Find My Dead

Genealogy of Sharon & Scotty

Archives for January 2010

Scott/Beatty/Shaffer/Olinger

The Scott/Beatty/Shaffer/Olinger Page

The basic page with a pedigree chart is up for Scotty’s Scott, Beatty, and Shaffer lines. This family centers in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. His Scott line is a stalled while I try to figure out who James Scott is, and the same is true for his Anthony line. The same is true of his Beatty line. James Beatty appears from Ireland and marries Rebecca Beatty and it is possible they are cousins, but I haven’t gotten that far yet. I am working the Shaffer line because he is the only father that Anna M. Beatty ever knew. After her mother Nancy J. Beatty married him she was listed in his household as Anna M. or Mary A. Shaffer.

About the only line that I have had some real success with is the line of Margaret Olinger. You just have to love those nice solid record keeping Germans! The Olingers and Younts have been in Pennsylvania since before the Revolutionary War and left behind good church records including baptism records. There is still a lot of work to do, but the basics are there.

Rae/Smart/MacKenzie/MacDonald

The Rae/Smart/MacKenzie/MacDonald Page

This is the second of Scotty’s pages with lines based in Scotland along with the pedigree chart. I have been working the Rae line fairly hard in the last year and I’m pretty comfortable with what I have put together. I have been fortunate enough to work with one of Scotty’s second cousins and she has been very generous in filling in some of the blanks. I have been working in the parish records of Lesmahagow, Knocken, Symington, and Douglas, in Lanarkshire. My favorite name so far has been Somerville Gilchristson.

The Smart and Cameron lines will be a little more difficult. William Smart was from County Clare in Ireland and while I have his parent’s names, I have no clue about Irish research pre-1850. Jane Cameron is the daughter of John Cameron and Janet Malcolm. I know from documentation that John Cameron died before 1869 and he was a fisherman, but that’s it. While Jane and her mother Janet Malcolm are both from Ayrshire, there is no guarantee that John Cameron is. It’s off to the parish records this summer to try to determine the answers on this line.

I’ve provided a link for a downloadable PDF for the current family tree of Jean MacKenzie’s family here: JMacKenzie

McLean/Frith/Brimlow/Brown

The McLean/Frith/Brimlow Page

The pedigree chart for this family line is now up. The spelling of MacLean versus McLean happened between 1915-1920. I have left Margaret Frith McLean’s spelling based on her birth certificate; however, sometime around the death of Margaret’s father George Edward McLean in 1915, her mother Nettie Ella Frith McLean began to use the spelling of MacLean. This declaration is from the 1899 request for a Widow’s Pension filed by Susan Wynn Frith McLean, the mother of George.1 The signature on the bottom left is George E. McLean. The family story is that Nettie changed the spelling based on the myth that the Scottish spelled it Mac and only the Irish used Mc. Her children adopted the change and their later records are MacLean. I have left Margaret’s records under her birth spelling of McLean.

While I now have locations to research in England the Brimlows and Browns, the Friths are going to be more complicated. I have some leads to explore when I go to Salt Lake City, but I have nothing beyond a marriage location to begin with on William Frith.


1.Declaration For Widow’s Pension by Susan W. McLean; Civil ar and Later Complete File (NATF 85D); Federal Military Pension Applications; National Archives and Records Administration.