It has been a bit over three years since I was able to finally break through the brick wall of Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice’s ancestry. I descend from her on my mom’s side of the family. My mom’s name was Betty Lou Bucklin and she was the daughter of Myrtle Sylvia Phenice. Grandma was the daughter of Harry Clifton Phenice, and H. C. was the son of Cathrine or “Kate.” For some reason the clues for her parentage did not make itself known very easily. The only way I was able to do it was with the help of DNA matching. It definitely pointed me in the right direction.
Cathrine Jane Foster Phenice circa 1910 in Nebraska.
One of the main things that made it difficult was that her father Moore (or Morris) Foster died in 1852 when Kate was only 4 years old. They were living in Cherrytree, Pennsylvania, at the time. After Moore’s death, Kate’s mother Anne Magdaleen Milliron Foster moved the family back to her childhood hometown of Springfield, Pennsylvania, in Mercer County. It wasn’t long before Anne had remarried to a man named George Richael. Since Anne took on the name of Richael, it wasn’t straightforward to find the connection from Foster to Milliron. As you’ll see, we weren’t the only ones who didn’t make the connection between Cathrine Foster and the Milliron family.
I wrote a post about Cathrine’s family that included many Richael half-siblings. It is interesting that there was never any reference to these siblings in newspaper articles about Kate. At least I haven’t seen any. I also wrote a post about Anne’s family when I discovered an old letter that talked about a Milliron family reunion at her brother Alexander’s home in Kansas in 1885. That probably could have been called a Millison family reunion, because some of the siblings went by the last name Millison and others went by Milliron. It seems strange that the two names could be from the same family until you hear the reason. The original name was the German name Muhleisen. The name means ‘miller of iron.’ Some family members went with an English spelling of the meaning of the name – Milliron- while others went with an English spelling of the sound of the name – Millison.
But the reunion should have included another name – Cribbs. While Anne and Alexander’s father’s name was Milliron, their mother’s name was Cribbs. I really should say that their parents were Daniel C. Milliron (1803-1878) and Catherine Cribbs (1805-1872). Both of them were born in Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania, where they met and were married on February 5, 1824, in Hempfield Township. They were not the only Cribbs-Milliron connection made that year. Toward the end of the year Daniel’s sister Catherine Milliron married Catherine’s brother Peter Cribbs. Ok, it’s already confusing enough that a brother and a sister marry another brother and a sister, but to have a Catherine Cribbs Milliron and a Catherine Milliron Cribbs really tops it off.
Intro to Milliron-Cribbs family history book by Christina Hettenbaugh Noring in 1964.
The two couples started their families at pretty much the same rate. Just look at their second children. Anne Milliron had a double first cousin Mary Anne Cribbs who was born just a few weeks before her. There were eight Cribbs children and nine Milliron children all born within a fifteen year period. Besides these double first cousins, there were lots of cousins on both sides of the family. One of the things that this seems to lead to is the likelihood that someone in the family is interested in family history. And when there is someone who starts looking into family history with a lot of people involved, they try to find a way of keeping the names all straight. So they write it all down and sometimes it ends up being put together in a book.
And that’s what I found last night! Peter and Catherine had a great granddaughter by the name of Christina Hettenbaugh Noring. She was interested in the ancestry of Peter and Catherine. This is great for me and my Phenice cousins because that means she was interested in both the Milliron and Cribbs family lines. So there is some interesting information about how the two families came together in Westmoreland County and then made their way to Mercer County in 1825.
Page in Noring book that shows my great great great grandmother Anna Magdaleen Millison Foster. Her daughter Cathrine is missing.
It gives a few generations of the family, including the children of Alexander and Anne Milliron and their siblings. But there is someone missing! They say that Anne first married Moore Foster and they had children named James, Hannah, Emery, and an unnamed infant. According to the 1850 Census in Cherrytree, the Foster family consisted of Moore Foster, his wife Ann Magdelene, and his children James – 6, Emory – 4, and Catharine – 2. In the 1860 Census Ann is listed as the wife of George Rihel. Included in the household are 13-year-old Emily Foster (probably Emory Foster), Catherine Foster, and Hannah Foster, as well as the children of George and Ann.
So for some reason Cathrine was left out of the book, as well as all of her descendants. So our family didn’t know about the Milliron-Cribbs family connection through Cathrine, and the Milliron-Cribbs cousins didn’t know about Cathrine’s connection to their group. Was it due to Cathrine being older and leaving home when she was old enough to marry? She and Charles ended up moving out to Nebraska, which was pretty isolated from the rest of the family. She did have contact with her uncle Alexander and maintained a relationship. That’s how I first noticed a possible connection to the Millison name. It was reported in a blurb in a Kansas newspaper.
The book I found also includes the letter I shared about the Milliron Reunion of 1885, so there were still some connections with Anne’s family. If they had known about her daughter Cathrine, my name would have ended up in the book. Some of the descendants listed were born in the 1970s. I find it interesting that I’ve found my name in several family books about ancestry. I’m listed in books about the family lines of Landry, Patureau, Keys, and Bucklin (online only).
Even though I was left out of the book, I’m still looking forward to reading through it closely to see what family stories I can find. If I finding anything really interesting, you know I’ll share it. Try to be patient.
Cathrine’s tree showing location of Cribbs, Milliron, and Foster lines.
