Thursday, February 25, 2016

Another awesome "gift" from California

It's been so long since I've blogged that I'm not even sure where to start.  I've had some exciting finds since last time I wrote.  I decided that I'd write about another find from my cousin in California.  I already wrote one blog about a find that she sent me and several of the Comstock family photos I've blogged came from her aunt's belongings as well.  She told me well over a year ago that she had letters written by my 2nd great grandfather George Delmer Comstock and that she'd send me what she found.  Out of the blue a few weeks ago she sent me one:






I've never seen anything of Delmer's writing so this was neat to see just for that.  It's even nicer to see because he's referencing the death of my grandma's sister Georgia, giving an insight into his thoughts about her.  But the really intriguing part is his talk of visiting with Vernon S. Phillips of Ohio, who contacted him and drove up regarding the Comstock genealogy.  As someone who has made lots of phone calls and sent many letters and emails it's really cool to see that 83 years ago this was occurring as well!  He mentions that they (Delmer and Vernon) along with the Governor (now I have to figure out how he connects to my tree) are from the royal house of William the Conqueror of England (which I'd never seen or heard before).

Today I got to looking in my file to figure out where Vernon would fit.  Delmer mentions their "great grandmothers letters", which I would obviously give anything to get my hands on.  Since my family doesn't have them (which makes me sick since Delmer says he has them in the letter) I guess I need to find Vernon's family.  I looked at Delmer's grandfather Amos Comstock, son of David Comstock and his 2nd wife Hannah Parris (I've never found a death record for Hannah but she was born in 1765 so the listed letters have to be OLD) and found that a sister Hannah married Joseph Phillips.  I check out some family trees and find that they (apparently since I have no actual documentation) had a son Daniel Paris Phillips.  Daniel had a son Vernon Servilian Phillips, who lived in Akron OH.  Doing some digging I found that Vernon died in Akron in 1935 so I'm not sure how much correspondence happened after this letter.  With census records I found that he had a son Stanley Nash Phillips (that I think I found on findagrave dying in 1950) and a daughter Katharine Louise.  I found Katharine married in 1937 to Arthur Harvey Durant and dying in AZ in 1998.  Unfortunately in the 1940 census they had no children so I need to track down her obituary and see if there are any surviving grandchildren of Vernon.  Fingers crossed that this pans out for me!  I'm not sure that after this much time the letters even exist BUT Vernon was clearly interested in genealogy and perhaps someone has held onto his work.  He joined the Sons of the American Revolution (but didn't use his Comstock connection):





Another benefit of researching Vernon today is that I stumbled on someone on Ancestry that had the will of my 5th great grandfather David Comstock (Delmer and Vernon's great grandfather) from 1827:





I'm not sure how long it will take but this family seems to keep coming around offering little tidbits for me to find and research further so I'm hopeful that somewhere along the line I may find the letters and unlock a possible royal connection!