FamilySearch's Full-Text Search Finds Robert Nelson in Others' Estate Files

You just never know what records will turn up when you search for an ancestor using FamilySearch's Full-Text Search.  Will there be birth, marriage, or death records?  Or deeds?  Tax records?  County account books?  Or probate estate files?  But wait!  Why would my ancestor's name have been included in more than one estate file, especially when he was still alive?

I learned why:  because the estates owed him money.  If you happen to have an ancestor who provided a service or goods to another citizen who died without paying him, your ancestor may appear in estate files too.  According to various census records, my ancestor, Robert Nelson, was a coal miner in Jefferson County, Ohio.  These estate files suggest he also sold coal.  I was delighted to learn this bit of knowledge about the life of an ancestor for whom I have found so little information.   

Below is what I found in the three files I looked at.

From the Estate File of G. D. McKenney, 1870-71.  This file is primarily a list of names and amounts.  I assume the amount is due Robert Nelson for coal, but it's possible it was a debt he owed.

Below is the top part of image 11.  Robert is the last entry in this image.

                          Brought down [amount listed]
                          1871, January [from previous page] 
                          9--         Robert Nelson                         $31.16

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From the Estate File of Van B. Lighthizer, 1871-72.  Comprises images 167-203.

The bottom of a section of image 179 is below.  Robert is the second from last entry. At the top of this page and not included in the image:
"First and Final Account of Amelia Lighthizer as Executrix of the last will and testament of Van B Lighthizer deceased...."

1872
September 2    Bill Paid    for coal    Robert Nelson    Voucher No. 4     $24.50

Below is image 202 from the same file which is a receipt for coal from Robert Nelson.

Steubenville   June 15th 1872
Mr. Lightizer           
                      to        R.  Nelson
                          for Coal
Balance     on      settlement
thirty   nine   six[ty]   four
                                $39.64
      credit of             $19.00
       Balance              $24.64
Aug 31        Received payment 
in full          Robert Nelson

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From the Estate File of Richard D. Morrison, 1874-75.  Comprises images 129-319.  
Mr. Morrison was a druggist whose file includes an inventory of everything in his store, including chemicals, herbs, and baking supplies, which I found very interesting.  It would be even more interesting if I had an ancestor who was also a druggist.

Below is the top part of image 140.  Robert is part of a list of names with amounts owed. 

                    1874
                    Sept 5     [By. paid]     Robert Nelson         (14)   19.33

Below is image 318 which is a statement of payment for coal.

Steubenville    August 12^th   1874
R. D. Morrison 
to Robert Nelson   
    for  six  hundred  sixty
  five  Bushes  of  Coal
                                            $56.53
                      paid               $35.00
                     Balance          $21.53
                     paid                $  5.00
      thirty five bushes coal   $  2.80

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Notes and Comments

• I was surprised that coal was sold by the bushel in the late 1800s instead of by weight.  It makes sense, since they probably wouldn't have had an easy way to weight a ton of coal.  Or to deliver it.  For such small quantities, delivery would have been by horse and cart.  (A bushel of coal weights about 80 pounds.)
• I assumed Robert Nelson worked for a mining company in Steubenville or somewhere in Jefferson County, but it's an assumption that may or may not be correct.  Finding him in these files makes me wonder if he mined coal independently then sold and delivered it.
• Robert was earning between 8 and 8½ cents per bushel.  An online inflation calculator tells me that $56.53 in 1874 would be worth $1594.07 in 2025.  Or, 8 cents would be worth $2.26 today.  How long might it have taken Robert to dig that coal?  Was this a good price for his labor?
• I can't be certain but I believe the last receipt puts Robert in Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1874, which is where he was in 1870, according to the U.S. Census.  He died in 1875 in Montgomery, Illinois.  He was 75 at the time of his death.  This does not pinpoint the date he moved from Ohio to Illinois but it narrows it.  I'm hoping to find a will and estate file.  

If you found information like this referencing one of your ancestors, would you include it in your family history program -- RootsMagic, or whatever you use?

—Nancy.

Copyright © 2025 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Living Conditions of Coal Miners in Northumberland, England, ~1860

I find it fascinating to read contemporary descriptions of the living situations of my forebears.  Perhaps the description below isn't exactly accurate for them but certainly some aspects mirrored their lives.  My earliest known coal mining ancestors in Northumberland predate the publication of the book below by several decades but my great-great-grandfather Andrew Doyle was a coal miner before 1860 and until his emigration to the U.S. in 1869.  Andrew's father-in-law, Robert Laws, was also a coal miner and alive in 1860.  I can only hope that conditions in 1860 had improved compared to earlier decades when these men's fathers and grandfathers were miners.   

This excerpt comes from A Memoir of Northumberland, Descriptive of Its Scenery, Monuments, and History, a book written by William Sidney Gibson, M.A., published in 1860.  It is available in its entirety here at Google Books.  The description below is on pages 32-33.

. . . Although the pitmen are an unpolished race, and as regards religious and secular instruction have too generally been left as uncultivated as their dialect is uncouth, they share the Northumbrian energy of character, and, where they have acquired any education at all, there are constant examples of their desire for knowledge, especially in applied sciences.  Great allowances must be made for this Troglodytean class of labourers, for they spend their youth and vigour cramped in close and impure air in a high temperature, are liable to instant destruction from the 'fire-damp' and equally fatal 'choke-damp' of the mine, and lead a cheerless life which almost separates them from the world of breeze and sunshine.  Where libraries have been formed for the colliers . . . upon the Tyne, the men readily avail themselves of such advantages, and it appears that works of imagination are especially in demand.  Allotment gardens, too, are becoming very generally cultivated in the collier villages.  The wages of the pitmen are good, and sufficient for their wants, and there are a few colliery villages where a school is not maintained besides a reading-room or mechanics' institute. . . .  In the coal-mining districts, unfortunately, a boy is no sooner able to earn some wages than he is taken from school; and, as regards benefit societies, the helpless widows and children of coal-miners have still to lament the want of a provident or assurance fund, a provision which the coal-owners ought to assist their labourers in making, for although of late years, from greater care and improved ventilation, there have been fewer of the frightful explosions that used to bring sorrow and destitution to scores of families at once, there is an increase in the number of deaths in coal-pits in proportion to the number of tons of coal now raised.  So much for the physical condition of the labouring population.

Observations and Comments

• Can I absolutely trust Gibson's descriptions or were they written from some elevated status and by comparison to his own situation?  The adjectives and descriptions seem somewhat demeaning.  (I have to remind myself that it was England where there were already classes at different levels of society, and it was 1860.)
  
• Regarding their "uncouth" dialect, I don't know if the author is referring to accent, manner of speech, choice of words, or something else, or maybe something more.  Language is always evolving.  Research suggests that the early Northumbrian dialect was not in use in 1860 but there were probably remnants of it.  The online magazine, Living North, has an interesting article about the language.  And you can listen to a man from Northumberland describing the farmhouse where he grew up here at the British Library.  I can't think of the language as "uncouth" but I admit I have to pay very close attention to understand what he's saying.  Of course, more than a century separates Gibson's book and this audio recording.
  
• Perhaps religious and secular instruction were minimal but I have been pleased to see that my ancestors were married in churches and their children christened in them.
• I like the description "energy of character" and to read that they had a desire for knowledge.
• Troglodytean refers to cave-dwellers.  While the miners did not dwell in caves the comparison seems somewhat appropriate:  both caves and mines are dark and dank.  (Or was the author suggesting something else?)
  
• From census records I see that many of the boys of my ancestral families began working in the mines at 10 or 12 years of age.  The description, "they spend their youth and vigour cramped in close and impure air . . . and lead a cheerless life which almost separates them from the world of breeze and sunshine," seems accurate, from what I've learned in my research of coal mining.
• Libraries!  Good to know that there were sometimes libraries available.
• Gardening, good wages, schools -- all good (except the boys ending their formal education so early).
• Causes of death, widows and orphans....  I have not yet (and hope I don't) discover a Northumberland mining ancestor who died in a mining accident and left a widow and children.  (William Doyle, father of Andrew Doyle, did die from being run over by a cart wheel but I've been unable to determine whether it was in a mine or not.  He left his wife, Martha Reay Doyle, pregnant and with five children ages 12 and younger.)
  

I don't know if there will ever be enough resources to get an accurate view of ancestors' lives, but each additional source gives me a slightly broader glimpse.

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2022 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Coal Miners' Cottages, Bedlington Colliery, Northumberland, England

In my day to day life my ancestors are never far from my mind.  I wonder about their days—the work they were doing (especially the women and children), what the weather was like, how they cooked and what they ate, whether they planted a garden . . . .  I especially wonder about their home environment.

Not long ago I discovered Bedlington Northumberland Extensive Urban Survey, prepared by the Northumberland City Council.  Several of my ancestral lines lived in or near Bedlington, Northumberland, including my Doyle, Reay, and Laws families.  This survey contains a rich history of the area.  I was especially interested to read a description of the homes where coal miners and their families lived.

Might my ancestors have lived in a cottage like one of these?

Miners Cottages, Pit Village, Beamish Museum, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Or these?

Miners Cottages, Pit Village, Beamish Museum, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The above survey noted that in 1849, terraced cottages, likely constructed of brick, were built at Bedlington Colliery for 300 colliers and their families.  This is how they were described: 

. . . each with a small garden behind . . . living rooms of about 14 feet square with a pantry behind, the floor is flagged and generally has a bed in it.  There is a chamber above—reached by a step ladder.  The room is open to the slates.  A detached stone or brick oven in front, serves for baking bread for the inhabitants of a row of some 20-30 cottages.  Pigsties were generally a distance from the house at the bottom of the garden (Rawlinson 1849, 36).

It's unclear to me whether the first floor has just a single, 14-foot square room, or more than one.  From the looks of the cottages in the photos above, I suspect there's one room at the front of the house and a pantry room behind it.  I try to envision my coal mining ancestors and their families living in a room 14" square.  What a different life compared to mine.  Possessions would have been minimal.  

Another description of the miners' cottages and the living environment of coal miners comes from A Memoir of Northumberland, Descriptive of Its Scenery, Monuments, and History by William Sidney Gibson, M.A., published in 1860.  (See pages 32-32.)

He writes that agricultural labourers' homes were favored above most cottages in the pit-villages of the mining population and then describes the cottages of the miners. 

Long rows and aggregations of unsightly cottages, peopled only by those who earn their living from the adjacent pits, mark too many of the colliery districts; and the cottages, especially where the property is leasehold, are generally hideous, sordid, barrack-like abodes, not indeed destitute of cleanliness and homely comfort, but totally wanting in the humanising though humble adornments of southern rustic homes:  no flowers grace these dwellings of dusky toil, no verdure relieves the bare cindery earth around them. . . .

This information certainly gives a perspective of my ancestors' lives that I hadn't considered before, lives that were Spartan, simple, minimal.  And oh, the coal dust that must have been everywhere!  In the absence of physical comfort, I hope their homes were enhanced by love.

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2022 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Waggonways in Northumberland, England

Waggonways was a new word I discovered a few months ago, of interest to me because it relates to my coal mining ancestors.  This post is the result of a tangent from usual research to follow a BSO (a bright, shiny object). 

For all the research I've done to find my coal mining ancestors and the environment of the mines where they worked, it never once occurred to me to wonder how coal was transported from the colliery to the next stop on its journey. 

Learning about waggonways has been fascinating.  At first I thought the word referred only to the pathway the coal carts followed to take coal to a river but the phrase is more inclusive and refers to the path or track, the cart, the horse, and the equipment needed to move coal from the colliery to the river.  The first waggonways were paths the horses trod pulling carts full of coal.  Eventually two parallel rails were laid on the pathways and cart wheels were made with rims to fit the rails.  The waggonways were a precursor to our modern railway system.  From what I can tell, waggonways were primarily used in the northeastern counties of England, especially in Northumberland where many of my coal mining ancestors lived.

There seem to have been several benefits to waggonways.

• The path for the carts was smoother and its direction was controlled by the rails.
• The path allowed the horses to continue pulling their carts no matter the weather.  No more horses mired in the mud after spring rains.
  
• Because the paths were smooth, horses could pull heavier loads which meant more coal could be transported at one time.  A horse could pull 10.5 tons (21,000 pounds!) for 24 miles.  It's hard to  imagine that a wooden cart could hold that much weight, let alone that a horse could pull it!

Waggonway in Summer
(from Seaton Delaval to Whitby Bay)
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Christine Westerback
geograph.org.uk/p/706555
Used under Creative Commons License.

 
Some of the old waggonways have been restored (but without the rails) and used as bicycling or walking paths.

A few years ago the Willington Waggonway, an intact waggonway from the late 18th century that was buried, was discovered at a shipyard in Tyneside, Northumberland.  It has been restored and is in the process of preservation.  This article at ChronicleLive gives details and shows great photos of the track as well as images of the carts. 

I look at the photos of the waggonways paths now and think how charming they look.  I have to remind myself of the work--the hard physical labor!--they represent, summer and winter, spring and fall:  the miners who dug the coal, the men and boys who were associated in any way with coal mines, as well as the ponies in the mines below ground and the horses who pulled carts along these paths.  What a lot of work!

If you'd like to learn more about or see photos of Waggonways, click on these links.

• Wylam Waggonway explores the history of Heddon and the Wylam Colliery Waggonway and includes maps, diagrams, illustrations, and a timeline which extends beyond the colliery's use of the waggonway.  (The font is very tiny and light grey = a bit of a challenge for old eyes.)
• Waggonways provides a brief description of waggonways and links to other photos. 
• Plessey Wooden Waggonway includes a brief history of the Plessey Waggonway, a drawing of a horse and cart, and diagrams of a cart (called a chaldron) that was still in use in 1965.  The brief history gives details I haven't read elsewhere.
• Amusing Planet's post, The Wooden Wagonways of Britain, gives lots of interesting detail about waggonways and some excellent photos of wagons and the restoration work of the Willington Waggonway.
• Northumberland Wagonways gives information about the transition from waggonways to railways. 
• The History Blog has a good article about waggonways and the restoration of the Willington Waggonway.

 Below are recent views of two other waggonways.  My 3x-great-grandfather, William Doyle, a coal miner, died in Plessey after having been run over by a cart wheel.  I have no further details and don't know whether or not his death was work-related.  Perhaps the cart wheel was on a coal cart below-ground or perhaps a wagon like one in the photos at the top of this post.

Plessey Old Waggonway
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Tim Fish
geograph.org.uk/p/261166
Used under Creative Commons License

Wylam Waggonway at Street Houses
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Andrew Curtis
geograph.org.uk/p/5100870
Used under Creative Commons License.

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2021 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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A Long Time Ago, for More than a Century

A long time ago my Doyle ancestors were coal miners.  The date of the earliest known coal miner is more than two centuries ago, beginning in ~1812, though earlier historical records could indicate a different date.  Our line of coal miners ended more than 80 years ago, in 1934. 

William Doyle was a coal miner, a pitman.  He was born about 1802, probably in Northumberland, England.  I have no records that tell me when he began working in a mine but at that time, with no child labor laws, it was common for boys to begin in the mines before the age of ten.  Let's say 1812 is my first known coal miner.

William's son, Andrew Doyle, was a coal miner.  Andrew was born in 1836 in Northumberland, England, two years before his father's death.  I do not know when his mining career began but both the 1880 and the 1900 U.S. Census give his occupation as miner.

Andrew's son, William Doyle, was a coal miner.  William was born in 1863 in Northumberland, England.  Again, I don't know when he began mining.  He immigrated to the U.S. with his parents after the 1870 U.S. census and before England's 1871 census.  The 1880 census, his first in the U.S.,  tells me that at age 17 he was mining and the 1900 census indicates the same.  By 1910 he'd become a farmer.

#7 Mine - Inside - Stoneboro Pa.
Gust Doyle is at center back

William's son, Gust Doyle, was a coal miner.  Gust was born in 1888 in Pennsylvania.  He never claimed mining as his profession but, rather, farming.  Yet he worked in #7 Mine, as evidenced by the photo at right and his daughter's information.  With his father and his son, he dug a mine on the farm property he owned.  His daughter Tressa wrote, "Dad and Pap [William] worked in the mines.  This was the main source of income." 

Gust's son, Lee Doyle, my father, was a coal miner.  His mining experience was not in the commercial mines but he helped dig the 35-foot shaft in the pasture of his father's property where he dug the coal by hand and hauled it to the surface using a hand-built tipple, hoist, and cars or buckets.  A year after his father's death in 1933, he left the farm and the coal mine behind. 

I have five known generations of coal miners in my family who mined beginning a long time ago from ~1812 until 1934, for more than a century.  That's 122 years.  How many tons of coal did they mine?  How many families and businesses did the coal warm?  How many mouths did they feed because of this dirty, hard labor? 

Thinking over the lives of these five men I see a gradual progression from coal miner to other forms of work. 

• The first William died at the age of 38 having never left the mines.  
• Andrew owned a small grocery store in addition to mining.  
• William mined for several decades but added farming to his work until he left the mine and depended on farming for a living.  
• Gust mined and farmed until he could leave mining behind.  
• My father Lee was a farm boy whose father and grandfather needed his help mining coal.  He quit both mining and farming, though he traded those labor-intensive jobs for a different kind of labor-intensive job in a steel mill.

I'm grateful for these forefathers who worked so hard to provide for their families and for my own family of birth.  I'm also grateful they were able to gradually leave mining and move to other occupations, grateful it was a long time ago that there were miners in our family.

There are several British coal mining groups on Facebook.  There is a camaraderie among the men who post that one rarely sees in current life.  So many of them talk about the good times in the mines.  As a lover of light I have a hard time imagining giving up the daytime hours and the sunshine.  Yet I admire them for going into the mines and doing the hard and dangerous work they do. 

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2020 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic was "Long Line."

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2020, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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A Resource for Researching British Coalmining Ancestors

If you have British ancestors who were coal miners you might find Brian Elliott's Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors:  A Guide for Family Historians a helpful resource.  It appeared in search results when I was seeking information about my British coalmining ancestor William Doyle.  Although only part of the book is available for viewing at Google Books there is enough to know that it is a goldmine of resources.

The first chapter focuses on the life and work of a coal miner including various jobs he may have done.  There are also sections on home and bathing (certainly a necessity after being exposed to coal and coal dust all day); disasters, accidents, and disease; rights, strikes, and associations; women and child miners (I was not aware that women worked in and/or for the mines.); and more.  The final chapters give both regional and national coal mining sources for Scotland, England, and Wales.

There is a glossary of coal mining terms.  I learned that though we may use the terms collier, coalminer, and pitman interchangeably they are not the same and have different responsibilities.  I also learned the meaning of the terms afterdamp, blackdamp/chokedamp, and firedamp -- none of them good.  When your ancestor worked in a coal mine, all things mining become interesting.

There are a good number of photographs which help the reader envision the setting, clothing, etc. of his/her own ancestor.   Interspersed through the pages are excerpts of interviews conducted with miners.  The author mentioned that mining is often an intergenerational occupation:  father, son, grandson, one follows the other into the mines, a fact that may help when searching for the next older generation.  There are many suggestions for places to research an ancestor, ones that I would not have known had I not read the pages of this book. 

I especially liked this description (on p. 3) of coal miners.

Unfortunately, coalminers are often portrayed in stereotypical extremis, banded together as militant agitators or habitual drunkards, even as a "special breed"....  In reality–and this is where good family history research is so important–miners lived in communities where the pit, family, sport and leisure, politics and even religion combined and interacted in many positive ways; and especially manifested in deep friendships and an unspoken camaraderie engendered by the ever-present shared dangers of the job...."

Even reading only the limited number of pages of this book available online, I can see its helpfulness in learning about how miners and their families lived and as an aid for tracing my coalmining ancestors.  I hope to purchase a copy soon.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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Andrew Doyle, Son of William Doyle

We family historians and genealogists search for death dates.  After all, they make final a person's existence on earth and help tell the story of an ancestor's life.  Born ~1800.  Married 1825.  Died ~1844.  The End.  We conscientiously record those dates.  But are you like me?  I am guilty of forgetting the impact a death had on survivors, especially if there were children:  the mother or father left to care for him- or herself and the children and to make the best of what was left.

Family records/legend tells me that Andrew Doyle was born on April 13, 1836, in Northumberland, England.  The same records tell me that his parents were William and Martha (Ray) Doyle who were married on May 3, 1825, and that William died in 1844.  Andrew would have been eight when his father died.  William was a coal miner in the northern county of Northumberland, England.

A search for the family in the 1841 U.K. Census found Martha Doyle, age 30, living with Jane, 15; William, 10; Larence [sic], 10; Andrew, 5; and Martha, 2.  The older William was not enumerated with them in that census.  Martha and children were living in Bedlington, Northumberland.  

It would be easy to assume that William, senior, died before 1841 but I don't want to be too quick to jump to that conclusion.  Perhaps William was working and living away from home on census day.  Perhaps he had been injured and was in the hospital.  Or perhaps he was travelling.  Or (I hope not) in prison.  After all, I have that family record that says he died in 1844.  I can't give up on that date without more research.  I was unable to find a likely William Doyle in the 1851 or subsequent U.K. census records.

More research produces an indexed U.K. BMD record transcript for William Doyle with a death date between  July and September of 1844.  Location of death was Manchester, Lancashire, England.  This may or may not be Martha's husband and Andrew's father.  If there were there coal mines in Manchester in the 1840s it's possible it is.  Another William Doyle died in 1847 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, a more likely location for William.

In the 1851 U.K. Census I find Andrew Doyle, 16, living in the home of Thomas and Martha Richardson.  He was recorded as Thomas's step-son.  Also living in the home as step-children were Andrew's siblings, Jane Doyle, 25; William Doyle, 23; and Martha Doyle, 12.  They were living in Bedlington Cotts, West Sleekburn, Morpeth, Northumberland.  I cannot doubt this is Martha and her children of the 1841 census.

Of course there's more research to do on this family -- these families.  But seeing Andrew as a five-year-old in 1841 with no father in the home, a father who was possibly dead or would have died within the next few years, brought home the sorrow of a child losing a father and the difficulties of a mother-become-widow in 1840s England with five children ages 2 to 15.  How were their needs met?  Who provided food, clothing, shelter?  Did anyone share memories of the lost father with the the children who were too young to remember him?  In 1851 Andrew, at age 16, was already a coal miner, and so was his 11-year-old step-brother.  Perhaps Andrew and his older brothers, William and Lawrence, became the breadwinners after their father died.

I suppose families of coal miners were acutely aware of the possibility of a mining accident taking the lives of their men.  Knowing the possibility would not have made the actual event any easier.

I use the term half-orphans for these children who lost one parent to death.  Andrew is not the only half-orphan among my ancestors, and not the only one whose father was a coal miner.

Do you have any half-orphans among your ancestors?  Were any of them coal miners?

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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