Unknown Averill First Cousin Once Removed

One of those Generic "Family Tree" Books that Robert and Lucille Averill
often filled out a little bit - this one turned out to have a surprise inside

Robert Averill's father, Arthur Thorne Averill, had a sister and a brother. His sister, Ruth, died of cancer while quite young. He also had a younger brother, Frederic Jack (F. Jack), who married Vivian Whetstone and had one child, Jack William, better known as "Jackie." Jackie was a first cousin, once removed of Laura, Linda, Jennifer and Steve, as well as of Richard Averill's children (Valerie, Natalie et al). Jackie was a first cousin of Robert and Richard Averill since F. Jack was their Uncle.

At least that is what I thought until last night, when I leafed  through the book, shown above, that I got from Lucille Averill. One of those items started off a trail that led to the discovery of a relative I'd never heard of. This is coming from someone who's got a family tree with over 4,000 people identified in it. An illustrated story follows...

Blank Dedication Page	Like many of these books, this one was mostly blank. In this case, the blankness started out at the beginning - on the "Dedication" page at the front. Based on the little handwriting I found inside, I think most of the inputs were made by Robert Averill. There's no indication as to when these inputs were made.
The pattern continued inside. This book looked just a tiny bit better than another, similar one (it had a green cover) that hadn't been touched at all. I began to wonder if, perhaps, I might be able to erase all the pencil entries with a good eraser and then donate the "newly blank" book to a good cause.

However, then I saw something unexpected. When I got to Family of Robert's father, there was an unexpected name. I'll come back to this after we finish looking through the book 

Jacklyn Edna Averill; 1943 to 1946

As I was soon to discover, the rest of the book was like the page to the right - pages where nothing at all had been filled out. As those who have purchased such books, they've got pages for all sorts of records, though they don't actually provide a means for including or referencing those records. The book just has lots of places to write "stuff." It's a lot like the traditional Family Bible where people wrote that Nana's first husband was killed in WW1, but they forgot to mention the husband's name or where the pair were married.

Lots More Blank Pages

Going back to the page with "Jacklyn Edna Averill," I was mystified. It looked like Jacklyn was the child of F. Jack and Vivian, or maybe of Jack William (Jackie) - however that was impossible since Jackie wasn't born until 1949.The notation said that Jacklyn lived from 1943 to 1946. However, F. Jack and his wife, Vivian, didn't marry until 1948. Was everything just the product of Robert Averill's fertile imagination? I decided to do a bit of digging. The game was afoot.

I looked in an obvious place - the Cook County Death Index, entering 1943 and 1946 as Jacklyn Averill's birth and death year. What, to my wondering eyes should appear but there WAS a Jacklyn Averill that was born on September 23, 1943 and died on July 18, 1946. What's more, her father was Frederic Averill, as in "F. Jack Averill. However, Vivian wasn't her mom. "Play ominous music here." The family lived at 2135 North Clark Street in Chicago. More on this later.

Jacklyn Really Existed!

F. Jack Really had another wife!

Digging a bit further into this "Edna Kearfott" lady, I checked the Cook County Marriages Index and found the record at the right. It appears that F. Jack married Edna about 11 months before little Jacklyn made her appearance. Looking in the 1930 and 1940 Censuses would have had her born about 1920 or 1921.

Conveniently enough, there was a newspaper clipping in the May 21st issue of the Chicago Tribune on Page 14 that mentioned Edna L. Averill and her daughter, Jacklyn. Jacklyn passed away herself, not long after her Grandfather, and her Grandmother was "Edna C." Kearfott (Edna L.'s mom). At this point, the record was making things fairly clear.

Little Jacklyn was reported by the Chicago Tribune

As many know, being one that likes to cover the bases as thoroughly as possible, I discovered that Edna L. Averill resumed her maiden name soon after Jacklyn died and F. Jack remarried (Vivian) not long after the divorce was finalized. She took a trip to England in the summer of 1949 aboard the Queen Elizabeth with her widowed mother, Edna C. As confirmation, the address of 2135 North Clark Street in Chicago popped up as it did with Jacklyn's death, and the ages of both passengers matched previous records.

Edna and her Mother lived together after Jacklyn's death

Rounding out the story; Edna L. Kearfott had Social Security Number 324-12-2239. Social Security Numbers are a public record in the case of persons confirmed to be deceased. The Social Security Administration is finished when the number holder dies. Edna's Social Security Card was issued in Illinois. According to the records, she was born on Tuesday December 7, 1920 and she passed away on Sunday December 23, 2012. That's age 92, so she lived a lot longer than F. Jack, who died in 1967.

To make a long story short, you can discover relatives in the most unexpected places! 

Click on any image to bring up a larger version with paging between all the other images.

Part 3 - Averill Farm in Cuming County Near Wisner

The Cuming County Farm is the most complicated one of the three. Like the Pierce County Farm, Bruce and Hazel Emley acquired it or inherited it from Anna. Based on the timeline, I suspect this was from a will made up by Bruce Emley before he passed away in 1960. At that time, both Arthur Averill and Edward Averill Jr were both alive, but both passed away between then and the time Hazel died in 1979. . Apparently, however it happened, half of it went to Eddie Averill (Edward Averill Jr's heir) and half to Robert and Richard Averill (Arthur Averill's two children). As far as I've been able to reconstruct, Eddie sold his half to Lyle Roth and Robert got Richard's quarter in some sort of deal that involved Richard getting the Chestnut Street house in Des Plaines. According to land records, the more involved history of the Cuming Farm is shown below, along with family history events

• 1874 – Homesteaded by George and Orlando Pease in 4 parcels totaling 320 acres
• 1908 – Owned by C.O. Keiser according to “Geo. A. Ogle and Co”
• 1919 – Owned by Frank B. Hughes according to “Anderson Publishing Co”
• 1951 – Anna Emley passes away
• 1960 – Bruce Emley, Anna’s only surviving child, passes away
• 1962 – Arthur Averill, father of Robert and Richard, passes away
• 1962 – Fred Emley, oldest son of Edward Averill Sr passes away with no known children
• 1965 – Owned by Hazel Emley according to “R. C. Booth Enterprises”
• 1966 – Owned by Calvin Stueve Wis 2 according to “Directory Service Company”
• 1968 – Edward Averill Jr, father of Eddie, passes away
• 1970 – Owned by Howard Denton et ux according to “Title Atlas Company”
• 1976 – Herbert Averill, son of Edward Averill Sr passes away with no known children
• 1978-1984  – Owned by Lyle Roth Wis 2 according to “Directory Service Company”
• 1979 – Hazel Emley passes away
• 1985 – Owned by Lyle Roth according to “Directory Service Company”
• 1986-1994 – Owned by “Lyle Roth et al” according to “Farm and Home Publishers”
• 1989 – Eleanor Averill passes away – you’ll recall she inherited the Pierce County Farm
• 1995-2007  – Divided into 2 defined, equal size parcels between Lyle Roth and Robert Averill according to “Farm and Home Publishers”
• 2008-2009 – Divided into 2 equal size parcels (but different than previous map) between Lyle and Robert according to “R. C. Booth Enterprises”
• Between 2009 and 2014 – Robert Averill sold farmland to Lyle so that according to Tax assessor, Lyle now owns 252.5 acres and Averill owns 67.5 acres
• 2015 – Deed of Distribution to Audrey Lucille Averill executed

Back to Series Index
Part 1 - Sheridan County
Part 2 - Pierce County

Illinois Averills

Where Arthur and Sylvia fit on the Averill family tree

 Looking through Genealogy records of the family, there's a lot of stuff there that might be suggestive of evidence, though a lot of it would not pass muster nowadays. However, amongst that, are Illinois Driver Licenses of Arthur and Sylvia. These are pretty good evidence of residence and of their dates of birth. In fact, you can see that Sylvia's birthday is May 26 according to her DL, while I had it down as May 20!

Arthur Averill DL that expired in 1942

Sylvia Averill DL that expired in 1985

Also falling into the category of evidence, and a bit more lighthearted, was the moving sale invite that Arthur and Sylvia put out when the first moved to Chestnut Street in 1938. Tantalizingly, it includes the house numbers of their old house, though not the street.

Fixed Grandma's  birthday

As you can see, Chestnut Street wasn't as built-up in 1938, being on Rural Route 1