Amy Johnson Crow, of No Story Too Small issued a challenge to the geneablogging world recently: to write a blog post weekly on one ancestor. This could be a photo, a story, biography, etc. To read her challenge please go to Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.
Editha Bigelow, born on April 8, 1791 in Brookfield, Vermont, is my three times great-grandmother on my father’s side. Her parents, Eli Bigelow and Anna Freeman, were married on September 10, 1778 in Brookfield (Source: Vermont, Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, Montpelier, Vital Records, 1760-2003; Ancestry.com.) by Rev. Elijah Lyman.
Editha was their seventh child preceded by Asa (born 1779), Anna (born 1781), Amasa (born 1783), Asa (born 1785), Mergit (born 1787), and Eli (born 1788) and followed by Susanna (born 1793) and Seth Gilbert. Editha’s oldest sibling Asa died at less than 2 years old, and as was more common in that time, the parents went on to name another child Asa several years later. The father, Eli, died on March 22, 1836 in Chatham, Connecticut (Source:index, FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F7CC-TPX : accessed 05 Aug 2013, Eli Bigelow, 22 Mar 1836; citing reference p 102, FHL microfilm 3089.) and is buried at Mount Parnassus Burying Ground (Source: Find a Grave, Memorial #36942989). Anna’s date of death is unknown.
At the age of 21, Editha married Allen House on June 15, 1812 in East Hampton, Connecticut. Her new husband was 2 months her junior. The couple had five children: Florus Allen (my 2nd great-grandfather; born in 1813), Nelson W. (born 1815), Amasa (born 1817), Eli (born 1824), and Abigail (born 1826). Due to the seven years between Amasa’s and Eli’s birth, I suspect that there was at least one if not two other children who were born and died – or perhaps miscarried and/or stillborn – between them. The family had moved to New York and then to Milford, Michigan by the mid-1830s, where they remained until their deaths. Allen died on September 1, 1845 and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Milford (Source: Find a Grave, Memorial #55024034). Editha died on October 20, 1865 and was buried next to her husband (Source: Find a Grave, Memorial #55024034).
All My Branches Genealogy 