ Annie F under different spellings split up the records, preventing a big picture, until they were merged in to one entity in 2021.
There was an early sense in the family trees that Sarah had somehow ended in California, but dates and with whom were unclear. No one knew where she was buried. A big leap forward was made possible, when the two William Veazeys, spouse and son, were put at Findagrave, showing burial at Rose Hill/Rosehill. Daughter, Isabella Veazey Mackie is buried nearby, her spouse Alexander also at Rosehill/ Rose Hill.
Again, there was an earlier mess, accidental, three entities not understood to be the same person, yet, all her daughter Anne. Lessons are learned, to help us the next time. The repetition was due to...
NAME CONFUSION. Daughter Anne Veazey, married aLemasney, shifted later to LeMasney. Mrs. LeMasney's name changed, from Annie F at birth, to Anna F when living with her parents, to Anne, once out in California. The Lemasney surname was hard to track, and so was Veazey.
Anne's surname was given as Veazie at her birth in Cambridge, MA, northish of Boston. Then, it was spelled differently, TWICE, as Veasey, then Veazey, seen in Censuses pre-marriage. Finally, an 1895 Census in Minnesota mis-spelled widow Sarah's married name as Veacey, with a C. The family could have chosen differently, but appeared to agree, at the end, upon Veazey. The other spellings were "sound-it-outs?"
Sarah lived with daughter Anne's family while son-in-law Ed used Lemasney, but the son-in-law was born Lomasney, the "Lo-" prefix a more traditional spelling for the Irish, while "Le-" leans French. The prefix used changed by generation and by place. Anne and Ed's daughter Edith, as Sarah's married granddaughter, would later re-spell her maiden name in two parts, as Le Masney, giving it more of a French look.
Maybe she believed the surname, like Veazey, had its origins in Norman French, with the old-time Norman French. (If originally of Scandinavian Viking heritage, their ethnic group moved about, sometimes scandalously, many more times as mere farmers, some venturing into Britain's Celtic places, into Wales (aka Cambria in Latin), and into Ireland (aka Hibernia).
Some called those Normans off to Wales, "Cambro -French", not staying isolated, but inter-marrying with native people. The Cambros then turned into Hiberno-French after going a step further west, into Ireland. A well-known example, the first Fitzgeralds went in to Ireland in 1190, their father someone called Gerald, with Fitz- meaning "son of". Surnames were not yet inherited in 1190, so were still changing each generation if there was one. New ones advertised one's occupation or father's first name or family location. Rules making surnames inherited were much later, the Swedish not forbidding changes until very late, where many places still rural.
one split was Fiar vs Dark, refrring to hair-- Wiki has a good article on "Cambro-Norman" and on "Normans in Ireland", the Hibernians. The latter says the Gaellic (Celts) and the Gallic (old French) gradually merged via inter-marriage: "Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late-16th century Tír Chónaill, points out that the Normans were not referred to there as Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") but rather as Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill.,,,(Fionnghaill meaning 'fair-haired Foreigners', i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meaning 'black-haired Foreigners', i.e. Danish Vikings)"
After intermarriage, the types previously separate became less clear? The Wiki authors say, whether Celtic or Norman French, they saw their advancement and land ownership increasingly forbidden as the Tudors came and conquered. In reaction, both Celts and Norman French started to call themselves "Irish Catholics", the Tudor Protestants mainly not succeeding in eliminating the religion cherished by both sets present in pre-Tudor times, both the Celtic side and the Norman French.
That said, were the Lemasneys a particular faith? A site called SurnameDB.com (where DB means DataBase), in 2022, said this about Lemasney:
"This is one of the rarest and one might say, unusual of all Irish surnames. [With] spellings of Lomansey, Lemasney, Lamasna, Lomasna, and at least once as Lummasana, local tradition gives it as being of French origins. This is wholly incorrect like so many 'local traditions', the derivation is from the Ancient Gaelic 'lom' meaning 'bone' and 'asna' - a rib!"
So, its an Irish name, thus Gaelic, not French, not Gallic. The database author was mystified about why anyone would want such a surname. The most common surnames are locational or occupational (when not patrynomic, a father's name).
If locational, it might be due to living near a rock formation looking like a huge rib, very rare, so the name is rare, but useful, as no one fails to find the place described. If occupational, it might be due to some butcher-farmer both breeding and raising his steers to produce perfect rib roasts, then selling meat to order. The surname advertised his special and rare abilities. NOTE: Even if a surname's rare, people sharing the surname need not be related. The database author comments the Irish used fewer occupational names, not impossible, just did them less often. The author adds the surname went to England by 1837, when it was used at a marriage in Westminster.
JB, 2021, Oct 14, Under revision Jan,2021; Dec. 2022.Jan. 2023.
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