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Surnames: Evans
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Ii.2ADE/809
Message Board Post:
A William S. Evans who died at age 71 in 1889 had several sons and daughters, only three
of whom (James Creighton, John Albert, and Thomas Jefferson) survived him. Three sons
(Jared, Lyman, and Oliver) died in service to the Union Army. His daughter Lizzie died in
Dakota Territory in 1878.
There was an older Thomas Evans, who died in 1898 at the age of 79 (giving a birthyear of
1818 or 1819), and I wondered whether this man was a brother of William S. Evans. Big
problem: my search through the newspaper archives that would have contained his obituary
contained no copy of the newspaper that would have contained the obituary.
William S. Evans is the latest of my brick walls, and one of the most persistent. Are
other records readily available locally? (For me, Lagrange County is reasonably local).
William S. Evans is reported in his obituary to be the direct descendant of one of the
first Welsh settlers of the Penn colony in 1683. One problem: he is recorded as being
born in "Wrightsville, LANCASTER County", Pennsylvania. Wrightsville is in YORK
County, across the substantial Susquehenna River that nobody could mistake. Second: Evans
is an extremely-common surname.