Ancestry Magazine

This case is a little different from my usual orphan heirloom mysteries, and I suppose I should start out by fessin’ up that I came up a little shy in terms of resolution. But just as I was about to select a typical submission to research, I received an e-mail with a conundrum I simply couldn’t resist. It focuses on an objective, rather than an object, but is otherwise much like the many other genealogical puzzles I wrestle. Plus, how could I not be intrigued by a query like this?

We would like to find out if there is anyone still alive in America who met a relative that was born in the 18th century. We figure this would take someone who is at least 100 years old and who had an ancestor who lived to be over 100. Hypothetically, it could be someone who was born in 1901 and who, in that same year, met a great-grandparent who was born in 1799.

Is It Possible?
Was it even worth contemplating? Was there any chance that anyone out there fit the bill? Should I fight the urge to take on such a daunting case and find a more readily solvable one. Or should I give in to temptation?
I caved.

As I pondered the case, I recalled writing several years ago about the grandsons of President John Tyler, who was born in 1790. The grandsons were still very much alive. This was due to remarkably long generations. President Tyler fathered a child when he was about 63, and this child had a son when he was about 75. The result? Generation spans about three times the norm—or almost 70 years per generation. To be sure, this was impressive, but the 20th-century grandsons never came close to meeting their 18th-century-born grandfather. In fact they didn’t enter the stage until more than half a century after their presidential forebear had exited.

Could I possibly find a family whose lives had actually overlapped and could claim a reach of four centuries? I honestly didn’t know, but I was curious to find out.

My Strategy
Since this case was a little out of the ordinary, I had to put some thought into my approach. I decided that it would be better to find centenarians around 1900 and look for their descendants, rather than find present-day centenarians and hope to luck into one who had known—if only briefly—an equally long-lived ancestor (the earlier centenarians, I figured, were a rarer breed). Consequently, I brainstormed two ways to develop a short list of candidate families to investigate in greater depth.

First, I went to the Stories & Publications tab at Ancestry.com, entered “centenarian” in the keyword field, and limited the search to 1900–05. In particular, I was interested in results from the Historical Newspaper Collection. There were over 500, so I spot-checked a number of them, but I paid extra attention to obituaries in the Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851–2003 database. This database mostly contains articles from major metropolitan newspapers, so I reasoned that any candidates who surfaced here had probably generated a little buzz and might be easier to trace. Plenty of obituaries and several helpful articles profiling centenarians across the United States emerged.

Next I went to the 1900 U.S. Federal Census and searched for people born in the 1790s (1795, ± 5 years) who were related to the head of household as a grandmother or grandfather. With this last limitation, my search would pop up folks who were living with at least two other generations of their family.

Narrowing the List
My next step was to take a closer look in the 1900 census for all of the candidates I found. I was looking for anyone living in a household with related toddlers—in most cases, great-grandchildren. I found some—not many, just some. This turned out to be a very effective way of trimming the list.

My hope was that some of these toddlers would still be kicking around today. If so, it would be clear that they had met their centenarian ancestor because they had lived together.

But I needed to do some more weeding. How many of these folks were really as old as they claimed? I took my shortened list and searched for the same people in earlier census records, particularly 1850 to 1880. Time and time again, the person who claimed to be 100+ in the 1900 census was really born closer to 1810. Clearly, there was a lot of exaggerating going on. And why not? If you were 90 back when there were few formal birth records, why shouldn’t you tack on a few extra years?

Hiram Calls
With all the names I scratched off, my list became considerably shorter. I had a handful of candidates, so I started researching their toddler housemates. Not surprisingly, I was most drawn to households with lots of kids. One really appealed to me.

Hiram Cronk had been born in April 1800. And yes, I know 1799 would have been more exciting, but 1800 was still technically part of the 18th century. Besides, he had been conceived in the 1700s. More importantly, his birth date was consistent. In every single census, he was listed as having been born in 1799 or 1800. And he lived until 1905. Hiram was definitely a contender.

What made him even more interesting was the fact that he had been the last survivor of the War of 1812, making him a bit of celebrity in his last few years. I found colorful articles about him receiving marriage proposals from women who hoped to become his widow and receive his generous pension (which was, between the State of New York and the U.S. government, almost $100 a month—a lot of money in the early 1900s). I also enjoyed his claims of downing two gallons of wine every month, and I was stunned to find footage of his 1905 funeral on the Library of Congress website.

I couldn’t help it. I was smitten with Hiram.

Hiram’s Progeny
There were three great-grandchildren living with Hiram in 1900—Mattie, Milo, and James. Knowing that he lived until 1905, I jumped forward to the 1910 census for this family and discovered six more children, three of whom had been born between 1900 and 1905—Wayne, Jane, and Donald.

Now I had a total of six children to work with.

I set about trying to find these children, and much to my disappointment—though not to my surprise—I found the deaths of all of them. Except Jane. Jane was born around 1902 and was now my only hope, but I couldn’t find her. Had she lived? If so, had she married? And into what name? I looked for obituaries for her siblings that might have mentioned a married name for Jane, but no luck. This was a seemingly obituary-less family. Since the odds were seriously stacked against her living over 100 years of age, I was on the verge of moving on to another case. Then I caught a minor break.

Jane Hunting
In the 1930 census, I spotted Jane living at home with the rest of her family. But then I did a double take—Jane was listed as Janet, and she was younger than expected. In fact, a lot younger. Was this a transcription error? No, I inspected the image, and Janet was 15, born around 1915—not 1902, like Jane. So this was a different daughter. I backed up to the 1920 census, and sure enough, both Jane and Janet (or Jeanette) were listed. So by 1930, Jane wasn’t with her family. Had she married?

By 1920, the family had moved to Rochester, New York, so I did one of my creative searches. I went to the 1930 census and looked for any Jane living in Rochester who had been born in 1902 (± 2 years). A total of 41 possibilities popped up, but only a single Jane had the middle initial of M. Maybe, I thought. Just maybe.

Oh No
What happened next took the wind out of my sails. I searched for this Jane and was crushed to learn that she had died in 2003—at 101. If this actually was the right Jane, her great-grandfather had lived from 1800 to 1905, she had lived from 1902 to 2003, and they overlapped lives in the same house from 1902 to 1905. Very impressive.

Still, I wanted proof that this was the right Jane. Since she had passed away only a few years ago, I searched people-finding websites and found her quickly. At one of her addresses, I spotted another name associated with the residence—Cronk. This almost had to be the right family.

It was 8 p.m. on a Saturday—not that there’s ever a good time to call a stranger with a peculiar quest like this. I picked up the phone and called a person I was hoping was the right Jane’s daughter. It took a few minutes for the woman to warm up to me, but by the end of the conversation, we were buddies. Yes, Jane Cronk was indeed her mother, and yes, she knew all about her great-great-grandfather, Hiram Cronk.

Pretty Close
As I mentioned earlier, I came up a little shy. I didn’t find a living person who fit the bill, but Hiram and Jane met the other specifications. Between the two of them, they had lived 1800–2003. That’s the entire 19th and 20th centuries and some of the 18th and 21st, too. Consider this: the two of them had lived through every U.S. president except George Washington.

Perhaps there’s a similar family with someone still living, and if so, I’d be delighted to learn about them. But for now, I think it’s a kick to have discovered Hiram and Jane, great-grandfather and great-granddaughter. Serial centenarians.

Your Turn?
I took a brief detour with this case, so now it’s time to untangle a more traditional orphan heirloom mystery. If you have another family’s treasure that you’d like to return, please go to , click on the “Submissions” menu, and select “Orphan Heirlooms.” I can’t pursue every case, but maybe yours will be the next one featured.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak is a regular contributor to Ancestry Magazine and the Ancestry Weekly Journal.