The White Family – New York to Michigan

The Family of William and Phoebe (Johnson) White

Back row left to right: Silas Herbert, Mary Florence, Eunice Electra, John Newell

Center Left to right: Leroy U , Phoebe (Johnson) William Claiborne, William

Front Left to right: George Ernest, Edwin R.

This photo must have been taken in the late 1880's because Edwin R died in 1891 and William (Jr.) died in 1894. 

Funeral Card for Edwin R White

Funeral Card of Phoebe (Johnson)White

Phoebe and William C are my ggg-grandparents. I have found through my research that there has been a bit of discussion about whether we are descendents of the Mayflower White Family. Many family members seem to think that we do, but I would really like to see the proof. With the data that I have as of today, there seems to be two missing generations. These two generations would include the time of the Revolutionary War. So I am looking for men with the last name of White who served in the Revolutionary War. I am concentrating on the John and William White's from NewYork for the time being. William C White's father, John White was born in Wayne County, New York in 1797. This family, like many during the time frame, appeared to reused the same given names from one generation to the next. As in my Smith family search, the sheer number of White families in early America makes this task worthy of  an entry in my “Needle in a Haystack” Blog. 

 

This week I signed up as a member of the National Genealogical Society. My hope is that they will have some training opportunities which will help me to learn how to break thru the sheer volume of data in my most common name families. I also learned that as a member of NGS I could get a reduced rate membership to FOLD3. It is a database of documents from the US National Archive which encompasses all military files, early tax records, early census records and the documents of our American government as it was forming. I decided that I would try it for this year at least.  (As a side note...as of today, less than a week later, I have gotten my $39.00 worth of data from this subscription. I paid at least that amount for Civil War records several years ago.)

 

I spent quite a lot of time this weekend looking through the Revolutionary War Pension records to see if they could help me identify the parents of John White. I am surmising that if we descend from the Mayflower White family than family members would have probably served in the Revolutionary War from New York or Massachusetts. There are four John White files and three William White files in New York which amounts to more than 172 pages of data to read through. I have downloaded them to my database and will go through them in the next couple of weeks to see what I can find out. If nothing else it gives me specific places in New York to look for White families in hopes of placing our John White in one of them. I'll keep you posted on what I find.

Happy Hunting,

Jan Smith