A Case of Bastardy

By Eilene Lyon

My recent genealogical research has included using a new feature available at Family Search, the free genealogy site owned by the LDS Church. They are now using A.I. to search some of the handwritten documents in their vast collection. This is an A.I. application I can heartily approve.

There will never be enough time and volunteers to index or transcribe all the handwritten documents of interest to researchers. By teaching A.I. to read them, genealogists can now locate more records relevant to their family.

 

As I researched my Arbogast ancestors, I used this tool to find records for John C. Arbogast and his parents and siblings. An interesting case arose with his youngest brother, Jacob Arbogast. In 1860, Jacob lived with John’s family in Jersey County, Illinois. Jacob was 22 at the time.¹ I’m not certain if he got “into trouble” before he went to Illinois, or after he returned to Ohio. Probably the latter.

In September 1861, a woman named Elizabeth Schrader/Shrader, took Jacob to court claiming that he fathered her out-of-wedlock child. The jury sided with Elizabeth in 1862, and Jacob was ordered to pay her $300 in child support. The case was summarized and closed in 1866 after he had completed the periodic payments (though he still owed court costs).²

By then, Jacob had relocated from Tuscarawas County, Ohio, to Adams County. That same year he married Margaret W. Thatcher.³ Their first child was born in 1867. They had four more children and the couple remained married until Jacob’s death in 1916, in Missouri.⁴

What about Elizabeth Schrader and the child? I spent some time researching a likely candidate (Elizabeth Schrader was a common name), but that turned out to be a detour. While researching that Elizabeth’s brother, William, I found a different William Schrader, who also had a sister named Elizabeth.

This second Elizabeth quickly proved to be my target. I found her living with her parents, Jacob and Elizabeth Schrader, in the 1870 census, in Tuscarawas County. Also in the household was a child, age 8, named…Levi Arbogast.⁵ Aha! No question, this was the unnamed child in the 1861 bastardy case. I had mistakenly assumed the child would have the Schrader surname.

While I was able to trace Jacob throughout his life, Elizabeth, her parents, and her son, Levi, all seem to have vanished after that 1870 census. I’ve been able to trace all but one of Elizabeth’s known siblings, and this foursome does not appear in any of their households after 1870. (Given the ages of her parents, there may have been unknown older siblings.)

At this point, I feel like I’m chasing four ghosts. Did they all die before 1880? And if so, where? They aren’t in the Tuscarawas County death records for that time period or in Find a Grave. I tried searching for Elizabeth and Levi in the 1880 census with just first names (in case Elizabeth married). Did they change their names and move somewhere else to avoid stigma? Do you have any ideas?

Update: Thanks to a remark by Marie, I went back to the death records and found Levi. His surname was badly misspelled, but clearly the right person. He was living in Fairfield Township in Tuscarawas, listed as a farmer (the index said “student”), age 16, cause of death was suicide. Sad enough, but it also said “parents unknown.” I still have not found his mother or her parents.⁶

Feature image: Historic marker in New Philadelphia, Ohio, about the Tuscarawas County courthouses. The one Elizabeth Schrader filed her case in no longer exists. (Tuscarawas County Historical Society)