More Problems with Nancy

I've written about Nancy (Boyd) Eckles who was named in the will of her father as Egnis (Agnes) but was otherwise known as Nancy, a potential nickname for Agnes. She was the first wife of Charles Eckles (ca. 1788-1867), the wagon maker of Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky.

Evidence of his second wife is a funeral invitation transcribed as “Mrs. Ann Eckles; Dec. 16, 1843; Georgetown, Ky. From the residence of husband on Main-Cross street” and annotated that she was the second wife of Charles Eckles.[i] As his first wife appears to have died by January of 1830, it is likely he remarried prior to 1838. The Scott County marriage records prior to that time were destroyed in a courthouse fire.

Confusing is a death notice in the Kentucky Presbyterian newspaper The Protestant and Herald of 22 February 1844. It reads: “DIED, In Georgetown, on the – ult., Mrs. Nancy Eccles, wife of Mr. Charles Eccles…”[ii] With only one Charles Eckles/Eccles resident in Georgetown, this must refer to the wife whose funeral was two months earlier. That time lag in such a regional paper is understandable. The confusion is her given name. Can it have been a confusion with the name of his first wife (or even his mother)? Or could this be another case of nicknames? Nancy and Ann are well-recognized variants on the same name, so it is entirely possible.

With so many women potentially named Nancy Eckles in Charles’s life, it will be interesting to see what more research reveals.

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[i] Marie Dickore, compiler, Copies of Names on Invitations to Funerals and Burials In Scott County and Fayette County, Kentucky, 1821 - 1898 (Cincinnati, Ohio: n.pub., 1942), 8.

[ii] DIED (Mrs. Nancy Eccles), The Protestant and Herald, Kentucky, 22 February 1844; TheOldenTimes.com - Historic Newspapers Online, digital images (http://theoldentimes.com/nancyeccles44ky.html : accessed 28 March 2011)

Sunday's Obituary: Oliver G. Lyle, 1957

Oliver Guy Lyle was a special grandparent who had a strong interest in family history in addition to his many other interests that are mentioned in his obituary. It appeared in the Gallipolis Daily Tribune, Gallipolis, Ohio, Thursday, July 25, 1957, in the center of page one. His death was a shock as we had visited him in the VA hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, on the way home from Kentucky. We had attended the funeral of my great uncle Sam (yes, I had a real Uncle Sam!) My grandfather was doing well and a day was soon scheduled for him to go home. That was the day his heart gave out. Since I've turned to genealogy myself, I miss him even more, even after all these years.

Click on the image to see it large enough to read.

Sunday's Obituary: Charles Eckles, 1867

Rather than searching Kentucky newspapers at GenealogyBank.com, one day a search for surname Eckles with a keyword of Kentucky provided a surpising item in a newspaper in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the exact date of death for Charles Eckles.

The DAR Library in Washington, DC, has a book* of transcribed funeral invitations from Scott and Fayette counties in Kentucky, where Charles lived. It includes one for him, ones for his two daughters and ones attributed to his four wives. The one for Charles indicates that he was buried on 02 Aug 1867 following services conducted by Rev. Wm. R. Brown at the Presbyterian Church in Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky. The newspaper notice gives his date of death as the previous day. A man aged seventy-nine seems young to be the oldest person in that community, but certainly he was elderly. That he rated notice in Ohio might reflect his widow's Ohio origins.

The invitation to the funeral of Nancy Eckles who died in 1839 is said to be for his first wife. I think it more likely to have been his mother whose name may also have been Nancy. His first wife may have died much earlier after the births of two daughters about 1817 and in 1819. This will be the subject of another post.
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* Dickore, Marie. Copies of Names on Invitations to Funerals and Burials In Scott County and Fayette County, Kentucky, 1821 - 1898. Cincinnati, Ohio: n.pub., 1942.