Peter Clarkson Ellmaker
The Ellmaker family’s roots go deep in Lancaster County and well before the Revolutionary War. Peter had a half-brother, Frederick, born in 1811 but their father died in 1816. That’s…
Read MoreJacob Nathan Hoeflich
Some of the most interesting moments in Jacob’s life were in his first and his last days, although his life turned out to be anything but dull. The last years…
Read MoreThompson Carson
Thompson stepped off a ship onto American soil in New York in the summer of 1857. Less than four years later, while still a citizen of Ireland, he joined the…
Read MoreSylvester T. Bunting
Men born close to the sea are often seamen, at least in their souls. Sylvester was more so than his brothers Solomon and Samuel, and his father, George. They were all…
Read MoreRobert Paschall
His was the oldest family in West Philadelphia, according to a newspaper account of the late 1800s. An ancestor received a grant from England’s King Charles II in the late…
Read MoreOrville Jackson Moat
Boy Scout Troop #503 from Springfield, Delaware County, came to Mount Moriah Cemetery for their service project in 2016 and uncovered the grave of a Civil War veteran. What made…
Read MoreJames Forten Dunbar
Jim was the youngest child born to a free man of color named William Dunbar who died when Jim was about six years old. Jim’s mother was Abigail Forten Dunbar,…
Read MoreDavid W. Andrews
Researching lives from the past can be like fitting pieces of a puzzle together, but drawing conclusions must be based on confirmed evidence. Speculation has its place as long as…
Read MoreFrederick Sorber
The father of this family named his middle son Fred, after himself, but gave him a middle initial that has been difficult to identify. The handwritten capital letters “I” and…
Read MoreMatthew Moore
When Matthew Moore’s family sailed from Ireland to raise a family in America, he was nearly 20 years old. Shortly after settling in Philadelphia in the early 1840s, his mother…
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