Mother's Tree project

Here's one of 4 Mother's tree cross stitch projects I've done. One of the others was was for my husband's mother for Mother's Day 2009. Her tree had 9 names on it and dates back to Elizabeth Hardiker who was born in 1707 in England.

My mother's tree (not counting myself) included only 5 names until I did some research. My mother and grandmother had done some genealogy and discovered that Elizabeth Henrietta Booz who married William Joseph was my mother's 2nd great grandmother. The research laid dormant for many years until I began the task of putting it all together after obtaining my mothers files when she was put in a retirement/rest home.

I thought I'd do a tree for my mother and one for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day in 2009. When I looked at the 9 names on my mother-in-law's tree compared to the 5 on my own mother's tree, I thought it was unfair and began in earnest to do some research to see what else I could find to get more names for my mothers tree.

Research began early in 2008 and within a few days I found Elizabeth's parents who were Mercy Ann VanHorn and Charles Booz ......... and I found siblings. If I had only searched the Census records I would have only come up with 13 childen for Charles & Mercy Ann. Because I splurged and purchased an Ancestry.com membership, I was able to find two obituaries that led me to PROOF that there were actually 15 children in the family. Two children (Elmer E. and Mary S.) were never listed on the Census's with the family!

Since that time, I have tried to find the parents of my 4th great grandparents ........ and the search is still on. I do not have a clue who Charles Booz's parents are ... but Mercy Ann VanHorn looks like she may be the daughter of Arthur VanHorn and Lydia Featherby. The Featherby name was a hint given to me by another descendant of Charles and Mercy Ann. Then, after finding the 1924 family reunion article entitled Booz & VanHorn family reunion ... I did about a years worth of research on all 85 names given in the article as having attended the reunion. What I found was that many names were familiar from my research already done on the family ... but other names were not at all familiar ... so I researched them and found that they all were descendants of Arthur VanHorn and Lydia Featherby. Since these two families are the only two represented by the descendants ... I assume there is some relationship between Mercy Ann VanHorn and Arthur & Lydia VanHorn ... Mercy Ann is probably their daughter, but this is not proven.

Both mothers were thrilled with the trees ... and before I do one for myself, I hope to find out (by PROOF) who the mother of Mercy Ann VanHorn is ... and if it IS LYDIA FEATHERBY ....... my next chore will be to assertain WHO HER parents are as well. At this time I think they are Nathaniel Featherby and Jane Harvey ... but this is also not PROVED. There is much work to do to make this happen ... but for now, the trees hang in my mother-in-law's living room and in the room of my mother who is in a rest home.