One of my Stewart roadblocks that I have been chipping away at has been my 4th great-grandmother, Minerva Stewart’s maiden name. The Stewarts are their own roadblock, but not knowing who she was presented another, and I’m happy to say that this weekend I was able to unravel a tiny bit of her puzzle, and I’m so anxious to keep working on it now that I have a bevy of clues to guide me.
If you haven’t worked with Family Search’s experiment labs yet using the text search, I highly recommend it. I have been slowly going back and running problematic names through the text search, and this weekend, I thought I’d try my Stewarts. Now, her husband John Stewart is too generic – there are many John Stewarts so I ran Minerva, which you think would be unique enough to stand out. But it’s actually not. Even in Muskingum County, Ohio, where they lived, there was ANOTHER Minerva Stewart, so I had to be careful when sorting them out. (That one was thankfully not married to a John.)
Before even starting out researching her in the FS labs, I already knew a scant amount of information about Minerva from her headstone. I’d been there in person a few years ago with my daughter and granddaughter. She died November 27, 1887, and was buried in Zaneville, Ohio. From multiple census data, I knew that she was born in New York in 1823, and her headstone confirms she was born July 15, 1823. I have found no marriage records yet for John and Minerva, but their first child, Mary, was born in 1843 in New York so I’m guessing somewhere around 1841 perhaps. John’s census data says he’s from Pennsylvania and indeed, when he passed, he died in New Castle, PA, where he has “family” and practically all his children go live there, too, at one point so I’m thinking this is John’s “origin point” but still researching that. Anyways, their second child Cynthia is born in 1848 in New York, and the rest of the four children are born in Ohio so by 1853, they’ve settled into Muskingum County, Ohio.
I have found no death record for Minerva in 1887 or any obituary for her in Ohio. I looked in New Castle, PA, as well. There was no probate in either state. The only clues I had to her maiden name came from her two daughters, Sarah and Catherine’s, death certificates. Sarah’s said her mother’s name was “Manara McDonals” and Catherine’s said “Minerva Lucy McDonald.” Mary, Cynthia, John, and Laura’s death certificates failed to name a mother at all yet listed their father, John H Stewart.
So when I turned to the text search, I had Minerva Stewart and Minerva McDonald to try. Minerva McDonald was a bust as I didn’t recognize any of the hits that came up for that; nothing looked remotely relevant. However, when I did Minerva Stewart, some truly interesting things popped up. I saw a Minerva Stewart and her husband John H Stewart of Zanesville signed a warranty deed for property in Buffalo, New York. Since Minerva’s info pointed to New York origins, I made note of Buffalo. And then as I worked through a few more things, I found a 1864 probate that at first didn’t look relevant at all for a Cynthia Butler… in Buffalo, Erie County, New York. I’d never heard that name before, but I thought I’d read it over quickly. And there it was… “Minerva Stewart, wife of John Stewart of Zanesville, Ohio, her sister of the full blood and 43 years.”
This probate was filed by Levi & Andrew J McDaniels, Cynthia Butler’s brothers, and listed their other sibling, William McDaniels. It also listed a deceased sister named Matilda who had three sons living by her previous husband, Joseph Wingard. So right here, in one probate, I learned Minerva was a McDaniels, NOT a McDonald or McDonal. She had likely named her daughter Cynthia after her sister Cynthia. She had a deceased sister, three brothers, had three nephews, and they ALL lived in Romulus, Wayne Co, Michigan. AND beyond that, once I got researching a bit more, I found out that their mother had lived with Levi until she passed away in 1848 and Cynthia paid for the mother to get a headstone. (The stone says Cynthia erected in 1850 so I’m not sure why it says 1886 as Cynthia was dead by then.) The mom’s name was Cynthia Green, and her husband was also named Levi McDaniels. I have no idea where he is buried or where he’s from but I’ve just started looking into that. I’m just still working on finding and finishing up Minvera if I can. I really want her obituary or some death record for finality!
I was speechless. How many years have I wondered who Minerva was aside from being a Stewart, and now I have a whole new family to start exploring. I know the brothers were all in the Civil War and Levi was deemed incompetent in his later years and sadly, his wife had to go to court to get guardianship over him to settle his affairs. Andrew never married and I don’t think William did either. Anyways, I wanted to share with my fellow Stewarts that our grandmother Minerva was a McDaniels – officially.