Every Family Needs A Maiden Aunt

Every family should have at least one maiden aunt who lives long and leaves her estate to her siblings and their descendants. I reached that conclusion this week as I continued working through an 1880 estate which is a little genealogy gold mine. 

Last week I stumbled upon a deed in which Mary Good, single woman, sold a small parcel of land to the trustees of the Evangelical Assocation for the purpose of erecting a house of worship in Voganville. The deed said it adjoined her property and she sold it for ten dollars. I didn't remember there was more than one church in the little village of Voganville so I looked it up and sure enough! It's still there at 590 Voganville Road. It was called Salem Evangelical Church until recently and is now Salem Bible Church. 

Having satisfied my curiosity on the church, the next question naturally was, "Who was Mary Good?" A little search of Lancaster County records soon turned up the Release of Mary's estate. She was the daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Good and her estate was divided between her one surviving brother, nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews. It gave me a list of sixty names, some of which were not found anywhere else. 

For example, Rachel Good married Abraham H. Buckwalter and died in Illinois at the age of 21, shortly after the birth of her only child, also named Rachel Buckwalter. The child was raised by relatives in Lancaster County until she was grown. Then she went to live with her father in Kansas. She received her mother's share of Mary Good's estate. The Release identified her at Rachel Calkins of Adams County, Nebraska. Census records show her married to Frank Calkins in Nebraska. He must have died soon after 1880 as he disappears and she returned to Lancaster County where she married two more times and died as Rachel Drorbough. The Release is the only place which documents her first marriage and makes it possible for us to reconstruct her life story.

If every family had a maiden aunt who did the same as Mary Good, genealogists work would be made much easier!

Kudos to Mary Good, 138 years later!