Harshbarger line: The Joseph Withers family

This is one of the most challenging lines in the Harshbarger family, because the earliest known family head, Joseph Withers, was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania, and so far has not been traced back any further.  There are quite a few trees giving him a birth in England, and a death in England.  I am not at all sure that this is the same Joseph Withers, although I am not totally ruling it out.  But if the birth date and location would happen to be accurate, why is there no parent listed.  Would his birth record, if there is one, not show that?  I have a hunch, which may be totally off the wall, that he somehow belongs in the line of Augustine Withers, whose family line is German.  But proof is lacking, so for now he can perhaps be assumed to have dropped from a space ship into Pennsylvania, which is where the 1850 census shows that he was born.  

His wife, Mary Gearhart, is equally mysterious.  The first record I can find of her, or for that matter, for Joseph, is their 1832 marriage in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  And the mysteries continue.  We know that the family went to Ohio by 1840, when son William was born in Knox County.  We know the names of their children, or at least of their surviving children, from the 1850 census.  But as the family grew up, the children moved on-some apparently back to Ohio (the 1850 census was in Marion, Iowa), some to Allen and Whitley County, Indiana, and some possibly to Missouri.  Others, I am not at all sure about. This is what I think I know:

Joseph and Mary's first child was a daughter, Sarah Jane.  She was born in October of 1833 and died in 1913 in Newark, Licking, Ohio. She married Robert Mills, who may be the son of Robert Mills of Belmont County, Ohio.  Their children are John, Mary, Charles, Catherine, James, Anna or Annabel, Jane, and Harry.  There is a possibility that William and Edward are also their children, but I have not seen their names on a census.

John was the first son, and because of naming patterns, there may be a John in Joseph's family tree, either a father or a grandfather.  He was born about 1836 but I haven't located a death date or location; the last place I can state that he lived was in Whitley County, Indiana in 1880, and then possibly in 1886 in Huntington County.  His wife was Linna or Lena Roberts, who died in 1885.  There is a marriage record for John Withers and Marie Roberts in Huntington County, Indiana, in 1886, and I'm not positive that this is our John Withers.  I don't know whether the two Roberts' women are related, as I can't find information about Lena.  Lena, however, was the mother of John's children, who included Anna, Cleason, Lloyd, Mary, Elza, William, Charles, and Franklin.

Samuel was the next child, born about 1838 in Ohio.  I think he is the Samuel Withers found in 1860 in Perry, Richland County, Ohio, but after that the trail is cold.  There are marriage records and Civil War records for a couple of men by that name in Ohio but I'm not ready to say that either of these men is our Samuel.

William was born in 1840 and died in 1912 in Whitley County, Indiana.  He married Barbara Cook, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Brown Cook.  Their children are Wilson, Willie, William, and Della (why not Willa, I wonder?).  I will follow this family in my next blog post.  

Andrew was born about 1842, although some give him a birth date of 1839.  He was married twice, first to Mary Milburn.  Their children are Christopher and Sarah.  His second wife was Sarah Jane Eggbury.  I have not been able to trace either of the wives yet.  Andrew and Sarah's chldren are Mary, Louise, Fannie, Oscar, John, and William.  Andrew served on the Union side in the Civil War, and I would love to trace his service records.  

Mary Ann was born about 1842.  She married twice, first to William Oberlin, son of William and Susanna Gallagher Oberlin.  Their children are Cora, Amy, Hettie, Sarah, and Ida.  Apparently there was a divorce, because William lived until 1921 and in 1978 she married John Hooten, a Civil War veteran.  She had at least one child with him, George, and they moved to Texas. I have not located a death date for her, but it was after the census in 1900.  She may have married again, to a James Garrison, but I am not sure this is the same person.

Joseph was born in 1844 and that is all I know about him.  He is in the 1850 census but I can't find him after that.  Perhaps he died young.

Finally, there is Eliza, born in 1849.  She is yet another mystery.  I have seen several names listed as husbands for her but none make sense, geographically or time wise.  So at the moment, she also goes on our list of unsolved mysteries.

Once again, it is hard to accept that so many people born not so very long ago, at least in a family historian's view, left such few records.  I guess it's another case of the glass being only half full.  But I'm grateful for that half!